It is morning. Well past dawn or sunrise. I’m off work – surgery today. Now and then my anxiety begins to flare up, mostly the result of troubling memories of past surgical experiences. It’s a “nothing” sort of thing. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I pull myself back into this moment. This surgery coming up today is quite minor. It’ll probably be done under a local anesthetic and finished in minutes. Regardless; the outcome will be what it is when that time comes. For now I enjoy my coffee in the garden.
A new day.
So… It’s much later. It’s evening. My anxiety was worse than I expected (or was willing to acknowledge). I’m calling it a night and feeling a bit woozy from the last lingering after effects of the surgical stress, the anesthesia, and the pain medication they gave me for today and tomorrow. I don’t really expect to need it past then, and figure I’ll be on my usual meds in the usual way by Saturday for sure. It went fine. I was surprised that it was done under general anesthesia – seemed the sort of thing that could potentially have been handled with an exacto knife and a moment of moment of excessive frugality, perhaps. lol
… Getting everyday shit done is a tad more complicated by being drugged and one-handed, but it’s temporary…
In practical terms my ability to manage my anxiety skillfully was, at best, superficial and only barely adequate. As a result I managed to aggravate my Traveling Partner (first thing in the morning), who was trying to provide caregiving and support and manage his own worry without adding to my stress. He wasn’t fooled. I did manage to mystify the nurse at the surgical center with my higher-than-200/90 blood pressure when my records show my historical average around 135/70. lol She didn’t see my anxiety at all (and I didn’t explicitly call it out). She said later that I seemed very calm and steady, after I thanked her for helping to calm me before surgery. There’s something to learn from that. One clear takeaway is that “managing” and “masking” are not the same practices and can’t get the same results. I gotta work on that. It matters to choose the right tool for any job.
Still, it’s behind me now. My throat is a bit raw from their method of managing my respiration while I was unconscious. That’s not a complaint, just an observation. I’ll have some water, and a cough lozenge, get a good night’s sleep (I hope), and tomorrow, I’ll begin again.
Whether or not whatever is causing our stress and anxiety is “real” – the stress itself, the actual anxiety is real. Strange how that works.
I sneeze suddenly and dart across the room to the corner where I’ve tucked my handbag, and scramble frantically through the contents looking for the travel pack of tissues I know is there somewhere. Damn it! Another sneeze, and now my nose is running like crazy and I dread finding myself covered in snot. I continue scrambling through the contents of my handbag a bit panicked, finally finding the tissues after I basically dump the contents onto the top of the printer in the corner. I return to my desk, feeling relieved, then my eye falls on an actual box of tissues right there on my damned desk, unnoticed, placed there by the cleaning crew over the weekend. I sigh, amused and frustrated, and astonished at the intensity of my absolutely pointless moment of stress. The stress was real. The cause of it wasn’t real at all; it was based on a misperception, a misunderstanding, an error in thinking.
“Anxiety” 10″ x 14″ – and she feels much bigger than that, generally.
…That’s often how stress and anxiety work; we respond to something in our thoughts or perceived experience without regard to the actual factual basis of the circumstances, and the stress builds so quickly we fail to “fact check” what’s going on around us…
I take a moment to let renewed calm sink in. I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s a new moment. I begin again.
My Traveling Partner had asked me (some time ago) to help with some paperwork. I have been dreading doing it, not because it’s actually all that big a deal, but because… stress. My own medical trauma and difficulties with some sorts of paperwork has been getting in the way of helping him out. He’s got his own challenges and anxiety to do with it, but it’s mostly been about the practical difficulties with keyboarding for long enough to get it done. He needs my help. I am happy to provide it – in the abstract – but the reality of the stress it has been causing me flared up yesterday afternoon, and I found myself in a moment of headache and pain and stressful tears over… mostly nothing. It’s just not that big a deal. It collided with my awareness of the upcoming busy Tuesday calendar (he has a couple of appointments to get to, and needs help getting to those) and my upcoming time off (which appears now to need to include Tuesday) and my headache, and I just… couldn’t get my head around all of it calmly. I found myself facing a huge feeling of pressure and imminent requirement to get it all done. Funny – not one detail of any of it is all that big a deal, so… why all the stress and agita? Why the anxiety? What the actual fuck, eh?
