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What Have You Already Planted?

May 17, 2023 //
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Iced coffee (black) and a fizzy water (plain, cold) and a day of work ahead of me. I’m not even bitching, it’s simply where the day is, at the moment.

I slept rather badly. Couldn’t fall asleep, but wasn’t stressed about it. Minutes of meditation and daydreaming became hours, and when I finally had to get up to pee, I looked at the time. It was late. I’d be getting a nap at best, and that is what came to pass. I returned to bed and crashed hard, waking abruptly around 04:15, though I don’t know what woke me. I got up, dressed, and headed to the city for the work day. With the changing season, I caught the sunrise on the commute – it was lovely. Shades of peach and pastel pinks and oranges created an exciting backdrop for the blue of the shadow-side of the mountains out on the horizon. It was almost distracting, and I almost pulled over to watch the sunrise with my whole attention.

I’m doing my best to stay engaged. The work day is just beginning. I’m tired though, and my mind wanders, and I keep coming back to some communications challenges that persist for me (brain trauma is a hard one to beat for lasting challenges). I also keeping thinking about my garden.

I clearly planted something here, but I don’t recall when or what.

I’m thinking about a sunny spot in the front flower beds where two clean rows of… something… have now sprouted. I don’t recall what I planted there. I forgot to jot down a note in my notebook, too, apparently. It’s obvious I did plant something; those rows are too orderly to be happenstance. So… what did I plant? I sip my coffee and wonder, and then find myself wading into a metaphor…

…When I look at life as a garden, and consider the care, the cultivation, the practices, it all fits so well, and then… there are these seedlings that have sprouted, which I clearly planted… and eventually they’ll become something, but I don’t know what, and it’s hard to be at all invested in whatever they are. If I water them… well, they might be weeds, do I want to water and care for them? What if they turn out to be something noxious or undesirable? If I don’t water them… well… maybe they’re something unusual, fancy, expensive, or carefully selected with my garden’s lasting beauty in mind? What then? Will I have squandered precious resources?

I find myself still struggling with some things as a human being. Communication is one of those things. Specifically, I have a problem with interrupting. I work on it pretty aggressively, but still (often) come up short of the desired outcome – which is listening deeply and not interrupting people (any people; everyone wants to be heard). The “seeds” of this challenge were planted a long long time ago. The nurturing or care those “seeds” were given most likely either did nothing to reduce the likelihood I’d interrupt people as a chronic issue, or potentially made it worse, by whatever success as a coping mechanism it may have once had. This thing isn’t a fucking “seed” any more; it’s g’damned tree. It’s massive, and it’s branches shade so much of my experience interacting with others that it affects the entire garden, now. What the hell? When I did even plant this thing? How have I not been more successful at least pruning the fucking thing back to some sort of manageable size??

I sip my coffee thinking about what we “plant” in our lives that grow to vex us later. It’s not always a walk in a manicured rose garden, this thing called life. I’ve definitely got to be more diligent about “ripping out the weeds”… and also garden with more care, taking better notes, and making a clear point of being present in the experience.

…If nothing else, I most definitely need to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gardening, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, Summer

Scales, a Pendulum, or Dancing?

May 3, 2023 //
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I am sipping some iced tea with lemon. I didn’t make it. It is a canned commercial product. It’s okay. Mildly carbonated, which seems pretty unnecessary for iced tea, but it is available, it is cold, and it did not require me to make iced tea to have some. lol I am thinking about what that says about my desire for “ease” vs my desire for good quality of life. It seems the sort of thing worth thinking about.

As I made the drive in to the city this morning, I was also thinking. Mostly about “work life balance” and what that actually seems to mean, and what that can (or has)(or does) look like (for me). I have tended to mostly think about “work life balance” in terms of … a scale. Two opposites in equal measure, you know – balanced. It has not generally been the case that I have been able to make that work out quite that way. I mean… there are 7 days in a week. I work 5 of those, most of the time. The common assumption is 40 work hours in a week, divided more or less into 8-hour days (when we’re fortunate to enjoy working conditions that preserve an expectation of employee leisure being respected). That’s a pretty big chunk of our life time, so… where’s the “balance”?

