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One Quiet Moment

December 3, 2023 //
2

Another morning, up early for a walk, but instead I am enjoying a quiet moment of solitude, listening to the rain spattering the car (not mocking my intention so much as just the world doing its own thing). I sit for a long while just enjoying the sound of it.

I feel safe and at peace. The morning is quiet, if rainy, and pleasantly relaxed. I listen to the rain and watch the sky slowly take on color, and the horizon begins to reveal details as day breaks. The rain drums aggressively on the roof of the car like an agitated, nervous child. I’m warm and dry, dressed for a rainy day walk, if there is a suitable break in the rain (I don’t mind a drizzle and enjoy a misty rain, but this is more a drenching shower of a rainstorm).

Yesterday I spent the day making holiday cards. I’ve got a fairly short list of recipients, mostly family, and it was a fun activity. Today I’ll finish that project and tuck each card into an envelope ready to go to the post office on Monday.

I stir restlessly in my seat. The rain brings pain with it in the form of my arthritis flaring up. A walk would help, but I don’t see that happening this morning. I chuckle to myself; I’d certainly be on the trail at this point, if it weren’t raining so damned hard.

I smile and think fondly of my Traveling Partner. He delighted me yesterday by making excellent breakfast sandwiches after I returned from my walk. Totally a surprise. I stepped out of the shower smelling bacon, and found him in the kitchen making breakfast. Delicious. I felt so loved. It’s a feeling that lasts, and I feel it still. I sit with my smile and my thoughts, and hoping that he is sleeping in.

I don’t know what today holds, but if it’s another day like yesterday, my partner and I doing our own thing and hanging out together, it’ll be more than enough. I’m still coasting on that feeling of joy. I think about his project and mine, and I make a short list of things I also want to get done before I start a new work week.

… It’s almost time to begin again…

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Categories Allegories, autumn, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being

No Helpful Perspective

July 19, 2023 //
0

It’s shortly after 05:00 a.m. I am tired. Groggy. Already in the office. I have a headache. At this point, I’d be awake most any work day. On this day, I woke with a panic attack, well before dawn, and even before my scheduled time to wake up. I zone in and out. It’s hard to focus. I did not get enough sleep. I was an emotional mess when I dressed and left the house quite abruptly; I don’t make my best decisions from deep within a panic attack. The point of my departure was exclusively to do with giving my Traveling Partner an opportunity to get much-needed sleep, himself. I sure wasn’t going to be going back to sleep. Now I’m stuck in that not-quite-awake/not-quite-sleeping place. Eyelids are heavy. I feel stupid and a bit dizzy.

…It’s these harder days that I practice for on all those easier days…

I left the house so early (before 04:00 a.m.) that there were no coffee shops open anywhere, on the entire drive into the city. The gas station near home was open, so I stopped in – my plan was to buy bottled or canned coffee. Coffee for the drive. I forgot all about doing that, and just got gas and got on the road to the office. lol The drive in was uneventful, aside from just… no other traffic at all, really. The streets were empty at that hour. It was spooky and pretty surreal. When I got into the city, the parking garage wasn’t even open yet. I parked on the street. I set a reminder on my phone to pay the meter; it is too early to do even that.

…I’m so tired…

Every time my consciousness lands on my waking-up experience of this morning, I start crying all over again. Weeping, to be more accurate. Tears well up and start falling. It definitely messed with my head to start my day from a place of panic, fear, and anxiety. I have a headache right on the edge of becoming a migraine. From the perspective of this fatigue and the associated lack of emotional resilience, tomorrow’s planned drive seems a tad daunting, at least for the moment. I wouldn’t want to be starting that journey from this point. “It’ll be easier once the sun rises,” I tell myself before rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and cleaning my smudgy glasses. “The world” absolutely will not actually care about “my bullshit” or chaos and damage, not even a little bit, and there is a whole new work day between me and setting forth on my weekend of driving, camping, and self-reflection. “One foot after the other,” I remind myself, “and don’t forget to breathe.”

