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One Moment, Here

February 21, 2016 //
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I really wanted to sleep in this morning. For the past several evenings I have been up later than is my general practice, not for any specific purpose just not sleepy enough earlier to make trying to sleep worthwhile. I don’t mind, there’s always another chapter in another excellent book, or some quiet something-or-other than can be done before retiring for the evening. But…it’s helpful if I can also comfortably sleep later the next day. Hasn’t been working out this weekend, I am awake with the dawn at the latest, and that has been a compromise, attempting to return to sleep after waking seriously too damned early to want to be up.

It may have felt too early, but this morning I woke to a beautiful sunrise just beyond the window. Worth it.

It may have felt too early, but this morning I woke to a beautiful sunrise just beyond the window. Worth it.

It’s been the sort of weekend that each deviation from plan, desire, or intent, has proven to be an outcome just beyond ‘enough’, and often splendidly beautiful, unexpectedly positive, delightful, or noteworthy in some pleasant way. It has been helpful that I’ve been open to each change as it has developed, finding myself moments of wonder and joy along a path I didn’t expect to tread.

Another unexpected outcome of the weekend’s peculiarly unscripted unfolding has been that I wake on a Sunday without plans or planning. The Friday evening I’d intended to spend with my traveling partner ended up spent on laundry, meditation, study, and art. The Saturday morning I’d planned to do laundry was spent on art, writing, and yoga. My Saturday evening date canceled for his own reasons, without animus, and I ended up spending Saturday evening with my traveling partner. Now here it is Sunday…and somehow the usual housekeeping got done between other things. I like a tidy home, particularly if I might be entertaining, but I so dislike ‘project housekeeping’ of the sort that is frenetic activity immediately prior to guests arriving that I just won’t do that. I ‘clean as I go’ generally, and on Sunday often put in a routine 2-3 hours of really detailed cleaning. Today it just isn’t necessary, and the laundry is done. The errands I ran yesterday, between the morning and evening, knocked out much of the miscellany that had been on my mind since I moved. So… now what?

...And birdsong included.

…And birdsong included.

I watch the sunrise develop beyond the window of my studio, sipping my coffee. I contemplate change, choice, and perspective. These are among my favorite themes to consider, and how lovely a metaphor is a sunrise? 🙂

…But what to do with the day? I feel a yearning for… something. Something new, but not complicated. Something beautiful, but not remote. Something precious and perhaps limited – rare? Commonplace beauty that is rare doesn’t sound easy to find, and actually it sounds more like a Zen riddle.

I could really benefit from a good hike, out in the trees. I see runners passing by on Fanno Creek Trail, which runs between the sunrise and my studio window. I recall a recent article about a neighborhood park or trails or something to be soon lost with a road expansion… looking it up I read that an uncompleted road became, over time, a neighborhood park along a corridor between back fences, where the road had been planned to be, but never finished. Apparently, the funding and approvals are now a done deal, after so many years, and the plan is to begin construction very soon – when things dry out after the spring rains, most likely. I read quotes from community members irked to lose their greenspace after so long, which seems reasonable; there are no quotes from community members who want the road completed, only civic planners; the traffic in this neighborhood is quite horrific during commuter hours. It’s not a fancy or grand destination, but it is nearby and I’ve never walked those trails – and they may not be there to be walked sometime very soon. Regrets suck, particularly when they are the result of my own choices; today I will take time to walk this mysterious soon-to-disappear trail, because it is there, now. 🙂

A pleasant hike along a local trail isn’t going to take an entire Sunday, and the day remains leisurely, unscripted, and quite delightfully rich with possibilities. Today is a good day to enjoy the day, without expectations, without demands, without insistence on or adherence to an agenda. Today is a good day to listen deeply, to be gentle with myself and the world, and to let the day unfold as it will. Isn’t that enough?

Sometimes finding a happy place is surprisingly close to home.

Sometimes finding a happy place is surprisingly close to home.

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Simple Things, Complex Issues

February 19, 2016 //
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It’s a quiet stormy evening. I’ve gotten most of my laundry done, bringing it in warm and dry from the laundry room between rain showers. Between loads of laundry I’ve spent time meditating, as storm clouds and passing showers crossed the view out the patio window. I enjoy seeing the sky, a horizon, a view, and so placed my favorite cushion for meditating just there, where my view of the park beyond the patio is unobstructed.

Potted miniature roses drenched by passing showers don't seem to mind the rain at all.

