Both Sides of the Blade

Cascade Mountain, Banff

The Beauty and Brutality of Living Wide Open

There’s a new song by Max McNown called Both Sides of the Blade that’s been echoing in my mind lately. It’s haunting in the most beautiful way... simple, raw, and deeply true. It speaks about how love, pain, and the sharp edges of life all coexist, often in the same breath. The title itself feels like a metaphor for the way I’ve lived my life, right there, on both sides of the blade.

I’ve always said that if you graphed my life, it would look like the ECG of a heart attack patient. There’s never been a steady, predictable rhythm. It’s been full of incredible highs, moments of deep love, laughter, and connection, and devastating lows, loss, heartbreak, and grief that took my breath away.

But through it all, I’ve learned that the beauty of life is found in the contrast. You can’t fully appreciate joy until you’ve known real sorrow. You can’t understand love without having faced loss.

Heading towards Waterton

For much of my life, I’ve tried to make sense of that balance. I’m even writing a book about it, My Love/Hate Relationship with Death, a reflection on how the hardest moments of my life have taught me to live more deeply. It’s about the yin and yang of existence, how light and dark, love and pain, beginnings and endings are inseparable.

Recently, life reminded me of that truth again. I reconnected with someone from my past... a friend I’ve always shared an effortless connection with. When he came to visit, we spent days exploring the mountains, laughing, sharing stories, and soaking up the beauty of the Rockies. Everything felt natural, as though no time had passed, like we were always meant to be with each other on some level, as if our souls had been waiting to reconnect. But when he left, I was hit with a wave of emotion I didn’t see coming... that deep, hollow ache of missing someone before they’re even gone.

Still, I wouldn’t change a single second. That’s the paradox, both sides of the blade. To feel so deeply, to care so much, means that loss will always hurt. But I’d rather live a life that cuts deep than one that never touches the heart at all.

Last of the fall leaves holding on in the fresh snow

The Lesson of Letting Go

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned, and continue to learn, is that we have to let people live their own lives. We can love them fiercely, wish them happiness, and want to share in their journey, but we can’t hold on so tightly that we limit their freedom. Everyone is walking their own path. Everyone’s story unfolds differently, and that’s what makes life so rich and beautiful.

Trying to force anything... love, timing, connection, or understanding... never works.

The universe has its own plan, and sometimes the best thing we can do is step back, trust, and allow things to unfold as they should. The right people, the right moments, and the right opportunities find us when we’re ready. That’s not always easy to accept, but it’s the truth.

The majestic mountains in Waterton

The Beauty in Loss

Over the years, I’ve lost people I’ve loved deeply, family, friends, lovers and each loss has carved a new depth in my heart. Some goodbyes were expected, others came out of nowhere. Some left me broken, others taught me strength I didn’t know I had.

Loss changes you. It teaches you about impermanence, about the fragile nature of everything we hold dear. But it also teaches gratitude. You learn to treasure the people who are still here, to say “I love you” more often, to hold someone’s hand a little longer. You learn that every "ordinary" day is a gift.

And in some strange, beautiful way, loss reminds you that love doesn’t end. It just changes form. I feel that every time I step into nature... when sunlight filters through trees, when fog rolls off a lake, or when I hear the wind whisper through the mountains or the call of a loon. There’s this quiet knowing that the people I’ve lost aren’t really gone, they’ve simply transformed, become part of everything around me.

Lundbreck Falls

Nature’s Reflection of Life and Death

Nature has always been my greatest teacher. Out there, everything is a lesson in balance. The forest burns, and from its ashes, new life begins. Rivers flood and reshape their course, carving beauty into rock that took centuries to form. The harshest storms give way to the calmest dawns.

It’s all cyclical, life, death, renewal. Nothing is wasted, nothing truly ends. We’re part of that same rhythm. When I’m hiking through the mountains or paddling across still water at dawn, I feel connected to something greater. Nature doesn’t resist change; it flows with it. Maybe that’s why I find peace there. It reminds me that even the hardest moments of my life are part of something bigger... something that’s still unfolding.

Arethusa Cirque

Living Fully, Loving Freely

If life has taught me anything, it’s this: live fully, love freely, and let go gracefully.

Be kind even when others aren’t.

Don’t judge, because you never truly know what someone else is carrying.

Give without expectation.

And most importantly, don’t be afraid to feel... all of it. The joy, the pain, the love, the heartbreak. It’s what makes us human.

Gratitude and mindfulness are everything. The more I slow down and notice, the warmth of sunlight, the sound of a river, the laughter of someone I love, the more I realize how rich life truly is. Even in the chaos, there’s beauty. Even in heartbreak, there’s love.

I no longer chase perfection or permanence. I simply want to experience this life... all of it, with an open heart.

The good, the bad, the beautiful, the brutal. It’s all part of the same beautiful masterpiece.

So yes, I’ll take both sides of the blade. Because I’ve learned that’s where the magic lives, in the duality of it all. In the way loss makes you love harder, how heartbreak deepens your compassion, and how grief carves space for gratitude.

Life will never stop surprising me, breaking me, healing me, and remaking me... and I wouldn’t have it any other way.