Archives for category: Metaphors
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Busy, Then, Busier

December 14, 2021 //
1

Stop.

Seriously, just put it all on pause for a minute or two. You’ll be fine. The work will wait. The pings and texts will wait too. That urgent whateverthefuck you just have to get done right now? Yep, even that will wait for a couple minutes. Take care of you for a minute. Breathe. Exhale. Relax.

Turn off the music. Quiet as much of the noise as you can control. Just sit for a minute. Another breath. Need a timer? I’ve got you… here, try this one. You’ve got two minutes for you, right?

…<sigh>… Feels good. Just a quiet minute or two…

There’s a lot to get done. Life sometimes feels so crazy busy that I walk around with a chronic lingering sensation of something being incomplete, unfinished, or forgotten. Sometimes, when I stumble on the thing driving that sensation, it’ll turn out to be something forgettably unimportant like being interrupted while reading a receipt, and having the sensation of “an unfinished conversation” that turns out to be with myself. lol I’ve found, more than once, that the “secret” to feeling less busy, less frantic, less consumed by the details… is to slow down. So. Do that.

Do it again.

Set expectations with yourself and others about how much you really can (or are really willing) to do. Take care of yourself. “Human” comes with some known limitations. Respect your limitations – and your boundaries. Tired? Rest. Hurting? Heal. Cross with the world? Take a step back and enjoy you for a little while. Recognize that everyone around you needs those same things – rest, healing, and time to just be who they are, and enjoy that experience.

Look, I’m not telling you what to do. I’m telling you what I’m doing – and going to do, and planning to continue to practice until I get properly good at it. It just doesn’t make any damned sense to be the person in the world treating me the worst. lol I am practicing treating myself – and my loved ones – as well as I know how to treat anyone at all. Every day. Every interaction. Moment by moment. I expect to fall short of my goals – maybe a lot. Failure is an option – pretty commonplace, actually – and we learn more from failures than from successes, so… there’s that. 🙂 You’re gonna fail at some things. That has to be okay. Start over. Begin again. Understand where things went amiss, and do something different or change the context. Just don’t give up on yourself. You have room to grow – and even that journey can be fun, and even pleasant, and rewarding, and filled with love. 🙂 Worth exploring, I think.

…I’m in so much pain today. Arthritis in my spine. Cervicogenic headache. The consequences of injuries, aging, and cold weather… and it seems so completely ordinary as to defy being worth bitching about…but here I am. I think I’ll just begin again, myself. 🙂 I’m certainly too busy to let pain tell me what to do. 😉

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being

Listen to the Band

December 11, 2021 //
1

Yesterday I read that Mike Nesmith died. I broke down in tears and just cried for what seemed an uncomfortably long time. I suppose he was most famous to the world as one of The Monkees. He was “most famous” to me as my first rock-star crush. I had every album. The edges of every one of them was worn and frayed from being held and gazed upon for many hours, song after song after song, daydreaming of the love and life that might one day be mine…

…I don’t live a life anything at all like those adolescent daydreams so long ago, and I don’t think I would enjoy it if I did! I’m not that little girl anymore, and much time has passed. 🙂 Still, to this day, the songs resonate with me. I’m listening to them now, on a long haphazard playlist yanked from YouTube, honoring the loss of a human being so dear to me… though we never met.

Listening to The Monkees, I hear where some important details of “who I am” may come from. Reluctant heartfelt departures? Check! Be sure to say gentle good-byes to the ones you love. Striving for perspective and balanced discourse? Saying I’m sorry? Being willing to change? Check! The Monkees shared an approach I didn’t see modeled at home. (I sure wouldn’t mind being able to do the song-and-dance thing, too… might lighten a tense mood? lol) Frustration with my origins in a wordless way that my adolescent mind did not understand how to express? Even that – The Monkees understood what I was trying to say. They “got me”. It was 1967. I was not even adolescent when The Monkees were on t.v. – the first time. Their music and sketches from their show settled into my consciousness pretty early on. I sometimes wonder if those of us on the tail end of the “baby boomer” generation – not quite a proper “boomer”, not quite Gen X, are more properly The Monkees generation, born to a world with television, and eager consumer minds right at that time when our formative malleable young consciousness ripe for “product placement” was feasting on … The Monkees. 🙂

Hell, for all I know, the earliest seeds of my utter lack of monogamy, and my long-time comfort with polyamory, may also source with those early years, clutching my record albums, seething with hormones, unwilling to really “choose” from among the “pre-fab four” – life with The Monkees looked like a proper romp! Surely there was room for me, with them…? LOL I wasn’t really thinking about sex in any explicit way, just thinking it would be rude to bust up a tight friendship when I really dug them all equally well. lol

Anyway. I’m okay, you know? It’s just a moment. A wee bit of a sorrowful celebration, saying good-bye to “old friends” who meant so much more to me than I had ever really reflected upon so deeply. I listen to Last Train to Clarksville again… the number of times I have happily sung this song at the top of my lungs on a long drive, to stay awake… this time it just sounds like “good bye”, and I cry a bit more. It’s okay though; nothing to be ashamed of in honest heartfelt tears. My Traveling Partner comes into the studio on a practical matter. He’s kind about my moment. I hear Mickey Dolenz remind me to begin again, to move on, to take that next step… they got that before I did, too, but the mere presence of this music in my mind for so long may have made it a bit easier to get my head around new practices, and new beginnings, when I needed to most.

