Tag: bucket list

Weekly Photo Challenge – a rare spring flower

The lovely and fleeting bloom of the Walking Iris, Peruvian cloud forest - photo by E. Jurus
The lovely and fleeting bloom of the Walking Iris, Peruvian cloud forest – photo by E. Jurus

Sometimes in life you plan for one thing and get extraordinarily lucky with something else.

Spring for me is a time of flowers. I’m fortunate to live in an area with orchards, and every May is blossom time. This year, though, after a long cold winter, the blossoms are late, so I’ll post a special blossom from a past adventure.

We visited Peru in its spring season – specifically November, which is orchid season in the Andean cloud forest. We stayed at a wonderful ecohotel in Aguas Calientes, at the base of Machu Picchu, and were able to do a guided walk to explore the 300-odd varieties of orchids that grow wild around the grounds of the Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel. The orchids were amazing, but as we explored them our naturalist also pointed out a whitish flower that was on the verge of blooming. He told us that it was an iris that only blooms for one day a year, and that if we were lucky we might see it.

The next day I was up early for a bird walk, and checked eagerly around the grounds for signs of blooms. Finally, about mid-morning, the magic happened! The beautiful Neomarica northiana, known as the Walking Iris for the rhizomes it sends out to propagate, had graced us with her brief but spectacular debut. No one else was with me, so I savoured it quietly alone. Taking a photo of the iris was challenging, as it appears to like the shade/low lighting, and a light breeze kept moving it around so much that the camera had a hard time focusing on the delicate petals. I managed to get a couple of decent shots as a record of this small miracle that Mother Nature gifted me with, and which I was duly grateful for.

Many things in life are ephemeral; it’s up to us to make the most of their fleeting gifts.

Bucket List – Forgiveness

Forgiveness can bring peace - photo by E. Jurus
Forgiveness can bring peace – photo by E. Jurus

What baggage do we carry around with us in our lives? Sometimes the emotional baggage, residue from episodes of anger, hurt, disappointment or betrayal, can weigh us down enormously. Forgiving someone, while sometimes a seemingly impossible task, can do us a world of good. Even if we only make it as far as letting go of the emotions, that’s a substantial step in the right direction.

When I was in my twenties, an arsonist set fire to my parents’ home. They were lucky to make it out alive. The insurance company rebuilt their house, but it couldn’t rebuild their lives.

The police never caught the perpetrator, although we had our suspicions about a miserable neighbor and some union involvement.

The ripples from that event lasted for the next decade and a half. My dad’s health went downhill, and my mom started drinking again. I cursed the arsonist for years for all the pain he/she caused to all of us.

It was only after my parents had both passed away and were free from the event’s clutches that I was able to let it go myself and move on. I haven’t forgiven the arsonist for what he/she did, but I don’t really think about it any longer, and there’s no longer bitterness associated with the memory. The Mayo Clinic website has the following thoughts on the process:

” Generally, forgiveness is a decision to let go of resentment and thoughts of revenge. The act that hurt or offended you might always remain a part of your life, but forgiveness can lessen its grip on you and help you focus on other, positive parts of your life. Forgiveness can even lead to feelings of understanding, empathy and compassion for the one who hurt you.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you deny the other person’s responsibility for hurting you, and it doesn’t minimize or justify the wrong. You can forgive the person without excusing the act. Forgiveness brings a kind of peace that helps you go on with life.”

So by that definition, I’ve found forgiveness.

It’s been far less easy to forgive myself for hurts I’ve caused others. There’s a subconscious sense I have, right or wrong, that I need to pay for those hurts by my continued pain at having inflicted them.

forgiveness-is-a-giftOn May 4th, the Global Forgiveness Challenge begins. It was created by Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho, who live in a country where there are decades of grievous hurt and stored resentment. The goal of the challenge is to encourage you to let go of your emotional baggage and begin the healing process. Once you sign up for the challenge, you’ll receive a daily inspirational message by email from Tutu and his daughter, daily exercises to practice, articles to read and the support of an entire community of fellow sufferers.

I’ve signed up for the challenge. Perhaps with their help I might even be able to forgive myself.

