Archives for posts with tag: I am my own cartographer
« Older Entries

Unlimited Freedom

April 25, 2024 //
0

…Unlimited freedom… That sounds so good, right? And here in the United States of America, we have that… right? Nope. Not even close. Get over that shit sooner than later. LOL In the free-est country in the world, no one has “unlimited freedom”, ever, at all. It’s not a thing. We are each and all constrained by the limitations of the laws of our country, by the social contract we live under, by the rules and taboos of society, family, tribe, school, and workplace, and by the non-negotiable realities of, well, reality. lol There is no such thing as “unlimited freedom”. So. Yeah. Let that one go.

This lack of freedom from limitations on our freedom doesn’t have to be a colossal buzz kill, though… in the least free nation in the world, we’ve each still got some freedoms, and some freedom. Fewer than in the most free nation in the world, sure, but… the most important freedoms we each have can not easily be taken from us, as individuals, unless we choose to give them away.

I’m just saying… you can only drive as fast as the cars ahead of you and road conditions permit. You can only spend as much money as you have – or can borrow at a cost. You can only be as comfortable as the resources available to you permit. You can only be as well as your health and available medical care provide. You can only make choices based on the options you are aware of. There are limits. Constraints placed on all of us by reality itself. Those limitations on our freedom are non-negotiable. Fighting that by seeking “unlimited freedom” is … fairly silly. There are more productive uses of your time.

You are free to choose and free to act – and free to bear the consequences of your decisions and actions.

…Why am I even thinking about this? I don’t know. It’s just what happened to be stirred up in my thoughts this morning. I am sipping my coffee, pretending to be free of pain, watching the rain fall… and thinking about the rather ridiculous notion of “unlimited freedom”. We’ve each got “freedom up to a point” to work with, and it’s rather a lot (depending on geography and lines on a map) – but it’s for sure not “unlimited”.

I’m free to pretend to be free of pain… I’m fortunate to have prescription pain relief available, and it helps but doesn’t remove my pain entirely. So… How “free” am I? I mean… I have the freedom to choose whether to make my pain the center of my day. I have the freedom to choose what steps I take to manage my pain and to seek relief. The outcome isn’t so much in my hands; reality will have its say. Nonnegotiable. So. I’m in pain. It’s a rainy day and my arthritis is griefing me hardcore. It thoroughly sucks. But… I’m still free to choose not to make it the center of my day, to go on and do what I can with what I’ve got, and enjoy this moment, and the next, and maybe the entire day. That “freedom of choice” thing? That’s a big deal. It’s powerful. What we do with it has a lot to do with what our experience feels like – and how much “freedom” we feel we do have.

…Choose wisely…

I sit watching the rain fall. (I’m free to do so.) I sip my coffee. I think my thoughts. My mind wanders, I bring it back to the falling rain. I breathe, exhale, relax, and feel background stress I wasn’t fully aware of diminish. A new morning, new day, new beginning… and ahead of me so many small choices to make. There’s freedom in that. In both the new beginning, and in the choices – and there are so many opportunities to begin again, to choose well (or just choose, at all – I’m not telling you how to live your life). If we allow ourselves to tumble through circumstance without making willful considered choices… we’ve still chosen. It’s a wild ride.

What will you do with the time you have, and the freedom you’ve got? What does success look like to you? What options have you got to face what assortment of challenges on the path you’ve taken? Could you choose differently and get a different result? (tl;dr – yes.) Will you? Who even are you, when you are alone with yourself? Rhetorical but important questions… I think about them rather a lot.

How best to be the person I most want to be, living my best life as I understand that…? I sigh and finish my coffee. I guess a good first step is to begin again. 😀 I may not change the world… but I can change my experience. I’m free to do that.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, weight loss secrets, Words

I’ve Got a Couple Questions…

November 4, 2023 //
0

I’m a slow learner. I mean, I’m often “quick to understand”, but it can take a surprising amount of time and repetition before something I’ve been exposed to as an idea actually becomes part of my enduring thinking. I need a lot of repetition, and practice. Which is sort of good, from the perspective of potentially protecting me from succumbing to momentarily appealing dumb shit, but it also kind of sucks, because it just takes a long fucking time to get even long-studied knowledge past my impulse control challenges or resistance to change. Pretty human, honestly. It frustrates me. I’m thinking about it.

