Indelible Adventures: July 2015

Friday, July 31, 2015

The essence of time

Take a moment to check out the updated Indelible Adventures website and store. As well, here are a variety of links to my social media if you'd like to follow me or "like" my work.

Facebook - Google+ - Twitter - Instagram - LinkedIn - ImageBrief - National Geographic

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I wanted to share with you an article I recently published on LinkedIn (apologies to those of you that have already read this), but was very well received and thought it would be good to share with a broad global audience.

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We all believe we have time on our hands but this past week, a good friend of mine lost his father, and unfortunately for many of us it’s becoming an all too common occurrence as we enter this next phase of our lives. With so much pressure placed on us, it’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day and not have the opportunities to connect and spend time with those whom we genuinely love.

It’s the wake-up call that often comes too late.

What will be your moment? When will you take that proverbial step back and ask yourself, “What’s most important to me?”

Trust me you'll have it, just as I did during my father’s illness. Fortunately for me, I had the grace of spending six months rebuilding my relationship with him but it also gave me something much more. It gave me time to step back emotionally and ask the tough questions - the ones that needed to be answered from within.

I began re-evaluating everything in my life – the lack of work-life balance, my relationship with my two kids, the emptiness I felt with my job and constantly being on the road, my disconnected marriage and the lack of connection I felt, even to my own life. It felt as though I had lost control, with who I was and what was most important to me. I was just going through the motions and it sucked!

Re-evaluating your life is one thing, but it’s quite another to actually do something about it. This wake-up call enabled me to re-prioritize all the things in my life that were important.

So what did I do? Great question and glad you asked!

I realized that I knew so little about my parents (my mum died when I was 27) and only got a small snippet of stories and understanding before my dad passed away. I then began to worry that if anything happened to me while working away on business, my kids wouldn't know anything about my life. So I began documenting my own life stories for my kids so that they would be able to learn about the life I've led. J

I decided to publish my stories in blog format so that my kids would always have access to them, and maybe even for their kids to share. This weekly blog has taken on a life of its own with over 125,000 people having read it from all over the world, but certainly not my objective when I started documenting my stories back in 2011.

Next I decided that I had to take action about my work. My career as a management consultant working away from home for seven straight years had to change. I needed to be “present” and not the absent, guilt-ridden excuse for a parent I’d become. I was unable to come to a compromise with my existing company so I left and embarked on an independent journey to ensure I have “flexibility” with my eclectic working life, following my passions and spend more time doing the things that I want to do now rather than wait for the notion of “retirement”. Not that I believe our generation or subsequent ones will have the luxury of retiring, so the question to myself was “what am I waiting for?” I’m pursuing all the things I want to do while I’m young enough and healthy enough to fully enjoy them.

My marriage ended but over time, a new relationship has been forged with my ex with the ultimate outcome of having two well-adjusted, happy and independent teens who are both honours students and excellent athletes.

I realize my road isn't for everyone, nor should it be, but I what I'm proposing is to try these three simple things that helped me enormously:

1. Be present. It’s time to turn off your mobile phone and not respond to email during your downtime. Be in the moment, particularly with those that you care about most. Define, set and communicate your new boundaries, ones that are practical and that you can keep.

2. Reflect. Self-reflection is a great exercise and one that can be incorporated into your weekly routine. It can be as simple as taking a walk and investing in personal time to think and reflect about you, your life and what’s most important to you is priceless. Whatever you choose, make it a part of your schedule and place it in your calendar...then stick to it! Don't cancel your appointment with yourself.

3. Prioritize. Understand and acknowledge who and what are most important in your life! Demonstrate that they are a priority and put these things first. Talk is cheap - change only begins when you put action behind those words.

Time is not on our side…so what’s your plan?

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“Hanoi Posting”

A series of micro-stories by Terence Wallis

Episode 4: Promises

John had initially resisted his sisters request to hire Lea right out to University, nothing good comes from hiring family he’d thought at the time, but felt obligated to his big sister and so acquiesced. She had always been there for him during his childhood, but as always, he felt a deep sense of guilt that was omnipresent and pervasive in their relationship.

Now he was kicking himself because he knew that Lea was in love with Bill, even if she didn’t know it yet he could see it clearly. He felt conflicted with the situation, but yet again stuck in the middle of it. Too many times of late he'd felt like the meat in the sandwich and vowed to keep out of family politics from now on...

