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Laugh a Little, Too

May 9, 2017 //
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This morning I woke up smiling, as if still chuckling over a joke I’d heard and found hilarious, even moments later. I enjoy joy. Amusement amuses me. I scrolled through my Facebook feed over coffee, and made a point of just scrolling past the politics, making a point instead of focusing on what I find funny.

Time well spent.

Lunch on a park bench along the river.

Yesterday was lovely. That it was also a work day never really seemed relevant to enjoying the day. This job is definitely a better fit, for me. I find myself hoping I am also a better fit for them, than I was for the last one. 🙂

Summer sky through spring foliage.

I enjoyed the day fairly effortlessly, and made my way home at the usual time with more than the usual excitement; my Traveling Partner alerted me that he would be there when I arrived. 😀 We hung out. He’d brought along a friend.  It was fun and joyful.

More time well spent.

I sip my coffee enjoying the morning, simply. The patio door is open to the pre-dawn breezes. It’s that time of year again; I begin the day cooling the apartment down so that it is quite comfortable and not stuffy when I get home. I enjoy the sound of the wind chime. I think about having a place of my own out in the country. It would be nice if the steady soft roar and whoosh of traffic in the background were not a feature of the soundscape in my daily life… how far “out in the country” would I have to go to escape that? Not that far, as it happens, just in a very different direction.

Isn’t that how a lot of journeys turn out to work, generally? It isn’t that far, but goes a very different direction?

I see the sun beginning to tinge the sky another shade of lighter, peachier-pinkier-hint-of-orange blue. I think I’ll watch the sun rise.

It’s a good time to begin again.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being

One Singular Moment

May 6, 2017 //
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The sun rises beyond the meadow. The dew on the tall grass between the community lawn beyond the patio and the park beyond, sparkles like glitter, catching my eye as it shifts with the morning breeze. It twinkles like a promise of friendly fun in the eyes of a new lover. A curious blue jay approaches the patio door, peering in from his own perspective on the morning, curious but too busy to linger. I sip my second cup of coffee with a contented smile. There’s nothing more this particular moment needs. It’s just one moment, between waking and doing, a moment to be. It is enough as it is, and I am content to enjoy it.

I bloom like a garden flower when conditions are right. This morning I understand I am also the gardener.

Later I will take action, or complete a task, or do a thing, or play a happy song… there’s time for that, then. For now, I embrace stillness. It’s enough.

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Categories Free Will, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being

Breathe, Relax

May 5, 2017 //
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I woke ahead of the alarm, feeling fairly rested. Within minutes of sitting down to the computer with my coffee, I was sucked into Facebook, and quickly found myself outraged. They got me. lol I put it aside and let it go. Even the most heinous political news is subject to this one caveat, and it can’t easily be argued with; what has been changed, can be changed. As little as that, such a small idea, and I am breathing more easily, I am more relaxed, and I am less agitated. I remind myself that however greedy, vile, callous, or stupid, powerful old rich white men die. (I know, I know, it often seems to take far too long.) Not my usual? Sorry, I’m less pleasant first thing in the morning when I have to face being a woman in Whitemanistan, just saying. The very soundtrack of my experience is altered.

What does “power” look like? 

Damn. Still mad. Sorry… I’ll just have to begin again. lol

Flowers. Raindrops. Moments. 

I take a sip of my exactly-the-right-temperature-to-enjoy coffee. I breathe. I relax. I turn my attention to the lovely evening I shared with my traveling partner and our friends last night. The smile on my face is immediate, and lingering. My posture changes. My breathing deepens and becomes more even. What we fill our attention and our consciousness with really matters. It’s a weird balancing act, too, because some of the vile bullshit in the world urgently needs our attention – all of us, collectively and individually, and turning away from it isn’t really an option… We all still need chill time, and a calm core of inner peace to thrive, as emotionally intelligent self-aware beings capable of sustaining healthy relationships. News media is selling a product, and our outrage is a powerful attention getting tool for generating clicks and views and likes and subscriptions. It’s about the revenue, not the “truth”. I sigh quietly, and sip my coffee.

