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Awake and In the Moment

August 23, 2014 //
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The title sounds promising. It is, however, the truth and for the moment nothing more. It’s 2:11 am. I am awake in this moment. I was so incredibly sleepy, and feeling deep down tired when I went to bed, early, last night. I slept deeply, soundly, restfully… for two hours. Then another two hours. And another. This time, I meditated for a while but didn’t find myself feeling like sleep; I’m not anxious, so calming and soothing myself didn’t result in anything but a calm heart. Nice by itself, I’m not bitching. Yoga, too, did nothing to return my interest to sleep, but my back feels a bit more limber, and I am comfortable but for my throbbing ankle, which by itself would not keep me awake.

I wandered the house restlessly for a moment or two, and stepped out into the cool night air and looked for the stars. Living near a huge Intel facility that lights the night sky, seeing stars is not a given, and tonight the cloudy skies are illuminated from below; there were no stars to see tonight. I sat quietly in my studio (I love saying that!) for a time, contemplating the work in progress, and giving some thought to an idea developing in the periphery of my consciousness, and feeling ‘at home’. I am neither uncomfortably warm, nor feeling chilly. I am quite comfortable. I feel at ease.

Why the hell am I awake?

It’s a rhetorical question; there is no why. I am awake. The world is quiet and dark, at least from my current vantage point. No trouble-shooting required. I quietly amuse myself flipping through the evening’s Facebook feed. I am content with being awake, for the moment, and looking forward to the morning with friends at the Farmer’s Market.

Having read a considerable amount of the science available regarding sleep, I have my monitor brightness quite dim, and enough gentle room light to prevent the monitor from being a high-contrast light source. My intention is to prevent whatever I choose for entertainment or passing the time in the night from becoming something so stimulating that it actively prevents further sleep. I take a moment now and then for deep cleansing breaths, and a chance to observe the slow approach of the shores of dreamland. I’ve learned a lot about enjoying the wakefulness in the night without discouraging more sleep. I yawn. I smile. It’s coming…

I don’t know what tomorrow will hold, but poised wakefully in this moment between yesterday and tomorrow, feeling satisfied, balanced, and content, I’m feel ready for it. It’s been a lovely week.

It's been a week of colorful flowers...

It’s been a week of colorful flowers…

...blue skies...

…blue skies…

...and beautiful summer flowers in uncountable numbers...

…and beautiful summer flowers in uncountable numbers…

...and mornings chilly enough to catch bumble bees napping.

…mornings chilly enough to catch bumble bees napping…

...and hot sunny afternoons.

…and hot sunny afternoons.

It was a lovely week, indeed. I find myself yawning and thinking sleeping sounds like a fine idea…I wonder what tomorrow holds?

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, Summer, Uncategorized

Downhill Slide

August 15, 2014 //
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This week has been peculiarly difficult in spots, amazing in others; the challenges seem to outweigh the benefits just at the moment, but that may be a byproduct of whatever new Hormone Hell I am enduring, or simple lack of sleep. My sleep has been disturbed for a couple of days now, and last night I was wakeful until after 3:00 am, the last time I checked the clock, and I needed every moment; the alarm at 5:00 am sounded actually annoyed with me for not being able to wake to shut it off sooner than a dozen or so beeps into the morning. I’m tired. I’m emotional. I’m saying good-bye to my traveling partner, and feeling my own feelings, having my own experience, facing my own challenges; this time around it’s too much, I guess. I am alone, for the moment, weeping quietly as I write.

What’s with the emotional intensity? Why is my emotional experience so uncomfortable for others? Why is theirs so uncomfortable for me? My brain and my heart and the things that I feel don’t ‘feel age’…but my body is sure taking a beating with the whole ‘aging process’ and I find myself resenting the hell out of it, wondering where it leads, struggling to find balance and meet needs. Struggling to feel valued, desirable, meaningful. This morning is an emotionally difficult one. I’m fucking exhausted, and the last shreds of functional intelligence know it, but I’m so tired I also have obviously impaired executive function, and my emotional volatility is through the roof. Hell, I don’t want to be around me right now, why would my good-hearted loves want to endure it if they can walk on?

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Looking up as a positive metaphor, although beauty needs no justification.