…I get a can of cold-brew from the office kitchen…

Starting the day triggered is shitty. Just saying. I’m acknowledging that explicitly for myself because failing to do so would tend to set up the day as one on which I “don’t feel heard”, or cared for, or supported – because I need those things (feeling heard, cared for, and supported) from me every bit as much (more?) as I need them from anyone else. I take a minute to accept that the day started very poorly, and that I feel tired, and at a disadvantage. I definitely do not feel properly “engaged” or prepared for a routine day of work. My eyes glance at the time… I’ve got basically an hour to “sort myself out” and face the work day. Fuuuuuck. At least it is a “no meetings” day… that’s something. I know I can take some time to get my head right before other people have to deal with me.

…I’m so tired…

I keep sipping this coffee. It’s canned cold brew. It’s… fine? Not good. Adequate. It meets the need. I catch myself picking at my torn up cuticles (again), and sigh out loud as I let my hands drop back to the keyboard to type these words. It’s going to be that day, I guess. Tears start falling again. I let them. Now is not the time to beat myself up over a handful of fucking tears. It’s been a difficult morning. I mean, well, those first moments. The rest since then has been utterly uneventful aside from being stupidly fucking early. It takes me a while for the chemistry of some emotions to clear up… like being on a bad trip, I know it will pass. It’ll end. Things will be okay… later. For now… I sit here with this fairly crappy iced coffee, watching the sun rise beyond the windows.

…Good grief canned coffee is pretty dreadful…

The car is almost entirely packed for my roadtrip. I sip my coffee and contemplate getting on the road today, after work (although honestly I’m probably too tired for that, and may be taking a bit more than usual risk just driving home in commuter traffic later today). My timing is all based on an early departure tomorrow. I chuckle grimly; the early wake-up today will give me one advantage tomorrow morning; I’ll be “more used to” getting up earlier than I tend to for work. I’ll set my silent alarm for 04:00 and try to catch the sunrise in my rear view mirror, from the highway to the coast. I’ll just get up and leave whenever I wake. Why not? No reason I need to put any pressure on myself, and I’ll have at least 11 hours to make the 5-hour drive to my camp site for my first night. 🙂 There are lots of beautiful places to stop to see sights and get pictures, and there is no need to rush. This adventure is about the time spent in my own good company.

…I feel a genuine smile form, and although it doesn’t linger it stills feels like progress…

I am so very much looking forward to a couple days without having to “deal with people” much (hardly at all)(including my Traveling Partner). Alone with my thoughts. Alone in my own head. Alone to sleep, to eat, to breathe, “interrupted” only by a few also greatly needed hours in the company of a dear old friend. I’ve been feeling hemmed in on all sides by what everyone else seems to need from me. I suspect that’s an illusion, and I don’t “trust myself” about that feeling. I do need a proper break from “things”, and a few hours in the company of an old friend. More than that, I need a few days to handle my self-care on my own, and see to the needs of the woman in the mirror. Having come face-to-face with the unexpected existence of internalized self-directed misogyny still lingering in the way that I treat myself, it’s time to do something to heal that wound. I don’t know if a 4-day roadtrip is sufficient to do that work (it’s a lot), but it is at least a beginning. I am a big fan of beginnings. 🙂

…Isn’t each moment a small new beginning all its own…?

A yawn splits my face. I finish this coffee – probably the first of several, this morning. There’s definitely at least going to be one more following this one. lol My back aches. My head aches. The tears have dried up. That’s something. The steady whir of the A/C in the background softly suggests napping. I’m so tired.
“Soon enough,” I tell myself, “the work day will end, and it’ll be time to sleep again.” Probably make an early night of it. What else can I do? I’ve got to get some sleep before I drive a long distance or I’ll be at risk of falling asleep at the wheel. That’d be a poor choice. Safety first.

I look over my To-Do List… today seems the sort of day I’m likely to forget things. I check the list. There are still a couple items to toss in the car… my camera bag, the emergency satellite communicator, coffee beans, and my power brick for charging things. I’m glad I’ve got a list. I sit awhile wondering if I’ve overlooked anything. Coffee filters. I add them to the list. I print off the registration and window tag for each of my planned campsites; having them will be handy.

