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Another Word for ‘Now’

October 20, 2015 //
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I am enjoying a quiet evening. It isn’t a spectacular evening in any noteworthy way, but it is quiet, and relaxed, and satisfying; I am content with… ‘now’? Something more than that, but I lack concise straightforward language to describe it. Maybe I will stumble upon just the right word that means “I’m okay, by my own will and effort, the nourishment of love, and a future lifetime of healthy practices, and this is a damned fine cup of decaf on a chilly autumn evening and everything is just fine”… that’s the word I am looking for. 🙂

I could just enjoy this lovely moment.

I could just enjoy this lovely moment.

I have been in pain all day. I walked home slowly, more of a stroll, phone put away in my handbag, enjoying the geese and squirrels at play, and the autumn leaves fluttering to the ground. I got home, and did some yoga, and had a light dinner. I enjoyed a long soak in a hot bath, after meditating for some while. It was lovely. I’m still in pain. Doesn’t really matter that much right now.

I don’t find myself moved to poke and prod at my consciousness, or over-explain life’s endlessly mystifying curriculum to myself. This feels like an evening to relax, and to ‘reap what I have sown’ – there has to be room to appreciate progress, to enjoy moments, to be grateful for growth, for beginnings, for love… It’s a nice evening for all of that, and pain seems somewhat irrelevant for the moment.

I am relaxing here, sipping my coffee and listening to jazz. I am in the middle of a number of books – I nearly always am – and this sweet gentle evening is progressing such that it seems very much inevitable that I’ll be reading one of them in some imminent future moment, legs folded beneath me, coffee cup carefully perched on my knee, or cradled in my lap, lost in someone else’s words.

This is quite lovely. Isn’t that enough? I very much think it is. (Your results may vary; there are verbs involved.)

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Epsom salts, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Now

October 7, 2015 //
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The evening is a quiet one. I arrived home at the end of a busy day with a headache, which has slowly become irrelevant, ignored in the background; my back aches much more. All evening my awareness has bounced between the two. I laid down for a while with the headache. The backache got me up some time later. Yoga eased the backache somewhat. The headache became more prominent. I had a bite of dinner, and meditated later, and found that my headache was substantially eased. I am now most aware of the backache. I’m not bitching, just noticing, being aware, and taking time to monitor these states without judgment, providing myself with whatever symptomatic relief is available, and doing what I can to make the most of the evening nonetheless. It’s a lovely quiet one.

I am enjoying the evening doing quiet things, and making a point to embrace the softer sounds, and the peaceful stillness. It is rare for things to be so entirely quiet, and I find myself wondering if it is the new windows; I don’t hear the traffic. The wall clock in the kitchen, a recent addition, ticks off the seconds quite audibly. It wasn’t long ago I would not have been able to bear the ceaseless ticking reminding me of time slipping away…precious…finite… The quiet tick-tick-tick no longer resonates with finality. It’s just a quiet tick that indicates nothing more or less than the movement, in increments, of the second-hand on a man-made mechanical device that measures time in arbitrarily selected units devised by human beings for record-keeping, communication, and convenience. That quiet ticking has no relevance to my subjective experience of time. The clock does not control me. It’s a nice feeling… I don’t know when I got here. (I wasn’t watching a clock at the time, I guess. lol)

I find myself favoring a different approach to time than I did when I was younger. Relative to subjective experience in the moment, the only time that is ‘finite’ is the time that has already happened, and become ‘the past’; my future, as yet uncreated and only imagined, is entirely infinite and limited only by my imagination itself… And my present? Also infinite – infinitely now – and utterly continuous, and also a series of tiny singular moments that quickly become experienced, and past. In my thinking of it, time isn’t so different from light…sometimes a wave…sometimes particles…sometimes science…sometimes poetry. I mean, sure, I am mortal (as far as I know) and someday I’ll die – I guess at that point I will, myself, pass from the present and into the past, but from my perspective, what then? Will I even continue to know time? I have no particular thoughts on the subject of ‘things after death’, and no answers, no conclusions, no expectations, or assumptions; I am comfortable with accepting that there are both things that are known and things that are unknown…about most things.

I didn’t have any particular notions when I sat down to write. It’s hard to think past this headache, even to notice the ticking clock. Oh, hey. The headache is back. The backache isn’t so bad, though; this chair is pretty comfortable backache-wise.

What time is love?

What time is love?