As John reflected on Bills request he knew that if you wanted to make a name for yourself in the newspaper game you had to take risks, and to be honest John admired Bill for his ballsiness in demanding the post in Hanoi, he would have done exactly the same when he was younger. Yes, there was something to be admired in Bill - no question!

But where was that going to leave him with Lea and his sister Glenda he now thought…god only knows.

A deep sense of foreboding hung over him as he considered his options with Bill...

Next week: Episode 5: The Look

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This weeks photos are from a photo shoot this past weekend taken downtown - enjoy!

Pan Am Games logo at Nathan Phillips Square - downtown Toronto

Rusted metal above the doors at Union Station

Rushing movement in the roof of Union station

The deeply rusted iron beam - Union Station

"Reflection" at Harbourfront

Stunning CN tower

Vertical reflections on water

Horizontal reflections on water

Sun reflected on the steel hull of a ship

Apporaching thunderheads - very Ansel Adams!

Lines of the subway station

Friday, July 24, 2015

Stories of the Bush

I grew up in the bush!

This poem entitled “My Country” was written by Dorethea Mackellar in 1907 yet typifies the Australia I feel like I grew up in. Every student at our primary school had to learn this poem by heart and would often be asked to recite it on demand; strangely I still remember this second verse (below) word for word. J

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

I remember the distinct feeling of isolation growing up, with the seemingly endless expanse of wheat fields for as far as you could see into the shimmering horizon and heat mirage. The dry heat of the summers would often get well past 40C for days at a time, and growing up without air conditioning would make the nights intolerable, as it was too hot to sleep. Now add on top of this a good dose of sunburn which was also a constant during the summers and it was down right miserable at times.

I remember getting sunburn on top of sunburn and my skin would be peeling all summer long as I shed layer after layer of skin. We didn’t have sunscreen as it was a bit of a luxury, so there was nothing that you could do except grin and bear it, until eventually you went brown and peeled a little less.

Dad’s remedy for sunburn was to take a scolding hot shower, as hot as you could stand it for as long as you could stand it so that it would “neutralize the burn” as he would say… Strangely I still use this method if ever I'm sunburned, so I guess I’m as crazy as he was!

There were also some amazing things growing up in the bush that few ever get to experience. Like walking in the “bush” (Australians are notorious for having the same word with different meanings and expecting the world to know what we’re on about) or forest in the early morning and being intoxicated by the pungent smell of Eucalyptus as the sunlight literally steamed the dew off the gum leaves. Wow, such a powerful aroma!

One of my other favorite memories as a kid with dad was when we got our “block” and made our first visit to walk around and check out the quality of the wood. In those days the Forestry Commission needed to clear a certain amount of bush to help lower the risk of bushfires, and generally thin out the low-lying scrub. They’d also mark the tallest and straightest trees which they would monitor and keep for potential telephone poles, but the majority of the remaining trees could be chopped down for firewood.

Each year, you’d have to apply for a new block of land to clear, once you registered and paid the small fee they'd give you the general location and you’d have to go find it, but with little else to guide you than visual clues and four marked posts driven into the ground out in the middle of the bush. Locating your block was always a little tricky. However, this is where the fun now began.

You only had a certain number of weeks to clear the land, stack all of the timber it into 6’ long x 6’ wide x 3’ high stacks so that the inspector could come and assess your final tally of wood and then charge you on the tonnage that you’d keep. Every year until I was a teenager dad would clear his one acre block by hand with an axe, felling the trees, trimming them, cutting them into 6 feet lengths before my brother James and I would drag them and stack them to dad’s specifications, as you can imagine they were quite rigid! It was all systems go when we got the block, with the three of us working long days every and all weekend until the task was complete. If dad felt that he was behind he’d even go out after work for a couple of hours at night after his full day labouring.

This reminded me of two terrific stories he told me before he died:

I was only about five years old or so and he took me out to work on the block. He was hard at work felling a rather large tree, and had asked me to stay in one place as the tree he'd been chopping was getting close to it falling. So following his directions I’d sat down, but unbeknownst to me I’d sat on the edge of a large bull-ant nest. Now, these ants are no ordinary ants as they’re big (up to half an inch long) and very aggressive. Apparently they had taken to me like a dog with a bone.

