Oh, Hey, Don’t Kill My Vibe!

August 19, 2015 //
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I woke with a stuffy head this morning – a cold? No, just a stuffy head. Allergies? I guess…maybe…or maybe my head is just stuffy? The morning I feel slow, unproductive, distracted, sluggish. How human! My attempt at iced coffee doesn’t have enough ice…the coffee ice cubes melt down, and the result? A tepid coffee…taller than usual. Not really the desired outcome…but it was an after thought, midway through making coffee. As is often the case with whims, the lack of planning, the inadequate preparation, and the lack of focus result in the sort of hit or miss outcome that, in this instance, is clearly farther along the ‘miss’ end of the spectrum. I’m having to invest in a positive state of being a bit more actively than usual.

I put on music that keeps me moving and puts a smile on my face. My sleep wasn’t especially restful. In addition to the stuffy head, I woke feeling sort of… desiccated, and headache-y. My traveling partner has indeed been traveling, and we hung out last night, it’s possible I got exposed to a head cold virus…but it doesn’t really feel quite like that… Why am I fussing over it? There’s more value in the awareness, the acceptance, and dealing with it – the why is sort of pointless, isn’t it?

Needing a moment of joy in the temple of my heart.

Needing a moment of joy in the temple of my heart.

I am thinking about the evening, hanging out with my dear love. Emotions come and go – my volatility is off the charts this morning, and I don’t understand that, either. Cuddling together on the love seat, hanging out, talking, and just being together, it was wonderful celebrating the profound connection we share; I miss living with him. I don’t miss the niggling little bullshit arguments that crop up when we live together, and seem oddly important in the moment – those I am happily doing without. I don’t miss the two of us tripping over each other’s baggage, and aggravating each other’s issues. I don’t miss those peculiar moments of doubt when I look into his eyes and wonder, just for a moment, if I actually understand what’s going on at all…or the look of doubt in his when some moment is seriously affected by my injury, and he wonders whether he can make love work with that.  (Yes, I can see it.) I definitely don’t miss the challenges around living with the mismatched assorted others in our experience that aren’t a good fit for one or the other of us; I definitely find not living with the OPD an improvement. I miss living with his smile, though, and his touch, and his everyday utterly inappropriate humor. I miss his scent, and his aesthetic, and I miss his conversation. It’s hard to ‘get enough’ of any of that without living together…on the other hand… I’m enjoying me so much more comfortably without the constant self-consciousness, and self-doubt that crops up so much more when I live with other people.

It looks like we’ll be seeing more of each other; I’m really settled in now, and this is a comfortable space to hang out, to be, and to enjoy each other. It’s a drama free zone. I look over my shoulder at the fireplace and imagine a crackling fire in autumn, feet up, arms around each other… Yes, Love, I am happy here. This works for me. This is my home.

Home.

Home.

This morning, though…I’m moody, irritable, and potentially a walking negative outcome waiting for the wrong moment to become real. What’s up with that? Freaking moody human primates! Who needs this bullshit? This morning I am working at the task of ‘defusing the bomb’; it’s less than desirable to go into the office teetering on the edge of having my temper flare up unexpectedly – at work it wouldn’t matter whether the context seemed ‘reasonable’ or the reaction ‘understandable’ for the circumstances. People are uncomfortable with strong emotion in the work environment, generally. This morning, I practice the practices intended to boost my emotional resilience – also those that tend to reduce it. This morning I am taking time to meditate. Then more time. Then another time. Then some time while I boil water for coffee. And after my shower. And when I got up. And a few minutes from now… yeah. It’s like that today; chasing stillness while the worst of my volatility simmers in the background, likely to go off without warning.

So much of life is about love and loving.

So much of life is about love and loving.

Al Green begins to sing to me about sexual healing – a light bulb goes off in my head – is that all this is? Am I a bitch in heat, grumpy and frustrated, and without a ready outlet to meet that need? I chuckle with gentle sympathy for myself, out loud, shaking my head – it’s a lifelong challenge managing my libido and my injury. Together they add up to a sex drive that no partnership but one has ever satisfied, and even that only survived the endless need for about a year. I am learning to go without more graciously. I am learning to accept love’s delights less demandingly. I kind of have to – real life, in this area, doesn’t manage to feel like ‘enough’. I am at least learning to accept that I will be drowned in enthusiastic hyperbole in every new relationship as potential lovers assure me they can easily meet my needs, and assurances that they too have a crazy high sex drive… It’s almost impossible to communicate successfully that we’re talking about very different magnitudes of drive; the disappointment each time I face that moment in a partnership when the truth of it becomes clear is always a bitch to deal with.

