Archives for posts with tag: mindful living
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Stillness and Beauty

August 18, 2014 //
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It is a lovely morning, following a great weekend. I could comfortably stop right there, this morning, and contentedly continue to meditate, or flip through images, or simply relax and watch fish swim. This, however, is time with myself I value, and taking this quiet time over my coffee and a few words nurtures something precious. I wonder for a moment about that idea, itself; do we each find some different little something to be the thing that fills our heart with a comfortable sense of who we are, or is it the same thing for each of us, only packaged differently? Perhaps both those things are true.

Details matter.

Details matter.

I spent a large portion of my thinking time yesterday considering how to arrange the space in the loft; we’ve made some different choices with regard to how we’re using some of our space. I’m going to have room to paint! Everyday painting. Any day painting. Room to work more slowly, and explore more details. Room to be more technical. Room to work large. Room to work, stop for a day, or a work week, and pick up the thread of a new painting and continue with it more fluidly, and with greater emotional integrity. Room to live actively in the headspace I’m creating in, surrounded by the work I’m doing. I’m so excited it is sometimes difficult to remain fully present and engaged in the moment, when some small detail occurs to me (‘Where will the aquarium go?’).

There are a lot of details, each a potential choice. What experience will I choose to build?

There are a lot of details, each a potential choice. What experience will I choose to build?

This change won’t  happen over night; there are other relevant changes in progress, and some work involved. I love having this to anticipate – even in looking ahead to it, there is delight. I’m also not prone to rushing stuff like this; taking my time with it reduces the stress of the change itself, which is a big deal for me. So, for now I am contentedly planning the details of changes to come, measuring space, measuring things, and doing the math. I’m sitting there, in the space-that-will-be, meditating in the openness and light, and contemplating the aesthetic of it, and what will be functional and beautiful, without being costly or impractical. I am making the space my own, even now, without moving one item from its current location to another. My heart is moving in. Suddenly our house feels far more homelike to me, and to a degree that exceeds most home-like experiences I’ve had.

I realize I’m sitting here, rather puzzled; how did I not get how important this so clearly is to me? Why have I turned a blind eye, or actively undercut my needs here, time and again over-compromising on an important value? What a crappy way to treat myself! I shake it off with a deep breath and a smile; I’ve only just begun ‘the second half’, certainly there’s time enough to learn to treat myself better than that. There’s time to make other choices. There’s time to appreciate partners who recognize how much this meets my needs – and potentially their own, as well.

There is simple beauty if finding my way, however slowly.

There is simple beauty in finding my way, however slowly.

Today is a good day to make new choices. Today is a good day to embrace change mindfully and with a serene heart. Today is a good day to enjoy the moment. Today is a good day to do my best, simply because it is my best, and that is what I do. Today is a good day to change.

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

Having Brunch

June 28, 2014 //
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I don’t know what it is about brunch. Maybe that the menu is sometimes delightfully unexpected? Possibly it has more to do with the profoundly leisure characteristic of ‘brunch’. No one has ‘a quick brunch on the way to work’. Having brunch is about taking time, slowing down, and stepping away from the routine sorts of meals of the work week. I rarely see signs advertising weekday brunches; brunch is for days off. I like leisure. Brunch is also not a solo meal. I may have a mid-morning or noontime meal composed of foods that are both ‘breakfast’ and ‘lunch’ – but if I am doing so alone, I don’t call it brunch. (I call it scrounging for something to eat, most likely. lol)  Brunch is probably my favorite meal if I had to choose one…or perhaps tea…or ‘tiffin‘, but that last is simply because I enjoy how it feels to say the word. lol

Many years ago, a work colleague (who would prove to be a most loyal friend of many years) left our shared employment. My reaction surprised me at the time; I felt insecure about losing touch with him. Deeply so. I didn’t really ‘get it’, and the medications I was on at the time weren’t helping me with that. I did what made sense at the time. I invited him out to brunch the following Sunday. For a long time – years? – we continued to ‘do brunch’, now and then even ‘breakfast’ (generally earlier, on the way to somewhere), regularly and frequently. We tried out brunch spots all over the area. I look back on those experiences as being some of the best times of those years. Loyal friends are rare enough, add that to a routine of a leisurely and excellent brunch and I find that any time I recall it, that experience is an experience I want to repeat.

I was just on the edge of writing a lot of words about emotions, friends, investing in what I enjoy most…sometimes it is enough just to do. Life is about verbs and choices.

Today is a good day for brunch with a friend.

