Daydreaming...

In seasons of limbo, when discontent strikes hard and deep, I daydream.  I think about the things I miss about a more stable living situation - showering in the same house where I sleep most nights, normal meal planning and cooking, not feeling confined to one small part of the space.  I dream about plants that fill a space - jasmine plants in every room, filling the air with their lovely scent.  Palms, Boston ferns, peace lilies, spider plants and rubber plants for their beauty and air purifying properties.  A cozy chair with cushions, an ottoman and soft blankets in which to wrap oneself while curling up to read.  I dream about coming home easily, not catching my breath and breathing a prayer for patience and grace before I open the door (or at least not doing that every. single. day.) I dream about a space with windows and sunlight, instead of a basement cave.  I dream about not having to plan and schedule things like laundry, showers, and other random tasks.

And then, in an effort to combat the discontent, I remind myself to count some blessings.

Today, as I head back to grandma's after a week of house-sitting, I'm reminding myself that I have the following to look forward to:

• access to my entire closet, instead of a suitcase for making daily wardrobe choices
• access to my entire stash of snacks, to supplement work lunches, not just what I packed to get me through the week
• being surrounded by my book collection
• curling up in my own bed.
• getting back to a regular nighttime routine, including a liturgical prayer book that I'm very much enjoying
• finding rhythm again
• access to my stash of creative supplies, tackling a couple of projects, and being free to be inspired for more
• lighting candles all around the room for warmth, atmosphere, and happy smells

Finding Rhythm

I'm in my sixth week of this temp job, and last week was the first week where I began to feel like I was catching my breath, and finding a new normal.

I tend to forget that adaptation takes more time than I think it will.

This job starts earlier than anywhere I've ever worked.  I need to be in the office at 7:30 am.  That means I need to be at the bus stop at 6:30 am.  And that means that my alarm clock goes off at 5:30 am.

That's right, this avowed night person has been starting every day at 5:30 am!  That's a full two hours before the current sunrise, y'all.

It's pretty much horrible!

And it has definitely taken some adapting of schedules and rhythms.

You see, over the last year I've discovered that my much despised mornings are easier if I wake up with about an hour before I have to be out the door.  It really only takes me maybe 15-20 minutes of that hour to get out of bed and out the door.  The rest of it is spent waking VERY slowly.  Checking a few emails, or reading a few blog posts.  Anything that can be done from a prone, still curled up under the blankets, easing into the day kind of position.

Another newish rhythm has to do with sleep.  On weeknights I try to carve out the last hour before my lights need to be out as a time to wind down.  No television, no phone calls, no computer screens, or cell phone screens.  Just me and some time to write, read, pray and think.

That rhythm has been challenging since, with the early mornings, I need to have my lights out by 10pm, 10:30 at the latest.  That means I need to be done with emailing, blog reading, game playing, web surfing, and television watching by 9 pm.  Do you know how hard this early to bed thing is for me???  Let me just tell you - going to bed that early is almost worse than getting up so early!

Add in full days in an emotionally draining office environment, the need to juggle a family, church and social life, and the ongoing process of exploring my one word for the year, "heal", and it's been quite the struggle to adapt.

I feel like I'm starting to catch a second wind, finally, six weeks in.  Like I've made some strides in figuring out what does and what doesn't work.  Like I'm adapting to this crazy new schedule of sleeping and waking (or at least hating it a little bit less as I recognize that discipline in this area is paying dividends in physical and emotional health - and by extension my mental and spiritual stability).

It's a good thing, and a hard one all at once, these new rhythms.  Nothing I would have expected or chosen, but an encouragement to find footing even in this newest of spaces and challenges.  And that, my friends, is something I'm grateful for.

New Rhythms

Even as I title this post, I know that I don't have time to do the topic justice.  That the new rhythms of my life demand that I turn my lights out very shortly, and sleep, rather than staying up into the wee hours I've always loved, and spending time writing.

So maybe I will leave it here:  September has been a month of discovering new rhythms for me.  Of juggling, and failing, and trying again, and slowly the pieces are coming together.

I'll share more about that soon, as things continue to change and settle into place.

