Archives for the month of: September, 2015
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Always With the Perspective

September 16, 2015 //
2

It’s a chilly morning. I woke a bit ahead of the alarm clock, and somehow the shower didn’t warm me up much. My head is stuffy, as if in sympathy to my traveling partner, home sick at his place. I miss him greatly, but it matters more that he take care of himself and be well – besides, I don’t really want to be sick, myself, and I am content to wait to see him for some better time.

I find myself thinking about perspective, again. I know that because I’d like to be in my traveling partner’s arms so very much, it would be super easy to dive into misery, frustration, and annoyance that we are not together, and then for that to become a springboard to all sorts of doubt, insecurity, hurt, and anger spreading out in all directions from that one small thing; I miss him. Emotions are intense, and can easily overwhelm reason, and then… then what? Then I am unhappy, riled up, agitated, miserable, lonely, angry, frustrated, and filled with negative self-talk and thinking so distorted that all those feelings start fueling some sort of ‘blame machine’ that generates more distorted thinking, and rationalizes treating others poorly on the basis of that distorted thinking. This morning I am appreciative that I am not in that place. (Perspective is a lovely way to defuse those emotional bombs.)

Anyway, how would I really measure life's 'spilled milk'?

Someone else said it first; there’s no use crying over spilled milk.

Life isn’t ‘about’ my losses. Sure the losses exist, but they don’t exist isolated from the joys, the gifts, the delights, the wonders, and the cherished moments. Life is also not about keeping score; when I am focused on this moment, my moment, engaged, present, and mindful, the bullshit fades away, and I’m not filled with self-made poison. I was thinking about this while I soaked in the bath last night, too; if I measure my life by my losses, how could I not find myself wounded, tearful, and overwhelmed with doubt and sorrow? It’s 52 years worth of ups and downs – there are some losses in all that experience.

I could measure my life by my gains, if I choose. Things look different stacked up as an assortment of wins, gains, achievements, successes…and that too is misleading; I don’t learn much from the easy wins, and the emotional highs are far less intense, lacking depth and value, without the perspective offered by what has been lost, and what hurt, and what didn’t work so easily. Then, too, if I measure my life by all the things I have done or achieved that are awesome, I don’t leave much room to be vulnerable, to connect, to appreciate what is soft and tender within myself, and to value myself when I am not winning, gaining, achieving, or succeeding, and I may also need to spend a great deal of mental bandwidth defining those successes, to avoid becoming frustrated by shortcomings that might negatively affect measuring the wins. Hell, I’m only thinking about it, and I feel myself becoming a little anxious!

...and how exactly is 'success' truly defined, and measured...and who decides that?

…and how exactly is ‘success’ truly defined, and measured…and who decides that?

It’s the measuring, itself, that I find myself thinking about critically. I don’t personally prefer life to be a competition, and the measuring of successes, the score keeping, the comparing of this person to that person, the perception that there are ‘necessary’ achievements one is expected to make in life (marriage, children, car, house, career…) – I have come to view all of those as bullshit distractions, choices, simply details we can add to who we are – or not. I’m choosing ‘not’, generally, and re-evaluating where all of those things really fit in with who I am, myself. It’s been a process. Part of asking that ‘who am I?’ question, I guess…. (I’m sure not telling you what you should or must find important, yourself.) I’m just observing that holding an attachment to goals that aren’t really my own, imposed on me by expectations of one sort or another, is one very elaborate way to be miserable.

Why am I on about score keeping and measuring and comparing one to another? Because I miss my traveling partner, of course! See what I mean by how quickly powerful emotions can overwhelm reason? How are those even connected? They are connected in only the loosest way, by time itself, and by the measuring of time, and the score keeping of moments. I don’t spend as much time with him as I’d like, which has the potential to nudge me toward contemplating the time he spends with others, and to become resentful and hurt over it. It’s silliness – because love isn’t about score keeping (or time keeping), or measuring, or counting. I’ve come a long way from allowing my powerful emotions to sneak attack me on something so small, most of the time. 🙂 That feels pretty good over my morning coffee, and instead of fussing irritably about why my traveling partner isn’t in my arms (he’s sick, seriously?) I am simply enjoying a lovely morning, in this moment here, content that there are other moments to enjoy in other times, and that love exists, regardless – it’s certainly not worth stress, or agitation, or grinding my mental gears over if/when/why. That kind of mental busy work poisons my experience now, in part because my brain injury impedes my ability to regulate emotions stirred up by thoughts (they feel every bit as real, and intense, as emotions that occur in response to circumstances), and in part because I am human.

