Skellington

Meditation and Movement...

The Sangha I'm sitting with now sometimes does Walking Meditation as part of our zoom sits. Sometimes I walk a little. Sometimes I sit in my chair and let my fingers walk slowly across a table. It's not the same, but it is a mindful physical exercise that I can do reasonably comfortably.

I remember doing a three day retreat with an organization in Buffalo where we did sitting meditation for 40 minutes, then walking meditation for 15. We repeated that four or five times and it was an amazing combination of movement and stillness that left my mind feeling very flexible and supple. I don't hang out with that organization anymore because, while they have some excellent teachers their organization system is very rigid and hierarchical and their leaders have proven to be horrible sex crimey abusive types.

The organization that I'm studying with now is far less hierarchical with much greater acceptance for householders who don't want to collect achievement badges or gain status and rank.

The walking hurt me back then, too. There have been changes in my life. For many many years I had my back against a wall and I needed to work through the pain and the stress to survive. I would use the pain to keep myself angry and fighting the world. There were things I Needed to get done. Sometimes for survival, sometimes to maintain my own dignity, sometimes to live by my values.

Recently I realized that pretty much everything that I Needed to get done was done and I could absolutely take the time to take care of myself.

For some reason I expected that this would be LESS work than flogging myself to death for other causes.

Wednesday last I went to see a Physical Therapist. He was amazing. He followed my lead into talking about my issues holistically. Like, yes, bro, I got sent here for knee pain but that was the pain that drove me to go to the E R, it's just part of the series that cycles through. We covered stretching and exercises and what things I should bring up specifically with other specific medical professionals and then we talked about mobility aids.

He grabbed me a pair of forearm crutches and we sized them and he showed me how to use them and I was like, “Dude..... dude. Dude! duuuuuuude.” Having something to give me super firm support on both sides radically changed my experience of straining all of my little muscle groups to hold everything steady around the joints and between the numb bits. Without the crutches I have a very distinctive swagger that is mostly me trying to keep everything balanced by falling in consecutive directions in a controlled way. It keeps me moving, but it's hell on all of the muscles, joints, ligaments, and whatever else kinda parts I have in there.

On Friday I got up and went shopping. I had three stores to go to. The last time I needed things from three stores, I brought Spouse and sent her in to each store with a list. This time I figured I'd do what I could and then if I needed to stop I could come home and drag her out to finish up. Well, I just zoomed right through all three of those stores and when I got home I started making ghee because butter is on sale at Aldi. While the ghee was rendering I picked up the kitchen, consolidated the recycling, and organized a spice cabinet. I stopped myself because I was humming a happy little song.

A happy little song?

Recently, even going to one store has left me resting in the chair or going to bed to stretch out for a while. This is an amazing development.

This weekend I had company. My girlfriend came over for a two day intensive education in opera. We watched Lucia, Ahknaten, Rosenkaviler, and bits of Hoffman, Rhinegold, and Rusalka. Girlfriend has no musical education beyond US public school, but has a MFA in cinematography and a BA in arts education. We had a great time learning from each other and gently teasing one another's tastes.

At one point I got up to take the dog for a walk. I put on my shoes and leashed the pup and then grabbed my forearm crutches and slipped into them. Her face was incredible. She has CP and used forearm crutches when she was little and had both legs in those horrible late 70s leg braces while she was developing the strength and control to walk without assistance.

Her response to seeing me using things that she remembers as horrible things that set her apart from the other kids and marked her weakness and disability was strong and when I saw it on her face I said, “I know. But these reduce my pain by more than 60% and allow me to get shit done without turning into queen bitch destroyer of worlds.”

Then we went out and walked the dog together all around the muddy/snowy/uneven yard in the dark. I zootled along and kept up with the puppy. We bombed back and forth and around the trees and the dog has learned how not to terminally tangle us both up with his lead so it was actually kind of graceful. In the end she said, “Yeah, those were upsetting things in my past, but it makes me happy to see that you're brave enough to use them and that you live better because of them.”

Right now I'm trying to figure out how to modify them so that I'll be able to use them while working in the yard this year. I really want some kind of harness so that I can sling them behind me when I want to use both hands for something or when I need to lift something from the ground to put it on my wheely cart. I think I'll be able to make a slip on handle for my rakes and shovels and use an elbow pad so that I can use those tools one handed. Or maybe I can make rake and shovel attachments for my crutches and just pop them on and off like Hawkeye and his arrows.

I'm feeling like I might be able to get some of the things done in the yard and the gardens that I wanted to do this year. Not, like, hope. More like the potential. Work may be possible and I may not have to resign myself to turning angry and mean to work through the pain. That's pretty awesome.

Only use the raft to cross the water...

There's a Buddhist story about a person building a raft to cross water. The point of the story is how, once the person reaches the other side, they leave the raft there. Taking it with them will only burden them, and if they leave it there someone else may be able to use it.

