I am obsessed with cleaning right now. It is most unlike me, generally I inhabit a world of minor sloth and need 3 days to make things presentable when people might be coming over. This is a limiting way to live by the way - either be tidy or don’t give a shit. Giving a shit while being a sloth is just one more way to piss on your psyche.
It’s just been a weird couple of years - not just for me obviously - but the economy sucks and there’s not as much money as there used to be and on top of everything I’ve had all these weird energy problems and physical problems and vitamin deficiencies and black moods and a general lack of optimism and internal paralysis, which all kind looks like the grumpy side of normal but turns out not so much, and results in my looking at the rug and going "fuck the vacuum" and spending 6 hours dicking around on the Internet and going to bed at 2 am.
Which sounds like a bid for sympathy - which I have no desire for and is at least one of the big reasons I haven’t written here in so long. When all you have to talk about is fear and your health and you don’t want helpfully unhelpful suggestions and virtual hugs well...you best keep quiet. Plus I think there was a need for relearning the difference between public and private. (Just look at that passive voice! Shocking)
Anyway.
I can only do yoga maybe twice a week for most of the last 14 months - because of the weird pain that may or may not be a bad disk - or is a bad disk but may also be something else too, who knows - and it’s lost something for me because so much of each practice is spent on the internal measure of "can I do that? does it hurt? enough to qualify as against doctor’s orders? should I sit down? if I don’t sit down am I going to have to take painkillers at 4 am?"
This makes the still quiet mind rather difficult to find and I have more or less made my peace with the fact that this is just the way things are right now and someday I will be able to do yoga again in a way that feels progressive and expansive, but now is not that time. OM.
Plus work is massively stressful right now - and by right now I mean since June of 2008 - and I have survived that by shoving the big picture concerns wholesale out of my head and just trying to cope with the day to day mechanics.
I feel like there’s a theme here. Of endurance without grace.
But another thing is happening, which is as I get a tiny bit better physically, dominoes are crashing over in my soul. Synapses firing, connections I have painstakingly carved out over years of therapy are suddenly alive with blood and oxygen supplied by renewed health. I can see my own failures and strengths SO clearly and without judgement - more wonder and concern. Is that REALLY how I have been, as I look at a neglected responsibility I have indeed shoved out of my head successfully for years.
So I has in yoga the other day and a particular professional concern was nagging at me and I started to wrap it in mental oilcloth and shove it out of my field of vision and I suddenly saw that that was exactly wrong.
Constantly shoving things away takes so much energy, all the energy in my universe in fact - and it solves nothing. You have to inhabit your worries. Stand next to them, get to know how real they are and only then make a determination of how much of you they deserve. Breathe their same air. I knew this after my father died - that if you fight the enormity of grief it will destroy you - but as with every important thing I know, I seem to need to relearn it in different contexts instead of integrating it as a universal rule.
So I have stopped trying to empty my mind. I think the trick is not to be empty but to be full and yet not agitated, ideally full and at peace with the work in front of you. "Hey there, worry. How you doing?"
It’s just been a weird couple of years - not just for me obviously - but the economy sucks and there’s not as much money as there used to be and on top of everything I’ve had all these weird energy problems and physical problems and vitamin deficiencies and black moods and a general lack of optimism and internal paralysis, which all kind looks like the grumpy side of normal but turns out not so much, and results in my looking at the rug and going "fuck the vacuum" and spending 6 hours dicking around on the Internet and going to bed at 2 am.
Which sounds like a bid for sympathy - which I have no desire for and is at least one of the big reasons I haven’t written here in so long. When all you have to talk about is fear and your health and you don’t want helpfully unhelpful suggestions and virtual hugs well...you best keep quiet. Plus I think there was a need for relearning the difference between public and private. (Just look at that passive voice! Shocking)
Anyway.
I can only do yoga maybe twice a week for most of the last 14 months - because of the weird pain that may or may not be a bad disk - or is a bad disk but may also be something else too, who knows - and it’s lost something for me because so much of each practice is spent on the internal measure of "can I do that? does it hurt? enough to qualify as against doctor’s orders? should I sit down? if I don’t sit down am I going to have to take painkillers at 4 am?"
This makes the still quiet mind rather difficult to find and I have more or less made my peace with the fact that this is just the way things are right now and someday I will be able to do yoga again in a way that feels progressive and expansive, but now is not that time. OM.
Plus work is massively stressful right now - and by right now I mean since June of 2008 - and I have survived that by shoving the big picture concerns wholesale out of my head and just trying to cope with the day to day mechanics.
I feel like there’s a theme here. Of endurance without grace.
