I’m sipping my coffee, which is going cold faster than I am drinking it. The sky is slowly shifting from night through the dawn-shades of blue and soon it will be daylight. I breathe, exhale, relax, and sit quietly and contentedly in the early morning stillness for some minutes before my fingers ever touch the keyboard. I spend a few minutes just enjoying the quiet time.
Yesterday evening was lovely. Not fancy. We didn’t have anything planned and didn’t do anything noteworthy, it was just a lovely evening at home together. I’m just making a point of reflecting on it, and enjoying that recollection.
One of the most challenging details of emotional wellness, mental health, and building resilience, is simply the essentials of day-to-day practice. Meditation only “works” if I do it. Regularly. Reliably. Same with the breathing. With the self-reflection, acceptance, and non-attachment. As with physical fitness, so much of these shit is “use it or lose it” – if I stop meditating, I lose the resilience that comes of it. If I stop practicing “being calm”, I slowly descend into emotional chaos over time. If I stop taking long (looooong) walks? I slowly lose endurance, fitness, and even the appetite for the endeavor at all. So much depends on taking a first step, then another, and developing a practice.
Discipline. Not the “discipline” of punished wrongdoings – the real discipline of sticking with a plan, of following a path, of staying the course with a practice – even over a lifetime. Discipline. I don’t have that much of it, honestly, thus the need to practice. When I practice with great reliability, I build my discipline and yes, become disciplined – and it’s a transferrable skill! If I am disciplined with regard to my meditation practice, it’s far more likely that I’ll also be disciplined about self-care, household chores, and deep listening, and the dominoes begin to fall into place in an orderly way. Discipline keeps me on the path to becoming the person I most want to be. 😀
It starts with a breath.
It starts with a practice.
It starts with a step.
It starts with a new beginning.
Are you ready to begin again? Where will this path lead you?
This morning I’m back at work, sipping coffee before the workday begins, and giving thought to how best to prevent burn out or overwork as I turn my attention back to the workday routine for the first time in bit more than a week. It’s rare for me to take so much down time, and rarer still to successfully without exception leave work entirely alone for the duration of my time off. It felt amazing, and restful, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
…Now… where did I leave that list of shit I mean to take care of this week…?
I smile at myself in the quiet of the office in the early morning. The muzak was not left on over the weekend (or maybe there was a power outage or something), and it is super quiet, and as is so often the case, I’m first into the office, and I am alone. It’s good time for writing.
…Today I go pick up new glasses. Later this week, we finish up the tax forms and get those filed. New team mates to meet today or tomorrow. Coffee with a friend that I’d planned for Wednesday needs to be rescheduled; I won’t be in the city, I’ll be here in town (see “finish up tax forms…”). I have a nagging feeling there is something potentially missing from my calendar, but I’m aware that having managed to miss a couple committed deadlines for things recently, as well as completely forgetting about a couple of scheduled appointments in the past two or three weeks, I’m sensitive to the risk of further forgettery, and prone to wandering about with a “what am I forgetting now??” look on my face (and sensation in my head).
I breathe. Exhale. Relax. It’ll be enough (today) to remember to pick up my fucking glasses – I’d meant to do that when I got back into town on Thursday (the same day I’d planned to get the taxes wrapped up, which had been rescheduled from managing to forget about it the week prior). One thing at a time. That’s a good beginning. 😀
I sigh out loud. This cup of coffee is finished. It’s not even very good – just hot coffee of the not-quite-instant k-cup variety. I glance at my work calendar; looks like a busy week ahead. I squint at my calendar disapprovingly before adjusting my thinking based on the observation that meetings are pretty well grouped on Tuesday, with plenty of open time for focused work on other days. It apparently only takes me a week of being properly away to become completely “out of practice” with my work routine and expectations. LOL
I catch myself smiling; my thoughts wandered to the new shower steamers I’d made during my time off, some of which I haven’t yet tried. I think ahead to a lovely shower after work… maybe that new “violet woods” scent tonight?
Another breath. Another moment to reflect as day breaks and the sky lightens to a very “walkable” pale gray sky. By the end of March, I’ll surely be back on the trail with my camera in my hand before work each day, and spending more work days in the office at home (vs the co work space). Another sign of Spring, although my current favorite signs of Spring are the roses in my garden leafing out with new growth, and the hyacinths and crocuses blooming. 🙂
Spring flowers.
Another breath. Another moment. A good time to make another cup of coffee, before I begin the work day. 😀 I’m ready.
I’m in the studio this weekend. It feels good to do creative work. I loaded my “painting playlist” for my ears, and my “inspiration slideshow” for my eyes, sat awhile with my thoughts and feelings, then turned my chair to face the window (and my work surfaces) and got started. Yesterday was a solidly good day of painting, with 3 completed canvases, and one background that needed to dry before I could do the foreground work. Very satisfying.
