Archives for the month of: September, 2016

He’s gone, now. Like a dust-devil on the open desert; approaching from a distance, I had an idea my traveling partner would likely head my way at some point, and probably need to stop by for this or that, but no clear expectation of timing. While that’s not my own preference for managing details, I am content to enjoy him when I can. He suggests, by phone, at some point yesterday, he’d be by right about… whenever he’s here, really, and that’s what I heard, regardless of what it was he said, which I no longer recall.  I only knew he’d come, at some point, and I’d feel his arms around me for a moment, before – just as with that allegorical dust-devil – he’s quite gone again. I find myself smiling this morning, grateful for love’s moments, unconcerned over love’s lack of commitment to efficient scheduling. 🙂

the twilight of dawn

Letting go of attachment takes practice. I’m still practicing.

His planning shifted with the day. He would be here… He might not make it… He definitely wouldn’t make it that day, but would make time the next… Then, quite late… “I’m on my way. I’ll be there in about 8 minutes.” No argument from me, and no stress. Oh, sure, this level spontaneity isn’t so much my thing, but being bitchy about it tends to degrade the general quality of our experience together in the moment, and he is aware that I like a bit of planning, some structure, all that – if he could offer it in that moment, he would have, because when he can, he does.

develops

Embracing impermanence requires practice. I’m still practicing. 

Life is not a freight train on rails following a set, fixed, known path, with a clear schedule to which it adheres, not even “generally”. Why would love be constrained by a timetable when life herself can’t get her shit together enough to make and follow a workable plan, day-to-day?! LOL Planning and having a fairly clear idea of the day and week ahead, those are my wants, needs,  and inclinations, and it absolutely makes sense to me that I tend to organize my time in a fairly firm way. Other people find less value in the routine and predictable, and seek greater spontaneity in their adventures. I’m learning to let go and avoid suffering in life when plans fall through, or reality refuses to comply with my expectations, which are very often upended by life, by love, by circumstance, by whim, by opportunity, by choice, by chance… Life is far more important than the schedule with which someone tries to regulate and manage it. 😀

the sun rises

I begin again. A lot. 

Damn, I do miss him, though, already. That’s okay, too. The whirlwind moments of his brief visit were shared in the company of friends, dear to us both. He was here! His gear was quickly, rather sloppily assembled (also not my preference, and it had been planned differently lol). Conversation happening, his gear still ends up packed, somehow. Much fun was had in those brief moments together. Laughter. Hugs. Friendship. Warmth. Love. Tenderness. Kindness. Adulting. I’m still lingering on those precious moments, because I have learned they are by far more important and more worthy of savoring than the poignant quiet moment at the end of the day, alone in the darkness. Here I sit, with my coffee and my quiet smile, content and wrapped in love. 🙂

Mmmm... Life is good.

Mmmm… Life is good.

We become what we practice. There are verbs involved. 🙂

Don’t be a dick. It’s a good beginning. It’s also “Wheaton’s Law“, and a solid rule for living comfortably among others. 🙂

This morning I woke up comfortably 10 minutes before 5 am, well-rested, and having slept through the night. I considered going back to sleep long enough to roll over and find real comfort (no real reason to insist I get up early), but my mind was awake and ready for the new day. I got up. Yoga. Meditation. A few minutes gazing contentedly out into the night sky, still filled with stars. I sat down to write with a smile…

Seriously. Just don't. :-)

Seriously. Just don’t. 🙂

Yeah. Wow. Thanks, Facebook, for one more opportunity to practice openness, compassion, and acceptance that we are each having our own experience. The lessons in life’s curriculum are sometimes unpleasant. I’m quite taken by surprise by the hateful, fearful, narrow-minded, judgmental things people can say about one another… although, rarely about those dear to them, generally they save the hate for generalizations they’ve made about groups of ‘others’ they assume don’t share their values – or, apparently, their humanity. It’s appalling enough from strangers. I’m (figuratively) stricken speechless when it comes from someone on my own friends list. :-\ Don’t be a dick.