What matters most?

I decide on a weekend without a lot of “digital clutter” in my consciousness. A hike sounds much better, frankly, or some time in the studio. I smile thinking back on the evenings with my beloved Traveling Partner this week; it’s been a rare joy to see so much of him. I feel secure in his affection, and wrapped in love. It’s a wonderful feeling. I smile, and ponder for a brief moment how such precious fleeting emotional experiences so easily become something we chase or yearn for, upending our lives in pursuit of what is not permanent – and can’t be. I’m glad I’m not doing that, now. I enjoy this powerful emotional moment, consumed for a time by its fragile saturating loveliness. It’s no surprise how easily such things become a perpetual “carrot on a string” dangling in front of my inner Bugs Bunny. lol Aren’t we each fools for love?

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (from Shakespeare, sonnet 18)

I sip my coffee, thinking about love. Well… and also the farmer’s market, and carnivals… and country fairs… and rope swings at the edge of local watering holes. Summer. LOL It’s a cooler morning this morning, leading to a day forecast to be more spring than summer. I’m okay with that too. Neither spring nor summer truly have my heart, though I enjoy them while they last. 🙂 Love also has its spring, its summer…

Summer afternoons soon become autumn evenings…

I make a second coffee. The world is quiet, for now, but mostly because I don’t have my music blasting, nor am I cramming digital content into my face holes. There is a whole world of grief, of celebration, of noise, of drama, out there – more than enough to go around. I give up my share this morning in favor of stillness and quiet joy. It’s enough.

Love matters most.

 

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being

No Agenda

May 4, 2017 //
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This morning I’m sitting out politics. I’m sitting out routine. I’m casually dissing habits. I’m enjoying an odd summer morning that dropped into the mild spring week unexpectedly. Sure, in a few minutes I’ll put on my shoes, grab my keys, and make a point of locking the door behind me before I head to work. I’m still effectively adulting, which puts a smile on my face; I’m not trying to.

This morning practice pays off. I woke on time, and enjoyed a leisurely shower. I sat down to write, and spent the time, instead, looking at new baby pictures shared by friends who are new parents, and watching the sun rise. The windows are open to the morning breeze, and the heat of the coming day has not yet set in. I sip my coffee quietly, listening to the red-wing blackbirds calling each other across the marsh; later they will visit the feeder, but they too seem to be enjoying a lazy morning.

Did I say it is a “lazy” morning? That sounds a tad harsh. I’m just relaxing over my coffee, and things are mostly already quite tidy and orderly here. There is no urgency to force myself through routines that tend to be habitual most days. I smile and wonder if this is how my firm habits break; random summer mornings in the midst of spring?

The changes in diet and medication seem to be working out. There are verbs involved, always and of course. It’s one of the “hard things” in my experience. It requires practice. Mindfulness. Repetition. More practice. Some beginning again. Okay – a lot of beginning again. Plenty of study. Some incremental changes over time. Self-awareness. The will to choose change. More practice. Some crying. Plenty of self-acceptance. Persistence. Fearless self-advocacy. Over-coming learned helplessness. More mindfulness. Fewer calories. More walking. Still fewer calories. More yoga. Fewer calories. Fuck. I’m hungry! Am I actually hungry? More mindfulness. LOL Verbs. My results vary. But… I’m making progress, a little at a time, and wishing there were some other word (concept?) than “dieting” to hold this thought, because I don’t see myself as “dieting” so much as changing how I eat, how I live, how I understand the role food plays in my experience, and how I take advantage of the existing body of cognitive science to turn my brain injury into an ally on this part of the journey, instead of my nemesis. 🙂

Every bit of all of this – steps on a journey.

