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In the Garden

April 28, 2014 //
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This weekend was well-spent on healing and wellness, gardening, love, meditation; it was a delightfully quiet weekend.  In spite of aching knees, juggling a cane, and the frequent heavy rain showers, I spent much of the weekend in the garden, hands in the earth, feet on the ground, eyes skyward or focused on some tiny wonder.  The fresh spring air, and dampness of raindrops on my skin as they loose from where they had collected, when I brush by unconcerned, soaks into my skin, into my heart. I feel refreshed and whole and free.

There have been few places or times in my life when I had no garden at all.  Even in apartment living, I’ve generally had at least some potted herbs, perhaps a rose, or a potted tree of some sort. In 32 years of adult life, I’ve been without a garden for only about 5 years. Some gardens were a continuous struggle with drought, heat, rain, drainage, bugs, critters, in-laws, distance…something. It isn’t always easy. Actually, it’s rarely ‘easy’. Gardening is work, and commitment, and planning, and more of all that and trouble-shooting on top of it.  Long before I heard the word ‘mindfulness’ used in a sentence, I found ‘now’ in my garden. Healing perspective is in my garden. A breath of fresh air, that too, I can find in my garden. A few minutes of stillness, some wonder, excitement, a bit of novelty, a sense of home, peace and contentment, adventure…all in my garden. Lush greens, dark corners, hidden corners of peace and loveliness, and the occasional stray flower of a sort I don’t recall planting; my garden has been the foundation and safe deposit box of whatever sanity I could hang on to, in many years of my life.

Remember the gazing ball that was broken last year? I replaced it Sunday.

The new gazing ball, honoring the hold one; this one already broken, a mosaic of shattered glass.

The new gazing ball, honoring the hold one; this one already broken, a mosaic of shattered glass.

It was that sort of weekend in the garden. I puttered around tying off loose ends, finishing projects, following up on things, taking a second look… it was a weekend for pleasure and perspective.

...And a new bird bath.

…And a new bird bath.

I sometimes overlook how healing I find the garden. A moment of OPD or weirdness, a flare up of my arthritis, or a trip to hormone hell, and even though I know how healing the garden can be, it isn’t always my first destination on that journey. Still human. I checked.

Beauty feels so good.

Beauty feels so good.

It’s worth taking the time to ‘be’ in the garden. Permanence is not relevant. I had allowed myself to be distracted by impermanence, somehow. Perhaps tomorrow, or next year, or 5 years from now, this will not be my garden. Is that important now? Now is the garden as I stand in it. It needn’t wait for another day, or more certainty, or something better, or more of… it needn’t wait at all.  The garden has planning and future, and daydreaming, of course, and all that is as lovely as soap bubbles on a spring breeze. The garden is a very ‘right now’ place nonetheless.  It has my history, my present, and my future along stone paths, and held in bright pots, unfolding each moment as a seed of some ‘next time’.

My history. "Splish-Splash" rose [Moore. 1994] I've had this miniature, this very plant, with me since 1995.

My history. “Splish-Splash” rose [Moore. 1994] I’ve had this miniature, this very plant, with me since 1995.

I have moved a lot. I’ve had more than one garden. I’ll likely have others. Each is precious to me, and each is ‘my garden’ for all the days I tend it. I hold nothing back; I garden now, even though the future is not assured.

The garden is my future, as well as my now, holding my daydreams gently. Seedlings of the California poppy border I planted this spring are just coming up now.

The garden is my future, as well as my now, holding my daydreams gently. Seedlings of the California poppy border I planted this spring are just coming up now.

This weekend I enjoyed the garden and let life’s small drama’s pass me by as much as possible.  It made for a beautiful weekend, and a lovely ‘now’.

Today is a good day to smile and make eye contact with strangers. Today is a good day to listen to the answers to questions, and hear more than words. Today is a good day to enjoy the spring. Today is a good day for kindness and wonder. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Roses, Spring, Turning 50, women, Words

Having Some Technical Difficulties

April 23, 2014 //
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Lately, my knees are making it hard to walk comfortably. I’m not sure what that’s about, certainly it could be any one of a number of things, including ‘aging’.  I’ve also been having more difficulties with spelling than I used to, and dropping words when I write, using opposites when I speak, and generally struggling to communicate simply.  More effort has been required for the same result. This frustrates and worries me. The worry shows up in other places; my manicure is not so well maintained, and I sometimes catch myself rubbing my hands, although they don’t hurt.

This is a very human experience.

Easter came and went. Earth day, too, has come and gone. Spring is quickly heading for summer, although the weather here is quite cool and rainy and not giving away much in the way of intention to progress toward summer.

Pure loveliness.

Pure loveliness.

This morning I don’t have much to say about everyday drama, or work, or growth. I’m a little too sensitive to the aging thing this morning. I am in a little too much pain to be concerned with the puzzles of being and becoming. I’m not sleeping well, although I am sleeping enough to be reasonably rested it doesn’t give my mind the downtime it needs. My dreams are filled with ancient hurts being enacted in newer symbols and a cast of characters from my present, making my waking life seem subtly colored by hidden stress, and secret pain.

