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Spring Rain

March 9, 2024 //
0

By the time I reached the trailhead this morning, there was a steady rain falling. When I left the house it was a barely noticeable fine mist, and I expected it to diminish, or at least pause, giving me a lovely opportunity to walk this favorite trail alone, early on a Saturday morning. I sip the coffee I bought on the way, and listen to the patter of raindrops on the windshield and sunroof of the car. I’m not annoyed or impatient; there’s still a chance the rain may stop before I give up and head home.

Waiting for a break in the rain.

The morning is a pretty mild one. If the rain stops I’ll get into the garden and do something… maybe weed the flower beds, or do a bit of careful pruning. My Traveling Partner invited me to join him in the shop at some point today, too. The weekend is shaping up to be a pleasant one full of good times and things to do. I smile thinking about the rain falling on the garden beds and the lawn. I feel safe and contented, and relaxed and comfortable with myself and my experience. I sit enjoying the moment for a while.

I think about my dear friend, so recently deceased. No tears this morning, just warmth and fond gratitude that I had the chance to enjoy so much of her devoted deep friendship for so many years. I am fortunate indeed. I miss her greatly. So many Saturday mornings my first email would be from her, a reply to, or question about, whatever I had written about that morning. I feel a moment of heartfelt pain every time I remember that she won’t be emailing me anymore. No texts. No calls. No unexpected little somethings in the mail. No comments on pictures of photos I shared with her. Sometimes it’s hard to know quite how to move on from that.

The rain continues to fall. I sit awhile longer, just listening and thinking my thoughts. The time isn’t wasted; I enjoy these quiet solitary moments. Soon enough, it’ll be time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, grief, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, women

Letting Go of What Had Been Lost

September 3, 2022 //
0

It’s been a month since I was laid off. Shortly afterward and largely unrelated, I took time to go through a large storage tote of odds and ends I’ve been hanging on to. It was a mix of military memorabilia and war mementos (why do people hold on to this shit??), and various employment-related paperwork items from past employers (decades of old reviews and accolades, exit paperwork, offer letters…). My purpose was to pare things down to just those items I really did want to keep. (I’ll make a point of observing that having kept the contents of this bin since the last time I went through these items some 10 or so years ago, I haven’t gone through them or needed/wanted to access any one item in this bin. Ever.)

The tl;dr on the process itself? I cut that bin of stuff down to about 30% of its original contents, with the remaining kept items being limited to a small assortment of military mementos, including 1 complete uniform from my war time deployment. The project seems to live on in lingering intentions to contemplate what I found and learned along the way; I had saved a quick draft with some notes.

about letting go of the past, tossing out mementos, old work papers, moving on from trauma, learning to truly let things go, shit like that

impermanence & non-attachment

fresh perspective on the woman I once was contrasted with who I thought I was at the time, and what it can teach me about getting to be that woman I most want to be

the value in keepsakes, the value in not keeping them

the added challenge in growing/changing if also clinging to reminders of what was

draft notes from the blog post draft of 9/12/22

This morning, I sit with my now-cold coffee, thinking about time, thinking about change, and thinking about how peculiar it was to actually read those old reviews and coaching notes (and yes, reprimands). It had been so many years, my own recollection of that time and those events was pretty firmly skewed toward me-as-hero-of-my-narrative. Fucking hell I needed a bit of work. LOL For one thing – I was 100% wrong every bit as often as I was 100% correct, and I was neither as awesome as some reviews make me out to be, nor as problematic as some of the warnings suggest I was. I was sometimes a liability and a headache, just by being myself, and probably quite difficult to manage, having both cPTSD and a TBI creating noteworthy cognitive quirks and emotional volatility.

Please note, I’m thinking back on events of the early ’00s, and well-before any legitimate push in the direction of “authenticity” in the workplace! Wasn’t a thing, yet, and quite often people really were punished or held back for the sole “crime” of being themselves and being different than the approved corporate drone template – which still goes on, but now we’re more likely to be offended by that. Progress? I’m just saying; I wasn’t always the “good guy” I saw myself as being. Very human. Also? Sometimes quite angry and kind of a bitch. Impatient. Inconsiderate. Smug. Rude. “Basic.” Unsympathetic. Lacking in compassion. Not a good look.

Sounds like I’m being pretty hard on myself. I mean, giving myself some credit …in spite of all that, I managed to find love…so..? Not a “lost cause” among human beings, surely. 🙂

The “truth of who we are” is more complicated that one perspective, even when that one perspective is our own. I know myself pretty well. I’m deeply acquainted with the woman in the mirror, but… until I really sat with a calm heart and new eyes to read those old reviews, coaching notes, and warnings, and really heard the messages, I did not understand the perspectives those Others were sharing with me. It must have been frustrating for people that it could be so hard to get through to me. I’m not into “taking it personally”, particularly at this late date; I am not the woman I was then. Still… I was that woman then. I understand her better now, not because of these old papers, but because I’ve gained so much new knowledge and perspective since then, generally. These old papers filled in some gaps, made sense of some “errata” that crept into my recollections over time. It was a great opportunity to loosen my grip on my existing personal narrative to allow that to be deepened and to become more nuanced through the addition of some really complex outside perspective.

