Got that splinter removed. 🙂
Archives for posts with tag: it’s a metaphor
Got that splinter removed. 🙂
Sipping my coffee on a quiet comfortable morning, and I am musing at lessons learned on other days, in other moments. I am thinking about the crackling fire in the fireplace that kept me smiling much of the weekend. I am thinking about a camping trip last March in which I experienced a real moment of dread and anxiety – because I wasn’t easily able to make a fire. I am thinking about the distance I have traveled between those events, and what it has taken to grow from one to the other.
I wasn’t as prepared as I felt.
In March, I had planned a camping trip of 4 days to gear-test new gear, and find out whether I was up to colder weather camping (newsflash: it’s not my preference to camp if low temperatures are below 45 – it’s an important planning detail). I headed for the trees thinking I had everything I needed. Truthfully, the lack of coffee was what kicked my ass emotionally (I’d also overlooked tea), and looking back it was a huge opportunity to overcome that limitation, but the headache spoke louder than reason. I had also not packed my bee sting kit, thinking that the weather was not yet ‘bee weather’. Being wrong about that was a safety issue, and that was the deciding factor to ‘call it’ only two days in and return home. My traveling partner retrieved me from the forest, and although he genially teased me just a bit about my lack of readiness, we both knew that was why I went out there for that particular trip; I’m planning much longer ones, solo, more remote – and on those occasions, it’s pretty urgent that obvious mistakes not be the mistakes I am making when I am too far from home to call for a ride. But this is simply some context on the experience; the lack of coffee may not have kicked my ass if I had been easily able to make fire from on-hand resources, no cheats.
Light without heat won’t boil water.
I camp fairly light, and I make sure I have flint and emergency fire-starting gear, but generally rely on Esbits for quick fuel to boil water. Doing so let’s me travel fairly light, and doesn’t place a requirement on me to actually build a fire and burn wood traveling through forests, or in places where a fire is a bad idea. It had been so long since I actually made a wood fire I had entirely lost those skills – and was wandering around in the world unaware of that (far more important than the loss of skill was the fact that I was unaware of the short-coming). It was an embarrassing discovery. I had brought along an alcohol stove, another common hiker/camper favorite, but one I wasn’t so familiar with using and didn’t have a lifetime (any time) of personal experience; my use of fuel was inefficient, even wasteful, and I didn’t bring enough fuel to account for that. I used up my fuel figuring things out (and setting my cook pot handle on fire – don’t ask). To prevent myself from ‘falling back on favorites’ on this particular trip I hadn’t packed as many Esbits –  and I “knew” I had enough alcohol. (I was wrong.) These sorts of things add up to potentially life-threatening fails under extreme circumstances, and it was wrecking my nerves even after I returned home. (I thought I could count on myself for fire for crying out loud!) I had some work to do. There would be verbs involved.
No skill required – yet.
Over the winter holidays, I enjoyed a number of fires in the fireplace, and have continued to do so. Each new fire in the fireplace became an adventure, a learning experience, and part of a progression – the first one was just a Duraflame log, lit and enjoyed for a couple of hours (and an opportunity figure out the flue with confidence). Each successive fire has been more reliant on skill, until this past weekend I started a lovely warm fire without cheating it at all – lit with a lighter meant for lighting fires, but aside from that nothing made it effortless, and success was not assured. I learn from each stumble, each mistake, each new transition toward being more fully reliant on the basics (wood, oxygen, and spark or flame to begin it). This weekend I explored a variety of tweaks on placement of wood on the grate, size of kindling, timing of putting heavier wood on the fire, and had quite a lot of fun with the experience, and ending each day with a bed of coals banked and ready to begin again.
The cozy warmth of a fire built with purpose and skill.
In between my March camping, and my lovely warm fire this past weekend there has been quite a lot of study, and some practice (with more practice yet to come – because a fire in the fireplace is not 100% analogous to making a fire in the cold, or the rain, or the wind, and there is much more to learn about fire, about readiness, and about self-sufficiency and interdependence). I’ll probably continue to hike and camp relying on what works best (and most reliably) for me, and what feels most comfortable, but I’ll be heading to the trees far more prepared to take care of me when circumstances don’t allow for what feels most comfortable, and more aware of what I may really need to enjoy the experience.
