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Breathe, Watch, Listen

September 17, 2020 //
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My coffee was some time ago. I’ll have a second, “soon”. I took a few minutes to run an early errand, before returning to work. Something like a “lunch break” I suppose, since the rest of my day is locked up with back to back meetings. I’m not bitching, I’m just observing that it is the state of things, today.

Hints of autumn begin to appear.

I had noticed, a day or two ago, that it seemed some leaves were beginning to yellow in the trees here and there. I wondered if it was the dry weather? This morning, hints of amber, orange, russet, and red are turning up, too. Fall? Already? It feels as if there was barely a summer, although the few days of summer were quite hot… but pandemic life being what it is, the days (and yes, seasons) blend together a bit.

I pulled the car over, while I was out, adjacent to a nearby farm property that presents a lovely view, itself, the barn and house a bit distant, with the more distant foothills fading into the morning fog. Pretty picture. I sat a moment looking out across the landscape, before continuing on my way. Time well-spent, frankly.

…When was the last time you just “took a minute” for some small thing, a view, a flower, a bit of music that brings back memories…? I found I was overdue for it, and enjoyed it immensely to take that time for me. 🙂

I thought of a lovely compliment paid to me last night by a friend who reads my work (thank you!), “I like your writing, and the everyday-ness of what you share…”. I’m still smiling. I mean, I’ve said before that I write for me, as much as for anyone, but it moves me to be appreciated for the very thing that sometimes causes me doubt; I write about what is so ordinary. 🙂 Thanks for reading. ❤

…So…fall creeping up on us already? Well, then. Seasons still change. 🙂

I take a moment to make a second coffee for myself, and for my Traveling Partner. We exchange gentle teasing words, enjoy some merriment. I make raisin toast – apparently a childhood favorite for both of us, and oddly, that’s new information for me (at least where he is concerned)! We’ve been together a decade, and we still learn new things about each other. It’s lovely. 🙂 We share coffee, enjoy our toast, and resume the forward momentum of the day. Chances are good that this gentle loving moment will be the one we remember… not the work we did later on. I’m just pointing that out – invest your precious limited lifetime wisely (it’s definitely not “about” the money).

Huh. Look at the time – already time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

It Certainly Is Foggy

September 14, 2020 //
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Fog is weird stuff. We pass through it easily, still, it blinds us and alters what we see of the world around us. Try to shine a bright light directly into fog, and it becomes more difficult to see, rather than easier. So weird. So… metaphorical.

Sure is foggy… am I really so certain I know what’s hidden out there?

How many times have I driven a familiar road, blinded by fog? Or walked some foggy trail listening to muffled steps through the mist, with only my thoughts for company? Or just sat quietly, in the dense damp of morning fog, imagining whimsically that the fog held more meaning than mere droplets of water densely dispersed in the air?

Fog is a pretty good metaphor for the various thinking errors I find myself prone to, and even the “obscuring mist” of misleading assumptions that can so easily crowd out any perception of my reality in the moment. I think about that, on and off, from that first moment standing outside, early this morning, wondering if the mist were properly fog, or more likely the smoke of distant wildfires. Both, maybe. The stench of it suggested at least a considerable portion was – is – smoke. Blech.

…Maybe rain tomorrow? The weather hints at the potential. So does my arthritic back. Fingers crossed! We could use some rain. We could use a way out of the fog.

Yes, of course, it’s a metaphor. 😉

Begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, grief, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, Uncategorized

A Matter of Perspective

September 8, 2020 //
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I’m drinking cold fizzy water. My work day is over. My Traveling Partner is in his shop, making something specific of nothing-much components – tools and knowledge make a lot of things possible. I reflect on small irritants, and things for which I am grateful, too. Sometimes the irritating things in life feel damn near inescapable. I often find that taking time to savor the things in life I cherish, and to reflect gratefully on the many many things in life that don’t irritate me, is time well-spent and a helpful anodyne to the plentiful aggravations life may throw my way.

