Archives for posts with tag: joy
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No Magical Shortcuts

June 25, 2024 //
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Another lovely morning. I got through yesterday’s stressors and chaos with a bit of grace, and a lot of practice. There are no shortcuts, no magical cures “experts don’t want you to know about”, no means to an end that don’t require real effort… It’s all work and effort, and will, and practice. A lot of practice. My results vary. I make a point to appreciate the wins and celebrate moments of joy.

I’m grateful to see another sunrise.

I enjoyed my morning walk, and having the trail entirely to myself was a pleasant luxury. I slept well, and I feel good (aside from the usual amount of pain in the background, which I am mostly able to ignore so far). The fresh air fills my lungs and each breath feels truly life-giving in an interesting way. I think about love, as I walk, and when I stop for a moment to rest or take a picture.

“Hang in there,” my Traveling Partner’s doctor said yesterday, reassuring him that the healing process was going well, although uncomfortable (and yeah, painful sometimes). It felt like a long damned day to get to that moment. I felt pretty helpless and ineffective a lot of the time, but I did a good day’s work, and managed to “be there” for my partner when he needed me, even if only to provide comfort and love. I guess those things matter, too.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. Another day, another opportunity to begin again, to do better, to be my best self, to be a good friend, lover, and partner. To be. Awake and aware and filled with wonder. I take a moment to appreciate how far my journey has taken me. How far I have gone down this path. Content, mostly. Joyful, often. Even happy sometimes – more often than I ever understood could be possible. I’m fortunate. I’ve got a lot to be thankful for. I sit with that thought awhile, just enjoying the mild summer morning for a few minutes before the work day begins.

It’s a good moment.

… Time to begin again…

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being

Watching the Time

June 21, 2024 //
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Pretty morning. Splendid sunrise. I slept well, and with no regrets I slept without my sleep tracker on my wrist. Did that change the quality of my sleep? Maybe. Maybe not. But… Maybe.

The first sunrise of summer.

Without regard to sleep quality, I’d be giving up the sleep tracker anyway; my wearable is no longer supported by the manufacturer, and the new phone I’ve just moved into isn’t the same brand and “doesn’t play nicely” with my old wearable. Totally fine, I think I am effectively done with trying to capture all that biometric data. It was initially useful and sometimes eye-opening, but that hasn’t been the case for a while, and the device itself just tethers me to my phone, and pings me fucking constantly. Over it.

Father’s Day got my Traveling Partner and I talking about watches, time, and time pieces, after I gifted him a modest field watch for everyday wear.

Practical and basic.

I guess I’ve missed wearing a watch. 😆 I gave that up years ago, before I ever began wearing a connected device, (because I had such an unhealthy and stressful relationship with time). That was so very long ago that it’s just not a thing anymore, even to the slightest degree. I don’t have panic attacks over being a couple minutes late. I don’t freak out if someone else creates conditions that throw carefully timed plans into chaos. (Hell, I rarely make “carefully timed plans” with the sort of inflexible precision that they could so easily be wrecked by timing, at all.)

So… I’m contentedly re-embracing wearing a watch. It’s not as if that’s super necessary, either. My phone is almost always very nearby, and I can easily check the time. I like the look of a watch. Elegant or practical. Fancy or plain. There’s something amazing about a watch. Such a finely crafted tiny piece of machinery capable of so much precision! Impressive among human achievements in the way bound books, libraries, and printing presses are impressive. These things are among our best human achievements.

Fancy and fun.

I have a lovely fun watch my Traveling Partner gifted me. It’s pretty, and a bit fancy for everyday. I enjoy wearing it (even more lately), but it isn’t quite the right choice for everyday wear. We’ve spent fun hours this week talking about watches and casually shopping together for watches we might like to own, and getting to know this facet of each other’s personal style. Selecting a watch is every bit as intimate as lingerie. It’s been an extraordinary way to connect and be close. Fun.

… The clock is always ticking…

I sit with happy thoughts, early on a Friday morning. The Solstice was yesterday. Ordinary enough day. I worked.  It was quite a hot day for the first day of summer. Fitting. Today is likely to be similarly hot. I’m okay with it – and grateful to have AC.

I sit thinking about time, and watches, and watching time. In some upcoming future moment, I will begin again… in the meantime, it’s enough to be here, now. Watching the sun rise on a summer morning, unconcerned about the time.

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

New Day, New Inspiration

June 18, 2024 //
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I’m sipping coffee and taking a moment after my morning walk. I’ll head to work, next, but this quiet interlude is mine. I’m sitting quietly, looking out into the view beyond and contemplating how I might capture this view in acrylic, in watercolor, in oil, or in a wholly new medium for me – in pastels.

