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Try, or Practice?

July 29, 2017 //
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I woke up early. It makes sense. I went to bed early, too. I woke during the night. No surprise there, I often do. There’s no stress over any of that. My head is a jumble of random beginnings of thoughts seeking a narrative in which to play a role. My morning is a strange sequence of broken routines and randomness. I’m not concerned about that, either. Again and again, I pull myself back to this moment, here, now.

I sit down with my coffee, eventually, some two hours after waking (which is only one of many odd random bits of altered behavior that seems without cause or purpose).

The first track on my playlist right now is an old favorite. I want very much to play the bass line; I am not yet sufficiently skilled (and realistically, there is chance I never will be). I can try to play it, and fail. I could do that repeatedly. I could do that repeatedly until I am frustrated to the point of disliking what I am doing, although I am doing it because I enjoy it… a lot of people approaching learning something challenging in just that fashion.

I take another approach, instead of “trying”… I practice. That’s it. My approach to a lot of stuff I’m not good at, don’t yet know, haven’t yet found my way around, through, over, or into, or need to do and don’t quite “get”, yet. I practice. I practice the basic skills that would be required to do the thing. Too complicated? I break those things down further, to more elemental basics, until I can begin assembling simpler behavior or actions (or understandings) into more and more complex combinations, and – if all goes well – have learned to do the thing, have gained a new understanding, have completed some complicated task… whatever it is. Most things seem to work out pretty well this way, although it is not the fastest process by which to achieve success. It’s a bit like… a through hike on an unmarked trail, while all the way along observing what appears to be a freeway almost within reach, on the other side of a fence. I could waste time trying to reach that freeway, or I can walk on.

I still get where I’m going. That’s enough.

It may be an uphill climb, some days. I still practice taking time to enjoy the journey, and to look for beauty.

I enjoyed a strangely intimate and emotionally nurturing yesterday. I hung out with a dear friend of many years. We haven’t made time to hang out in about 4 years, and it was overdue, welcome, and comfortably intimate. She is someone I love, though we’ve never been lovers. We’re at very different places in life, and that has been an interesting characteristic of our friendship all along. She was the friend who said to me, so many years ago, “have you heard of ACT?”. Words that would later prove to be another piece to the puzzle of healing and learning to care for the woman in the mirror, because they would still be lingering in my consciousness on that grim December day when I began checking off my list of things to do before I would end my own life. That last item? Try therapy one more time. Her words were a hint at a new direction; “third wave cognitive behavior therapy”. There are several, some very rigid and formal, others less so.

Have we covered this before? Sure. It’s buried in the details, in much older posts. The eagerness of this new way to experience life, more authentically, with greater self-compassion, erupts in my words post after post after post. Life happens. I write about that too. Now and then I add something to The Reading List; my journey is paved with stepping-stones made of books, and practices, and the words of dear friends.

A current favorite track on my playlist feels timed for the moment. My heart fills with tenderness, and gratitude. I’m glad I stayed. Warm tears splash my glasses, and my shoulders shake with sobbing, and I’m just fucking crying now… I’m not unhappy. I’m relieved. I might have missed this precious moment right now. I might have missed yesterday… the lovely color work I got done on my hair… the phone call with my Traveling Partner later in the day… the conversations with friends. Fuck I am so glad I stayed around awhile longer… My heart aches with a powerful need to say “thank you” or.. “I’m sorry”… or… something.  There are literally no words for this strange strong emotion of thankfulness I feel that I chose to live. I’m okay with that too. I’m not afraid to feel.

Another good morning on which to begin again. I don’t know that I’ve done anything that changes the world, but so much as changed about the woman in the mirror. 🙂

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

One Demon Down

July 28, 2017 //
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I woke this morning one demon short in the pack that nips at my heels over the distance I’ve traveled in life. It was interesting to notice it, in such a commonplace way. I woke early, feeling well-rested, and it’s my day off.