Perspective matters.

Yesterday began well. A lovely day.

One very cool thing about perspective is that it can change. It can be willfully, deliberately, altered – by choice, if you’ve a will to choose to do so.

A strange haze began to develop, later in the morning… or was it just a trick of the light?

It’s tempting to see perspective as a single point, just one way of looking at something, or one position from which to consider things. Is it, though?

There’s definitely a haze, later in the day, and a high wind storm warning to go with it.

There’s often more than one “right answer”, more than one solution to a problem challenge, more than one way that “things go together”. On and off I keep contemplating perspective, and how best to make use of it to understand the country I live in, my own circumstances, or the strange times I find myself in. We’ve only got this one planet, and these all-too-brief mortal lives…

The otherworldly result of smoke from distant fires.

…somewhere, communities and forests and fields are burning. Fire season. Cities, too, for other reasons. It’s a very good time to contemplate perspective – and to broaden it. There’s more to understand than I can even grasp. I have another drink of water. I’m grateful for cold clean drinking water. I’m grateful for this place I call “home”. Even that sick strange orange sky – I’m grateful to be able to see the sky, and to breath the air. I read some of the news. It’s bad in some places. I put it down – it’s not new news, just words about things I’ve read before.

What are you “for”? What are you “against”? Why do you feel that way? What have you done to test your assumptions? (I’m betting you’ve made more than a few assumptions, without testing them; it’s very human.) Would you refuse to test drive a change of perspective if you knew doing so might change your thinking? What does your answer tell you about the person in the mirror?

Too many questions, and my water bottle is empty. The sky is still a crazy sort of orange that fascinates and alarms me. One way or another, we’ve got to begin again.

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

Re-Charge the Batteries

September 5, 2020 //
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I slept poorly last night. I’m not taking that personally this morning. It’s a lovely morning. I sort of slept in. The coffee, shared with my Traveling Partner, was quite good. We sat out on the deck, listening to the birds, watching clouds drift by, and enjoying gentle conversation. I can’t imagine needing more than this. I sit quietly alone for a few minutes, here at my keyboard. I give myself time to savor these precious moments.

There is a day, and long weekend, still ahead.

My partner points out that the deck is spacious, suitably so for painting. He expresses some surprise that I’ve not yet had my easel out on the deck, painting. I find myself surprised, too. It’s been a busy time since we started down the path of moving into our home… little time, it has seemed, for painting, or really any sort of creative endeavors…only… I hear him in the garage, this morning (which has fairly quickly become a very organized woodworking shop through his efforts)… I find it inspiring to hear him working creatively. My eye wanders to the deck. I think about the tasks ahead if I were to undertake to paint out on the deck, this weekend… my studio is still in a sort-of-orderly state of disarray, awaiting repair work. My easel? It’s in the farthest least accessible corner of the room, tucked in behind the long expanse of my desk. Paint brushes? Put away in the drawers where I keep them… which happen to be those on the far side of the desk, over there near the easel. Paint and canvas are much more easily within reach, requiring only some general care and common sense to get at them. That easel though… I’ll need to move two bookcases… and move them back… and a stack of paintings that are placed “just so”, safely out of reach of contractor work space… with some care and patience, it’s not that big a challenge. It’s just some physical effort.

…Do I have the will…?

I smile and sip the dregs of my coffee. The day had originally been forecast to be very hot. It’s not looking like that will be a concern today, really, and the forecast has since changed. Cooler temperatures are now in the forecast. Suitable for painting outside? Yes, and for walking. 🙂 I think that’s my “next thing”, today – a walk. The nearby farmer’s market at the grange will open shortly, and it is pleasantly on the way for most walks I might take near home. They practice good social distancing, and folks are comfortable staying masked, which I appreciate. We finally found a good value in a set of pots and pans for the new house (many of those I had been getting by with before had lived out their useful lifespan and needed replacing). We’ve been doing a lot of summer cooking, out on the grill, and pots and pans were a low priority, but occasionally cooler weather reminded me they’d be needed for soups and casseroles, and things cooked in pots, generally, and my high level of background inspiration also finds me wanting to cook, to bake, and to make things at home. I remind myself to bring a re-usable bag along with me when I go walking.

