Archives for category: more than a little bit of bitching
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Foggy Morning, Sunny Day

June 27, 2016 //
0

I didn’t sleep last night. I’m not sure why. It probably doesn’t matter. The night didn’t seem long, and it wasn’t at all stressful, I just wasn’t sleeping most of the night. I don’t recall being aware of, or concerned about, the passage of time… perhaps I slept and merely dreamed that I was awake? I’m groggy this morning, tending to support my perception of poor quality sleep in limited quantity. Spelling mistakes are more common. My head aches. My eyes feel sticky. I’m not at all cross, yet, but hey – the day is young. I laugh out loud and startle myself with the harsh edge to the sound of it. Hmm… a good day to take care of this fragile vessel.

Sunrise. A chance to begin again, every time.

Sunrise. A chance to begin again, every time.

I cool the apartment while the morning temperatures are low. I sip my coffee. I catch up my email, and follow up on job search tasks. It’s all very organized and systematic, which is almost irrelevant most days of late, these are qualities I am relying on this morning to get me through the day. I find myself easily distracted and a little out of sorts over the practical matter of squinting at my monitor. I notice again that I am overdue for new glasses, and my prescription lens’ clearly need to be somewhat different than they are. The sunshine pours in over the windowsill, spilling across my fingers and the backs of my hands like some exotic liquid. My years are more obvious in the unforgivingly revealing summer sunshine. I smile. These are my hands. They have served me well all these years. It’s quite okay that the years show a bit. I’ve worked hard to get here.

My thoughts are fractured and inefficient. The lack of sleep matters more than I want it to. I find myself struggling to remember something (is it a real something, or have I imagined it?) that I had wanted to do today, or wanted to plan today for some other day, or…something. Perhaps I’ve only imagined it? Perhaps I am thinking of something already planned, now, and confused myself thinking there remains some detail to be planned? Perhaps it is something important – isn’t that the fear? That I’ve forgotten something important? Doesn’t change how the forgetting feels… This vague sense of something missing lingers. lol Perhaps a walk in the early morning sunshine will clear my head, and wake me up? I smile when I notice the time; I am ‘right on schedule’ for my morning walk. Funny how our ‘sense of things’ can so easily sync up with things like time of day, day of week, or seasons… It feels very natural to be preparing to walk right now.

I enjoy living life more or less  unscripted these days. It’s nice to know I can fall back on a  handful of good habits to ‘keep me on the path’, when I am tired, or rushed, or feeling disorganized.

Was it an email I wanted to write, or…? Damn it. I’m still stuck on whatever it is I feel I am forgetting. lol Today is a good day to let it go, and be mindful and present in this moment. I think I’ll do that. 🙂

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Sleepless Nights, Words

I Walked a Mile…

June 25, 2016 //
0

…To escape myself, and I walked another mile to be alone with my thoughts, and I walked a mile after that to achieve a goal. Along the way I discovered, again, that my baggage goes with me on every journey I take, that my thoughts have no substance that I don’t give them myself, and that goals are chosen – often rather randomly (and sometimes achieving them fails to satisfy). 🙂

The thought of a goal, of a destination, is no more real than any other thought.

The thought of a goal, of a destination, is no more real than any other thought.

I was excited to read that there is now a public transportation option to reach Multnomah Falls – how cool is that?! I was also fairly earnestly needing some time away in the trees… The opportunity seemed a good fit, and I took it.

The map is not the world. The fantasy is not the reality.

The map is not the world. The fantasy is not the reality.

It was a crowded trip over on a shuttle bus just filled to bursting with corporate douchebags on vacation. What is it that makes people just keep talking louder in a noisy place, thereby increasing the volume and density of the wall of noise? What makes videos on cell phones more interesting than beautiful mountain scenery? What makes a firm, over-confident, absolutely-no-risk-of-error tone of voice so often associated with colossal bores and aggravating asshats? lol By the time the shuttle pulled into the parking lot, I knew a great deal more about many of my traveling companions than I cared to, and was already bored with the movies some of them are purportedly making. lol (And, for what’s it’s worth, Dude, although I didn’t say so in-real-time, it’s really just not actually any of your business what her career choices are, or what they are ‘about’, and I sure wish you could have stopped yourself dissecting them because I’m pretty sure the woman you were insulting ‘behind her back’ was the one sitting close enough to hear you, based on her silent, visibly evident fury as you spoke.) Have I bitched enough about the shuttle ride? I could also take a moment to mention how awesomely convenient it was, and how pleasant and skilled the drivers were. 🙂

