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This Headache, Though

December 10, 2024 //
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I don’t know what to write about today. This is as close as I ever really get to “writer’s block” – starting with a “blank mind” instead of merely a blank page. lol

It’s nearly noon, and I’m taking a break for “lunch”, though I’m not hungry and don’t plan to eat. I’ve got this (fairly dreadful) iced coffee, and a few minutes of sunshine, and a quiet little room to myself, suited to making room for a bit of writing in the middle of the day. I just don’t really have anything much to say, presently. Nothing I think is worth committing to any measure of permanence. I’m tired. My head aches. The world is burning. Petty nitwits seem to be running everything – and somehow, they were actually elected by real people. What the fuck? Looks like that’s only going to get worse over the next couple years, too. American healthcare is so disastrously bad that ordinary people are shooting health insurance company executives in the streets. A population once nearly wiped out by genocide engages in obvious genocide, and when accused of committing genocide seems to think “no we’re not” is an adequate response, while the bodies pile up. Corporate greed drives AI start-ups to completely disregard the basic humanity of human beings, providing “chatbot companions” to vulnerable young people (for profit) with predictably terrible consequences – but, you know, they made money on that. None of this is good. 100% of all of it was avoidable. Choices were made.

Human greed. Human pettiness. Human self-righteousness. Human douche-baggery. Human violence. Fucking hell, some days it definitely looks like the underlying problem is… humanity. I’m pretty sure we could do better.

I don’t really want to be thinking about any of that terrible shit, particularly with this headache. Fuck. I’d rather cozy up with a book, or nap in a sunny room, or putter in my garden (those roses definitely need pruning, and I’m past due to winterize my raised bed). What the fuck is wrong with people?? When did being rich or “right” become more important than being a good human being and building a world in which everyone can thrive? Why are so many people fighting to grab a bigger piece of pie, instead of baking a bigger fucking pie? I don’t get it…

I sip my terrible coffee, grateful to have it. I can easily imagine a day in a not-very-distant future when coffee may not be available at all – or only to the very wealthy few. I’m not one of those. I sigh to myself. I’m okay. I’m fortunate in spite of the pain I’m in. I hold on to that, and look out the window, thinking about love, and life, and what matters most. No doubt there is righteous satisfaction in embracing my anger, but it won’t feel as good as gentle words, and thoughts of love, and being kind in a world where kindness has grown so rare. I’m tired. I’m just one human primate with limited ability and knowledge. I can’t be everything to everyone, ever – but I can be the best version of myself that I’ve learned to be, and I can do my best to do better today, and again tomorrow. Yeah, I’m pretty fucking human, myself, prone to temper and misunderstandings, and moments of foolishness. My results vary.

…I keep practicing…

So, I take my break. Exchange some pleasant words with my beloved Traveling Partner. I do what I can to ease this fucking headache, and look forward to seeing the one doctor I’ve got that reliably provides me with any relief at all – Saturday. That’s soon. I look out the window for a few minutes, watching a crow on a branch in the tree beyond watching me back. So much pain… in my head, in my back…in the world. Shit. I guess I’ve just got to do my best.

…Time to begin again…

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, grief, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War

You (Maybe) Suck At Taking Breaks

December 9, 2024 //
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Maybe. I do. It’s pretty common that people struggle to take healthy breaks. I definitely suck at taking healthy breaks. I often push myself too hard for too long and then just… refuse to do anything for… awhile. This does not tend to be ideally efficient or productive, nor is it the best use of my time and energy. So… I’m taking a break. Right now. I’ve gotten a couple hours of focused work done. I’ve run an errand, then gotten back to the focused work. I’ve got quite a list of things to do, and that I could be doing…I’ve also got a headache, and my posture needs a break, and… well… so do I.

I got up from my desk, stretched without doing anything else besides stretching and feeling my body move, and feeling my muscles begin to relax. I shifted gears from working to being. I went to the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea. (Although I generally prefer coffee, I’ve had quite enough already today.) I stood looking out the window while my tea steeped until the point of preferred “tea-ness”, and walked back to my desk. Not to resume work, not quite yet. I took a moment to just breathe, smell the delicous fragrance of my tea (Smith’s No. 14 Black Lavender). I take a sip – perfect drinking temperature. It’s hot, but not too hot, and the porcelain mug is warm in my hand. Feels like comfort in a cup. I sigh to myself and relax. I needed this.

