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Soft Gray Morning

March 26, 2017 //
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The busy-ness of life finally caught up with me. Cold symptoms that I woke with yesterday morning seem no worse today, nor are they diminished. Fatigue yesterday resulted in hours of napping, and an early bed time. I didn’t sleep particularly deeply, but my sleep was satisfying and uninterrupted. I managed a few minutes more than 8 hours and woke feeling deeply rested, in minimal pain. Skillful self-care today should result in being fully rested and prepared for another week of work. It’s not fancy, but it is sustainable. I sip my coffee contentedly and begin to plan my day.

I take a break from writing (and day planning) to meditate, and sip coffee watching the soft gray dawn slowly becoming a lighter shade of rainy gray morning. I return to my writing unmeasured minutes later, but the lush green of the lawn and the dark green-black of the pine silhouetted against the gray morning sky continue to pull my eye from my writing to the window, and the world beyond this quiet space. I continue to sip my coffee contentedly. This moment, right here, is a very nice one, and I am enjoying it fully, and without criticism, judgement, or negative self-talk.

Just beyond the window, the soft gray dawn.

Yesterday I shared a visit to the nearby Farmer’s Market with a friend. She was having a tough time with her emotions and reached out for support. We took time for coffee, conversation, and strolling the market together. She talked about life, love, frustrations, and yearning for… something. I listened. She asked questions, I offered perspective – mine (it’s all I have). We deepened our friendship and our connection as we walked and talked and shared the morning. It feels good to count her as a friend. She is in a very young place in life (no surprise; she’s not yet 21) and feels adrift in a sea of choices and misinformation. No rule book on this playground. No map on this journey. We are each having our own experience. She is as wholesome as any 21st century girl-next-door can be, and filled with the turmoil and power of reactivity, passion, and emotion. She’s very human. We both are. It was time well-spent, and part of life’s curriculum for me as much as it may be for her; I sometimes struggle to build healthy friendships with other women (the chaos and damage being what it is).

The rest of the day unfolded quietly as a series of naps, and interludes of wakefulness that were relaxed and easy. It was a good day for it. I’m in less pain today, more rested, and don’t feel sicker. I’m satisfied that my choices met my needs. This morning will probably lead a similarly quiet easy day of housekeeping, meditating, and reading, as the gray spring sky spatters the windows with raindrops, and the last cold breezes lingering from winter toss the trees and the wind chime. No doubt later I will see geese and ducks, jays and crows, and my squirrel neighbors visiting the feeders as I sip coffee; it is still too early, now, for any of that besides me sipping coffee. 🙂

For now, I linger over my morning coffee unready to begin any daytime activities that require more of me. It’s that quiet time between waking and doing. The rain begins to fall more heavily, and I find myself regretting that I’ve no firewood, although it is not actually cold enough for that to make sense… It would be pretty. 🙂 I watch the rain fall beyond the window. It’s pretty out there too, just… wet. I laugh out loud in the quiet stillness of my studio; I am fearless about rain. I enjoy the rain. It’s a good morning to hike the level paved trail of the park beyond my window, and I settle on a hike as a lovely start to the day. The welcome-home embrace of a warm shower afterward will feel luxurious and sensuous. The morning begins to take shape in my thoughts.

Today is a good day to hike in the rain, to laugh with a friend, and to take care of this fragile vessel.  Today is a good day for self-care, and for living in this moment right here. Today is a good day to practice being the person I most want to be. While I can’t be certain these small things will change the world, they seem a good place to begin again. It’s enough. 🙂

 

 

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Uncategorized, women, Words

There Was This One Time…

March 25, 2017 //
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I fell asleep composing coherent sentences, assembled from thoughts and words, suitable for this morning’s writing. It was, as I recall, a good idea for a blog post. Unsurprisingly, it was lost among my dreams, during the night. I woke rested, clear-headed, content – and utterly without a thought that seemed worth writing about.

I hoped the blinds in the studio to let the sunrise illuminate the room. I watched the geese on the lawn, sipped my coffee, and listened to the peculiar suburban hum of existing humanity that seems so nearly inescapable, generally. I notice that my throat is a little sore, and shuffle my weekend plans around to reduce stress, labor, and exposing others to potential contagion, in case I am sick. If I’m  not actually ill, the sore throat remains a sign that I likely need more rest than I have been getting. I decide to take care of this fragile vessel this weekend. Life is more a thru-hike along a breath-taking wilderness trail than a paved loop through a state park; it’s important to take care, and pace myself. 🙂

I hear my Traveling Partner stirring in the other room, making coffee. I smile, content and wrapped in love. Last evening was weird, infused with drama. OPD. Not my drama. I am supportive throughout, although I struggle a bit with resenting that a human being I have made a point to cut out of my life completely can still push so much toxic waste into my experience. The resentment quickly fades to sorrow that my Traveling Partner has this bullshit to deal with in another (any other) relationship. I know a lot of people who do. Myself, I tend to fairly quickly find my way to “troll blocking” and “unfriending” these days, even in real life; I have no liking of, or time for, destructive games or drama, and very specifically define “love” and “affection” as exclusive of those sorts of things. Yep. I said it. If you treat someone badly on the regular, it is not understandable (to me) that you “love” them. From my own perspective, you do not. That’s not love. There’s no room for argument, it’s merely my opinion, and how my own map of the world looks.

