CHOICES, SABBATICALS, WORDS

Posted on January 28, 2019 by hafong

Three more days till the end of January. Three more days till the end of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I do have alot to say today as in every day. The getting them out is not the easy thing. How do I start? is always the question. How to introduce and lead in, is difficult. There is the natural flow and rhythm of a conversation between people/friends. With some people, I don’t have to think about it. We get together, greet each other and talk happens. It’s effortless.

Other times, I have to give it some careful thought. How do I want the direction of our time together and conversation go? What is the nature of our relationship? How well do I know this person? Do I want to keep the relationship? In the past, I have not practiced due tact and wisdom. I have not been discerning. It is not that I am a blunt and tactless person. I know manners and proper etiquette. I have never told anyone to their face that I hate their guts, or that their outfit is really bad, never mind what their hair looks like. Maybe I would have been better off if I had been THAT honest.

AND to be honest I have to admit, I haven’t won many valentines for being the proper, polite, honest and helpful person that I am. Obviously that hasn’t been working for me. I have started to mend my ways. I try not to be so frigging uptight. I don’t have to be the proper all the time. I probably ended up doing all the wrong things by trying so hard. I have failed on a few occasions, of course but I am learning. Now, I’ve given in to just tending to myself for awhile. I’m doing little things like sleeping in a bit, taking a little sabbatical from my aerobics class, minding my own business and wearing blinders. I do not want to hear/see any SOS calls. Sometimes I think I’m more powerful than I am. I am NOT powerful at all.

You know what? I’m feeling better already in one week. I wasn’t liking myself. I wasn’t like how I was going about life. Not that I know how to go about it now. I’m taking a sabbatical from knowing, too. I’m just going to chill and observe. I do feel a softness opening up in me. I think I needed this week’s rest from going with the beat and pumping iron. I’ve gotten a few ideas from Jennifer Louden on how to get back my creative flow. I also use the tips for creative living. The tips I got today are:

Relaxing my body before I do anything so that I can be opened to receive creative energy
Taking back time from being addicted to technology for better use.
Choosing an art and doing it – a small project /day. Choose a medium and act on it.

I have chosen words for today. I’ll get into the paint and pencils another day. For the Ultimate Blog Challenge, out and over till tomorrow.

BRAINS, THOUGHTS, WORDS

Posted on January 14, 2019 by hafong

It’s very strange. I’ve accidentally stumbled onto Suddenly Mad someone’s blog/journey through early-onset alzheimer’s. Her writing and artwork is phenomenal. It’s punctuated with many photographs. You would not know she has the disease except for the fact that’s what she talks about and how it has affected her. It took a little while for me to recognize that my writing is similar. I’m documenting my days and feelings. I’m trying to find solutions through writing. I also like to use a lot of photographs. I identified with her feelings of anxiety. And I wondered if I…

Today I read another woman’s blog, Which me am I today. She also has early-onset alzheimer’s. She has a book published. She was interviewed on CBC Listen. You would not know from her writing that she has alzheimers except that’s what she writes about – coherently and intelligently. Her relationship with typing sounds very much like mine. Her fingers can talk quite well. She also finds taking photos comforting. These give me another reason for pause. Do I have the big A?

“When I type it’s a one way process; thoughts to fingers – often no noise, not having to be questioned and then type an answer…..just my fingers translating my thoughts into words.”

I could just laugh all this off BUT it sees so many people have some kind of dementia now. It’s enough incentive for me to be extra viligant and proactive about my brain health. The Cleveland Clinic Six Pillars of Brain Health looks like a good resource to check out. I’m sure there are many others. It is a start. I am ok in the physical and medical health department. Pretty good with food and nutrition. I’m doing better with sleep and relaxation. I need to work on my mental fitness and social interaction.

I FOUGHT MYSELF AND I WON

Posted on January 4, 2019 by hafong

January 4, 2019 4:41 pm

I have heard that I’m my own worse enemy. It could be true. I’m always wrestling with myself, getting myself all knotty over nothing alot of the time. Life shouldn’t have to be that difficult or complex. It does not need micro managing. A little chaos now and again keeps it fresh and interesting. I need to loosen up, have a little fun and just do the best I can. Nobody is judging me except myself.

How am I going about doing it? Well here is the plan. It’s not well-laid but it’s a start. Movement/action is the most important thing. Otherwise I’ll be crouched and frozen at the starting line till I fall over.