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…But… It really is an opportunity to practice acceptance, and to practice a kinder approach to others. Because we are each having our own experience, asking questions instead of making assumptions becomes a way of finding out more, when I approach a friend fearlessly and ask why they’ve said what they’ve said, and inquire, too, how it is to be taken. (I often find that what I’ve read is intended sarcastically, or ironically, and I find those qualities difficult to detect in text, without additional context, myself.) Sometimes people legitimately don’t seem aware that they may sound hateful. Sometimes I straight up ask that question, “Are you aware how hateful you sound, here?” Sometimes I don’t really know what to do, as when a family member or loved one of someone dear to me says something clearly hurtful, cruel, diminishing, or abusive to my dear one; sometimes involving myself is clearly a mistake, or potentially unwelcome. Lately, there’s been a lot of hateful rhetoric on Facebook. I worry that people don’t realize that it does matter, and is hurtful. Don’t be a dick.

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No, everyone isn’t being soft or weak when they don’t care to be abused, or refuse to tolerate abusive dialogue. No, it isn’t ludicrous when vulnerable, wounded people want a ‘safe space’ to be heard. No, it isn’t unreasonable when traumatized people still dealing with PTSD want trigger warnings to more easily choose to avoid triggering topics, language, or people. These are people seeking to take better care of themselves – and that’s entirely okay, and rational, and when they must also stand up to ridicule or resistance just to request that support, it’s beyond okay – it becomes heroic. Don’t be a dick.

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Attacking people because they hold a political view you don’t like? Don’t be a dick. It’s possible to make your point without personal attacks. Using abusive attacking language toward someone you say you love because you’re angry with them (or the world)? Don’t be a dick. Why would you treat people you love that way in the first place? Really? How is that love? Feeling resentful that someone struggling reaches out for help and gets it, because you struggle too and “no one helps you“? Don’t be a dick. Isn’t it okay to ask for help? Isn’t it okay for someone to choose provide it? Isn’t it okay to receive it? Just seriously don’t be a dick. How hard is that?

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“Don’t be a dick.” It’s a great practice. It does require some self-awareness, and a willingness to be honest with yourself in your worst moments, able to acknowledge that you are, indeed, being a dick in the first place. Then, the next step, fucking stop doing that! It would be a nice value add to also make it right if you’ve already gone ahead and followed your worst instincts, and treated someone badly because you were committed to being a dick, instead of being the person you most want to be. Choose your words with care. Think how you would take it yourself if you heard those words, delivered just that way, by someone you think cares about you, in a similar moment. Not liking the sound of it? Do you find yourself reaching for a rationalization? (Because, if you do, it’s probably a dick moment that you could let go, just saying; kind words need no justification.) Don’t be a dick.

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For those reading these words, thinking “fuck kindness” (and I know you’re out there), I can only say “please reconsider”. I know you’re having your own experience, but damn, the stain left on our own hearts by our own ugliness saturate our souls far more deeply than the hurtful words of others ever can. Hate changes us. Don’t be a dick.

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It could be that you live in the context of hate and fear every day. It may not be that easy to tell that you’re being a dick, if everyone else around you is also being a dick. Brief hurt looks preceded by uncomfortable laughter are a good sign to look for; just because hurtful words are laughed off by our friends, doesn’t mean we’re being encouraged to continue with being such dicks all the damned time. Just stop. It’s not as funny as we may have grown to think it is, and it’s a form of humor specifically based on hurting people based on vulnerability or disadvantage. We can do better as human beings. We don’t have to be dicks. It’s a choice.

As with any choice, there are verbs involved.

As with any choice, there are verbs involved.

I’m aware that these words likely won’t really be heard by any of the humans who need to hear them most; some people are righteous about being dicks, convinced of their position with moral certainty, comfortable telling the world to ‘toughen up’ and swallow more of their shit. I’m still saying it – because I won’t be that friend who let you keep being a dick without telling you I find it unpleasant. 😉

Practice the practices that take you closer to being the human being you most want to be.

