Image Description
red, black, white backgound of abstract floral shapes, grief and creativity dot com logos and text that reads: Some mornings are just a mass of sleepy eyes and hurting stomachs and trying to convince myself to just go my own pace.
Showing posts with label Chronic Illness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chronic Illness. Show all posts
mass of sleepy eyes, morning pages, and moving slowly
Some mornings are just a mass of sleepy eyes and hurting stomachs and trying to convince myself to just go my own pace. Go slowly if need be. Let the lists hold the things your brain is too swollen to hold. There is no race to a finish line here.
-----
Sometimes morning pages can help me slow down or let go. Have you ever kept morning pages? I admit I do laugh every single time I stumble across one of my past morning pages notebooks or files on my computers. They are just filled with "fuck-this" and "nooooooo" and "oh-my-gawd-i-hate-this" and "whyyyyyyyyy!?!" Sometimes there's a spark or two at the end where the fog lifted and there will land an "ooooooooh. okay." :) Are your morning pages like that, too? Or is it just me?
-----
That is all shared from a chronic illness perspective, but even as I type it, I can hear friends and loves in my head saying, "Hell, that's my everyday, health stuff or not, that's humanity." Cycles. Processes. All our glorious messiness. For me, the question continues to be, "How can we be present with whatever IS rather than judge it, hate it, try desperately to change it?"
-----
Springtime in the garden often is really exciting and teaches me these lessons over and over. Look at the deep rich colors and beautiful shape of those rose buds in the pic with this post! I adore this plant. It shows up for Spring in a thriving manner each year. New legs of it bushing out at the bottom. The top of it brimming with new flowers like this. I get all attached to it and tend and weed around the bottom, make sure it has water, fall in love with it.
Inevitably though, somewhere along the line, the deer fall in love with it, too, and will show up, ghosts in the night without a sound, and leave me with munched limbs and flailing leaves. This often leaves me so frustrated. Even though the bigger picture is that we put a garden right in the middle of one of THEIR paths, and they are foragers who have just discovered good food. :) Can't blame them for eating well!
-----
Reiki to all eyeballs who've made their way here!
Kara
[Previous version published 2016 in Radical Creativity]
After grief comes, life goes relentlessly on...
After a significant grief experience in my life, a friend said to me, "Isn't it unnerving how life goes relentlessly on?"
It's true. Relentlessly. I'm so not cut out for relentless. 14 years. 2 years. 12 weeks. Whatever the time since the date of the death or loss, we wake up each day and the relentlessness starts.
People ask why I couch my work as grief *and* creativity. Because it takes A LOT of creativity to find reasons to get out of bed, to put your feet down on the relentless ground, every single day after grief comes.
It takes A LOT of creativity to honor self care and community care, especially in the face of white supremacist, individualistic, capitalistic, patriarchal culture.
It takes A LOT of creativity to be a helper in this world, honoring the sacred trust that extends out from us toward others AND also allowing others to extend back toward us in return. We may find we are not very practiced at accepting what others offer us. We may find we are in a culture that says you are supposed to be "professionally detached," so even just acknowledging that there is a two way relationship happening when in the role of helper can be taboo.
And when grief experiences knock us out of our routines, even our best efforts at re-entry to life can be complicated by the relentlessness that goes on. By realizing our previous work or priorities are completely different now. By a chronic illness that crops up. By the shock of realizing those you thought would stick by you don't, and by the gratitude you feel for complete strangers who show up in significant ways.
Creativity is needed because even as we are re-entering the relentless world, there are still gems to be found in the spaces grief originally took us. Remember how tended you felt when you allowed yourself some time in your blanket house! Remember how tended you felt when a friend stopped by and you allowed them to see your messy kitchen in which they ended up doing dishes for you! Remember how tended you and your community were when leaders stepped back and asked, "What do you need right now?" instead of being dictators determining for you what was needed!
Re-entering the relentless world might seem to put you in a position where competition, money making, and over-functioning are valued, while the gems of listening to your body, collaboration, and community building are devalued. But screw that! We have permission to notice how relentlessness does not work for us. Don't ignore all you know now.
