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Strange and (Self)Limited

February 8, 2018 //
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What a peculiar few days (couple of weeks?) it has been. I haven’t done anything particularly noteworthy… I go to work. I return home. I meditate. I read. I do just enough yoga to continue to use all my joints. I do just enough housekeeping to stay mostly fairly tidy. I don’t feel mired in sorrow, or at all blue. I’m just dealing with more pain than usual. It takes a lot out of me. I feel less like going anywhere or doing anything, once I’ve managed to put a work day behind me. Weekends aren’t much different; more meditation, more reading, no work of the employment sort, lots more squirrels, still managing pain.

I miss my Traveling Partner, but I am glad I’ve taken the time to get rested. I’m even, generally, sleeping (mostly) through the nights, and getting to bed at an hour that ensures I’ve gotten adequate rest. It’s something. Right now, it’s enough. Clearly I’ve been needing the rest. I’ve even finally gotten entirely over all of whatever contagious crud has been going around. Other than the pain I am often in, I feel pretty good. 🙂

I sip my coffee. The weather seems already inclined to turn toward spring. I’ve begun carrying the new camera with me everywhere. I look ahead to the weekend, another on which I will be generally at home. I’ve brunch plans Saturday with a friend that will take me an hour across town – which, these days, hardly seems like a drive at all. lol I’ve got a ticket to a concert Saturday night. In between those, regularly planned time hanging out with another friend. Busy Saturday. Sunday looks like a good day for rest and laundry – or a hike! If the weather holds up, Sunday could be a lovely day to take the camera on her first outing into the trees down some near-ish trail. A plan begins to take shape.  😀

I smile into my coffee as I take a moment to recognize I’ve probably been quite slowed down just by the fact that it is winter – that’s a thing, it happens to all kinds of creatures, our seasonal clocks don’t all affect us the same way. I don’t consider myself someone with any sort of profound seasonal affective symptoms, but I am still a mammal, a primate, a living creature with circadian rhythms, and it is still winter. 🙂

…I’ve got a plan to begin again. This morning, that’s enough. 🙂

 

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Categories anhedonia, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, loneliness, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, solo hiking, Spring

Some Routine

February 7, 2018 //
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Well, shit. Writing in the evening is a very hit or miss thing for me, isn’t it? How… disappointing? Inconvenient? Well, something – it definitely falls far short of being a routine. lol I am fortunate that it isn’t an obligation. 🙂

I consider the nature of routines, and the consequences of undermining routines that work in pursuit of some other ideal, or the satisfaction of some other need. In this instance, less than ideally successfully. There are so many small details that are not obvious – nor obviously related. Is there a relationship between the lack of writing, and the more frequent occurrence of dishes in my sink? Or that growing pile of earrings that hasn’t been getting put away? Or the fact that (although steady progress is being made) Giftmas is still not quite entirely put away? Did breaking a longstanding routine “cause” all this? Was the desire to break that routine and try something else part of what has also “caused” all these other strange eruptions of chaos around me? Are these questions that need answering at all?

I guess one way to learn more is to return to writing in the morning. Will the result be a sudden return to unyielding orderliness? I guess I’ll be finding out. 🙂

A rainy day, a squirrel, a new camera.

I love the new camera. I caught myself continuing to grab my camera phone, though, for “difficult” or out of reach shots. I found myself agreeing with my own observation that “the camera phone is by far superior [for me] for opportunities requiring speed or nimbleness” – getting from “no camera” to “camera in hand” very quickly, I mean. It was a thought that resulted in more camera phone, and less camera. I considered that with great care for a day or two, and realized that to achieve that kind of speed-to-image nimbleness with my new camera, I need to do one thing I’ve tend not to do; I’ve got to carry my camera everywhere I go. It’s what I do with my phone. lol Of course speed-to-image is faster with a camera phone – the fucking thing is always already in my damned hand. LOL  It is an observation that seems beyond obvious. I feel just a bit dim that I didn’t have that concept firmly in mind in the first place, but I am okay letting that go, and picking up my camera. 🙂

A new day begins. I begin again, myself. I’m bringing my camera. 🙂

 

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, solo hiking, The Art of Being

Did I Not?

January 30, 2018 //
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Wow. I suck at writing in the evenings. I mean, I apparently don’t approach the matter with the same rigid commitment, or discipline, or…? Whatever it is that drives me to write before dawn is clearly lacking. lol Perhaps, there’s more of other stuff that tends to redirect my attention to the living of life versus the consideration of all of the many details that could go into doing so, for the purpose of committing a handful of words on the subject to a text box, online?

I write less in the evening, but in making the observation, I find myself also wondering if that were the point, in the first place? More may not be better…or… even at all good or worthwhile, and potentially just… time-consuming. lol It’s not about a word count, to the point that someone else once had to point out to me that I’d begun writing such long posts they’d discontinued reading them. (I don’t think that resulted in my changing my writing style as much as simply alerting me that I’d likely lose a few readers. I write, generally, very much the way I talk. 😀 ) Still, I’d much rather write when I feel most inspired, and write about things that matter most to me in some way that is meaningful or revealing or… somehow worthwhile to have taken the time to jot it all down.

