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There’s Always a Bottom Line

November 10, 2015 //
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Where’s mine? That’s an important question…and this is me ranting about the underlying frustration with finding real ‘work:life balance’. You can skip this one if you prefer the lovely pictures and focus on day-to-day mindfulness and search for balance and stillness. This… is not that. 😉

Perspective matters.

Perspective matters.

If I am over-extended, over-committed, over-worked, and rushed to a point that I more easily overlook needed medication, appropriate breaks for self-care, measured healthy calories to sustain good health and cognition, I can’t sustain emotional balance, physical wellness, and maintain all those logistical quality of life details that matter so much… rent…bills…vacuuming…showering… Just saying – how about we all take a nice deep breath and take a step back from being dicks to each other all the fucking time? That other person over there, that didn’t meet your expectations this time, or that time, or some other time – still human. Still having their own experience. Still entirely worthy of common courtesy, consideration, and patience. How about showing some? If we make a collaborative effort on that, culturally, the whole fucking world improves just a little bit. (This is a reminder for me, myself, as much as anything. I could do better on this.)

Raise the minimum wage? You bet – paying people appropriately is simply the right thing to do, and it is pretty ugly that we can say ‘he works full time’ and ‘he doesn’t make enough money for rent and groceries’ about the same person. Any person. And guess what? We’re all people. The same thing is true of time – we’re all human. People. Beings of emotion and reason, creative, romantic, philosophical beings who live and laugh and love – and need time for those things. No one needs time to be employed by some other person on some other agenda; we do need an exchangeable form of our life force to pay for the goods and services required to support our desired quality of life. That so many are not being paid what our human life force is worth as human beings is tragic. That anyone at all would argue that the life force of some human beings is worth more than others is… yeah. To be approached with caution at best. Go ahead, tell me how the average CEO is truly worth more money hour-for-hour than the guys who built your roads, your house, who pick your produce, who sweat over ensuring you have power after a storm, who work in factories manufacturing the goods you want so badly. I’m ranting. Sorry. This matters to me.  You matter to me. People matter to me. Even in my most solitary least social moments, I still value human life, and struggle to understand why it so often seems that many people just don’t, not even their own.

It makes me ache to see people tear each other down to somehow excuse modern-day indentured servitude: pay so minimal there is limited potential to survive, and no real hope of actually thriving or ‘bettering oneself’. I’m spitting into the wind. Job crisis? No problem; reduce the standard work week, refuse to allow salaried employees to work more hours than that, and insist businesses go ahead and hire the staff it actually takes to do the jobs they want done. Pay people to retire earlier in life if they choose to (so they can afford to). Ensure wages are adequate to live on, and stay so. Job crisis over. Yes, I am saying that businesses take the hit on the bottom line – less profit, more labor cost. Human labor is worth far more than we make it out to be. I’m not afraid to say that; businesses are building their success on the backs of those employees, capitalizing on the limited mortal lifetime of individual actual real human beings who might very much enjoy living their actual fucking lives doing something they truly enjoy and thrive on. So… not fast food, probably. Not a call center, probably. The reason jobs are work is because businesses do actually have to pay people to do them. We don’t all wake up and just go to call centers, food service jobs, or gas stations just because we totally love the fun of it; we do it as part of an agreed to exchange of our precious life force for cash money to use as we may. We have so much more to offer ourselves and the world than 40 hours of grinding unrelenting tedium for employers who are (in some cases) actually destroying the world (or just up to no good).

If you do work you love, I applaud you. If you have found a way to love the work you do, regardless what sort of work that is, or whether it benefits you beyond a paycheck, I applaud you, too. I haven’t figured that one out yet. I earn an adequate living doing something I am very skilled at, and most of the time it’s enough that it be so. Tonight… I am tired. I hurt. I’m struggling to understand why I choose to spend so much of my limited mortal lifespan on something that has no potential to nurture my spirit, or build memories of wonderful experiences, or deliver real value to my life… beyond that infernal bottom line. There are bills to pay. This is such a limited and precious mortal life… what is appropriate compensation for the irreplaceable minutes with loved ones, or hours spent walking in the forest, or… yeah, the entirety of a lifetime we can’t replace once spent?

My perspective on work:life balance is very different at 52 than it was at 25. Maybe that’s as it should be? There’s more to understand here, and some hard questions to answer for myself about what matters most. Maybe for you, too? Perhaps the answers are as individual as we each are as people? Does the man or woman of 70 who is angry about ‘forced retirement’ have any less right to their experience and will than does the man or woman of 45 who would prefer to retire from the world of day-to-day hourly wage employment to write the novel they have within them? Does it matter what drives that preference? I don’t have answers – but I’m pretty sure cookie cutter solutions aren’t the solution, and falling back on what my grandfather found right and proper will likely not work for me. We are not ‘one size fits all’ in life.

