Archives for category: Spring
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Find Me in the Garden

March 18, 2018 //
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Yesterday sorted of slipped past me. Spring. 🙂 I woke from a deeply restful night’s sleep, yesterday, slowly, gently, a day fully planned for hanging out with a friend and going out later. When I stood the headache just flattened me. I intended to take things easy, what with the headache, followed by a bit of dizziness and nausea, but shortly found myself… wandering around the house… kind of randomly and without purpose.

I honestly wasn’t sure what was up with me beyond the headache. I cancelled hang out plans first thing in favor of self-care.

…I didn’t make coffee. I have no idea why, but I just… didn’t. I got in the car, barely awake, and drove down the street to an excellent cafe (the storefront of a local coffee roaster I enjoy) and got coffee. I committed firmly to heading home…and spent 90 minutes driving around the countryside drinking coffee. It was a weird morning, lacking in stress – or purpose.

I found my way home, and sat awhile on my meditation cushion in the open patio doorway, listening the rain fall, and feeling the spring breezes. Definitely spring; there are signs of greenery, like a fine mist, all over the deciduous trees, and the roses are leafing out in shades of bright green and russet (the reddest of my roses always seem to have the deepest red new leaves and shoots, where the yellow, pink, or peach ones are often very bright light green shades). I watched squirrels play. I watched birds hop about. I definitely wanted to be in the garden.

As soon as I stood to head into the garden, my headache reminded me why I was taking it so easy. Then my eye reminded me that I would not be easily able to do the things I wanted to do in the container garden on the deck without a visit to the nursery or garden supply place nearby… and I hadn’t actually visited those last autumn after moving in. I happily got back in the car and drove around checking out the nearest garden suppliers, finding one that feels most “like my sort”, and spending quite a long while exploring there. I stopped for Turkish coffee along the way. I came home with soil and a handful of seeds. Yep. I could have gone just about anywhere for the things I actually returned home with. LOL

One lovely moment from a lovely day.

It was a weird day with the woman in the mirror.

Spring is here.

I spent the afternoon in the garden, and finished up out there aware that I was still headaching on this whole other “maybe you really need to take it easy” level when I careened into the door jamb clumsily. Okay, okay, so… maybe a night out on St Patrick’s Day to see a great band play in a local bar returning home further fatigued and faced with night driving would not be an ideal choice? I canceled those plans, too. I felt content with the decision-making, and unconcerned with the weirdness.

Later, I roasted a chicken on the smoker-grill on the patio; it sits under the eaves, just out of the rain, and the smell of it was wonderful. Cold chicken salad tonight – which also sounds quite nice.

It was a lovely Saturday, headache and all. I’m content to have enjoyed it, making the most of the day without regard to that headache, which, honestly, completely sucked all day long. I just really don’t want to waste more days on pain than I have to… I’m not sure how many I get, you know? 😉

Today, brunch with a friend, and a visit to a favorite market. The headache, for now, has eased somewhat. It’s a lovely morning to begin again.

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

Do Better Than That

March 15, 2018 //
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I mean, it’s just a suggestion. However well you’ve human-ed, so far, do so just a little better today. You’ve had more practice. You’ve got more perspective. You’ve gained experience over time. So, how hard can it be to step up your game, just a smidgen, today, in comparison to all those days that have gone before?

I listen to the ssssshhhh ssssshhhhh of the traffic passing by on the road just in front of the house. Rainy morning? Sounds like it may be. I think about the day ahead. I consider it in the context of days to come, and days that have passed. I find myself thinking about the future, and my relationships – all sorts of relationships. My relationships with partners and metamours are “just the big ones”. Family, too, and those are sort of… inescapable parts of the social experience of living a human life. They tend to add a strangely random quality to my experience, simply because I don’t choose those in the same sense as I choose all the other relationships, and they bring along all manner of things I might have chosen to leave behind. All of us having our own experience, understanding the world, each of us, in the context of our own experience, filtered through our own strangely distorted lens. I think about friends. Associates. Buddies. Acquaintances. Dear ones of all sorts. New friends. Long-time friends. Friends “I don’t actually like” are rare for me, and I contemplate why that is, too. You are on my mind and in heart, today, humanity. 🙂

I could do better. I know more than I did yesterday. I am more skilled at life and love. I have accumulated some small amount of wisdom over time, always in limited supply, and I’ve put down a great quantity of baggage. I’ve given up my youth, but I’ve gained an immense appreciation for the chance to live life. Strange journey.

