Good but odd long weekend (perpetual calendar, critter watch, cats, dawg, f&f, household, adhd)

[elainegrey]

I say it's odd in the sense that my focus was different that it's been for a while. A day of hyperfocus, a day of GTD with the todo list guiding me, a digital decluttering in between. Some progress on postponed tasks.

I ended up staying home on Friday: Christine's brother in law was back in the ICU, and Christine needed to stay with him, so i was home with the pets. I don't really think we need to worry about leaving them alone a long time (she says, with some resignation). It turns out Carrie has figured that she should poop next to the toilet in the east bathroom if she can't get our attention. If she could just ... no, i can't see how she could actually maneuver to use the toilet. (But you know, we could leave a puppy pad out.)

I spent all Friday doing a deep dive into some topics of professional interest and it felt fabulous to focus with no interruptions. I definitely went into hyperfocus. I've since practiced some other technical skills that i just haven't felt entirely able to fiddle around with, but a long weekend poking at things has been good. I also spent a day going through digital detritus, which felt helpful. Today i've taken care of a number of household to-dos. We had run out of the small HVAC filters so i went to Lowes, and came home with four plant starts that were slightly on sale. I think i can recoup the investment

Thursday:  Sylvilagus floridanus (Eastern Cottontail) this time in the east yard (after two mornings when i sighted the rabbit out the front window). They startled when i went out for rain gauge. I'm till hearing cicada but see a lot of dead ones. Carrie found a very young rabbit in the yard and Christine rescued the mortally wounded animal.

Saturday: Another handful of mulberries harvested. So many on the ground! I think i should get a net i can mount to catch fruit. New peonies have sprouted (need to add more soil). Under the pines, Pipsissewa (as i was taught to call Chimaphila maculata) is blooming. (I wonder about trying it as a tea.) The New Jersey tea (ha, another tea plant!) is blooming. It along with the iris virginica are so prolific this year, i wonder if i missed them in my post surgery blur last year.

Christine's been bit by two ticks and we found another today (pre-bite). But none on me yet. How odd!

There's a skink in the house. Thank you Marlowe. Sigh.

Sunday: I am assuming young cardinals were playing along the orchard fence as they learned to fly. I went out to discourage them from staying inside the fence. A squirrel was picking mulberries. Sigh. Where's our predators when you need them?

household, adhd

Comments

[amaebi]

Critters. I love critters.

A sad thing about not renting some damp old farmhouse in Yorkshire is that we're not likely to see a tiggywinkle except on lucky walks.

Tangent motivated by your words on hyper focus:
Do you think that when people want not to think, in meditation, they're looking for that hyper focus flow state in some general, non-content-specific thus content-free fashion? (It should be obvious that I don't understand at all why people want not to think.)

[elainegrey]

When i have had a good meditation practice "not thinking" tended to mean either escaping unwanted or unhelpful thoughts (stemming from guilt/shame/frustration/anger) or escaping noisy thoughts (shopping lists) to a place where more clarity was available.

For me, the meditation clarity is different than the hyperfocus state. Hyperfocus is very directed, laser like, and crowds out everything else. There has literally been a fire in the house that i didn't notice due to hyperfocus as other family members exclaimed over it and put it out.

I think flow is refers to a quality of effort - ease one thing to the next thing to the next thing. I think one can be in hyperfocus and not flow. (I'm thinking of problem solving where things are NOT flowing and nothing is easy.)

Meditation though -- i can see the experience of flow being used to describe how i have arrived at the answers, visions, and insights i've had during meditation.

[amaebi]

Thank you for explaining this! I suspect that the people who've confused me are coming from a different place than you, but/and I love hearing about your experience.

For one thing, I now suspect that for a lot of USians I've known, thinking is automatically associated with fretting....

[elainegrey]

YES.

I hadn't realized how little persevating i do now, until i had a short bout some weeks ago. I don't know if it's just the intentionality i'm trying to bring to various times or if i am just living an incredibly shielded (and lovely and privileged) life. I know i don't let myself obsess about the big shared issues. I do ruminate about the garden and how to achieve goals and when i try to settle in for my brief morning meditation, because i can see the back yard, that's where my mind goes.