It's Not A Sentence, It's Just A Word.

Depress is a verb meaning, according to Dictionary.com's second definition "to lower in force, vigor, activity, etc.; weaken; make dull."  It's my favorite definition.  A definition I don't care for is about "to make sad or gloomy; lower in spirits; deject; dispirit."  This was the first definition in Dictionary.com.  I like Wiktionary.com's first definition--"To press down."  Depressing things just lowers their force, it doesn't extinguish anythng.

Depression gets a real negative vibration going whenever it's mentioned, almost as if it is a sentence to some form of imprisonment.  It doesn't have to be.  That's what people who don't know about "depressing" things call it.  

Often we are instructed to depress a button or a switch somehow to make something we want happen.  "Depress the switch to ..."  Well, you know...depressing things is a necessary step.  So, why does everybody get depressed about "depressing" something?  Who knows?

There are a few things that depress you--and me--hunger, unnecessary pain, early or premature death, lingering disease, broken hearts, and more.  They are usually things that pass by.  But there are things you can depress without depressing everyone else.  Depressing a button to lower the temperature, or the air pressure, or the force applied to something.   Sometimes what's depressing is a matter of brain chemistry, producing a lowered amount of force or activity.  

Finally, people can "depress" whatever button they need to in order to get treatment for that lowered force they are experiencing.  It's nothing to get depressed about.  Feeling that lowered force, I'm getting treatment.  It's not a sentence, it's just a word.          

Just Another Day

Now and then, a change in routine can lift your spirits.  Or it might just be getting a good night's sleep for a change.  I will have to do a little research.  Maybe I should get a good night's sleep again tonight  and try having a routine day tomorrow and see if my spirits are lifted again---or, maybe not.  I like the notion of changing routines.  Today, something new replaced a seven year habit.  The only drawback was the first part that was "new" was a pilates class.  Too much core strength development will give you a lot of aches, among other things.

But seriously, I did enjoy the change, and I plan to do it again.  Do habits get too boring?  Is it the activity, or the way you approach it that makes the routine stuff get you down?  I'm sure it's the latter, you know it and I know it, too.  But it's always easier to change my approach in a new situation, stepping out of the groove I have worn in a situation is not something I've been able to do.  Instead, I walk away, try something else.

New things, places and even people can always make just another day something better.  The things that were a strain in the old, just disappear when you shake the dust off your feet and step out the door.  Just another day becomes a big lift.  You too can remind yourself of that fact any day now.

Being Ready To Sail

I threw away my coaching books, and put my retirement planning ones in a box.  All that analysis seemed to fit, but now I'm not so sure.  I think I'm ready for a change.  I watched a show last night, and it made me think again about all that planning and its outcome.

Most of the things I've enjoyed just happened, without much of a plan.  Our friends picked us up, and drove us the half mile or so from where we lived to the Harbor.  The name of the band was vaguely familiar, but not to the others with us.  We had lived in a couple of places they had not, so we guessed which they were from, and I guessed wrong. They were deftly funny, and musically eclectic.  Thoroughly entertaining, so much so that I quickly realized I'd never seen them before.  We had a good time, cheered and cried in the right places.  No songs for the atheist, they cried.  I may be crazy, but it just may be a lunatic you're looking for.

Then Zac joined them for a number about what not to do while she's walking away, and the risks involved.  I'd seen them firsthand before.  Someone unfamiliar reminded us it was nobody's business but our own.  Hah!

Yes, some of their selections rang bells, some gongs, none were flat.  Where had they been all our lives (and where had we)?

Proud to be an American, but at least I know I'm free.  God blessed the USA again.  But all along, I knew I was being sent, drawn, driven to that state I know was where we all need to be--in that place where--when a good wind comes along, we're ready to sail.  Does that make any sense?  

How do we sail in all this?  Our bells are rung for us by perfect strangers who have learned to do so and use that singular talent to sail their way.