Hey, Everyone - look at this! lol

Hey, Everyone – look at this! lol

I’d forgotten that the ‘real’ reason I rarely travel to these trails is less about distance or convenience, and more about crowding. As with any popular landmark or location, Multnomah Falls is crowded. Really crowded. In spite of the rain that poured continuously from the moment the shuttle pulled away, this water fall is so popular that dense crowds line even the narrow rocky trail beyond the first walk-up view-point, and the bridge above it, too. Even at the top of the falls, a slippery, rainy, steep mile high or so, the crowds were…crowding. It was a first-rate opportunity to see how well (or poorly) our society works together… some parents gently/firmly cautioning their kids to stay on the trail (as also directed by signage), others completely disregarding their feral offspring darting here and there between moving adults, on and off the trails, over and around barriers, walking the tops of walls, running, jumping, shouting… Yeah, I didn’t find it a particularly pleasant hike. I struggled to find balance, peace, stillness – the trees themselves seemed impatient with the noise. And it rained. It rained hard enough, continuously enough, that not only did I need the rain gear I inevitably stuff into my pack, but also hard enough that my camera wasn’t very useful.

In spite of aggravation all around, there is still beauty.

In spite of aggravation all around, there is still beauty.

I found myself relying heavily on practices for managing stress. Finding any quiet spot was a challenge.

There is time for beauty - I only have to take the time I need to enjoy it.

There is time for beauty – I only have to take the time I need to enjoy it.

With the rain falling, it was difficult to make the best use of my camera, and I found that to be one actually okay thing about the day’s hike; I was there every moment. 🙂

So many people looking at the same thing, taking the same pictures...

So many people looking at the same thing, taking the same pictures…

By far the best pictures from yesterday’s hike were all the many pictures I simply couldn’t take because of the rain; they are the memories of the moments, and the day, and at least for now they are as clear and sharp as any photograph. “Wow” sights that would be difficult to photograph (for me)… bits of jovial conversation among strangers on a rainy crowded trail… the smell of wildflowers… laughter… and a couple good miles toward my fitness goals, all worth experiencing, no camera required.

I headed home much sooner than I might have, had the location been quiet, comfortable, and less (much less) crowded. The shuttle back was quieter; most people riding it clearly were not the sort to spend many miles on their feet, and there was a lot of napping going on. I enjoyed the quiet, and the scenery.

One last picture.

One last picture…my favorite of the day, taken by mistake while I fussed with the camera to take a different picture altogether – that didn’t turn out. There’s a metaphor in there, somewhere. 🙂

The rain continued to fall… until I stepped off the light rail, close to home.

It was an unsatisfying hike, as hikes go. It was a peculiar day, spent crowded together with strangers – when I had been seeking solitude and peace. How very strange to make the choices I did. I sip my coffee and consider it further; it seems clear I could have anticipated all the details that were uncomfortable, and could easily have chosen differently. What was I thinking? It’s not a matter of discontent – and I’m not actually ‘bitching’, more… curious. It was an interesting adventure – and I realize as I consider the day in the context of living life that it has more value that I thought to give it, initially; I now know how easily I can reach those more distant gorge trails – and that’s pretty sweet. Just beyond the crowds? The wilderness. 🙂

Eventually, steps add up to miles, miles add up to distance, and distance traveled eventually becomes a lifetime of experience. I still have to take all the steps, do the verbs, practice the practices… and some days it rains. 🙂

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Uncategorized

Guns, Fears, and Fiction

June 14, 2016 //
0

[note: my “liberal” politics are showing, please feel free to skip this post about “gun control”]

There’s no fiction in 50 lost lives in Orlando. Hell yes, it’s tragic. Now, in the aftermath, we’re subjected to reruns of tired ‘guns don’t kill people, people kill people’ rhetoric, somehow entirely overlooking that all practical measures proposed to address gun violence would apply to people, their behavior, and their access to firearms. Can we at least admit – whether we personally own a firearm or not – that some people are not as safe with a firearm as others? Please?

I am frustrated by the reflexive defense of gun ownership (in general) by people whose ownership is not being attacked. Is the defensiveness shown by so many purportedly responsible gun owners [when regulation changes come up in conversation] due to insecurity regarding their personal safety, or is it due to undiscussed concerns that they may not be as safe with a gun as they insist they are? (I know it was my own awareness that I was a living breathing risk factor for gun violence that caused me to give up owning a firearm, myself – it didn’t seem like a difficult choice to me.)

