Archives for posts with tag: spring cleaning

Strategies

May 15, 2024 //
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I’m sipping my coffee and thinking about brain damage. Specifically, one of the consequences (for me, of mine) and the way I have (and do) cope with it – poor memory. It’s not that the memories don’t get into “long-term storage” at all, it’s more that “my file system is corrupted” and I have difficulty retrieving them – or recognizing they are still available. Having an object or photo associated with an event has long been my preferred strategy for dealing with that. Handling something as mundane as a rock picked up on a beach can do so much to help me recall that day, that beach, that memory… Without the rock? No recollection. Same with pictures; a picture of a particular dewy rose brings to mind that specific spring morning, a walk after a rainstorm, the scents of the flowers all around, the feel of the sunshine in that moment – and even the thoughts I was thinking at the time. No picture? No memory. This coping strategy, unfortunately, has a noteworthy downside. Clutter. Mementos that are meaningless to anyone but me, and lacking in any intrinsic value.

Yesterday evening my Traveling Partner delighted me with a (second) new earring rack for all my many (many, soooo many) pairs of earrings, so that they can be more organized, and available at a glance. So convenient. It’s too much to put them all in the bathroom, though. So… casual fun 3D printed earrings are right there in the bathroom by the mirror – great for every day. The second rack? In my bedroom, with my somewhat less casual semi-precious gemstone earrings, and earrings of great sentimental value or a bit more worth. My best/fanciest earrings are safely tucked away in my jewelry box for “occasions”. Seems quite tidy, which I enjoy. Getting to that point, though, brought me up close and personal with the clutter that had definitely been accumulating in my personal spaces on this whole other level since my partner’s injury last fall, and the dust… omg, the fucking dust. I’ve been letting my spaces go to shit because I just don’t have the energy to keep up with every-fucking-thing all the damned time. It’s hard. I’ve failed myself in a number of small ways that, initially, don’t matter as much to me and feel more negotiable…but… I have gotten to that place where the clutter and untidiness (and the fucking dust) are unhealthy for me. It’s been on my to-do list for a while now. Yesterday I just felt pushed to do some small thing about it.

…I managed to tidy up one entire wall of my bedroom, including 3 bookcases (13 shelves, many dozens of books) and all the miscellany that had accumulated on their shelves. Knick-knacks, bits of things, scraps of paper, just… junk and crap and whatnot to deal with. So… I mostly dealt with it. Meaning to say, I grabbed a small box and anything I couldn’t figure out “where it goes” at a glance (to put it there immediately), I dropped into the box. (I dusted as I went.) At the end of this process, once the entire room is thusly dealt with, I’ll go through the items in the box one by one and probably throw a ton of that shit out – or put it where it obviously belongs, because by that point it should become clear. It felt good to get some of that done, and to have a strategy. I had my Traveling Partner’s support and he didn’t grief me over not hanging out – having that encouragement and emotional safety to do the thing needing to be done helps make it doable at all. Now I just need to keep at it.

One of the challenges is that this process involves touching a ton of little items that evoke memories. Some good. Some less so. It can be an emotional process, and I’m less skilled at making it less so. The way out is through; there are no shortcuts on emotional journeys. I say something about it, generally, to my Traveling Partner, and he comments that perhaps some of these memories are not worth keeping, or working so hard to keep, maybe. His memory works very differently; he struggles to let things go, and remembers too well, too long, too easily. That’s a struggle of another sort, for sure. I’m not saying I’d rather have that one, either, it just means we have a very different perspective on memory and memories. Useful, actually. That rock I handled while I took things from shelves and placed them in the box? The one that reminded me of that very blue sunny afternoon when I lived at #59, feeling alone and unloved, lonely not solitary, mired in despair? Finding that whimsically painted rock in the fork of a tree on my rather sad walk that day really lifted me up, but when I handle the rock now, I remember finding it, yes, and the joy that came of that moment, but I also remember that very blue afternoon, and how heavy my heart was. It’s a visceral memory of sorrow and aloneness. Do I need to keep that one? Is there value in feeling that feeling just because I handled a rock?? My Traveling Partner’s observations with regard to memory are, even now, quite thought-provoking for me.

I make some notes for later. Things to do to get ready for camping. A note to remember to go to the store for some essentials. Lists and notes and reminders are another way I cope with the consequences of brain damage (and PTSD). They reduce the likelihood I’ll forget some time-sensitive task, which is definitely a thing I am prone to. All the bills are on auto-pay, where that’s available – just another strategy for coping with poor memory. Effective.