It's a journey - there are some detours.

It’s a journey – there are some detours.

That’s been another lovely bit of awakening, recently. I’ve struggled so long with sorrows over what is ‘wrong’ with me, due to my TBI, and what my injury has (may have?) taken from me… Sometime between last Friday and yesterday morning walking to work, something clicked… Whether my injury is anything to do with whatever may be ‘wrong’ with me – it is most assuredly the source of a great many things that are very right with me, that I enjoy and count on daily. Perspective.

...Life these days feels more like a construction site than a disaster area. :-)

…Life these days feels more like a construction site than a disaster area. Progress. 🙂

So…this morning…a lovely morning that could have been experienced very differently not so very long ago. Perspective matters. Practicing good practices for building emotional self-sufficiency, and resilience, matters. Remembering to include the woman in the mirror in the set of ‘all the people I love’ matters. Contentment, gratitude, and enjoying what is more than I mourn what is not, matter too. It’s a chilly autumn morning, and I am enjoying it wrapped in a warm sweater – and wrapped in love. (I’m not all certain which provides the greater comfort – I suspect it is the love, and I am awed that it comes from within.)

Today is a good day to be love.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Epsom salts, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

This Thing Called Human

September 15, 2015 //
0

I woke during the night, or rather more accurately I simply realized at about 1:00 am that I was awake. My state of wakefulness continued for some time, and I finally recognized that I wasn’t returning to sleep; something was keeping me awake. I wasn’t sure what was disturbing my sleep, but I got up for a little while, keeping the apartment dim, and figured some meditation and yoga might send me easily back to the land of dreams. I was incorrect. Once I got up, it was clearer that there was a physical source to my discomfort, and although I felt no hint of nausea, I knew I was going to be sick, at some point in the imminent future. I sat meditating comfortably, and waiting for that more acute moment of discomfort that would signal immediate illness to come. I didn’t have to wait long, and it was all over very quickly. I was easily able to return to sleep.

I woke with a headache, and arthritis pain on the ‘winter’ setting. I am physically uncomfortable, although the morning begins well enough in all other regards. I could make a big deal out of the pain and the headache and stomp around snarling, but there’s no point in doing so, and I would prefer to enjoy the morning, content, and quiet. The quiet morning was interrupted by my own laughter at one point; morning yoga with this headache and arthritis pain resulted in some ‘turtle on its back’ “fun” when I toppled over during a moment of vertigo, and couldn’t quite get up, because of pain and stiffness. I was still chuckling when I tried the same sequence again, successfully – which is a far better outcome than if I were helplessly weeping in frustration and anger, and storming around the apartment annoyed with myself. This ‘being human’ thing is rich with comedy – and with frustration, and I enjoy it when the former mitigates the latter.

Coffee time…oh, and goodness it is good this morning. Yes! I pause everything, move to the wee love seat, and make room in my morning for stillness, just chilling quietly, hands wrapped around the warm coffee mug, basking in the contentment of this moment right here.

Enough.

Enough.

My traveling partner arrived safely home last night, and I am eager to see him – I don’t actually know when that will be. Last week our attempts to plan time together were undermined by the needs of another relationship; I saw him only once, unplanned, for a short period of time when he urgently needed an emotional safe haven from stress and mistreatment. I don’t regret not living in that environment with him; however convenient it might have seemed, it was actually damaging the relationship I share with my traveling partner (far too valuable to sacrifice carelessly) to live around his other partner. It took some time to come to terms with that, and to recognize how much more easily we love each other, and how deeply, and to see our profound connection restored – through distance (about 12 mildly inconvenient miles). It is fulfilling to live in accordance with my own values, by my own rules, with my injury accounted for in my day-to-day environment, able to paint when I am inspired, unconcerned about inconveniencing anyone, and absent the stresses of OPD. It’s never been about winning, or losing, only about living, loving, and finding my way to being the woman I most want to be. I will see him when I see him; when we are together our time is well-spent on love. 🙂

What matters most?

What matters most?

