"Are you waiting for time to show you some better thoughts?"

You Reading This, Be Ready

Starting here, what do you want to remember?

How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?

What scent of old wood hovers, what softened

sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world

than the breathing respect that you carry

wherever you go right now? Are you waiting

for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this

new glimpse that you found; carry into evening

all that you want from this day. This interval you spent

reading or hearing this, keep it for life -

What can anyone give you greater than now,

starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

--William Stafford

My husband calls me the "what-if kid." I tend to think of all the possibilities, many of them disastrous of course, before starting something. Talk about a recipe for stalling forward motion. I hope meditation will allow me to sort out those things I need to preview and perhaps avoid, and those with which I can confidently move ahead. Right now it still feels a lot like shooting in the dark, with maybe a pause for "oh, what if I had a bit of light, wouldn't that be nice, well, here I go." I wasn't this way as a child, so it is frustrating to be immobilized by it now. I need a bit of this poem's feeling, that feeling of when I turn around being the right time for what's in my heart.

A bit of success this morning. I got up for sitting meditation at 6 and didn't feel quite so out of breath. I think my body is a bit shocked by moving directly from being the apple butter in a sheepskin-and-down sandwich to propping myself upright on a bolster at that hour. I allowed the emphasis on good posture to slide a bit. We were told that posture gives instant feedback to the psyche, and feeling like I'm trying to breathe through a straw from underwater is my psyche crying for a bit of transition time to grow some gills. After setting up my blankets and candle I rested in child's pose a bit, then slowly raised up to somewhere between a crescent moon's curve and a melting ice cream cone. By the time the bells chimed at the end I was pretty much straight up, and breathing more easily. That said, I feel far less successful with a meditation using simply the breath rather than, say, the bodyscan. There is still quite a clamor going on in there without the presence of a constant guided visualization. The handout says consider your mind as an untrained puppy and that is right on. I am out sniffing, peeing, and chewing on everything in sight.

A bit of success with finding a quiet way to ask Theo to consider his first interaction with us in the morning as well. Nice to feel that a piece of parenting work is a way to converse and bond rather than a gauntlet to be fought over.

A few months ago I found a book which is fundamentally changing the way I look at myself and my challenges in the world. It is called The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World. I have had raging fantasies of this book taking the western world, or at the very least the U.S., by storm and everyone from President Obama to the supermarket cashier talking about how it has completely altered all their social interactions, and I have had small fantasies simply that everyone who knows me would read it and finally understand. Ah. So much for fantasies. I can share a bit, though, of what began a resonating glow in me.

"Introverts like depth and will limit their experiences but feel each of them deeply. Often, they have fewer friends but more intimacy. They like to delve deeply into topics and look for richness more than muchness. This is why it's necessary to limit their topics to one or two, or they can become overwhelmed. Their minds absorb information from the outside environment and then reflect on it and expand it. And long after they have taken in the information, they are still munching and crunching it--a little like cows chewing their cud."

Big clues, there, in relation to my feeling pressed for time to fully complete doing or processing something. There's more, too, about introverts using long-term memory and needing time for ideas and solutions to pop into their heads--we may take longer to remember something but we'll remember it for longer, apparently. "Introverts are in a constant distilling process that requires lots of "innergy." And pressurized situations simply make our minds shut down and go blank. Oh yes, I can relate to that. I know I have a lot of, um, thoughts in here somewhere…just a moment…oh, you're going, oh never mind. More on that later.

What if I could change my harmful reactions?

Today on awakening I tried to meditate to ease the dread. It was terrible! It wasn't working and I could feel my sense of humor about it slipping away. Steve was restless next to me. It was nice when he was away last week and I had the bed all to myself. Why was I thinking that I could do this? How silly to think I could keep the warmth and comfort of being in bed and satisfy the meditation requirement at the same time. The. discipline. of. commitment. means. getting. up. even. when. it. is. uncomfortable. Ha. Now I am feeling the embarrassment of putting these words out into the world. So obvious! So foolish.

Time to put advice of class handout into practice:

PRACTICE your skills as you learn them until they become part of you, where you use them without self-consciousness. PRACTICE:

1. Changing harmful situations.

2. Changing your harmful reactions to situations.

3. Accepting yourself and the situation as they are.

Finished up after he got up. A bit better. Could follow the bodyscan instead of writing a litany over it. First time to get to the face and head!

That tromping means Theo is up. The noise and the knowledge of the frustration behind it can pull my relaxation right out through the walls of my intestine and leave it tied in knots. Step back. Think about how to convey the message of a better choice to him. Wait for a quiet moment instead of storming straight out to confront. Try.

What if I didn't have to choose?

I didn't meditate today. I savored some time warm under the covers after waking and then I chose to write. I am keeping a spotty record of things Theo and Dora say and do. They enjoy hearing things they did and I confess I cannot remember many of them unless I write them down. It seems I forget so much these days. It's one of the things I get panicky and depressed about. Barely picked the pencil up when the kids came in wanting help with writing down a comic book idea.

So. This having to choose is irksome. Sleep or yoga? Yoga or meditation time? Meditation time or writing time? Writing time or art? Art or exercise? It always comes back to this and I have to ask myself again--what is my goal? Why do I expect to be able to do more? Is it really important to do so much in a day? Is what I'm doing the rest of the time (the time that I don't get to choose) so unpleasant that I feel so pressed by having to choose? Why do I feel that there isn't enough time.

1. I feel I used to be productive. I used to have the energy for it and, nested in that energy, the inclination.

2. I see others accomplishing more and compare myself to that.

3. I feel my life slipping away in inconsistencies. Others at this age have established themselves in a profession, or at the least have a passion they follow when they have time. I flit from here to there to nowhere.

