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Free Will…and Won’t

October 17, 2014 //
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I woke early. Very early. “Too” early. I woke in pain, although it’s “just” my arthritis; however much pain I am in, I’m reluctant to make a big deal about it (or generally, even to mention it aloud), because it is such a constant presence in my autumn-winter experience. Life isn’t easily enjoyed as a test of endurance…at least…I don’t find it so, myself. I woke, and went from waking to moving gently through a yoga sequence that improves my flexibility and reduces my pain somewhat. My consciousness settled early on a moment of ire from the day before; it takes an effort of will to disengage to and move on thoughts of things that have positive value for me. Note that I didn’t say the troubling moment was unimportant or insignificant. Deceit, inconsiderate treatment, risky behavior, and disregarding explicit boundaries set and agreed to in shared conversation are all things that I find ‘significant’ – in a negative way – and ‘important’ inasmuch as disregarding those sorts of things generally has later consequences; I’m not interested in investing my emotional bandwidth or precious mortal time on a quiet morning in deep contemplation of circumstances or experiences that were hurtful, or negatively affected me. It’s not necessary. I know my values. I know my feelings on the circumstances that irk me (see? said it right there – I’m ‘irked’. lol). I don’t need to know more at present. I may consider the matter more at some other time, but for now… I won’t.

I also won’t dwell on the pain I’m in, although I’ve learned that attempting to truly ‘ignore it’ tends to push it to the forefront of my consciousness, where compassionate awareness, and taking care of me in a considerate and kind way tends to allow it to reduce more or less into the tolerable background of everyday life. That’s a vast improvement over fretting and obsessing on it, until I am near tears from being unable to escape it. We create a lot of our experience through choices and small acts of will we are not mindful of. I’ve been studying, and I have yet to find any support to the idea that the entirety of our experience is external and visited upon us. It just isn’t so; a great deal of what I used to understand as being ‘on the outside’ turns out to be, in a clearly demonstrable and simple way, quite entirely on the inside. We create who we are through our thoughts and action – our choices determine so much of who we are, sure, but beyond that – our choices also create the very world we live in. Sometimes it is as simple and obvious as legislation…sometimes it is insidious, a byproduct of disordered thinking, poor decision-making, and projecting our own internal narrative on our understanding of the world, in lieu of awareness and observation. I make a point of double-checking – reality checking, really – my view of the world around me in moments escalating toward stress, panic, rage, or sorrow. I’m stunned how often my view of things is really just my view of things, and nothing more.  I’ve learned that changing my view is often simply a matter of looking at something else – and not just metaphorically speaking, often quite literally a matter of pointing my eye holes at some other object, another horizon, a different perspective, and observing that changed view, mindfully, aware, and open to observing, only. It’s quite a lovely bit of soulful ‘magic’ that has turned around my mood more than once. (All those sky photographs? Not a coincidence; that’s me, taking ‘things are looking up’ quite literally.)

Exploring the words with actions; things are looking up.

Exploring the words with actions; things are looking up.

So. Awake early. In pain. Hot coffee. The usual, right? Less so than some mornings, actually, but I am exerting my will – and my won’t (lol) to move in a positive direction as much as possible. I can’t emphasize enough how important my physical experience can be for managing my mood; when I hurt, and don’t find a way to alleviate that pain, I am quickly at risk of being in a pretty sour mood, and prone to anger and irritability. That even makes sense; pain hurts. I have less difficulty with all the other bits of my experience if I take steps to manage my pain effectively. I am learning not to take on emotional matters, or potentially confrontational conversations, when I am in pain. It’s not fair to me, to the other people involved, or to the achievement of a desired outcome to filter everything through an experience of pain; it colors my experience in a pretty profoundly negative way.

Perspective matters.

Perspective matters.