Personally, I don’t have any problem with, or concern about, responsible adult citizens owning a firearm for home defense, for target shooting, for hunting… although I do insist that we all be quite frank about the implied violence of firearm use. Firearms are tools, sure – for killing. That is their purpose. So…um… do we really want just any/everyone to be easily able to obtain a firearm – a tool for killing? Seriously? Even, say, people convicted of hate crimes? Domestic violence? Assault? Robbery? Rape? Hell – do we even want people with unmanaged mental health issues who haven’t yet been violent owning firearms, if they appear to have a high potential for violence in some noteworthy and obvious way demonstrated by ongoing observed behavior? Don’t we want to mitigate the risk of more hate or rage fueled shootings by restricting gun ownership to responsible people, and also to people actually emotionally fit to own a firearm? If those are things we want, then yeah, regulation of some kind is a given. Why is it so hard to stomach basic skills testing and licensing requirements? We do that with cars, and it doesn’t seem to have taken any cars off the road. Why is it so hard to contemplate some kind of simple ‘fitness test’ to rule out the obviously at risk of violence? Sure, sure, it may be difficult to craft a test that identifies people at risk well, without screening out people who are not at risk of mis-using a firearm – that makes it challenging, not impossible. Is it unreasonable to ask that people diagnosed with PTSD eschew firearm ownership until their care provider is confident they are not at risk of becoming unexpectedly violent? What is that so uncomfortable? (It seems entirely reasonable to me; I’ve seen what lies within the walls of the nightmare city, and I have waded through some deep corners of chaos and damage.)

Is the big fear [for people who already own guns] that someone will come along and attempt to place some apparently responsible gun owner into a cubby labeled ‘not all that god damned safe with a firearm actually’ and take their guns away ‘for no reason’? It seems unlikely. I understand being uneasy about it, though; human beings don’t have a great track record for acting reasonably, moderately, and with great care. Silencing the conversation about gun safety hasn’t been a great strategy for change either, though, has it? We’d do well to have the conversation, to listen more than we talk, to really hear each other’s concerns – from all sides, from all perspectives. It’s a complicated issue, but also an issue that seems to have quite a few potential solutions to consider that are less extreme than ‘take all the guns’.

Yes, I do understand that no additional regulation of firearms would be needed if we ‘addressed the causes of violence’… and… Well, given the ongoing contention regarding LGBTQ rights, the hostility toward women in everyday society, the commonness of domestic violence, and the difficulty with effectively diagnosing and treating the mentally ill, it doesn’t seem we’re quite ‘there’ yet with regard to managing the causes of violence – hell, we don’t even reliably treat people we love well, as a society. I’m totally down with addressing the causes of violence – let’s do that! So… how will we do that? I’m hoping the gun owners must have some thoughts on that, since they are so vocal about preferring to address the causes of violence as a solution to gun violence, rather than regulatory measures that might affect them, also.

I’m angry about this. I’m bitching. Words. More words. Impotent words. Words that get heads nodding when read by a like-minded reader. Words that rouse frustration and ire, or distance, from readers who disagree with my thoughts on the topic. No meeting of the minds is likely – no one really listening, I suspect, just reacting to phrases and buzzwords consistent with bias and programming. That’s really ‘the problem’, isn’t it? Argument doesn’t often result in people listening to the other guy deeply and gaining understanding or perspective, that’s left to conversation. When we feel attacked, we stop listening. When we defend ourselves, we are not listening either. To exchange ideas, we’ll probably need to let go of all that, and just talk, which implies really listening, too. Are you ready for that? To ask questions and listen to the answers? To take time to make sense of a perspective that isn’t your own? To accept someone else’s perspective as equally valid – equally valued – and seek solutions that respect mutually exclusive positions? I didn’t suggest it would be easy, I’m simply saying it isn’t outside the realm of possibilities – there are verbs involved.

Anyway. Keep your guns. Let’s figure out how to also allow everyone else to keep their lives. There are verbs involved. 🙂

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Big 5, Words

Oh, Today.

May 28, 2016 //
3

I woke early, comfortably, and well-rested, with very little pain. I smiled, rose for the day, content with the early hour. The dawn begins to unfold beyond the window, and the day looks to be lovely.

The spider in the kitchen, that ran out of the coffee cup I pulled from the cabinet was not a welcome sight, nor a pleasant moment. One broken coffee cup… morning in progress. I start water for coffee.

