Archives for posts with tag: mindfulness
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When Practice Has to Pay Off

October 30, 2024 //
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So far pretty nearly everything this morning has gone at least a little bit wrong, starting with the restless night of poor quality sleep that preceded the start of the day. Realistically, I know to expect some days will be like this, and this one is certainly one of those.

I woke up on time, and even remembered the errand my Traveling Partner asked me to handle before I went to the office (getting the mail), while kindly expressing reservations about asking me to do more, out of concern for my fatigue and the amount of pain I’ve been in day-to-day. That was a pretty good start, and I would leave it there and overlook the smaller stuff (I tried), but as shit started going wrong, it got harder…

… I’d failed to lay out clothes for the work day and stumbled through my morning routine self-conscious about the noise I was obviously making…

… I spilled iced tea all over the floor while setting up my partner’s morning beverages…

…as I was picking up the mail, i dropped it into the street as I returned to the car and then shut my hand in the car door while trying to put my seatbelt on, to return the mail to the house…

… the coffee place I prefer (lowest price, best black coffee) was closed – the opening barista never showed up…

… the backup coffee stand was slow, and the coffee is pretty awful…

… traffic was bad and I got stuck behind a line of cars all stuck behind a truck going 40 mph on the highway during the commuter “rush”…

…I got to the trailhead too late to get a walk in at all (or write)…

… my medication alarm went off as I prepared to give up on my routine altogether, startling me, and my shaking hands fumbled my pillbox, tossing my entire day’s meds all over the floor of the car, much of which I never did find at all…

The drive to the office was thankfully entirely uneventful in every way. I’m not sure I could have endured another misstep this morning!

A less than ideal start to the day, for sure, and I’m “still dealing with it”, like ripples on a pond after throwing a rock into still water. I breathe, exhale, and relax. The office is quiet – and also uncomfortably cold. G’damn, what is with this day?? I sigh, and think of my Traveling Partner’s voice, saying “I’m worried about you. I depend on you. Slow down. Take care of you.” He’d be right to suggest that I slow down, although I don’t feel any sense of moving quickly, it surely couldn’t hurt to slow down and be measured and considerate with my movements, decisions, and even my thoughts.

I take the time to make a pour-over in the office break kitchen – a properly good cup of coffee will help, just by being a comforting ritual, and a pleasant moment. I remind myself, for perspective, that there will be other sunrises, other walks, and more pleasant easier other mornings – no need to take this one so personally. It definitely isn’t personal, just circumstances. Another breath, and a renewed commitment to non-attachment is also helpful. I make time to meditate, and let the morning’s aggravation fall away. It’s behind me now. I can begin again. It’s so easy to burn through limited emotional resilience in a few minutes of aggravation over small shit – and it can be challenging to restore what has been lost, but it’s for sure not impossible. I slow down, slower, and let myself have a few minutes to write and reflect and gain perspective. I breathe, exhale, and relax – and repeat as needed. I make a point to notice that I arrived at the office very much “on time” in every sense of the word, and in theory this puts the whole day back on track, aside from the spilled pills.

…No use crying over spilled milk pills…

I smile, and feel some of my tension dissolve; I’ve got a small assortment of “back up meds” that I keep in the office, mostly to ensure I don’t miss them if I forget to grab the day’s medication on my way out of the house some morning. Part of coping with a brain injury is an assortment of “tactical practices” that anticipate common challenges. My results vary – but I’m familiar with my most common “fail points”, and it’s a small thing to plan ahead for such occurences, so I do. (I mean, I try; my results vary.) My sense of “timing” still feels a little off, and somehow this cup of coffee tastes vaguely like curry (which is super weird, but fortunately I don’t find that to be an unpleasant flavor). I’m okay for most values of “okay”, and restarting the day feels within reach.

…So I do that…

It’s a new day. There are no bombs dropping on my town. There are no wildfires burning nearby. The autumn weather is relatively mild and rather pleasant. My pain seems to be at a relatively ordinary and rather manageable level today. I missed my walk, sure, but the sun will rise shortly, and the office is in a safe neighborhood; I can walk over my lunch break. I have a good sense of what I need to get done today at work, and that feels manageable, too. I make some oatmeal, sip my weird coffee, and begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, War and News of War

Daybreak Comes

October 13, 2024 //
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I woke too early. I definitely would have slept longer. I got up and started my day, anyway; I was awake. At the trailhead, I sit waiting for the sun, sipping coffee and trying to recall the significant seeming thought I’d had on the drive…or was it yesterday in the evening? I no longer recall the timing or the thought.

Daybreak came while I was still reflecting on lost ideas and missed moments.

A new day.

I sit wondering if I’ll be able to see the comet this morning. Probably not until later, if at all. I saw it yesterday (I think), as I was leaving this place. I noticed the odd number of people standing around watching the sunrise (many people, very specifically staring toward the eastern horizon). I looked out that direction, wondering why there were so many more people milling around than usual, and saw the small streak, low on the horizon. I didn’t know what it was, and didn’t think to wonder. I drove on. There’s something to learn from that.

