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How Merry It Was

December 28, 2020 //
1

I’m sipping my Monday-morning-before-work coffee, and contemplating the days preceding this moment. Festive. Lovely. Warmed-through with loving intentions. Merry. So very merry. 🙂 I will admit to lower-than-average expectations – I mean, seriously, there’s a pandemic going on, and American politics are a disappointing ethical shambles presently, and I could every bit as easily have found myself focused on all that mess, instead of the delightful holiday interlude I shared with my Traveling Partner. I chose to focus on the holidays at hand, though, and the outcome was precious and will be cherished for the lifetime ahead. 🙂

…So merry…

Gifts were opened. Coffees and sweets and jokes were shared. Holiday tunes played in the background. I took winter walks along muddy lanes (rain here, no snow). Texts and emails were sent to family and friends (cards were mailed, probably too late to arrive in advance of the holiday). Cookies were baked. Recipes were tried. We reminisced over old times, good times, other times. It was a sweet and romantic connected holiday for two, in The Time of Pandemic. We didn’t go out. We didn’t have friends over. The car has the same gas in the tank it did more than a week ago. lol Sweet strange little holiday that managed to make my “top ten” lifetime fantastic holidays. 🙂

I feel fortunate. I sip my coffee smiling this morning. Half days in the office this week… I’m not expected until later on. Ample time to write… and to read. Maybe to paint? Do some housekeeping. 🙂 One life being lived.

My Traveling Partner woke minutes after I did, this morning. We both seem to be sleeping very well lately. We’re both less grumpy in the mornings as a result. It’s nice. I make room in my thoughts for a moment of compassion and understanding that it can be difficult not to be grumpy when one wakes in pain, and starts the day fairly certain that it’s not going to change. I consider my physical wellness this morning; I am in less pain because I am more well-rested? Maybe. It’s important to be mindful and note any changes in that sort of thing. Allowing implicit memory to smooth out changes that could indicate improvements (and it will) can make it difficult to enjoy and live a reality of less pain… I mean… I’m not going to be able to enjoy what I am not aware of, right? 🙂

Solstice…Giftmas…then, New Year’s… 2020 is almost over. It is an ending layered with more than typical meaning and significance for many people. What will we do with the opportunity ahead to make 2021 more meaningful and significant for ourselves, our families, our community, and for the world? What will I do with that opportunity?

…Then again (and also true), it’s just another change of day-month-year on an arbitrary calendar. It could be any day. It could be any moment – we can each choose to begin again when we will. That’s pretty powerful stuff. 😀 (Does tend to leave us without excuses, though, for why we have not embraced an important change we know we need to make for ourselves.) S’okay. We’ve got a few more days to consider the new year ahead. 🙂

It’s time to begin again. How will we change the world?

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Categories Allegories, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, winter

What About You?

December 22, 2020 //
0

I’m thinking about life, and love, and forward momentum. I am pondering hurdles I have cleared, and those that I fell short of. I’m thinking over good decisions, poor decisions, and some handful of decisions I can only look back on with a sort of befuddled astonishment (as if in acknowledgement that some choices were just that poor, or so obviously wrong-headed, even based on what I knew at the time). I give myself a moment of tender understanding, and obligatory self-compassion; I would be kind and understanding to anyone dear to me, if I found them mired in self-doubt, wondering where it all went wrong, or pissing and moaning about how much they suck as a person, so, it seems only reasonable to “be here” for the woman in the mirror, pretty much mostly all the time. 🙂

…Today is a good day, it just happens that it is also a day suited to contemplation.

What about you? Are you maintaining some kind of committed practice of being there for the person in the mirror? Of treating yourself well? Setting and managing clear expectations with others regarding boundaries and limitations? Are you being frank with yourself about what you want and need in life? Are you first in line to deliver it to yourself? How about those sticky attachments in life that find you struggling with frustrations, “extra” obstacles, or mystifying emotions? Are you working on letting some of that go? How’s your health? Are you staying safe and well? Are you sufficiently privileged and fortunate to be able to?

I spent the Winter Solstice in contemplation, meditation, and in the studio painting. I woke this morning feeling a certain nagging feeling suggestive of “loose ends” that want to be tidied up. More meditation is clearly in order. More painting. More walking along the creek, or among the trees.

Sometimes it really is enough just to be there, with and for myself, for a few quiet moments. Sometimes… maybe not quite enough. Time is precious and limited.

…And it’s already time to begin again… What will I do with my opportunity to restart, regroup, re-purpose, renew, refresh, or re-attempt? It’s here. It’s now.

It’s time.

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being, winter, Words

Mixed Emotions

December 9, 2020 //
0

What a peculiar day. Busy on the work side, scrambling toward the end of the calendar year. Merry on the personal side – ’tis the season, etc. Ups. Downs. Emotions. Today I had a moment of deep sorrow and self-directed disappointed, in the middle of a morning filled with self-doubt, then, immediately following (even caused by) that moment, I went on to have one of the most moving, intimate, profoundly connected moments of supportive partnership with my Traveling Partner that I can recall in our 10 years together. Seriously, right up there in my top 10 deepest and moved love-infused experiences.

…Never even finished my second cup of coffee. What a day.

