Paused to Admire while Walking

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The Thirty One Days of October

We’ve slipped into the last three days of September.  The month flew by, but I feel as if I am in a good position to slide into October.  I’ve writing about struggling with writers block and I thought that I would make a concerted effort to “write my way into a creative spot” during the month of October.  I was discussing it with T.R. the other day and she suggested that I take a deliberate time each day, as small as fifteen minutes, and simply write. I think that is a good idea and so that is my plan.

For the thirty-one days of October I am going to set aside a deliberate amount of time each day to write for a minimum amount of time – perhaps only free writing, but with the intention of taking the space in time and then filling that time with writing.  I am going to try to find a way to do it at the same date and time each day.  I think I will delineate what is written “in the window” and what is written “out of the window”. 

I’m going to call this little exercise “The Songs of October” – I thought it might inspire me if I had a cool title.  I attempted a similar thing back during Lent, but only made it about a third of the way into the Lenten season before I lost the momentum.  At the time, I had restricted myself to flash fiction and poetry, but this time through I am not going to put any artificial restrictions on it, in order to, hopefully, prime the creative pump.

 

Thoughts on the Power of What We Think

I went to the podiatrist today on a follow up visit after the hammer toe surgery of early August. It has been seven weeks since the original surgery. I had a pin through the toe for four weeks and I’ve been wearing what I refer to as my “toe bondage device” – basically a sort of sling-for-toes that held the toe in place – for the last three weeks. The toe bondage device was inconvenient but not uncomfortable, with the exception of one day when I managed to get it twisted around and strangled my toe.

Today, I got a clean bill of health. The toe looks good, it is laying back down flat, alongside the other toes. It isn’t perfect and the podiatrist stated that if it is not flat enough, we can have a second, follow on, minor surgery to lay it down flatter. It may not be perfect but it is probably 95% better than it was before, when it was scrunched up and hammered. When I stand flat footed it is slightly higher then the other toes on that foot. Inside a shoe I don’t even notice it. I have one more follow up in about a month, but essentially this excursion into the world of corrective surgery is complete.

Though the elapsed time between me walking into the office, the doctor examining the toe, and me walking out of the office was about thirty minutes. Yet, walking out, I felt significantly better. Sitting here at home the toe feels significantly better. There is probably no real change, physically, between yesterday and tonight – but, in my mind, in that wonderful realm of psychology, I am suddenly no longer carrying the weight of the toe. Now, it is just a toe. A toe with a clean bill of health.

Words are incredibly powerful things. Today, T.R. got a bit of good news of her own, one card that, when turned, fell one way and not the other, in this vast game that is life. When she relayed it to me mid-morning I felt the weight of that lift as well, though I am sure what I carried was a fraction of the weight she was carrying. Words are astounding things. The weight they carry. The weight they can release.

It leads us, I think, to consider carefully the words we utter – good, bad, and indifferent. Whether it is the weight of a life or the weight of a toe, all wrapped up in words. What we think is a powerful thing and the role the words we think and hear and say play in that powerful thing is pretty amazing. I guess today I am moving through life pretty amazed, with a lighter heart and a lighter toe and perhaps a lighter soul. All due to the power of words.

Things My Counselor Reminded Me Of

One of the advantages of seeing a counselor, as opposed to confiding in your friends or relying entirely on your support network, is that a counselor sees everything with a fresh set of eyes, hears everything with a fresh set of ears, and doesn’t assume you’ve covered the basics.  On Wednesday I made my first visit to the counselor I was referred to by the company’s employee assistance program.  It was a typical first visit to a counselor – we did paperwork and then she did the intake screening, where she worked through a series of standard questions and then we talked.

The principle challenge area for me is work stress. To paraphrase an observation from the counselor “my resilience is worn down”.  Think of your resilience as a cushion between you and the bumps in the road.  The thicker and stronger your resilience cushion the better able you are to ride out the bumps on that road. Over time and under high stress that cushion starts to wear thin.  As it wears thin you start to feel the bumps more and more.  They types of things that you previously just ridden over start to jolt and jar you. They can become painful.  For me, my frustration threshold is reset very low.  When I bang into the normal bumps and jolts of the working world I don’t bounce like I did three years ago. I personally found it a very workable analogy.

