With Gold

At a certain point the hardest thing about so much of your ambition going unfulfilled becomes finding out that you’re basically okay with the way things have gone.

~Adam White, “The Midcoast”

For AF

Bless the day

“But the discipline of blessings is to taste each moment, the bitter, the sour, the sweet and the salty, and be glad for what does not hurt.”

“The art of blessing the day” by Marge Piercy

Good behavior

Recently I watched someone behave very kindly and generously to another person who had been very mean about them (and they knew it). I don’t think I would have been able to let go of the meanness enough to do the nice thing — especially not with the meanness so fresh. Observing it up close and personal has kind of blown my mind and increased my respect for this person exponentially.

Untitled

And it was true, the religion she was raised in had always seemed vaguely foolish to her…for why should babies be born into sin, why should she pray to the invisible forces, why would god be a trinity, why should she, who felt her greatness hot in her blood, be considered lesser because the first woman was molded from a rib and ate a fruit and thus lost lazy Eden? It was senseless. Her faith had twisted very early in her childhood; it would slowly grow ever more bent into its geometry until it was its own angular, majestic thing.

~Lauren Groff, “Matrix”

A good medical visit

I’ve had to see a lot of medical providers over the past couple of years. It’s been a very mixed bag. A few days ago, I had a visit for a small problem, something probably minor, yet worrying and a little painful. It took some effort to get the appointment and I was frustrated by that.

But from the moment the provider walked into the room, she was a delight. Not simply in the sense of being kind or attentive — she was that, but she was also real. She was fully there with her complete quirky unusual self. She asked me a question about myself, not related to my medical history, and shared a personal anecdote. She quickly solved my problem and made me feel that she enjoyed it.

Each time that I’ve remembered this interaction over the ensuing days, I’ve enjoyed an unadulterated feeling of calm pleasure and appreciation. I send her thanks and good wishes!

take in the good

Psychologist Rick Hanson has a practice based on neuroscience and mindfulness he calls “Take in the Good.” This helps counteract the inherent negativity bias of the human brain. In a recent podcast, he suggests that we only need to bask in the goodness of a positive event, thought, interaction, or emotion for maybe the length of one breath, to possibly help rewire the brain away from the focus on negativity.

I’ve been trying to practice this for a while, but in the past few days a couple of really excellent yet small things happened to me. They had a big impact, but they would also have been easy to miss. I’ve decided to start documenting those things here, just briefly, in about the length of a human breath, so they’ll be here to remind me when I start to get stuck in negativity or distress.

Stay tuned.

Last of February

Snakes?!

“She was still weak, she would never be strong again, but she knew she could do anything if she only moved carefully enough.”

~ Lauren Groff, “The Vaster Wilds”

Busy Feb 2025