In the meantime, share with me some of the important rhythms of your days and weeks?

Monday

It's mid-morning Monday (such lovely alliteration there) and it has been days since I've paused in this space to record anything but a nightly Daily 5 list.

For the first time in what seems a very long time, years really, I find myself realizing that I don't need to weigh what I say in this space for fear of some in my "real life" who may be reading.  And yet, I almost feel as if I've lost the ability to share myself here.  As if it has descended into a sort of murky silence.

I'm waiting out some health stuff right now.  Waiting for my body to adapt to new changes in supplements and medications.  Waiting to see if initial side-effects will diminish.  Waiting for restful sleep of some sort (since sleep has never been one of my great skills) to return.

I'm thinking about changes.

About needing to find work for the summer.  And how my tired body and soul would instead prefer to hop on a plane to almost anywhere, preferably somewhere near a very large body water, somewhere with sunshine and warmth, and spend a summer resting and reorienting to all of the changes that have come in the last years.

I think of an option in the back of my mind - an option for travel to a new continent that vaguely exists - and I'm tempted to jump at it.  And yet, I know that it would not actually be an option that would fit me well.  That would fit my heart and life.  But as an option, as an escape, it is tantalizing at times, and I dream again of travel and new places.  Of people and prayer and time away for reorienting and reconstructing. 

But it would need to be time away that would not leave me drained, the way so many of the trips, long and short, that I've made over the last few years have done.  Time away that would restore, and contribute to healing.  And that limits my options more significantly.  In the meantime, if the weather brightens this week, watching these words flow across the screen convinces me that time at the zoo and perhaps in a park are going to be necessary.

This is again a season of in-between.  It's the place I've been existing for much of the last year.  The season of waiting and wondering.  I need to find work, but I don't know for how long I need to be employed.  I'm waiting to hear if I will be accepted into the nursing program for September.  If I'm honest, I'm growing tired of waiting.  I'm ready for settled.  I'm growing tired of juggling a longing for things, with a desire to protect my heart from the hurt that comes from wanting deeply and having those desires fail to be fulfilled.

And so I wait.  And this week that will look like time spent applying for jobs, and time spent reading.  I hope it will look like time spent sitting in the sun, at the zoo or in a park.  Perhaps time spent writing.  Most definitely time spent thinking and praying.  There will probably be a bit of cleaning and cooking or baking thrown in, and a few yoga classes.  And yes, likely some daydreaming about airplanes and big bodies of water.  (Watching the finale of The Amazing Race last night would have been comical if you were inside my head.  Mixed into all the dialogue around the room about the various competitors was a nearly obsessive noticing of palm trees in the location in which they wrapped up the season.  Even in a wild wind storm, those palm trees look enticing.  Oh, and if you'd been in my head you would have also been privy to an astonishing number of thoughts about the woman who was providing the final clue, and the stunning ability of her hairdo to remain immobile despite the windstorm!)

And with that, I'd better stop writing and kick off my week of activities of waiting!  See you tonight for the daily 5.

Daily 5 - Day 291

Today's Daily 5:

1. Managed to actually accomplish a couple of "scheduled" day to day reality of life things
2. Hung out with the family, moving T & L into their new place and cleaning L's old place
3. Chinese take-out for dinner courtesy of T & L
4. Got a long walk in this morning
5. another night of sleeping actually fairly well...
6. housesitting, and thus, between family stuff and that, not being at Grandma's right now
7. laughing with one of my cousins over a particular mannerism of our Grandma

Secrets

Have you ever visited the "PostSecret" blog? There's a link to it in my sidebar if you haven't...

People write their deepest secrets anonymously on a postcard and mail them in, and every Sunday, a stack of new secrets are posted for the world to share. Some are funny, some are crude, some are deeply disturbing... I saw one once, beautifully sketched tear drops, and all it said was "I miss innocence". I understood that sentiment...

I'm thinking about secrets tonight... Here are a few of mine...