It's about the conversation more than the coffee.

It’s about the conversation more than the coffee.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Big 5, women, Words

Let the Buyer Beware

June 23, 2014 //
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I woke with a headache, and although I am in a decently pleasant mood, the headache definitely colors my experience.  I’m also stiff.  No big surprise there; the hike yesterday was at the limits of what my current fitness and skill level permit. So worth it. I mean…seriously?

A lovely way to 'take care of me'.

A lovely way to ‘take care of me’.

This morning, my coffee tastes strong and no-nonsense; this is a Monday morning that isn’t fucking about or dragging its feet. There’s work to be done, and an entire new week in which to do it.  The headache just reminds me to take care of me, and to treat myself well, and gently, and with compassion.

I woke from an odd moment in The Nightmare City, well before my alarm went off.  What woke me was the sudden realization that an interestingly fundamental slogan in our culture is also exceedingly negative, defensive, and carries an implicitly confrontational subtext – and I’d never noticed before that as ‘cultural platforms’ go, it’s not a pretty picture of who we are. Ready for it? “Let the buyer beware.” (You knew that was coming, right? From the title of the post?)

Let the buyer beware.  Think that over for a moment. Maybe I’m completely off the mark; the teachings of The Nightmare City are not always obvious, and not always what they seem initially to be.

Let the buyer beware. Sure, okay. As a cautionary statement, it does make sense to ‘take care of me’ and give due consideration to something I may purchase – or ‘buy into’. I entirely agree, too, that an informed and savvy consumer doesn’t eschew the opportunity to examine their decision and make every attempt to ensure that an item, event, or ideology is as represented before making a purchase; it matters to be informed, and to make careful choices that meet needs over time. Still… think about that sentence. Let the buyer beware.

Is it just me, or does the sentence ‘Let the buyer beware’ tend to imply that it is expected, understood, and accepted that the sellers of goods, services, or ideologies will indeed use any and all means necessary to make the sale – without regard to value, fit, or desirability – resulting in the necessity of every potential consumer to defend him/herself from fraud or wasteful spending (of money, of time, of interest), and to be alert to being cheated? Wow. So… instead of reinforcing great ethics, and values, we earnestly remind each other, and ourselves, to prepare to be cheated, because we know how likely it is.  Practical, sure, but… wow.

Is this who we are? Defensive, negative, prone to treating each other badly, exploiting others to get ahead, willing to defraud, to cheat, to deceive… Honest is easier, open is far less complicated to sustain, fair and compassionate is a much prettier picture of who we are – or who we can be.  What subtle ripples does ‘let the buyer beware’ cause in our entire culture, in our shared experience, and our shared understanding of who we are as individuals, as a society?  More questions. More steps along a journey.

Today is a good day to reconsider assumptions. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Big 5, Words

New and Improved

June 12, 2014 //
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Well, or something like that; it’s my birthday. I make rather a big deal of some of them, less so of others, this one has been a strange wobbly roller coaster ride of achievement, change and the passage of time.  51 isn’t generally one of the ‘milestone birthdays’.  51 isn’t even cool enough to be a prime number birthday. It’s just… a year older than 50. 🙂

To be fair, 50 kicked ass in so many ways, how could 51 really challenge it on the very first day? So, we’ll keep things simple; dinner after I get home from work, a restaurant I like and consider a bit of a treat, and near enough to home that it won’t be a ludicrously late night. Sleep matters to my well-being and good cognition; 50 taught me a lot. I reached greedily for change, and learned a lot about choice, will, and love. I spent much of the year deeply invested in study and growth, and standing on the doorstep of 51, I feel a sense of purpose, and find that I have goals of my own that matter enough to build my life around them, to make my choices consistent with those desires on a daily basis, and to be willing to lean on those goals a little bit now and then and say ‘hey, I missed the mark here, I’d like to do this one differently…’. The occasional ‘course correction’ or adjustment in everyday trajectory feels less disruptive than it once did, generally. I am, overall, less stressed out, generally less confused, mostly more chill, and rarely deeply unhappy – only briefly, now and then.  It’s been a good year for change.

So…here I am. 51. As with most birthdays, it really doesn’t feel any different than 50 did, yesterday.  I’m okay with that.  Every day is a new experience, and it isn’t about age. Age and aging just don’t seem to be the Very Big Deal people so often make them out to be.  Yesterday I enjoyed a video that proves that point.  I’ve started hiking again, myself. I still work in my garden. I manage about 5 miles a day on foot during the week and yoga every day.  I feel pretty good, in spite of pain.  I feel strong and capable. Hell, I feel more beautiful at 51 than I felt at 20, and the photographs support that, mostly because the pained and tense, vaguely angry look on my face at 20 was off-putting, to say the least. At 51, I am smiling, joyful, and generally delighted with life and love. 51 is a very nice place to be in life.

