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Approximately Infinite

August 31, 2015 //
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It’s morning, and the start of a new work week. I have my coffee, and I sip it contentedly contemplating the good night’s rest behind me, the work day ahead, and the reassuring joy knowing that my traveling partner will return from afar sometime today – although I won’t see him, myself, until tomorrow it feels good to know he will soon be near.

Light and flowers; I am fascinated by light as a metaphor for gnosis.

Light and flowers; I am fascinated by light as a metaphor for gnosis.

Love is not ‘forever’, generally; it is, only as long as it is, at which point it discontinues being. Some loves are brutally slaughtered by the will or disregard of participants. Some loves fade due to lack of investment or involvement. Some loves linger, maintained and managed, nurtured and valued, until all those doing that loving have passed on from the living to the dead – and a love like that may seem infinite, because all those touched by it recognize something remarkable and it lingers in their recollection. So…not quite infinite, certainly no more infinite than the yearnings that keep the desire for love ever in our attention, and at the top of so many to do lists. I am rambling on about love, although my thoughts were elsewhere, infinity-wise, until my traveling partner pinged me a cheery good morning; hearing from him, of course my thoughts are of love. 🙂

Raindrops on a rose named

Raindrops on a rose named “X-rated”.

I am sipping my coffee and thinking about life’s infinite journey; each day a new experience, each moment my own to engage, to enjoy, to savor, and I am offered a seemingly infinite series of such days, one after the after, each new… It’s not forever, though. My time is now, and will be until…yeah. Death. We are mortal. Life feels continuous. The journey itself seems strangely timeless in some moments, as though it does quite literally go on ‘forever’. Day after day. Moment upon moment. Thoughts. Emotions. Experiences. Dreams. Then, one day, I won’t wake up for another. Approximately infinite, because while my journey continues along a seemingly endless timeline of moments, at some point I, myself, am finite. I sip my coffee, still feeling quite content. Questions of ‘what then?’ don’t distress me; I am here, now. Perhaps there is something, perhaps there is nothing, in either case I am here, now, living my life and generally that’s enough. I haven’t learned all there is to know, yet. I haven’t found my way to the wisest possible perspective, yet. I haven’t mastered the practices upon which I build my contentment in life. I haven’t run out of ideas for paintings – nor exhausted the nearly endless supply of inspiration that fuels that creative work. I haven’t answered all the questions – or even figured out all the best questions to ask. I have not made an intimate sustainable connection with all the worthy beings with whom I might do so in one lifetime. I have not mastered love, Love, and loving – nor have I mastered The Art of Being. There is plenty to do, to experience, and to achieve in this one mortal lifetime – and how magical that there is no rush? Each moment its own, worthy of being savored… Each day unique, worthy of being explored… Each love, each lover, entirely individual and quite special, and worthy of being cherished – however things end. Aren’t we each many beginnings and endings, as beings?

Timeless questions; their greatest value is in the asking.

Timeless questions. Random thoughts. A series of moments.

I’m just saying. It’s a journey – the journey is the destination, and there’s more than enough time to take it moment by moment, awake, aware, alive; we reach the conclusion soon enough without hurrying. Being in this moment, now, and only this one, tends to slow the clock just a bit…or…approximately, seemingly so. I enjoy living most when I let ‘urgency’ fall by the wayside; nothing is more urgent than living my life well, and enjoying each moment I can, and learning something of value from those less enjoyable moments along the way.

When I rush, I so easily miss small things that hold great promise.

When I rush, I so easily miss small things that hold great promise.

So…this morning I sip my coffee, listening to the trickle of the aquarium, and the hushed sounds of the start of commuter traffic on a busy street somewhat near by, and watching the sky turn from night to day outside my patio door. I am unconcerned with other moments than this one, now. It’s a nice enough moment, as moments go, and somewhat uneventful. A moment on a Monday morning, worthy of being, but not in any way spectacular…letting even such a moment slip away unappreciated, unnoticed, un-lived would shorten my mortal journey in some subtle way…perhaps that’s the point I’m really getting at this morning; now is infinite. Well. Approximately infinite. 🙂

Look deeper. What matters most?

