The morning is cool and overcast. Hard to get going. More so if I don’t make a start. So here goes. I’m tap, tapping on my keyboard, however I feel. As I tap, the sun came out, giving me a boost.
Last night I fell asleep with nature crackling thunderously overhead. Through the opened window, I saw lightning flashing in the dark. I felt surprisingly good surrounded by the furies of the Universe. I felt calmed by its energy. I heard its message. I’m doing the best I can – not to contribute to the destruction of our precious earth. I’m not feeling optimistic about our survival though. News of heat waves and fatalities in India and Europe, more turbulant air flights resulting in injuries and a summer of weird weather are convincing me of the truth. We are heading towards our last 10 years less a day.
I’m really a bit shocked at how calm and accepting of this truth I am. I am not at all frightened nor panicky. Perhaps I’m depressed but maybe not. The most amazing thing I’ve learned this year is when I let go of the fears – let all my shoes fall (or tossed into my garbage bin), there is no crash on the cement. I fall on a bed of feathers. I hear the wisdom of Professor McPherson’s advice.
“I think hope is a horrible idea. Hope is wishful thinking. Hope is a bad idea – let’s abandon that and get on with reality instead. Let’s get on with living instead of wishing for the future that never comes.
“I encourage people to pursue excellence, to pursue love, to pursue what they love to do. I don’t think these are crazy ideas, actually – and I also encourage people to remain calm because nothing is under control, certainly not under our control anyway.”
I could use a little more humour, too. Have you seen the move, Last Night? It’s an excellent Canadian black humour about a group of people facing the end of the world. Check it out.
The day after my year of doing different I am feeling quite crossed and unpleasant. I feel ugly meanness and not niceness oozing out of me. I decide that I would try to go into quietness and sit with it for awhile. Maybe I can befriend the feeling and see where it goes. I will try the newness of not fixing. It will be difficult, for I’m the fix-myself queen.
It’s been 2 months since I’ve last sat here. I’m fighting the urge to rise and make myself another cup of tea/coffee. It’s uncomfortable being in this space again, trying to tap, tap out the letters, words, thoughts. The space is bigger, wider. I’m a little lost, sloshing around, trying to find and touch the boundaries. I’m like the little seedlings starting out. They/I like the snugness of a small space. Our roots/limbs to feel the sides and edges. I like to think I’m more pliable though. I can s-t-r-e-t-c-h, reaching for the stars. I can grow. I have grown, haven’t I? There! Now I’ve earned that time out for that cuppa before continuing.
I have my cuppa decaf. Somehow I feel better having something to sip on. It’s better/healthier than a lit cigarette on an ashtray. That’s my old self – a cigarette before/while doing. That’s one way I have grown – physically healthier. I’m leaner and less mean, thanks to my three times a week aerobics class and a swim once a week. The mean part is mostly in my mind. I don’t think I’m a mean person but I always fault myself for not being kinder, for being such a grump and ranting so much. I still have those feelings sometimes. I no longer mind my inability to be ‘kinder’. I’m kinder to myself. I rant because I’m not one for status quo and don’t rock the boat. How can things improve that way? I’ll be like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, waking up to the same day, same tune on the radio every day.
Practice makes for better. It’s a good place to stop. I like challenges. Everything is a challenge to me. And I grumble about the hardness of all that. But the grumbling is me trying to find that comfort zone, that snugness, the space to breathe in and out and to start again. What I know for sure is that we have to start – again and again, discarding what doesn’t work, keeping the good stuff.
