A WordPress Site

Category: Introspection

Babble Babble

I've been sitting at my desk not blogging this morning, simultaneously striving and yearning for structure and routine, while at the same time struggling with my own need to upset my own structures and the resulting burst of energy followed by the exhausted let down that leaves me unable to do anything much. I suppose I just have to accept that this is a significant part of who I am, and stop struggling against it. Those exhausted fallow periods are also great germination chambers. But what do I write about? And when and how much? How much is shown? How much is hidden? Well, even when it seems the world is laid bare, the process of writing it is a bit of a screen, a letting go and an organizing of something but never the full thing in and of itself.

When I was young I would sometimes write in my journal that everything written there was simultaneously a lie and the truth. I suppose as I grow older, this seems even more apparent to me, that what I think and see and believe and write seems so true to me at the moment and yet, as soon as it is thought or written, my perspective and my understanding begins to shift.

Actually, much of the morning I've been sitting here at my desk, in front of my computer, not blogging, because a visiting cat was curled up in my lap and I hated to disturb her. So my thought were allowed to wander. And this cat, who has been sweet and friendly and curious since she arrived, this cat who has sought out affection, but warily so, stood on my lap to be petted and eventually relaxed just a smidge and lay down and curled up into a mostly contented ball.

It was this very state of wary contentment that shifted my intentions this morning and left my thoughts whirling. This cat on my lap is very sweet, and she was somewhat contented. But she is not in her house, she is not with her people, and although she is safe and warm and fed, we are strangers here. And that she curls up on my lap at all seems almost remarkable.

And I am left thinking about process, thinking that much as I adore a good project, life is more process than project. I am left thinking that if we allow ourselves to believe otherwise we are only fooling ourselves. And, since I am sitting at my desk, thinking about what to write, I find myself thinking about this process called blogging. Is there a happy path between interior and exterior worlds? Is there a middle ground between pretty pictures and shiny surfaces and shifting sands of perception and understanding? Why bother? Is there a safe road between clinging to routine and a defined structure, and allowing ourselves to lean in and seek whatever comfort we can in a world that changes around us despite our best efforts to contain it? What is this need to write, to share, to dissect, to explore the boundaries between sharing and hiding? I truly don't know.

Visiting miss kitty loves to sit in the windows and look out at the world. Occasionally she wanders from window to window. If I am in the room, she will utter a plaintive meow. I wish I could tell her that this is only temporary, that her people will come for her soon. But of course I cannot. I suppose, in some ways, blogging is my way of looking at the world through a window of words, not that I am crying out for the people I have lost, but it is a way of attempting to make sense of what I see and sometimes of what I don't see, and attempting to communicate and share that journey.

And now my own cat, my sweet Moisés is here demanding his share of lap time. And perhaps that is all the ending I need. There are no answers today, just transition and purring and what comfort we allow ourselves to find.

June 22, 2015
New Routines?

Routine. Such a loaded word. Some chafe at routine, seeking a life free and unfettered, seemingly like birds on the wing. But even birds are constrained by biology, by nature, by routine. Some dig themselves deeply into routine, arming themselves against uncertainty, in hopes that if they can only organize the world enough, chaos can be kept at bay. But chaos always lurks around the corners, and there is a danger of being so thoroughly bound by routine that one cannot free oneself from the tangled thicket, even when freedom looms on the horizon.

There is of course, some middle ground as well, or at least so we hope, some level of routine that allows us to function in society, in the world we have in fact created, while still allowing us some freedom to play and perhaps to discover the world as it is. This is probably the path most of us seek, one aspect of the human struggle in fact: how we reconcile the world of our inner, free, nature, with the our outer, animal existence; how we create a world in which we feel like we are, at least in part, the shepherds and not merely the sheep.

Once I managed to maintain a consistent routine, one that could be interrupted, yes, but which was also well enough ingrained that I could return to it, a routine that allowed a modicum of background structure as threw myself into whatever fancy or project overtook my mind on any given day. And lately the opposite seems to have been true. I get a lot done, but there is no real consistency. I start a routine, some new variable is thrown in, I fall back, flounder, and start over. Perhaps this is merely part of the process, part of the transition from where I was to where I am going, wherever that may be. I'd like to hope so anyway.