Humans being human. This morning it doesn’t look like all that big a deal. I look over the provided checklist for the paperwork, it’s not all that bothersome, actually. The appointments tomorrow? The Anxious Adventurer stepped up, agreeing to take his father to those appointments. I took it in stride this morning when it turned out I also have an appointment, scheduled in between my Traveling Partner’s appointments, and which would have prevented me from taking him to both of his, regardless. Busy day. The paperwork? It’s just paperwork. Needs to be done so it can join a queue of other paperwork submitted by other human beings to be considered by still other human beings at some considerably later date. Just not that big a deal, I guess. But the stresswas real. That’s an important detail; managing that stress was its own thing, with its own needs and its own steps. A real concern, for a real human being – and I’m grateful that my Traveling Partner recognized the need ahead of my own acknowledgement of my stress (which was escalating and confounding my ability to reason), and helped me address it, enabling me to more easily self-soothe, and get myself back on track. No tantrum, no meltdown. The headache lingered through the evening, but even that wasn’t that big a deal once the stress had been managed. Stress complicates everything by clouding our comprehension and judgment, making everything look like a bigger deal than it may actually be.
This morning, I breathe, exhale, and relax. I slept well and deeply last night – I clearly needed the rest. I feel like my body (and mind) have finally made the adjustment to the change to the clocks (good grief I wish we’d stop doing that). I feel more settled and comfortable in my skin. Okay for most values of “okay”, and ready for a new day (and week). The Equinox is coming, and so is my time off. It’ll be nice to have a few relaxed days painting, drinking coffee, driving beautiful roads to lovely destinations, and doing some painting. It is time planned to be very low stress. I hope it actually turns out that way, although the future is not written, and I have no way to know what obstacles may be on the path ahead. lol It’s a very human experience.
I’d like to spend a little time in the garden, too. So much of my experience in life is based on what I’ve planted, what I tend to. I think awhile about my garden as a metaphor… there are weeds to pull, seedlings to nurture, and a harvest in the future. For now? It’s time to begin, again.
My garden is a special place for me – and a useful metaphor.
I’m sitting quietly with my thoughts, sorting the real from the unreal, and working to process troubling details of both. Emotional work still feels like work, sometimes.
Sooner or later someone you care about deeply, someone you love and loves you in return, is going to say some terrible shit to you, hurt your feelings, or create turmoil and sadness in your heart. That’s just real. Humans being human. That’s generally more about them, and not about you at all, regardless what was actually said. How you respond to it, how you deal with it, that’s the bit that’s you, and it defines your character. Just saying. Forgiveness, empathy, kindness, and compassion, can all be difficult to practice under trying circumstances. Still worthwhile for someone you love, right? It’s hard sometimes. Human beings can be pretty spectacularly vile – even towards someone they say they love. I sit and think about that for awhile.
Lately my disturbed sleep has been more likely to include nightmares – genuinely horrific, emotionally loaded, inescapable proper nightmares. I’ve begun experiencing reluctance to return to sleep, and experience suggests I need to take steps to break this cycle before I develop a more serious sleep aversion that could quickly undermine my mental health. Visits to the Nightmare City don’t become less frequent with increasing sleep deprivation, I know this. Self-soothing becomes more difficult over time.
“The Nightmare City” 11″ x 14″ acrylic w/glow on canvas
I remind myself to rehang “The Nightmare City” where I can see it if I wake during the night. Seeing it helps anchor me to the here and now when I wake from traumatic nightmares. There’s so much chaos in the world right now: violence, genocide, femicide, and murder. I guess the nightmares aren’t so surprising. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Pain complicates things, too. Stress over my Traveling Partner’s wellness and recovery from his injury and surgery adds to the emotional load. Yeah… not surprising. What matters most, now, is dealing with all of it, supporting and caring for myself skillfully, and taking appropriate self-care measures.
It’s hard to know where to start sometimes. My “inner demons” dance in the shadows of lingering chaos and damage, taunting me with the shards of lasting trauma that fuel my nightmares. Tears start pouring down my face just recalling some moments of “then” and I tremble with ancient fear and anxiety that I’ve somehow “saved for later” from so long ago. “It’s not real, it’s not now.” I mutter out loud through clenched jaws. I force myself to breathe. Exhale. Relax. I set the pain and recalled trauma aside. I’m okay right now. I feel like I’m having to “handle it alone”, which feels incredibly sad and lonely, but… aren’t we all dealing with our own bullshit and baggage mostly alone? Making our own journey out of the mire? Walking our own path? Having our own experience? It’s not “personal”, just human.
