Take steps. Wherever you are in life, just keeping taking steps. Maintain momentum. Walk on. Begin again. 🙂
I am sipping my morning coffee, contemplating the weekend that is now behind me. What a lovely anniversary weekend. I enjoyed the time we spent together. I am grateful to have the partnership we do.
This morning I’m also thinking about change and uncertainty and managing chaos. All the practicing of practices doesn’t get me out from under the challenges of being a human primate. So… there’s that, too. lol
I breathe, exhale, relax, and repeat. I sit quietly with my coffee, reflecting, and simply being. Steps? A good first step, in a lot of circumstances, is this simple exercise. Breathing. Sitting quietly and just breathing. Start there. 🙂
A lot of what works is pretty simple stuff – it just needs doing. Verbs. Results vary. Practice? Yep. Both noun and verb, that one. lol I keep practicing. It paid off this weekend, more than once. It was a good weekend.
I smile when I think of my Traveling Partner, then begin again.
I am sipping flavored water this morning. I had my coffee on the commute into the office. It’s a Monday, and these days I rarely go into the office on a Monday, but I woke to a reminder from the VA about an appointment today that I had managed to memorize correctly for the date, but somehow thought that would be on Wednesday. It is not. It is today. LOL So I quickly adjusted my intentions, and hit the road for the morning commute. I expected it would be tedious… but… apparently I’m not alone in not going into an office on Mondays; there was almost no traffic at all.
I am thinking about the weekend, and the time spent planning future getaways with my Traveling Partner. The truck has us both fired up and eager to explore corners of favorite places and new destinations previously unreachable in his sedan, or in my Mazda. We have hours long conversations about camp kitchens, roof-top tents, jet-boil stoves vs all the other sorts, the necessity or luxury of taking a portable toilet, and does it make sense to have a solar generator and a fridge, or is that just ridiculous? There are so many options to choose from, so many approaches to overlanding, camping, hiking, from the gear to the routes to take, to the destinations near and far that we might want to see. It’s a pleasant way to pass time together, talking about the options and our choices, and whether we can tackle them now, or whether they go on a list for future purchases – or is there some other way we can do that thing in a less costly more personalized way, using our skills, time, and materials on hand? I’m getting to know a whole new side of my Traveling Partner – it’s very exciting.
I spent much of my weekend in the garden. Planting alyssum for future mounds of fragrant ground-covering flowers. Putting up a trellis for the peas. “Encouraging” the blueberries and the roses with oohs and aahs of delight that they are doing so well, already. Checking to see if the neighbor’s cat is staying out of the vegetables now that I’ve put that cat-deterring spikey-matt down here and there. Weeding out dandelions from the flower beds and the small bit of lawn we’ve got. (So many dandelions!) It was a lovely weekend. Time well-spent.
The real point here isn’t that I had a great weekend spent in excellent company. The point is that I had choices. A lot of choices. I chose to enjoy the weekend in spite of the pain I was in on Friday evening, and much of Saturday. I chose to go hither and thither with my Traveling Partner for occasional errands (I could have stayed home). I chose to garden. Together we chose to put time into figuring out what we really want of our leisure time – and how we can make that happen most easily. Oh, for sure, sometimes I let myself bob around like a cork on the ocean, and circumstances or the whims of my partner made the decisions for me… nonetheless, even taking that approach is making a choice. There is so much that is truly within our control through our power to choose. 🙂
I think I’m saying “don’t choose to be miserable then wonder why you are miserable; choose differently if you want a different experience”. Misery is sometimes kind of an “easy way out”, isn’t it? There are verbs involved in escaping misery. Results will vary. We become what we practice, though… so… keeping practicing? Choose something different? Begin again?
Choices are not always “simple” or “easy”. Outcomes are not guaranteed. We do have an astonishing number of choices, though…
Some days “enough” really is enough. Today is like that. It’s an ordinary Sunday. I slept well and deeply and woke to my Traveling Partner’s gentle touch. My coffee is good, and the morning is pleasant. It’s a rainy day, and I still managed to spend some short time in the garden, planting early germinating cooler-weather seeds. Nice morning for it.