Back to the positive pieces of morning, then? Sure. 🙂 It’s Friday, and the morning holds the promise of every new day; the potential is as yet unlimited, and the opportunities are many. There are choices to be made for later, the weekend to consider (according to my calendar I lost my mind and didn’t plan anything at all – so unlike me), the evenings, the mornings, the days… there’s an exhibit at the art museum I’d like to see, and I haven’t been to the big farmer’s market downtown in a while. There’s laundry to do; weekends are all about the laundry. lol I find myself smiling, and the pain isn’t so bad this morning…the familiar nausea of morning medications, and the sweating and trembling of an unexpected hot flash don’t seem worth more than a moment of awareness and then moving on. Other levels of cognition slowly come online as I become more awake, and in the background I find I am quietly listing things I intend to get done today or in the upcoming imminent future, checking off things I’ve already done with some satisfaction; I nearly always add things to lists that are relevant but also already completed, because I enjoy the momentary sense of accomplishment, and the reminder of how much I do get done. 🙂 It’s a very positively reinforcing practice. That’s one of the coolest things about adulthood, too; I get to make my own rules about most things in my experience. I choose my behavior. I choose what I like and what I enjoy. I choose what I will not stand for. I choose what matters to me. I choose what I will… and what I won’t. It’s a bit deceptive, as human beings, to go around on the assumption that legislation actually regulates behavior – it doesn’t; our choices do. We even choose whether to comply with laws, traditions, cultural norms. All choices. We choose consideration or callousness. We choose kindness or cruelty. We choose openness, or we choose otherwise. We choose what to focus on first thing in the morning. 🙂

Mindful awareness, and observing without judgement, reveals so much.

Mindful awareness, and observing without judgement, reveals so much.

When was the last time you paused for a moment to consider how amazing it is that you even exist at all? Today is a good day for that. Perhaps it’s been awhile since you have been treated with real kindness? There are a lot of people feeling that way, I bet. Today is a good day to be kind, too. Today is also a good day to respect people’s boundaries, to be considerate of the needs of others, and to set clear expectations explicitly; even if they are not honored by others, I find I do myself a significant service to respect my own boundaries enough to state them clearly. It’s a lovely morning to pause and observe the sunrise; we are mortal, and will see a finite number of sunrises in our human lifetime. Today is a good day to be mindfully aware of each small pleasant detail, and to linger over pleasant sensations and ideas. Today is a good day to breath deeply the fresh autumn air [geographical location probably matters a great deal on that one!]. Today is a good day to remember that however irksome the behavior of others, they too are human, and having their own experience; we each have a choice in whether we participate in a shared experience, or walk on. Today is a good day to switch things up a bit, to be daring and adventurous, to be willing to trust myself, and recognize that I know me, better than anyone else can. Today is a good day to change the world.

 

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5, Words

Autumn Rain, Autumn Morning

October 14, 2014 //
0

The heavy clouds last night as I walked home were a pretty sure indicator there would be a little rain in the night, or this morning; that didn’t take a degree in meteorology, for sure.

"Dress appropriately"

“Dress appropriately”

This morning I woke filled with anxiety; I put it to rest with meditation before I went any further with my day. I don’t have a lot of words in my head, this morning, and the sensations of anxiety continue to come and go, connected to nothing obvious, and without identifiable direct cause. I no longer ‘worry’ about that when it comes up; the worrying itself feeds the anxiety, not the resolution of it.

I am eager to head into the rainy morning. There are so many sorts of rain to enjoy. The aquarium trickling quietly in the background masks the sound of rain beyond my window, and stepping out into the morning will be like opening a present; the anticipation, the excitement, and then – what it is. My generally at home partner gives me a good-bye hug before heading to work, herself. My traveling partner and I enjoyed a brief moment, before he opted to return to sleep; it’s very early, still.  I hear doors open, doors close… I have learned, too, not to build stories about my life or the world on the sounds of doors, drawers, cupboards, and footsteps. That, too, helps me manage my anxiety. I used to find myself utterly caught up in the stories I built around all the sounds I could hear in the background, beyond a closed door, in another room, around a corner out of view. To those sounds I would add whatever I could hear of voices, generally just mood, or tone, without words; the narrative I created for myself could drive days of tension, anxiety, fearfulness, insecurity, despondency, agitation… it rarely found its way to building a narrative of love, joy, connectedness, intimacy, or delight. I’m learning to create more positive implicit memory, and in so doing, I am learning to undermine anxiety. It’s powerful.

Simple pleasures, savored, matter so much.

Simple pleasures, savored, matter so much.

Little things, like taking a real break from the work day, stepping outside into the trees for a moment with a friend, to share the discovery of a honey bee hive high up in a tree, and enjoying the late autumn breezes and sunshine, can change the mood of an entire day, or experience, for me. (Your results may vary. Caution: results require more effort than they appear to. Apply verbs liberally.) Little things, like celebrating a fairly silly holiday, in a wholesome and whole-hearted way, and connecting to a larger shared experience in my community has value too. Happy Halloween! What’s it really about for you? For me, Halloween is a strange sort of holiday. In modern times, mostly about costumes, and parties and… what? Is there something more sacred to it? There doesn’t generally seem to be. Hell, mostly it isn’t even scary, however much horror films seem to feature in the festivities. I consider Halloween a sort of cultural ‘whistling in the dark’… perhaps more folks should dress as cops and congressmen? lol

What it is.

