Harvest
The garden gave us Sugar Snap Peas today. Just a handful we ate while playing a game together this evening. They weren’t amazing, the way very freshly harvested produce is sometimes, but they were good.
I picked up the mail. It contained a handmade card and a linocut print, both made by students. “That’s a pile of fan mail”, CK commented when I got home.
I am, again, deeply moved at the offerings of my students. I’m also really impressed at how well people are adapting and growing.
Now that I’ve spotted the backdraft of shame in response to these mail days, I’m hoping that will begin to ease. Sometimes recognizing, then articulating these insights to CK, a friend, and/or my therapist, starts to break up the hold the Childhood Logic has on me.
Tomorrow is Dinner 70 and I have no idea what it will be, nor do I have anything thawing for CK. It might end up being very easy if we garden a lot. We’re also spending a bunch of the weekend playing games and discussing more ideas to make CK’s 40th extra special.
Gratitude
After ending yesterday feeling so frustrated by these times, tonight I'm trying to focus on gratitude. Here are things that brought me happiness today: the connection with students this morning, playing games with my wife, talking with friends online together, and making dinner number 63.
A dear friend bringing us fresh fruit and sweets, which was especially lovely.
When I guide people in exploring the Self of Bliss in yoga (anandamaya kosha) I'll have them reflect on connections they have with other living beings. Specifically the connections where were feel seen and appreciated, just as we are.
That's how fruit and sweets delivery felt today, dwelling in the Body of Bliss.
There were also these roses today.
Weekend Care
I got out of synch and am up later than my usual night owlish tendency. There was a great online hangout with friends today. We played a lot of games. We're still healthy.
A quick entry for the day, for those poems!
Come morning, rain break.
Petals scattered on the ground.
Apples drink in rain.
Transient Beauty
All the pink faded from the apple blossoms and they were starting to wither away. Today the rain returned, I'm sure it will knock these last petals off.
Transient beauty.
Spring's blossoms fade so quickly.
Delicate as hope.
We spent the day playing games. CK asked if I wanted to get Animal Crossing a few weeks ago. It is pretty expensive, to my mind, and I was reluctant. I worried I'd get it and not really get into it and waste the money.
How I see myself as worthy of a $60 game is directly related to trauma therapy.
Homelessness at age 4 where you are repeatedly shamed by your family while you shelter with them leaves traces. That it coincides with signification abuse from my Mother, instead of loving support, makes it complicated to admit to my wife I want her to buy a game, and online subscription, while I'm not working.
The results of my scary game purchase? I played nearly uninterrupted for four hours today! It's really a sweet, kind way to just rest.
It was rainy and chilly after several Sunny warm days. Sitting on the sofa with the dogs and Obie playing a sweet game really was a blessing.
Gifts Gratefully Received
Standing beneath trees
Abundant with bright blossoms;
Hopeful, tender Life.
I went out today and saw a dear student, physically distant as I admired her garden. She made CK and I each two cotton masks, beautiful creations that will allow us to more safely do necessary errands.
I’ve felt increasingly anxious about my rare trips out. A student asked if we wanted some and I took her up on the offer, gratefully, and shared with her hoe it was helping my anxiety! Ironically, as I was on this errand the CDC issued a statement recommending masks!
I feel loved. I am taking it in, trying to really pay attention. This gift, the sweetener of including CK, the money I’ve been making, the generosity. It is this reminder that I am valued, worthy. I’m not a toxic person who destroys people.
Poetry and Gratitude
Hey, it's April, which happens to be National Poetry Month, and I'm trying to think of creative projects. Reviving the old 30 Poems in 30 Days challenge!
April Haiku
Raindrops fill flowers.
Delicate cups overflow.
April showers fall.
I'm grateful for these fancy primroses CK grew from seed. I'm grateful for her exuberant return to gardening. I'm grateful her job is secure and she likes it.
I often have moments where I'm grateful that my Mother is dead. This ghoul of a President at least wasn’t elected by her, because she would have voted for his “straight talking” ways. She would have been the Boomer playing down the seriousness of COVID and telling me I’m overreacting, being a drama queen.
Her death freed me to heal, to finally see the full scope of the abuse, to really connect to the terrified child I was. Connecting to that child self is helping me to see how remarkable I was.
How remarkable I am.
So it Goes
Today has been harder.
