#365Gratitude Day 348: Perspective

Yesterday I spent hours trying to figure out this technical problem. I'm in the middle of refactoring an application.   I looked all over the software project I was coding, trying to figure out where this one little session variable was coming from.  Couldn't find it.  Nada. Zilch.

I pinged a co-worker, and confessed my frustration, and asked him for ideas.

In about 10 minutes, because he looked at it a different way, he had an answer for me.

Awesome!  (If you really want to know, the weird code solution was a Grails Filter). Then I started into the solution, and when I first looked at it, it seemed exotic, and strange.  I told him as much, and we agreed to refactor it.  Then I went looking in the framework documentation at how the original code had been put together, and found evidence that it was a reasonable thing to do.  So, I just brought the code over, and kept going.

It never fails to amaze me how caught up I can get in my own perspective, and how when I let that go, I get out of my own way.

#365Gratitude Day 347: Square Noise

This morning I got up early (as I generally do, being one of those disgusting morning people you often hear about).  I trooped downstairs, and threw together a smoked-salmon on a bagel sandwich, something I had been craving for days.  It was kind of a light pre-breakfast, before the actual breakfast I was planning to make for the family.

I decided to make them my Pancake Squares, which are amazing.  Don't they look good?

Once you get them all mixed up and in the baking dish, they take a good 25 minutes to cook.

While I was waiting I noticed some stuff.  The recycling really needed to get gathered up and bagged.  There was some trash that needed to go out.  

I'm not the only person in the house who could do this, but these things do typically fall on my list of things to do.  I decided to just get them done while I was waiting.  I picked up a few other things, straightened up some stuff too.

I just wanted to do nice things for the people I love.  It got me thinking.  

The whole reason I decided to do any of this was because of what was right in front of me.  When I woke up this morning, Missy and Richard were curled up in our big bed.  (Yes, we can sleep three abed, and yes I love that.) They didn't particularly ask me for pancake square goodness, but by their lovable, cute nature, and my love of them it felt just like a very good thing to do.

Ditto the thing about doing house chores long before they became requested or necessary.  

I was telling my friend Squee about this a bit later in the day. I said.

"I'm aware of something - about life in general.  The universe is fucking noisy - if you stop making noise and listen, you can hear it telling you all sorts of things.  This morning for example it told me I could take out the trash and the recyclables while I was cooking breakfast, because it would be nice to do, and because it's a change I can make in the world right in front of me.

I think my gratitude today will be about that."

Oh look, it was.

#365Gratitude Day 346: Tough as Nails

My gratitude today is kind of an unpleasant one.

I'm generally a soft, gentle, loving person.  I open my heart and welcome folks in.  I see to others needs when and where I can.  I don't like suffering in anyone, but most especially in others.  I'm pretty tender like that.

But not always.

When I have to be, I can be hard.  I can do that which is necessary.  I know my own boundaries, and can establish them firmly.  Without being cruel, without being unkind, I can be blunt, firm, and unyielding.

I can be tough as nails.  I can take a pounding, get a bit bent, but still stick.

I've had a situation going on recently that's made me have to do just that.  I've been involved in a friend's drama, to a degree that rapidly became unhealthy for me.  It lifted me high, and slammed me down low.  I'm not going to say who or what, because it's nobody else's business, and because I don't want to smear them on the internet.  That's not my style.

But I reached a crucial impasse with them late last night.  I told them so, too.  The amount of drama in the situation was just toxic for me.  I was done.  I wished them well.

Don't get me wrong - afterward, I sobbed myself to sleep.  I'm tough as nails, sure - but I'm not a robot!  Eventually, I did drift off.  I reached out to some of my trusted folks, both in my sleeplessness, and this morning.  

Today, I feel better.  

I'm glad that when I need to, I can do this.

#365Gratitude Day 345: Getting Fishy with Michy

I have this good fried, Michelle.  She's part of a big, healthy poly family.  They're all adorable, amazing, awesome people.  I kind of have a crush on their whole family.  Michelle's wife is vegan, and several members of the family are some form of non-meat-a-tarian or another.  Mich is also, like me, a big fan of mindfulness.

So, we have these big talks about stuff, sometimes.  When I made my recent decision to become a pescetarian, she was one of the people I turned to, to talk it out.  Because I realized it was important for me to understand, to elaborate to myself and others not just what I was doing, but why I was doing it.

So Friday morning we had this lovely conversation:

Me: For me it's all about minimizing my participation in suffering.  I know I'm going to cause some - it's natural.  I just don't want to cause more than I need to. Nor benefit from its being caused

Michelle: That's what led me to really minimize my meat intake, and to buy from local farmers I can visit  My body doesn't do well on no-meat. So I've tried to do it as in line with my personal ethics as I can.

Me: *nod* Understandable.  The universe needs just the Michelle you are.  You can tell - because you're here.  Lately I feel so much peace, compassion, and love for EVERYTHING and EVERYONE

Michelle: Yay! that's a fantastic place to be in, a wonderful feeling to carry with you

Me: I've just become hyperaware of some Very Big Truths™ More than ever I realize happiness is something you DO, not something you are.

Michelle: Yes! So one of my big things is, "I am joy, I serve love. I am love, I serve joy."
For me, the doing and being are one and the same- the doing created the being drives the doing.

Then she shared an AWESOME quote with me, which I'll share with you now:

I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy.
- Rabindranath Tagore

I told her that would be my gratitude that day.  I'm lucky to have such a good person for my friend.

#365Gratitude Day 344: It's gonna be magic

I really, really, really love Lev Grossman's Magicians series.  It's the story of Quentin Coldwater, a very smart and very depressed high school student, on his way to college, who knows that there's something missing from his life, something vital.  He's filled with ennui, bitterness, sarcasm, good math skills, and a penchant for card tricks.

The something that's missing from his life is magic.  Also maybe prozac, some therapy, and emotional maturity, especially around relationships.  He gets into a sort of magical college called Brakebills.  Adventure ensues!  

The books are like putting Harry Potter, Narnia, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a bottle of vodka, and maybe some amyl nitrate in a blender.  They're amazing.  Quentin is, at turns, empathetic, heroic, disgusting, vain, selfish, obnoxious, an unreliable narrator, and worthy of a deep outpouring of love he's never gotten, but you're going to give it to him whether you like it or not, damnit.

They're brilliant.

Which is why I'm excited more than is probably healthy that they're becoming a Syfy miniseries, too.  Well, they have been.  And they are going to be on in 4 days.  I know, when I found out, I immediately DVR'ed it. 

Check out the trailer!