This Hallowe’en season I succumbed to my impulsivity with regard to noshing on goblin snacks far more often than is heathy for me. I did notice (that’s not nothing). It was definitely not “good for me” – and I’m making a point of paying attention to it. I found myself vexed by my impulsivity once or twice, even as I popped a tasty sweet into my mouth that I didn’t even actually want. Wild. Thought-provoking. So. I was thinking about it and found my way around and about to asking myself a couple questions pre-sweet, and mentally insisting that I ask & answer, every time. Every temptation (food-wise, I mean):

1. Do I need it to survive?

2. Do I need it to sustain my current activity level?

3. What need does this try to satisfy?

4. Is there a healthier or more nutritionally suitable choice?

It may seem rather facile or silly – or just fucking obvious. It also worked (for me). I more or less immediately cut out the nibbling or grazing on sweets (the sugar is really not good for me). Feels like a win. I’m hoping to hold on to this bit of progress, and maybe see where it takes me. Small wins matter a lot more than we tend to give them credit for. 😀

…Time passes too quickly to wait for New Year’s Day to make a change!..

It’s a big day, today – just a Saturday, but a new business machine makes its way into the shop tooling today. I can tell my Traveling Partner is excited. He’s practically vibrating with anticipation. I’m excited, too; I have “a thing” for interesting machines.

…The machine arrives. My partner confirms it when I ask. There it is on the dining table, quite real, sitting there after the initial unboxing, taking up space (it’s not yet a familiar sight). My partner asks me to bring him his smaller flashlight, and to open the curtains for better light, and for help with picking up the packing material that is strewn about. I open the curtains, bring the flashlight, and pick up the packing material (putting it back into the shipping box, just in case there’s any reason it may need to go back). I get back to my own doings, and these musings, shortly afterward… it’s a pleasant day for another cup of coffee, so I made one. But… it’s pretty late in the day (after 4 pm), and I’m probably more thirsty than truly wanting a coffee, so I also get a big glass of ice water, and wander back to my studio. I quickly find myself drinking the water, ignoring the coffee.

…Which brings me back to those damned questions! LOL

A full moon setting one recent frosty morning.

It’s never too late to begin again. I mean, if there’s life left to live, there are choices and opportunities ahead. Don’t like things as they are? Do something differently. Maybe it won’t change the world, but it can certainly change your experience of it. 😀 Sometimes, that’s enough.

…I didn’t say any of it is easy. Some of the questions are hard questions. Sometimes I don’t like the answers. Sometimes the choices are complicated. Sometimes the opportunities seem limited. Sometimes I feel trapped by my circumstances (although often it’s only my own thinking holding me back). I just keep at it. I mean… what else?

I take a sip of my rare 3rd coffee, and recall a time in my life when I pretty much drank coffee all day, from the first cup after waking, until I finished a final after dinner coffee sometime much later. I had coffee at my desk while I worked, and coffee in my canteen (when it should have been water). I had a favorite mug at home, and a favorite table in the nearest cafe in every town I lived in as an adult. It’s not about the coffee. It took me awhile to understand that. It’s always been about the moment, and coffee just happened to be the handy vehicle for living it, for me personally. The obvious reason to take a break. The good excuse to sit down for a minute. The excellent opportunity to get together with friends. The very mundane process I could use to anchor myself to reality in a moment of emotional crisis.

This is an excellent cup of coffee. It’s a very pleasant moment. I breathe. Exhale. Relax. I’m here. Now. It’s a good place and time to be this woman I’ve become over the years. I’m good with it. It’s enough.

So… about that next new beginning…? I wonder where this path leads?

One frosty morning.
Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, turning 60, weight loss secrets

Scales, a Pendulum, or Dancing?

