Eyes on the Skies

I am trying so hard to reduce my unhealthy stressors and be a better practitioner of mindfulness. In the course of the last five years, my marriage fell apart, I had to relocate with my kids in order to get re-established, I've moved three times, and my mother died. The last move and my mother's death happened within the past six months.  

"I look to the skies not to see the stars, but to watch for the

shoe about to drop." Moonlight Skinny-dip. Available on 

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I've been stuck on vibrate for years and am wondering how to dislodge the battery in my vibrator. 

My fight-or-flight instinct is hyper-vigilant. I look to the skies not to see the stars but to watch for the shoe about to drop. I've been dealing with chronic stress for a while, and finally it's easing up. But there's still that wary unease that any minute now a brick is going to plunge through the ceiling. That sense of artificial doom has got to stop. It's probably not accurate and it's definitely not healthy.  

Hence: my quest for mindfulness. 

Being mindful means slowing down and not careening off in every direction as if a Roman candle were strapped to your backside. It means doing one thing at a time and not multi-tasking, because the science is showing us that multi-tasking probably makes us less productive. It means not just eating the apple but looking at the apple, smelling the apple and chewing the apple - thoughtfully instead of swallowing it whole as if you were a horse. It means being kind to yourself, being kind to others and spending as much of your life as possible on your own little patch of peace. 

It means breathing with purpose and presence. It means meditating knowing you haven't failed just because your mind wanders. 

I'm not there yet, but I'm getting there. My freak-outs over lost keys, lost files, lost credit cards, and cell phones dropped in the toilet are far fewer now because I'm no longer locked in a constant struggle to outrun myself because now it's just semi-constant. 

Last week I attended a seminar on mindfulness presented by a truly gifted instructor. At one point she passed out individual serving size boxes of raisins to each of us participants and told us to take one raisin out of the box. Then she told us to examine our raisins carefully, to notice the different surfaces and textures that make up one little raisin. Then we held our raisins to our noses and inhaled. After inhaling, we held our raisins to our ears and rolled them back and forth between finger and thumb and were surprised to hear our raisins making sounds. Next, we popped our raisins into our mouths and felt them with our tongues, rolled them around our mouths and sucked out a bit of the flavor. 

At last, we were told we could eat our raisins. 

We bit down on our raisins, chewed them thoroughly and swallowed. My neighbor, L was at the same seminar sitting right next to me. She leaned in and whispered:

"So, what were you thinking when you finally got to eat the raisin?" 

"That I felt guilty eating something I'd gotten to know so well," I whispered back. 

And honestly, I wasn't entirely joking. There was a tiny part of me that expected the raisin to scream, "NOOOooooo!" as it slid down my throat. I have always had a cattywampas view of things, and I know that. In the case of the raisin, it meant I haven't yet nailed mindfulness. 

But Om wasn't built in a day. One sign that I'm beginning to master and internalize mindfulness is that I'm now seeing how it can apply to other people's struggles. 

My son, Jon is working hard to prioritize his homework and chores. We were talking about it last night.

"Have you ever heard of something called mindfulness?" I asked him.

"Yes," he said.

"Wow, I'm impressed, Jon. Where did you learn about that?"

He looked at me, a little perplexed. "From you," he said. 

"I talked to you about mindfulness?" I asked.

"Sure. Don't you remember?"

"No." 

Anyway, I'm working to keep my eyes on the skies, not because I'm watching out for shoes, but because I'm falling in love with stars.

Four Chairs and a Chat

I've been experiencing too much of the bad stress lately. You know how there's good and bad stress? Good stress is things like studying for the bar exam and wondering how you'll spend the six-figure income you'd be earning if you pass. Bad stress is the kind you get when your dog tries to retrieve her frisbee from your neighbors' roof using a ladder she stole from their garage and then falls through the roof.  

My backyard, with one chair for me, one for my relaxed self,
one for my stressed self - and one for my dog.
Image: Teece Aronin.

And yes, I know I said dog and not something more believable like kid, but if you know my dog, you know it's more believable that she'd do something like that before my kids would. 

Yesterday I took someone's advice, got up early and sat in the backyard with my morning coffee. I decided that I would strive for an enhanced sense of mindfulness. 

I have four retro-style metal chairs in the backyard and a little metal table. I had wanted chairs like those for years because they remind me of my childhood, but I've barely sat in them twice. Why? Because I've been too busy with the things that stress me out. 

So yesterday I made a cup of coffee, snatched a peach from the fruit bowl and walked with my dog into the back yard. I put the coffee and the peach on the table and sat, eyeing them warily as if they might explode. 

I had planned to leave my phone in the house, but couldn't bring myself to do it. I might get an idea for a column and want to make some notes, I told myself. That was partly true, but the other part was that I couldn't imagine myself just sitting in my chair with nothing to focus on but coffee and a peach - but I had underestimated their power. 