Look deeper. What matters most?

Today is a good day to be engaged in the moment, and living life beautifully. Today is a good day to move forward on my journey. Today is a good day to be reassured that however many minutes of my journey I may share with others, the journey I make is, itself, entirely my own. Today is a good day to choose, to question, and to walk on.  Today is a good day to live without waiting for the right set of circumstances.

With the return of the rain, I have a sense that autumn approaches; seasons change.

With the return of the rain, I have a sense that autumn approaches; seasons change.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being

What If?

August 28, 2015 //
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I am grooving to a Petey Pablo track, waiting for water to boil, and thinking how very reasonable that there is rain in the forecast; my traveling partner is out-of-town for a few days, and it seems reasonable to me that the very skies would have an emotional meltdown over the lack of his good company. I’m okay, because he’s merely traveling, and love has no proximity requirement, or expiration date. The moody cloudy threat-of-rain skies seem mildly appropriate, is all – or at least, entirely understandable. 🙂

I woke in the middle of my dreams, which isn’t my favorite experience. They seemed ‘relevant’ and potentially ‘insightful’ or ‘eye-opening’, but once my eyes did actually open they dissipated too quickly for further consideration…there were people…saying things…with emotional subtext…somewhere. Dreams are rarely urgently worthy of my attention, although it took me a lifetime to recognize that the headgames my conscious mind sometimes plays with me (to my detriment and disadvantage) are not off limits to my sleeping consciousness, and my demons dance regardless; it doesn’t necessarily give them significance, or meaning that is useful.

My coffee is very nearly perfect this morning – and tempting, although too hot to drink. The cup is too hot to hold comfortably…I found that out the hard way. The coffee is too hot to drink, and the tempting cloud of whipped cream I topped it with as a treat this morning tempts me overmuch – my tongue and the roof of my mouth paid the price. Lesson learned? Well…maybe. I’m still a primate, doing my best, and in the mornings my decision-making is at its daily ‘quality low point’ until my brain is really fully awake. I give myself the courtesy of refraining from self-deprecatory hassling or mockery – I don’t need it from me, really, I already know my fingertips are a bit sore from trying to hold that cup, and my mouth is already scorched from trying to sip too-hot-coffee. I think I’m good there, no further berating needed. lol

A paragraph later, and some fun dancing to Gangnam Style – I love how random my morning playlist is – my coffee is finally sipping temperature. I dance across the living room, coffee in hand, headed for the open patio blinds to watch the dawn…my neighbors probably think I’m mad. I don’t find value in self-consciousness or shame being a part of my daily experience – certainly, even being over 50, and not ‘dancer fit’ at all, I am disinclined to give one moment to whether a woman my age/weight ‘should’ be dancing where people can see me. That’s such obvious bullshit it was urgently necessary to put it aside as soon as I woke to the understanding that it is indeed bullshit. Dancing feels good. A quick exploration of dance styles and fads over the many decades of humanity will reveal that some of it is definitely more about how that must feel than what it looks like. 🙂

A favorite Crystal Method track turns up – and I turn it up; I’m excited to see them live on Saturday. There’s definitely that moment considering the concert when a feeling of self-consciousness does arise; I feel it most when I consider how much younger ‘everyone else’ may be, how more easily they may move, how beautiful and sexy youth is… Youth, I remind myself gently, is very much its own thing, with its own fears and doubts. Nothing to be concerned about for me – over 50? I have a lifetime of experience and perspective, and I am having my own experience. For me, it’s sort of the point of that favorite track in the first place.

