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Then There Was This Other Time…

June 17, 2015 //
4

I woke this morning, groggy, smiling, slow to roll over and untangle myself from blankets and pillows, to shut off the ceaseless beeping of the alarm. I’ve had this same alarm clock, a small black travel clock, since…seriously? Wow… since 1987. It’s cheap black plastic, and aside from replacing the battery now and then, it’s been terrifically quiet (no ticking) and reliable (with the exception of the occasional inexplicable failure that may have been mine; I sometimes shut it off in my sleep, I think). My thoughts careen carelessly through trivia as I wander haplessly through my morning routine, entirely out of sequence. Aside from being groggy, and I am in a very pleasant state of mind that feels less like a good mood and more like a state of being.

With some discipline, I pull myself back on course, take morning medication, make coffee, do yoga, meditate. I smile considering the evening behind me, and the evening ahead. In some hard to describe way, I feel as if I am ‘getting my life back’ in some way that reaches beyond the chaos and damage and finds me whole and well and making the choices that suit me best and meet my needs over time. I try not to get too excited about it, and just coast on this feeling of being. This smile on my face has lingered since I woke, and it reaches deeply into my heart, coming from a place of contentment, joy and love.

Life isn’t ‘perfect’ (whatever the hell that is) and I am very human. Change is – and it demands my attention, my will, and my acceptance; it isn’t ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and forcing it into such a definition will definitely deliver the experience I choose. That freedom of choice thing? Free will? Yeah – that’s a very big deal, because so much of my experience is indeed entirely self-selected (except the bits that someone else is selecting in their experience, that may ripple across my own). Sure, there’s room for linguistic parlor tricks in life, and conversations about whether free will is ‘real’ or ‘truly exists’ can pass the time most entertainingly…but…I choose my coffee black, and brew it using a pour over method, and it’s a choice I make using my free will, based on my preferences and desires (and resources)… how does it matter in any practical way if that sense of free will and decision-making is somehow somewhat different than I understand it to be, on some metaphysical level that my human cognition is not truly able to grasp with any ease? I assure you, it does not matter one wit. I chose my brew method, my beans, and what I put in it once it was brewed. Those choices are entirely real for me, and entirely my own. Not all of the questions that can be asked benefit from attempts to answer them. Some of the answers don’t provide lasting value… at least… that’s how it looks to me, generally. I like the questions, though. 🙂

Blue sky, perspective, and the freedom to choose.

Blue sky, perspective, and the freedom to choose.

It is a lovely summer morning. There is music playing in the background. My coffee this morning is exceptionally good. I suspect that my evening with a friend, and the excitement of the evening I will spend with my traveling partner tonight, are responsible for the extraordinary morning, more than any particular quality of the morning itself. I enjoy living alone, but I am confirmably a human primate, a social creature, and greatly enjoy the connection and contact of an evening in good company. Living alone can be a tad short on touch and eye contact – this lovely morning is gently wedged between evenings rich with the warmth of companionship, and connection; the smile is a giveaway that those qualities matter a great deal to me.

Today is a good day to enjoy the day just as it is. Today is a good day to smile, to dance, and to love. Today is a good day to choose good practices, and to face the world with a smile. Today is a good day to look the woman in the mirror in the eyes and say ‘no problem, I got this’.

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Uncategorized, Words

Definition

June 16, 2015 //
0

I stood in the shower smiling this morning, feeling comfortable, and enjoying the sensation of warm water over skin. The bathroom is small, and the standing room is quite limited. I don’t mind it much at all; the bathtub is quite large, and of a shape and design that allows it to fill and hold water sufficiently deep to properly soak, quite comfortably. The bathtub makes the small bathroom utterly insignificant. The bathtub was a detail I shopped for specifically while I was looking for a place to call home – it matters to me, and because that is the case with regards to the bathtub, taking care of me meant being attentive to this detail.

Soaking in a different tub, on a different day, in another life.

Soaking in a different tub, on a different day, in another life.

