Month: November 2020

Give Me a Second to…Release…in This Moment

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From 2016-2019 I participated in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) and wrote a blog post every day in November. Earlier this year, I thought I would do the same this month, but by mid-September, I knew there was no way I could commit to NaBloPoMo while battling pandemic-fatigue. I reminded myself that I “blogged” every day in April, National Poetry Month, so two months of daily posts in one year might be a bit much to ask of myself.

Fall Semester is over, and I am only a few grades away from being able to reclaim some parts of my brain. Now, I can focus on clearing a “backlog” of tasks from my to-do list and sharing pretties with you a little more frequently–for the next 4-6 weeks.

I’ve dedicated this week to cards received from Love Notes partners and friends.

Today’s post features gorgeous artwork and beautiful messages from my latest Love Notes (LN) partner, Zotis K of Sunnyside, New York. Here are the cards and notes she sent  in response to prompts for LN 33 which ended late October.

Art by Zotis K

Prompt 1: Give me just a second…

Give me just a second…to decipher what has happened. We are going through many struggles, struggles that all of us are sharing now. Under this lockdown we’ve been given: time to heal – time to share – time to adjust – time to accept – time to be with loved ones – time to care for one another – time to give thanks for the blessings of being given one more day – time to create – time to call and listen to a friend or neighbor or a family member in need of comfort – time to develop skills we didn’t know we had – time to establish some form of peace and understanding. From now on, let’s just save time for ourselves because “we” are important too.

Art by Zotis K

Prompt 2: Release

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.  –Maya Angelou
Just breathe and release.

Art by Zotis K

Prompt 3: In this moment…

Be thankful for a breath of fresh air to be alive and well. Allow love and happiness to penetrate throughout your mind and soul. Take time to relax and live in the moment, the now, the present. Enjoy today. –Amaka Imani Nkosazana

These cards/messages rescued me from some crazy-busy moments and reminded me to take a second to pause and reset. Maybe, they’ll do the same for you.

Love Notes Postcard Project: In case you haven’t heard, Love Notes is a postcard project coordinated by Jennifer Belthoff that “encourages slowing down, getting back to basics, and connecting through handwritten notes sent through the mail.” Participants sign up for the swap on Jennifer’s website and then she assigns partners who correspond with each other for three weeks based on a prompt she provides each Sunday. The swap is hosted quarterly (four times per year).

NaBloPoMo Note: I didn’t do NaBloPoMo this year, but you can always scroll down to the archives to read my November 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 posts. I can’t remember any of the posts, but I’m sure there’s lots of eye-candy. 😀

Fluent

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I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding.

John O’Donohue, “Fluent,” Conamara Blues

Scraps of Poetry and Madness

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My creative energy has been extremely high the last few days, but since  I’m working feverishly to meet a deadline for work, there’s been little time to benefit from that energy. I felt a little like Virginia Woolf this weekend, so late Friday night just before slipping into dream land, I took a moment to make doodle art in her honor.

One of these will become a postcard. The only problem is I don’t know which one I like best, so you get to choose.

Vote below!

Thanks for voting! Be sure to take some time to doodle this week!

Coping with the Madness of 2020: Pray

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If I practiced none of the other coping strategies I wrote about in the “coping” series, I might be okay, but the one thing that saves my sanity, my life, and probably the lives of a few others is prayer. In fact, journaling, creating, shutting it down, listing,  sleeping, and spending time with trees, would have little effect if I did not pray.

So I pray. I pray. I pray. I pray.

I’m not talking about begging and bargaining, though I’m pretty sure I’ve attempted some of that  this year. Instead, I’m talking about being in communion with God, listening for/to His voice, and doing my best to respond to the madness of 2020 and life in general  in ways that honor Him, deepen my trust in Him, and elevate my consciousness.

I am not overstating when I say prayer has kept me sane.

There are few words to describe our collective trauma this year, and I can’t say that I haven’t wondered or asked “why?” from time to time. But God is absolutely sovereign, so I try in all things to yield to His will–no matter how unfair, unreasonable, or impossible circumstances seem to me.

Moving toward prayer during difficult times challenges everything in me. It calls me out of self-centeredness, moves me away from my desires, and pushes me to higher levels of God-consciousness and light. The outcome is beautiful, but the work to get there isn’t pretty.

Moments like the ones 2020 has presented us with are tolerable and livable only when I am in constant contact, when my focus is heavenward and not on this tiny difficult moment. While I may not know the beginning from the end, prayer firms up hope and gives me a glimpse of the beautiful possibilities. For all of us.

Gracias: Thank you for joining me for the seven-part “Coping with the Madness of 2020” series.  If you’re interested, you can find a few more tips in two posts I wrote six years ago–different circumstances, but they still work: Getting Through the Crazies, Part I and Getting Through the Crazies, Part II.

