I'm here

Just a quickie to write down something interesting that happened to me this morning.

I've been waking up way too early as it is, and Daylight Saving Time has not helped. Usually the first thing I notice when I realize I'm awake is that flood of adrenaline sloshing through my guts. Once I'm up I can get it back down to a manageable level by exercising – I feel fine as long as I'm moving fairly fast, walking or hiking or riding my bike. If I go hard enough, the effect lasts awhile, at least long enough to give me a few good hours to focus on freelance work. But it always seems to creep back up again, the longer I sit ... bad news for someone whose only source of income depends on spending time in front of a computer.

I feel good while I'm walking. But I can't walk all day.

This gives me pause, when I think about what I'm going to do next for work. Am I really going to try to find another job that involves sitting at a desk? What else do I really know how to do? When I get back from this little Utah trip (driving out tomorrow for a few days, with a friend who's going for business – so, free gas and hotels!) I'm thinking I might re-activate my substitute teaching credential and see if I like being in a classroom at all. That's a job where you actually get to stand up every once in awhile ....

Anyway – on to what happened this morning, and then I've gotta get out of here and get some exercise so I can get this little project finished before I leave tomorrow.

So this morning I had an experience of pure, open awareness, just as I was waking up. I realized I was awake, but there were no thoughts there – I was just there, warm and safe and quiet with the sun shining through the window. Then, the first thought that came into my mind was, "I'm here." That was all. It was just like what the Buddhist texts describe as emptiness – I was just there, and there wasn't any story attached to that moment, or emotion, or judgment, or anything.

It only lasted a few seconds and then there was a thought, "NO JOB!!!!!!!!!!" Then an immediate stab of adrenaline, a gush of terror .... And then for a few more seconds I was actually able to clear all that out and go back to just being there. Then it came back, and I started twitching and shaking and had to get up. Sucks to be sensitive.

What caught my attention thinking about it later was that nothing had changed in my circumstances to cause the change in my physical state. I hadn't even moved my body. It was the story that was being told inside my head that was causing all the hullabaloo. It was in my mind, and not in my body – because my body was totally fine, relaxed and even kind of happy until the story asserted itself again.

Not to discount the story, exactly – it is true that I don't have a job, and I'm going to need to figure out what to do about that. But that fact doesn't have to be the central defining feature of my existence or my state of mind.

So today I'm thinking about how I might learn to have more of those moments of OKness, by practicing refocusing on the present instead of letting my mind go to town on hyperinflated fear stories.

In the meantime, I'm just feeling grateful to have experienced it. The memory of that moment feels like something I'm going to be able to work with for a long time.

The first reward

Sleep deprivation does not agree with me, so I am really looking forward to next week, by which time I hope to have gotten the hang of going to bed early. Getting up early, I'm discovering, is really hard when you don't also know how to fall asleep early. Although that is becoming easier, as well, with every morning I wake up rumpled, muzzy, exhausted and confused.

This morning when the alarm went off I was dreaming that the Mac guy (from the Mac and PC commercials – yes, I am spending way too much time with computers these days) was standing behind me at my desk at work, looking over my shoulder as I worked feverishly on a tricky page layout. I was eating a sandwich (the same turkey and avocado sandwich I ate for breakfast the other day when a kind co-worker took pity on me) out of a brown paper lunch bag, only it wasn't a brown paper lunch bag, it was an empty plastic package of Cheetos (the crunchy kind, not the crispy). There was an apple in there, too, and a little baggie of baby carrots.

"Can I help you with something?" I asked the Mac guy, irritably. "Um, you're eating my sandwich," he said. And it was his sandwich. In the dream, I made a quick calculation, trying to figure out whether I was going to have time to get out for lunch or not – meaning, whether I was going to give him back his sandwich or not – and then snapped to a decision. "Sorry, man," I said. And stuffed the entire thing into my mouth.

Oh, what a week it's been. Über-overtime, to the point where I'm clocking out for lunch, going back to my desk to work, and clocking back in a half hour later, all so "the government" doesn't sock it to my bosses for working us too hard and denying us our breaks. Hmm. Yesterday I did have the sandwich to eat – that was nice. The day before I failed to plan ahead and by the end of the day (night) all I'd eaten all day was a handful of stale seaweed crackers and three candy canes that had been hanging on my office-mate's desk lamp since Thanksgiving. Right now the skull lollipop someone gave me for Día de los Muertos 2005 is starting to look really good ... but I will resist, I will resist and abstain, and as soon as I finish writing this I'll go home and make myself a nice piece of toast. I've been longing for it all day.

So: the reward. After the weird dream, I hauled myself out of bed, got my groove on, etc. etc. – and then, just as I was turning to leave my room I happened to glance out the north window into the back yard and BAM! There was the most beautiful view of gorgeous golden light slanting through the bare branches of the peach tree and falling on the flowers of a 12-foot-wide rosemary bush in full bloom. There was a little frost on the leaves still, so I got purpley-periwinkle colored flowers, dark green and silvery leaves, wet reddish bark on the bigger branches, all against a backdrop of redwood, fir and oak trees. Totally fabulous, and something you would just never get to see at any other time of day. That alone was worth getting up for. Worth eating nothing today but chocolate croissants left over from a meeting, and a slice of jalapeño pizza I know I'm going to regret by tomorrow. Worth realizing, a mere half hour ago, that the reason I've been feeling slightly uncomfortable in my seat all day is because I put my underwear on backwards this morning. Worth knowing that next week is going to be even more grueling.

