fflo | the weekend is underway

My morning recovery meeting is over, and I was starting to set up the notes for last week's Production Meeting when 5 deer came running down the street. Wouldn't surprise me if they're taking refuge in my jungly back yard right now. I should go look. ....

Nope.

In the shower this morning (besides remembering "ablutions") I somehow got to thinking---wait, maybe it was while getting dressed---like it matters that I am exact about that---I got to thinking about how, a long time ago now, somebody was very probably just pretending to have come to understand something, and then (I got to) imagining myself referring to that likelihood to that person. It's a funny kind of train of thought to arrive at in those circumstances, but I also noticed that my quick shower had run long, as I just kinda let myself go and drift in thoughts and such. So I was a little late for my recovery meeting. The contemplation time that that ritual affords me took me further into contemplating my contemplations, and I realize that my sorta automatic meditative moment, which is when I'm putting on my shoes to go out somewhere, has fallen away, since the pandemic. I do still sometimes put on shoes to go somewhere, but it's not the same sort of pause in an otherwise lickity-split-ish schedule, and it's rarely with a deadline of needing to be somewhere at a certain time, which may be partly what drives or powers that pause, somehow. The pause where I'd catch myself just staring at a while, not sure how long but probably 3 or 4 minutes at least, with a shoe in one hand.

Another difference, though, is that I've started putting shoes on while sitting on the bed, where I can crook a leg up so my foot's in reach more easily. My old chair shoeing thing is harder, with bad knees, along with the fat--- and really it's the socking that's the issue. I have a device for old folks for putting socks on, and when I mentioned it to

peteralway he said he puts his shoes on while sitting on the bed (hope I'm not sharing confidential information here in [ever-so-slightly (and simulataneously totally openly completely)] public), and so since then I've been using that tip a lot. Using old and decrepit/fat person assistance devices, while a good move in self-care when they help, nonetheless is an option I'd rather not to go if/when I don't need to, to avoid discomfort or manage pain, or just face practical reality. So the idea here is that maybe the new locale and mode for self-(socking and -)shodding has disrupted my old automatic meditation moment.

I do find that I can stall out in the bedtop version, however, as a cat or two is often sitting on the bed, and I like sitting there with them. So maybe I'll check my phone and play a game, and do one foot, and then sit and hang and play another game, or more of the first one, and then finally turn and do the other foot, but maybe keep sitting there. Maybe use the excuse of charging the phone further to extend the time.

Right now I could stare out the window, maybe, and let myself go.

It's not like meditation where you keep clearing thoughts, coming back to one's senses and breathing, and kind of emptying out. It's more like meditation where the brain goes off-leash and unmonitored for a time. I think I need that thing. Like letting a top wind down a bit. Or something else that winds down, but only when you stop futzing with it, including not paying attention to it.