I pretend to be a really deep-thinking person, but I actually like nothing quite so much as crashing in front of slightly trashy television in the evening, and refusing to have my brain engage. I spend so much time lost in thought that in the evenings I often want nothing more that to completely disengage from the world, and to laugh at whichever show that vastly separated from reality happens to be on that night... I know it's not really constructive, but I do it anyway...

I pretend to be really brave, and open to new things, but I'm usually faking it... I am afraid, and it affects my physical health... in the hours before heading out to something new, I am often sick to my stomach with anxiety and fear.

I have a strong need for control. I'm working on this, but a schedule and a sense of rhythm are really helpful for me. I also tend to be absentminded, and things that are important get missed.

To control, and to combat the absentmindedness, I use lists. I love lists. I derive great satisfaction and a strong sense of accomplishment from crossing something off of a list I've made. A grocery list, a list of all the errands I need to accomplish. I don't actually use a day planner - I make a list for the week because it has helped me establish a sense of rhythm. I put everything on that list - the people stuff, the home stuff, the church stuff, the personal stuff. Everything from "do the laundry" to "spend 1 hour at least 3 times reading and meditating" to "coffee with so and so" to "Bible study prep" to "stretching exercises". Sometimes, just because I like crossing things off, I'll put the really mundane on there - "shower" or "make a cup of tea".

Life has felt out of control these last few weeks... The Lord is doing new and deep things, but I feel like other important things have been missing in action, and I'm feeling the need to fall back into a rhythm. I've deliberately scheduled my calendar to be quite blank for this coming week. One tea date with a friend, and a trip to the mountains tomorrow. I feel like after a couple of really intense weeks once again, I need to time to breathe, to let my body and head catch up with my soul, to reconnect into a whole person again. I want to cook real food, not pre-prepared dinners because I have to be back out the door ten minutes after I walk in. I want to sit in a darkened room, and smell incense, and pray for an hour or two without feeling like I'm neglecting other things. I want to stretch, and breathe deeply, and not feel that I'm wasting twenty minutes I should be using on something else. So, this week, I'm setting out to rest, and to re-establish rhythm. When I finish writing this post, I'm going to make my list for the week. It's going to have things on it like "take a bubble bath", "journal for an hour", "read two chapters in a book I'm reading right now on art", "have tea with a friend", "mail gifts to various other friends", "send Rae a card so that it's waiting when she gets home from Europe", "breathe", "research graduate schools".

I'm all about my list being full of things that inspire me to pray this week, and that inspire me to step into things that make me feel alive. So yes, I'm excerting control, but I'm hoping it turns out in the best possible way!

Resting

I woke up when my alarm went off this morning, and began the mental, physical and spiritual evaluation I run through most mornings. Basically, in the fifteen minutes between when my alarm goes off, and I have to crawl out of bed, I like to figure out what the baseline for the day is.

Today, I lay there and began to ask the Lord how I was doing, and what came next for the day. The weekend was amazing, but intense and exhausting, especially coming on the tail of the two previous intense weeks.

I have a number of sick days remaining, and only a week left in the employment year to which they apply. As I lay there and prayed, I felt very clearly that it would be okay for me to take a day and simply rest. To catch up on sleep, to do nothing mentally, emotionally, or physically exhausting.

So, I got out of bed long enough to send an email letting my office know that I wasn't coming in, and then headed back to bed to sleep another three hours. Now, it's noon, and I'm sitting on my couch, smelling my lunch baking in the oven, watching tv on dvd, surfing the internet, and beginning to feel restored. Almost ready to settle in for a long conversation with God.

I'm resting, allowing my body to catch up with my soul and mind. Reconnecting the parts of myself. And it's good.

Monday Morning thoughts

I've had a cup of tea, and half a litre of water this morning. A cookie (of the pre-packaged variety) and a muffin that my grandma baked for me.

In the last day, I've had blog hits from all kinds of interesting locations - all over Canada, Sweden, Russia, the UK, a whole bunch from all over the US, Spain, and even one from Saudi Arabia. Leave me a comment the next time you stop by!

It's cold and wet outside, and I'm struggling to breathe again today. Feels like something is sitting in the center of my ribcage. It actually hurts quite a bit. There were moments as I was walking to the train this morning that I actually thought I was going to throw up in the effort to pull in a couple of deep breaths.

