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The Big and The Small

April 5, 2019 //
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An excellent cup of coffee in the morning, and random thoughts chasing other random thoughts. I sat down with my coffee, and without a plan. Cars start up in other driveways, and there is a steady shhh-shhh on the road beyond the driveway as earlier commuters than I make their way toward whatever job they do. They’ve got theirs. I’ve got mine. Another day.

I’m not blue, or anxious, or fretting about some small thing of little actual consequence. I’ve still got this “headache” – let’s call it a headache. Convenient to have a word for it. lol Life is… life. Choices are made and acted upon. Promises are made, and kept – or broken. Trust is established, then breached. Humans are being human. Everywhere. All of them. There is no point in catastrophizing some one detail; it is fairly commonly the catastrophizing, itself, that is the stress and the drama. Still, we seem wired for it.

A flower, a morning, a beginning.

I yawn. Let all that go. Sip my coffee. Listen to the rain fall. Sit, present, in the morning stillness, waiting to begin again.

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Categories forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

If Not a Map, Then…?

April 3, 2019 //
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I’m drinking coffee and giving thought to the day ahead. Days ahead. The weekend, too. Building a mental map of what is likely to come, and also gently letting that go; the map is not the world. Hell, it’s not even properly a map; it’s just a sense of direction. 🙂

A local transit map gets me across town, but tells me nothing much about the places to which I travel.

Maps are funny things. They give me a sense of security about the direction I’m headed, and some hints and pointers about how to get where I’m going. I appreciate those things. I also recognize that there are some limitations. Maps have scale, and boundaries; anything too small disappears from view, anything outside the borders isn’t shown. Depending on the distance I want to travel, or the complexity of the journey, any one map may be unsuited to the purpose.

Other maps, other details; not all maps suit all purposes.

If I take the wrong map on the hiking trip, I could easily become very lost. 🙂 Too little detail, and I don’t see the trails to follow. Too much detail, I don’t see important details of the terrain. Get in too close, and I can’t see “a bigger picture”. Pull away too far, and I lose a sense of context, and place. Perspective matters, on the trail, on the commute, and in life. The accuracy of the map matters, too.

I fell yesterday. I was walking briskly across a busy street, after work, heading to the train platform, and slipped on a rain-slick manhole cover. I fell hard, into the street, onto the train tracks. I hit the ground hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs, and I struggled to pick myself up easily. I was shaken, and stood confused, on the sidewalk for some moments. Passers-by expressed concern. I wasn’t entirely coherent, for some seconds. My jeans were soaked on the side of my body that took the impact. I walk across that street almost every day. You’d think I’d have mastered it by now. My mental map did not have that manhole cover noted anywhere, and the risk escaped my notice as I hurried along.

I got home with minimal frustration, still aching all over from falling. I made a trip to the store, because I’d said I would, but my head was still reeling a bit from the fall, and I made the trip short and very efficient. I really just wanted to go home. I felt vulnerable, raw, and very very mortal. I felt betrayed by my awareness, and overly sensitive to the excessive real-world detail strewn about all around me. Overwhelmed by the sudden awareness that I just don’t notice everything, I was feeling a bit anxious, and still kind of dizzy from the fall.

I got home, and just as I was breathing a sigh of relief, hands full of shopping bags, and also juggling my keys, my cane, and my backpack… the door would not unlock. Fuck. I snarled at the door and tried again. Nope. Not unlocking. I snapped. I felt my consciousness winding up to prepare me to lash out against that wretched, cursed, unresponsive door, and just as the stream of invective began to leave my lips – my Traveling Partner opened the door with a sheepish, loving smile, and an apology; he’d locked the door knob (I lock the deadbolt). I started to cry, he immediately offered me comfort. We moved on from the moment very quickly. He made sure I was really okay, and helped me look after my health properly. No obvious lasting damage, honestly. I just fell. I got back up. I got home safely. We enjoyed a lovely evening. Well and good. 🙂

The mental map matters every bit as much as any physical map ever has. Expectations, unchecked, often result in disappointment, confusion, resentment, and frustration. Assumptions that are not verified against actual facts, can lead to some terrible decision-making, miscommunication, and poor quality relationships. Even simple lack of awareness can wreck a map and render it entirely useless due to lack of relevant details. I’m just saying – it’s not enough to take just any map, it also needs to be a map of the correct place, and drawn to the correct scale, using an accurate perspective.

