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Beginnings and Ends

November 28, 2016 //
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My coffee is still too hot to drink. The alarm clock seemed very loud when it woke me. I feel a bit as if I am moving especially slowly this morning; the clock corrects my very subjective perception of time. It’s a Monday after a long weekend. As if on cue, my brain launches a salvo of small anxiety-provoking attacks about this or that detail at work; I quash them with a minute or two of mindfulness, breathing deeply, present in this moment here. Work can at least wait until I actually get to the office! 🙂

Summer is definitely over. Autumn nearly over, too. Thanksgiving is done. The holiday season – my idea of holiday season, I mean – has begun. It is a beginning I wait for, plan for, and cherish each year. I have my own traditions, built on my values, refined over an adult lifetime, added to by one partnership, then another, over the years. The specifics are less meaningful or shareworthy, I think, than that I do have my own, chosen with care, selected from the celebratory traditions of my childhood, and then made my own, quite willfully. I like the way I do the holidays. It is rare for me to be overcome by ennui or despair during (or over, or about) the holidays, and I’ve tended to attribute that to doing them my own way… though, I don’t have any cite-able proof of that; it is my subject experience, only. For me, that’s enough, at least on the topic of holidays. 🙂

As days go, today doesn’t stand out in any obvious way. The beginning of a new work week. The beginning of the holiday season. I like beginnings, although they usually follow endings, which I often tend to think I dislike (compared to beginnings), but again, I have no clear evidence of that impression, and find myself wondering if the words truly reflect my thinking, or only some moment in my thinking that will quickly dissipate when my attention turns to other things? Change is. Whether an ending, a beginning, or some transitional point on a spectrum between those moments, change is part of the scenery on life’s journey.

I think of my Traveling Partner and smile. We have different approaches to living life in the moment; I prefer to plan, and to maintain a high level of readiness for many likely outcomes, and to cultivate a benevolent tolerance of circumstances that fall outside my planning, with frequent “rest breaks” from the hectic pace of life when I can retreat to a quiet corner of the world to take it all in, before returning to the busy-ness of life’s default settings. He has the boldness required to freely take life utterly as it comes, seemingly fearlessly and without anxiety; embracing change with a spontaneity that awes me, and often leaves me feeling unsettled.  We handle our emotional lives quite differently, too, both very human, both capable of great depths of emotion, both embracing intimacy and connection, and yet such different people day-to-day, in spite of shared values, shared experiences, and sharing (to this day) our journey in life over years. He finds too much planning constricting, and expresses feeling pressured. I find too little planning chaotic, and feel… pressured. lol We are more similar than we are different. This is likely true of each and all of us; more similar than different. Any human being’s most basic needs are likely to be pretty much the same from one person to the next. So many arguments between human beings are about meeting the same basic need in different ways, informed by prejudices, filtered through individual experience, limited by individual perspective, and individual understandings of definitions of terms. We’re still more similar than we are different – right down to not listening very well when another one of what we are is talking to us about their own experience. 😉

Taking time for simple pleasures matters, too.

Taking time for simple pleasures matters.

My coffee is not so hot now. I drink it down and consider a second one… there is time for that. I look across the table, the holiday tablecloth, placemats, and centerpiece are happy reminders of the weekend spent immersed in a wonderland of holiday memories, colorful trinkets, and tiny lights. The entire room is transformed. The tree stands in the far corner, and canisters of freshly baked cookies beyond that, on the bookshelf in that corner. Everywhere some Yule detail catches my eye. I smile. The soft glow of the room feels like it sources from within me. Sure, I’ll have a second coffee. Today is a good day to take time to enjoy simple pleasures. I’ll go do that. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, women, Words

Embrace It or Change It

November 23, 2016 //
2

I woke to the sound of a pounding no-nonsense rain hammering the chimney cover. It sounds like an act of vengeance, all beat and no melody. Because I enjoy rain, generally, I enjoy the sound. What if I disliked the rain, what then? It rains a lot here.

I glance across the table at my winter coat, draped over the other chair, and near to the heater, where I left it last night. I’d arrived after a rainy commute, pleased that my winter coat kept me both warm and dry. I had been thinking, on and off, about needing a winter coat. My last one managed to wrap me in rain resistant comfort (no longer quite waterproof) for 5 years.