The quiet evening I was planning for last night didn't quite pan out. No tea. No reading or journalling on the couch. I watched a bit of tv on dvd - this time on my new television and dvd player. I ended up doing a bunch of stuff with my roommate. We moved a bunch of furniture around (hopefully for the last time) to accomodate the new tv. We did some errands - I bought a tv stand at walmart for $30, and then spent quite a while assembling it to a workable form. Some situps and stretching exercises, a quick shower, and my night drew to a close.

I've been sleeping restlessly again for the last week. This is what happens when things go haywire around me in the spiritual realm... There have been things going on since the trip I made last weekend - good things, but very difficult, and they're affecting my sleep.

I'm mulling over the line of what is and is not a sick day in my head these days. I get 10 paid sick days a year, and I've used 2 and a half. I'm feeling mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually drained at the moment. Feeling like I need time to regroup. A day off - no thinking unless I feel it, no wrestling or wondering, just sleep, and something brainless for activity - television, a movie.

However, this week has somehow filled up. Something every evening except one. I actually wrote "night at home" on my calendar for that evening. Seems I'm now scheduling time to rest. I'll probably take the bus home two or three times this week, instead of the train, because that, at least, gives me an hour and a half of uninterrupted time to simply be. I'm on my own, and don't have to talk with anyone. I can simply listen to music, read, pray, study, think, rest - whatever catches my fancy at that moment. I've learned to grab opportunities to build that time into my schedule whenever possible. If it's nice out on Wednesday night - the night I've scheduled to do nothing - I'll probably head for a park with my ipod and journal, and walk and pray and journal for a while - we'll see.

Of Whimsical Depth

I’m taking a new route home for my commute tonight. I think it will take 20-30 minutes longer than my normal route. Those of you who know me well are howling just at the moment. “She complains about the normal length of her commute, and now she’s making it longer?” Yes. I’m making it longer. Not permanently, just occasionally. I’m going to take a bus instead of the walk and two trains I’ve been previously taking.

Why, you ask? Well, because I find myself in desperate need of space to simply sit and read, simply sit and think, to simply be, without dozens of things staring me in the face and muttering under their breath about how I should really be doing that laundry, or washing those dishes, or reading something constructive. And I’ve always found the bus a brilliant place to create space. You pop your headphones in (whether you turn them on is up to you!) and avoid making too much eye contact with those nearby, and people pretty much leave you alone. You can people watch, eavesdrop, read, stare out a window and think, write in a journal, or simply be.

I feel like many things in my life have been swirling around me at breakneck speeds, and it’s affecting my mental clarity. So tonight, I’m going to take an hour and a half or thereabouts on the bus and simply sit. I’m going to slow down all those other things clamoring to be done because I can’t do them from the seat of the bus anyway, and I’m going to read a novel, and I’m going to breathe, and I’m going to reflect on the things that have been swirling at the edges of my consciousness that I wrote about this morning. I’m going to watch people, and let my mind wander in a restful sort of way. (See, when I put it like that, you all want to spend an hour and a half on the bus too, don’t you?)

When I get home, I’m going to make myself dinner – either soup, or nachos – depends on what my stomach thinks – I’ll ask it when we’re getting close to home. The conversation will go something like this. I’ll say “What would you like for dinner tonight?” And my stomach, which has been debating the two options all day today will say either, “I’d really like some more of that soup you made last night, with the green beans and carrots in it, and maybe you could add some peas tonight.” Or it will say, “You know, I think a plate of nachos sounds great – with maybe some green onion and red and yellow peppers if there are still some in the fridge.” And then my very talkative stomach will probably suggest (I’m guessing here, but it’s a guess based in experience) that I might like to round the meal out with either an oatmeal raisin cookie, baked by my grandma, and stored in my freezer, or with something containing copious amounts of chocolate (of which I have a few different options stashed away.)