I’m prone to tears. Hormones? Unresolved anger? Failure to take care of me by being willing to prioritize my needs high on my own to do list? Arthritis? Menopause? Failure to nurture my relationships well? Headaches? I don’t know. Perhaps any or all of that in some combination? I feel tired when I think about it. I can quickly go from tired to angry. I am easily provoked.  Where the hell do all these tears come from? Why am I crying so much?

Is there a storm on the horizon?

Is there a storm on the horizon?

Mindfulness still matters, still eases my suffering, still settles and calms me. Meditation still helps me find balance, relax, breathe, and give myself compassion. I’m still ‘taking care of me’ and working with my physician on matters of my health, with my therapist on matters of my mind, and with my loves on matters of the heart. Progress. Growth. Wellness.

Sometimes I feel very much like something inside me has to work very hard to keep something else inside me from just giving up. I feel sad to see those words as my fingers skip across the keys. Tears fall. Some days are more work than others.

Today is a good day to see beauty. Today is a good day to recognize the kindness in a smile. Today is a good day for strong coffee. Today is a good day to choose well, and to love wholeheartedly. Today I still have the opportunity to choose to change the world…

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Spring, Turning 50, women, Words

Et Tu, Doc?

April 10, 2014 //
1

Appropriately, this one is all words. lol

I often ‘don’t feel heard’.  A gripe about me I’ve been hearing a long time, and a source frustration and suffering for me, has been that I ‘talk too much’ or too fast, or use too many words, or don’t pause to breathe, or give the other guy a chance… if you’ve met me, you’re likely among that good company of people frustrated trying to get a word in edgewise. I’m not bragging. I work on this – a lot – trying to train my brain to recognize and honor the subtle cues that someone I am talking to has something they would like to add to the conversation. I try to build the awareness to support the will to give someone else a chance to talk.  It’s not an area of strength for me, and is associated with the also incredibly poor social habit of interrupting people. There. I said it. I talk too much, for too long, and I interrupt people to do it.

It is interesting how rarely a woman will call me on it. They usually coast, conversationally, and use whatever white-space there is left when I do have to breathe, or finally finish a thought. The men in my life pretty reliably voice their frustration, irritation, or anger with my issue. It comes to me as feedback that I talk too much, or that I use too many words, or that I ‘never give someone else a chance to say something’, or that I deliver too many points without time for responses… it all comes down to – wait for it – they don’t feel heard, themselves, because I am ‘always’ talking.  I don’t feel heard = me talking = they don’t get to talk = they don’t feel heard.  This sucks for everyone.

Another point of interest along this particular scenic route is the behavior if I happen to be silent. Because I do stop talking, and that comes up with fair frequency. What happens when I am silent? Concern. Why am I not talking? What am I thinking? Am I okay? It’s rare for me to be able to sit quietly, unprompted for words, even by people who express a nearly desperate desire for me to stop talking.  I find that bit very frustrating, myself. It doesn’t appear to be different for women or men. I apparently talk so nearly continuously that it is a cause for concern to others when I am not talking. (I am not actually aware of myself talking that much of the time.)

Yesterday, and unsurprisingly, but also unexpectedly, my therapist joined the phalanxes of men in my life who have found it necessary to communicate that I talk too much. He was also by far the most cautious and gentle about it, leading me to my own conclusions without hurting my feelings or resulting in my feeling that what I have to say lacks value. He used a metaphor. I love metaphors. His was that of dancers. His observation was that although he very much wanted to ‘dance with me’ he felt he was more audience to my dancing, some days.  It was a good metaphor and he got through to me that the shared experience of conversation is collaborative, and participatory.  He also got through to me that men are not having that experience with me, and do want it.

SO… it isn’t just that I need to be sure to take time to breathe, or stick to one thought, or keep my words brief, or any of a dozen other tiny details I’ve tried for so long to ‘fix’. I get it. It’s about inclusion, and sharing the experience. It is more than a little embarrassing to be so painfully aware that for all these years I wasn’t actually understanding what was being requested.

I’ve had this general experience before. Coached, or criticized, over some larger process/task to the point of chronic frustration, tears or anxiety, and still unsuccessful at ‘doing it right’ – and finding out much later than there is a key underlying principle that I didn’t understand, or hadn’t learned, that suddenly makes it so much simpler.

This morning I don’t start the day bitter than one more man has told me I talk too much. Instead, today I start my day with a better approach to conversation, and a better understanding of how to be considerate, and respectful of others, how to support people more comfortably in dialogue, and even feel I understand being compassionate, sharing, and connecting and building intimacy, better than I did yesterday.  🙂

Today is a good day to ask a clarify question and wait for the entire answer. Today is a good day to smile, and let the other guy talk for a few minutes. Today is a good day to listen with my entire attention on the person talking. Today is a good day to enjoy dancing.  Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, Words

Love, Me

March 18, 2014 //
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I have a beautiful spring weekend on the coast planned, to be spent in a ‘spa cottage’ a block from the beach, in a community more village than town, small, intimate, friendly. Time planned for stillness, for tenderness, for meditation, yoga, and long conversations with a new love. It sounds wonderfully romantic.

