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Not YOLO, But Yeah, Probably YOLO

January 24, 2018 //
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The first time I heard “YOLO”, I remember being rather struck by it in a positive way, which was before I was fully aware how often it is attached to a level of foolhardiness or stupidity so vast as to be quite noteworthy, and… on purpose. Wild. Kinda scary. Definitely not at all what I might mean were I to observe that “you only live once“. Not at all. I’d be saying “live your life – truly live it, awake, and aware, and willful, you may not get another shot at this, so do your best”.

I try, every day, to take my own best advice. Sometimes I even succeed.

I am enjoying a relaxed quiet evening, but it isn’t “everything”. I plan the weekend, making sure my needs over time are considered ahead of the needs of the moment (which often aren’t truly needs at all, but instead some distraction or alluring momentary fancy). I smile when I realize how excited I am to have two days in a row to sleep in, and no driving. I feel that twist, and become a pang of regret and loneliness; I won’t see my Traveling Partner this weekend. I do need some real down time, though, a chance to rest, and a chance to take care of this space I live in, and some time to finish moving into my studio, so that days I am inspired to paint are as effortless as days I am inspired to write. These are things I need. 🙂

My mind wanders to that dark corner labeled “all the shit you forgot to take care of”, and instead of a panic attack, I find myself just sort of mentally “tidying up”, letting myself consider a large number of very assorted sorts of loose-end-y kinds of things I am prone to forgetting, just generally. I moved in July. Did I account for 100% of everything? Did I pack something, forget about it, and continue to overlook it because I don’t recall it even exists? So many distracting weekends away. How does a person rediscover what they have entirely forgotten, when that is a needful thing? That’s only sort of rhetorical; I do manage it, but I couldn’t explain in a million years quite how, and it’s very hit or miss. So… I guess I only sort of manage it. LOL Nice that such things don’t set off a storm of anxiety these days. The fear made it terribly difficult to catch things up, fix them, or complete them, or address whatever had or might go wrong with any skill. Now it generally just feels like another thing that needs doing, and once done, I’m done with it completely. I check off a few things, an address or two to update, things like that.

Strange night. I’m in a lot of pain, and the headache is just… extra. I’m managing a good mood in spite of that.  I’m still smiling from a few minutes of chat with my Traveling Partner. It’s a nice evening. It’s… a nice life. I frown, remembering how my every day moments “now” had been so thoroughly tainted by past events… when did that change? Will it stay like this? I feel the weight of my frown become stress in my shoulders and pause, breathe deeply, and sit more erect as I exhale. I’m okay right now. Right now isn’t something that needs troubleshooting. Right now I’m okay, and that’s enough. 🙂

Tomorrow I’ll begin again. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, health, Healthy Living, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, winter, Words

Well, That Didn’t Work…

December 4, 2017 //
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This writing in the evening thing hasn’t quite worked out, yet. LOL

…I did get to see the super moon, though…

I will have to begin again, on the writing in the evening thing. 🙂

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Categories art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Frustration, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, winter, Words

Morning Comes Early

October 1, 2017 //
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I woke promptly at 3 am. I mean, like, really woke up. No panic, no sense of being awakened by something, I simple woke, feeling rested and alert. Too alert for the wee hour of morning at which I woke, but… fuck it. I got up and made coffee. 🙂

It seemed the sort of morning for it, so, wireless headphones on, I move through my yoga routine, some strength training, and feeling joyful and generally good I moved on from there to simply enjoying my playlist, dancing, and tidying up a bit (relatively quietly, considering the hour – and my neighbors’ likely desire to sleep much later than I had).

Yesterday ended up being, aside from the bit of OPD (other people’s drama) in the morning, quite a lovely and relaxed day. My brunch plans fell through, so I made a lovely bit of brunch at home. My afternoon plans to hang out with a friend also fell through (no ache over that; we hang out most Saturday afternoons, and don’t take such things at all personally, when one or the other of us cancels now and then). I enjoyed a lovely nap in the afternoon, in spite of the quantity of well-crafted espresso beverages I’d consumed. I painted some. I spent some time reading. I enjoyed some time out on the deck, listening to the rustling fluttering leaves tell me about the breezes. I hiked a couple miles on unfamiliar neighborhood trails; my current favorite is rather steeper than I ever seem to expect it to be, and therefore still a bit challenging. It was, in general, quite a lovely day.

After my blog post, yesterday, and throughout the remainder of the day, friends reached out, checked in, checked on me, offered sympathy, encouragement, words of support. I certainly feel well-regarded by my friends, readers, associates – y’all are a good bunch of humans, and damn – I appreciate you. ❤ I’m still pretty wowed by the outpouring of concern and affection. I hope the woman next door is similarly well-regarded by her friends, family, and loved ones – pretty sure she had a much tougher time of things, yesterday, than I did.

Our ability to connect, to share, to be open to one another, to “be there” for each other, matters so much. This morning I finish my coffee while thinking back on dear friends who have always tried to “be there”, and how long it took me to understand that welcoming that connection, and being open to be being supported, is also required. Perhaps I’d have come farther, faster, or found my way more easily to greater wellness sooner, if I had been more easily able to accept help when offered? It’s something I think about.