Detail from "Emotion and Reason" 2012

Letting emotion lead on life’s journey may not be ideal…

What if everything were suddenly quite different? What if my traveling partner didn’t make it back? What if I woke up utterly unable to dance because my arthritis had become so severe that my spine wouldn’t move at all? I live alone now; what if I have a stroke and there’s no one here to help me? What if my resources run out before my life time does? “What if” is some nasty stuff – it quickly becomes anxiety if I give it a chance to grab onto something I can’t shake off. I’ve learned something sort of interesting about the emotional ‘what if’ scenarios, though; if I go ahead and allow myself to consider the extreme fully, frankly, and in a truly practical way – without the emotions that so urgently want to have their say being the focus of attention, it usually becomes quite obviously both fictitious – like so much of what my mind offers up – and manageable if it played out in real life along the most likely trajectory. For example…what if my traveling partner didn’t make it back? I would grieve, no doubt there, I would grieve a long while. The fear of grief and grieving is what drives the anxiety, but the fear isn’t even real fear – it’s a projection of an emotional reaction to a situation that has not happened. So, I comfortably set the fear aside, along with the recognition that I would grieve. Then I take a look at what life would be without my traveling partner, and come up with… living. Outside the fear of grief, there’s little to cause stress…I would live my life, working, paying bills, painting, writing, gardening, investing in other aspects of my social life, eventually (most likely) cultivating another satisfying adult romantic sexual relationship with a worthy partner… Nothing could ever change what my traveling partner and I have shared so far, and that would always be mine, and part of my experience. “What if” scenarios tend to be this way, for me, explored they are harmless – but there’s the rather practical matter of refusing to allow the fear of my emotions to become the fear of my potential imagined circumstances.

"Emotion and Reason" lit differently - how we view emotions, and how we use reason, make a difference.

How I view emotions, and how I use reason, makes a difference in my experience.

Isn’t it strange that emotions can be so scary? It seems odd when I think about it; they have no more substance than my thoughts, although they are a more commanding experience in the moment. I find that my reactions and attention reliable turn toward my emotions first and more attentively, than to my reason. I try to be mindful of that, because they are also quite intense, and not particularly tied to ‘reality’. Emotions are often driven by assumptions, expectations – or something I ate, or the ebb and flow of my hormones, or…nothing I can directly observe or be certain of. Sometimes they are more similar to the experience of taking a mind-altering substance than they are to ‘reality’ in any real sense. They are most certainly not to be trusted in life’s driver’s seat for long.

Perspective matters. "Emotion and Reason" acrylic on canvas w/ceramic and glow 2012

Perspective matters.
“Emotion and Reason” 24″ x 36″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic and glow 2012

Today is a good day to breathe, to feel, and to be mindful of the content of my thoughts; they have only the substance I give them. Today is a good day to be present, to be okay right now, and to walk on – fear has trouble keeping up when I do. Today is a good day for love, and for living. Today is a good day to notice how very small the world actually is, and how little distance matters to love.

Starting the day thinking of love - it's a very good start.

Starting the day thinking of love – it’s a very good start.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Fiction, Free Will, grief, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Oh, Hey, Don’t Kill My Vibe!

August 19, 2015 //
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I woke with a stuffy head this morning – a cold? No, just a stuffy head. Allergies? I guess…maybe…or maybe my head is just stuffy? The morning I feel slow, unproductive, distracted, sluggish. How human! My attempt at iced coffee doesn’t have enough ice…the coffee ice cubes melt down, and the result? A tepid coffee…taller than usual. Not really the desired outcome…but it was an after thought, midway through making coffee. As is often the case with whims, the lack of planning, the inadequate preparation, and the lack of focus result in the sort of hit or miss outcome that, in this instance, is clearly farther along the ‘miss’ end of the spectrum. I’m having to invest in a positive state of being a bit more actively than usual.

I put on music that keeps me moving and puts a smile on my face. My sleep wasn’t especially restful. In addition to the stuffy head, I woke feeling sort of… desiccated, and headache-y. My traveling partner has indeed been traveling, and we hung out last night, it’s possible I got exposed to a head cold virus…but it doesn’t really feel quite like that… Why am I fussing over it? There’s more value in the awareness, the acceptance, and dealing with it – the why is sort of pointless, isn’t it?

