tumbleweeds – The Hermits' Rest

Energy Crash, Tumbleweed Stopped

All week I’ve felt like a tumbling tumbleweed, going from meeting to meeting, issue to issue, emotion to emotion. That’s made this week feel two weeks long.

No longer tumbling. That’s good, because I was getting vertigo.

Today I finished another Program Initiative Planning week at work (lots of meetings, lots and lots of them, all intense). I ate my delicious free lunch of stuffed acorn squash and came back to blog for the rest of lunch hour.

It’s obvious this is my desk. There is a LOT of red, orange and pink in there.

Instead, I realized I was just staring into space, listening to the high whistling sound made by the industrial air conditioning system, mesmerized by my keyboard and mouse. I only figured out my keyboard did this light stuff yesterday, at about the same time that I realized my mouse changed colors.

I hope you can see the mouse…

The Chinese are very creative, are they not? But, with no English instructions, I didn’t figure out this stuff until I looked online for how to get the mouse to work. The USB dongle thing was very well hidden. Anyway, this thing SHOULD keep me awake, shouldn’t it?

It’s all black and white, and I’m slumping into a puddle of gray.

But, the point is, I just crashed. I had nothing left. All the color is gone (other than the keyboard, this place where I’m working is nearly all black and white). That’s not good, since there is still work to do, so I hope that writing this will perk me back up! It’s very rare that I crash, since I’m one of those people who always has something to do, plus two or three back-up activities. I predict some more crashing in the near future. My brain is telling me I need to slow down and breathe.

Now, I DO meditate, faithfully. But, that’s more of an “activity” to me, because emptying my brain is doing something, at least to my busy brain. It’s my favorite part of the day, but that peace rarely creeps out into the rest of the day. Hmm, the meditation peace is active in some way. This exhaustion peace is empty in a totally inactive way. Like nothing. Meditating is something.

I need some clarity on this, so I’ll go back and think about it more. Or, I’ll spend another 15 minutes watching the keyboard.

Doing My Duty (as tumbleweeds continue to roll)

Yippee, I managed to vote today, at last. I’m registered in Austin, so I had to wait until I was there to do it. It’s the final week of early voting here in Texas, which means the anxious people already voted, and the last-minute people haven’t decided it’s the last minute yet. The process was easy and appeared secure, as far as I could tell. Of course, I am a white lady voting in a wealthy neighborhood…

Nonetheless, all the electioneering around the voting site bothered me. Sure, they have to keep at least some number of feet away from the poll place, but all sorts of people were there with shelters, clipboards, and other things that I found annoying. No, I don’t want to sign your petition. And no, you aren’t going to change my mind by wagging a sign in my face. Well, at least they still let people who aren’t white males vote, so it could be worse (and who knows, may be in the future).

Meanwhile

I keep tumbling along through life like a tumbleweed gaining speed. I know I can’t fix everything, but, gee, I feel powerless to help in some situations. I tried to help a dog all day yesterday, and every time I got a ray of hope, something else knocked the hope out of me. There may be a lot more of that coming around, I guess.

My tumbleweed is practically airborn! Yow! Image by *@sselby7 via Twenty20*

I did get to see one of my coworkers who I hadn’t seen since March today. Here are my two teammates taking socially distanced photos of each other.

They are sharing views of each other with the rest of the folks in a Zoom meeting. That’s what passes for excitement.

All Is Not Lost

But, hooray, I managed to fix something after I voted! I had to go to the grocery store after voting, because I have NO coffee creamer at this house (little did I know that my ~~endless~~ fascinating meetings start at 8 tomorrow, so I probably don’t have time for home coffee). It was nice to see food, drink, vegetables, and such all arrayed in aisles and displays. There weren’t many people there, so I didn’t get too concerned about germs. I had a fun time at the checkout speaking bad Spanish with the cashier, then started to go home.

$125 to replace it. $2.50 for battery. I win.

The car’s key fob had decided its battery was end of life. No amount of trying to put the key in a better place made it start. So, I called the dealer. What to do? Can they come fix it? No. Oh, darn. BUT, the dude described how to get into the bowels of the key fob and find the battery! And I happened to be at the grocery store, a place that sells, of all things, batteries!

Back in I went. And I fixed the key fob all by myself. That tiny self-sufficient act made me feel all empowered and proud. That kept my spirits up and led to three good meetings with people on my team. Ideas were had! Progress was made! I have competencies!

I did my meetings upstairs, and even though it’s gloomy and cold outside, the Bobcat Lair is a cheerful place to hang out.

Honest, I’m not as full of mood swings as this makes me seem. I’m sharing, because right now we are all running into unavoidable obstacles or feeling unable to keep up with things that are going on around us. Finding something to center me (along with all that list of things I shared yesterday) gives me a surprising boost of well being and confidence.

Dang, it’s cheerful! It fills me with YOJ.

I highly recommend doing a good job at something, anything at all, to add to your morale as those of us in the US try our best to get through these unsettling times. What’s YOUR competency?

Roll with the Changes (like a tumbleweed)

True fact: every time you figure out a way to lessen one type of stress, another one comes up. Ha ha, life, you are SO FUNNY!

I had gotten a handle on some of my worries about the greater angst in the planet, which has helped me see our political stuff a different way (thanks to the mushroom book). And reading Caste gave me concrete ideas for working to make relationships among Americans better, so that wasn’t upsetting me as much. I even grappled myself into a place where I can deal with the changes at work in a positive and productive way. So proud of my own self.

But, no, I did not dwell in my feelings of equanimity for long at all.

Like I said not long ago, it’s always something. Image by *@LittleIvan via Twenty20*

The details are not important, just know they involve a not insignificant collection of sad animal tales and sickly family member tales (not just me; by the way I feel better).

BOOM. I got knocked right down and feel like a tumbleweed rolling down a hill in a rainstorm. Not a lot of control. But then, you NEVER have a lot of control, do you? I have to hand it to life, it doesn’t take it long at all to remind you of lessons you should not be forgetting.

Some of them there tumbleweeds are BIG, too. Image by *@Dari via Twenty20*

There are challenges out there and they aren’t gonna stop. That’s always been true, even if right now seems like they’ve sped up, like an old 78 RPM record or something. Round and round and round, zoom!

While there will always be challenges, there will ALSO always be ways to deal with them! And I know what those are, because I’m prepared!

Where I will imagine I am. Image by *@Barefoot_Traveller via Twenty20*

I shall:

Deal with one day and one challenge at a time
Not worry about what’s next or what just happened
Breathe deeply and get to my familiar place of comfort/ease
Light a candle and stare at it for a while
Read a book on a non-sad topic (I’m looking at YOU, book on the color blue!)
Pet a small animal (hi Pickle, since Vlassic is staying with Jim, ’cause it’s cold)
Go on a brisk walk (guaranteed brisk, due to aforementioned weather)
Send out loving-kindness to all my friends and families dealing with similar crap as mine

So, I hope you can do some of these things with me! Peace to you.