Archives for the month of: July, 2016
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Time and Timing

July 11, 2016 //
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This morning I woke with the alarm clock. It’s been weeks since that’s been necessary. I’d probably have awakened plenty early without it, but having a firm departure time this morning, it was the safer choice to set the alarm. This one small change is enough to throw me off my routine this morning, and I overlook taking my medication for almost half an hour after I am “awake”. I’m not sure I’m actually quite awake even now. I take another sip of my coffee.

Rain? Maybe.

Rain? Maybe.

The morning sky seems peculiarly dark. I find myself wondering how this is so – I’m generally up at this hour, and don’t recall the sky being so dark… The sun rises 12 minutes later than it did on June 21.  So. Darker at this time? Yeah, probably a bit, but I think it’s more to do with the heavy dark clouds overhead. I watch the dawn begin with a flicker of sunlight breaking through the clouds, and breathe deeply.

Day break. Time to begin again. :-)

Day break. Time to begin again. 🙂

The sunrise begins to color the sky in shades of peach, pink, and orange. Feeling my toes cold against the concrete patio, I feel a moment of appreciation for walls, doors, a roof, and this moment as the sun rises. I put the morning on hold and enjoy the sunrise, until the heavy clouds take back the dawn.

The sunrise is so brief, surely there is time to enjoy it?

The sunrise is so brief, surely there is time to enjoy it?

It’s back to the VA, this morning. I’m feeling hopeful, and mostly pretty emotionally comfortable. I am looking forward to a visit with my traveling partner after I return home. The minutes and hours we spend together are precious. I take time to appreciate love. I check the clock. I smile contentedly; I’m right on schedule.

I’ve no specific expectations of the day, beyond attending this appointment and returning home. I’ll see where the day takes me, and then I’ll know what I’ve done with it, afterward. I’ll practice being present for each moment. I’ll breathe through any stress, remind myself it will pass, and practice not taking things personally. I’ll make a point to enjoy is enjoyable in each moment, however challenging. I’ll let go of my attachment to outcomes, expectations, and assumptions. I’ll walk my own path, and practice making mindful choices that meet my needs over time. Today seems a good day for it. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being

Healing Takes Time

July 9, 2016 //
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It takes time to recover from an injury. I over-eagerly pushed myself to complete a longer than usual last Monday, and arrived home with a sore knee. Tuesday I stayed mostly off of it and it felt much better by day’s end. Wednesday, it felt better still, though not fully recovered, and I undertook some nearby errands on foot – and worsened the injury. I knew better. I chose poorly. Yesterday, with some discipline, I stayed mostly off of it again, and this morning find myself ‘better’ although I still feel it aching, and occasional twinges if there’s any hint of lateral movement…and my brain happily chimes in first thing with hiking suggestions! No. I’m staying off it today, too. 😦 It’s a more difficult choice than I’d like it to be.

A good day to relax in the garden.

A good day to relax in the garden.

Doing what I know is the correct thing, the most effective or appropriate choice to take care of my long-term needs well, is not always the easiest choice. It is, in fact, most often not at all the easiest choice.

After a night of rain showers, and a morning of sunshine, the garden needs little help from me besides enjoying it.

After a night of rain showers, and a morning of sunshine, the garden needs little help from me besides enjoying it.

I think about choices. I think about growth, and progress. I think about the world. I wonder about all the people who seem never to have taken time to reflect on that person in their mirror, to reflect on their choices, their actions, the outcomes. I can’t actually imagine that the vast numbers of ignorant hateful people shoring up our badly broken culture actually ever pause to reflect on what they do, on what they’ve done, or on why it matters so much that they learn another way – that we all learn other, better, ways. (We are each having our own experience. Most people, even really vile hateful people, imagine themselves to be the good guys in their own narrative.) I think about how far I’ve come myself, growing up in ignorance, and learning so much to come so far – to discover how very ignorant I remain. Different things. The more I’ve learned of life, of love, of things universal or specific, of science, of violence, of art, of madmen and monsters in the darkness, of the fictions I craft for myself, of journeys to be taken, and of all the many practices within reach to become a better person than I was yesterday… the more there seems to be to learn. About all of it.

"Where did I get that idea?" "Why do I think so?" These are important questions to ask myself.

“Where did I get that idea?” “Why do I think so?” These are important questions to ask myself.

I’m no longer so frustrated by my own ignorance; this is a journey, and I continue to grow. I may have observed that I am unsure what other purpose life has, than growth, development, learning. We become. We become, in fact, what we practice. (But what we think we know weighs heavily on what we may choose to practice.) I began life knowing nothing. I know so much more now – and so little compared to the vastness of all there is to know. “I am only an egg” says Valentine Michael Smith. I can’t argue with that.

It's a good day to begin again. A good day to learn, and to love. A good day to change the world.

It’s a good day to begin again. A good day to learn, and to love. A good day to change the world.

