Archives for category: Metaphors
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Second Chances, Second Helpings, Second Times

March 1, 2013 //
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A second post; it seems less rare these days to find myself writing more words…a second thought, second look… wait a second…(now I’m just having some fun). The thing is, I just feel good today – even playful. Free. As if Life took a deep breath and relaxed. I suspect that it was actually me. 🙂

So, that TED talk on vulnerability really dovetails with other things I am reading, practicing, thinking, doing – and sharing it is just the only decent thing.   Seriously, I’m probably solo for a couple of hours this evening and if so, I am watching it again – with my whole being.

I had a pretty spectacularly ordinary very good day – it has been pleasantly orderly, and interestingly spontaneous, and all without being overwhelming.  I got some shopping done and found my way to some good places: a market, an art supply store, and an art community.  Painting is very much on my mind, and I took the opportunity to round out my watercolor supplies today, and enjoyed a few moments of fun playing with those and getting organized.  It’s actually a little strange to find myself so excited about painting in watercolor again – when I easily could have been doing so at any point I cared to, all along.  How did I miss that I wanted this?

Now day begins to turn to evening under a cottony gray sky with only a threat of rain, and I have satisfied my initial urgent need to see new work with an unimpressive but pleasing sketch of a crumpled receipt in India ink and graphite.  It was a short night, and as my excitement begins to wane I recognize fatigue, and the calm of utter contentment.  (49 years old and I’ll probably be asleep by 9pm! I certainly didn’t envision this when I stared hungrily at the horizon of impending adulthood as a ‘tween. lol) …But…this feels good…really good.  Have I misunderstood what ‘happy’ actually is, all this time?  A thought for another day, another post, another moment to consider what’s going well, and what is working in some other time and space – for now, this right here is enough.

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Categories Anxiety, Art, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50

The Brain Attacks!!

February 25, 2013 //
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Welcome to Monday. A good one so far, and I’m glad for it. I thought thoughts walking in to work, and some of them may have been profound, possibly share worthy, but by the time I got to work there were really only two things, distilled from almost an hour of walking meditations, that I still wanted to share:

1. It was an overall good weekend – except for the sucker punch my brain delivered to my heart, soul and experience on Sunday morning. Wow. Lethal. I am more thankful than words can express that I have partners with the will and ability to ‘be there for me’ as much as they are, as often as they are, and considering how easily I can, and how often I have, hurt them. I am also extremely appreciative, this morning, that I am alive today – funny thing to say, perhaps, but if you could know the experiences I have already survived across 49 years, it would seem less surprising that I might feel so grateful that existence – mine – continues today. 😀  It is certainly something to cherish, celebrate, and enjoy – even the difficult bits.  So that’s one thing to share.

2. A metaphor… I love music. I started thinking about life and music… and I got this.  There is more than one sort of musician. A skilled studio musician may be a virtuoso with an instrument, or style, well-versed in technique, reading music, bringing ‘a sound’ – and creates music with those tools and skills, but perhaps doesn’t compose or create.  A DJ makes music too – using other people’s music, samples, their own creativity at mixing, bringing elements of varied styles together to create a sound, but perhaps doesn’t have the technical expertise about music theory that might be expected or found more commonly among very technically proficient musicians, or virtuosi.  There are also ‘rock stars’ – gifted performers, composers, musicians – beings of amazing style and ability to capture or drive the zeitgeist, to influence or herald social and cultural change, and I’m sure we’ve all noticed they are not always exceptional or gifted musicians.  In life – which of these am I, I wondered? I realized pretty quickly that although there are qualities of each of these I would very much like to embody, I am probably that guy in his garage with a beat up instrument he got cheap in a pawn shop, who hears music in his head, loves to listen to his favorite tracks and sings along with all his favorite songs… and can’t read a note, and barely picks out a modestly recognizable rendition of the guitar riff from ‘Smoke on the Water’, slowly. That’s not a good or bad thing… but it is sure important to know that about oneself. 🙂  If that guy sticks with it, learns some basics, and figures out what he really wants out of music (life), and applies himself to achieving those goals, he’ll probably get somewhere worth going… on the other hand… if he struts around like a rock star, telling his friends he’s awesome, and showing off what he doesn’t understand… well… I know that guy. You probably know that guy. In life and love, I think I am that guy… and I have a choice to make. I choose to be a humble and honest student of life and love… there’s plenty to learn.   (Thanks, Brain, this one almost makes up for your shenanigans yesterday.)

…and now back to our usual Monday line up… 😉

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Metaphors, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50

Plotting a Happier Ven

February 23, 2013 //
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Knowing we are each having our own experience (and I’m assuming you do know that, possibly accept and/or understand it, or are willing to participate in this moment with me by temporarily suspending your skepticism on this point…) it still hasn’t been easy to describe or even understand why some things hurt, however briefly, when upon rational examination they seem so reasonable. Take ‘feedback’ for example. (I’ll define that as a moment of verbal information offered from one individual to another regarding a specific shared experience or communication that the offered information addresses directly, either by way of a desired correction in verbiage, demeanor, or behavior, or to offer praise in support of specific verbiage, demeanor, or behavior. Sound reasonable? I’m hoping that definition excludes humor, and meanness… ) I sometimes take feedback very badly – and sometimes quite appreciatively and graciously (I know, I’ve been there. lol).  It’s got to be hard on people who care about me to find themselves facing tears over sometime really simple and well-intended. I’m very sure I’m right about that, because they also often seem very relieved and appreciative when it goes well.  I think I figured out something about the feedback thing I didn’t understand before… but, I am not sure I can easily describe what I think I understand.

