Nights alone, nights like these, are so important for the soul - nurturing your inner garden, so to speak. I remember a few summers ago, when I was in between Vancouver Island and Lake Louise, living in suburban hell with my Mom - the suburbia was hell and the heaven was the woman I call Gail; an angel in disguise. My brother and I were at odds...not seeing eye to eye and it hurt me so. I thought I was with the woman of my dreams - someone who would listen to my ramblings and add her own thoughts in, but a few months later that would fall apart. Anyway, this is not a story of sadness or regret - since I do not believe in regret - but, instead it is a story of how important solo time is. The moments or hours, even days and weeks of your life when you are on your own without anyone else to invade your space. That summer was a mad-thinking episode for me - actually, every waking second is for this cat - and I would spend my nights hanging out in the hot, dry, sweltering heat just preparing myself for what came next. There was a man-made lake not minutes from my house and I would usually go for a 2 or 3 am early morning saunter around it to clear my thoughts. At one apex of the walk I came across a park, and it was there that I encountered a side of me that most usually consider too childish. In all the calamity of my thoughts and wondering I was able to focus on a set of swings right in front of me, just waiting to be sat on...so I did. I sat there for a few hours, swinging to and fro, the whole time smiling with unfettered happiness that only comes from such an innocent act. I went over where I was from, what I had done, what I had seen, and most importantly, for an hour or so...was not allowed to ponder where I was going. Not to be narcissistic, but I have been told that I have a gift and I wonder, at times like these, if I am using it to its absolute advantage; its absolute meaning. There is something more for me and I was allowed a chance to find it, right? You do not go through what I went through, survive an awakening of that extreme, just to live a life less ordinary, right? Right...and, so from this moment on, I make a conscious decision to make my life in the image I have always spoke of, to make my life as a writer; to make my life worth writing about and to realize what has come before is what makes that which awaits in the future. I am not big on dedicating to many but in this piece I do it for three ladies in my life...the one who has never left my side since the day I was born, and to this very second had always been my biggest supporter. The second is one who has been there for half of my life, had always known I would one day make it as a writer, and will not let me be anything else other that - and has told me in those exact words...my best friend and always will be. The other? Huh...she is heading out on her very own solo walk-about in the not-so-distant-future and when she goes, so goes my heart. Thank you ladies...Carpe diem and never ever let the day seize you.

"Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back; a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country." - Anais Nin