My Results Vary

January 23, 2017 //
1

The alarm just kept beeping at me. Eventually, I had to wake up. My coffee isn’t quite cool enough to drink. I keep sipping at it anyway. I am so groggy this morning. Some mornings I get a slow start. It is what it is. I make room for myself to be a little clumsier, a little slower, I try not to rush myself. Learning to be patient with myself has, over time, also made me kinder to other people. I found it damned difficult to be any nicer to anyone else than I was able to be to myself.

Taking time, making room for this moment, now.

Taking time, making room for this moment, now.

So, this morning, one thing at a time. A second cup of coffee, maybe a third. The safety net of routine and habit – and self compassion. This morning it is enough to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, The Big 5

The Day After The Marches

January 22, 2017 //
1

Frankly, the inauguration didn’t get my attention. I don’t give spoilt children, narcissists, or petulant adolescents my precious limited time on their terms. Call me a “whining liberal” if you need to do some name-calling, that’s on you, reflective of who you are and what your values are, not me or mine. 😉

I spent yesterday awed by the power and beauty of millions of women nationally and worldwide marching in protest of a president whose values do not represent them, and are actually a threat to women’s well-being and civil rights. It was… amazing. Yeah. Powerful. Peaceful. Wise. I was awestruck at the clarity of our shared voices. I was and am moved, empowered, and encouraged. Before I let it carry me away, I am also quite mindful that the tear-down begins today, in the many voices that oppose women every moment of every day, for no other reason than that we are women. Yes, well, we’re each having our own experience. There are always voices in opposition to change, regardless what good the change itself serves. At least for the moment, I am content and empowered and feeling strong in the face of future attempts to diminish me. It’s a nice feeling.

We share this world, this life, with so many other creatures...

We share this world, this life, with so many other creatures…

This morning, I’ve spent much of the morning bird-watching. I’ve had many visitors to the feeders today. Ducks. Canada geese. Squirrels. Jays. Even crows have stepped right up to the patio to enjoy the generous brunch laid out for their enjoyment. There are seed bells, and sunflower seeds, and assorted whole nutmeats strewn about, and peanuts in the shell aplenty, and a couple different suet blocks hanging here and there, one full of bugs and mealworms and such. A lavish brunch buffet on a Sunday morning. I share it with them over wilted greens, homemade applesauce, and hard-boiled eggs still warm from cooking, and a good cup of coffee.

It took awhile for them to trust me enough...

It took awhile for them to trust me enough…

I particularly enjoy watching the squirrels this morning. They have figured out the peanuts are on top of the bistro table, in the well of the soon-to-be-disassembled holiday wreath. The jays have known for a while, and regularly stop by to grab a peanut along their way. Today the squirrels also make their way to the table top, sorting through the peanuts quickly; peanuts with intact shells are carried off and buried. When they select a peanut with a shell that is broken, they finish the job, tearing it open and eating the peanuts within, while watching me curiously through the window. The jays are particular about the peanuts, too, although I don’t know what they are selecting for. They pick up several, before choosing and flying away with their chosen morsel.

A rare visitor returns this morning.

A rare visitor returns this morning, but I didn’t get a picture as good as this one from yesterday.

Today, littler birds favor the sunflower seeds strewn on the lawn with the bits and pieces of nut meats, and the fallen bits from the seed bells and suet feeders, rather than competing with the larger birds for a place at the feeders. The Northern Flickers zoom up to the suet feeder closest to the patio, striking it with enough force to send it spinning wildly. This seems their favored method, and since I’ve seen them do it quite differently now and then, and also repeat this interesting behavior seemingly willfully, I’ve come to accept that perhaps they just enjoy a good merry-go-round? lol They are fun to watch, and rather larger than my suet feeder was specifically intended to support. They don’t seem to mind that. 🙂

It's taken most of a year to get the crows to come close.

It’s taken most of a year to get the crows to come close.

Not one of these creatures has any idea what millions of human beings are doing with their time or why, aside from their daily observations of our coming and going… or so I have been taught to believe over a lifetime. I can’t say that I really know that for sure. I know that they come to my patio, accepting my generosity, and comfortable enough to linger and return regularly. I am content to be kind to my fellow creatures, whether they “understand” me or not; it’s part of who I am. When I began to understand that my fellow human beings are among “my fellow creatures” and began also extending my kindness and good nature to them, I was changed as a human being, in a wonderful way. I enjoy kindness extended to me. I appreciate it when people are compassionate. I am learning to deliver those experiences to others, by default, as a common byproduct of who I am, every day. I am transformed from the woman I was in my 20s – a fairly narrow-minded, right-leaning, callous-without-awareness, self-centered creature who was more cruel to herself even than to the world around her (and therefore thought she was treating others well, by comparison). It’s been a long, and fairly peculiar journey. I sometimes wonder if anyone who knows me – who knew me then – really knows me now at all?

