Archives for the month of: November, 2016
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Language Functions by Agreement

November 24, 2016 //
2

It’s a true thing; language functions by agreement. We understand each other because we believe we share definitions of terms. It’s often true that we do (more or less, individual subtleties and variations notwithstanding). Language also fails to function – by agreement; we often implicitly agree that in order to “keep peace”, to avoid “starting shit”, to evade “drama”, we overlook failures to explicitly clarify our meaning, even though we’ve seen that we are not communicating with clarity.  Well, damn, people, don’t do that. Just saying.

My idea of a beautiful Thanksgiving holiday and yours may differ – it’s generally not the sort of difference that causes terrible heartache, unless someone defies some commonly held familial, tribal, or community tradition based on novel (or merely outside the group) thinking. What about words like “equal”, “truth”, “non-biased”, “fair”, “considerate”, “honest”…? Our dictionaries differ, and we do tend – as human primates – to give our own point of view a great deal more weight than someone we perceive as “other” than ourselves. We find a lot of words to fight over.

It's hard to unsay the words.

It’s hard to unsay the words.

Last night OPD made a special delivery to my place, unexpectedly. My peaceful evening was shattered by angry voices. Not just angry – the sort of enraged fury that seems unique to people who are frustrated, struggling, emotionally invested, feeling unheard, and coming from a place of learned helplessness and impotent rage. Domestic violence makes that sound. It’s that bit just beyond lovers quarreling, that scary place where imminent violence seems highly likely…. and it’s not okay. Entirely unacceptable to treat love in that frightening, disrespectful, and callous fashion. It’s entirely unacceptable to treat one’s neighbors to it, either. It was after 10 pm, after community “quiet hours” begin, and completely audible through the walls. I could have put in earplugs and turned up the stereo to mask it… but I was acutely aware of two very important (to me) things: firstly, those are my friends over there, treating each other in that shabby fashion. Secondly, and most importantly, many years ago I promised myself I would not be a bystander to domestic violence. No excuses, no fear, no “it’s not my business” – no standing by and letting someone go through that, the way I once had to, isolated, frightened, hurting, injured, and without emotional support.

I threw on my coat, and went next door. We have a shared understanding on the knock we use; a roommate opened the door, knowing it was me. He had that “I’m staying out this, sorry about the noise” look of apology and discomfort on his young face. I nodded as he opened the door ever so slightly wider, and I walked purposefully past him toward the ongoing screaming. I could feel my symptoms surging from my own stress; this particular kind of verbal violence, emotional violence, the screaming at each other with such relentless deaf fury triggers my PTSD just about faster than anything else can – and I needed it to stop. For me. I stepped between them and began the process of separating them, helping them de-escalate, reminding them their behavior is simply not acceptable adult behavior (and no, I don’t care who you are, or who did what, or who is “right”, or the why of any of it all – knock that shit off, it’s not okay).

He had asked her to leave. It’s his place. I backed him up on that, knowing they definitely needed some moments or hours to calm the fuck down and get their heads right. She threw drama “I’m not taking anything! No one will ever find me! I’m never coming back!”. It was bullshit and drama, spoken from an emotional place, feeling hurt, angry, frightened, stressed out, not heard, treated badly… all of the things. Still unacceptable drama and bullshit, and I really wish someone had firmly said as much to me when I was a much younger, very volatile woman, myself. (Boundary setting is a useful skill. I am grateful to have survived my first marriage to undertake to learn some.)

She left, he was still storming, wanting to justify his anger, to explain himself, to demonstrate how his reaction was understandable. I didn’t argue those points, just kept reminding him the situation was not about “right”, only that it was an emotional situation in which his behavior was not appropriate. I pointed out how much time he has taken to grow as a man, to become the man he most wants to be, on his terms, and that this behavior was no part of that. I reminded him that his own dignity and self-respect were at stake here. I reminded him how young she is, and that we are each having our own experience. I reminded him that I, myself, for my own reasons, cannot tolerate that kind of violent behavior in my vicinity, and that indeed I do consider that emotional and verbal violence to be “violent” and that it causes human beings great pain. Hell, he was obviously hurting, himself. He was hurting himself. Hurting her. No one needed to raise a hand in violence; the damage was being done quite efficiently using only words.