Today is also pay-day, rent coming up at a new place (new landlord), a move recently completed, new and different bills, different due dates… I made coffee, sat down, and began updating my financial calendar, my budget, my financial planning software, doubling checking due dates, correcting those where needed, taking stock of debt, of assets, of the costs of this most recent move, of upcoming expenses… quite properly all the grown up things that have to do with taking care of life’s expenses. I sat back, some short time later, feeling satisfied that I had accounted for all the changes, and that I am ready to move forward, and on to restoring a safety net depleted by an ill-timed, unexpected move. I swallowed the last of my coffee feeling both content, and vaguely puzzled… Had I overlooked something? A bill? An account? A “hidden expense”? An urgent need? I made uncomfortable frowny faces at my monitor and chewed on my nails for a moment, before I realized what the uncomfortable emotional experience of feeling incomplete was all about; I am feeling the loss of financial anxiety. No panic. No stress. No fear. No freak out. No resistance to taking care of the details. No cockiness, either. No feeling of great relief to be finished with the task at hand. No catching my breath. No feeling of having gotten away with something because I survived a financially challenging life change. Just… nothing like that at all. A woman, a computer, a payday, and some banking software… No demon.

There’s a small soft surge of subtly congratulatory pride, a bit more joy than contentment, and a smile. This was a major demon for me. The ghost of future destitution, the panic of imminent financial free fall, the demon of “you will never have a financially stable life” and all the fear and anxiety and lack of preparation in life that went with that has apparently been put to rest. Overdue, honestly, it’s been a while now that I’ve been handling my own financial affairs with some skill, enough that I don’t need day-to-day fiduciary assistance. That’s been nice – but that didn’t stop the anxiety every time a bill came due, every time I got paid, every time I went anywhere or spent any money. That stayed with me. The anxiety had faded somewhat in these past two years, becoming a pale shadow of a former threat to my emotional resilience, but it was lurking there nonetheless, waiting to catch me unaware in some moment when I really needed to adult skillfully, waiting to prove I’m not strong enough, not good enough, not ready…

This morning? I’m enough. I’m ready. I’m taking care of the woman in the mirror. It’s pretty nice, and another moment of confirmation that incremental change over time really is a thing. One demon down. 😀

I try to take a sip from my empty cup of coffee. Right. Great metaphor, and a reminder that the next many weeks need to be lived with care, frugally, on a tighter budget, until that precious safety net is restored and I’m back in the black on my financial goals. No problem. Later today, I’ll eagerly sit down to review my planning after thinking some things over, and sorting out what matters most.

It’s a new dawn, a new day… and time to begin again.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being

Mixed Emotions

July 26, 2017 //
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Peculiar morning. I woke from a sound sleep to the message from my Traveling Partner letting me know he is safely home. I felt okay when I woke… not “merry” or overly enthused, but calm and content, certainly. My emotions have shifted and boiled up since then, mixing, shifting, seeming detached from any specific circumstances. Moments of deep love, poignant moments of almost-grief, a lingering vague sadness, a certain tinge of disappointed bitterness with edges gilded in cynicism – variety, this morning, a sampler of feelings lacking in context. No point to be made. No knowledge to be gained. Random emotions in the hours after waking, only.

Last year a morning like this would drive me to my meditation cushion, seeking solace and self-soothing. Two years ago, maybe three, I’d have been feeling low over it, pensive and moody, wondering “what it all means”, but diligently avoiding becoming fused with the emotions, and putting a lot of effort into being present in the moment. 5 years ago, a morning like this one would have found me weeping quietly behind a closed door, frightened of shadows, certain there was no emotionally safe place to turn, filled with despair, and enraged that “it’s all happening again and I can’t make it stop!!” – and not sure what exactly I meant by any of that.

This morning I am a calm observer of my emotions as they ebb and flow, passing through me, sweeping over me, arriving, and then also departing. “This too shall pass” is pretty much approximately always a true statement, whatever the circumstances, if only I can allow it to be so. I open windows to let in the breezes. I enjoy my coffee as day begins to break. I watch dawn arrive from the deck, bare feet on wood, the hair on my arms raised in the pre-dawn chill. I meditate. I have my oatmeal for breakfast. I do my physical therapy stuff. I water the patio garden as the sky begins to lighten from pale to more obviously blue. This is my life, emotions and all. I am okay with that, and with them.