My thoughts stray to the approval of flibanserin – a drug intended to boost female desire – and I gotta wonder, if a person doesn’t want sex, how is that ‘disordered’? If level of desire can be a disorder… then what about women such as myself, where my level of day-to-day desire creates problems because it seems – to my partner(s) – excessive? I assure you, if feels perfectly normal to me.  Am I to be expected to take a drug to make me want sex less? I could see taking an appropriate medication if my body’s response to desire wasn’t consistent with my psychological or emotional experience of wanting… but… to make me want, if I don’t? I don’t get that. It is, however, a very hard conversation to have to have with someone when they are not desired…particularly if the relationship has a sexual component. It happens. It’s even happened to me – which is damned awkward. Still… I think having the honest conversation makes more sense [to me] than taking a mind-altering anti-depressant class of drug to force oneself to feel desire, when desire doesn’t exist. Maybe those honest conversations could result in people taking steps to create desire through action (the Big 5 is super helpful there)… or move on to a relationship in which their needs are more easily met? Seriously. If the sex matters that much (it does for me), and I can’t get what I need in a relationship, there are other choices than ‘going without’ (or ‘enduring what is not desired’), or ‘taking a mind altering drug to become more what the partnership requires’…but a lot of those options do involve investing in additional relationships of some sort. Inconvenient. Time-consuming.

Yeah. I’m feeling cross and bitchy today. I’m feeling critical of myself, my mood, my writing… and I’m betting that if I do something as small as just easing up on myself this morning, it’ll be a much better morning straight away. I’ll just set this one aside right here, today, and move on with the morning, taking the very best care of me that I can.

Stick with the basics - it's a great place to start.

Stick with the basics – it’s a great place to start.

Today is a good day to avoid taking my own bullshit too personally. Today is a good day to treat myself gently. Today is a good day to remember that we’re each dealing with our own bullshit – and we’re all very very human. Today is a good day to invest heavily in kindness – it’s free, and there’s an endless supply – and it might change the world.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women

Taking Great Care With Each Practice

August 18, 2015 //
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This morning I woke gently, and rose with a smile already tugging at the corners of my lips. I went to bed last night in a lot of pain, and on waking this morning I notice it has not diminished much. I am very stiff. I treat myself with care this morning, taking my time, and since I give myself so much of that in the mornings, there is no need to rush through any of the morning tasks or practices. Since I slowed myself down a few days ago (weeks?), my quality of life has improved.

I linger in the shower until I feel the stiffness of my arthritic spine ease. I make a point of relaxing and really enjoying the fish as I feed them, and watching them live their fishy lives. I breath deeply. I allow myself to listen deeply to the woman in the mirror, this morning – how is she doing? What can I do to make her more comfortable? What are her priorities as the day begins? I let in the fresh morning air,  opening the patio door and taking a moment to look out across the lawn; at this hour there are rarely any lights on elsewhere, aside from the walkway lights. I enjoy the pre-dawn quiet and the scents of morning, before making my coffee.

I have noticed that when my practices become ‘routines’ over time, they sometimes lose their ‘magic powers’. It’s not that they don’t really work, or that they have failed…It’s something simpler; I’m failing myself by doing them ‘mindlessly’. It’s easy-ish to fix. I have to slow down, begin again, and approach each such task or practice with a beginner’s mind, with willful mindfulness, and yes – a bit of discipline now and then, taking the time to fully embrace the task, the practice, the moment, engaged and present. I don’t berate myself over it when I drift off course – there’s no productive point in doing so. I don’t feel I have ‘failed myself’ grievously – I’m human, and these are practices for a reason; they require practicing. Going through the motions doesn’t count as ‘practice’ – or as living.

I am not a machine. I don’t actually benefit, long-term, from rigid habit, and life planned out thoroughly moment-to-moment, beyond the value toward simply getting shit done. Even for me, rigid habits and a strictly enforced disciplined approach to daily task completion are not something I thrive on – it’s just one method of coping with my injury, my poor memory, my challenges with maintaining a comfortable lifestyle over time. It’s not an ideal way to live. Living alone I can more comfortably explore life on a less habitual, less routine basis; moments of chaos and confusion are less likely to affect others, and any time I need to I can slow things way down, and be patient with myself; I don’t get stalled having to explain it to someone else. I am learning to live without the crippling burden of the [perception of the] expectations of others weighing me down.