This is a picture of a rosemary twig in blossom, in case you've never seen one. Imagine a small room full of this. It's really something to see. When the sun is out, the bees are all over it. On Monday they were – the day I was changing my bike tubes out on the patio. It was lovely. Then it rained for a few days. Now it's clear again, and cold. I love it.

So yeah. I'm pretty tired, but still planning to continue getting up at 6:44 a.m. every day until Easter, even and including tomorrow, even though Mr. A is actively campaigning for me to give myself a break and sleep in until 7:30. But I think I will remain strong on this one. The problem is not so much getting up early, but not getting enough sleep, and not planning well to make sure I have food available on deadline days. I will get my act together over the weekend, and begin next week ready to roll.

Hand to heart

Since I'm online anyway, researching remedies for post-operative dog swelling, I will report that I've spent the better part of the day today kneeling on the floor in front of the couch, with my hand holding warm compresses against Tater's chest, feeling his sweet little dog heart beat, beat, beat. All day long. It's been nice.

The swelling isn't bad, and the incision doesn't look infected, but his licking woke me up this morning – I had thought he wouldn't be able to reach that one – and the area was starting to look a little angry. So I applied warm cloths for a half hour at a time, every hour or two, and it really brought the swelling down AND seems to have stopped him from wanting to lick so much. I'm glad I still have one more day to keep an eye on him before I have to go back to work; I'm hoping I won't have to make him wear one of those horrible Elizabethan collars during the day. If he still feels inclined to lick tomorrow, I may try having him wear a t-shirt instead and see if that discourages him enough.

Other plans for the holiday include spending some time in the yard again (this time in the sun), washing the dishes again, and installing new front and rear tubes on my bike. They were a Valentine's day present from Mr. A, along with some fancy silk lingerie – well, lightweight silk long johns – which are my kinda lingerie. I'm excited about the tubes most of all – my front one has been going flat every couple of days or so, and the back one is okay but it has a Presta valve and I'm always worried it will go flat when I'm out and about, because I can only pump it back up again at home, where I have the Presta adaptor. So now I'll have new Schrader tubes on both wheels (plus Mr. Tuffys). Such an exciting life I lead!

In the background right now I am watching the Science of Sleep, which a friend at work recommended to me. Visually, I'm enjoying it very much. Right now the guy is dressed in a furry brown bear suit – only with a long tail – and playing drums with a pair of paintbrushes, with a band doing some unknown version of my favorite old Velvet Underground tune (the one where Mo Tucker sings "If you close the door, the night will last forever"). Now he's in his neighbor woman's apartment and it's all full of strange toy animals, bird cages, a stuffed fabric telephone and typewriter – all these are reminding me of the stuffed toys I used to make when I was a kid. There was a tiny blue fleece elephant, which I still have somewhere, a green cat made out of an old wool cable-knit sock, dolls with long dresses and funny little felt shoes with real laces ... I used to love making that stuff.

Seeing it in a movie makes me want to start sewing toys again. But what to do with them when they're done? Sure, I have a large supply of nieces and nephews ... that would be one place to send them. Or I could sell them, I suppose. Or just give them away. I've been stalking all these craft blogs lately, and am constantly surprised at how madly people seem to love even just the most basic handmade things. It seems like a very supportive community, but I've been avoiding entering it because ... hmm. I guess because ... well, hmm. Why? Because what if people are mean to me? Or don't like my stuff? Or do like it, and steal my designs?

I have set myself a goal, however, of stepping over all these "what ifs" and putting at least a few little things into a shop at Etsy, which, if you don't already know about it, is a nice place to start sharing artwork without having to deal with any kind of pressure to produce more or faster or better than you want to, or can. I will post a link here when I have something to show.

Finally, I'm still thinking about this Lent thing. Ash Wednesday is this week – this Wednesday – and the closer it gets, the more nervous I feel about getting up early. I never felt this way when I gave up chocolate, or even sugar. I knew those would be hard, but I never worried that I wouldn't be able to do it. Getting up early scares me, though. Maybe because my only real experience of waking up very early took place during the years when I was having depression and panic disorders, when I would wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning in a deep, sweating, nauseous panic and feel absolutely terrified to open my eyes ... But this is not going to be like that. For one thing, I'm not planning to get up at 4 a.m. Mr. A and I have discussed it and I think it's going to be something more like 6:22, which is still early, but very doable. Possibly 6:44. I'll unveil the actual plan as soon as I decide for sure what I'm going to do.

But for now, I have at least one more day to sleep until I wake up naturally – tomorrow, Presidents' Day. And Tuesday, too, except that on Tuesday I think I'll be going in to work early, hoping to get a jump on a deadline I'm afraid is going to bite me on the back later this week. I'm not going to think about that right now though. Right now, all I have to do is get Tater comfortable, get me comfortable, and get to sleep. So I'm going to go do that.