The much larger spider in the bathroom, that began crossing the room while I was in no position to do anything about it, was also an unwelcome sight – and I enduring its presence uncomfortably only as long as I had to. I realize I’ve gotten distracted from making coffee…

The smoke detector chirped at me. (What the hell is up with all the detectors going mad after the annual maintenance inspections and tests of detectors?? That was less than two weeks ago!) I find myself glad my traveling partner is not being abruptly wakened from a sound sleep in the other room this morning; two mornings in a row would just be so completely annoying for anyone! I’m already quite annoyed myself, and I was awake when it started. I change the battery. Reset the detector. Shit – I’ve forgotten my coffee again! I get back to the kitchen just in time to hear 3 chirps from the detector. It continues periodically (frequently) while I look the fucking thing up on the internet to see what the owner’s manual says. I carefully re-do the process of replacing the battery and resetting the detector according to make/model quite precisely. That’ll do it.

45 seconds later – 3 chirps. 😦 These are fairly loud. My neighbors are awakened. How do I know? They’re outside frowning and smoking their first cigarettes.

45 seconds later – 3 chirps. I’m frustrated, and the sound itself, and specific frequency (both timing, and sound wave) are really working on my vulnerabilities. My noise sensitivity surges, and there are tears waiting to fall… my  head begins to ache, and I feel angry. I’m also confused. Frustrated. Escalating. I call the ’emergency only’ maintenance hotline for the community – the landlady picks up right away, sounding as anyone does at 6:08 am, out-of-town on vacation, getting a call from work. She patiently advises there is a ’15 minute hush cycle’ (calling it something like that is just… inaccurate; there is nothing hushed about this experience). She is aware of my injury, and some of my issues. She softens her tone and directs me to ‘unplug it and take it down’ if the chirping doesn’t stop (something may be wrong with the detector, and this one is ‘old enough’ to replace). So… yeah. I’ll be worried about fire safety this weekend instead of dealing with the chirping, and I’m managing to feel angry about both and/or either just at the moment. I don’t lash out at the landlady – this isn’t in any way about or to do with her; it’s just a very irritating noise on what started as a lovely quiet morning, and the sound itself has got me crying at this point. I could also do without the ‘strange frightened-seeming trembling’ that so often goes with particular sort of overload. What the ever-loving-fuck?

Coffee. I got distracted from making it – again. It’s well past 15 minutes of this now, and I contemplate taking down the smoke detector, and wonder why I have this weird embedded feeling of certainty that if I do, the alarm will actually ‘go off’ and not be silenced – or silence-able – at all? Probably television. Fuck television, too. Damn, I really need some coffee… and I need this noise to stop.

I take down the alarm. I go back to the kitchen to make coffee. Again.

The alarm keeps chirping. Every 45 seconds. I’ve timed it. Alarm is taken down, unplugged… and it seems pretty pointless to have bothered. I go back to the owner’s manual. I try yet another new battery. I step through the troubleshooting steps again. This is not working. I still don’t have coffee, either. My morning is now entirely centered on this fucking chirping alarm, and I’m struggling with agitation, frustration, and impatient anger. I feel ‘trampled on’ by businesses that have no fucking clue that once the product is outside the ‘this is how we save your life’ emergency scenario window that some consumers have other very different needs. I just let the tears fall. I make coffee. The alarm continues to chirp. I can get 8 minutes of silence any time – by hitting the hush button. I can’t exactly enjoy my day easily if I am returning to the alarm every 8 minutes to hush it.

The chirping is working on my mind. I feel responsible and obligated to ‘fix it’ somehow – so that no one else is similarly effected, making it harder to just walk away – or move out. Or hit it with an axe. (I’m rather glad I don’t have an axe…) I don’t even know if it is audible beyond the apartment next door. People would like to sleep. It’s Saturday. Weeping overcomes me. At least I have a cup of coffee… grim laughter at the relief I feel just for that small pleasure shakes my shoulders, tears become sobs as I spill the precious (hot) black liquid down my top, into my lap, and onto the carpet, soaking into everything, turning everything… dark. Memorial Day Weekend!! Oh yay! I will be listening to this cursed chirping for the next three days until the landlady’s return… what a holiday! And I get to clean the carpet and do laundry!  (note: I rarely use sarcasm, it’s not easily read by all readers, and I apologize if my reactive unhappy use of it now makes it hard to be sure what I am saying.)

