Don’t just stand there, make something!

Any time in my life when I have spare time, and things on my mind, I can use a distraction. Not so much an external stimulus type of distraction like seeing friends, but something to keep my mind focused on something other than the inside of my own brain.

A lot of the time, it’s reading. Lately I find that reading stimulates more writing which leads to more thinking, which can be too much, uh, thinking. There was a proper sentence in there somewhere. Let me know if you see it.

So what to do?
Some people meditate. Some people pray. I make something.

This weekend, I cleaning out the spare room and found a lot of fibery things I’d not done anything with. So I got out my spinning wheel, pulled some merino out of a bin and made some yarn. It is a little rustic, and I am out of practice…but it will make a useful and beautiful something or other. Probably a hat. I make a lot of hats.

Right now, I am trying to work on this green one.

I was on a driving ban after a procedure so I was stuck at home. Spinning and knitting count as doing something productive, so I can do something totally unproductive at the same time without pretending to feel guilty about it. Today it was a movie binge: Maltese Falcon, Meaning of Life and Hard Day’s Night.

And that means that I am not going to write anymore. I can’t write and watch the Beatles at the same time.

So ta for now.

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Decisions…

If they were right, I’d agree, but it’s them you know not me.
–Cat Stevens/Father and Son

Close calls can be catalysts. Even ones that really aren’t all that close. Even ones that aren’t even yours.

First a catalyst. A decision. Then change.

It’s the decision that is the hard part, at least for me. Once I have decided something, I can live with it. I’ve made some pretty stupid decisions over the years, but I can’t really look back and say that I regret any of them. Nothing too awful has ever happened to me as a result. Some of the people impacted by my decisions might have been hurt initially, but even for them things seem to have worked out.

Good decision making or luck?
I have no clue.
Maybe both.

I don’t know how other people make decisions. I like to say that I go by my gut, or my heart…and that’s probably true in the end..but I put a lot of obsessive thought into any major decision.

My brain tells me all about what is rational, and I do listen to my rational side. When my heart agrees with my brain, it’s simple.

When they disagree?

Usually one side feels more strongly about something than the other. That also make’s things simpler. If my heart really wants something and my brain shrugs. Cool. If my heart thinks it wants something and my brain screams “are you fucking kidding me?” Again, simple.

If it’s a tie?

Hopefully that won’t ever happen.







Being naked

What the people who don’t wear shades don’t know is that some of us wear shades because they’re all that stop us being eye-naked — forced to gaze, unprotected, at the wet and bleeding face of reality as it squirms and pulses and writhes like a razor slicing a child’s eyeball or the sight of something dead, twitching, just once before collapsing and bloating
–Neil Gaiman

It is not easy to be naked.

In what way?

In any way. Actually or just metaphorically.
Eye-naked, naked souled or just plain physically nude.

Having the gaze of others on your body, mind or soul is…trying for those of us who think about such things. Yes, the weirdos.

And you know what? I take back what I said about being physically naked. That’s really not so difficult, depending on the situation. For the first time with a new lover? It’s a nervous feeling, but a good one. In front of a bunch of people who are all fully clothed? Maybe that wouldn’t be fun. Naked among other congenial naked folk, like at a beach or Burning Man? Not a problem at all, except for getting dirt and sand in inconvenient places and sunburn. Mentally, it’s much easier than being naked souled. Much, much easier.

Showing people who you are, who you *really* are requires a lot of courage. A willingness to be vulnerable. A willingness to admit that you could be rejected, but you’re going to show your soul anyway. It’s an amazing feeling, but so hard to do. Especially if it’s ever blown up on you. There is nothing quite like letting someone see who you really are and having them grind their heel on it like a cigarette butt. It’s something you maybe don’t quite recover from.

So then what? You just don’t do it again, right?

Wrong.

Well.
Yes. You do stop doing it. You close yourself off.

And what does it get you? Right. Nothing.

It’s a difficult thing to wrap your mind around, but in order to get the kind of love you probably want? You have to be open to it you have to trust. You have to have faith. You have to be vulnerable.

Or you won’t ever get it.

I know, right?

It does suck.

But it’s the only way.
I’ve tried everything else. Trust me, I know.