I inhaled the coffee. The aroma and the steam made their way to my nose and immediately helped me unwind. Then I took a sip of the coffee. It was delicious. And when I bit into the peach all I could think of was the Shel Silverstein poem about the farmer who grew a gold and bejeweled garden, but dreamed of "one real peach."

Sitting back in the chair, I wasn't fully relaxed, but felt better than expected. I'd say I was about half relaxed and half stressed-out. I started hearing things. 

"What are those sounds?" my stressed self asked. 

"Those are birds," explained my relaxed self.

"But the sounds they make . . . " said stressed self, a little afraid.

"That's called birdsong," explained relaxed self. "It's okay; it's just the birds calling to each other. It can't hurt you."

"And what is that feeling on my face?" asked stressed self.

"That's the breeze," replied relaxed self. "You loved it as a kid. Remember?" 

"Oh, yes, vaguely," murmured stressed self. 

Then stressed self's eyes darted toward the family dog leaping and playing near the garden.  

"Oh, no - that thing," cried stressed self, pointing. "Look how close it is to the tomatoes!"

"She's a good 20 feet from the tomatoes," cooed relaxed self. "And she's enjoying herself. Here, let's call her over."

The dog came running at the sound of her name.

"Aw, Hope," sighed relaxed self, "I love you so much. Go on," relaxed self said to stressed self, "pet her. See? Just like I am."

So, stressed self petted the dog, and felt calmer. 

By the time I came back in the house, I was a new woman, and an optimistic, energetic tone was set for the rest of the day. I spent good, solid time with my kids, time during which I wasn't distracted by the things that stress me, and later in the day I made a pizza with peppers and herbs I picked from pots on my own front porch. I even baked chocolate chip cookies. They were store-bought and came from a freezer case, but they tasted just as good and looked just as homey on the plate. Just as important, they pleased the kids as much as any mess I might have mixed up in a bowl.

I tried the backyard thing again today and loved it all over again. 

I wonder what tomorrow will bring, the first time I try it on a workday.  And I wonder how I'll compensate once winter comes. 

Maybe I can bring the table and chairs inside and set them next to a picture of themselves from this summer. 

Or maybe not. 

You Have Successfully Unsubscribed

At times I can be an anxious little kiddo. And often it's life's little stressors that make me vibrate the hardest. Take my email, for instance. No, really, take my email. Please. 

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Like millions of others I have a Gmail account. You might use Gmail or Yahoo or Zoho or Lycos or any of the other email service providers whose names sound like Western apparel manufacturers or movie villains; that part isn't important. What's important is that email as a sales tool has run amok and is drowning boatloads of innocent consumers in waves of happy-crappy overload.  

I was getting dozens of emails a day and deleting them was like digging in the sand with a toothpick: the few I managed to get rid of in any one sitting were replaced by dozens more by the end of the day. Suddenly I realized how much stress it was causing. There was something so out-of-control about it. Remember the old adage: Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door? It was like that, but all catty-wompas. They had the mousetraps and I was a mouse - a mouse with a door - and a wallet.  

Of course we all know I was the core of my own problem. I was the one who'd said yes to enough cashiers, or foolishly assumed I could shop online without lingering consequences and messy entanglements. 

I was the one who didn't end the relationship after the first layaway.  

Then, what had been so out-of-control was perfectly under control when it occurred to me to simply snake my way through all the happy-crappy content, all the fine print and all the links and then click on the most powerful word in the entire email: Unsubscribe. 

Even now, looking at that word on my computer monitor gives me chills and I swear I hear a chorus of angels in the distance. 

Why this simple fix didn't occur to me long ago, I have no clue, but once it did, the shackles of my oppressors began snapping like twigs, and I was free in no time.  

Well, not quite.

While I was told I had successfully unsubscribed, in some cases I was also told it could take up to 10 days before that particular company's emails would stop. And some people tell me the emails might just come back - with a vengeance. 

And often I was asked if I had made a mistake. Did I really want to part company with the vehicles to so much material happiness or health and wellness wisdom or improved mental acuity? Yes, I'd say. Yes, I really did. 

Last spring I did a lot of online shopping because I'd just moved from an apartment into a house and I needed a lot of things. And while the things I bought for the house have brought me a lot of pleasure, they haven't changed my life. And reading about sales on dozens of items just like them is no life-changer either. I still have to pay for my kids' braces, I still have to get my tires rotated and I still have a gassy dog who scares herself when she poofs. And I would still have those things to deal with even if I bought more stuff. 

Unsubscribing to all that email felt so good. Whether or not my unsubscribing will stick, we'll have to see. 

But for now, it's been like shooting fish in a barrel - very crafty and very aggressive fish in a barrel.