Autumn becomes winter; there's only so much time, and all of it is 'now'.

Autumn becomes winter; there’s only so much time, and all of it is ‘now’.

I am more questions than answers. Tonight I am also tired, in pain, and feeling rather terse with myself ‘for even bringing it up’, as if ignoring a wound has any potential to heal it. So, I take time to take care of me, meditation is a good practice in this head space, a healthy meal, a good night’s rest. There is time to consider, to wonder, to contemplate – there is time later to ask questions, to make choices, to figure out what works and do that thing. Tonight it is enough to slow down, and take care of me.

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Turning 50, War and News of War, women, Words

A Walk in the Park

October 30, 2015 //
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Friday could not come soon enough, although peculiarly, and as anxious as I’ve been in the office, it’s never been actually straight up bad, and often quite a bit less bothersome than I seemed to have set myself up to expect. I’d say it’s weird, but the truth is simply that we are each having our own experience, each possessing free will, each making different assumptions, and communicating from ever so slightly different dictionaries than each other moment-to-moment – and to make things just that much more fun, if we’re all seeking growth, and investing in what we want of the future, we show up each day as a very slightly completely different person than we were the day before – and don’t really realize it, and it doesn’t necessarily show to anyone else, either. How odd. The week ended rather suddenly and without much fuss.

As I left the building, peering into sodden gray skies likely to drip a few drops on me as I walked home, I recalled a team-mate commenting that the park bridge is open again, and that I would be able to “take the shortcut through the park” (it’s not a shortcut – it’s a longer walk, but more scenic, and definitely feels shorter). I took a deep breath, and walked on.

I pause at the top of the hill, excited to cross the new bridge. Is it silly to be excited about something so mundane?

I pause at the top of the hill, excited to cross the new bridge. Is it silly to be excited about something so mundane?

I take my time approaching the bridge, savoring the experience of the excitement and anticipation, and filling my senses with the prolonged yearning I had been experiencing in the background every day, waiting to resume my pleasant walks through the park each day. I make a point of lingering in this positive moment, and really feeling the joy of it.

As with much of Oregon these days, the bridge is higher.

As with much of Oregon these days, the bridge is higher.

I approach the bridge, eager to see the changes. The bridge has been elevated, which is a very good thing since many prior years the creek rose enough to swamp the bridge and make it impassable. I will be walking over this bridge all winter. I notice the very sturdy sides and rails, the closely spaced deck, and that the deck is not actually wood – some sort of durable plastic or composite material, it seems to shed water, and is not slick to walk upon even in the rain. Nice.

I cross the bridge; it feels like a moment.

I cross the bridge; it feels like a moment with significance.

I walk over the bridge, stand awhile in the center watching the water flow by sluggishly. This is not a fast-moving creek; there are many snags and places where nutria or beavers have felled trees and dammed the flow. I hear frogs peeping, and ducks quacking. I find myself wondering why “quacking” exactly? I don’t hear ‘quack’… I hear something more like… ‘gronk’. lol I walk over the bridge and startle a very auburn squirrel who was preparing to cross in the other direction. I reach the intersection of paths that decides whether this is a ‘short cut’ or not – turning right, and it shaves about 7 minutes off my walk, compared to taking the main road, but if I turn left (my preference) it takes me wandering through the park for about the same distance as the walk already was – definitely not a shortcut in miles, but how do I communicate that it feels like a shortcut… to my sanity?

Of course I turn left.

Of course I turn left…just up there…

Where does the path lead? Through the park, and into the evening, relaxed at home, and comfortable – and not even a little bit mad about seeing every square foot of sidewalk along the front of my building entirely inaccessible (having been torn out, replaced, and recently finished, it is not available for foot traffic yet). Nope, doesn’t matter. I carefully pick my way through the mud to the mailbox, and then back to the apartment, and taking my muddy shoes off before I step onto the carpet. I’m home.

I don’t know how or why it would make so much difference just to lose the walk through the park, but getting it back definitely made my evening, tonight. Dinner is cooking, and it seems a fine evening for something fun – a favorite animation, perhaps, or some game time? A movie? Fun and games matter too. It’s Friday night, and I’m taking care of me. It’s enough. 🙂

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Small Differences Matter

October 25, 2015 //
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I feel anxious. Well, no…actually, I don’t feel anxious at all from the perspective of emotion. What I feel feels like the emotion I call anxiety (and maybe it is, in some fashion), but there is nothing in my experience of the day to support such a feeling – or to cause it. What there is, though, is noise.