There is no hope but to jump in and try again. And so I am, trying again that is, embarking on some new routine, and not really new at that, hoping to grab what works and let go of what doesn't in tiny baby steps. I'd like to find a way of starting and ending each day while letting the middles be whatever they may be, like bookends of a sort. I did it once before, although I do not presume that the present or the future will echo the past. But baby steps are good. As I watch the world sprout and bloom and fledge around me, perhaps it is time for a little blooming, sprouting, and fledging of my own.

May 19, 2015
Small Treasures

The old and the new. Last year's crape myrtle, with a background of new spring growth. That is one of the glories of spring, how everything fades in its own time, grows in its own time, blooms in its own time. We should remember this when we fret that we don't learn, grow, recover fast enough. There is always time.

A rare day with nothing on my calendar. That of course doesn't mean that it is a day where nothing is being done, but that those things that are being done can be done free of schedules and external impediments. Well, almost.

These small flowers are a gift. We didn't plant them. They have sprouted in an area filled with mud and rocks where there is still work being done, where their presence is both a joy and an inconvenience. One must take care not to trample them, and so we do, take care that is to not trample down such precious gifts.

It seems like our most valuable treasures often come at times that are inconvenient. But that of course, only increases their value.

April 18, 2015
Catching my Breath

How easily we forget.

I have been looking forward to April for months. April is the time of pretty flowers, or rebirth and rejuvenation, despite what seems to be endless mud. This year, however I was also looking forward to April because it represented the completion of a couple of Big (yes with a capital B) projects. Throughout February and March my mantra, was simple: "I just have to get to April and things will calm down".

Ahh, the joys of self-deception.  Life has calmed down. There are no big projects. There are also lots of small projects, and, blinded as I was by the big projects, I had forgotten how time consuming and exhausting small projects can be. Ends up it was easier to manage the big projects simply because I knew I had to manage them. The little things? Piffle.

No, that is not quite true either. I am managing the small projects. I am, I have learned, a manager of projects. My first thought, always, upon being presented with a project, an event or a deadline, no matter how large or small, is to start thinking backwards, what needs doing, when, and to automatically schedule my time accordingly.   I used to marvel at people who don't manage projects well, used to marvel at the idea that there was even a need for project-management software, as I thought that this was something that all people just did automatically in their heads, as naturally as breathing. I have learned otherwise, that this ability to plan is a gift, but admittedly, I am still far too often surprised when chains of responsibility break down.

I had forgotten about decompression time, had forgotten that, aside from the relief and joy that accompanies the completion of a project, the brain needs time for rest, and that resting-time cannot necessarily be neatly pigeon-holed, cannot necessarily be neatly penciled into the calendar along the lines of "Sunday 1-4, brain-break". We like to think we can mange the world, manage our time, manage our emotions and even our personalities, but the world really isn't manageable. It is wild and wooly and often unpredictable. Progress is not a steady climb up a gentle slope, but more likely a long boring path, mostly straight, sometimes even reversing in on itself, before suddenly rising precipitously or plunging to great depths. I had forgotten that, after the effort of scaling those peaks, pulling oneself out of those crevices, eventually one would have to stop and breathe.

My brain finally went on strike yesterday. I had been increasingly tired, not because I was doing too much, not because I didn't have spare time, not because I wasn't allowing time for sleep, not because I was sad or depressed or overwhelmed, but just because my brain was trying to tell me to stop already. And I, of course, was ignoring that message. I had been increasingly inclined to fritter away time on Facebook or the web, not productively, just mindlessly, and that if anything is a clear signal that my mind needs rest (and no overloading brain synapses with endless data is not rest.)

Yesterday evening, talking to some friends who are far wiser than I, I realized that yes, sometimes one needs to just let everything go and be a little messy and wild. Sometimes one needs to just do nothing, not think, not plan, just be there doing whatever even if that is nothing, nothing at all.  I skipped a class I had been looking forward to attending, went home, did nothing. Even small routine chores seemed too much.

