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Countdowns

July 29, 2019 //
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I’m counting down hours until my Traveling Partner is home again. I’m counting down days until my camping trip. Right now, this moment here? I’m counting down minutes until this coffee is cool enough to drink! lol

…Here’s the thing about all that, though; none of it is “now”. This now. Right now. This present-tense moment, right here? It isn’t about a future moment that may (or may not) happen at all. I know, that hints at a certain grimness, but the future is the future, and we don’t know with any certainty what that future will be. It’s the flip side of “this too shall pass”… So, um, “that stuff, also, hasn’t happened yet, at all”. lol

I pull myself back to the present moment. If nothing else, it is a wholesome exercise in waking up to the new day, shedding whatever baggage crossed over into my waking consciousness from my dreams, letting go of the “what ifs” and untested assumptions on which I could, if I prefer drama and disappointment, build my day upon. Starting fresh with what I observe, here, now, and how I feel in this moment, physically. My coffee is still too hot to drink. The street beyond the driveway is still quiet. The sky is dark, reminding me that the season is slowly changing, and that soon summer will become autumn. I feel relaxed, and comfortable in my skin, and the casual clothes I put on for the day. The pain I woke with seems familiar, and manageable. Although my coffee is too hot to drink, the mug feels warm in hands, a luxurious counterpoint to the morning chill in the room, artificially imposed by the air conditioning. (That reminds me to adjust the temperature to a “day time and I’m not at home” temperature, from the “night time and I sleep best in a cool room” temperature.)

….Ah! That first sip of coffee… so good. Well, I mean, realistically – as good as coffee can be, and only if you’re into coffee (I get it, I really do; it’s not everyone’s thing). lol How does this coffee really taste? Smooth… (not a flavor!), mildly astringent (also more of a feeling), something like… roasted bark… or… damp cardboard… or… I’m not sure. It tastes, to me, like “coffee”. It’s black. Hot. Feels good in my mouth. Comforts and refreshes. LOL I guess I’m a bit vague on what it actually tastes like. I let all of that go, and simply enjoy the experience.

I attempt to apply the same principles of non-attachment, awareness, and presence, to the experiences of waiting for my partner’s homecoming, and even to looking forward to my camping trip. This moment is best lived… well… live. 😀

…I complete that thought, and immediately find myself contemplating the weekend that is just behind me, already drifting out of this present moment, into some other moment that is also not “now”. lol Fucking monkey-mind, always at it. I let that go, too. Breathe. Exhale. Relax. Let those past moments recede into the background, again, and pull myself back to “now”. Whups – there’s that tricksy daydreaming and anticipation of future moments, back at me again. Damn it. Another breath. Another exhalation. Relaxing and letting all that go – again. I see-saw between contemplating some past moment, and looking ahead to some moment that is not yet now; all very normal and human. I keep pulling myself back to “now”. It’s just something that requires practice, and there is no stress or perturbation in it for me, not these days. Progress comes in due course; incremental change over time, well, it takes time. I know I’ll likely practice for a lifetime, regardless – this is one of those instances in which the journey itself very much is the destination.

My coffee, now, is precisely the correct temperature for comfortably drinking it, while also having the subjective experience of “hot” coffee. It’s very relative; my idea of “hot coffee”, and yours, likely vary by some degrees. I have a friend who drinks it near to scalding hot – I don’t even make coffee with boiling water. I have other friends who just don’t ever drink coffee hot – iced coffee 24/7/365. We’re each having our own experience. 🙂 (Hey – cool metaphor! lol)

I check the time. Monday already, and an entire new week ahead of me. Doesn’t matter. The entirety of the lifetime behind me doesn’t “matter” much more, in one particular regard; it isn’t “now”. The moment I’ve got to work with, at any given time, is just this “now” moment, right here. I’m not encouraging any sort of FOMO or YOLO foolishness, or painful clinging to things-that-are-not-now, either. I’m just saying, and I’m not the first to suggest it; be here, now. It’s an ideal starting point on all manner of journeys, physical, metaphysical, and beyond. Actually… it’s damned difficult to start anywhere/when else – and attempting to do so is a sure fire impediment to making any real progress.