Is the strategy effective?

Is the outcome useful – and intended?

I sip my coffee and consider strategies – and brain damage. It’s been a lifetime. Some of my strategies were formed before I understood what I was coping with in the first place. Some of my strategies have been less than ideally effective. Some of them even had problematic unanticipated other results. This too, has been a journey. I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s a lovely sunny morning, and there’s work to be done. I have that moment of amusement that I often do when I take notice of “how easy” work often feels compared to life – and in this particular moment I realize it’s likely because the strategies are purpose-built, and often built on foundations of many people and processes over long periods of time, tested and refined and reviewed and analyzed. Of course that feels easier; I’m not making it up as I go along. lol Something to think about.

I sometimes borrow work strategies and try them out in my life (sometimes they work very well). That’s okay, too – it’s just another strategy. What works, works. I try not to continue practices that don’t work, and try to avoid relying on strategies that are not effective. My results vary. I keep practicing.

I smile at the blue sky beyond the window. It’s a nice day to begin again. I’ve got a strategy in mind… and that’s a good place to start. 😀

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Healthy Living, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being

The Content Matters

June 22, 2023 //
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What do you fill your time with? What about your thoughts? What’s filling up your headspace? Your relationships, too… what about those? What sorts of people do you fill your life with? I am sipping a bit of afternoon coffee (left over from the morning, honestly, nothing fancy) and thinking about life as some sort of … vessel… or… container.

We begin life pretty much “empty” – all potential.

I spent a lovely handful of hours with my Traveling Partner yesterday evening listening to music and enjoying each other. He got seriously into some Spring cleaning sorts of things and the house looks quite fantastically tidy (except for my spaces, which are as yet untouched by Spring cleaning – I’ve got some catching up to do). It was lovely and quite relaxing to turn my head and see only order in all directions. His eye for details is quite astonishing. Admittedly, I tend to be a tad superficial about such things, in part due to poor eye sight, but also due to finding myself entirely less willing to make most housekeeping tasks any kind of massive undertaking. (It’s an obvious flaw in my character to favor “easy” to the degree I do…)

…But damn does the house look amazing. Nice refresh. I’ll be thanking him for months, no doubt…

But about that “empty container” that is the start of our individual lifetime… how about it? What are you filling yours with? When was the last time you did a thorough rethinking of all that… baggage and clutter? What are you keeping you could be better served by letting go of? What are you hanging on to that only seems to weigh you down? How much of that shit your holding on to could be repurposed or made use of differently… and how much should frankly get tossed into a waste bin?

…Is your life “in order”? How about those important tasks that get put off on the regular… a will… emergency planning… that dark closet or basement into which all manner of miscellany is tossed to be dealt with “some other time”…? The clutter adds up.

So I sip my coffee and think about a room I’m not even standing in at the moment, and how I can best short the bullshit from the useful things. It keeps bringing my thoughts back to my life. What sorts of things am I clinging to that I could let go of? What sorts of bullshit are piling up that could be tossed out? When our thoughts become cluttered, it’s harder to reason, to plan, to make wise decisions. When our lives become cluttered, it’s harder to make time for what we feel matters most.

I sip my coffee and think and plan and wonder. I could use a new beginning on this one… I feel it. It’s time.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Give Me a F*ing Break

March 9, 2021 //
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I mean, seriously though? I could use a real break. A break from the pandemic, and all the inconveniences, hassles, and stress of it. A break from being on lockdown with the too-often-strained-by-circumstances companionship of my partner. A break from work. A break from housekeeping. A break from well-intended reminders and critical feedback of all kinds. A break from the noise and bother of “the world”. A break from strong emotion – mine, and everyone else’s, too. I’d like a real, proper, restful, wholly recharging, legitimate break, please.

…I am silently “screaming into the void” on this one. It’s not that the need for a restful break from whatever-the-fuck is unreasonable, it’s just that getting that break is entirely on me, myself. To make or find the time? That’s on me. To create the conditions? Again, all on me. To set and manage boundaries considerately and explicitly? Again, that’s mine to do for myself. I am certainly feeling the strain of prolonged fatigue and day-to-day frustrations with pandemic life, and occasionally very poor self-care.