Fairly often, in my own experience, any appearance of “work life balance” has been more like a pendulum swinging between extremes, some weeks mostly work, some weeks a bit more leisure than is typical, and back and forth pretty endlessly. There have been notable exceptions where the “routine” wasn’t routine at all, and finding any “balance” was more like a dance than a pendulum’s steady swing. In other cases, any hint of “work life balance” was purely linguistic, and not to be taken at all seriously by anyone involved. Those are commonly pretty toxic experiences, and I avoid those.

I continue to look for a better balance, though; more life, less work… it gets tricky when the conversation turns to pay. I definitely still want to get paid. LOL

I sip my tea and reflect. I think about how tricky it is to balance all the elements of a life well-lived… the living, the loving, the working, the resting… and I think about how often one or another detail feels “just right”, while literally everything else seems to be going to shit. lol How very human. Certainly it’s been those “just right” experiences that have often been what has “kept me going”, avoiding despair, keeping up practices, breathing through the emotions, and accepting that “this too will pass” – because it will, and it does, and it’s on to the next thing.

My Traveling Partner has got the truck set up for camping and off-roading and overland adventuring. Exciting. I’m expecting that any day now he will calmly advise me that he is going to “hit the road and check everything out” in preparation for camping together for my birthday. I’m super excited about the camping trip we have planned. I’m also excited to have a couple days home alone… by July we’ll have been in this little house for 3 years. I’ve never spent a night at home alone in all that time. I guess I’m fortunate to be able to say that, given the quality and good character of this love of ours. I’m still looking forward to it. 🙂

…And every time I think about being home alone, while my Traveling Partner travels, I miss him with an incredible ache in my heart that feels just a bit like… withdrawals. lol I’m pretty crazy about this particular other human being. Like a teenager with a first crush…

The minutes tick by. I sip my tea and think my thoughts. I breathe, exhale, relax… soon enough, I’ll also begin again. It’s a new day ahead. New options. New choices. New circumstances. There is room for improvement. Room for change and for growth. All it takes is a new beginning, and a handful of verbs.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Love Letter

April 27, 2023 //
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The world is often a crazy, chaotic, terrifying place, it seems. Sometimes the sorrows and frustrations outnumber the fleeting moments of happiness… maybe… mostly? It can sure seem that way. This journey called life is strange and sometimes strained by the challenges of our circumstances, or just the very human nature of our very human selves. It isn’t often an “easy” experience, at all. This morning, though? I am sipping my coffee, smiling, and thinking about love. Not “I love my coffee” love. Not “I love my job” love. Not even “I love my family and my friends” love. I am thinking about that heartfelt, gut-churning, butterflies-in-my-stomach launching, sweating, mind-altering, mood-enhancing, exciting, exotic, mundane, routine, spectacular romantic love that (if we’re fortunate) we may have the opportunity to enjoy at some point in our adult lifetime. If we’re particularly self-aware, and very skilled with our judgement of character, we may even recognize it while it is happening. 😀 A rare few may enjoy it more than once in their lifetime.

“Life Sparkles (with the love we feel)” 11″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/glow and glitter 2018

…I’m sipping my coffee thinking about love. The love I share with my Traveling Partner (on life’s journey). This is an amazing relationship. No, we’re not perfect people. We fuss at each other now and then. Having met each other later in our adult lives, we sometimes forget that the other has lived an entire life before the point at which we met, bringing skills, memories, and anecdotes of times we did not share to this relationship. I feel fortunate that we were friends before we were lovers. Lovers (and flat mates) before we married. This is a relationship built on a firm foundation, based on shared values and shared goals, but also on affectionate respect and consideration for each other’s individual qualities that make us so different. Why go on about it? Because it’s out there. There is love aplenty in the world. There are verbs involved… No doubt results will vary.

“Communion” 24″ x 36″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic details 2010

I’m counting down the days, now. 4 days, as it happens. In 4 days we celebrate our 12 anniversary married. 4382 days married. Worth celebrating. 12 years of fairly steady forward momentum on this journey together. My Traveling Partner is truly a partner worthy of spending a lifetime with; he lifts me up, he challenges my expectations, he encourages (and demands) my best, he demonstrates his enduring love for me every day, he sparks a fire in my heart that burns bright. Sometimes he frustrates me. That doesn’t limit my affection for him. Sometimes he tests my patience. That doesn’t diminish my love. We’re very human. We love in a very human way – that just makes sense. 🙂

Be love. It’s a choice. Love is a verb.

