It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday.}
What worked this week?
Invoking superpowers.
As you know, I love to name superpowers. Naming them reminds me that they’re possible, and then somehow they’re there.
This week I had a million trillion monster-number of things to finish up, and I invoked — in writing — I Am Focused, Happy, Taking Care Of Shit Like A Fairground Stripper!
Then I promptly forgot that I requested this, and when I emerged from a wild flurry of doing, I thought, Whoa look at all this focused happy taking care of shit, where did this come from?
Yes, totally forgetting that I had asked for it. More superpowers, please!
Choosing colors.
Danielle made me go for a Regrounding (secret agent code for pedicure), and this was very good, because I have been in Running Around Like A Headless Chicken mode, and not taking care of myself.
The color I picked was Meet Me On The Star Ferry, which is so beautifully mysterious, and goes so perfectly with the compass I am using for 2015:
Adventure. Rest. Horizons. Security. Passion. Sweetness. Clarity. Presence.
And then I picked An Italian Affair for my fingernails, which is kind of a private joke.
Choosing colors is a lot like naming a superpower or setting an intention. It is a good way for me to play. Each time I look at the color, I feel the resonance of the name.
Next time I might…
Remember about the dust.
Clearing things out raises dust.
Sometimes this is hard to remember, because the dust is invisible.
For example, if you are deleting files. Or throwing away a cozy full-of-holes grey t-shirt that belonged to someone you loved, because it is time to let that go, and because you will always remember how heart-breakingly beautiful your time together was, even without the shirt.
You can’t see the dust. You don’t even realize that’s why you’re coughing. But things got stirred up. And before you get to the whoosh-whoosh feeling of freedom that comes from letting go, there’s the headachey, irritable, uncomfortable part.
It’s from the dust. It’s a dust allergy. The air will clear soon. You’re in the process of clearing it.
I would like to remember this sooner next time.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Remember last week when I got a physical? They gave me the tetanus shot on Wednesday, on Tuesday of this week, my arm and shoulder were STILL SORE. I made faces. And went to work out anyway. And made more faces. A breath for the amount of time my body needs to move through things.
- Panicked Doing All The Work! I mean, admittedly better than Panicked Avoiding All The Work or Panicked Hiding Under The Covers, but it was also exhausting, and the panicky part was not fun. A breath for presence, and for knowing that there is a time for everything.
- I’m ready to leave Portland again. I want to be in the trees, in the desert, near the mountains, by the ocean, on the beach. Lots of places I wouldn’t mind being all of which are very much not here. A breath for this.
- Feeling anxious, and thoroughly convincing myself (monster party in my head!) that Everyone Hates Me because I haven’t delivered all the projects I was working on and how it should have been ready months ago. A breath for trust, for remembering the truth of All Timing Is Right Timing
- Stirring up dust. A breath for letting things go.
- I didn’t get to dance this week. A breath for releasing and for trusting.
- Computer got packed off to the fix-it elves, and either they will be able to fix it or they won’t. Either way, money etc. I have been using other people’s laptops, which is kind of great because it forces me to be laser focused and really use the time I have, and then I get off the computer, which is also good. In fact, my ideal situation would be only having access to a computer for a few hours a day. Maybe I can arrange for someone to just lock mine up in a safe when I get it back, hmmm. A breath for things being what they are right now.
- Inhale, exhale. May all misunderstandings and distortions, internal and external, dissolve in love if not in laughter. Goodbye (and thank you), mysteries and hard moments of this week. May I choose to trust-more love-more release-more receive-more
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- Joy and Sweetness. So much of both of these. For the longest time, these weren’t really qualities that were in the mix for me, it didn’t occur to me to call on them, and now I am a little in love with both of them. They keep bubbling up, while out dancing Saturday night, my head resting on my lover’s chest late Sunday afternoon. A breath for breathing these in, and breathing them all the time, breathing more of them back into the world.
- I started writing a wish over the weekend about something I wanted, and then I didn’t publish it — I went with a different wish instead. And then it came true, out of nowhere. This has been something I’ve been struggling with for a year, and it just resolved itself. Kind of in shock. A breath for good surprises.
- It felt lovely to enter the new year having taken care of dental thing and teeth cleaning and physical and getting nails done. I think this was the first year that I can remember where I felt ready. A breath of thank-you to past me for setting this up.
