Tag Archives for Mindfulness

Breaking My Unplanned Break

I took a break from writing for what should have been a few weeks. The weeks have ballooned into months. Not because I planned it but because it was becoming difficult to parse through what I need to focus on to keep myself healthy(ish) and sane while living with chronic pain; and what I want to do, to stay engaged with the world while keeping myself above any potential downward spiral into depression.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to restart what had become my daily mindful, creative practice that included writing, but I’m still struggling. I had hoped that eliminating the pressure of scheduled time in front of my laptop keyboard and mound of art supplies would somehow recharge me and reignite my enthusiasm to share what happens in my life involving my illness, treatments, and coping methods. However, it’s possible that the opposite happened. Stepping away for so long might have further rusted my ability to concentrate and coherently string words together; or it could simply be – as it was when I started my break – that it continues to grow more difficult to find a comfortable position to sit in for long enough to engage my creativity and to record my thoughts.

Thankfully, my break did not extend to creating in my art journals/sketchbooks. In the time I’ve been away, while drawing and doodling, I’ve been inspired to handwrite poetry that doesn’t feel forced for the sake of having content for my blog. I’ve also scribbled thoughts about all that has happened in the margins of my art journal/sketchbook pages. My hope is that some of these scribbled thoughts might make their way into or become full posts in the near future.

In the time I’ve been away from writing, I crossed what to me is a significant milestone: the fifth year of living with my illness, its growing list of side effects and continual pain. Since all of this started five years ago, I’ve grown intimately familiar with the struggle of maintaining focus and concentration – on pretty much everything – as I push myself through each day physically and emotionally with some days being monumentally worse than others are. Strangely, most days, I feel numb at the same time that my body is overwhelmed by intense and sometimes unbearable pain. I don’t know if that will make sense to anyone else: Feeling nothing, while feeling everything all at once.

I may not have recharged during this break, but I’ve come to realize that whether I’m engaged with my creative practice or not, I’ve managed to make it this far with my illness; and, I suppose, I’ll continue to move forward whether I write about it daily or not.

Breaking My Unplanned Break Outline – November 2018
Breaking My Unplanned Break Filled – November 2018

 

Sweetened Memories

Each year, on this day, my thoughts turn, with reverence, to memories of my Great Aunt M. Throughout the year I think of her often, but on this day, I spend a few quiet moments recalling her warmth and kindness toward me and all the happiness during time spent with her. As much as it saddens me that she’s gone, I’m more grateful that I knew her.

Today would have been my aunt’s 89th birthday. As I made my first meal of the day, one of the items I chose to make put a huge smile on my face. I remembered how much my Aunt M used to look forward to having family and friends from towns larger than the one in which she lived visit her because it sometimes meant they might bring her some of the foods from the country of her birth. One of those foods that I made this morning was ripe plantains, which are best described as the much larger siblings of bananas.

Aunt M lived in a small town where it was close to impossible to get many of the foods she had eaten while growing up. I on the other hand can get them all without any difficulty. Yet, I take it for granted and only buy them on rare occasions. Still, I’m glad today was one of those occasions and I’m even happier that having it brought to mind someone whom I loved so dearly.

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On another note, for anyone who’s never eaten plantains before, you can usually find them in the produce department of most large grocery stores. I gave mine time to ripen – just like you would bananas – then I peeled the skin, cut it into three equal pieces, then sliced those pieces lengthwise. I then fried the slices in a hot frying pan with organic coconut oil (you can use your preference of cooking oil). I fry the slices of plantain until they are golden brown, and then eat. Be ready for a sweet surprise…

Sweetened Memories – June 2018 – 7
Sweetened Memories – June 2018 – 6
Sweetened Memories – June 2018

Illustrating Pain

I write a fair bit about my use of art, in particular, doodling and drawing, to distract my thoughts from the pain I feel. In the past, I’ve also attempted to draw representations of how I think my pain could look. I haven’t done that in a while because the concentration it takes is not always available to me and the meditative value of unplanned, spontaneous line drawing has become a large factor behind why I do so much of it. No measuring, no choosing of a complementary colour palette, just grabbing a pen or pencil and allowing my hand to move it across the page.

About a week ago, as I was scrolling through the feed of one of my creative connections on Instagram, Dana “Jonesy” Jones, I saw an illustration she created to symbolize her back pain. I commented that I could probably fill an entire sketchbook with only illustrations of my pain. I’m actually positive that I could fill multiple volumes. However, to start with, I decided to create just one page.

For about a month, I’ve been riding the wave of an intense and lengthy pain flare up – I define a flare up as pain I measure, on the very subjective pain scale, that stays above 7 or 8 consistently – so this idea came at an ideal time. Thanks to Dana’s inspiration, I sat down and focussed on what I felt in my body: The sharp edges of glaringly bright colours trying to cut through the deepest layers of my flesh to burst free of their confines, which might, unintentionally, free me. The overlapping of sensations that are indistinguishable as they land simultaneously and pound the life out of every nerve they touch. Even on a “good” day, this pain keeps wrapping around itself and within me.

Here’s a glimpse of how I imagine my pain looking during this flare up…