Home. Feels like we’re really “there”… here. 🙂

Contentment can be cultivated. 

I did not notice until I sat down this morning that the busy week had so occupied my consciousness that I haven’t written in days. Funny that I failed to notice it altogether. (If you have been missing me, I recommend an assortment of older posts – so many words!) Strange to be this content, moment to moment. Even my “to do” list is taking on new characteristics, as tasks associated with moving and with getting settled are slowly replaced with routine housekeeping tasks, and items like “water the lawn” and “write a letter to ____” begin to show up.

…Yesterday, I sat so quietly on the deck, as evening began to take over from afternoon, a hummingbird landed on a taut bit of line that anchors one of the shades over the deck, very near me. We sat regarding each other for some time. I made no move to take her picture. It was simply a moment shared between creatures. There are more of those such moments as I get acclimated to the new environment, and slowly build new routines. I’m less patient with myself – and the process of getting settled in – that I would like to be. In spite of that, change is, and things are slowly finding new norms.

I look at the time. I feel the quiet of a Saturday morning. Seems a lovely morning for a walk… and I think it’s already time to begin again. 🙂

 

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being

Note to Self

September 1, 2020 //
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This morning is a good one for reminders to the woman in the mirror.

Still, and again. The very best practices work that way.

I’m inclined to do some re-reading and additional study this week. There are a handful of “maps” in my reading list that seem to lead me along my path very skillfully, and “The Four Agreements” is definitely one of those. The basics are so… basic. Seriously. This morning, I’m resting my practices on #2 “Don’t take anything personally” and numbers 3 & 4 seem wise, as well. Handy. I mean seriously, life, love, and even moments of apparent conflict are not “about me”, probably mostly at all. This morning has felt very much like the sort of morning on which I could so easily take shit personally that isn’t personal, follow that up with a few incorrect assumptions, and end up having a shit day, end-to-end. Not interested.

My sleep was interrupted by restlessness and physical pain. I woke once and stood out on the deck looking at the moon for a few minutes before returning to bed, and to sleep. The nearly full moon shined down on the forest beyond the deck so brightly, I thought there was a flood light on somewhere. lol

Moonlight and solitude in the wee hours.

I spent some moments in the darkness, looking at the stars, and reflecting on my life. Nothing much came of it, other than eventual sleepiness, which was sort of the point in the first place.

I finish my now-cold coffee, and look over the work day ahead of me. I consider how I can be my best self, right now, and also steadily become that woman I want most to be… sometimes it feels like a tall ask. I remind myself to narrow my focus, and be mindful that what others want, need, or expect of me isn’t a firm foundation on which to build my best self. I take a breath, and exhale slowly, and again after that. I rather like (and appreciate) the woman I am, right now, in this moment, on this day. Could I “do more/better”? Quite likely, yes, sure. That’s part of the point, too. I remind myself to be kind in difficult moments – not because it is expected or demanded of me, but rather because it is a quality I value, myself. I remind myself to listen deeply, because I very much want people speaking with me to feel heard – as I want from others, when I am myself speaking. I remind myself to be compassionate, because I value compassion. I remind myself to live up to my word, and to speak gently; there are too many harsh words out there in the world, already. Who I am, myself, is one thing that really is “about me” – and belongs to me, entirely. There are a lot of choices, and verbs, and opportunities to embrace qualities I value, personally, myself – because that is how I see myself. I know my results will vary, and even that isn’t something to take personally. It’s a journey. There are steps, and forward momentum, and incremental change over time. I become what I practice – so clearly, practicing those qualities that matter most to me, is the way forward to becoming the woman (and human being) I most want to be. 🙂

…And, yeah, it’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
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