Archives for posts with tag: Monday Monday
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Covering Some Distance on Foot

October 13, 2014 //
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It could be a metaphor, although I did actually walk rather a lot this weekend, and had an eye-opening moment of perspective while walking from one point on a map to another.

Beauty is in the details, so are awareness, understanding, and love. So is growth.

Beauty is in the details, so are awareness, understanding, and love. So is growth.

It’s a quiet Monday morning, and I didn’t notice that I hadn’t been writing until the weekend was already over. I was kept busy by life and love and the doing of actual things. I was in a lot of pain, and also living well, and generally in a good state of awareness and with a pleasant demeanor. It was a pleasant weekend, generally. Life’s lessons this weekend tended to be more of the ‘slog through the exercises carefully and check your work’ variety than the sometime intensity of grand eye-opening moments or epiphanies of some more exotic sort.

Another side of beauty.

Another side of beauty.

While I was out on Saturday, I saw some younger girls tensely discussing their appearance and how to lose ‘enough’ weight; they were all very lean, wearing very fashionable clothes, and a lot of make up for such young girls. My initial reaction started out as one of active resentment and irritation. I struggle with my weight, too. As I passed one of them made an unkind comment; I’m not ‘thin enough’  – or ‘young enough’, whatever that means to them.  I contemplated the destructive power of the standard of beauty that is culturally enforced in the media, and wondered if these girls have any idea how ugly mean is, or how little someone else’s idea of beauty matters to ones own contentment?

I made a long trip Saturday to a store on the other side of town that I favor, and being willing to travel for what matters to me the journey was pleasant and necessary. I stopped for lunch on my way back and spotted a sign at the counter that got me thinking…

It's a sign...

It’s a sign…

I contemplated ‘food insecurity’ (my Granny would have called it ‘going without’ or ‘privation’) and leaner times in my own life, and later struggles with my weight. I let my mind roam, and considered other times and sorts of deprivation, shortages, and hard times, and later challenges with ‘greed’ in those specific areas. I was still standing at the counter, trying to order lunch. I made a connection in the moment between my recent success in managing my weight, and the ease lately in making decisions that are moderate, and appropriate to my resources. “Greed” is something I find I have difficulty feeling any compassion for… in myself or others, and I realized I still held on to some repugnant (to me) binge/purge programming deep in my operating system. I let my shoulders relax and smiled at the girl at the counter as I stepped up to order… a half portion of a healthy sandwich, and a bottle of water. I felt satisfied to be able to take care of my needs, and content not to go further. That’s been a big deal lately: sufficiency. When I stopped – really stopped – trying to fill some desperate feeling hole in my experience labeled ‘I don’t have enough to feel like I have everything’, I found myself utterly content and satisfied so much more often. What matters most, truly? If you live alone, is 4000 sq ft of penthouse with a view of the world necessary? Whether it is affordable is a different question. How many of us experiencing ‘food insecurity’ or some other form of privation put ourselves there by choosing excess in some other area of life? Too much house? Too much car? Too much credit? Too many pets? Too many dinners out? For most of us our individual resources, however plentiful, are finite. I am learning to make wiser choices with my resources, and my needs. Sufficiency, I am finding, often feels lavish, when I simply enjoy what is enough. Excess, as with a Thanksgiving meal, overshoots that mark so far that sometimes it neither satisfies nor sustains me…and is, itself, unsustainable.

A foggy morning heading somewhere...

A foggy morning heading somewhere…

Every journey begins. I don’t always have a clear view of where it will take me. It was that kind of weekend. One choice at a time, one step at a time, one opportunity to connect at a time… I’m building who I am tomorrow with each choice today. Today is a good day for choices, and a good day for consideration. I may be having my own experience… but life, love, and the world are not all about me, ever. We’re all in this together.

Perspective matters, too.

Perspective matters, too.

Sometime in the past, men did work. It was valued, and lauded, and a monument built to the work and to the men. Interesting details are celebrated and noted in life, and in this case one detail stood out for me, a connection across time…

Yep. They drank a lot of coffee.

Yep. They drank a lot of coffee.

So here’s to you, working people, on a Monday morning…

Coffee. Any form, every morning. Here's to you, Monday!

Coffee. Any form, every morning. Here’s to you, Monday!

Today is a good day to be a better human being than I was yesterday. Today is a good day to consider what I have done, and what I want my legacy to look like when I’m gone. Today is a good day to be the woman I most want to be. Today is a good day to love well, and to love honestly. Today is a good day to change the world.

 

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships

Monday Monday

July 28, 2014 //
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I’m  not blue, and it is Monday. I was allowing my mind to coast a bit, considering first this, then that, hoping this morning’s writing would coalesce into something coherent, at least. I thought of songs I know themed on Monday and went to Google. It still hasn’t stopped surprising me how much coincidence, chance, and serendipity gently bring my attention to things that support my growth, my progress, or enhance it somehow. This morning, my Google adventure resulted in finding a blog with a post about songs themed on Mondays.  An interesting find, worth exploring further, and another traveler’s narrative.

The weekend was mostly about exploring spontaneity, and practicing doing so mindfully. For me, this proved to be an exercise in strangeness, and overall I enjoyed it enough to find it was well spent, although I don’t care to utterly abandon my preference for planning. 🙂

Flowers and sunshine.

Flowers and sunshine, whether I plan them or not.