One of the things a counselor can do is focus you back on the basics.  I am no stranger to stress.  I’ve worked in a high stress field for years. Perhaps all of my working life has been in a variety of high stress fields. I’ve been through a wide variety of stress management classes and training seminars over the years.  A lot of those techniques and tips helped through the stress of the last couple of years. But, in conversation with the counselor I realized there were two very simple techniques that, in my tunnel vision, I had forgotten to use.

The first was so obvious that, when she asked about it, I figuratively kicked myself in the rear end because I had forgotten it. It is the most simple and basic stress reduction technique in the book.  Breathe.  Simply breathe.  When you encounter a stressful event, simply take a moment and breathe.  Take three minutes and breathe.  Use your stress management, or yoga, or meditation breathing. Just remember to do it.  It was quite a realization to me that I wasn’t breathing like I should be and specifically that I wasn’t using the meditative breathing techniques that I know very well in direct and immediate response to stress inducing events. I simply forgot.  Stress induces tunnel vision and I think I was deeply in the midst of it.

The second was almost as equally obvious and that is use guided visualization techniques to protect yourself in the midst of stress.  Visualize yourself surrounded by a protective field.  Visualize yourself as waterproof and the stress as rain drops.  Visualize yourself in armor.  There are a wide variety of visualizations that you can use, whichever strike your personal fancy or appeal to you.  Use whatever works as you try and manage the stressful events.  It is another very basic thing that, in my tunnel vision, I was forgetting.

I think one of the main differences between your personal support network and a professional counselor is the absence of basic assumptions.  When I’ve talked with those people in my personal support group we’ve never talked about the very basics. Perhaps I would have had the moment of realization if I had. But, most likely, I assumed I was doing the basics and they assumed I was doing the basics. 

Additionally, since my stress is primarily focused around work, it is not as prominent or pervasive while I am off work.  I very rarely have stressful incidents outside of the work environment.  I usually wake up in the morning, run through my morning routines, and enjoy that time.  When I finish the working day I am generally very good at leaving that stress behind me, since I know it is going to be there on the next day for me to pick up.  Consequently, in conversations outside of work – I often simply don’t bring work up, except for the occasional commentary.  For the folks in my support network I sincerely enjoy their company, so work stress tends to be farthest from my mind and I find myself focusing on the good things in life, the things I love, the things I enjoy, the constant state of amusement and amazement that is the very fabric of life.

The introduction of a professional counselor into the mix allows that fresh set of eyes, both as they look in, and as you look at yourself in an attempt to share as much of yourself as you will or can with the counselor. That vision from two different perspectives is a valuable thing.  Perhaps it is simple the value of vision from a different perspective. Perhaps it is simply telling our story anew that empowers the insights.  Whatever may underlie it, I think that if you are contemplating whether or not you need to see a counselor, give it a try.  Worst case scenario you waste a little time and money.  Best case scenario you gain a little insight.

 

Two Anxiety Dreams

Dream One:  I dreamt that I was riding in a car that was going down a freeway.  Ahead was a complex intersection where we were going to turn around and go back the direction we had come from. In order to make this turn, it was a case of getting into the right lane and than making a pair of left turns – right to get off the freeway, then left and left again to get back on the freeway going in the opposite direction.  The driver of the car, whom I never actually saw in the dream, reversed the directions, attempting to go left and then right-right. This made the already complex turn even more complex.  Eventually we made it through the intersection, but it was time consuming and frustrating.  The dream ends once we are safely turned around and heading back in the direction we came from.

Dream Two:  I am in the parking garage on 3^rd street in downtown San Jose, near the Camera 3 theatre. I am coming down one of the stairwells on my way to my car.  I am apprehensive because, in the dream, there have been a series of robberies at knife-point in the stairwells of the parking garage. I am not so much afraid as I am apprehensive.  As I go from each floor to each floor I am mentally playing out response scenarios if I encounter a robber.  “If they are here, then I am going to do this and go here…”.  I play out each scenario in my mind as I go down each floor.  Eventually, I reach the floor where my car is parked.  I walk to my car without incident and the dream ends just as I arrive at my car.

