Long Wednesdays
I feel a little better having resolved to go to the loving-kindness sesshin in April. I have many weeks to prepare and I know that I can rest in the knowledge that some way will be found to work with the pain. I even told my manager, KE today my plans and that I would want to work from home for the entire week following the retreat to move myself back into the noise of work after 6 days of silence.
Work was busy with people interactions. I showed the draft presentation I've been working on to the whole team doing a larger presentation to our directors on the 29th. I could feel myself sweat a bit in sharing it, nervous that people would find the way I used humor to be inappropriate. People liked it very much and when the humor transitioned to what we've actually done the past 2 and a half years someone commented that they hadn't expected to have tears come to their eyes at the meeting! It felt good to have something I had worked very hard on have a positive impact on people.
Then I walked with co-workers, our team building, for about an hour. Popped into the little snack shop run by retirees for a little bit to visit with NP, my friend who retired this summer. And then it was nearly time to go home.
CK & I rode to asana practice. It was a good class although some tough poses, the intensity of the pose being more the challenge. We enjoyed the ride home even though it had started to lightly rain outside. Put together a quick supper, although with the ride it still means we're eating close to 9pm. No wonder I feel like Wednesday is such a long day!
Just a Cold
I've had a wonderful few days and I'd been planning writing about all of it today. The fun evening AM, CK & I had Friday watching the vice presidential debates we'd DVR'd while we had been at the Dharma Center the night before. My first real serious rain ride, with new Ortleib panniers, on Saturday. I also have wonderful pictures to accompany writing about the wonderful day CK and I spent in Hood River County on Sunday.
However, at this very moment I have a cold and feel rather puny. I've been trying to tell myself it has just been my allergies getting worse with autumn really settling in. On Saturday I was questioning if I was fighting something, but felt well enough to be at teacher training and ride to CK's afterward. Yesterday I felt a little fatigued, but better after CK & I had slept in some. This morning I woke up feeling pathetic and the effort of trying to pump air into my tires exhausted me.
AM came and picked up me and the bike. I worked from home, catching meetings and checking into things. I'm going to go to bed early tonight and will write about the weekend. I'm trying not to resent being sick, I haven't really felt this ill in over a year which is so much better than my health at any time prior to the past 5 years. It was a stressful, upsetting week last week and that on top of an intense schedule really has left me a bit low.
Too Tired
Today was long. I was up early, had a busy day at the office downtown, my bus was late, arrived home late to discover we were turning around to head out to eat, and then the dinner friends came back to the house for more conversation. Between co-workers and friends it seemed like the day was filled with talking, talking, talking!
I'm enjoying chatting with CK now; reading about the rest of her day, writing, blog sites, and how much unix rocks. AM is watching something on the History channel. I'm just so tired out it is hard to think of writing anything much in depth tonight. Doesn't matter how many interesting things I talked about with both CK and AM today, my brain is just too worn out to put the words together much more than this.
In the still moments before sleep
At times the still moments before sleep are a difficult ones, when I slip into barely remembered trauma, flashbacks surface and I don't sleep much the rest of the night. Sometimes it is the most productive analysis and programming I do for work. Other times some kind of ah-ha type of moment settles into the stillness.
"Whoosh" goes August
The usual routine gets going again tomorrow morning after a weekend of my being hugely indulged and spoiled for my birthday. Amazing good food, drinks and much movie watching. It was a very nice laid back weekend. CK went home a little while ago, laundry is nearly all done, just some more fabric left to finish and put away. I've even repacked a few things in my room to get ready to store behind the closet -- fabric, sewing notions.
Today we all slept in and napped a lot. It was a lazy day. Feel a little bad about that, seems like maybe we should have done something. I reminded myself we've all been so tired and worn out that maybe a day of napping has been what we all needed. AM took pity on our sleepiness and ran to the store for some ingredients. He made us breakfast for dinner this evening -- pumpkin waffles, Gardenburger breakfast sausage, and a tofu scramble. None of us had really had any real off all day, most snacks, so it was nice having a warm dinner. The waffles were particularly nice to have, a real "holiday" type meal since we don't often have them.
Grinding Gears
After my massage today I feel more tired, the pain across the lower back is less intense, and the raw emotional energy right at the top has settled a little. Not enough, I still feel tired out and a bit thin on resources, but a little better. While Beth worked I could feel some of the intensity rushing up to the top, pain and energy moving around. Reached the point where I was no longer talking so much as I was just breathing. Sending the energy of the breath through my body, drawing in renewing energy and moving it through the areas clamoring from Beth's attention.
Made sambar in the pressure cooker! Comes out very tasty and very quick. I've really wanted to make it for a while, it has been several months since the last time I made it. CK met me at Beth's and we rode back to the house together. We all hung out and played a round of Magic.
Everyone is tired today. Tired from lack of sleep, an excess of emotional energy, and too much to do. It was interesting to see how communication degrades when reserves are lower. Almost as if our gears are turning at different speeds and the teeth no longer connect up as neatly. Trying to be mindful of this, not reading anything further into the evening.
Tomorrow will be very busy, rather long. Going to try to bicycle into work. Ride home, teach yoga, then go to Tuesday zazen, discussion and service. A person is needed for Ino duties and I said I could come. AM will bring me something to eat quickly in the car and we will just get there on time for sitting. I'm glad to be going to a Tuesday evening gathering, but it will be a very long day!