The first moments of a new day; steps on a path.
I sigh and dry my tears. Nightmares aren’t “real”, and anxiety is a liar. I breathe, exhale, and relax, and lace up my boots. It’s daybreak. A new day. I’ve left the Nightmare City behind, and I’ve got this path ahead of me to walk. It’s time to begin again.
I’m sitting quietly in the pre-dawn darkness, waiting for the sun and sipping my coffee. I was up earlier than planned, earlier than I needed to be. Early. Laying around restlessly seemed more likely than going back to sleep, so I got up quietly and dressed, made coffee for my Traveling Partner, who was (probably still is) sleeping, and slipped out of the house and down the road to this nearby trail.
Long exposure with the night settings reveals a hint of purple in sky I wouldn’t see otherwise.
This morning I am feeling aggravated over nothing. I’m not certain why I feel this way. My headache, maybe? Maybe the lingering irritation over yesterday’s attempt to relax at home and paint while I did the laundry. That didn’t go well, although I did do a bit of painting, I gave up on it rather quickly rather than deal with my headache and my partner’s irritation with me. It was just too hard to create a comfortable creative space so I said “fuck it” and put it all away, and laid down for awhile hoping to also put the headache to rest. I wasn’t successful at that either. The headache is with me still.
Tears well up as I think about it. There’s more going on here, maybe something that needs more thought and care? It would probably be helpful to have a better understanding of what is actually causing this feeling of hurt.
“Why do you do this thing that you love?” I ask myself. It’s a question worth knowing the answer to, isn’t it? I’m not what would be considered a commercially successful artist. I sell pieces now and then, but I don’t invest energy (or time, or money) in representation, or the business of art. Definitely not “why I do it”, like, at all. I paint because it’s another way to communicate things I don’t have words for. I paint because the process itself meets an emotional need, and satisfies something within me. I love to see my work hanging in my home. It’s always been “about me” – by me, for me. I’ve always been okay with that, too, though I definitely get great joy from the experience of someone else enjoying my work.
Even in my least comfortable, unhappiest relationships, my partners at the time made room for my art, and for my creative process (and the occasional mess). My boundaries and needs as an artist were respected (and even in my terrifying violent first marriage). I felt valued as an artist even when I didn’t feel valued as a human being. Maybe that’s odd? It “felt right”. The people in my life, regardless how they seemed to feel about me, personally, in a given moment, seemed to appreciate my artistic work.
… Things have been feeling different, lately. Artistically, at least at home, I often “don’t feel heard”. I sometimes have a peculiar sense that “nothing I do” (artistically) matters at all, and that the art is, itself, a nuisance or an inconvenience. As if it’s somehow just “in the way” or taking up space. It’s a very strange and very unpleasant sensation.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I sip my coffee and wonder what there is to learn from this feeling, and this moment. I work on fitting it into the context of life, right now, with so much else going on. It’s been a while since I have been this productive as an artist, and although that is definitely meeting needs for me, what effect does that have on my Traveling Partner, I wonder? He’s certainly got his own shit to deal with right now, and any time I spend artistically is potentially time I am not spending focused on caregiving. Does he have feelings about that?
I am eagerly embracing the joy of feeling inspired by a new medium, and wanting to spend more time on painting (and savoring the feeling of satisfied inspiration), but I’m missing feeling a sense that my partner is enjoying it with me… and I don’t know why. Maybe he honestly just doesn’t care for the paintings I’m doing right now, but doesn’t want to hurt my feelings? Maybe my notion of what enjoying them looks like is a poor fit to the reality of it? Landscape paintings are probably less cognitively demanding of the viewer than abstraction, perhaps they don’t lend themselves to prolonged conversation?
… Maybe it isn’t about any of that at all…
I sit quietly with my thoughts. This isn’t going to be worked out over a single cup of coffee before the sun rises. It feels important, though. It’s a good time to remind myself that I paint to satisfy something within myself. The person who really needs to hear me is…me. Am I listening?
I have been here before. Self-reflection is a process, and a practice.
I sit thinking about the many hours over weeks, months, and even years that I have gazed thoughtfully at my paintings, hanging here or there. I’ve barely gotten started in pastel. Have I truly taken enough time with each new work, once completed, to really “get the point”? Am I feeling as if I were shouting in an empty room because I have not given the new work enough of my own time and attention? This feels relevant and real.