The sunrise begins.

New sunrise. New day. I think I’d rather be sleeping. lol I try to remember why the fuck I get up so damned early in the first place and promise myself a nap later.

The bold orange, peach, and apricot hues of the sunrise hold my attention while I lace up my boots. This trail isn’t going to walk itself. I mutter something to myself under my breath about early mornings and this mortal lifetime, but the thought is gone as the words are uttered, and I don’t really notice and mostly don’t care. I’m watching the colors change on the horizon. I grab my cane, stand and stretch and lock the car. I begin again.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being

Dark of Night

October 5, 2024 //
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It’s shortly after midnight. I’m awake, not because it’s Friday night and I stayed up late doing something. Nope. I went to bed a bit early, in spite of the somewhat noisier Friday night guests, and crashed pretty hard. I slept deeply for a little while, but woke several times to discover I’d pulled my CPAP mask off in my sleep. Weird. I’m not surprised that woke me each time that it did; I struggle to fall asleep without the mask these days, in spite of it giving me occasional nightmares of having to wear MOPP gear. Not an experience I ever enjoyed, and not a bad dream I want to have. Tonight wasn’t about that, though, it was just weird. lol

I woke a little while ago, and my consciousness roused sufficiently to recognize more than that I had removed my CPAP mask – I recognized the likely cause(s). Acid reflux. Headache. Osteoarthritis. The exceptionally quiet darkness after a rather noisy evening. Now I’m awake. I took an antacid. I got a drink of water. I put on a capsaicin patch where my pain was worst. I took something for my headache. I got up and stood on the balcony looking out into the velvety dark night, out across the bay, feeling the cool air on my skin, and looking out into the night for some little while. No moon. Few stars – fog? Mist? Clouds? Across the bay, most of the homes along the Salishan Spit are dark tonight, which surprises me at this relatively early hour. No bobbing lights of shallow bottom boats on the bay. The tide is coming in. I stand awhile, listening, watching, embracing the solitude and the darkness.

It’s been a good couple days of painting. I’ve got another day of it, tomorrow. I miss my Traveling Partner – I’ll be happy to head home Sunday. I stand in the quiet darkness wondering how to bring “more of this” to my experience of life at home. I often wake during the night, at home, but rarely get up or doing anything much about it. Shared living subtly discourages it; I don’t want to wake anyone else. When I live alone, I often do something more than roll over and go back to sleep. Funny thing is, when I’m living alone, I don’t easily “just go back to sleep” – so getting up makes sense, and I do. No stress to it, just a way of living. When I am sharing a living arrangement, I tend not to be awake enough long enough to bother. I go back to sleep because going back to sleep makes sense. There’s no effort to it, these days, and no anxiety to being awake. I don’t actually know why there’s a difference in these experiences (for me). Perhaps living with my Traveling Partner simply finds me feeling somehow safer when I wake in the night, and more able to return to sleep because of it. I don’t generally “toss and turn” if I wake… I just go back to sleep, maybe after getting up to pee, or get a drink of water. Weird. I chuckle quietly to myself, that’s a known thing; humans are weird. lol

…The “more of this”, though, that I’d like to bring home with me, isn’t about the wakefulness in the night. I’m satisfied to roll over and go back to sleep, at home, in my own bed. I’m not grousing about that at all. It’s more… the art, the sense of creative presence and inspiration, the subtle feeling of freedom to “do whatever I want” in all the minutes of my day. Perhaps this really is best left to vacations and time away, alone… it sounds pretty “selfish” on paper, and a somewhat adolescent perspective on adult freedom – untethered from the very real responsibilities of adulthood that most definitely exist. I sit with the thought awhile, after I step back in from the chilly darkness of the balcony. I think about compromise. I think about choices.

I’ll go back to bed soon. I’m already both tired and sleepy. I’m only awake because my thoughts continue to meander wakefully, and I’m honestly sort of encouraging that, in spite of my awareness that sleep could easily overtaken me, given a chance. It feels like a luxury to enjoy the quiet of the night. The world sleeps, the moment is mine…

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being

Purpose and Gratitude

October 4, 2024 //
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I woke to a peculiar morning. It was past daybreak. Past dawn. Past the time the sunrise would have brought on the new day. I woke to a most peculiarly beige-infused sky… everything beige. The sand. The sea. The sky. It was… weird. I didn’t know what to make of it at all, and I snapped a couple pictures of the view of the western horizon from the balcony… that look completely ordinary on my camera.

No color adjustments, the pictures look… pink? Mauve? Equally strange, but not at all the color I saw with my naked human eyes, nor how they rendered on my camera.

I tried to find a filter or adjustment after-the-fact that might show the scene more the way I saw it, with limited success.

This is pretty close to what I saw, only even the water of the bay was the same orange-y beige of the sky.

