anxiety, Living

Weeds

The mosquitoes actually held off long enough the other night for me to do some weeding in our vegetable garden. In that time shortly before the gloaming, when the heat of the day was finally fading as the sun dipped between the trees and the wind rose up to fill its space, I loosened the earth all around my feet, gently extricating snap pea tendrils from crab grass claws. There were weeds with plump, red stalks that looked like they would ooze moisture if I snapped them. There were delicate rounded leaves with lacy white flowers. They were under and around and throughout – an integral part of my garden – perhaps more numerous than the plants that were supposed to be there.

At times, I had to stand back and survey the leafy patch below me. Bent over in the worst possible posture for my back, it was hard to distinguish the plants from the weeds. At eye level, all the leaves blended into one range of green. It was hard to tell where the clover ended and the pea leaves began. The heart-shaped leaves of the green beans melded with tall stalks of pointed leaves. There were even imposter marigolds with tiny yellow buds.

It almost scares me, the uncanny ability of nature to so closely mimic ‘actual’ plants with its weeds and then to germinate them right next to the others so they have the best possible chance at survival by blending. Think about it, the first weeds a gardener pulls – even if it’s in the five-second walk to her driveway – is the tall spindly one sticking out like a sore thumb. These others are stealth, imposters of the best kind – or most insidious depending on whose side one takes.

It’s no wonder, then, that I have a hard time distinguishing my bad habits from productive practices; destructive behaviors from healthy ways of being. The roots of the less desirable plants of my life are invasive, wrapping themselves around my more likeable attributes and behaviors, making themselves almost impossible to extricate – or at least harder to distinguish or even notice. Without stepping back to take stock, my life is one solid plane of green, weeds and all; the different shades and shapes indistinguishable.

Making the rounds at our local farmers’ market, I stopped to talk with a woman who had woven some beautiful baskets (who also happens to know a thing or two about gardening; she harvests worms for composting). One skinny, oblong one with a graceful arch of a handle caught my daughter’s eye. The woman directed my attention to a small ceramic plaque stitched to its front. ‘Weeds’, it said. She told me of the Native American tradition of placing their worries in a basket such as this to put them away; make them go away. I joked how you could also take weeds as a literal worry as a gardener.

But as the day went on, I marveled at how symbolic that little basket and the word etched on its front were. If I don’t take the time to stuff those weeds into a receptacle of some sort, they will crowd out the good in my life. The weeds of worry, perfectionism, over-catastrophizing, unrealistic expectations, not prioritizing, not slowing down enough to come to a gentle stop rather than a screeching halt. I need to cultivate my garden in such a slow, gentle way that I see the weeds as they pop up and handle them one by one, rather than waiting to turn the earth over and start over because they’ve taken over.

I think I need a bigger basket . . .

anxiety, Living, May is Mental Health Month, Mental Health

Self-Aware

Has a massage ever brought you to tears?

Tears that spring out of nowhere at the release of tension you didn’t even know you had.

The line between physical and psychic stress often blurs.

We often operate at such a high level of continuous stress that it doesn’t even register unless we disturb the flow.

A few months ago, my father and I attended Tai Chi classes. It was something he had wanted to try for quite some time. I found a class offered at the community center in my town and we went. I was used to the gentle flow of yoga, which the instructor told me is a cousin to Tai Chi, but this required an even higher level of calm and restraint. With my high-strung, perpetually-on-a-treadmill ways, it was a stretch of a different kind. I told myself to slow down as my cloud hands swept across the room, but it was something long since foreign to my body.

At one of the sessions, our teacher led us through a meditation we’d never done before. I didn’t know how relaxed I could get without lying prostrate on the floor, but I dutifully took my breaths and moved my hands – and started to cry.

It was not a bad day. I did not feel overly stressed, anxious, or upset. And yet, once I allowed my body and mind to slow, the pressure slack, the excess overflowed.

I wanted to kiss this little old lady for releasing my five elements.

But I need to channel my own little old lady. I cannot look outside for inner contentment. I must make the time to stretch in the morning, to adjust my posture, to make a mental scan of my body and release the tension.