No drama today, I hope. I sip my coffee and smile. My Traveling Partner puts his head in the studio to tell me that there is a new season of Samurai Jack. Finally! Season 5. We share a fondness for it. I can’t tell if my moment of delight has anything to do with Samurai Jack at all, it’s all mixed up with my delight that my Traveling Partner is here this morning. I have no idea what the day holds. It is unplanned. Unscripted. I wonder what moment will define it.

Today is a good day for patience, and a good day for contentment. Today is a good day to love, and to live gently. Today is a good day for laughter, kindness, and gratitude. Today is a good day to enjoy small things, and to build a drama free zone. Today is a good day to make the choices that change the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Ain’t We Funkin’ Now?

March 18, 2017 //
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Well… ain’t we? Er… are we? I am. It’s Saturday morning and I really don’t need to sit very still all day stressed out about health concerns neither confirmed nor crossed off some secret list of shit that goes wrong with aging. lol Cue music! Better to funk hard, enjoy life for every breath I breathe, than to wait quietly to die. 😉 So, no shit, I’m jammin’ the old school funk tracks that sparked my love of bass, and bass guitar, and have followed me through life to the newest, strangest, bass-est digital music of the current age. Why not? It’s after 6 am on a Saturday… I’m sure the neighbors won’t mind my embracing life through music at this hour… right…? (I’m not actually that inconsiderate, and I’m grateful for headphones.)

Are you still funkin’ with me? Do you know the funk legend behind that bass line? Human. Just like me. Just like you. Just like Neil deGrasse Tyson.  Just like your grandma. Just like Grandma Funk. What I think I’m getting at is… don’t wait to be a legend. Just be. Enjoy you. Maybe you level up to Legend at some point, but as with “happy”, chasing it comes at a cost – and that cost is often the goal itself. Each so human, so precious, so wonderfully quirky and weird and unique… do you.

This morning I let the irresistible nature of the funk distract me from pain, from worry, from an uncertain future (all futures are uncertain, are they not?), and I let go and let… myself enjoy the fucking funk, for as long as I can. Will you miss me if I were to drop dead in some now moment unexpectedly, without the courtesy of a heads up that I am mortal? Would my words outlast this fragile vessel or die with me, losing relevance over time without a connection to a living consciousness? All men are mortal… women, too, I hear. lol I sip my coffee and contemplate the unknowns still ahead of me in life – and at its end.

I think about the house hunting ahead this morning. I think about love. I savor my humanity. I appreciate yours. The morning feels easy on  my consciousness and my heart, in spite of… worries. Don’t we all have at least one or two? Isn’t it totally the most basic of human challenges to learn to balance our experience in the moment with our concerns of moments not yet now? Who will you turn to for comfort? Your friends? (Good choice.) Your lover(s)? (Another good choice, although I am assuming you choose lovers who are down for providing you comfort in tough times… perhaps that’s not what you choose of the assorted humans dear to you?) Will you choose the talking heads on the idiot box? The comment section of a favorite forum? Facebook associates? (That’s all the rage in the 21st century, and there’s a fairly impressive selection of social media alternatives.) Your professional associates? (That gets harder, sometimes, doesn’t it?) Your parents, elders, children, or siblings? (That can be a mixed bag where comfort it concerned, right? lol) This morning, I am turning to The Brothers Johnson, Whiz Khalifa, Snoop Dogg, Skrillex, Daft Punk… sure, I know exactly what they’ll be telling me, because I’ve heard it a million times, but… I also know what they’ll be telling me, because I’ve heard it a million times. 🙂 It’s what I need to hear; we continue. There is now. Always now… And yet, somehow, we continue; if in no other way, we continue as a presence and a recollection in the consciousness of all those we have touched – good and bad and indifferent. Valar Morghulis.

I can’t escape my mortality – at least not with current medical science or technology (will I live to see that change?). I could sure get mired in waiting around to die, if I chose to do that instead of living. There are verbs involved, regardless. Today, I tell mortality – or at least the fear of it – to funk right off. It’s Saturday – there is a living world just beyond this monitor, and this keyboard, and my coffee is finished. 🙂

It’s totally understandable that death might stop me in my tracks – it is less understandable to wait around for it to do so. lol. Today is a good day to live, awake, aware, and present in this moment, now. It’s enough. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Eventually The Storm Passes

March 16, 2017 //
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It’s been raining a lot. There have even been landslides. That’s something that definitely gets me thinking differently about homeownership; houses perched on hillsides hold less appeal. Mostly, though, I think about the rain, when it is raining. I enjoy the sound of it, the smell of petrichor, the strange changes of scene as storms sweep through town. I watch off and on, all day, through endless windows that wrap the office.

