Exhausted

Today I am tired. So tired I looked up 'healing exhaustion' on the lovely old interweb. I can't stay awake and  the sleep I experience on the couch from which I cannot rise is deep and the dreams are elusive in their meaning.

I've just come off a fourteen day stretch and today a client cancelled giving me an unexpected day off. Thinking I would get lots more done, I fixed myself a lovely bowl of cream of rice with raisins and brown sugar, a pat of butter and a splash of skim milk. I'd already prepared a pot of decaf coffee and sat down with a hot cup enjoying every sip and slurp of both.

Then I walked to the couch and fell asleep again. Hard deep sleep where I woke fitfully only to say to myself I was too tired to move. Hours later I rose and fixed myself a treat of French toast, a variation on an egg sandwich for lunch. Afterwards I sat down on the couch with my daily clipboard and wrote a few notes. Soon enough I had, after googling exhaustion, arranged the pillows so my head once more could drift off 'for just a bit' I told myself.

Now several hours later I have that fatigue still that makes me worry I have something fatal when really I know I just haven't had a chance to sleep properly for more than a week.
Most of the world is as exhausted as I am right now. We learn to push past it, to ignore it, to function despite it. A colleague of mine has written a song proclaiming most of the world's problems could be solved in the majority of people just took a nap or got more sleep.

The sum total of what I've gotten done so far is some strategic 'think' time and a call to the hardware store to find out if I need graphite spray for the front door. ...Oh...and this blog entry.

I'm going to remember today and somehow not do this to myself again. But most likely, in the pursuit of that which keeps the lights on and the car filled with gas, I will in a couple of months again push myself to the point of exhaustion. Not good. Terrible way to treat my body. Conumdrum to parents and executives and the working poor and slaves around the world.

Hmmmmmmm......what to do, what to do....
Love,
Deborah

Comfort Food

I did this really exciting daring thing, for me, this past Sunday. Our worship fellowship -- I hesitate to call it a church since we're really an espresso bar/meeting hall that sets up chairs on Sundays for worship-- holds an open mic on the fourth Sunday of every month. For the last couple of times I haven't had anything to share, but I had this idea brewing. Anyway, I had this really exciting week of fun activities this past week, some kids over to make cookies and a meal --two separate occasions-- and a Raffi concert with two of my little friends and a client Mom who drove us and had lunch with us,--and we got to meet him and talk with him one on one afterwards-- and then a chance to play the piano again for a hymn sing for memory care residents at an extended care residency and a blowout concert with several different choirs at the Total Experience Gospel Choir anniversary concert ....

And I really wanted to share that. Plus... I've been thinking a deep thought about how I switch into dating mode again. I've really been thinking a lot about wanting to be partnered with someone.Or do I? or can I? And how do you get to marriage?...again?

And I've been thinking about how old I am, and how time has passed and how I miss my kids all the time.

So, suddenly, this idea I had in the back of my mind for ever such the longest time, to try stand up came pressing forward. I had someone put my name on the list, and I got up, and with only a trail of where I wanted to start and where I wanted to end up, did my thing for five minutes.

AND IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!  How do I know it was successful? Well, for one thing, they laughed, and I felt totally relaxed and it worked and two ladies came up afterwards and asked if we could be friends.

Ever since then I have chastised myself ever so quietly in the back of my heart about being inappropriate and ostracizing myself from some church circles because of things I said.  I know those thoughts and feelings are not coming from God.

Nonetheless, they make me want to run back to my comfort zone of being likeable and affable and not putting myself out there in ways that make others look at me in condemning ways.

There are times for comfort food; times of fellowship and board games, times of rainy day movie watching marathons, times of returning to home, wherever that may be and doing sentimental cultural eating.

We can make our lives like eating comfort food too. But most of the time I believe that we are, even in the most desperate of times, meant to be adventurers.

Right now I am trying to carve out a dependable extension to my earlier life's path. But in that, I have discovered, I am only able to do so when I lean into adventure full force.

Make sure there is adventure in your day today. The Love of Adventure is the only way to find comfort in an uncertain world.
Love,
Deborah

Oh Crap

If the wheels of justice grind exceedingly slowly...the wheels of daily life just about fall off the darn car!

This is one of those weeks. I don't have them very often. It always seems to be linked to October. Too much emphasis on the spiritual dark side. All that evil gets excited.

Anyway...so I'm having a downer week and what do you do with that. Well.. I resigned from two committees and that made me feel better. I ate some bad stuff that had sugar that soothed me and then made me feel guilty as could be. Not a good choice, but don't think I would make another one given the circumstances. And I cried a little, a lot. Watched 'The Wedding Date'.

In the end, I decided I have just have to keep busy and let things work out. I'll focus on my business stuff and try to tackle the big problems with pragmatism and just let time pass.

Time and Crap happen to all....sometimes you don't let it be...sometimes... you let it pass.
Love,
Deborah

Eye teeth

This is the silliest most random post ever but I want to record my own 'missing the mark'.  All my life I've wanted those really cool eye teeth that kinda sit up above in the gums fro the four front teeth. I always thought they looked really trendy and with it and sophisticated.  Silly, but I did, do.