Stop judging and comparing myself. It is probably the most difficult thing.
Try not to fall off the plan. If I do, I need to get back on or adjust if it’s not a good one.
the 3 musts – sleep, diet, exercise
Do Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages and Artist Dates.
Tend to things as they arise. Do not leave them for the morrow.
Read The Four Agreements again.

These are some of the things in my plan. They are enough for now. More can be too much and overwhelming. These grey wintry days are hard for me and my moody personalities. I can’t see my evil twins. They come from the inside out, erupting from within. I am without warning. But I am a little more cognizant now but often I forget till after the damage is done.

My moody sisters can stall me, leaving me open mouthed and stammering. What the hell? It takes a little while before things click and I take back control. But sometimes they do steamroll over me. I’m flattened and down without recognizing their handiwork. It is those times I fall off the wagon and lack the will/strength to climb back on. What is the use, was my mantra.

I try not to say that or other negatives any more. Words are powerful and what I tell myself and others matter. I have to change and sing a different tune.

PURGING WITH GRACE

Posted on June 2, 2018 by hafong

The road to health is a tough one. I’m into my second week of scratchy throat turning into nasty coughing up my guts. How many mornings have I started out thinking, Oh, I think I’m getting better only to find myself feeling God awful in a couple of hours. I did the same this morning. I felt a DEFINITE change. I felt very hopeful. Everything was rattling loose. I have something to blow out of my nose. I only wheeze when I lay down. But sure enough, after breakfast and after doing 2 little paintings, I succumbed to the God awful state. I got out my dynamite tea, my own dug up and dried dandelion roots from last fall. They were the last of my supply.

No need to say that I am not at all cheerful lately. Was I ever? It’s a good time/or not a good time to trash myself. Do I need to wound myself further.? Of course not! I’m giving up wounding altogether. There’s enough pain in the world already. I need not add to it. I need to purge it all from myself since I can’t do anything about anybody else. Oh excuse me, I’m having another fit of coughing. I’m on my last Fisherman’s Lozenges. I had two bags but can’t find the other. Oh, well. I have to resort to the lemon drops. The only thing is they make my teeth feel funny after sucking on them. I have LOTS of them. Funny how that’s always the case.

Back to trashing myself now that I’ve brought it up. I’m thinking my negativity and other shortcomings must be the reason I’m down and still down for the count. It’s really tough for me to let go of anything, even coughing and feeling rotten. It’s not just the clutter I hang on to. There’s comfort in what you know versus what you don’t. I’m sick and tired of feeling sick, tired and hacking. I made the decision to purge that along with other rubbish.

A couple of years ago, Grace was the word I chose for the year. It evolved from a painting exercise I did. The exercise involved painting on the same canvas for 30 days. Though I didn’t quite make it to 30 days, it was pretty close. ‘Grace’ emerged on the canvas on day 22. She looked so happy and smiling. There was a sparkle in her eyes and her face glowed. That was it. She was finished. She hangs on the wall in my recently purged downstairs.

I was looking at her as I laid on the coolness of the leather couch one very hot afternoon. I went, Oh! I think I had painted myself. I am Grace – the desired self I want to be. I thought, In what way am I not that Grace? It’s something that needs more pondering on. I shall leave it on that note for now. It I deserve time to seriously consider why I’m so hard on myself. Maybe at the end of it, I can rid the length of my suffering whenever I get sick. Nurse, heal thyself.

THOUGHTS, WORDS, MOODS

Posted on April 23, 2018 by hafong

I ate all the leftovers brought home last night from the Mandarin Restaurant. Zero waste with one plate and a fork to wash. I enjoyed it but it did not pass my mother’s taste buds. Not enough ingredients. Ingredients not good quality. Not very much meat. These were her pronouncements. I have to admit that I am not very discerning. Like Sheba, I like anything edible. She was right about the meat part – small and covered up with a lot of veggies. It was perfect for me. I’m not over sated from a few chicken pieces and a pile of bok choy.

I’m enjoying my second cup of Orange Pekoe tea for the day. I can feel myself wanting another cup. I will refrain. I will tap a few more words, rise and clear up the few dishes. Then I better get started with the bread. It will interrupt my Orange Pekoe craving and keep the flow of the day going. I’ve discovered that I could get a lot done by spending a little bit of time doing this and that. It also breaks up bouts of grumpiness, surliness and depression.