…I remember to take my morning medications (it was too early when I woke)…

I let my mind wander to the roadtrip ahead. I’m looking forward to the journey, and also looking forward to the camping. I’ve got some “new gear” to enjoy, like the fire pit we got for camping with the pickup – it’s well-suited to solo adventures, too, compact and light-weight, easy to store, easy to use… and because it is both a cook stove and also a heater, by design, I am planning on cooking real food while I camp instead of relying on dehydrated and freeze-dried food (which has been my usual practice for years). I’m excited about that. The little coffee grinder & pour-over setup that I’ve got now is also an exciting “upgrade” in gear; still compact, it will mean having a really excellent cup of very fresh coffee while I’m camping, instead of my usual “downgrade” to instant. 😀 Both items were recommended by my Traveling Partner, and it feels good to enjoy them with him in mind. I’m grateful for those suggestions, they’ll definitely be an improvement on my usual ways. 😀

I laugh outloud when I look over this morning’s post; I’ve obviously gone entirely too far with this. Definitely one of those 1500+ words posts. LOL …And my coffee is gone. Finished. Clearly, it’s time to set this aside and begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, gratitude, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, Summer

The List is not The Achievement

January 7, 2023 //
0

I like a good to-do list. I enjoy checking off the tasks and feeling that sense of accomplishment and “getting shit done”. I even, straight up, no kidding, add things to the list as I go along in my day doing things I hadn’t thought to plan on the list in the first place, just so I can also check that one off the list. lol Here’s a thing I have to keep in mind, though; the list is not the achievement. The list is not “getting shit done”. The list isn’t even any one of – or all of – the tasks listed thereon. Not at all. It’s just a list. There are still verbs involved, real work, real task processing, real effort. Sometimes items on a list are easily done. Sometimes it’s trickier than that. An item on a to-do list that I really don’t want to deal with can potentially throw me off course for days or even weeks, as I work around it – and sometimes something like that can stall me completely, when I know it really must be done, and I’m really just not doing it.

Today I got a couple things done that have been on and off one list or another for months now. Both were sort of “housekeeping”, sort of “work”, both required some commitment of my time and energy. One required my time, and also my Traveling Partner’s time – so needed to be coordinated across our shared availability, and account for our individual will and interest in any given moment. One required me to learn quite a few new skills, and enhance skills I had that were a bit “rusty” or “behind the times”. Both were useful, needful, and potentially profitable, if only I could find both the will and the time for every detail, and do so in the order such things were required to go forward. So complicated!

Interestingly, as I built my skills, or completed smaller elements of each project on my list, it wasn’t those details that felt like accomplishments at all (even though that’s truly where the accomplishments seemed to be) – it was when I checked off the projects from my to-do list, this morning. Wild. Human primates are such odd creatures. I didn’t give myself any shred of credit for the small achievements like learning a new application, or building on my HTML skills, or improving how my art images are archived – in spite of the work involved in each one of those things. I didn’t celebrate those moments, they just sort of went by largely unnoticed, glasses riding down my nose as I frowned at my monitor, studying. Bringing a web page to life? Cool, cool, sure… but I felt the joy when I checked it off my list. That seems strange and potentially misplaced. Something to think about.

…I sit quietly with some “thinking about things music“…

What have you gotten done lately that you didn’t pause to appreciate? What small moments of joy have slipped by without a chance to enjoy them properly? Are you looking at the world through the lens of maximum productivity, as if you are little more than machinery? Are you pushing yourself along based on programming and implicit expectations you’ve absorbed from elsewhere? Are you letting work define your life?

…I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s a good day for it. I’ve gotten a few things done – but more than that, I’ve remembered to enjoy the moments.

I think about the Spring garden. Spring is weeks away yet, and it’s already time to plan. The earliest spring bulbs, hyacinths, crocuses, and such are already beginning to break through the soil. I think it might be nice to enjoy a hot cup of drinking chocolate and flip through seed catalogs.

Already time to begin again?