Soon there will be sharing of tales of adventure, and cuddling, and romance, and plans for the future. There will be laughter, and an intimate connection that still strikes me as singularly deep, and profoundly insightful. There will be encouragement, and enthusiasm. There will be affection, a sense of fun, and shared humor. For now, there is a work day ahead of me, and plenty to do. I smile when I think of my traveling partner, wondering what his day will look like. I’ve traveled a long way, myself, on this journey that is loving, and in the brief time we’ve been together (only about 5 years) my traveling partner has been with me to see much of that growth. There is so much of the everyday routine of life that brings him to mind, I sometimes forget we don’t live together. lol Even simple things like cleaning the kitchen seem like acts of love; he taught me the food safety practices I still use in my kitchen, and encouraged me to get my food handlers card, not because I needed one, but because it was a great way to ensure I really did understand food safety basics – and do so without badgering me, frustrating me, or hurting my feelings. Love isn’t exclusively about smiles and kisses; love encourages us to grow, nurtures us while we do, and celebrates with us when we have.

Unfinished work?

Unfinished work? “Uplifted Hearts” I think a lot about love.

Another day thinking about love? Sure – I think about love and loving a lot. What better use of my time, and studies, than reflecting on love and loving, becoming a more skilled partner and lover, treating others well in every relationship (because that, too, is love) and savoring the successes, learning from the moments that go sideways unexpectedly, and continuing to invest moment-to-moment in what love offers? Seriously? It’s a major disappointment to me as an adult that we don’t teach love and loving more honestly (or at all), with more depth, and with more acknowledgement of the power love has in our lives to heal, and to enrich our experience. How many of us stumble through decades of our adulthood before we sort out the difference between lust and love? Sex and love? Being loved and loving? Before we understand that there are verbs involved? Before we even understand all the many sorts of love that exist (each having value all its own)? Instead, we argue over the value of sex education and don’t bring love into the conversation at all, which is pretty telling of what primitive creatures we really are, still trying to restrict and regulate a need (and a drive) that is fundamental to every breath we take, instead of coaching and educating and promoting the well-being of our entire society of humans from a loving place, regarding matters of love.

Be love.

Be love.

Today is a good day to love, to explore love, to reflect on what love asks of us, to consider what we have to offer. Today is a good day for loving, and for being loved – there are verbs involved. Today is a good day to invest our vast lifetime of emotional moments in the treasures that love has to offer. Today I will start with loving the woman in the mirror, and smile; loving her well changes my experience of the world – and the world’s experience of me.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Experiencing Change

September 14, 2015 //
2

The weekend was an exceptional blend of meditation, study, growth, inspiration, and relaxation. Now it is over. I’m okay with that; it puts me one day closer to seeing my traveling partner again. His weekend is over, too. Soon we’ll get together, and linger over the sharing of individual experiences, telling tales, reflecting on growth, laughing, commiserating, and cheering each other on in life. Funny thing about good weekends and my brain, I slept very restlessly last night, waking every 90 minutes or so concerned that I might somehow miss the alarm, checking the clock, and returning to sleep. By 4:15 am, I was done talking myself into more sleep, and went ahead and got up to take on the day.

A different coffee, on another morning, and thinking of love.

A different coffee, on another morning, and thinking of love.

Something ‘clicked’ for me yesterday, and I find myself on what feels like very firm ground, as an emotional being. Calmer from deeper within, more centered, more patient with myself and the world, and capable of acting from a place that leverages the full measure of my 52 experience-rich years. Something a step beyond comfortably me… and I wonder if it will ‘last’, and what it requires to nurture this feeling and build on it? I sip my coffee and quietly contemplate all the many sorts of changes human beings experience in a lifetime, those that are evident to everyone, and those that are less so. I find myself wanting to greet Monday differently… something like “How was your weekend? Mine? Oh, I’m changed…”  That’s not the sort of thing one generally does. I find myself wondering why not…?

Between the practicing and the studying, the growth happens. Sometimes it is something I can feel, or be specifically aware of, sometimes it is more subtle. There are no rules about how this thing called life must progress, or how we grow as human beings, or what kind of time and effort that takes; we are each having our own experience. We can fight it off, if we choose. I’ve tried that, too, and found it frustrating, unsatisfying, and in some cases more than a little damaging. I’ve learned over time that growth isn’t the result of forcing myself to trudge through life from one externally imposed goal to another, or working my ass off to achieve some vision of me someone else holds. Growth is the result of waking up and realizing I don’t need someone else’s goals or guidelines to find my way – understanding why that is, and becoming my own cartographer. Growth is finding satisfaction in the experience I am having, myself, and learning to enact change based on my own vision of who I am along the way. Growth is waking up to how much of the baggage I carry is self-imposed, and setting at least that much down, and walking on. And doing it again when I noticed I’ve picked it back up, and repeating as needed until, over time, I’ve left it behind. I’m feeling pretty good about growth this morning. 🙂

Seems to be very effective so far... probably doesn't hurt that the path is mine, and that I choose it myself.

