I’m coming on here slightly desperate and anxious, worried about my brain and my language ability.
It’s been a while since I’ve blogged or writted in my journal, and I caught myself tripping on my words yesterday.
Perhaps I was simply tired. I didn’t sleep much these last two days. I could just attribute a temporary loss of ability to sleep deprevation.
The real reason is a little more unsettling. I’m losing my language ability to attrition (googles “attrition” and realises it means weakness due to sustained attacks. I guess my lack of use is an attack?)
I haven’t been reading for long periods of time. Or writing. I haven’t expressed myself, absorbed ideas, thought for myself in a while.
As much as I consider audiobooks to be books, the lack of the written word in my life has been detrimental.
Tiktok and podcasts are not substitutions for a really good book. And somehow, strangely, I miss reading the stuff that I used to abhor when it was recommended in junior college. I miss reading things like The Economist. Not that I liked it or felt it… (looks for word.. makes a circle with my finger…) influential to my daily life. I did like reading National Geographic. The confluence of science and medicine and the world seemed interesting to me.
deep breath.
I’m using words I haven’t used on purpose. I miss looking words up and keeping the tab open in my phone so that I’d see them so many times I’d remember what they meant. Gilmore Girls had me pausing and googling many times.
Audiobooks are convenient. I get to let my eyes rest and do other things. But when words aren’t in my face, I start… (the image of a loose thread floats in my mind) unravelling the spool of language I carefully spun.
I’m not sure if my… (my arm flops about like a wet slippery spaghetti strand) soft? weakening? not elastic. soggy no. lossening–loosening grip on language is feeding my inertia to write the books for my clients, or if trying to get into their brain has me detes–turning away from words.
It feels like effort, now, to string words together in a sentence. It used to be so easy.
And it’s unlike learning how to dance. I’m at the stage now where the fundamentals need to come back into my awareness, and how to tweak the things I thought I knew.
But words? Language? I always had the English language right there at the tip of my tongue or at the tip of my fingers. It was wasy to let things and thoughts and ideas flow. I didn’t have to pause and search for words.
Perphas it’s a good thing. (Yeah, I have to find the light side of life.) Perhaps now I get to parse my words carefully, filter my thoughts, choose what I want to say.
Perhaps now, instead of a stream that gushes forth before I’ve finished the thought, I get to slide a needle and thread the words I want to say, out of the million sparkling beads I own.
(It is hubris [googles. excessive pride or self-worth. okay] hubris to think I know a million words? Perhaps a few hundred. Maybe a thousand?)
i look up, and oh,
I’m sitting on a couch, in Australia, looking at the grey clouds above. I’ve been here a little over a month, and there’s another two weeks to go before I go home.
We been to many things and places, Jarrod and I, with our friends. Psychic/tarot/oracle card events and shops, food places, some of the malls. We had so many conversations about spiritual things and relationships and how/what we’re going to do with our lives. I learned the alphabet in sign language. (tests myself if I still have it. yup, still have it.)
The grass in the backyard was overgrown when we got here. It got cut, and now the leaves (i know they’re called blades, but it sounds so harsh) the soft slips of grass raise their heads to the heavens, with some growing tall enough to wave at the sky when the wind passes by.
We each went to a… spiritual.. no. intuitive medium. And it’s my turn to talk to a… spiritual– spirituallity-inclined psychologist (?) soon.
I wonder what to talk about in one session. And I know that whatever comes out of my mouth, and whatever I hear and remember, are divinely guided.
It’s a strange thing, living a spiritual life. There’s so much uncertainty and so much faith and confidence that things are working themselves out, and you’re right where you need to be.
It’s like I don’t know anything, and yet I know everything. It just comes when I need it (not when I want it) because someone… so many people, are with me. Guiding and protecting and blessing.
It’s like all I have to go is be like grass, or watter, or the air. To just be. To just grow, if what’s your nature, to evapourate (googles. oops.) evaporate and condense and fall to the ground as rain, or blow past the plants and skim over the ocean as wind.
I’m human. That’s all I have to be. The interesting thing is, being human makes you complex and complicated, because you’ve/we’ve got a soul. And sould have missions, and purpose(es) and likes and skills and luck and paths.