I really don’t know what to do from here… I want to be here, enjoying my space, my time, my life… and there’s this fucking chirping, and it isn’t stopping, and there’s just nothing more I know to do myself from here. As if to mock me, the detector manufacturer has a customer support help line – open 8a-5p EST, Monday through Thursday, except holidays. So. Yeah. Now what?

My head hurts now. My eyes are read and puffy from crying – and the tears aren’t stopping; the chirping continues. I made another cup of coffee, hands shaking, trembling, and crying. I drink it quite carefully feeling disorganized, confused, and overwhelmed. I hadn’t even had time to wake up before all this; my day got a firm reset almost immediately on waking. It completely sucks and feels brutally unfair. For the moment I am stuck here; each gentle attempt to sooth myself is interrupted – every. 45. seconds. – with three piercing chirps. Will the awareness of it eventually fade into the background as sometimes happens with irritating noises? It doesn’t seem so, yet.

I’m in no good shape to manage my issues out in the world so soon after waking… but I can’t comfortably endure this indefinitely, and need some real relief from it… somewhere. I resign myself to having to face the world… ‘what I want’ no longer counts, I am faced with what I need. I need to escape this noise… I try not to think about what becomes of me when I must return home, later. No… I do think about it. I cry. I push the awareness into the darkness, dry my tears, sip my coffee, check my spelling, think about my clothes… I keep trying. The chirping continues. I want very badly to scream into the void “How will you make this right with me??!!”… but there is no point, no ‘right’, no one to answer, and nothing much, for the moment, to be done. I wonder how often a partner or lover has ‘taken the blame’ in some such moment in the past, becoming the entity to whom I direct my fear, my anger, my frustration – over some circumstance in life that just isn’t something they control? Fuck. I feel myself swamped by regrets, sorrow, sadness, too. I don’t know what I’ll do later… for now, I put in earplugs, wrap myself in blankets, pull pillows over my head, and cry. I’ll figure something else out later.

…

…

This one deserves some follow up sooner than later, just to be courteous. I’m okay right now. The apartment is quiet now.  Someone dear to me pointed out that perhaps the fire department non-emergency number would be helpful… it was frustrating to discover that this service is mostly unavailable outside ‘normal business hours’ these days, but it got me thinking in a more productive direction, and I walked up to the nearby fire station, hoping to get some more helpful advance than I was getting from the owner’s guide, the entirely unavailable advertised customer support for the product, or my vacationing landlady. I not only got some better instruction, I was provided a back up smoke detector to use, and got my vitals checked (I was apparently sufficiently stressed out, however polite and careful my words, to cause concern when I mentioned the noise was hard on my PTSD), and a few minutes of conversation over coffee with a very pleasant EMT, who had been washing his car in the sunshine when I walked up.

I got home, followed the provided troubleshooting instructions (the order in which things are done really matters for some things, and confirmably fresh batteries matter). Huh. The chirping continued… I unplugged it as directed. While I installed the back up… the disconnected detector chirped. 😦 No. Wait… that’s the carbon monoxide detector that went off yesterday – and in which I put new batteries, yesterday. Shit. I take that down, too, and remove the batteries. Both detectors are quite old and likely due for replacement, and that can be handled Tuesday. In the meantime, it’s a lovely weekend to have windows open to breezes – and there is no longer any beeping, chirping, repetitive, unavoidably, strident, aggravating nuisance alarms going off and undermining my emotional and mental wellness. I’ll even be able to sleep through the night (I really wasn’t at all sure I’d be able to do that with the chirping going on).

Now… troubleshooting my experience behind me… I take care of me. My results may vary…but I’ve rarely been so grateful for silence. 🙂

Tags , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Post Traumatic Stress

Distracted and Mildly Annoyed

May 26, 2016 //
2

This morning I woke with a headache. It’s okay, it’s not a bad one, just a garden variety probably-slept-too-long-with-my-neck-in-that-position headache. I feel fortunate that I didn’t wake with significant pain, otherwise, nor a kink in my neck – a particularly uncomfortable pain, when it is my turn to endure that experience.

