I have no time for winter blues A clear sky has little else to choose Gone is the rain That flooded my brain It’s a return to the mountain views
Pouring the sunshine out of our hearts Deep in the valley, the cloud departs High season, no joke Then awaiting the smoke Of burning fields when summer restarts
Submitted to dVerse Zeugmatically Speaking and inspired by other poems written there. Not quite sure I’ve hit the mark with this one and I find limericks to be lazy poems but this one fell into place.
Tired and good! I slept early last night and ended up waking a little earlier but as it was still dark I tried to get back to sleep and when I finally got real deep into it again the alarm went off.
I pushed and struggled through exercises telling myself how much better I will feel afterwards. My arms and legs ache at the joints from all the extra work they’ve been doing but ultimately my body feels more together and capable. I can only imagine how I might feel if I had treated myself better in my teens, twenties and thirties.
In my early thirties, I started going to the gym after work and then straight to the beach to bodyboard. I always felt great after that but rewarded myself by drinking. One step forward, one step back.
Today I’m grateful for:
The nice taxi driver that took drunk Amy home from the city this evening. It reminds me that most people are ok.
The best thing about today was:
Messaging with Nong Mee and getting an update on how she is doing as I rarely see her these days. She is the girl who swallowed a bunch of pills last semester. She said she is doing better and that even when she feels down she knows both myself and some of her friends are there to support her. I was heartened to read that and happy for her too.
Something I learned today?
I read in Derek Sivers’s book Hell Yeah Or No that our beliefs and understanding of the world are based on our location.
Obvious, true, but the point was that when you go to foreign places, the people there grow up with their own set of beliefs and understanding. Rather than take the approach that our way is best we need to unlearn our own beliefs and accept different ones.
Even knowing your way is better it’s not appropriate to try and change something blatantly. Gradually, exposure on both sides will find some kind of agreement.
I know I struggled with this when I started teaching in Thailand. Of course, I want to improve things for the lives of those I’m teaching. I no longer think I can do that with words but rather through actions and just being.
Quote: Day by day, what you do is who you become. – Heraclitus
I guess it’s obvious. But when you are in the middle of being you, and always believing you are right, the obvious becomes obscured.
Since my late teens, I became less confident in the things that I knew. Doubt crept into everything.
For a long time, I considered myself a fence sitter, often admiring those who held strong beliefs. Now I have come around to the fact that the fence is often the best place to be. The wind can blow in different directions. Whilst there may be universal truths everything else is always up for debate.
How did I practice stillness?
I’m going to say that I practice this when I’m reading. I know my brain is still active but I am usually focused within the story, almost out of body.
Even when I do meditation my brain struggles to calm though I do generally feel less stressed after. I know it’s a matter of practice. I don’t think I’m in a state of stress that requires me to counter it with converted efforts towards stillness really.
I took this picture because after I finished my class around 4 pm I ended up playing volleyball with Nicha and one of the boys and got soaked with sweat as there is no cover in the playground at the moment. The sun kept appearing through the broken clouds along with the already high humidity. Nicha joked about how cold she was when I tried to block the sun with my hand. I didn’t even really cool down in the aircon of the car on the drive home and the house was already stinking inside so I tried to cool down with a shower but even that was a struggle. Then, seemingly suddenly, it got dark and proceeded to rain heavily non-stop for about thirty minutes resulting in all this water sitting on top of the soil under the trees, the ground already too waterlogged to soak up more. The rain has calmed down a little now but is still coming down with no sign of it stopping just yet.
This is certainly not the rain of England. The snitty spitty in-your-face cold annoying dull grey wet of Atlantic weather. This is the joyous cooling rain of the tropics, life bringing to our plants – flood bringing to the roads and fields.
The fisherman was still paddling his boat around the river and I wished I was him.
Are you someone or no one? Are you alive or dead? – Subhumans, ‘Rain’
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for the rain today. It’s cool and refreshing and feeding our plants.
Brain dump
Bad weekend full of negative thoughts – still now struggling with it. Hayden and I are the same – I can see now. When I look at his life there seems to be a key event that has caused him problems – i.e. when he got bashed.
I got punched a couple of times in my youth too but I didn’t put much significance into those events – but maybe they did leave some effect. I know I was dark for some time after both of them and when I look at them now I can conceive that I deserved to be punched both times. But does anyone deserve that? Am I selling myself short?
Stopped painkillers for now and double sertraline again – see if I can get some stability back. Feel like I’m too serious and not enough fun.
Talked with Amy last night. She pointed out that I don’t know enough about Hayden and his life. He always gets a little defensive about any questions about what he is doing though so usually I just wait for him to offer up information. This time I guess both me and his mum waited too long. Yes, I blame myself. But at least now is a chance to do something about it I guess.
I’ll try to talk to him about this today. Hope I can keep my own head clear.
Now it’s Monday and my head is on straighter. I woke up more inspired despite having to go back to work – where we are doing nothing. Somehow I was motivated – perhaps my doubling my sertraline. Perhaps by Amy putting things clearly for me before sleeping last night.
I was fortunate to be able to talk with Hayden this afternoon and he sounds so much more hopeful too. We agreed to talk to each other more often and in more depth in the future. I felt so much better to hear him talk more clearly and deeply. I told him that he is very much like me – I can understand the way he thinks and all the negative self-talk he puts on himself. I do that plenty too – usually, I can get over it well enough and I’m glad to say I’m over that little dip from the weekend. Let’s see if I can continue.
1994ever 