I need to be more self-aware and body-aware so that a small chink in the dam doesn’t lead to a crazy rush of water I didn’t even know was collecting. It shouldn’t take a breach to make me notice the physical, mental, and emotional stress I’m holding.

My mental and physical health should be about maintenance, not damage control.

Living, Poetry

Freeze Frame

I have to start taking my camera to the bus stop.

Pine needles etched in white relief against the soil.

Green mossy mountain peaks capped with snow.

Peaks and valleys of meadow grass filled with frost.

A large oak leaf the color of cowboy boots, its stem pinched between pink mittened fingers, the snow crumbling and peeling away in the wind as it bends.

But then there are the things that can’t be captured with a lens.

The great rushing of wind through the treetops.

The force of it demanding spine erect, shoulders back.

A tingling of the checks, a tear in the eye, a crisp, fresh burn

that makes life seem new,

the morning full of possibility,

the body full of life.

* On an somewhat related note: I found many gorgeous pictures of frost on moss by many talented photographers. I, however, did not have the heart to steal them, though they would have accompanied my musings perfectly. I also learned a lot about BFFs Sadie Frost and Kate Moss.

anxiety, Identity, Living, Writing

Ironic Tosh of Fate

Irony.

When I titled yesterday’s blog entry, I had a song from the early career of Bob Marley and the Wailers in my head. I searched in vain for a recording or video of it, finding only a much slower version. The version I remembered had more of a rock-steady beat than rolling reggae one. A few comments online reminded me that it was Peter Tosh singing that version (with the Wailers) anyway.

I gave up the hunt, but got the ironic twist that, though the universe was handing me a slower beat, I still wanted the frenetic one.

And I remembered that a character I’d written – if whom bares any resemblance to her author is purely coincidental – blasted that song in her car as she tried to outrun her problems.

After muddling her way through study hall and forcing concentration in the rest of her classes, Kathryn finally flopped into the front seat of her car. She stared out the front window. She put the keys in the ignition, but did not turn them. She just sat. She sat and thought about nothing and everything all at once. She took vague notice of the cars moving and leaving around her, but only when they moved directly across her line of sight did her eyes actually focus. When she finally noticed that there had been no movement around her for quite some time, she looked around to see hers was the only car left in the parking lot. She reached her feet towards the clutch and brake pedal and her hand towards the keys. Peter Tosh’s voice suddenly flooded the insides of the car and ran down her eardrums and into her brain. She was awake now. Maybe the rock-steady would steady her nerves and take her out of this funk. She moved the gearshift into first and grasped the steering wheel.

Kathryn left the parking lot without having any idea of where she was going. It was as if her car was on autopilot and eventually she found herself on the highway. All the while, she bounced in time to the music and occasionally would break into song, but all of this was secondary. It was as if her body and car were simply performing a routine; her consciousness really wasn’t along for the ride. As she moved on, off, and around the major arteries surrounding the city, moving in one big loop, she had no destination. She let the CD loop continuously as the steering wheel slid loosely between her fingers.

The sun finally dipped so low it angled itself right into her windshield and her eyes. She realized it was probably time to go home. She put on her left blinker to signal her way into the passing lane. Just as she edged her way around the car in front of her, she saw the two stripes of black rubber on the road. They started right where her front tires were now and arced away from her in a gentle curve until they ended at the Jersey barrier and a broad metallic smudge and gouges began. She almost wanted the car to follow them the way her eyes had – but why? Because it was a natural progression? Because she felt she was already set up on that path? Because it was easier to continue on an established path than to start a new one not even forged yet?

Suddenly the deep bass line of another Peter Tosh song resounded through the car speakers and she jerked the car back into line with the others. She shook her head and took a deep breath. She gripped the steering wheel, her fingers resting in the grooves meant to keep her hands in place, in control, and began to sing along:

“Stop the train, I’m leavin’, stop the train, I’m leavin’ believe me when I say, stop the train, I’m leavin’, said it won’t be too long whether I’m right or wrong, won’t be too long whether I’m right or wrong.”