Needing a moment of joy in the temple of my heart.

Needing a moment of joy in the temple of my heart.

I am thinking about the evening, hanging out with my dear love. Emotions come and go – my volatility is off the charts this morning, and I don’t understand that, either. Cuddling together on the love seat, hanging out, talking, and just being together, it was wonderful celebrating the profound connection we share; I miss living with him. I don’t miss the niggling little bullshit arguments that crop up when we live together, and seem oddly important in the moment – those I am happily doing without. I don’t miss the two of us tripping over each other’s baggage, and aggravating each other’s issues. I don’t miss those peculiar moments of doubt when I look into his eyes and wonder, just for a moment, if I actually understand what’s going on at all…or the look of doubt in his when some moment is seriously affected by my injury, and he wonders whether he can make love work with that.  (Yes, I can see it.) I definitely don’t miss the challenges around living with the mismatched assorted others in our experience that aren’t a good fit for one or the other of us; I definitely find not living with the OPD an improvement. I miss living with his smile, though, and his touch, and his everyday utterly inappropriate humor. I miss his scent, and his aesthetic, and I miss his conversation. It’s hard to ‘get enough’ of any of that without living together…on the other hand… I’m enjoying me so much more comfortably without the constant self-consciousness, and self-doubt that crops up so much more when I live with other people.

It looks like we’ll be seeing more of each other; I’m really settled in now, and this is a comfortable space to hang out, to be, and to enjoy each other. It’s a drama free zone. I look over my shoulder at the fireplace and imagine a crackling fire in autumn, feet up, arms around each other… Yes, Love, I am happy here. This works for me. This is my home.

Home.

Home.

This morning, though…I’m moody, irritable, and potentially a walking negative outcome waiting for the wrong moment to become real. What’s up with that? Freaking moody human primates! Who needs this bullshit? This morning I am working at the task of ‘defusing the bomb’; it’s less than desirable to go into the office teetering on the edge of having my temper flare up unexpectedly – at work it wouldn’t matter whether the context seemed ‘reasonable’ or the reaction ‘understandable’ for the circumstances. People are uncomfortable with strong emotion in the work environment, generally. This morning, I practice the practices intended to boost my emotional resilience – also those that tend to reduce it. This morning I am taking time to meditate. Then more time. Then another time. Then some time while I boil water for coffee. And after my shower. And when I got up. And a few minutes from now… yeah. It’s like that today; chasing stillness while the worst of my volatility simmers in the background, likely to go off without warning.

So much of life is about love and loving.

So much of life is about love and loving.

Al Green begins to sing to me about sexual healing – a light bulb goes off in my head – is that all this is? Am I a bitch in heat, grumpy and frustrated, and without a ready outlet to meet that need? I chuckle with gentle sympathy for myself, out loud, shaking my head – it’s a lifelong challenge managing my libido and my injury. Together they add up to a sex drive that no partnership but one has ever satisfied, and even that only survived the endless need for about a year. I am learning to go without more graciously. I am learning to accept love’s delights less demandingly. I kind of have to – real life, in this area, doesn’t manage to feel like ‘enough’. I am at least learning to accept that I will be drowned in enthusiastic hyperbole in every new relationship as potential lovers assure me they can easily meet my needs, and assurances that they too have a crazy high sex drive… It’s almost impossible to communicate successfully that we’re talking about very different magnitudes of drive; the disappointment each time I face that moment in a partnership when the truth of it becomes clear is always a bitch to deal with.