Evening before last, I stood at the light rail platform waiting for the train in the rain, in a crowd, and realizing I just did not want to stand all the way home, and this particular train was clearly going to be standing room only, I ducked into a nearby discount retailer on a whim. Out of the rain, warm and dry, I could pass 15 minutes walking the aisles and thinking about life and then take the next train… Feeling purposeful, I walked to the outerwear section, and flipped through the coats. It was the fabric and cut of the thing that got my attention first, olive drab, cotton blend, and a not-quite-an-army-parka look to it. It made me smile. I tried it on and it fit like it was tailored and felt comfortable to move in. Warm. I tried talking myself out of it by trying on other coats. The alternatives did not fit as well, or (to my eye) look as good. I looked at the price tag – doable. It amuses me now that I didn’t wear it for the trip home that night.

Yesterday  morning wasn’t raining, but it was quite chilly. My coat was warm and dry. Comfortable. When I left the office at the end of the day, it was raining. It rains a lot here. I haven’t yet given this coat a water-proofing, and I wondered how well it would stand up to the rain without it? I arrived home, warm and dry, coat wet but not soaked through. A win all around. I even enjoyed the night walk, through the raindrops, across rain-slick pavement, and over the Hawthorne Bridge, wrapped in warmth. I’d have been completely miserable, soaked to the skin and cold to the bone, without a coat. I guess it’s more or less “winter” here now. I mean, the sort of winter we get, which is mostly chilly and muddy and wet, and not very frozen except for a few days in January, generally, and sometimes some snow in December.

The evening passed fairly quietly, in a state of great contentment. My neighbors were partying, which is common and not usually a problem, but the evening’s fun was doing them in with its excesses on this occasion, and at times that was fairly unpleasant to listen to. We usually hang out together a lot more, but since the break-in I have felt much less social, for no other reason than that this is my space and I intend to reclaim it for myself. I made a point to bitch gently about the noise, they were delighted that I am okay, and honestly I felt the same; reassured that they are okay, too, and that we matter to each other. The remainder of the evening was quiet, and I felt asleep feeling safe and content.

Huh. That’s a lot of words about a rainy evening and a winter coat. I’m not sure why. I think the point I was making is something more or less on the order of “don’t stand around being miserable… change something!” 🙂  As true this morning as it was last night, as it was the night before, as it was on election day, as it has been in the anxious days since then… Don’t like the state of things? Change. Change you, or change your choices, or change your circumstances – or embrace the state of things and change your perspective; it is not a requirement in life that we endure misery indefinitely, and certainly there is no requirement that we choose it. So… why do we? I’m not sure taking time out of a day to troubleshoot that is a productive choice. The why, it seems, mires me in a spiral of discontent. Accepting that choosing misery is something people do, something I have done myself, something I remain capable of, is probably much more valuable than knowing why, exactly. I already know enough to be able to choose change. 🙂

Search all the books that matter most to you, there are still verbs involved. :-)

Search all the books that matter most to you, there are still verbs involved. 🙂

I look around this morning with new eyes, more easily able to see the emotional “wear and tear” of the recent break-in. Resilient? Yes. Able to bounce-back? More so than ever before. Unaffected? Hardly; I see the signs of how the break-in affected my sense of safety and security all around me. Small details let go that are usually well-managed: a pile of odds and ends paperwork things has accumulated on the dining table, quite out of the ordinary for me these days, and I have been avoiding the studio entirely in a less-than-ideally-mentally-healthy way. Small signs that I took the violation of my space pretty hard. Reminders exist, too, in the sudden cessation of socializing with my neighbors; I come home, and lock the door. TV gone, which isn’t that big a deal frankly, but the result rather strangely is that I have spent the evenings and mornings quietly – utter quiet, no stereo, no music, no conversation. I feel safer in the quiet stillness, less likely to overlook an intrusion, or be caught by surprise.

Last night, I filled the apartment with music for a while, as I did over the weekend. This morning I am more awake, more aware of things needing to be done that have been let go for a few days. It has been a week. I’m okay now, save for the remaining indignity of being told what my possessions are “worth” by a faceless corporate entity that very much just wants to profit from my fear of disaster without having to pay out for actual disasters that actually happen. I’ll get through that, too. I am capable of great endurance.

A basic morning.

A basic morning.

