Archives for posts with tag: The Art of Being
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OMG Not That Too!?

May 30, 2025 //
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Oh hey there – you okay? How’s your day going? Are you stressed out by all the horrible shit going on in the world? Genocides? Wars? The possible end of American democracy? The return of fascism? The rise of global authoritarianism? Xenophobia, racism, misogyny, and violence? It’s a lot to consider and to worry about and endure. How are you holding up? What are you doing to take care of yourself and nurture your own good heart? What are you practicing? How are you giving yourself a break from all of that to focus on self-care, and tending the garden of your heart?

When was the last time you set aside all the stressful worrisome details to take a walk in the sunshine on a Spring morning, or sit in a garden watching the breeze stir the flowers and breathe the scent of them? Something to consider – don’t get so wound up in the cares of the world that you fail to take care of yourself. Do something nice for yourself – surely you deserve your own attention, affection, and consideration?

…”Put your own oxygen mask on first”…

Lemon-scented geranium on a drizzly morning in Spring.

It’s a lovely Friday morning. I haven’t yet gotten a walk in, my leg is still a bit twinge-y and aching, but I’ll get to it before the sun fully rises and the heat of the day begins. Yesterday was like summer, and got quite warm. Today looks like another summery day. The garden will love it, and I’m grateful to have the help of the Anxious Adventurer – the lawn is thriving under his care, and I am not stressed out about it. I breathe, exhale, and relax, and chuckle to myself about the deer – and the blue jays. The blue jay that follows me around the garden with such curiosity also appears to be the creature eating my strawberries. lol It’s hard to be mad about it. I enjoy the creatures as much as I enjoy the garden, and I’m fortunately not dependent on the garden to feed myself or my family – I take a moment of gratitude to recognize what a privilege that actually is, even in the 21st century.

“Whimsy” blooming.

More and more of the roses are blooming, and I delight in the knowledge that they will be what I see when I return home. I’ll “walk through the garden” as I come up the walk to the front door. I’m grateful to enjoy the little house I call home. My Traveling Partner puts so much thought and work into making things to improve our quality of life, and even simply to delight me. I’m fortunate to be wrapped in his love. Even in the office, everywhere I look there is some little token of his affection and high regard, from the mouse I use (which he recommended to me) to the little desk caddy (that he made for me) to the earrings I am wearing this morning (another item he made with me in mind). I sigh and smile, feeling contented and loved.

This new day is just beginning. I have choices how to spend my time, and where to put my attention. (So do you.) I could choose to doom-scroll the news feeds, and allow myself to get all spun up over terrible shit I can’t personally change. I could spiral into anger and despair over what a terrible place the world seems to be right now. On the other hand, I could choose gratitude, and allow myself the opportunity to embrace the small joys in my life right now, to appreciate my good relationships, and my good fortune, and to consider what sorts of small things I can do to make the experience of my coworkers, friends, and loved ones better in some small way, even if only by being the best human being I can be, with the resources at hand, and by not making shit worse in the world. It’s something. It’s not even a small thing, if practiced consistently. We can change the world by changing our corner of it. There are verbs involved.

…Speak truth to power…

Choose sides. Choose wisely. Become the person you most wish to be. Practice the practices that nurture and heal you. Follow Wheaton’s Law. Incremental change comes over time, and is the result of so many small choices. Maybe go outside and get some fresh air and sunshine, and watch the Spring become summer? I’m not telling you what to do, I’m just saying it’s a good time to begin again.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, Anxiety, breathe, Despair, Free Will, Frustration, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Roses, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War

Chicken Soup and Play-Doh

May 29, 2025 //
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My walk this morning was short, local, and drizzly. It is a drizzly morning. I walked with my thoughts, and headed home to begin the day. The drive back to the house felt peculiarly nostalgic – something about the drizzle, and the way the sheen of water on the road reflected the light of the gray skies over head – and I found myself thinking about sick days on rainy Spring mornings as a kid. How is it that all my recollections of missing school due to being sick seem to be rainy days? I guess with the average number of rainy days where I grew up being about 111 days per year, falling primarily in the months between March and November, it would be better than a 1 in 3 chance of any given sick day being a rainy one. Maybe they really all were? lol

When I started down the trail, it wasn’t raining. Change is.