The loss of so many small routines and habits sometimes catches me by surprise. This morning my cell phone wasn’t charged. I had remembered to put it on the charger; I had forgotten that the other end wasn’t plugged in. I changed my habit from leaving all the cables of all the kinds just plugged in and dangling all over the place to a much tidier practice of carefully putting away cables not in use . My environment is lovelier, tidier, and still quite convenient – since all the cables of all the kinds for all the chargers, devices, etc are conveniently in one location, together. It’s still a change. I forgot about the need to plug in both ends. 🙂 Surprise! I don’t take it personally, and I’m grateful for the quiet amusement, and practical perspective on the small inconvenience; there was a time it would have been enough to blow my morning, possibly causing some nasty pointless tantrum – I suck at frustration, even now. (It has been easier to learn not to be frustrated by certain kinds of things, that to learn to deal with the experience of frustration, itself. I don’t know whether that will be the wiser choice over time, but it does offer some relief now.)

Letting go of rigid fixed habits tied to time and timing, and all the expectations and assumptions those tend to support, has been a big change. The need to take great care with each task and practice, invested, engaged, aware, and fully living each moment becomes quite profound, lacking the foundation of rigid habit. Rituals exist because, perhaps, it is not so easy to approach every desirable practice in an utterly mindful way. I do like ‘easy’… but… I also really like living, eyes wide to life’s wonders, attentive, aware, savoring my experience, learning to thrive, and becoming emotionally self-sufficient. So many verbs involved. It’s scary sometimes. What if I forget my morning medication? What if I suddenly just stop doing things? What if I discover my values or preferences are at odds with the expectations of my loved ones? What if I’m not who I think I am? Well…I guess I’d begin again. 🙂

The sun is up now. I take a moment to make my bed, and tidy my bedroom. I finally feel ‘moved in’, in a very complete way. I think it is a combination of the love seat, and the wee trash cans which arrived over the weekend. I find myself wondering if the story of human progress can be told in the improvements in waste management over the course of history… I definitely feel the improvement in my own quality of life having a small trash receptacle in the bathroom, in my bedroom, and by my desk – I’d been having to walk every used tissue, bit of string, or piece of waste paper all the way to the covered kitchen trash, or recycling bin, and while it is a very small apartment and no real inconvenience to do so, nonetheless – I feel more ‘moved in’ having what seems the ‘proper’ number and placement of small trash baskets around the place. Funny which details matter to me. It’s exciting learning what matters most to me, myself.

I have time for another coffee, and some household chores that will ensure I come home to a lovely place – built for me, by me, based on what matters most to me. It’s a  nice feeling. Enjoying the moment seems to cause my brain to attempt a sneak attack, coming at me from behind with dire warnings and launching a salvo of ‘what if’ scenarios filled with house fires, burglars, unknown assailants, and all manner of extraordinarily negative [and incredibly unlikely] circumstances…I assure myself I’ll remember to turn off the stove, lock the doors, and be aware of my surroundings. My demons slink off into the darkness grumbling quietly.

Going my own way, having my own experience.

Going my own way, having my own experience, and feeling prepared to face the world.

Today is a good day to take great care with each task I face, with each practice I practice, and to face life with a beginner’s mind. I am a student of life and love. I am my own cartographer. The way I face the journey – and the direction I take – are mine to choose. It’s a very good day to set down some baggage and walk on.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women

Source Material

August 17, 2015 //
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This morning I made a very nearly perfect cup of coffee. It’s not really remarkable; my coffees are generally quite consistently very good. I have practiced this particular method of brewing, now, for 89 days, amounting to a minimum of 178 coffees, adequate practice to reliably make a good coffee. I’ve made a couple of really terrible coffees along the way – usually because I stopped paying attention at some point during the process, having gotten distracted by something else. I enjoy my morning coffee greatly, and I enjoy the practical self-sufficiency of making my own, precisely the way I prefer it, without any imposition on someone else in the moment. I enjoy being able to fully rely on myself to take care of my needs in this small way. I enjoy feeling knowledgeable, and competent.

My thoughts followed the feelings of ‘being knowledgeable’ and ‘being competent’ along other tangents while I sipped my coffee. I start wondering how much those feelings are actually tied to subjective experiences of knowing more, or having more skills, and how much they merely reflect my perspective how being able to apply the things I do know to my circumstances to achieve a desired outcome… without any particular connection of some noteworthy portion of knowledge of all the things possible to know. There are a lot of things to know…even about coffee. I don’t claim extraordinary knowledge of coffee… I know enough to make a good cup of coffee in the morning, one that satisfies my own expectations of ‘a good cup of coffee’. It’s enough… but there is more to know, and I could choose to pursue that knowledge, or not.