It’s a strangely emotional morning, though. No obvious cause and effect – that’s hard for me, because as human primates are often inclined to do, I really want my emotions to “make sense”, even though “making sense” and being “reasonable” are not their role. I am human, very, and both emotion and reason are part of that experience. I find that some of the power of emotional experiences is lost if I force some kind of rationalized context on them, instead of simply feeling my feelings. So this morning I am feeling things. I wasn’t expecting such a morning, or planning on it, and I don’t know where it may lead or what the day looks like if filled with such experiences.

“Emotion and Reason” 18″ x 24″ acrylic w/ceramic and glow details

I hear vehicles passing by. Some slow down near the cross-street nearest my driveway. My heart jumps each time – is it him? Each time, I feel that it could be my Traveling Partner. My emotions reach my consciousness first. Reason politely points out that although it is physically within the realm of possibilities that he could indeed have immediately gone from his RV to the SUV and headed this way, arriving here sometime around now-ish, it’s really not likely – he just finished driving hundreds of miles through the night, arrived home safely – and tired – and more probably is now soundly asleep. That’s “reasonable”. Reason gets to the party a little later than emotion does. How much fucking drama does that timing cause humanity day-to-day? I smile and sip my coffee. It’s nice to have the practical example in the moment.

Here. Now.

Pink clouds against a blue sky as the sun begins to edge over the unseen horizon. I know the sun is there, though I can’t see it. Peering at my life through my emotions is a little like that, this morning; I have reason, waiting in the background like that unseen sunrise, but for now what I see are those pink clouds of emotion, reflecting facets of what is, all colored up and altered, changing with the light as the sun does rise. Eventually, day light. Eventually, emotion and reason in balance, awake, and aware.

Strange morning. I have time for another cup of coffee. I have time to begin again.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress

The New Normal

July 25, 2017 //
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Yesterday? Work, home, dinner, some chill time, and positioning bookcases. The day felt comfortably normal, comfortably routine. I still can’t quite find my way around in the dark here. The dimensions of the spaces are different (like the width of the hallway), in addition to the very different floorplan, generally. I struggled to fall asleep, still learning “new noises” – some of which sound very much as though they are inside the house (they aren’t, I checked).  Feeling really settled comes with time, and the unpacking of books, and the hanging of paintings, and the mental cataloging of noises. I remind myself there is no rush; I live here.

My commute was pleasant, yesterday. It’s an improvement over the old one, even if I take public transportation, which I did. There is a nearby-ish “park and ride”, and I am taking advantage of it to continue to let my foot heal. The bus I take is a straight shot to the office, no transfers, no delays, frequent service. Convenient. Shorter than the old commute, if measured in minutes. I am grateful to have the car, and can choose to use it.

I smile, thinking of my Traveling Partner, and his assurances that I certainly need the car more than he does, right now, and letting me have it for some while. The sky lightens beyond my window, and I wonder where he is this morning, and whether he is also looking at the morning sky.

This morning is the start of another day of “the new normal”. The morning traffic just outside my window, is the start of noisy, busy, Tuesday morning commuter traffic. I chuckle thinking about how much I bitched about the ceaseless quiet roar of distant traffic at #59… somehow it still managed to wear on my nerves more than the louder, nearer, traffic does here. Was it the broad expanse of meadow and marsh that made it such an affront to my senses? Or was it the lack of pauses, the lack of quiet even in the wee hours? I feel generally calmer here (so far). Planes overhead. Cars. Trucks. Buses. Cement mixers. Delivery vans. None of that drowns out the peeping tree frogs, chirping and singing of the birds in the trees alongside the deck, or the vocalizations of the squirrels and chipmunks. It’s lovely here, in spite of the traffic, in spite of the aircraft occasionally overhead, and even in spite of not being entirely moved in quite yet. (I’m down to the bit I can take my time with, and I’ll be more satisfied with the aesthetic outcome if I do take my time with it.)