As the tree starts to crack and tip he hears me scream and sees me running toward him. I’m covered in bull-ants but directly in the path of the now heavily tilting tree. With no time to grab me out of the way, he leaps into the path of the tree and pushes it sideways with all his mite just enough so that it missed landing on me, but then the fun begins as he now had to catch me as I run screaming into the thick surrounding bush.

Finally catching up with me he literally ripped off my clothes, swatting off the remaining ants as he went only to find that I have a mass of bites all over my body, with the worst of it being my bum and legs which are now completely covered in big, raw, angry bite marks all the while me screaming bloody murder at the top of my lungs. I guess we were done for the day!

Another time, my brother James and I, and although quite young were apparently “helping him” trim the branches from the felled trees. James had a small tomahawk and was trimming a nearby sapling when he swung the axe at the thin tree, but the blade glanced off the bark and smashed deep into his knee. The shock of seeing the small axe logged in his kneecap with blood pouring from the wound was too much for James and he screamed in pain. Dad was working on another tree about 100 yards away and covered the distance in what felt like only a couple of seconds, grabbing the small handle and wrenched the axe from his knee. As I recall there was a lot of blood but probably more swearing from dad than anything else!

I still wonder how he was ever able to actually finish a block given our constant "help", but he laughed out loud as he told me these two stories. Thanks dad - awesome stories!

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“Hanoi Posting”

A series of micro-stories by Terence Wallis

Episode 3: I'm your best option

John reluctantly waved him into his office; he smiled but knew something was up by the look on Bill’s face. Although he’d only been with the paper a couple of years he was one of his best and brightest with a reputation that was growing as top notch journalist.

John’s apprehension grew, as Bill got straight to the point, after all it's not that often a journalist just drops by the Executive Editors desk for a cursory visit. “Look, ah…I know about what happened in Hanoi and I want the posting.”

John was stunned…and frankly speechless, which was a first for John. It had been three weeks since the police had found the body in the dingy alley near the Chợ Đồng Xuân in Hanoi’s Old Quarter. So far they hadn’t been able to ascertain what had happened and John feared that they’d pretty much closed the case and put it down to just another foreigner being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time…poor bastard he thought to himself, his mind wandering.

Clearly Bill had caught him a little off guard with his sudden outburst and now tried to elaborate further, but John held up his hand motioning him to stop.

"What makes you think that I would give you the posting to Hanoi", he said almost a little too loudly.

"Because I’m your best bet that’s why" Bill shot back, his gaze not wavering from John’s.

Deep down John knew he was right, but also reticent because of his own personal experience in the Far East, which was far more extensive than anyone knew.

"I'll think about it" he said with a deep sigh.

Next week: Episode 4: Promises

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This weeks photos are from a photo shoot last weekend in Toronto's Allan Gardens - enjoy!

Vibrant colors of a petal

Elephant Ears - amazing to see the viens in the leaves

Gorgeous butterfly nestling inside the tropical plant pavillion

Droplet of water in the leaves of a plant taken with my macro lens

Such detail on the outside of flower

Orchids are stunning!

Turtle at the pond

Giant carp in the pond

The frowning fish at the surface of the pond

The latern plants exterior

Such vibrant colors

Up close and personal

Inside the dome of the horticulture center

A local attraction across the road from the gardens

Up close with my antique camera lens

Friday, July 17, 2015

The walk of 1000 daggers

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Ah - so you did notice my interesting style of walking this week?

We all take our health, and in most cases our fitness for granted. From an early age I was hooked on playing sport, but it wasn't until my mid 20’s that I realized that playing sport and being fit were two completely different things. This week has been a sharp reminder!

Growing up, each year I would front up to the first football training session of the new season in late February, which in Australia is at the height of summer heat. As I reflect back I'm aghast at what we put our bodies through in that torturous heat, oh, so young and foolish!

Initially training consisted of a timed run anywhere from 5 – 10 km which you had to complete within a set time, for the 5km distance it was always under 25 minutes and for the 10km it had to be under 50 minutes. Now, for those who had continued training over the summer or at least endeavored to keep fit between the end of the last season and the start of the new season they were generally okay but for those of us who assumed that because we were young that we were automatically fit then it was infinitely more painful.