I left the office at the usual time, which is “later than I meant to”. Some of the most productive conversations seem to begin as I leave the building. I’ll work on that. 🙂

Rain in the distance.

It was raining when I left, but it was that gentle misty rain on a warm-ish evening; it seemed of little consequence, and I enjoyed the feel of it. The skyline on the other side of the river was obscured in places by low hanging clouds clinging to hilltops, and a certain gray sort of moving density that hinted at an approaching shower.

I walk on. It keeps raining.

Sure enough, the shower caught me just as I reached the bridge. I smiled in spite of being caught in the drenching down pour long enough to be soaked in spots. I smiled as I waited out the worst of it from beneath the bridge. I smiled as I walked on, once it had passed. It seemed an easy enough journey home.

It makes sense to seek shelter from the storm.

I headed home eager to enjoy dinner. I arrived home to discover I was out of literally everything I had considered making. I shrugged it off, had something different, and looked forward to a relaxed, quiet evening. What I actually had was quite different; I had noise. A lot of noise. I had the noise of a professional carpet cleaning service (the sort with a loud van operated vacuum and pump system of some kind), which commenced sometime after 7 pm, and was still at it well-past 8:30 pm (on a “work night”). The parking spaces are just steps from front doors and thin walls that keep out basically no noise, so it sounded more or less like that truck was parked in my kitchen. I spent the evening wearing hearing protection. It rattled the walls. It rattled my consciousness. It was inescapable. The headache and anger were pretty nearly inevitable. Because I am up at 4:30 am, I’m usually at least trying to get some sleep by 8:30 pm, most nights, or at least making my way in that general direction for the attempt. That wasn’t going to be possible; it took more than 90 minutes from when the noise finally stopped (at 8:47 pm), for me to be sufficiently at ease to sleep. Meditation helped. Meditation (almost) always helps (me) with a great many things associated with emotional reactivity, regardless of the cause.

I woke rested, and in a good place. Tired. Not enough sleep. This too shall pass, like a rain storm. The rain passed. The noise stopped. Sleep happened. Lack of sleep will also resolve, in time, because change is a thing. In most respects, an utterly ordinary Thursday.

I look over the new list from my Realtor, and smile, sipping my coffee; even this “will pass”. Eventually, there will be a house, there will be an offer made and accepted, there will be a closing, and there will be a move. There will be excited bliss, a sort of relief, great contentment. There will also be paperwork, and small moments of homeowner reality-checking-frustration-driving-angst-making moments of doubt and inconvenience, and there will be a home, nonetheless. It’s what I am working towards, and incremental change over time, and the inevitable outcome of practicing suggests that if I simply keep at it, patiently, persistently, refraining from taking a process personally, I will find myself transformed (into a homeowner)(with massive debt)(and a mortgage)(instead of renting)(and the freedom to really make a home that meets my needs over time).

Another day. Another beginning. Another opportunity to make the choices that bring me closer to being the woman I most want to be. Today it’s enough.

 

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, Spring, The Art of Being, Words

Letting It Rain

March 15, 2017 //
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It’s getting easier. Morning, I mean. The alarm went off, and seemed more just a sound than an affront to my sleeping consciousness. I turned it off. I continued to just lay there quietly, and sure enough, I nearly went back to sleep, confused about the day, the time, and the purpose of my wakefulness. I teetered on the edge of that moment when dreams become more real than awareness, and sleep returns, not quite waking. With an audible groan that seemed unnecessarily loud in the room, the human body I am wrapped in, threw back the covers and sat up. It felt disorienting and strange, but I was no longer at risk of falling back to sleep.

A recent rainy morning. It has been raining for days.

I stood in the shower for some long many minutes, just standing, letting the water fall on and around me. Still not quite awake. Thinking about the rain falling outside, whimsically wondering how different it would feel to simply step out on to the patio, into the rain, naked, before dawn?

Coffee is welcome this morning. I savor it. I think about other coffees, other mornings, other moments on rainy days. I am, at least, awake. The rain falls. It is loud on the roof, the eaves, and the flue cover. The rain falls. I let it. I mean, it’s not like I could legitimately do anything to stop it falling. I waste a few more words, delete them. Listen to the rain fall.

I swallow the last of my coffee, while hastily deciding to spend what is left of the morning meditating, and listening to the rain fall. This morning, it’s enough.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Spring, The Art of Being
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