Some months ago my VA appointed therapist had to rekajigger her client list to allow for new responsibilities. That would be the third time that has happened to me in the ten-ish years I've been seeing VA therapists. I had some trouble scheduling my intake with my new therapist while my mother was dying, and when I finally did get with her it was a pretty mediocre intake. About a month later she called me and said that she was shifting departments and I could be assigned to a new therapist who had just joined the department.

The way she said it kinda pissed me off. She was like, “if you want to continue...” Like... I do this for fun? I want to talk with newbie therapists who are expecting to do 8-12 week stretches of basic CBT with vets with combat PTSD and then get rid of them as soon as they're not in danger of killing themselves in a way that is not mediapathic? I want to work with therapists who get intimidated when I bring up any mode of therapy outside of their personal formal education experience?

So I decided to think about it for a while. I thought. I talked with Spouse. I talked with my Psych who has earned my trust as a patient and as a human. I suggested that I might like to take a sabbatical from therapy at the VA. I use that word on purpose because the most useful parts of my therapeutic experience have had a great deal of academic rigor and have involved a huge amount of autodidactic investment.

Sometime last spring or summer I discovered the Plum Village App. I had been using Headspace for over a year, but mostly only used it for the sleepytime stories which are amazing and read by the most lovely voices. The meditations were just, too... I don't know. Flat. The Plum Village App is free and has a whole bunch of great deep relaxation tracks in different lengths and voices. It also has guided meditations, a meditation timer with variable interval bells, resources, videos, and the very welcoming and gentle spirit of Thich Nhat Hanh and his community.

This last element really contrasted with Headspace's kind of “hip and vibrant hooah hooah productivity” feel. Thich Nhat Hanh has kind of a “Well, life is really very scary and violent, but it is also very beautiful and we can sit and enjoy a beautiful cup of tea together.” feel. I've been a walking wounded survivor for so long that I want to choose to abide in calm. I do not choose to take some advil and keep going. I do not choose to push through the pain by behaving mean and rude. I choose differently.

I was looking through documentaries and found an old one about Thich Nhat Hanh and through it learned about his Order of Interbeing. Just the name of that gave me a thrill of truth. Like when you learn that that painting is called “The Scream”, you think, “Hell, yeah, it is.” The Order of Interbeing. Hell, yeah, it is. I looked it up and discovered that I live in the middle of a group of related Sanghas that follow the Plum Village Tradition and they do weekly sits via Zoom. They're about an hour long and really mellow and the folks there are exactly the class/age/color that I would expect them to be for our region. But they do behave like lovely people.

Then I discovered that doing five 1 hour dedicated periods of social mindfulness and meditation with other people felt really good to me and was something that I could accomplish without exhausting myself. After having covid I've had to schedule long naps in my day if I do anything physical and I've had to start sharing more of the household duties that I find fulfilling with Spouse. It's really easy for me to feel useless and pathetic and then to let that need to nap slide into straight up depression and anhedonia. Anhedonia isn't fun for anybody.

Then I remembered HH The Dalai Lama, the scientist. And I remembered that Buddhism has a whole-ass science of psychology that is often glossed over to Westerners as “just too confusing” and regarded by Westerners as “confusing lists of things that don't make sense”. And THEN I remember why I've always thought that Tibet's monastic class is a really interesting cultural development: Whenever your society gets a stable enough food supply, you've got to find some way to engage your folks in some kind of work. This might be building big civic projects or conquering neighbors or developing internal competitions, but in Tibet they grabbed the young men who might be fighting for inheritance or creating violent gangs and made the highest aspiration to become a monk. The monks get fed, they are required to study, and they spend large amounts of time sitting still and thinking.

(I'm not saying that this is ideal as the whole situation really sucked for just about anybody who wasn't a man in the ruling class or a man in the monastic system, but it does seem strikingly clever to basically employ all of your young troublemaking men by telling them to sit down and think big thoughts.... and then they do that.)

Why couldn't I look into learning about Buddhist psychology science and use my new sitting still requirement to meditate?

Yeah, there's no reason I couldn't. The challenges lie in finding the intersections of translators who know about meditating, meditators who know about psychology, and neurobiologists who think that meditation is cool. I'm likely not going to find all of those in one person, but I've been doing similar work between trauma/DBT/bi-polar already and those people all pretend they're talking about the same thing when they're not.

The blessing here is that Buddhism is rooted in oral tradition so many of the textual structures are in place to facilitate memorization and obviously do not contain all of the details. Those lists remain long after anybody remembers what they were supposed to represent. I mean, do you know what the partridge in a pear tree is supposed to represent? Fortunately there have been many many great thinkers and writers who have shared their opinions and discussed their understandings of these things with other people. I can read competing interpretations and see what makes sense in time. There isn't a lot of non-sectarian meditation science out there right now, but I have found The Mind Illuminated which I think may serve as a good jumping off point.

