From the Shores of the Ottawa River

“I think I will do nothing for a long time but listen.

And accrue what I hear into myself…and let sound contribute toward me.” 

― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

I began reading a friend’s husband’s book South Asian Adventures with the Active Poor. Gem Munro is  an excellent writer and put me right slap bang into rural  Bangladesh, immediately from the exchange at the airport and the taxi ride to a hotel I was captivated. I couldn’t have imagined such an extraordinary adventure. You can purchase this book at:

http://www.gemmunro.com/south-asian-adventures-with-the-active-poor/#:~:text=The%20bestselling%20book%2C%20South%20Asian,Amarok%20Society%20started%20in%20Bangladesh

If money were no object and the sky is the limit, what would I want?    How can it be so difficult to dream a little dream?  Indeed, I can think up all sorts of stuff that would make my life more comfortable.  However, to imagine something so random and off the wall crazy is, for me, a challenge.  

Remember as a child how we spent many hours daydreaming, or was that just me? Back then, I wished that my house would have a special room just for chocolates filled to the celling.  I would have the finest chocolates from all around the world.  Paris,  and Switzerland.  That’s what I’m talking about.  Dreams.  

I decided to challenge myself to some serious daydreaming. To make an intensive effort to dig deep down into my core  and to reach up to the moon and grab a star or two. When I first started  this exercise, I couldn’t daydream anything spectacular.  But after carefully exercising my daydreaming muscles I realize it’s not “things” I want but life experiences.  Unexpected experiences with a twist,  the more unusual and crazier  the better.

When I was a young girl, I loved books. So, it was not unusual for me to daydream that my adult house would also have a library, with floor to ceiling books. As soon as you enter the library you would smell a combination of the leather on the wingback chairs and the musky smell of old  pages in the books.  And until recently I still fancied that dream.  But now with eBooks and tablets I can have all the books in the palm of my hands. To think, that was someone’s “crazy” dream.

And what little girl didn’t dream of the perfect tea party?  My perfect  tea party included the Queen of England. That daydream sort of came to being. Although it wasn’t Buckingham Palace but Rideau Hall, the Governor General’s residence in Ottawa (which was not too shabby). I did enjoy a lovely garden tea party with the Queen of England one summer when I first moved to Ottawa. I even ended up talking to Prince Phillip until I got away from that conversation because he was too dull.   

And we all must have at one time or another daydreamed of meeting a famous person. For or me  that somebody was David Bowie.  On a very hot August evening, 55,000 of us saw an outdoor concert where he put on an amazing performance. Still, I think having a conversation over dinner with him would  have been extraordinary, especially, if he were dressed as Ziggy and sang to me.  Sadly, like Queen Elizabeth  Bowie passed away. 

What could be more exotic than an experiences of another culture?  In Jakarta during Ramadan  over 30 years ago I will never forget the chanting and praying 24/7 emanating from the mosque nearby.  I felt like I was in a movie with a beautiful soundtrack, and it added immensely to my experience of being in an exotic foreign land.


To sip chai in a marketplace in India with my eyes closed and listen to the hum of the crowd while smelling exotic spices in my chai would be an adventure. I’d open my eyes and consume the colors, the aroma, the spices, and  feel the unbearable heat and listen to strange dialects.   

Then from extreme heat to the extreme cold.  I’d watch my breath hang in the air as  I hear polar bears play in their natural habitat in the far north of Hudson Bay. Feel my fingers numbing  with coldness as I try to capture the view on my iPhone.  Then, nothing says adventure like a  traditional  winter picnic as the northern lights cascade across the sky, dancing in all their brilliance.  I count myself fortunate as a young child we often witnessed the brilliant Northern Lights over the lake. We believed they were spirit of our ancestors. I always thought that was a lovely way  to see them.

Then sailing to the other side of the globe to lay awake under the Fiji night stars. In our comfortable bure and listen to the waves lap at the shore, all the while trying not to freak out because I know there are crabs crawling around on the beach at night.  I know this because I’ve been there. Although at the time, I didn’t know there were crabs on the beach until later while we dined close to the beach and went for a walk after dinner and witness all these little crabs crawling on the beach. Yikes!

I enjoyed exercising my deep dreaming muscles, as you can see most of my daydreams have a bit of reality stemming from my previous experience. I like to continue working on daydreaming and create magic in my life, opening  a space for unusual experiences that activate all my senses, from the sights, smells, taste, and how they make me feel.