- New Year’s was simple and easy. I bought roses. I wrote. I talked to Incoming Me. The boy came over around eleven, and we named some wishes and fell asleep in each other’s arms, and slept for ten sweet uninterrupted hours. And I didn’t get PTSD-triggered when the fireworks went off, and this is new. Usually it’s more like this. A breath for entering, more or less, as I wish to be in it, and for the newness of this.
- The hard work is paying off. I finished FOUR ebooks, TWO Havi-Announces-A-Thing pages, five blog posts! I cleared out half my closet and also the problem room. A breath for being in the zone.
- I was able to bring a kind of meditative slowness to thing that needed them. A breath for this.
- I feel very clear. A breath for knowing.
- Thankfulness. So much is good. Texting with Agent Annabelle. Folding clothes slowly and enjoying the touch of fingers on fabric. Stretching. Smiling. Roses. Warm socks.Everything is okay. Nothing is wrong. Now is not then. All Timing Is Right Timing. A full breath of deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
EVERYTHING got done this week, including things that have been in process for months and months, thank you fractal flowers. Goodies soon, to those waiting patiently for ebooks, and announcements very soon, for those who can’t wait to find out what’s happening for Plum Duff. Are you on the list? IT IS VERY EXCITING. And also: Wham Boom.
Revisiting some wise important words of truth from past-me.
Oh how I needed this again: You don’t need to take the leap.
Superpowers…
Powers I had this week…
I asked for the superpower of Focused And Happy And Taking Care Of Shit Like A Fairground Stripper! And I got it.
And I also had the power of Does This Bring Me Joy? No? Okay Then I’m Out Of Here! That is a terrific superpower and also a timesaver. I didn’t spend more than a few seconds at a time on Twitter or Facebook, because the joy question just made everything very clear for me.
Superpowers I want.
I want the superpower of the superpower of Things Resolve Themselves In Unexpected And Sometimes Elegant Ways.
And the superpower of Knowing Deep In My Bones Knowing That All Timing Is Right Timing.
So really both of those are about trust.
The Salve of Meeting On The Star Ferry.
This salve is about trust, and it has its own special magic.
You see, on the Star Ferry, your awareness of time changes. On the Star Ferry, all rules and assumptions dissolve, so however long something takes is the exact right amount of time.
Nothing is late because there is no such thing. You are never behind because there is no such thing. If it takes ten minutes to fold one towel because you were daydreaming, that is perfect. If it takes you forty five minutes to get off the couch, that was a great amount of time to be on a couch.
The secret of the Star Ferry is that it actually travels amazingly quickly.
And the secret to how speedy it is comes from the fact that there is no guilt.
I delight in taking ten minutes to fold a towel? Whoosh, the Star Ferry has just whisked me to a marvelous destination.
The Star Ferry has the powers of delicious kisses, of steady warmth, of turning left instead of right and making a marvelous discovery.
When the Star Ferry salve touches my skin, I am on the Star Ferry. I live my life like it’s the Star Ferry life.
This salve heals bruises, not just the ones that can be seen. It smells like naptime and the coming spring.
If salve does not appeal, you can have this in tea form, as a bath, cocktail, whatever works for you. Not only is there enough salve, there are also enough ways to receive it.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band is called Slam Art, it’s how my phone interprets “so smart”. They are loud and raucous and playing in the Loving Room, which, coincidentally is how my phone autocorrects “living room”. I like Loving Room better. They’re playing all week, and it’s actually just one guy.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
I am still recommending the Emergency Get Calm, Quiet And Steady techniques, since they are keeping things good around here for me.
So I want to seed a reminder that this is a thing, and it helps, a lot. Not just with calming down in the moment but with building the kind of habits that allow you to change your relationship with whatever is scary or uncomfortable.
I hardly ever recommend these because the page is already many years old and needs rewriting. However, copywriting aside, this is still one of the best things I have ever made, by a lot. I have two boxes in my office full of the sweetest thank you notes from people, and so many of them are for this.
Come play if you like…
Join me in the comments. Some of us share hard and good, some of us say hi, or maybe we’re feeling quiet. My ritual doesn’t have to be your ritual. Whatever works for you. We’ve been doing this every week for years now and there still isn’t a right way. Feel free to leave pebbles (or petals!), hearts, warmth, sweetness. Those always work.
