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Shadows, Nightmares, Twists of Fate

October 19, 2015 //
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It’s a quiet evening, and I am alone with my headache and my arthritis, by choice. By mid-afternoon, my pain was just too much to find the thought of spending time with anyone else particularly enticing, and I asked my traveling partner for a rain check – as eager as we are to see each other, to cuddle, to laugh together, I am sometimes a bit of a lost soul when I hurt this much. Spreading that poison around is not a gesture of love.

Be love.

Be love.

I walked home thinking about the many ways that lovers communicate, and wondering how it is than anyone can ever justify being vile and inconsiderate to someone they love. Think it over for a moment – and just about at that moment when you’re at the edge of excusing some bit of heinous nastiness you may have recently visited upon someone you love by saying you didn’t mean to, or couldn’t help it – think about how many times you’ve shown greater self-restraint and not said something you felt was justified… because it could cost you your job. A job. I walked and wondered. How often have I – even with the little self-restraint as I can sometimes muster at all – how often have I held myself back from some angry remark  for a fucking job – but shown so little courtesy to a lover, or partner, that I would allow myself to say something that might be intentionally hurtful, diminish their value to me, or threaten their security in the relationship itself? Even once is too often! Even once is entirely incomprehensibly inappropriate between lovers. Seriously. Those sorts of words, those sorts of moments of unrestrained hostility are not love. Not only are they not love – they are not even adult. The anger of hurt children. Well…yeah. I do have this injury…  but… I don’t really find that my injury excuses treating someone I love worse than I treat my coworkers –  and I can do so much better, I mean, this is love we’re talking about! If I can generally and with exceptional reliability refrain from most bad behavior at work – how can I ever ever say to someone I love that I couldn’t do better in the way I treat them at home? It does take practice, but how is that not entirely acceptable, and needful? Isn’t love of far greater value than a job? Isn’t love worth practicing?

We choose our path, our words, our actions.

We choose our path, our words, our actions.

I’m not sure why I was thinking about all that, specifically, as I walked home. It’s been a very long time since I have had to deal with any of that. Shadows of old baggage. Remnants of nightmares. Maybe some relief that I’m not still ‘there, then’ with relationships that were a profound source of new pain. Relief that I am so much less heavily invested in old pain, too. Tonight I hurt – but it is only the more manageable hurt of headaches and back pain. Feeling my heart break hearing angry words is on an entirely other level of hurting, and there are no pills or prescriptions for heart breaks – and I am grateful to love and be loved by someone who recognizes the value of being love.

Perspective. What matters most?

Perspective. What matters most?

Attachment is a funny thing; I get so hung up on some detail that I earnestly want to be very real, and find myself unable to have the beautiful thing that is, or I fail to recognize what works for me because I am too busy struggling with what I’ve lost or can’t have. We are such complicated fucking monkeys. lol

Undisturbed by solitude.

Undisturbed by solitude.

I am enjoying the evening with myself. Listening to music I love. Feeling valued and respected by a man I value and respect in turn. Feeling valued and respected by the woman in the mirror. Content and unshaken. It has taken some hours to write even 683 words, and I wonder about that, too; I seem to write using fewer words when I write in the evenings, but it generally takes me much longer – and I’m not as certain that I’ve said what I thought I meant to… or anything worth reading significant, or insightful. I’m not bitching. I’m not feeling particularly critical on any point. It’s more the emotion that goes along with the funny face, head cocked to the side, of something I can’t quite fathom… “quizzical” is a word that comes to mind…only…it’s the wrong word for the moment. lol (…And here we quite possibly see the effect of fatigue on my injury as I begin to struggle to find words. Often. It is a source of ongoing frustration for me, but I don’t gloss over it anymore, or try to fake my way out of it; vulnerable frankness is a better fit for me. Your results may vary.)

I am tired. I still hurt. I am happily grooving to favorite tunes I’ve never heard before as I write. Think. Write some more. This is my life…at least…this is part of it, and it’s a really good part that I enjoy find meaningful. In this moment I can comfortably say ‘this is a really good part of my experience’ and it feels secure, safe, and comfortable; unthreatened. I don’t need this moment to also be the next moment. I am not regretting some other moment. No forever. No expectations of some moment beyond this one; I am so much more comfortable enjoying this one right now, just as it is. I have a slow back and forth conversation with my partner in the background while I write. It’s not an interruption; the conversation is paced to the things we are each doing, where we are.

