5 Good Things

Okay - that's not quite truthful. I am going to write about 5 good things - eventually. But the title of the post should honestly be, "Chronic Pain." I, along with about 2% of the population; most of them women, have a condition called fibromyalgia. I might as well get the rest of the whine out now...I also have a couple of discs that are essentially gone, and a lovely, giant hemangioma growing in my spine. I use that BIG word because the word my doctor originally used to inform me (while I was on the cell phone shopping at Costco!) was, "tumor." Yep, right there in Costco, "You have a tumor growing in (not on!) your spine." It was my fault I'm sure, I should have taken the phone call at another time but I was too curious about the tests results. Fortunately, though hemangioma is the scarier word - it's the better word. It's not life threatening for the most part - just sort of grows into my spine and wiggles around, creating little cracks. Makes me think of Tremors (the best rainy day Saturday B movies around), wonder how many cracks my kids stepped on walking to school, and that maybe I have a Goa'uld taking up residence in my spine. But enough of that!

So......I have some days when I surely can't think of many good things. Days, like today when I'd just as well stay in bed until 3 PM - but I won't feel any better at 3 PM either. I don't like taking the pain meds and I don't like whining and not being able to do the things I'd like to do. A new blogging pal commented the other day; she wondered how I find the time to do my little projects. Well the truth is, sometimes those little projects are just about all I can do. I'd rather be doing fun gardening, refinishing furniture and a million and one other things that seem oh so attractive now that I really can't do them.

So, 5 good things, which I first spied at Be present....Be Here is sometimes a real life saver for me. I'm able to change my mind-set, even if I can't change my physical circumstances. So, here goes

1. My sheets this morning felt smooth, cool and soft - what a luxury most of us have to wake up in a bed, a comfy, safe bed at that. Some people don't, you know.
2. I tried that wonderful recipe on Crazy Aunt Purl's blog for a blueberry smoothie. YES! Sure started my day with a smile. Is it amazing how just the taste of something yummy can make you smile all day? Knowing that it's good for me is just icing.
3. My boss invited me to a meeting today which I normally don't attend. She thinks I might have something to add because I'm very much in contact with students. I feel less invisible at the moment than I often do. (though, I'll admit, invisibility has its perks)
4. Yellow is everywhere! There's incredible primrose(es?) outside our school. A student just handed off to me a bagful of her scraps and there's yellow peaking out everywhere. I'm so excited!
5. I am, I think, mastering an outline stitch. My little embroidery piece is coming along quite nicely and that makes me smile.

Okay, and number six is that my inventory shows all safe and accounted for. Another reason to smile. I did not quite finish the second little coin purse last night, or do the embroidery that I intended because, like sometimes happens, the pain and exhaustion just hit full-force and I went to bed way early. I did manage to make my first stop in Whole Foods (or as my new friend says, "Whole Paycheck") and OH MY GOODNESS! what a fabulous place! It was just so beautiful I could have lingered for hours. Good thing that blossoming pain circumvented that plan - I'm sure I'd have bought much more than the vanilla soy protein powder for my morning smoothie.

Back to my students - who should make the 5 good things list.

P.S. I would choose today to discover the spell check, right when I try out words like hemangioma and fibromyalgia - spell check exploded.

Wellness Wednesday

I feel a bit like I've been cheating on Wellness Wednesday posts. How many Wednesdays did I miss? Ummmmmm a few. But despite missing posts, Wellness Wednesday has been very meaningful to me.

I've been reading several books simultaneously - among them the much touted Tolle book and a few others, including ODAT materials (I'm leaving that a little coded on purpose) and I'm learing, or re-learning many things. The most important, at this moment is, "Be here Now." I think I'll never outgrow this phrase and I'm grateful to the Teacher, Ram Dass, for transmitting this simple code....Be here, right here...there's really no where else to be.

Tolle repeats this missive, and explains it in several different ways, and invites the reader into deeper places - sometimes I live in those places, sometimes I imagine them, and other times I remember that once I lived in those places. But after all is said and done, "Be here now" is all there is. Be in this moment, relish this moment, wallow in the PURPOSE of this moment.

And, what is the purpose of this moment? This is my favorite part of the Tolle book, though I'm sure there are more profound lessons......the purpose of this moment is .....

THIS MOMENT

(okay, I'm paraphrasing but that's my understanding of it.) If one is sewing, the purpose of the moment is to sew...NOT to complete a garment, or a quilt, a present, a task or a job - the purpose is to sew. How....how much of life's worries and tulmults disappear if you really wallow in the moment? (Or! be here now!) Think about this - FEEL this...(I have been!) If I accept this moment....such beauty burns into me, puts me on fire and somehow, I am less tired, I am more deeply at peace, I am ALIVE. One stitch...one stitch...is it perfect? Ummm it is a stitch, and now another....Yes, they are both perfect.

These things make me think of something I remember reading a million years ago (sok, I can be there old because only this moment matters and besides, wherever you go....there you are!)...by Alexander Solzenitzen. (yes, I really read it, my freshman year in High School.) Solzenitzen is speaking of the unspeakable torture and evil of the gulag. And so, the reader wonders, how does a human live through that??!?!?! And he answers with much the same answers above....be in the moment, each moment, taken by itself is manageable. Solzenitzen says that when aware of each moment there is incredible realization that everything which is needed is provided. Wow...that's stayed with me since High school; each moment, in the midst of what seems like unbearable pain (Tolle would say, I think, the ego percieves and nurtures the pain) is entirely livable. If Solzenitzen can live through the gulag, and forgive and love his captors - surely the small little details of my life can be accepted.

Which brings us back to Tolle...acceptance, he says, is tranformative. Be here now, accept that you are here now.... Accept. I wish I could put words to how just repeating the word makes me feel, "accept...accept." It has become sort of a mantra for me, and I repeat it constantly...."Accept." Accept and submit to the moment, for it too shall pass...such freedom.

So..what's this got to do with Wellness Wednesday? I've been working on it. I've been breathing into the moment, filling myself with NOW and accepting now - even the rotten Nows and I'm finding that in the middle of the rotten, wonderful, glorious and damnable nows, there is something constant....I think the Watcher, the Witness, the I AM...that part of me which just is, which is at peace, which embodies equanimity.

I haven't magically lost a bunch of weight, I have not escaped the chronic pain of fibromyalgia and my relationships are not perfect - but in the middle of all that imperfection, in each moment, in each now, it is absolutely perfect.