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Patterns

May 3, 2014 //
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Patterns occur pretty naturally, it’s the way repeatable, reproducible things work, perhaps.

The pattern of ripples in water.

The pattern of ripples in water.

I don’t know the math and science of patterns with the sort of detail that would be appropriate for a mathematician or scientist. I see patterns.

Patterns on a sandy beach.

Patterns on a sandy beach.

I see where patterns are broken.

Sometimes it's obvious.

Sometimes it’s obvious.

I’m a pattern analyst by trade, if I narrow down ‘data analysis’ to something more specific, although the sort of thing that I did in the 1980s manually with my brain and eyes is generally done by machines and programming today.

Patterns, and our innate human relationship with patterns and pattern recognition sometimes goes awry; we see patterns that aren’t actually patterns, by connecting unrelated events or experiences. Apophenia is a fancy word for seeing patterns in unrelated things. It’s a very human tendency.

Just in case you're sure you only see patterns that are 'real'... Are you seeing a face in this arrangement of circles and lines? Cuz... this image is not a face, just some circles and lines. :-)

Just in case you’re sure you only see patterns that are ‘real’… Are you seeing a face in this arrangement of circles and lines? Cuz… this image is not a face, just some circles and lines. 🙂

Sometimes patterns are obvious, with obvious causes. Sometimes patterns are quite subtle.  Created patterns and naturally occurring patterns both fascinate me.

Sunlight through blinds - natural? Created?

Sunlight through blinds – natural? Created?

It isn’t always easy to be utterly certain that a pattern is a pattern with patterns that are not visual, auditory, tactile, tabular, charted, or graphed – at least for me.  Emotional and behavioral patterns are much more difficult to be certain of, because the involvement of the observer in the observation is likely to be much higher, and the quality of the data, itself, much poorer.  The time I have spent studying patterns in my own emotional life (for example relative to the ebb and flow of hormones) has been worthwhile for my growth as a human being, but it is a slow process of observation, and error correction. Each observation checked and checked again for verifiable accuracy, examined from multiple alternate perspectives, or against other theories, and any easy or obvious seeming answer questioned to limit and hopefully avoid both bias and losing perspective or compassion for myself. It’s a complicated endeavor.  Before I began practicing mindfulness, it was a hopelessly fast route to frustrated rumination that really didn’t go anywhere.  Now, I’m rather pleased that it seems to fast-track improved long-term emotionally relevant decision-making about my life and behavior that has improved my everyday experience a lot.

There’s that ‘decision-making’ piece, though… Choice is a big part of living well. A lot of people actually choose to live less well than they could; choosing frustration over contentment, choosing wanting over enjoying, choosing righteous indignation over understanding, choosing to be stalled in their life and experience over choosing change. It’s very hard to watch.

Today is a good day to choose well. Today is a good day to be the change I wish to see in my world, and in my life. Today is a good day to choose love, and to choose pleasure. Today is a good day to invest enthusiastically in having a good experience. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Words

Tonight

February 5, 2014 //
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I look in the mirror and see so much more than ‘me’ tonight. There are tears queued up just behind my eyes, felt more than seen. Eyes red. Signs of age. Why am I weeping? Tears cascading down unprovoked. My heart feels strangely light. I walked a while in the night air, feeling the softness of a spattering of rain drops. Smelling the flowers of coastal California, somehow recognizably different from ‘home’. Where exactly is ‘home’ these days? Somewhere in my heart, I guess, not quite on a map that has any reality outside my own experience. I find myself wondering what a ‘map of the world’  might look like if the scale and importance were determined by my recollections and experience, only, rather than what ‘is’ – or seems to be.

The night tells its own stories.

The night tells its own stories.

Tonight I had dinner with an old friend. That seems simple enough. Out of town, on business, catch up with old friends… it happens in every city every day, I’m sure. We talked about challenges and old heartache, of friends, and changes, and loved ones now gone. We talked of triumphs, and wonder. We talked of love and growth. We laughed.

