On losing one's mind

Also wanted to take note of a hospice visit I had with a patient who has Alzheimer's. We had the same five-minute conversation at least 20 times in the three hours I was there and every time she was delighted to have it. At first I felt awkward about repeating myself so often but it wasn't long before I was able to relax into the situation and just enjoy her pleasure in talking with me. There was also a little pink pillow she liked, which I got to present to her over and over again. That too made her face light up every single time.

If my mind ever ends up stuck in a loop like that, I hope it's a happy loop. I'm not sure it really works this way, but it does seem like the more you train your brain to run in positive channels, the more likely it would be that your mind would roll back into one of them if it should ever happen to get derailed. Even if not, at the very least you'd still have spent a lot more of your life in happier thoughts than if you hadn't made the effort.

Anyway. Just something I've been thinking about.

Sent from my iPhone

Perspective

I was in line at the market this morning and happened to see the latest issue of the magazine I used to be the art director of. Flipping through I noticed that the page count is down again and almost half the stories are basically repeats of stories they already covered in the first three years of publication. The design has gone downhill too - no more full bleeds except on the cover, which I know means they're still pinching and even torturing every penny.

Then tonight at the movies I saw someone I used to work with there, who is still there. I hid behind my friends on the way out, hoping she wouldn't see me, so I wouldn't have to make small talk about work, which is about all we ever had in common. But on my way home I thought about what I might have said, and realized it actually sounds pretty good.

After I lost that job I had a year off making almost as much on unemployment as I was taking home from the job. I spent more time with my family that year than I have in any year since college, and more time at the gym than I ever have in my life. I got to do all the fun housewife stuff I never used to have time for and be a stay at home mom to a gorgeous sweet smart new puppy ...

[Writing from the phone because our power was out today and I haven't fixed the Internet connection yet.]

Anyway, as I was saying --

I got to be at home with Taterman and the Beast for the first six months she was with us. And then I got a great new job that I love, making better money than I ever made at my last gig, with more interesting and fun work for an actual company with structure and procedures and a real live budget, and to top it all off, not only can I take my dogs to work with me, but I just scored a big beautiful east-facing window office with a view of flowering trees. OK, so it's a cubicle and not a "real" office -- but it's big and sunny and lovely and I love it.

Maybe it's just as well that I didn't say anything to her about all this. I wouldn't want to seem like I was bragging, or gloating. But it felt good to hear myself think about it and realize I'm really mostly doing pretty well at the moment.

Not to minimize the down side of everything I experienced in that year off, which I know I've more than adequately documented here already. I do feel lucky and grateful though that even in my blackest moments, at least so far, I've always been able to enjoy the beauty in things, to see that it is there.

Last week at this time I was in Utah at an open house in honor of my youngest sister's wedding. A lot of relatives were there, including many I hadn't seen in years, and my parents on the webcam from their apartment in Illinois. It was such a joyous night for me and as usual I came home feeling like a happy green plant that has just been watered and set in a sunny window. On the flight home I looked down on the clouds and thought how good it was to be up in the huge blue sky with the sun on my face, when down below me on the ground it was snowing and raining. It's a metaphor I see a lot in writings about mindfulness training; the clouds being thoughts or beliefs about who we are or what is happening, and the sun representing the true self and basic goodness that is always there, whether we can see it from our current position or perspective, or not. I think of this a lot when life feels challenging.

[I keep accidentally sending these before I'm finished.]

Continuing: I've been really grateful lately that I was never indoctrinated with a belief in original sin. I've had some sad interactions recently with a few people who I think have been deeply harmed by their belief that people (especially themselves) are basically just not OK. Is that really a religious teaching? Or just something people conclude from how others treat them? It's depressing and boring to be around someone who really seems to hate himself ...

[This is turning out to be a very disjointed post which I hope I can edit back to coherence soon.]

I wanted to say something about the parallels between the Buddhist concept of basic goodness and the Mormon idea that the so-called "fall" of Adam and Eve was actually a gift -- but that will have to wait. Mainly I just wanted to get in here and say I have not yet utterly abandoned this blog, and I am feeling well and happy and grateful for my life. And I hope that you may feel so too, about yours.