Personal resemblance to our characters – especially when they do things we don’t like – is a whole ‘nother discussion. But there it was. Stop the train, I’m leavin’. Maybe I can shut my mind off long enough to disembark and get back to center.

In the meantime, I can at least listen to some kick ass music.

Editorial note: Thank you for respecting my intellectual property and not sharing my work with others without my permission – unless of course you know an editor who needs new talent ; )

anxiety, Living, Spirituality

Stop This Train

How do I shut off the interior noise?

How do I ignore the gritty, tacky texture of frosting on my fingertips and ringing the ring on my finger?

How do I remember that the ashes on my forehead are an outward sign that everything I do is in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?

How do I stay focused with the distraction, the inability to focus, gravity pulling me elsewhere, my eyes to the side when they need to be focused front and center?

My brain feels fuzzy. It has that detached feeling that comes with being unhinged. “Unable to prioritize” as the postpartum/anxiety literature says. That’s a nice neat term for what I’m feeling. A gross oversimplification of the split between my rational and emotional selves. I can prioritize. My mind can still order things, ranking them in order of importance. But my [free will, stubborn mule, FU factor, overwhelmed stressball of anxiety – pick one or all of the above] ignores that list, places it behind a film so the suggestion of it is there, but I can’t quite grasp it.

In the sleep-deprived days following the birth of my third, I finally came to understand what my grandmother and other relatives described as a futile searching for a word in conversation. You know what you want to say. The idea is fully formed in your head, but you cannot transmit it out your mouth and to the understanding of those around you. Grasping, pinching, clutching, coveting those words, like a linguistic Scrooge, you can’t pull the one you need down from the clouds in your head. You would share if only you could. Being at a loss for words truly brought home how sleep deprived I was. With the birth of the second, third, et al, child, you don’t have a choice but to continue on with the routine of your family as if nothing happened except a new addition to your family and sleepless nights. It’s easy to ‘forget’ or repress how damn tired you are – until you stammer like a blithering idiot because you truly cannot form a sentence.

That’s the sensation I get now – only not with words, but thoughts. I cannot light on one particular thought before being pulled to another before it’s fully formed, and another and another, ad infinitum, until I write obsessive lists because I’m so desperately afraid that one most important thought will fly out of my head.

With my three year-old chatting next to me and the priest’s microphone shut off for the second half of mass so his words only slightly permeated the walls of the cry room, I actually did get some peace. Before the microphone went off, a handful of most important words permeated the walls of my heart. Everything we do is in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Comforting and terrifying at the same time. The ashy smudge on my forehead, at least for today, gives me a tangible reminder to hold my tongue, cull my words carefully, not let my obnoxious, self-absorbed anxiety-ridden self rule my role as mother, wife, human being. I want to ooze peace, love, and hair grease (well two of the three anyway). I’m in my own miserable little world lately, but I need to relate to the greater world and try to improve at least my little corner of it.

It’s hard to break out of rotating loop of mindchatter, though. – especially when it comes at you like the feed from a manic channel surfer.

So how to do it? Shut off the TV by going to sleep? Prayer? Beating my head against the wall? Go on vacation?

Any suggestions?

anxiety, Living

Call in the Astronomers

I hate a whole week’s worth of list staring at me. Seven entrées marching across the menu of my life. A calendar scattered with to-dos and appointments bookended by trips to and from the bus stop.

A thousand grains of sand – insignificant events – piled up to smother me.

I cannot compartmentalize, tackling one manageable item at a time. Trivial, minute tasks threaten to overwhelm me simply because they come all at once. Like a student with an IEP, I need my work broken into more manageable chunks and fed to me one at a time so I don’t choke. But I don’t have a case manager. I am my case manager and I can’t ignore the subsequent steps I know are coming for the sake of the present one or my sanity. Just like I can’t fall for the set-my-clock-fast-so-I-won’t-be-late trick. I always subtract the minutes and fight against that clock trying to fit squeeze every second for what it’s worth. I see right through the subterfuge.

And then I remember the words of a visiting priest this past Sunday. He reminded us that there are millions more stars in the sky than all the grains of sand in the world. If even the mass amounts of sand are dwarfed by the all the stars in the sky, how small are we? How infinitesimal our blip on the radar of the universe. How trivial our concerns and worries and to-dos that seems so life-altering when we encounter them.