I woke up in tremendous pain this morning, and feeling quite stiff. I did all the usual things to cope with that physical experience, and looked forward to a relaxed day, contentedly doing laundry and watching the rain fall.  I’ve had that, so in that sense the day delivered well on its promise; the chainsaws were unnecessary, and unexpected. Yep. Chainsaws. Chainsaws and a pneumatic log splitter and an air compressor. It is not anything like a quiet Sunday, now. Today the landlady and her husband are cutting the lumber from the recently felled trees down to size and stacking it. I am unfortunate that the wood was piled directly in front of my apartment when the trees came down. The woodpile on which the newly cut wood is being stacked is on the other side of my apartment. The split logs are being carried via wheel barrow – quite possibly the noisiest one ever – around my apartment, along the sidewalk just outside the long west wall, currently strewn with small gravel rocks and mud, so making a rather horrible grinding noise as the wheelbarrow is dragged along on what sound like triangular wheels. I am surrounded by the sounds of work on a fucking Sunday. I don’t know how to communicate to people that getting some quiet actually matters for my physical health as well as my emotional health. There just isn’t any way for someone to understand what they don’t understand. It is unlikely that my landlady has any real awareness of what the persisting noise does to my consciousness; saying that it ‘affects my mood’ doesn’t adequately explain things – it would affect anyone’s ‘mood’. It does.

I wait it out. It will be over sooner or later. I can’t meditate. I can’t focus to read. I can’t write with any ease – even masking the noise with other noise isn’t helpful, I feel cross and aggressive. I certainly wouldn’t be able to nap, and I’d very much like to. I can’t paint or draw. I feel frustrated and on the edge of anger – and I know that it isn’t really about any of these emotions; this is a physical reaction to very irritating stimuli. I go through the steps of meditation even though my consciousness feels raw and irritated; I breathe, and I breathe again. I let go of the aggravation and relax – and I do it again. I just keep repeating gentle practices and processes. I find myself frustrated and help myself over it. I start feeling angry and aggressive, and I take a few more deep breaths, and remember the landlady’s face; she wasn’t enjoying doing this work on a Sunday, herself – it certainly wasn’t ever ‘about’ me. That small moment of compassion and sympathy matters, too; taking the time to view another person as fundamentally human also, and equal in the value of their experience compared to mine makes me far less likely to be inclined to place blame, make demands, or lash out in anger. It’s a worthwhile pause for consideration.

The way ahead is sometimes obscured with fallen leaves.

The way ahead may sometimes be obscured with fallen leaves.

Eventually the laundry is done, and a nice casserole for supper (and tomorrow’s lunch) is made. The house is generally tidy, and the bed remade with fresh linens. I see the sun peek through gray skies for the first time today. It’s finally quiet, too. A lovely hot cup of tea might be nice… or a bubble bath… a short nap might be quite pleasant… I breathe in the quiet, and feel myself relax as the quiet becomes more real minute by minute. I am pleased that I didn’t let the noise get to me, today; there’s still so much of the day left to enjoy. 🙂

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Past Sunset

September 29, 2015 //
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I watched the sun set as I rode the light rail across town. It was lovely. I didn’t think to take a picture, and I’m not sure I could have captured the quality of light reliably. I enjoyed the moment. The ride was fairly quiet, as if all the other commuters were similarly wrapped in their own thoughts, or simply tired at the end of a long day. I didn’t think much about it at the time. I rode along wrapped in my own thoughts.

Home. There’s not much on my mind besides this gentle quiet place, and love. It’s enough.

I spent some time, before it began to get quite dark, rearranging the potted roses and herbs on my patio; the contractors had their own idea about placement, and left my garden in disarray when they left. It was a lovely soothing moment tending home and hearth, and the evening feels very satisfying. This is also enough.

A different evening, a different place, some other moment.

A different evening, a different place, some other moment.

There was a point at which I had pulled fine filaments of words together in a complex braided thread that became quite properly an idea. It dissipated like mist in the golden sunset as I rode along smiling at the evening light, and I arrived home pleasantly tired. Satisfied with the moment; all of it, every bit, quite enough.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Comfortably Me

September 6, 2015 //
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I am sipping my coffee slowly; it’s too hot to drink comfortably. I’ve got my favorite playlist on, and it’s late enough in the morning that it is unlikely to disturb the neighbors, but I’ve got it turned down a little lower than I might later today; it’s the more comfortable choice for me, right now. It is a weekend morning, and I spent yesterday painting. I have plans to do so today, and I am finding it interesting that I feel no urgency or pressure to cram as much creative work as possible into these days and hours. I could as easily choose other things to do today, without any sense of being deprived or disappointed.

My home, my rules, my way - my time.

My home, my rules, my way – my time.

This is my place. I’ve set it all up for maximum personal comfort, personal convenience, and in celebration of my own aesthetic, ensuring my sense of emotional comfort, too. No more having to contemplate how and when I will get everything cleaned up and put away – before I even get started painting. I can live with the work in progress easily – and comfortably. This is new and wonderful.