Seems to be very effective so far… probably doesn’t hurt that the path is mine, and that I choose it myself.

Truth is, I feel pretty good in general this morning, except for the pain – which I haven’t mentioned, because I ‘didn’t notice it’ (meaning only that it wasn’t prominent in my consciousness, and I wasn’t giving it any attention). The alarm went off a moment ago (I got up early, but didn’t think to turn it off) and, in movement, the pain and the stiffness of my arthritic spine shifted to a more obvious place in my awareness. Aging has some pretty annoying elements to it; the pain and stiffness of my arthritis top my list of things that annoy me about aging, this morning. I am confronted with an irrefutable demonstration of the difference between ‘growth’ and ‘aging’.

I pause to reflect on growth and aging, and wonder if medical science has advanced enough to rationally consider 120 a realistically achievable lifespan… If so, I’m less than ‘half way’… that promises so much more growth, so many more experiences, so much more learning, and so much more love! I’m not even having to start the second half with a completely unformed consciousness – it’s like a head start! Only… what if this is the ‘completely unformed consciousness’ with which we do approach our mature years? I mean… I am significantly different in thoughts, values, and experiences than I was at birth, and it seems likely that I will be a similar order of magnitude different at the other end of this experience, given continued growth, learning, and experiences. Is ‘getting old’ more a matter of stopping growth, or slowing it down, than it is additional years of age? There seems to be some support for that in the science…certainly there is very firm encouragement to keep walking, to keep reading, to keep learning, to keep loving…all these things slow cognitive decline. (Are you still quite young, and reading this? Plan ahead! Live now. The future will come to you.)

Meditating, sketching, writing... feeling loved along the way...

A weekend spent meditating, sketching, writing… feeling loved along the way…

...taking time for study, and reading for pleasure...

…taking time for study, and reading for pleasure…

...taking time for pleasure, and the occasional moment of self-indulgence...

…taking time for pleasure, and the occasional moment of self-indulgence…

The weekend seemed almost eternal, and still it manages to be over too soon – but my needs are met, and that is a wonderful feeling. More wonderful still, I met my needs myself, with some lovely sprinkles of affection and connection with my traveling partner and friends. There are things to learn from that, and I face the week feeling more emotionally self-sufficient, and what is becoming, over time, quite typically content. Two years ago I would not have dared set expectations with myself of being in the place I find myself today…a year ago, it might have seemed possible in some remote theoretical way, but self-doubt, insecurity, fear, and stress were not just holding me back – they made it tough to see further down the path than tomorrow. Even Thursday, I might have said ‘someday, sure…’ and didn’t realize I might feel the way I do as soon as ‘now’. It’s very much a ‘now’ thing, too. I’m comfortable not making assumptions about how I will feel tomorrow, or whether every day of my future will feel similarly; this is a human experience, and change is part of that. There will no doubt be opportunities for future doubts, fears, and insecurities, and surely I will find myself, now and again, at a loss for words, feeling awkward, or just fucking clueless in some moment when certainty would have value. I’m okay with all of that. I have more room to grow, to learn, and to experience life’s curriculum. I am okay with only being as wise as I actually am…and I am ready to embrace being every bit as wise as I have grown to be, without second-guessing that, or being discouraged by other voices. (Yes, there are verbs involved, and yes, I expect my results may vary.)

Today is a good day for being, and for becoming. Today is a good day to accept the woman in the mirror precisely as she is, without holding her back from change and growth in the future. Today is a good day to build on the strength of experience, and to recognize that there is room to grow – always room to grow. Today is a good day to treat every being well, including the woman in the mirror. Today is a good day to change the perspective from which I view the world.

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Categories art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Not Trying, Just Practicing

September 13, 2015 //
0

This is an easy restful weekend so far. I slept in again this morning, and although I woke stiff and in a lot of pain, aside from that – which is annoyingly commonplace at this point in life – it’s a lovely weekend, relaxed, and still somewhat productive. I’m not ‘trying’ to get here. I didn’t head into the weekend with a firm plan to relax, or to rest, or to tackle a big list of stuff to do. The weekend began. I’ve continued to practice the practices that work best for me – I’ve meditated more than I often to (which already tends to be often), and probably done less yoga than I could have (and might be in less pain if I had chosen differently).