I write a bunch more very specific, petty, cross, bad-tempered, resentful words about small, petty, trivial humans-being-human crap. I delete it. I write a bunch more and delete that too – not because the words hold no truths, but because the truths they appear to hold are filtered through so much baggage and bullshit that the actual worthwhile truths are hidden, and I need a break from that, too. I breathe. Exhale. Relax. I take a minute to look at things differently. I work on taking shit less personally, while also accepting that I have no control over how personally anyone else may take things, and being mindful that our individual experiences as individuals are quite separate, even as we’re “all in this together”. No two human beings ever really see the world quite the same way, and even in the moment, in a shared experience… and in a sense we each walk a very different path. Alone. That’s not a sorrowful thing, it’s just a thing. Maybe I can find my much-needed break somewhere within that understanding of separateness…

…I mean to say, maybe it’s not the circumstances weighing me down so much as my attachment to some element of them? A moment…and outcome… an expectation? Maybe a misplaced assumption? I breathe. Exhale. Relax. I let go of everything that is not this moment, now, me, here. This room. This text editor. This open window and the fence beyond, lit by the morning sunshine. Now.

I breathe, and focus on my breath. I let the slamming and banging of my partner doing housekeeping tasks on the other side of the house recede into the background, and listen to the sounds of rain falling through my headphones. I breathe and make room for gratitude – it’s no small thing to have a partner willing to do housekeeping, and eager to maintain a nice home, and good quality of life together. It’s helpful to have reminders on things I commonly forget or overlook, even though it can be uncomfortable, awkward, or embarrassing to need them. (It’s got to be uncomfortable to provide them, too.) I breathe and let go of baggage I’m lugging around that is to do with work; my last day is tomorrow. I let that go, too. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. I sit comfortably upright in my chair, and let my shoulders relax. The cold fresh air coming in through the open window already smells of spring. I breathe, inhaling deeply. I smile, exhaling my entire breath.

…These spreadsheets won’t update themselves. It’s already time to begin again.

*Moments later, my partner asks me to come take a look at what he’s gotten done. Spotless, beautifully organized kitchen, broad ready-to-go counter space for food prep. I feel appreciated and loved. He appears to have taken note of how I work in the kitchen, when I’m cooking, moving some things from one place to another, better-suited to my needs. I feel heard. I listen while he explains what the changes are, and why, and asks me to help out maintaining it and keeping things tidy. All reasonable. He asks that I explicitly ask for help if I am falling behind on housekeeping I expect to handle myself, and let him actually help me instead of trying to do it all. I suck at that – I want to do “all the things”, and demonstrate that I can… but who I am trying to prove that to? Is that even, ever, realistic? Doesn’t that approach also undermine our partnership by robbing him of the opportunity to work with me, alongside me, cooperatively? Together. It’s different than alone. lol I look around the kitchen again, and thank him for the work he’s done. I head back to the practical matter of work (as in “the job”) feeling very fortunate indeed…

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, winter, Words

Life In The Time of Pandemic

March 21, 2020 //
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Well, I must say, I’m already a bit “over” the continuous 24/7, all-channels, all-topics, doorbell-to-deck, coverage of COVID-19, pandemic or not. Seriously. There still remains so much else to also observe, discuss, and yes, enjoy. Having said that, I am staying home, working from home on work days, and doing only those things that can be done in that context. I’m fortunate to enjoy a comfortably merry, loving, and emotionally connected relationship (this partnership certainly reduces the potential loneliness of “social distancing”). I am reaching out to friends over text message (I gave up most social media some while ago, and kept only Instagram). Friends I haven’t heard from in a while are regularly surprising me with text messages, too. It’s fine. Limiting, but generally not a big deal.

I went to the grocery store, yesterday. The aisle that usually has paper products such as facial tissue, toilet paper, and paper towels looks like an old photo of soviet era shortages in iron curtain countries. The parking lot of the grocery store was nearly full, but the store was weirdly empty; people who do go out seem to be doing so alone. The streets are quiet. No “traffic”, even during “rush hour”, which no longer seems to exist (here). The trip to the store felt almost exciting – an “outing”! I got the staples I needed, stayed well back from the cashier as I paid, used hand sanitizer frequently, and did not converse with passers-by. Mostly fairly typical for me, except the additional distance, and the hand sanitizer.

I filled the gas tank of the car, while I was out, and chuckled to myself about “how long will this tank last?” knowing I am not going out much. Then I felt a bit of anxiety and a re-thinking on that; how long will gas stations be able to stay open, and resupplied? I took a breath, and exhaled with care. It’s not helpful to borrow panic from future such concerns, presently. I think about the panic-buying of toilet paper, and the impact on people who did not succumb to panic in that moment, who now struggle just to buy what they actually do need, while others sit on vast hoards of toilet paper that will likely last them into next year. I frown, to myself, aware that there is already identifiable profiteering going on, for products such as toilet paper, on eBay. We could do better, as a society, and as human beings.

