Archives for posts with tag: taking care of me
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From Another Point of View

October 9, 2024 //
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This morning I walked in the dark, with the light of my headlamp making a small visible circle ahead of me, bobbing along with my steps. I walked with my thoughts, and not much else. I was thinking about a question I’d proposed to myself recently (“How does my partner see me, in the abstract, and how does this differ from the woman I am?”), but this morning, I flipped it around and asked myself “who do I understand my Traveling Partner to be, in my recollections, when we are not together, and how does that differ from my lived experience with him when we are together?” It seems useful to understand the variances that may exist, and maybe where those may come from, and what purpose they serve (or problems they may create). Am I holding space for my Traveling Partner to be the man he truly is? Do I love that man, or just a fantasy of who I think he may be? Do I give him the freedom (and support) to change over time and become the man he most wants to be? Do I have an opportunity to be a better lover, friend and partner through understanding him more…accurately? Am I making it more difficult for us to really enjoy each other by holding on to romanticized adolescent notions of the man he is – or worse perhaps, not recognizing his real self with gratitude and delight because I’ve “got baggage”? These seem to be worthwhile questions. I walked along reflecting on them.

The days continue to shorten, and I finished my walk in darkness and hustled on to the office to start the work day. Writing had to wait on a later moment; there were more important things to do, and to think about, as I began this day. I never saw the sun rise, and when it eventually did it rose on a gray cloudy day that looks like it might rain. I wouldn’t call it “bland and uninteresting”, but it wasn’t the colorful display of recent mornings, at all.

Yesterday, I was still pretty under the weather, and I had managed to pass on the ick to my Traveling Partner, likely by way of my happy-to-be-home kiss and embrace on Sunday morning, just based on timing. I’m already pretty much over it – sufficiently so to feel comfortable going in to the office today. I’m hopeful that he’ll soon be over it, too. It sucked having to reschedule his appointments, around which my away plans had been built in the first place. lol Change is. Reality does not give a shit about my damned plans.

…Later…

I took a break. Enjoyed a moment to catch up with a colleague I rarely see in person. Exchanged some cute “stickers” via messaging with my Traveling Partner. Tackled some priority workload. Finally found myself once again in this other here and now, feeling just a bit as if it is a sort of “alternate reality” in which I am always relaxed, thoughtful, and contented. lol. “Living the dream.”

How is it already time to begin again…?

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being

Real Enough?

October 8, 2024 //
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Wow. Yesterday.

The morning began well, but by the time I finished a quick trip to the grocery store after my walk, I began feeling…off. What started as a tickle in the back of my throat ended up being an entire day sick, mostly sleeping, hoping to get over it sufficiently quickly to get my Traveling Partner to appointments. I ended up calling out for today’s work shift, throat still raw, still feeling less than ideally well.

I got up at my usual time and dragged myself through my routine. There’s comfort and a feeling of normalcy in that. I go with it, in spite of the sore throat. I plan to take it pretty easy today. I feel some better than yesterday. I reach for a throat lozenge and a sip of hot coffee.

…A short walk at a relaxed pace will probably do me good…

I breathe, exhale, and relax. These fragile meat suits in which we spend our lifetime need quite a bit of maintenance and care, don’t they? So inconvenient. I’m grateful it’s not worse – there are for sure worse things going around!

I sip my coffee, waiting for the sun. Once daybreak comes, I’ll begin again… and again… and again…

… The journey is the destination.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, breathe, gratitude, health, meditation, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Practices

One More Sunrise Then Home

October 6, 2024 //
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I’m sipping my coffee, waiting for the sun. I’ll enjoy the sunrise, finish loading the car, and then head for home. I miss my Traveling Partner, and it’s time. My coffee is quite good this morning; it’s left from yesterday’s very excellent coffee, purchased on my way to a beach walk not too far away. I knew I’d want a good cup of coffee this morning, early, and it was honestly too late in the morning for coffee drinking when I bought it – so I got a 20 oz Americano, black, and enjoyed something less than half of that with the plan of saving the rest for this morning. It has proven to be a good plan. 😀

I’m more or less packed. I’m showered. Dressed. There’s no particular reason to linger, besides this handful of words, a moment for meditation, and the coming sunrise. Very low stress, as mornings go. I’d intended to get a bit closer to sleeping in, but my eagerness to see my partner overcame any potential for further sleep around 05:00 a.m.. LOL Hardly counts as sleeping in, but whatever. I’m rested. I’m content to enjoy my coffee, and this quiet moment.