Practice the practices that take you closer to being the human being you most want to be.

Today will be a lovely day to be the best of who you know yourself to be, to be kinder than you must, to be more open to hearing about someone else’s experience, to provide a moment of help because you can, to reach across one of the many fairly random pointless divides we have created among ourselves as human beings and say “that’s not relevant to your humanity”, and treat each other truly well.

Swim or float. Dance or run away. Choose or be swept away by chance, and change. Things do change. It amuses me that one of life’s constants is change, itself.

I woke early, feeling I’d ‘overslept’, but only because I’m resetting my internal clock to wake more precisely at 5 am daily, in preparation for returning to the work force. (Why is it a “work force“, exactly?) Unsure what woke me, I rose, did my ‘oh crap I’m so stiff’ yoga sequence, then made my way toward coffee. I smile, mindful that my routines are at risk of breaking with my traveling partner staying over. It’s on me to manage my self-care, and ensure I stay on track with fitness tasks, and meditation. It is a comfortable awareness where once it felt only frustrating. I keep practicing. So many things are about the experience of a practice, more than any end result, that I’ve gotten much more skilled at not being invested in a particular outcome, which seems also quite comfortable now.

I think I’m saying I recognize I’m fit to return to work, by my own understanding of my self, on my own terms. 🙂 It’s a welcome observation.

My smile rests comfortably on my face; I smile a lot these days, genuine, natural, unforced. It feels good. Smiles feel good; if the facial expression I’m holding in place doesn’t feel good, it’s probably not smiling, however many teeth I may be showing. lol

Change is a real thing, though, and sweeps in as a storm as often as it creeps  in slowly like the tide. Either way, it’s fairly unavoidable. I expected this would be quite a solitary week. It is a week spent in the company of friends, and with my traveling partner. I expected I probably would not see my traveling partner for many days, from last Thursday, to next Tuesday sometime, but here’s he, now, having his morning coffee…and there’s some chance we’ll dine together after I am off work my first day back, next Monday. Not all the changes thrown my way are of consequence, some are quite wonderful and pleasant, some have nothing whatever to do with me, rippling over my experience like the waves of some pebble tossed into still water. Change is, I have no say in that. I’m learning to swim. Learning to dance. Learning to choose to be changed along the way, with a calm heart, and wide-eyed with wonder.

Each time for the first time, each moment the only moment.  ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

Each time for the first time, each moment the only moment. ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

It’s a lovely morning on the fading edge of summer. The days grow shorter, and cooler. The nights are becoming longer, and chilly. I begin the days in darkness now, watching the sunrise as I write is far more rare; it hasn’t yet begun, and I am almost finished here, this morning. The wheel turns.

My partner’s voice resonates with warmth and love (or simply because his deeper male voice sounds so to my ears) when he steps into the studio for a word or two. A welcome interruption… I’m nearly finished here, and the day is getting started. There’s a life to live, and a world to explore! There will probably be changes… where I am an ‘agent of chaos’ in my own life, my traveling partner is as often an ‘agent of change’, through his adventurous spirit and spontaneity. Change is. It’s far easier to surrender to the inevitability of change, and to grow, than to resist it – and to grow in some other direction, with considerably less comfort. LOL 😉

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I sat for some time at the patio window, meditating. It wasn’t a fancy moment, just very chill and quiet and comfortable. Enough. Noise, excitement, adventure, the going, the doing, all these things have their place; I also love stillness. There are things to be found in the stillness, alone on a meditation cushion. It doesn’t require fancy props, or tapes of soothing voices rambling pleasantly, or very strict adherence to specific posture or breathing techniques, and it’s quite free – as in, no financial cost. It’s odd that it was so late in life to find my way to this specific practice. I’m glad I finally did.

