Apparently the NOAA has determined that July 2021 was not just the hottest month of the year so far, nor the hottest in the recent decade. Nope. Bigger than that; it is the hottest the globe has been in (recorded) history. G’damn, that’s fucking hot. Now, you can dispute science if you choose to, but in this case, we’re just talking about data entry. Tracked numbers. Observations over time. I’m just saying… it’s fucking hot, and getting hotter. The weather all around the globe is weird and getting weirder.
…We could have done better by this planet than we have. I sure hope it isn’t too late to do better (enough) now…
I’m going camping next week. I’ll head out on Sunday, and don’t plan to return before Wednesday afternoon. I’m eager to get some solo time out in the trees (yes, even in the heat of summer). No news feed. No cell signal. No work. No work interruptions. No interpersonal stress, or miscommunications. No “interpersonal” anything, really. Me, the heat, the trees, the chipmunks (plague?), the squirrels (hantavirus?), the deer (ticks! lyme disease?)… I’ll just keep my distance. There’ll be plenty of that.
A different camping trip, a couple years ago; it’s been too long.
The heat is hard on me, though, I admit that. I’m in less pain of the specifically osteo-arthritis variety, but more, other pain – anything aggravated by the heat. I feel “puffy” and sluggish. Effort seems to require more effort. The heat is hard on my Traveling Partner, too, and since he is out in the shop, working in it, trying to stay focused, work with care, and get shit done, he’s sometimes cross, sometimes frustrated. I know it isn’t personal. (I can’t help but think he’ll enjoy a couple days of uninterrupted shop-time, particularly if the weather cools somewhat, as the forecast suggests it may.)
This morning, I went out to the car, and noticed one tire was weirdly low. I mentioned it to my partner who insisted, after filling it, that I go get it checked out so he won’t worry about it while I’m on the road. I agree to do that, although I was of a mind that it was probably “nothing”. I was entirely correct about that, too, if by “nothing” I meant that there was screw stuck in my tire that would likely result in a proper flat or a blow out on the road, if I didn’t get it repaired straight away. (Which is not what I meant by “nothing”, at all, and I was supremely grateful that my partner insisted.) I went ahead and got the oil changed (overdue) while I was at it, and had some basic (also overdue) service done. How did I fall behind on this?? I wonder, and then I let it go; truth is, there’s been so much “getting done” of shit in the past year, that it’s surprising that more hasn’t fallen through the cracks, than has. I breathe, exhale, relax, and let it go. “Doing my best” isn’t about doing all of the things, promptly and skillfully, without ever having a “queue” of pending shit to do piling up. It’s about doing what I actually can, as well as I actually can, and being as okay with that outcome as I am able to be. I am human, not machinery.
Still, and again. The very best practices work that way.
Speaking of a list of things to do, my list of things to do before I go camping is still longer than I’d like it to be. Probably won’t get to all of it, but I will make a point to prioritize those things most likely to aggravate my partner in my absence. (I rather like that guy, and I’d like to do my part to ensure my time away is also “down time” for him!)
…I guess that makes it time to begin again, in spite of the heat of the day.
Happy Monday, y’all. It’s been hours since my morning coffee, and the afternoon is heating up quickly. I’ve got my bottle of cold water at my desk, and a covered mug of hot noodles for a quick lunch. My Traveling Partner is in his shop, doing shop things. I’m staring into an abyss of spreadsheets and a to-do list that is frankly embarrassing in length. I take a long drink of water and remind myself it is a job, and I’m being paid to do it. This time is not my own (well, I mean, right now is my lunch break, so… that’s mine).
I breathe deeply. My exhale becomes a heavy sigh. I’m mostly fine. I’m just sort of cross. This has, so far, been one of those days that seems as if every attempt I make at affection, appreciation, positive connection… any bid at all really, directed to my partner is met with… a surly, rather terse, somewhat parental tone. I’m annoyed with that. It’s not at all where my own head is at. I’m finding, as a result, that I’m just irked with the whole fucking day I find myself wrapped in. I’m okay with saying I’m annoyed by it. Real enough. What to do about it is another matter. So far, continued attempts are not being met well, so I’ve sort of given up on it for the time being. I’m in “task processing mode”, focused on practical matters and getting shit done, one step at a time, without becoming emotionally invested at all. Considering how much I enjoy my partner’s appreciation, affection, and approval, it’s sometimes very tough to let it go and hold on to the awareness that we’re each having our own experience.