This is not unlike the advice my therapist gave me a year or more ago, which still proves relevant: The 10-10-10 rule.

Will this matter in ten minutes?

Will this matter in ten months?

Will this matter in ten years?

Yes, in ten minutes, I’ll probably still be worrying and obsessing over it, but in ten months or ten years? Doubtful.

Our visiting priest also quoted a South African astronomer, who when a world war was imminent and battle lines were being drawn, told policymakers and strategists, do not call politicians or soldiers to solve the world’s problems, call in the astronomers. How much grander is the universe than our little corner of it? How petty even multinational concerns in the grand scheme of all creation?

I have a newfound love for astronomers. I think we should employ them in all things personal and global. What a different world it would be if we gazed heavenward from time to time instead of always being bogged down by the drudgery of the corporeal. After all, we are all made from dust and to dust we shall return. And we all know dust is way outnumbered by stars.

Legacy, Living

Gratidão

There are many things for which to be thankful:

The kickass song by a local ska group* for which this blog entry is titled.

Education – without which I wouldn’t be annoyed that I have to shift around the above two sentences so they don’t end in a preposition.

A Facebook meme that focuses on something positive and productive for once – albeit every single day of this month.

The light of a skylight encircling me and my laptop as I write.

The tenuous hold we have on this earth.

The tenacious grip of a frail relative determined to hold on.

(Oops, broke that rule about prepositions)

Humor and its ability to help us carry on.

(Despite conventions 😉 )

A full-on arms-and-legs-wrapped around hug from a toddler.

A gentle hug from my first whose head now nestles into my midsection she’s so tall.

The shy smile of my middle daughter whose quiet strength is not to be taken for granted.

Love – strong, old and new, ever changing, enduring.

The wistful look of an elderly woman – reminding me of the immense gifts right under my nose.

Remembrance, reminders, traditions that connect the present and the past and put us in better mind for the future.

* The Agents

Living, motherhood, parenting

Phases and Stages

As my three year-old legs trudged after my parents on the last leg of a trail where the promise of the parking lot was just around the next corner, I was the most tired I had ever been in my life.

In the final push of a crazy semester where all-nighters became a necessity, I was the most tired I had ever been in my life.

On the last day of the marking period during my first year of teaching, with too many grades to process and not enough daylight hours to do it in, I was the most tired I had ever been in my life.

When I slept twelve hours a night and still needed a nap during my first pregnancy, I had never been more tired in my life.

Then the baby was born.

Then a pregnancy while taking care of a toddler.

Then a pregnancy while taking care of a toddler and a preschooler.

When a few years into a family of three, I thought I could resume my own interests and still maintain the smooth flow of said family, I was never more tired in my life.

Undertaking a six-day intensive writing institute, prepping a manuscript for publication, tearing through my house for showings, looking for a new home for us, and hosting a birthday party, I have never been more tired in my life.

It’s so easy to get snarky with ingénues of any sort, in any matter, when you know what’s coming down the pike. But they don’t. To them, in that instant, it is the hardest thing they’ve dealt with. As is everything that I think is the penultimate exhaustion-inducing tribulation. But there’s always something more challenging than the last, isn’t there? Which is another good reason not to resort to snarkiness – karma will come around and knock you on your ass – or at the very least, laugh heartily at your discomfort.

All the more reason to be present.

If we lament our lot now, when we’ve reached the next, progressively more difficult step, we’ll look back and realize we didn’t know how good we had it.

A wise woman with almost as many children as Mrs. Duggar with whom I’ve become acquainted once said, “You always have one more child than you think you can handle.” So true. Adding one more straw of any sort isn’t going to break our back, even if we fear it may. If we only follow our instincts and trust in ourselves, our bodies, our lives, our mindsets will shift naturally to accommodate the weight.

Great advice. If I wasn’t so damn tired, maybe I’d be able to follow it.

Chopping Potatoes

and other metaphors for motherhood

Tag Archives: mindfulness