Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Coming To Terms - The Rat Has a Reason | More Lessons Learned

Ah, nothing like the feeling of being the piped piper helping rats commit rat-kari.

Still, I'm the only person I know in my immediate real world surrounds, willing to look at the very reason this problem keeps happening.

Because, no sadly, it is not the first time, we, the members of this household, have had this problem. And any problem which continuously repeats itself has a lesson in it which remains unlearned.

So I begin asking myself what I might need to learn and need to practice to keep unwanted varmints out of the home space.

I sit quietly, fan whirring overhead, cigarette smoke seeping from under the bathroom door and I ask the question, "what is my lesson?" and listen for an answer.

Boundaries.

Boundaries?

Yes boundaries. Boundaries separate. Boundaries define.

So I need separation and definition?

Your boundaries are weak. There are gaps and holes. Space for sneaky varmints to access your space. Take action, look for the signs, seal the gaps and holes. Protect your boundaries.

Okay, I get that to keep the varmints out but we're not talking about The Rat anymore are we?

We are talking about boundaries.

But The Rat & the poison &  the rat-kari, what about those things?

Those are questions of boundaries.
Do you invade the boundaries of others and leave signs of yourself scattered around?
Do you find the weak spots of others and of yourself and exploit them?
Are your own boundaries well managed and maintained?
Are you providing a home to the varmints, either intentionally or unintentionally?
Are you willing to do what it takes to secure your boundaries?

Uhm, honestly yes, yes, no, yes and maybe. What will it take?

Open your mind.

Huh, open my mind? What's that mean? How is that helpful in establishing boundaries?
(I can feel myself getting frustrated because I really am still stuck on / in the "well if they aren't willing" energy.) So I take a few more deep breaths and realize. . . It's time for me to leave.

And all the stuff shows up. I've been selfish. I'm not really being helpful. I think, I am not honoring them by being here. I'm invading and leaving signs and committing my own form of hari-kari. I feel sad, small, frightened,alone. It means finding a job, in this economy and a place that will take two big dogs and money and furninture and food and my how a job isn't self authority and only proves how weak I am and poor me and I'll never make it and damn, Damn, DAMN. And a very long and protracted,

siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh.

Open your mind and connect with your heart.

More long and protracted sighs and that tingling sensation from my scalp and . . .
nothing. There is no heart connection. I don't know what a heart connection feels like. Deep belly breaths. Time, I need time and a job.

siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh.

Yes.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Left Eye Twitches When I Should On Myself

I've been noticing lately how my left eye is twitching and connecting the thoughts just before noticing the twitching and how all those thoughts are shoulds, coulds, what ifs, need tos and if onlies.

This realization led me to practice for just a few moments being exactly in the right now.. As in right now I am typing these words, hearing my fingernails click on the keyboard and feeling the resistance of the keys against the tip of each nail as I strike it. And the moment will end when this is done and the publish button has been clicked.

And my eye is not twitching until I notice an most minute twitch the moment I typed 'is not'. And just how quickly I am removed from being in the moment. I watch my mind sensor the words, thinking 'oh I'll change that on the edit', in some future not too long from this moment. Words formed of letters all working together, emerges another thought. On the edit a smell assaulting my nostrils and the thought that being in the moment and editing words and thoughts from moments before is an never ending story.

There were sentences thought, filtered out, changed, rearranged because in a future moment I found them to be unweildy and I wonder if I'll ever be able to not filter, change, rearrange anything and still have it be what is needed. Accept it as the reaction to some thought I've had before in a past moment that I no longer even remember.

Here is where I'll admit a mistake. I realize I made a mistake thinking I could work for myself earning money online in this moment. I cannot support myself from my haphazard, unplanned, loosely adhered to endeavors, yet. Too much at stake, too many unfulfilled prior obligations. So I a decision in the moment. Job searching.

Those sentences feel so 'future'. Yet my eye doesn't twitch because I'm not shoulding on myself, coulding, what ifing, needing to or if onlying.