How about a metaphor? If I am holding hands with my lover, and gently stroking the delicate skin of the inside of their wrist with my thumb, softly, sensuously, over and over… eventually, even though I love them, and even though initially it probably felt lovely, it becomes irritating (try it, don’t take my word for it). Likewise, if I am wounded or have an injury, touches, however gentle, to that source of pain will definitely hurt – even if the intention is not hurtful, and the touch itself, in some other place, would be welcome.  So… perhaps, some specific topics of feedback, or specific requests, delivered often enough over a lifetime eventually sting a bit, even if they are ‘right on the mark’ and quite properly needful, and even ‘welcomed’ once the sting is gone? Perhaps some feedback lands on old wounds that are not properly healed? Yep… I think that gets my point… but I don’t know what to properly do with this thought. (Other than ‘share it with the world via blog post’. lol) How do I hear and make use of good feedback without taking it personally or allowing it to pull at old wounds? I know I can’t reasonably expect my loved ones and friends to read my mind, or know what bits of long-standing pain and delicacy are lurking in my great unknown.  One more thing to think about.

I’m in a good place today. It’s a nice day at home, doing some housework, doing some homework, and hoping that each opportunity to share an experience with my partners is the sort that builds a memory worth hanging onto for a lifetime. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Metaphors, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50, Words

Welcome to Hormone Hell, We Have Your Padded Room Ready…

February 11, 2013 //
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As I walked in to the office this morning I tossed today back and forth like a very inexperienced juggler…’make the best of things?’…’vent?’…’find the silver lining?’…’be real’…’focus on the positive?’…’find greater understanding in my experience?’… Yeah. What the hell? Can’t life and love be simple, and easy once in a while? I guess that’s not something to count on, on the bumpy road to menopause.

Friday morning was pretty great, then a couple random-but-predictable-if-I’d-thought-to-predict-them events ground my emotional balance to a fine powder then mixed it with a sudden shit storm of hormones. I believe the household remodel now includes a padded room… My very supportive, loving partners did the best they could, and frankly an effort well beyond the ordinary on their parts, but any real lasting peace for the weekend was laid waste by my moody outbursts, volatility, and despair. Despair. Fuck, what an ugly emotion. The overall outcome of the weekend seems to be, on one hand, my increased respect for my partners’ ability to provide any measure of emotional support to me, at all, under such trying circumstances…and on the other hand…the ever widening gulf that is my own inability to feel connected to either of them. Wow. Bummer. I’d rather not dwell on that.

The weekend was also nicely productive. We all got a lot of things on our individual to-do lists done. I worked on getting more moved in, myself, hoping that increased order in my space will result in increased order in my thinking. I started a ‘time-based art’ project for myself, too, something as much as tool to reflect on perspective in my life as it is art.   It’ll be a busy week ahead, too… time for a physical. The VA knows more about making a person feel diminished and valueless than any other agency I know of… preparing for that is like putting on emotional armor.  Then Friday… a more important appointment, and I’m bravely pretending I am not afraid, that life isn’t overwhelming me with the intensity of my experience, and that ‘everything will be ok’.

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Categories Anxiety, Art, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Metaphors, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, Words

The Parable of Glitter

January 11, 2013 //
2

One of the lessons I have learned from practicing meditation is that life is full of education, parables, allegories, metaphors, and that the lessons I learn largely depend on whether my eyes and my mind are open to the moment.

Consider the Parable of Glitter.  I’ve loved the sight of glitter as long as I can recall. Tubes of it catch my eye when I shop, and I fondly recall the simple crafts of childhood that often involved glitter and glue. (If you have memories of glitter crafts, too, this may be more meaningful for you.)  I woke this morning to a landscape of white.  A very heavy frost, or perhaps as suggested by my partners over coffee, actual snow had accumulated in the night.  I sipped my coffee sitting alone and quiet watching the morning sun slowly heat the deck, a soft mist beginning to rise. I noticed to my great delight that the very air seemed just filled with glitter! Silver bright flecks with sharp edges flashing like twinkle lights densely filled the air, the sky, every space I could see outside the window. I was in awe with childlike amazement – I’ve never seen such a thing as the sky filled with glitter!

I went outside to see it up close, to see it in more detail, perhaps to touch it and ‘make it real’. Standing in what must have been the thick of it, I was surprised and disappointed, frustrated to find it had all but disappeared in all directions. A few sad flakes appearing to linger in the air was the extent of anything to see.

Like choices. From a distance, eyes wide open to the possibilities, there are so many choices in each moment we have. We can alter our reality at any time, simply by making a choice.  Standing in the thick of life, the choices we see available to us are limited – by our vision.

This is not the end of the Parable of Glitter. Later as I walked and thought about choice, meditated on the nature of how our vision limits our perception of choice, I realized that when I was mindful of what was ahead of me along the way, I could see all that glitters, just ahead on my path.

The Parable of Glitter – choice is limited only by vision, and glitter looks amazing in sunshine.

Categories Metaphors, Parables, Perspective, Words
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