If you’re struggling to get where you are going in life… maybe it’s time to redraw the map? 😀

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, Washington Trails

That’s Not How It’s Done!

March 28, 2019 //
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Groggy and fussy, this morning, sipping my obviously too hot coffee with considerable care, and still burning my tongue, and letting my mind scroll through the recollection of the week, so far, and yesterday, specifically. I’m feeling irritable in those places where life or work shove me outside my “comfort zone”, forcing me to reconsider my expectations, assumptions, and knowledge. What works? What doesn’t work? Is this thing that once worked well no longer going to work at all? Is this new way of being or doing or thinking going to last? Does it fit? Does it work?

…I find non-attachment most difficult when it requires me to let go of a long-standing practice that once was the clear choice on my path to success.

…No, that isn’t some hint that I’m thinking about not writing. lol Stay with me. Here. In this moment. This is a safe space, here with the words, and the coffee. 😉 (Well, I mean… safe for me; I may occasionally be less than ideally comfortable for someone else.) I’m just saying – it’s hard to let go of things I think I know well.

Sometimes we have to let go of something we think we really know, something we accept as “fact”.  It’s to do with so much of our “knowledge” being built on internal narrative, bits of memories, things we think we heard, and our runaway need to be certain about things that are not easily defined with certainty, at all, perhaps. I do know that I occasionally notice I’m “knowing” something with a firmness of conviction that is, all by itself, a warning klaxon of belief. Gotta let that go. Sometimes it’s hard.

I’m chuckling because I have not made it clear that in this particular instance, I’ve gone all meta on a practical fucking bit from work, of all things, because it became very clear yesterday that I need to let some assumptions go, and either re-test their validity in my (forecasting) model, or allow myself to explore new ways of thinking about it, entirely. It managed to become a life lesson, over a night’s sleep, and my morning coffee, and here I sit, thinking about queuing theory and forecasting. Some other part of my less-than-ideally-awake consciousness mews pitifully about not having finished my coffee… lol

I take some time to continue the data entry of updated details from friends, from Facebook, into my Contacts. This process is tedious, and also heart-warming. I absolutely admit I expected maybe 5 or 6 people would actually act on my advisement that I’d be leaving the realm of Facebook… instead, I’m facing a couple hours of actual work. LOL S’ok. They are, and I am, quite worth the time. 🙂

So is this. So are you.

I smile into my coffee, and take a deep, cleansing breath. I hear the soft breathing of my Traveling Partner in the other room. I feel content. Wrapped in love. I sit with this lovely moment as I finish my coffee… as moments go, it is quite perfect precisely as it is. I’ll sit with it awhile longer, before I begin again. 🙂

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Categories Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, Words

Do You, Boo

March 24, 2019 //
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Hey, welcome to morning (or afternoon, or evening, or whenever you find yourself reading this)! Got your coffee (tea, beer, fizzy water, or whatever it is you drink to refresh yourself in this particular moment)? Mmm, me too; coffee. Hot, black, delicious – a carefully crafted pour-over, made just the way I prefer it. It’s an acquired taste – not everyone likes coffee, and not everyone who likes coffee prefers their coffee black. There are quite a few preferences we individually express, and, obviously, that’s part of what makes us individuals – however similar we actually are as mammals, as primates, as citizens, as community members, as families… yep. Similar and different. Individual.

Who are you? Are you living your values? Are you making the choices that slowly allow you to become the person you most want to be? We toss around the phrase “a work in progress” to excuse so many things… but… are you working on being the best version of you that knowledge, skill, and practice, allow? It’s just a question. I can’t answer it for you, or change the outcome of your self-reflection. I can’t do those verbs – those verbs belong to you. 🙂

I had a difficult day, yesterday, for some values of difficult. I felt irritable all day. Easily annoyed. Frustrated by life. I found myself, more than once, seething in the background, but unable to ascertain “why”. A couple years ago, such a day would have resulted in many more similar days, perhaps, or escalated to some explosively unpleasant emotional moment that “ruined the day”. Yesterday, I was patient with myself. Willing to be aware of my challenges, without pushing that experience (and energy) out into the world, and other relationships. My Traveling Partner and I exchanged testy, irritable words in the morning, but the moment passed quickly, and resolved itself entirely, and the remainder of the day was a delightful one, with the one shadow being that bit of moodiness lurking in the background, waiting to take me by surprise. Well, that can really only happen if I let go of being aware of it – gently observant, compassionate, non-judgmental self-awareness for the win! Each time it surfaced as a concern, I made room to be aware of my emotions, and also the realities of my moment, to the fully extent possible for me. I let go of expectations. I let go of assumptions. I made a point to approach the world  – and more importantly, myself – with considerable care, and unyielding commitment to refraining from lashing out at others as a result of my “headspace”. It was fairly effective; the day, generally, was quite a lovely one. Win and good.