It was strange. Very strange. It threw me off my expectations of the day, for sure. It didn’t last. By the time I made coffee, and made a short trip down to the hotel’s meager “breakfast bar” (a counter with some cereal and instant oatmeal, an air-pot of hot coffee, and a small fridge with yogurt in it), things looked more or less ordinary enough, with a rainy mist rolling in from the sea and showers in the forecast.

…Now I feel rather as if I “don’t know what to think”, which is quite an odd sensation…

I woke feeling rested after my wakeful time during the night. My dreams were rich and interesting. I woke feeling inspired and eager to feel the soft dry sticks of pastels between my fingers (although, for safety, I wear finger cots to prevent cadmium, cobalt, or chromium pigments from soaking into my skin). Seems a good day for it. (For which I am grateful, since it is one of the reasons I came to this place equipped thusly.)

It’s not a fancy hotel, but it suits the purpose.

My Traveling Partner pinged me a good-morning greeting before I woke. I returned it after he’d gone back to bed. He misses me. I miss him too. I am appreciative of my solitude – but also of the opportunity to miss my partner. Caregiving is hard, and tempers flare when perhaps they ought not. I know I could do better. I fucking love that man – and I mean to do better to treat him with love, patience, and kindness than I sometimes manage to do. It’s easy to take him for granted. It’s easy to be angry with circumstances and fail to differentiate circumstances from the man. Having some time apart reminds me how much I do yearn to be in his good company, how much I love his humor and his tenderness – and how hard it must be to be his best self under these trying circumstances, at all. This shit is hard. Caregiving is hard. Being the one having to accept caregiving is equally hard (and emotionally probably harder). I wish him well from afar, and pause to feel all the love we’ve shared over these many years. I’ve been with him now longer than with any one other human being – friend, lover, or family member. (Though I’ve had some friendships longer, those have endured quite a lot of distance between conversations and shared space – it’s not at all the same.) I left my parents’ home when I was 14. I’ve been with my Traveling Partner now, some 15 years. Wow. I know, I know – it’s not uncommon for monogamous folk who travel life’s path with a single partner they met when quite young to be together many decades; this still feels incredibly special and enduring to me. I’m grateful.

I’ll eat my yogurt (blueberry), drink my coffee, and walk on the beach before it begins raining seriously, then return to the room to paint in the diffuse gray light of this rainy day… a very pleasing way to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, autumn, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, inspiration, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being

Embracing Change

September 30, 2024 //
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Shit does not always go as planned. Actually, giving it some thought over my coffee, in the deep predawn darkness of an autumn morning while waiting for the sun, I have to wonder if perhaps circumstances vary from our human attempts to plan things more often than a plan ever unfolds as intended?

This morning certainly makes me suspicious of the value in planning. In most respects, it still ends up being a rather commonplace Monday, but instead of getting a hike on the local trail I favor, I’m at a more distant favorite. Instead of working from home today, I’ll be in the office. Instead of cutting the workday short to take my Traveling Partner to an appointment, I’ll need to remember to reschedule it for another day. I’m okay with all of it… though I clearly won’t be getting any laundry done while I’m working (and I feel grateful to have gotten much of that done yesterday).

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I slept like crap last night, after also staying up later than usual enjoying South Park with my Traveling Partner and the Anxious Adventurer (for whom many seasons are as yet unwatched). It was a good time and well-worth the deviation from my routine.

During the wee hours, I thought I heard an exclamation of annoyance or frustration, but upon waking heard only the quiet of a household at rest. I couldn’t place the sound and wasn’t even certain I’d actually heard something… but I had a message from my partner, left for me sometime earlier, letting me know he wasn’t sleeping and gently suggesting I consider canceling his appointment and working from the office. An easy enough change to make, the hardest part of that being deciding whether to respond (risking waking him) and remembering to make the call to reschedule the appointment for another day. After waffling a bit, I take a chance on a short response, and finish dressing and making coffee for my partner to wake up to later, and slip away into the early morning darkness.

Change is. Just go with it, when you can. It’s easier than fighting it.

I sit quietly with my coffee and my thoughts watching an autumn mist gathering in lowlands along river and creek banks becoming a fog that stretches over the highway. My Traveling Partner pings me a string of emoji; he is grateful for the coffee and feeling loved. He plans to return to bed soon. We exchange a few words. Fuck, I love that man. I miss him when we’re not in the same space however much I also enjoy my solitude. He’s quite remarkable and I adore him.

I sit smiling “for no reason” (isn’t love reason enough?), and feeling grateful. Love isn’t perfect – we’re imperfect creatures – but g’damn it is pretty fucking wonderful.

The mist has become a fairly dense fog. The sunrise comes so late now that it’s likely I won’t get a walk today without a headlamp and the will to walk before daybreak. One more change of plans. I sigh and put my boots on. I grab my cane and tuck my purse out of sight. I fumble in my backpack in the darkness (it’s always in my car in case of emergency) and pull out my headlamp. It’s as good a time to begin again as any other…

Walking through fog before dawn… it’s a metaphor.
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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, health, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, The Art of Being
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