Having re-entered the world, are you again noticing things aren't quite right? Feeling exhausted? Can't sleep enough? Not much seem pleasurable? Body pain? Irritable at the smallest things? All big red flags calling for tending. How do we counter individualism, wealth worship, and "working through the pain" when we find ourselves surrounded by this relentlessness of "fake it till you make it" bs again?
While I don't have all the answers, I know that grief's different beat taught me it is valuable to give the sad, exhausted, hard spaces my listening ears. I need to hear them because they point me back toward relationships that nurture, toward paradigms of cooperation and collaboration, back toward the fact that relentlessness does not allow us to bring our whole selves to the table.
Individually this may look simply like reaching out to a friend via text to say, "Help. I need an ear." Or it may look collectively like calling "3 days bereavement leave" the bullshit that it is (remember that contract workers don't even get 3 days!), and demanding structural change that actually supports people when they are grieving.
I know it is unnerving that life goes relentlessly on after grief comes. AND I know that your heart is full of creativity that can be tapped to help buoy you through. And you aren't in this alone. Our connections matter. Whatever your situation looks like, just know that I SEE YOU.
Miracles,
k-
[Alternative version published at Radical Creativity Wednesday, October 10, 2012]
Stick the to program...next breath, next step
It's like a mantra now. Those who know me are sick of hearing it.
When it comes to chronic health stuff, this most definitely applies. When it comes to being an artist, this most definitely applies.
I'm not thrilled with this piece here. Perfection is a long ways off with this one (with every one, if I'm honest!). But the point of it isn't perfection anyway. The point is to remind myself that it is all practice. I am worthy of taking things one day at a time, one moment at a time, one brush stroke at a time, next breath, next step. I am worthy of continuing to make art. Even when it isn't perfect (it never is!). Even when I don't feel perfectly healthy (chronic means I never am really!).
Rejections come with the territory of being an artist and writer. It had been a good year since I worked up any submissions or was published in anything. So I started pulling submission guideline notifications into my Facebook feed recently. That puts opportunities in my face, and reminds me to take chances!
And in the past couple of weeks, I've gotten two rejections. One a standard form letter that many others probably got, too. The second, a little more personal with reason why the art doesn't fit and suggestion for how to try again with something a little more inline with what they want. So oddly enough, my idea that "the only antidote to rejection is trying again" comes right into play with the "rejector" giving me "try agains" right in the rejection. :) Very funny how we manifest stuff.
AND there was also one acceptance and publication in Issue 50 of Haiku Journal so it wasn't all rejection!
One thing I do notice about rejection is that it touches on something akin to grief in me. I shut down completely after my son died because I felt rejected as a woman and mother -- the Universe itself rejected my submission to be a woman and a mother. It took years to work through that. And so it also seems all these little rejections touch on the nerves of that big one somehow. I use the noticing of that in each experience to be a little raised flag, waving, calling out to me saying, "Hello!?! Over here. Do a little tending, will ya?!" And I remind myself in that space about practice, not perfect AND next breath, next step.
Another aspect of the "sticking to it" for me, is to practice finding gratitude in my disappointment. Here are a few quick gratitudes that generate for me in this practice:
And hey, look, life is up and down for us all. For those of us dealing with chronic health stuff, mental and physical, on top of everyday life, well, it is a challenge. But I keep reminding myself that we can practice habits that support us. And here's one:
If you are looking for a cool, interesting way to experiment with keeping yourself prompted and for getting an energy boost each day, try the free app BoosterBuddy:
I know it can seem a little odd to suggest you buddy up with an animated raccoon, but I swear its daily reminder to take care of my basics and keep taking next breath, next step have been so helpful recently!
Hope you, too, keep taking next breath, next step today, Loves.
From the radical grandma,
k-
[Original version published in Radical Creativity June 24, 2008;
updated May 2017 to give update and new app resource tip]
It's a practice, not a perfect.