Potted miniature roses drenched by passing showers don’t seem to mind the rain at all.

Tonight had been planned for love and loving, but love had other needs, elsewhere, tonight. Love isn’t always easy, and needs considerable investment in respect, in consideration, in compassion, and yes, even openness and reciprocity. I’m sure I’ve never felt truly loved in their absence. (That’s why they are my Big 5 relationship values!) Still, I don’t feel any lack of love for love’s lack of proximity tonight. I feel heard, cared for, respected, valued – I feel wrapped in the comfort and warmth of a strong partnership, signal boosted with clear communication and explicit expectation setting. I find myself feeling compassion (his are complicated circumstances), and hoping very much that the evening goes well for my tested traveling partner; his relationship building skills are considerable – love still requires that everyone involved make an equal investment of heart, and will, and effort. No one human being can hold an entire relationship together alone. There are so many verbs involved…mindful loving uses many more of them than I had imagined (and I still have so much to learn). Listening deeply is a practice worthy of practicing – and then practicing more; I’ve learned so much more about love in the silence between my words that gives my lover room to be heard, than I ever did in one moment of something I said myself. Still; verbs. It isn’t enough to wait to talk. It’s the listening that counts, and doing it skillfully requires more than a little practice.

Listening deeply is like looking at something distant, requiring attention, focus, engagement and presence; this is not a picture of branches.

Listening deeply is like looking at something distant; it requires attention, focus, engagement and presence. (This is not a picture of branches.)

The television is off. No background slide show, no cartoons or animation, no favorite series or new hilarious YouTube video, science documentary, or nature show to pull my focus from the quiet evening. I am giving myself my time and attention. There is music playing, but that too is subdued; jazz (‘fusion’) tonight, bass heavy, relaxed, complex, rich, and joyous, and turned down low enough to feel the quiet of evening nonetheless – the sort of easy, inspiring sounds that apparently compel considerable overuse of adjectives and adverbs – the musical equivalent of poetry, but the sort of uplifting simple thing easily remembered and happily shared.

Too many words. This is too many – isn’t it? Is it? I’m not sure. I think I’ve gone a tad overboard here, just now, but I feel content and filled with warm joy and a feeling of security. It’s pleasant – and I don’t feel quite this way very often at all. It’s the security, I think – a sort of calm strength just beneath the surface of the contentment and joy. It’s nice. I’m sure I ‘worked’ to get ‘here’…but I didn’t plan it, or seek it out, I’ve been busy on other practices, other verbs, other concerns in life. Maybe that’s the point of what I am saying tonight; I didn’t chase this down as an outcome. I simply arrived here. Practicing good basic self-care, treating myself truly well, practicing practices that build emotional resilience and self-sufficiency, learning skills that support my emotional balance – whether I am home alone, out in the world, or faced with a moment of someone else’s drama – each incremental change over time has been a step on a journey that brought me here. ‘Here’ is very nice, I must say…and it’s enough.

One moment of many. I am here. I am okay. This is enough.

One moment of many. I am here. I am okay. This is enough.

Today is a good day to enjoy what is – whatever it is, however much it can be enjoyed. Today is a good day to learn from what hurts. Today is a good day to watch storms pass over head, and to recognize the difference between ‘climate’ and ‘weather’. Today is a good day to take a step back from the world, and listen deeply in a quiet moment.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, Words

Art, Music, Words

February 16, 2016 //
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This morning I am relaxed and alert after a good night’s sleep. I woke too early to a distant peculiar high-pitched whine; the train in the distance crawling slowly through the night, sometimes loud, sometimes noisy, doesn’t often wake me but in the wee hours this morning it did. It wasn’t relevant to the overall quality of my sleep, or this lovely quiet morning over coffee.

I enjoyed quite a nice weekend, and although I started it having to deal with my challenges it was skillfully done, generally, productive, emotionally nourishing, fun, relaxing, and fairly entertaining. I spent much of it at home in this beautiful space I am creating for myself, and a lot of it painting. I’ve been needing this so much – over the years of adult creative lifetime I have yearned for adequate space to paint. I’ve done some amazing work perched on the edge of couches, crouched on the floor in a corner, spread out across kitchen counters, dining tables, or on an easel of good quality and sturdiness wedged into a corner of one room or another, cautious about paint being flung thoughtlessly here or there… attentive to immediately clean up, every day, every time… I’ve gotten close to have real studio space once or twice, only to see it jerked out of reach at the last minute. I was well into my 40’s – almost 50 – when I understood how much I yearned for dedicated creative space to work. I put it aside as a fantasy. I put it aside as unreachable – so many times. (If this isn’t obvious; it was often my own choices that put fulfillment of this desire out of my reach.)