Honestly, we’re a hilarious partnership. We adore each other, and generally manage the day-to-day with humor and delighted affection for each other. Sometimes it’s not that easy, and my brain injury definitely gets in the way of things now and then. I try to be patient with myself, even when he’s having trouble being patient with me, himself. I work hard on not taking his impatience with me at all personally; I know that it is not. I can be surprisingly clumsy sometimes, or awkward, or hapless, or somehow offset from his understanding of whatever the hell is going on at the moment. We are each having our own experience, that’s unavoidable. We are not one being, one mind. We’re two entirely separate human primates, making a go of life together. 🙂 A shared journey, not an identical one.
I give my noodles a chance to cool a bit. I don’t really feel up to adding a burned mouth to my list of bullshit to deal with today. lol I have choices. I can change my experience – and change my perspective on it (I was pretty irritable and on the edge of tears when I started this, now I’m just hungry*. lol). Resilience doesn’t seem to be about never reacting, or avoiding the occasional bad mood, so much as being about shortening that period of time between when a feeling or experience develops, and when I’ve gained useful perspective on it. It’s enough to be able to make that journey. I sometimes even feel that I’m getting pretty good at doing it with a measure of skill. 🙂
…I sure know how to begin again… 😀
*By the time I finished writing through my lunch break, and having a bit of a pleasant chat with my partner about shop-related matters, and connecting in a loving way, I was once again in a comfortable place emotionally. Feels good. Didn’t honestly take that long to get from “there” to here, and the lack of residual negative emotion clogging up my experience of self (and this Monday) speaks volumes for how far I’ve really come since 2013. I’m sometimes pretty blown away when I reflect on the likelihood that a bit of emotional weather of this sort could have been days or weeks worth of feelings of despair, futility, and irritation. That’s a long way from where I am now. 🙂 Worth celebrating. I slurp my noodles contentedly. This works.
Hey there – it’s summertime. What are you doing with that? I mean… yeah. Pandemic. That’s a thing. But, in spite of all of that, and it’s a lot to take, what are you doing to enjoy the season? Breathe it in, at least, these sunny days, and yeah, even the heat, and the sweat, and the struggle – all of it makes up “now”. Be right here in it, fearlessly you. How good could that feel?
…It’s not a perfect world…we’re not perfect beings…and omg, aging is a real thing, too. I’m just saying, embrace your moment. Make that hard choice. Ask that hard question. Do that thing you always thought you’d maybe like to do. If not now, then when will you? Don’t let your moment slip away – don’t you already have a pile of regrets stacking up? Why add one more? I’m just saying… we’ve all got “now”, and not much else besides our memories, and our yearning for something more. 🙂
I’m sipping my coffee and smiling, enjoying a slow morning in the middle of the work week – I took the day off to have coffee with a friend, and run an errand in the afternoon that didn’t fit nicely into the work day. It’s a pleasant departure from the routine. My Traveling Partner is working on this and that, and I feel his love infused in the morning; he makes me 3D printed fidget toys that satisfy my restless motion.
It’s just a button to press, but so satisfying!
I sometimes find it hard to remember to really take it easy and chill and enjoy the moment. I don’t mean that I don’t know to do that, just that, sometimes, when I think I am doing that… I’m not. I’m fretting over some other moment. I’m reviewing some past stressor and wondering if I handled that well, or I’m projecting into a future moment of anticipated anxiety, wondering how to best handle that when it eventually arrives. Being here, now, is sometimes a bit of a challenge. You too?
I breathe, exhale, relax. I pause for moment, just to listen to the music in the background. I sip my coffee, really attending to the taste of it, the feel of the warm cup in my hand, the vague hint of something I never can quite identify (it’s not unpleasant, and I suspect is the “missing” taste of “bitter” that I am not very sensitive to). After all these years, I still enjoy a good cup of coffee (and still tolerate a bad one! LOL).