My thoughts stray to the approval of flibanserin – a drug intended to boost female desire – and I gotta wonder, if a person doesn’t want sex, how is that ‘disordered’? If level of desire can be a disorder… then what about women such as myself, where my level of day-to-day desire creates problems because it seems – to my partner(s) – excessive? I assure you, if feels perfectly normal to me.  Am I to be expected to take a drug to make me want sex less? I could see taking an appropriate medication if my body’s response to desire wasn’t consistent with my psychological or emotional experience of wanting… but… to make me want, if I don’t? I don’t get that. It is, however, a very hard conversation to have to have with someone when they are not desired…particularly if the relationship has a sexual component. It happens. It’s even happened to me – which is damned awkward. Still… I think having the honest conversation makes more sense [to me] than taking a mind-altering anti-depressant class of drug to force oneself to feel desire, when desire doesn’t exist. Maybe those honest conversations could result in people taking steps to create desire through action (the Big 5 is super helpful there)… or move on to a relationship in which their needs are more easily met? Seriously. If the sex matters that much (it does for me), and I can’t get what I need in a relationship, there are other choices than ‘going without’ (or ‘enduring what is not desired’), or ‘taking a mind altering drug to become more what the partnership requires’…but a lot of those options do involve investing in additional relationships of some sort. Inconvenient. Time-consuming.

Yeah. I’m feeling cross and bitchy today. I’m feeling critical of myself, my mood, my writing… and I’m betting that if I do something as small as just easing up on myself this morning, it’ll be a much better morning straight away. I’ll just set this one aside right here, today, and move on with the morning, taking the very best care of me that I can.

Stick with the basics - it's a great place to start.

Stick with the basics – it’s a great place to start.

Today is a good day to avoid taking my own bullshit too personally. Today is a good day to treat myself gently. Today is a good day to remember that we’re each dealing with our own bullshit – and we’re all very very human. Today is a good day to invest heavily in kindness – it’s free, and there’s an endless supply – and it might change the world.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women

Today Is Unlike Any Other

March 30, 2015 //
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Moments lack permanence.

Moments lack permanence.

Today is unlike any other day, because it is uniquely always ‘now’; it is today. Yesterday is among so many other past days.  They queue up in an orderly fashion, following rules of time and the passage of time; yesterday has become memory, lacking in substance. Tomorrow, too, is without substance, stretching infinitely ahead with the rest of future events, lacking even the ‘reality’ of memory, of having once been… Tomorrow is only a thought of things to come, and perhaps a bit of planning built on what isn’t yet happening at all, and may not, ever.

Really, we’ve only got ‘now’, ‘today’, to work with in any practical way. We can apologize for past events – there’s a lot of that going on, day-to-day, among well-meaning people. We can make promises or plans for the future – some of us crave more of that than others. Some of us see-saw between past hurts and a future more distant from those. Some of us balance delicately between past joys and a future that feels more uncertain. Perhaps we all do some of both?

I find it easy to look past today without intending to. The outcome is generally that I have less ability to affect my future willfully, and less perspective on a past I can’t change.

Today tends always to have the potential for action, for change, for the moment to bring will and choice together with a verb or two…neither yesterday nor tomorrow afford us that chance. I guess the puzzle is how best to learn from all those yesterdays, to plan a tomorrow in which I thrive – and to do so in a way that provides me an opportunity to take action today to bring me closer to where I most want to be…but to also do so without striving, or attachment.

Life’s lessons about attachment, specifically, are brutally difficult – at least for me, at least today. Oh, there are easy moments of clear vision and contentment, confident that the path ahead of me is paved, mapped, and free of obstacles. That, too, is an illusion. It is as illusory as the more difficult moments when it feels like I am wading knee deep in chaos and damage, in the darkness, with my eyes closed, banging my shins and stubbing my toes on a real life that is only to happy to keep moving the fucking furniture around or changing the rules.

This too will pass. Change, unavoidably, is. What will become of me? Whatever I make of me. And what of love? Well…love will attend to its own affairs if I attend skillfully to mine. Love, too, simply is. The challenge there is holding love’s flame within, trusting that the heart’s pilot light can’t really be blown out so easily. A friend recently wrote some beautiful words about love I am still finding relevant in this moment.