The key, I think, is to figure out what I don't know, get a grip on some vocabulary, and find ways to compose questions. Right now I don't really know what I don't know, but I have started a basic daily practice and making up to an hour to sit mornings and evenings has improved my mental health through helping me abide in calm and by letting me feel that I'm doing something constructive without burning energy.

Right now that's pretty awesome, and we'll see where everything goes from here.

What the Buddha didn't have...

There is a PBS documentary about the life of the Buddha that I like to watch when I'm feeling scattered or uneasy. It might be nice to think that it is the philosophical message of the story that comforts me, but I suspect that it's the consistency of the music and the voices contrasted with the animations and video clips that make up the documentary. The tempo at which the visuals and audio portions are shared is consistent and there are periods of silence and periods of intense sound but neither of these last too long. There is no monotony, but the rate at which the stimuli change is very pleasant to me and helps me regulate my own thoughts and feelings when they are racing.

Much of the documentary is about historical experiences in India at the time when Siddhartha Gautama was alive. When speaking about his youth, they highlight all of the things that he had. He had protection from the sun and chill, he had the best foods, he had musicians and dancers to entertain him during the rainy season, he had education in history, politics, and combat arts.

When they talk about what he didn't have they generally limit it to the obvious bits that he learned when out with his charioteer: Sickness, Old Age, Death, Spiritual Seekers.

They go on to describe how fearlessly he left home and went out into the world to renounce all the comforts and even the necessary supports of life and placed himself onto a death path to attempt to find an answer to suffering.

They describe how, in his hour of enlightenment, he responds to the challenge, “Who do you think you are that you are worthy of enlightenment and who speaks for you?” by touching the earth and claiming the witness of all creation for his worth.

They describe how, having chosen to spend the rest of his life sharing what he had learned, he meets his old peers and informs them that he has achieved enlightenment and they should speak to him with respect.

When I think about displays of arrogant behavior in my modern world, I think of people who are feeling insecure and feel the need to be aggressive about their place in the world to fend off the fear of being put down or disrespected. When I think about people seeking messages that they are worthy I think about how they may doubt their own worth in a very fundamental way. When i think about people fasting for spiritual reasons I think of people punishing themselves for who they are or purifying themselves to make themselves more worthy. None of these examples fit the story told about Siddhartha Gautama.

I struggled with the cognitive dissonance I experienced over the difference between this man's behavior and the behaviors of people who have been around me my whole life. The obvious answer might be “He's special.” but that only leads me to the question “How is he special?”

I am beginning to suspect that the difference lies in another group of things that were absent from Siddhartha's childhood. Insecurity, uncertainty, isolation.

Children must rely on the grown ups around them for all resource and protection. When resources and protection break down, children tend to blame themselves for the failure rather than the grown ups, because they have no choice but to depend on those grown ups. This places a seed of self-doubt, self-loathing, and fear of insecurity very deep in every child who has known any insecurity. That describes most of us. Many examples of children whose physical needs are cared for but whose emotional needs are ignored show us how this is not a matter of enough food, enough shelter, enough money.

The wealth of Siddhartha's childhood was not in the dancing girls and fancy food or his education in leadership and warrior ethos. The wealth of Siddhartha's childhood was the care and human connection of those people who held him when he was frightened, who corrected him when he was testing his boundaries, who gave him honest answers to his questions and helped him understand the difference between his individual human worth and the conditions of the world around him.

That is not to say that those of us who grew up with more normal childhoods can never achieve enlightenment nor become anything other than the fears of our youth set us to be. I think, instead, it is a magnificent illustration of how we can deal with the root issue behind so many of our daily challenges.

The child we have been is still here within us and we are now adult enough to comfort and listen to that child. When I think, “Nobody ever listens to me when I say that I'm afraid.” it is a chance for me to remember that I am technically a grown up now and I am capable of listening to myself.

When I think, “I am garbage and a horrible person and I don't know why anybody puts up with me.” it is a chance for me to listen and respond with tenderness and comfort.

When Siddhartha went into fasting for the purposes of spiritual growth, he didn't have to work with any deep fears about going hungry or old narratives about how he wasn't good enough to feed or having to choose between eating or watching someone else go hungry. When he was in a position to recognize that basic human worthy applied to him, he was able to state that as being an obvious thing that nature and the world could attest. When he attained the ability to change his interaction with the world so that he could be present and attentive with equanimity and compassion for all, he recognized that this was worthy of respect and that it was helpful and comforting for him to accept and use a title of respect among those who had formerly been his peers.

Understanding how a childhood devoid of insecurity could affect a person's capacity for accepting the world as it is and finding connection with all beings is a pretty huge thing because it points me in the direction where I can choose to spend my energy and time transmuting my experiences of insecurity into experiences that do not and never can define my worth.

Joining and Belonging...