Just in time to sit, quietly, to be still, and to listen...

Just in time to sit, quietly, to be still, and to listen…

The evening winds down slowly. Tomorrow I can begin again. 🙂

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, 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

Not Trying, Just Practicing

September 13, 2015 //
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This is an easy restful weekend so far. I slept in again this morning, and although I woke stiff and in a lot of pain, aside from that – which is annoyingly commonplace at this point in life – it’s a lovely weekend, relaxed, and still somewhat productive. I’m not ‘trying’ to get here. I didn’t head into the weekend with a firm plan to relax, or to rest, or to tackle a big list of stuff to do. The weekend began. I’ve continued to practice the practices that work best for me – I’ve meditated more than I often to (which already tends to be often), and probably done less yoga than I could have (and might be in less pain if I had chosen differently).

Yes, of course, coffee. :-)

Yes, of course, coffee. 🙂

I tend to associate the verb ‘trying’ with focused effort and a very specific outcome in mind. I also associate ‘trying’ with frustration; trying puts me on a more direct path to failing, by setting specific expectations of which actions must lead to what outcome. I’ve got challenges with frustration – it is my worst emotion, inasmuch as I just don’t deal with the experience of feeling frustrated well; it quickly becomes unreasoning anger, with risk of tantrums, tears, and actual quite dreadful headaches. As emotions go, I am least skilled with frustration. I find that when I let go of ‘trying’ to do something, or get somewhere, and simply get started on the task, or headed for the destination, building on good basic practices without becoming attached to a specific outcome, I not only enjoy my experience more, I definitely achieve my goals more easily – and more often – with less frustration.  It’s an experience to explore further.

Fancy

Sometimes the luxury self-care package includes a moment of self-indulgence – my salted caramel cafe au lait, Friday evening.

Friday night’s prolonged periods of reflection and meditation are still ‘seeping into my consciousness’. Yesterday was filled with “Oh!” moments of awakening, generally followed by abruptly stopping what I was doing at the time to pause, sit for a moment with the realization or new thinking, before moving on with the day. I ‘didn’t get anything done’ in the sense of practical matters being checked off a list of tasks, but I spent the day treating myself well, relaxing without guilt, and practicing practices that build emotional resilience for the work week to come, and ones that build the emotional self-sufficiency I will rely on for a lifetime ahead of me. With modern medicine in mind, there is every possibility that I will live beyond 100 years… making me more or less at the literal half way point in life, with a great deal more awareness than a newborn child has. These can be fantastic years ahead of me – handled appropriately. Certainly, there are more paintings to paint, more words to write, and more moments ahead of me.

...and more books to read. It's a good day for that, too.

…and more books to read, more poetry to write. It’s a good day for it.

I find myself asking a strange new question as I move through the hours of my days this weekend. “Is this the life you are choosing for yourself, for the next 50 years?” It’s not actually a yes/no limited question. The question is more intended to provoke reflection on who I am, how I live, and what my choices are – not only how I treat the world, and what I do with my time, generally – but also how I feel in the context of my own experience. Each time I ask myself the question, I take the opportunity to make some small change to improve on how I care for myself, how I treat others, and even how I think about my experience, and the world I live in. I am learning to value and appreciate my emotions without letting them take the driver’s seat; they communicate things about the nature of my experience that reason doesn’t notice right away [or at all, let’s face it; reason has a different mission].

…Now, if I can just figure out how to wring every last drop of delight, education, and value out of experiences that frustrate me, that would be quite spectacularly lovely! 🙂

It’s a good day for being, and for becoming. It’s a good day to try new things. It’s a good day to become more skilled at the things that work well. It’s a good day to honor progress, and appreciate all the small moments and interactions that delight me, educate me, and nourish my heart. Changing the world is a long process, relying on the incremental changes over time of a great many individuals – there are verbs involved. Changing the world within can happen over night; it’s a choice. [There are still verbs involved, and your results may vary. Practice. Begin again.]

