Every Day Like a Vitamin

I'm 62. My child is 18 and will head off to college this fall. I did the heavy lifting of mothering for 18 years, and while I will always be part of my child's life, they will launch into their own. I have more time, energy, and mental capacity free to use in different ways. Working as a therapist is one project, and I love doing the work. I missed it so much before returning in 2021. 

Another project of mine has been to renovate my life in such a way that I become physically healthier and more fit. Losing weight and regular intense exercise has improved my life so much, particularly my mental health. And goodness knows with the state of U.S. politics, I need to take care of this.

Lately, though, I've noticed I am prioritizing creating daily. It brings such joy and equanimity. It feels as important as eating and sleeping. It puts me in a flow state that enables me to be a decent human being and do good things in the world. But most of all, as I'm getting older, I'm acutely aware that my remaining time is finite and precious. I am going to die. Every day I wake up and put that awareness front and center in my attention, because I want to spend some time every day doing this activity that makes my life rich. When I'm on my deathbed, I want to have no regrets. I want the satisfaction of knowing that I gave myself to life and really engaged.

So every day since January I've been collaging (posted here). And lately I've been making small abstract paintings with watercolor, and converting other painted paper into notecards. It makes me grateful to be alive. And I am grateful to myself that I've made this practice a daily priority.

Self-Care in Political Chaos

Someone shared this clip from PBS with me: The surprising way to fight political exhaustion, in which sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom talks about "agency" as a key to countering exhaustion from relentless horrible world news and politics. 

She's on point. It makes me think... if I'm standing still awhile, it starts to hurt and get heavy, my feet and hips ache, etc. But if I walk or move in some way, pain recedes. (I had a lot of retail jobs long ago.) Passive consumption of news forces us to stand and hold heaviness, which feels even MORE heavy because that's all we're attending to. I liked her term: agentic. 

This is why I've joined to volunteer with Action for Happiness, and why I've started making "little art" earnestly, on the regular, and why I'm returning to frequent entries here, and might even write poetry again. Since this post is public, I can't pretend I'll be a secret agent -- but I can be an agent for kindness. 

Jackie Summers on The Physics of Wishing

I've followed Jackie Summers on Facebook and on his Substack for several years. Based on what I know of his life story, he is a human phoenix. Much respect to him. He's an eloquent thinker and writer, as well as the first Black person in America with a license to make liquor. He created a drink based on the generational recipe from the African-Indiginous heritage of Barbados: Sorel Liqueur.

His recent post was about The Physics of Wishing, and I wanted to bookmark it for future reference. The entire post is worth reading. 

But the core of what I want to post are his instructions as follows:

How to Actually Send a Wish

(No physics degree required)

If any of those landed in your chest and you thought, “I hope that’s true for somebody I love”— here’s how you turn that into a real wish.

You don’t have to believe in magic. You just have to be willing to try an experiment.

1. Breathe once, on purpose.
Inhale a little slower than usual.
That’s your rhythm.

2. Let one person come to mind.
Just one. A friend, a lover, an ex, a parent, a stranger on the edge.

3. Find your stillness, set your intention.
Say it quietly in your head. Let your body feel what you mean.

4. Exhale slowly.
On that breath out, imagine the wish leaving your field and brushing theirs.

That’s it. That’s the whole spell.

No glitter. No angels getting their wings. Just a small increase in local coherence, from your nervous system to someone else’s.

Lay Down Your Suffering

 Little Altars Everywhere

There are little altars everywhere
in the world, places where you can
lay down your suffering for a while.
Hollowed-out oak trunk by the forest trail
where you leave acorns and pine cones
and worries you’ve gathered on a cushion
of moss, whose patience softens everything.
Or the bench at the busy intersection
where streams of people crossing the street
parted around you, and you fell in love
with each of them—the men in suits, babies
strapped in strollers—and left your fear
crumpled there like a useless receipt.
Or the shelf where you keep the box
of your mother’s ashes next to an electric
candle that flickers day and night, how you
give your grief to the yellow glow of that
false flame over and over, knowing
that even the plainest of light can be
enough sometimes to hold your pain.

--James Crews