At the heart of this adventure into meditation is an attempt to ease a nameless discontent. I can attach it to particular things but I'm fairly certain that when I feel this way those things are just convenient bystanders. The discontent can masquerade as irritability, anger, withdrawal, impatience, an overwhelming sensation of being lost, filled with poignancy and regret, sadness, and much more. I'm an introvert and I know my need for personal time and space has been greatly challenged by being a parent. Still I think there is more to untangle here.

One of the better thoughts I've had since the beginning of the meditation class is that it is so much more enjoyable to choose one thing to do and see how long it takes, rather than see how much I can cram into a particular window of time. This mode is easy to slip into when the list gets long and the windows short. I might even do as much (probably not) but the difference in intention and approach is like sidling up to a field of wild horses and getting close enough to hear one breathe, and marching up to a barricaded corral and causing a stampede. This implies so many luxuries, though, principally of time and lack of consequences for, um, not doing. I will do less this way. Simplifying becomes a necessity. Is it a sacrifice or a gift?

What if I could get up early (happily)?

Since my first child was born I have been waging a war with life to get enough sleep. I am defiant about the amount of sleep I need. 9 or 10 hours a night is best. First infants nursing, then toddlers with night terrors or colds, then perimenopause with sweats or insomnia, then depression with its ever-present list of personal failures have presented themselves as combatants. I've tried to be graceful about this war, but it has felt like a war and not a dance, with the attendant post-traumatic stress. I'm up now…how long will I be up? If I'm up too long, how will I get through tomorrow? Not every night, perhaps, but enough to make an impact.

It's two mornings now I've woken up at 6 and I'm excited enough about this whole new process that I got up and set up a meditation spot. Maybe it's just that I had to go to the bathroom but I felt a bit as though my body was cooperating in this effort to inch myself toward a disciplined life. I put a folded blanket down with a bolster on top and a candle in front, and started the sitting meditation cd.

I liked being up in the quiet of the morning. I'm more the type who clings to the pillow till the last minute so this is new. I liked the fleece blanket around my shoulders. In class our teacher suggested having something warm to put on while meditating and showed us a beautiful red shawl of chenille or some other wonderfully soft warm yarn. It was woven in damask-type pattern of subtle tone on tone and had long tassles on the ends. She lifted it around herself and it hid her knees and little meditation stool in a regal pooling of drapes and folds. Perfection! I had an un-meditative moment of shawl envy. More than a moment, because thoughts of where I could find or when I could make a lovely shawl for myself were part of the thought parade during my meditation. Is it meditating when you look forward to this time you're setting aside because it is so handy to have time to think? I think not.

I didn't like the way my face was scrunching its way every few minutes into a resemblance of Mr. Magoo eating a lemon. This didn't happen when I was lying down. I felt as though I were in one of those breathing machines, too. So laborious! Like a robot simulating a human, I was pressing air out and gasping it in and yet not, well, breathing. I tried different postures…slumped couch potato, yoga diva spine…finally I tried kapalabhati breathing a bit. I've always liked doing this in yoga class. Breathing lightly, breathing deeply, nothing seemed to convince my body it was getting the oxygen it needed. This lasted the entire 45 minutes!

This blog was given glorious attention in my thoughts during this time. Also how easy it would be to make some meditation stools (with a little help from Steve), whether my daughter would be well enough to go to school today (not yet), and where the cats were when I heard some scuffling outside. When the muffled voice on the cd asked "Do you know where your thoughts are?" and affirmed that observing without judgment and letting them go still qualified as mindfulness, I observed that although I don't mind sitting, I don't seem to be settling. Still, going up to make sure the kids were up and getting ready I felt calm instead of dread and that at the very least is a good thing.

What if I could become someone else?

I have just completed the first week of meditation class. I thought it went well. This is a bit surprising because I have spent a good part of each of the last three years being increasingly depressed and not that positive about any darn thing. One of the first things I notice is that all the thoughts I have during meditation are exceedingly profound. Of course I have many thoughts while I am trying to meditate. That is, those times that I am not asleep. The first week we were given permission to listen to our bodyscan cd while lying down. I did that. You might think it makes sense that I would fall asleep listening to calming music and a voice leading me through visualization that includes breath moving methodically through every body part, but I remember trying this cd last summer and just being so annoyed that I couldn't continue and turned it off with an "I can't be bothered." And you wouldn't necessarily expect that I would fall asleep in the middle of the day right in the middle of the living room floor. But last week, that is what I did. Repeatedly. The last day I tried right after waking up in the morning, and had gotten tantalizingly far through the body scan--I found out that we breathe up and down the spine, and the chest was coming after the spine! Then my daughter came in.

Tonight at the second class we were asked to do sitting meditation. "Nothing magical about sitting," said our teacher, "except that you can be comfortable and you can do it for a long time." A man who is having extreme pain in his back and feet was offered a dispensation to lie down. "Can I lie down?" I said. Then I laughed, because I had just got done reporting that my experience during each practice was that I was still pursuing the elusive end of the bodyscan cd because I had fallen asleep. Luckily my teacher and some classmates also laughed an appreciating the joke kind of laugh. I was sitting, so less apt to doze. Consequently, I was very productive. I furnished the new space we are building, I planned how I would make myself endure the winter better, I thought of colors and shapes and my son's halloween costume. Many things were interesting and seemed easily doable as long as I was being required to sit. One of the things I thought was "I should write these thoughts down. I want to start a blog. I have so much energy now I could stay up and do it tonight." So here I am, doing that. Amazing. This doesn't seem like me at all.