#365Gratitude Day 246: Laurel

My friend Laurel is awesome.

 Why?  Well, first, she's just awesome in her own right.  She's whip-smart, does a supercomplicated technical, sciencey (sure, it's a word) thing for her job.  She's an athlete (a runner).  She's a sex-positive person who embraces all her interesting differences with gusto.  Some of those include being bisexual, kinky, polyamorous, and an ageplayer.

Then there's that thing about being a little dead girl. 

Image courtesy of http://abisszombie.deviantart.com/art/the-cute-little-dead-girl-290231321.  Thanks!

She talked all about that way back in episode 26 of the Big Little Podcast.  You should check it out.  She was awesome.  

But all of that aside, that's not why she's my gratitude today.  

Laurel is my thoughtful friend.  She's thinky, both about things-in-general, and sometimes about me-in-particular.  Every once in a while she pings me and lets me know that I'm on her mind, that she misses me, or that something I've said or done really means a lot to her. 

Well, that means a lot to me.

Sometimes I feel that the kind of navel-gazing I do here in my blog is just so much blather into the aether, and that it's self-serving.  I never want it to come off that way.  I spend a lot of time thinking, and like sharing it.  I do it not because I'm some guru know-it-all.  Rather, it's the opposite.  I want to use my own struggles to teach others while I learn from them at the same time.  We're all each other's student, and teacher.

Laurel totally lets me know that she gets that.  She teaches me stuff all the time.  She learns from me too.  Our friendship is so valuable to me.  I'm grateful for her. 

Because, like I said... she's awesome.

#365Gratitude Day 245: Writing on the go

I love writing in busy places.  I write on trains, in cafés, at airports.  It's something I do a lot.

Part of why I enjoy it is because I can squeeze my writing into the little cracks of my day.  Between writing at lunch, and on my train rides, I can get almost two hours of writing a day done, when I'm focused.

There's also this hard to explain thing that happens when you write in busy places.  The atmosphere of the place becomes a sort of alpha-wave-stimulating background noise.  I'm sitting at an outdoor café as I write this, and listening to traffic go by, to the far off sounds of construction, and seeing people walk down the street.   It's like all that busy-ness is leaking into my head, being processed by my brain, and coming out through my fingers into the fiction I'm working on (not to mention this blog post.)

It's invigorating. 

I know other authors groove on this too.  J. K. Rowling wrote huge chunks of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone sitting in a café, scribbling on big yellow legal pads.  My friend Zorro, an incredibly prolific ageplay erotica author, carries around this little notebook, and it's not uncommon to see him curl over it, almost protectively, as he scribbles away in it furiously, when inspiration hits him.  

I forget sometimes, and then become blissfully aware and grateful for how much I enjoy the process and discipline of writing. 

#365Gratitude Day 244: Basic Needs

We went out today, and saw Guardians of the Galaxy.   (It's totally great, by the way, you should see it.  It was my 2nd time and I loved it.)  After I dropped Missy, my sister-in-law, and our friend Rachel off, I went to go look for a parking space.

The place was a mob scene.  I cruised around for like 15 minutes trying to find a space, and fighting traffic to get one.  I saw spots open up, only to watch them get claimed minutes later, before I could negotiate the busy lot to reach them.

It was pretty damn annoying.

After the movie, we went to a supermarket, to get a few things, and it was the same deal.  Navigating inside the store was so annoying.  

I got kind of cranky about it.  Although, I didn't say a word to anyone.

As I mentioned in previous entries, I'm squarely focused on compassion in my meditation and contemplation these days.  That's why, when I realized what a whiny crybaby I was being about all this, I didn't bitch slap myself too hard.

Getting cranky over a problem finding parking at a mall is just... shallow.  There are people who don't have shelter, food, water, proper clothing, or the means to educate themselves.

There's this joking hashtag on twitter, #firstworldproblems about exactly this sort of thing.

I've written tweets in that hashtag.  I've found tweets by others to be funny.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that these sorts of jokes are so offensive that we shouldn't say them.  I'm also not saying that a crowded mall parking lot isn't really annoying.

I'm saying that sometimes, when I pull my head out of my ass, I can see exactly how much privilege I have.

I'm grateful for it.  So much so, that I decided to do something to help others with less privilege than I, and just set up a Kiva loan.  What's that?  Here, look:

#365Gratitude Day 243: Painting pottery

Missy, Rachel, and I went out pottery painting today.  It's something we do every so often. I love it because it's creative, childlike, yet sophisticated too. 

I made bowls for the cats. 

Rachel made a fancy bowl. 

Missy made a Twilight Apple coin bank. 

I can't wait to see how they come out!

#365Gratitude Day 242: Compassion, it's a thing

I've written before about Taoism's three treasures.  

• Compassion
• Simplicity
• Humility

Today it's the first one, Compassion that's on my mind.  Compassion is harder than it looks.

T'zu, or cí, compassion

That's literally true, for an english speaking Taoist like me.  There's the kanji for it.  It's pronounced "t'zu" - in the phrase "it's a thing" - it's the " 'ts a" part, pronounced as one word.

T'zu means kindness, compassion, and motherliness, in Chinese.  It's that state of loving gently, and purposefully.  It's the sort of love that wants the best, and will patiently guide someone towards success.  

The trick is, compassion means having that love for others, but also for oneself.

That is hard.  

I have a daily practice of meditation and contemplation. Each day I spend time considering some philosophical, emotional, or ethical issue. Sometimes I'll work on the same thing for days at a time.  

5 years ago I spent 18 months on compassion. It was grueling.  Probably the biggest thing I got out of it was the realization that while compassion for others is hard, it's a damn cakewalk compared to compassion for oneself. What's more you have to have it for you, before you can have it for anyone else.   

I was so glad when I got to put that contemplation behind me.  

But I spoke too soon. Five years later, and I find myself striving again. I strive to be thinner, to acheive mastery of certain technologies for work, to acheive without stretching myself too thin, to nurture my relationships, to progress as an author.  

None of these things are bad goals to have. Having goals isn't the issue.  But I do catch myself self-shaming about my progress, commitment, and conviction.  

Which of course, is no help at all.  I lamented to my friend Andrea the other day that it looked like I was back in compassion school again, and how very little I wanted to be. 

She gently chided me, reminding me to stop letting expectation get in my way, and just get to it. 

I'm grateful to her, for reminding me of the truth. I'm worthy of my own love.