It’s nice to sit and sip my coffee thinking about love. To sit and ask the question “is this where I want to be?” and “is this love good for me?” and know with effortless certainty that I am, and it is. I hope he feels our love with similar confidence. I fucking love that guy. 😀

Sharing the love, and sharing the building.

No idea what the weekend holds; we’ve changed our plans a couple times already. All that matters, really, is to enjoy it together. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, inspiration, Love, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

So Many Choices!

April 24, 2023 //
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I am sipping flavored water this morning. I had my coffee on the commute into the office. It’s a Monday, and these days I rarely go into the office on a Monday, but I woke to a reminder from the VA about an appointment today that I had managed to memorize correctly for the date, but somehow thought that would be on Wednesday. It is not. It is today. LOL So I quickly adjusted my intentions, and hit the road for the morning commute. I expected it would be tedious… but… apparently I’m not alone in not going into an office on Mondays; there was almost no traffic at all.

I am thinking about the weekend, and the time spent planning future getaways with my Traveling Partner. The truck has us both fired up and eager to explore corners of favorite places and new destinations previously unreachable in his sedan, or in my Mazda. We have hours long conversations about camp kitchens, roof-top tents, jet-boil stoves vs all the other sorts, the necessity or luxury of taking a portable toilet, and does it make sense to have a solar generator and a fridge, or is that just ridiculous? There are so many options to choose from, so many approaches to overlanding, camping, hiking, from the gear to the routes to take, to the destinations near and far that we might want to see. It’s a pleasant way to pass time together, talking about the options and our choices, and whether we can tackle them now, or whether they go on a list for future purchases – or is there some other way we can do that thing in a less costly more personalized way, using our skills, time, and materials on hand? I’m getting to know a whole new side of my Traveling Partner – it’s very exciting.

I spent much of my weekend in the garden. Planting alyssum for future mounds of fragrant ground-covering flowers. Putting up a trellis for the peas. “Encouraging” the blueberries and the roses with oohs and aahs of delight that they are doing so well, already. Checking to see if the neighbor’s cat is staying out of the vegetables now that I’ve put that cat-deterring spikey-matt down here and there. Weeding out dandelions from the flower beds and the small bit of lawn we’ve got. (So many dandelions!) It was a lovely weekend. Time well-spent.

The real point here isn’t that I had a great weekend spent in excellent company. The point is that I had choices. A lot of choices. I chose to enjoy the weekend in spite of the pain I was in on Friday evening, and much of Saturday. I chose to go hither and thither with my Traveling Partner for occasional errands (I could have stayed home). I chose to garden. Together we chose to put time into figuring out what we really want of our leisure time – and how we can make that happen most easily. Oh, for sure, sometimes I let myself bob around like a cork on the ocean, and circumstances or the whims of my partner made the decisions for me… nonetheless, even taking that approach is making a choice. There is so much that is truly within our control through our power to choose. 🙂

I think I’m saying “don’t choose to be miserable then wonder why you are miserable; choose differently if you want a different experience”. Misery is sometimes kind of an “easy way out”, isn’t it? There are verbs involved in escaping misery. Results will vary. We become what we practice, though… so… keeping practicing? Choose something different? Begin again?

Choices are not always “simple” or “easy”. Outcomes are not guaranteed. We do have an astonishing number of choices, though…

I guess I’ll begin again. 😀

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Be Prepared, Stay Flexible

April 22, 2023 //
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I am thinking about journeys, and maps, and preparedness, and how different life feels at each different “stop along the way”. Just a few more days – mid-June – and I’ll be on the other side of 60. Wild. At 25 I wasn’t even certain I’d see 30, with any confidence. I can’t honestly say that I’ve been a skillful or well-prepared traveler in life, either. I sort of stumbled on down the path wherever it led, and I’m fortunate to be where I now stand. (Well… actually, where I sit, as in this moment right now, I’m sitting at my computer with a lovely hot cup of tea, after a day in the garden.)