Yes, of course, coffee. :-)

Yes, of course, coffee. 🙂

I tend to associate the verb ‘trying’ with focused effort and a very specific outcome in mind. I also associate ‘trying’ with frustration; trying puts me on a more direct path to failing, by setting specific expectations of which actions must lead to what outcome. I’ve got challenges with frustration – it is my worst emotion, inasmuch as I just don’t deal with the experience of feeling frustrated well; it quickly becomes unreasoning anger, with risk of tantrums, tears, and actual quite dreadful headaches. As emotions go, I am least skilled with frustration. I find that when I let go of ‘trying’ to do something, or get somewhere, and simply get started on the task, or headed for the destination, building on good basic practices without becoming attached to a specific outcome, I not only enjoy my experience more, I definitely achieve my goals more easily – and more often – with less frustration.  It’s an experience to explore further.

Fancy

Sometimes the luxury self-care package includes a moment of self-indulgence – my salted caramel cafe au lait, Friday evening.

Friday night’s prolonged periods of reflection and meditation are still ‘seeping into my consciousness’. Yesterday was filled with “Oh!” moments of awakening, generally followed by abruptly stopping what I was doing at the time to pause, sit for a moment with the realization or new thinking, before moving on with the day. I ‘didn’t get anything done’ in the sense of practical matters being checked off a list of tasks, but I spent the day treating myself well, relaxing without guilt, and practicing practices that build emotional resilience for the work week to come, and ones that build the emotional self-sufficiency I will rely on for a lifetime ahead of me. With modern medicine in mind, there is every possibility that I will live beyond 100 years… making me more or less at the literal half way point in life, with a great deal more awareness than a newborn child has. These can be fantastic years ahead of me – handled appropriately. Certainly, there are more paintings to paint, more words to write, and more moments ahead of me.

...and more books to read. It's a good day for that, too.

…and more books to read, more poetry to write. It’s a good day for it.

I find myself asking a strange new question as I move through the hours of my days this weekend. “Is this the life you are choosing for yourself, for the next 50 years?” It’s not actually a yes/no limited question. The question is more intended to provoke reflection on who I am, how I live, and what my choices are – not only how I treat the world, and what I do with my time, generally – but also how I feel in the context of my own experience. Each time I ask myself the question, I take the opportunity to make some small change to improve on how I care for myself, how I treat others, and even how I think about my experience, and the world I live in. I am learning to value and appreciate my emotions without letting them take the driver’s seat; they communicate things about the nature of my experience that reason doesn’t notice right away [or at all, let’s face it; reason has a different mission].

…Now, if I can just figure out how to wring every last drop of delight, education, and value out of experiences that frustrate me, that would be quite spectacularly lovely! 🙂

It’s a good day for being, and for becoming. It’s a good day to try new things. It’s a good day to become more skilled at the things that work well. It’s a good day to honor progress, and appreciate all the small moments and interactions that delight me, educate me, and nourish my heart. Changing the world is a long process, relying on the incremental changes over time of a great many individuals – there are verbs involved. Changing the world within can happen over night; it’s a choice. [There are still verbs involved, and your results may vary. Practice. Begin again.]

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Turning 50, women, Words

The Journey Ahead

September 12, 2015 //
0

I woke early for a Saturday. I woke early for a Saturday morning following a late Friday night.  I most particularly woke early for a Saturday morning following a late Friday night during which I danced, laughed, painted, studied, meditated, and did yoga – did I mention the dancing? I enjoyed an evening filled with movement, music and delight, and tumbled into bed quite exhausted and ready for sleep, just a bit past midnight. I woke at 4:00 am, awake, alert, and… awake. I took my morning medication, and managed to coax myself to sleep another hour or so, finally getting up on the internal promise that naps are a thing, if I need one later. 🙂