You’ll find more information about the Forgiveness Challenge here.Let me know if you’ve joined the challenge, and perhaps we can all help each other.  

Not taking anything for granted

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Erica & Mike boarding a tuk-tuk for a wild ride through the streets of Puno, Peru to get to our boat ride on Lake Titicaca – photo property of E. Jurus

Last week my hubby ended up in the hospital for several days with a heart flutter (hence my week’s hiatus). One of the chambers of his heart was beating too fast and too shallowly, so not enough oxygen was making it to his organs properly. He’d been having the odd issue with some minor shortness of breath, but one day I got one of the calls you never want to get: he was on his way to the hospital. The ECG confirmed what his high pulse rate (128 bpm) already indicated. He was put on some specific medications to regulate his heart rhythm, but they didn’t work, so the treatment was then to give his heart a mild shock to restore its natural rhythm.

That Friday I also found out that the 14-year-old son of a good friend of mine had gone missing for several days. Many people helped spread the alert through Facebook, but my friend was frantic.

Both of these stories had a happy ending — the electric shock on my hubby’s heart worked, so he’s back home and feeling much better, although his medications have been changed and there are some lifestyle changes required, and later in the day that the missing-child alert went out the police found the boy via a phone tip — but they could both easily have turned out much differently.

We all have things in our lives that we tend to take for granted over time, so I’d like this post to serve two purposes:

1) as a friendly reminder to make sure you appreciate the things in your life that you value, especially your health, and

2) to go after some of the things you really want to do instead of frittering away your life on daily clutter.

A lot of people toy with dream-version bucket lists, but not every one makes a point of accomplishing the things they dream about, and with proper planning you’d be surprised what you can manage. We have a relative, for example, whose big dream was to return to England and spend a year there, living in a cottage and roaming through the country, but he never did make it back. In the meantime, in 4-10 day increments, my hubby Mike & I have been to different parts of England about half a dozen times. (Yes, it’s one of our favourite places to visit).

A good bucket list will accomplish goals that really mean something to you, including measures to maintain or improve your health — after all, what’s the point in planning ahead if you’re not healthy enough to enjoy it. Mike and I have watched so many people put off doing anything fun until their retirement, then not surviving long enough to actually enjoy their retirement plans. Here are two things you can do right now:

Dream Trip No. 1

Rice farmers in Bali - 35mm slide by E. Jurus
Rice farmers in Bali – 35mm slide by E. Jurus

I’ve been very fortunate in my life so far to have been able to travel to many places in the world. Once in a while, though, a trip is advertised that I can’t swing but that I dream about being able to take.

A new offering by Oceania Cruises that’s making its debut in 2015 is one such that’s making me drool. Called “Around the World in 180 Days”, the company describes it as “something more than a cruise, truly a voyage, and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really enjoy all the best your world has to offer”. The cruise departs from Miami on January 10, 2015, and takes you around the world to places like Guadeloupe and Tobago, Devil’s Island in French Guiana, Cape Town in S. Africa, cruising around the Cape of Good Hope, Mozambique, Madagascar, the Seychelles and Maldives, cruising the Andaman Sea, Rangoon, Bangkok, Singapore, Borneo, Bali, New Zealand, Tonga and Tahiti, and much more, finally docking back in Miami on July 8th.

For this inaugural voyage, Oceania is offering 2 for 1 cruise fares, which changes a Concierge Level Veranda room from $176,784 to $ 58,999! You also get an Exclusive Prestige Package that includes free pre-paid gratuities, transfers, luggage delivery, unlimited laundry services, etc.

I’m not sure I could talk my husband into spending 6 months on a cruise, but if I had the $59K to spend I’d love to give it a try. I can envision myself enjoying some of the special shore events, like a private cocktail party at the Jim Thompson House in Bangkok, or having a classic English-style afternoon tea after a day at sea. The tour includes a large number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, so there’s lots of world culture included.

Sigh. This would be a fantastic bucket list item. If you can swing this trip, you have to tell me all about it afterwards, photos included! You’ll find more information on the Oceania website.