I’m enjoying this cup of tea, feeling my muscles a bit stiff and achy after the gardening. Lots of stooping, kneeling, leaning, and of course, occasionally standing back up. lol It was a good day of gardening, and I’m pleased with the results; peas and beans planted, the neighbor’s cat (hopefully) quite discouraged from my vegetable bed, a wire trellis added for the peas to climb, and some new herb plants tucked in here and there in the flower beds among the roses (some French tarragon, lemon thyme, and a curry plant). It has been quite a lovely day.

One sunny corner in my garden.

I love the garden as a metaphor for life. Is it perfect? Nope. I sure don’t have either that kind of money or that kind of time. I work on things over the seasons, adding something new, making some little change or improvement, enjoying what I’ve done, and starting all over again each Spring. Eventually, I know the primroses will fill in that corner they occupy, though they haven’t yet. I know the lupines will bloom sturdy and bold, in their own good time – they’re still quite young and are still developing strong roots. I know that eventually, the neighbor’s cat and I will achieve some sort of acceptable understanding of our mutual boundaries. Next year, the blueberries may have fruit, but I know they won’t this year. Still, season after season, year after year, I make improvements, and I enjoy the results. I make a point of spending more time appreciating what worked out nicely, and the veggies that ripened to maturity and yielded good harvests. I don’t spend much time thinking about the entire row of gorgeous seedlings that damned cat dug up, or the unexpected freeze that killed an entire crop I planted too early. I take note of the things that went wrong. I’m observant of the things I failed at. I just don’t get mired in those details or spend much time dwelling on those. It suits me to spend more time on the delights of the garden, and my great joy to be there.

…Life also seems to benefit from that approach; I let myself soak in the joys and celebrate the small wins. I face my failures with measured calm, and an observer’s gaze, without getting stuck there. I mean, that’s the goal. 😀 I’m still ever so human. lol

I saw a small brown bunny today, nibbling my neighbor’s lawn while I worked. I enjoyed a chocolate donut in the passenger’s seat of my Traveling Partner’s new truck, as we headed home from running errands together. I breathed fresh morning air, and enjoyed afternoon sunshine. It’s been a thoroughly lovely day – it doesn’t need anything more to complete it. It is… enough.

I sigh, and sip my tea. It’s warming and quite nice, smelling of pine and forests. I feel chilly; it’s just fatigue. I contemplate a hot shower – that would feel pleasantly warming, too. Sometimes the simplest things are quite enough.

My Traveling Partner and I have been enjoying happy hours discussing camping trips and discussing the gear we have, the gear we need. The truck is a lovely addition to future adventuring, no doubt, and we found ourselves short a few things to camp together or go overlanding. Almost all my gear is specifically selected for solo camping, and intended to allow me to travel light while also ensuring I can get a good night’s rest, enjoy a cup of coffee, and apply first aid to a blistered foot if needed. Together? Hmm… we’re more about the glamping and the really getting away, you know? LOL There are new trailheads waiting! Another useful metaphor for living; traveling. Solo or in the company of a friend, traveling benefits from a bit of planning, and from being prepared. There’s value in bringing a map…but… sometimes, we really do have to blaze our own trail, and become our own cartographer. (I know, I know… helpful to have an emergency beacon, GPS, a trail app… it’s the 21st century, and we have so many more options in life – and in metaphors. 😉 )

…I find myself thinking back on a wonderful camping trip I once took with a dear friend. I don’t recall quite where we went, only how lovely it was. I took a wonderful walk, though I wasn’t really certain what to “do with myself” – I was too recently returned from deployment, too recently discharged back into civilian life… I did not know how to camp recreationally. LOL I kept trying to find something to do… kept an eye on the horizon, listening for certain sorts of noises… hilarious looking back on it. I also made some sketches, wrote some poetry, read awhile… It was a good time, and I’m glad I have it to look back on. I sure wish I could remember where that was…

A nice way to coast into the evening. I smile, finish my tea, and think about love. It’s time to begin again. There are adventures yet to have, and my birthday is so close! 😀

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Roses, solo hiking, Spring, Summer
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