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Beginnings and Ends

November 28, 2016 //
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My coffee is still too hot to drink. The alarm clock seemed very loud when it woke me. I feel a bit as if I am moving especially slowly this morning; the clock corrects my very subjective perception of time. It’s a Monday after a long weekend. As if on cue, my brain launches a salvo of small anxiety-provoking attacks about this or that detail at work; I quash them with a minute or two of mindfulness, breathing deeply, present in this moment here. Work can at least wait until I actually get to the office! 🙂

Summer is definitely over. Autumn nearly over, too. Thanksgiving is done. The holiday season – my idea of holiday season, I mean – has begun. It is a beginning I wait for, plan for, and cherish each year. I have my own traditions, built on my values, refined over an adult lifetime, added to by one partnership, then another, over the years. The specifics are less meaningful or shareworthy, I think, than that I do have my own, chosen with care, selected from the celebratory traditions of my childhood, and then made my own, quite willfully. I like the way I do the holidays. It is rare for me to be overcome by ennui or despair during (or over, or about) the holidays, and I’ve tended to attribute that to doing them my own way… though, I don’t have any cite-able proof of that; it is my subject experience, only. For me, that’s enough, at least on the topic of holidays. 🙂

As days go, today doesn’t stand out in any obvious way. The beginning of a new work week. The beginning of the holiday season. I like beginnings, although they usually follow endings, which I often tend to think I dislike (compared to beginnings), but again, I have no clear evidence of that impression, and find myself wondering if the words truly reflect my thinking, or only some moment in my thinking that will quickly dissipate when my attention turns to other things? Change is. Whether an ending, a beginning, or some transitional point on a spectrum between those moments, change is part of the scenery on life’s journey.

I think of my Traveling Partner and smile. We have different approaches to living life in the moment; I prefer to plan, and to maintain a high level of readiness for many likely outcomes, and to cultivate a benevolent tolerance of circumstances that fall outside my planning, with frequent “rest breaks” from the hectic pace of life when I can retreat to a quiet corner of the world to take it all in, before returning to the busy-ness of life’s default settings. He has the boldness required to freely take life utterly as it comes, seemingly fearlessly and without anxiety; embracing change with a spontaneity that awes me, and often leaves me feeling unsettled.  We handle our emotional lives quite differently, too, both very human, both capable of great depths of emotion, both embracing intimacy and connection, and yet such different people day-to-day, in spite of shared values, shared experiences, and sharing (to this day) our journey in life over years. He finds too much planning constricting, and expresses feeling pressured. I find too little planning chaotic, and feel… pressured. lol We are more similar than we are different. This is likely true of each and all of us; more similar than different. Any human being’s most basic needs are likely to be pretty much the same from one person to the next. So many arguments between human beings are about meeting the same basic need in different ways, informed by prejudices, filtered through individual experience, limited by individual perspective, and individual understandings of definitions of terms. We’re still more similar than we are different – right down to not listening very well when another one of what we are is talking to us about their own experience. 😉

Taking time for simple pleasures matters, too.

Taking time for simple pleasures matters.

My coffee is not so hot now. I drink it down and consider a second one… there is time for that. I look across the table, the holiday tablecloth, placemats, and centerpiece are happy reminders of the weekend spent immersed in a wonderland of holiday memories, colorful trinkets, and tiny lights. The entire room is transformed. The tree stands in the far corner, and canisters of freshly baked cookies beyond that, on the bookshelf in that corner. Everywhere some Yule detail catches my eye. I smile. The soft glow of the room feels like it sources from within me. Sure, I’ll have a second coffee. Today is a good day to take time to enjoy simple pleasures. I’ll go do that. 🙂

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

Building on a Good Beginning

November 26, 2016 //
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Thanksgiving is over, and the holiday season has begun. Black Friday is a memory.

Thanksgiving was simple, quiet, intimate and amazing – unscripted, and as it turned out, entirely unplanned. We’d made dinner reservations to go out. It seemed the better choice at the time we made our plans; I have a very small kitchen, and although more than a year has now passed since I moved into my own place, my kitchen efficiency is still somewhat limited by the loss of some favored gadgets and appliances that I have not yet replaced… like my Kitchen Aid mixer, which I miss greatly.

I’d had my mixer for decades; it was a wedding gift left from my first marriage. It had become redundant when I moved in to the big house “with everyone”, and the newer mixer on hand won out. Mine became someone else’s cherished favored kitchen appliance (I no longer remember who). It was a painful moment to move out with the hurt and anger of the break-up flavored by the poignant loss of an appliance I’d never have given up except – love. It’s strange to me that the intense feelings over the break up have diminished, but the irritation over allowing myself to be so short-sighted as to be persuaded to give up my mixer, when there was ample room to store it more or less forever, somehow persists, particularly as this kitchen, now, is so small that there is neither space to store it, nor space to use it. lol Silly primates, emotions lack substance. Better to let such lingering ire just go; it serves no purpose now save to remind me that I do want to replace that mixer – which, I am well aware of, without the emotional reinforcement.