I find myself just sitting, fingers poised over the keyboard, thinking over my recent conversations with my traveling partner, and feeling secure, compassionate, understanding, and very much in love. For a few minutes neither the headache nor the backache have much to say to me, while love fills my thoughts. I smile, half wondering how is it that I love this particular human being so very much, the way I do? I am not concerned with troubleshooting love.  I am grateful to enjoy any measure of sentiment so profound; it’s a complicated journey, and the good bits are so splendid in good company – the bad bits far easier to endure when shared. I noticed time passing at some point. It wasn’t the clock; my traveling partner hits send on a moment of love on his end, and my reverie ends with a smile renewed when I see the emoji pop up, a brief distraction that is no distraction at all. Love comes first.

Be love, if you can, I remind myself; it’s enough.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

With Practice Comes…

September 21, 2015 //
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…More practice. You knew I was going there, right? I suspect I am fairly predictable about this topic. There’s just one hitch; it’s all a bit like a game, in some respects, and we’re dealt some cards, given some pieces, or exist with some details of who we are/what’s going on, and the practice is what we do ‘on our turn’. We still each start somewhere. I’ve been a fan (and Hero) playing SuperBetter for awhile. Jane McGonigal’s book, just published, arrived last week. Like any tool, or any practice, there are verbs involved – but it is a fantastically fun, helpful, and supporting way to build a practice, and take a journey toward a goal. Better still, however many times I set one practice or another aside, it’s there for me to resume when I choose to; I can begin again.

I can’t quite pinpoint the ‘true starting point’ of this journey, anymore. Did it begin with a game at the dinner table with my traveling partner, and the many tears that followed that moment? Not really – I was already going somewhere with myself. Maybe it started with the break up of the previous 15-year-long relationship? No, I definitely felt I was ‘on a journey’ before that moment, too. It wasn’t when I turned 40…but it may have been shortly afterward…or shortly before… it matters what I count as revealing, and instructive. It matters what I choose to include as being worthy of the journey I am now on. Any starting point I choose from the past tends to look worthy of calling ‘the beginning of this journey’ if I open my heart to accepting that have I faltered many times along the way… and when I do that, I have to wonder if perhaps I have always been on this journey, and perhaps it is so much less significant and grandiose than I want such a profound thing to be – Is it simply that I am living my life? Starting moments, ending moments, moments of great change, moments of ennui or confusion… one being, one woman, one journey, continuous change on a journey of self-discovery?

Is there any need to deny myself the experienced profundity of the journey I am on in this time, to accept that the journey is, and has been, ongoing “all along”? Thoughts over coffee, on a lovely morning; every day starts somewhere.

With autumn comes pain.

With autumn comes pain.

This morning, the journey of this one day of many begins with pain, rather a lot of it, and I’ve done what I can to put my attention on other things, having taken steps to ease the pain, itself. Giving it a lot of direct attention makes it more prominent in my experience, and although turning my consciousness to other things doesn’t reduce, eliminate, or ease the pain in any direct way, it at least distracts me from it in some moments. Not this moment. This moment I am writing about pain, because pain is where I am. Do me just one favor today? When you find yourself confronted with elders moving slowly, or awkwardly, take just a moment to understand that they do so because they are in pain – the sort of every moment of every day pain that if you ask them about it they may answer that they are not in pain – not because they don’t hurt at all, but because they don’t hurt more than that. It sucks, and I find myself reluctantly facing far greater awareness of all those moments in all those younger years when my impatience with the slow movement of elders frustrated me excessively, and wishing I could go back in time and if not be helpful, at least not be such an impatient dick about it.

I’d like very much to move quickly through my morning, myself, with easy efficient movement – and that isn’t an option on my menu this morning. “Choosing not to hurt” amounts to taking carefully timed pain medication, practicing yoga, and yes – just being patient with myself early in the morning, before the yoga, and before the medication kicks in. Right now? I can barely move without grabbing something else to give me leverage, pulling myself upright, supporting myself for balance if I have to lean over or down, and all of it hurts. Mornings like this one are best when I think to slow way down first thing, and be extra patient with myself, letting yoga begin with the natural movements needed to get out of bed in the first place, and stretching my muscles slowly, unfolding my spine from unknown sleep postures into something more vertical and aligned before I even take a step…my bladder does not always cooperate with that idealized version of getting up in the morning…sometimes my lack of executive function on waking results in nothing at all like a morning ‘routine’ and I lurch around the apartment awkwardly before I remember to slow down and take care of this fragile vessel.  This morning I am getting a taste of what my old age might really hold for me, at least with regard to my arthritis, my mobility, and my experience of pain and movement. Taking care of me and practicing good practices to nurture the wellness of this fragile vessel seem incredibly important – a time machine would be nice right about now; I would try to persuade a younger me to take better care, sooner.

Would I really go back in time and risk changing who I am now? That’s an interesting question for another day.

Today is a good day to practice the very best self-care. Today is a good day to be aware that the people ‘in my way’ are indeed people, and they are having their own experience; kindness is free, and I can’t know someone else’s pain. Today is a good day to change the world.