This morning I feel rested for the first time in days. This morning I was finally able to journal again. This morning I was finally able to write a blog post again. It is not at all the blog post I intended to write. But it is the post that needed to be written.

April 16, 2015
Holy Saturday

I love Holy Saturday. It has a familiarity about it, a sense of waiting, a sense of not knowing what will happen. We actually spend most of our lives in Holy Saturday, except that we don't admit it. Holy Saturday is the day we honor that sense of waiting, that sense of faith that things will get better, that knowledge that no matter how much faith we have, we don't really know what will happen. Will Easter ever come? Holy Saturday is a day that reminds us to trust and wait. Holy Saturday is a day that celebrates Not Yet.

Not yet.

Not yet seems to be a message I need to grow into, and although I am becoming more comfortable, I am not yet completely at ease with this sense of trusting and waiting and accepting that when the time is right to do something I will know it. But I can also see the necessity.

I tend to think too fast, to latch onto an idea and rush forward headlong into the breach. Wait. Not. So. Fast… Wait.

Holy Saturday is a day of waiting, but not necessarily a comfortable day. Good Friday is past, but Easter is not yet here, and we only know it is coming due to the weight of history that has come before us. But past performance is no guarantee of future results. We must have faith. We must wait. Not Yet.

I am sure my own sense of waiting will not end tomorrow morning. Life is rarely so neat. Perhaps I'm not waiting for an answer at all. Perhaps waiting is not only a step to a goal but a goal in and of itself. To accept that the time is not yet, is to accept that the now is, in and of itself, enough.

April 4, 2015
Breaking Through

Winter. Spring. Lent. Easter. Loss. Birth. Rebirth.

I've been somehow fragmented lately, partially off my routines, but also just not quite connected, I suppose in some transitional sort of way. But I can only say that if life is in fact one constant progression through states of transition: of periods of "almost" and "not yet" interspersed with periods of unity.

It is not that I have not been organized. I have in fact at times been so organized, so focused on the minutia of detail that I have lost sight of the point behind it all. It is quite possible to be too organized, to be blinded by detail, to organize oneself out of all connection with humanity and reality. Of course that is, in all likelihood never the intent, merely an outcome stemming from good intentions. It is possible to be so obsessed with being prepared for anything, for being so obsessed with the details, that one is not, in fact prepared for anything, at which point one learns it may have been better to do nothing at all.

It is possible that one can get so wound up in details, in the minutia of life, that there is no other solution but to reboot.

All around us we see nature rebooting. Here in East Tennessee the daffodils and forsythia are blooming, and it seems that the world has been almost instantly transformed from dull gray skies, bare branches and endless seas of mud to an endless array of new buds and growth. Each day seems more colorful than the last, more filled with promise. We see this blossoming forth and we are filled with hope and joy and yes, a sense of peace.

And although our ongoing struggle seems to be through cycles of death and rebirth, loss and growth, we need to remember that this too is just a construct, a way of understanding. Yes the world we live in goes through cycles, and sometimes the cycles of this world can be quite overwhelming and violent and other times soothing and calm. And no we humans do not always adapt ourselves to our world, or to each other, happily. But the possibility of unity and connection is always present, we need only to open our eyes and our hearts..

We can choose to live our lives constrained by duality. Or we can strive to see beyond it, working towards those all too precious moments of unity. Like sunlight through the petals of a daffodil, there is always more than we can see.

March 24, 2015
Who Do I Want to Be?

Yesterday I was struggling to keep my inner perfectionist contained, rather than letting her take over myself. You see I don't really want to be the person she wants me to be anymore. She doesn't take time to look at the sky. She doesn't interrupt her work to cuddle a cat or a dog, or just to stare off into space and listen to the birds sing. She worries more about preparing the perfect gourmet meal rather than just throwing something together and enjoying the coming together and the sharing of time and conversation and food. She worries about not only being "good enough" but also about being "better than", because of course, the whole idea of being good enough implies that some people and some things are good enough and some aren't, and therefore some are better than others.