Here’s to life and love and 51! Today is a good day to celebrate life. Today is a good day to enjoy love and work and growth and the small delights that keep things fun. Today is a good day to enjoy the world.

Where will my path take me?

Where will my path take me?

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, women, Words

A History of Predicting the Future

November 24, 2013 //
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It’s early on a Sunday morning. The house is quiet. My usual vanilla latte is exceptional this morning. My heart is calm. My loves are safely here at home, and from this limited perspective of a quiet peaceful morning, all seems well with the world and the most important event thus far is seeing that the new plecostomus, still in quarantine, is out and about busily going about the business of being the fish that he is.

My morning meditation concluded with a strange sense that I was somehow ‘unstuck in time’. My consciousness was feeling very open to the future, aware of the past and vaguely disconnected from both, poised comfortably between them in this pleasant ‘now’. I soon found myself thinking about work, aware there are only 11 working days left- counting today. Left of what? Well, left of now, certainly, where work is concerned. There may be others in the future. There’s that word again. ‘Future’.

The thought of fortune-telling crones, and hucksters, of psychics, and favorite aunts with a gift for guess work, filtered through my thoughts alongside thoughts of my work (meaning employment). I’m an analyst by trade, and have been for most of my adult life. I make my living ‘telling the future’ in a sense, although I do so using math and trending and spreadsheets, rather than tea leaves, Tarot cards, stones, runes, or the stars in the heavens.  The interesting thing about that, though, is that I’ve come away from a number of jobs wondering if the people who make use of analysts actually have a real understanding that it is something different than guesswork, tea leaves, or shamanism.  It starts to cause me a moment of bitterness and frustration, then I left it fall away with a deep breath and a smile. Because it isn’t actually relevant to my own experience what someone else thinks about the work I do, beyond providing me with data to make a wise decision about whether or not to do such work for them. lol.

Yep. Getting to this place was that easy. Nice one, brain, happy to have you on board with the new processes. 😀

This morning, what is real and important is that I love, and I am loved in return – first and foremost by my own self, invested in me, and supporting my experience.  The safety and comfort of my family, and by extension our more distant family members, our metamours, our friends – those are important, too. Even that wee fish in quarantine is more important than most of the things the world would have me attend to, using media slight of hand, and verbal trickery. That wee fish, living his life, figuring out his new world, discovering that he is safe and well fed, and finding whatever fishy contentment he may – even he is more important than most things, because he lives.

Ideologies do not live. Industries do not live. Governments do not live. Laws do not live. Societies do not live as entities independent of their individual members. What is more important about us, as individuals, than this precious life force, this simple existence, this presence to be felt, to experience, to share? All the rest is myth, lies, ‘color’, ‘spin’ – and distraction…or so it seems this quiet morning as I weight what matters most to me now. Where I to face the end of my life tomorrow, wouldn’t it be vastly more important as a measure of my humanity how I treat my friends, my family, my lovers, even a simple fish, than any task I ever completed for any employer? Life is quite specifically not about the paycheck.

So… on to more important things, then. 🙂  The wee fish is quite shy.  Knowing he could be expected to be shy caused me to watch him ever so closely, and in just a day or two it was clear that the under gravel heater in the quarantine tank wasn’t keeping the water quite as warm as my community tank – nor as warm as the new guy would like it. I was also finding it irksome to keep referring to him as ‘the new guy’.  He’s pretty fancy, as fish go, and really rather deserved a proper name all his own.  Science doesn’t serve me well there, personally, and I found his taxonomic name rather cumbersome (Hypancistrus zebra). I purchased a better heater, and one of my partners – who understands how much I value the whimsy of words and of naming  – helped me out with an exceptional name suggestion.  This morning, I delighted in watching ‘Wyatt’ (his whole name is Zoot Suit Wyatt. lol) explore his world; the temperature change definitely improved his experience.

Mindfully living. Mindfully loving. Mindfully tending my underwater garden and the life it supports. It’s a lovely Sunday for compassion, for affection, for kindness – and it is a wonderful day to change the world.

Zoot Suit Wyatt - the new guy makes himself at home.

Zoot Suit Wyatt – the new guy makes himself at home.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, Words
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