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Celebrating Independence

July 4, 2017 //
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I could go see fireworks tonight. I probably won’t. I’ll certainly have to listen to neighbors light firecrackers in the park until well-past midnight. Last night it only lasted until about 11 pm. I’m sure people just don’t think about the effect it has on others, or dogs, or cats, or wildlife. They’ve already rationalized away any specific risk of harm, so why would they be expected to consider their actions in the context of its impact on others? Well.. for starters, because that’s a thing. LOL Basic consideration – it’s one of my “Big 5” relationship values, personally. I don’t understand how people manage close relationships without it.

In most respects today is an ordinary day, aside from expecting a lot of bangs and booms later tonight. I’ll spend today boxing up more things, and staying cool. At some point I’ll return to the car to my Traveling Partner and enjoy his company for a little while.

Each day is a new opportunity to fill our hearts with light, and to live mindfully with purpose.

Will you be barbecuing? Heading to the local lake or swimming hole? Hosting some large gathering of family or friends? Visiting historical sites? Camping? Taking a road trip? Seeing fireworks is probably a given for most Americans… One thing, though – do you understand what you are celebrating, or is it just an excuse to party and blow shit up? I just thought I’d ask… Having a good time with your friends isn’t something that needs an excuse or justification. So… what makes this special to you? Is it just lighting sparklers and setting off firecrackers – because you don’t do that every day? Does the day have real conscious considered meaning to you? Maybe it should?

What are you celebrating?

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Categories Free Will, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Gray Skies and a Smile

May 29, 2017 //
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I woke to a gray morning, cool, overcast, threatening rain without yet raining. I didn’t take time to fully wake before throwing the windows open to the cool breezes, and filling the place with birdsong and fresh air. I had dressed, still not yet quite awake, and fumbled with my phone before losing interest in the clumsy comedy. It was while I was making coffee that I actually started to wake up, becoming more aware, first, of how awake I was not, initially. I took my coffee to my meditation cushion and sat a while, watching the morning become a day from that vantage point, without actually meditating, at all.

I’m not sure I’m quite awake even now. There’s time for all that. No rush. I’m off work today.

The meadow and the park beyond are a lush assortment of shades of green: bright, dark, yellow-y, more blue, browning at the edges, neon on the tips. It’s beautiful. So much of what lives is a shade of green. I sip my coffee and observe. Still working on being actually awake. Starting with being aware. A bright-eyed red wing blackbird stops by to check on my progress with some skepticism. He has a bite of breakfast, and calls to his buddies in the neighborhood, perhaps about the quality of the meal, before departing.

I sip my coffee and breathe, simply existing in this moment of contentment and calm without letting it slip away unnoticed. I can’t overstate how much it has mattered to do this – just this simple thing. Savoring the simple joys, the sweet moments, the easy times, and really giving in to allowing these sweet pleasures to be important, to be as much of everything in their time as I ever allow something moment of grief or ire to be… then… Then moving on in life to this new place, where it is the sweetness that is by far the more valuable experience, cherished wholly as it exists, looked back upon more often than I look back on tragedy, and shared as words, as memories, and indeed being appreciated in an active way. Verbs. It’s a journey; there always seems further along to go than the place I am standing right now, however far I have come.

Speaking of journeys; my Traveling Partner will likely return sometime today. I smile thinking about it, even though I know there is a chance we won’t actually see each other. The turn-around time between this thing and that thing is quite short this week, and I think he’ll be headed out again with only the briefest opportunity to see each other, if any exists at all. lol I grin knowingly thinking about last year’s promises to spend so much more time together through the autumn and winter months. It didn’t happen that way. We snatched what time we could from busy lives. I have rare bitter moments about it, but the freedom we give each other to go, do, and be, on our own agendas rather than living lives constructed by some recognized cultural framework, penned in by other people’s expectations of love, is part of what makes loving each other so precious in the first place.

I break out in unexpected laughter, startling the birds away from the feeder. Damn I write long, weird sentences! LOL I very much write the way I talk, actually, and the commas tend to fall where my speaking the words would place them…but… If you don’t know the rhythm of my speech, how would you “hear it”? Do I leave readers struggling to make sense of things because I happily (sloppily) mix metaphors – and tenses? What about this major overuse of ellipses? This can not possibly be librarian or linguist approved. 😀 Shit. Still happily grinning at myself, my fingers continue to tickle my keyboard, and words continue to flow. We’ll get through this, together, yeah? 😉

Today is a good day to begin a journey – or begin it again.

