Today was the first day of fall semester teaching for me, and I also had end-of-term online grades due. So right now I'm playing couch potato, feeling the usual first-day exhaustion.
I haven't yet done any "serious cushion time" since getting back from Ireland, but tomorrow's a fresh day. And I've been catching a mindful breath here & there in the meantime.
Thanks Brenda ... now, when the stormy skies gather (as they inevitably will) when I am in the mountains in Scotland next week, I shall not fall into despair, but instead giggle at the image of breasts in the sky :)
Lovely writing though - and I agree, some days everything is like that ... but it's probably most apparent when we remove all other blamable stimulus and just sit with our own heads and hearts.
I am struggling to be still at all at the moment. I leave on thursday morning to head north for a much needed holiday. I know it will be complicated ... back to the spot that I frequented with my partner over the last few years ... but it's a place I went long before I knew her, so at least there is a sense of continuity.
Emotionally I am a bag of frogs. And so sensitive and over-analytical that I can barely talk to myself for fear of causing offense ... !
It is impossible to turn myself off, so instead I have been doing at high speed and with great intensity. Tasks added to the mental list a few months ago are being ticked off by the hour. Tidy the toolbox (spilled into a cupboard a few weeks ago by the cat). Done. Put up more hooks in the cloakroom. Done. Recycling. Done. Sweep the patio. Done. Nothing too complex, just anything to avoid a gap big enough to hear my own thoughts echo. No confidence for bigger things - writing, work etc. Just 30 minute chunks of activity. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Yesterdays various posts here really stayed with me today. And as long as I am aware that I am filling my day with doing Stuff to avoid the uncomfortable feelings I have about a lot of uncertainty at the moment, that's enough for now.
Some really good things are happening with me, with the pubication of my book, but on the personal/home side, I am still in the throes of cleaning out our house and moving and it's driving me into being pretty moody. After mom's death, my illness last year, and the pressure over the book, all I want is stability - and yet I have to do all of this packing and throwing out and sorting - without a clear picture of what life will be like next year, five years from now - and it all feels way too emotional and slippery. Impermanence!! Instability!! Aging!! Mortality!!Lack of personal control!! Great grist for the practice mill, but hard to work with on the fly, in daily life. I watch myself being self-righteous, then trying to blame it all on other people too, and then feel ashamed. I am trying hard with a complex situation, as I know several others here are too, but seeing my failures rather clearly too. Meditating more might help, I tell myself ;) I'm still smiling.
Lorianne - congrats on the completion fo your first day back to teaching!
The to-do list! That is never-ending and things often don't get done in the order in which I imagine they will.
Stray you do sound very well organized for your trip. No matter how hard I try, I'm usually up the night before packing, so I admire your preparedness!
Lorianne, I would order a bubble bath of aromatic scents for you if I could. And mindfully relaxing to candlelight too!
Beth, oh, I sure know way too well the chaos of moving - since leaving my house of 19 years in 2003, and that was a nightmare of packing, I've unboxed and re-boxed and moved way too many boxes from one storage space to another recently too. When your household is in transit somehow your grounding is in transit too. It's a good thing our lives are composed of multiple aspects... while things are dissolving on one front (that's a 'nice' way to put the work involved in moving huh), on other fronts they are moving strongly in a positive direction. I'm glad your beautiful book is doing well... so proud of you!
A bag of frogs! That made me laugh, Stray. I too am emotionally a bag of frogs.
Sat this morning, just five minutes. So that if I don't sit tonight, which I am resolved to do, but which sometimes doesn't happen even when resolved upon, still I will have sat today.
(Was that last an English sentence? I have no idea.)
6 Comments:
Just for a laugh. Part of a poem I'm working on:
I look out
under a heavy, concrete sky.
What do you make of that?
A day when the clouds are made of concrete.
So I heaved
with my chisel and hammered
chipping away
at the range of
mountains
like breasts
in the sky.
Some days meditation
is like that.
Yep...and some days life is like that!
Today was the first day of fall semester teaching for me, and I also had end-of-term online grades due. So right now I'm playing couch potato, feeling the usual first-day exhaustion.
I haven't yet done any "serious cushion time" since getting back from Ireland, but tomorrow's a fresh day. And I've been catching a mindful breath here & there in the meantime.
Thanks Brenda ... now, when the stormy skies gather (as they inevitably will) when I am in the mountains in Scotland next week, I shall not fall into despair, but instead giggle at the image of breasts in the sky :)
Lovely writing though - and I agree, some days everything is like that ... but it's probably most apparent when we remove all other blamable stimulus and just sit with our own heads and hearts.
I am struggling to be still at all at the moment. I leave on thursday morning to head north for a much needed holiday. I know it will be complicated ... back to the spot that I frequented with my partner over the last few years ... but it's a place I went long before I knew her, so at least there is a sense of continuity.
Emotionally I am a bag of frogs. And so sensitive and over-analytical that I can barely talk to myself for fear of causing offense ... !
It is impossible to turn myself off, so instead I have been doing at high speed and with great intensity. Tasks added to the mental list a few months ago are being ticked off by the hour. Tidy the toolbox (spilled into a cupboard a few weeks ago by the cat). Done. Put up more hooks in the cloakroom. Done. Recycling. Done. Sweep the patio. Done. Nothing too complex, just anything to avoid a gap big enough to hear my own thoughts echo. No confidence for bigger things - writing, work etc. Just 30 minute chunks of activity. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Yesterdays various posts here really stayed with me today. And as long as I am aware that I am filling my day with doing Stuff to avoid the uncomfortable feelings I have about a lot of uncertainty at the moment, that's enough for now.
And at least I have somewhere to hang my coat.
Brenda, that did make me laugh!
Some really good things are happening with me, with the pubication of my book, but on the personal/home side, I am still in the throes of cleaning out our house and moving and it's driving me into being pretty moody. After mom's death, my illness last year, and the pressure over the book, all I want is stability - and yet I have to do all of this packing and throwing out and sorting - without a clear picture of what life will be like next year, five years from now - and it all feels way too emotional and slippery. Impermanence!! Instability!! Aging!! Mortality!!Lack of personal control!! Great grist for the practice mill, but hard to work with on the fly, in daily life. I watch myself being self-righteous, then trying to blame it all on other people too, and then feel ashamed. I am trying hard with a complex situation, as I know several others here are too, but seeing my failures rather clearly too. Meditating more might help, I tell myself ;) I'm still smiling.
Lorianne - congrats on the completion fo your first day back to teaching!
Sometimes I'm very dense... :)
The to-do list! That is never-ending and things often don't get done in the order in which I imagine they will.
Stray you do sound very well organized for your trip. No matter how hard I try, I'm usually up the night before packing, so I admire your preparedness!
Lorianne, I would order a bubble bath of aromatic scents for you if I could. And mindfully relaxing to candlelight too!
Beth, oh, I sure know way too well the chaos of moving - since leaving my house of 19 years in 2003, and that was a nightmare of packing, I've unboxed and re-boxed and moved way too many boxes from one storage space to another recently too. When your household is in transit somehow your grounding is in transit too. It's a good thing our lives are composed of multiple aspects... while things are dissolving on one front (that's a 'nice' way to put the work involved in moving huh), on other fronts they are moving strongly in a positive direction. I'm glad your beautiful book is doing well... so proud of you!
*hugs all
A bag of frogs! That made me laugh, Stray. I too am emotionally a bag of frogs.
Sat this morning, just five minutes. So that if I don't sit tonight, which I am resolved to do, but which sometimes doesn't happen even when resolved upon, still I will have sat today.
(Was that last an English sentence? I have no idea.)
xo
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