I don’t want to mislead anyone about my moods. I am certainly grumpy alot of the time, especially when I was working. But I wouldn’t call myself that now. The same goes for the depression. I am one who feels things deeply. I have been told that I have high standards and I hold everyone to them. I still have the same high standards. I’ve let go of the hold though. What anyone else does is no concern of mine. It took awhile for me to see it. Seeing it now, I feel so foolish. Such a busy body I am, judging others. Most of all, such a waste of energy! It took me away from caring for myself.

You see – I can learn. I can talk a new talk and do a new walk. I don’t have to keep going down the same garden path. The dough is poofing in the oven and I’m sitting with my decaf. I am a little pooped from standing, mixing and kneading. I’m happy to sit till the timer calls me to punch the dough down, shape it into loaves and poof again. It was some wonderful quiet time kneading and slapping the dough into a ball. It was like a love affair of some sort. Needless to say, it was very satisfying. Even Sheba was cooperating, not barking her fool head off.

ALIENS AND ADDICTION

Posted on January 20, 2018 by hafong

It’s a friggin’ mystery to me why I waste so much time scrolling when I have so much I want to do. In no time at all, an hour goes by. I could have, would have if only…blah, blah, blah. I feel like I have no mind of my own. It’s been taken over by aliens. Another name for it would be ADDICTION. There’s no point in ruminating about the whys and wherefores. But I’ve finally got my ass in front of the keyboard to peck out a paragraph.

I’ve managed to get the dried washed woolies off the rack in the laundry room. Changing posture, being in a different room changes my perspectives, my energy. I feel a ‘desire’ to do, even if it’s fleeting. I take my clothes upstairs to the bedroom, folded the sweaters and put them in their drawer. The scarfs I hung on their hooks on the back of the door. There! Some stuff back in their own place.

Not everything is that easy. But I am trying to make everything easier. There is no point in making them harder, is there? I am learning to be more – of everything. I can be more receptive by being more quiet. That way I can hear when my angels are talking to me, telling me their wisdom. I can be more observant instead of more showy so that I can see the problems in front of me. I can be more attentive of Sheba. I knew right from the start, she is a gift from God. She shows me how to be. She comforts me and fills the empty spaces. She has schedules that needs to be met. In meeting hers, mine are too.

I am learning to be more out of myself so I can see others in their suffering. I saw this on an article on Oprah this morning: When someone asks for help, always give her something. You don’t have to give her what she asks for, but you can give her a word of encouragement, a helpful idea or a caring glance. It’s very good advice. You never know how much kind words or a gesture can mean to a person. An acquaintance told me that after I dropped in to see her husband on my way to work.

He was a patient on the onocology ward at the hospital. I worked on the ward next to it. So it really wasn’t out of my way. The article reminded me of her words. “It might not be of anything to you but it meant alot to John,” she said. I have to confess. I’m not a mean person but I don’t always remember to be kind.

I have to remember to be more grateful, too. God has given me some powerful gifts. He has given me tools of expression. I would not be sitting here now tap, tapping out my innards if not for this gift of words. Do you know how powerful words are? I do. I use them to ease my dis-ease, to give me wings to fly, to create stories to encourage and heal what is hurting. I have great respect for them. I use them to speak only for and of myself here.

Then he gave me the pencil and brush to paint my blues away. I believe the blues is his gift, too. How else could the other two show up. One could not do without the other. It’s a tangle dance they do together. I am not sorry for having them. I would be lonely without them after all these years together. Are the blues an addiction? Should I try to rid them. For now, I’ll just try for finding easier ways to live with them. What do you think?

WRITING ON THE WORD

Posted on January 2, 2016 by hafong

2015 is over. We are into the second day of 2016. There has been no big bang. No celebration. None that I’ve felt nor seen anyways. It’s disappointing in a way but it’s all good. It’s a slow comfortable ease from the old into the new. Let me celebrate it now with my words and pictures. Let me draw back the curtain and close the door. Let there be no distractions while I sit in the STILLNESS of last year’s word and think about the ORDER I want in the coming year.

My tea is made. I am ready to sit in silence and look backyards to what I have left behind. It is peaceful here looking out to what was. What was fell short of my intentions of stillness. It happens. Shit and failure can happen. I see that now. I am not that powerful. I am not in control of the Universe. I cannot wave my magic wand and make VOILA! happen. I can’t even tell you a good fairy tale.

What I can tell you is that the stillness I intended and longed for is here within me now. In this moment as I am tapping out my words, I feel its presence within. I look up and I can feel my ancestors looking down on me. I hear a whisper. ‘Be still and you will find order in your life.’