…Maybe you need a break, too…?

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’m amused by the many articles I’ve read recently seeking to decry work-from-home and promote “RTO” agendas. I suppose there are people who are less productive working from home. There is certainly some percentage of employed people who prefer to work in an office environment among other people also working. There’s a certain sort of management type that definitely values in-office work, if only to more easily observe downstream employees working. My experience, however, as both an employed person, and also as someone who spent many years in a workforce management role actually monitoring humans working, is that whether I wanted it to be true or not, generally speaking, most people working from home work longer hours, with greater focus, and get more done in the time during which they are working. That it has additional value for people on the human side is a bit of a bonus. Funny that there are businesses trying to force folks back into the office. I find myself wondering who that is really for. Who really benefits from that? Probably not the working employees, themselves, or they’d already be doing it because they want to – and no one is stopping them from doing so. I think about that for a minute or two…

…Then realize those thoughts are, themselves, a form of working, and I’m specifically trying to take a break here!! LOL

(I suck at taking breaks.)

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I sip my tea. I stand up and move around my office, looking at paintings, small objects, things to do with art, and I think about that instead. I enjoy my tea.

…Then I begin again. Working.

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Categories art and the artist, autumn, breathe, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Practices, The Art of Being

Feeling the Cold, Feeling the Moment

December 9, 2024 //
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Cold morning. Above freezing, though, and I’m dressed warmly. I walk the trail in the pre-dawn darkness, grateful for the circle of light cast by my headlamp bobbing along with my steps. It rained during the night and the trail is slick with wet leaves in some spots, and in others there are puddles to avoid. I step along with care, feeling the cold, grateful for gloves and a scarf, and my warm fleece over a favorite sweater.

Clouds illuminated by city lights before dawn.

… This morning writing would wait until I’m back at the car…

It was a good walk. It’s a Monday morning. I’m in the kind of pain that only seems to come around in cold damp weather, unpleasant for sure, but I’m more angry about it than suffering from it. I resent the imposition on my abilities and my will. I’ve got shit to do, and a life to live. “Fuck pain,” I snarl quietly to myself as I warm up in the car after my walk.

Monday isn’t my busiest workday, generally, but today any sense of ease has been overcome by errands that need to be run, which bookend my day; early errands to drop off items being returned, and packages being posted, and at the other end, running my Traveling Partner over to his PT appointment. In between? Work, yes, but since I’m working from home, also anything else I can wedge into the day… taking out recycling, laundry, dishes… sometimes the notion of “a day off” dissipates like fog as the sun rises. I breathe, exhale, and relax. There’s no point being mad about it; I’m the one doing it to myself, and could certainly do a better job of managing my time and setting boundaries. It takes practice.

…I keep practicing…

… I’m tired as the holidays hurtle towards me on the calendar.

The VA sent me a “sound machine” after my audiology appointment. It arrived yesterday. It’s supposed to help with my tinnitus. I wonder if it will? Am I noticing any improvement after one night? I don’t know. I don’t think so? But, the shrieking of my tinnitus in my ears wasn’t the first thing that had my attention this morning, and when I got up to pee during the night, it didn’t keep me awake. So… maybe? How is success measured? I found the sound I selected very pleasant as background noise for sleeping… maybe that’s enough?