I hear the washing machine in the background, and the steady whir of the computer fan, even over this video of rain sounds I have on in the background. It is raining, today, but I rarely hear that from inside the house unless there are open windows, or it’s rainy wickedly hard. In the bathroom, the rain falls hard enough to sound like a small steel drum perched on the roof, or a distant wind chime. Pretty.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s a good day for relaxing. I mean… Easter Sunday, you know? I’m for sure not planning to go to any retail spaces; the few that open will likely be quite crowded. Why bother with all that? Home is cozy and warm, and the companionship is genial. No stress, today, just quiet joy.
Shrubs removed, blueberries planted – but still so small they are barely visible against the fresh compost.
I spent yesterday in the garden. I got a lot done – like, everything on my list for the weekend, really. 😀 My Traveling Partner cut down the shrubbery I disliked, and even dug out the roots. I feel very cared for and supported; it’s a busy week for him in the shop and he still has time for me. I loosened the soil in the bed, pulled out what remaining tangled shrub roots that I could, mixed in generous amounts of well-aged compost and good quality soil and planted the blueberries I’ve been planning for since we moved in. So exciting! It feels like a milestone. I’ve got roses (8). I’ve got blueberries (6 bushes, 2 each of 3 varieties). I’ve got a raised bed veggie garden. I’ve got a plan. It feels good.
My wee balcony garden, in 2011.
I think back to my Traveling Partner and I moving in together. Our apartment had a balcony, no yard. I had a handful of roses in containers. He helped me build my garden, there, surprising me with deck-rail pots, and soil, and then too… I felt so thoroughly loved. Love can endure. Like a thriving garden, it needs care, attention, effort, and good quality “seeds” and “soil”. I smile thinking about my many small container gardens over the years, and my one previous, long ago, “garden at my own home” – a garden built in the midst of terror and chaos, stressed by Texas heat and lack of skilled care. It didn’t do very well. I wanted to force it to thrive but that’s not how gardening – or love – works, at all. I learned a lot… sometimes that’s the most we can get from an experience.
I’ve got a long-ish list of things to do today. Chores. Laundry, dishes, vacuuming, that sort of thing – nothing at all fancy, just routine shit I need to get done to prepare well for the upcoming week. All good. I’m not vexed over it. Not fighting the necessity. It’s just the day ahead of me, and I’m enjoying it as it is. That feels pretty wonderful.
I smile thinking about my rainy day garden, and the robins out there enjoying the freshly turned up earth and easy-to-reach worms. I wonder if this is their favorite time of year, and whether they have any sense of our human “seasons”. Things I think about over coffee on a rainy pleasant Sunday, before I begin again.
Sluggish start to a new day, in spite of this good cup of coffee. I’d very much rather be sleeping. lol My reminder to take morning medication goes off, startling me; I’ve usually taken it and silenced the alarm before now. I chuckle quietly to myself – that’s the whole point of having an alarm, these days when I’m sluggish and not super alert. Purpose fulfilled.
I am musing contentedly about “things that bring joy”. Pretty subjective notion, there, but I am … entertained? Satisfied. It’s a reasonable bit of reflection for a slow morning. What brings you joy? It may be quite different in some regards to what brings me joy… although… human primates being what we are, there’s surely a lot of overlap? I think about it. While I reflect on what brings me joy, I also contemplate how to deliver that kind of joyful experience to someone else. What could be more delightful than the joy someone experiences through some little thing I may have done? I love that feeling. 😀
…The joy itself is a pretty splendid feeling all on its own, too, is it not?
I smile to myself and remember to update the budget to reflect changes, and feel a bit of background anxiety melt away. The anxiety wasn’t over the expenses themselves, or even the budgeting or the spreadsheet; it was the loose end, the awareness that the budget was not up-to-date. That’s the kind of shit that so easily can wreck a moment, a day, or an experience, so I pause my writing, hop over to Sheets and update my budget to reflect changes my Traveling Partner and I had discussed. Feels good that doing so doesn’t provoke any anxiety at all – it only eases it. That feel new(ish). I savor the moment with a contented sigh, and a sip of coffee.
I let the clock tick away without giving it much attention. I glance at my hands. I’ve torn them up lately, mostly over background anxiety and bullshit, wholly unnecessary and mostly completely unrelated to any real thing in my day-to-day experience. I’m okay… but my torn cuticles tell their own story. The other night, my Traveling Partner quietly, without prompting, and with a very serious concerned look on his face stepped over to where I was sitting and just handed me a bottle of lotion for my poor hands. lol I got the hint. So… I’m working on focusing more on joy than stress, and doing my mindful best to keep from tearing at my cuticles or biting my nails. It’s super hard. I keep practicing. It’s gotten so much better than it once was – still not where I’d like to be. I’ll just keep at it, patiently, building discipline through diligence and practice. We become what we practice.