Anxious Brain got all wound up seeing peers already offering online classes, on top of the anxiety of these terrifying times. I'm making a space that will work well, which brings up shame for having any chaotic stress in the house at all, which brings up worries about money with everything shutting down, which brings up money shame, which makes Anxiety Brain certain I'm Not Doing Enough!
That’s my Tuesday. This is the state of Anxiety Brain and there’s very little reasoning with it, just have to soothe and wait it out. It is just whether it’s at today despite recording 2 videos, creating, and scheduling a newsletter yesterday, doing several chores, and figuring out how to move prescriptions to the mail-order pharmacy today. Despite several emails from students grateful for my newsletter.
Anxiety Brain is a jerk, mostly.
I contemplated takeout and was overcome with fear of sick people being obliged to make because they don't have healthcare and capitalism is built upon misery.
So we've learned that fear might be the best motivator for not getting takeout in favor of cooking the food you already have in there house.
In good news: my wife loves having me home to play Magic with her at lunchtime, plus my making lunch. I’ve received really touching messages from people who are missing me teaching as much as I am!
The Gift of Comfort
I’m wearing a hoodie my wife gave me. She’s given me several over the years. When I’m feeling low one of her hoodies or one that she’s given me will help me feel comforted.
I was thinking the other day of my ex-husband, AP, who once took me on a shopping trip where he bought me a strapless party dress to wear out to an event he was taking me to. We had a polyamorous marriage and over the years I watched him repeat this act with other women. I recently saw a social media post that referenced that this is still something he does.
It was not a comfortable dress. It required a special bra and I was often worried about a “wardrobe malfunction”. I felt, as I was meant to, all dolled up. I made a great accessory, I was pleasant to look at and could decent conversation.
This felt so familiar. My Mother regularly dictated my clothing choices to me, either through manipulation or the financial control parents exert over children. When I’d display my own flair, she would copy me.
She had almost no boundaries and raised me to be afraid of establishing any with her.
I was folding hoodies on Sunday, putting away the laundry, and thinking of all the gifts she’s given me over the years. There’s been purely ornamental, decorative items, artwork, beautiful scarves, and jewelry. Many really clever, helpful, thoughtful tools and toys. Art supplies, even adding out to her wedding vows to keep me stocked! Many comforting, comfortable things, like hoodies.
Gifts of comfort, gifts to bolster me on hard days*, gifts to build up my creative side. The gift of supporting my non-lucrative second career. Gifts that demonstrate how much attention she gives my happiness.
Not gifts to turn me into a suitable ornament.
*The image is the gift she gave me this past Tuesday, after a tough session of trauma therapy. These are sleeves for our Magic cards, I like arty ones. This “Easter Dragon” is adorable!
Marking Art Gratitude
Getting my studio space useable again has meant I can create again. At an artist's meet-up I help organize someone presented a project of a collaged light plate switch cover. Since I'd got my desk available, and have continued to improve the space, I was able to finish the project I began the very next day and install it in our practice room.
While I've not been writing as much, I've been creating pages in an artist's journal I began at the beginning of the year. My depression hits hard around the holidays, with the death anniversaries of all my parents falling within a few weeks of each other. My Mother's death anniversary is the day after Thanksgiving this year and this is the first year I'm coming into them without my studies to distract me. Having the ability to go make something artistic is really a helpful tool for me, especially when my energy feels too low to write.
Having weekly art therapy appointments this past month has helped me see how having this outlet is a big benefit to my healing. Art, as my friend SJ likes to say, helps us express what words cannot. Despite my skill as a writer, there are times when words fail me and the more I learn to turn to creating art during those times, the better I'll be.
Studio Gratitude
I'm grateful for having space for making art. I have a big desk with decent lighting. My desk sits near a sink for clean up and cabinets for storing canvases, old magazines, boxes, and other media I use in my art. It hasn't been really usable space for a while, but the past week I've started to really make it a workspace again.
While I was doing my training and internship in Integrated Movement Therapy I really stepped out of making art. I wasn't doing much at all, having stopped creating when we were dealing with the last years of my Mother's life. Time to create art seems to be the first thing I cut as being a waste of time, not really "practice".
I know this isn't really true, the research demonstrates that making and creating is what helps make us feel whole. Still, it is the activity that seems to be least important. I'm trying to change that. Art not only feeds my creative side, but it is a way to express the things that are too difficult, too elusive to put into words.
Seeing an art therapist keeps things really in mind and is giving me some motivation. I do think I want to create a body of work to show. As part of my clean up and reorganizing I've made it so I can see finished works from my desk, to help keep me inspired and focused.