To come to Earth to be human is an interesting and wonderful affair, filled with lots of frustration and joy, anxiety and calm, rage and poise. (Spotify is playing New beginnings by Harry Bloom.)
To “just be you” is the requirement for a good life. We only experience what we experience, nothing else. Even feeling someone else’s feelings is your own experience.
gulps some jasmine green tea to keep hydrated and awake. it’s so calm now I feel sleepy.
I guess that’s why I like to journal. The calm it brings to put thoughts to ink, even if it’s digital.
lemme change the playli… no, i’ll stay here.
I’ve got work I need to do, abundace to receive, a life to live.
Welcome to 36. Happy birthday me. Happy 15th monthversary to Jarrod and me too. It’s today, and he’s back in Singapore. We’re spending some time apart and we both know it’ll be good for our growth. Doesn’t mean I don’t miss him. It’s harder to take care of myself without him, because I just want to shut down and sleep and conserve my energy so that the days pass until I’m with him again, but I know that won’t do.
The plan, before I met him, was to go find myself. I’m still on that journey. I still have to love and guide myself. (now where did that come from, because i’m sleepy.) We watched a snippet of Witcher season three, and Yennifer said something along the lines of “we choose how we want to move forward”. I still have to choose how I want to move forward.
I’ve got to envision my own future and walk towards it.
I want a home with Jarrod. I want to be married. I want books on the shelves (I’ll have to figure out the dusting, or just keep the windows closed, which means we’re living in a colder place than Singapore). I want a writing desk. A computer/laptop/tablet on the table. Funny, I still want a printer. I want a carpet (or a few) on the floor. I want softness. A life that’s ours.
We might be travelling though, depending on how his work.. business goes. There’s periods of peace and calm, and periods of hectic travel and activity.
I can see what my life would be if we had our daughter. I’m carrying her on my hip, making home a home. Writing my book and making food for us to eat.
I can also see a different life, just the two of us, making home wherever we are, creating safe social spaces, building communities, hosting dinner parties (whaa? because that one’s me).
We make sacred spaces wherever we go. Sanctuaries.
Doesn’t mean we need to create a cafe or event space or healing place. We are the safe spaces.
I guess it’s a question of how big of a safe space do we want to create? How many people do we want to open that space to? How many people do we want to offer help to? How fast do we want to do it?
(“i didn’t choose the healer life, it chose me” bumper sticker style.)
Jarrod wants to build communities with Mind Evolve. I guess I want to start a coven, with Witchy Therapy. Perople meeting in cozy candlelit places, around a table with good food and drink, talking about life and love and letting divinity guide us. Ah, that’s where dinner party came in. I guess I could just book a table at a restaurant to start. But a late-night cafe would definitely be welcome.
(I just realised how much I’ve written.)
Maybe own a cafe that is open late. Sell coffee and tea and hot chocolate and good chai latte. Sell tarot and oracle cards. Sell flowers. Sell books and journals and pens and ink. Have power points at every table. Sell pastries and snanks and fruit and good hot food. Have a “donate to the cafe” box. Sell trinkets and jewellery, crystals and cute knickknacks (googling…) knick-knacks. Let people come in and work, relax, teach classes, talk about tarot. Call it Sanctuary. Open into the night for the insomniacs to find a space. Have someone at the window so people can pass by and buy a drink. Sell cookies and ice-cream. Be big enough to be an event space, have musicians, have a toilet big enough to comfortably pee and move about in. Hire students, ex-cons, old grandmas who want to be busy just two hours a day (maybe they can bake?) and have a noticeboard people can put things on.
Idealistic, i know. But somewhere in here is a life with elements I want to incorporate into I want to life. Something soft, something beautiful, something gracious, something kind. Something that brings light and ease and life to people.
No clue what rent, food, the products and staff would cost. But that’s okay.
The clouds opened and rain came down. It’s already stopped. Friends are back from their nap, and Witcher is back on the screen.
‘Tis enough. ’tis enough.
💖
Image of a coffee in a cup beside a vase of tiny roses by 진영 박 from Pixabay.