I’m doing my best. Pausing for cleansing breaths, meditating, doing my best to be compassionate with myself…but fuck, all this hurts so much right at the moment.  This week has been too much for me…and not the too much of terrible experiences or trauma, most of the week has been filled with amazing highs, achievements, connected conversation, delightful moments… The number of minutes in any given day is the same. This week has been crammed with experiences and emotions, from my amazing solo weekend – that I’ve yet to have a few minutes to really process – to the joy of the travelers coming home, changed by their own experiences. There has barely been time to share any of that, because it is also one of the busiest professional weeks I’ve ever had, filled with long hours, new software, and new knowledge.  I’d be in better shape this morning if I’d been able to sleep last night, I’m sure.

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Practices require practicing

So now what? My coffee has gone cold. My heart feels heavy. Tears just keep streaming down my cheeks… I have to go to work soon. I am alone when I want so much to be in the arms of my traveling partner. My feeling of connection and intimacy and warmth feels sheared off, as if too much happiness just won’t do, and must be cut away before I get too comfortable with it. My experience of self, itself, feels painful. I just don’t know why.  I have trouble accepting that ‘too tired’ could be reason enough, and that ‘too tired’ plus ‘hormones’ is more than reason enough, and that ‘enough’ is a good place to find balance, and stillness, and accept that this what it is, and just be. I want to feel loved, but even in my own heart I feel myself recoil from me, even as I see that desire to recoil from me reflected in my partner’s eyes. This shit sucks.

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There are choices, changing those changes everything…how to choose the better choice is a question.

Our mortal lives are so finite, so brief…it is pure raw unfairness that even one moment would ever feel like this; love exists, I still know that. I wish I didn’t feel so completely cut off from feeling that experience. Like it or not, eventually we all face the evening light.

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Feeling very mortal indeed, this morning.

Today is just one day. Today will teach me something about being the woman I most want to be. Today will be one of many in the rear view mirror all too soon, and it’s part of a bigger picture of precious minutes that cannot be repeated. Today is most especially a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, grief, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, women, Words

Pop Quiz in the School of Life

August 5, 2014 //
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Yesterday feels very far away from this morning. For me personally, it was eventful and busy. For the world, filled with turmoil, conflict, confusion, suffering…and not much more if you rely on the news for your information. Babies were born, though, and are loved. People find each other, connect, experience passion, romance, and love each other. The vast quantity of human knowledge grew a little more, although it’s hardly going to make a dent in the even more vast quantity of knowledge we don’t yet  have. There was sunshine, and storms, rain and breezes; there was weather. Some people shared what they have. Others guarded their assets closely. Sick people were cared for, and the dead were mourned. The living thrived in various degrees, struggled, faced challenges, grew as individuals, made choices great and small. It was a day, and it is behind me now, in the past.

We exist in the context of our experience.

We exist in the context of our experience.

Funny how our choices and experiences build our future out of that past bit we’ve already had. We’ve got right now, if we need to make still  more choices, tweak things a bit, or reach for some desirable moment or object on the horizon. My yesterday has a ripple effect well into the days ahead, that much I can see and is very real to me. What about days further out? Or years? Those, too, may be affected by yesterday, but when I get there will I have any awareness of the moment of yesterday that I’m standing on?

My traveling partner is heading to a festival next weekend. My at home partner is taking advantage of an exciting opportunity to join him there, and have an experience. I am excited for her; it will be a very new experience. I’m happy for him to enjoy the companionship of a loved one at the event. I am not suffering, because the ripple effect washes over my own experience most pleasantly; I will have an uninterrupted weekend to paint. It’s a rare treat, and already a stack of new canvas waits for me, and I am immersed in inspiration, and eager to begin work. It’s still days away. Days of delightful anticipation, and planning, and considering the moment to come with great joy. (I hope my partners have even half as much joy and wonder in their weekend experience as I get from painting.)

The artist within is already hard at work.

The artist within is already hard at work.

These days of planning are important for me. Taking care of me, and being self-sufficient as an artist with a brain injury, means taking steps to ensure I do stop painting to eat, care for myself, and handle daily chores (like feeding the pets and attending to their needs).  Without some structure, I lose myself in inspiration and put my health, sometimes my safety, at risk. (I once filled my apartment with smoke and almost asphyxiated myself while doing sketches and watercolors of… smoke; a neighbor broke in on my reverie, and possibly saved my life.) So, the next day or two is about supportive infrastructure – alarms, reminders, notes to myself stuck here and there, little attention-getters to ensure I eat, sleep, and take care of what must be done, so I can be free to paint. For days. I’m very excited.