So yeah… there’s “now”, and there’s everything else that is not “now”. Grab a moment and get started – it’s already time to begin again. 🙂
I’m sipping coffee and listening to videos, waiting for my thoughts to gel around some idea, or word, or notion; it’s not happening. I’m content, and relaxed, and feeling pretty good in my here-and-now, and it’s enough… so… “no words”. lol It is what it is, I suppose. There’s a lot going on in the world, and a lot of it matters a great deal, but this moment, here? Pretty relaxed. It’s a weekend day. Housekeeping later, coffee now.
One sunrise, last week.
My morning walks have been at a favorite park for a couple weeks now, since it re-opened. Dawn is coming later, each day, and soon it will be too dim in the morning to easily and safely walk these trails so early. I haven’t yet sorted out how my routine will need to change. Some days, it still feels very new to be so “settled”. It’s not as if every day is the same – they differ rather a lot. My “routines” have still not really established themselves as a natural byproduct of my comings and goings. I guess I’m okay with that – I sort of have to be as a consequence of simply being okay with myself. 🙂 Still, though, I’ve got to figure out when and where I’ll be getting my mile(s) in, once the early morning is “too dark”.
Same walk, different morning.
There was an air show this weekend. The noise did not cause me any particular stress. The traffic was not much of an inconvenience. Looks like it was probably a pretty cool family-friendly event.
…I feel a thought arise, and slip away before I can make any use of it… I think it may have been interesting, or relevant, or tie some idea to another, but… it’s gone now. LOL
My Traveling Partner is spending quite a bit of time in his shop. It makes sense; it’s the time of year for it. It fits my sense of seasonality in the context of family life. He’s been making parts for other tools, and making things that solve small household problems – like handy hooks to hang the attachments for my mixer, tucked out of the way, still very convenient. The wee hook specifically fit these mixer attachments. So cool! My father and my (paternal) grandfather were both “makers”, and I feel very much “at home” with my partner doing things in his shop. It feels “right”. 🙂
I finally planned time for a camping trip. Getting a reservation anywhere I wanted to be was pretty challenging, and I ended up opting for “car camping” this year vs hiking into a more remote spot. Nonetheless, I’m super excited about it – and choosing car camping means somewhat better comfort, and I’m pretty stoked about that, too. 😀 Coffee with chipmunks, squirrels, and robins, as the sun run rises, sounds pretty good. Long walks with no destination. Afternoons napping in the heat before taking another walk before dinner. No fireside stuff; the entire state is a huge vast wildfire zone right now, but the summer heat will mean I won’t ever be so chilly that a fire seems necessary for comfort, anyway. I take my computer when I go to the coast. I take a notepad, a sketchpad, and a pen, when I go camping. lol It’s a very different experience.
…
…
I walked away from my writing before I’d finished my coffee, and spent time relaxing with my partner, talking about projects, hanging out, watching videos, and then got started on housekeeping chores for the week. It’s been a fun day. I completely forgot I was in the middle of writing a blog post until sometime after lunch. LOL I’m smiling and sipping an afternoon cocktail – a rare treat – and checking off the chores. Just laundry left now, and it’s in progress. I took time to combat an accumulation of tasty leftovers by making a nice lunch salad. A good summer afternoon meal. Life feels… pleasantly ordinary, more or less. It’s a hot day. It’s comfortable in the house. My headache is somewhat diminished with careful, reliable hydration, and good nutrition (I mean, what the fuck do I even know about any of that, really? I’m not a doctor, I’m just saying, it seems less severe, some days, if I am definitely drinking enough water, and eating a balanced diet with lots of leafy green veggies in it. I do not care a bit if that’s a “placebo effect” resulting from simply thinking those things matter, or if it is “real”. I don’t hurt as much, and that’s enough).