What matters most to you? Small details, too, do you take a moment to consider you while you are planning your day, planning a move, planning your social calendar, your relationships, your choices? Do you also pause to consider love, and what matters to those dear to you? Who is at the top of your agenda? If the person at the top of your list isn’t you…why isn’t it? If it is you, do you maintain that placement at the expense of others dear to you? Questions on a Tuesday.

I am listening to music, and listening to a pop star plead for someone to come and rescue her, to save her life, to turn her on…I love the track, but watching the video and listening to the lyrics is a tad dismaying if I give it too much attention. Even as a metaphor, reaching for an external solution to feeling unsafe, to feeling incomplete, and to be brought to life by some other being troubles me, now; all of that is within my own control, built on my choices and my will. Art doing its thing this morning – and doing it well – I am provoked to think more deeply about love, lust, emotional self-sufficiency, and the defining of self. I find myself asking powerful questions about how I define who I am, and how I answer the questions ‘what moves me?’ and ‘what do I want?’. Who I am is self-defined. This morning I recognize how much and how often I have failed myself by putting that power in other hands.

"Portrait of the Artist's Tears" watercolor on paper 5" x 7" 1985

“Portrait of the Artist’s Tears” watercolor on paper 5″ x 7″ 1985

I am thinking of love and lovers, and giving consideration to what it means to free oneself from external definition. I am asking myself questions about what I want from a lover, and whether it is something I could be providing myself? I am enjoying being so much more free of external definition, and the [perceived, subjective] need to satisfy the expectations of others. I am awakening to the realization that this quality of life is sufficiently important to me that I will likely continue to live alone until I understand it well enough to maintain it even when cohabiting. The freedom of it is intoxicating.

"Joy" watercolor on paper, 6" x 8" 1995

“Joy” watercolor on paper, 6″ x 8″ 1995 (sorry about the camera flare, this delicate watercolor is under protective glass)

I still love the track, and the video, enough to listen to it again. That’s another lovely quality to art; I don’t have to agree with what it says to me in order to enjoy it, and there too, I bring the message with me, the context of my understanding is my own.

"Emotion and Reason" 18" x 24" acrylic on canvas w/ceramic and glow. 2012

“Emotion and Reason” 18″ x 24″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic and glow. 2012

Today is a good day to put things in context, to ask powerful questions, to move on to other things before answering them – I find it is the questions that have the power, answers tend to impose definitions and limits. Today is a good day to limitless, and free of external definition. Today is a good day to put me at the top of my list, without crossing off those dear to me; they have their place in my experience, too. Today is a good day for verbs – and music. 🙂

Being, and becoming. Having my own experience.

Being, and becoming. Having my own experience.

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Categories Art, art and the artist, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Staying Power

June 15, 2015 //
0

Relaxing over my coffee after a good night’s sleep. Feeling well-rested is gradually becoming an everyday experience, more common than not. Like so many other things, it’s likely to fail me at some point, but I don’t focus on that as a concern, or a fear; it’s just an observation, and once made I let it pass from my consciousness.

There is music playing in the background, loud enough to enjoy, quiet enough not to force the neighbors to have to share the experience with me. I choose music that gets me going in the morning, fills me with joy, and moves me to move – dancing in the morning is just about as effective as yoga for easing my arthritis stiffness, and combined they are a powerful way to improve my ease of movement and start the day well.  Music is so much a matter of taste – I am glad there are so many sorts to choose from. Like exercise, like diet, like knowledge, the vastness of the variety means I have choices that make life more wonderful, more individual…my experience is built on my choices and it is uniquely my own.