After dinner, I have plans that include lighting some candles, folding laundry while watching some tv on dvd, possibly hanging some art in my bedroom (finally!), calling a good friend in another city for a catching up and praying together sort of chat, and paging through either some scrapbooking magazines or a cookbook that I got at the library, to find ideas for future evenings.

Have I mentioned that I find great beauty, joy and peace in the most mundane and whimsical things of life? In the errands, the quiet evenings at home, the little moments of accomplishment, the conversations with my stomach, the extended commute designed to create space to breathe?

Fear, and Moving Slow

I'm working to re-establish the rhythm of life that was so successfully holding me in a place of peace and reduced stress and close, listening relationship with Christ.

I'm battling sudden attacks of fear. Terror really. All kinds of out of control thought patterns that spiral into things completely irrational. I've battled against fear in various forms of attack since I was a tiny child. The first scripture verse I remember my parents teaching me goes, "When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you." I still cling to that one in moments when the fear comes fast and harsh.

I feel the need to take life very slowly these days, to not fill my calendar, to create a great deal of space for simply doing nothing. For pausing and listening. For time with those few people who are life-giving rather than draining.

I'm reading the Psalms these days - have been for almost a month now. One or two a night - just before I go to sleep. I'm finding I relate strongly to the deeply emotional cries of the Psalmists - particularly David.

My roommate has gone to bed, and I'm sitting alone in the living room, watching tv on dvd and typing this post. It's quiet, except for the noise from the dvd, and the movements of the neighbors upstairs, and I almost feel as if I could begin to like it here.

Tomorrow is Friday - casual day at work. It makes me happy to think of wearing jeans to the office! My roommate and I are going to my parents house for dinner, and to spend the evening. I'm looking forward to hanging out with my family for the evening.

And with that, I'm going back to devoting more attention to the dvd, and then, eventually to take a quick shower and head for bed.

Still thinking about rhythm

It's funny, how things can go so well for weeks, how I can seem to have a handle on life, how it feels smooth, and like I'm finally making progress with stuff, and then in one week it can all fall apart. I talked about that in my last post.

However, I'm still thinking about rhythms and the effects of losing them.

It has taken me a sick day, a full evening, a full day, and most of another day of doing nothing to begin to feel like I'm recovered and can face other human beings again. Crazy... I was thinking tonight about those moments during years of synchronized swimming where I would lose count in the middle of a figure or a routine as I was learning it. You'd pretty much have to wait until the next sequence came before you could jump back into the flow of the routine. That's what this week has felt like - those moments when I lost the beat of the music, the rhythm, and had to stop entirely.

Maybe this has been a valuable lesson... I certainly will guard my time and space more carefully in upcoming days and weeks...

And with that, I'm going to do a bit of vegging before going to bed soon.

When the rhythm disappears...

You know, after months of realizing that I was feeling far less stressed and far more at peace because I'd managed to develop a bit of a rhythm to living out my life, it can all fall apart in an enormous hurry.

I was so stressed this week that I became ill, because I ignored tendencies about myself and overcommitted myself in a number of ways. Some examples?

I know that I need to watch the balance of relational input/output in my life. I have come to realize that the various relationships in my life affect me one of three ways. They are either draining, neutral, or lifegiving. I have to work to make sure the time spent in draining relationships doesn't outweigh the life-giving relationships. I did a terrible job at this this week.

I also know that I need to make sure that I get a decent amount of sleep or my outlook on life becomes fairly dramatically skewed. Far too many late nights in a row caught up with me and took their toll this week.

I know that in order to recharge my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual reserves, I need to spend time by myself - away from all other people. This week I was with people for almost every moment of every day, waking to sleeping, and it drained the very life out of me.

When the rhythm disappears, my body tolerates it for the first little while, sending me warning messages that in this case the busyness of my schedule forced me to ignore. When I ignored them for two long, and made a major decision that will introduce a great deal of new freedom to my life, but is also rife with a minefield of unexplored fears, my body shut down. It woke me in the middle of the night, sick to my stomach, denied me the sleep I so desperately needed, and forced me to spend a day flat on my back, doing absolutely nothing.

You'd almost think a rhythm of rest had been input into the very design of the world and humans, at creation or something!