Category: contemplative life (Page 2 of 4)

Blahs

April 22, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Kids were sick, so we stayed home and watched a lot of Hilda. I tried to read a couple of books but was too tired and ended up taking a nap. Tried to write in my notebook but only managed a page. Tried to find the will to do something — anything! — but found myself sinking back into the couch every chance I got.

At long last I roused myself to write a bit more in my notebook and then came down to the computer to write this blog.

I have blah days like this at least a couple of times a month (sometimes more). I’m tired, brain-fogged, out of gumption, and I wish I could do some work, but there’s just nothing left in the tank. These days are most likely tied to my cycle and I’m PMSing, but that doesn’t make them any easier. I wish I could get up and do something, but I’m just, well… blah.

I wish as a parent and adult, I could have more days where I’m allowed to be blah and just lay around watching TV and listening to music and doing nothing. I feel SO guilty about a day like today. What did I accomplish? Nothing.

(N.B.: I did write some fiction this morning in the early hours after waking. I’m trying to make this a thing, so I made sure to follow my new morning routine. So I did accomplish about 700 words.)

But why do I have to feel guilty about having a blah day? Are adults not allowed to spend a day doing nothing? Are parents not allowed to just veg on the couch with their kids for the afternoon?

Am I the only one who feels guilty for not having a more “productive” Saturday? Are other people having blah Saturdays and just not caring?

I wish I could be a not-caring type. I wish I could relish these blah days and go with the flow. I’m allowed to have a blah day. I’m allowed to spend my Saturdays doing nothing in particular. I wouldn’t want every Saturday to be like this, but a few every once in awhile is fine. Good, even.

The thing about the blah day is that it’s so slow and melancholy that it makes me start to think of all the stuff I could be doing if I had just a little more energy. And then I start making plans and looking forward to stuff, and pretty soon, a few days after the blah day, I’m back to normal and ready to get on with my work. So, if the blah day eventually helps me get back to my normal self, why shouldn’t I embrace it? Why shouldn’t I luxuriate in the blah day and accept it for what it is. It’s my body and mind telling me I need to rest, and that it’s okay to idle the whole day through.

There’s still some hours left before I need to go to sleep. Maybe I’ll spend them vegging on the couch or trying to read those books again. And if I happen to doze off, then all the better. That’s what blah days are for.

Accomplishments

March 23, 2023 / / 0 Comments

I finished reading two books today, and I must say, I feel a great sense of accomplishment whenever I finish a book. It’s not like finishing a book is some rare occasion for me — I finish books all the time — but it still gives me great satisfaction, like I’ve really done something with my day to have finished a book.

Weirdly, I also find myself feeling very guilty when I plop down in bed and read during the middle of the day, like I’m some kind of radical or revolutionary, a la John and Yoko with their Bed Peace, just some layabout anarchist who should be working to earn her daily bread, but instead, I’m reading books and wasting time.

But then, when I finish the book, I feel as if I couldn’t have used my time any better. Finishing a book is SOMETHING. No matter how many books I finish, the satisfaction of turning the last page and closing the book will never be diminished. It’s a glorious feeling. A journey completed.

Anyway, I finished two books today, and in my defense, I had blocked off the day as a “vacation day” because I had been called for jury duty. I wasn’t selected to serve, but all that waiting before the selection process meant I could read my book, and then, when I got home and didn’t have any particular projects scheduled for the day, I opened the book back up and finished it. And then I picked up another one that I had been reading off and on, and finished that one too.

Thus, the day was a glorious success.

Ordinary Time

January 18, 2023 / / 0 Comments

After Christmastime, the church enters what’s known as Ordinary Time, and I feel like my own life this month has entered a kind of “ordinary time” that is very welcome after the ordeals of Christmas and New Year’s.

I don’t mean the normal busy flurry of activity that precedes Christmas or the merriment and unstructured time of the Christmas Octave. I mean my personal ordeals, which included catching a cold that then led to a wicked cough, which then led to back pain and sciatica in my right leg and a stint in the emergency room, and an MRI, and a spinal injection to help ease the pain, and now here I am on nerve medicine, muscle relaxers, and ibuprofen trying to manage the pain and get on with life.

And I am getting on with life. On these days when the kids are all in school, and I can sit at my desk and work, and the house is (relatively) in order, and I know what needs to be done and I have time (and health, enough) to do it, I am content. This is that ordinary time I referenced above, that time when the days pass uneventfully but with satisfaction: a day well done, a life unremarkable but nevertheless joyful.

Weirdly, despite my continued leg pain, I am joyful. I don’t know if it’s the effects of my new Panda Planner (which I can’t believe I’ve become a “planner person,” but I must say, having used the Panda Planner for almost three weeks, I can feel a difference in my organization, productivity, and well-being), or if my joy comes from facing so much physical pain that I’ve had to cling to whatever happiness and peace I can muster in order to stay sane and not despair, or maybe it’s just the medicines I’m taking that are blissing me out, but whatever the cause of the joy, I am here for it.

Maybe it’s the fact that for the past two and a half weeks, I’ve been awake at 6:30 a.m. due to the leg pain, and I’ve used those early morning hours to walk slowly around the house and listen to the Liturgy of the Hours. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time someone has found joy in early morning prayer. Saints and monks can testify to that.