I can be amusingly impractical. My at home partner is eager for my needs to be met by this change of plans, herself, and excitedly pointed out that I’d have the car all weekend. I felt puzzled about the relevance of that, and it was not until this morning, in the shower, that I realized that although I know I am not likely to go anywhere while I’m painting, that may not be obvious to anyone else. lol Perspective isn’t just helpful, some things are not understood without it.

Balancing the practical and the emotional is part of the ongoing experience of studying perspective, of being mindful, and of understanding sufficiency.

Each moment, each experience, utterly unique, and entirely our own making. Choose wisely.

Each moment, each experience, utterly unique, and entirely our own making. Perspective matters. 

Today is a good day to be a student. Today is a good day to consider choices, and choose wisely. Today is a good day to treat myself well, and kindly, and show the world similar care and good treatment. Today is a good day to move softly through shared space. Today is a good day to consider how I can help ease someone else’s burden, even if for only a moment. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Big 5, women, Words

Notions, Sundries, and Baggage Claim

August 4, 2014 //
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This is not a travel post. I say so simply because the title might lead one to believe, for a moment, that it is – especially if stumbling on this blog for the first time, and being unfamiliar with my rather loose and abusive way with words. (Not abusive of other people, no, abusive of the words themselves, I’m afraid, exploiting them night and day for metaphors, and forcing them to behave in accordance with my will, and whim.) So, here we all are. It’s early, I’m feeling playful, and… right. Let’s begin, shall we? 🙂

Flowers are a lovely place to begin, with a deep breath, and a moment of wonder.

Flowers are a lovely place to begin, with a deep breath, and a moment of wonder.

I’m still contemplating perspective. There seems so much to learn from that. My three foundations stones to becoming the woman I most want to be are rock steady, reliably serve me well, and can be counted on to be some part of ‘restoring order’ when chaos begins to take over. I have grown to count on them: mindfulness, perspective, and sufficiency. Perspective proved its worth yesterday, when my good mood slipped, in a moment of rather childlike feelings of loneliness, isolation, and distance, which overcame me in the evening. My internal insistence on gaining – and maintaining – healthy perspective in the moment, and being mindfully aware of my emotions, and allowing myself their utter humanity in a kind way resulted in writing, re-writing, considering, re-considering, drafting, editing, contemplating words in email form for some time, stripping out the drama, trying again…all to find my way to simply communicating to my traveling partner that in that moment missing him seemed almost unbearable, and I felt sad without that connection, not just of flesh but of heart as well. I suspect I failed more than I succeeded, but waking this morning I find myself content that I made such a solid effort, and managed to remain largely very positive, and found that emotional resilience exists, and that balance was possible. Still…A+ for will, for intention, for effort… perhaps a C, at best, for my imperfect results…and the outcome was off the charts for success, because Love is what it is, and does what it does, when we allow it.

What we see of a 'bigger picture' is rarely 'all there is'...

What we see of a ‘bigger picture’ is rarely ‘all there is’…

It didn’t hurt that he phoned me straight away, reading in my email that I felt disconnected and lonely. It was lovely. A short call, a connection across the distance, a moment to hear each other’s voices.

...What matters to us, as individuals, in the moment, is as much as matter of choice as happenstance...

…What matters to us, as individuals, in the moment, is as much as matter of choice as happenstance…

(Notice I say nothing about whether or not these are effortless choices. Choice generally does require some effort, some exertion of will, some intention.)

...our focus, where we direct our attention and our effort, change what we see and understand of the world. We are each having our own experience.

…our focus, where we direct our attention and our effort, changes what we see and understand of the world. We are each having our own experience.

What is important to a bee, on a summer day, in a field of flowers, does not set a standard in my own experience of ‘what matters most’, nor does the individual understanding of ‘what matters most’ held by any one other human whose experience abuts or overlaps my own; it’s more than a requirement that I set my own standard, choose my own course, follow my own map – it is unavoidable.

Taking a step back brings perspective; the small stings and stresses of life are small indeed viewed in a broader context.

Taking a step back brings perspective; the small stings and stresses of life are small indeed viewed in a broader context.