A productive weekend, creatively.

The time away has been well-spent, creatively speaking. 9 new pastels, a couple of them exceed my expectations and quite delight me. All of them are adequately satisfying to meet my needs. Another 9 hours or so, over 3 evenings, spent studying the art of pastel and a variety of techniques commonly used. 4 or 5 hours spent walking the beaches. An hour or so spent getting my hair cut. Unmeasured time spent chatting with my Traveling Partner because we often miss each other more than I enjoy my solitude. Time well-spent, indeed.

…Not one single nap, at all, how strange…

… I’m wrong. lol I forgot about my unexpected early evening nap the night I checked in. Good grief, I was sooo tired.

…Now it’s time to begin again, to go home, and hopefully to take with me renewed enthusiasm for the day-to-day, and restored resilience for the things that will go wrong – because things definitely will. lol It’s a very human experience.

I reflect on the days now behind me. Did I get what I was looking for? What I needed? I think so, yeah. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Now I’m just waiting for the sunrise, and drinking my coffee. I’m ready to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Art, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being

Dark of Night

October 5, 2024 //
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It’s shortly after midnight. I’m awake, not because it’s Friday night and I stayed up late doing something. Nope. I went to bed a bit early, in spite of the somewhat noisier Friday night guests, and crashed pretty hard. I slept deeply for a little while, but woke several times to discover I’d pulled my CPAP mask off in my sleep. Weird. I’m not surprised that woke me each time that it did; I struggle to fall asleep without the mask these days, in spite of it giving me occasional nightmares of having to wear MOPP gear. Not an experience I ever enjoyed, and not a bad dream I want to have. Tonight wasn’t about that, though, it was just weird. lol

I woke a little while ago, and my consciousness roused sufficiently to recognize more than that I had removed my CPAP mask – I recognized the likely cause(s). Acid reflux. Headache. Osteoarthritis. The exceptionally quiet darkness after a rather noisy evening. Now I’m awake. I took an antacid. I got a drink of water. I put on a capsaicin patch where my pain was worst. I took something for my headache. I got up and stood on the balcony looking out into the velvety dark night, out across the bay, feeling the cool air on my skin, and looking out into the night for some little while. No moon. Few stars – fog? Mist? Clouds? Across the bay, most of the homes along the Salishan Spit are dark tonight, which surprises me at this relatively early hour. No bobbing lights of shallow bottom boats on the bay. The tide is coming in. I stand awhile, listening, watching, embracing the solitude and the darkness.

It’s been a good couple days of painting. I’ve got another day of it, tomorrow. I miss my Traveling Partner – I’ll be happy to head home Sunday. I stand in the quiet darkness wondering how to bring “more of this” to my experience of life at home. I often wake during the night, at home, but rarely get up or doing anything much about it. Shared living subtly discourages it; I don’t want to wake anyone else. When I live alone, I often do something more than roll over and go back to sleep. Funny thing is, when I’m living alone, I don’t easily “just go back to sleep” – so getting up makes sense, and I do. No stress to it, just a way of living. When I am sharing a living arrangement, I tend not to be awake enough long enough to bother. I go back to sleep because going back to sleep makes sense. There’s no effort to it, these days, and no anxiety to being awake. I don’t actually know why there’s a difference in these experiences (for me). Perhaps living with my Traveling Partner simply finds me feeling somehow safer when I wake in the night, and more able to return to sleep because of it. I don’t generally “toss and turn” if I wake… I just go back to sleep, maybe after getting up to pee, or get a drink of water. Weird. I chuckle quietly to myself, that’s a known thing; humans are weird. lol

…The “more of this”, though, that I’d like to bring home with me, isn’t about the wakefulness in the night. I’m satisfied to roll over and go back to sleep, at home, in my own bed. I’m not grousing about that at all. It’s more… the art, the sense of creative presence and inspiration, the subtle feeling of freedom to “do whatever I want” in all the minutes of my day. Perhaps this really is best left to vacations and time away, alone… it sounds pretty “selfish” on paper, and a somewhat adolescent perspective on adult freedom – untethered from the very real responsibilities of adulthood that most definitely exist. I sit with the thought awhile, after I step back in from the chilly darkness of the balcony. I think about compromise. I think about choices.