Why am I weeping? I’m not sad, exactly. I’m not wounded. I’m not grieving. Hell… I just had a great time, connected and deep, and transcending time and space, with a friend I’ve missed a while and love to hang out with. We’re open with each other.  The conversations we share are deep; they always have been. Why am I weeping? Is this what having a heart feels like?

Emotions are strange. I’m okay. I’m… moved. Deeply moved by the pleasure of a good friend’s company. Moved by how good it feels to be human and connected and able to feel so much so deeply. Tears fall. I’m still okay, and there’s nothing ‘wrong’ at all.

Stillness, perspective, and a cup of tea.

Stillness, perspective, and a cup of tea.

Moments come and go. Challenges rise, and we rise to face them. Truths in life are revealed, and accepted, rejected, denied, or held dear. There’s always time, and rarely enough. Aren’t the laughter and the tears just part of it all? Part of this human experience? My tears dry as I make a cup of tea and ponder life’s ponderables. Slowly the sounds of traffic outside my window overcome the sound of stillness in my hotel room.

I’m not a little girl anymore. 50. I still make mistakes. I make a lot more of them that I’d like. Tonight I learned that one of those is how little I invest in some of the relationships I hold most dear, allowing myself to coast on what has been. It’s a poor investment practice, when the return is so high to choose differently – and really, at any time, we could be … or not be. Snuffed out like a candle at bedtime. Finished like a writing assignment on a deadline. Done. Gone. Ended. Over. No longer on the premises. The chances to be with my friends are not unlimited. Life is not unlimited. Time is not unlimited. I will make different choices. This matters too much to me; I can tell by the quantity of tears and the pure relief of seeing an old friend again, even for a couple of hours.

Tonight I am grateful. Grateful for love. Grateful for good friends. Grateful for those few precious relationships in which I feel visible and understood. Those feelings are powerful – certainly worth tolerating a few tears. Tonight I am thinking of you, my dearest friends, and all my loves – then and now and evermore. I miss you – out there, somewhere, in the night. I hope you are each and all warm and safe and dry, that you have what you need and more, and that you feel loved, and welcomed wherever you are right now.  Take care, and be well – and let’s get together soon.

❤

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Words

The Arrival of 2014

January 1, 2014 //
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I finished 2013 softly. Family, friends, the occasional peek at Facebook, an informal spread of tasty treats, great conversation, good music, some visual entertainment; I didn’t plan, and it wasn’t at all organized, and delightfully it all fell into place quite easily. It wasn’t elaborate. It wasn’t noisy. It wasn’t stressful. At 8 minutes to midnight, guests had already gone, one partner was already headed to bed. The New Year arrived softly, with a hug, a kiss, and soft laughter about being cool with going to bed before midnight.

Moments before midnight, the neighbors reminded the world they exist, with a wasteful display of ordnance fired over the rooftops. I generally don’t mind that sort of thing, myself, but it drives the dogs mad with stress. The household was no longer on the verge of sleep.  The flurry of activity involved with pacifying the startled canines roused the household, put everyone on alert, and delayed sleep a bit.  The house quieted down quickly afterward, and 2013 was over.

It’s a new year.

I woke early, around 4:00 am. The idea of getting up at 4:00 am after going to sleep sometime after midnight didn’t make sense. I went back to sleep. I woke again, around 5:30 am. I made the same decision without really waking up completely.  I finally woke, slowly unfolding to a truly waking consciousness, aware that it was a new day. It was 7:00 am. I could have slept longer… only… 2014!! 😀

My intention was to spend the initial hour or so of this new day, new year, new beginning in solitary contemplation of … stuff.  I’m glad I didn’t set expectations with myself about when, precisely, that might happen. lol.