I smile, and sigh contentedly. The sky is lighter now, a shade of pale blue-gray, with a hint of violet at the edge of darkness, and a hint of peaches and pinks yet-to-come at the edge of the sunrise. I finish off my coffee. This opportunity to begin again isn’t going to handle itself; there are verbs involved! I breathe. Exhale. Relax – and finish my coffee. It’s definitely time to begin again.  🙂

 

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

Coffee at 2:00 am

July 26, 2019 //
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It’s hard to call it “waking up early”, when on a different day of week, under other circumstances, I’d just be… still awake. lol I woke around 1:30 am. I’m not sure what woke me, and initially I had every intention of simply going back to sleep. That just didn’t work out. I’m awake. Wholly and completely awake, and quite alert, and ready to begin the day… only… it’s not time for that.

I finally gave up on trying to sleep; it’s not an endeavor that lends itself well to vigorous attempts, and it had become clear that I wasn’t going to be sleeping again any time soon. I’m too familiar with the enduring grogginess that comes of finally falling back to sleep, less than an hour from the alarm going off, and then having to more or less drag myself through my day. Wasted effort. Never able to fully wake and enjoy my day with any sense of purpose. Trapped in a dream-like state. I just have too many other things to do with my time, heading into the weekend, and getting things ready for my Traveling Partner to return home. So – awake it is. I showered, meditated, did some yoga, and made coffee.

…So far it is a lovely morning. 😀

There is some sort of cosmic, comic, betrayal in my experience of sipping on this excellent cup of coffee; I am immediately sleepier than I’ve been since I woke up! I laugh it off; the clock keeps ticking, and I’ve committed myself, at this point, to starting the day a bit ahead of schedule.

As if mocking me, this also ends up being a morning on which I have little to say, as I sit here. I’m sort of just… here. That’s okay, too. There’s no requirement (or real potential) that every moment of living life be somehow spectacular and richly fulfilling. Some moments are just moments – quite enough as they are, and nothing noteworthy or fancy. It’s that sort of morning, only with extra minutes. 😀

I put on my headphones, and hit play on my favorite playlist. It’s tempting to read the news…but… I don’t need to fill my head with outrage machinery and Other People’s Drama, certainly not this early on a quiet morning. Music seems a better fit to this moment. 🙂 I smile into the day ahead, and let the moments tick by, contentedly. This morning, it’s very much enough. 🙂

Perspective is sometimes about the view from a singular moment. If I stand somewhere else, doesn’t my perspective change? 🙂

It took time, and still requires regular practice, and I can’t stress enough how valuable it has been to learn to shift my perspective. Getting hung up on one element of one moment of one experience can really wreck a day (or days, or weeks, or a lifetime…), and there is so much more to consider, to appreciate, and to incorporate into totality of this human life. I’m definitely a fan of a change in perspective in stressful times. Sounds easy – isn’t always. It’s easier with practice, though; we become what we practice. 😀

How though? I mean, in practical terms, how do I “change my perspective” on some hard moment, or other? Well… sometimes I play “The Multi-Verse Game”. 🙂

Every window potentially a different human life in progress, a different point of view…

To play The Multi-Verse Game, I consider my challenge from the basic assumption that there is variety in human experience. Given a large number of human beings, each potentially sharing some slightly different version of a similar, potentially very common, experience, how could the subtle variations play out? What different results would play out, based on differing choices, and subtle differences in experience? I imagine many different sorts of human beings, having this experience that is challenging me so very much, and I allow the scenes to play out, one by one. This person, that choice, these details – how does the story end? That person, other choices, different details – and now how does it go? I extend this into various versions of my own experience; if some one choice or detail were different, in my own life, how would my experience change, then? If nothing else, it becomes entertaining narrative craft, a little internal theater – and often, it allows me to more easily let go of bullshit assumptions I’ve made, and failed to notice are needlessly driving my stress. Sometimes the game serves to alert me of alternatives, and choices, that could work out well for me, that I had not previously understood with clarity, but are revealed in the story-telling.

Another great practice in dark times is making a point to test my assumptions; so much of my anxiety turns out to be caused by my assumptions, rather than by any solid truths or realities of my circumstances. 🙂

…I think of a friend. One of those old friends that is somehow “always there”, even if we’re out of touch for years. Still… sort of a dick move to not make at least some effort; people matter more than that. I pause to send him an email. Just a greeting, really, and a reminder that we exist on a shared journey, separated only by distance. 🙂 Dropping off of the social media landscape has been a little odd in this regard; I’d grown very dependent on it to maintain friendships and associations across vast chasms of geographical distance, and even across time. Now? I’ve got to actually work at those – and occasionally find myself “trapped in the now”, far away, and less than inclined to do so in any practical way. I contemplate my great-grandmother’s letter writing, which I can recall from the edge of adolescence. She was still living, and it was the focal point of her life. She wrote letters to friends. They wrote letters to her. It’s a habit worth cultivating. The world changes – will social media (and the internet, or even electricity) always be available? I sometimes wonder…

The music plays on.