Today I will spend my time being – and becoming. Painting. Practicing. Breathing. Loving. Treating myself and others as I well as I know how to, and learning to do it just a bit better while I’m at it. Today that’s enough.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Epsom salts, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

These Are Your Choices?

July 8, 2016 //
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I woke up this morning to see, reflected in my Facebook feed, more news of more killings. It saddens me. Black lives do matter. All lives do matter. It’s a statistical given that not all cops are the bad guys. It’s apparent that black lives and white lives are treated differently under the law; the statistical, factual data regarding outcome, analyzed by racial characteristics, make that quite clear. Human beings have great potential – and great potential for violence. Doesn’t seem to matter whether those human beings work in law enforcement or not. Our culture is sick, and as so often happens when an organism is ill, the culture itself has no idea how vile the sickness is, how at risk of collapse this sickness puts us, the true nature of the illness, or how to cure it. It’s beyond sad, it’s indescribably depressing, when one additional detail is added, and it’s a very true thing; we’re choosing this.

Choose something different. I don’t know what else to say about it. Don’t kill people. Are you a cop? Don’t kill that person – yes, there are other choices. Are you a citizen just minding your own business? Don’t kill anyone. Even if you think, in some strange moment, that it seems ‘the only choice’, choose differently anyway. Angry that someone broke your heart? Don’t kill them. Angry that you’ve lost your job? Don’t kill anyone. Angry that life seems to favor some group of people you are not part of, at your expense? Don’t kill them. Seriously. Damn. When was the last time you – yes you, right there – read a news article in which someone was killed and thought to yourself, “well, that makes sense, that was just, and rational, clearly the only choice, and that human being – that dead one – their life had no actual value to them, or anyone else, as it was and killing them was entirely necessary for the remainder of humanity to survive and thrive”? I’m betting… oh hey, never! It has to stop. Doesn’t it? Why are we choosing this, of all things?

I’m frustrated, and I’m frightened. The world doesn’t feel very safe. I still don’t think taking up arms and going around killing people is the solution to that problem. Today let’s not kill people. Let’s choose differently. Let’s change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, War and News of War, Words

What Will You Do With It?

July 7, 2016 //
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I slept late this morning. I had awakened during the night for no obvious reason, and woke breathless, heart pounding, in the grip of anxiety. I forgot to take it at all personally, or to read anything whatever into it, these were simply sensations I woke with. I got up. Opened some windows to let cool night breezes blow through the apartment. I took a seat on my meditation cushion, and gazed into the night sky, obscured by clouds that roiled and shifted, a kaleidoscope in shapes and shades of gray. The world was very quiet. Some time later, apartment cool, heart soothed, content and comfortable (except for this aching knee), I returned to sleep quite easily.

Moments are neither magical nor cursed, not really. They are what I make of them, myself, with my choices, my perspective, my baggage… What I do with any given moment is what makes the moment what it seems to me to be. That probably seems crazily obvious. I need the reminders, sometimes. 😉

Yesterday, after plans to hang out with my traveling partner fell through, I found myself inspired artistically, and spent the afternoon painting. My knee is not really happy with me this morning, and I pay that price in continued pain, instead of feeling it eased today. It’s peculiarly a price worth paying, although a wiser voice in my head suggests that had I approached the work differently, I could have also taken better care of this knee while I painted. Choices. Practices. Verbs. I keep at it, and continue to improve on how I approach such things. I don’t get much chance to be smug about successes…if I stop practicing, I generally forget fairly quickly how I was managing something. LOL These days that’s more a humorous inconvenience than any reason to treat myself badly.

I find myself thinking about the vast potential that exists in life – in my life – and how little of that potential I’ve tapped, even though I’ve been wandering around for 53 years on this gigantic jawbreaker hurtling through space. There’s so much more. It’s really no wonder life can seem so busy, or overwhelming, or mystifying. I’ve spent most of my life just bumbling along from one moment to another, occasionally doing some things (or people) I’ve really enjoyed, but without any really clear plan (or map)… and there’s so much to do and learn! I’m grateful there’s no expectation that being intelligent, well-read, or entertaining to know, requires me to learn everything, because… it’s not really possible. At all. Much of what I think I know, when I reflect on it, actually amounts to acceptance of what some other person has discovered, proven, noted, analyzed, stated more clearly, theorized, or observed, and written down, considerately enough, for the rest of us to benefit from. It gets called ‘education’, and I suppose it serves me well enough. I’d love to see particles in motion… I’d love to hear now-dead languages spoken by native speakers… I’d love to visit all the exotic remote places of great beauty, wonder, historical significance, and mystery, in person… Ah, but it’s not about time, or even money, in so many cases the things I have the good fortune to learn about don’t even exist in this moment, at all. How fantastic that I can learn about these things!

Human experience holds so many potential choices, options, circumstances, and perspectives… live a million lives and I would not have lived them all. There are no duplicates. There are no ‘do overs’. There is this fragile vessel, this mortal lifetime, and this very long and varied menu of choices and possibilities.