My Traveling Partner and I planned to be spending the afternoon and evening together. At some early point in the day, we agreed neither of us was particularly enthusiastic about our dinner plans, although the restaurant is one we both enjoy. I canceled the reservations. Hell, frozen waffles and powdered hot cocoa shared with my traveling partner in a tent in the dead of winter, wrapped in love and enjoying each other’s good company would still be a Thanksgiving to cherish; it isn’t about the venue or the menu. I looked over the pantry, committed to using what I had on hand. The drenching rain that had fallen all night, and continued through the morning was ample discouragement from any grocery shopping, and most places were closed. Could I pull off an unplanned Thanksgiving dinner for two? Neither of us had any specific expectations beyond sharing the time together and enjoying each other. I would do  my best. My best would be enough.

It was a simple meal. Chicken breasts baked in foil, seasoned with sage, onions, and chives from my container garden. Steamed baby Nero di Toscana kale, and savory baked heirloom carrots, from my autumn vegetable garden. Canned corn and box stuffing; durable staples always on hand from my pantry. I even had a solitary can of cranberry sauce left from… whenever. It was a lovely meal. We had a great evening. Around the time that our friends next door returned home from dinners with family, we were also settling in to relax and we all gathered together over music and friendly conversation. It was appropriately festive and joyful. It never needed to be elaborate.

I slept in Friday morning, and woke to my Traveling Partner awake ahead of me, working on his set list for a gig later in the day. We had coffee together. A bite of lunch a little later. When the time came he packed up his gear and I played roadie helping load it into the car. Then he was gone and quiet filled my solitary space, along with happy daydreams of love, and good intentions about housekeeping that never quite came to fruition. 🙂

I did my traditional Black Friday thing, which is to say, I stayed home and did not participate in the retail frenzy that exploits so many workers on a day of the year when they might like to be at home with their loved ones. (Go ahead and take a moment to reflect on how few potential four-day weekends exist for most “entry level”, retail, restaurant, or service industry employees, and then reflect on how much you have valued and needed that precious limited down time in your own life…I’ll wait.Do you suppose you really needed that discount on a crock pot more?) I’m okay with paying a reasonable price for goods and services, and I’m more than okay with doing my part to refraining from adding to the literal Black Friday body count that seems unique to American greed.  It is my tradition to spend Thanksgiving weekend setting up the holiday tree, lights, baking holiday treats… it is a long weekend, suitable for all those things. I didn’t do any of that yesterday, I just relaxed in the happy glow of being well-loved, reading, meditating, daydreaming about the future, and just generally enjoying myself quietly and in a state of great contentment. It was lovely. It was enough.

Misty mornings seem to offer the potential to remake the world, differently.

Misty mornings seem to offer the potential to remake the world, differently.

This morning I woke from a night of peculiarly interrupted sleep, and feeling rested, in spite of that. I gazed out over the misty meadow, considering where to the put holiday tree, sipping my coffee, watching the Canada geese stepping through the meadow, feasting on whatever it is they pull up from the mud along their way. My squirrel visitor returned, too, and enjoyed breakfast while I had my coffee. The Northern Flicker who comes by regularly joined us, taking a few moments to enjoy the seed bell and the suet feeder before departing. A flock of red-wing blackbirds took his place. There is nothing spectacular about this gentle morning, nothing to exclaim about, nothing I am inclined to change. I am content. As it turns out, contentment is quite every bit of “enough”, and far more easily reached than “happily ever after”.  I smile, and sip my coffee; it has grown cold in the morning chill of the room. I pause my writing to consider lighting a fire… later, perhaps. A lovely long walk on a misty morning, first, sounds like just the ideal thing to precede a hot shower, a mug of cocoa, and a crackling fire in the fireplace. 🙂

As with most things, even "enough" is a matter of perspective.

As with most things, even “enough” is a matter of perspective…

...What is "within reach" depends, too, on our perceptions, and our tools...

…what is “within reach” depends, too, on our perceptions, and our tools…

...We are each having our own experience.

…We are each having our own experience.

I’m still sitting around in comfy clothes, sipping my now-cold coffee, smiling out over the meadow whenever I glance out at the world. This feels good. I feel safe. Content. Loved. I have enough to get by on – and not that “oh fuck what now, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, we’ll all get through this, just breathe” level of “enough” that requires real commitment to staying present in this moment. (We all have those moments, eventually, it’s part of the human experience.) This morning it is the “oh hey, nothing to fear, nothing to want for, it’s all good my friends, can I pour you a coffee?” level of enough, and those times can feel so delicate, so precious and rare… I think because it has taken me so long to understand that they must be enjoyed with the same deep commitment to savoring them, lingering in that headspace, and revisiting the recollection again and again, as one might do for some grave challenge or anxiety-provoking moment, otherwise they seems to slip away. So, this morning, I’m here, enjoying now, enjoying me, and even enjoying my cold coffee in this chilly room, before I do something different – just to be sure I don’t forget how awesome this moment here also is. 🙂 Today, this is enough.

Merry Everything, everyone, and Happy All-of-whatever-the-fuck-this-is-right-here! May your day be merry and bright; it’s not holiday-dependent. Enjoy this moment, too. 😉

 

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

Embrace It or Change It

November 23, 2016 //
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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 //
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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 //
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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
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