I broke out in a sweat, trembling, while I was making my coffee. A hot flash? Maybe… without warning I quickly went from sweating to nausea to being quite suddenly and very efficiently sick. The kitchen sink is not the ideally appropriate culturally typical receptacle for vomiting, and I was far more uncomfortable with having been in the kitchen at the time, than I was with being sick so suddenly. Any symptoms of illness were gone as soon as the vomiting ended, and that wasn’t an agonizing experience. As I said – efficient. I put making coffee aside, and cleaned the sink… then the kitchen… Yep. Uncomfortable with being sick in the kitchen puts it mildly. Well… the kitchen just sparkles this morning…now.   (I’m pretty sure it would take a forensic team to tell anyone ever got sick in that sink, or this kitchen, at this point. lol)

I had a ‘date night’ planned (with myself) for last night, and enjoyed myself most thoroughly, although it wasn’t entirely about pleasure or self-indulgence. I was a woman on a mission: get to know the woman in the mirror even better, understand her needs more thoroughly – and understand what holds her back from… whatever. Stuff. Or something like that. I have notes – it was all very organized. lol My honest intent was simply to reach a little deeper into the chaos and damage and tease loose a detail or two worth holding onto, and letting some of the baggage go. As evenings in general go, it was lovely, and I suppose successful. Sometimes the positive results of developing emotional self-sufficiency are pretty subtle, and don’t come in the form of grandiose visions of change, or profound epiphanies. Last night was rather like that, too. Deep, moving… but somehow also quite subtle. More affirming than radically changing anything, which is significant all on its own.

My weekend is entirely solo this week, and I need the space to work on me. I am spending the weekend writing, and painting, and meditating. I built a playlist for last night intended to stoke my creativity, and be thought-provoking…I ended up dancing more than thinking. I’m okay with that, too. Life is movement – there are verbs involved – sitting still is a very slow suicide (at least for this fragile meat vessel I reside within).

I started the weekend in the most delightful way, with three packages. I brought them into the house, but left them unopened until later in the evening, when I finally sat down to enjoy the night. One said ‘gift’ on it, and I opened it eagerly. A present from my traveling partner…

A token of affection. Love on a chain. The only heart-shaped locket I have ever owned.

A token of affection. Love on a chain. The only heart-shaped locket I have ever owned or worn.

I eagerly put a photo in the locket; the same photo that sits on the nightstand, where I see him smiling, relaxed, and enjoying my good company (I remember the day I took the picture very clearly). I touch the locket gently, where it rests on my collar-bone. I smile when I think of it, and of love. Because I generally don’t wear necklaces, I was very much aware of the sensation of it resting on my body through the evening, and the sensation was rather as if my traveling partner was with me. I feel loved.

Later I opened the other two packages – both from me, to me, both relevant to the experience of being me, of being a woman… both are books. Both are first editions (no idea why that matters at all, or why it delights me so – I’m still going to read them, and it’s all I would do with them, regardless; they’re books). One is an old book that I love dearly, written by a favorite author about a favorite strong female character: “Friday” by Robert Heinlein. I am eager to read it again.  The other is “Fear of Dying” newly released by Erica Jong, and I am eager to read it for the first time, and finding myself tempted to reread “Fear of Flying” now that I have some life experience of my own to understand it with (I first read it in 1973…I was 10, and didn’t identify with the characters or circumstances even a little bit). I find that reading adds to the intimacy of a quiet evening. I yearn to sit wrapped in comfort with my feet in my traveling partner’s lap, reading aloud for our enjoyment, and talking it over together.

I’ve been working on treating the woman in the mirror with more genuine affection, respect, and consideration – and one of the ways I ease her suffering and silent fury is to give more time to the voices of women, generally. Bringing Erica Jong to my library is one way of doing that. Certainly, she’s one of many strong female voices ‘of my generation’. Subtle signs of implicit gender bias in our culture exist literally everywhere, even in my own experience as a woman; I had no idea how many books Erica Jong has actually written over the years, or how many of those are non-fiction. It was an eye-opening moment reading the list of her work, and to understand how easy it is to dismiss female authors without realizing the error in the moment it occurs.

I didn’t paint much last night – I spent far more of the evening on meditation, writing, and dancing. I didn’t do any reading at all, although I had planned to. It was a night for love. If it had been a night out with another person, my feelings this morning would be as they are; I have a song in my heart, and a smile on my lips, and I feel valued and filled with joy. It’s nice to find that I can deliver that experience to myself now and then. It’s powerful to discover that these feelings are not specific to sexual love.  🙂

Taking care of me comes in many forms. I am pleased to learn how much I do have to offer myself, and what an array of choices there really are. The weekend continues… Today is a good day to enjoy the woman in the mirror.

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Categories art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words
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