Change Versus Rest

 

It’s said that a change is as good as a rest. So, in theory, I should be able to shift from work routine to home routine without doing a face-plant on the first day of vacation, right?

Wrong.

My first day went fairly smoothly in that I accomplished all I’d set out to do, which wasn’t very much in comparison to getting up and getting out to spend a day with my co-workers at the office. Such an endeavour demands more energy than a day off, so on Day One I went easy on myself ... I thought.

I slept in, took a walk, started my annual read of The Night Circus, ate way too much sugar, did some philosophizing with Ter, and did not need a nap to get me through the day. We planned to finish up the last of our prezzie shopping on Day Two, but when I woke up that morning, I was headachy and seriously conflicted about my ability to deal with crowds of people in a confined space. I tried to talk myself into soldiering on, that I was just tired but it would be okay—and the next thing I knew, I was in tears over nothing and Ter bailed me out by insisting I stay home while she tackled the Christmas crowds. Gratefully, I relented.

Ter was a trooper, making two forays into the retail wild and accomplishing her mission without me whining in her wake. I read my book, skipped taking a walk, ate no gluten, and yes, took that afternoon nap. Day Three was a much better start, though we were both semi-stunned at how quickly the fatigue set in during our quick trip to the mall. But that’s another post.

The point of this one is my realizing that a change is not always as good as a rest. Sometimes a full stop does more good than an altered focus, especially at this time of year. Christmas is a whole other barrel of monkeys when it comes to energy drain and I’m still figuring out the critical balance between capacity and demand in regular life. The curve remains pretty steep as I suss out which symptoms are attributed to age and which are the result of living in a post-COVID world. The plague struck as I reached my sixties so I’m not sure what would have happened anyway; in some ways I’ve never been so confused by ongoing change.

Methinks it’s time for a rest.

The Next Two Weeks

This is my life for the next two weeks. With breaks for the new Star Wars film and hosting a visit with my wee and boy sisters on New Year’s Eve, the bulk of my remaining fortnight’s vacation will be spent writing. Yup, a typewriter and a coffee cup (actually a computer and a tea tumbler) are my constant companions as I devote myself to reconnecting with the Muse.

My primary project is the story of Caius and Aurelia. I won’t get it finished—there’s too much to tell—but now that I feel more like myself again, I’m eager to resume the writing of it. While I was doing the dishes the other night, the opening lines of Aurelia’s POV drifted in on the winter wind, soon followed by a third character stepping up to tell his version of the tale. I was so excited I forgot about the dishes and stood with my hands in the hot water, watching the pictures in my mind’s eye. With that much meat on the bone, I’ll be feasting well into 2017!

Reconnecting means more than with the Muse, however. I lost some serious touch with my daily practice after accidentally igniting an auto-immune reaction to a homeopathic flu preparation in November. A natural alternative to an annual flu shot, which I have never had, I decided to get back with the program after some years of going without—and I wish I had gone without it this year, too. Within 48 hours of the first dose, joints were flaring all over the place; and while there is no definitive proof that the medicine was the culprit, the timing is too suspicious to discount it. Over the five week course, my arthritis progressively worsened, started to recover, then worsened again. Three health practitioners had three different theories. None of the treatments made it better. One or two made it worse. I decided to finish the flu program rather than quit halfway through—it may or may not have been a good idea, but four weeks after my final dose and my body appears to be recalibrating. Oh, my joints still hurt like tiny star flares, but the frequency, location and intensity are diminishing and, as I say, I am beginning to look outward with more interest in things than I was through the past couple of months.

During those interminable weeks, it was all I could do to get out of bed, get to work and hang on until fatigue sent me to a premature bedtime. Christmas only happened with the help of tea fairy Treena and my angels—thanks to them, I was able to pull off the coup of Christmas prezzies for my beloved Ter, who was my stalwart rock the whole time—but anything else requiring energy or focus fell by the wayside. Weekly yoga sessions, daily meditations, attention to detail at the office (I’m sure my mistakes will show up later in January), and writing anything other than my name were sacrificed in the name of survival.

Though I did finish my annual reading of The Night Circus. And the Christmas cards got done. Priorities, you know.