I still remember the ease of the first run, feeling good and making decent time. However, the issue wasn't the run itself but the subsequent days after the run where every step was so incredibly painful that you sworn that your body had been stabbed a 1000 times with tiny daggers with every step you made.

And so this week was a painful reminder of those distant memories.

My physical “issues” all started for me on my road trip with Zach to take him to Washington DC via New York… It’s a nine-hour trek from Toronto to New York with a single pit stop around Binghamton in upstate New York to fill the car with gas and grabbing a quick bite so I was feeling a little stiff from the initial drive into the city. Then when we got into NY we decided to stretch our legs and go for a walk, which actually turned into a couple of hours – yes, feast or famine!

Next morning we were up early and literally walked most of Manhattan from the Guggenheim on 88^th street down to Canal Street and part of the way back to our hotel, and that’s not counting the weaving that you do when you're strolling in New York – nothing is direct!

Sunday saw us get back in the car for another four hours to Washington DC, with lots more sitting… To top it off the drive back from Washington to Toronto is another ten hours – so over the course of the four days I sat for 23 hours, now couple that with not working out and you have a recipe for disaster of the physical kind…

To illustrate my point, I had a meeting the day after I got back and was reaching into the back seat of the car when I twisted to grab my suit jacket, and my back tweaked and it immediately went into spasm. How is this possible I thought? I work out all the time, yet within a four-day stretch I felt like my entire fitness level had been completely compromised.

So for the remainder of last week I was walking rather gingerly, stretching when possible but all the while nursing my aching lower back. I think I walked like an old cowboy who'd seen too many years in the saddle if you know what I mean. ☺

By the time this week rolled around I was feeling a little better and so decided to begin my regular fitness routine. In a nutshell its eight sets of four exercise, each 25 seconds in duration with a 5 sec transition between. The intent is to undertake this continuously without a break for 16 minutes. I've been doing variations of this for a couple of years so my body SHOULD be accustom to this…

There is lots of different exercise combinations but I decided on an intermediate level routine given my recent back issue. It started with a five minute warm up followed by my first exercise, which was a dynamic squat/jumping jack combination, followed by push-ups, next burpees and finally mountain climbers...eight sets. Not an overly difficult program and after the first set everything felt good (yes, this is where my history should of told me to be careful!). The routine is then followed by 10 minutes of stretching to cool down and relax. I felt great afterwards and the best part was that I was pain free for the first time in almost a week.

That all came to an abrupt and screaming halt when I tried to get out of bed the next morning. Strangely it was the exact feeling that I had endured all those years ago in that every step I take feels like 1000 daggers shooting through my hamstrings and hips...

So tonight I had had enough, sick of feeling continuously stiff I laced up the runners and hobbled out the door for an all too rare neighborhood run. Everything was completely locked for the first kilometer, so less of a run and more of a shuffle (yes, quite a sight!) but then the legs started to loosen and run more freely finishing in a respectable 32 minutes for my six kilometers jog. Certainly not going to win any speed records, but I was just happy to be running again.

You'll be glad to know that I stretched for quite sometime after my run hoping above hope that tomorrow my "daggers" will have finally dissipated enough for me to begin walking normally once again.

Tiny victories my friends – tiny victories! ☺

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“Hanoi Posting”

A series of micro-stories by Terence Wallis

Episode 2: Obsessed

Now it was Lea’s turn to be pissed off. Her day had gone from bad to worse after the awful row they'd earlier that morning before work. She had always known deep down that she didn't want an overseas post, but he seemed obsessed by it, constantly prattling on about “I just want to take it to the next level”.

Well, clearly taking it the next level was going to be without her! She had finally found her groove and although her city beat and the mostly local stories were relatively mundane she enjoyed the freedom and felt that her writing was getting better. Hell, even last week her editor commented on the human interest story she'd written about the family of the high speed accident victims from the recent crash on Pentonville Road in London's inner north.

Instead of looking forward to their anniversary dinner, she was engulfed by a sense of foreboding and dread...

Just breath she thought to herself

Next week: Episode 3: I'm your best option

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This weeks photos are from my days in Washington DC - enjoy!