Victory!!

I was working on a poem in Tim Horton's today...isn't that what people do in Tim's?? No, you are correct I should have been in a Starbucks but really I don't "GET" Starbucks. I don't know how to order and I really don't want to learn. It is coffee people not rocket science. They get out all of the blenders and shakers and foamers and flavors and syrups for everyone else's order and then I ask them to put a a drop of cream and teaspoon of sugar in mine and they look at me like I have a contagious disease and point me towards the little table across the room. It is like being sent to the child's table at Thanksgiving or Christmas and I refuse to stand for it so that is why I was writing my poem in Tim's.

Anyhoo(as some of you like to say) back to my story..err..my poem. So I was writing this poem in Tim's, it all started with a comic I had just doodled of URGal running down the streets of China through a maze of mooing cows and as wild monkeys try to snatch the hat off of her head she mutters to the wild dog running next to her, "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore", which then morphed into a sketch of a victorious URG coming to the finish of the JFK 50 which morphed into "the poem" which is still incomplete-ish and will probably remain so because it morphed into a quote I thought of about "Victory" which then morphed into my writing a 12 page Morality Tale about people putting off their dreams until it is too late which I will try to finish one day even though I already feel that it is probably not nearly as good as I thought it was when I began it. But the morning had passed quickly today and it was now time to go to the appointment which had brought me into town in the first place for which I was killing time before in Tim's.

So I packed up my notebook of doodles and poems and sketches and quotes and morality tales and as I walked out the door I immediately became aware of a homeless lady. She was muttering to herself as she pushed a shopping cart stuffed full of  her worldly possessions down the sidewalk and I wondered about her state of mind. I thought that perhaps like Dorothy and URGal she was confused by a changing world that had become foreign to her and then found herself unable to cope. Perhaps like me she was asking the world for some cream and sugar and all the world had to give was foam and syrup and so sent her across the room to the little table. I wondered if she ever drew pictures and wrote poems and morality tales. I wondered if she and I were more alike then different? I wondered if I could find myself pushing my cart down the street one day? I am pretty sure that the world doesn't make much sense to her and if the truth be told it doesn't make much sense to me either.

And why the title, "Victory!!"? I must admit that I forget. I am sure it had something to do with the quote about victory I wrote which was, "Victory is sweetest when aged in Defeat" or "The Sweetest Victories are the ones Aged in (bitter) Defeat". I later googled "Victory quotes" and found something similar, "Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat".- Malcolm Forbes

I guess I then decided I wanted to share the quotes with you all  so hence the title and here are two more.

 "There are some defeats more triumphant than victories."- Michael Eyquen de Montaigne

"A loser doesn’t know what he’ll do if he loses, but talks about what he’ll do if he wins, and a winner doesn’t talk about what he’ll do if he wins, but knows what he’ll do if he loses."- Mario Puzo.

More Victory quotes here.
"The Poem"
Sometimes we RISE
Sometimes we FALL
Sometimes we RUN
Sometimes we STALL

Sometimes we FLY
Sometimes we DROP
Sometimes we GO
Sometimes we STOP

Sometimes we're UP
Sometimes we're DOWN
Sometimes we SMILE
Sometimes we FROWN

Sometimes we WIN
Sometimes we LOSE
Sometimes we SHINE
Sometimes we BRUISE

Sometimes it's GOOD
Sometimes it's BAD
"SOMETIMES" is BETTER
then never HAD.
(please feel free to fix this ending or add a verse or 2)

Morality Tale to be published soon on Amazon.ca

Make Your Own Path

As I headed out the door for my long run I decided to grab my snowshoes and hit the trail. I spend alot of the week running my workouts on the road so the opportunity to snowshoe before the snow is gone was just too tempting. When I arrived at the trail I realized that the conditions were much worse then I expected. The trail was sloppy wet where the snowmobiles had travelled so I decided to go wherever the pristine white snow on the sides of the trail invited me to go. I also decided that I didn't have to run in a straight line as I was not heading to anywhere in particular so why not go off the beaten path and see where the snow takes me. Funny but many of the places I ended up running I found myself following in the tracks of some large dog who's owner I assume took the sloppy trail in lieu of the higher softer snow. Yes following the higher snow was a bit of a struggle forcing me to step a bit higher and slow my pace but it also afforded me the opportunity to take in some views of the lake I had not partaken in before. If there was snow heading down to the waters edge or up a hill I took it. I came to a piece of property that had a huge yard of pristine snow so rather then just run straight through it I decided to really leave my mark and trotted out a huge happy face. I climbed some snow covered rocks and discovered some long forgotten wooden staircase below which at one time would have been used to access the lake. Anyhow it was a great snowshoe run and great how I felt like a first time explorer on a trail I have run 100's of times. Today's run also reminded me of a saying I have hanging on my office wall,

"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail"- Ralph Waldo Emerson .

This quote also inspired me to write down the following quotes. I am not sure if anyone has said these before or better but they just popped in my head-

The path you forge yourself is the loneliest path of them all.

Make your own path. Those you meet along the way are your kindred spirits.