I went home, hoping things would stay quiet. Already pretty stressed out to be exposed to the drama and bullshit. Triggered, aware, sad for them – hoping I’d done more good than harm, and hadn’t burned bridges with friends over it. Would I choose to intervene if I knew with certainty it would end my friendship with someone? Yes, I would. That shit is not okay – and its high time people (all of us) were more committed to saying so, each and every time it comes up. Violence? Not okay. Racism? Not okay. Exploitation? Not okay. Being a dick to people on mass transit? Not okay. Small stuff and large stuff. None of my business? Well… I suppose if I am content to watch the world burn, maybe that would be reasonable. I think we can do better. I think we can treat each other well; there are verbs involved, and a shared responsibility for the quality of life for all our neighbors and brothers and sisters and strangers and “others” who are not like us. The screaming and abuse has got to stop though. Non-negotiable, at least for me.

I heard the door open and close next-door, a little later. Quiet voices. I sat with my memories. It was a long time before I slept. I woke this morning, Thanksgiving Day. I woke this morning, grateful. I’m grateful to be alive. To have survived domestic violence – to have survived hell – with a heart still capable of loving, and eager to see my Traveling Partner; the first person to look me in the face in a moment of emotional violence, utter hysteria and rage (years ago, early in our relationship), and say “this is not okay, and you have to stop”. Thank you, Love.

Love matters most.

Love matters most.

Today is a good day to be grateful for the easy stuff – and the hard stuff too. Today is a good day to appreciate love and lovers and moments of profound change of perspective. Today is a good day to be honest, to be frank, to be compassionate, to listen deeply, and to love well. Today is a good day to change the world. ❤

Thank you for reading. Thank you for everything you do to become the person you most want to be. If you’re feeling up to it – let’s change the world. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Embrace It or Change It

November 23, 2016 //
2

I woke to the sound of a pounding no-nonsense rain hammering the chimney cover. It sounds like an act of vengeance, all beat and no melody. Because I enjoy rain, generally, I enjoy the sound. What if I disliked the rain, what then? It rains a lot here.

I glance across the table at my winter coat, draped over the other chair, and near to the heater, where I left it last night. I’d arrived after a rainy commute, pleased that my winter coat kept me both warm and dry. I had been thinking, on and off, about needing a winter coat. My last one managed to wrap me in rain resistant comfort (no longer quite waterproof) for 5 years.

Evening before last, I stood at the light rail platform waiting for the train in the rain, in a crowd, and realizing I just did not want to stand all the way home, and this particular train was clearly going to be standing room only, I ducked into a nearby discount retailer on a whim. Out of the rain, warm and dry, I could pass 15 minutes walking the aisles and thinking about life and then take the next train… Feeling purposeful, I walked to the outerwear section, and flipped through the coats. It was the fabric and cut of the thing that got my attention first, olive drab, cotton blend, and a not-quite-an-army-parka look to it. It made me smile. I tried it on and it fit like it was tailored and felt comfortable to move in. Warm. I tried talking myself out of it by trying on other coats. The alternatives did not fit as well, or (to my eye) look as good. I looked at the price tag – doable. It amuses me now that I didn’t wear it for the trip home that night.

Yesterday  morning wasn’t raining, but it was quite chilly. My coat was warm and dry. Comfortable. When I left the office at the end of the day, it was raining. It rains a lot here. I haven’t yet given this coat a water-proofing, and I wondered how well it would stand up to the rain without it? I arrived home, warm and dry, coat wet but not soaked through. A win all around. I even enjoyed the night walk, through the raindrops, across rain-slick pavement, and over the Hawthorne Bridge, wrapped in warmth. I’d have been completely miserable, soaked to the skin and cold to the bone, without a coat. I guess it’s more or less “winter” here now. I mean, the sort of winter we get, which is mostly chilly and muddy and wet, and not very frozen except for a few days in January, generally, and sometimes some snow in December.

The evening passed fairly quietly, in a state of great contentment. My neighbors were partying, which is common and not usually a problem, but the evening’s fun was doing them in with its excesses on this occasion, and at times that was fairly unpleasant to listen to. We usually hang out together a lot more, but since the break-in I have felt much less social, for no other reason than that this is my space and I intend to reclaim it for myself. I made a point to bitch gently about the noise, they were delighted that I am okay, and honestly I felt the same; reassured that they are okay, too, and that we matter to each other. The remainder of the evening was quiet, and I felt asleep feeling safe and content.

