It’s Friday, early;
writing must wait for later.
I smile and walk on.
I’d rather be sleeping…
Archives for the month of: February, 2016
It’s a Thursday, poised gently between a week in progress and a week nearly over. I slept well and deeply, waking at some point before the alarm went off. I told myself, this morning, that if it were as little as 15 minutes before the alarm would go off, I’d just get up. Seemed quite likely I’d get up regardless… I checked the clock, and noticed it was a bit more than half an hour before the alarm would go off… generally, I’d get up… Peculiarly, this morning I contentedly rolled over, wrapped myself in warm covers, agreeably admitted to myself as sleep overcame me that I’d most likely feel groggy when I woke… only…
I woke to the insistent beeping of an alarm clock that I had trouble locating by feel; it was quite literally out of reach, which seemed oddly metaphorical in my waking moment. I struggled with twisting to reach the lamp switch as the alarm continued to beep. I woke stiff and aching, and had managed to place the alarm clock quite completely out of common reach, on the far side of the nightstand. Finally. Silence. I stood with some effort, and made my way to the bathroom rather sluggishly.
I dither through my morning routine…heat the water for coffee now… or after my shower? After. Music? No music? Music. Fuzzy spa socks until I leave for work…or put on my hiking socks? Spa socks. Dark roasted Java, or medium roasted Uganda? Java. Sweater or t-shirt? Sweater. Back and forth, options being considered, choices being made, and the day begins to take shape for this one singularly ‘me’ human being of middle age, soft sweater, modest means, and generally gentle habits… I see the words, and sense a much younger version of me somewhere in the distance of time with a scrunched up ‘WTF?’ look of quizzical wonder on her face. “How did we get here?” I smile to myself – feeling the warmth of my affection for this ‘stranger within’, this ‘me’ creature, and think of the miles we have walked, the internal demons of chaos we’ve battled together, the endless practice, the choices to change… There is no question, really, how I got from ‘there’ to ‘here’ – there have been verbs involved, and will, and choice, and change.
How beautiful that each new day I can choose to begin again!
I am in some physical pain this morning; the weather is rainy again, and my bones ache with it. I’m not bitching, just saying it is an element of my experience that can tend to color my thinking if left unaddressed. I make a point of taking care of this fragile vessel. Today has all the ingredients of being a very pleasant one. (Still verbs involved.)
I can recall a time when being asked to change seemed more constant than being valued or appreciated as I was, which I recall as being very rare. I don’t doubt from my perspective now that this was a ‘true’ experience from my perspective then. I felt frustrated, and criticized. I felt inadequate. I felt angry – and the anger mostly came from how astonishingly rarely anyone else seemed willing to change at my request, as though I were uniquely flawed, and they were singularly perfectly beautifully human just as they were. It hurt a lot to view the world that way. It grew and festered until it became a fairly constant internal fight that often ended resentfully with a simultaneous feeling of ‘fuck your change!’ and capitulation to pressure, to coercion, to fear of withdrawn affection, followed by all the brutal self-criticism as I attempted to force change on myself to meet someone else’s needs. My soul fairly continuously cried ‘what about me?’ within the context of relationships that were purportedly intimate. What a fucking mess.
It became a very big deal to live authentically – which definitely required that I start figuring myself out, fast. Turning my own attention toward the woman in the mirror in an honest way, unreservedly and unashamedly in my own corner, being genuinely supportive of my own needs in a strong and positive way was another very big deal – and the verbs were definitely piling up alongside new practices. Every change I chose for myself, because that change met my own needs and held potential to take me further down my own path, made change itself just a bit less terrifying, and a bit less alienating. Instead of changes imposed on me somehow making me less and less me over time, I began to choose change for myself, based on my own values, my own needs, my own aesthetic. Life changed with me. The changes I chose were for and about me, about being the woman I most want to be, myself, and about living my values quite openly and comfortably. A lot of things begin to change around me, and within my relationships – for one thing, it quickly became clear who enjoyed and valued me, for real. “Faking it” in life was not only no longer a choice with value – it was no longer an option. What a relief!
“How many more miles?” is not a question I need to ask.
This is not an epitaph to a journey. The journey is not the destination. There is no ‘finish line’, no scorecard, no ‘pot of gold’ – because there is no end to the rainbow for this tale of wonder. Another day will dawn, and I will begin again. Each day is so powerful as an opportunity to choose to live life willfully, eyes wide with wonder, mind open to the possibilities, and aware of the world and my fellow travelers within feeling constrained or encroached upon by their values, or their freedom. In this moment, here, this morning, I feel ‘whole’ and ‘well’ and a whole bunch of other lovely words about the ‘me’ that is, versus the woman I wasn’t, for so very long. Strangely – this is what feels ‘ordinary’ today. 🙂
Change is like a doorway on a longer journey.
…Oh…hey… We’re still here? My mind wandered. A quick montage of recollections of other times, harder times, different times, some even fairly recent times, and I humbly observe that although this morning feels very good – and also very ordinary – I’m very human, and there will likely be other less pleasant times to come… somewhen. That, too, is very ordinary. I’d say something insightful about impermanence, but I’m not sure there’s more to say than ‘impermanence is a thing I can count on’. Weather changes. Job changes. Mood changes. Relationship changes. Health changes. Lifestyle changes. Change is. I think what I’ve really been saying this morning is that being the authority on change in my own experience, being the entity choosing the changes, and keeping that power of choice and action for myself – to use it as a tool, rather than as a weapon, and to make it one of the processes of order, rather than part of the chaos – has been a profoundly positive thing for me.