I’ll go back to bed soon. I’m already both tired and sleepy. I’m only awake because my thoughts continue to meander wakefully, and I’m honestly sort of encouraging that, in spite of my awareness that sleep could easily overtaken me, given a chance. It feels like a luxury to enjoy the quiet of the night. The world sleeps, the moment is mine…

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being

Purpose and Gratitude

October 4, 2024 //
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I woke to a peculiar morning. It was past daybreak. Past dawn. Past the time the sunrise would have brought on the new day. I woke to a most peculiarly beige-infused sky… everything beige. The sand. The sea. The sky. It was… weird. I didn’t know what to make of it at all, and I snapped a couple pictures of the view of the western horizon from the balcony… that look completely ordinary on my camera.

No color adjustments, the pictures look… pink? Mauve? Equally strange, but not at all the color I saw with my naked human eyes, nor how they rendered on my camera.

I tried to find a filter or adjustment after-the-fact that might show the scene more the way I saw it, with limited success.

This is pretty close to what I saw, only even the water of the bay was the same orange-y beige of the sky.

It was strange. Very strange. It threw me off my expectations of the day, for sure. It didn’t last. By the time I made coffee, and made a short trip down to the hotel’s meager “breakfast bar” (a counter with some cereal and instant oatmeal, an air-pot of hot coffee, and a small fridge with yogurt in it), things looked more or less ordinary enough, with a rainy mist rolling in from the sea and showers in the forecast.

…Now I feel rather as if I “don’t know what to think”, which is quite an odd sensation…

I woke feeling rested after my wakeful time during the night. My dreams were rich and interesting. I woke feeling inspired and eager to feel the soft dry sticks of pastels between my fingers (although, for safety, I wear finger cots to prevent cadmium, cobalt, or chromium pigments from soaking into my skin). Seems a good day for it. (For which I am grateful, since it is one of the reasons I came to this place equipped thusly.)

It’s not a fancy hotel, but it suits the purpose.

My Traveling Partner pinged me a good-morning greeting before I woke. I returned it after he’d gone back to bed. He misses me. I miss him too. I am appreciative of my solitude – but also of the opportunity to miss my partner. Caregiving is hard, and tempers flare when perhaps they ought not. I know I could do better. I fucking love that man – and I mean to do better to treat him with love, patience, and kindness than I sometimes manage to do. It’s easy to take him for granted. It’s easy to be angry with circumstances and fail to differentiate circumstances from the man. Having some time apart reminds me how much I do yearn to be in his good company, how much I love his humor and his tenderness – and how hard it must be to be his best self under these trying circumstances, at all. This shit is hard. Caregiving is hard. Being the one having to accept caregiving is equally hard (and emotionally probably harder). I wish him well from afar, and pause to feel all the love we’ve shared over these many years. I’ve been with him now longer than with any one other human being – friend, lover, or family member. (Though I’ve had some friendships longer, those have endured quite a lot of distance between conversations and shared space – it’s not at all the same.) I left my parents’ home when I was 14. I’ve been with my Traveling Partner now, some 15 years. Wow. I know, I know – it’s not uncommon for monogamous folk who travel life’s path with a single partner they met when quite young to be together many decades; this still feels incredibly special and enduring to me. I’m grateful.

I’ll eat my yogurt (blueberry), drink my coffee, and walk on the beach before it begins raining seriously, then return to the room to paint in the diffuse gray light of this rainy day… a very pleasing way to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, autumn, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, inspiration, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being
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