I sip my coffee thinking about my playlist; songs come and go, get added and removed. My playlist is a fairly fluid thing – but there are tracks on it that have real staying power. I liked them ‘then’, and I like them now. They continue to delight me, to move me, to provoke one emotion or another that I enjoy feeling – or seek as a sensation for some reason aside from casual enjoyment. Others are songs I really get into for a briefer period, and lose interest in over time. This all seems fairly obvious and common place, but how interesting that it is a thing, at all. What makes some songs stick around so long as favorites? It isn’t as obvious as ‘meaning’ – that’s one thing I’m quite certain of, since so much of the music I like best is not the least bit deep or particularly meaningful, and very meaningful songs are as likely as any other to quietly move along to the much longer list of ‘music I used to really like’. This is not an important question, as questions go. I’m just getting my brain warmed up for the work day, I suppose. 🙂

I took time yesterday after work to shut down the devices for a couple hours and embrace stillness. My intent had been good self-care basics: yoga, a long soak, meditation, maybe some writing. In practice, I got comfy in yoga pants, and did only enough yoga to be easily able to sit quietly and meditate without becoming stiff, and sat down to meditate without a timer. (No timer? By design, or by mistake? I guess by design; I rarely use a timer because almost without regard to what else I have planned, taking time to meditate is more important than that.) About two hours after I sat down to meditate, I found myself focusing again on more practical matters, smiling softly, content and calm. Two years (and then some) ago, when I started down this path, I found 5 minutes of meditation a challenging commitment to myself, that required a great deal of discipline and seemed to offer limited immediate reward. Incremental changes over time being what they are, I am in a different place with meditation now. The challenge currently is figuring out my new timing, and new routine, to ensure I indulge myself with this particular practice as much and as often as practical.  I can say with certainty I benefit from meditating very regularly – and without a timer. It is a practice that puts me first like no other – and has no particular potential to harm anyone else.

The things that have great impact on my experience are often not obvious, or seem somewhat trivial initially. Like a great playlist. Like meditation. Like tiny spiders. Like getting a smart phone. Like living my life in an authentic way, precisely as the woman I am. Like making life’s choices with great care and consideration. Like loving the woman in the mirror. Like a smile. There is incredible promise to be found in the details – like buried treasure, without a map, and some of the details end up being as gems of great value – tiny delights in the broader context, of far more worth than the noise and bother that sometimes fills the day-to-day experience with challenges that are less important than they seem.

"Enough".

“Enough”.

This is not a particularly insightful, relevant, or important bit of writing, this morning. I’m not disappointed – life isn’t always about that. I’m just chilling over my coffee, listening to music I enjoy, playing a bit with words in the playground of my thinking, and preparing for a long work week beginning in earnest. I am learning that contentment has staying power.  I am having my own experience, and it is enough. 🙂

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

Presence and Coffee

June 14, 2015 //
0

I woke from a sound sleep with some difficulty. The alarm rather insistently simply continued to beep until I finally pulled myself free of my dreams and shut it off. I lay quietly for some time, trying to remember why the alarm was going off on a Sunday, but certain there must be a reason for it. I smiled thinking of yesterday, of Friday, of lovely days to come…Right. I’m working today. Still not awake, I rise and begin going through the motions of a work morning, peculiarly out of sequence and with little awareness.

A different coffee, on a different day.

A different coffee, on a different day.

It was my first sip of coffee that really got my attention – not because it is coffee, and a lovely taste of morning, oh no, not in the least – it’s dreadful. Well, to be fair, why would I expect differently? I was so careless and inattentive making it that it qualifies as having been made solely because hot water passed through ground coffee and found its way to a cup. LOL I pause for breath, and really give myself a chance for my brain to boot up. My consciousness is barely coming online – I usually don’t actually make the coffee until I am able to do so mindfully, and present in the experience; a good pour over results in extraordinary coffee, a sloppy, careless, inattentive, imprecise pour over results in a far less satisfying brew.

Robotically, I put the warm mug to my lips again, and again I am dismayed at the coffee. Lesson learned? I pour it out and make myself a properly well done cup of coffee, mindfully and present in the moment – I deserve the very best from myself, for myself, and taking the time for a good cup of coffee is more than a ‘treat’ for me, it is one of the first things I do each day to treat myself well. It’s very much worth “doing right”.