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, winter

Too Much, Too Many, All Good

June 19, 2022 //
0

I tend to think of “challenges” as negative, and to think of “being overwhelmed” as a byproduct of generally negative emotional experiences or circumstances. You, too? It’s a misleading oversimplification, though, isn’t it? I think for a minute about the experience of an “overexcited” or “overstimulated” exhausted toddler, well-past the point that can be supported by their as-yet-undeveloped emotional resilience, frustrated over some “nothing” moment (when viewed externally, as an observer), dissolving into tears or tantrums. Doesn’t matter that the day behind them was excited, fun-filled, positive, rewarding, engaging, or adventurous – they’re tired, they’re done, and it’s finally all just “too much”. They yield to their emotions. I’m 59 years old and it still happens in my experience of life, too. Hard to be irked about it, it’s just a thing. Part of the human experience. I’m sure it serves – or once served – some clear purpose for human primates. Maybe a warning to slow down and let my brain catch up on all the newness and excitement?

Things have been exciting around here. I’ve been helping my Traveling Partner get his business started. Very exciting. His business – our future. It’s a big deal. There are new tools and machines to learn. New processes to master. New skills to pick up. There are other skills to refine and improve. There are tasks yet to be completed – I know we each have our own focus, and our own “to do list”. It’s his business, but I’m 100% about supporting that endeavor with him; we’re a team. A partnership. All of that is exciting and positive – not a single legitimate “down side”, other than the other positives piling up that simply require some effort (mostly in the form of cognitive work, learning some new software, and a couple of really cool tools that I’m excited about artistically, for my own creative endeavors). Still, there is so much new stuff coming at me day-to-day right now, there’s been no time to write. I mean, that’s what it has felt like. I’m sure I could have made other choices, but I’m not ashamed to be making a point to choose supporting my partner’s developing business.

My brain is tired. I have been mostly sleeping pretty well, but kind of a lot. I go to bed pretty early. I sleep as late as circumstances permit. My list of shit to get done exploded over the past couple weeks. I feel chronically behind on just about everything. Hike with my new camera? It rains too hard to go, or too hard to take the camera out into the weather. I feel held back by that and frustrated. I’m eager to get out into the garden. Some days I just haven’t got the strength to do the work. Other days the rain keeps me in. Build a website for my partner’s business? Unfamiliar interface and new software to learn. I feel a bit stalled, but not terribly frustrated; I at least expected to face a learning curve. More to learn. There’s the laser cutter, the Cricut, the pen tablet… so much to learn. Gardening, too. I’m no master gardener. I just sort of get by doing my best. I’d like to do better. I’d like to feed us from our garden.

If I just stack everything up or put it on a list, it does sort of start freaking me out. I feel so behind on “everything”. I had terrible nightmares last night that I had invested so much of my time and attention into all the new stuff to learn, do, try… that my friends all just sort of… slipped away. I was just starting to achieve mastery of “everything”, and turned to share this with my Traveling Partner… and… he wasn’t there. Gone. Just… gone. I looked out my window and society appeared to have crumbled. There were few people, and all strangers to me. I looked at my hands, in my dream, and they were withered with age and effort, and I was feeble and weak. All my “new knowledge” and skills were already … out of date. Useless. I woke feeling sad and lonely, and it persisted for some minutes after waking.

Nightmares are unpleasant. They have a visceral quality that lingers. They are crafted directly from our emotions and feel somehow inescapable. They’re still only dreams.

The thing is, there’s more good here than struggle. It’s just… a lot to take in. Yesterday I harvested lovely peas and Swiss chard and radishes from the garden, and dinner included that bounty. It was delicious. Spending hours with my Traveling Partner designing, building, making, learning – those are happy hours, well-spent in each other’s good company. Learning new skills? Great for keeping youthful well-being and perspective. Every detail taken individually is pretty fucking splendid. I sip my coffee and reflect on that. On the splendor. Feels pretty good. I feel fortunate, and even “blessed”. It’s a good place to be. That “to do list” doesn’t need to drive my experience. It’s just a wee map. Tells me where the turn up ahead is to be, and where to go next. Useful.