I’ve been painting in pastel for just 96 days. Over 96 days, I’ve painted 25 new pieces. That’s not my most intensely productive pace, but it’s damned close…am I spending enough time appreciating the work, reflecting on each new piece, and understanding what I’m going for? Maybe not. I think I’ve been tending to finish them, take some pictures, and move on to the next piece – sort of the artistic equivalent of talking without letting anyone else get a word in. The art isn’t being given enough time to really “speak to me”, I suspect – and I have to wonder if this is a bigger deal than I understood?
A new day dawning.
I sigh quietly, and wonder what to do about it. I drink my coffee pensively, looking at the hint of daybreak approaching on the eastern horizon. I shift uncomfortably, pain (arthritis, headaches) isn’t helping my mood. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’ve got this day ahead of me. Things to do. Things to think about. I prepare to begin again.
I’m sitting quietly, waiting for the sun. I’m sipping an iced coffee, feeling mostly grateful, and mostly in love. Life (and love) has its ups and downs. Aging has the benefit of bringing a bit of perspective, maybe some wisdom, but…it also kinda sucks, fairly often. This mortal sack of flesh feels like a trap as often as it behaves as a useful tool. Maybe that’s my headache talking?
I’m feeling vaguely nostalgic this morning, yearning for a “simpler” time that frankly doesn’t actually exist for me. Those recollections of bygone simplicity are bullshit – fragments of experiences that were far less simple than memory suggests, and far more complicated. Memory, in my experience, is much less nuanced than the lived experience in the moment.
I think about walking the cobbled streets of old Augsburg in the 1980’s… My memory lies to me about what a time it was. The reality? Mental illness was overtaking me, I lived in terror due to domestic violence, and I was fraught with constant anxiety (both personally and professionally). The shopping in Augsburg was great. The people were friendly. The climate was delightful. The holiday market was splendid and the cafes were amazing. So… what is “really true” about my time there? Was it grand or terrible? It’s hard to say. Sometimes I miss Augsburg.
My mind wanders to Fresno. What a very different time in my life. I worked my ass off in construction – but only half of the year, generally. The money was good while the work lasted, each season, but I was trading my health for those dollars one brutal hour at a time and struggling to make ends meet between jobs. I was wracked with constant anxiety and being stalked by my ex. I was living a life of unsustainable extremes – the delights were too delightful, the lows were dangerously low. My self-care… wasn’t care-ful. I was “using myself up” without really understanding the consequences of my choices. I cultivated some amazing (lasting) friendships. Because of those friends, many of whom are no longer in Fresno, I still sometimes miss Fresno in spite of, well… Fresno. lol
My mind wanders to “the woods” at the end of the street where we lived when I turned the corner on childhood and began the painful journey through adolescence. I ran the paths through those woods so many times. Walked them on quiet days seeking peace and solitude. I sat among the trees in the summer heat, listening to the trickle of the creek that flowed through the woods and the buzzing of insects. …I was sexually assaulted there. Somehow, I still remember those woods with great fondness (and, to be fair, the trees themselves were in no way responsible for me being raped).
Funny how nostalgia tries to “tidy things up”. Life – reality – is more complicated than that. Understanding (and accepting) the complexities of life is useful for healing. I can choose to hold on to, and savor, all the beauty and splendor of this mortal lifetime, and set aside the pain (mostly), and learn to bounce back, to let go, and to learn what lessons I can. I can savor the precious memories. I can experience gratitude for the wonders I’ve seen and the love I have experienced. I can reject the darkness and refuse to let it own me.
Nostalgia is weird and complicated. I sit with the good feelings, occasionally stumbling on some painful recollection that finds its way into the mix – like stubbing my toe on a pleasant walk. It’s weird, unexpected, and momentarily distressing. I breathe through the painful memories when they come; they’re part of my life, and I am the woman I am today because life is so much more complicated than a beautiful memory. There’s more to my story, more to my journey, than beautiful sunrises.
I sigh and sip my coffee. Daybreak comes with a hint of orange low on the horizon. I breathe, exhale, and relax. This? This is a lovely pleasant moment, and I am enjoying it. Quiet time well-spent on self-reflection and a bit of nostalgia. I don’t read too much into it. This too shall pass. Moments are brief. Change is. It feels like time to begin again.
Evening Light 