Archives for category: Mindfulness
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DST Fog

March 11, 2024 //
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Good thing I have my commute memorized. lol The Monday after DST begins is hard. I didn’t oversleep, but my silent alarm had the lights at full brightness before they woke me, or even disturbed my rest at all. I woke groggy and stupid, clumsy and disorganized, but still managed to dress, still remembered to grab my lunch from the fridge, still thought to get gas before I left town. I joined a ridiculous queue of Monday morning commuters, a lot more traffic than usual (some mix of folks heading out late, and others leaving early, on top of the “regulars” who depart more or less when I do). The drivers were a mix of groggy, stupid, and irritable, but traffic moved along pretty efficiently, and although it was a bit slower than usual getting into the city, I am grateful that I arrived safely – particularly after passing a really nasty traffic accident blocking one of the more complex intersections as I entered the city (looked like 3-4 cars, and not just a “fender bender” – there were cops and emergency vehicles pretty much blocking all but one lane, and that one was mildly obstructed, too).

I got to the office, made coffee, and got the day started, and I find myself grateful for routines and habits built over time that can carry me efficiently through the first couple hours of my day when I’m so groggy and stupid. I get things sorted out for what looks likely to be a routine and very commonplace Monday, and then take a minute for myself, and this cup of coffee.

…My coffee had already gone cold, so I get up and pour the whole thing over a glass full of ice…

The weekend was a lovely one, relaxed and easy, spent in the good company of my Traveling Partner. I got out into the garden a bit, even picked out a couple modestly-sized roses to plant with the memory of my dear friend who recently passed in mind. It delights me to celebrate her life, and our many years of shared friendship, and brings me a great deal of contentment and comfort to do it in this lasting way. I planted some flowers (seeds) here and there. I checked in with the neighbor who does some of the yard care (for many of us in this community) to see what his plan is this year, and coordinated some details. I got in a couple good hikes, did some housekeeping, ran some errands. It was a fairly ordinary weekend in my wee suburban paradise. I feel rested and contented, and the smile on my face lingers from the pleasant days spent with my Traveling Partner. So much joy and love. I sit awhile just enjoying the recollection.

A new addition to an old collection.

One of my errands took me to a local thrift shop, and although I was looking for something else entirely, I strolled past the cups and saucers (I always do), and I spotted a lovely cup and saucer that is a good fit for my collection! It’s been a long time since I added anything new (about… 8 years?), and I was excited to see that the manufacturer’s mark is an authentic one. I still need to take time to identify the pattern by name & number, and determine the likely age of the piece – all part of the fun (for me). In the meantime, it sits on my mantlepiece where I can quickly pick it up, examine a detail, and, you know, maybe enjoy a cup of tea in it. 😀

It’s been a wonderful weekend. I sit and enjoy that thought awhile longer. Soon enough it’ll be time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Roses, Spring, The Art of Being

Being and Yearning

March 8, 2024 //
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As I came around the last bend in the road before I reached the city, the sunrise greeted me with a messy smudge of coral and orange, like badly applied lipstick. I so earnestly wished to make a right turn and chase that sunrise to wherever the day might take me…

The yearning hit me hard. I don’t find myself wanting to chase things like a bigger house, a more exotic car, Birkin bags, or Louboutin shoes. Sufficiency is generally quite enough for me, and I’m content with the occasional excesses of more modest scale, like garden seeds, or art supplies, or a new keyboard…but… I sometimes find myself faced with a very peculiar moment of yearning and discontent that is very much part of “who I am” (and has been for as much of my life as I can recall)… I sometimes earnestly and deeply want to be free of everything that defines my life – however it is presently defined. As though the constraints of habit and routine, and requirements and expectations, just get to be too much, and something within me spills out and I just want to… go. Somewhere. Somewhere else than wherever I am. I want to “chase that sunrise”. I want to sleep in and when I wake wander to some previously unvisited delightful breakfast spot and linger into the day over my coffee. I want to wander a beach or a forest trail, listening to the birds and the breezes. I want to be… untethered. I doubt this experience is unique to me, and it seems generally very human.

This morning, once my commute carried me to the city, and the car was parked in the usual place, and I frowned at the thermostat in the office on my way past it, as I often do, and made a cup of coffee (that has already gone cold), I sat down and did the payday stuff and the budgeting, like a proper grownup. No tears or terror, no stress, just regular adult shit that has to get done regardless of how lovely the sunrise may be. I’m okay with it. I don’t really need to drop everything and escape my existence, I’ve got a pretty comfortable life that I enjoy very much, and I’m fortunate to share it with a partner I love deeply, and who loves me back so wonderfully. Life is pretty good right now. I’m not objecting to that, or craving change – just acknowledging my restless nature, and maybe wishing it were already “camping season” (too chilly yet for me, personally). lol Funny creatures, human primates – give them everything they want and need in life, and still they find their way to discontentedness, wanting either more, or less. LOL

I sip my tepid coffee, unbothered by any detail of the morning, thus far. I’m okay. I breathe. Exhale. Relax. (Mutter something cranky about the broken heat in this office.) I stretch, and check my calendar. Set up my work day. Email the budget details to my Traveling Partner. There’s no particular stress to the day, so far. Hell, I’m not even in much pain; it seems very manageable so far. The sun continues to rise, and the buildings beyond the office reflect the golden glow and hints of orange and pink. Beautiful. I take a minute to enjoy it, before I sit down to write a few words.