The Path of Confrontation
Today was a bit rough. I woke up feeling tired, cold and aching in my back and legs. I'd planned to get up at 6AM to catch the 6:46 bus downtown but I turned off the alarm and slept until then. AM drove me downtown and assured me that I should consider working from home part of the day.
Normally I work from home Mondays. October through May I read for SMART on most Mondays nearby my house so it makes sense to catch up on email, read, then come home and work the rest of the day. I'll bring my work laptop home with me on Fridays so I am able to access the network via the VPN and can access all files, run Crystal Reports, etc. Most tasks I'm able to do via the Java client I can get to via a secure website, the reports are the big thing. Today just had many things that needed me to take care of in person, so in I went.
Some of it felt like the post-weekend blues on top of hurting a lot. Going to bed thinking about Mom meant for what seemed to be somewhat restless sleep. I forgot to take a melatonin so my mind jumped around in dreams that would be barely recalled when I did wake up. The temperature dropped quite a bit and sometime around 4AM I felt chilled, woke up, turned off the ceiling fan, and tried to get comfortable again.
By 12:30 the vague nausea was not going away and every time I leaned back in my chair to stretch my left hip spasmed. I phoned AM and he came down to get me. I feel bad being driven around. I hope the balance evens out that my vegan diet offsets some of the rides AM & CK give me. More than anything it just gets old hurting to a point that I want those rides. Mostly I just try to be grateful that neither of them seems to mind running me around.
I was thinking I don't know what to do with all the Mom stuff. At times I just feel fed up and angry. I've felt so tied to her all my life, a message she's spent countless hours reinforcing. How I'm her "miracle" and how she's done everything for me. That's how she sees everything, through the lens of her sacrifices. She retells things she's worried she may have done wrong as mistakes made while doing the best she could.
There's times I just want to start yelling at her and not stop. I know it is futile. Even if she were to stay an listen she'd rewrite everything I said before she committed it to memory. More than that when I weigh that action against Zen precepts I really find it lacking. It isn't that I shouldn't expect to never get angry, I should not give rise to spewing forth that anger. I should just stay with the anger to see where it comes from. Much of the time the anger at my Mom arises and I just accept that it is reasonable for me to be angry.
Anger is stressed by some as a path to healing, the backbone of recovery. Anger frightens me and I am physically ill when I feel the searing heat of it, seemingly to me that my hair shoots straight up from the temperature and energy of it. So it is easy to not give rise to that, just for that reason alone I'd rather not follow the path of anger to heal.
More than that it feels wrong to ruin whatever delusions of happiness, perhaps even moments of real happiness (I sincerely hope) my Mom has left. I believe that's why she rewrites everything to cast herself in a good light -- the overburdened, poor, single-mom who has a heart of gold even if she makes the occasional mistake. I know too well the reality of the overburdened, poor, and divided attention & absence of a single-mother in the early 1970s. I just also know that her choices weren't always mistakes and were certainly not founded in compassion much of the time. But to cope with her choices she rewrites it all so somehow she sees herself as a heroine in one of her romance novels.
I suppose I see too clearly the obvious sadness in her doing that. Seeing that I know releasing my anger with her choices at her would be so harmful. I know it wouldn't change history or really leave me feeling any better. Nor would it further any kind of progress or growth. It would merely be giving rise to anger and, although I've not made that vow formally before my community, I'm trying to practice it.
Returning to Routine
Today I have been finding it interesting to observe how I chafe a bit at returning to my routine. Given the high level of anxiety traveling causes me, getting ready to go & the initial journey, I'd think that I should welcome the return to the routine. Yet I found myself feeling a little bit of irritation at the play of emails and meetings.
It isn't that I still want to be on holiday. I was wanting to get back to yoga classes, Zazen, tasks around the house & garden -- but to get back to my job today was challenging. Chafe is the right word. Like I was rubbing psychically against the routine of it, the ever growing task list, the talk of the contract negotiations in August, just the usual stuff.
My strengths lie not in the usual stuff of my job although those day-to-day tasks provide excellent practice for cultivating patience, compassion, deep listening, and even just the practical organization of tasks. So very useful just not always compelling. I've felt like I've ended up at this place due to skill, but not on purpose. I'm doing what I happen to have good aptitude for, not what I actually feel I should be doing.
I told my teacher once that I didn't feel very connected with the Dharma in what I do to make a living. Not that I feel that I'm working in a path that is unethical, I just do not feel as connected as I'd prefer to be. I said when I teach a handful of beginners how to do yoga I feel that connection deeply. Of course that's obvious and he immediately pointed out to me however remote, my job did connect me to people in important ways.
After some interesting discussions with CK and AM I think I can see this differently. I feel deeply connected to the Dharma when I am with yoga students because I am teaching. I do not have nearly the opportunities to teach in my career and that's why I feel the lack of connection.
This is something I am somewhat aware of and have discussed with my manager, but it isn't something that much can be done for. Although she would like to move me to doing more coaching and project management, I'm really needed to keep doing the programming that often leaves me feeling somewhat drained. The atmosphere has tension to it with many recent, downsized retirements, inter-team conflicts & personal clashes, and every couple of years two summers with contract negotiations in August. Yes, excellent practice for being with things just as they are.
I think that feeling of resistance in getting back to the job routine is having spent a week away spending time on building the foundation my relationship with CK by traveling together for the first time. She is full of encouragement and determination that a path to my becoming a teacher as my career. She and AM both know that what I do now is important, but not what I really should do with the rest of my life. To move back to the early, slow, boring steps is what chafes a bit.