When it comes to chronic health stuff, this most definitely applies. When it comes to being an artist, this most definitely applies.
I'm not thrilled with this piece here. Perfection is a long ways off with this one (with every one, if I'm honest!). But the point of it isn't perfection anyway. The point is to remind myself that it is all practice. I am worthy of taking things one day at a time, one moment at a time, one brush stroke at a time, next breath, next step. I am worthy of continuing to make art. Even when it isn't perfect (it never is!). Even when I don't feel perfectly healthy (chronic means I never am really!).
Rejections come with the territory of being an artist and writer. It had been a good year since I worked up any submissions or was published in anything. So I started pulling submission guideline notifications into my Facebook feed recently. That puts opportunities in my face, and reminds me to take chances!
And in the past couple of weeks, I've gotten two rejections. One a standard form letter that many others probably got, too. The second, a little more personal with reason why the art doesn't fit and suggestion for how to try again with something a little more inline with what they want. So oddly enough, my idea that "the only antidote to rejection is trying again" comes right into play with the "rejector" giving me "try agains" right in the rejection. :) Very funny how we manifest stuff.
AND there was also one acceptance and publication in Issue 50 of Haiku Journal so it wasn't all rejection!
One thing I do notice about rejection is that it touches on something akin to grief in me. I shut down completely after my son died because I felt rejected as a woman and mother -- the Universe itself rejected my submission to be a woman and a mother. It took years to work through that. And so it also seems all these little rejections touch on the nerves of that big one somehow. I use the noticing of that in each experience to be a little raised flag, waving, calling out to me saying, "Hello!?! Over here. Do a little tending, will ya?!" And I remind myself in that space about practice, not perfect AND next breath, next step.
Another aspect of the "sticking to it" for me, is to practice finding gratitude in my disappointment. Here are a few quick gratitudes that generate for me in this practice:
- I'm sooooo grateful that I have access to the internet to find things like guidelines and to email inquiries.
- It's an amazing universe where there is always another publication to try after a rejection.
- And bless the editors of all these places because I know how much time it takes to sift through it all and try to make "objective" decisions in a world where there is no objectivity ever. It's all subjective. We are all subject to our own personalities and experience and such. And that's an interesting facet of being human.
And hey, look, life is up and down for us all. For those of us dealing with chronic health stuff, mental and physical, on top of everyday life, well, it is a challenge. But I keep reminding myself that we can practice habits that support us. And here's one:
If you are looking for a cool, interesting way to experiment with keeping yourself prompted and for getting an energy boost each day, try the free app BoosterBuddy:
I know it can seem a little odd to suggest you buddy up with an animated raccoon, but I swear its daily reminder to take care of my basics and keep taking next breath, next step have been so helpful recently!
Hope you, too, keep taking next breath, next step today, Loves.
From the radical grandma,
k-
[Original version published in Radical Creativity June 24, 2008;
updated May 2017 to give update and new app resource tip]
To roar. Or not.
After awhile I begin to feel that, whoever I am, is stuck inside all these layers. The letters of language are used to try and be heard. The network of pain that cascades thru the body, making the eyes so sensitive that looking at or into normal light levels just hurts, is all too real. In the meantime, under all that is this sort of adult who continues having ideas, impulses to create, sparks for connecting art to heART.
-----
Had Pinky and the Brain streaming in the background one day, and it struck me that they are sort of projections of the mind. The same mind. Flip sides of one mind. They work together to make a whole. A dysfunctional whole, but still. NARF. Sometimes the roar comes and other times it is just a narf.
Sometimes my hands shake, making drawing or even cooking, messily impossible. Often it seems related to iron levels, but there are so many chronic issues going on in this one bod of mine that it is hard to tell. And even trying to DO something is weird. Sometimes the something works. Sometimes it doesn't. Much as I think I am commanding my health (Brain), sometimes my body is just sitting there all Pinky-like going NARF.
