I Just Did

At lunch time after I eat something in the deli, I sit somewhere and read for a while.  I might sit in my car and try meditating. Some days I sit under a nearby conifer on the grassy slope between the parking lot and road.  Lately I am having a lot of fun with a little field guide to the wildflowers of Ontario that I picked up the other day at Ojibway Park Nature Centre. Sylvain is having fun with it, too. It has added a new dimension to our walks.

For a long time I have yearned to see what is over a wild and grassy hill next door to where I work. I’m not sure if the company next door owns the land or if the city owns it. Since I see blackbirds, ducks and geese pitching in behind the hill, I know there is a hollow and water.  But until yesterday, my obsessive adherence to rules (real and presumed) has kept me from exploring.  I might be tresspassing! Someone might fuss at me. Oh, dear.

Yesterday, in the spirit of Be Brave, I decided to have a look.  I found a little pond overgrown with reeds, as well as a new flower to identify with my little field guide: Canada Thistle.

The second brave thing I did was spend the whole afternoon getting started on the dreaded procedure manual. Whew! It feels so good to have BEGUN.

The third brave thing I did surprised the heck out of Sylvain. He found his doppleganger…the one we’ve been jokingly talking about tracking down…on Classmates dot com. I told Sylvain I am a paid member and so I can email him. He thought I was speaking hypothetically.  I did it. I emailed this stranger who lives in our city and told him about all our encounters and would he consider letting us see a photo? Hee hee.

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Today Sylvain wanted to go to the Blues Fest and I wanted to hear some down and dirty Delta Blues, too. But I don’t like crowds very much. So my brave thing today was going to be agreeing to go.  But then Sylvain realized the guy we really want to see plays tomorrow, not tonight.

So there I was at 4:51 with nothing brave having been done yet for today.  I had to come up with something fast. There was one thing I was saving up for when I get braver in a few weeks. I was hoping to get the courage to give my phone number / email to a young woman at work and suggest we could do something together outside of work if she thinks that would be fun.  I was too shy to walk over to her desk and hand her my number, so I emailed her.  Yikes! I had to hit SEND really fast before I changed my mind.

When I told Sylvain about it, I said. “I never do that. I am always the passive one. Either people initiate things with me or I just don’t do anything with other people.”

“I’ve learned that about you,” he said.

Maybe I need to stop thinking in terms of “I never.”  I almost never.  I used to never.

I just did.