A gentle phone call from my Traveling Partner reaches me as I finish my coffee. I finish the call feeling so very loved. The disturbing fun-house mirror of American politics seems very far away right now. I’m okay with that. I’m okay right now.

It’s a lovely morning. That’s enough.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, women, Words

Don’t Be Bamboozled

January 20, 2017 //
1

It’s the day. The majority of Americans are dreading it (the actual mathematical majority of voting citizens). Today I’ll commute through throngs of Portlanders making their voices here in public spaces, and finding solidarity in outrage and anger. I’ll be focused on getting to and from work today. I’m no less outraged, no less concerned about our future, and I am also taking action. I’ve chosen different actions, for myself.

I’ll be phoning and writing to Congress. I’ve got a couple handy links:

http://www.house.gov/representatives/

https://www.senate.gov/

Postcards are inexpensive, and have the added value of making their message clear to all who handle them. In an age of tweets and texts and slogans, keeping it brief also has the advantage of being something that can be read at a glance. Short, powerful statements uncomplicated by rhetoric, written at roughly a 4th grade level will be the win on postcards. Instead of a long detailed letter seeking to persuade, giving ideas the ‘ad slogan’ treatment and getting as many into the mail as possible is the idea. I mean, I could write something long, insightful, honest, vulnerable, and real about why I personally don’t want to see the minimum retirement age for Social Security raised… I mean… holy shit, I so don’t want to still be having to work for a living when I’m fucking 70!!! Instead of 5 pages that won’t get read, I’ll go with something like “Lower the Retirement Age for the Well-being of Seniors!”, and other postcards that say “Remove the Income Cap on Social Security Withholdings; Everyone Pays, Everyone Wins”… And I’ll just keep at it. For four years. Longer.

Anyway. You have your own path to walk, your own voice to raise, your own concerns to share and to act on. Do it. There are verbs involved. Find your way. If everyone takes just one action and makes it their own, with commitment, and reliably beginning again – and again – whenever they feel beat down. Well… change is. Making change is where the power is.

My day-to-day writing isn’t about American politics, or even American life. Certainly it isn’t about our crap-tacular failure as a culture to take care of our citizens in a civilized way, or how ruinously stupid and corrupt our government appears to be becoming, so I won’t bitch about it much. It’s scary, though, isn’t it?

Today is a good day to be the change.

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Categories Anxiety, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, The Art of Being, War and News of War, Words

Appreciating What I Can

January 19, 2017 //
0

Appreciating what I  can in life seems best paired with not taking the shit I don’t appreciate at all personally. It is a decent arrangement, generally, resulting in considerable calm and contentment. This morning, I am appreciating sleep – the sleep I didn’t get last night – and I’m not taking at all personally that I didn’t get the sleep I needed, which, while I don’t appreciate that, wasn’t at all personal. Sometimes I can’t sleep through the goings on in the world, however local or remote, and sometimes I can’t sleep through what’s going on in my head. I really do enjoy deep restful quality sleep, though. 🙂

With regard to the sleep I did not get last night, it matters far more that I am awake now, alert, feeling merry, and more or less ready for the work day. With just Friday (and today) between me and the potential for sleeping in (on the weekend), this is doable. There’s no tragedy here, and barely any inconvenience. My lack of sleeping is not associated with anxiety or tinged with negative emotions. I am in a manageable, minimal, amount of pain. “My glass is more than half full”, meaning to say that I enjoyed the evening in the company of my Traveling Partner, and feel cared-for and well-loved. Even with the poor night’s sleep, the day begins well. I definitely appreciate that. 🙂

The snow melted away slowly in yesterday’s steady rain. The commute to work was treacherous and slick; the thin layer of water on all the accumulated ice was far more slippery than ice or snow alone ever could be. I skated awkwardly along the walking portions of my commute, appreciative of bus service that kept the walking portion shorter than usual, by far. As the day went on, the snow continued to melt. The journey home wasn’t especially treacherous, slippery, or complicated – just wet.

Coming home to real partnership is something I appreciate, too. My cardboard recycling had begun to pile up, bins were full after the holidays, and later an icy parking lot I could not safely cross on foot with my hands full prevented me handling things. I felt uncomfortable with the clutter, and it had begun to aggravate me. I arrived home to find that my Traveling Partner had taken care of it, and any number of other things: putting away clean dishes, hanging the closet door that so recently came loose unexpectedly in my hands, installing a replacement external hard-drive (he’d also taken time to locate as many of my old back up files and images archived on his network as he could identify, and had already put them on the new drive for me). My quality of life when I returned home was notably improved over when I departed for work in the morning. It’s lovely to be cared for. I appreciated, too, the sweet relief of connecting and sharing time in the same physical space after two weeks of being kept apart by circumstances, pain, or bad weather.