So, this morning I am contemplating what I am learning about perspective. My current notions suggest to me it is essential to my long-term emotional health, and for living life from a place of contentment. My experience of life is something like an unimaginably vast jigsaw puzzle – with one piece missing. Over time, more pieces are gently placed in my puzzle, and I see more of the picture developing before me…and there’s more.

However lovely the picture in my puzzle, before it becomes a picture, the puzzle must be completed. It's about the journey, more than the destination.

However lovely the picture in my puzzle, before it becomes a picture, the puzzle must be completed. It’s about the journey, more than the destination.

Today is a good day to practice what works. Today is a good day to reflect and consider how the pieces fit, and what I can learn from my experience. Today is a good day for perspective. Today is a good day to acknowledge my challenges as my own, cherish my efforts, and recognize my successes; the smallest success in life is worthy of celebration. Today is a good day to put down baggage. Today is a good day to laugh over common struggles. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Big 5, women, Words

Catching the 5:48

July 29, 2014 //
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It’s 5:48 am. Nothing spectacular about it, it’s just a moment in time, and I happen to be living it. I woke to the alarm, with a stuffy head, a headache, and a feeling of resentment (over the headache, mostly). “Aliens.” Yep. That was the first word to drift recognizably through my consciousness. I frown at that thought, and realize it’s my brain reminding me we still have a house guest, and one whose preference is to sleep with the bedroom door open; wandering sleepily down the hall with bare feet, naked, and hair in disarray would be…inappropriate. I paused long enough to let my consciousness catch up to me a bit, before I headed down the hall. A shower. Yoga. Meditation. Facebook…and utterly  shameless about prioritizing that; a very dear friend had a baby late yesterday, and that’s where the updates are going to be. Now, here I am. 5:48 am.

I’d like to have more to say this morning. I could fearlessly share the subtle sadness that goes with seeing someone so dear to me, who is so exquisitely skilled at motherhood, and whose partner so clearly adores and supports her, having a baby with this person she loves so deeply…it’s not an experience I will have. Motherhood isn’t just a big deal culturally, and it isn’t merely necessary to further the existence of the specie, it’s a unique individual emotional experience and biological function of femaleness – at least until science goes somewhere different with that. I’ve been pregnant, sure. 5 times, actually. No babies. At this point, the equipment is offline, and it isn’t likely to come up short of a potentially religion-changing miracle. I don’t have a clear regret about it; I knew when I was 18 that the path of motherhood wasn’t the one I cared to choose. Still…when I look into my traveling partner’s eyes, when I am in his arms, there is this incredible yearning to have the experience of motherhood with him. It’s very biological. Very emotional. It is profound. I see the picture on Facebook welcoming this tiny new life into the world, already so loved, and I ache – it’s not just any baby that trips that circuit, only babies held in arms of exquisite encompassing love. I would so do that with him. Any time. Ever. I’d quit my job, I’d change my life…it’s the most peculiar thing, because outside the context of loving this particular man, I rarely experience this particular feeling.  Neither he nor I actually wanted to have a child, when we got together, and I was already old enough that raising a child to adulthood would inevitably be a cruel test of a child’s love for a dying parent…and now, the opportunity, the choice, is simply off the menu.

Why am I crying? This is a life I chose… Eyes open. I knew the responsibility, the emotional grandeur, the intense financial and logistical commitment, the lifelong dedication to the life of another human being, were not for me.  I miss my traveling partner very much right at this moment; being in his arms, feeling his love and understanding, go along way to sooth this particular subtle sadness.

I find myself contemplating life, lives, connections, relationships, values, meaning…looking at a picture of this man I so adore. Choosing love has been the most singularly wonderful choice I’ve ever made. I don’t actually regret not choosing motherhood, this is the woman I am. I do feel sufficiently moved to want to choose wisely, and choose love; this is my life.

Daybreak has lightened the room, and my mood.  Emotional profundities ideally don’t linger at this hour; it is too early to swim in the deep end. This quiet moment is precious all on its own.

Today is a good day to savor each moment.

Today is a good day to savor each moment.

Today is a good day to welcome new life. Today is a good day to love, to share, and to connect. Today is a good day to recognize the complicated beauty in who we choose to be. Today is a good day for good choices. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Big 5, women
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