Following this pair of dreams I awake at about 3:30 AM.  It feels like it is later in the morning, so I actually check the clock to see if it is time to get up.  I briefly consider getting up, but decide it is way too early, so I lay there in bed, trying to go back to sleep, thinking about the pair of dreams.  They were both classic anxiety dreams and they ramped up my anxiety a little bit, but not significantly.  They were not high anxiety dreams or nightmares.  Both dreams had a successful resolution after a period of apprehension.  In the first dream, we were able to successfully and safely turn around following the wrong turn.  In the second dream no robber appeared and I was able to make it safely to my car.  In neither dream was I denied the opportunity to reach the goal, in fact I passed through both dreams and arrived at my destination safely after the period of stress and anxiety.  After a while I was able to fall back asleep.

 

Working through The Wall

In two separate incidents in the last couple of weeks I’ve hit what I have started to call “The Wall”. I’ve been through a lot of stress in the last couple of years, from “The Project That Almost Broke Me” to the health issues that led to the amputation of my toe. Anyway you cut it, that is a lot of stress, layered on top of all the other incidental stressors of life in the modern age.  Now that I am through the worst of both of the above the stress that I had so tightly clamped down is starting to find its way out.

I never totally repress my stress.  That is very counterproductive.  But, sometimes I simply set it aside, focus on the things at hand, and then deal with the stress at a later point.  Well, I’ve reached that later point.  Last week I called my companies EAP (employee assistance program) and spent some time on  the phone with one of their phone screeners and then subsequently set up a follow up session(s) with a therapist, starting this Thursday.

The two pronged trigger event was what I’ve taken to calling “the wall”, since the experience of it is very similar to hitting a wall.  Other similar events have occurred since I’ve been under such stress levels, but these two occurred in rather close proximity, and all things considered, I figured this was a good time to visit a counselor.  Basically, what happens is this.

A couple of weeks ago I was socializing with some friends and as the conversation turned passionate I suddenly realized – I simply didn’t care. At a deeply profound level I simply didn’t care. I wasn’t interested.  I wasn’t engaged.  I was simply done. I excused myself, got up, and went home.  It was a rather abrupt departure. 

Then, about a week ago I was at work and I got a call from the company health plan, which has a “condition care” program for people with long term medical conditions, to help you manage them. I’d consented to participate in the program, which basically comprises of a nurse calling you every six or seven weeks and checking on how things are going.  It’s fairly unobtrusive and helps keep you focused on managing your long term health condition.

Well, we played a bit of phone tag last week and then I finally managed to get through.  I spoke to a person on the help desk, we routed my call to a care nurse (or so I expected).  Instead, the call was routed to someone who tried to get me to participate in some other program provided by the health insurance that was a little more comprehensive.  And suddenly…I didn’t care. I told them to take my name off any list because I was done.  I thought the call was deceptive marketing and I was no longer interested in participating.

Inside of me though, I had slammed right into “The Wall”.  When I hit the wall I am incapable of rationally moving forward. I am just finished.  I am through.  I am no longer interested. I profoundly don’t care. I am not mad.  I am not losing my temper. I just…don’t…care.  Once I hit the wall – I don’t care about anything. I am just done. It usually fades after a couple of hours and I can resume my normal activities.

Though it is a “larger than work” challenge, it primarily manifests itself at work. During those times when I am up against the wall, at work, I am simply and completely disengaged.  When I hit the wall at work I basically stop doing anything productive and simply – get through the day so I can go home.  I literally have to struggle to answer work related email.  I will literally sit there and stare at the phone while it rings and have an internal debate on whether or not I should answer the phone.  I’ll sit at my desk and look at some project and just…stare at it.

I can do other things.  I can do other non-work related things.  I can even do a few peripherally work related things, like read material, or attend a meeting, that sort of thing.  But if it requires any significant level of engagement, I just can’t do it.   The feeling (or more accurately the lack of feeling) always eventually fades, but while in the grips of it I am essentially paralyzed and completely disengaged. I am going through the motions of work, not actually working.

 

Thoughts on Writers Block

I thought I would take a couple of minutes this afternoon and write about writers block. I don’t have a total case of it.  I can and do write.  But, when I write I have the sense that I am writing around things, not about things. Like I have a subject, I have content, and instead of addressing it directly, I just kind of skirt the edges.  It is not a very satisfying experience and I am not really sure why I am doing it.