I keep following my thoughts down this particular rabbit hole and find myself wondering about this ‘body of knowledge’ that is my own…all the things I have learned in a life time, all the things I “know” (whether facts or opinions), all of the information and experience on which my understanding of the world – and myself – is built… Isn’t the ‘source material’ pretty critically important? I find myself reconsidering all the books on all the shelves; I have a lot of books and I make a point of keeping only those that seem to represent important pieces of who I have become over time… I find myself wondering, this morning, if I am perhaps hanging on to some of my chaos and damage in the form of “knowledge” – fundamentals in my thinking that are not just erroneous, but built specifically on concepts or information that tend to prevent forward progress, or foster ongoing negative self-talk; it seems more likely than not, and I support that suspicion with the many volumes of “The Great Books of the Western World“, a product developed and marketed by the intellectually mighty Encyclopedia Britannica, whose online presence is rather costly, compared to the vastness of the internet itself, at one’s fingertips with a Google search.

I bought “The Great Books” when I was not quite 21, and eager to advance my knowledge of the world, and to become ‘educated’. A smooth talking encyclopedia salesman skillfully persuaded me that all the knowledge I could ever desire was within those pages. It was an expensive purchase – and my first payment plan. When they arrived, I marveled at their weight, and beauty…and I read them all over the years (or at least began them – I’ll admit Fourier kicked my ass, and a couple of the philosophers just irritated me well beyond wanting to read another word). Had I attended most of the liberal arts colleges of the time, my education would have been based largely on the works included in “The Great Books”…but the controversy over the collection existed as soon as the collection was published, and the 2nd edition, published in 1990, would have been a better fit for my own tastes. Neither collection represents the voices of women with any vigor or thoroughness (or, let’s be honest here, at all)…and sitting here in the cool of morning, it hits me that there is a fairly direct connection to the cultural thinking that fuels so much of my own very personal anger about how society treats women, and the willingness to slap a label like “The Great Books of the Western World” on a collection of work that largely just ignores women, even in the 2nd edition. I mean…seriously? It’s not even “Some Great Books…”, it’s held up as “The Great books…” Giving readers the impression that all the world’s vast knowledge and progress has been the knowledge of men, the progress of men, the thinking of men – and it’s not actually true.

Why wouldn't about half these books be written by women?

Why wouldn’t about half these books be written by women?

I look again my bookshelf for the voices of women… for the voices of my own experience… I feel a certain strange heartsick feeling that I, too, neglect the voices of women in my library. It feels like a great wrong, that urgently needs to be made right – and for me, making that right starts with a question. “Do I actually find that these volumes are “The” great books of western thinking? Truly? Who says? Based on what, exactly? Is Descartes more worthy, from my own perspective, than Simone de Beauvoir? Is Fourier more relevant than Marie Curie? What about William James? Has his work provided me more value and perspective on my own thinking than Gloria Steinem? I find myself feeling fussy – and ignorant. My education is lopsided, heavily weighted in favor of the thinking of men, the voices of men, the experiences of men… and it isn’t limited to dusty books on untouched shelves; this is a deeper issue that affects how children are educated, and what we see on television, and in theaters. This lack of women’s voices, this disinterest in giving us a seat at the grown-up’s table, or making our presence an everyday part of significant historical discourse is a disservice to human progress, and our sense of who we are – and it fuels the quiet seething anger that is so often a part of my experience; the lack of feeling heard begins with these books. Or so it seems over my morning coffee.

There’s something beautiful about choice, and perspective, and new understandings; taken all together, they make great things happen, they create an opportunity for change. There are verbs involved, of course, and I expect my results may vary. I have spent my life listening to the voices of men, and mostly being a pretty good sport about having my own voice silenced to allow some man to speak, erupting in uncontainable rage only now and then. It’s no wonder my anger has taken so many men I have loved by surprise; based on the books in our hands, surely their expectation has been that it is always ‘their turn to talk’!

It’s an uncommonly pleasant Monday morning. I am eager to make some changes in my library…if “The Great Books of the Western World” were all the voices of women, what books would I see there on the shelf? It’s time I include them. It’s time to change the world.

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Categories Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Perspective, The Art of Being, women, Words

The Effectiveness of Change

August 16, 2015 //
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I slept in this morning, sort of. Actually, I woke early, before 5 am, without any intention of getting up so early, because it isn’t necessary to do so today and I very much wanted to sleep in when I went to bed last night. I’m not sure I ever really returned to a deep sleep, but I coasted through a couple restful hours curled up with my body pillow, tangled in my blankets, and wrapped in thoughts of love, sometimes drifting off and dreaming, and got up some time later to the start the day.