But another thing is happening, which is as I get a tiny bit better physically, dominoes are crashing over in my soul. Synapses firing, connections I have painstakingly carved out over years of therapy are suddenly alive with blood and oxygen supplied by renewed health. I can see my own failures and strengths SO clearly and without judgement - more wonder and concern. Is that REALLY how I have been, as I look at a neglected responsibility I have indeed shoved out of my head successfully for years.
So I has in yoga the other day and a particular professional concern was nagging at me and I started to wrap it in mental oilcloth and shove it out of my field of vision and I suddenly saw that that was exactly wrong.
Constantly shoving things away takes so much energy, all the energy in my universe in fact - and it solves nothing. You have to inhabit your worries. Stand next to them, get to know how real they are and only then make a determination of how much of you they deserve. Breathe their same air. I knew this after my father died - that if you fight the enormity of grief it will destroy you - but as with every important thing I know, I seem to need to relearn it in different contexts instead of integrating it as a universal rule.
So I have stopped trying to empty my mind. I think the trick is not to be empty but to be full and yet not agitated, ideally full and at peace with the work in front of you. "Hey there, worry. How you doing?"
I think I finally understand how some people get so much more done than seems possible to me, and yet are not insane.
So far this has resulted in one of the most productive weeks I have had in years, and a sudden burst of unforced domestic cleaning and organization. It’s not done. I’m coming home at night and doing a bit more every day - but I don’t have a project list. Project lists are for remembering things at work and groceries. I can’t describe this exactly - it’s an organic expression of something, not a chore? A manifestation of sanity in the form of clean windows.
Also I made my own cleaning products. Very satisfying.
So far this has resulted in one of the most productive weeks I have had in years, and a sudden burst of unforced domestic cleaning and organization. It’s not done. I’m coming home at night and doing a bit more every day - but I don’t have a project list. Project lists are for remembering things at work and groceries. I can’t describe this exactly - it’s an organic expression of something, not a chore? A manifestation of sanity in the form of clean windows.
Also I made my own cleaning products. Very satisfying.
I am always delighted to see a post from you; I second Rachel's accolade for your writing. Glad to see you!
Posted by: Liz Cadorette | 28 January 2012 at 08:58 PM
Isn't this acceptance of and living with everything, not just the good stuff, what zen is about? I have just enough knowledge of this sort of thing to sound stupid, but I'm OK with that.
I think it's also related to the "Pick Your Battles" that I advise (if asked; sometimes also spontaneously and probably not so well-received, but whatever) parents. Learn what you can control and affect and what you can't and learn to be at peace with that. Also learn what you will actually make the effort to control and change (of those things within your power), and learn to live with that too.
(As I side note in the "Practise What You Preach" Department, I read enough science fiction that I'm having a hard time living with the notion of the inevitability and consequences of death and ageing, all evidence notwithstanding).
But congratulations.
Also the cleaning stuff. Cool.
Posted by: Charlene | 28 January 2012 at 11:42 AM
Welcome back. Missed you. Good luck.
Posted by: Nic | 25 January 2012 at 05:52 AM
What an amazing post. And you, my darling, are a really good writer. Earlier today, I had a migraine, and I was trying to breathe through it and push away the pain. Then, I gave up. I told myself to stand next to the pain and watch it, and it became bearable and I went to sleep (the best thing to do during a migraine, something I can't usually do). So, yes, this. xo
Posted by: Rachael Herron | 24 January 2012 at 07:52 PM
You've described exactly why I moved from yoga to swimming, as good as yoga was for me at one point. I miss it, but it wasn't the gift to myself that it once was - it caused too much pain afterward, no matter what I did. And I think I'm going to have to sit with what you're saying about standing next to the worry and breathing its air, instead of shutting it away and calling that peace; that one may be to my address, too...
Posted by: Jocelyn | 24 January 2012 at 05:16 PM
Missed you too; sounds like you learned a good truth about the amount of energy it takes to not deal with "stuff" ; still learning it myself, so thanks for the post and reminder, even if that wasn't your purpose :) And no virtual hug from me (my sister hates real hugs, so i get it)
Posted by: Rose | 24 January 2012 at 02:57 PM
I buy baking soda in bulk and HUGE jugs of white vinegar at Costco, and it mostly covers my cleaning needs. When I don't look at the house and say fuck it.
Posted by: Anne | 24 January 2012 at 02:11 PM
Welcome back. I've missed your posts. I see a lot of myself in your posts, but it is myself 20 years ago. We each find our own path. I found mine; you will find yours. Hope you will continue to share your journey. You have a powerful voice.
Posted by: Lynn | 24 January 2012 at 12:13 PM