A picture of a rose in my garden, on a sunny day. Beauty needs no excuse. 🙂

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

There is So Much More to Learn

March 3, 2017 //
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The week finishes with the work day ahead, and then it’s the weekend. The clock seems to tick at a much faster rate working this particular job… Wasn’t it just Monday morning a couple days ago? There is so much in my subjective human experience of life that is so very relative.

Monday already seems so long ago...

Monday already seems so long ago…

I had a delightful lunch conversation with a departing colleague yesterday. I’ll miss her greatly though we’ve really only just begun to get to know each other; she has a “quality of mind” I find engaging and nurturing even to be around. She has a studious gentle wit I greatly enjoy.  Lunch was excellent.

The delights of lunching with a friend were followed by spending the evening with my Traveling Partner. He was waiting for me when I got home, and coming home to his warm smile and his embrace felt so… oh damn. Words fail me. I love coming home to his smile. I don’t know what made last night specifically so special… somehow it was. I’m still smiling. I have a weekend ahead of house-hunting, he has a trip away coming up early next week. Chances are, we won’t see each other again for some days… I’ll probably still be smiling, thinking about last night. lol

Life can be very simple, seemingly effortless, coasting on what is enough, enjoying what feels best, avoiding what is uncomfortable… I like those moments. I cherish them. There is, however, so much more to learn from the hurts, from what is uncomfortable: awkward moments, real talk, hard choices, tough times, books… and each other. I’m enjoying the morning and the week, and it truly seems filled with delights – I’m also aware that life has more to teach me, and that there is more to know. Have I finally grown enough to move beyond crashing on sharp rocky shores of disappointing moments? Will I no longer feel devastated and bereft to face losses? If I catch myself expecting that to be easy, I know I am not paying attention at all. Change is. Tough times occur. There will be losses to face. Disappointments to bear. Moments of struggle. Feelings. There will be all the feelings. All of them.

I smile for a moment, thinking about my 20-something self of long ago, and her unyielding rage and cynicism, wrapping herself in emptiness saying “I feel nothing.” I laugh gently to myself from a perspective of greater understanding, years of experience, and think kindly “Oh, baby girl, you only feel too much. You’re drowning in the feelings. Stop fighting them. Just let go.” Her tears well up in my eyes and spill down my face many years too late for her to heal. I feel the feelings now – and that’s okay, too. It’s even more than okay; it’s enough. What a powerful thing, to feel. Healing takes time. I didn’t understand then how very much time that might be… a lifetime. A life of time. All the minutes I spent on healing – and all the minutes I spent fighting the work involved in that process – and all of the other minutes, too.

I’m still not done growing and learning. There always seems some bit more, just out ahead…  How did I end up here, this morning? Thinking about Women’s History Month, actually. For Black History Month I read about black lives, in the words of black authors, about black life experiences I cannot fathom from my vantage point mired in white privilege.

To educate ourselves we have to step out of our comfort zone.

To educate ourselves we have to step out of our comfort zone.

I do my best to learn and to grow and to be kind and to be understanding – which means learning some things, and exposing myself to discomfort. I read James Baldwin. I read Martin Luther King Jr. I read Malcolm X, which I first read at the tender age of 9; I understand it all quite differently at 53. Now here it is Women’s History Month and I caught myself giving it the brush off “I’m a woman myself… I already read books about women, by women… Nothing to see here…”.  It isn’t the truth of my experience though, in a very important respect; I am only one women, living only one woman’s experience. (And by percentages, I don’t actually read that many books by women.) What about black women? What about Muslim women? What about immigrant women? What about women in science? What about incarcerated women? What about trans women? What about women living in dire poverty? What about women from countries and cultures I know nothing about at all? What about the meta and the metaphor of other women’s lives, experiences, and voices? How dare I look into the eyes of the woman in the mirror and assert a claim that I know enough – even about her?

However many books, however much experience; there is more to learn.

However many books, however much experience; there is more to learn.

There is more to learn. Always more to learn. At no point as it ever been demonstrated that there is an end point to learning. 🙂

This weekend I’ll make a short reading list for March reading. Women’s words. Women’s lives. Women’s greatness. I’m eager to get farther along in our stories – will we change the world?

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Categories Free Will, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Aren’t You a Special Snowflake?