There are verbs involved.

There are verbs involved.

The window was wide open yesterday, for some time, while the air conditioner was being installed. This morning I woke with a handful of mosquito bites, where my arms were exposed to the air while I slept. I am unsurprised. They are obviously just mosquito bites, and I don’t fuss with them, or worry about them; they itch a bit regardless. I smile thinking about ‘the birthday spider’ (my traveling partner spotted a spider at an inconvenient moment, and it was dealt with, no freak outs required). There have been far fewer unwelcome visitors since I began taking strong measures to manage them. It is summer in the Pacific Northwest, and I live alongside a wetlands park – mosquitoes and spiders share the area, and this is a known thing – I just want to keep them out of the apartment, generally. 🙂

Life’s curriculum is never completed, summer or not – no spring break, no time out for the holidays, no recess. I was talking over lessons learned about living a polyamorous lifestyle with an interested friend, and because I am no expert on matters of love, I referenced those whose knowledge, experience, and expertise I rely on, myself. I’ve learned a lot about love with my traveling partner, and I’ve read far and wide all manner of words about love and loving. It’s uncommon to find a proper ‘handbook’ on this sort of thing, but I have found three really good ones, myself, that tend to cover the basics of love, loving – and loving more:

  • The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz is a great starting point on a basic foundation in good emotional self-care. I am quite certain, from my own experience, that failing to treat myself truly well is a limiting factor when I turn my affection toward loving someone else. There are a number of other weightier tomes I could turn to, but this one covers most of what I ever needed – given committed practice. I regularly revisit this one. It was recommended by my traveling partner and has not yet let me down…but it’s not on point regarding ethical non-monogamy or polyamory, it’s more…how to be a basically decent human being to myself and others.
  • Then there’s How to Love by Thich Nhat Hanh, which is simply the utter essence of Love, in words. It is the most basic expression of what it takes to love well and skillfully, in any form a relationship may take. It’s not really a guide, or a rule book, it is simply ‘how to love’ – there are verbs involved, but given this book I’d expect any whole, sane, rational person could nurture love even beginning in its absence, perhaps. Certainly, when I read this book, I realized that this is indeed how I would like to be loved. I am learning to love more skillfully through the simple practices it outlines.
  • There is a book that is entirely on point and quite skillfully written. It not only covers what works – it covers what doesn’t work, and why it generally doesn’t work, and how to avoid the pitfalls. I regularly recommended the content when it existed only as a website, and I recommend it as a book now – More Than Two, by Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert, and this is the book I suggested to my friend. It is rich with basics and I suspect any sort of relationship benefits from the knowledge within its pages, but it is very specifically written about the many sorts of relationships thrown into the rather large bucket of ‘all consensual adult relationships that are not monogamous’ – of which there are actually many sorts.
Conveniently for sale where words are sold.

Conveniently for sale where words are sold.

My friend and I walked to Powell’s, nearby – itself a wonder of human knowledge – and found that they had More Than Two in stock. I bought a copy for my own library, with the explicit commitment to share it with my friend; I can’t answer all his questions so easily. I have recently observed that I have read all the books I own – it’s a very nearly accurate statement. (I started Fourier, and Pascal, but struggled with their work at the time I made the attempt, and haven’t returned to them.) It’s also a personal commitment; books are not merely objects of beauty in my decor. I use my porcelain demi-tasse cups, however antique, and I read my books. When yesterday began to wind down, and all the chores were completed, I took up the new book in my hand, relaxed in a comfortable chair, put my feet up, and went to the contents in search of content I hadn’t already read online.  Some time later I paused –  I was learning! There is more to learn. I learn best through my mistakes, and More Than Two opened to pages and pages of details of recent mistakes that suddenly seemed much clearer, and more readily understood in the provided context of the book. I will be a better lover, and a better partner, when the knowledge gained becomes actions resulting from better choices. 🙂