Today, I sit down once again, early in the afternoon with the filtered light of an overcast day brightening the room. Playlist? Check! Slideshow? Check! Ready to begin again? Yes, I am.
Today there is chocolate in my coffee, and an image in my head pulled straight out of a recent nightmare. I “don’t have the words” for the feeling it conveys, so I have to rely on canvas and color to “find the words” for me. Most of the paintings this weekend are bold colors, contrasting details silhouetted over wildly colorful sunrises, sunsets and … this…
new work, as yet untitled
Who is she? Is that her reflection? Is she alone, or following someone else? Is this image a metaphor for a journey, or change? Is this even “finished” at all? Where is she going – and why? Is she passing through a portal to another plane of existence? My eyes come back to it again and again, wondering.
…Funny what gets our attention…
This other thing I have in mind is thus far just a glimmer of a shape, colors, an idea with it’s roots in a terrible nightmare, but on it’s own it’s just an image… a thought. Can I get it on canvas? Will it tell me something I don’t know? Will it help me communicate something for which I lack words? There’s no way to know until I put brush to canvas and see it take shape.
I’ve got a cup of coffee and an open water bottle next to me. The morning began earlier than I expected; the heat in this hotel room came on, I rolled over in bed thinking nothing of it, then woke to a sneezing fit. Well, damn. I’m awake. I did make a half-hearted attempt to continue to sleep, but it didn’t work out and I finally just got up and made this cup of coffee. It’s not a great cup of coffee, it’s just definitely coffee. lol
…A little later this morning, I’ll shower, dress, pack, load the car, and head home…
The sun is not yet up. The holiday lights on the pier that juts out from the restaurant next door are still lit. In spite of the darkness, it’s clear from the street lights up the block reflecting back from the pavement that it has been raining. I yawn and sip my coffee, staring at this blank page until I finally begin with a common starting point: an observation about this moment, and my coffee. lol
Same view, different night.
I consider going back to bed…but I’m not actually sleepy, just a bit groggy, and also in pain. My osteoarthritis doesn’t care for weather that is both chilly and also rainy. I take my pain medication with my morning coffee, figuring it’s early enough for it to fully kick in long before I’m driving. I sip my coffee – it’s honestly pretty bad (instant), but just drinkable enough to still be called “coffee”. I find myself wondering how much longer coffee will even be available as an easy-to-buy beverage…
Did I get what I needed out of the weekend? I came seeking two things: sufficient quiet to hear myself think, and time & distance to get used to my new medication without the constant stress of also meeting someone else’s expectations and needs moment-to-moment. I mostly got what I needed. My solitude was interrupted with conversational moments over chat with my partner; he misses me, and I did not set any sort of “no contact/offline” boundary – I knew he had things going on he might want to communicate or talk about or share. There was also the call from the bank, pretty routine and nothing to be massively stressed out about, though I have experienced an unnecessary amount of anxiety over it, simply because it brushes past ancient trauma from my first marriage. In all cases, these interruptions in my solitude were very practical opportunities to practice some practices, and that’s how I took them. No resentment or agita. “Mission accomplished” then, I guess. Good enough. 🙂
I listen to the heater fan running. It mingles with the higher pitches of my tinnitus. There’s another noise in the background with a cycle that differs, setting it a bit apart… the mini-fridge? I think so. An alarm goes off in an adjacent room. 6:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning? The alarm is quickly silenced and there are no sounds of movement. I smile to myself, recalling times I’ve overlooked shutting off an alarm on a day I could have slept in. I sip my coffee, taking a moment simply to exist in this quiet early morning space. The world beyond the glass door to the balcony is very dark, but I’ve got an inside light on, so… yeah. I do like watching daybreak become dawn, so I switch off the light in the room. It’s too early for that to matter much; it’s just still quite dark. LOL
My phone pings me softly about my morning medication. The intent of the alarm set for each individual medication is as a training tool, not a permanent solution. I am succeeding at rebuilding my timing and habits for taking each one with the correct timing each day (both individually and relative to each other). I feel a small moment of accomplishment every time my phone asks me if I want to cancel the alarm for the day, before it goes off, and I can “say yes” (because I’ve already taken that one); I know it means I’m learning my new timing. Eventually, I’ll cancel each alarm one by one as it becomes clearly unnecessary to have them. 😀
It’s now been almost 3 weeks for the change to my thyroid medication and the addition of the beta blocker. It’s been two weeks since I added the anxiolytic. Everything feels pretty “normal” now – a new normal, with more energy and less anxiety. Nice. Was this short getaway worth it? Yeah. Definitely. I was feeling pretty raw and aggravated, and it was all me and shit I needed to sort out for myself. My partner doesn’t benefit from having to endure that needlessly. I got home in a much better state-of-mind than the one I was in when I got here “days ago”.