I’m also capable of great change. Today is a good day to choose change. Today is a good day to treat myself well, wrapped in a warm coat and a smile, walking in the rain like it just doesn’t matter – because it doesn’t have to be endured, naked and alone. I have choices. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, winter, Words

Morning Comes Gently

November 20, 2016 //
0

It’s relatively new for me to bounce back from trauma “so easily”. “Easy” isn’t a fair descriptor, really; I’ve worked hard to get here, practiced a lot of practices, and taken careful thought-out researched steps supported by the latest cognitive science and neuroscience on the topic of implicit memory, PTSD, cognition, learned helplessness, and behavior. I read a lot. Still… it feels so much easier. Considering how much of our experience is entirely and completely subjective (to the point of being largely made-up shit we’ve crafted internally), this is good enough to be “real”. In this instance, enough is quite literally enough; building lasting contentment through awareness and acceptance of sufficiency has become a remarkable way to maintain a state of relative joy and happiness much of the time. I bounce back. I am resilient.

What is “real”, though? Good question. Let’s not do that, today. 😀

This morning I woke, and still stumbling around groggily and sort of careening around the place lacking any obvious coordination, I found myself unexpectedly cleaning the faint smudge of soot from the tile around the fireplace. What the hell, though? I wasn’t even awake yet. lol I purposefully set that aside (admittedly, once it was finished), and made coffee. I stepped onto the patio, inhaling the fresh morning air, and gazing out across the meadow into the autumn treetops beyond. No hint of fear or anxiety. Nice. I refreshed the dish I’ve been using as a squirrel feeder, after emptying it of the rainwater it had collected. I sat down with my coffee, just inside the open patio door, letting the fresh air fill the apartment, and breathing deeply the scents of autumn. It’ll be a nice day for a fire in the fireplace, later perhaps.

I was hoping I’d see birds at the feeder, and have a visiting squirrel stop by. The patio was empty. I sipped my coffee contentedly, and picked up my phone and began to shop computer parts, thinking perhaps instead of replacing my laptop, I’d build a new desktop computer; I rarely actually take my laptop anywhere, or even move it off my desk. I like it where it is, docked, ready, and reliably always right there where I expect it to be. I am probably not the person for whom laptops were invented. 🙂 After some minutes of exploring the options in cases, hard drives, motherboards, power supplies, CPUs, cooling fans, and whatnot, I looked up and noticed that quite a few meadow birds had arrived for brunch, and a squirrel visitor had also stopped by.

Sunday brunch

Sunday brunch, no reservations

I switched my phone from shopping device to camera, and enjoyed getting a couple pictures of my visitors, before setting it aside and just chilling, sipping my coffee, and watching the busy brunch unfold on the patio. It’s a popular spot; the birds come and go, competing for their moment to grab some fast food. The smaller birds wait in the nearby pine for their turn, rather than compete with the flicker who is clearly much larger than the size of the suet feeder is intended to support. She playfully spins it around again and again, which drives away some of the red wing blackbirds who don’t hesitate to take a space quite near her. The chickadees and tiny sparrows prefer to pick at what falls into the nearby flower pots, patiently.

She's a regular

She’s a regular

The squirrel who has been coming around has a couple characteristic scars from surviving life in a busy apartment community full of cats, and is a recognizable regular visitor. Her ears are tiny, crumpled, and folded against her head – I don’t know if she is a different sort of squirrel, or if this is an individual characteristic. She watches me as I watch her, and no longer darts away for safety if I approach the screen door. Some mornings, I sit quite close on my meditation cushion, and sip my coffee while she nibbles at the corn and peanuts I’ve left out for her. If I say something aloud, she gives it some thought, listening to me, cocking her head and watching me more closely as she eats. Shared curiosity. One morning recently, before I left for work, and while I was airing out the apartment for the day, I’d forgotten to check the dish on the patio; it was empty. She came to the screen door that morning and got my attention with a loud squeak or call of some sort, and ran away. I looked out and noticed the empty dish, and refilled it before locking up and leaving for the day. I returned to an empty dish that evening. We have communicated successfully. This delights me.

We are each living thinking creatures, each having our own experience.

We are each living thinking creatures, each having our own experience.