The oven beeps to let me know it is pre-heated. I pause and stick dinner in the oven (a foil packet of veggies chopped into bite sized pieces, cubed meat – the type varies – some seasonings, a drizzle of olive oil, and stuff it in the oven for about an hour at 400 degrees; it isn’t fancy, but it’s easy, tasty, and requires little further attention). I take a deep deep breath and relax as I return to my writing. I notice my boots are still on, and suddenly they feel confining. I remove them. I’m not really following a set routine, lately, in the way I am most comfortable, and small distractions like boots, dinner, my hair falling in my face, the buzz of a message notification on a silenced ringer, really throw me off and I feel disorganized and unskilled at enjoying the evening. It’s comical in the abstract, frustrating in real life…but, and this still feels rather odd to me, I’m not particularly freaked out by either the frustration, or the feeling of being disorganized and unskilled, which is pretty cool. Incremental change over time. 😀

I look at the words with a weird feeling, realizing that at some point real lasting emotional and mental wellness may overtake me – will I stop writing? I mean, stop writing this, here, a blog about feeling my way through life’s chaos and damage in the relative darkness, and hoping to improve on my experience ever so slightly, in increments, over time, using borrowed wisdom, meditation, and mindfulness practices? Will I have anything to say, generally? Will I, instead, seek to enjoy my contentment silently as life’s evening light fades gently over time?

…I burst out laughing out loud when I realize I’m basically wondering what the future holds. lol Definitely a question for which I have no answers. The future is… out there somewhere, as yet unformed, to be built on a matrix of my choices and yours, and coincidence and circumstances, and tricks of our thinking, filtered through what we think we understand. Yeah. I have nothing for that one besides the awareness that if I’m fortunate, I’ll get to see it. 😀 What happens after that? I’m no help there either. I don’t know at all. Maybe we begin again? 😉

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, Words

The Time Is Always Now

January 28, 2018 //
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I’ve been in pain most of the weekend. Most of the day. Not struggling with it, you understand, just aware of it, in the background, an occasional and persistent distraction, something to be dismissed, acknowledged, dismissed again. The day wore on. The pain wears me down.

There is more to my experience than the pain I am in.

It’s harder to be aware of hurting when I’m distracted by the antics of my squirrel neighbors. I spent a merry time doing that, instead of hurting. 🙂 Totally worth it.

Later, tickled by a brief back and forth exchange with my Traveling Partner, I reached for my headphones and lost myself in music. More time passes during which I don’t really notice any moment of hurting. Relief doesn’t always require a prescription. My results vary. There are definitely verbs involved.

I feel myself smiling, thinking back over the very pleasant, restful weekend – is it already Sunday? Damn. Work tomorrow. I think about the exceptional chocolate I tried this weekend and pause to send a surprise treat “home” to be shared (seriously, so good). The weekend feels more complete having found some way to share this pleasant detail.

My neighbors aren’t home this evening. The bass shakes the floor and I dance into the living room to pick up borrowed buugeng to practice awhile, listening to this music I love. The bass rumbles through my body, and I feel connected to a home a couple hundred miles away, where, most likely, the bass is shaking the house right now, there, too. I smile with my whole self, feeling contented and serene. This is a fine moment right here, I make a point to enjoy it right now.

Tomorrow will be soon enough to begin other projects, another week, a new journey, right now, this moment here is enough. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter

I Had a Better Title for This Half an Hour Ago

January 27, 2018 //
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I had recently noticed that something’s been digging in my container garden. I know the squirrels, who are regular visitors, are likely suspects; I’ve seen them bury acorns in those same containers, so perhaps they’ve also been digging them up? Seems a safe enough assumption. It’s still just an assumption. If I hang on to that assumption long enough, it becomes a belief. As a belief, it sits in my head guiding my expectations of things to come. I expect, eventually, to see a squirrel digging up acorns from those pots, naturally.

A succulent garden in a large pot, thoroughly dug up, peanut shells littering the ground, carelessly left behind by a visitor.

Funny thing about “reality”; it isn’t at all what we imagine, or assume, or expect it to be. It is what it is. (What it’s made of is a lofty topic for other days, and fancy experts, I can’t do it justice, here.) I happened to be relaxing with a cup of decaf, considering the afternoon ahead, and spotted movement on the deck out of the corner of my eye. Squirrels? Not quite squirrel like. And tiny. I turn slowly and watch carefully, waiting… waiting… waiting… My eyes adjust to the “pattern” of the container garden on the deck – there it is. A new visitor, or at least one I haven’t spotted before – a chipmunk. An actual chipmunk has come up onto the deck (which exists on the same level as the single level residence in which I make my home, but from the back of the house, would be “the second floor”, because the property slopes considerably). I sit and watch the chipmunk. The chipmunk darts here and there, behind pots, over pots, between pots, watching me. There is no opportunity to get my new camera, but my phone is at hand. I don’t reach for it right away, I just watch.

My chipmunk visitor pauses perched on a pot.

That’s when I spotted it, a snapshot of a reality I don’t generally see; the chipmunk is my digging visitor. My little visitor hopped up to the lip of first one pot, then another, and just dug like crazy, leaving pock-marked soil, divots, and craters behind. The chipmunk was digging up the peanuts the squirrels had recently buried and eating them, one by one. There’s even a chance it’s been happening right in front of me – the little chipmunk’s camouflage is very good. I sat and watched a good while longer, until my little visitor left.

Some movement startles the chipmunk, which grabs one last peanut and darts away.

I end up sitting quietly for some minutes, contemplating the ease with which I assumed the squirrels to be responsible for the “bad acts” of the wee chipmunks, who I hadn’t considered at all – because I didn’t know they would come up onto the deck in the first place, having never seen that behavior. I was limited by my lack of knowledge, and my reasoning was impaired by my assumptions. It’s worth thinking about. It’s worth getting all “meta” with that experience and recognizing the damage I potentially do to myself and to my relationships to allow unverified assumptions to become beliefs which inform my expectations and guide my decision-making. There’s something greater to understand in that, something that matters. I sip my coffee and stare into the rain.

I sigh contentedly. I don’t need more from this moment. This is enough.

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter
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