I could do better. I have opportunities in life, now, that I would not have recognized decades ago. I have new perspective. I care about things that I once could not fathom even being things, at all. I have learned the unavoidable weight and truth of privilege, and what unarguable social responsibility that brings.

I could do better. I’ve grown so much. Still… in spite of the growth, there is no question there is further growth ahead, and that I could still do more, better, more often, for more people, just generally. I could be kinder when I’m tired. I could be more understanding when I am frustrated. I could be more patient when I am pressed for time. I could be more considerate, more respectful, more open, more compassionate, more reciprocal – and every day this is true, when compared to the day before.

I guess I’ll begin again. 🙂

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

Sipping Coffee, Waking Up

March 14, 2018 //
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This morning, my pain, my tinnitus, the white noise of the furnace blowing through the vents, and the subtle anxiety in the background (as I begin “waiting around” for time to leave for yet another doctor’s appointment), are competing for my attention. My cognitive space feels very busy, but the quality of the content is poor. I sip my very excellent cup of coffee and stare forward into the void, more groggy than calm. There is no action to take in this specific moment aside from sipping coffee, and waking up.

I don’t think I did anything much last night. I’m fairly certain of it, since my recollection seems largely without content. Am I forgetting, or was it that completely uneventful? I wonder for a moment, then my attention wanders to more practical matters. I remind myself to take out the garbage. I consider whether I remembered to take my medication this morning. I notice that I am thirsty. I don’t do anything about any of those, I just sit quietly, sipping my coffee. Later, I’ll head to my appointment, then to the office, and I hope to just sort of slide comfortably into a very routine day from there… and I’d like to wake up. 🙂

The mountain as a metaphor for love; always there in the background, even when I don’t see it. Endlessly beautiful when I am in its presence.

…As I wake, I write a love note to my Traveling Partner, reminiscing fondly about morning coffees together. Another time, perhaps. 🙂 My brain immediately sneak attacks me from behind the calendar reminder about my appointment, and I am forced to face my mortality as tears spill down. What if the news at this appointment is… bad? I let the tears come. It would be hard to say good-bye to a life I am finally starting to learn to live truly well, to value, to appreciate, to experience fully. I’ll have to eventually though, as will we all. We don’t yet have the technology to stop mortality in its tracks. I sip my coffee, eyes stinging with tears, and a weird smile on my face. It’s not a happy one. I feel it from inside. I don’t know this smile. Bitter. Resolved. Hurting. Still standing. Still walking on. Still beginning again.

It was neither sunny nor warm, yesterday evening, but Spring doesn’t seem to care much about that.

…I’ll say this, with great conviction; if I have the opportunity, ever, to know with certainty that the end is imminent? I won’t be spending my last days, weeks, months in a fucking office.

I make a point to breathe, relax, and let that painfully poignant moment go. Emotional weather. I let the small storm pass like a spring shower. Brief and drenching, relieving in some hard to describe way, and I move on somehow refreshed. I’m certainly awake. I sip my… oh, shit. My coffee’s gone.

I can choose to embrace the dawn, or dwell in the evening light.

…It’s a good morning for a second coffee, and a second chance. It’s a good morning to begin again. I may not be able, in this one moment, to save the world… but I can save this one moment in my experience. 🙂 I get up and head for my meditation cushion, on my way to a second coffee. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, health, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Spring

March 13, 2018 //
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Yesterday was lovely. I watched the sunny day unfold beyond the windows at the office and wondered at human foolishness. How is it we imagine that locking ourselves away to “earn a living” instead of being outside on a lovely day makes any damned sense at all? I looked around me any number of times yesterday, feeling fairly certain we’ve got this stuff all wrong.

The first flowers to open in the front border.

