Success in Small Doses

Summer is officially here. I went to the pool with M and little M and LL yesterday to get some summer pool time in on my watch. It felt good to go through the motions of summer, the way I used to live everyday as a child. As an adult it was fun to watch M playing with little M in the pool. Little M dunked her head under the water and came up with pride as if she slayed her own dragon. I sat under a tent with LL gazing over my shoulder in wonderment at what life is all about.

The summer is uninhibited and that's why I like it so much; everything seems more alive. Every morning I spend a few moments outside checking my herb garden and tomato plants for new growth. It is a silent, humble joy that I experience (as “my garden” is a term to be used loosely). Still, there is magic in seeing something I planted take on new shape and height and blooming in its’ own special way. It makes me feel like traces from good days and good actions remain. It reminds me that there is so much beauty to the everyday struggle of life. It is validating to know something established weeks ago slowly comes to fruition after fighting it’s own battles.

And the ladybugs: they are everywhere. One landed on my windshield for a brief moment yesterday as I was driving and I swear I was fully present, if only for a second. Later, I was grilling when I noticed another ladybug in the back yard taking residence on the tomatillo plant. Something about the sighting made me feel like all was right in my world - like the ladybugs approve of me and who can disagree with ladybugs?

Good Morning

I woke up early to a Ginger by my side. The dog took up residence by the bed, laying down with her back towards me and her head curved around the door to see down the hallway. I lingered in and out of sleep and finally became more awake than asleep.

I knew from the light that it was not another Seattlish rainy day like the ones we have been living lately. It was sunny and perhaps that’s what got Ginger up early. She sat up and let me scratch her back. Not having a job has afforded me the level of relaxation to grow more comfortable with not rushing the day. Ginger relishes the knowledge that in her very near future there will be a walk. Some mornings she even comes over and lightly nudges my face with her nose, like a kiss to wake me. It is our newest morning ritual and one I have grown to love even as D scratches her chin and says, "everyday is Saturday, right dog?"

Today she was preparing me to get out there in the world, to explore what these past rainy days have done in terms of growth to the plants and grass. It would be green like the Northwest, at least that is what I wanted to tell myself, for Denver it would be green enough. The sun streamed in the window brightly. The dog's excitement couldn’t be contained as we went downstairs and I explored the backyard while the coffee started to percolate. Drops of rain dangled lightly from the leaves of the new tomato plant I put in a pot Sunday afternoon. I checked for growth and swore it was bigger although there were no new branches or leaves. It certainly was standing straighter. The grass, taller from the water as well, created a perfect dewey backdrop for the tomato plant. Everything was waking up and growing. I took a few photos for the blog and considered how indulgent it is to post things about my life, especially silly moments like this one - slow, quiet and really uneventful. Intrigued by the thought, I decided this is how it should be: I SHOULD be digging my life.

A Moment of Color

Provided by mountain flora found below the Maroon Bells.

Favorite Things

I realized this morning as I was feeding Ginger that I’ll never know some of her favorite things. She will never have the ability to tell me, “when you refresh my water, that is one of my favorite parts of the day.” I am a sucker for humanizing my dog - I know she'll never actually say those words although I daydream that kind of relationship with her.

In thinking through this a little deeper, I realize she does let me know when she likes things: she will go crazy, lightly howl like Chewbacca with her head pointed up if someone takes the time to scratch her bum. I won't dignify her relationship with wood and her desire to digest it like a good bone. I swear she smiles after a long run, after she has tried to down the entire contents of her water bowl, after she has strewn herself across the floor and let the water drip from her jawls, she looks at me and I notice a wide-rimmed smile forming through the space that is her heavy breathing. Her eyes glitter a bit too.

I write about favorite things because I woke up in bed this morning and soaked in the moment. The down cover lay over me barely enough to create a small opening that let cool air slid in under the blanket. It felt good, cooled my sleepy skin. The pillows were puffed up and doubled under my head like a cloud. I watched Andy get dressed for the day as I lounged in the sweet softness of it all. I thought about how simple treats can feel so good. The warmth found holding a cup filled with coffee and how some days I prefer a specific shaped cup. My preferences for these things are silly in ways and yet define me as well. It’s important to consider because the little things get me through the day. These are the things to be thankful for when there aren’t bigger fish to fry, like winning the lottery or new contracts or bigger life celebrations.

