Breathe

November 28, 2018 //
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Home from work. Long, busy, fairly productive day. Unfinished tasks. Minor stressors. A society in decline – or at a minimum, exceedingly public and uncomfortable turmoil. Major stressors. Rainy. Chilly. Arthritis pain. I make a trip through the house adjusting things: thermostat, Giftmas tree lights, set the oven to pre-heat to make dinner, this light, that light, tidy this up, move a thing from one location to another, boots off, jacket hung up. Routine.

I sit down and find myself faced with the world, filtered through the Internet. It’s not pretty. It doesn’t count, in any way, as “down time” – or pleasant. So… maybe not, then? I close social media tabs. I close my email. I close the news. I sit quietly for a moment listening to the commuter traffic on the busy street beyond my window.

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling my shoulders slowly drop to a more natural posture. I pull myself more fully upright, and feel that lessen my arthritis pain, somewhat.

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling the chill of the room diminish as the heat runs. I make a point to acknowledge colder circumstances with fewer resources and less privilege, when I would not have had the luxury of just turning up the heat at the end of the work day. I enjoy the warmth of being aware how grateful I am to have heat at home. It’s very much worth a moment to appreciate these circumstances.

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, content with the simple meal now prepared, and in the oven. I feel hopeful that the headache lingering since afternoon will diminish after a nutritious meal, and chide myself gently for overlooking lunch.

I take a deep breath and let it out – and just smile, sitting for a moment with the awareness of how fortunate I am, generally. I let the moment fill my thoughts with pleasant recollections: things that worked today, clear communications well-received, completed tasks, satisfied consumers, work well-done, a pleasant commute home, that ping during the day from my Traveling Partner just saying he loves and misses me, the beautiful view from the window nearest my desk at work. A feeling of contentment and relaxation slowly builds.

I take another breath.

I take another breath.

I pause to feel a moment of gratitude for breath itself, for the chance to go on breathing, to recognize and really enjoy having survived so much, to be here, now, to enjoy (versus endure) the life I live.

Tomorrow, I’ll begin again. 🙂

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being

Check Out Those High Beams!

November 27, 2018 //
1

Nearly every morning, I curse the assholes driving urban streets with their high beams on. Seriously? Especially these modern high intensity headlights – those high beams are literally, not figuratively, blinding. If the oncoming traffic is blinded by headlights, has the additional visibility they offer drivers actually made the road more safe? I suggest they have not. lol Fucking hell.

Turn off your high beams when there is oncoming traffic.

Read that again. It’s an example of basic consideration. Good adult behavior. Considerate. Respectful. Cooperative. Illustrative of a shared journey on a small and fairly crowded planet.

Yes, even on the freeway, when the oncoming traffic is… “over there somewhere”; if you can see them, they can be blinded by your headlights. It’s really that simple.

Does this actually matter?

Doesn’t everything?

Is your response that you can’t see as much without your high beams? (Seriously?) How helpful will that be on a country road, as you both come around an unfamiliar curve in opposite directions, if all you see in that improved view is the other driver crossing into your lane, head on, blinded by your headlights – or careening off the road, unable to see quite where the road actually is? Great view, huh?

Turn off your high beams when there is oncoming traffic.

Seriously. If you’re driving in traffic with your high beams on, you are putting other drivers at risk of a collision, and just being a fucking nuisance. It’s both unpleasant and unnecessary.

Now. Having been explicitly told that your high beams are blinding other drivers, if you go forth in the darkness with your high beams on, without regard for, or consideration of, oncoming traffic? You’ll be choosing to do so willfully, aware that it is both unpleasant and unnecessary, explicitly choosing your convenience over the safety of others. I think, personally, that if you are going to be a jackass in that fashion, it’s best that you do so without any opportunity to pretend you are the fucking good guy here. 😉

Do better.

Turn off your high beams when there is oncoming traffic. It’s not just good manners; it could save a life.

I know, I know; it’s not much of a change. It’s a small thing as new beginnings go. Still, although it may not change the world… it could change someone’s experience of driving. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Uncategorized

Black Friday Wasn’t Enough?

