A Necessary Indulgence

 

The heat index here is 108 and climbing.  An hour north of me, a year ago, it was 127.  Ice cream is a necessary indulgence.  I don't typically care for fruited ice cream, but I have to admit, this combination is very good.  I would definitely buy these again.  Bordeaux Cherry Amaretto (black cherries, almonds, amaretto) and Amaretto Peach Charlotte (peaches, ladyfinger cookies, and almonds). At least the almonds are healthy, no?

At least I got the flowers to come back.  Between the heat and the insects, I was about ready to toss everything into the trash.  I had set the containers on the concrete patio, and the radiant heat was burning up the roots.  Aphids and some little green caterpillars had also taken up residence among the leaves.  Even though I had treated them for aphids, and had been watering them every other day, they were nearly all dead, except for a few spindly stalks of green. I moved the containers onto the lawn, and within three days, they were turning green and blooming again.  I even have a few begonias bursting into blooms. I will post some photos soon.

I noticed a Blue Jay on the edge of the birdbath today, but he didn't drink from it, or bathe in it. I wonder if it's too deep.  I had placed a large glass pie plate out on the ground as a temporary birdbath.  It saw lots of action, but I wanted something taller, since stray cats and other wildlife roam the yard.  The birdbath doesn't get used nearly as much.  I ordered a solar fountain for it and will drop the water depth a bit when it shows up tomorrow. Pics to follow.

When Flowers Bloom Into Wishes

It's mid-July. The summer is wasting away. The days are so hot now that walking outdoors is like walking into a blast furnace and the 100+ heat threatens to scorch your brain cells. Still, being outdoors is a thousand times better than being stuck inside staring at a computer screen all day. So, I drag the lawn chair to the backyard, sit in the sun, and listen to the songs of the birds and the cicadas. Their sounds bring a sense of peace and calm from the chaotic clamoring in my mind. 

Back in March, I had started thinking about planting wildflowers in the backyard to reduce my lawn. Lawns are silly. They don't serve much purpose. The grass grows, and we cut it, or pay someone else to cut it, once a week... once every two weeks... It's a stalemate between you and the grass, and it's a complete waste of time, money, and energy. 

It's not that well-manicured lawns look bad. They don't. But why not plant something useful and create manicured walking paths among the wildflowers? The wildflowers will feed the birds, and the bees, and the butterflies. They will drink the rain and the dew, and display their glorious blooms for a season. When they wither, they will feed the soil, provide cover for insects and small mammals, reseed themselves, and break forth to bloom again in the spring.

The most well-manicured lawn can't compete with that.

The days tick by... the months... the seasons. I stare at the lawn, which has withered and browned in the intense southwest heat. The parched earth splits apart from the summer drought.  "Be careful where you walk," I tell myself, while prickly blades of grass crunch under my bare feet.  As odd as it sounds, I find the brown, dying lawn more appealing now than when it was lush and green. 

A not-so-random thought emerges that I speak out loud to myself. "It's too late to plant anything, now." And I derive a sense of relief knowing that the time to plant has indeed long passed, and I am, somehow, now absolved of the responsibility, because I never planted the wildflowers. I only dreamt about them. I only wrote about them, and became lost in the overwhelm.  

The overwhelm is my near-constant companion. It's the precursor to procrastination.  It's the thing that keeps me from moving forward on any project.

You've heard the phrase, "You have to eat the elephant one bite at a time."

Focusing on the overwhelm is the brain envisioning you eating the whole elephant all at once, rather than taking it on one bite at a time.  It lets you see the goal on the other side, and it lets you see where you are at the starting point, but everything in between resembles a Jackson Pollock painting. There is no form. There is no path. There is no way to get there from here. So, you sink into procrastination, and you abandon yet another project that may have brought you a bit of joy and a sense of accomplishment. The pattern of procrastination always leaves a void.

Fall comes. Winter comes. Another spring. Another summer. And the flowers bloom into wishes.

Socks on the Floor

Have you ever woke up in a bad mood, but didn't know why?  It's as if, during the night, all the baggage you stewed about for the past week converged at the front of your psyche and you woke up ready to fight with the first thing you saw.  

Even something so small as a sock lying on the floor can set you off.  You get up and kick it across the floor as if it's the fault of the sock that it somehow animated itself and deliberately jumped out of the hamper and landed on the floor, just to piss you off.  Or, if you're an all-or-nothing, scorched earth sort of person, you decide to grab it off the floor, find its mate, and throw the pair in the trash, because you can't take a chance on both of them rebelling against you.  You know that if you let them get away with that kind of behavior, the next thing you know, there will be a coup, and your hamper full of dirty laundry will literally take over.  There will be dingy socks scattered on the floor, stained shirts loafing on the furniture, and dirty underwear dangling from the light fixtures.

Then, the dishes in the sink will hear about it, and launch their own takeover, thrusting your entire home into a state of chaos.

If you let it, waking up that way will set the tone for the rest of your day.  It doesn't matter what caused it.  It could be anything from lack of sleep to dehydration, to hormonal changes, to nutritional deficiencies, to the fact that you stayed up too late watching a movie.  Regardless, you have to get a hold of "it" before "it" gets ahold of you.  The "it" I'm referring to is that really shitty mood that grabs you first thing in the morning and won't let go.  While it can affect anyone at any time, this is a frequent struggle for people with C-PTSD.  You have the power to overcome it, but you need to find your "thing."  The thing that works to get you out of your own head.

Gratitude helps.

Find one thing to be grateful for.  Nothing is too small or too stupid.  After all, this is your moment. Your day.  Your life.  If you are thankful for something, express it.  Speak it out loud.  It doesn't matter whether you thank God, thank the universe, or thank the thing itself.  The goal here is to shift your mood and improve your sense of self.

Try this experiment:

Get out of bed, pour yourself an 8-ounce glass of water, and drink it.  I say 8 ounces because you want enough water to start hydrating your cells, but not so much that it just runs through you.  This important step will begin to rehydrate you.  Most people are mildly to moderately dehydrated, which affects your mood, your sleep, and your overall health.  

Step into a hot shower.  Are you grateful for having a hot shower to step into? How good does that water feel on your body? What about the sound of the shower running?  Does it soothe your mind?  Lather up. Think about the feel and the scent of your shampoo as you massage your scalp.  Rinse.  Gaze down at the drain and envision all the chaos swirling away from you.

How many things did you find to be grateful for?  

Sometimes, one of the first steps to healing from complex trauma is learning to find one thing that gets you out of your own head.

When you allow yourself to express gratitude for the mundane things in life, you will quickly find that you have a lot more to be thankful for than you thought. So, tomorrow morning, when you wake up, think of at least one thing you are grateful for before you get out of bed.  Then, maybe, something so small as a sock on the floor won’t trigger your fight response, and you can save your sanity for the day’s more meaningful battles.

The Uses of Sorrow by Mary Oliver

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me

a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift.

- “The Uses of Sorrow” by Mary Oliver (1935-2019), from "Thirst," 2007. Beacon Press.