May 3, 2023 //
0

I am sipping some iced tea with lemon. I didn’t make it. It is a canned commercial product. It’s okay. Mildly carbonated, which seems pretty unnecessary for iced tea, but it is available, it is cold, and it did not require me to make iced tea to have some. lol I am thinking about what that says about my desire for “ease” vs my desire for good quality of life. It seems the sort of thing worth thinking about.

As I made the drive in to the city this morning, I was also thinking. Mostly about “work life balance” and what that actually seems to mean, and what that can (or has)(or does) look like (for me). I have tended to mostly think about “work life balance” in terms of … a scale. Two opposites in equal measure, you know – balanced. It has not generally been the case that I have been able to make that work out quite that way. I mean… there are 7 days in a week. I work 5 of those, most of the time. The common assumption is 40 work hours in a week, divided more or less into 8-hour days (when we’re fortunate to enjoy working conditions that preserve an expectation of employee leisure being respected). That’s a pretty big chunk of our life time, so… where’s the “balance”?

Fairly often, in my own experience, any appearance of “work life balance” has been more like a pendulum swinging between extremes, some weeks mostly work, some weeks a bit more leisure than is typical, and back and forth pretty endlessly. There have been notable exceptions where the “routine” wasn’t routine at all, and finding any “balance” was more like a dance than a pendulum’s steady swing. In other cases, any hint of “work life balance” was purely linguistic, and not to be taken at all seriously by anyone involved. Those are commonly pretty toxic experiences, and I avoid those.

I continue to look for a better balance, though; more life, less work… it gets tricky when the conversation turns to pay. I definitely still want to get paid. LOL

I sip my tea and reflect. I think about how tricky it is to balance all the elements of a life well-lived… the living, the loving, the working, the resting… and I think about how often one or another detail feels “just right”, while literally everything else seems to be going to shit. lol How very human. Certainly it’s been those “just right” experiences that have often been what has “kept me going”, avoiding despair, keeping up practices, breathing through the emotions, and accepting that “this too will pass” – because it will, and it does, and it’s on to the next thing.

My Traveling Partner has got the truck set up for camping and off-roading and overland adventuring. Exciting. I’m expecting that any day now he will calmly advise me that he is going to “hit the road and check everything out” in preparation for camping together for my birthday. I’m super excited about the camping trip we have planned. I’m also excited to have a couple days home alone… by July we’ll have been in this little house for 3 years. I’ve never spent a night at home alone in all that time. I guess I’m fortunate to be able to say that, given the quality and good character of this love of ours. I’m still looking forward to it. 🙂

…And every time I think about being home alone, while my Traveling Partner travels, I miss him with an incredible ache in my heart that feels just a bit like… withdrawals. lol I’m pretty crazy about this particular other human being. Like a teenager with a first crush…

The minutes tick by. I sip my tea and think my thoughts. I breathe, exhale, relax… soon enough, I’ll also begin again. It’s a new day ahead. New options. New choices. New circumstances. There is room for improvement. Room for change and for growth. All it takes is a new beginning, and a handful of verbs.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Missed Opportunities

August 25, 2022 //
0

What’s lighting your path? What are you using for a map? What processes and values guide your steps? Where are you going? Does this path even take you there… ever? If you make some very different decision, will you find yourself somewhere very different than you expected to be?

If you get to the donut shop late, you have less selection from which to choose. (It’s a metaphor.)

It is a pleasant Thursday morning. I slept in. Took my camera out on the trail and enjoyed the sunrise over the marsh out at the Tualatin River Nature Reserve. It was a lovely quiet morning, and not much going on. The day had already started to feel like it would be a hot one, by the time I headed home.

I am “not waiting” to hear back about a job interview that went (I think) very well. It’s hard to maintain my chill factor and stay focused on other things; the wait is what it is, and obsessing over it doesn’t help or speed things up.

The future is filled with unknowns. This moment, now, is filled with the potential for joy. I have choices.