I relate all this as a reminder that we can choose. We have a lot of choices. 🙂

This morning I begin again, over coffee, after a good night’s rest. A little later, brunch with a friend. Some time after that, a trip to a local artisan’s market. Fun. Monday will come soon enough. 🙂

What about you? What about your choices? Who are you? Where does your path lead? Do you take your coffee black? Cream and sugar? Blended with ice and high-fructose corn syrup? Flavored? With whip? Dairy or non-dairy? Extra shots? Perhaps you eschew coffee altogether? What I’m saying is, it’s a big menu, and there’s room for you to be who you are. How will you craft that raw self into the person you most want to be? What will you learn from life’s traumas? How will you approach educating yourself? How will you interact with the world? It’s a big menu…

…Are you ready to begin again?

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Tending the Garden

March 23, 2019 //
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It’s definitely Spring. Small sprigs of new growth are turning up everywhere. Flowers beginning to bloom, though generally only those that bloom earliest, not minding the remaining handful of chilly rainy days to come. There’s a metaphor here.

Leaves unfolding, welcoming Spring.

I looked out onto the deck yesterday, early in the morning, and made a decision to begin readying the container garden for Spring. I let go of grieving roses lost to summer heat and succulents lost to winter cold, and looked on the garden with new eyes, vision no longer obscured by tears. There is so much promise in a Spring garden. More metaphors. I sat down with seed catalogs and thoughtfully considered what to replace, what to move on from, and what new opportunities are in front of me, now. I made careful choices based on a lifetime of experience, which now includes the heart-wrenching woes of the past year, and also, the extraordinary joy I’ve found, and so often. I made a tender sentimental choice to replace just one of the lost roses, with another of the same variety. I took time to appreciate that it will be “the same rose”. I made mental notes of some things I’ve learned from caring for that particular rose for nearly 3 decades, in a pot, and some things I can do more skillfully this time around. I made an exciting choice to add a long-gone favorite I’d had to leave behind many years ago, and somehow never replaced, in spite of how much I loved it. I’m eager to see it thrive here, in this more wholesome place. I added a rose that has a tiny bit of baggage to it, too, unconcerned with any of that, and trusting that the here and now will allow me to let all that go; it’s not my baggage, and it wasn’t my rose. I picked out a new one that so beautifully complements the others that it just seemed to be a necessary thing. (Are you keeping track of the metaphors, here?)

The Spring garden is about more than roses. I like to grow some vegetables, too. I also happen to be a tad whimsical, a bit careless, possibly with a tendency to be a bit lazy… and… yeah. I’m the gardener I’ve got. I do better each year, and learn more about making the most of what, and who, I am. This year I made the choice to pick out a handful of veggies I’ve done very well with, that don’t seem to require much of me, and just one thing that tends to insist I am attentive to a lot of higher-maintenance details. Ease, balanced with challenges. That’s the goal, anyway. So, this year it’s carrots, beets, various salad greens, Swiss chard, ground cherries, and tiny alpine strawberries. I’m fairly terrible with growing peppers, so why bother with that? Tomatoes? Well, I grow pretty awesome tomatoes, pretty easily, but they don’t agree with me so much these days, and I don’t generally eat them. lol There are more metaphors here. Are you listening?

Ready for Spring.

I’m not trying to tell anyone else how to tend their garden. I can’t even make skillful recommendations; I don’t know the lay of the land out your way, or what the soil conditions are like, or whether you are an urban gardener, or someone with a hobby farm, and I certainly don’t know what food you like to eat, or whether you have a fondness for beetles, or… you see, it’s all very personal and subjective. I just know that when I tend my garden, I need to show up, to really be there – or the roses die in the summer heat, the vegetables bolt or whither, and the succulents die in the cold. I’m just saying, my garden is a deeply useful metaphor for a great many things going on in my life, rich with lessons to teach me as I reflect on my experience, fingers in soil, birdsong in my ears, and gentle breezes kissing my cheek.

It’s time to begin again. I finish my coffee, smiling, and thinking of Spring. It’s a metaphor.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Roses, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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