THE CANYON OF MY MIND

Posted on July 8, 2015 by hafong

It’s been such a long while since I’ve flexed these fingers over the keyboard. The movements have become awkward and unfamiliar. It’s like losing touch with one’s close friends. After awhile you find you have nothing to say to each other. You look at each other and wonder how it happened – this strange awkwardness. And so, I am sitting down with my old friend.

Can we get re-acquainted? Can I get the Midas touch and let the letters and words flow from my fingertips again? I hope so. It’s been lonely without words and pictures and stories they tell. There’s no reverberation. I only hear the sound of one hand clapping. It echoes in the canyon of my mind. You can hear a pin drop in its grey emptiness.

I rouse myself from the lassitude that I have fallen in. How I got here, I do not know. But it has lasted long enough. Time to get up, get dress and show up. Time for the words to march across the page to tell the stories. Time to show a little colour and life. There’s a person living on Preston Avenue. See how her vegetables and flowers overflow their beds and pots? See the brilliance of the greens, pinks, blues and purples? Then there is the orange of the lilies, blooming in defiance of the drought. We are having a very dry summer. Forest fires are raging up north and the military have stepped in to help.

The morning is beautiful. The smoke has cleared and the sun is coming through. Won’t you step around to the back and see what I have growing there? There’s peas in the pod, grapes on the vine, the scarlet runners climbing the tower, green tomatoes and little cucumbers. The broccoli is flowering and cabbages forming under cover. The petunias are nodding their approval from above.

Oh, there’s the Bing Cherry bush, too. It’s covered with fruit. Sheba has discovered she likes sleeping outdoors and made her bed beneath it. I wonder what else she has discovered as she sleeps with nature in the night. Maybe if I can quiet my mind and open my heart, they will come to me.

TODAY

Posted on May 11, 2015 by hafong

It’s funny how ideas and other things come into your mind sometimes. Out of nowhere, it seems. How do they come, I wonder. How are they transported and what are they made of? Are they streams of energy or are they what is called will o’ the wisps?

And so it was the lyrics of a song from yesteryear popped into my head. It was John Denver’s Today. Back then I didn’t know he wrote it. I thought it was an old traditional. I have always loved the melody and lyrics. I sang it in the tub last evening and I sang it when I woke up this morning.

They’re wonderful, beautiful words to live by – today. It’s right here and now. I can taste the strawberries and the wine.

Today, while the blossoms still cling to the vine
I’ll taste your strawberries, I’ll drink your sweet wine
A million tomorrows shall all pass away
‘Ere I forget all the joy that is mine, today

I’ll be a dandy, and I’ll be a rover
You’ll know who I am by the songs that I sing
I’ll feast at your table, I’ll sleep in your clover
Who cares what the morrow shall bring

I can’t be contented with yesterday’s glory
I can’t live on promises winter to spring
Today is my moment, now is my story
I’ll laugh and I’ll cry and I’ll sing

STILLNESS

Posted on January 3, 2015 by hafong

I see life in words and pictures. And if I was to choose a word for 2015, it would be STILLNESS. I see the beauty of it right before my eyes – so brilliant and still. It awaits me, telling me I can do it. It is within reach if I wish. All I have to do is nothing.

I have not been good at stillness, at doing nothing. Even at rest, my hands betray me with their tapping, their fluttering. My thoughts run away every chance they get. My mind is not a restful place.

With no more STATS or Code Blues to run to, no call bells to answer, no one’s call of nature to take care of except my own, is it any wonder that I’ve been a little more quirky and unsettled the past year? I have been like a runaway train on a roller coaster, careening out of control. There is no one to save except myself.

STILLNESS is a good word for me. It stills the flutter in my heart, quiets the voice in my head. You are not so powerful, it whispers. You can’t fix everything. I glide smoothly into the warmth of the water and it is totally silent. I’m blowing bubbles through my nose and mouth. I have no room for thoughts as I lift my arm up and roll my face out of the water to breathe. I roll my face back, blowing bubbles and lift my other arm. I follow the black line at the bottom of the pool. Lift, roll, breathe, roll, lift over and over the length of the pool.

I am suspended from thoughts, held in the moment, breathing and living in stillness. It is stillness and silence that I want for 2015. Let me just be for then, perhaps I can see clearly and hear the call of my heart. I have time to be still. There is no fire, no one to rescue. There is just me for now.

onethousandandtwo

Looking at Infinity

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