Every now and then a bit of inspiration manages to make it all the way through and become a finished piece of work. Every now and then something that is inside, waiting to get out, slips out and makes its way to the page as a finished piece.  It seems kind of rare to me.

I find myself self-censoring because I just don’t quite like what I am writing. It is not related to the subject or the content of what I’m writing but rather the form and structure o fit. Almost everything seems to be a near miss.  It feels like I am just slightly off center, just slightly off kilter.

I can’t seem to get back to the center though.  I wonder sometimes if it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  I don’t write and because I don’t write I don’t like the quality of what I write. In order to move my way through the writers block, I need to simply write more, but I can’t write more because I have writers block.  It is the experience of being slightly off center and hesitant to move back to the center.

All in all it is unlike any prior experience of writers block. Previously when I’ve been blocked there has been a reason why I was blocked, usually some subject or content that had worked its way to the head of the writing queue and was stuck there, backing everything else up until it resolved itself.  I really don’t feel like that this time. I think what I might need to do is simply practice writing – practice, practice and then practice some more until it starts to flow again.

I am not sure that is the solution. But, I did write about it, so that was a step in the right direction.

 

Thoughts on Frustration

Frustration arises when two conditions are met.  First, we have the expectation of a different outcome and second, we perceive that we have done everything necessary to realize that expectation.  Frustration arises at either the known or unknown quantity that we perceive as preventing our expectation from being realized. I am sure there are many individual manifestations that fall under the umbrella of frustration. Though they may vary in details at the specific levels they all result from that generic sense that our expectation was not met.

My frustration bubbled up over the last weekend. I was socializing with my friends and I was expecting a certain level of courtesy during a rather heated conversation. I perceived that I was being treated without that level of courtesy, despite the fact that I felt I was clearly extending the same or greater courtesy. I  started to develop the feeling that I was being manipulated into a position where my only recourse was to be even more discourteous then the other people were being and I didn’t like it.

There were a variety of ways to deal with it. I could have waded into the conflict.  I could have simply ignored it. I could have taken any one of the many options that lay between those two ends of the spectrum. But I could feel my temper starting to boil and I decided, rather suddenly, that the best thing for me to do was express my frustration and excuse myself before I lost my temper and said things that I might later regret.  How many times have you seen in life where an argument breaks out and the original point of the argument is lost in the harsh words tossed about?  Where the prick of a thorn becomes a wound? I wanted to avoid all of that, so I excused myself, expressed my frustration and headed out the door.  It was the wise choice.

 

Slow Walking Insights

On August 9^th I had outpatient surgery to correct a hammertoe on my right foot.  In November of last year I had the right great toe (the big toe) amputated and the development of the hammertoe in the second toe is not unheard of, as the remaining toes are working pretty hard to compensate for the loss of the great toe.  The hammer toe developed over the course of two months or so. The surgery seems to have gone well.  It isn’t perfect, but it is a lot better than it used to be.  I’m also not a person who really expects any sort of perfection, so I am fine with that.

For the first two weeks after the surgery I wore a post-op shoe, as the swelling subsided and each subsequent visit to the doctor’s office resulted in a smaller, more comfortable bandage. After the last visit to the doctor I switched from the post-op shoe to a comfortable pair of Columbia sport sandals.  If I’d have been thinking I probably would have made the switch earlier, since the sport sandal and post-op shoe are essentially the same design – a sole with straps. The sport sandal even extends beyond the edge of the foot to about the same distance as the post-op shoe did.  Most importantly, it is a lot more comfortable.  I was telling people that wearing one running shoe and the post-op shoe was a lot like wearing a running shoe and a flip-flop. With the sport sandal the level of foot support and the height of the sole is about the same.

Anyway, as a result of the surgery I’ve been walking slowly.  I think, in general, I move around at about a third of the pace of everyone else.  It has given me a strange perspective on the world and an interesting set of insights into my friends and acquaintances. Here are some of the things that I have observed and thought about.