Today, I’ll be taking some time to consider the New Year, to consider what I want out of my life, how to best become the woman I most want to be, and to set new goals and priorities.  I do it every year, on New Year’s Day. This year, I do it mindfully, with self-compassion, and a foundation of contentment.

Okay, 2014 – let’s see what you’ve got!

No rush... there are 364 days before 2015!

No rush… there are 364 days before 2015!

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, women, Words

Just One Thing

December 19, 2013 //
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Yesterday I spent the day gently, most of it, on mindful service to the small creatures in my life. I spent hours on aquatic gardening: doing a water change in my community tank, some pruning, planting, tidying things up, acclimating the new tetras that have been in quarantine, and generally spending the larger part of the day with the fish.  It was soothing and serene, and I definitely needed to support my inner stillness after a morning of unexpected turmoil.  Tending the aquarium was a good choice to get back on track and feeling calm and balanced.

The secret life of shrimp.

The secret life of shrimp.

It was a moment of shared humor to find myself discussing the aqua gardening, and commenting that I doubted there were any shrimp surviving, since I simply never see them…I gestured to the tank and…there’s a shrimp, right up front! LOL I took a moment to snap a picture, because I wanted to be sure later that I didn’t doubt my recollection of having seen him. 😀  All that cleaning and moving things around must have disturbed any shrimp in the community. I found several more lurking quietly in the Java fern. 🙂

What made yesterday sort itself out in such a wonderful way wasn’t heartfelt apologies, or emotional ‘laying down of arms’, or occupying time in spaces away from conflict, although those things generally help.  For me, it was more about taking time to be deeply engaged in a favored activity, a needful task of some complexity, that I gave my entire attention to for a while to a ‘greater good’. Mindful service. In this case, mindful service to my own needs, and my aquarium. Simple gardening on some level, and gardening is something I know puts my heart and head right, when I take the time to allow it, to pursue it, and to invest in the good in it.  (Experience tells me I could pay lip service to the idea of ‘mindful service’ and just go through some motions, and perform tasks to completion, while investing in being hurt and angry, and get nothing in return but a sense of futility and resentment – will and intent matter; results also require action.)

The day was a good one, morning challenges passed quickly, comfortably, and were quickly forgotten. That’s more progress, and it feels like something I can begin to count on. 🙂  I admittedly enjoy tallying up the improvements in emotional resilience, reductions in volatility, new tools, new skills, new experiences of living in a general state of contentment, and comfort within myself…it’s been a year (368 days) since my sense of self began to unravel in a terrible way, a process that took weeks, consumed the holiday experience, and ultimately found me as only a shell of myself, considering choosing to end my own life… What a difference a year can make!  I don’t discuss those dark days in any detail with people, even people I love very much; too much pain to share, too few words to express it without sharing the pain more than the understanding. I feel hopeful that those days are well behind me now, and nothing more than a memory.

The mindfulness thing was the key. Still is. There are so many times I wish I could convincingly say “no, really, try this“, to friends and loved ones with their own challenges, their own suffering… but generally, as with my own experience in my own life, there is a state of readiness needed to even hear the suggestion in a usable way. I was once someone willing to say, with conviction and based on my own experience, that I had ‘tried meditation and it didn’t do anything for me’.  “I tried meditation…” No, no I had not. Not like this. I had always been focused on focus, focused on concentration, focused on clarity – focused on thought. I did not understand ‘awareness’, ‘stillness’, or observation. I did not understand the importance of breathing. I’m not sure what I ‘understand’ now…but I practice. 🙂  It is enough.

A lot more is ‘enough’, now. I hope to more deeply explore ‘sufficiency’ in 2014, to be more deeply and mindfully in service to home, hearth, and to myself, to ask more questions, and be more comfortable with uncertainty, to continue my studies of life and love, and to connect more deeply and more intimately with my loves, with my friends, with my family. I’ll get started today – it’s a lovely day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, winter

A History of Predicting the Future

November 24, 2013 //
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It’s early on a Sunday morning. The house is quiet. My usual vanilla latte is exceptional this morning. My heart is calm. My loves are safely here at home, and from this limited perspective of a quiet peaceful morning, all seems well with the world and the most important event thus far is seeing that the new plecostomus, still in quarantine, is out and about busily going about the business of being the fish that he is.