If you give me a group of people, I can get them to do things. I'm not sure how it works, it always has worked. Sometimes it has gotten me in trouble and I've learned some pretty tough lessons about being respectful of people who are willing to follow my wild ideas. I've also learned that some people seem to crave this ability and consider it a kind of power. Those people will make things very uncomfortable if they feel that my position in the world is part of a zero sum game.

Between learning to respect and choose not to harm or mock people who will listen to me and trying to avoid the machinations of those who believe that they can usurp a social position that is joined freely by all participants, I've learned to be quiet and cautious around potential leadership positions.

The main side effects of this is that if you need a large group of people to sing along to something I can make it happen AND I am incredibly hesitant about joining groups. Having been through professional indoctrination and functioned as part of some highly regimented and high control groups, I'm ten times less attracted to do that again. I might consider joining a chorus if there were a local university with a strong music program that had a community join option and they were doing a piece that I really really love. Other than that, I'm not interested in joining and I'm only interested in leading in music emergencies and small unit tactical situations that require addressing in real life.

It is interesting to me to observe how my reluctance to join manifests when I do find groups whose topic or purpose interest me.

Today I found a local organization that does a kind of spiritual study and meditation that resonates strongly with me. I've learned that they have a meditation meeting weekly via video meeting. Very cool. I can participate without having to go out into the world and be around other people and their germs.

When I thought about going to their meet ups to participate in person I started thinking things like, “Well, it would be cool to go and see if I could work in the kitchen or wash dishes. Something out of the way.”

Honestly, if you're going to check out an organization, going and washing dishes is a GREAT way to learn about them. Dishwashers seem invisible except when they're being seen as helpful, and people talk in kitchens the way they don't talk out in the “public” spaces. The next time people see you, they'll remember that you were helpful. Almost nobody perceives a dishwasher as a threat, and if you are already in the kitchen you'll get to taste the food and can ensure that any of your dietary needs are tended properly.

But I feel that this is not my only motivation for this thought/plan. The other things I am thinking to myself are, “I'm not really good enough to join this.” “I'm not reliable enough.” “They're going to be disappointed in me.” “I won't fit in.”

It feels really important to me that I make time to sit with those parts of me who are warning me against joining by putting me down. Like, yes, my darlings. Joining is scary. Historically I've been excluded for my various queernesses. When I have been welcomed by queers it has often felt like I have to be 300% more tightly obedient to the groupmind to earn my membership in the group. I'd be expected to adhere to groupthink and to use my leadership skills to convince other people to stay in line and conform. Those things don't combine to strengthen my sense of self-worth.

I don't believe the things that people tell me. I don't believe the things I see on tv. I don't believe the things my own senses tell me to be true. I'm not going to use my ability to lead other people to tell them what to believe. Unless we're singing together, we're using a working song to coordinate human strength, or there is an immediate tactical situation in which life and security depend on immediate cooperation, I'm not going to tell other people what to believe.

Thing is, I can show up, I can help, I can be involved with others in organizations without surrendering my convictions or allowing myself to be put in a position to tell others to surrender theirs. I don't have to hide that behind not being worthy to join. I don't have to hide that behind not being good enough to be welcomed by others.

And that is enough.

Intergenerational Trauma and You...

Having lost both of my parents this year I've been thinking a lot about the intergenerational trauma that I've inherited from them and my ancestors. I'm living in the house where my father grew up and where I grew up so there are memory triggers all over the place. Most of the things that I did with my grands and my parents were domestic things around the house so doing daily chores brings back voices from the long gone and the recently gone. This has given me loads of opportunity to sit and visit with those elements of anxiety and control that constitute the majority of my inheritance.

This was something that I really was able to start working on with my mother who, in her Alzheimer's confusion, was very much the frightened and helpless youngest child of six who were guided by a gentle and quiet mother and a domineering father. Her largest daily fear was of making a mess. I found that the best thing I could do for her was to reassure her that if we accidentally made a mess, all we had to do was clean it up. This became more frequent once incontinence was plaguing her, but that became more opportunities for me to say, “All clean! See, everything is okay. Nobody is mad. Nobody is in trouble. This happens to everyone and we can always clean things up because we feel better once we're clean.”

This has given me a guideline for working with the moments of confrontation with my inherited traumas. Every time I hear a learned voice in my head telling me that I'm bad or I'm in trouble or I told you so or It always goes this way I notice that opportunity to say, “This happens to everyone. Now we're going to deal with the consequences of what happened because we'll feel better once we've dealt with it.” And rather than shutting down that voice or silencing it, I invite it to stay with me while I deal with the mess or the bill or the question to a lawyer or doctor and get whatever resolution I can get. Then I show it how things are better for having dealt with it and that there really was no shame in having something to deal with.

Yes, these are the things that those voices have been bred to pounce on and shame over, but even the worst possible things are things that happen to people. Those things we can deal with, we deal with. Those things we need help to deal with, we ask for or hire help to deal with. Those things we can't deal with we mourn or rise up against. None of those options benefit from shame.