What it is. 

So…another day, more to learn, more opportunities to demonstrate good intentions, and make good choices, more chances to communicate clearly, and show someone kindness. Today is a good day for all that and more. Today is a good day to encourage someone in a genuine way, and to give more praise than criticism. Today is a good day to look our limitations in the face and say “you’re not my supervisor!”

Today is a good day to walk in the rain.

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress

This One’s Harder

October 10, 2014 //
3

[Warning: potentially emotive writing about anxiety, and kind of a lot of bitching.]

Some lovely autumn flowers in the landscaping; each positive moment and experience matters so much.

Some lovely autumn flowers in the landscaping; each positive moment and experience matters so much.

I woke already feeling stressed this morning. Work-anxiety. That annoys me more than a lot of things, because I already have challenges feeling ‘invested’ in the job at hand. I like my job, actually. I’m good at it, and it is work that generally appeals to me in a low stress environment. It’s so not worth taking on stress, though. Why? Because it’s someone else’s agenda. Someone else’s profits. Employment supports my logistical needs in life, that’s really it from my perspective. I’ve been emotionally ‘ready to retire’ for a long while. I have my own life that I’d like to enjoy. I have enough things I enjoy and want to do to fill my 24 hour mortal days, already. Every hour I give up to employment is actively resented on some level, and recognized as robbing me of precious time to live my life; fortunately I don’t dwell in that experience. Very few people truly get paid well enough to be a fair exchange for their precious mortal lifetime, fewer still seem aware of that.

This morning I woke with a headache – not quite migraine, but heading that direction – and woke from troubled dreams of treadmills. I’d get off one, get onto another, and always with some implicit promise that eventually I could just stand still for a moment… and that moment just wasn’t on the horizon. There were more treadmills. It wasn’t a nightmare, but I woke feeling fatigued, and with this headache, and “filled with tears” that promptly spilled over as soon as I sat up, as if gravity had something to do with crying.

I must have created a disturbance in the force this morning; I woke my traveling partner without making a sound. I like hugs in the morning, and reassurance and support always feel good. I have mad respect for a human being who will cozy up to the mess I am this morning and get that close. That’s love right there. When I admitted it seems to be “just” work stress, he looked into my eyes with love and said firmly “You know that means you need to slow down, right?” I love that he checked to make sure I do understand that. I love being able to feel good about that moment and not feel slighted that he asked, and able to recognize his love and concern that I take care of myself well – even at work. I could walk away from any job, any time, and he’d be there supporting my decision to do so without reservations – or, without any that would become obvious to me. Sitting in the dark stillness of pre-dawn morning, it is a nice departure from the anxiety of the moment to take time to consider what a good partnership I’ve got with him, and how well he supports me, every step of this very complicated journey. It’s nice to count on that, it’s amazing that I can; it’s a rare being that will offer anything they can do to help – at 4:30 am, having been wakened from a sound sleep by the sense of someone else’s stress – no strings.

Love, as wonderful as it is, and as plentiful, just doesn’t fix some things. I’ve got to address the work stress – and preferably in a positive way that takes care of my needs over time. This morning was a poorly matched battle between my lack of desire to be ‘gainfully employed’ at all, and my  desire to do the job in front of me well. I’d rather sleep in. I could sit in front a keyboard for my own purposes for as many hours of the day as I currently hand over to someone else in return for money. Those same hours could be spent having sex, painting, walking in the forest, out with my camera, reading a great book – or writing one. I mean, seriously? What has my effort at work actually contributed to my experience of life, generally, besides stress and some cash? I wonder, just now, if the experience would be different for someone really into money… It’s “a good job”. I’m skilled at it. There is a climate controlled office to work in, with windows that have decent views. There’s a well-stocked break area. There are, truly, many positives – as employment goes. I’d really just like it understood that I’m not a fan of having to be employed in the first place. I’m willing to admit that. Like so many people, adulthood comes with some handful of financial and logistical obligations that are only eased by money. Dollars and cents. Cold hard cash. A signature on a check. A swipe of a card. Dollar by dollar, my life force, and my time, are exchanged for money. This morning the exchange rate doesn’t seem adequate; time is precious.

...An unexpected shift in perspective...