The commute home was easy, relaxed, and uneventful. It took the usual 50 or so minutes. I didn’t care about the time, because the time didn’t matter. I was simply enjoying the sunny day. I got home filled with good intentions about being productive around the house, but my inner Agent of Chaos had others ideas. I spent much of the evening meditating, and a great deal of time out on the deck, enjoying the breezes, and the sound of the wind chime. I could have put that time to “good use” in some way, perhaps pruning roses, or sweeping or tidying up the remains of winter, but no; I just enjoyed the feeling of spring. I’m not even complaining; there was nothing I needed to do more, really. 🙂

I woke with difficulty this morning; the time change will take me some days to adjust completely. Sluggish mornings ahead for a couple days, probably. Like this morning. Usually, my feet hit the floor as I turn off the alarm, or I take a moment to stretch before I rise, but alert and aware of myself, more or less. Not so this morning. This morning, I may have woken ahead of the alarm by some moments, but it wasn’t obvious one way or the other. It took me about seven and a half minutes to coax myself out of bed, and I was at risk of falling back to sleep the entire time. Convincing myself to get up was only the beginning. My routines are broken. I fumbled around for half an hour, then remembered to take my medication (usually my feet hit the floor, and it’s either meds then yoga or yoga then meds, but always those two things pretty immediately) sometime midway between turning on lights, and turning on the electric kettle to make coffee. Then I did yoga – and the kettle heated up, clicked off, and I would eventually have to start that all over again. The morning is as inefficient as yesterday evening, but for very different reasons. lol

So here I am. Another day ahead. Another journey in mind. Spring unfolding all around me. I guess it’s time to begin again. 🙂

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

A Morning, A Now, A Weekend, A Future

March 9, 2018 //
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I woke a bit early, showered, and made coffee. I caught up on Facebook, and disengaged as soon as I’d flipped through the posts of dear friends, because that’s all I was there to do. My weekend bag is packed for the weekend. I’m eager to the point of confusing excitement and anxiety, which also means – more, better, self-care, and closely managing behavior with an eye on the potential to reach that tipping point at which excitement might actually become anxiety, because that’s not a place I want to reach. 🙂

Every weekend that I go home – and it does, at this point, feel very much more like home there, than here – I promise myself I’ll write while I’m there. I don’t. It’s not a lack of inspiration, it’s more a lack of will to pull myself from those moments even long enough to write about them (or about anything else). It tends to point to the greater urgency to truly care for myself, and be present in my relationships, over sharing the tale of the moment with others. I’m sort of sorry for that – and sort of not. I don’t think I’ve spent any other portion of my life this emotionally well, and I feel generally pretty okay aside from the signs and symptoms of aging, and physical pain associated with such things (and other similar such things that have lasted far longer than any sense of age). It used to be that I could mock my physical pain because it was nothing compared to the chaos and damage, nothing compared to my emotional pain. Weird to actually notice how very different my experience is now.

Still, here it is Friday. Last week I drove down after work, after an appointment. This week… I’m so eager to get the weekend started I am seriously considering the drive down tonight, in spite of Friday evening commuter traffic being a definite thing for the first 18 miles or so, and likely taking about 90 minutes to get past that mess. I just want to go. I want to be there, more than I want to be here. The yearning makes my heart ache, and makes me breathless with excitement.

I’m so human, though. I remind myself that each journey in life, across distance, also represents – in living metaphors, if we’ll have them – our metaphysical journey through life’s experiences. My last trip down and back was ferociously hair-raising, and uncomfortably so. I’ve been working on the specifics of my emotional experience as a driver on American roads in my commuting. This is no different. I consider my intention. Get there safely. Get there without wrecking my emotional experience. Get there while also following traffic rules. Driving with the average speeding of traffic, neither slowing things down by being needlessly slow, nor screwing with the flow of things generally by aggressively insisting on going faster than the average speed of traffic. Considerate. Polite. Skillful. Safe. Purposeful. Alert. Aware. Unaggressive. Not taking things personally. Mindful we are each having our own experience. Arriving at my destination still happy I made the trip and feeling something other than profound relief to have arrived alive. 🙂 Gotta have goals. 😀 Committed to the journey, not the outcome. Not the time or the timing. Drive the drive, and enjoy that process first. Get there when I get there, and enjoy that then.

I’m so ready to begin again. Are you? Where will the journey take you?

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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