What music moves you? Where do you come from, creatively? What are the songs that fill your heart, and provide a soundtrack to your dreams? The music you first danced to – as a toddler, perhaps. As a tween, certainly. It’s part of your “core programming”, probably. Have you looked it in the face and asked yourself if it became part of your path in a positive way – or if it may be something holding you back? Maybe it’s a good day to listen to the band?

Papa Gene’s Blues begins to play. I think of my life now. I think about my good fortune in life and love. I think about my Traveling Partner on life’s journey. I think about a second coffee, and I think about beginning again. Thanks, Mike.

Bonus track – one of the most fun tracks ever recorded masquerading as a song. 😀

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, gratitude, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, Words

Stormy Weather

December 7, 2021 //
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The frown finally lifted. My jaw finally unclenched. My sheer-force-of-will pleasantness in meetings eventually resolved to simply being pleasant. I let go of being angry, in favor of feeling angry, which eventually let me look beyond my angry feelings to my hurt feelings, and then eventually to just letting shit go. Now? I guess I’m “quietly over it”, and it’s enough. Ideally, small things stay small. It’s not always easy to see that through from intention to outcome. It takes practice.

Neither societies nor relationships are (ever) “perfect”, not really; both are made up of human beings who are themselves entirely “human” in all the error-prone meanings of that word, and compounded by the very (very) subjective nature of our individual experiences. Hell, it’s not even a given that we’re all “doing our best” – or that any one of us is capable of a personal best of sufficient real-world value in any objective way. It’s an inefficient system, at best.

Work keeps me occupied. I pause for a break and reconnect with my Traveling Partner. The gray skies beyond my window seem to reflect back our own individual moodiness, today. Suitable backdrop. I think we’re past it, though, with “clearer skies”, though not exactly “sunny”. Metaphorically, I’m hoping for sunny skies (and sunny days) ahead. Funny thing though; the metaphor of climate and weather with regard to emotions and relationships breaks down a bit if pushed too far – we don’t control the actual weather, but do have substantial control over our emotional “weather”. Oh, for sure, not 100% of the control we might like to have, sometimes, and sometimes what we most want to control of the emotional weather isn’t ours to decide at all. Communication takes effort. Listening is work. Kindness requires practice – even for people in love with each other. “Being angry” is easier than taking the time and care to really process feelings of anger with real consideration, self-compassion, and without adding drama to someone else’s experience. It’s hard. It’s worth practicing, and improving over time. It’s worth failing at it and learning from that, and continuing to practice. Incremental change over time is slow – and it’s hard as hell to make the same room for someone else to fail and grow, as it is to do that for myself.

It’s a pleasant afternoon. My partner brings me a small serving of gelato. I take a break to enjoy that, and review what I’ve gotten done today, and what I’ve got coming up tomorrow. There’s so much to get done before the year ends – and it’s already time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, anger, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

The Rain, The Train

October 29, 2021 //
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I’m riding along on the train. It is autumn. It is a rainy day. There is no staccato spattering of drops on windows to be heard; I only hear the train. There is no musical chiming of droplets on vent covers on the roof overhead. There is only the sound of the train, and the voice of the man across the aisle speaking softly on a phone call. It’s emotionally neutral content, and the delivery is flat, uninflected, and unenthusiastic without being terse, impatient, or bored. It sounds like work, but the conversational context makes it clear the person he is speaking to is an intimate – a partner? A close friend? His son? There’s a question regarding questions. A comment about an attorney. A brief review of revenue, debt, priorities, and upcoming planned events. It is the least interesting thing going on, as the train rolls along, but it is what I hear. There are autumn leaves beyond the windows. Fall-foliaged forests fill the view as the train rolls on.

Autumn view in motion

I think about work. I think about life. I think about ethical matters and personal choices. I find rail travel excellent for self-reflection. No connectivity; posting this will have to wait.