March 1, 2017 //
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Um… Yep. Of course, I am, why would I be defensive if accused of being soft, of being kind, of wanting more and better for all of humanity? lol It’s hardly an insult. Am I delicate? Probably. My feelings get hurt when I am treated badly, why wouldn’t they be? Don’t I want to be treated well? Of course, I do. I want that for you, for all of us, for everyone. Why would I want anything else? So. Let’s put that whole “insulted by being accused of something good” silliness to rest, shall we? I’m a snowflake? Am I that? Something different? I am human… I appreciate my individual qualities as I see them… I appreciate yours… We’re each having our own experience on life’s journey. Sometimes it snows. 😉

There were undeniably snowflakes. They fell and melted away as snowflakes do.

There were undeniably snowflakes. They fell and melted away as snowflakes do.

I’ve been having to remind myself regularly that my best qualities are not flaws merely because they are shouted at me as insults, or snidely pointed out as weaknesses or limitations, and more often than not by those who lack those qualities, entirely. People who are so frightened, insecure, and in so much personal pain that they have lost sight of their shared humanity; all they have left is their anger. Well… shit. I get angry, too. Sometimes their anger infests me, plagues me, spreads from their consciousness to mine like a disease… of dis-ease. Ick. Makes me want to shower my brain. 🙂

We aren’t the insults directed our way by the hurt, the angry, the misled, the frustrated, the annoyed, the foolish, or the deranged. We’re also not the compliments lavished on us by friends, loved ones, passing strangers on a good day… or the foolish, or deranged. Too often I have found myself cherishing or resenting a handful of words tossed my way by another human being, sometimes with an intention that is not obvious to me in the moment. Words have power… the power we give them. Words are also just words, lacking in substance until substance is acknowledged. Funny magical things, words. Use your magic powers with care!

I attended an interesting meeting in the not too distant past. Everyone showed up with their laptops. Most people showed up with their cell phones. There was a meeting agenda, crafted in advance to ensure efficiency. A list of topics and action items was developed. People came to the table with the intention of achieving goals and moving projects forward. Most speakers, as the meeting unfolded, found themselves repeating material – often more than once – and defending, refuting, or clarifying points not made, and details not outlined, because the other participants were not actually fully listening at all; they were on the laptops, working, or on their devices, texting. “Multi-tasking”. I chuckle when I consider the pointless waste of precious time that 90 minutes turned out to be. Nearly everyone involved ended up following up with each other in the hours after the meeting to clarify important concerns, details, or verify expected action items after-the-fact, because in a very real sense, they didn’t actually attend that meeting, at all. Since then, I take a notepad and a pen to meetings, no connected devices. I set expectations with colleagues that I am away from my desk and unavailable. I engage the material being presented. I walk away fairly certain I understand my role. It’s such a huge improvement that when I host a meeting, myself, my first ask is that everyone mute their cell phones, set those aside, and close their laptops. Laptops don’t have meetings, people do. lol

I find myself wondering how much of the contentiousness of the world, the refusal to see eye-to-eye or acknowledge shared concerns or to collaborate, is a byproduct of not being in the moment, involved together, engaging each other directly, present and listening deeply? Quite probably mostly all of it. lol There’s a huge difference between calling a faceless group of people you’ve never met “liberal liars” or “conservative morons” than to directly, face-to-face, challenge the perspective of a human being in a skillful way. Dealing with our fears, or our insensitivity, or our cruelty surely starts with recognizing it, discussing it honestly, frankly, and without nastiness? Doesn’t that also require that we be listening when someone is talking?

Who are you? What are you afraid of? Can you hear me? Are you listening?

Listening isn’t my greatest strength, I admit. I interrupt a lot. Too much. I recognize how rude that is. I practice listening deeply. I practice a lot. The woman I most want to be is known for how well she listens; it’s something to work towards. An entire community of people who listen to each other, from the youngest voter, to the oldest elder official in office, and all the layers of human beings living lives in between… wouldn’t that change the world?

I’ll keep practicing. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Begin Again

November 10, 2016 //
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Right. I’m awake. It’s a new day. I sip my coffee and take a moment to breathe. I adjusted my plans for the day to give myself a little more time to take care of myself at a very high priority.

One day ends.

One day ends.

Yesterday was hard, and after a day of carefully maintaining perspective, and sharing moments of compassion and support with similarly stressed out colleagues, it was clear I’d need a bit more of my own time for me. My traveling partner is understanding about it. There was no point adding to his stress by sharing that I’d barely cross the threshold when I crumbled and wept for 15 minutes or so, before I could even pull myself together enough to reach out to him. There’s no shame in tears, and the catharsis was a needed moment of its own.