… I’m more eager to get my hearing aids…

I laugh at myself when I realize I’ve projected myself into a future moment only to feel discontent that it is not now. That’s just fucking dumb. A waste of precious mortal lifetime for sure. I pull myself back to now. This moment right here is quite a pleasant satisfying one, deserving to be enjoyed. I reflect for a moment on how easily I allow some new momentary difficulty to create chaos in my experience by letting it overwhelm a very pleasant moment I’ve been enjoying. That’s the entire point of practicing savoring each small joy and pleasant moment; to learn to refrain from twisting chaotically with every little thing, and to build emotional resilience.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. Lovely moment, this one. I take time to enjoy it. To meditate. To enjoy the steady progress towards the soggy sunrise before I begin the work day. It’s useful to let each new beginning be preceded by a quiet moment of reflection. So… I do that. Then I’ll begin again.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being

Morning

December 8, 2024 //
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I sit quietly with my coffee. A steady light rain is falling. My tinnitus is loud in my ears and my mind wanders, unsettled and restless. I’m fine, for all describable commonplace values of “fine”. There’s nothing amiss. I’m tired perhaps, having wakened to the final full brightness of my sunrise alarm this morning, pulled from a very involved surreal dream that involved a large elegant home, a handful of friends, and a colony of guinea pigs.

I reached the trailhead during a break in the rain. My walk did nothing to improve upon my strange distractedness, but it was pleasant and that’s enough.

Rainy morning, another beginning.

I returned to the car just as the rain began falling again. I sit listening to it contentedly, warm and dry, enjoying my coffee. I’m grateful for insulated travel mugs (definitely a technological win). I’ve got an errand to run before I head home, and my Traveling Partner slept poorly during the night. I’m in no hurry, and he’ll benefit from some quiet time for sleeping before I get home and start on the housework.

It’s another ordinary enough day, just beginning. I breathe, exhale, and relax. There’s nothing much to comment on that hasn’t been said before. There are practices to practice. Results that will vary. Moments to enjoy. A path to walk. I watch daybreak slowly become dawn, then daylight. I take time to meditate and to reflect. Perspective is useful. The sound of the rain falling is peaceful. Yesterday was lovely, and busy, and I am tired in spite of a good night’s sleep. There’s much to do today in spite of fatigue. I’ve got a list. lol I think for a moment, looking over my list… and move “self-care” to the top.

It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Too Early, Too Late, Always On Time

December 7, 2024 //
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It’s raining at the trailhead. Still dark, too. I decide to give it a few minutes. Maybe the rain will stop? I’m here earlier than I planned, anyway. My wakeful Traveling Partner woke me early with his wakefulness, and rather than keep him awake once I was awake, I dressed and made coffee and slipped away into the predawn drizzle.

… Now I wait…

We chat online for a few minutes, before my beloved returns to bed, and hopefully to sleep. The morning is quiet and calm. The rain is misty and not enough to prevent me from walking. The morning is a pleasantly mild one, the temperature a relatively comfortable 42°F. I had dressed for freezing weather; I’m definitely comfortable. The misty droplets covering the windshield glitter like scattered gems as passing headlights sweep over them from the nearby highway. Pretty.

… Nice morning…

The holiday shopping is done. Too late to change any of that now, although there are still packages arriving and gifts to wrap. There are still holiday sweets to buy for stockings and groceries to buy for holiday meals. So much yet be to do, but things also feel somehow “done”. Ready. There’s a plan in place and that’s enough. I feel content and mostly comfortable. The only discomfort I do have is purely physical and there’s nothing much to do about that besides taking care of myself properly. I double-check my shopping list to confirm I’d added capsaicin patches; they help some and I’m nearly out.

This is all such mundane stuff, isn’t it? It’s also enough. More than enough maybe; I feel fortunate. I do work at it – at the contentment and the quiet joy. I work at embracing sufficiency (chasing excess has only ever hurt me). I work at achieving and maintaining perspective. I work at non-attachment and at not taking shit personally. There are verbs involved, and practice, and my results vary – but over time I find myself quietly calm, contented, and joyful so much more often, I might even say these feelings have become characteristic of my day-to-day experience. That’s a pretty profound change from chaos, misery, and madness. There are few manic highs, these days. Abysmal dark lows are also very very rare. Mostly, things are pleasantly… ordinary. I don’t need the excitement of a rollercoaster ride in my emotional life. lol

… I sit quietly sipping my coffee, not quite waiting for the sun, just waiting…

My results will definitely vary. This is a very human experience. Moments are moments, and some of them are difficult. I’m okay. I’m here, now. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Practicing the practices. Beginning again.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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