And thanks to my friend Charmaine whose yellow iris is featured at the top of this post. I have difficulty shooting irises and expected little from the shots. This one turned out to be one of the favorites among those I shot from her garden. Who knew?

#ThursdayTreeLove | Coping with the Madness of 2020: Spend Time with Trees

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“Autumn Road,” November 2020

In a cool solitude of trees
Where leaves and birds a music spin,
Mind that was weary is at ease,
New rhythms in the soul begin. –William Kean Seymour

I’ve written enough about tree therapy on the blog for you to know that “talking to the trees” is definitely one of the ways I cope with life’s challenges. You’ve probably figured, then, 2020 has driven me to the trees more times than I can count.

I could not find time this week for a full tree therapy session, but I took advantage of drive time for quick doses.

The sight of autumn taking over as I drove to work was thrilling, and the drive through campus was like entering an autumn heaven. The reds, yellows, and oranges vied for my attention.

Some mornings, I parked, stood outside my car in the early morning quiet (before others arrived), and took it all in. I listened to the wind and trees sing in perfect harmony as the crisp leaves danced across the parking lot.

Even such short pauses with the trees shake off the madness.

If you want to read more about how trees help me cope, take a look at some of my older posts or click the #ThursdayTreeLove hashtag below:

Hopefully, the posts will persuade you to try a bit of tree therapy!

I am joining Parul Thakur for #ThursdayTreeLove every second and fourth Thursday of the month. If you would like to play along, post a picture of a tree on your blog and link it back to her latest #treelove post.

Coping with the Madness of 2020: Sleep…

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If 2020 hasn’t driven you to the brink of madness yet, I’m sure [if you live in the US], the last few days tested your sanity. I used practically all my coping strategies between the time I cast my vote Tuesday and when I read earlier today that the Biden/Harris ticket prevailed [Praise the Lord!].

When my stress levels are off the chart, I do the one thing that calms immediately–I sleep. And that’s exactly what happened Wednesday night when I started writing my blog post on sleep as a way to cope with 2020 madness; two sentences in, I fell asleep. :-/

There are times when I struggle with insomnia for days, sometimes weeks, but when I encounter high levels of emotional stress over situations I can’t control, I have no problem escaping through sleep. When I wake up, even if the worst hasn’t passed, my emotions and/or stress are a lot more manageable.

The links between lack of sleep and stress and good sleep and our responses to stress are widely discussed in academic and medical journals, so it’s no surprise that sleep helps me to “wait out” 2020’s madnesses with patience and calm.

And that’s a good thing, because, if nothing else, 2020 is trying to teach us to wait.

Coping with the Madness of 2020: List It

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I woke up this morning with thoughts of an eight-year-old boy, the nephew of one of my kindest friends. He woke up this morning for the first time without his mother’s embrace. She passed yesterday after a very lengthy battle with cancer. Though I didn’t know her or her little boy, I felt myself spiraling for my friend, for her family, and especially for the little one.

As if the out-of-the-ordinary madness of 2020 isn’t enough, unfortunately we also have to deal with dreaded realities like illness and death. The everyday concerns and these hardships  combined with the abnormalities of this year can create a perfect stew of unmanageable anxiety and grief.

So how do I cope when life feels impossible and the emotions are too big to manage?  In addition to prayer (which we’ll save for another day), I make lists.

Lists, you ask? Not a typical task list but a lists of things I can’t control alongside a list of things I can control.

I can’t bring back the little boy’s mom. I can’t stop the hurt or grief, but I can pray and offer support.

I can’t singlehandedly eradicate the coronavirus, but I can do my part to stop the spread and protect my family and myself by wearing masks and avoiding situations in which social distancing is challenged.

I can’t control how the vote goes tomorrow, but I can control how I participate in the democratic process by exercising my hard-won right and responsibility to vote.

I can’t take away the abuse a friend suffered as a child that continues to hurt and traumatize so many decades later, but I can listen, affirm, pray, and hug.

I can’t make people not be racist, but I can educate and choose to operate from a place of love regardless.

When I was a teen, I encountered the “Serenity Prayer” on the front of a church bulletin, and the first part has been a mantra ever since:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference. –Reinhold Niebuhr

The lists help me confront the big scary things in black and white, and then, determine my response to them. More often than not, serenity is the welcomed outcome.

About the Images: The images in this post are the full color versions of the grainy black and white photos in the previous post. I’d mentioned in my latest #treelove post that for Creative Auto shots the camera shoots an original color photo AND processes the “creative photo” at the same time. I don’t like these as much, but this is what happens when I don’t remember where I put the images I’d planned for today’s post. :-/