Remedies For A Sleepless Night Really Might Be Part Of The Cure

My guess is sleeplessness is a pretty individual thing.  What keeps me up at night is different from what does the same for you.  I can't bring myself to sit around trying to think good thoughts, but I am not given to worrying about the state of politics and the like.  It has all just become such a mess that I really don't waste much time on it.  People in politics today don't mind being seen to be incompetent, stubborn, negative, self-serving, backbiting, (Hmmm, maybe this means more to me than I have thought, seeing as how I have so many names I call them when I have the chance).  Unlike some others, I am not inclined to blame one side or the other.  They are equally at fault in my book, and they have earned no credibility by "standing up for what's right."  None of them seem to have a corner on the answers that are right.  But, I have wandered off topic again.  I really want to know more about what robs me of sleep than politics.

Some of it is physiological--I am "of a certain age" and have a few issues, but it is intermittent enough to defy simple "blame it on the illness" thinking.  Sometimes the only cure is time and reading/writing.  Reading worked once already tonight, and I managed a couple of hours out to that.  I am trying writing just now, and, in fact I am getting sleepy right now writing this TO BE CONTINUED.

Back again, didn't even waste 90 minutes, or maybe lying there was a waste of time.  I'm looking for something a little off the beaten path as a remedy.   I think I'll consult my friends at Google.

MUCH LATER, I have slept since then, but let me tell you, people who believe they know what you should do to help yourself get to sleep are unbelievable.  As usual, Google offered an abundance in response to my query, "how can I get to sleep at night?"  (883 million responses in .54 seconds).  I went through a page of them and I was astonished, not only by the array of ideas and their volume, but also by the amount of advertising woven into each page of information.  When your teacher caught you asleep in the classroom she probably never told you "that's OK, because sleep's a big business," but it is, see for yourself.

But that is only secondary.  The responses were so extensive, it was hard to take in.  No one in that field believes that "brevity is the soul of wit."

Here are the highlights of what I found in a few minutes of googling.  I really didn't read any one in its entirety.  What quickly drew my attention was the volume of each response.   Wiki How provided twenty-four steps to better sleep, followed by thirty-five tips on better sleep.  Helpguide.org provided only nine secrets to better sleep, but each secret included eight or nine tips.  One interesting side light--your brain uses sleep time to clear out the waste, the process is called the glymphatic system, and lack of sleep allows the accumulation of this waste material which presumably impairs the brain's function.

The Mayo Clinic starts off slowly--they provide seven steps to improve sleep, but this is followed by eleven tips (they just couldn't help themselves).  Prevention.com has eleven steps to take during your waking hours to improve sleep.  However, they follow that with more tips when you actually lay down to sleep.  The well.com offers 42 simple steps to help you get to sleep.  
    
One of my favorite quotes about the need for brevity comes from Patricia Marx: "One false word, one extra word, and somebody's thinking about how they have to buy paper towels at the store. Brevity is very important. If you're going to be long winded, it should be for a purpose. Not just because you like your words."  

Would that some of these helpful sources understood that.  One might have somewhat obliquely--WikiHow, in step 11 of the quick fixes for falling asleep, suggests Do something dull: Read a boring book, a work paper....  here's my thought--how about reading tips and steps for falling asleep?  Boring enough, methinks.

Training Camp

Our villa sits beneath the outstretched limbs of a giant oak.  It is at least five feet in diameter and, is thus home to, thousands upon thousands of acorns.  Those acorns fall this time of year, at least I hope it is only this time of year.  More often than not, it sounds like footsteps on the tile roof.  That's why I was not surprised to discover our rooftops have been used in a secret project.  Here, commandos, cat burglars and contestants trying out for the cirque d'soleil all learn how to drop to a surface with a sound like an acorn hitting a roof on a fall day.

I am pretty sure it's early in the session, judging by the number that sound like burglars on the roof.  There are a handful that sound like mice in the rafters, they must be the precocious beginners.  The rest of the torrent is probably the acorns.  Any day now, we expect a horde of squirrels to arrive, charged with storing the acorns for some nefarious purpose no doubt.

in the mean time, we sleep irregularly, with the noises of the night punctuated by the sound of "falling acorns."  

