Life of Wry

Thought I’d do a little stream of consciousness, because I want to offload a few thoughts but don’t have the time to organize them into a coherent essay.  And because I just want to de-formalize a bit, relax and open up and not work so hard.  I have a strong suspicion that if I stay too long with any of these thoughts, I’m going to over think and over write, and either beat them senseless, or give up on them altogether because they will have lost their luster.  And see? Already I’m bored.

That’s the trouble with writing, you know?   I want to write, I do, but it’s a huge struggle to just open the gate and let it flow.  I end up working too hard and in the process it grows rigid.  And then I conclude that some thoughts that were great in your head, are just better left there.  And that’s stupid, especially if you’re trying to develop skills as a writer.

So… not stopping.  Keeping going…

But, changing the subject.  Here’s the picture I took for today:

Walked past this little parking lot scene on the way home from lunch with Jim this afternoon.  Is it about perseverance?  Optimism?  Endurance?  If you bother to really look, there is always beauty to be found?

It’s the photo-of-the-day and, you know, it can say whatever you want.  Go for it. Let it speak to you.

Anyway.

Walking home, I was telling Jim that I’m working on a list of new years resolutions for next year.  I’m a new years resolutions kind of person (we know this), but I’m not usually coming up with them this… early.  But it has been a reflective few weeks, you know?  Maybe it’s because of the crappy weather.. a springless spring kind of messes with you.  It’s May for god’s sake.  It is pouring as I write this; it’s rained all spring.  Enough already.  (The weather’s been so grey and cold and un-May-like, I’m starting to use words like crappy.. not usually one of my words, in fact it’s one of the few words my mom outlawed in our house, as she thought it was particularly crude..a wee bit ironic, given her vocab these days, which can be very un-ladylike).  Very uncharacteristic, but the weather is really starting to affect me.  Going inward.

More likely, though, the reflection is part of post-trip melancholy.  Everything seems so anticlimactic, after having been so far away and so incredibly activated.  Coming home, great as it feels to be back with my family and life, I feel a bit misplaced and out of sync.  My re-entry this time has been particularly disorganized and tedious (to wit, only today did I finish unpacking and putting everything away.. three and a half weeks after getting home: a new personal worst). (Which, I also have to say, made a huge difference.. the clutter that was everywhere is gone.  Desk is back, office floor is clear, table tops are empty of all the clothes.  I even cleaned out the vacuum cleaner closet.  Totally on a roll.)

So… feeling reflective.  And with that reflection..a set of new years resolutions, 6 1/2 months early.

Aaaaaand….. here, I was going to write about them.  But now I’m not going to.  Thinking about them the last few days, I thought they were particularly good–not earth shattering, not even that clever, and certainly not original–but smart and wise and I thought reasonable.  I thought, wow, maybe I’m starting to get it.  Over the years, I’d started to wonder if perhaps I was never going to really grow up, that I’d just have to come back again in someone else’s body and try harder.  But then, a flash of wisdom, and I’ll think maybe it’s all coming together, maybe age, experience, therapy, adversity, perspective, advice, travel, time, conversations with others…  are this perfect storm of factors and influences that are starting to make an impact and maybe I’ll figure it out after all.  I mean, here, for example, are these great resolutions…

But now I can’t really share them. Not to be a tease..  But now they seem silly and obvious and not worth the build up.

So changing subjects.

I ordered a book today called the Buddha Brain… which has nothing at all to do with my recent trip to Nepal.  It comes from a conversation I had last night with someone who’s reading it and recommended it very highly.  She said it’s possible to re-program the neurons in your brain in a way that avoids certain patterns of thought in response to certain situations or circumstances (in my case anger ar0und a set of events).  The objective is to obtain greater equanimity and inner peace by re-routing the paths in your brain that keep you stuck in unproductive, counterproductive, nasty places.  Totally doable, they say. Who wouldn’t want that?

Which brings me back to the resolutions:  one of them had to do with equanimity–finding it, living it.  Less anger, more equanimity.  Because sometimes you have to move on.

Now you know one of them, anyway.

A moment ago, I did a search on how to wrap up stream of consciousness writing. Didn’t find anything specific to that, but came upon a lot of sites and a few quick comments that confirm SofC is at least a legitimate thing:

• SofC is unstructured, unedited writing that reflects your observations or feelings in the moment
  

• SofC is a way to cultivate your emotional and poetic mind, and to improve your writing skills in general

• SofC writing may lack correct punctuation or syntax; it favors a looser, more incomplete writing style

• SofC, also called stream-of-being also known as the mindstream (Buddhism)

Interesting. Although it occurs to me that perhaps it’s best as a private exercise.. not done publicly.  But that’s alright, right?  Not that big a deal.  Except it’s terrifying not to edit.

But here’s the thing, I don’t think I said anything.  You have to wonder if that has value.  I read recently a compelling commentary on writing, about how it’s important to have something to say, and worthless to read if it’s vacant.

On the other hand, a huge part of my strategy this year has been to create a practice of writing, a habit.  Also a comfort with the process.  My thought was that daily writing would remove the barrier, the fear.  It would become a comfortable and natural practice.  I even said that some days the best I may come up with is a simple caption, and that’d be ok, as long as I sought to write at least something, so that it becomes a ritual and a non threatening, easy process.  Which speaks to the value of SofC.  Right?  Just writing.

Dunno.  We’ll see.