…Sometimes it’s quite difficult to practice not doing something…
I breathe, exhale, relax. I find myself thinking about far away friends and “once upon a time” long ago moments of shared joy.
My eye lands on the clock. It’s already time to begin again…
I’m enjoying the quiet moments before the work day begins. For about an hour I’ve been just sitting quietly, reflecting on this-n-that, mind adrift – it’s a favorite way to start my day slowly that can often result in a workday that feels like a weekend day, and a work week that moves purposefully toward the next weekend without agita, stress, or drama. It’s lovely. So, I’m sipping this decently good cup of coffee, breathing, and being. Not much else, really.
Spring is here. This morning I stepped out into a light misty rain, and felt the kiss of droplets on my cheeks without the sting of morning cold temperatures. The thermometer told me it was 44 degrees. Pleasant. I spent the short drive to the co-work space thinking about the young blueberry bushes that arrived just two days ago – they’ll replace the dying hedge we cut down last summer, and those unfortunate shrubs along the walk that I dislike. It’ll be really handy to have blueberries in the garden. 😀 I’ve got 6 bushes to plant, and 3 different varieties for good pollination and for disease resistance. Seems the wise long-term thinking…
…Thinking long-term, I’m expecting to get those blueberries into the ground this coming weekend, and getting the shrubs cut down and removed, and beds prepared, this week. I should stop by the local nursery for any needed soil amendments, and some blueberry-suitable mulch. I add that errand to my list for the week.
I sigh and sip my coffee contentedly. I love this quiet time, alone with my thoughts, uninterrupted. I breathe, exhale, relax. My heart is filled with love and enthusiasm, which is an enjoyable state of being. I sit with it awhile, thinking about my Traveling Partner, sleeping (I hope) at home. Beyond the windows, dawn begins to turn to day, and the white building across the street is a pale blue-gray that merges with the blue-gray of the dawn sky. The sun hasn’t yet risen. Another deep breath, and with this one I pull myself more upright, and give my posture and physical experience of self some attention. My pain today is a very commonplace “5 out of 10” – more or less “normal” for the season. I’ve already taken pain management steps, and there’s nothing more to do about it for now. I get up and stretch, anyway; Tuesdays are “long” in the sense that once the day begins, it’s more or less back-to-back meetings until late enough in the afternoon that I’m already thinking about calling it a day. I don’t even mind; most of my weekly meetings are on Tuesday. I can plan for that (and do). It’s convenient.
Before I went to the coast, my Traveling Partner (seeing my enthusiasm for making the shower steamers) sat me down at the computer with him and designed a simpler press (hoping for better finished results) than the inexpensive mooncake press I had purchased online. That one works pretty well, and creates a lovely steamer with a fancy very detailed top surface – but the result is unreliable and often doesn’t come out of the press cleanly. I had beefed about that a bit, and said I’d love a simple round puck with a flat surface. Boom! He designs one for me, and while I am away, he printed it on the 3D resin printer. (Wow!) I can’t believe I haven’t taken a picture of it yet… weird. (I definitely thought I had taken a picture of it…) That very day (that he designed the round press for me) he designed another that produces a hexagonal puck. So cool. He went a step further and added one additional design detail – the monogram with which I sign my paintings. The thought makes me smile so hard my face hurts. lol
One of the “Violet Forest” shower steamers, showing that I clearly need more practice getting the consistency and pressure just right. lol
The new presses are much easier to use than the mooncake press is, and they both produce an appealing result. I definitely need more practice getting the mix just right, and getting the press filled to just the right amount (about 50g), using the right pressure, and building a reliable process that is efficient. I think I’ve got a recipe I like sufficiently well to just keep at it with the same recipe, varying the fragrances and colors for fun. I greatly enjoy using the shower steamers I make; they are to showers what bubble bath is to a hot bath. 😀 Pure delightful luxury.
Another breath. I exhale, relax, and look at the time. The morning is now more blue than gray, and the clock says the work day is due to begin in mere minutes. I guess it’s time to begin again. lol I guess I’m even ready for it. I smile and finish my coffee.
Feels good to be taking better care of the woman in the mirror.
Evening Light 