I breathe, exhale, relax – and have another sip of this excellent cup of coffee. My Traveling Partner has some big shop projects going. I am helpful when I can be, otherwise I focus on not being in the way. LOL It’s a nice time to enjoy us, together. The days linger gently. We share moments, often, that might ordinarily be overcome by the demands of work and employment. I savor the time as it is. It’s likely to be all too brief. 🙂

My partner is merry and encouraging as I do the job search things. It’s nice. I feel loved and supported. I feel appreciated. I can’t say enough about how much it really does matter to have this kind of support while I look for a new job! I hope I am clear with him about how much I appreciate and value it, when we’re discussing the progress together. 🙂 I smile, feeling loved, and remind myself to also be one of the people loving me so well. That matters too.

It’s a good day to run some errands and get some things done around the house. It’s already time to start preparing the garden for winter crops and general cleaning up before the rains come again. It’s a good day to take a look around and improve my quality of life (and sanity) by tidying some things up… this studio is a bit of a mess (again) and could use my attention. I feel hopeful – and purposeful. The path ahead “feels paved” and illuminated, and it’s a good time to begin again.

Sometimes it feels deceptively easy to “see where I’m going” – it’s still a journey with no map. 🙂
Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being

Here I Sit

September 26, 2020 //
0

It’s a lovely Saturday. My Traveling Partner and his son are in the shop, doing things with tools and wood. I am in my studio, taking time for art, study, meditation, and writing. My second coffee is down to it’s last tepid sip, and sunshine filters through the leaves of the pear tree beyond the window. It’s a nice moment. I sit with it awhile. I don’t need more, or different. This, right here, is enough.

Nothing fancy, just a view.

I don’t know what the rest of the day holds, or the week ahead, or what next year will be like. Right now, none of that matters; I’ve got this moment, here. It’s not fancy or exciting or extraordinary. It’s actually quite simple, a bit unremarkable, and there is nothing much about it significant enough to be especially share-worthy. That’s actually why I am sharing it. We get so used to chasing “happiness”, seeking novelty, excitement, or diversion, we forget to enjoy the simple pleasant moments life offers up pretty generously, much of the time. We wonder when life feels constrained, frustrating, disappointing, or filled with futility and sorrow, why there’s nothing pleasant to rely on… but don’t often acknowledge what we did (or more to the point, didn’t) do to build that “reference library” of personal joy to reflect on, and savor in less satisfying times. I can’t honestly “help you” with that, though, aside from pointing out how much importance your presence in your own experience really has for you.

One moment, experienced thoroughly, savored in recollection. Still nothing fancy. Just a moment.

In the simplest terms, if you want an implicitly pleasant and positive sense about your experience of “life in general” – an “upbeat outlook on life” – you’ve got to cultivate that, and one sure path to that destination is to be truly present, conscious, and involved in living the small pleasant moments in life. There are verbs involved. Practice. Incremental change over time. It’s the sort of thing others will observe has changed about you, before you are wholly aware a change has occurred. Savoring the moments, however simple, of contentment, quiet joy, or everyday satisfaction, builds that database of positive feelings and experiences that become the foundation of our outlook on “life in general”. It’s not all about the extreme joys of great moments; those moments are beyond “every day”, and we know that.

One coffee, one moment – but the picture is not the beverage.

I don’t grudge myself the contented moments “just sitting” with a soft smile on my face, contemplating some little thing my partner said that warmed my heart or supported me. I don’t grudge myself the contented moments “just sitting” watching fish swim in my aquarium, or how the light streams into a particular window in a particular way. I don’t grudge myself contented moments flipping through the pictures and origin stories in favorite cookbooks. The time spent is meaningless out of context, and precious beyond measure enjoyed whole-heartedly on some small thing that satisfies. It’s not the time itself that matters, so much as what it is spent on. 🙂 Time spent content or joyful is definitely worthwhile, however simply spent. My opinion. Works for me. (Your results may vary.)

Still smiling, coffee finished, and having written a few words on a quiet Saturday… I think about the world beyond these walls, and wonder about taking a walk. Certainly, this feels like a good time to begin again. 🙂

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being
« Older Entries