It’s a Friday. I find myself missing my Traveling Partner greatly this morning, and wishing perhaps that I’d worked from home, but we’d discussed that yesterday evening, and he expressed a desire to make the day a quiet one, healing and resting, and to support that endeavor, I committed to the commute and the day in the office. Maybe a short one? I’d love to get the weekend started and get out in the garden again, or try a trail I’ve never walked before, or just… drive somewhere far. lol That restless nature nagging at me in the background almost makes me giggle – I’d be satisfied to spend the day in my studio, on an artistic journey, and as that thought crosses my mind, I realize that this is what I’m yearning for – some creative time in my own head, whether writing, or painting, or in the garden. Well, the weekend is here, and that’s easily done. I just have to begin again. 😀

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Roses, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, turning 60, weight loss secrets, winter

Catching the Sunrise

March 7, 2024 //
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This morning I am starting my morning close to home. I started the morning on a nearby trail, and watched the sunrise as I walked. The sunrise was hues of orange, gold, and red, and the moment made of pure contentment. Satisfying. Also chilly. Actually, quite cold. At just 28° F, I am super glad I thought to dress quite warmly and always have gloves and a scarf in the car for such mornings. It was too cold to fuss with a camera.

The sky is now a beautiful clear blue. There’s some snow atop distant hillsides, and pockets of mist in the low spots along stream banks and rivers. Rays of sunshine have begun to reach the closest treetops. What a perfectly lovely morning.

It’s a work day. I’ll be working from home today, making it easy to help my Traveling Partner get to an appointment later. I pause for a moment of gratitude that I have the option to work where I choose. It’s a very useful detail. I sigh contentedly and sip my coffee. Just an Americano I picked up before my walk to enjoy afterwards, it’s satisfying and warms my hands. I relax with my coffee enjoying the quiet time between my walk and my workday. It’s a pleasant interlude.

My thoughts wander to the unwelcome experience of receiving a message from an ex this week. (My recently deceased dear friend’s first-born, specifically, seeking to let me know of their mother’s passing.) Rather rudely, the message was sent during the night, and interrupted my sleep, but I wasn’t surprised by the discourtesy. I acknowledged the message in the context of its intention and let it go at that. Almost predictably, my ex followed that up with a new attempt to engage me in dialogue. I turned it over in my head awhile, and even shared it with my Traveling Partner and discussed it with him for additional perspective. My thoughts on the matter didn’t change, and there are good reasons for having cut off contact after the relationship ended (14 years ago, now). Having identified the previously unknown phone number in my contacts as belonging to my ex, I archive the message thread without further reply or action. That, and these few words, are already enough time spent on it.

I sip my coffee, enjoying the relaxed feel of the day as it starts. I gaze into the blue sky, ready to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter

Thoughts, Dreams, & Plans

March 5, 2024 //
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I’m sipping my coffee and watching the dawn become a new day. No colorful sunrise this morning, the sky is a rather bland mostly featureless gray of clouds that seem not to have made up their mind whether to be threatening and stormy or just… gray. It isn’t raining. It isn’t cold. It’s also not exactly dry, nor is it at all warm. A Spring sort of morning, betwixt things. “Nothing to see here”, and my mind moves along, exploring scattered thoughts that lack cohesiveness or theme.

I got into the garden yesterday, after work, feeling extra motivated after seeing video of deer eating my damned roses (again, as usual – I guess they’re tasty). I pulled some weeds, and added a generous layer of compost to the vegetable bed. I planted early stuff: peas, carrots, radishes. I’d have done a bit more of that, but I was exhausted before my list was. lol The rest of the evening was spent fighting my sore feet and aching back, but feeling contented and joyful that I’d at least gotten things started in the garden for the year. This morning, my legs ache, but only a little bit, and it’s the healthy feeling of working hard and gaining strength. I can’t really fuss about that, it’s part of the process of improving my fitness, generally. lol My aching muscles bring my thoughts back to the garden every time I notice them. 😀