Perspective matters. I often find it here. ;-)

Perspective matters. I often find it here. 😉

Now and then a friend asks about my meditation practice. They’ve tried, and it “didn’t work” for them, or they didn’t understand the peculiarities of some branded practice of meditation. Too complicated. Too hard. No time. Until as recently as 4 years ago, I would have said “meditation doesn’t work for me”, too. It’s true that what I was doing that I was calling meditation was not doing for me the things that meditation could purportedly do. It was a pretty big deal to understand that there is more than one contemplative practice to choose from that can be called meditation, and some of them are pretty interchangeable (outcome-wise), others less so. Some are an easy fit for my lifestyle, others less so. There are experts who write about them all.  Still… the basics are pretty basic… Start with a moment.

This moment.

This moment.

Just breathe. Take a moment for you. Sit comfortably. Be aware of your breathing. Let your thoughts drift past without investing in them, or interacting with them, as though from a distance. Breathe. Deeply. Comfortably. Focus on being aware – of your breath, of how you feel, of your emotions. Observe yourself without judgment. If you find your mind wandering, bring it back to your breath. Again. And again. It’s a practice. It doesn’t have to be fancier than that. My results vary. There are verbs involved. It’s enough. 🙂

It is a lovely morning. I woke rested and feeling content and comfortable in my skin; it’s a nice feeling with which to start the day. I breathe the cool morning air deeply. I sip my coffee. I think of friends. I think about my traveling partner, wishing him well wherever he is this morning.

I eye my fitness tracker suspiciously, irked by an obvious lie; it says I slept well, continuously through the night*. I didn’t at all. I was up a number of times because I foolishly drank 3 glasses of water in the last hour I was awake! I start down the path of troubleshooting that, reading user reviews and forums, and finding myself “inactive” on my tracker – so much so that a hummingbird lingers for some time at the feeder, watching me not doing anything. I have a thought, at that point… am I really investing time teasing apart this puzzle, now? Does it matter that much? No, seriously – am I actually going to require atomic-clock accuracy from a value-priced piece of wearable technology I bought on a whim primarily to count steps and monitor activity? (Well? I’m really asking here…) Do I actually need that to achieve my goals? (No.) Is approximate relative precision enough for my own purposes? (Of course it is.)

This image is not "accurate"; it was taken on a different day, at a different time, and it is not "now".

This image is not “accurate”; it was taken on a different day, at a different time, and it is not “now”.

It’s funny/not funny how easily I can be tempted by discontent. How quickly “enough” can become seemingly inadequate – over expectations and assumptions. I was surprised by the sleep feature yesterday, because of the level of detail. This morning I woke having assumed it would reliably do precisely that, daily. It didn’t. I could curse the device, become dissatisfied, cling to wanting more until it feels like I need more, then rush to spend more money on a more expensive device because it seems like more is necessary to achieve “enough”. It’s a trick. A lie. Enough is actually enough – that’s sort of how sufficiency works, actually. 🙂 For me, and it is very much an individual thing, it is enough to be mindfully aware of how my devices are actually working, and account for that in my understanding of the data they provide. Done. Troubleshooting over. Satisfaction with my morning restored. So easy. 😉

(No, it isn’t easy. Yes, it takes practice. Sure, there are verbs involved. Of course, your results may vary. It may  not be obvious, but it  is worth the practice…well…it has been for me.)

Isn’t it funny how easily misled we are by marketing, by the media, by the stories we tell ourselves about what is, what isn’t, and what we think we have to have to get by? Something to think about…

Today is a lovely day to let go of untested assumptions. Today is a good day to be aware that my expectations have no effect on reality. Today is a good day to walk away from arguments – even with myself. Today is a good day for brunch with a friend… It won’t change the world, but I do like brunch. 🙂

 

*Followup note: as of some three hours after I woke (well, that’s when I noticed), my devices are now all fully synced, and the sleep tracking has updated. I’m pleased by that, and more pleased that I managed my primate drive for immediate gratification with some skill this morning. We become what we practice. 🙂