I arrived home to find my Traveling Partner awake, and it was lovely to see him. I made coffee for us both, and headed to my office to begin the day. All so very ordinary, so routine that the days sometimes seem to blur together except that the precious loving moments we share stand out, each unique and worth appreciating. It’s strange that when I look back on my childhood, there are really only a small handful of recollections I can count on as “my own”, and many of those are rather archetypical – conflations of many similar events becoming just one “memory”. When I look back on the past 15 years with my Traveling Partner, it’s not that way. There are many many memories, each built on small details that linger in my recollection. I don’t know whether this is a sort of before/after contrasting what remains of my memory after my head injury with how my memory works now, but there it is; I have relatively few childhood memories, and some of those are rather suspiciously recalled “in the third person”, as though I am remembering something I was told, not really remembering something I experienced.

I think about memory awhile, and rainy sick days. I remember those almost fondly. The rainy gray drive to the doctor’s office. Bundled up at home with chicken soup, saltine crackers, and a book to read. Sitting at the dining room table playing with Play-Doh, or coloring in a favorite coloring book. Napping. Waking. Reading. Before my head injury, my sick-day recollections are mostly to do with headcolds or the flu. After my head injury they are more often about headaches. I missed quite a bit of school, even through high school, over headaches. I don’t miss much work over headaches as an adult; I’ve learned to live with them. It’s an uneasy truce, some days, and I’d for sure prefer not to have a headache at all, but since I generally do (of one sort or another), it’s probably best that I don’t just give in and quit, eh?

You’re not alone with your pain. Not really. We’ve all got some kind of pain – well, most of us, I feel fairly certain. There are no doubt those rare few individuals with charmed lives of such good fortune that pain hasn’t become a thing to endure day after day after day after day after… You know? I’m not even sure those people are to be envied; they may lack some useful perspective on endurance, and what they are truly capable of, perhaps. (I don’t know; I’ve never lived that life.) I sip my coffee and notice that my mind has wandered on to other things. The garden. The roses. Pain management. Nutrition, diet, and exercise. The shit I’ve got to get done today. The things I’m eager to do for myself once the needful tasks of the day are behind me. My garden. Work. Life. Love. I let my mind wander on for a few minutes of self-reflection before I get started on work in earnest. Sometimes self-reflection feels a little self-indulgent, but it is actually an important bit of self-care (at least for me); it tends to keep me “on my path”.

…What are you doing to care for yourself? What are you practicing?

I breathe, exhale, and relax. The clock ticks on. The rain continues to fall. I notice that it is time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, gardening, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being

Two Neat Columns

May 28, 2025 //
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I’m sipping my morning coffee thinking about how ludicrous it is that we so often seek to make everything fit into an “either/or” sort of arrangement – two neat columns, pro and con, or two clear choices for or against. I don’t think our human experiences are so tidy and clearly on one side or another of some dividing line. Not at all. We are creatures capable of depth and nuance of both thought and emotion. Our choices are often not so easy, and the problems we face more subtle and complex than a clear “yes/no” decision can resolve. We cheat ourselves and each other when we default to false dichotomies and make believe dilemmas – we often have many more choices on the vast menu of life’s Strange Diner than we take the time to consider.

…I consider our weird two party political system in the United States to be symptomatic of this very human challenge (in addition to being the only likely mathematical outcome of our current election system, regardless how many parties we may attempt to put in the mix). Human beings don’t seem to like complicated decision making at all. What a shame – we have such beautifully well-suited brains for such things. Seems like a waste of our potential as beings.

