Homemade Holidays

The holiday season typically causes some trepidation around here. There is the challenge of balancing Chad's and my different holiday traditions, but there's also the struggle with the consumptive aspect of the holidays.  Every year, I strive to come up with meaningful home made gifts that reflect our values and provide some alternative to mindless consumerism that seems to drive us all during this time of year.  However, I almost always plan more projects than I can handle and, faced with no better last-minute alternative, I find myself in some big box retail or mall with all of the other last minute shoppers, feeling slightly ashamed/ guilty and questioning the importance of spending significant amounts of money on largely disposable stuff.  It really comes down to a time/ values trade off that I'm not always comfortable with.

Bicycle holiday lights in Spokane

I spent a few short days in Spokane for the holidays this year, less than usual due to a job transition and a late-December start date.  For once, we left all of the gear at home- no skis, no bikes, just Chad and me and the dogs enjoying the winter stillness and the holiday warmth with loved ones. 

We did lots of walks and lots of drives (as is generally the case when we visit, as everyone lives far from each other), and while en route I noticed a ton of holiday lights with a theme dear to my heart!

The great nearby

My cousin Leif just sent me a beautiful video segment of an urban ski session in BC:

JP Auclair Street Segment (from All.I.Can.) from Sherpas Cinema on Vimeo.

What's unique to me about this video is the focus on details of place- the dripping water, the birds leaving the tree, the man riding his yellow tricycle past the bright yellow bird mural as our jibber zips by. Wide panoramas capture the cityscape on a grey day and draw focus to the brown leaves, the long, solitary fence lines, the smoke rising from factory stacks and vents in rooftops circling slowly. The skier only appears in glimpses and in the background for much of film, until finally these images of place give way to footage of a beautiful downhill run through a quiet neighborhood elegant air and stylish turns all the way down to the BC transit bus waiting to go uphill.

This film is a brilliant reminder of the beauty and potential for adventure that exists, truly, everywhere, so long as one brings an observant eye and an open heart to play.

A Suffering Unicorn

Saturday's CX race was on Halloween weekend, so of course I had to dress up.  I have always wanted to experience what it is to be a magical unicorn.  

Photo from the Seattle Times. 

While it was great fun to get all dressed up, and I definitely felt magical in some ways, my unicorn powers certainly did not propel me to the front of the pack.  The course wasn't my type of course- fast, flat, smooth, nothing technical except those stairs. I was instantly dropped by the roadies, suffering at the back of the race with only a butterfly to keep me company.

Photo by Bikehugger.

About two laps into the race, my left unicorn leg got caught in my rear deraileur, so I stopped and spent a good minute or two getting it untangled and ditching the leggings (thanks to my friend Dan who graciously caught them as lobbed them in his general direction).  The butterfly fluttering way ahead, I spent the rest of the course suffering alone, wishing I had the power in my legs a real unicorn surely would.  Although I wished for more magical results, there was some comfort in seeing Unicorn make the Seattle Times as well as Bikehugger's Sufferfaces.