The rainy chilly morning continues. I close the patio door, and sit down at my very borrowed feeling work laptop to write. It’s quite an ordinary Sunday. I’ll do some laundry. I’ll get some housekeeping done. I’ll read, write, practice with my guitar, meditate, take a decently long walk (probably after the laundry is done). I have my own way with these things. This is my life. This apartment mostly doesn’t feel comfortably “like home” anymore, and even that is okay; it tends to keep me focused on a future place, a future home. For now, I enjoy what is, more than I grieve what isn’t, and take time to relax and enjoy each moment on its own merits. Good enough.

Enough. Yeah… enough is a good place to be, and it doesn’t generally require as much emotional heavy lifting as chasing more, better, and happily ever after. There’s less frustrated yearning in “enough”. There’s less disappointment, by far. Getting to “enough” wasn’t achievable until I learned to let go of my attachment to what I thought I “should” have, or be, or get, or achieve… That persistent need to be “right”, that had to go, too. The sense that someone else’s “more” had anything at all to do with my perceived “less”, yep, right into the waste bin with that as well.  It’s been a complicated challenge learning to truly take life at my own pace, to really walk my own path without comparing my journey to life’s other travelers,  and to stop behaving as though my own experience is in conflict or competition with the experiences of others.

I sip my coffee and smile. It’s quite an ordinary Sunday. I’m quite an ordinary woman of middle-aged years and generally quiet living. None of this is sleight of hand, or illusion. Whether I’ve had less, or had more, I’ve generally had “enough” – the choice to be aware of it has been mine all along. How I treat myself in the face of trauma or change, that’s been mine, too. It isn’t always as obvious as it seems this morning, on a quiet Sunday, sharing the moment with meadow birds, and a squirrel. I’m grateful for the moment of awareness. I’m appreciative of feeling content on an ordinary Sunday.

Today is a good day to enjoy what is. Today is a good day to embrace sufficiency. Today is a good day to find joy in contentment, and appreciate having enough.

 

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

Morning Comes Early

November 18, 2016 //
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I woke at 2:46 am. I didn’t plan on making that a thing, but an hour later of quiet rest without returning to sleep makes the decision; I am awake. I woke wary and vigilant, and inclined toward anxiety. No point taking that personally, I remind myself, and shift gears. Yoga. Meditation. A cup of coffee. Morning.

Sitting at the table, sipping my coffee, I relax – and begin to feel sleepy. I could try to take advantage of it…but it’s already after 4 am and basically my usual waking time (although the alarm is set for 5), it isn’t likely I’d actually sleep, and if I did, the short nap would likely result in being groggy. The excuse-making is enough to assure me, I’m up.

The darkness before dawn.

The darkness before dawn.

The morning feels ordinary enough, although this place feels less safe than it did. I put a painting in the location the TV had occupied. I make a point to bring my work laptop home with me, and I don’t have to write using only my phone each morning. I am more acutely aware of the sounds of movement or conversation outside my apartment, and less easily able to ignore them. My experiences shape who I am – but so do my choices. I’ve been through much worse than coming home from work to find my house had been broken into. Seriously. A lot worse. …And those much worse things are behind me, I survived even those, and here I sit too early on a Friday morning, feeling just fine, and sipping my coffee. I’m okay right now. I smile. That’s kind of a big deal for a much younger version of me from a long time ago – I wish I could let her know. 🙂

I spend a few quiet minutes over my coffee. My mind wanders. I don’t stop it, and let my thoughts drift contentedly without directing them. There is so little reason to hurry the morning. There will be ample time to be purposeful later. I make a second cup of coffee.

Taking time, making room for this moment, now.

Taking time, making room for this moment, now.

Today is a good day to take the time to enjoy the moment, fully present, awake, aware; there’s no knowing how many or how few there will be.

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being

The Quiet and the Noise

November 17, 2016 //
2

I spent yesterday tidying up at home, and waiting for my insurance company to send someone. Still needing to find serial numbers, receipts, and the sorts of documentation insurers may want on items that have been stolen, I spent the morning combining the search with the housekeeping. It’s been more than 24 hours since I came home to the chaos of the break-in; I still find myself checking all the doors and windows to be sure they are locked, as though that would have made a difference (it’s my default to keep them locked).