My morning meditation concluded with a strange sense that I was somehow ‘unstuck in time’. My consciousness was feeling very open to the future, aware of the past and vaguely disconnected from both, poised comfortably between them in this pleasant ‘now’. I soon found myself thinking about work, aware there are only 11 working days left- counting today. Left of what? Well, left of now, certainly, where work is concerned. There may be others in the future. There’s that word again. ‘Future’.

The thought of fortune-telling crones, and hucksters, of psychics, and favorite aunts with a gift for guess work, filtered through my thoughts alongside thoughts of my work (meaning employment). I’m an analyst by trade, and have been for most of my adult life. I make my living ‘telling the future’ in a sense, although I do so using math and trending and spreadsheets, rather than tea leaves, Tarot cards, stones, runes, or the stars in the heavens.  The interesting thing about that, though, is that I’ve come away from a number of jobs wondering if the people who make use of analysts actually have a real understanding that it is something different than guesswork, tea leaves, or shamanism.  It starts to cause me a moment of bitterness and frustration, then I left it fall away with a deep breath and a smile. Because it isn’t actually relevant to my own experience what someone else thinks about the work I do, beyond providing me with data to make a wise decision about whether or not to do such work for them. lol.

Yep. Getting to this place was that easy. Nice one, brain, happy to have you on board with the new processes. 😀

This morning, what is real and important is that I love, and I am loved in return – first and foremost by my own self, invested in me, and supporting my experience.  The safety and comfort of my family, and by extension our more distant family members, our metamours, our friends – those are important, too. Even that wee fish in quarantine is more important than most of the things the world would have me attend to, using media slight of hand, and verbal trickery. That wee fish, living his life, figuring out his new world, discovering that he is safe and well fed, and finding whatever fishy contentment he may – even he is more important than most things, because he lives.

Ideologies do not live. Industries do not live. Governments do not live. Laws do not live. Societies do not live as entities independent of their individual members. What is more important about us, as individuals, than this precious life force, this simple existence, this presence to be felt, to experience, to share? All the rest is myth, lies, ‘color’, ‘spin’ – and distraction…or so it seems this quiet morning as I weight what matters most to me now. Where I to face the end of my life tomorrow, wouldn’t it be vastly more important as a measure of my humanity how I treat my friends, my family, my lovers, even a simple fish, than any task I ever completed for any employer? Life is quite specifically not about the paycheck.

So… on to more important things, then. 🙂  The wee fish is quite shy.  Knowing he could be expected to be shy caused me to watch him ever so closely, and in just a day or two it was clear that the under gravel heater in the quarantine tank wasn’t keeping the water quite as warm as my community tank – nor as warm as the new guy would like it. I was also finding it irksome to keep referring to him as ‘the new guy’.  He’s pretty fancy, as fish go, and really rather deserved a proper name all his own.  Science doesn’t serve me well there, personally, and I found his taxonomic name rather cumbersome (Hypancistrus zebra). I purchased a better heater, and one of my partners – who understands how much I value the whimsy of words and of naming  – helped me out with an exceptional name suggestion.  This morning, I delighted in watching ‘Wyatt’ (his whole name is Zoot Suit Wyatt. lol) explore his world; the temperature change definitely improved his experience.

Mindfully living. Mindfully loving. Mindfully tending my underwater garden and the life it supports. It’s a lovely Sunday for compassion, for affection, for kindness – and it is a wonderful day to change the world.

Zoot Suit Wyatt - the new guy makes himself at home.

Zoot Suit Wyatt – the new guy makes himself at home.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, Words
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