feeling

September 3, 2021

Artistic Images

There is a picture of Beloved that I adore. He’s not alone in it. He has his head thrown back laughing, caution tossed to the wind. There is a glitter body of water behind him. Pia, a former flame, is also laughing with light gleaming off her red hair, streaming in the breeze.

It’s as if this one moment has caught all the happiness and glee in the world for these two and held it always in the picture. It’s a way of bottling it up and saving it forever.

At first, he kept this picture stored away in an album. Then, I came across it one day while helping him pack things up for me to move in. I told him that it was one of the most beautiful pictures I’ve ever seen. You can almost touch the sunlight, feel the breeze on your body, and feel the utter joy these two beings are experiencing.

There are no pictures like this of me. Not just because I wasn’t at sea, but because I’ve never liked how I’ve looked. The list of things wrong with my appearance could probably wrap around the earth and then some. Yet, I am envious of this confidence and comfort with self that both of them have in this picture. I hope that the joy and utter abandonment that he shows in this picture still feels now.

July 12, 2020

Nourishment 

I have not eaten out in a restaurant in months.  I know I’m not alone in this.  I know some people say it is silly to stay away from them, that restaurants are part normal life.  I also know that others, like myself, are tired of eating our own cooking.  So delivery and take out reign supreme right now in the art of nourishing one’s self during a pandemic.  

But you just nourish more than your body.  You need to nourish your mind, your heart, and your soul.  Nourishing the body is easy when you consider it comes down to good eating.  How do you manage the rest?  

Some people are using books, online courses, puzzles, and more to nourish their mind.  Beloved has turned to books and documentaries.  How are you managing this dear readers? 

Beloved nourishes his heart with relationships.  He talks to his loved ones even when he can’t see them.  He is open with his feelings when dealing with others.  He finds places that make his heart soar when he needs to.  Soemtimes certain actions help.

To nourish his soul, he places himself in nature.  He allows himself to find and be a part of the magic that happens in existence.  He embraces the simple things.  And of course he has the four-footed one and a duck to help him become a part of the magic. 

June 13, 2019

Pretty Dancing 

Soemtimes,Es things that are beautiful on the outside are anything but beautiful on the inside.  For example, seeing a talented ballerina dance on pointe is a thing of pure beauty.  However if you were to look inside those shoes, you’d see feet that a lot of people would call anything other than beautiful.  This feet shoe the toll of dancing on pointe, of the stress and hard effort.  You may even see signs of the pain that comes with this.

I know bcause I used to dance.  Before lupus, not just before the diagnosis, but before the sky,proms of the disease were active.  And I worked hard to dance, to earn my pointe shoes.  And the hard work showed in ruined toenails, red toes, bruises and such.  From a distance I looked happy and beautiful and as if I was enjoying myself.  And I did.  But it came at a pice.  And that price was my less than beautiful feet.

I recall getting my feet massaged once, while I was dancing, and it was incredible and my feet felt so different.  But it was a very rare thing to do.  Because I did not have pretty feet.  

These days I don’t dance.  I’m not able to dance and I’m okay with that.  But I’ve never lost that idea that things that ar pretty on the outside ar not always the same. And in some ways, I may look passable on the outside, or even pretty.  However on the inside I feel anything but that.  I feel up pretty and ugly.  Full of ruined joints and damaged organs and pain.  And with lupus, no amount of massage will make that part of me feel amazing the way that foot massage once felt to my dancer’s feet.

And it’s easy to relate to this even if you don’t have lupus, because life and people can make you feel I pretty.  Even though that’s not true.  So if no one has said this to you recently, allow me to tell you that you are pretty.  

January 1, 2017

Why Yes, Yes I Do Run Marathons, Sorta

I was listening to a man on the radio describe  running a marathon earlier today.  He said it isn’t “fun” really.  Some of it is fun, but a lot of it is just motivating yourself to keep putting on foot in front of the other, pacing yourself and ignoring the doubting voice that reminds you that your knees hurt and there is still a long way to go.  He finished it up by saying you do it because at the end you have a sense of accomplishment and it feels good.

My mother use to use the same type of thinking when I didn’t feel well.  She’d say just get out of bed, comb your hair, put on some clothes.  She truly believed these daily things would lift my spirits and get me feeling more or less normal.   They didn’t really do that, but it helped me feel less vulnerable.  That’s why to this day I will put n makeup to go to a chemo appointment or dialysis appointment.  Well that plus honestly ain’t no one wanting to see just how red my face can go.

There are days I wonder why bother with all these appointments.   One of cannot get through life with without it ending in death.  Why hold it back when it results poisoning my body just to live?  Why think about things in terms of long distances instead of the short journeys?

The short answer is I do it because I have things still to do, places still to see and maybe, just maybe, touch a life or two. And because while I do believe in quality over quantity, the quality of my life isn’t at a point where it’s a concern.  Not really.  Sure the list of things I can’t do grows a little, but I’m not yet ready to finish.  I’ve got some miles left to go in this marathon of life with lupus.  It isn’t always fun, it is sometimes gruelling, but there is things to accomplish and feel good about.  So I may never lace up shoes for a marathon in the literal sense, but every day I do it metaphorically.

February 12, 2016

What Are You Carrying With You

Friends I have a confession to make.  I struggle, honest to goodness struggle, with letting go of some things.  Not everything.   It seems like some  the stuff I know I need to let go…I struggle the hardest with.

Oh I try, but sometimes I think if I let it go I will somehow realize that I let go of the wrong thing.  when I do let something go of course it’s feels great.  It’s a weight that’s been lifted, freeing me to be open to new experiences.

So what things do I hang onto you may be wondering.  After all some people hold onto history, people from their past, hairstyles, beliefs and what have you.  But nope, this isn’t what I struggle with letting go of.  Instead I struggle with letting go of negative feedback and comments.  I’m not talking about constructive criticism either, instead I’m talking negative things that people sometimes say just for the sake of saying something negative.

It isn’t that I internalize these statements and make them mine.  But I need to turn em over in my mind.  I need to feel each curve and bump of the indivudal letters as well as the flow of the word.  Just in caseload.just in case there may be something to learn from or take away so it can’t come out of someone’s mouth again.

The end result?  I can tell you a million negative things that I may learn something from, but mostly I just carry around.  In other news, if you are looking for someone to anchor you, I just may be the person you need!

How about you?  What stuff do you carry with you even though you know you don’t need to be lugging that with you?  What do you do to let your fingers release their grip on that baggage?

 

September 6, 2014

Falling Shoes

You know that feeling, the feeling that something isn’t right somewhere in your world? Or that something bad is going to happen? Yeah I’ve had that feeling for a few days now.

I’m pretty sure the shoe will fall because in the end a shoe must always fall. The question is what type of shoe will it be. I’m hoping for a flip-flop. Flip-flops are light and therefore the whatever it is that goes wrong would be minor in this case.

With my luck the shoe that falls will be a work boot, a steel, reinforced work boot. I can still hope for a flip-flop instead. I suspect a stiletto dropping could be worse than a work boot. Think about it, stilettos have those thing, pointy type heels, the kind that can puncture and rip through. Imagine those kinds of horrors in your life. Or rather don’t because who wants that?

A friend told me that these feelings of things going wrong are just a trick of the mind. Others say it is a case of being in tune with the vibes of that beyond ourselves. Of course if you sit on these feelings like g enough, well reality is it isn’t always going to be sunshine and rainbows every day.

I guess though,if I believe the worst that will fall is a flip-flop it will be those lovely days of summer longer. Right? Right?