Most of my partners and lovers have respected my artistic side, some of have truly loved my work; I feel certain that had it been commonly understood how badly I needed more room to work – understood by me, myself, too – I’d have been ‘here’ sooner. One of life’s many missed details – handled. I smile thinking about how many conversations with my traveling partner over the years have come back to making a viable solution to the need for room to paint become a reality for me – even our very first conversations as friends often wound around back to quality of life matters being needfully inclusive of this thing I did not have at that time; he recognized it as a ‘need’ when I still thought of it as a daydream without substance, forever out of reach. Over the course of our 5 years together, he has regularly pointed out potential solutions – and when it was clear that there was profound value for me (and us) in my living quite separately day-to-day, it was the artistic space that sold the idea first, healing was a bit of an afterthought (for me). I’ve been well-supported in this partnership – as an artist, as a woman, as a human being, and as a friend. How the hell do I say ‘thank you’ for all that?? Well… by painting, I guess, and making the choice to live alone have value beyond the separateness of it. 🙂

One of the faces of Love, and another way to take care of me.

One of the faces of love, and another way to take care of me.

I spent the weekend in my studio. I love the way that sounds. I spent it getting it set up, and using that time of making order out of chaos to ‘get my head right’ on Saturday morning (Friday afternoon and evening I wasn’t really good for much, dealing with a flare up of my PTSD and focused on very basic self-care). By midday Saturday I was painting. Sunday I was painting. Monday I was painting. Somewhere in the midst of all that, I found time to read, to eat, to shower, to love – the love matters most, perhaps, but without all that other stuff, who is here to be loved? I enjoyed the time I spent with my traveling partner Sunday – and there was no awkwardness in his departure. “What would you be doing if I left now?” he asked pleasantly after hanging out a while. I smiled and gave it some thought, the answer was an easy one, “I’d be in the studio, sitting with the new colors and the canvases I am working on, thinking about that”. He smiled back at me and observed that the timing seemed good. No stress, no emotional weirdness – an easy (for both of us) comfortable (for both of us) departure, freeing us (both) to move on with the day quite naturally. It was quite lovely, both the time together, and the time apart. What more could I ask of love?

There are now four canvases in various stages of completion in my studio, and they are not a frenzy of similarly themed work using a similar palette for economy. They are not being rushed through to avoid inconveniencing a household starting a new work week. Each is an entirely unique experience with color, texture, subject; I am able to slow my pace to a moment by moment approach that feels completely different – and worth exploring. Mindful painting? Is this a thing? The path veers in a new direction…

…I walk on, enjoying the view as I begin again. Today is a good day for art, for music, for words – a good day to feed my heart and my soul, not just this fragile vessel. 🙂

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Categories Art, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Choices and Changes

January 28, 2016 //
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Moving is a process that is pretty much entirely all about changes. Sometimes moving is is also associated with a lot of ‘forced choices’; things decided upon in the moment that are either imposed by someone else’s decision-making, or by details in the circumstances that seem to limit the available options. (I say ‘seem to’ because sometimes I find myself making a choice based on it being ‘the only thing I can do’, which while it does immediately ensure that my perspective is that there is ‘no choice’, in reality ‘no choice’ is a rare condition.)

Last night I slept deeply and well in the old apartment, even crashing quite early, utterly exhausted. I woke earlier than my usual waking time, and although I was contentedly committed to returning to sleep for as long as I needed to rest, the attempt was wasted. I was awake. My thought, when I crashed out last night, was that I would wake later – probably after 7:00 am (the hour at which the community ‘quiet hours’ end). The intention was to immediately finish loading up the van and drive it down the hill, unload it, then have my morning coffee. I woke at 4:00 am, much too early to futz around with moving things, and a noisy truck. People were definitely still sleeping. (Yes, that matters to me; Consideration is  one of my Big 5 relationship values – are not my neighbors also sharing a relationship with me? That of neighbor?) I decided to dress, and take the frozen food down to the new apartment, and have my coffee while I watch the dawn slowly unfold over the park, from the new view.

The darkness before dawn is dotted with bright lights.