First, when you walk slowly, you really see a different world.  It is like I am walking in an alternate universe.  I work in a fairly big building and the restroom is about fifty yards from my desk.  Besides having to give myself plenty of lead time (there is no jumping up and dashing to the bathroom), I’ve become very aware of how bland the hallway is.  It is possible to become bored just walking down the hallway because it takes a long time and there is, generally, nothing to look at on the journey.

Second, the most dangerous part of having a foot injury is the people who try to help you without announcing their intention.  They reach out to steady you when they think you’re unsteady (and almost knock you over by pulling or pushing you off balance).  They suddenly jump in front of you to open a door (catching you off guard and throwing you off stride as you approach the door).  They “hover” by walking very close to you, with the best of intentions, but effectively throwing you off stride because they are crowing you.

Third, you can pretty much divide the world into people who are paying attention and people who aren’t paying attention.  Quite often I’ve been in a store or restaurant and the help (the host or hostess, a floor clerk) with turn and take off, not noticing that you’re not following them at anywhere near the same rate of speed. I’ve had hosts/hostesses in restaurants dash all the way through the restaurant, arrive at the table and look around with a bewildered gaze when they realize not only am I not behind them, I am not anywhere close to behind them.  I’ve had clerks in stores do the same thing.  The people who are paying attention do the little things like walk slowly, or seat you at a nearby table, or offer to pick an item up for you if it is clear across the store.  It has just been an interesting experience.

Fourth, you can also divide the world into people who ask and people who don’t ask. Then, you can divide the people who ask into those who express sympathy and words of encouragement and those who will insist on telling you some vaguely related horror story along the lines of - Oh yes, my Uncle had that surgery and then as he was limping around he was mauled by a pit bull who bit off the toe on his other foot.

Walking slow though, I have spent a lot of time studying the mechanics of walking, which are pretty fascinating.  I’ve also spent a lot of time watching other people walking (usually as they are zooming past me in either direction).  I’ve also just spent a lot of time…watching.  I am an addicted people watcher anyway, so limping slowly through crowds or finding someplace to sit and watch has always been fascinating to me anyways.

The slow walking can be frustrating, especially here, later in the healing process, when I want to do things. I’ve pretty much had the ongoing process of simplifying my surrounds on hold, tackling only a few very minor things, because it does require the ability to walk – if for no other reason than to take out the trash. However, I do feel that I am approaching the point where I can start doing some minor movements, much as I was when healing from the earlier amputation. Over the weekend I organized my movie collection and moved in from a pair of metal racks into a single bookcase and arranged it in alphabetical order.

But, I counter-act the frustrations of slow walking by focusing on Zen walking – that is, being as entirely in the moment and act of walking as I can be.  That is kind of an interesting experience as well.  I have a follow-up Doctors appointment on Wednesday, for a check and possible removal of the stitches along the top of the toe, and they may remove the temporary pin sometime next week, which I am definitely hoping for.  The approaching Labor Day weekend holds one of my favorite festivals – the Pleasanton Highland Games, and I am going to hate to have to cancel out of it if I am still in the sandal.  But, it is important to focus down on it and remember that healing is always more important.

 

A Return To The Floating World

I was thinking about writing today. I’ve been suffering from some form of writers block for the last several months. I am able to write, but it is small bits and pieces of things. It has been pretty rare that I have managed to write anything of any substance or size. I have stories that I am inclined to tell. I have thoughts, ideas, observations and little journeys of imagination that are the basic building blocks of story-telling. But they are not reaching the page. They are not becoming full blown stories.

I seem to be mostly content just watching. Perhaps I’ve got too many things on my mind. Lord knows it has been a busy, and not always a good busy, year. Lord knows that the year has flown by. I’ve expressed a near continuous desire to slow time down. But, then things will happen that do slow time down…and I still don’t write. Maybe it is a time in my life when I should just be observing. Maybe it is a time for watching, listening, feeling, smelling, and tasting. I don’t know the answer to that question – but I do know I want to be writing. So I call it writers block without any real hesitation.

I know assorted tricks to overcome writers block. I have been writing long enough that I’ve encountered writers block before – in some cases far more profound writers block then this. But there is usually a reason for it that I can put my finger on. There is usually some visible obstacle that I can surmount or circumvent. Right now, there really isn’t. Not any external block anyway. There is just a space between the imagination and the paper.