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Turning 50, women, Words

Comfortably Me

September 6, 2015 //
7

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

Morning, and Coffee

July 21, 2015 //
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This is a simple good morning, right here. With some effort, I come up with a couple really first-rate topics on which I could be writing.  I sip my coffee, and make a note elsewhere. I add them to the running list of potential topics for other days. (While each new idea this morning is certainly worthy of my attention at some point, they do not hold my attention this morning.)

I contentedly sip my coffee without concern over waking up later than usual, or falling asleep earlier than usual last night. It’s not cause for panic, and unlike nights that are short on sleep, the deviation from my routine is likely healthy rather than potentially harmful – I probably needed the rest. Yesterday was a hot day, and I walked to and from work, and did so also over my lunch break. I enjoyed somewhat longer routes, too, beating my loose goal of exceeding 5 miles a day of walking. I did enough yoga, before and after work, to ease stiff joints – and enough to ‘get some exercise’, too. Tired at the end of the day seems reasonable. I didn’t even ‘over sleep’ my alarm; I woke and reset it for another half an hour of sleep. (There are some nice advantages to getting up so early each day.) There’s no stress over any of this… only coffee.

Enough.

Enough.

I sip the fragrant dark roast and wonder just a bit at how obviously it is ‘not my favorite’. Having moved into my own place, and finally feeling really ‘settled in’, I am finding moments of surprise that my taste has changed, or that I didn’t understand some detail about myself better. I did not expect that there truly would be a ‘getting to know me’ stage in all this – as with building any new relationship. Who is this woman in the mirror? When did she stop preferring the very darkest roasted coffee? When did she start being okay with sleeping in now and then – even on a work day?! I rub my eyes sleepily, and continue to sip my coffee – daydreaming about the Brazilian coffee I had just the other day. (It was a small sample, only, and it is gone – utterly enjoyed to the finish.) Is that the coffee I most enjoy? What else about me is not who I expected to find on the other side of the mirror?

Who am I “really“?  What does that question mean? In a world so driven to perform, to compete, to ‘measure up’, to achieve, to present an ideal image – I guess I am not surprised to find that in a safe, calm space, characterized by day-to-day contentment, I am able to explore details of who I am – and find surprises. Too much precious time is spent ‘selling ourselves’ to the world, or trying to be something someone else wants. Giving up on that is a start, but apparently like any journey… simply beginning down the path of authenticity is just a start to a much more involved process. I spend enough time with myself, in gentle solitude, that I can hear the softest voice within expressing those preferences that have been beat down, held down, and twisted for far too long.

I actually do like my coffee black, most of the time. It is my preference. Adding half and half and something sweet is nice for a treat now and then, but it isn’t my day-to-day preference at all. I didn’t know that until I moved into this space, alone with my coffee and my choices. Where espresso beverages are concerned, a simple vanilla latte is my favorite – and I like it best made by my traveling partner (his are without question the very best lattes for texture, temperature, mouth feel, and given the right beans, for flavor as well) – but lattes are a treat. Calorie laden and creamy, they are very much a dessert sort of thing, for me.

There is a lot to learn about myself. I’m living in an environment where the “I” in “who I am” really stands out – good qualities and those less good as well. I am learning how much of my day-to-day experience of the past has been compromised to better suit other people over the years. I lost my way here and there, and wandered off a path I didn’t know I was following. I allowed myself to cave to pressure to conform, to change, to be something other than the creature I am…and didn’t follow-up with me, to find out who this person is, resting within this fragile vessel, and to make sure her needs are met, too. There’s joy in getting to know me, in becoming comfortable with myself, even in finding out that I prefer my tuna casserole with broccoli instead of peas, and that I like the mushroom sauce to be made from scratch using crimini mushrooms…and that I like to top it with fried onions. Those things are not ‘important’ taken one by one… but if I spend my lifetime doing things in the fashion that most suits others, when do I take time for me? At what point must I acknowledge that I don’t know me, anymore, and question who the hell those others think they are involved with, in the first place? (Cuz… it may not be me.)

I will, thanks. :-)

I will, thanks. 🙂

It’s a quiet morning over my coffee, content to listen to morning become day through the open patio door, and content to feel the soft breezes cooling the apartment. Contentment is quite a lovely feeling. Today is a good day for contentment, and a good day to know myself.

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