Huh. That’s a lot of words about a rainy evening and a winter coat. I’m not sure why. I think the point I was making is something more or less on the order of “don’t stand around being miserable… change something!” 🙂  As true this morning as it was last night, as it was the night before, as it was on election day, as it has been in the anxious days since then… Don’t like the state of things? Change. Change you, or change your choices, or change your circumstances – or embrace the state of things and change your perspective; it is not a requirement in life that we endure misery indefinitely, and certainly there is no requirement that we choose it. So… why do we? I’m not sure taking time out of a day to troubleshoot that is a productive choice. The why, it seems, mires me in a spiral of discontent. Accepting that choosing misery is something people do, something I have done myself, something I remain capable of, is probably much more valuable than knowing why, exactly. I already know enough to be able to choose change. 🙂

Search all the books that matter most to you, there are still verbs involved. :-)

Search all the books that matter most to you, there are still verbs involved. 🙂

I look around this morning with new eyes, more easily able to see the emotional “wear and tear” of the recent break-in. Resilient? Yes. Able to bounce-back? More so than ever before. Unaffected? Hardly; I see the signs of how the break-in affected my sense of safety and security all around me. Small details let go that are usually well-managed: a pile of odds and ends paperwork things has accumulated on the dining table, quite out of the ordinary for me these days, and I have been avoiding the studio entirely in a less-than-ideally-mentally-healthy way. Small signs that I took the violation of my space pretty hard. Reminders exist, too, in the sudden cessation of socializing with my neighbors; I come home, and lock the door. TV gone, which isn’t that big a deal frankly, but the result rather strangely is that I have spent the evenings and mornings quietly – utter quiet, no stereo, no music, no conversation. I feel safer in the quiet stillness, less likely to overlook an intrusion, or be caught by surprise.

Last night, I filled the apartment with music for a while, as I did over the weekend. This morning I am more awake, more aware of things needing to be done that have been let go for a few days. It has been a week. I’m okay now, save for the remaining indignity of being told what my possessions are “worth” by a faceless corporate entity that very much just wants to profit from my fear of disaster without having to pay out for actual disasters that actually happen. I’ll get through that, too. I am capable of great endurance.

A basic morning.

A basic morning.

I’m also capable of great change. Today is a good day to choose change. Today is a good day to treat myself well, wrapped in a warm coat and a smile, walking in the rain like it just doesn’t matter – because it doesn’t have to be endured, naked and alone. I have choices. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, winter, Words

Each Morning Following the One Before

November 22, 2016 //
0

I woke far too early, but wasn’t awake for long. Well, sort of. I woke coughing, almost choking, “on dust”. My throat was dry and scratchy. I looked at the clock, it was 3 am, one of those difficult to call bits of timing… Stay up? Go back to sleep? I took my morning medication and gave going back to sleep a try, pretty certain I’d be up in a few minutes. I may or may not have been asleep when the alarm went off; it came as no surprise, and did not startle me. I feel rested, I woke quite easily, if I was actually sleep. It’s sometimes hard to tell with me – I sometimes dream I am awake. lol

My traveling partner beat me to wakefulness this morning. His greeting was waiting for me when I picked up my phone. It was a lovely few minutes of conversation to share and start my morning, once I had replied.

I refrain from looking at the news; it has become a cesspool of hate, deceit, treachery, disappointment, and did I mention the hate? Ick. I’m also generally staying away from Facebook, even making a practice of logging out if I do access it at all. I removed it from my phone; I have to make a specific effort to check it, which includes reinstalling it, and logging in. This is not a “head in the sand” manuever; I am taking care of myself, and the surge in hatefulness is hard to bear witness to with regularity. So. Less of that. Less of all of that.

I’m not ignoring the hate, I really can’t. It’s not okay at all. I just make my stand quite publicly in everyday situations, every day. Giving up my seat on the bus to the pregnant woman who the other commuters are making an obvious point of ignoring. Saying out loud “Ma’am, would you like to take this seat? I see that the younger commuters don’t realize how difficult maintaining your balance would be, pregnant on a moving train” or sitting down next to a young woman who some creepy dude is intruding on, and making light conversation until he moves away, or gets off the train, or intervening in creep-tacular moments of weird with a firm “hey, that’s not okay, and it needs to stop” out loud, quite audibly, and no nonsense, directly to the person being objectionable, eye-contact free of charge. No heroics, I’m just pretty fed up with hateful bullshit, and at a point in life where I am fairly fearless about calling it out.

In the simplest terms, I’m no “bystander” – this is my life. If I don’t like hateful bullshit, it’s important to explicitly object to it. Every time. Tolerance is not an appropriate reaction to the mistreatment of others.