I made a point of being open to listening to those past voices with more vulnerability, and willingness to learn as I went through all those papers. Does it change who I am now? Possibly not. Helps me understand who I was then more deeply, and provides a better understanding of how/why my journey over the years has had some of the complexities and challenges that it has had. Useful. Forces on me some useful and necessary humility, and if I’m being wholly honest, I need that. It also served to give me a moment to really put down some baggage and let go of some pointless bullshit that had lingered far too long. Needful.

If you spend your life thinking that you are Superman masquerading as Clark Kent, your choices (and words, and actions) are likely to be quite different than if you understand that you are Clark Kent daydreaming of being Superman. This is something worth thinking about. 🙂 Is there something so wrong with being an ethical person with a good heart, who is kind and who cares – but totally lacks any super powers at all? Just saying it’s something I think about.

Strange how I worked so hard to hold on to those papers over the years. They served no purpose besides taking up space… until I sat down and reviewed them, read them, and gave them real thought without taking any of it personally at all. And now? Having done that, I don’t need to keep them. What did I do with all that waste paper? Shredded and recycled. Gone. And then? Time to begin again.

Where does this path lead?
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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, grief, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships

What Matters Most?

July 10, 2020 //
2

Shouldn’t “embracing change” be easier than this? Is “easy” not actually “a thing”? Questions over coffee, on an overcast summer morning. My mind wanders unproductively between sips. The coffee is good, and that’s enough for this moment, right here.

I was sitting barefooted, cross-legged, in a favorite chair (the only comfortable chair in the new living room, presently… more room in the new house, same amount of furniture), on a morning so quiet I imagined I heard my Traveling Partner sigh as he woke, in another room. It’s a quiet house (so quiet!), and it seems unlikely that I actually heard the soft sound of his sigh, over my aquarium and my tinnitus. He approached a moment later, wearing his “just woke up” face. I offer to make coffee, and we share that. It is, generally speaking, a pleasant moment on a summer morning. I pretend, for the purposes of joy and love, that I’m not in the pain I’m in. I make room to be kind, and to listen, and to offer whatever support I can; he’s in pain, too. It’s been 10 days of fairly intense labor, getting moved out of the rented duplex, and into our home. For reasons of pandemic, and limiting exposure, we handled almost all of every bit of it ourselves, instead of hiring movers. I’m not sure I still think that was a great idea. lol

It was 10 days trying to get the internet set up. I wrote in the mornings, anyway. 🙂

“Home”. Damn, that sounds nice. I let the sound of it roll around in my thoughts contentedly for some moments. I find it so important to savor the successes – small, large, and in between. What I am suggesting is really taking time with those successes, enjoy and appreciate them, linger over their memory, and invest more of my cognitive and emotional bandwidth in that enjoyment and awareness, than I do in fussing over what didn’t work, or worked out uncomfortably or with problematic other outcomes. That “negativity bias” can really become an emotional wound, over time, swallowing up all the joy, and all the fun. Having a home of our own is a major milestone in our life together, and for me, in my own life as an individual human being. Huge win. Definitely needful to celebrate that. 🙂

I sip my coffee and look out the window of my new studio/office space here. I see the neighbor’s new fence, two pear trees, branches laden with young fruit hanging over the fence, and the cream-colored wall of their house just beyond. I see a sliver of gray sky. The neighbors – and neighborhood – are very pleasant, and very welcoming. Every new conversation begins in a similar way, with an apologetically, charmingly awkward excuse for not shaking hands or offering a hug; the pandemic is still a thing (very much so) in America.

…I hear my Traveling Partner call to me. As he wakes, his pain is more well-managed (mine, too, it seems very human). I want to hang out… I want to write. It’s been a while. There’s much to say, much to share. I think. Maybe. I mean… you’re here, reading, I should make that worth your while, yes? 😉 Perhaps, for now, this is enough?

Perspective, or view? What matters most? What is “enough”? Where does joy come from?

I sip my coffee. Finish my writing. I begin again.

 

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Categories Allegories, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Enough and Too Much

June 24, 2017 //
1

I didn’t get anything like enough sleep last night.