I was talking to a friend who is a fellow ACOA (Adult Child Of Alcoholics) about intergenerational trauma the other day. He sounded really ashamed of the voices he had and the traumas that he'd picked up. I said something to the effect of, “It's better for us to tend to those things than to risk passing them on to others.” he said, “Well, I'm not having any children so this line of trauma will end when I take it to the grave with me.”

It was a neat moment for me because I noticed a voice coming forward in my head to pounce on him and shame him for that statement. Like, “Dude, do you think that we pass on our trauma only to those whom we spawn with our own loins? Do we not pass on our neuroses to everyone around us with whom we interact and over whom we have any influence? Do you think that your choice not to breed absolves you of having to work on your own shit?” And I did not say those things aloud because I noticed that the voice of pouncing and shaming was the same voice that pounced and shamed me the other day for spilling sugar in the kitchen.

I mean, cutting yourself off from feeling that you can nurture and care for others is not a painless way out from dealing with something. It is not unlike chewing off a limb to get free from a trap. It's not the easy way. And it is a way that people choose when they can conceive of no other way of coping or growing. Trying to show an alternative to that kind of choice by shaming that choice simply piles shame on top of shame and will reinforce the resolve of that hopeless resolution.

And yet, to myself, and to you who may not be crushed under the weight of your own inherited shame at this moment, I can say that the childless among us are not succeeding in ending our lines of intergenerational trauma. We are all giving away our traumas and our skills in every interaction with have with other beings. Those who see you learn from you. The stranger in line at the store. The other people on the bus. Your friends. Your partners.

It all feels pretty grim, doesn't it? How the shame and the shame about the shame layer up and layer until there is that huge crust of... impenetrable hopelessness. That sucks.

It's not hopeless. It's big. It's scary. But it is something that we can work with and care for. Instead of hearing those voices as powerful evil judgments against who we are and how we live, we can hear those voices as the frightened children that they are. Those voices don't have any power. They are the voices of other children who were repeatedly punished for something that wasn't worthy of punishment. Those children took in those punishments and absorbed them the only way children can. Children can't put blame on the caregivers whose support they need to survive, so they take that blame into themselves.

79 years ago my father and his sister spilled a whole cup of sugar on the kitchen floor. Their mother, stressed to breaking by the great depression, trying to manage having a job and raising two kids and an infant in a shitty apartment in a suffering city, freaked the fuck out on them. She hit them and shamed them and made them clean up every granule, put it on paper and clean it, and then sort it back into a jar.

As an adult I can read that and think, “Wow. That sucked for everyone in that situation.” and I can also see how those children learned “spilling sugar means that you are a bad person” rather than “When life is very stressful, we sometimes freak out hard about things that seem much more important than they maybe really are.”

79 years later, my 47 year old ass is putting sugar into glasses for Turkish Tea and I spill a few bits on the counter. I feel a frisson and I choose to pause and turn to look at my grandmother as a young mother. I give her the same smile that I gave my mother when she felt upset that she'd peed herself. I say, “Whoops. That happens to everyone. It's going to be okay, we'll clean it up and you'll feel much better once everything is clean.”

Then I lick my finger and collect the bits of sugar and press them to my tongue.

This will happen again and again every time I measure sugar or put some in my coffee. This will happen in a thousand ways as I move through my days and the stresses of those who came before me rain down on my mind and body. All I can do is notice it when it happens and set a good example by being patient with those who went before and showing how I can deal gently with situations that have been very stressful. I can offer them an option and I can offer them comfort and I can refuse to shame them or accept any shame from them.

It's not as exhausting as it sounds. It becomes reflexive after a while. It makes life so much happier and while I don't have children, I do not exist in a bubble and I know that my skills and my traumas can be passed along to those around me. Life is rich and full of experiences. Noticing those experiences and being kind and respectful to them and to ourselves can make a huge difference in how much we enjoy and learn from them.

The horrors...

I'm in with the horrors now. They're old and familiar, but still horrors.

The doctors have me on some prednisone to help with join inflammation and it is helping with that, but it is also leaving me feeling like I'm going through alcohol withdrawal while being stalked by velociraptors while trying to make it through a stereotypical baby shower party without anybody figuring out that everything is terribly terribly wrong.

My driving urge right now is to collect weapons and sit in a defensible corner with my dog and the weapons and stare and twitch at the world in case it gets any ideas. Everything I perceive is irritating and I'm pretty sure that only about 70% of what I perceive has a cause or manifestation that other people can perceive.

There are many popular ideas about what it means when people perceive things that can't be perceived by others around them. There are a lot of jokes that make fun of people who experience negotiable realities. These cultural phenomena generally result in people hiding what they perceive or being far more likely to be victimized if they are honest.

When I was young I was lucky enough to interact with a lot of very weird people. A full range of positive and negative experiences taught me to be very accepting of what it is I and others perceive without ever losing a sense of skepticism about what those perceptions might mean.