Yesterday ended well. Today begins similarly well, if a bit clumsily at first. Each passing day in my new home reinforces how important the choices I make are for my longer term well-being. Relationships matter, and there too I have choices – rather a lot of choices. I am learning that the choices I make in my relationships with others are affected by the choices I make regarding my relationship with myself; putting myself last, or failing to put myself on my own agenda at all, has lasting consequences in my relationships with others. Even the relationships themselves are choices; choosing to maintain a relationship with someone who treats me poorly may be an investment in long-term growth, and a promise of a better future, but it is as likely to be a compromise with serious consequences for my quality of life, and the ‘may be’ may not pay off, ever. My traveling partner taught me the value of being treated well in my relationships – and for me there is no turning back now (he’s set the bar pretty high for my idea of ‘being treated well’, too). My relationships need to be built on my Big 5: respect, consideration, reciprocity, compassion, and openness. Compromising my Big 5 doesn’t work for me.

Another coffee, another day, made with love.

Another coffee, another day, made with love.

 

I sip my coffee contentedly, considering my traveling partner with a smile, considering my friend, my life, and the future of love. Today is a good day for The Big 5, and The Art of Being. Today is a good day to enjoy my experience. It’s enough.

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Categories Free Will, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

A Harder Practice

June 9, 2015 //
0

Somehow, the night was not so stifling hot that it prevented sleep; I slept well and deeply. I’m sure the steps taken during the unexpectedly busy work day to drink enough water, manage calories, take medication on time and stretch in place regularly were building blocks for feeling well-rested this morning. Some practices seem pretty obvious, and the outcome predictably successful.

Toward the end of the day, I found myself feeling cross, discontent, and moving in the direction of simmering anger, for no obvious reason. Practices regarding strong emotions, like anger, are sometimes harder for me to master. If there’s nothing to be angry about, why would I poke at that sleeping bear? Shouldn’t I squelch that and move on? Certainly that’s one heavily reinforced approach, culturally, especially if you happen to be female. Anger seems to be pretty potent – and off-putting. People do not want to exist alongside anger, most particularly if directed their way. What if I am legitimately angry about something that could easily provoke any rational person to anger – what then? Feed it, it grows, but hide it and it festers… I don’t understand anger.

Sweet relief and contentment often seem just beyond some complicated moment.

Sweet relief and contentment often seem just beyond some complicated emotional puzzle.

As the evening played out, it was quickly apparent that I was not angry ‘about’ anything obvious. I was hot. I had a headache. I have a couple lingering itchy spider bites. I wasn’t in pain so didn’t take pain meds that have been pretty routine for some time now (probably the source of the headache). It was a busy work day with a coworker out sick. The anger I was feeling was not the sort of focused if-then-because anger that I feel when someone treats me badly, or takes an action with predictably poor consequences. Was it even actually ‘anger’? Well, it sure could have been; I walked home through that emotional fog of irritation and fed it with my thoughts. Anger was almost inevitable, but there was nothing in my actual experience of the moment causing it – I was creating it from my thoughts, using my physical experience as a sort of spring-form pan in which to contain and justify it. 😦 Unpleasant.

Practicing new practices let's me try things until I find what works for me.

Practicing new practices let’s me try things until I find what works for me.

Practices for managing and defusing anger are numerous. I don’t generally understand them well, either. I mean…if my anger is real, why should I have to squash it and not be heard? If my anger is illusory, why is it so difficult to just let it go? Venting works for some people, and it feels very gratifying…but having a disinhibiting brain injury can easily put me on the path of obsessing over anger, becoming mired in it, or making something small a much bigger deal. Last night felt like a win. I got home, and decided I would most certainly deal with my anger gently and courteously – don’t I deserve to be treated well by myself, above all? First, though, I committed to taking care of practical matters that I know support longer term wellness on multiple levels, and benefit from not being delayed. I had a cool shower, drank plenty of water, had a bite of dinner that met my nutritional needs, did the dishes, did what I could to cool the apartment down after the 93 degree day, meditated, did some yoga… and found that I was simply no longer feeling anything I could call ‘anger’. I had ‘let it go’ without actively seeking to do so and realized that something that often makes ‘letting it go’ hard for me is the sense that I am being dismissed and not heard. Well…I didn’t do that, last night. I heard me. I considered my needs, and simply determined that the anger would be dealt with appropriately, along with other needs, in order of priority – and I didn’t make it the highest priority. When I finally got to it, it was more a matter of ‘I don’t really care for this experience. I could do some things differently.’

