Archives for posts with tag: love and lovers
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Love Works, Too

May 24, 2016 //
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I woke with a headache this morning. This one eases with the first cup of coffee, some yoga, and a big glass of water. Maintaining this body is somewhat complicated, or so it seems to me this morning.

Meditation starts the morning, for some unmeasured time, seated comfortably on my cushion, at my favored spot just at the patio door, looking out through the container garden, watching the sun make a brief pastel appearance betwixt cottony soft gray clouds. I enjoy cloudy days. The small birds that prefer the earliest of morning hours to visit come and go from the feeder, eyeing me curiously. My hope is that by the end of summer I can come and go through the patio door without frightening all the birds away, perhaps even sit quietly right there, outside, positioned to take clearer photographs of them. That will require quite a commitment to stillness, and then some. 🙂

This morning I enjoy my traveling partner’s charm and camaraderie, coffees together/separately, and a choice opportunity to take time together over a housekeeping detail that is helped by partnering up on a complex task I had some difficulty mastering; his exceptional commitment to patiently coaching me is valued this morning. We enjoy the time together, and the sharing. It’s significantly enhanced by no hint of imbalance in the relationship, no one jockeying to ‘be right’ or to ‘be the expert’, just two people who care sharing the load in life, making each other stronger. It’s a pleasant way to start the morning.

It’s hard to know what the day holds from here… I’ll continue to take care of me, handle the business of the day, and work from my list. I feel content, organized, and orderly. I feel comfortable in my own skin. This feels good… and sustainable. I guess I’ll find that out over time… I mean… my results do vary. 😉

Isn't this enough?

Isn’t this enough?

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Living Life

May 10, 2016 //
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It gets difficult to juggling all of the tasks, obligations, responsibilities, desires, goals, and ‘things in general’ with 40 hours (more) each week just lopped right off my productive lifetime. I’m feeling that fairly acutely right now, from the perspective of keeping that 40 hours and using it for myself; it’s a rare luxury, and I am doing what I can to take advantage of it from day-to-day.

Yesterday felt comfortable and natural, balanced between self-care, job search activities, and domesticity. Today is planned similarly. I am neither bored, nor hurried, which feels quite comfortable. “Comfortable” is a word that I find coming up a lot in the past couple of weeks, and I don’t mind over-using the word while I enjoy the experience.

The slower pace to life gives me an opportunity to more deeply consider the woman in the mirror, who she is today, where she is headed, what her choices and opportunities may be – and where they may take her. It’s a time for self-work, and for continued education. (I’m not passive about the time between jobs – this is my time, for me, and I hope to use it wisely.) Life – and the internet – provide plenty of opportunities to learn and to grow, like this exploration of emotion that I stumbled upon this morning. Taking care of me still requires attention to detail, commitment to action, and self-awareness – and I still need plenty of practice. At least for now, I really can put myself at the top of my list of priorities, and I do. Totally worth it. (There are still verbs involved.)

A quiet evening hanging out with my traveling partner became a good opportunity to improve on communication practices shared between us. I wake with my heart so filled with love for this one particular other human being that there is plenty to spill over as smiles available for every passing stranger – it feels like a very good day to be alive. That’s a pretty subjective experience, and as I recognize how tied to this gentle emotional climate it is, I also find myself aware that there are subtle choices involved, too; I could have responded (or reacted) differently to the evening, to my partner, to my circumstances… I could be living a very different life than I am choosing. Choosing when the choices feel easy and the outcomes feel pleasant isn’t difficult, or complicated, or messy, or at all challenging… Will I feel this good, or find life so simple, when the choices are more difficult, or the outcome – however desirable or needful – is less pleasant? Will I be able to reliably choose to take care of me, to enjoy my experience, and to live well (and beautifully) when things are hard, too? That’s a piece of the journey as yet unmapped, and quite likely just beyond some bend in the road up ahead at some point along the way. I smile when I hear myself (in my thoughts) hoping not to disappoint myself when the time comes; it has gotten much harder to disappoint myself these days. I am learning compassion, consideration, self-awareness, and love. (I still have so much to learn!)

Begin again.

Begin again.

Today is a good day for forward momentum, and for getting things done. Today is a good day to enjoy living, and to share a smile with a stranger. Today is a good day for compassion, for patience, and for perspective. Today is a good day for change. 🙂

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Love Songs

April 15, 2016 //
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I am sipping a delicately fragrant cup of tea this morning, and lingering over the recollection of a lovely moment with my traveling partner last night. He put on a love song with a beautiful tender video for our shared enjoyment. It was a simple connected romantic moment, and very much worth remembering. This morning, with headphones on, I listen to it again…then play a favorite that makes me think of loving him. Suddenly, it is a morning filled with music – love songs, mostly, and uplifting songs of pure joy. “Love songs” to life and self – don’t those matter just as much? Sure – that’s part of the point; I matter. To me. No argument, defense, or justification required.

I find my way back to romantic love songs, of course, it’s that sort of morning. 🙂 I “miss” my traveling partner as fervently and with as much yearning as if he were away, instead of sleeping in another room. Sometimes love is funny that way. I let him sleep; I love him such that it matters more that he rest well than to risk waking him with a touch or a kiss. I’ll see him later today.

Love matters most.

Love matters most.

Today is a good day to be love.

