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there is a list for that

April 5, 2016 //
0

This morning I really want to listen to The Beastie Boys. I have a particular track stuck in my head that fits my mood this morning. It’s not really the sort of thing for a quiet morning, and with my partner sleeping in the other room I find myself feeling the lack of a good pair of headphones. How is it that I don’t have headphones? lol I didn’t need them before. It’s simple. I’m not complaining; I have a well-developed wish list of odds and ends and quality of life improvements. I add headphones to the list, for mornings. 🙂

I spent a quiet evening of study and meditation last night, time well-spent. I didn’t realize I had gotten so far behind on planned reading, and important [to me] study material. This morning, I meditate, things I read creep in and I find my thoughts again and again turning away from the woman in the mirror, to the reflection of her experience I so often see in the reaction and words of my partner. A different perspective on ‘who I am’, sometimes distorted in strange unexpected ways. We are both so different than we once were… Change is. There is still room for surprise, for wonder, for joy – and also for frustration, for misunderstanding, and even for anger (it is my least favorite of the emotions I know best), sometimes sadness; we continue to love and to learn – about each other, from each other, with each other. Partnership. He’s got his broken bits, and I’ve got mine. I am quite attached to the idea that we both do our best to care for each other and treat each other well, and like to believe that it is true; I don’t test it very rigorously, and simply accept that it is so. Funny how that sort of things works. 🙂

I open my everyday ‘to do list’ and add some housework tasks to it. (I may forget them far too long, otherwise.) I move on to other things.

I’ve benefited greatly from the additional time meditating the past couple of days. I find myself more invested in myself, and in this safe space that I’ve built to live within, and less focused on the stray agita and stress of humans being human that can be so easy to become mired in, otherwise. I consider what I can be doing (or doing with greater skill or consistency) to support and nurture my partner…and wonder whether he is aware of the things he could be doing to support and nurture me in turn? For the time being this is a shared journey, and in my certainty that I can take better care of myself, I am aware I can also take better care of him, without doing myself harm; it is a journey that requires steps, and covers distance. I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there…

Sharing the journey? A good opportunity to be love.

Sharing the journey? A good opportunity to be love.

Today is a good day to be love.

 

 

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Banana Bread

April 3, 2016 //
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Today I baked banana bread. It’s only just finished a few moments ago, and it sits cooling on the counter. It smells wonderful, and seems an excellent solution to excess bananas. Humorously, we had extra bananas on hand – meaning more than the two of us could eat before the rest go bad – because my injury works the way  it does. At least this was more funny than aggravating. I simply ordered too many, thinking the order was ‘4 bananas’ when it wasn’t ‘price each’, it was ‘price per bunch’. So… I’ve been enjoying a few more bananas than usual, and this morning I made banana bread. It smells wonderful. It smells like love.

Tasty tasty love

Tasty tasty love

Here’s the thing about the banana bread; my traveling partner hung out, helped some, and talked about this and that, and the bread got made, turned out well, and isn’t missing any ingredients. This is significant because I literally can’t hold a coherent conversation with someone while I cook – at least not during the measuring of ingredients, and the following of steps in a cookbook. It’s ‘a recipe for disaster’ if I do; I make a lot more mistakes if I am distracted, and don’t ‘multi-task’ easily. He noticed, showed consideration, and gave me cognitive ‘room to work’ when I needed it, re-engaging me during less critical tasks. It was fun and connected and light-hearted. It was a comfortably productive experience, and yeah… wow… skillful considerate loving partnership makes everything ‘taste’ better.

Love isn't fancy, or by nature expensive, and it does need our attention, and our consideration.

Love isn’t fancy, or by nature expensive, and it does need our attention, and our consideration.

I’ve got the afternoon at home alone, and I will spend it in the studio. There is a slow cooker full of chili from scratch cooking for later in the week. The smell of banana bread fills the place, reminding me I am loved.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Next Steps

March 29, 2016 //
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Journey’s are fraught with obstacles. This one, too. This morning I am feeling a bit ‘stuck for a topic’, not because there is nothing worth writing about, more because there are so many splinters of issues, small things, and bits of background anxiety this morning it’s simply difficult to determine what I can most productively put my attention on, for myself.

The work day yesterday was complete turmoil and not very productive due to a system outage. The transportation to/from my appointment was notably unpleasant with rude people, ludicrously heavy fragrances, loud voices, and emotional content. I spent much of the day in pain, with both a headache, and my arthritis giving me grief. Therapy itself was disruptively powerful, and as efficient as it was effective – thought-provoking? Eye-opening? Forward progress. Incredibly emotionally painful. I arrived home with an aching jaw having spent the ride gritting my teeth and avoiding lashing out at hapless fellow travelers unaware how urgently I needed quiet to get myself back together. Just as the evening began to wind down it was shot through with intense anxiety and… more stress. It wasn’t about me, and no threat to love or family harmony, it was ‘just a thing’, but I wasn’t at all up to it. I held my own, avoided any nasty drama or emotional bullshit, and retired for the evening at more or less the usual time. My sleep was restful enough, but I woke already filled with anxiety. The day begins, lacking in enthusiasm and joy, and filled with lingering stress over so many things…real? Imagined? Mine? Other?