…So… Do better.

It’s a complicated time. I am grateful for, and appreciative of, those that are still on the job, still interacting with the public, still providing critical services. I am also, admittedly, harshly critical of those businesses not willing to maximize the safety net for their employees, preferring to maximize profit instead. It’s also an election year; the posturing, the spin, and the insider trading are galling in times like this. I’m grateful for honest news, where it exists, and so glad that comedy continues. Art. Science. Music. These things are still real, still going on. Creators still create. The world continues to turn.

…I think about spending time in the studio, myself…

I read, this morning, that ISPs and streaming service providers are beginning to make decisions to limit bandwidth. I cynically wonder how they will turn that to their profit when the pandemic wanes? I hit my vape. I sip my coffee. I type some words and plan the day ahead. Saturday on a (for me) long weekend. The vernal equinox, something I generally celebrate “out loud”, passed by sort of without notice this year. Fairly certain I never mentioned it, myself. I commit to enjoying the time I am sharing with my Traveling Partner, and doing what I can to make that time merry, and even productive. Bills get paid, and great care given to the budget; there are still a lot of unknowns, for all of us. It is what it is.

Today, my project is both a bit of work, and a bit of entertainment – a lot of bother; I’ll be setting the aquascaping of my aquarium right, after living with the chaotic, rather haphazard and sloppy outcome of moving the tank here, almost 3 years ago.

The day the tank arrived at the new place. This shot was taken before the water even had time to completely clear up.

The tl;dr is that the moving team that moved the tank was at the end of their work day when they finally arrived at my place with my tank. They had one more job yet to go to, and were feeling rushed… so… they rushed the work. The large river rocks that decorate my tank were not placed with care, nor were the paperweights that function as the ornaments. The plants were sort of just dropped in, without being correctly anchored at all, and where they were anchored, they were not where I wanted them. (I’d have to re-do all of it, myself, and I knew it at the time.) I settled for “good enough, now just go, please” and went on with things, expecting to have plenty of time for restoring order to that bit of chaos… once I finished getting moved in and settled.

Life happens, and change happens, and within a couple weeks of moving in, my Traveling Partner relocated for work. Then I began an almost weekly “commute” back and forth to see him each weekend (almost), which meant my only leisure time for big projects was on weekends that I did not travel (and often those were selected based on exhaustion, or illness), and in the evenings (when I could generally count on being “too tired”). The chaos got worse, and after a prolonged power outage, most of the fish died. The tank sat quietly, being little more than an aquatic garden of sorts. Over time, after the last fish finally died, I began to ignore it, and after awhile, even became rather embarrassed by it.

Yeah, it got this bad. Inadequate filtration. Lack of routine maintenance. Heater failed.

After my Traveling Partner moved back in with me last year, I started considering taking it down to reclaim the space for something else… Then, I spotted something unexpected. One solitary surviving resident.

Shy clown pleco spotted hiding behind a glass paperweight. One of my original fish, purchased in 2013.

Well, that certainly changed things for me. I got excited about my “universe in a box” all over again (and a bit peeved at myself for being such a poor care-provider). I cleaned the tank. I upgraded the filter, the heater, and the lighting. I began restocking. Today it is a vibrant little planted freshwater community, populated by shrimp, tetras, snails, a betta, and of course, my wee clown pleco, now almost 7 years old.

This morning, after so much work (over the past couple weeks), with much still left to do. 🙂

It still needs some pruning, some tidying up, and I’ve certainly got the time at home this weekend to tackle the aquascaping more seriously. So. With some trepidation, I think I shall. Part of the plan, and the timing, and the “order of operations” is also to do with moving the tank to the other side of the fireplace to make better use of the space. (And, finally, there won’t be two light switches in every photo of the tank!) The needs are different for two people living here, than for one. 🙂 So much work. So much fun. So much love. Plenty to challenge me, and stave off any potential for boredom.

My perspective on my circumstances changes when I understand how other lives may be affected by my choices. (Pictured: a much happier, still shy, clown pleco.)

This is my life in the time of pandemic. It’s not perfect. There are challenges. There are opportunities. There is “room to grow”. There is this strange moment in my lifetime that holds so much potential to become “that time when we all reconnected”, and I hope to take advantage of it. What about you? What will you do with your time at home? How will you deepen your relationships? Where are your opportunities to grow as a person? Will you make use of the time well and wisely… or… not?

It is another time to begin again. 🙂 (However bad things may become, I know I can begin again.)

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Categories Allegories, forgiveness, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5