Everyone belongs. We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. We don’t give advice.
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever you like, it’s no big deal. And I am blowing kisses to the Beloved Lurkers. I love that you are here too.
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I love the Star Ferry!
Hard: being sick, which is making neutral things feel hard, and hard things feel extra-hard, and good things feel strangely surreal. (My monsters would like me to add that I only have a cold.)
Good: holding on, moving forward, going gently, treasuring small pleasures. My partners and daughter, who support me and show their love for me every day. My journal and pen, which give me so much happiness.
I now invoke the superpower of Inner Starlight. <3
Oh I love the Star Ferry salve.
Let’s see, this week:
The Hard:
– My ear is still filled with water and this is still exhausting and disorienting and occasionally painful. Still, so far the prospect of seeing a doctor is even worse, so I’m in icky limbo about the whole thing.
– Having to go anywhere in the cold, or in the car, or that’s noisy. It makes the ear thing even worse.
– Bear time.
– Naptime, lack thereof, hours of screaming as a substitute. Then hours of cranky, then nap at 5, then up until 1am. I would seriously like to give my kid to someone with more patience, because I’m out.
– Family drama. If someone has an emotion, it’s someone’s fault, and often its decided I’m that someone whether I am or not. (And in a true sense I never am because even if I am mean or grouchy, that’s about me and their response is about them. But many of the times I was not mean and grouchy at all, just being gas lighted.) At least I saw it, but it’s exhausting.
– The return 9 hour drive, which stretched to well over ten because the road was ice, and we were going past the place I almost died when I hit ice a few years ago, and I went fifty miles per hour and had the dubious pleasure of seeing three people who’d passed me end up in the ditch. Harrowing and exhausting.
– Really, I’d like to just sleep for a year, please.
– Processing some big identity change. Always scary.
The Good:
– I’m home! At last.
– Being held and listened to while I cried and cried and cried.
– At least once the baby goes to sleep, she stays asleep.
– I saw two bald eagles and two hawks and also drove through this hour of sunset where anywhere you looked in the huge Eastern Oregon sky, there were tiny birds in Vs changing shape, disbanding and reconstituting.
– I love getting to talk with my kid. She’s been using a lot more Spanish this week, which is awesome. So is the English really. Words!
– Mysteriously finding *way* more money than expected in our budget this month. I figured it out eventually (bonus extra paycheck because every two weeks sometimes means three times a month), but it’s still miraculous. And very helpful.
Hard:
– a bad night for New Year’s Eve, with pain and muscle spasms that needed to be medicated, and when the meds wore off the side effects didn’t, so I spent New Year’s Day in a weird state that I can’t even describe.
– it’s cold! It feels much colder than the thermometer says, both in the house and outdoors.
– a scary health thing with MrB.
– sleep schedule is weird, and its a new kind of weird.
Good:
+ I saw the New Year in at home, in the quiet.
+ sleep, even if the timing is weird.
+ my bed and all the quilts.
+ my friends M and B. They took me to lunch last Sunday, so nice.
+ the Good Doctor K, who MrB still listens to, yay, and his answer for the knee thing
+ my list for the New Year, stretching my boundaries and planning to try new things.
+ I made some calls today that I had been putting off. I wrote a gwish-script first, and I either had that kind of interaction or I didn’t get to talk with the people I needed to talk with.
+ I bought a gadget that MrB has been wanting.
+ I signed up for a class, an in-person class where I have to show up, and there won’t be any videos to download! Even though I teach that kind of class, it’s been a long time since I was a student in one.
Cheers to the chickeneers!
A Saturday Chicken
The Hard:
Sick. Still sick. Cruddy lungs, belly wanting attention. Bleck.
Feeling like not feeling well is the new normal, and maybe I just need to assume that I will feel like crap all the time and I just need to figure out what I can do within that sphere. Or maybe this is monsters or iguanas talking.
The Better:
Can still do things while sick like keep house and lie on the couch and write.
Finding a wonderful trove of writing prompts on Dead Darlings.
Having a hard day of clothes shopping turned around by a saleswoman who picked out the exact right things for me, that I would never ever have taken off the shelf. And now I have costumes that make me feel confident and together and pretty. Here’s to the superpower of Pants That Do Not Get Dumpy By The End of the Day.