November 26, 2018 //
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Oh hey, right, “Cyber Monday” is today; one more day on the calendar on which retailers attempt to hook more consumers than they typically can, generally by way of lavish promises of great deals. Often the deals are not actually all that great, and there is commonly much shaking of heads, murmurs of “let the buyer beware”, and promises by many not to succumb or be deceived next year.

I did not participate in “Black Friday”. I don’t plan to participate in “Cyber Monday”. What I can afford, in life, is already within my reach. What is not affordable, remains not affordable even on “retail holidays”. I refuse to be mislead or bamboozled out of cash I’m not willing to spend right now. It’s entirely adequate to have a holiday of handmade gifts – or even no gifts at all – and not only is there no shame in that; it can be wholly beautiful, heartfelt, and cherished to enjoy holidays in which something beyond material goods are celebrated. So. Make of that what you will. For me, today is just a work day, and “Black Friday” was a lovely day off enjoyed in the company of people dear to me.

To be clear, I’m not criticizing people who save up hard-earned cash all year to do their holiday shopping on Black Friday to in order to get the most out of meager dollars. I get it. I hope they each, and all, find everything they were hoping to, at prices that put all of that within reach. I’m a big fan of good quality of life, and I recognize that Black Friday is a choice opportunity to get ahead a little, for a lot of people. We each make our choices, based on our wants and needs, our own values, and our own experience. 🙂

Thanksgiving now over, time to dress the house for the Giftmas season!

I spent the holiday weekend well, I think. Saturday was mostly lost to housework, and it needed to be done. Yesterday I spent preparing the house for the upcoming winter holiday – I love Giftmas, with all the twinkle and glow, the colors, the lights… It is a feast for my senses. First thing in the morning, holiday music and pine scented candles, a cup of coffee, a list of things to do… and by day’s end, the list was checked off, the holiday music silenced, and I sat quietly in the glow of the lights, considering where the next ornament will go on the tree. I didn’t get the tree finished. The dining table is covered in ornaments. lol More fun for me, evening by evening this week. It’s enough, and I am quite contented. 🙂

…so many more…

Time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Taking It All In, Sorting It All Out

November 25, 2018 //
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I’m sipping my coffee and taking in the slow gray dawn. No sunrise this morning. No glints of gold or peach off the last clinging autumn leaves. Just a homogeneous gray sky slowly lightening from a deep charcoal gray to a steely gray, and just now reaching a soft dove gray. My coffee is cold, from a can I took out of the refrigerator.  It’s a hell of a luxury – convenience generally is, though I tend not to notice very often.

Funny how conveniences can become a loss of good character and will over time, though, isn’t it? I’ve noticed that when I yield to convenience such that a particular convenience becomes habitual, I lose interest in making the effort that a task or experience once required without the conveniences. Huh. I gotta work on that; I see some very problematic potential outcomes of losing the will to exert effort for what I want. 🙂 If nothing else, it is autumn, heading towards winter, and I enjoy a hot cup of coffee. This will be the last can of cold brew for a while. There are fresh good quality coffee beans in the hopper of the burr grinder. Coffee mugs are clean. The kitchen itself, untidy after being sick, is at least ready for making coffee. lol I take another sip of this cold brew, and really take it in: the flavor, the coldness, the peculiar lack of depth or nuance to both the taste and fragrance – I mean, no surprise, it came out of a can, right? Fresh squeezed orange juice will always taste quite deliciously different from orange juice from a bottle or carton, right? Same here. Freshly ground, freshly and skillfully brewed coffee by its very nature tastes quite different from any can of cold brew – however convenient or tasty – ever could.

There’s a metaphor here, and I continue to sip this fairly nondescript, but wholly convenient, cup of coffee and consider the metaphor (and allegory) from many angles.

I look out the window. It has been some moments since the sky was a smooth wash of dove gray, and it is, now, taking on a hint of… something else. Not pink. Not peach. Not mauve. Not lavender. Some odd color I have no name for that sits somewhere in the junction of all of those. How strange. I sit quietly, just watching the sky, trying to name this color I see, but which is somehow unfamiliar and nameless. I take another sip of my coffee, which now seems entirely wrong for this moment. lol This is a summer coffee in an autumn moment, like a “wrong note” in a jazz solo; I wait for the next note to tie it all together. 🙂