Yes. Of course there are verbs involved. Isn’t today a good day for some verbs? 🙂
This morning I am relaxed and alert after a good night’s sleep. I woke too early to a distant peculiar high-pitched whine; the train in the distance crawling slowly through the night, sometimes loud, sometimes noisy, doesn’t often wake me but in the wee hours this morning it did. It wasn’t relevant to the overall quality of my sleep, or this lovely quiet morning over coffee.
I enjoyed quite a nice weekend, and although I started it having to deal with my challenges it was skillfully done, generally, productive, emotionally nourishing, fun, relaxing, and fairly entertaining. I spent much of it at home in this beautiful space I am creating for myself, and a lot of it painting. I’ve been needing this so much – over the years of adult creative lifetime I have yearned for adequate space to paint. I’ve done some amazing work perched on the edge of couches, crouched on the floor in a corner, spread out across kitchen counters, dining tables, or on an easel of good quality and sturdiness wedged into a corner of one room or another, cautious about paint being flung thoughtlessly here or there… attentive to immediately clean up, every day, every time… I’ve gotten close to have real studio space once or twice, only to see it jerked out of reach at the last minute. I was well into my 40’s – almost 50 – when I understood how much I yearned for dedicated creative space to work. I put it aside as a fantasy. I put it aside as unreachable – so many times. (If this isn’t obvious; it was often my own choices that put fulfillment of this desire out of my reach.)
Most of my partners and lovers have respected my artistic side, some of have truly loved my work; I feel certain that had it been commonly understood how badly I needed more room to work – understood by me, myself, too – I’d have been ‘here’ sooner. One of life’s many missed details – handled. I smile thinking about how many conversations with my traveling partner over the years have come back to making a viable solution to the need for room to paint become a reality for me – even our very first conversations as friends often wound around back to quality of life matters being needfully inclusive of this thing I did not have at that time; he recognized it as a ‘need’ when I still thought of it as a daydream without substance, forever out of reach. Over the course of our 5 years together, he has regularly pointed out potential solutions – and when it was clear that there was profound value for me (and us) in my living quite separately day-to-day, it was the artistic space that sold the idea first, healing was a bit of an afterthought (for me). I’ve been well-supported in this partnership – as an artist, as a woman, as a human being, and as a friend. How the hell do I say ‘thank you’ for all that?? Well… by painting, I guess, and making the choice to live alone have value beyond the separateness of it. 🙂
One of the faces of love, and another way to take care of me.
I spent the weekend in my studio. I love the way that sounds. I spent it getting it set up, and using that time of making order out of chaos to ‘get my head right’ on Saturday morning (Friday afternoon and evening I wasn’t really good for much, dealing with a flare up of my PTSD and focused on very basic self-care). By midday Saturday I was painting. Sunday I was painting. Monday I was painting. Somewhere in the midst of all that, I found time to read, to eat, to shower, to love – the love matters most, perhaps, but without all that other stuff, who is here to be loved? I enjoyed the time I spent with my traveling partner Sunday – and there was no awkwardness in his departure. “What would you be doing if I left now?” he asked pleasantly after hanging out a while. I smiled and gave it some thought, the answer was an easy one, “I’d be in the studio, sitting with the new colors and the canvases I am working on, thinking about that”. He smiled back at me and observed that the timing seemed good. No stress, no emotional weirdness – an easy (for both of us) comfortable (for both of us) departure, freeing us (both) to move on with the day quite naturally. It was quite lovely, both the time together, and the time apart. What more could I ask of love?
There are now four canvases in various stages of completion in my studio, and they are not a frenzy of similarly themed work using a similar palette for economy. They are not being rushed through to avoid inconveniencing a household starting a new work week. Each is an entirely unique experience with color, texture, subject; I am able to slow my pace to a moment by moment approach that feels completely different – and worth exploring. Mindful painting? Is this a thing? The path veers in a new direction…
…I walk on, enjoying the view as I begin again. Today is a good day for art, for music, for words – a good day to feed my heart and my soul, not just this fragile vessel. 🙂
I’m up earlier than I really need to be, and I have the day off. I’m okay with that; it’s simply more time in my day. My coffee is tasty, and the day begins gently.
This one is a short one this morning. I am thinking about reason, assumptions, and how we human primates build so much of our understanding of the world on incomplete or inaccurate narratives we make up in our own heads. It’s worth giving some thought to, I think.
This image is not a black and white shot.
Very few things in life are as simple as we make them. Very few things are ‘black and white’ – or more accurately ‘black or not black’, ‘white or not white’; the logical rules Aristotle left for us don’t account for the rich tapestry of ‘real life’, and humanity has long since moved on from the limitations of simple Newtonian physics, too. Just saying – allowing assumptions about things in life I don’t (or can’t) really know isn’t just a limitation, it colors my experience a great deal.
Today is a good day for not knowing, and for allowing reliance on certainty to fall by the wayside. Today is a good day to be unsure. Today is a good day to be open to more possibilities, and a broader perspective. Today is a good day to abandon assumptions, and let go of expectations. Today is a good day to be open; it’s a very different world that way.
Evening Light 