Just a reminder how pointless it really is to blame the incoming individual (for the role of president) for all the hate and rudeness in the land. He may have given it branding and explicit approval, but he’s not the cause; all the same things that cause it everywhere else cause it in him as well. We make it right by making it right. We right the wrongs by righting the wrongs. We end our silence by speaking up. It’s a very good time to practice treating others well, and learning that treating ourselves can’t be at the expense of others. Attempting to treat oneself well at the expense of others, or at the expense of the world, rather misses the point of treating anything well at all.

I'll make a point to stop to appreciate beauty, too.

I’ll make a point to stop to appreciate beauty; it is one way I treat myself well, and also very much worth doing. So many verbs!

I’ll spend the rest of the morning preparing for the day, meditating on loving kindness, practicing the practices that improve my quality of life in each moment, building a more resilient, emotionally intelligent woman to face in the mirror each morning. It’s a good morning for that. It’s a good day for kindness. It’s a good day to be the change I want to see in the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words

Morning Lands With a Thud

November 21, 2016 //
0

Ouch. I woke to the alarm after a strangely interrupted and unsatisfying night’s sleep, and somehow, for some reason, as I rolled over and put my feet on the floor, I continued in that general direction and managed to… sort of… well, I rather clumsily pitched forward and wacked my head on the wall. At this point, it’s mostly amusing and odd. It was, initially, painful and aggravating. What the hell?

I stood far longer in the shower than I generally do, and the feeling that I am not quite awake persists even now. It wasn’t that I went to bed especially late (or early) or did anything unusual in the evening that might have messed with my sleep. My sleep tracker suggests I woke long enough to register my wakefulness 6 times during the night. I recall 3 of those. The last detected moment of restlessness was around 4 am, and when the alarm woke me at 5  am I was deeply asleep – so that’ll be the thing, then. I’d have done well to just get up that last time instead of coaxing myself back to sleep. lol Wish I’d have thought to – on the other hand, sleeping feels so good… 🙂 This morning I am relying on my coffee to ease me into being really awake.  I’ll get there, I know I will.

This morning isn’t the easy morning yesterday was. I’ve now managed to poke myself in the eye with a tissue, and spill coffee in my lap. I’ve dropped a spoonful of oatmeal onto my shirt. (I’ve basically gotten dressed three times now.) Yep – a good day to practice being kind to myself. Yeah… I think I can manage that one without causing myself an injury. lol

I’m so very human. You, too? Yeah. There are some days that rate a “do over” more than others, and it’s rare to get that chance. Instead, in my frustration, I imagine myself a small cork bobbing along in a vast ocean. For a moment, it seems there is nothing much to do about the state of things besides “going with it”, and sometimes just relaxing and being with the moment really is an excellent starting point. Eventually, I’ll feel more awake, more capable, and become more fish than cork in life’s ocean of choices. For now… I sip my coffee, quite carefully.

Taking time, making room for this moment, now.

Taking time, making room for this moment, now.

Today is a good day to practice mindfulness. Today is a good day to slow things down to a speed appropriate to my awareness, and catch up at my own pace. Today is a good day to remember we are each having our own experience, and make time for kindness; we could all use a little more of that. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, Words

Morning Comes Gently

November 20, 2016 //
0

It’s relatively new for me to bounce back from trauma “so easily”. “Easy” isn’t a fair descriptor, really; I’ve worked hard to get here, practiced a lot of practices, and taken careful thought-out researched steps supported by the latest cognitive science and neuroscience on the topic of implicit memory, PTSD, cognition, learned helplessness, and behavior. I read a lot. Still… it feels so much easier. Considering how much of our experience is entirely and completely subjective (to the point of being largely made-up shit we’ve crafted internally), this is good enough to be “real”. In this instance, enough is quite literally enough; building lasting contentment through awareness and acceptance of sufficiency has become a remarkable way to maintain a state of relative joy and happiness much of the time. I bounce back. I am resilient.

What is “real”, though? Good question. Let’s not do that, today. 😀

This morning I woke, and still stumbling around groggily and sort of careening around the place lacking any obvious coordination, I found myself unexpectedly cleaning the faint smudge of soot from the tile around the fireplace. What the hell, though? I wasn’t even awake yet. lol I purposefully set that aside (admittedly, once it was finished), and made coffee. I stepped onto the patio, inhaling the fresh morning air, and gazing out across the meadow into the autumn treetops beyond. No hint of fear or anxiety. Nice. I refreshed the dish I’ve been using as a squirrel feeder, after emptying it of the rainwater it had collected. I sat down with my coffee, just inside the open patio door, letting the fresh air fill the apartment, and breathing deeply the scents of autumn. It’ll be a nice day for a fire in the fireplace, later perhaps.