Sick fish in the aquarium are not good news, and omg I so did not need that on top of… oh. Hey… interesting. It’s not really “on top of” all that much. Mostly things are pretty okay. Needs are met. Love is enduring. The sky is still blue. I’m okay right now. In fact… aside from feeling a sad acceptance that I may lose some or all of my aquarium fish to illness (and being fairly over the momentary hurt of it, at this point, aside from the bit of sorrow that is what it is)… it’s honestly an okay day. A bit stressful. A bit busy. But… yeah…

The holiday season is here. The cookies I’ve been baking are yummy. I’m okay with the social distancing and staying home stuff, mostly. I do miss my friends. I miss brunches out. I miss even being able to say in any reasonable way that I’d like to visit family. It’s not always easy, but… mostly? It’s not all that different. I just don’t rush off to go here and there on a whim, and I’m sort of mildly annoyed that I can’t yet comfortably really just explore this new community I live in, because… pandemic.

…Things could be much worse. I’m feeling both fortunate and grateful, which turns out to be enough on which to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, gratitude, grief, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

This Here, This Now

December 5, 2020 //
0

I sip my coffee, lukewarm, no longer “fresh”. I find myself in a “work with what you’ve got” sort of place this morning. What I’ve got is a sink full of dirty dishes, and aquarium with an overgrowth of green hair algae, and a massive fucking headache. I mean, just being real; I ate the food that those dishes had supported. The aquarium with the algae? Mine, and I chose the placement in the room when we moved in, which has too much light for the aquarium, and as a result I have a common nuisance that is algal blooms. The headache? Okay, so, sure… it’s “mine”, and obviously I did not choose or created it by intent, but making a big deal out of it when I have had this same fucking headache (worsening somewhat over time, but yeah, same headache) since… 2014, seems pointless.

…Giving credit where it’s due though, this headache has done a first rate job of sticking around, and slowly developing a more precise location and greater likelihood of moment-to-moment continuation without relief… 2014? Fucking hell. 6 years with this fucking headache. Now that’s a fucking headache. I do find myself just a bit impressed by that, in an irritated, resigned way. I mean… if headaches had a culture of their own, surely this headache would be receiving accolades from peers, and doing the talk show circuit about its success? lol

Most moments are just moments. We create the context and significance.

Still. Here is where I am. Now is the moment I’ve got to work with. So. Moving past “it is what it is” (and it is), and reaching for one new beginning after another (and appropriate pain relief steps, however futile seeming)… I’ve either got to yield to this shitty experience, or let it go and do something else… or find a different alternative. Verbs. Choices. My results vary.

I sip my coffee. Now cold. The darkness of the room is mocked by the appearance of the morning sun, through the window shade. The whir and hum of the computer is dimmed by headphones I’m wearing, although I’m not listening to anything that requires them. I mean, besides the whir and hum of the computer, itself. I sigh out loud. One moment of many, and there is an entire day still ahead and things that want to get done. Those dishes for starters. The aquarium maintenance. Ordinary tasks, life to live – headache or not. I’ll work off some of my irritation with some exercise (Beat Saber? A walk?), and by getting some chores done. I’ll have another cup of coffee, and exchange pleasant words with my Traveling Partner.

I find myself wondering, for a moment, how more primitive humans dealt with things like massive chronic headaches? Did they feel cursed? Possessed? Did they lash out at others? What did primitive human beings know about “self-care”? Was that something they were at all concerned with? “Survival” and “good self-care” seem pretty far apart on the spectrum of things people are concerned with…

I smile when I nudge myself to consider recent lovely moments. My Traveling Partner’s birthday was lovely. I’m grateful for the joy we share. I think of a recent busy work day, and a wee dish of unexpected ice cream delivered during a meeting. I reflect on conversations shared with my partner. Goals. Expectations. Thoughts about future projects and quality of life improvements. The routine matters of living and loving. The delight of an unexpected nap, together, side by side on the recliner sofa.

…Fuck this headache! It is too small a part of my experience to get to call the shots on this day.

I finish my cold coffee, and begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Quiet Moments

December 1, 2020 //
3

I’ve learned to find quiet moments almost anywhere that isn’t ridiculously noisy or busy. Handy. Sometimes I do find that I’ve got to search out that moment of quiet, or build it from unexpected circumstances, but now and then some perfectly lovely moment of quiet just happens to be where I am sitting.

I didn’t sleep well last night. I woke often. I returned to sleep with relative ease, mostly. I never felt wholly awake and alert (which might have made getting up make sense), and I didn’t feel particularly sleepy at the time (even immediately before falling asleep). “Wakeful” night. I seem to have managed to get enough rest, anyway. 🙂

There was this one quiet moment, during the night, that I sat contentedly, relaxing in the dim glow of the Giftmas tree lights, just enjoying that quiet moment. It was lovely. There was no pressure to do more, or do differently. No rush. No stress. Just quiet time, there in the holiday twilight alone, while my Traveling Partner slept on, in the bedroom. It was precious.

Today is lovely, too. Beautiful moments. A soak in the hot tub on a misty cold autumn morning. A quiet cup of coffee shared with my partner. A spontaneous exchange of yule gifts, because… why not? It was delightful. 🙂 The recollection of it still is.

I sit smiling in this quiet moment, retrieving joyful memories of other quiet moments. Enjoying joy through recalling joyful moments. Easy. (And yes, it’s a practice, and yes, there are verbs involved, and results may vary…but how pleasant to practice it? Why wouldn’t I? 😀 )

Here. Now. This is enough. I fill up on the joy and contentment, smiling. It’s the middle of a work day… time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being
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