My coffee is good this morning, but I’m struggling to bother with drinking it. I feel emotionally comfortable, though less so as the morning develops around this other strangely specific bit of discontent lurking in the background. It is mystifying and unsourced, and I am disliking the feeling that ‘there is more to know’ and I’d like to read about it. I think my first mistake was allowing myself anywhere near the news. lol I’d like to ‘settle in and read the paper’, honestly, but it is a feeling that hearkens to another time in my life, when the paper was actually reliably paper, probably inconveniently large for anyone else wishing to sit at the table with their coffee (or breakfast) and when being the person thusly engaged (in reading the paper) was also a sign of household status; everyone else made room for that person to do that thing, as if reading the paper were a critical function, respected and accommodated.

asdlkja

My father read the news at breakfast. My mother read the news privately. Implicit biases are more subtle than can be effectively discussed in sound bites, or memes. This observation is not apropos to this post.

I think my discontent comes from the experience of reading what amounts to ‘news’ this morning. I bounce from one news source to another, some domestic, some foreign, some right-wing, some left-wing, some ostensibly neutral (which lately I find only means that they have not made clear what their agenda may be). I even check a few favored trade journals and niche periodicals (usually science, medicine, and areas of artistic interest). I would enjoy spending the morning reading short informative factual articles on clear topics, thoroughly researched, well-cited, and relevant to my experience of life and the world. It’s not going to happen today. What the fuck is up with all the hate? With all the finger-pointing and blaming? With all the artificial outrage and vile mud-slinging? I’m not a fan of news-via-meme. I also really really like it when terms are clearly defined to ensure the best possible shared understanding. Unfortunately for me, factual, emotionally neutral, ad-free news reporting doesn’t keep readers coming back to generate more revenue.  Most of what is put forth as news lately seems to be [mostly unsupported] opinion and reactionary rhetoric, and ‘sponsored content’. It’s a big uninformative emotionally provocative downer. Clearly – I am emotionally provoked, right now. It’s our own fault as consumers; we take the bait. The click-bait, I mean. Yeah. Me, too. I gotta stop doing that – it’s not informative, and it takes a toll on my consciousness in an unhealthy way. I’d be better off re-watching South Park season 19, episodes 8, 9, & 10 before clicking on another headline, anywhere, ever. I’d ‘lol’, but I’m quite serious.

I rarely read the news these days. I actively avoid it. Unfortunately, my best effort there still results in reading many more pages of utter garbage, without meaning or value, than is healthy for me. Impulse control issues affect me in this area of life, too. Click-bait is most particularly designed to overcome our impulse control… and I’m a little short on that already. The internet is vast – and just filled with shiny sparkly nonsense intended to get my attention for purposes not my own. It takes practice to avoid it all. There are plenty of opportunities to practice.

What to do about my fractured unruly consciousness this morning and my cold coffee, is now the question… I sip my coffee (honestly, if I’ll drink it hot, and I’ll drink it iced, is there some reason to resist drinking it at room temperature?) and look out the window at the flat gray sky. Was I grumpy when I woke up? I sure am now. I am irked even about that.

asdf

There is value in literally stopping to smell the roses.

I sit for a moment, listening to birdsong, breathing deep calm breaths, and feeling myself relax. I take a mental step back from the internet, and consider the morning without all that. The dark green of the pine just beyond the window, and the brighter greens of the grasses of the lawn, then the meadow beyond, stand out from the flat neutral gray of the morning sky. Cyclists, runners, and walkers pass by, some distance from the window, beyond the playground at the edge of the park, too far away to see facial expressions or hear conversation. The stop/start rhythmic tapping of fingers on the keys seems loud in the stillness of morning; one observation at a time, one sentence then another, I rebuild the morning of better parts. It’s a good start to a better day. My coffee is cold, sure, but still tasty. I think ahead to a fresh cup of coffee after a hot shower, and consider taking a few more minutes for me on the cushion by the patio door; meditation is the thing that comes through for me most reliably to calm a busy mind, to soothe restlessness. “Easy” doesn’t describe it well, as a practice. Meditation is not costly. Meditation does not require special gear, elaborate equipment, or specific specialized coaching; given the interest, and the willingness to do the verbs, I’m pretty sure anyone could build an effective meditation practice on their own, with some bit of reading on the topic, and some… practice. Yeah. It’s about practicing, whether you want to play the piano, or calm your monkey mind. Skills take practice.

It's not always an uphill climb... there are definitely steps to take.

It’s not always an uphill climb… there are definitely steps to take.

Strange start to the day. Certainly a few uncomfortable moments don’t determine the day. I smile to myself, remembering my lunch plans a bit later, and later still my date with my traveling partner. Yeah… I’m okay right now… and this is totally enough. 🙂

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Fiction, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, War and News of War, Words
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »