Archives for posts with tag: mindfulness
A mossy wall; a tiny world all it's own.

A mossy wall; a tiny world all its own.

Here it is, already Tuesday. I feel vaguely annoyed with myself that life got my attention with such a firm grip that I simply haven’t taken time to write about it, too busy living it.  I’ve been immersed in experiences of a variety of sorts, some definitely share-worthy, some definitely too personal to make that attempt.  So…pictures and words, and a handful of observations…some without the context that would render them fully meaningful, but perhaps the words themselves have value.

I rode on the train with a young woman on Friday. She was headed somewhere unfamiliar and asked about the stop.  She was strikingly beautiful – always difficult for a woman her age (not older than 14).  Unexpectedly, she complimented my eyes, although rather shyly.  I stayed open to the possibility of connecting with this interesting young stranger, and we conversed as we traveled.  She shared her challenges with ‘the mean girls’, from whom she had heard how ugly she is.  I assured her that my experience was that ‘the mean girls’ are no more secure in themselves that she herself feels, and that the greater likelihood for many of them is that they will blossom at a young age, treat themselves poorly, settle for less than their dreams out of fear and insecurity, and slowly fade away into mediocrity. lol. She seemed reassured that she wasn’t alone, rather than pleased that any ill might befall even these who treat her so ill.  A very pleasant young woman, and I’m glad I met her. I hope she does well in life.

I ‘had a moment’ the other day, and really needed to connect with some very special women in my life. I took time to email them, reaching out as though we could just sit down for coffee – I miss that closeness with old friends; so many are so far away.  The first email I got back was rich and warm and long… and felt like we were ‘just hanging out’ talking. Wow. How is it that a few words between friends can have that power? I have so much to learn. I have hurt so many people who are dear to me.  50 seems a good age to be a better person than I have been.

A favorite rose is already blooming…still? Have I already shared?  I have, I see. Not that I think there is a real limit on the number of times a rose is lovely. 🙂

'Baby Love' in bloom

‘Baby Love’ in bloom

The sunny days in the garden over the weekend didn’t do enough to distract me from things on my mind.  I’m having a hard time ‘finding my way’ on a couple of things very dear to me…and one of them will require skillful confrontation to address, resolve, improve, or act on… so… rather than that big big bummer to deal with, I took lovely pictures of the sunny garden.

Even in real life, some flowers are 'magenta'.

Even in real life, some flowers are ‘magenta’.

Some of the pictures are quite mundane – I’m an artist, but I don’t consider myself so with a camera. lol

Some blue flowers.

Some blue flowers.

…it isn’t as if there’s some huge crisis happening around me (aside from the usual this-n-that we all struggle with)…still…lovely flowers, sunny days, wholesome young women, friendly strangers…any distraction is enough some days.

More purple than blue, still flowers.

More purple than blue, still flowers.

I have things on my mind that are important to me.  Hard to communicate the urgency or magnitude sometimes…at least to people who ‘matter’ to me.  Why is that?  I so want the easiest communication to be with those I love, those who are significant, those who ‘have a place’ in my life…it so isn’t.  I meditate…and sometimes find myself holding my breath, struggling to ‘figure it out’ instead of just taking a moment to be.  I’m already learning – and it seems solid and true like the surface of a rock or a table or the embrace of a trusted friend – it is being that makes the difference for me.  I can think anything.  When I take time to still my mind, breathe, just ‘take it all in’ and ‘let it all go’ – I find myself.

Future blueberries...very promising.

Future blueberries…very promising.

 

The first rose of spring has opened in my garden. It is just 48 days until my 50th birthday, and for some unclear reason 50 feels rather like ‘the middle of life’ – although I am hopeful about living well past the century mark. A beginning, a middle…and an end; I am wearing a long-favored, old black sweater, and I am considering today to be it’s ‘last day’…

'Baby Love' is the first rose to bloom in my garden this spring.

‘Baby Love’ is the first rose to bloom in my garden this spring.

My old black sweater is an ordinary enough black sweater, of mixed synthetic fibers, soft and worn and comfy, with rather mundane cable stitch down the front, and quite large.  I bought it some 15 years ago, during a career change, and a point in my life when I was heavier than I am now. A lot heavier. This is a size ‘3X’ sweater.  It’s huge on me now, mostly pretty shapeless, and not particularly flattering. I’ve never cared about that – it has also been reliably comfortable, effortless to care for, and predictably rather invisible, in the sense that wearing it allowed me to fade into the background at a point in my life where anxiety and unpredictable temperament so ruled my experience that I appreciated having a way to hide from the world in plain sight.  Now, though, life feels very different and I am less inclined to hide. I also feel…healthy, beautiful, and alive – and I’m ready to say good-bye to being so wounded and afraid of the world that only being wrapped in a comfy old black sweater feels safe and warm.  Hugs are better. lol.

 
A sweater is only a sweater, after all… it isn’t a time capsule of memories and events associated with the wearing of the sweater, it isn’t the embodiment of who I am, or who I was, and it isn’t a cherished object of sentimental value clasped relentlessly by possessive withered hands frightened to let go for fear of losing beloved memories to the passage of time. (I may have once thought it was…)  It’s just a sweater: too old, too worn, too big.  It doesn’t fit me anymore.

 
I still like sweaters. I still like black sweaters. I even still like this sweater… but it is time to move on. Time to let go of some things that are not helpful to hang on to. Time to let go of things that get in the way of better things.  Time to accept and encourage and nurture change.  It is time for a new black sweater; sexy, fun, soft…and perhaps in a ‘slightly darker black’?

 
…Or perhaps not black at all.  In 48 days I shall be 50, and I’m clearly not a little girl, anymore. Some of it has been rough, but I think it will be fine if I stop wearing black…beginnings, middles, ends…this is what 50 looks like through my eyes, reflected in my mirror, considered in the context of my experience.

...on the other hand... approaching 50: my right hand, my right mind.

…on the other hand… approaching 50: my right hand, my right mind.

 

Sometimes the path is clear.

Sometimes the path is clear.

I had an interesting dream last night.  I found myself before a big ornate door, dark and imposing, and I felt a sense of uncertainty about where I was, and where I was heading.  I knocked on the door and as it opened felt I was standing before ‘the heart of the universe’.  A woman answered the door; a woman of uncommon beauty and serenity, with laugh lines rather than wrinkles, and of an indeterminate age that only seemed ‘not young’. She radiated calm, compassion, and wisdom.  She smiled and sunshine broke through clouds I hadn’t even seen.  She wore my face, but seemed somehow unknown to me in the course of my own experience of life.  I felt her inquire in a questioning way, but wordlessly, and what I thought I heard was more an assurance than a question “I can help you with this.”  I replied simply “Where am I going?” and felt we were truly somehow saying the same thing – as though questions and answers are entirely interchangeable.

I was suddenly in a sunny meadow walking alone, only remembering her, and her words and a big map, with a convenient ‘You Are Here’ arrow. “If your focus is on just one element of the journey, how will you find your way?  Consider the method, the map, and the destination, or be lost aging, not growing.”  She pointed to the map, “You Are Here is where you are, not where you are going.  We don’t choose where we start, we start where we are – and choose our destination.”  I had wanted to ask her again, ‘Where am I going?’, but her compassionate smile stopped me.  She held the door for me then, gesturing to the world on the horizon, “I can’t be you, now, you are not here, yet.  Soon enough, if you follow your path…”   I shaded my eyes from the sun as I stepped into the bright light of day… and woke suddenly, in my dark room to the eager beeping of my alarm clock, and a new day.

It lingers with me even now… “We don’t choose where we start…”

Spring flowers along the way

Spring flowers along the way

I wonder what the journey will be like…who I will become over time… how life will change me… how I will change life around me… now where is that damned map… 😉

So…um…right… I am humbled in the face of my humanity, and admittedly ‘doing my best’ isn’t always…adequate? Suitable? Ideal? Perhaps not even functional. I am very human.  Not unexpectedly, practicing mindfulness throws me the occasional curve ball, or offers me an intellectual or cognitive challenge I didn’t anticipate.

A great morning to share a smile!

A great morning to share a smile!

Yesterday,  I took a walk on the wild side… ‘brute force mindfulness‘.  O.m.g… the humor of it buoys my general good spirits today, and I am still sort of scratching my head that the eventual outcome included a completely unexpected ‘thank you’ for ‘being there’… but I am not sure I was ‘being there’ the way I’d ideally like to be for people.  No fooling, I had hit a wall of frustration at one point that actually resulted in my yelling – literally yelling, in a rather unpleasantly commanding tone – directives that were borrowed directly from my mindfulness practices…but… how effective is it to shout orders to ‘Breathe!’ at someone who is losing their patience ?  Or to resort to angrily demanding that someone  ‘Be here!‘ when they seemed trapped in some other moment?  (That last was only a fragment of what I was moved to say, but the ludicrousness of shouting commands to be in some way more mindful got to me before I got more words out, and I forced myself to shut the hell up before I went further down the path of the ridiculous.)

Compassion wins out, this morning, and I accept that I was in enough pain last night to be pretty easily tested to my limits, even with people who matter to me a great deal.  I sure don’t feel like I was at my best for emotional resilience, respectfulness, or consideration – and as humorous as it still is that I snapped in that very odd way, I hope to build a lifetime of good skills and habits that allow me to bend as a reed in the wind, instead, and to be able to comfort rather than berate.  I’d throw the hormone card, but facing menopause on the horizon, that’s really too unpredictable to be certain, and this morning it sounds like a crutch or an excuse, more than a mitigating circumstance.

It’s still pretty funny. 😀

My quiet morning resulted in some whimsy about the whole thing, and I want to say simply this; I’m in an all or nothing place with mindfulness, tending my roses and my heart with care, showing myself and my loved ones mercy, and living the best way I know how.  If I have to, I know to tell haters to back up, and just keep practicing and taking care of me.  In the mean time, I’m going to give myself a chance to appreciate the humor of life, and lighten up a bit.  😀  It’s a lovely Tuesday…

The words are not the experience...

The words are not the experience…

Strange weekend. Days of exploration, love, and practicing new things, of connecting with some more than others, of feeling distant pain (because sharing the burden is part of our human experience), of feeling pain close up (and finding myself no more able to help than I can when it is far away).  Mindful words and deeds when I could; practicing every day, but finding that however diligently I practice, the hormones will occasionally have their say – loudly. Still human. I checked.

An odd tangent… Since I was quite young, I’ve had a ‘theme song’ – a bit of tune that lingers in my head, sometimes playing in the background of my thoughts as I have my experience, often unnoticed, sometimes whistled or hummed. Care to guess? It’s a bit on the comical side… the theme music from ‘Dragnet‘ (the TV show). lol. No kidding. 😀  I think, this weekend, it changed.  It didn’t change to what I expected, though. I’d have bet on a simple Dave Matthews song, pure of heart, and strong, and great to sing out loud… ‘Dancing Nancies‘? ‘Gaucho‘? ‘Mercy‘? No, it isn’t any of those. lol.  Turns out it is ‘Lighten Up, Francis‘, a Puscifer track.  I’m not sure what to make of that, but it fits, and it feels right.

It is an amazing journey, but I am not sure what my destination will be.

It is an amazing journey, but I am not sure what my destination will be.

The morning was…different.  I slept well enough, I suppose, waking ahead of the alarm clock by many minutes, heart pounding, with an odd pain in my chest. Stress? Nightmares? Nothing I remembered on waking, nothing that launched into my consciousness when I had flipped on the light. I took my time and woke slowly and let a few deep calming breaths have time to gently sooth me before the physical feelings could morph into emotions of panic or dread.  The morning started well, but began to slide sideways very early, with the rising of my partners ahead of their usual routines, each for their own reasons.  All good; I enjoy the morning with my loved ones…but the morning seemed stressed and strange, and I did something new for myself to continue to enjoy the morning – I left for work early. lol. It just seemed the better choice today; enjoy a leisurely walk to the office, taking my time, and a new route, and giving my loved ones their own time and space to make of their day what they would.  It was nice to choose, to feel the choice as ‘well chosen’, to continue to enjoy my own experience with no strain or weirdness, and to feel confident that we’d all make our own way and do our best with things.

The walk this morning was lovely. No phone. No camera. No anxiety. I turned all that off.  I walked and listened to birds, smelled flowers, heard sounds of all sorts, and felt the soft spring air chill my skin with dawn’s drizzle (it wasn’t enough to call it ‘rain’).  I felt the snugness and heard the ‘shff-shff’ of new jeans as I walked; I’m down another size, and it feels good to be closer to my goal.  I have eager hopes that this evening will be sweet and calm, filled with laughter and kind words; it may not go that way, and I’ve no firm expectations on it, but it’s so nice to feel hopeful and eager, rather than anxious and nauseated from stress, which for many years I would have considered a better than average state of being.

I count the weekend as a good one, small stresses notwithstanding, and I am not deterred from continuing to practice mindfulness in life, even where emotions like grief, anger, or frustration are concerned.  I’m certainly pleased with the results of applying mindfulness to my hormonal experience…that felt like a win, for sure. One thing I really yearn for is the ability to share what I’m learning more easily with those I love when they are having their own challenges…alas, “I am only an egg.”  Maybe someday…