Today is a good day for perspective. Today is a good day to practice good practices, and good processes, and to trust incremental change over time. Today is a good day to take care of my heart with the same tenderness I would give to anyone else. Change is. Change always is – and it is always ‘today’. Today I’ll make the most of that.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, Spring, The Big 5, Words

Fog, Pain, and Solitude

November 8, 2014 //
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I’ve got a solo weekend. The morning, so far, as been still and quiet…and strange. I didn’t sleep well, but I don’t feel fatigued. I tossed and turned wakefully much of the night, and managed to use the entire area of a king size bed alone…every corner, every side, diagonally, crosswise, splayed like a starfish, curled up like a hedgehog, with pillows, without pillows, blankets, no blankets… which is most peculiar since I generally sleep in just one or two positions throughout a given night, sometimes laying flat on my back throughout, rarely rolling over (it’s a remnant of domestic violence, and nights when any movement might give away that I wasn’t sleeping, or remind my spouse I was there, at all). I sometimes wake in the morning to find that the covers are not even a little disturbed from the night’s sleep, just turned down at the corner from getting up, looking like a dog-eared book page. So…yeah. I didn’t sleep well. I didn’t want to wake early, and went to bed tired, sleepy, and ready to just sleep until waking caught up with me.

As it turns out, waking caught up with me around 2:38 am. I had some fun cat naps between then, and when I finally gave up and got out of bed, around 5:00 am. No nightmares. I feel reasonably well-rested and satisfied with the comfortable knowledge that I can nap later, if I care to. I took my time with my yoga. I had to. I’m stiff this morning and the pain of my arthritis, which is in my spine, is indescribably vast and commanding of my attention. This morning my spine feels like a rigid column of pain, on which my head sits; a first for me, I think, to have continuous arthritis pain from the vertebrae just above the line of my hips, to the second vertebrae above my shoulders. I keep finding room in my experience to be somewhat impressed by the completeness of it. I suppose that’s better than laying in bed crying because it hurts. I don’t really want to waste precious mortal time that way.

Droplets of mist gather everywhere on a foggy morning, each one a tiny universe for life I can't see...or perhaps a miniature gazing ball on the world I can see. I suppose it depends on my perspective.

Droplets of mist gather everywhere on a foggy morning, each one a tiny universe for life I can’t see…or perhaps a miniature gazing ball on the world I can see. I suppose it depends on my perspective.

It’s another foggy morning. I love fog as a metaphor for the unknown, the unseen, the mystery of potential, and choices yet to be made. I enjoy walking in the fog.  I enjoy the whimsy of imagining that as I walk I create the world around me; each step I take revealing some new detail, what is beyond view slowly emerging. Yep. Almost 52, still daydreaming everywhere I go. lol. 🙂 It’s a quality of self that I value a great deal; it has held the power to make the tragic and painful endurable, and it has kept me going long after I would have quit without it.

Tears unexpectedly begin pouring down my face… arthritis pain? No, it’s just old trauma, old hurts; there are things lurking in the darkness that I never really stop crying over. These days I don’t fight the tears that come when my heart is touched by my own hurts; I keep a safe space for myself, in my own heart, to comfort me, to show myself compassion, to recognize that it has indeed been a lot to go through, a lot to survive, and to recognize that these honest tears are no sign of weakness or failure. In a sense they are a strange celebration of strength; I am here, and that’s a pretty big deal, considering what I have overcome. I only need, in this moment, to be kind to myself and let the tears fall without stress, without anger, gently supporting myself on the strengths I have. Tears pass. There’s plenty to cry over, but it doesn’t need drama – only love.

Autumn is a season of change, a good time to break patterns.

Autumn is a season of change, a good time to break patterns.

Today is a good day to take care of me. Today is a good day to be fully present, and engaged in the moment, even if all I do is flip through a holiday catalog, answer my email, or have a coffee in the chilly autumn garden watching the dawn unfold beyond the fog. Today is a good day to appreciate how far I’ve come, and how good things are right now in spite of pain. Today is a good day to make choices that create the world I really want to live in. How about you? What do you think… shall we change the world?

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, grief, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, Words
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