Taking care of me has a lot of verbs… and some nice perks. 🙂
Today is a good day to be a student of life and love, open to new understanding. Today is a good day to put aside assumptions, and ask clarifying questions. Today is a good day to look suffering in the face with a mind open to understanding what my needs really are. It’s a journey worth taking. 🙂
I’d like this to be a lovely bit of prose, whimsical and poetic, about autumn and about evening. It isn’t at all. I’m not sure what it is yet, other than distracted and interrupted…but it is autumn, it is evening, and I am distracted and interrupted by the noise and conversation of the concrete finishing crew working immediately outside my front door at this very minute, shortly before 6:00 pm.
I dislike how near to the world, exposed, and vulnerable I feel with the workers so incredibly close that I can clearly hear their conversation and see their movement through the front blinds. I feel less safe, and less private. I know that I am adequately safe, and adequately private in my day-to-day experience. I know that when the work is finished this will once again be a quiet home. Right now? Right now this is nothing that can be described as quiet and I am annoyed to have to pay rent – when I feel, fairly often, that the most important thing to be paying for with the rent is the fucking privacy and quiet. Well, if nothing else, I have learned how very much I need my home to be a quiet place – surely the knowledge will stop me from buying a place that isn’t. (I can hope.)
A leisurely shower, dinner in the oven, unhurried yoga, a few minutes writing… it is a thoroughly pleasant evening when I am able to forget, however briefly, about the noisy workmen, or at least refrain from becoming emotionally invested in moments of annoyance or resentment. It’s worth maintaining perspective; the work being done benefits the entire community, and matters to me as well. The workmen are aware of me, and there has been sufficient communication that they are – when they think to be – making efforts to minimize how disrupting this is for me (and for my neighbors). They are quite a polite and considerate construction crew, generally – it’s still work, there are still verbs – and communication – involved. No way around it, some of this shit is disruptive; it’s not a personal attack. 🙂
A lovely autumn evening; little annoyances don’t have to matter. I let them fall like leaves.
So here I am now. Relaxed. Content. Taking time for me, making room in my heart for awareness, perspective, and compassion, and generally enjoying my evening in spite of the noise, in spite of the disruptions, in spite of the shadows just behind the window blinds. It’s a pleasant evening, and there’s really nothing ‘extra’ that I need right now. This is enough. 🙂
It’s time I took a moment for you, I suppose. You’ve been stepping up your game lately, and dropping lots more comments on my blog. I’m sure you have a job to do, and the money must be worth it to you (or you haven’t yet determined that it is not). Two things, though: first, and this is important if you hope to have any of your comments remain in place, your comments will reliably be deleted if they are not specific to the subject matter of my blog, and reflect clearly that you have actually read that post, and understand it in some way. I moderate my comments pretty strictly, and the spam settings are strict enough to occasionally filter out comments from real people – so of course, I check them all. Secondly, and this one is entirely irrelevant to me, personally, but I do have to note that if you are dropping random irrelevant comments on blogs that are simply entirely unrelated, that also have strong spam filter settings, you aren’t really living up to your end of the bargain with  your employer, are you? I mean, I suspect businesses think you are driving additional traffic their way, or bringing clicks to their links, and… well… if your Forex trading link is in the comments on my blog, you’re not at all. Just figured I’d call that one out, too.
Still, every now and then, I actually struggle to delete one of your spammy comments – because it is written such that it seems to indicate you actually read the post. Not some generic ‘this could be a response to anything’ sort of comment, and not a comment so off the mark you clearly did not read the post, the blog description, or even look at the header or title…but a real, actually fairly specific, comment on what I’ve written…yep, you occasionally step away from the norm and say something real. Those are harder to delete, and I’ve let one or two stay, as a courtesy – because you read what I wrote, and it mattered enough for you to say something about that on your spammy link comment. It’s time you know the rules to this game I’m playing; if you’re real, your comment might stay. If you actually read what I’m writing, and I can tell, I consider keeping your comment – even if the link is for Viagra, walk-in tubs, car window replacement, Forex trading tips, or how to win one’s social security disability case. If you are just dropping spam like bunny turds in a meadow, I hit ‘delete permanently’ without hesitation or a second thought. High volume spammers get the bonus courtesy of having their address blocked, too, as a measure of self-care efficiency for me.
A chilly autumn morning, an opportunity to reflect on what is needed, and what is not, and sort things out.
It’s a lovely morning. My coffee is hot and tasty. I’m in pain, enough to distract me from a lot of small pleasant things, but not enough to ruin my morning entirely. Tons of spam comments this morning, though… It’s a good day to delete bullshit. Any sort of bullshit, really, it’s a nice day to clear away clutter of all sorts, spam or otherwise. A nice day to let go of baggage, to restore order, to sort things out, and haul away what isn’t needed. This could be a metaphor. For now? Just words over coffee.