I'll give you an example: A person is sitting in a comfy chair in a room. They perceive a draft.

1) Person states: “It's cold in here.” and turns up the heat. 2) Person states: “There's a draft.” and checks windows and doors to make sure they're closed. 3) Person remains still and listens, hearing the cat jump from the chair to the nearby couch, they dismiss the draft as a sign of the cat's movement. 4) Person checks in with their body, notices scratchy eyes and slightly sore throat, Person changes evening plans, makes tea, moves to the couch to nap through extended LOTR marathon.

This is what Cognitive Behavioral Theory helps us frame for many of our perceptions. “I feel angry!” “Oh? What happened, what about that feels familiar to other situations? How is your angry feeling a sign of potential injustice to yourself or another? How is your angry feeling an echo of a completely different situation? How might you choose your actions right now to care for yourself and not make things worse?”

When my perceptions are feeling more random and disconnected than usual, I'm careful to observe how other people react to things. If nobody around me is reacting to a moving shape or a change in the lighting it is not time for me to react either. But sometimes my perceptions seem to be like metaphorical signals from my brain to me. I'll hear something out of place, smell something unexpected, or see movement where there shouldn't be movement.

I can think of this as being like a random tarot card draw. It looks like a solid object ripples briefly? Is the weather changing? A stranger seems to have a very fierce face for a moment? Do they look like someone familiar? Are they wearing any symbols that indicate possible hostile intent? Are they limping or do they appear to be in pain or tired?

It often feels like my brain is trying to process information in meta cognitive ways, but I can work through each one if I'm careful and I can always focus on my personal security and getting somewhere that will be reasonably safe. I have no expectation that I can function with this much input for an extended period without getting too anxious to be able to rest.

Thing is, my meds do a lot to attenuate this perception sensitivity. Except not today.

I've got all the tools and skills and space and time to work with this situation and care for myself with all the love and compassion I can generate. Still, that creeping feeling is frightening and even knowing all that I know about my mind and life experience that body of memes from popular culture leaves me fearing that I'll slip off of some edge and become dangerous to myself and others.

That fear doesn't come from me. It is intentionally manufactured and spread to teach people not to check in with their intuition, not to listen to their gut feelings, not to trust those who move out of lockstep with local customs and conventions. That fear of my mistreatment at the hands of those would would weaponize fear of me against me is a valid fear. That is a learned fear and it can easily get in the way of me dealing compassionately and effectively with myself when I am vulnerable and suffering.

I can't do anything about that fear, so I'll hold it gently here and comfort it as I would comfort a sick child.

Challenging perceptions with curiosity and intent to be kind is a much faster path to reasonable security and comfort than reacting to every perception by assigning it a narrative and getting ready to fight it.

We can't challenge perceptions if we won't recognize them when they happen. We can't work with them if we're avoiding them or trying to drown them out with other sensations or numbing them. It's hard to find a balance with that, but it gets better when it is faced and addressed with kindness.

When I meet my horrors with curiosity, kindness, and compassion I usually find out that they're frightened little bits of me who only want comfort and some reasonable safety precautions. So I lock the door, drink some water, and snuggle up in bed with all of my horrors and fears. Then I keep them safe and warm until the sun rises and new light shows things from a different angle.

Unburdening the bag of holding...

Whenever I watch shows or movies and I see people with backpacks or satchels I always look to see how much they burden the actors. Now, I don't expect actors to do action sequences or even regular movement sequences take after take while lugging heavy things because that's not healthy or reasonable.

Thing is, that depiction of action heroes and movie soldiers and movie hikers moving swift and sleek gives us all some twisted ideas and expectations for others and for ourselves.

When I was in the army the most frustrating element of every single activity was managing stuff. Stuff management is the primary training element in basic training and specialized stuff management comes later in advanced training. Much of this is keeping track of stuff that one has personally signed for and is personally financially responsible for keeping.

In WWII, D-Day personal load out was around 75lbs. One person would lug that much around simply to maintain their own survival and presence. On top of that would be added squad load. These are the ammunition and special equipment issued to each unit that are shared out because nobody thought to bring a mule.

Since WWII personal load out weights have doubled.

I'm told that traditional modern hikers try to keep it under 30lbs and the sexy ultralight folks aim for under 10lbs.

My EDC (my parents would call it a pocketbook) weighs about 3lbs and unless it's extreme weather I do my best to keep it as light as possible.

I enjoy seeing how games play with this concept of burdening. In Halo, I can pick up the big mounted weapons, but then I can't run or jump as high. Spouse is constantly organizing her inventory and returning to her bases to store everything in containers for crafting or whatever she's doing with it. In some TTRPGs players take great joy in making sure that their STR and equipment balance out but loopholes can allow scrawny characters to pull grandfather clocks out of their pouches.

Why am I thinking about this today?