Light and shadow, and an ordinary view.

I am content to sit here with my thoughts, even for hours. This is a pleasant moment.

I’ve tidied up my studio such that I can actually make use of it. Along the way I found an old cigar box with an unexpected treasure within – two small sets of pastels, an assortment of neon colors and an assortment of iridescent colors, looking very much unused since whenever they were purchased. I don’t recall buying them. The shoebox itself is one that one of my parents had used to send me something… sometime around 1995? Older? Old, for sure.

A fun surprise.

I continue to feel inspired by the thought of exploring a new medium, artistically. I picked up a selection of good quality pastels at the local art store, and some appropriate paper, and ordered some woodless colored pencils and pastel pencils. A small price to pay for the joy and growth yet to come.

Colors. Joy in a box.

For a moment, I feel impatient to begin, then chuckle at my human foolishness, because I have already begun! This moment, right here, now, is part of the experience. I smile and breathe it in. Inspiration. Joy. Enthusiasm. Eagerness. Delight. Wonder. It’s quite delicious and I am grateful to enjoy this moment.

I take time to really savor this pleasant moment, and to really “fill my cup” with this quiet joy.

The sun continues to rise. The clock continues to tick. It’s already time to begin again. I’m ready.

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being

So Much to Enjoy

November 19, 2023 //
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I’m awake, though I don’t mean to be. It’s quite late and the house is quiet. My Traveling Partner sleeps. The only sounds I hear are the 3D printers “singing” their happy songs in another room. The sound of the printers printing is a sound I find joyful, and it does not disturb me.

He gave me the moon and the stars.

I look around me in the dim twilight of this room, softly illuminated by various paintings and objects that glow in the dark. I feel very loved; my partner made many of these things for me. They calm me when I wake, alarmed, during the night.

I sit quietly in the dark, smiling. I won’t be awake long. I think happy thoughts of the day feeling wrapped in love.

Love everywhere.

It was a lovely day. I smile recalling the new spice racks my Traveling Partner made and installed for me. I think about love. I think about his eyes and his smile and his rude jokes. I think about his strong arms around me and the way he loves me.

The quiet persists and I am ready to sleep. Tomorrow is soon enough to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, breathe, gratitude, Love, Moments, Perspective, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being

Neither Here nor There

November 2, 2023 //
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I’m relaxing. Enjoying the evening. I’ll probably be up rather late; I collapsed into a foggy, dreamy, lush nap shortly after I got home from work (and after making a short trip to a favorite local pie spot to pick up a pie – why not? I like pie…). I woke refreshed, and found my Traveling Partner had slept through the time I was napping, himself, relaxing on the couch. We must have needed the sleep. Dinner was simple, nothing fancy.

…There’s nothing about this that is significant, important, or, probably, even interesting. It’s just a quiet evening with nothing much going on. It’s pleasant, and that’s enough.

I’m in a lot of pain tonight. It’s not “new pain”. Just my arthritis. Chronic. Predictable. But not new. I mean, shit, I first started feeling the twinges of what would become my “constant companion” in… 1988? 1989? Something like that. About 35 years ago. At first I thought there was “something seriously wrong” with my spinal fusion – no one explicitly warned me about the likelihood that osteoarthritis might set in, in the adjacent vertebrae, or gave me any idea what to expect when it did… until after it was part of my experience. Not much of a fucking “warning”, but what could have been done? It’s not like a warning about arthritis would have caused me to decline the surgery that lets me walk, stand, and get around as well (and go as far) as I do. So… I hurt. I mostly don’t mention it out loud to other people. I probably minimize it more often than I should when I’m talking to my Traveling Partner. I don’t like him to worry, or stress over it, and for fucks sake, what could he even do about it? Basically nothing. So… why bitch? I just deal with it and try to move on. Take medication when I need it. Keep myself moving (because being too still too much of the time definitely makes things worse over time – a lesson learned decades ago). Sometimes it’s hard. Life, too. So… yeah. So what?

I distract myself with entertaining videos. I write. I listen to music. Play video games. Read books. I enjoy life. It’s already likely to seem far too short. 🙂

No one likes to hurt. Pain sucks. I remind myself how common it is that we do. For sure there are people who have it much worse, more of the time, than I do. Perspective; it is so much more profound to experience contentment and joy, because I definitely do know what it feels like to be mired in pain and misery. Maybe it’s enough.

…Be kind to people. It’s not always obvious how much pain someone is in, and how it defines their experience. We’re all just people. Pain is part of being human.

Live. Work. Sleep. Wake. Repeat.

It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Practices, turning 60
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