I was hoping I’d see birds at the feeder, and have a visiting squirrel stop by. The patio was empty. I sipped my coffee contentedly, and picked up my phone and began to shop computer parts, thinking perhaps instead of replacing my laptop, I’d build a new desktop computer; I rarely actually take my laptop anywhere, or even move it off my desk. I like it where it is, docked, ready, and reliably always right there where I expect it to be. I am probably not the person for whom laptops were invented. 🙂 After some minutes of exploring the options in cases, hard drives, motherboards, power supplies, CPUs, cooling fans, and whatnot, I looked up and noticed that quite a few meadow birds had arrived for brunch, and a squirrel visitor had also stopped by.

Sunday brunch

Sunday brunch, no reservations

I switched my phone from shopping device to camera, and enjoyed getting a couple pictures of my visitors, before setting it aside and just chilling, sipping my coffee, and watching the busy brunch unfold on the patio. It’s a popular spot; the birds come and go, competing for their moment to grab some fast food. The smaller birds wait in the nearby pine for their turn, rather than compete with the flicker who is clearly much larger than the size of the suet feeder is intended to support. She playfully spins it around again and again, which drives away some of the red wing blackbirds who don’t hesitate to take a space quite near her. The chickadees and tiny sparrows prefer to pick at what falls into the nearby flower pots, patiently.

She's a regular

She’s a regular

The squirrel who has been coming around has a couple characteristic scars from surviving life in a busy apartment community full of cats, and is a recognizable regular visitor. Her ears are tiny, crumpled, and folded against her head – I don’t know if she is a different sort of squirrel, or if this is an individual characteristic. She watches me as I watch her, and no longer darts away for safety if I approach the screen door. Some mornings, I sit quite close on my meditation cushion, and sip my coffee while she nibbles at the corn and peanuts I’ve left out for her. If I say something aloud, she gives it some thought, listening to me, cocking her head and watching me more closely as she eats. Shared curiosity. One morning recently, before I left for work, and while I was airing out the apartment for the day, I’d forgotten to check the dish on the patio; it was empty. She came to the screen door that morning and got my attention with a loud squeak or call of some sort, and ran away. I looked out and noticed the empty dish, and refilled it before locking up and leaving for the day. I returned to an empty dish that evening. We have communicated successfully. This delights me.

We are each living thinking creatures, each having our own experience.

We are each living thinking creatures, each having our own experience.

The rainy chilly morning continues. I close the patio door, and sit down at my very borrowed feeling work laptop to write. It’s quite an ordinary Sunday. I’ll do some laundry. I’ll get some housekeeping done. I’ll read, write, practice with my guitar, meditate, take a decently long walk (probably after the laundry is done). I have my own way with these things. This is my life. This apartment mostly doesn’t feel comfortably “like home” anymore, and even that is okay; it tends to keep me focused on a future place, a future home. For now, I enjoy what is, more than I grieve what isn’t, and take time to relax and enjoy each moment on its own merits. Good enough.

Enough. Yeah… enough is a good place to be, and it doesn’t generally require as much emotional heavy lifting as chasing more, better, and happily ever after. There’s less frustrated yearning in “enough”. There’s less disappointment, by far. Getting to “enough” wasn’t achievable until I learned to let go of my attachment to what I thought I “should” have, or be, or get, or achieve… That persistent need to be “right”, that had to go, too. The sense that someone else’s “more” had anything at all to do with my perceived “less”, yep, right into the waste bin with that as well.  It’s been a complicated challenge learning to truly take life at my own pace, to really walk my own path without comparing my journey to life’s other travelers,  and to stop behaving as though my own experience is in conflict or competition with the experiences of others.

I sip my coffee and smile. It’s quite an ordinary Sunday. I’m quite an ordinary woman of middle-aged years and generally quiet living. None of this is sleight of hand, or illusion. Whether I’ve had less, or had more, I’ve generally had “enough” – the choice to be aware of it has been mine all along. How I treat myself in the face of trauma or change, that’s been mine, too. It isn’t always as obvious as it seems this morning, on a quiet Sunday, sharing the moment with meadow birds, and a squirrel. I’m grateful for the moment of awareness. I’m appreciative of feeling content on an ordinary Sunday.

Today is a good day to enjoy what is. Today is a good day to embrace sufficiency. Today is a good day to find joy in contentment, and appreciate having enough.

 

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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