The tall icy glass, in which what is left of this gin & tonic sits, sweats condensation; cold glass, warmer room. I sip on it slowly – as I said, I rarely drink alcohol these days, so I take my time with such things to minimize risk of foolishness or poor decision-making. 🙂 My Traveling Partner makes an exceptional cocktail. He also has some familiarity with my problematic history with alcohol (having grown up around multiple family members with acknowledged, legit, “drinking problems”, and my own early behaviors around alcohol as a young soldier), and he’s cautious with such things (which is appreciated, not forced on me). I enjoy the fantastic sometimes complex flavors of a well-crafted cocktail, and we stick with the delights that rarity requires: exceptional quality of the ingredients, sourced with care and thoughtful selection, flavors outside the “everyday”, and cocktails that are notable (for their history, or their ability to evoke nostalgia, or for simply being especially delightful in flavor) – but notable in some way other than their ability to intoxicate. We’re not really “about” the potential for drunkenness, and it shows in how rarely we drink, and how slowly we drink when we do. LOL Drunk people break shit.
I’m happy to enjoy a partnership so safe that I can even relax and enjoy a cocktail now and then without worrying that I’ll turn right around and “burn my life to the ground” on a funeral pyre of addiction. I understand better, now, that in some respects it isn’t about the addictive substance nearly as much as it is about the relationships that support my emotional wellness day-to-day. There’s a ton of more recent science on addiction, if that’s interesting to you for any reason at all. I encourage you to study more (I mean, like, always, and anything that is of interest to you) – definitely check your sources. “Karen’s Facebook group” is likely a less rigorously peer-reviewed source for information on the science of addiction than, you know, scientific studies available on PubMed, or some other reputable source. Just saying – fact-checking is good stuff. Knowing your source? Good stuff. Reading and applying critical thinking? Good stuff. Do your homework.
…And, hey, if you’re just not well-informed about a topic, not an expert at all, maybe just don’t share that uninformed opinion at all, eh? It’s okay to lack information. It’s less okay to make shit up like you know something about it. I know, it’s hard; we all want to be experts.
…Reminder: I’m no expert. Nope. Not even on mindfulness. I’m just a human being human, doing the best I can to be my best self, trying various practices that may help me along the way. I’ve got a reading list – did you notice I didn’t write any of those books? Yeah. That’s because I am not an expert. At all. Just a human, being human. Sharing what I can of a complicated journey, in case other travelers are also wandering around without a fucking map. 🙂
It’s been a pleasant Sunday. I’ve gotten a few things done. The garden is looking lovely, and the roses have now established themselves where they’ve been planted. I smile when I think about the years and the miles and the containers being carried from apartment to apartment over decades… so few survived to see home, here. It was a lot to ask of a wee rose in a container. I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there, somewhere. I’ll think it over for awhile, and see what I can make of it.
I think the words as I type the title of the post. “Pause for a minute” is often decent advice, as free advice goes. Confused? Slow down, pause for a minute, let the busy brain get caught up on things a bit, and then sort shit out. Writer’s block? Lacking inspiration? Pause for a minute, look around, take a deep breath, and consider the moment, itself, and all the things immediately at hand. I often find that enough to grab a hint of an idea, or a flash of inspiration, enough to move on with. Feeling sad, defeated, frightened, angry, resentful, or overwhelmed? Pause for a minute, let the thoughts come and go, feel the feelings without acting on them, and really “be there” for yourself in that difficult moment – what would you say or do to support your bestie, if they came to you with these feelings? Give yourself a minute to think that over. Choose action, instead of succumbing to reaction.
It’s not too much to ask of oneself to pause for a minute. Even two, or three, or five minutes. We’re talking about less than 0.5% of the entire 24-hour day. 🙂 Surely we all deserve that much (and more) of our own time, for our own purposes. 😀
…I don’t bring it up for any particular reason. I just sat down to write. Came up with nothing much, but I’ve got a minute, and a fresh cup of coffee, and this blank page in front of me… so… I paused for a minute. Here we are.
Taking a minute to pause and reflect, to catch up, to rest, or to sort things out for myself is a low-cost solution to a lot of life’s challenges.
Easy enough. Step 1. Pause for a minute. Step 2. Breathe. Step 3. Begin again. 🙂 Are you ready? It does take some practice…