Small things that frustrate or annoy me may have been piling up over time… now, this morning, embracing a moment of appreciation for what is working, what is going well, and what I enjoy in my life, it’s hard to give any weight to small frustrations and inconveniences. It’s a nice change.

My thoughts turn to moving and I find myself wondering if my frustration with not yet finding a new place have been stalling other healthy processes; frustration is my kryptonite, and I try to be mindful of its sway over my thinking when it becomes prominent in my experience. The lease here runs out at the end of the month. The weather has been intensely crappy for house-hunting, or searching for a rental home closer to work, and there are so few hours in the day available for the purpose, at all. There is little time left. Do I sign a six month extension on the lease here? I don’t want to live here anymore. I want a place of my own – really mine, a home. I know so much more about what I want, and what I need, and what is enough… and I haven’t found it, yet. I’m also… not quite ready. I meant to be. The holiday season got in the way of being more prepared, and I made a practical decision about supporting my Traveling Partner’s goals ahead of my own, short-term. We do that for each other now and then, because… love. So… yeah. Six more months here now seems the pragmatic choice, the practical, feasible, doable decision with the least upheaval, for the time being. I would, in all honesty, prefer to move during the summer months, anyway. Less rain falling on paintings being exposed to weather, carried from residence to moving truck, from moving truck to residence. Thankfully, I have options – and an awareness of options. I make an appointment to sign the lease next Thursday, on a day I will be out of the office on other personal matters. I have another week to keep looking. Hell, I found Number 27 less than a week before I moved, back in May of 2015. 🙂

Today isn’t “perfect” – what ever is, really? It’s enough, though. Today is a good day to appreciate having enough. Being enough. Doing enough. I am content with sufficiency. Today that’s enough. 😀

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, Words

Change Is

January 18, 2017 //
1

I woke to the sound of rain. It was raining when I dropped off to sleep. The outside temperature stayed above freezing through the night, and is expected to near 50 degrees (F) today. The snow is disappearing. The ice has softened and is giving way to slush. It’ll be a wet, slushy, muddy commute today, quite different than yesterday’s icy cautious trek.

My careful commute still got me to this lovely vantage point.

My careful commute still got me to this lovely vantage point, yesterday. Today it will look different.

Tonight will be warmer. It will be too warm for a fire in the fireplace to give comfort. There will be even less snow, and even more mud. I’m okay with all of that; I may see my Traveling Partner. 😀 It’s been weeks now, and I miss him greatly.

This morning starts in a peculiarly unscripted way. I don’t really know what is to come of the day, not even a little bit. I don’t find that it causes me any anxiety, which is a change itself, from years when the slightest mystery or deviation from plans, caused me incredible stress and anxiety. This lack of plan, this lack of expectation, it’s not even uncomfortable… I’m okay right now.

The world, too, is in a state of change. In a sense, a very real sense, pretty much nearly everything almost entirely always is in a state of change, to one extent or another. Fighting that caused me so much needless stress. Holding the awareness of ongoing change at arm’s length, trying to carve out a moment of stillness by halting change itself, and then feeling the inevitable frustration and disappointment when things did, unavoidably, change, regardless of my wishes… it was… hard. Embracing change, for me, has meant taking that first step again and again and again; being comfortably aware that change is. It has no characteristic that allows for me to avoid it, negotiate with it, prevent it, limit it, halt it… or change the thing about change that is change itself. From there, it’s all planning the Plan A, and the Plan B, and finding the sweet spot in life that allows me to accommodate change comfortably, which has typically involved not getting hung up on expectations and assumptions – or even plans.

Even today; I am hopeful I will see my Traveling Partner. I don’t “expect” it to be today. I don’t “assume” that it will be today. It may be. It may not be. There’s nothing on the calendar that is firm on that topic, as of now, and there are other things going on for both of us… so… I know he is eager to see me. I know I am eager to see him. We miss each other. Our intention is to get together at the next good opportunity, once the roads are safely navigable once again. Good enough. It allows for change to happen quite comfortably, without drama. I like that.

Today is a good day for change. (There’s no stopping change, so it’s quite nice that it’s a good day for it…) Today is a good day to be content with what is. Today is a good day to enjoy this moment, here, whatever it is, while I can. It will change, sooner or later. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, solo hiking, The Art of Being, winter
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