So this past week I got some trial head shots back from a photographer. It was a bad hair day and we were mostly trying to find out which angles most reveal the real me. Turns out my right side is my 'good' side.

Anyway they were blown up really big, cropped really tight on my face but not touched up in any way. You can see my freckles. You can see the cap on my front tooth is a different colour, whiter, than the other older genuine teeth. AND it is very clear that I have those really cool eye teeth that sit up above in the gums higher than the four front teeth. I have had what I wanted all my life and never knew it!!!

Hmmmmm.....time to take inventory again......wonder what else I have that I've wanted that I didn't know I had?  Silly Deb, as my client kids say.....

Be of good cheer... you might already have what you want and not be making the most of it.........

Timing is Everything

We all had a good laugh yesterday around a potluck table when we were talking about God's timing. Stating the obvious, that God's timing is not our timing, I responded, "by DECADES!".  It's true.  There's a story in the Old Testament about how Joseph logged almost two decades in jail for crimes he didn't commit. He just got in the way of someone else's bad plan.

I've discovered in my life that following the urge that doesn't pan out is usually reframed when I find out it hasn't panned out immediately. That's the operative word.

The need to be in it for the long haul is overwhelming in this present culture. And yet, those who are classics, those who stand the test of time, those who accomplish a long obedience in a single direction, those who can go the distance, are the ones we admire. We admire them because we know  the core of what they are doing is true and has weight.

So take your time today. Even if your are under deadline, take your time. For example today and tomorrow I have two long luxurious days of writing. My prayer has been for my hours to seem like they are endless. Instead of feeling the speed of those hours as they start out, let me feel the length of them. In the same way that five minutes can seem like an hour as I hit the snooze button over and over again upon waking let me feel the length of each second.

"May your days be long" is a great blessing. "May your seconds be long" is even better. Whatever it is you are trying to accomplish today in this summer season, even if it is difficult, 'may your seconds' be long."

But wait, Deborah, you say....What about hard times?  Well...let me give you another example.
I discovered when I switched sides of the bed to sleep on recently that the railing to the left side of the bed had been put on incorrectly. The installation had left it upside down so that each time I rose off the bed the unfinished edge 'bit' the back of my thigh.  "I'm going to fix this" was my next thought.

In the middle of the project, which I was determined to do myself, there I was with the foot part of the bedrail removed and dangling and the head part stuck fast. I cried out. I sat in that moment of frustration and suddenly it came to me that a. this job was going to take longer than I thought and b. I could unscrew a set of screws on the actual piece and flip it all the same. Mission accomplished? Not quite. I flipped it and then couldn't get the piece back in because it had moved the whole bedstead. Eventually I got it in as best I could and determined that an hour was all the time my schedule allowed for the project. It was forty minutes longer than I thought I would spend. Time for bed.

My point? Even the seconds we are in pain will be better spent if we don't hurry them. It was a good night's rest in bed, not on a too short couch because I put myself in 'not in a hurry' mode.

Enjoy your time today,
Love,
Deborah

the quiet day of contentment

Had an unexpected day off today. One of my clients cancelled and the other had shifted their schedule. Since I rarely get a real traditional Saturday and Sunday, this Found Friday has been a delight. I have puttered between  laundry, dishes, reading and movie watching. The day has seemed endlessly long even after sleeping in a bit.

I'm reading Steve Jobs biography and the luxury of being able to sit down and read a chapter every now and then in a book that is four inches thick was a little bit of heaven. I had been waiting to watch 'National Velvet' for years. The opportunity to fold laundry while experiencing such an excellent classic film set me to thinking about including it in the family film series I sponsor on Vashon Island.

Doing a few more chores and then taking the time to laugh through Dan Ackroyd and John Candy in 'The Great Outdoors' was so good... to laugh big deep laughs over ridiculous situations made me think about looking on Amazon to see if they have the old Second City Series.

In short.. I have enjoyed all the moments of today. Don't get me wrong, I love serving others. A day when I have a break from anyone making demands upon me except inanimate objects that need cleansing or restoration to order is great joy.

I have five minutes on the treadmill and then I'm going to go to bed early to read some more.

What I discovered today was that I am tired, weary, worn out. Having a day when just me can tell me what to do and when and how long and how well is so restorative. I didn't plan this nor would I have arranged the sumptuousness of it given the choice.

But God took good care of me today. Thank you God for spoiling me with a day of wandering through my duties at my own pace, my own  whim, my own thought pattern interrupted only by small pleasures.
God is good...all the time.
Love,
Deborah

Sloughing it off.....

It just occurred to me this distracted day that seems to have more stutters than starts, the most important question to ask myself today is... how much do I slough off today. What I pay attention to and what I don't is always greatly affected by duties and mood, but what of intentional sloughing?  When I played bridge in college, our little group had this joke where we would try to fake out other players that we had great cards when we actually had junk by repeating thoughtfully, 'What to slough, what to slough?" .  I'm going to fake myself out today and pretend I'm holding great cards and say to myself, "What to slough?"  Sometimes just getting rid of some junk can increase the odds of taking the tricks later in the game.......
Love,
Deborah