The darkness before dawn is dotted with bright lights.

What a lovely morning, and what an excellent bit of decision-making! I returned to the old apartment some time later – after coffee number two, and 7:00 am. The rainy morning has prolonged the early morning gray misty skies, and dim lighting that might put my footing at risk. I choose a healthy breakfast, a few minutes at the keyboard, and no rush; I am up so much earlier than I planned that I am still entirely ‘on plan’ for the moving bits without rushing at all.

The choices I am making with regard to handling the move in this peculiarly slow deliberate way is also resulting in feeling more immediately moved in at the place. This morning felt right; I had my morning coffee ‘at home’ – and that was there, at the new place, sitting on the love seat in the living room, watching the sky lighten beyond the treeline on the other side of the park. Meditation. Yoga. A shower. I make no promises to myself about how this is going; it is enough to experience it.

A metaphor for change: the mantle shelf covered with treasured things that will not remain in this location. Sometimes the choices and changes are momentary.

A metaphor for impermanence: the mantle shelf covered with treasured things, safer on the shelf than on the floor, they will not be here long.

Isn’t that still what this is all about? Choices…changes… enough? 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Mornings After

July 30, 2015 //
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I slept well, and deeply, and even slept through the night. My coffee is prepared – I haven’t tasted it yet. This morning, like so many mornings, is pleasant and quiet. The morning seems to lack any connection to the stress and weirdness of the night before. That’s pretty pleasant, itself, and represents a significant improvement in outcome. Practice may not make ‘perfect’, but it definitely has the potential to change things; I know to be thoughtful about new practices, mindful of the new outcomes, and careful about attempting to choose wisely what will meet my needs best over time.

Last night it was basic self-care and self-compassion for the win, and I am okay. I was okay last night, before I went to bed. Hell – I was ‘okay’ even while I was crying, really. The emotional moment passed – I knew it would. Nothing so intense is really sustainable. And, as is often the case after the fact, I’m not at all sure now what it was that was actually upsetting me so much. There is no requirement that I have certainty about what may have caused prior tears; deep-diving those details is just asking for more, and it is a process that generally lacks the value it seems it might have…or feels as if is should have. There are other, more effective practices, and certainly there are other, more pleasant, uses of my time on a quiet morning.

Summer berries, summer sky.

Summer berries, summer sky.

So. Here it is morning, again, and another lovely one. I’m content with having made progress such that pleasant mornings are so commonplace. I miss my traveling partner – that’s not uncommon in the mornings, although I also very much value the deep quiet of solitude, greatly; it’s very good for writing. Still…we do well together in the mornings, and I miss having the occasional unexpected quite exceptional latte, made by loving hands. It was my traveling partner who taught me the value of quiet leisurely mornings, so of course I do associate the experience with him, even though it is quite rare that he is up so early, himself. Shared mornings are less common living apart, making them even more precious when they occur.

That’s one element of living alone that I treasure beyond words; the profound way my traveling partner and I are able to make every moment together count. There hasn’t been a single trivial argument – or any argument, actually – and so little stress between us that I can’t recall it at all, since I moved into my own place. We just don’t waste time on negative bullshit, or drama these days. The time we share is limited, precious, and put to the very best use: love and loving. Mortal lives are short – there really is no time to waste on contentious foolishness or game playing. Letting go of that sort of thing has resulted in a life that feels rich, warm, and uplifting most of the time, resulting in an environment that really promotes growth and healing – we are on a shared journey, with shared goals. It isn’t really relevant that we live in different buildings at all. Cohabitation doesn’t dictate the quality of a relationship – and a building isn’t the essence of ‘home.’ You probably already knew this stuff – I’m very much a beginner in the School of Life. (Did you know there actually is a School of Life on the internet? It’s pretty awesome.)

Oh hey…I got distracted by thoughts of love…and sex… lol. Time has passed. The morning begins with smiles and thoughts of love – that’s a good start to the day. There remains time enough to hit ‘publish’, and do a little housework; I love coming home to a well-kept tidy home, and I love waking up to one. Each morning I do some housework to prepare for coming home from work…each evening (often before bed) I do a bit more, so that when I wake I step into a lovely orderly space. This suits me. It is ‘my way’.

Summer flowers.

Summer flowers.

Today is a good day for beginnings, and good practices. Today is a good day to appreciate love and lovers. Today is a good day for gratitude, awakenings, and growth. Today is a good day to heal. Today is enough.

 

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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