Yeah… that’s the stuff I listen to “in real life”. lol  What about you? Aren’t there details about who you are, the you that you, yourself, know so well, that all those “non you” people seem regularly surprised by? 😉 I grin to myself, content to be who I am, in the wee hours, half-aware of the time as it passes, song by song, minute by minute. I notice that my coffee, cold now, is almost gone. It’s well past 3:00 am, already. Feels like a new day, and not the “middle of the night”, now. I guess it’s time to begin again… 😀

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being

Why Wait? Act Now!

July 25, 2019 //
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Early morning quiet, interrupted now and then by the sound of a passing car – a pleasant enough start to the day. I’m groggy. My sleep has been poor for a couple days now. Short nights. Wakeful. Restless dreams. It isn’t what it once was, to have such nights; they lack the stress I would have also experienced years ago. I let go of that, and so, a few nights of poor sleep are merely that; just a few nights of poor sleep. The weekend is almost here, and perhaps a night that isn’t followed by an alarm going off will be just the thing I need. 🙂

I found myself missing my Traveling Partner quite a lot yesterday, and also feeling a hint of playful-but-serious envy for his travels, themselves. I didn’t need any of that to be a thing, and I’m not feeling haunted by regret that I did not make it out to see my Mom in person, before her death. I am, however, feeling something… a certain restlessness, a yearning, a need to “get away” from “everything” for awhile. I need to be out among the trees. 🙂 I haven’t done much camping in the past year, and it’s something I really get a lot out of. Healthy time away. Time to reflect, without distractions. Cell phone becoming, instead, a camera. Just thinking it through got me excited about doing it.

One possible future… and one beautiful now.

I sat down in the evening, after work, and made a plan. Found some likely dates. Booked a favorite camping space in a favorite state park a few weeks from now. Booked a camping space out on the coast even a bit further out, on the calendar, as well as on the road. One trip for the peace among the trees, listening to the birds, hearing the deer step by daintily before I wake, hiking forested trails, and spending time meditating, and writing. The other trip? Beach-combing, and star-gazing. Nice. I smiled all evening, and woke up smiling this morning, too. I feel a certain sense of accomplishment in the background; it feels good to take action on personal needs in a constructive way. Not only that; I managed to plan almost-last minute, and still got a good camp site near the beach in the mid-September (still summer, in Oregon). 😀

It won’t matter about the weather, anyway… it’s about the journey.

…I’ve got to remember to get more Deet (mosquitoes) and sun-screen (omg – what do I do about that now?? I guess shop for a safer sunscreen. lol) Oh, and make a list… lol

I giggle with excitement over my coffee; truth is, I’m fairly well-prepared without lifting a finger. A routine check of my gear (unpack it, look it over for wear & tear, missing essentials, that sort of thing, and repack it), and I should be more or less ready to hit the highway. I like to hike – and I like to hike trails I can’t easily get to, trails that are too remote to be crowded, but still safe for me to hike solo. I end up camping a bunch to get to such places. lol It’s not about the camping, and as a result, I tend to camp fairly efficiently, and purposefully, most of the time. I don’t like to fuss and waste time looking for this or that just to load the car. 😀 I keep my gear ready-to-go, from about mid-March to the end of October. (I still hike in colder months, and talk long walks on nearby trails, but I don’t like sleeping/waking in the cold, so I rarely camp in winter, by preference.)

…I still catch myself musing about what I need, what I’ve got, what I may need to change about how my gear is packed, and making a mental list (or several). I’m looking forward to the time away.