Remembering “this, too.”
The hard
-tired and no rest over the holidays
-sick
-grandmother doing very poorly in the mental health department
The good
-promising myself that I will give myself the rest I need
-this cold is the perfect excuse to rest — i need to rest BEFORE this happens, but thank you, body, for reminding me.
Hearts and pebbles to all y’all.
What worked this week? Various improvisations with lavender.
Next time I might… pack even less. Maybe fewer books, more scarves/shawls.
Also? Inventory and transform all the shoes. Make a garland with the laces and the fang-tips. Slash up the leather and stitch together the pieces into a fabulous cloak, accessorized with shield and net.
Hard: Shoes. Jesus, so many shoes.
Good:
I see the pattern, and possibilities for disengaging from it.
Recharging the batteries with changes of scene.
*raises glass in direction of Slam Art”
Chicken time.
Les mystieres……
* visceral memory of that sensation when you have been in a crowded place, feeling joyful and connected and belonging, and then for some unknown reason you feel a little dizzy and the noise and buzz of the party around you suddenly sounds like it’s coming from a long way away, as if you’re seeing and hearing everything through water. And then you’re not feeling connected or like you belong anymore, and it’s all very Satre-ish nausea and Passage to India echoes and other existential melancholia, and you need to get out of the crowded noisy space and you feel sad and weird and lonely again. *sigh*
* other stuff. None too dreadful.
Les pleasures……
* colour returning to my day to day life. Hanging the washing, preparing food that actually requires using a chopping board (!!!), kids that are sweet and cute even when they’re awake, a distinct drop in crazed escape plans hatching in my mind…
* I’ve been pretty good at being disciplined about keeping myself in the mild zone, as this is much more energetically sustainable, but I miss my dragon-fire passion bursts of inspiration and rush. Or rather, I miss the way I didn’t feel my sadness, lonesomeness, unkind-to-self-ness when I was caught up in the burn and the rush. So, I think that’s something, to be still in the mild zone, with consciousness and intention, even though it means allowing hard feelings to be here. It makes me think it might be a change in pattern that might actually stick, which will be a nice change.
* a week of FS blog posts! Mmmmmmmm, delicious. Thank you 🙂 xoxoxo
* I got over my embarrassment over something that doesn’t even matter and that let me open up a whole wing in the house of me I’d decided was too embarrassing to unlock. There you go.
Cluck cluck. Xoxoxoxo
I love the Star Ferry! and also the superpower of Focused And Happy And Taking Care Of Shit Like A Fairground Stripper!
what worked this week?
Giving [dog who freaks out over fireworks] a naturopathic calming tab hours before the ruckus started. Good for her, good for us all.
Having a good {for me] and truthful cover story for avoiding new year’s parties (see dog item, above)
Accepting the reality that I’d likely not get much sleep on new year’s eve. (confirmed: 2-hour blocks of napping over the course of 8 hours is not actual sleep)
Setting up near year’s day for rest, recuperation, and the art of doing nothing.
More bubble baths and saunas
minus and plus:
-fireworks
-5 work days squished into 3
-special project all day on friday
+minimal traffic all week
+being trusted with friday’s special project
+feelings of happy and joy
+a break from physical rehab appts (doctor closed office):
> a breath for a break from appointments
> a breath for the chance to notice that the rehab is working
> a breath for knowing that the 3x/week will soon go to 1x/week
prepping for this week:
o time shift: in class this week & must arrive 2 hours earlier than usual, feeling a bit of yuck
o 4 days of class on a totally new topic, feeling anxious and excited
o made nutritious soup yesterday for meals this week, feeling cared for
o back to physical rehab appointments, feeling no pain and looking forward to the end of this
o leading my first [silent retreat] meeting, feeling confident and a bit anxious
o a bit more prepping for a room reconfiguration [not a proxy], feeling big yays
superpower for the week: I’m going to grab some
Focused And Happy And Taking Care Of Shit Like A Fairground Stripper!
partly because just saying (silently or out loud) “like a fairground stripper” just makes me giggle and giggling makes everything better:
doin’ rehab exercises….like a fairground stripper!
attending tech class….like a fairground stripper!
leading a bit of a tough meeting…..like a fairground stripper!
Feeling better already!
Wishing all chickeneers love this week!