I “got my steps in” on this trip – walked a bit more than 13 miles over two days. I got plenty of sleep, too. I wrote. Meditated. Reflected on this-n-that. I read not one word of Proust, and very little of anything else. Though I started reading a couple times, I generally ended up lost in thought, or taking more pictures of the view. I took quite a few pictures – I hope one or two of them are good. 😀
All that’s left is a bit of coffee sipping and waiting on the dawn (I don’t feel inclined to rush home such that driving in the dark is necessary, and I don’t prefer it). So yeah… this adventure wraps up nicely with a few words and this cup of (fairly bad)(instant) coffee. It’s a good moment to begin again.
I am sipping coffee on a Sunday. Good coffee. Pleasant Sunday. I am reflecting on what makes some moments “special” and others so seemingly “ordinary” and wondering if there is really any difference outside my own subjective impression of each moment.
I recently went to the seashore for “a bit of a break” and some “me time” away. I walked the beaches and nature trails. I took pictures. A lot of pictures. Many of those were pictures of entirely ordinary birds standing or walking along the beach, or parking lot, or some strip of not-quite-lawn. Why did I bother? They weren’t special or fancy birds… just gulls, crows, jays, and little brown birds of a variety of sorts. What’s so special about those birds? Nothing, right? It was getting the picture at all that was special (to me) – taking pictures of birds is hard. lol
A dandy gull strolling along in a parking lot. He was aware of me, and unconcerned, just walking along.
Were the moments themselves particularly “special”? I don’t actually recall them as unusual moments in any way, aside from being part of this particular beach trip. If I were to glance quickly at one of the many hundreds of beach photos I’ve taken over the years, I’m not sure I could easily identify one trip from another. They illustrate a more general experience of “going to the coast” and “being at the seashore”. Special inasmuch as it is not the routine day-to-day experience of life…but often very similar to each other (if for no other reason that I am always me when I go do these things, and generally I am doing them with similar motivation and goals in mind).
This crow was not interested in being photographed and quickly walked away when it noticed my gaze.
In a certain sense, isn’t every moment “special”, in that there is a predictably finite number of them for any one of us? We don’t even have the advantage of knowing in advance how many there will be – only that they will eventually just run out, often unexpectedly.
Even for little brown birds on mellow summer days; moments are finite and limited.
It seems far more likely that all moments are special than to assume no moments are special – it’s easy enough to identify one or two special moments (just look for lingering significance or fond memories!), which immediately debunks the proposition that “no moments are special”. So… moments are special in a quantity somewhere between “some” and “all”. Tough to know going into a particular moment how special it may prove to be, even immediately afterward. Some moments are so spectacular it’s probably obvious that those will become lasting fond memories for someone (or recollections of profound tragedy – “special” isn’t always “good”, right?).
Thoughtful? Distracted? Just having a moment?
This last beach trip was special, for sure. I was out on the coast giving my Traveling Partner room to work on complicated CNC build details without me being underfoot, or becoming a distraction. That’s not what was special about it (for me), although it is always wonderful to know I am missed when I am away. What made it special was the combination of finding new awesome locations to take pictures, new trails to wander, and also – that’s where I was when I got the call from my new employer with their offer, and knew that I would be returning to work soon.
I got the news sitting in my car, parked, watching the waves roll in, just after getting off the phone with my partner, after receiving an automated rejection email sent in error. lol
When I was mired in the worst of my bullshit, baggage, chaos and damage, I often felt as if “nothing is special”. That feeling (and experience) has a name, anhedonia. Life feels gray, meaningless, and very much as though nothing matters and no effort will change that lack of meaning. It’s grim. It’s bland. It’s very hard to pull oneself out of that pit. I had it wrong. I mean, obviously (anhedonia is an experience of disordered thinking/feeling). It’s just that I’m sort of blown away by how wrong I’d gotten it (as a result of poor mental health) – because it’s apparent now that the truth is so much closer to “everything is special” (even to the point of potentially numbing us to the “specialness of the ordinary”).
I smile and finish my coffee. I’m happy to be where I am these days. I delighted with the pictures I’ve been getting of birds. I’m okay with the birds themselves being entirely ordinary. Most things are. Moments, too. I’m done with insisting that anything “special” also be entirely out of the ordinary – that seems, now, to be a needlessly high bar to set for what is special to me. Sure – love is special, and very much out of the ordinary… but a great cup of coffee, a picture of a bird that turns out well, or a gentle relaxed Sunday morning are all pretty ordinary experiences – and also comfortably special. I’m good with enjoying the specialness of the ordinary, and embracing contentment and joy.
Evening Light 