How are you wasting your potential today? Maybe that’s worth giving a moment of thought to? It’s your life, of course, and I’m not telling you what to do, just saying – you’ve got so much potential as a creature! What are you doing with that? What are you practicing? Where does your path lead?

What love looks like.

I spent time this weekend lingering over love and games with my Traveling Partner, who has been patiently re-teaching me to play cribbage. I enjoy cribbage. I played it with my grandfather. I played it when I was in a warzone (preferring it over pinochle or dominoes). My TBI gives me an irritating cognitive quirk; I don’t easily remember certain sorts of things, and the rules of card games are one of these. If I am not playing a particular game every day, the recollection of the game play and the rules quickly extinguishes, and I’ve got to start all over again the next time I go to play. It had been years since I’ve played cribbage. My Traveling Partner made us a lovely cribbage board. We’ve been playing relatively regularly for the past few days, and I’m enjoying it greatly. Oh, sure, at least for now I still need help figuring the points in a hand – cribbage is a relatively complicated card game – but I’m enjoying the time with my partner, and he with me, and it’s time well-spent. I am grateful he is so patient with me as I relearn a game I once knew so well.

A rose blooming in my garden. A beautiful metaphor.

I spent time this weekend lingering in the garden, enjoying the roses that are blooming, and fussing over the plants the deer have nibbled on. I weeded, and I watered, and I sat in the sunshine. Also time well-spent.

62 soon. Life is significantly less complicated – and less “exciting” – than I once expected it would be (though it often still feels like a lot to manage), and I’m not at all disappointed by that. lol Like a lot of other things, “excitement” is somewhat over-rated (and things are generally complicated enough to feel bothersome), and I greatly prefer joyful contentment, sufficiency, and the kind of broad perspective that allows me room to understand and appreciate others. We’re each having our own experience, and I really don’t have the time to bother with being annoyed by everyone about everything or wallowing in made up drama. lol I do like things “easy”. These mortal moments are so finite and precious.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’ve got a couple appointments today, and it’s a busy workday, and there are errands to run on the way home, and… when the hell would I also find time to enjoy “excitement”? Good grief, a pleasant generally routine life is plenty busy already, isn’t it? I sip my coffee and smile to myself. This is a nice moment right here. Good for self-reflection and new beginnings. Good for gratitude and love. Good for putting some thought into decisions to be made and things to be done. There’s no need to rush, or force everything through a filter that reduces it all to either/or, this-or-that, yes/no, pro or con… I have time to think things through thoroughly, to understand more of my life more deeply, in spite of that ticking clock. I have time for myself before I begin again.

There’s time to pause for flowers, to water our gardens, to chase our dreams.
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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Roses, Spring, The Art of Being, turning 60

How to Thrive

May 27, 2025 //
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I’m at the trailhead. I didn’t get much of a walk in, this morning. Feels like a bit of tendinopathy in my left knee. Ouch. I still managed a slow careful walk on the well-maintained trail nearest to home before I realized I am dealing with an injury. Maybe a bit too much enthusiasm with the elliptical machine. It’s a work day, and a fairly routine beginning, aside from this new pain. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Could be worse; at least everything isn’t hurting!

Taking a moment for a sunrise is a good use of time.

So, I’ll be on my cane full-time for awhile, I guess, and patiently giving my leg a break and time to heal. Doing so can’t alleviate the necessity of other sorts of self-care and I remind myself how important strength training is, not only to improve my fitness as I age, but also because glp-1’s have the potential to rob me of muscle. So. Yeah. There’s that. I shrug it off as a concern; there’s worse crap going on in the world and I’m fortunate that I’m only dealing with this, right here, right now.

… Sure, there’s horrible stuff going on in the world, but much of it is entirely outside my control or influence; I can make my voice heard to the few listening, but sometimes the best thing I can do for the world is make my own small corner better and do no damage elsewhere…

In spite of the deer, I may harvest some tomatoes.