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

there is a list for that

April 5, 2016 //
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This morning I really want to listen to The Beastie Boys. I have a particular track stuck in my head that fits my mood this morning. It’s not really the sort of thing for a quiet morning, and with my partner sleeping in the other room I find myself feeling the lack of a good pair of headphones. How is it that I don’t have headphones? lol I didn’t need them before. It’s simple. I’m not complaining; I have a well-developed wish list of odds and ends and quality of life improvements. I add headphones to the list, for mornings. 🙂

I spent a quiet evening of study and meditation last night, time well-spent. I didn’t realize I had gotten so far behind on planned reading, and important [to me] study material. This morning, I meditate, things I read creep in and I find my thoughts again and again turning away from the woman in the mirror, to the reflection of her experience I so often see in the reaction and words of my partner. A different perspective on ‘who I am’, sometimes distorted in strange unexpected ways. We are both so different than we once were… Change is. There is still room for surprise, for wonder, for joy – and also for frustration, for misunderstanding, and even for anger (it is my least favorite of the emotions I know best), sometimes sadness; we continue to love and to learn – about each other, from each other, with each other. Partnership. He’s got his broken bits, and I’ve got mine. I am quite attached to the idea that we both do our best to care for each other and treat each other well, and like to believe that it is true; I don’t test it very rigorously, and simply accept that it is so. Funny how that sort of things works. 🙂

I open my everyday ‘to do list’ and add some housework tasks to it. (I may forget them far too long, otherwise.) I move on to other things.

I’ve benefited greatly from the additional time meditating the past couple of days. I find myself more invested in myself, and in this safe space that I’ve built to live within, and less focused on the stray agita and stress of humans being human that can be so easy to become mired in, otherwise. I consider what I can be doing (or doing with greater skill or consistency) to support and nurture my partner…and wonder whether he is aware of the things he could be doing to support and nurture me in turn? For the time being this is a shared journey, and in my certainty that I can take better care of myself, I am aware I can also take better care of him, without doing myself harm; it is a journey that requires steps, and covers distance. I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there…

Sharing the journey? A good opportunity to be love.

Sharing the journey? A good opportunity to be love.

Today is a good day to be love.

 

 

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

So Much is in the Details

March 28, 2016 //
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It was a generally lovely weekend, and I enjoyed it greatly. The one or two isolated moments of disharmony were too human, and too brief, to make much of and they quickly passed. It was a weekend to connect, to bond, to listen, and a weekend to be very aware of how much I also needed my own attention, if only for a few hours.

Meditation continues to be a key practice supporting my emotional wellness.

Meditation continues to be a key practice supporting my emotional wellness.

This weekend I took time to continue to ‘move in’ and get more settled; I’d only begun that process when my traveling partner unexpectedly landed on my doorstep for an extended stay. I had halted the process of ‘getting all moved in’ without really noticing I had. Providing him with support and care, and seeing to his comfort is also a high priority, and I attended to it immediately – then forgot I still had quite a lot to do for me, as well. One of the many valued opportunities for me in living alone has been learning to take care of myself, and to be more reliably self-sufficient, specifically because I do tend to ‘overlook myself’ in the context of cohabitation with intimate partners. This weekend I attended to a great many more ‘me-centric’ details, and put some effort into continuing to get moved in, myself.

My favored spot to meditate has been in front of the patio door, and living alone it hasn’t been a headache to simply leave my cushion sitting right there; I step around it. Living with my partner, the comfort of ‘having to step around it’ was no longer exclusively about me, and the cushion was somehow ‘in the way’ – funny how perspective changes on such details. Living alone, meditating in the living room  works beautifully. In a shared living space, the living room is now a busy common area, home to the stereo, television, video games, and fireplace – as well as the door to the patio garden, adjacent to kitchen and dining space – and no longer seems a good fit for meditating at some points in the day, there are too many distractions. Choosing to meditate less frequently, or on a schedule, doesn’t work for me, so I put time into rethinking where I meditate during those hours of the day when doing so may conflict with my partner’s activities, and decide to make sure my bedroom is also set up to be a convenient and inspiring place for meditation.

My studio quickly filled with paintings that are not yet hanging, many of which had been stacked in my partner’s bedroom, because it was an empty room when I moved in. Paintings not yet hanging in my own bedroom contributed to the disarray, as well as projects in progress. Painting rails for temporary displays and drying space have not yet been installed. Soon. This weekend I focused on hanging paintings in my bedroom, making that space ‘more my own’. I walk around the apartment quietly with my coffee, smiling at how much got done with weekend, and feeling very much ‘at home’.

This morning felt very natural. I woke a bit ahead of the alarm, not uncommon, and shut it off, choosing a few minutes more time meditating, rather than attempting another 15 minutes of sleep. It was nice that my cushion was already there, and the walls hung with carefully chosen art work on themes that tenderly guide my thinking toward perspective, balance, sufficiency, and mindful awareness. My stiff aching spine benefits from ‘sun salutations’ before I consider myself really ‘up’ for the day. By the time I got to the kitchen to make coffee, I was feeling fairly awake, and ready for the day. I quietly emptied the dishwasher while I waited for the water to heat for my coffee, feeling generally very comfortable, and very much at home. I had been concerned that I would feel less at home here, myself, with my traveling partner moving in. It seems I have learned some things about taking care of me, over the past year. I realize with some astonishment that, in fact, I lived alone for less than a year…

In the not-quite-a-year that I have lived alone, I have learned a lot about the details that matter most (for me) about cohabitation: the intimate friendly presence of a lover so near, the hellos and good-byes, the day-to-day graciousness and shared delight, conversations, planning for the future, shared tales of time apart shared more frequently in greater detail involving less time, the humor, the support, the availability of hugs, shared problem-solving, teamwork, and sure – sex, too, but surprisingly (to me) that isn’t the most singularly important detail…turns out that the most important details are about emotional intimacy, rather than physical intimacy. There remains so much to learn about life, about love, and even about the woman in the mirror. I am eager to share this piece of that journey, and see where it leads. There are a lot of verbs involved…

Sharing the journey? A good opportunity to be love.

Sharing the journey? A good opportunity to be love.

Today is a good day to start a journey. Today is a good day for love.

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