I'm done with all that. Increasingly I reject the idea of better than. I want to be a person who sees beauty and finds peace in the ordinary passage of each day. Well except for these rare moments when I allow my inner perfectionist to have her way. And they are mostly mere moments. Yes I wish to do and be the best I can, but I also want to enjoy all that this life has to offer. Increasingly I succeed.

It surprised me therefore when my mind wandered off into the land of stress and striving on Monday. Out of which corner of my mind had these thoughts taken hold? It had been such a good weekend: I hosted a casual dinner party, the second in as many months, sharing a pot of chili with good friends. I went out to dinner and a play and a lovely evening of conversation with another friend. I went to a party where I chatted and circulated and enjoyed wonderful conversations with many people, all echoes of that once-upon-a-time 20-year wallflower no where in evidence. There were more meetings and conversations and no sense of stress. What happened?

I wish I could banish her forever, this demon of never enough. But of course I can't; she is a part of who I am. We all have our inner voices, and although we can learn to tame them, we cannot completely expunge them from our innermost thoughts. Mostly, not-good-enough remains a small voice in my head, one of many voices, one of the myriad complex interactions and ghosts of relationships, conversations, and experiences that make me who I am,. We all have such voices, demons and angels, snippets of life that are welded inextricably to us, the little bits that make us into the multifaceted creatures that we are.

Last evening I was sorting through the photos I had taken through the day; nothing special, no sunrise or sunset, just ordinary cloudy skies. But I saw something in this photo that reminded me that yes, sometimes life is full of joyous sunshine, sometimes it is dark with rain, and more often it is a flow of clouds and sun affording us only glimpses of clarity. Sometimes we yearn for an endless stream of sunny days, but it is the clouds that allow us to really shine, for our subtle colors to come out. Sometimes, with luck, we experience a momentary flash of brilliance, but more often it is subtle flow of life and light that reveals our best selves. Our own subtle colors are allowed to shine in the shifting clouds of our own thoughts and emotions.

February 3, 2015
Refocusing
Tikka on New Year's Day.

I deliberately decided not to reopen this blog with a New Year's Day post thinking that was just too much pressure, but the truth is, much as I miss this blog, it has been difficult to begin again. It seemed appropriate therefore to refer back to my last post and doing so made me smile because once again I had a photo of Tikka, and once again I was thinking about winter weather. The temperature was only 28 this morning when I walked and 23 on New Years, but despite what I said in November, I was cold. Although Tikka and I were both well bundled, I probably needed the bundling more than she did. We tend to move at a brisk pace, with Tikka for the most part happily prancing along, but we seem to disagree on the feasibility of stopping for breaks on windy hill tops. Much as I enjoy our early, pre-dawn walks and the peaceful joy of watching the sky lighten and the world waken around us, I am also occasionally impatient on those hilltops as the icy wind beats against my legs and face.

I wouldn't stop walking in the mornings though, and I have to thank Tikka for getting me back into that routine, rain or shine, fair or foul weather. The return to routine, and yes, discipline, has been one of the rewards of my brief period clearing-out, both externally and internally. There is still more to do; I suspect there is always more to do in whatever place or stage in life we may find ourselves. And yet the processes of cleaning out has helped me clarify my own thoughts and needs. Or perhaps that should be the other way around, the process of clarifying my thoughts and needs has helped me let go of things.

Anyway, I have
- Finally tackled George's nightstand drawers and his boxes of papers.
- Cleaned out my closet and this time around found it far simpler to see what to keep and what is no longer a part of my life. Some items were sold. Most were donated. I got my own personal value from them, now they should just go to anyone who will use them.
- Rearranged the furniture in the house in a way that seems comfortable to me.
- Unpacked and cataloged fabric and yarn.
- Worked at organizing and setting up the studio upstairs.
- Cleaned out closets and drawers.
- Celebrated various seasonal holidays with merriment, much cooking, and general good cheer.
- Taken another short trip to San Antonio to see my aunt.
- Picked up my knitting and needlepoint again.
I've also spent a great deal of time on the deep work of wending my way through and sorting out my own inner clutter and turmoil as well as my own insecurities arising from my inability to control that inner turmoil. That process has perhaps been simultaneously more and less successful than the above physical cleaning-out. But progress has been made, and I am ready to move forward.