That is right now right where I am. In each moment as it occurs. What more do I need to ask for? Ah, slight twitch on typing the word need and a much larger twitch on typing the typing of the realization of the twitch. Out of the moment again.

It is a difficult thing to stay in the moment and notice all that is in that moment with me. Eyes closed, panting dog, drone of a small airplane passing overhead. Chirping birds, breeze of the fan brushing the tiny hairs on my face and neck. Another car and the clack clack, clack, clack of chains hanging on a door of another room as that rooms fan moves them with it's rotational force. Clack clack clack the fan rotates and whirrs moving in two directions simulatneosly, neither impeding on the other. Returning 180 degrees clack clack clack clack clack.

It's not optimal where I am right now but it is right now and it's all I'm promised. I don't know when that last moment will come. None of us do until we are in that moment.

Friday, June 05, 2009

This Is a Picture I Didn't Take*

One chewed hole about the size of a babies fist in the lid of the super industrial rat poison that I've not been wanting to put out, you know because it would actually kill The Rat.

He/she chewed it's own hole in the lid of the bucket.

Ya'll, The Rat is committing harikari.

I am a little sad and just a little weirded out by it all.



*I didn't take the picture because I don't actually have a digital camera and obviously don't develop film on any sort of regular basis sooooo....

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Lessons Learned from The Rat

Our kitchen has been reconfigured because of dhundunhdhun, 'The Rat'. Ah you dirty rat.

It's not a permanent reconfiguring, yet it did reveal an interesting thinking pattern.

The lower cabinets are now empty. The upper cabinets now contain 9/10ths of the most used items in the kitchen. The other items have been relegated to . . . anywhere else except their original location. It's chaos, sort of, anyway.

We have a lid rack. It was previously kept in a lower cabinet. It now occupies a dining room chair, which is about 15 steps out of the kitchen and away from the stove top.

I thought I was being helpful by placing the lids for the most used pots next to their respective pots in the upper cabinets. You know I thought I was saving some steps and eliminating the wondering and wandering around part of is it dirty or stored away, etc. I thought.

Only I made a mistake.

I didn't communicate this helpful move to either of my roommates.

So imagine my chagrin when I started preparing a simple fare for dinner and couldn't find any lids. I blew mine. I became a screaming pressure cooker lid locked tightly in place and hissing for release. I noticed what was happening and dialed down the heat with some good long deep breaths. Good thing I'm sealed fairly tightly and actually read the stuff I downloaded from Havi or someone could have been hurt.

I finished preparing the meal sans lids. I ate the meal, washed the pots, didn't wash any lids and placed the leftovers in bowls under foil. Afterward, I did a quick search and rescue mission and returned the lids to the adjacent spaces next to pots and crockery.

Only then did I ask two simple questions of my roommates. 1. Who moved the lids? and 2. Where do you think they should go?

I received the following response.

Male roommate: "What lids? I haven't seen any lids. I don't know what you're talking about."
Female roommate: "I moved the lids. I put them in the lid rack which is where they should go."
Me: "Why should they go in the lid rack?"
FR: "That's where we've always kept the lids."
Me: "Have we always kept the lid rack in the dining room?"
FR: "Well...(haltingly with a funny look on her face) no...the uh lid rack is in a chair in the dining room because you know. . .The Rat."
MR: mumbling to himself ". . .now if I could just find my glasses. I could read these here directions on this poison you bought. You paid $32 for some poison?"
Me: "Yes I did." (Hearing internal voice going into condescending mode and hoping, anxiously hoping I wasn't dripping with condescension as I said,) Does that mean the lids have to be in the lid rack because that's where they've always been? Can they go beside the pots in the upper cabinets for now?
FR: "But they go in the lid rack."
Me: . . . walking away

The lesson learned - ingrained thinking habits are hard to overcome especially when they aren't noticed by the thinker of the ingrained thought.

Yep, I'm living life outside convention alright.

Yes, the lids somehow mysteriously end up back in the lid rack in the dining room and sadly The Rat is still an unwanted guest. Obviously there are more lessons to learn. erm Yay. (Yes that is a sarcastic yay.)