 

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Staying Power

June 15, 2015 //
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Relaxing over my coffee after a good night’s sleep. Feeling well-rested is gradually becoming an everyday experience, more common than not. Like so many other things, it’s likely to fail me at some point, but I don’t focus on that as a concern, or a fear; it’s just an observation, and once made I let it pass from my consciousness.

There is music playing in the background, loud enough to enjoy, quiet enough not to force the neighbors to have to share the experience with me. I choose music that gets me going in the morning, fills me with joy, and moves me to move – dancing in the morning is just about as effective as yoga for easing my arthritis stiffness, and combined they are a powerful way to improve my ease of movement and start the day well.  Music is so much a matter of taste – I am glad there are so many sorts to choose from. Like exercise, like diet, like knowledge, the vastness of the variety means I have choices that make life more wonderful, more individual…my experience is built on my choices and it is uniquely my own.

I sip my coffee thinking about my playlist; songs come and go, get added and removed. My playlist is a fairly fluid thing – but there are tracks on it that have real staying power. I liked them ‘then’, and I like them now. They continue to delight me, to move me, to provoke one emotion or another that I enjoy feeling – or seek as a sensation for some reason aside from casual enjoyment. Others are songs I really get into for a briefer period, and lose interest in over time. This all seems fairly obvious and common place, but how interesting that it is a thing, at all. What makes some songs stick around so long as favorites? It isn’t as obvious as ‘meaning’ – that’s one thing I’m quite certain of, since so much of the music I like best is not the least bit deep or particularly meaningful, and very meaningful songs are as likely as any other to quietly move along to the much longer list of ‘music I used to really like’. This is not an important question, as questions go. I’m just getting my brain warmed up for the work day, I suppose. 🙂

I took time yesterday after work to shut down the devices for a couple hours and embrace stillness. My intent had been good self-care basics: yoga, a long soak, meditation, maybe some writing. In practice, I got comfy in yoga pants, and did only enough yoga to be easily able to sit quietly and meditate without becoming stiff, and sat down to meditate without a timer. (No timer? By design, or by mistake? I guess by design; I rarely use a timer because almost without regard to what else I have planned, taking time to meditate is more important than that.) About two hours after I sat down to meditate, I found myself focusing again on more practical matters, smiling softly, content and calm. Two years (and then some) ago, when I started down this path, I found 5 minutes of meditation a challenging commitment to myself, that required a great deal of discipline and seemed to offer limited immediate reward. Incremental changes over time being what they are, I am in a different place with meditation now. The challenge currently is figuring out my new timing, and new routine, to ensure I indulge myself with this particular practice as much and as often as practical.  I can say with certainty I benefit from meditating very regularly – and without a timer. It is a practice that puts me first like no other – and has no particular potential to harm anyone else.

The things that have great impact on my experience are often not obvious, or seem somewhat trivial initially. Like a great playlist. Like meditation. Like tiny spiders. Like getting a smart phone. Like living my life in an authentic way, precisely as the woman I am. Like making life’s choices with great care and consideration. Like loving the woman in the mirror. Like a smile. There is incredible promise to be found in the details – like buried treasure, without a map, and some of the details end up being as gems of great value – tiny delights in the broader context, of far more worth than the noise and bother that sometimes fills the day-to-day experience with challenges that are less important than they seem.

"Enough".

“Enough”.

This is not a particularly insightful, relevant, or important bit of writing, this morning. I’m not disappointed – life isn’t always about that. I’m just chilling over my coffee, listening to music I enjoy, playing a bit with words in the playground of my thinking, and preparing for a long work week beginning in earnest. I am learning that contentment has staying power.  I am having my own experience, and it is enough. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

The Trick to Balance

March 6, 2015 //
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Weird day. I don’t know that it could easily be called ‘good’ or ‘bad’; it was the sort of day that defies such simple judgments. Perhaps that’s best. This moment here is very pleasant and quiet.

Evening on the edge of spring.

Evening on the edge of spring.

I recently went to a yoga class at a nearby studio. I enjoyed it greatly, and it gave me some cool things to work on – one of them is balance. I’ve tended to skirt postures that test my balance ‘too much’ out of fear of falling. In the class I attended, balance was central theme of this particular teacher’s sequence that night. Simply balance. Simple balance; most of the time we were focused on simplicity and elegance, and none of the poses were notoriously difficult or fancy ones. I didn’t exactly excel, but it opened my eyes to the need to improve my balance.

I love a good metaphor.

Tonight I am treating myself gently, and enjoying the evening quietly. From this quiet chill vantage point, it’s even tempting to smile when I think of the day; there is a lot to appreciate. Balance doesn’t have to be fancy.

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships
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