I’ve a number of notions I’ve considered writing about this morning, but my consciousness is hung up on love and loving, and still soaked in the bliss left over from yesterday’s visit with my traveling partner. “It’s the love seat” I think to myself at one point, and that’s when I realize – not for the first time – how significant small changes can be. My hang out time with the wanderer seemed similarly more intimate, more connected, and closer sitting together on the love seat. Is that why a love seat is called a ‘love seat’ instead of being called a ‘mini couch’ or ‘wee sofa’? I amused by the thought that it might be called a love seat because it facilitates loving presence and connected dialogue…

I shopped high and low for the one I chose for its diminutive size (just 48″ wide). The small size of the room needed something similarly small to remain ‘in scale’ with everything else. At 60″ inches, many of the American love seats I saw would look huge in this room, taking up most of the visual space, and limiting how much room to paint I would have, even if I shift things around. That wasn’t going to meet my needs…on the other hand…I also needed to ensure that the seating would be ample for two, and not uncomfortable or cramped. I did consider comfort…I didn’t really consider ‘love’. It’s odd that it seems such a worthy choice, in general; the new love seat has also benefited me in my solitary space by taking me from my desk, often. It is a beautiful space to relax – and remarkably comfortable for me, personally. The details matter; at my traveling partner’s recommendation I have ordered some little pillows for the comfort of guests, and the wanderer noted at one point on his visit previously that ‘switching sides’ had benefit at one point during the evening – a practical suggestion that worked out for my traveling partner and I, as well.  That’s all very practical stuff…

Creating a beautiful space, building a beautiful life. Yes, there are verbs involved.

Creating a beautiful space, building a beautiful life. Yes, there are verbs involved.

…What matters most, as I sit here, is how remarkably delightfully effortlessly well the love seat seems to facilitate actual love, through proximity, through connected conversation, through crafted intimacy that seems so easily to become legitimate tender considerate closeness. When I sit in that spot, even alone, I find that I feel content – more content – and comfortable, my restless nature seeming to be soothed. I didn’t know when I chose it that all these qualities were shipped right along with this modest simply made love seat…but I definitely enjoy that it is indeed a love seat – a seat of love. 🙂

The love seat was not my first choice for next step with my moving in. I really wanted to get the curio and to get my breakables all out on display and within easy reach. My traveling partner asked me to consider getting the love seat first because he wanted very much to be comfortably able to sit close and share space with me more easily. I fussed a bit, internally, over what felt initially like my will being overridden…but the process of shopping for what I wanted of a love seat – and what I wanted of a curio, revealed that the items were not in the same category of expenditure, and that I would get ‘more bang for my buck’ with a love seat (And oh, ha ha – yes, I see the humor in the phrasing. And…yeah, that too. 😀 ).  Had I insisted, I know I’d have my curio parked in the corner where it plans to go, right now…and I wouldn’t have had last night, quite as last night was; choices matter. I’m satisfied that I’ve made a good choice that meets my needs right now – and over time. I do love seeing my breakables out on display…but while they may move me, they don’t touch me at all the same way as Love.

As with the a/c, the love seat turned out to be quite perfect for the circumstances, and again my traveling partner comes through with major skills in the area of encouraging and supporting love and intimacy. He seems sometimes to be ‘always right’, and while that is likely an illusion produced by a combination of being right often, and my intense affection for him…truly I’d be pretty foolish not to pause and consider his recommendations when he offers them counter to something I plan to do; he generally understands very well what I am seeking, and his perspective on how to get it often takes into account things I have overlooked. It’s hard, sometimes; my injury makes me vulnerable to poor decision-making, and acting on impulse, but my PTSD tends to make me resentful of experiences that feel as though my will is being denied me, and my desire to ‘be a grown up’ and take care of myself without help sometimes finds me reluctant to seek it (or accept it) – but when I  put down my baggage, the help I get from my traveling partner has been of great value. I know there’s a lesson there, and it’s something about listening deeply, reciprocal consideration, and recognizing the voice of love. I find my Big 5 values woven into so much of my experience.

It can feel like slow going, sometimes, but love, beauty, contentment...these experiences are worthy of the investment in time, and choices.

It can feel like slow going, sometimes, but love, beauty, contentment…these experiences are worthy of the investment in time, and choices.

So here I am today. I have love, and a love seat. I have a great cup of coffee, and bare toes tickled by clean carpet. I have a cool summer morning that will likely become a hot summer day. I have no firm plans, although perhaps the wanderer will come by much later. I have the recollection of an amazing time spent with my traveling partner yesterday – the sort of thing that is very much why it’s called ‘making love’ in the first place – some things seem to truly create love, and where love already exists seem to intensify and deepen it, well beyond what can be described in mere words…so no more words, today, and on with love and loving. These are things that have the power to change the world.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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