…An unexpected shift in perspective…

Wow. 800 words of bitching about having to work. Suddenly that seems callous, knowing how many people are without, and would happily exchange many hours of their lives for the cash to pay the bills, and feed their families. My perspective shifts and my brain takes advantage to level me with a new attack; how could I be so ungrateful? How could I be so insensitive? How is it that I don’t have more appreciation for my good fortune when so many others are struggling? Tears. Nausea. This fucking headache. Stress sucks.

I actually woke much earlier than 4:30 am. It was around 1:30 am, then again around 3:00 am. Each time I meditated, and let my breathing calm and soothe me, and found my way back to restless sleep. Stress is a killer, and persistent about continued and prolonged attacks on my contentment and balance. By 4:00 am I couldn’t argue with it any more and got up. The meditation helps; I’m not having a screaming tantrum, blaming the world or my lovers for the state I’m in, or torturing myself emotionally over feeling stressed, or struggling not to cry. The tears come and go. I continue to focus on my breathing and practicing what I have learned about Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, mindfulness in general, emotional intimacy, treating myself well, and most recently the new practices around ‘taking in the good’ to hard-wire happiness by improving the positive tendencies in my implicit memory. Yep. There’s science, real science, in growth and change. As I consider each practice I’ve learned over the past (almost) two years, my blood pressure drops, and I start feeling calm and content. Still have the headache, but the tears have stopped, and my typing doesn’t sound so… agitated. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it sure has the potential to change my experience.

What will today offer? What will I choose? Where will the journey take me?

What will today offer? What will I choose? Where will the journey take me?

There’s so much ‘human’ to this experience this morning… yours, too, maybe. We’re each having our own experience. Today, let’s make it a good one, and choose to take care of ourselves with great kindness and compassion. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights

What Time is Love?

October 6, 2014 //
0

I think the answer to the titular question is ‘now’. Excellent. We can move on…

Night.

Night.

I woke ahead of the alarm. That’s no surprise. I felt awake. I got up. That’s how it generally works. Before I’d even finished dressing and brushing my hair, after assorted other morning activities relevant to starting the day, I felt tired and sleepy and totally able to go back to bed. Unfortunately, it’s also Monday, and that means the weekend is over and today is a work day. I couldn’t be more disappointed if I were a kid and summer just ended unexpectedly when I thought I had another week. lol I’m mostly sitting here yawning and wondering why I am so groggy. I slept through the night. I slept deeply and woke feeling rested. This hardly seems at all reasonable.

So here I am feeling tired and especially uninspired, sipping my espresso, and considering the lovely weekend. End to end this one was pretty excellent, and I smile over the details, and over my  coffee. Pain Management was complicated this weekend, and I’m in more than usual pain these past handful of weeks; autumn is here, and the changing weather generally has this result. Maybe I am just groggy as a byproduct of having relied on Rx pain relief more than usual? That’d be all it would take, and I’m satisfied to accept as being so, and move on.

I took time to meditate this morning, feeling content and serene, and instead of having to steady my mind with meditation through a series of distracting internal attacks on myself by my own brain, tempting me into sorrows with invented nonsense and insecurity, I found myself more gently distracted by ideas for paintings. lol I’m okay with that one. After meditation was concluded, I happily took notes. Artistically, I’ve been very productive lately, which is complicated joy; I paint enough that wall space, storage, and practical details like selling things quickly become concerns. In the past, I’ve often been too disordered to do much about it, besides crowd more on my walls, sell what I could, and tenderly put away what there is no room for. Good choices about taking care of me find me in a better place. Over the weekend I worked on a more commercially user-friendly web page, my Etsy store, and making my image archive more useful for me. (Selling my paintings is rather hard for me; I want to keep most of them, myself. LOL)

Just about the most important artistic moment this weekend occurred on Saturday, later in the day. I had an inspiration, a moment of eye-opening wonder and delight, for a self-portrait of incredible importance to me that I could not have painted even 5 years ago; transcendence. I want to paint a powerful self-portrait that frees me from the anguish sometimes hidden in the details of living with my injury, by blowing that myth to pieces with the beautiful truths of the strengths I also gain from the sort of injury it is, and the growth I am experiencing on this journey. I want to paint the singularity that is now, on my timeline. Yeah. From here on, anything I say about the idea itself pretty quickly becomes garbled; it isn’t about words.