I've been walking my puppy on his thirty foot lead around our wooded yard with the big trees and the small trees and the bird feeder poles and the rock walls and every single obstacle that a young pup can practice his bowline tying skills around. Most times I walk with a cane. It's cold some nights so I have hat and jacket. Of course I have my phone with me because I'm listening to a book. This is usually in the dark and about half the time there is snow and/or ice on the ground.

The comedy writes itself and it's mostly slapstick.

Tonight I was surprised to notice that even with all of this potential comedy I very seldom get frustrated with the process. Sure it's painful to walk, but it's always painful to walk. The puppy and I are learning where I should shorten his lead when we come to narrow spots with lots of tangle potential. He is very patient with my slow pace and enjoys finding all of the chipmunk holes and peeing on them.

Unless I'm trying to do something in addition to our walk, like moving things or gardening, I don't really get frustrated. Even when I am gardening I tend to plan my moves so far in advance that taking time to pee on one more tree isn't inconvenient.

We're all burdened with our responsibilities and even with our gifts and joys. Everything around us is something we must account for in our movements and choices. When we see other people moving sleek and swift and appearing unburdened, we don't need to compare their apparent freedom to our daily struggle. Pushing through situations while pretending our burdens aren't there will only get us tangled up on every possible point.

Physical burdens are not inherently bad. When you need to have 30lbs of gear to go hiking and come back alive and healthy, those 30lbs are a blessing of a burden. Having to manage my cane is a burden, but it is what allows me to walk the dog ten times farther than I could walk him without it.

There's a whole 'nother aspect of burdens in our burdens of psyche, memory, and world concepts... but I'll save that for later.

Those who appear unburdened probably are not, and those who are burdened may well have experience and equipment on hand to deal with things that may come up. There is probably a balance of burden/resource that is ideal for each person in any given situation but I'm not sure how to quantify such a thing. Just knowing that my burdens are also resources in some way may be enough to keep me out there walking the dog with all of my gear and appreciating how other people navigate the world with whatever they have, however heavy or useful it may seem at a distance.

Saber rattling sacks of cysts...

I live within a body that has breasts. These breasts are perfect. They are just the right size for my breadth of shoulder and they are still firm and shapely even as age has softened their perkiness. They suit my frame and I've never had anybody argue when I point out that they are perfect.

They are also probably homicidal.

The list of people on my mother's side of the family who have had (or do have) breast cancer is large. I've been having mammograms and ultrasounds every six months for the last seven or eight years. They automatically schedule me for the mammo, the ultrasound, and the biopsy every time they schedule me. After squeezing and taking pictures, they gather in the back and discuss what else we're going to do today.

When I went back in June they spent TWO HOURS actively photographing and ultrasounding me. I was there for three and a half hours, but two of those hours were all groups of people actively prodding a part of my body that had a ruptured cyst in it. Not Comfy.

Last week I went in and we went through the whole shebang and they decided to go ahead with the biopsy this time. Not gonna lie, that was a little bit intimidating. The only stories I've heard about this procedure were from large-breasted older women who had these things done at least ten years ago. But I know from various gynecological procedure experiences that medicine is still very firmly based in the “women don't feel pain” philosophy. That's the part that worries me.

I decided to relax and go with it as though I was getting a new piercing. A whole-ass new kind of super-cool piercing that would be totally awesome and let me know if my knockers were gearing up to knock me off.

They gave me a local anesthesia. They had a nurse who was running pain-management cognitive interference. The doctor was relaxed, confident, and explained everything very clearly. They warned me that the extraction tool would sound like a staple gun.

Even when he injected the lidocaine I felt nothing. He's good. They did some stuff that I couldn't see because of my positioning. I stayed relaxed and still. He warned me that he was going to make the sound.

Then I broke the rule about making the professional laugh while they're cutting on me. I said, “Hey, that sounds like the ear-piercing gun from Claire's.” Everybody snort-laughed and the doctor said, “That's where we took my daughter. You're right.”

The whole process was painless and I ended up with a small blister from one of the steri-strips that looks worse than the incision site. I had no pain or discomfort during or after. It reminds me that I've had some pain in life and done some weird-ass things with my body, including dozens of trigger point injections that were so uncomfortable that they'd give me atropine before it to make it so I couldn't faint.

This was probably the least painful thing I've ever done with my body. It hurt significantly less than standing in the elevator to travel three flights.

They took three cores and the online medical chart shows the results as non-malignant so that's awesome.

But I'm still thinking about dealing with this every six months and wondering if a preventative mastectomy might not be a good idea. I love my breasts, I do. They're fun and my lovers enjoy them as much as I do, but... That would also be some seriously choice tattoo space.

I'm thinking Washington Crossing The Delaware, but it's Dr Teeth and The Electric Mayhem.

Next time I talk with my primary care provider I'm going to make sure that she knows that I do not have a strong emotional connection to my breasts and that if there comes a time when top surgery might improve my quality of life I'm 100% there for it. It's probably something they put off for most people, but I'm all for not getting murdered by a part of my body that is perfect, but primarily decorative.