Tuesday, huh? Precedes Wednesdays, generally. This week, that means another work day. I’ve grown rather accustomed to 3 day work days and 4 day weekends. lol Definitely a schedule I could enjoy long-term. 🙂 This week it’s back to full length work weeks, and Thursday feels rather far away.

A new normal will ideally include all of the best self-care practices that nurture this fragile vessel, and support an active life. It’ll need continuation of the practices that support my emotional and mental wellness, too. I guess I’ll get on with that… it’s a lovely morning to take a seat on my meditation cushion, looking out a different window, into a different morning view.

Taking care of me. I see changes to make based on the aesthetics of the view.

It’s a lovely morning to begin again.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being

Rest, Also a Thing I Need

July 24, 2017 //
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I got home last night and stepped across the threshold still feeling a fairly firm commitment to work on my list of things to do. Moving in isn’t completed, really, until everything on the list is done. I sat and stared blankly at that list for a while. I had a shower. I came back to the list. I sat quietly awhile longer.

I mostly just sat quietly for rather a long while. I wasn’t even meditating, just… sitting. I found myself so disinclined to actually do anything that it was a major effort to figure out salad and a glass of water. It felt like real work to write an email to a dear friend. I did more sitting.

At some point it dawned on me (because even my thinking felt seriously slowed down) that I must actually just be that tired. As in, needing rest. Real rest. Not “failed action” or succumbing to exhaustion, but actual self-care-involving real legitimate uncompromised rest.

My evening became a lavish delight of the restful variety; I relaxed and looked out over the deck from my air conditioned vantage point. I watched fish swim in the aquarium. I read awhile – a favorite fiction novel that I can quite contentedly pick up or put down any time, at any point in the story, and enjoy myself quite thoroughly. Even meditation seemed like more effort than I could comfortably manage, yesterday evening, so I simply took gentle care of this fragile vessel and enjoyed a quiet evening of… quiet. I even went to bed a little early. It is telling of how much I did need some real rest that I fell asleep almost immediately, in spite of the earliness of the hour, and slept straight through to my alarm clock going off in the morning, quite dreamlessly.

At some point, much earlier in the day yesterday, I enjoyed a long phone call with my Traveling Partner. He’ll be heading home soon, and I will see him, and he will see the new place, and then –  far sooner than ideal, I’m sure – he’ll head out for the next thing out there on the future’s horizon. I’m eager to see him. Hell, I’m excited for him about the next adventure, too, although it will take him some distance away for a time. Neither the distance nor the time seem to undermine our connection. (There are verbs involved there, of course, and practices for maintaining emotional intimacy, managing self-care, and avoiding needless drama – and certainly, results vary from time to time, but… Love. My perspective is that loving is a verb, not a gift to be received, or expected, nor a resource to be mined, or wasted – everyone involved has to do the verbs, or Love withers, unsupported, un-nourished.) It will be a fun homecoming; I am excited to show him around the new place.

I sip my coffee, feeling the tug of a contented smile pulling on my face. Monday morning, the sky becoming light with a new day, just beyond the hedge. Today I’ll try the bus commute on for size. I haven’t yet switched over to a parking pass, still looking at my budget and making the necessary decisions about my commute – both the time and the money are factors to consider, and ease, and convenience, and reliability, and whether it will be miserable, comfortable, or fun. This is my life. Those details matter.  My Traveling Partner was right, though (as if he’s not right often enough!); I am pleased to have the choices in front of me, and it has been incredibly helpful to have the car – especially after I broke my foot! lol

I look around the studio at the managed chaos and disarray – it’s hardly a space I could paint in, as it is. There are paintings stacked everywhere, mostly by size. The hardest part of moving in is hanging art; every place is different, and wants different things on the walls. Each installation is new, and individual. The window looks out on the dawn, and reflects back at me those stacks of paintings, as if to suggest the future is just beyond those stacks of paintings that are waiting to be hung, stored, or sold. It’s a new dawn, a new day, a new life for me… and I’m feeling good.

“Beauty is everywhere” quote and photo by Thomas Harwood, 2017

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being
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