“Anxiety” 10″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic 2011

“Anxiety” 10″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic 2011

So…now what? From a practical perspective, I address the stressors where doing so can fairly easily be done. I work on ‘letting go’ of what isn’t actually mine and trust that things will work out, rather than borrow additional stress, and worry obsessively over things I can’t ‘fix’. It’s a very difficult practice, as practices go – “let it go” sounds so simple. I struggle with it this morning. I keep practicing. Work related stress I examine with some detail, finding it useful for sorting out what I really want from employment, adjusting my resume to more clearly reflect utility, vision, purpose and personal fit for work I might enjoy more.

I consider how the stillness both highlights the anxiety, and allows it to more easily dissipate. I breathe. Relax. The anxiety comes and goes. I spend some time in quiet reflection. More time meditating would be good this morning… My perspective could use some re-calibration. I would benefit from being more present in this moment, and more easily able to tap into the day-to-day positives, and some measure of gratitude. There are verbs involved.

I allow my anxiety to climb into the front seat long enough to deliver a powerful worst-case scenario. I breathe calmly and let it unfold in my imagination as fearlessly as I am able to allow. Could I cope? Strip it all down to the basics, and most likely outcomes, would I be able to get by? I consider it point by point, allowing myself to recognize that change is, and that even if every possible thing went terribly wrong, I would most likely be okay (for some values of ‘okay’). There really are verbs involved, and how I feel about my experience is something I have a lot of choice in. I remind myself simultaneously how damaging it can be for my ability to feel content, to burden myself with comparisons. I remind myself, too, of how much of what I love and enjoy I could also comfortably do without…even this blog, and the internet connection that makes it possible…well…I wrote using ink, on paper, for so many years, right? I smile, recognizing the differences between ‘want’ and ‘need’ more clearly, and the anxiety recedes for the moment; I am okay. My head is still fairly busy with weird nagging details and subtle stress, but even in my worst case scenarios, contentment is possible – and contentment is powerful.

This is a good morning to fall back on The Four Agreements.

Stick with the basics - it's a great place to start.

Stick with the basics – it’s a great place to start.

I read the brief statements, simple, encompassing, and deeply relevant. I fill up on a sense of adequacy, sufficiency, and self-acceptance, and prepare myself for the day to come. This journey isn’t always an easy one, but it is mine – and that is enough.

 

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

So Much is in the Details

March 28, 2016 //
0

It was a generally lovely weekend, and I enjoyed it greatly. The one or two isolated moments of disharmony were too human, and too brief, to make much of and they quickly passed. It was a weekend to connect, to bond, to listen, and a weekend to be very aware of how much I also needed my own attention, if only for a few hours.

Meditation continues to be a key practice supporting my emotional wellness.

Meditation continues to be a key practice supporting my emotional wellness.

This weekend I took time to continue to ‘move in’ and get more settled; I’d only begun that process when my traveling partner unexpectedly landed on my doorstep for an extended stay. I had halted the process of ‘getting all moved in’ without really noticing I had. Providing him with support and care, and seeing to his comfort is also a high priority, and I attended to it immediately – then forgot I still had quite a lot to do for me, as well. One of the many valued opportunities for me in living alone has been learning to take care of myself, and to be more reliably self-sufficient, specifically because I do tend to ‘overlook myself’ in the context of cohabitation with intimate partners. This weekend I attended to a great many more ‘me-centric’ details, and put some effort into continuing to get moved in, myself.

My favored spot to meditate has been in front of the patio door, and living alone it hasn’t been a headache to simply leave my cushion sitting right there; I step around it. Living with my partner, the comfort of ‘having to step around it’ was no longer exclusively about me, and the cushion was somehow ‘in the way’ – funny how perspective changes on such details. Living alone, meditating in the living room  works beautifully. In a shared living space, the living room is now a busy common area, home to the stereo, television, video games, and fireplace – as well as the door to the patio garden, adjacent to kitchen and dining space – and no longer seems a good fit for meditating at some points in the day, there are too many distractions. Choosing to meditate less frequently, or on a schedule, doesn’t work for me, so I put time into rethinking where I meditate during those hours of the day when doing so may conflict with my partner’s activities, and decide to make sure my bedroom is also set up to be a convenient and inspiring place for meditation.

My studio quickly filled with paintings that are not yet hanging, many of which had been stacked in my partner’s bedroom, because it was an empty room when I moved in. Paintings not yet hanging in my own bedroom contributed to the disarray, as well as projects in progress. Painting rails for temporary displays and drying space have not yet been installed. Soon. This weekend I focused on hanging paintings in my bedroom, making that space ‘more my own’. I walk around the apartment quietly with my coffee, smiling at how much got done with weekend, and feeling very much ‘at home’.