So, my fiendish plan for the rest of my vacation also includes reconnecting with Ru. Gradually, gently, I mean to reinstate my twice weekly yoga sessions and practice more frequent meditations. Ter has wryly warned against “over meditating”—she has as many gurus as I have doctors, and in helping to make her point with me, she realized that she has a similar proclivity to spiritual maintenance as I have to physical. And it’s true: too much of a good thing can be as harmful as too much of a bad one. The pendulum on maintenance (physical for me, spiritual for her) swung a bit too far and messed us up in 2016. Between us, we intend on simplifying our practices as we move into the new year, aiming for balance in all things.

With love,

Take the Day

The cough medicine commercial is right: a sick day is misnamed. It’s actually a “getting well” day—and I’m taking one. Admitting this may cost me a day’s pay should my boss happen upon this post (a billion to one shot, I’m sure) but it’s worth it to point out that I am not physically ill. I needed a mental health day; a day for self-care and to nurture a spirit that’s been flaring hard against a smothering global darkness and finally conceded defeat last night.

I’m down, but not out.

I may be a little drained from the daily lineup of coworkers who stop by my office to tell me their woes, but on a deeper level, I think I am royally pissed. Not with my colleagues, not with my family, not at home, and not even at life. Life is good. It’s a challenge in contrast, but life is a gift. No one has the right to rob someone else of it.

I digress.

I think that I’m pissed at the folks who sit online and berate the good intentions of others. When Paris happened, I witnessed an explosion of French flags popping up in social media as horrified humans rose to their higher natures and rallied in solidarity with France. Shortly after this surge of collective compassion, a second explosion occurred—of outraged reproach for this show of “selective support”. Beirut had been similarly assaulted on the same day. The same number of deaths and equal amount of terror were suffered there, only few in the western world had risen in that country’s support, hence those who had done so for Paris were called out as hypocrites.

They are not hypocrites. They are uninformed. Is it their fault that the western news outlets did not report the attack on Beirut? I knew nothing of it. I was still reeling from the stupidity of the Starbucks Red Cup Controversy, which got more airtime on my newsfeed than anything out of the Middle East, when I stumbled onto CNN’s coverage of Paris.

The public doesn’t decide what makes the news. Advertisers and programmers decide what we are told and, to some extent, what we’re to do about it. Then they sit back and watch the masses squabble about it all.

So I crashed. The negativity has been overwhelming, and while I believe implicitly in the power of one solitary candle, I also believe that the flame requires tending, else it will burn out completely.

Balance. Contrast. Achieving and maintaining one in the face of the other requires an awareness of your own needs as well as the needs of others. If I am guilty of anything, it’s of assuming that I have superpowers of endurance, resistance, and acceptance. Actually, I do have them, but they are not limitless. A single day should get me back on my feet. A day of green tea, quiet meditation, and gratitude.

A “get well” day.

With love,

A Tight Fit

Home from the holidays. Blerg. How does a spirit that’s flown free, and even spent a few days disembodied, cram itself back into the daily grind?

Not easily.

I’m all about attitude, and I know that I have the power to make every situation a positive one no matter how challenging the circumstances, but I could use another week of vacation. On the other hand, my resolve to change my work situation has not wavered. I even got a little astrological advice on SSI. At the café by the beach, I was sipping my chai and Ter was flipping through a local publication when she found the horoscope pictured above. I read mine, burst out laughing, and attracted the attention of the guy behind the counter, who sauntered over and observed that people don’t usually laugh at their horoscope. “We take those things seriously,” he said, faking a reproving frown.

“No kidding,” I replied cheerfully, handing over the magazine. “I’m a Virgo and having problems at work. Is this a hint, or what?”

A copy of the Chinese Horoscope for 2015 was lying on the table in the Stonehouse living room. On the morning of our departure, Ter was taking pictures and caught one of me perusing the book. I love these things. Without taking them too seriously, I find them interesting. I was born in 1961, the Year of the Ox. My element is metal. 2015 is the Year of the Goat, and if I had read the predictions before they became a semi-annual report, I might have stopped the world and gotten off for good. Changes abound. Frustrations lie ahead. I want to change my job but opportunities will be rare. Disruption is everywhere. The Goat is a mercurial critter, throwing things in the air just to see where the pieces land.