There are quite a lot of experiences, feelings, and moments that just aren’t about the words we attempt to use to describe them. I get caught on that a lot; I want to share, I have some words, surely somewhere in all those words are the right words to share… something. Too late I sometimes find that the experience is beyond sharing – in words. Doing so, and being forceful about trying to make a course correction when it begins to go awry, is a handy shortcut to an argument in the middle of a pleasant experience. Hardly fair to anyone involved. I’m learning to remind myself that some of what we experience is truly made of up “you had to be there” moments that can’t be shared in words at all, but can be shared in the subtle companionship of wordless emotion. Just chill with it. Just be that experience, softly. Just hold that moment, enjoy it, let it simmer there in my consciousness long enough to become the look I wear on my face, and the way I carry myself through space, available to be enjoyed and shared in my very presence. It’s nice – it’s more difficult than it sounds, sometimes. Occasionally, I or a loved one will make a specific call for a moment of stillness…living with me, living with this injury, does require that effort now and again. 🙂

It’s a still and quiet morning. The household is so quiet that the loudest thing I hear in the background is my tinnitus, which is mildly annoying. I’m more awake now. Awake enough to be very aware of back pain, but before I start feeling cross about that, I notice I’m already immersed in gratitude that it isn’t worse, that I don’t also have a headache, that my ankle doesn’t feel like it’s on fire, and that my heart feels light and I am content. No bitching required. That’s another nice change to take note of; I am less inclined to bitch about stuff, generally, that I used to be. I’m pleased with that. I think about ‘change’ and I think about how often I have felt wounded by a call to change ‘who I am’ in prior relationships, lifetimes, or circumstances. It hurts to feel that I’m not good enough or that I am somehow broken, defective, or lacking in real value as is. There’s a whole library of books to help people get past that and understand their worthiness as beings… often at the expense of understanding how awesome change can also be.  Demands for change from others can feel so critical and accusatory… but truly, there are things about me I’d see changed ‘if I could’, and of course I can. That’s a choice. If I choose change because by changing I become more the woman I most want to be there is no reason to discourage change. Hell, I enjoy change when it brings me the joy involved in being more who I am. That’s good stuff. I even get to decide who that is – no one else can. So what’s to be mad about? I change what I want to change, what I choose to change, in order to become more who I am interested in being – based on who I already am. Magic. Being told to change, ordered or directed to change, pretty nearly always sucks. Being asked to change can sometimes carry with it some baggage about the forces of change, and it isn’t always easy to determine whether the requested change is one I actually want to make, in that moment, for the requested purpose. I’ll still make those choices; it’s best to do so eyes open, and willing to admit the change has value, or the strength to say it isn’t one I wish to make. The real demonstration of skill, for me, will be to easily hear a demand for change, recognize the feelings associated with the implied criticism, not take that personally and be able to evaluate the change itself on its own merits and determine without pressure whether it suits my own needs, meets my own goals, and results in taking care of me and meeting my needs over time – to be able to put down the baggage, the hurt, the resentment, and honestly evaluate the suggested change, and make a reasoned choice for myself, outside any context relevant to criticism, or hurt feelings. That would be powerful.

An unexpected hot flash, and sudden wave of nausea end that moment of contemplation. Practical matters of being a human primate intervene, and I notice the time. I’m awake now. I’m feeling ill, and in pain, but I am awake; good enough to hold down a job. lol

Today is a good day to be human, and be okay with that. Today is a good day to recognize the humanity of each individual I meet, and consider how difficult life can be for any one of us, on any day. Today is a good day for consideration, for kindness, and for a smile shared with a stranger. Today is a good day to lead by example and treat each person truly well, including myself. Today is a good day to be imperfect, and a good day to be uncertain. Today is a good day to be okay with who I am, and delighted to have opportunities to improve on that my own way. Today is a good day to change, and to change the world.

Morning. (Not this morning, but a morning, nonetheless.)

Morning. (Not this morning, but a morning, nonetheless.)

 

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, Words

View Point Ahead

October 5, 2014 //
0

When I am on a long road trip, I watch eagerly for the signs alerting drivers of some near by roadside attraction, monument, historical marker, or ‘view point’. I stop for the ones that appeal to me, and stop even for less appealing ones when I am fatigued. It breaks the monotony of driving, which develops over time, even though I enjoy driving. I often see very cool things I’d have otherwise missed, adding to a lifetime of interesting experiences that become part of the person I am. Occasionally, there turns up a peculiar ‘nothing to see here’ moment, when some roadside ‘view point’ turns out to be nothing more interesting than a pull off, and a distant but unremarkable vista. I bring who I am to each of these experiences, and enjoy the potential to walk away more experienced, and thereby more who I am becoming.