It appears to me now that, rather than feeling remorse about my occasionally all too public breakdowns and outbursts, and my occasional inability to focus and present things in a clear fashion, I should accept that this is just a part of the grief and transition process that I have needed to experience, be grateful that at least some people are willing to cut me a little slack, and perhaps cut myself a little slack as well.

When George was alive, and declining, I pretty much locked my emotions up tighter than a drum. There was a long time when I felt very isolated and alone and the only way I could cope was to shut everything up inside and throw away the key. This was perhaps not the best choice of coping mechanism, but there is no undoing it now. When that lock finally broke, some months after George died, I was inundated with the torrent of emotions and questions and turmoil which overtook me. The truth is I still have trouble controlling that primitive instinct-driven part of my brain. It is almost as if, once released it grew and grew refusing to be contained. Only at the end of the year did I realize that after years of repression I probably needed to suffer through this period of inner chaos in order to, hopefully, come out as a better and stronger person. I still don't know that this is where I am going to end up — better and stronger that is — but I have obviously changed and hopefully grown. Rather than fighting against my more turbulent emotions, I need to accept that this part of myself is as valid and as vital, in both its strengths and its weakensses, as the more rational organized part of myself. As long as I allow myself to use one aspect of my personality to repress another aspect of my personality I can never grow into a wholy integrated person and my fears and weakness will sabotage my efforts despite all my good inentions.

It seems like such a simple realization. I am sure there that the actuality of life will not be as clear as it seems now, but for the first time in a long time, I feel like I am not destined for eternal flakiness. I accept that I won't get my old self back, I accept that I don't really know where I am going, but I can live with that uncertainty because it is the ony way to move forward.
January 6, 2015
Jump Start and Hitting a Wall

School started last week and, as seems to happen, it was not the only activity gearing up in earnest. Suddenly I, who have no school-age children, found mysef inundated and I hit a wall, the there-are-not-enough-hours-in-the-day wall. It is a particularly interesting wall to run into because it is not real, it is a myth, or a mental model, and yet if you allow yourself to fall prey to its seductive hold on your mind, you can run right smack into it with full force. Hitting that wall hurts. It takes a hard toll not only on your mind, but your body as well.

Even though I was well aware that the beginning of school brought with it other changes, that the freewheeling, empty-agenda days of summer were coming to a close, I still experienced a certain mental disconnect. I let my priorities slip, and I let the outside world tell me what was important. And that is the thing about time; it is really rather fluid, and we humans are just tiny specs in the greater scheme of things. We can allow ourselves to be overtaken by outside pressures and committments. We can fall prey to the myth, the there-is-not-enough-time-in-the-day myth. But usually we are wrong. Everything is a matter of choices and priorities, of listening to what is important, of honoring your gifts. The simple truth is that we all too often let the world tell us what we are supposed to believe, tell us what we are supposed to accomplish, tell us what is important, and then we chafe at this, avoid responsibility and shut a part of ourselves down. We tell ourselves that our "me time" is a separate entity that must be guarded, separate from the driving forces of life. Thus begins a struggle that eats away our time and our souls. The simple truth is that we can live our lives around what is precious, or we can let external forces drive us. Yes, there must be some balance. Yes we must live in the world. But here's the thing: there are differences in motivitaion, in the "why" of what we do, and that in turn affects how we live our lives and, over time, who we are.