Sometimes it seems the most significant difference between surviving and thriving is more to do with my focus and the practices I choose to practice than anything to do with specific circumstances. This is, of course, quite relative and simplistic. It’s damned difficult to thrive in the midst of ongoing trauma – been there, tried to do that, with varying degrees of success (and mostly failing – sometimes the best choices we can make are to change our situation). Generally, though, short of truly dire circumstances, the most notable difference between surviving and thriving, often seems to be largely a matter of perspective. Shit is crazy and often quite horrible “out in the world” these days, but when I pull my focus back to self, hearth, and home, it’s not bad. Life feels less manageable when I allow the world to drag my attention into chaos and Other People’s Drama. There’s something useful to understand there. I sit with that thought awhile.

It’s often what we plant and how we tend our garden that determines what we find there, more than the weather.

Making healthy choices isn’t always a tedious buzzkill, and it isn’t always about this fragile vessel. Many opportunities to live well and to thrive are about what I put my attention on, what I read, what the contents of my mental, emotional, and intellectual “landscape” are filled with. I have choices there, too. Doom scroll through the news feed, or walk a trail on a lovely Spring morning with only my thoughts to occupy me is as important as choosing to drink my coffee black, instead of loading it with sugar. We’re complicated creatures. Our best choices are not reliably the easiest, nor what we seem to prefer.

What are you planting in the garden of your heart?

I sigh and smile. Incremental change over time is reliable and steady; we become what we practice. Don’t like where your life seems headed? Choose another path, change your practices, and begin again. Thriving is within reach, and quite often it’s as much a matter of perspective as it is to do with the practical details. I stand and stretch and consider the day ahead of me.

… It’s a good time to begin again.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, War and News of War

A Trail to a Place

May 21, 2025 //
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Among the metaphors for life and living that I favor is simply that of a trail to some destination (known or unknown). Steps on a path adding up to getting somewhere make a handy metaphor for a lot of things. I sip my coffee and think about metaphors, progress, growth, and being grateful to have had so many opportunities to fail, learn, and begin again. This journey hasn’t been an easy one built on paved paths, well-lit walkways, and obvious sparkling vacation destinations (like, not at all), but it has been a worthy one, scenic, adventurous, and filled with memorable moments. I sip my coffee content to begin the day with my thoughts, the recollection of waking rested, the memory of a beautiful sunrise glimpsed on an easy commute to the office. Nice beginning to the day…

…I wonder where this path leads…

“Pace yourself, there’s no hurry,” I remind myself, as I reflect on recent days, and the day ahead. Long weekend – Memorial Day ahead already? Yesterday I was too sore for the elliptical workout(s) I had planned. No surprise, really; I was overly eager and enthused, and may potentially have overdone it just a bit the day(s) before. lol Very human. I’m looking forward to it this evening, though, and I feel a renewed sense of committment and purpose when I think about fitness and exercise, generally. Nice bit of healthy momentum to take advantage of.

I chuckle to myself, although a bit frustrated, when I recall the doe coming back to the garden yet again, yesterday, and eating more of what is left of the tomatoes she’d already been nibbling. I sigh, a little annoyed, but having trouble being really mad at all; she’s doing what she can to survive, and no doubt has a fawn she’s trying to feed. I get it; my garden is well-tended and filled with tasty young green things, all edible. (I wouldn’t personally eat a tomato plant, but I suppose the deer and I have quite different appetites and preferences. lol) I grin to myself; isn’t it enough to have a garden of my own? I’ll learn from this and plan differently next year.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. Things are quite wonderful in my partnership with my Traveling Partner, lately. Love feels somehow “new again”, although I don’t know why that is, I’m definitely enjoying it. Life, too, just as it is, feels good. I’m happy to stand in this place, grateful to feel well and joyful. I make room to savor the experience, and just sit with it awhile. Our best feelings and moments are worth savoring, and lingering over. So… I do that. Nice morning for it.

Soon enough it’ll be time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being
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