I catch myself thinking about things I reliably always pack and don’t use. It’s so tempting to reduce weight by not taking those things. I already travel pretty light; I can generally carry my gear – all of it – in a single trip from the car to the campsite, if not backpacking it, then coming pretty close with a backpack and my hands full. It’s helpful to keep the load at a minimum (age, fitness, pain management…). So, why the heck am I carrying stuff I don’t use?? That sounds dumb…

…First aid kit? (haven’t needed it yet, still gotta carry one – not dumb) That’s the sort of “extra weight” I tend to carry; safety gear. A spare headlamp. Solar lights. Water filtration (state parks usually have potable water on site). Bottled water (heavy, and generally left behind in the car, once I confirm there is on site drinking water). Emergency blanket. My gear looks like I expect, at any moment, to be stranded unexpectedly in the wilderness, with no clear date of likely rescue. lol Realistically, that’s a thing that could happen, and I’m solo hiking most of the time. Why not be prepared to look after myself with some measure of preparedness and skill, in the event I am injured on a trail, or get stuck, or lost? Just saying… my “extra” weight stops being extra, when circumstances become more challenging.

Life works like that, too. Being prepared for contingencies, having a “plan B” (or C, or D, or E) can make a huge difference to our personal success in life. Being ready to pivot with new circumstances can make the difference between “getting there” at all – and “getting there” comfortably. Still, it matters to “keep the load light” and not carry so much baggage that we can’t really travel with any ease – and again, it’s a metaphor; works in life, and in camping. 🙂 Just saying; it’s worth it not to carry extra baggage. It’s worth it to bring what it utterly necessary on our journey. Having (and using) the right tools is a worthwhile investment in our time, our effort – and our preparedness for circumstances.

What’s in your tool box? Will it get the job done?

What’s in your backpack? Will you be able to reach your destination, with what you can carry?

I notice the time. Finish my coffee, and begin again. 🙂

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being

Today, Don’t Be Evil

July 23, 2019 //
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It’s a great starting point, and fairly basic; just don’t be evil. Don’t willfully, deliberately, take actions (or share words) that harm another person. Done; humanity just leveled up. No kidding, it’s that commonplace for petty nastiness to overcome an entire culture. (Sorry, some bitterness here, since here in the U.S. we’re literally chest-deep in nastiness these days, and petty evil has gotten to be almost routine, and hardly newsworthy.) We can absolutely choose to do better – one moment at a time.

Immigrants at the border? Yep. They’re people. Same as we all are. When we treat them as such, we demonstrate our humanity – our shared humanity. When we treat them poorly? We demonstrate our willingness to be evil. Simple as that.

Neighbors of another political party? Still human. Still our neighbors. Still have more in common with us than they are different. (I will admit with considerable sadness, I’ve ended long-standing friendships “over politics” in recent years, and it still hurts to have done so. The lack of openness to discussion, and the hostility toward clearly defining terms, were larger drivers to ending those relationships than any party affiliation.) When we treat our neighbors as our enemies, we set another stage for doing our worst. This is not complicated stuff.

A colleague you don’t get along with? That slow woman ahead of you in the grocery aisle? That politician? That pundit? A stranger? A homeless person? We are each and all of us quite human. The constant “in grouping” and “out grouping” we perform in conversation (and in our thinking) serves only to divide us. Advertising companies use such strategies to harvest our data, our views, and our dollars – for profit. I don’t much like the idea of slowly becoming evil to boost someone else’s already fat bank balance. That’s… sick.

“Sick” sort of describes a lot of what I see in the news, lately. We can do better. Small choices, lots of chances to choose change. Be kind. Be considerate. Be present. Treat everyone you interact with from the perspective of being aware of their humanity. It’s only simply “on paper”, written down as words; putting it into practice takes a lot of verbs. It’s not enough to say you care.

Yesterday was a good day. I faced it with a “sunny heart”, filled with warmth, and merriment. Not sure why yesterday was such a wholly decent day… but… I’d definitely enjoy a repeat today. 🙂 We become what we practice. That seems relevant. I sip my coffee and reflect on my decision-making, conversations, and perspective-in-the-moment, considering what the choices were that, once made, decided the day and had such a lovely result. Worth repeating the things that work, where such things are repeatable. I crashed early, slept well, and woke feeling rested – it’s a good start. My coffee is good, contrasting with yesterday’s fairly poor cup of coffee. I’m not in much pain. This seems the sort of day that “should go well” – and that’s not generally how such things work, at all. Not for all of us. Our implicit memories, and “auto pilot settings” are built on a lifetime of joy – or trauma. Some of us struggle to assemble anything in a day that feels even mildly worthy – or even “normal”. We struggle, generally. Well… I don’t now, not so much, which teaches me that getting beyond the worst of it, that chronic grind that beats us down relentlessly, is possible. We can do better – for others, for ourselves, for the world. As things stand right now, people, we’ve only got the one world to work with, and if we destroy it… well, we’re all entirely, completely, permanently fucked. 😦