I saw a great little duplex early in the morning. I got home feeling hopeful and eager, but without any cause to make assumptions about the outcome. The unexpected phone call late in the afternoon, letting me know the unit is mine, and gently inquiring if I am still interested… well, sleep just didn’t come easily on the level of excitement that resulted. I still needed to get up early this morning to return the Zipcar I’d reserved. (From the perspective of going to and from the new place from this place it seemed practical to use a car, instead of public transit.)

Today, I’ll meet up at… holy cow… my new place (wow, I’m still so excited!) to pay the deposit. I’ll take public transit out from downtown (near the office) to the house and try out the commute for ease and travel time on a day when neither is critical.

It’s funny… my move before last, bringing me to the apartment community I currently live in, was a product of months of searching, looking at units, exploring the communities near work, and emotional uncertainty reinforced by Other People’s Drama (well… and mine, too, let’s be real). The choice never felt like it was really mine; it was the choice I ultimately had in front of me when the time came that moving was no longer optional. This current experience began with a similarly forced feel to it, then… it cracked open and changed completely when I met my new landlords yesterday morning, and got my first look at what will be home for the next year (and perhaps as much beyond that as life carries me before I purchase a place truly my own). I walked away feeling yearning and wistful to have the little duplex be my own, before a decision was made; I actually really like it. My landlords strike me as delightful people, and we connected over morning conversation, finding each other more alike than different, really wanting there to be a connection – and creating that experience together, over a common experience; we like that little duplex. 🙂

So, the move is on! It’s real. I have a new place, an old place, and a journey to make between them. Aaaaaand… the move date is sooner than I expected, and a comfortably negotiated compromise for both them and for me. I’d have liked to make the move later, to amass greater resources. They’d like to avoid having it vacant. They are, themselves, moving to another place, in another community. I’m scrambling… and yesterday the excitement caught up with me and wrecked my sleep utterly.

An unexpected visit late in the evening by my Traveling Partner, on his way from one moment in life to another, was an emotional salve and then some. He’s a very calming influence in stormy emotional seas. I wasn’t having tantrums, or meltdowns, or raging – but I was “over excited” like a little kid, and just couldn’t seem to soothe myself or achieve the sort of calm that promotes sleep. He knows me well. He knew just what to do about it to be helpful, and when he left I put out the lights, and called it a night. There really wasn’t anything “wrong” – I’d just had too much of all sorts of good things. 🙂

It’ll be some days before the move properly begins to show signs of actual movement between places, but I’ve got boxes ready, and a to do list, and a lot of experience. The excitement of it lingering in my memory woke me ahead of the alarm clock. I get the morning started, yoga, shower, writing and coffee, and…

…The anxiety hits me like a wall. What if I’m wrong? What if this is a terrible idea? What if this all goes horrible awry? What if it is too good to be true? I pause and stare across the meadow for a while; this won’t be my view much longer. Lingering dew sparkles on the grass and the points of the needles of the pine that seems so poorly placed, just beyond the patio. I sip my tepid coffee. I breathe. I relax. Change is. Sometimes that’s scary. It’s hard to trust myself – harder than I’d like. Second-guessing and anxiety about the move is going to come and go – because I’m human – and that’s got to be okay, too. I consider other moves, other experiences in life. My coffee is finished. I’m smiling.

It’s time to begin again.

…It’s a new dawn…it’s a new day… it’s a new life for me…

 

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, medical marijuana, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Walk It Off, Soldier

June 21, 2014 //
3

How often have I suffered, or hurt, and faced someone telling me to ‘grow a thicker skin’, ‘shrug it off’, ‘walk away’, ‘move on’, ‘let it go’… How often have you? It’s funny that comes up so often, I think, because it is only in very rare circumstances that such words have had any value, or benefit, in those moments of pain.  I’m not complaining, and I’m not angry.  I’m a bit puzzled, though; where did we – any of us – get the idea that the proper and effective way to soothe, support, or console another suffering human being is to tell them to stop suffering? It’s not particularly effective, and definitely sends a clear message to the suffering person that they are somehow in the wrong to hurt.

I wrote about a thousand more bitter words in that vein this morning, before I realized I had ‘gone off topic’… because this morning I am considering with some interest and amusement that I am actually at a place in life where I am indeed, in some small way, ‘walking it off’, and have been since my journey dog-legged through a crisis and veered hard in the direction of mindfulness, and self-compassion.  I’m not trying to ‘walk it off’ in a dismissive way, devaluing the nature of my experience, or to avoid meeting my needs, or to avoid facing the things that hurt so much…I’m not running away.  I am walking. A lot. I walk every day, and even days when my walking is simply the portions of my commute I handle on foot, I get a few miles of gentle contemplation, and forward momentum.  How is it that it matters so much? (The walking – and the walking with mindfulness, particularly?)

One journey or another; getting from here to there.

One journey or another; getting from here to there.