Part of me knows that what I really need to do is just sit down and start filling that space with words. Part of me knows that the best way to get through writers block is to just simply start writing. Write anything. Write everything. Eventually the good stories manage to find their way through. Eventually the words return and the stories start to spill out onto the paper. I am hoping to find that balance point soon.

I’ve got two thoughts about how to move past this writers block. First, I’ve been contemplating staring a new online journal. Rod’s Floating World has a certain history, a certain weight to it. I started it at one point in my life and it was sort of a catch-all through a certain time. However, I am not in that time-space any more. I’ve moved out of it. Life has altered in the small and subtle ways that it does and those alterations seemed to pull me away from that place.

But then it dawns on me that any online journal is just a place. It is an empty piece of paper. What is in the journal has nothing to do with the dimensions of the journal itself. An online journal is like an empty bowl. The usefulness comes from its emptiness. It’s not about the bowl, but rather about what you put into the bowl. Lately, it seems I have been filling it with breakfast cereal. Not that there is anything wrong with breakfast cereal, but it’s not a meal. As a writer I’ve been hungry for a meal for a while now.

Today I reached the decision that I was not going to let “Rod’s Floating World” slip away from me. It’s a beautiful little place and it has a certain history to it. I sometimes like looking back at previous years, especially on sort of a month to month to month comparison. It’s cool to see the rhythms of life played out there. Even though the rhythm of this life has changed, I want to keep playing out that rhythm here, in this wonderful little bowl that is “Rod’s Floating World”.

Additionally, I am spinning up two other online journals. After some careful self-examination over the last couple of months and a bit of a trial run, I’ve decided that one of the things that will help me write my way forward is to focus my writing around themes. “Rod’s Floating World” is going to be my place to write about, well, the Floating World (1). “A Blue Bowl” is my place to write about my ongoing journey toward minimalism and a life of simplicity. “Chain of Words” is a place for my original poetry and short fiction, some of which is of an explicit and adult nature.

Somewhere along this journey I lost the core of the “Floating World” and it became a catch-all, a sort of back water where all kinds of flotsam and jetsam was washing ashore. I’d kind of like to write my way back over to the heart of it. Part of this journey that I am on right now is the journey toward simplicity and minimalism that I mentioned above. One of the internal drivers of that journey is the desire to once again move in the core of this life, to once again find the core of this floating world.

A few months ago, in a conversation T.R. and I were discussing the journey toward simplicity and she made the comment that one of the things she would like to see me try is to also try and make that journey in my writing. I’ve also thought about that intermittently ever since she commented on it. I think that part of the reason I lost the ability to write is that what I was writing became cluttered and once cluttered it lost its core. Inside that core is what I love about writing.

Creative writing, whether you write poetry or fiction or creative non-fiction, is one of the most intimate things that one human being can do. It is a level of intimacy that some people just cannot attain. It requires a certain fearlessness and courage. I look back on some of the things I’ve written over the years and the level of intimacy captured inside the writing astounds me. It is that intimacy in writing that reaches our emotional core. It is that intimacy that makes the great poets like Pablo Neruda, Frank O’Hara, and Ted Hughes so emotionally powerful. They write with an intimacy that reaches off the page and pulls you into a tight embrace, pulls you right through space and time into that perfect moment they captured. When I can touch the palest shadow of that intimacy with my own writing I feel transformed. Not only am I transformed, my world is transformed. My soul is on fire and I am fully within the floating world.

(1)Ukiyo or “The Floating World”

“Usually the word “Ukiyo” is literally translated as “floating world” in English, referring to a conception of a evanescent world, impermanence, fleeting beauty and a realm of entertainments (kabuki, courtesans, geishas) divorced from the responsibilities of the mundane, everyday world.

The contemporary novelist Asai Ryoi, in his Ukiyo Monogatari (Tales of the Floating World, 1661) provides some insight into the concept of the floating world:

…Living only for the moment, turning our full attention to the pleasures of the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and the maple leaves; singing songs, drinking wine, diverting ourselves just floating, floating….refusing to be disheartened, like a gourd floating along with the river current; this is what we call the floating world…””

“Ukiyo-e”, Wikipedia.com, Last Updated March 31, 2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukiyo-e