(no subject)

I "compacted" some mail folders yesterday and my computer seems to have new life breathed into it. Hmm. I know the slowness of the machine has been frustrating: i wonder how much more ease i'll feel if this tool is easier?

I'm still going to ask Christine to get memory added to it while i'm in Ohio.

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My anxiety has been on my mind: why am i anxious? ( self therapy )

I so needed this long weekend. I should probably just go ahead and plan to take time off at Christmas just to rest.

I've taken this lowest stress moment to look at what i need to do this week and try and line up my plans. If i get my work Conditions of Enoughness done today, i should be OK for the week.

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Christine says, "Hello, future Blondie," to the me who reads this in the future.

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Yesterday i was terribly blue. A friend at meeting asked how i was doing as i cried through the first half and i shared that it was simply depression. I managed not to cry through the second half of meeting by having a very concrete grounding meditation. Just as i have other times i have clerked Meeting for Worship, i focussed on a plowing metaphor, thinking of preparing the ground. Yesterday, i was very conscious of my feet in the soil, imagining the texture of clods of clay and sandy soils and humus-filled soils. (Meditation gardens need not be in rational landscapes.)

Christine took care of me in the afternoon: we got laundry done. I took a long soak and read a Terry Prachett book and then we watched two series episodes together. I didn't get in the exercise i'd managed to get the rest of the holiday. And maybe the escape of the evening is what i needed to break the hold of the blues.

This morning i'm mostly aware of the sense of putting on my armor, girding myself to go back into the whirl of email and meetings and so on. I tear up as i think that. My body therapist offered me strong affirmations about how strong i am, how i can cope and focus and manage.

Part of myself screams out how unfair it is, but then part of me has to acknowledge that this shouldering of the harness is something humans have been doing for millennia. That doesn't make it more right, but it does remind me that this is nothing special. (I reflect on my father's reflection that "At least we're not face down in a rice paddy" -- a glimpse into his mixed feelings about not being called to serve in Viet Nam as he had served earlier.) And i can, and do, put the harness down. I'm not my mother, who doesn't seem to know how to stop or relax. As harnesses go, it's not so bad. We are working to create work environments where the clock doesn't drive the harness, but meaning and value drives the harness.

So, off i go.

I hope you find meaning and value in your day, that if you harness up, it is done with respect, and that joy surprises you and lightens your burdens.