Most of the lingering anxiety and agita have diminished. Late in the afternoon, an actual detective stopped by, asked some additional questions, photographed muddy footprints under the window through which someone (or multiple someones) accessed the apartment on Tuesday late in the afternoon. His visit, encouragingly, came with the suggestion that it is possible they found one or more of my belongings in an area pawn shop (well, that’s where they would have been headed, sure).  I find myself hoping it is the laptop, willing to shrug off the rest as “excess baggage”. He seemed very pleased that I had the serial numbers, receipts, and invoices.

There’s one thing about this experience that I know the recovery of my stolen goods won’t restore, and no amount of investigating will resolve it; this place no longer feels safe. This place is no longer “home” – at least not now. Maybe that will change? I’m open to that – change is. I know my heart, pretty well actually, and I suspect this moment will continue to catalyze the search for a more permanent long-term residence on a mortgage instead of a lease. In the meantime, I suppose I won’t be too hard on myself for checking doors and windows, or waking up feeling wary in the darkness. Under the circumstances, those things are no longer a matter of “being silly” in a “perfectly safe place”, just a reaction to a demonstrated lack of security in an unsafe world. Wow. That sounds pretty grim.

A pause to appreciate something nice can be so helpful. :-)

A pause to appreciate something nice can be so helpful. 🙂

I take a few minutes to breathe deeply, to relax. I sip my coffee in the predawn quiet. I am at the dining table. The quiet here isn’t silence. The trickle of the aquarium, the noise of the refrigerator, the distant whine of a train idling at the platform, the tick of the clock, and my tinnitus, all remind me that quiet is not a volume setting, it tends rather to be a place I find within myself. I’m not there yet. It may be awhile. I nod knowingly, to myself, and correct my posture – as though that changes anything else, at all. Well, if nothing else, it feels correct (and therefore corrected), which also feels more comfortable – and more ordered – which tends to promote that sense of “things being okay”, that often precedes a sense of safety… all of which I need to feel “at home”. I’ll get there yet. It’s a journey, and I’ve had to begin again.

The panic and hysteria of Tuesday night are behind me. Now it’s tasks and processes, restoring order, finding a feeling of safety again, and recovering my quality of life along the way. The insurance company let me down and missed on their service level agreement, by failing to reach out to be before 5 pm last night. Humans being human, no doubt. I never found myself angry about it. I didn’t honestly want the face-to-face contact with strangers in my space to continue. The day spent alone, quietly, was good healing time spent tidying up, and meditating. It felt enough of a relief from distraction that I am now acutely aware that the TV – really, video media of many types – had overstayed its welcome, and exceeded whatever unstated ideal use standard I apparently do have. I’m not missing it.

I didn’t sleep much (or well) on Tuesday, and I was too fatigued to make much sense of things, yesterday. Most of the day I was fairly numb, and focused on practical tasks – the doing of which was keeping me awake for the expected arrival of the insurance person. Once 5 pm came and went, I began to wind down for the evening. I don’t recall if I had dinner… I remember having lunch (around 3 pm, I think). I crashed for the night very early – around 7:30 pm? I woke to the alarm. I smile, recognizing that I clearly did feel safe enough (and fatigued enough) to sleep deeply. I take a moment to sit with that awareness for some minutes. My conscious perception of safety is not a perfect match for my implicit awareness – and taking time to be aware that I feel safer that I may suggest to myself when I think about it seems worth doing. Thoughts and feelings are different elements of our consciousness, neither is the ideal leader (for me); I work toward balancing them. Being very human, I mostly practice. I often fail. I’m okay with the failures; I learn the most from those, and I can begin again (apparently) any number of times. 🙂

I notice the clock; it’s already time to get ready to head to the office. I go to the studio to grab my laptop bag to more comfortably return to the office with my work laptop (I brought it home from the office in a tote!! lol)… and discover that my laptop bag is… gone. Well, of course. They took the laptop, only makes sense that they’d have looked all around the place for the laptop bag that was carefully put away in the back of a closet. So weird. I’m guess I’m glad they took such care… I mean… if I get it back it will lovely if it isn’t scratched up or wrecked. I feel a wave of anxiety sweep over me. “What am I not noticing is missing??” I take another deep breath, and relax; if I haven’t noticed it is missing, how important to me is it really?

Today is a good day for perspective. Today is a good day to stay engaged in this present moment, right  here. I am okay right now. 🙂 Still takes practice. 😉

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being
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