I don’t know if it’s a middle-age thing (since I am officially middle-aged), but I can’t get over how grateful I am for the experience of “ordinary time.” Habit, predictability, the incremental everyday work that builds into satisfying accomplishment: I like the rhythm of it. I like that things seem ordered. Yes, of course, I still have the chaos that comes with raising happy, wild, volatile young children, but that chaos is mitigated by the ordinary beats of ordinary time. There are no big events or holidays ahead, no trips or happenings to plan for. Yes, I still have deadlines and stress, but for this brief respite in January, I can just let myself settle into the regularities of ordinary life.

It’s the ebb and flow. I love the excitement of Christmastime, but now I love the quiet of Ordinary. We need both to have a balanced life.

Blizzards and the Present Moment

December 23, 2022 / / 0 Comments

We are in the midst of a winter storm here in Michigan, though my side of the state has avoided the blizzard designation for now. Instead, we’re in “winter storm warning” mode, praying that our power stays on and the roads are clear for Christmas Eve.

I’ve been trying really hard lately to live in the present moment and not worry about the past or the future, but weather events like these invite a kind of necessity to think ahead. If our power goes out, what do we do? How much gas do we have for the generator? Do we have enough food and water? Do we have batteries for flashlights?

When a big storm hits, we need to plan ahead, so living only in the present moment is risky. It’s foolhardy to never prepare for the future.

I don’t want to be caught off-guard, so I spend a lot of time thinking about the future and making contingency plans. In some ways, I’m being wise. If our power goes out later tonight, we’ll be glad we bought that generator.

But in other ways, my worry about the future is a hindrance. It not only makes me anxious and leads me to catastrophize, but it also makes me miss what’s happening in the here and now.

A few weeks ago, my youngest child was in the midst of a tantrum and I was at my wit’s end. I wanted him to stop screaming, but I couldn’t skip through the tantrum and jump to the calm that always comes in the end. I had to endure the screaming and flailing and acting out. I wanted it to be the future, but I was stuck in the present. We are all stuck in the present like this: stuck in a moment of drudgery or pain or annoyance or helplessness. What we want is to skip ahead. Get to the future. Leave the bad stuff behind.

But I can’t skip over my child’s tantrum, or an illness, or a snowstorm. I have to endure it. And that means I can either think about the future when everything will be better (I hope), or I can accept the present moment in all its agony and move beyond endurance to something approaching an embrace.

This doesn’t mean I’m happy about my child’s tantrum, or the fact that we might lose power from cyclone winds, or whatever other maladies befall me during my lifetime, but even in the midst of these maladies, I’m still here. I’m still alive. Living in the present moment is about living. I’m not embracing the bad as if it’s good, but I’m embracing the fact that I’m alive.

And being alive is good, even in the midst of moments when it’s hard.

It’s a bit hard right now with my whole family cooped up in the house while the winds whip through the trees and snow swirls in all directions. The kids are getting cabin fever, and I’m still worried about what the roads will be like tomorrow for Christmas Eve. The future is making me anxious, but so is the present.

And even though it’s hard, I’ve got to embrace this present moment. It’s frustrating. I’m nervous about the winds. But there are still small moments, present moments, that I can embrace. The sweetness of honey in my peppermint tea. The glow of lights on the Christmas tree. The birds gathered around the feeder, their muted colors of gray and brown, their bright colors of red and white all a flurry of wings and beaks, swarming and scattering the sunflower seeds like tiny pebbles on the hard, smooth surface of the stark-white snow.

I don’t know what tonight will bring, but for this present moment, I’m content.

Tuesday Morning Poem

August 23, 2022 / / 0 Comments

That watery squirt

from the mustard bottle

is the saddest yellow.

Weak and dirty-looking,

like day-old dishwater,

it doesn’t even have the

prickly tang of real

mustard.

 

Yellow must be bold or

else it risks disappearing

into the plate.

 

Not like the yellow of

sunflowers or marigolds,

or even the pale yellow

of that mustard stain

on my shirt, which

may be sad, but it

speaks to happier picnics

and sustenance

and glorious afternoons

under the sun.

Rule 8

December 27, 2021 / / 0 Comments

I’ve loved Sr. Corita Kent’s “Rules” for Immaculate Heart College’s art department since seeing them on Austin Kleon’s blog, but of all the rules, Rule 8 wasn’t one that stuck with me. I am much more a Rule 9 and Helpful Hints kinda gal, but the other day I was thinking about the difference between reading a book and writing a book, and I thought of Rule 8: “Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.” First, I’m not saying that reading a book is the same thing as analyzing it… but maybe I am? We tend to define analysis as this super-serious and intellectual thing, but at its heart, analysis is to study something with care, to look closely, to learn the nature of something. When we read deeply, are we not doing this? When we delve into a book (not just skim it or run across it like basilisk lizards), aren’t we looking closely? Aren’t we trying to learn the nature of the story, of the ideas, of the author who gave voice to its words?

Rule 8 feels like another way of saying that when we take something in, it’s a different process than putting something out into the world. When I read, I’m looking closely at something that is outside myself: I’m taking it in.

When I write, I’m releasing something from within: I’m letting it out.

And these two processes must be different, though related. I can’t be looking closely at something and studying it with care if I’m in the midst of releasing it. My eye is directed inward when I am creating. It’s only once the thing has been released that my mind’s eye can be directed outward. But it’s the cycle between these two visions that Rule 8 is hinting at. It’s not one or the other: it’s not all creating or all analyzing all the time. It’s creating: putting things out into the world. And then it is analyzing: taking things in from the world. Or vice versa. Not sure it matters which comes first, the creating or analyzing. But it’s the interplay between the two, the cycle. That is what matters. We just have to remember to not try to do both at the same time. We can’t steep the tea and drink it at the same time.

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