It is a weird thing. To be raised in a modern western world that implicitly and explicitly tells you that you should have command, you need to have discipline, you have to become an expert, if you want to be taken seriously and make a mark, you have to...have to...have to. The myths of being the commander. When the truth is that being human is a damn messy NARF most of the time.
I mean sure, you can put in 100,000 hours on some obsession you have and learn a lot from it. I get a lot out of making more and more art, putting more and more hours into the practice. But my shaky hands bop in now and again to say, "Hey Commander! NARF!" I'm not poo-poo'ing process or learning or passion or spending your time doing what moves you. I'm just saying the complicit stuff of the modern western world that turns that all into experts and "six-figure years" and such...well...NARF.
-----
Was reading Improv Wisdom and one of the prompts she offered along the way was to "count on insecurity." Isn't that great? Count on it. Don't try to beat it into submission. Don't try to expert your way around it. Stop trying to get to the perfect place where it resolves and never surfaces again. Rather, count on it. Count. On. It. Count on insecurity. What a novel and creative idea. Count on the NARF.
-----
Stress. Whether coming from "real" situations or coming from my insecurity (that i now count on), stress has a damn fucked up way of messing with me. The chronic pain returns. The stomach does weird things. The shakes shake. If we had the money or an insurance company/provider that actually cared, and we tested things consistently around the experiences I have with stress, just guessing, but I think stress may relate to much of what goes on with me.
I find it difficult to give words to what is happening to me physically, especially after going to great lengths to communicate w supposed caregivers who then say everything is "normal" and begin to treat me in a dismissive manner or as if I'm a drug seeker. Especially annoying given that as of the other day, I've been sober for a solid 20 years. But whatever, dismiss me. NARF.
And one begins to understand the frustration of so many chronic fellow beings. You see every provider your insurance will cover and none help. For that you fork over a day of work, cost of ferry and gas and parking, and a $55 copay. For nothing in the end. And if you find someone who might be able to help but insurance won't cover them, you literally ponder groceries or the cost of trying yet another supposed caregiver. After awhile, you just sort of feel tired and defeated and actually begin to wonder if maybe you are crazy. Except that one side of your face is swollen and you have hives under your eyelid. Those are hard to just conjure out of nothing...NARF.
Not that I don't aim to do best care possible for myself, but stress, in general, and these specific examples, seems to affect how my body reacts, takes up nutrients, gets rest, etc. I think. Total guess. Could be completely full of shit there. But guessing.
Mind you, I know it is a privilege to do anything these days:
- even just having a doctor, any doctor
- having access to clean water (Flint, MI, USA still doesn't have access to clean water!)
- enough to make the ends meet so we can buy fresh veg and fruit regularly
I notice these things. I notice how being able to "afford" in this modern western world is a huge piece of the experiences humans have. Affording doesn't buy us out of racism, sexism, disability-phobia or chronic illness, but with enough "affording" those bastard show themselves a lot less in the ways we are able to care for ourselves, or not, in the choices we have, or don't. Or at least we are able to make choices even in the face of those bastards.
I'm thinking here of how last year we had the privilege of coverage to "afford" to get my husband's eye exam and new glasses. Our "affording" allowed him to see properly again and be able to continue driving, etc. But our "affording" could not buy us out of the health-corporate-mindset that targeted my husband as a black man, scared him w narratives of how he could go blind, bullied him into multiple additional tests that he didn't need just so they could bilk more from our insurance. There was absolutely nothing wrong with him, everything came back totally normal. And still the next year, for coverage, we were bumped to more expensive "affording" because of those tests, my hub was now see as more risky. We "afforded" the privilege of caring for his chronic eyesight loss, got the glasses, could make the option to get what he needed to see again. BUT we could not buy ourselves out of the targeted racism that was aimed at my hub insidiously within the health"care" system.
It's bullshit.
-----
I don't know. No answers really. No resolutions, no tidy answers, just continued process. ❤ Just noticing all the times that, even with my best efforts, stress still steps in here, yelling, "Hey Commander! NARF!!"
-----
Thanks for hanging in there with the ramblings of another radical grandma trying to figure it out,
k-
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)