So, this morning I go forth to do some better as a human being than I did yesterday. For myself. For my community. For my colleagues. For the world. Yep. Tall order. Here’s the thing, though; every moment of presence, courtesy, humanity, kindness, compassion, real listening, authentic concern, consideration for others, and willful, deliberated, thoughtful decision-making has the potential to change the world – even if only in some very small way. The changes pile up. Being “part of the solution” isn’t a matter of drinking straws and sea turtle eggs – or, well, not just those things. It’s more a matter of understanding that small things do matter, and being considerate that the specific small things that matter most to you may differ from the specific small things that matter to someone else – and being okay with supporting what matters to them, as they support what matters to you. We’re all in this together. We’re each having our own experience. 🙂 Consideration is a good start. Kindness, too. Why not? What does it cost you to be kind? What is the value in being cruel?

Begin again? For sure, why not? Maybe we can change the world? ❤

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Categories forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War

Short Night Hilarity

July 22, 2019 //
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Okay, more of the “funny/not funny” variety. I woke abruptly to the persistent beeping of my alarm, ready to drag myself into a new day, just barely. It only took about 10 minutes to clear the fog from my head enough to fully understand that the reason the clock said “1:00 am” was because that was, perhaps, the actual time – and the alarm, for some reason, was set for then. Weird. My watch was confusing me; it didn’t match. It rather insistently  pointed out that the time was something like 11:36 pm… so… not “1:00 am”, at all. I double-checked with the clock on the stove… yep. 11:36 pm. Okay… definitely not time to get up. First – reset both the time and the alarm on my alarm clock. So groggy…

…I went back to bed.

I woke ahead of the alarm. Restless, unsatisfying, interrupted sleep to begin a new work week… great. I sip my coffee, and frown into the cup. Not my best cup of coffee. I let that go, and just keep sipping on it, trying to fully wake up. The shower didn’t help. Meditation almost turned into a nap. I’m clumsy, and out of focus. I am fatigued. Lacking the rest I need, today may have some challenges to work through. A huge yawn splits my face, while I decide whether to go into the office a bit early to make up for the likelihood that I will be a bit cognitively slowed down. My decision-making skills are obviously impaired. I stare forward, sipping coffee. Writing in near-real-time. Stream-of-consciousness. lol Yep; this is it. Best I’ve got, this morning. 😉

A different perspective; the view from my Sunday walk.

The weekend was lovely. Productive, satisfying, and infused with contentment. I got a few things done around the house, and enjoyed a very restful weekend. I struggle to remember what all I actually did do… but I’ll leave a tidy home this morning, when I head to the office, and I’ll feel welcomed when I come home to it. 🙂

It was most definitely summer, although we’re not feeling the impact of the blistering heat wave happening in eastern states. Even with the A/C, that’s misery I don’t need, although thinking about it reminds me to water the garden before I head to work.

There are signs of summer everywhere, and blackberries begin to ripen on wild vines.

Coffee almost gone. I’m almost, mostly, awake. Still time to water the garden, before getting myself together to make the commute across town to the office. I briefly contemplate driving in, then rethink that thought in the context of recollections of summer construction. (One of many “signs of summer”) Lightrail is fast enough. I’ll just do that. lol

I made sure to keep fresh water out for visiting creatures, too.

I jot down a couple reminders for myself for later, and head to the garden to water plants, and fill watering stations. I remind myself to drink plenty of water, too. Self-care nearly always makes it to the top of every “to do list” these days. 🙂

I miss my Traveling Partner, and wish him well from afar, wondering what he’ll be up to, today. I think about exes and smirk at myself, quietly, reminded of relationships in which there was almost always a fight or an argument leading up to any time apart, the petty squabbles, and weird possessive or jealous interference in any solo activity, the constant pinging and fussing during time away… Fuck, I am so glad to be done with all of that bullshit. lol I sit grinning quietly for a few minutes, happy to be in this partnership, appreciative of this human being who is so dear to me. He suits me. I miss him, right now, in the morning, over my coffee – and there’s nothing that needs to be done to ease that. It’s appropriate, as feelings go, and my emotions aren’t hurting me, or anyone else. 🙂 I go with it, and take time to fully savor this love we share, and enjoy a few grateful appreciative moments with my coffee.

Damn, this is one fairly dreadful cup of coffee… lol. Fortunately, it’s just about gone, and I can just begin again. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being
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