Our perspective really matters; it changes what we are able to observe.

Our perspective really matters; it changes what we are able to observe.

I find something interesting in the above paragraph, if viewed as a metaphor; how easily I pull off the road to see something I haven’t seen, or even may have seen, but from a different perspective – and how difficult it can sometimes be in conversation with another to do the same in the moment – to metaphorically ‘pull off on the side of the road, and take a look at something from a different point of view’. I don’t personally place a positive value on ‘being right’, in spite of the cultural emphasis on that characteristic. Vile things are said and done by human beings to other human beings – even loved ones – in the name of ‘being right’. How easily I fail to take time to look at something, someone, through beginner’s eyes, though… and in spite of not being concerned about ‘being right’ on some detail, I can easily find myself defending my position against someone else’s perception of my ‘being wrong’. It’s an easy misstep to make on a journey, and in a relationship; defensiveness is the flip side of needing to be right. I woke this morning with this particular thought in my mental buffer. I wonder what I was dreaming, and if it was the byproduct of my brain working through the details of yesterday?

I had a particularly emotionally challenging conversation with my traveling partner, yesterday. It reached a point where it was profoundly emotional, and I was definitely on the defensive; I had a strong sense I wasn’t being understood. (As it turned out, I was well-understood, but didn’t recognize that, myself, although he courteously said the things he understood would communicate that understanding, I just wasn’t quite ‘getting it’.) If the conversation had developed differently, I would have been very receptive to the information my partner was sharing; somewhere as the conversation developed, however, I found myself assuming I wasn’t being understood, because the information provided to me didn’t address what I said the way I expected it to be addressed…and because of that, I perceived a disagreement that wasn’t in fact present. He offered me new knowledge and a better understanding of the discussion (we were talking about the use of meta-discussion versus discussion of singular now events as methods of shared discussion of needs, and where one or the other is more suitable to growth, change, or harmonious dialogue). I returned the favor with some tears, and frustrated confusion; he was duly frustrated and confused as well, and irked by the tears. I was too. We easily got past it once we both recognized that I had begun to approach the dialogue defensively, and feeling attacked, even though the conversation had begun in the abstract. We took time to comfort each other, to acknowledge missteps, hurt feelings, and to be frankly accountable for our own role there. We returned to the basic points we were each making in the original abstract, and fairly academic discussion, and recognized the value of each – and of each of us to each other as well. Smiles were shared around, and hugs – and bacon. lol. The entire conversation happened in the span of time it takes to cook bacon. That’s real growth for me; there was a time in my life that bullshit might have lingered for days, with me storming around in a childish funk for no real reason. Instead, I enjoyed learning, growth, and connecting with my partner… he still had to endure a few moments of tears from a partner who is to all outward appearances a grown woman who could be expected to be beyond childish tantrums, and needless tears (and clearly isn’t). He did, though, and graciously moved on from the moment without further difficulty.

So much more than meets the eye.

So much more than meets the eye.

Yesterday was lovely. It ended in moonlight and a phone call alerting me that the northern lights were visible… wherever my traveling partner found himself last night. I eagerly stepped outside hoping to see them, myself. Alas, no. A great huge blight on the view of the night (an Intel facility a couple blocks away) reduces the night sky, generally, to inky black, with only a moon to see. It hung in the night, luminous and pale, and I stood in the coolness, in the soft darkness, listening to the distant sounds of traffic, and machinery, and contemplating the dense starry sky from the view of my campsite a couple of weekends ago. I miss that particular night sky, full of stars; it reminded me of the night sky in the desert, although I could only see patches of it through the trees. That too is a beautiful metaphor; there is so much more than we can see. Even in my own experience, some one negative moment can loom so large in my awareness that it blots out the beauty, the delight, a pleasant and unfulfilled now, or the recollection of how wonderful life actually is, generally.  A nice observation to carry around for the future. Useful perspective.

As I write, I hear my traveling partner arrive home from his Saturday night out. It’s not quite dawn. I feel that sense of relief and security that he is safe and near. A hug, a smile, a moment of quiet conversation; all seems well in the world.

A new day beginning. Today is a good day for love, and a good day to treat love well. Today is a good day to practice The Big 5, even on myself. Today is a good day to take care of me, and share smiles generously. Today is a good day to experience life from a perspective of joy and wonder. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5, Words
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