I took time to really look over the garden yesterday evening, with an eye for where a couple new roses could go, and maybe a little bench. I’m stymied by the lush green of the lawn my Traveling Partner put in last year; it’s so beautiful it’s quite difficult to imagine removing even a scrap of it, although a quiet corner with another flower bed and a bench would reduce the amount of lawn requiring care. I turn the idea over and over in my head, and look over pictures of the yard and garden, from a variety of angles. No doubt I’ll end up asking my Traveling Partner for his suggestions and thoughts, and he’ll likely tell me he doesn’t care about that and that it’s my garden… but it does matter, and this is his home, too… I sip my coffee, smiling, and thinking about how much love is like… dark matter? Filling all the space in my relationship with my partner that isn’t filled with something else. lol (And this is the kind of dumb shit non-physicists say using the language of physics because it sounds pretty or profound or somehow meaningful, but probably isn’t any of those things due to limited actual understanding of the underlying concepts. lol I just mean to say I love that human so tremendously it seems to require cosmic concepts to convey it.)

…A bench, some roses, some flowers… maybe a small fig tree… could I make all that fit somewhere…? I’d sure like to. I see a wee quiet spot with a bench shaded by a fig tree, a small figure of Guan Yin seated on a lotus tucked among trailing roses and fragrant herbs and flowers, scents of Spring filling the air, and small birds perched here and there… There’s a corner of the lawn, toward the front, that seems… too “square”, and I wonder if perhaps a curved or triangular bed might soften the edge, and also provide a place for a bench, with a view of the rest of the garden, and the house so welcoming just beyond… For now, there’s no clear plan, just a lot of day dreams and imaginings, and memories of a friend. That’s okay, every journey happens in steps. 🙂

[…I miss you, dear friend, that’s certainly true, but when I am thinking about the garden, or working the soil with my hands, pruning roses, planting, lost in my own thoughts, you seem to be there with me, and I guess that’ll have to be enough.]

Tears well up ever so briefly. It’s not really a morning for sorrows, and there is work to be done in the here-and-now. I stretch and sip my coffee – it’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, grief, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, loneliness, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Roses, Spring, weight loss secrets, winter, women

Just Do Something

March 4, 2024 //
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I’m sipping my morning coffee and thinking my thoughts. The weekend was a pleasant one, comforting, healing, and nurturing. The time spent with my Traveling Partner in his steady comforting presence has gone a long way toward processing my grief over losing my dear friend. I’m still stricken with a moment of sadness when I think about the loss of her presence in my life, but it’s more poignant and less acute, and that’s progress.

A little March snow.

The peculiar March weather continues, with occasional passing snow showers, and strangely icy mornings, and mild rainy afternoons. I never made it into the garden over the weekend. Between the pain of my arthritis, and a rather long list of other shit also needing to get done, and also wanting to spend time with my Traveling Partner, I chose differently, although I did get the compost I need to get started with Spring planting. The days are noticeably longer, already, so perhaps one day after work this week…?

I’m not feeling any sort of regret over not getting into the garden. I spent plenty of time there “in my head”, thinking about flowers, and roses, and vegetables, and Spring. Time well-spent. Time planning the season ahead is still time “in the garden”, and besides, I got quite a lot done this weekend, and I’m coasting on that sense of accomplishment as the new work day (and week) begins. (I finally got all of my laundry folded, hung up, and put away that had piled up – ignored – after my Traveling Partner was injured and needed a lot of my “spoons” to be available to care for him. Laundry in a basket was not my highest priority!) Being able to put so much attention and energy on quality-of-life-maintaining tasks without finishing the weekend completely exhausted was a win. I’ll take it.

…Do the things, when and if you can. Yes, there are verbs involved. Yes, your results may vary. For sure, you may not always achieve your goals, or get the outcome you were hoping for, but the doing itself is a worthy achievement, and the clock is always ticking…

Last night, after a day of doing load after load of laundry, and even putting it all away, and also finally properly and fully unpacking from my last trip away from home, I cooked a proper meal at home. No cheats. No convenience foods. Real home-cooking. Hell, my lunch today will be leftover stir-fry from last night, and it was yummy. 😀 I’m pushing myself harder on the trail when I go walking, too; more distance (a little at a time) and picking up the pace. One byproduct of saying goodbye to my dear friend was the visceral reminder of how fragile this mortal form actually is, and the unfortunate potential to lose an ability over time through lack of continued use. One injury, one prolonged period of recovery, can become a major fitness setback – to the point of potentially losing the ability to do something basic like walk easily, or pick myself up off the floor. Scary. As was the case when my Mother died, I’m feeling a renewed sense of commitment to my own fitness and wellness – and I don’t plan to waste that momentum. I’d like to be around for a long time more, enjoying life with my Traveling Partner, seeing and doing new things, and enjoying the things that I love.

…Do something. Keep doing things. Fail or fall, and begin again. And again. It’s just another practice…

…My legs ache this morning, from yesterday’s efforts. I’m okay with this, and I’m feeling it in the context of progress. I raise the sit/stand desk to standing height and get on my feet for awhile – it’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, weight loss secrets, winter
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