Oh, to be sure, this love of mine has been part of my life for years, a timeless measure of time that feels like ‘always’. ‘New love’ hardly describes the chronology of our life together… but somehow, I have been remiss where love is concerned. Blind? To be sure; blind to her needs, her heart, even her beauty. Deaf to her words, her poetry, and that creative spark that makes her so much of who she is. I’ve been so hard on her, for so long. So often forcing to her scream what could have been whispered. I’m very fortunate that she stuck it out long enough to see me turn toward her loveliness with real affection in my eyes. I’m very sorry she had to wait so long.  

She will probably always seem about 22 to me; frozen in memory at that pinnacle of youthful beauty we each achieve, so often unnoticed until it has passed by. I have a photograph of her, then, dark-haired, fair, eyes-closed, thoughtful, mouth relaxed, she is calm and quiet; she is in a bubble bath, photographed on the sly, unaware of the subtle intrusion on her precious privacy.

22

22

I know so much about her, and until I realized how much love there is between us, I didn’t realize how little that knowledge meant for understanding her. Still, I know things. I know she thinks she’s fat. She struggles to ‘feel heard’ but doesn’t have words for her frustration, and too many for everything else. She rarely sheds tears, and when she succumbs to ‘crying’ it is often wordless, soundless, stuck like a scream frozen on a paused movie, that becomes garbled vocalizations of fury or terror through the force of her will. She yields to her animal nature as if forced, as though there might be something to prove, and perhaps in the proof she might find something like a soul; being too near her heat, her passion, her childish rage is hard to bear. I berate her for her impulsiveness and resent her lack of control. So often I have wanted to comfort her – or beat the hell out of her; unable to choose, I would choose instead to silence her, or leave her in pieces, alone. I did not want to believe she needed to be cared for; so often tenderness seemed the only thing that could move her to tears, at all. I know she doesn’t like to be touched by strangers, and doesn’t distinguish between sex and love; she says “love is a fraud, but sex is something I can feel’.  I know how she really feels when she says it. I know about her pain. I know she has a lifetime ahead of her, and finding her way will likely take all of it.

I know she doesn’t know how much she will survive, or how much she will change, in the years ahead of her in that photo.

Complicated, broken, she means the world to me now, and I wonder what I could do to ‘make it all up to her’ somehow. A quiet spring weekend at the coast, the luxury of being utterly heard, cared for, attended to – it’s just a down payment on a very large debt. She’s stuck it out with me, you see. It wasn’t ever certain that she would.

This weekend I’ll take the trip to the coast, for some solo time, getting to know this woman I love, hearing her stories anew, with compassion, and patience – I know she needs that from me. We’ve come a long way together, this me-of-22, and I. It’s been ugly, and more than once seemed at the edge of what could be suffered. It’s time we got together over a coffee or two, and really shared now together; there are things she never knew, that I’d like to share with her – like my love.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, women, Words

Please, Thank you, I’m sorry

March 13, 2014 //
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Words are powerful. What we say can change our experience. What we hear can change our understanding of the world.  Sometimes words seem insufficient. Sometimes words are so visceral as to become unspeakable. Sometimes sharing the words that describe our pain, our trauma, our suffering, or the horrors we fear in our darkest nights, is more than we can bear to do, however badly we need to hear those words aloud.

A lens, a mirror, a metaphor.

A lens, a mirror, a metaphor.

I went to my appointment yesterday. Words were spoken that I didn’t expect to hear in my own voice, maybe never in my lifetime. I did not know I had the will to speak them. The journey ahead of me is still a long one. I have come so far… there is so much farther to go.

Maybe words are just too much, even now. Letters are enough, more than enough: PTSD, MST, TBI. It’s still not ‘easy’ to talk about some things. It’s getting easier to accept the unspeakable, to give myself compassion, to take a moment to treat myself well.

I do have words for those along the journey who have offered directions, a light in the darkness, a moment of rest, or comfort; “thank you”.  If I’ve hurt you along the way, lashing out in fear and rage and grief without thought, I have words for you, too; “I’m sorry”.

If you are suffering, now, treading water in your unfathomable icy sea of pain and regret and hurt, or considering your own ‘final solution’ to the chaos and damage, just wanting a moment to rest, beyond caring about beginnings and ends, I have words for you, too. “Please.” (That’s the first of them.) “Please, be a survivor, not a victim; don’t let pride, shame or fear make you a statistic. Don’t let trauma win. Ask for help. Talk about it. Use your words. If you’ve got to go down, go down fighting – you matter.”

Ask for the help you need. If you can, you may find the healing you seek.

Dawn.

Dawn.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, grief, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Rape, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50, Words
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