The hardest part about yesterday, for me, wasn’t work, or what I heard and saw out in the world. It was Facebook. It was family. It was the gloating of people I expect to count on affectionately – because they are on my Facebook friends list – and found myself treated dismissively, or callously. Some people were so invested in celebrating their victory, they were not able to understand that many of the folks suffering over it were not even (at all) going on about losing a fucking race – they are frightened or angry about much larger things, and have the perspective that those situations or issues just got potentially a whole lot worse (the, um, flip side of celebrating because you think life just got better with the candidate of your choice in office). Scary shit to find myself being honest about why I’m anxious and faced with an astonished “is this post real?” sort of reaction – as if it’s just not even believable that there is suffering in the world.  It hurt, a lot, to be implicitly told, yet again, by a chorus of men who will never face the issues women face that those issues don’t exist, or are an exaggeration, or hey, grow a thicker skin! By the end of the evening I was shopping for firearms, figuring “why should I have to be out in the world surrounded by people who think my consent is irrelevant without the means to quickly and firmly ensure they understand my boundaries are very real?”  Fear and a lifetime of subtle repression (and some not-so-subtle) and harassment roiled together and boiled over as the minutes ticked by.

I shut down the internet. I wept awhile. I meditated longer, finally actually finding sleep somewhat later than I ordinarily would. No nightmares, and I woke ahead of the alarm, with enough time for a leisurely shower and a short walk in the pre-dawn gloom of a chilly and damp autumn morning. The mist wrapped me in my thoughts. I returned home with a smile and made coffee. I am okay, within myself. I feel some trepidation about the future. Angry people elected #45… I find myself wondering if that’s a teachable moment? For me, personally, I mean… I work so hard to find balance, to redirect and defuse anger with intellectual curiosity, compassion, and mindfulness… I’ve allowed myself to be silenced a million times rather than be a source of conflict. Have I created the world in which women’s voices are silenced by implicit rule without consequence? No, of course, not – but I’ve supported it, fed it, kept it going. Could I make better use of my anger? It’s something to think about further in days to come.

There are verbs involved if we want the world to change. Talk is sure a verb, but… it’s not a solid driver of change. It’s more like the scenic route. Slow steady culture change does build on conversations, on dialogue, on words and writing and skilled oratory… but… yeah. Slow. Really slow. I mean… how quickly would women have gotten the vote if women had only talked about it? It’s possible, based on angry choruses of taking away our votes, in 2016 (yeah, that happened). “Well, that’s just election year rhetoric! You can’t take that seriously after the election is over.” Um… yeah, I can. It was actually said, and with real conviction, by people who meant it when they said it. I can totally take that seriously – and I do. So, this morning, I find myself asking – like a lot of people probably are – what do I do about “all of this”?

I begin again. My values are what they are with good reason. The election doesn’t change who I am, or what I value. #45 is my president, too, whether I like it or not – and conversely, whether he likes it or not, either. Verbs, eh? I smile, and recall a great video (very much on point, election-wise) about truth, and the things we think are “true”. I commit to sitting down with myself, verb-wise, and laying out in very simple (about a 4th grade reading level) phrases for what I want from my government and my president. Really simple. “Fund Planned Parenthood” “No Electoral College” “Protect Social Security” – that kind of simple. I will get my thoughts really clear, and I will begin writing postcards (exposing the words and phrasing to everyone that handles them) and I will begin mailing them to representatives, to #45, and beyond. I’ll include them in my signature block (on a rotation). I’ll say them aloud. I’ll leave hand-inked art cards around here and there, with these simple phrases, and I’ll just keep at it. Again. Again. Again. Everywhere I go. Repetition is learning. We tend to think what we’ve heard a lot is true. That’s usable practical science right there.

You probably have ideas of your own. Do those things. Raise your voice! If you weren’t heard – say it again. Were you shouted down? Put it in writing. Memes are powerful, too; this election saw a clear demonstration of that principle in action. Add a repeatable slogan to an engaging image and it spreads like a virus and people begin to repeat the words with conviction, as though they are “truth”, and often without fact-checking. Are you more of a meet & greet sort? Get out there and say words to real people! Throw parties – and make conversation meaningful, powerful, and memorable! Live the change you want to see in the world. Offended by racism? Call it out when you see it, and be a strong ally for a diverse group of friends and associates. Offended by religious intolerance and faux-patriotism? Point it out when you see it, and just keep at it. It’s the persistence that has so much power. Carry that torch every mile you can.

Your words matter. Your actions matter. Your voice matters. You matter.

A new day begins.

A new day begins.

It’s time to begin again. ❤

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, War and News of War, women, Words
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