Yesterday morning I shared breakfast with a dear friend, and took a stroll through the local farmer’s market, and beyond that spent the day in study and contemplation. I took a chance on a lovely day and did some yoga outside. In the afternoon, I lost track of time, meditating in a shady spot for what turned out to be a couple of hours well spent. Later, studying spontaneously became napping, and while I’m sure I needed the rest, it resulted in being awake far into the night, hyper-vigilant and overly aware of our house guest, my partner’s Dad, staying over.  I’m hoping I am sufficiently well-rested that the short night doesn’t come at an emotional cost later. Of course, there are choices that matter; choices affect thinking and behavior.

A new week begins. In these first moments of Monday I gently remind myself of the work ahead, of the professional self I carry to the office, of how that does or does not fit in with supporting my needs over time. I no longer allow an employer to call my shots as a human being; I am more than the sum of my professional skills.

I miss my traveling partner fiercely. There’s nothing to be done about it, of course, besides tend my heart with care, and honor and respect my emotional experience.

The resident feline models ideal behaviors for 'how to miss someone'; she takes care of her own business, until they return.

The resident feline models ideal behaviors for ‘how to miss someone’; she takes care of her own business, until they return.

I feel vaguely unsettled and uneasy this morning. It’s a small thing. The morning is a quiet and delightfully still morning…but there is a stranger sleeping in the room next to mine. I know, I know… my partner’s Dad. That’s family, right? Well…yes and no. Her family. For me, he’s a man I’ve met a number of times…3? 4? Hung out with briefly. I don’t actually ‘know’ him. I take my partner’s word for it that it is safe to have him in the house – that’s the simple truth of it. He is her family, she vouches for him as a human being. I don’t actually know him. I must have given her an odd look in the evening when she said something pleasant in passing about me having my quiet morning, this morning, since she’d be gone by… because, really, although the morning is quiet, the subtle tense awareness of a stranger in this space is palpable. I don’t really know how to communicate to someone else that this is an uncomfortable feeling for me. I am on alert, waiting…watching the clock.

I remind myself how unlikely it is that anything alarming, dangerous, frightening, or unexpected might happen due to his presence. I take some deep calming breaths. I return my awareness to the moment and cherish my wounded heart that will most likely never trust a human being solely because they are a parent, even of someone I care for (perhaps especially of someone I care for; I know them, and the damage left behind in childhood’s passing).  What reason do I have for that sort of trust? Then in a moment of beautiful perspective, I think of a friend and our broader circle of shared friends, all on ‘baby watch’; she’s past due and eagerly awaiting the birth of her son. How beautiful and wonderful to see a child already so well-loved, waited for, prepared for, who will be received in such total love! She is a woman of remarkable heart and grace, and wholly suited to motherhood, not because she has nothing else to offer the world, but because she chooses to offer her love as a mother, in addition to so much more, and does so skillfully. If I could have chosen someone to mother me, as I headed for mortal form, surely I would choose such as she. So… parents, not all bad. lol

Choosing awareness. Choosing presence. Choosing 'now'.

Choosing awareness. Choosing presence. Choosing ‘now’.

Balance. Mindfulness. Perspective. Sufficiency. Today is a good day for big ideas that require only one word. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, gardening, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Big 5, Words

Life, Love, Labor

September 9, 2013 //
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Labor Day is past, and with it any recognition of the value of labor, perspective about work and employment, and respect for working class people in general. lol. Well, perhaps not, but it sometimes seems that way.  Living in a world where there is even room to argue about whether there ought to be a ‘minimum’ wage in the first place drives home a pretty clear message that people have a dollar value, and that perhaps it ought to be much lower… which is strangely consistent with the message that it is cheaper to slaughter them wholesale in faraway lands than it is to offer them employment.  We’re strange creatures, human primates.

Why am I even considering the plight of the working class right now? It’s Monday morning. lol. I am preparing to go to work. I don’t write much about work, or working, and certainly the details of my employment are largely pretty irrelevant to questions of ‘who am I?’ or ‘how can I be a better person?’.  What got my attention this morning was actually a Facebook post from a friend commenting on the high percentage of young people eager to retire before their careers even develop.  I’m not really surprised by that.  Personally, I’m generally quite surprised when people don’t seem to be eager to retire at all.  I’m also surprised by low-wage workers who, instead of railing against the low wages, fight to work more hours – as though the thought that the pay itself is what is out of whack doesn’t occur to them… as though they don’t realize they are worth more money.  I’m sure a lot of business owners, large and small, would like to pay less for labor than they do now… but my perspective (and reading) tend to support that the vast majority of workers are grossly underpaid as it is – to the very large benefit of very few people.

I’m not hopping on my soapbox this morning, it’s just an observation about my bemusement that we value ourselves, and our place in the world, so poorly as a general state of things.  Me, I’d love to retire. I’d retire tomorrow and make way for someone younger, faster, hungrier for glory… I would step aside right now, no hard feelings, if I knew I could support my family on my retirement income.  I have plenty to do – writing, painting, developing relationships, being.  (Employment, for me, has never been more than a path to have the resources to do these things, anyway.  There is no value in employed labor whatsoever, for the employed individual, beyond the conversion of labor to spendable dollars.  We’ve been deceived if we think there is.  The only exception is when we employ ourselves to build, make, create, explore, develop, or offer to the world something really new, otherwise, it’s just a job. lol. )

It’s Monday morning, after a very good weekend. I’d rather wake up, have my latte, and paint all day, or write, or walk, or have sex, or talk to friends, or shop… but I will head in to the office, soon, to do things for other people, that in the grander scheme of things are pretty… unimportant.  It’s how I pay for the next lovely weekend, and the next one after that, on into the holidays, and vacations to come.  I’d retire tomorrow if I could afford to.  I have so much I want to do… and so little time for me.

Happy Monday!  🙂

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