order and disorder | Evening Light

The holiday season is just at the edge of “now”. Thanksgiving is next weekend and I’m excited about welcoming my Traveling Partner “home” – to this home – for a few days of his good company, shared at leisure. I’ve been daydreaming about it since July – literally since I moved into this space. lol Dreaming doesn’t get me far, though, it just feels nice.

I shifted gears from dreaming to planning once he had confirmed confirmingly that he would indeed, no fooling, actually be coming up, and that he had a plan to do so. 🙂 This morning, I sat down with my coffee and made my weekend “to do” list, and extended my planning from thinking over the holiday menu, and how best to stock the pantry for his stay, to also putting the house in order for having a guest, and adding little touches like specifically stocking the bathrooms with his brands, preferred products, and common OTC remedies I know he favors, and “detailing” my space. This doesn’t send me into a frantic flurry of panicked task completion, because that isn’t who I am. What it does is give me some structure to hang onto while I tidy up my corner of the world, and prevents me from losing track of what I intend to get done. I won’t finish all of it. That’s absolutely a given; I will want to do more than is possible to do. What is also a given is that I am okay with that. 🙂 The weekend is about love and celebration and gratitude, and at no point has my Traveling Partner suggested that my real value lies in my ability to wash a dish, vacuum a carpet, or do a load of laundry. lol I do like order, and I enjoy being a relaxed hostess – tidying up a bit makes me feel more relaxed, and… prepared.

So, this weekend is the point at which I shift gears again, going from planning the weekend to being prepared for it – which has to include also be ready for all that is not/was not/could have been planned. 😀 Yep. You read that right; I plan for spontaneity, then attempt to be prepared for it. LOL 😀

A low stress, relatively simple holiday meal for two, and a weekend in my partner’s good company sounds like a lovely way to spend a couple days away from the office. I’m looking forward to it. Hell, I’m looking forward to the weekend of tidying up, too! Sure, there are verbs involved, and I’m not suggesting that I specifically enjoy doing dishes, vacuuming, breaking down boxes for recycling, or doing laundry, but I very much enjoy the outcome of doing those things, and doing them with care, because the outcome matters to me personally and supports the quality of life I enjoy. I have learned to embrace the doing of them as both necessary and precious. Every dish I wash is something I worked hard for. Caring for them makes a lot of good sense. The way I feel when I see how tidy my kitchen is, recognizing that this is something I have done for me, because I like it, feels satisfying and nurturing. I feel cared for. It doesn’t detract from that feeling that I am the one caring for me day-to-day – shouldn’t I be? 🙂

Don’t get me wrong – I am not a “neat freak”. Being tidy and orderly doesn’t “come naturally” to me, nor is it a compulsion. I have to work at it. The outcome feels wonderful, and I do love living in a very tidy orderly environment, but omg – the verbs. This is what makes it possible to use my own environment, cared for by me, to gauge my emotional and mental wellness in the moment; everything goes to shit when I am descending into disorder, having a rough time of things, or losing my damned mind. When I’m sick, I struggle to stay caught up on every day basic housekeeping – which means whether I am fully aware of it or not, I am also likely failing to care for myself well, and since I can see the housekeeping more easily than I can see whether or not I am taking care of myself, it’s an effective early warning system to simply look around and “see how I’m doing”, based on the housekeeping. Little things can say a lot. (Sometimes they just say I need to get more rest, because I’m too tired to care for myself, sometimes they say I am over-committed to other activities and need to spend more time at home.)

…I’m pretty sure that a horribly messy crowded disorganized insufficiently clean unsafe or unhealthy household actually literally “makes me crazy” – or, at a minimum, crazier.

Looking around, it feels good to see that I’m generally well-prepared for life, for guests, for friends to drop by. There are some things I’d like to get done. There are some small improvements I can make that function as reminders to take time for me. I’m eager for the work day to end, for the weekend to begin. I’ve got concert tickets for tonight… then… sleeping in sounds nice… then… chores! LOL I am every bit as eager to get started on the housekeeping as I am to go to the concert tonight. 🙂

…So many verbs.

My coffee is finished. I make a second cup and get started on a grocery list. Thanksgiving won’t prepare itself!

A steady rain falls this morning. I woke a number of times during the night, and it was raining then, too. My dreams were lively, rich in surreal detail, and graphic, but lacking in emotional content. However grim the imagery was, I felt nothing; my brain was just “taking out the trash”, clearing buffers, wiping away bits and pieces left behind that serve no useful long-term purpose. No nightmares, just data processing in moving pictures. It’s important that our consciousness be ready for a new day, it only makes sense that while I sleep, my brain is busy in cycles, resting, getting caught up on things, resting more.

(Note: I am not a sleep scientist, this blog post is not science, my subjective experience has not been rigorously scrutinized and peer-reviewed, following years of replicable research. There are people doing those things and they are very much worth reading! I’m using words, to share my subjective experience, my own thinking, lacking in any hardcore vetting against known science. My writing may serve someone a useful purpose, be helpful, or an entertaining read, but please don’t settle on me as settled science; do your homework. Use your critical thinking skills. Walk your own mile.)

I woke feeling more than usually rested. I woke feeling more rested yesterday, too. Both mornings follow days with much less involvement with my handheld device, my computer, or the internet, generally. I feel less distracted moment-to-moment. I feel less emotionally volatile. I am less easily frustrated. I feel more content. I find myself wondering how many generations of saturating all-day computer use human beings will commit to before becoming actually able to fully multi-task their consciousness, for real? (No, you can’t. There is science on that.) No doubt over time our consciousness will change with the tools we use regularly, we are adaptable. We become what we practice. Epigenetics is real. Our children’s children will have different characteristics than our Great-grandparents did. Some of those differences may indeed be cognitive. More to the point in this moment, though, is that setting aside the complicated dense multi-channel continuous streaming information into my consciousness for a couple of days has had real value on my overall state of being. I feel more relaxed. My rest is more restful. I feel calmer, less anxious, more easily able to “hear myself think”. I think I may have gotten more done, too, using my time more efficiently, and spending no minutes staring into a repeating feed full of copies, memes, and reshares for unmeasured hours of the day.

A favorite trail was flooded. It was necessary to choose another way.

The rain continues to fall quite steadily. It rained yesterday, and I enjoyed the short hike I took through the park in spite of it. Time well-spent, in the wind and weather, breathing the fresh air, seeing the trees tossing in the wind, and hearing the water birds on the marsh calling to each other. This morning the rain is falling harder, enough harder that some of the fun of hiking would be washed away in it. So… perhaps not this morning…

Favorite places for a moment of meditation are flooded, too.

I’ll spend the day taking time for being here, now, and enjoying (or enduring) what is real, and live, and in front of me. Tidying up a bit more. Taking out the trash, the recycling, and maintaining order. Those are useful practices, too. I have found that the state of order – or disorder – in my environment reflects the state of order – or disorder – in my internal world, as well. My consciousness seems only ever as ordered as my environment. Keeping my head, minding my emotional wellness, tends to result in more will to keep my home tidied up and very neat. Keeping a tidy orderly household seems to promote and support my cognitive wellness. I don’t know what the science says about all that; my experience confirms it for me, and as “ways” go, it works for me. 🙂

Today is a good day for practicing practices. Today is a good day to enjoy the woman in the mirror. Today is a good day to be open, to be kind, to be aware – and mindful that change is. It may change the world – we have that power. 🙂

Dream, Plan, Prepare

Taking Out the Trash

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Dream, Plan, Prepare

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Taking Out the Trash

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