This morning felt very natural. I woke a bit ahead of the alarm, not uncommon, and shut it off, choosing a few minutes more time meditating, rather than attempting another 15 minutes of sleep. It was nice that my cushion was already there, and the walls hung with carefully chosen art work on themes that tenderly guide my thinking toward perspective, balance, sufficiency, and mindful awareness. My stiff aching spine benefits from ‘sun salutations’ before I consider myself really ‘up’ for the day. By the time I got to the kitchen to make coffee, I was feeling fairly awake, and ready for the day. I quietly emptied the dishwasher while I waited for the water to heat for my coffee, feeling generally very comfortable, and very much at home. I had been concerned that I would feel less at home here, myself, with my traveling partner moving in. It seems I have learned some things about taking care of me, over the past year. I realize with some astonishment that, in fact, I lived alone for less than a year…

In the not-quite-a-year that I have lived alone, I have learned a lot about the details that matter most (for me) about cohabitation: the intimate friendly presence of a lover so near, the hellos and good-byes, the day-to-day graciousness and shared delight, conversations, planning for the future, shared tales of time apart shared more frequently in greater detail involving less time, the humor, the support, the availability of hugs, shared problem-solving, teamwork, and sure – sex, too, but surprisingly (to me) that isn’t the most singularly important detail…turns out that the most important details are about emotional intimacy, rather than physical intimacy. There remains so much to learn about life, about love, and even about the woman in the mirror. I am eager to share this piece of that journey, and see where it leads. There are a lot of verbs involved…

Sharing the journey? A good opportunity to be love.

Sharing the journey? A good opportunity to be love.

Today is a good day to start a journey. Today is a good day for love.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Being True

March 27, 2016 //
2

Happy Easter! Well, or whatever you are celebrating this morning that may or may not be identified in that fashion. As a youngster, I loved Easter – the egg hunt, the hidden (and very fancy) basket of generally wonderful chocolates and confections, the decorated eggs (which were sometimes quite lavish and exotic at our house, as my Mother was willing to blow eggs, and decorate them as fictional characters, and such, and we would often enjoy coloring eggs the evening before hand – a celebration of its own). Many years as an adult, I continued to celebrate the splendor of spring with Easter baskets, Easter eggs, Easter chocolates. It didn’t matter one bit to me that the aspects of the Easter celebration commonly associated with Christian faiths was often so culturally prominent, leaving the heartfelt earthy practical symbols of spring and fertility to wonder if anyone remembered them; I remembered, and celebrated, and that was enough.

Many years into adulthood, sometime well past 40, I gave up celebrating Easter; the celebrations I love most are pretty calorie-rich, costly, and labor intensive, and I had gained a lot of weight over the years. It had become an insincere celebration, too, unshared, solitary, and unhealthy. I couldn’t afford the rich artisan-crafted exotic chocolates I wanted for fancy baskets I yearned for but had no room to store. The hand-crafted ceramic eggs I had made for myself years before remained wrapped up and put away for many years. My enthusiasm for life was muted by prescription drugs intended to dull only my symptoms, but in fact pretty much just shut me down in all but those moments when nothing could. Easter was lost to me, and the feeble stirrings of interest in some years, more than others, didn’t really bring it back.

Set aside but not forgotten.

Set aside and forgotten… for a time.

This morning I woke thinking about Easter. I woke thinking about spring, beginnings, verbs, ancient rites performed by superstitious primates, earnest rituals performed by true believers, and ceramic Easter eggs, carefully put away, that have no calories at all – only loveliness. I woke with a smile. There is no hurting here this morning, beyond the usual morning stiffness and aching of my arthritis. I feel a mild sensation of regret looking out over the park, beyond the tall grasses to the playground; I could have hidden Easter eggs for the children this year. So fun. I might have filled some with jelly beans, others with coins, some with comforting or thought-provoking aphorisms. I didn’t; Easter had been put away for so long I had forgotten it entirely, until this morning, even though sentences using the word had certainly fallen from my lips in recent weeks. How strange.

There is no moment of bitter disappointment or any particular sadness this morning. Actually, I feel rather hopeful, and eager to see Easter coming up on next year’s calendar. I find myself contemplating ‘being true’ to the woman in the mirror, all her facets, all her joys. I realize that ‘authenticity’ and ‘being true’ to oneself have a connection – noun and verb – and as is so often the case, the verbs involved really matter if that elusive noun is to be achieved, lived, and cherished.

A chilly bumble bee, tired and cold and waiting on the warmth of the day.

A chilly bumblebee, tired and cold and waiting for the sun.

Happy Easter. Today is a good day to be true to my vision of the best woman I can be. There are verbs involved, sure, and my results will vary. Every one of life’s Easter eggs is a moment of potential wonder and immense joy. Everyone of life’s moments is a potential Easter egg. 🙂

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, weight loss secrets, Words
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