It’s a lovely morning to begin again.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being, weight loss secrets

Shifting Gears, Staying Practical

May 2, 2017 //
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This adulting nonsense is so hard, sometimes! Most particularly the part where I find myself having to balance long-term and short-term needs, or just generally sort out wants from needs, develop new perspective on old situations, or balance the whimsical with the practical. So hard. Still, not learning and doing these things, while certainly among the many options available, seems to hold the greatest promise of huge disappointments later on. So, I practice, I learn, I grow – I continue to adult, with varying levels of skill.

The house-hunt is a case in point. I just haven’t been getting far looking at tiny fixers. Some of them have been quite cute. Several of them would definitely meet most of my needs for long-term housing, and would satisfy the shorter-term (more urgent-seeming) desire to move from the place I am in right now. Fucking hell – there’s more to it than swiping my card, regardless of whether or not I have pre-approval in hand. Irksome. There are criteria to be met with a VA loan. There is the ever-present reality of a “seller’s market” in an industry quite willing to refrain from the sort of economic regulation and clear process requirements that might cut into anyone’s ability to drive commissions higher (through higher prices generated by aggressive bidding among home-seekers, encouraged by realtors). Frustrating. I just want somewhere to call home. Coming to terms with one element of my dissatisfaction (specifically that I don’t actually want to live in a crowded residential suburb with an ugly commute) turns my attention to the beauties of rural living… and… the scarcity of land. Damn it. LOL I look at page after page of listings of parcels of land in my state… I’m sort of limited, though, to the region commutably close (by car) to my job, right? Yeah. So is everyone else, and most of the jobs in the state… right here in this area. Plenty of big lovely parcels of remote unimproved land out there, though… if I thought I could do a 10 or 12 hour commute I’d be in good shape. “Remote” has various magnitudes of meaning, but none of those mean “convenient to the office”. lol Well shit, at least I am still laughing.

For a moment this morning I wanted to sit down and write “Dear Universe, please send land I can afford, I’ll manage the rest. I’ve been very good this year” and hope for the best. 🙂 Sometimes there is a lot of gentle relief in having a child-like heart in these matters. Adulting mostly generally just sucks. lol

I sip my coffee and smile to myself. It’s not that bad, honestly. I’m house-hunting. That’s something pretty huge. It’s a time-consuming process, and well… that does take time. So, okay. I keep looking. I keep gathering resources. At some eventual future point there is a predictable logistical collision between available opportunities, resources, time, and decision-making, and then, shortly afterward… an outcome. I don’t even know what that outcome will be.

What if, and it’s not off the table, the thing that truly makes sense is to continue to work and save for retirement – the real brass ring in this game – and then utterly and wholly relocate (even out of the country)? Well… at that point, having a house would be no advantage at all. So. Yeah. Life is weird. I’m living one, this one, mine. I’ve no idea where this path leads, really. I think I know what I want… but I’ve inched along on this journey of self-understanding just enough to suspect that any notion I have of knowing what I want is, itself, a bit of an illusion. What is enough? (Honestly, that one is a frustrating bit for me; my idea of “enough” and the VA’s idea of “enough to loan me money for” are rather different… because… I’d live in a fucking yurt in the high desert well away from everyone, or out in the trees in a tent, or… yeah. I’m not actually all that fancy, as fancy human primates go.)

So, what can I do on a Tuesday to get a little farther to goal? Study, I suppose. Do my homework as a consumer. Be well-informed about what I am getting myself into. Be ready “when the time comes” … for whatever the outcome may be. Am I “there yet”? Nah, there’s a lot more to know than I ever will. It’s quite possible, at any point in life, to be more prepared than I am. There are verbs involved.

I sip my coffee. I think about life’s menu. I think over all of the many options – and these are only the ones I even know about, myself. I think about simple. I think about fancy. I think about enough. With one last swallow of now-cold coffee, I think about journeys, and progress, and beginnings, and verbs.

I head to my meditation cushion to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being
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