Today a friend will come around to visit. There’s been so little of that with the pandemic. I’ve missed the companionship of my friends. Losing touch with so many feels uncomfortable. I tell myself I could do better to stay in touch… which is a lot of pressure to put on one human. We’re all in that place. We could each do more, better, somehow. It can quickly snowball into a spiral of frustration and dismay. I sip my coffee figuring I won’t do that today. Small bites of life are enough to taste it. 🙂 Today, a little housekeeping in the morning. A little hanging out in the afternoon. An evening spent wrapped in love with my Traveling Partner, steadfast and true, best friend, lover, spouse, business partner… I am fortunate indeed.

A glance at the clock tells me it is already time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Art, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Patterns, Threads, Rhythms, Beats

January 23, 2022 //
0

This morning I am grooving to the sound of new beats from an old friend. I’m sipping my coffee, feeling relaxed, loved, and even “merry”. It’s a pleasant, leisurely Sunday morning. My pleasant moment is interrupted by a commercial interruption on Soundcloud; an ad break between tracks. I roll my eyes, look for any chance to skip it (that doesn’t amount to paying for a subscription to a rarely used service), and settle on ignoring it for the required 31 seconds. It’s a distraction, and not a pleasant one; this is “where we are” culturally – our attention held in servitude to commercial endeavors, with or without our consent.

I sip my coffee and think about the media, my shorter attention span, the nature of likes, clicks, and views, and the monetization of human attention, and individual data. I think about our “global culture” – and how it sometimes seems “the fabric of society” is being torn apart…only… that’s just one perspective on a very complex, only somewhat shared experience. While there certainly seem to be “norms” and commonplace expectations of a dominant group in our social hierarchy being challenged, undermined, and perhaps also “misused”… There are also huge swaths of humanity who were never invited to that party, who don’t (and did not) have the advantages that are said to be being “undermined”, and for whom the system as it is has existed is punitive, hostile, prejudiced, and has long prevented them from thriving as groups. Labeled, cut-off from the benefits of “mainstream” society, and worse still often shamed for “doing it to themselves” instead of humble acknowledgement of inequities in our laws and institutions, so many people in so many places see patterns that amount to willful inhumanity. Fixing that mess… now that’s a global challenge for a global society. Will we fix our mess before the clock runs out on humanity’s presence on this planet?

I let the beats carry my thoughts onward… sipping my coffee and a glass of water, sort of in alternation.

I think about the day’s housekeeping tasks ahead of me. I think about getting a walk in on some nearby trail – if the day warms up just a little. I think about maybe baking brownies and trying a different recipe, seeking that exceptional brownie result. None of these thoughts, however delightful, have anything whatsoever to do with the actual outcome; that requires some verbs. Real action. Choices. Follow-through.

…Another fucking advertisement begins to play in the background. I do not give a shit about the advertiser or the product. I tune it out…

Patterns in my life; I do housekeeping on Sundays, generally. When I write, most of the time, I write in the morning. There is a cadence, a rhythm, to the day-to-day, and to each week. When I write, or think, or reflect, or daydream, there is often some kind of thread that connects my thoughts. When I struggle, there is often another sort of “thread” that, once tugged, begins to unravel some bit of baggage or bullshit. Noticing a pattern, pulling on that thread, following a path; all these things lead me onward. Even these beats in my ears right now, and so also in my head, guide me along my human experience, giving me a pace, a flow, a sort of carrier wave upon which the signal that is my own individual experience can be layered. My breathing shifts; slower and more even with the chill ambient beats. Glacial. Slow perspective. Ease.

…Another advertisement? Really?? Fucking hell…

The beat shifts again, energizing me, lifting me, bring a smile to my face and an eagerness to my moment. My breathing is a bit faster. I feel an increasing readiness to move on with the day. There is a rhythm to the tasks and habits and routines I set for myself. It works for me, mostly. When it doesn’t, breaking down the missed moment, the lost beat, the unraveling thread into smaller parts gives me a chance to understand myself a bit better, and to creep ever closer to being the person I most want to be.

…It’s not “everything”, it’s only “something” – sometimes something is enough. 🙂 It is, at least, enough on which to begin again. 😀

Today, I’ll do my best. I’ve got a list. I’ve got all day. 🙂 It’s enough.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, winter, Words
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