Rest is important for growth, for healing, and for quality of life. You can look it up if you need to verify it, there’s science on the topic. Yesterday was an excellent Saturday, but ‘restful’ would not accurately describe the day’s fun. Today there is nothing on my calendar, aside the daily sorts of chores that  maintain order: dishes, changing the linens, vacuuming. I have not yet made any decisions about what to do with the minutes and hours ahead of me, today. Today will be good practices and taking it easy. The overcast morning was explanation enough for the backache I woke with, although I admit with a smile that yesterday’s fun could also have some part to play in today’s backache. A rest day is clearly in order.
Some other day, some other flower.
It took time to become comfortable with setting clear boundaries with regard to taking care of me. (Your results may vary.) It wasn’t that people dear to me didn’t want me to do the things required to live well, comfortably, and feel good day-to-day, and I don’t find it healthy for me to make that kind of negative assumption about someone else’s thinking. (My traveling partner supports good self-care on a level that shows he understands how important it is, and did so long before I understood, myself, why I needed to practice some of the practices I now do, for example, but if I am trapped in a very dark mood I may lose perspective; I continue to find The Four Agreements a helpful read there, when my perspective on others is bleak.). Sometimes I have the greatest challenge setting the boundaries I need because I am, myself, prone to stomping all over my boundaries in a most inconsiderate and surprisingly callous fashion. There’s definitely a learning curve – and I’m on the slow end. I have improved, however, and I am eager to enjoy a relaxed day of rest, meditation, catching up on correspondence, yoga, reading – or whatever it is the day brings my way that is nurturing, and likely to ‘recharge my batteries’ for the week to come.
We bloom where we thrive.
Generally, any apparent boundary stomping disregard or discourtesy I am likely to experience day-to-day is at the hands of someone with their attention focused so fixedly on their own agenda that others aren’t fully considered, or at all, and occasionally by those that just haven’t reached that point in life where they understand the value of self-care in their own experience, and are thus poorly equipped to respect the needs of others. They need my compassion more than my ire, and I only need to be mindfully aware that my choices matter, and continue to take care of me, communicating explicitly and gently where my boundaries and limits are. Sometimes, far more rarely, people are exploitative abusive dicks who don’t care. My best practice in that situation is to double-check that I am taking care of me, and walk on, cutting my losses without further investment. There have been moments when I have treated someone poorly, myself, or crossed a boundary inconsiderately. I’m not bragging, obviously – I’m just saying; it’s a very human experience. Being the best woman I can be – being the best of the woman I am, and that I aspire to be, means I choose differently with awareness in every moment I can maintain the awareness I need to do so. Practice matters a great deal; it doesn’t make perfect, but it does build incremental change over time. 🙂
Unique and individual as flowers in a garden, each having our own experience, none of us so very different from the others, except for perspective, and all sorts of details. 🙂
Today I don’t fight the world for the rest I need; I fight myself, and the tendency to fill a day with things to do, rather than indulge in rest that stillness has to offer. The reluctance to slow things down and gently enjoy the day seeps in from all corners; I live in what tends to be a very activity-prone culture that places high value on productive output, and scoffs at treating oneself with humane regard for this fragile vessel in which we pass our time in mortal experience. I may go for a walk today. I may do some gardening. What I most certainly will do, though, is take care of me. 🙂
Taking care of the garden of my heart matters, too.
Yesterday was quite lovely, and my smile still lingers. It has the feeling of a tumbler clicking into place on a very fancy lock, or as if a difficult to place puzzle piece happens to fit quite nicely with unexpected ease. Yesterday took me most definitely further in the direction of being more myself, and quite comfortably and contentedly so. My relationships with those dear to me feel comfortable, and meaningful. My relationship to myself is not undermined by my relationships with others. I feel at home in my apartment, and in my skin. This feels good – and balanced. Whether I see my traveling partner or the wanderer today will not change this very nice experience I am building with me – and this is a journey I have been wanting to take, needing to take, for a very long time.
Love matters most – the love I give myself is not excluded.
Today is a good day to be free of baggage – I’ll just set that all right over here. Today is a good day for smiles that linger, and a good cup of coffee. Today is a good day for morning breezes, and birdsong. Today is a good day to enjoy the world as I create it. 🙂
Evening Light 