It's a journey without a map, some of it paved, all of it built on choices.

It’s a journey without a map, some of it paved, all of it built on choices.

One very nice thing about living alone right now is that there is no confusion whatsoever about ‘angry at…’. I think I am figuring out that ‘remote anger’ – for example, being angry in a visceral way over a story I read in the news – is entirely useless stress that may hold the power to motivate me to action, but the toll it takes on my experience, and my physical wellness is not at all worth it.  Anger at what is farther from my immediate experience feels safer than being angry at someone dear to me, or at some circumstance close to home. I guess that’s obvious. Handling anger in way that allows me to express myself comfortably without launching emotional weapons of mass distraction is something I would like to be very skilled at. I think before I will become skilled at handling anger, and making appropriate limited use of its power, I will need to learn to mute the pointless fruitless anger of my mind in motion – the anger that is pretty much just entirely imagined, built off the chaos and damage, fed with thoughts and assumptions and petty hurts or changing moods. I don’t think doing so by denying myself my own support and understanding is effective; it hasn’t worked for me so far. Last night worked out well, though. When I sat down and gave what I thought was bugging me a moment of thought, it turned out I wasn’t actually ‘angry’ at all. Frustrated, sure. Uncomfortable in the heat, yep. Fighting off a headache was also a factor. Anger? Not really a thing. If I had been living in a more social domestic setting, though, I may not have been able to get through to the part where I worked that out without causing a lot of stress or drama reacting to my internal experience (other people work through their emotions more quickly than I sometimes seem able to, particularly strong negative emotions). Clearly – still practicing. Still a student. There is still work to be done, and a journey ahead of me. It’s a fine time to live alone, untroubled by the casual hurts caused to others by my lack of emotional skill. lol

I ended the evening quite pleasantly, in conversation with my traveling partner. I may become a fan of using the phone, again – that’s how awesome it is just  hearing the sound of his voice in the evening, talking over things that matter in a gentle and pleasant way. My birthday is coming. It matters (perhaps too much) that he is thinking of me. The conversation was delightful and productive.  At one point something about our discussion brushed ever so lightly past something that held the potential to rouse anger – and I observed the experience, and the reaction, and didn’t act on it. Instead I stayed on course with the conversation, and made a note for myself to take care of me and take another look at that later. I am learning that my anger is truly my own, independent of whatever might seem to cause it. Directing my reaction at the assumed cause doesn’t actually seem to result in resolution… Strangely, taking that moment to breath and set it aside for later – rather than trying to force myself to ‘let it go’ over my own resentment at being dismissed, or acting on it in the moment – seems to work nicely for me. When our conversation ended, I reflected on that moment when my anger began to rise up, and easily saw that I wasn’t angry at all, I was struggling with unaddressed hurt feelings over something so subjective and internal that it would have been entirely inappropriate to demand satisfaction from some other being. It was an interesting moment of perspective.

I am tending the garden of my heart with greater care.

I am tending the garden of my heart with greater care.

I matter more [to me] than my anger. Taking care of me well often eases what feels like anger ‘about’ something entirely unrelated. I don’t think I have any real ‘answers’ about the anger puzzle…I’m not even sure I have all the pieces. What I do have, though, is the memory of a busy productive day, a lovely quiet evening, and a sweet loving conversation with a human being as dear to me as I am to myself – all entirely unspoiled by anger. 🙂 Win and good.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women
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