What matters most? Is it a diagnosis I don’t yet have? Is it a job I no longer work, or am not yet working? Rent? Bills? Housework? Is love what matters most? Or is it… now? This moment? This one pin point in time that gives me the power to choose my adventure?

Choose. Begin again.

Choose. Begin again.

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, Words

Waking Up Slowly

July 6, 2016 //
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Sometimes I have the sense that the entirety of my life is a process of waking up slowly, but in the case of this morning, the titular remark is an observation relevant only to the morning I face now. This one. I woke really early and went back to sleep. I woke a bit later, on time for taking my morning medication – which I did – then I went back to sleep. I woke about 90 minutes later, again, found another comfortable position. Went back to sleep. This repeated until some minutes ago… when I woke, and after looking at the clock, pulled myself upright to begin the day, rather arbitrarily. I think I could have kept sleeping.

I woke slowly. I woke puzzled by the utter quiet. I still don’t hear any traffic, really, just bird song. The on site contractors working on this and that haven’t yet arrived, and there’s no sound of neighborhood children heading to school… It’s quite peculiar. I make a point to listen – I do hear birdsong. I hear my fingers on the keyboard. The morning is such a quiet one, even with the windows thrown open to the morning breezes, that I easily hear the goose neck kettle finish it’s part in the making off coffee – no whistle, no alarm, just a quiet ‘click’ from the kitchen.

My coffee is good. I sip it contentedly and let the morning slowly come to life. I think about yesterday, and consider what I learned from it, and all the many mysteries that remain. It wasn’t actually a ‘bad day’ or even a ‘bad experience’ being at the VA yesterday, generally speaking. I got my imaging done, and took some interesting pictures while I was waiting. I don’t know more about my health than I did before. I’m still waiting. I’m not at all sure what to make of that. There’s probably something to learn from it. 🙂

Something... something... perspective. (Give me a break, I haven't had my coffee, yet!) :-)

Something… something… perspective. (Give me a break, I haven’t had my coffee, yet!) 🙂

I arrived home incredibly cross on this whole other aggravating level. I canceled plans with my traveling partner; I wasn’t fit to be around, honestly, and I’d have gotten as far from me as I could, if that were an option. My irritability didn’t last, once I undertook to care for my needs. There is no place at the VA convenient for using cannabis, the grim hilarity of which is not lost on me (it’s the only drug I know that actually works effectively on many PTSD symptoms), and I arrived home seriously under-medicated for my stress level. My blood sugar wasn’t an issue, and I was pleased that I’d managed that piece with such care. My noise sensitivity was through the roof – doesn’t matter if that was caused by being under-medicated or due to the stress, resolving either would ease it. I felt angry-but-not-at-anything-specific, and more than anything I just needed quiet in an environment with a lot less stimuli – particularly social stimuli. Public transportation is crowded, noisy, and emotionally loaded during rush hour. Once I was home, it was not-quite-easy to take care of my needs, dial down my stress, ease my frazzled nerves, and find my way to feeling okay, again. It was a nice change to be able to re-calibrate my mood successfully.

Work in progress - like me. :-)

Work in progress – like me. 🙂

Now, here’s today. What’s to be done with that? My knee aches from the long Monday hike, and I’m walking with my hiking staff for support for a few days. The apartment could use some tidying, and there’s laundry to be done. I’m in the middle of an art project I’m emotionally  invested in. I’ve taken up bass guitar, and – well – practice is a necessary thing. I have one appointment, later. The knee is an inconvenience, were it not for that the day plans itself easily walking to the appointment, from the appointment to the store, and home… maybe I can manage that in spite of the knee, taking things slowly and with great care? There’s time. It sounds like a nice day, actually…but it won’t feel so nice if I over-commit, and find myself a mile or more down the trail, unable to continue due to pain. Yoga first and reassess? That seems a wise choice. I finish my coffee feeling purposeful, still wrapped in contentment.

I’m hopeful the day will include a visit with my traveling partner, but I’m not so invested in it that I would be blown off course if the day takes a different turn. That’s a lovely level of flexibility and resilience to have – I’ve worked at it for a while now. Success feels very comfortable. Natural. Learning to let go of attachment, and becoming more emotionally self-sufficient, has been entirely worth making the effort to sort myself out, find out how worthy I am of my own company, and to become a woman I am entirely content to hang out with day-to-day, on my own. 🙂  Still… I miss my partner when we’re apart, and I’m eager to enjoy his company, if not today, then another day – any other day. 🙂

It's a good day for practicing effective practices.

It’s a good day for practicing effective practices.

Today is a good day for sunshine, and getting things done. Today is a good day to smile at strangers. Today is a good day to be the change I wish to see in the world. Right now? Right now is a good time for a second cup of coffee. 😉

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, medical marijuana, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being
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