I take a moment to appreciate the physical details of this moment, too. The heat came on. The thermostat is set for a comfortable 68 degrees, which seems “just right” for first thing in the morning. The air feels a bit dry in the house. My head isn’t stuffy this morning, though, and for the moment my fairly persistent headache is gone. I’m in no particular amount of pain – pain-free? Dare I notice and make the observation? Huh. It’s a nice start to a day I hope to spend decorating for Giftmas. 😀

My mind wanders thinking about Giftmas future, and Giftmas past. Those thoughts are also about the things in life I’ve kept along the way, and the things I have lost or left behind. It’s not an especially poignant moment, and feels more practical, and observant. It’s a journey, and as with most of the journeys I have taken in life, there’s only so much baggage I can lug along the way. Sometimes, it’s necessary to let things go. Hell – sometimes that is the very best next step that can be taken; let it go. Let this go. Let that go. Let the big deal go. Let the petty bullshit go. Walk on. Keep what works best. Keep what supports my intention most. Keep what lifts me up. Keep what lifts up others. Learn what works, practice that, and share it. Let the rest go. Like the last can of summer’s cold brew, savor the experience, drink it in, enjoy what qualities of value it can offer, learn from what isn’t so pleasant – let the rest go, like an emptied can of cold brew, into the recycling. 🙂

Today I’ll sort through memories and life lessons while I sort through fragile glass ornaments, placing each one “just so” to consider and enjoy, to ponder, to learn from. This is a season of self-reflection, and a season of change.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Wait…What?

November 24, 2018 //
1

How have I not written in 4 days?? Distracted by love and holidays. I’m having a laugh over it, sipping a rare treat; afternoon coffee, and relaxing after a busy-feeling morning of errands and housekeeping. Tomorrow I’ll put up the Giftmas tree, and enjoy the lights and colors of the holiday season. Today is enough as it is. Tomorrow is plenty soon for a new beginning. 🙂

…”Nontraditional” doesn’t really do this year’s joyous feast adequate description…

Today, I’m content to feel grateful for the lovely Thanksgiving feast day, and the long weekend. As nontraditional as this year’s Thanksgiving holiday was, it was a profound joy to share it in the company of dear friends, chosen family, and my Traveling Partner (whose last three attempts to join me for Thanksgiving were undermined by drama in another relationship). The holiday was in no way what I might have expected (and it was a wise choice to go into it without the baggage of expectations), and there’s not much about it I would have wished to be different, at all, aside from the excessive drunkenness of a guest (these things happen, now and then, even in the most genteel families, and we are not them) which disrupted a pleasant moment briefly, and required some clean up, and there was a wee bit of unexpected drama later on (that may very well have sourced with nothing more mysterious than a bit of low blood sugar household-wide, due to the lateness of dinner). I shrugged it off at the time, it was handled then, and it’s not really worth more attention now. Far more worthwhile to savor recollections of the lovely meal, the fun of it all, the shared experience, the connection with friends and dear ones, the jokes, the joy, the moments… the love.

We are generally most able to do our best when we know what is expected of us, and we receive positive reinforcement when we deliver on that expectation.

I am pretty generally pleased with my adulting this weekend. I didn’t lose my temper over the drunken shenanigans of one particular guest, even though it was very triggering; the sort of situation where someone who is generally well-regarded nearly ruins his reputation with an entire community of friends over booze, bullshit, and bad behavior. I admit it; I’m not a fan of the outcomes of drunkenness. That’s my own baggage, though. I grew up as the child of an alcoholic. I had a fairly ugly drinking problem as a young adult. I gave up drinking on that order of magnitude many many years ago, and I frankly find no value in it, now. Just enjoy having a drink right? No need to descend  into bad behavior or careless destruction. Or, hey, here’s a thought; smoke a bowl and chill, damn. lol At a minimum – know your limit, and handle yourself as an adult.

I smile and sip my coffee.

I thought I had something more to go on about this afternoon, but there’s a bit of autumn sunshine in the last remaining leaves on the big leaf maples which has caught my eye, and I am lost in thoughts of holiday ornaments, Giftmases past, and the promises of the future, as I sip my coffee. It probably fits with the lack of writing generally, these past view days; I’ve been a tad busy living. lol

It’s unlikely that this moment (or this delicious cup of coffee) will change the world, but it’s quite lovely enough as it is, and… isn’t enough, enough? 🙂

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