Funny thing about these early mornings; they don’t seem to change whether or not I have much to say. LOL The track changes on my playlist. I finish my coffee. There is so much of the day still ahead of me…

…The light in my current studio is every bit as good for painting at 5 am as it is at 2 pm in the afternoon (not very; I use artificial light here, so the hour of the day is irrelevant). I turn an imaginary sign in my head to “artist at work”, grin at my fanciful imagination, and go make another cup of coffee. It’s time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Art, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5

One Among Many

September 25, 2017 //
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It’s one of those Mondays after a long weekend that feels like I have “been away a long while”. It’s highly subjective, and an illusion. I often feel this way after a long weekend – or any weekend that I really succeed in “disconnecting” “letting go” or “recharging”. I almost always feel this way after a weekend in the studio. It’s like taking a step back from a life I love to rejoin a life-in-progress about which I’ve long had mixed feelings. lol It’s a feeling that will fade quickly, as I begin process routine Monday workload and start feeling “caught up”. I sip my coffee and spend a couple minutes contemplating the illusory nature of emotion, the made up nature of personal narrative, the mutability of life itself.

So far it’s a good beginning to a Monday. My coffee this morning is excellent, and I have refrained from looking at the news, or Facebook. 🙂

I sip my coffee a few minutes more, thinking about friends I saw, friends I didn’t see, friends I observed from a distance over Facebook. I think about the past (the weekend), the future (retirement), and notice that I have strayed rather far from this moment now, and pull myself back to the present with a smile, a sigh, and a sip of coffee.

Did I mention that my coffee this morning is excellent? Is it worth mentioning that if I let my consciousness wander to far from being present in this moment, I stop tasting it? That seems relevant. I consider only my coffee for a moment or two, savoring the smoothness of the steamed almond milk, the richness of the locally roasted Ethiopian beans. I take time to appreciate how quickly I’ve become more proficient with the espresso machine, again. I let my awareness become filled with this morning, right here. The coffee. The sound of traffic. My tinnitus. The trickle of the aquarium. The feel of this space I live within. Mmm…did I mention the coffee? 🙂

What a lovely equinox weekend it was. I feel rested and well-cared-for. The world waits…

…I guess it is time to begin again. 🙂

 

 

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

A New List

September 24, 2017 //
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It’s been a satisfying weekend, so far, and it’s Sunday. Back to work tomorrow. A new list today. It’s time to begin again, you see, to return to reliable self-care routines, to catch up on the housekeeping, to wrap up loose ends, to tidy up the studio.

I sip my coffee contentedly. No new work has been completed, but the studio feels “right”, and a great deal of background work has been done (which is to say, backgrounds have been painted, in-fact). I also managed to do a great deal of additional moving in work, because realistically, although I can quickly paint quite a few backgrounds for later use, doing so still results in wet canvases everywhere needing to dry, which results in time on my hands not being spent painting. 🙂 It’s been a lovely relaxed joyful productive weekend that also managed to be wholly restful. I needed that, too.

Today, I look around over the edge of my coffee cup as I move through the rooms of my current residence, feeling settled in, and “at home”, and mildly frustrated each time I recall that I’ve got at least one more move before I can even consider not having to move anymore. I shrug off that bit of discontent (it can wait for some other moment to be fully considered), and take a look around with an eye for starting a new work week. There’s laundry to be done. Vacuuming. Meal prep for work week lunches. I smile with approval at how little things “fell behind” over the weekend. Even today can be relaxed, and simply a day of mindful service to hearth and home, and itself quite emotionally nourishing. I enjoy being the human being responsible for my day-to-day quality of life.

I make my “to do list” with care, and an eye on meeting the needs of the moment, and also my needs over time. My idea of “carpe diem” and “YOLO” include consideration of the future moments of living that are implied by “to live” being a verb that expresses an ongoing condition. Sure, sure, being mortal is a thing, but since I’ve no guaranteed “end date” on this journey, it seems the wiser course to mindfully consider my needs beyond this moment right here; I may need some things from myself (and life) tomorrow, too, or next year… or in 2025, the year I expect to leave the workforce permanently. 🙂 Ideally, embracing life includes that future I am planning for, not just this one singular mortal moment right now. This morning, that future consideration leans heavily on the upcoming week, and some bigger events a bit beyond (holiday season planning, I am looking your way!!). It’s enough. More distant future planning is still fuzzy and daydream-y, enough to consider gently, not quite enough to count on.

My sleep last night was as restless and weird as my sleep Thursday night was uninterrupted and deeply restful. I don’t take that personally. I got up once or twice, child-style, for a drink of water and a quick check around for “monsters”. (Somehow tap water always tastes best in the wee hours, barefooted in the darkness, and “monsters” seem an entirely reasonable thing to check for.) My half-awake mind doesn’t question the need for either, though I am certain that thirstily gulping down two big glasses of water at 2:43 am likely contributed to the urgency of getting up promptly at 6:45 am, this morning. The day began earlier than I’d have planned, but late enough to feel like “sleeping in” in spite of that. 🙂 Win and good.

I’ve got a list. I’ve checked it twice. It’s time to begin again. 😀

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Categories art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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