My problem wasn't really with the why. Nor was it a problem of taking on too much. More exactly, I fell prey to another dangerous myth, a myth that is instrumental in feeding the big "not enough time" myth. I fell prey to the "not good enough" myth. The problem with feeling like you are not enough, is that it is a self-perpetuating myth, and it pits you against time and the world, it pits you against death. Because the world is big and overpowering and in many ways it can convince you that you don't matter and your efforts are worthless, that you are but a tiny spec of sand to be washed away in the tide. But it isn't true. Our lives are not lived on a global stage. Our lives are lived on a much smaller stage, the stage of the personal, and it is on this stage that our true value lies. We can be swept away in the tide, or we can stand for truth. We can let the world beat us down, or we can let our gifts flourish. We can be washed out in the tide, or we can hold our ground. We have a choice. We can be a grain of sand tossed about by life, or we can be a small barnacle on clinging steadfastly to our own place. Yes we may occasionally knocked off our perch, but we can find a new rock and re-anchor ourselves. It is that steadfast attention to truth, to our own gifts, that brings us peace. By clinging to our own rock, our own truth, we eventually find shelter and we find true community. By clinging to our truth we find a haven that can withstand the tides.

August 21, 2014
Rain, Rain…..

It seems remarkable how a bit of rain can mess up my all toofragile systems. I usually take a walk early in the morning, starting before sunrise, when it is still cool and the world seems almost langourously soft and inviting, while simultaneously full of promise. Those early morning walks, followed by 15 to 20 minutes of peaceful quiet meditative time set the tone for the day. But since I have returned to Tennessee from my trip to Texas for my brother's wedding, it seems that it has rained in the early morning more often than it has not, and truthfully, I have not always been successful at adapting my schedule to walking at other times of the day. I am getting better at this however, not because there aren't other demands on my time, but because taking the time to both walk and meditate sets me free to be myself in the world. When I don't take this time, I let the world drive me, batter me even; I allow the world to convince me that I am never enough. But not only does walking give me more peace, walking gives me more energy. Walking helps me sleep better at night. Best of all walking makes me feel like there are more hours in the day even though technically there are less because I have spent some of those hours walking. But I am not yet ready to walk in the rain, even a light rain.

And yet is rain such a bad thing? The flowers are thriving. I am saved having to water the flower beds. It seems that the rains are helping me to break to much reliance on routine. I cannot control the vagueries of the world and so I must adapt. By walking at 6 AM, or 10 or 1 PM or sunset I claim control of my own well-being and I allow myself to place myself first, even if only for a brief bubble of time. This has not always been easy; it seems I had grown too accustomed to letting myself be tossed about on the tides of obligation and demands, even the unintended and well-meaning demands of family and friends. Learning to step out and interrupt the flow of obligation perhaps also helps with learning to find the balance between the "on" and the "off", the extroverted side of my personality and the introverted part, the soul and the world. For some of this, this sense of balance seems to be a lifetime's struggle.

Yesterday I took my walk in the mid-afternoon. It is not my favorite time to walk although I do seem to be adapting to the hotter summers. I walked downtown and the streets, although by no means deserted, were quiet, peaceful even. Perhaps this was because it was the first day of school and the kids had been let out early, a transitional day between true summer and not-yet-fall. Perhaps it was all just a happy bubble of sunshine between the morning and the evening rains.

I had just been to the Assessor's office. I finally went downtown with a copy of George's death certificate to have his name removed from the property record. I should have done this long ago. But then, at first my heart was broken and wasn't ready to let go. Then my body was broken. Finally I feared I had lost my mind. I felt befogged, as if my focus would never return. It was still raining in some part of my soul, and that rain was gray and dreary. I couldn't walk in that rain, couldn't feel its life giving force. It was easier to sit, face plastered to the window watching the rain from a protected place, rather than to go out and battle it. It is difficult to describe how that change occurred, I only know that suddenly it was there, like an inner rainbow beconning forth between the retreating showers and the dawning light.

As I walked around downtown on a lazy summer afternoon, in some sense the last summer afternoon, although summer heat has by no means abated, a realization formed in my consciousness. George and I lived in this house 1 year and 3 months before he died. On Sunday it had been 1 year and three months since his death, 1 year and 3 months that I had lived alone in this house without him. Everything has changed. Nothing has changed. Every single day is a new future. The future does not erase the past. Every single day brings a new opportunity and a new balance.

August 12, 2014