High Five

Dreams I had the other night left me lingering in bed Tuesday morning. As I reviewed them, I enjoyed new favorite way to wake up, which is to breathe slowly and somewhat deeply through my schnoz.

The return of my nose has been bittersweet. It is both a joy and a disgrace to digest how long I have ignored my lack of smell. In my defense, it was a subtle process of slow erosion that withered my sense until one day it was more gone than there. While it has never been okay that I couldn’t use my nose properly, it more disturbing to realize I just stopped using it. I now think of it as something I let die or flounder as not being important enough to fix. Such is how I deal with medicinal interactions in my life: I wait to see if the problem will go away. Ailments fester in the background until they are so out of whack that they demand attention. I finally decided to do something about my nose because I realized I could endanger myself by not smelling things. This was after letting myself get to an almost handicapped-like status.

How could I do that to myself and my senses? It was unfair to my senses, who had to pick up the buck for lost sensing happening in the schnozal region. Reconnecting with my nose now makes me more aware of all my senses. I have just not been paying attention all these years. I have been on autopilot floating through the days. It is an awareness I have come to lately and I would be a fool not to acknowledge that one discovery was a byproduct of the other but I can’t say which came first. Definitely the experiences were a bit symbiotic but I think the day I realized I couldn’t smell gas in the house and thus needed to do something about the problem was the day I decided to take action on my nose. It was synchronistic that almost a month later (days before my allergy appointment) D came into the house as I was cooking and said it smelled like gas. I didn’t smell anything but told him that was precisely why I had finally decided to do something about my nose.

At National Jewish, I almost cried when the woman told me they would do a test to see if my vocal chords were damaged and, if so, how much. D always says to me, “I wonder how your voice would sound if your nose was fixed?” I always thought he was over-thinking the problem. During that grand appointment of allergy, etc., I downplayed my lung capacity and breathing as well. After tests the doctor said sometimes patient’s perceptions were off because they were used to the impairment. One more slap to wake me up although I still disagree with how much medication they prescribed.

After that, my realizations about living on autopilot and not taking my time to experience and taste life have come around in waves. This time though, I have my sense reminding me to pay attention. Sitting here now I realize how “itchy” my ears are and how stuffed they feel. I feel my throat and my vocal chords and after two weeks of rinsing out my nose, smell slowly is returning to my existence. I sense what I have been missing out on for a good three years definitely but if I was being honest it would probably be more like six. Six years spent with no real acknowledgement of smell; not even a whole-hearted try most of the time; just a write-off of a sense I rarely used anyway.

Then one day I realize I forgot to pack my sense of smell. I don’t’ blame smell for being mad at me. I’m trying to regrow the friendship. It’s going to take sometime and probably will never be the same but I will enjoy and relish what I can get.

Five senses and I default to sight and touch to navigate my way through life. They bring me the most joy and comfort. But then there is sound and taste and smell - interesting to think about how all three are in the same region and interwoven together. It makes me want to read A Natural History of the Senses again.

With my new found realization of the senses, I wonder if memory is not tied more directly to my use of the senses and the act of being present. I come across smells in the day and literally think to myself, “that smells like something” and then pick through my memory of things I know and match together what I am experiencing. It is a process I find myself being extremely present in because I haven’t participated in said process for a while. It is like a game of memory, turning over cards and trying to find the location of the other matching picture.

I was taking a walk in the neighborhood last night. We were almost home when we passed a house and the smell of watermelon floated to my nose. More specifically it was the smell of watermelon seeds. It was so indicative of summer and gently implored memories of barbeques and seed spitting. With that smell, I always return to Southglenn Country Club and the 4th of July activities, where they would grease up a watermelon and have kids try to get it from one end of the pool to the other. Afterwards they would wipe it off and cut it into pieces. We would have impromptu seed spitting contests in the grass. That is my biggest watermelon memory. They smell brought me back to it and it was a high point of the day. It was a simple joy, like a picked flower, that I hold on to now.

There is Always Hope

I just discovered this British graffiti artist, Banksy. I don't know much about the artist except that I love what I see. I've always admired graffiti art: loud colorful letters. It draws me in. This is entirely different from my expectations of the medium. I think some of pieces have a biting silence about them that scream for attention. It's such a juxtaposition to what I know as graffiti art (but then again, what do I know). While some of his pieces are less ethereal, I prefer this image: the message and the lightness.