I got close last October, when we all decided I could move upstairs to the loft (no, not really, and it didn’t happen)… or at least paint up there quite comfortably (well, for about three months, until the work space was rather unexpectedly filled up with things out of the attic on the assurance that an attic project would be committed to and wrapped up promptly… it wasn’t). I’d never gotten closer to real space to paint than those promises…until now. My previous experience has always been that my work, while valued, was in the way (“Oh, hey, I really like that one – when are you going to be cleaned up?”). My paints, canvases, my easel, the room it takes for canvases to dry…to hang…all very much in the way of everyday life – for everyone else. I got into the habit of scheduling time in advance, cleaning up quickly, and apologizing frequently for the inconvenience, and pretending not to notice when others lacked time or interest in viewing and celebrating new work with me. Every relationship offered some version of substantial limitation-setting on my freedom to work creatively. It hurt, and over time it slowly became a big deal; being an artist is a substantial part of who I am. After decades of it, I really needed something very different…and one of those things I needed turned out to be taking myself more seriously, and making my needs my own high priority.

There are moments when I really feel how much living alone lacks the intimacy and warmth of living with love…I definitely miss easy access to sex every day (and yes, at 52 I still very much want sex every day)…and hugs. I miss hugs a lot. I miss shared laughter, and touch. I miss kisses good-night, and good-bye, and welcome home. I miss someone being there for me when I’ve had a nightmare. But…there are things I don’t miss at all. I don’t miss being treated as an inconvenience. I don’t miss starting something beautiful artistically and having it completely derailed over OPD (other people’s drama), or some bit of household stress, or someone else’s needs of the moment. I don’t miss being interrupted for some mundane something or other while I am painting (or writing). I don’t miss not being able to play the music I love when I am painting (without also listening to a lot of bitching). I don’t miss living with bare walls, and paintings stacked everywhere begging to be hung (I don’t even get how that’s a thing, honestly). I don’t miss having to plan around everyone else and hoping that inspiration holds out until it is convenient for them for me to be painting. I love this space – I am wrapped in pure inspiration, undiluted by stress, drama or game-playing. I feel…artistically fearless. It’s lovely. (I still miss hugs.)

Enough.

Enough.

This morning, I slept in, woke easily and exchanged a few pleasant words with my traveling partner regarding the possibility of getting together at some point this weekend. I can comfortably finish my coffee, and pick up a paint brush…or not. Whether I paint is now dependent more on whether I am inspired than any one other factor. I am comfortably at home with myself, and with my work. It feels a little bit amazing…and for just a moment an icy sensation of fear and insecurity cuts through my soft easy mood…I look over my shoulder at the completed installation on the west wall; the sight of 17 paintings hung along an artistic progression in theme and color, inspired by my love of flowers, and the way light plays with color are enough to put those feeble demons to rest this morning. I smile as my gaze sweeps across the newly hung paintings and I think of love, too, and smile as I recall how much a few observations made by my traveling partner untangled my vision for that space. There are few things as powerful as a good partnership.

"Communion" 24" x 36" acrylic on canvas w/ceramic and glow. 2011

“Communion” 24″ x 36″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic and glow. 2011

So little of life is truly an entirely solo effort – even when I paint, I am often ‘walking hand in hand’ with a love or trusted friend, in the depths of my heart, in the corners of my thoughts. (More than any other, my traveling partner is my artistic muse.) I am inspired by people – by the experience of being human – but that has often also been quite uncomfortable, as inspiration goes. Having a place of my own to work out the challenges, to linger in the arms of inspiration, to deep dive what is hidden within the shadows in my soul… it makes so much sense to live alone, in so many practical ways, as both a writer and a painter; these are not easily shared experiences.

Shared experience or not, I had a big hurdle to clear to get here, to this beautiful place. I needed to put me at the top of my list, and I needed to stop compromising my long-term needs for the convenience of others. It’s hard sometimes, even now. Living alone nudges me into first place on my agenda day-to-day, and that does make it much more difficult to undercut my own needs with needy bullshit sourcing deep in the chaos and damage. I still catch myself trying now and then. Incremental change over time requires both time – and practice. I am getting plenty of both, living alone. I miss the hugs, though… and sometimes it feels as if I miss them enough to give up painting and writing… only… that’s not at all the true truth. I would suffer greatly if I made that kind of choice. (Been there, tried that.)

"Sunset Meadow" acrylic on canvas w/pen&ink, gold, and glow 11" x 14" 2015

“Sunset Meadow” acrylic on canvas w/pen&ink, gold, and glow 11″ x 14″ 2015

I am still a beginner. I am a student of life, with more questions than answers (by far). This is my journey, and I am my own cartographer… the point, though, is this; aren’t we all? Isn’t today a good day to make the choice that makes the difference? Isn’t today a good day to invest fully in the best within? Isn’t today a good day to change the world?

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Categories Anxiety, Art, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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