What's sticking out in my head lately is how he talked about the need for a support system, a "community". He's right. We all need each other to lean on, to be honest with, to share our success stories and our struggles. Because sometimes, this just aint easy...
You know, most of us, when we start on the primal journey, we are so happy, so poud of ourselves, that we want to shout it from the rooftops. We want to convert everyone we know. Sometimes, we even try to "cure" our friends and co-workers of diseases that we imagine they have. But sooner or later, we realize we can't change the world and we start to feel like we're doing all of this in a vaccuum and that no one is listening at all. Sure, the blogging community is full of us, but where is everyone, really? I don't personally know anyone else who is into the paleo lifestyle. Ok, I think my brother's family is, but they don't really like to talk about it. So where is everyone else? In far-flung locations, in places that I will never get to see, so they are people I will likely never get to meet. But I still want to get to know them. I, like Dean, want a community. I don't care if you are near or far, I still want to hear about your day, talk about my day, what we ate that we regret, what we did that made us proud. I want you to read my silly attempts at "moving like Grok" and I want you to laugh because sometimes people are just too serious.
I missed the last paleo symposium that came to Toronto. But apparently Robb Wolf made a very moving speach, and it wasn't about "this isn't paleo, and neither is that..." It was about how we paleo-advocates sometimes can be very cult-like, when what we should be is very inclusive. That any attempt, any changes we make that bring us closer to a primal lifestyle are good things. Because we all get it, we care about our health, we understand now, and we're all trying. So really, Robb Wolf is also talking about community.
Now, it's going to seem like an odd topic change, but I have always loved being outdoors (this relates, you'll see). I grew up camping and canoeing and skiing. In the last few years, my huband and I have made it our whole purpose on vacations to try EVERYTHING we can wherever we are. Zip-lining, caving, rock climbing, sea kayaking, canoeing, horseback riding--whatever we can. We can't afford to go on a lot of vacations, but we can still do these kinds of things around our own community. This past summer, we tried a SUP pilates yoga class. It was very challenging and very different. Next year I want to do a river SUP day-long trip. If I had a whole comminuty of like-minded friends, I'd invite them all to come along. But we don't have a community here, not yet. So Steve and I will go out there and "Just Do It" on our own. And take pictures. And you can keep laughing at us because we like that kind of thing.
That's us, front row, on the Kicking Horse River while we were staying out in Banff last year... And that's us on the right, pre-paleo and acting like tools (because we do that), zip-lining in Vancouver. Maybe Grok didn't have THIS kind of fun, but life is short and this kind of stuff is awesome. I wish everyone enjoyed getting out like this. One day this whole paleo movement will be huge, and I will run into paleo-friends on every hiking trail, and at future Warrior Dashes and other crazy events. But today, close and far away, we will have to find each other through these paleo-blogs. And maybe at upcoming symposiums--hey, how to we get a symposium going again in Toronto? This paleo thing is starting to grow out here and it'd grow alot faster if we had a giant meeting of some sort... How do we go about getting a meeting of some sort? Well, we could all meet at one of those.
Meantime, as for this coming weekend, Steve hasn't come up with any good ideas on how to "take it up a notch" on our hike. So I may just have to give him a piggyback, all 180 pounds of him on my 120 pound frame. As far as I can carry him. We'll see how that goes. We'll find a way to make it fun.
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