Just In Time

I have begun to feel so desperate lately. With no strong job prospects and being too scared to pull the self employment trigger, I feel as if I have no anchor. I feel stupid and uneducated and uninspired.

In mid-January, I rented The Secret from the library to inject a sense of hope into my soul. I'd seen it before but I consider watching it like taking mental medicine. I like believing things will happen at just the right time and that the universe is conspiring on my behalf. It’s just hard when I have been through a few interviews and any sign of a job prospect means no full time work, no health insurance, and pay that’s well below what I have tried to build up to in my career. The positive thinking goes out the window and I feel stuck not knowing where my life path will take me next. I trust I will get there but I wish I knew how.

When I got laid off, I had grand plans to use the seemingly bad news and turn it in to an opportunity to finally begin working for myself. The plan was to beef up the writing/editing side of my career and partner it with my design experience. Since DW was my dream job, it was the next obvious step in my career. It was perfect timing: I was getting married, I had health insurance, and the employment market was crap. I also knew it was now or never since once we brought kids in to the picture, I was likely to never take such a chance.

I embarrassingly admit unemployment has sidetracked this via a shot to the ego and bi-weekly payments that sedate me in to not feeling so desperate about the situation at hand. I am a little chicky bird in the nest and momma bird is going to cut me off soon from regular worm feedings. I have two options: I could jump out of the nest and fall to the ground, possibly risking paralysis at one more boring attempt to live life to it's fullest OR I could jump out of the nest, squirm, flap and fly. I need to learn how to fly. Everyone who works for themselves seems to believe it's the best thing they decided to do and they took way to long to actually do it. So I am looking for abundance here and the next step to come seamlessly, intrinsically into my existence (with some flapping of course -move over Richard Bach, it's Amy Livingston Seagull time).

Yesterday I read an article by Martha Beck on CNN that reminded me of my exploits into working with a life coach and learning to empower myself. The article compares "just in case" thinking to "just in time" thinking. Just in case thinking is more about hoarding and believing, “Everything good is scarce.” Just in time thinking is about believing, “Everything good is readily available and abundant.” It’s that same message as The Secret and, as always it’s been with me, it's about reframing. Another quote comes to mind: “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right!” - Henry Ford

In any case, the article presents a short exercise which can be built upon over the years. I began this morning and I have to admit, it felt pretty good to stretch my sense of hope.

1. List times you thought that there wouldn't be enough of something and you survived.

2. List areas where you have too much, not too little.

3. List wonderful things that entered your life just at the right time, with no effort on your part. Start with the little things (oxygen, sunlight, a song on the radio). You'll soon think of bigger ones and continue building and rethinking my existence into something positive and abundant.

Trust that You'll Find Exactly What You Need By Martha Beck from O, The Oprah Magazine, April 2009

Oh Sweet Jesus!

Clearly there is something wrong here. My new obsession about writing a blog exploring my endeavors in to anorexia have been dashed via a detor to the Rheinlander Bakery in old town Arvada.

Who was I fooling? I can’t be anorexic. I am way to drawn to food; especially no-holds-barred, unabashedly good looking treats like authentic European baked goods displayed as layers of bright colors and drippy gooeyness. I fell for everything in sight: cakes, strudels, and pastries oh my! They even have sugar free and gluten free options to fool me into believing what I was doing was a good thing. Not a good thing like saving baby seals but more like taking a step towards world peace (albeit a small step, well more like a shuffle, perhaps a stammer...).

With D’s fine consulting work, we settled for one Dobash, one Bienenstich, and, just at checkout, we both caved to an almighty cherry turnover. Once at home, I had to take a closer look. The photos don't do it justice but I’ve recorded my research below to inform the public.*

* This information will not be found on iheartanorexia.com

I call this one "Cherry Turnover with Fruit Bowl".

Cool Dog, Old Door

I have a slight obsession with texture in general and pealing paint on old doors in particular.

We were finishing a walk the other day and I had Gingy pose with this one: a unique find in our Denver neighborhood. I think the photo is deceptive: it creates the sense that we are in England or some cool Maine town. Really it is dry Denver being drenched by summer snain (a mix of snow and rain).

Gingy was not fond of taking the shot either so I had to toss the promise of a "treat" in the air to make her perk up a tiny bit.