Still rolling along

I enjoyed the trip for work. It was not “perfect”, and I didn’t expect it would be; sleeping in strange places is sometimes hard for me, and I spent most of the trip in unmanageable pain. It was quite productive, and that exceeded my expectations sufficiently to make the entire trip very worthwhile. It was not particularly recreational; the cognitive work (and in the pain I was in) was sufficient to exhaust me each day. Even the good restful hours of sleep I managed to get weren’t much help with the pain; the bed and pillows were uncomfortable (for me). The chairs in the office were as uncomfortable as office chairs in the office generally are. (In spite of careful consideration of employee needs, somehow most businesses manage to fill their spaces with uncomfortable seating, however much they spend on chairs.) At least, for sure the chairs are uncomfortable for me. To be brief? I got a lot done, and I hurt, and I’m eager to get back home to my Traveling Partner’s loving arms, charming smile, and a comfortable bed. 🙂

…Suddenly, I feel the fatigue of 4 nights of poor quality sleep. I glance at the time and fret for just a moment about making the drive home from the city; an interruption in rail service delayed the journey about 2 hours… I expected (and planned) to be home much earlier than I will be. I reflexively remind myself to drive safely…

…The weekend is almost here. The thought refreshes me for a moment…but real sleep, at home, sounds so good right now.

Checking my location on Maps, I amuse myself clicking on “directions” and find that it has a very accurate notion of where I am, and even suggests that – were I able to do so – taking the next train would get me there in about 2 hours 45 minutes. Pretty close to the estimate provided by the train operator, actually. I am grateful that I’m already on this train and not waiting on the next one. 😀

My meandering thoughts lead me to consider social media, and by the end of my musings, I’ve made the decision to shut down Instagram. My last social media account. Oh, I may not delete it, but I’ll empty it out, lock it down, update privacy and security to maximum strictness, and delete the app from my devices, for sure. I plan to do so on the last day of the year. I’m “over it”. 🙂 Getting rid of Facebook has been helpfully pleasant and a massive reduction in stress day-to-day. Yes, it has complicated staying in touch with far away friends – but it wasn’t easy (for me) before social media, and doesn’t take any more effort now than it would have taken then. I just have to make that effort. That’s on me. It would be nice to have a better option, but in the meantime, I’ll just have to use email and text. Time to get to work making sure my contacts and all their details are up to date.

So much to see along the journey.

The train joggles along roughly. Feels like “turbulence” on a plane. This complicates typing rather a lot. I guess I’ll set this aside for now. Later, I’ll begin again.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being

Seasons and Cycles

October 11, 2021 //
0

I am enjoying a Monday off.

It is, in some locales, “Columbus Day”. Other places now celebrate Indigenous People’s Day, instead (“in addition to”, while appearing to be sort of a thing, doesn’t really make any sense; the ideas are very much an either/or sort of situation, from my perspective). I grew up with Columbus Day as the holiday being taught, and celebrated, and I recall early confusion regarding what, exactly, was actually being celebrated about the bloody land-grab that was the colonization of North America by European settlers. As an adult, I try to honor the day more honestly, educating myself about various “First Nation”, “Native American”, and indigenous cultures of the continent, and taking time to appreciate the moral and ethical complexities of this country I live in, in a more complete and frank way.

Today? I’m mostly just having a Monday off. Later I’ll meet with my therapist (it’s been awhile, and I think I need a “tune up”). Run an errand after that. Enjoy the day as a whole and complete thing, rich in its own complexities.

I’m thinking about seasons and cycles. Partly because some background portion of my mind is still nibbling at a work problem to do with “seasonality”, partly because the season has changed from summer to autumn, almost “overnight”. Certainly, it seemed to take only days from the last hot afternoon to the first chilly morning. Now, leaves are turning fall colors: gold, russet, flaming orange, deep reds, and moody purples. I enjoy the display, and the cooler days.

One day, recently, my Traveling Partner said to me (I was having a rough go of the moment we were standing in and feeling very sad and diminished), “If I could give you just one thing, it would be “hope”…”. This morning I feel hopeful. It’s nice. Pleasant. Hope tends to make the uncomfortable seem more endurable, and less significant. 🙂 I smile to myself and have another sip of my coffee; it has already gone quite cold, on this leisurely pleasant morning. I’m okay with that. It’s good coffee.

The holidays are approaching. I haven’t really “made a plan” as far as what we’re doing for us, here at home. It feels appropriate to have a relatively frugal holiday season – mostly because we have our basic needs met. By “frugal” I’m not meaning “privation” and going without – I just mean a holiday more about moments, warmth, and cookies, and less about retail endeavors (whether online or locally). I’m not any less excited at the prospect. I’ve got a good mixer, and a lot of excellent cookie recipes. lol 😀

I sip my coffee thoughtfully, realizing that during this pandemic, even the price of butter can result in holiday treats being quite costly, and thus, rather luxurious. What is luxury? I guess it could be the distinction between cookies made with on-sale margarine and discount chocolate-flavored chips instead of plugra butter and carefully selected varietal baking chocolate. Those small luxuries are often just as out of reach as the large ones… Struggle is real. At least today, this year, this life, this moment, I can make the choices with care, and enjoy the occasional luxury, eyes open, no shame. 🙂

I look at the time. Already? Time to begin again. 😀

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being
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