There’s probably science to it; I haven’t studied it.  I do know that on my most challenging days, when my brain fights any moment of stillness, of awareness, of self-compassion, or contentment, no matter how vicious the ‘brain attacks’ I inflict on myself; once I’m on my feet, and walking, the breathing takes over, and I begin to find peace. Sure, I may indulge in some negative thinking, frustrated rumination, or angry ideations in those first hundreds of yards, but once miles start ticking away, my head clears, my heart feels lighter and my mind is liberated, my thinking productive and lucid. Generally.

This morning I am looking back on the evolution of getting back on my feet. I am observing the steps I took – real and metaphorical – that got my weight down, got me off psych meds that were doing more harm than good,  got me away from the mesmerizing mental junk food offered by the media, the networks, and the cable companies. Got me away from a job that was killing my soul. I took steps – and a lot of them, most of them, were real steps – feet on pavement, feet on earth.

I felt real pride the first time I walked 10 blocks to the nearest grocery store – most of it uphill – after years of being sedentary and sedated.  I felt a sense of accomplishment when I was able to visit the big farmer’s market on Saturdays; for so long I had been so uncomfortably heavy I just couldn’t walk far enough to do it.  I kept at it. No car. Everywhere I could reasonably go on foot, I planned the additional time and didn’t take transportation.  I stopped asking friends for rides places. The weight kept coming off.  The milestones, and achievements of small goals, kept adding up, and the benefits have never stopped being rewarding. Beginning to commute on foot was a really big deal – and choosing to relocate to housing that put that within reach was one of the best things I have ever done to ‘take care of me’.  I’ve been ‘walking off’ the weight for a while now. It’s steady, effective, and gradual.  It requires commitment, consistency, and a hearty application of verbs, and it does work.  It only makes sense that eventually that process would take me further… parks… trails… getaways… sanity… wellness.

One step after another.

One step after another.

I had forgotten how much walking can also free my mind. A camera, some landscape, a journey… and the world becomes a wide open space, a distant horizon, a broad vista, and it’s different when it is more than a trip to the store.  The hiking I have been doing meets a lot of varied needs for me, and practicing mindfulness matters. Storming off angrily and furiously walking an aggressively paced lap or two through residential neighborhoods and retails spaces doesn’t have the same power to bring peace and healing as mindfully walking quiet remote trails, content and aware, and I’m glad I rediscovered that.

Wide-eyed and mindful, there is value in every journey.

Wide-eyed and mindful, there is value in every journey.

I’m spending this year, 51, walking Oregon trails. I’m making an effort to ‘walk away’ from my chaos and damage, and taking a gentler pace through my experience. I’m learning to treat myself kindly walking challenging trails; taking a walking staff or trekking poles, instead of risking injury by ignoring injuries I’ve already got, planning, being prepared, being aware.  I’m shrugging off drama, and ‘moving on’ from my trauma… by moving on; setting goals, trying new trails, exploring the unknown in real places as well as within.  I’m taking progress, growth, and  healing ‘a step at a time’ – literally.

Every path leads precisely where it takes me.

Every path leads precisely where it takes me.

I’m not sure when I really started down this path, as a thing all its own… was it the 5k last fall, on that dreadful rainy, stormy day?  That was certainly an achievement, and it encouraged me to walk farther, more, and more often.  It was a good next step from commuting on foot.  Trips to the beach and my partner’s recent camping/rafting trip definitely got me excited to take yet another step… and unexpectedly it has become a weekend practice to grab my gear and head for the trees, somewhere, for a few hours, quietly walking. Since that first hike with my partners – Cooper Mountain – I’ve also hiked Tualatin Hills Nature Park (through which was my original commute on foot, and a very emotionally safe feeling solo hike), and some of the trails of the Audubon Society Park. I’ve got Sunday hikes planned ahead for most of the summer, and two solo camping trips over weekends.  Friends and family already recognize my enthusiasm and commitment to this new activity; they recommend places they have been and enjoyed, and places they think I would enjoy, myself. It’s a point of connection between many coworkers, and I. I feel engaged, and involved in my life, and enthusiastic about each new adventure.

Life's curriculum isn't always about 'the hard stuff'.

Life’s curriculum isn’t always about ‘the hard stuff’.

Meditation. Walking. Healing. It sounds too easy, and if someone would have suggested it decades ago, I don’t know that I would have been sufficiently open to take it seriously, or to give it a fair try.  Still… I’m taking steps.  I’m moving on.  I’m… walking it off.

One possible future... and one beautiful now.

One possible future… and one beautiful now.

Today is a good day to plan tomorrow’s hike, and to smile and remember other hikes, and other good days.  Today is a good day to embrace what has value. Today is a good day to take another step. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Big 5, women
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