Gee, you think?

As with all things, the cycle will come full circle. The chaos that is life right now will find its balance and smooth out. The elevator at home will be installed and construction ended. Our downstairs neighbours will settle in after October 1. I’ll either find a new job or the one I have will change, whichever is in my best interest. Patience and perseverance are probably my best weapons at this point. They’re certainly less likely to land me in jail.

Little Dickens

On Christmas Eve, after the socializing is done, after the prezzies are wrapped and under the tree, after the pre-show viewing of “Merry Christmas Mr, Bean”, we pop “Scrooge” into the player and settle down to await our favourite moments. When you’ve seen a film that many times, there’s nothing new to be discovered … right?

Maybe. Maybe not. This year, I came away with a finer understanding of a story I’ve know my whole life. I enjoyed the movie as always (my favourite segment is Christmas Present), but my recent chanting of “let the past go” tripped me up a bit during the telling. If the past can’t be changed, I thought, why bother to revisit it?

Duh. It can’t be changed, but you can still learn from it. We are each a product of our past. History shows how we came to be – Ebenezer Scrooge was quite plainly fashioned in his youth to become the miserable old coot so brilliantly played by Alastair Sim. Ironically, he learned to fear loneliness and poverty so well that he became lonely and lived like a pauper despite the wealth he obtained in pursuit of … not happiness, exactly, but security and comfort. Christmas Past demonstrated that quite clearly, especially when Alice said to him, “You fear the world too much.” She had it right, though he argued intellectually that living defensively is the best protection against insecurity and discomfort.

I guess you could say that fear of the future changed his mind and thus changed his ways; again, maybe so, and maybe not. I saw his heart softening through the course of his night, he just thought himself too old for any change to make a difference. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I learned to articulate three things from “Scrooge” this year:

We are shaped by our past but not bound by it.

No one is ever too old to affect his future.

All we have is now.

So …

Release the past.

Embrace the present.

Change the future.

And God bless us, every one.

Mother Nature is a Libra

Ter and I recently caught a cool documentary called “Orbit” – about the Earth’s annual journey around the sun and how three things affect our planet: the orbit itself, the rotation of the Earth on its axis, and the tilt of the Earth on its axis. I paid more attention in Grade 10 science than I thought, because I actually understood what the presenters were saying about how the weather works, how (and why) the seasons occur, and all manner of other nifty-neater tidbits that I’ve filed away to wow people at social occasions down the road.

The episode about the tilt was the most fascinating because it focused on extreme weather phenomena like tornadoes and monsoons, explaining how and why they happen. There is so much going on to keep the world balanced while we merrily blaze along unbalancing everything. I’m not so hip on the Book of Genesis these days, but I do appreciate the intricate design and mechanics of our world within its galaxy within the greater universe. It’s miraculous no matter who/what you think is in charge of it all, and we are indeed arrogant little gnats to think so much of our combined intellect and expertise. Yeah. Right. The planet is smarter than we are. It’s trying, always trying, to compensate for our intelligence. It’s all about balancing the positive and negative energies that sustain us and we haven’t got a frigging clue. We don’t.

My vocabulary is too small to express my awe at how precarious is our position in space. Down to the tiniest molecule, nature seeks to keep the physical scales aligned and thus keep the world habitable. Actually, the same thing is happening within our own bodies, but we’ve been deafened to the innate wisdom that can tell us what we require to be healthy. There is a movement toward healing through balancing internal energies—or is it a return to those methods? because holistic therapies have been around for millennia compared to the relatively recent forms of “conventional” medicine. It makes you wonder which is actually the alternative in the field.

Admittedly, I’m no expert and I’m not dependent on my intelligence, but I am learning to ride the rhythm of the world both outside and within myself. I’ve known for a while that the planet is ill because we’re robbing it of the resources it needs to stay healthy, therefore its attempts to regain that critical balance are becoming more violent. I’m trying to apply the same principle to my own carbon-based unit, else I’d still be eating sandwiches and sticky buns. Some days are better than others, but I am practicing awareness of myself and my environment. Earth is a marvelous, magical place. Doesn’t it make sense to keep it that way?

Beautiful!