Quiet times...

I haven't been essaying lately, but it's not because I have nothing to say... it's because we have a Houseguest.

She is a really awesome Houseguest and we've put her up in the rooms that were built for caring for my brother and which we used for caring for my mother so she has her own space and she uses it and she's super accommodating and does dishes and cleans up and is fun to be with.

But, like...

UGH.

Like, I've got a personality disorder and on top of that I'm an asshole and I don't ENJOY being around people all the time.

Much of the time.

Well, on my terms or never.

I need my quiet times. I used to get quiet time or buffer space by self-medicating with alcohol. When I drank, all y'all became way more tolerable and interesting. Sober, it's a real effort to be enthusiastic.

I have very well practiced FOAD body language that I use when I'm feeling rough and people who are comfortable letting me be uncomfortable in my own space do fine with that. Houseguest is brilliant and she groks the body language and she gives me space to be grumpy when I'm emanating grump vibes.

Still...

I was happiest when I was driving for much of the day. Doing something that kept 85% of my senses and brain entertained and let the remaining 25% free to THINK big THINKY THINKS. When I've got to encounter other humans I have to reframe all of my cognitive functions and it feels like coitus interuptus.

Fortunately we're having a warm spell and I have a dog to walk. Unfortunately my body is really into pain and not into moving well. Fortunately there is a bench on the far side of the yard where I can sit and let the dog play on his long lead and gaze into the sky and the trees and the darkness.

Eventually the dog comes and sits on the bench next to me and we sit alone together, each thinking our big thinks (his are mostly about finding things to chew on, he's a puppy).

Spouse is a big early adopter with technology. She loves to check out the latest tools and things that help her do her work and play best. She decided that she would benefit from a new tool and I agreed so we got it for her. She suggested that I get one similar that would let me do many of the things that I do now with paper and pen. I debated it. I found the one that would serve me best. I thought I might really enjoy using a tool that would let me take notes in one place and keep everything together.

Tonight as I was out on the bench with the dog looking at the sky and the trees and smelling the queer cool air of a December thaw, I remembered how much I truly love the primitive arts. I decided not to get myself that electronic tool and instead get myself a couple more of the weird primitive materials and tools that I enjoy working with so much.

I came inside and contacted a friend who makes those Roman style wax tablet books. It's two thin pieces of wood hinged together with some leather thong. The inside faces of the wood is carved out like a very shallow dish and then filled with wax. One can use a simple wooden stylus to inscribe things in the wax and use a flattened wedge to smooth the wax out again.

I've been trying to get my quiet time by listening to books, reading, or running errands, but these all take a lot of cognitive energy. I think that what I learned tonight is that I may be able to create my quiet time by pulling out my hand crafts and working. Spouse and Houseguest listen to the tv louder than I like, but that means that my sawing or grinding shouldn't be too annoying to them.

Maybe I can find a way to create my own quiet space without using a FOAD shield or sitting in the yard in the middle of winter. Maybe I can do something that I really love and enjoy myself. That sounds like a real possibility.

Day of the Mouse God's Sun...

When the darkest part of the year is upon us we gather in our homes and share the stories that keep our hearts warm.

In the winter of the year when we lost both of my parents the darkness is extra heavy and the cold is very bitter.

On this, the shortest day of the year, I offer you the story of the Day of the Mouse God's Sun.

The Mouse God was the smallest of all of the Old Gods. While the other Old Gods played at War and Oceans and Growing Things the Mouse God's work was easy to ignore. All through the late summer and the harvest and the beginning of winter, she grabs the wasted moments of sunlight. Each scrap a tiny spark of warmth, kindness, and hope.

When the winter wraps the world in cold and darkness she watches for the no-rise. On the morning when the sun does not shine at all she gets her bag of sun crumbs, her best pie plate, and a little bit of butter. She butters the pie plate and presses the sun bits into it so they stick and shine together. She puts her sun pie on a stick and holds it up in the sky where the real sun should be but is not.

On this day the light that we see in the sky is from the Mouse God's sun as she lifts her luminous pie crust high in the air for us.

She knows that if we saw this dark day for what it is we might loose our belief in the sun coming back and then the sun might not feel obliged to come back.

We who love the sun so much that we take it for granted and squander it's light when it is plentiful could be the first to give up on expecting it to ever return to us if we could not feel it near.

The Mouse God, mindful of our ways, spends this whole day hungry and straining to give us hope. She will sit up the night through and wait for the great sun to rise in the morning. If it does not rise, she will spend another day holding up her sun pie for us to live on. If it does rise, she will bask in its rays and eat her buttery bright pie shell.

Cookies recall the shape of the Mouse God's sun and help us remember that even in the darkest days that little things can feed our hope. Soon we welcome the return of the light. Please share them with someone you love and remember that with the Old Gods sleeping, we are the only ones who can shine and help others through the dark day until the sun is bright for us again.