There Just Aren't Enough Laughs In My Life

I heard a man speak recently on the subject of laughter.  I expected the usual stuff, how laughter is the best medicine and so on.  I've been known to keep a handful of humorous books on my bookshelf to pull down and ask for a little help in the keep-on-laughing department.  All too often, there isn't anything to make me laugh out loud.

Although this one worked tonight--
              
              My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. 
              She's ninety-seven now, and we don't know where the hell she is.

I laughed and you could have heard me, and yes, if a man laughs in the forest and no one hears him, the joke was still funny.

Anyway, we were in a group, and he had us all whooping it up--you know "Ho-Ho, Hah, Hah, Hah," and so on.  Then he had us introduce ourselves to the person next to us at the table and then laugh out loud at them.  It is hard to force such laughter, but the whole thing was so silly, we were soon laughing at ourselves for real.  I'm still waiting for the beneficial effects, but I haven't been practicing regularly.

So, I decided to do a little digging.  Soon I had to attach a set of earbuds to my laptop, as someone near and dear to me was ready to knock my block off if she heard any more laugh exercises.  It seems there are innumerable YouTube clips of people teaching laughing yoga, which, as it turns out is so easy anyone can do it, unlike the yoga practiced by some in my  local yoga center.  I mean, I do what I can and sweat through my shirt at my weekly yoga class, but there are people there doing Hot Yoga--I mean I watch them mop up the sweat after some of those sessions.  They scare me.  Now, the laughter yogis--I didn't see one of these laughing yoga practitioners break a sweat.  That doesn't seem nearly painful enough to be good for you.  

Despite my doubts, there are apparently all kinds of teachers and participants out there.  Twice I saw forty (yes--40) different yoga laughter exercises performed.  I was also introduced to laughing clubs that are springing up all over the place.  Laughteryoga.org has an application that allows you to find the club nearest you.  The one in South Carolina on one of those islands near Charleston calls itself "Laughter At The Beach."  I could relate to that (no, that is not what I heard the last time I went shirtless at the beach).  

The one in Savannah had a more sober name "The Savannah Laughter Project"--there's something in their description that earnestly supports the notion that devoted laughter practitioners can have an influence on world peace and tranquility.  How you laugh it off when you take on such a responsibility was not mentioned.  

I did also see, courtesy again of YouTube, a series of exercises led by the world-renowned Dr. Kataria, a very interesting and amusing fellow.  My favorite was a series of laughter therapy exercises each punctuated by a rhyming wry comment.  I can't at this moment recall any well enough to do them justice, but that may simply mean I have as yet achieved very little of this particular form of enlightenment (or any other, for that matter) and I need more laughter and training.  I certainly buy the former, so the latter is almost certainly true as well.

It turns out Dr. Kataria has a series of five day trainings in Laughter Therapy coming up in Bangalore, India..But there is also one in Orlando, November 4-8.  I think the universe is trying to tell me something--I am not making this up--I have reservations for a timeshare in Orlando beginning on the 8th, .  Maybe I am being drawn to Orlando to become a Certified Laughter Yoga Professional.  Now that's not funny. 

The Porch On An Evening In October

This evening on my porch, there's a pleasant breeze cooling this unencumbered space.  The breeze is manufactured, an overhead fan spinning its magic on a warm October evening.  Part of the warmth is the result of some weather front or another that has stalled somewhere nearby, the rest is the effect of my being overdressed.  I donned long pants and a long-sleeved Salty Dog Cafe t-shirt in anticipation of a walk around the little lagoon that sits twenty yards or so below this porch.  

This month is one of two times each year that the "no-see-ums" reign when the temperature hovers between 68 and 72 or so degrees Fahrenheit.  At that temperature, they rise out of the sandy soil and look for me.  I am a sort of Pied Piper for these creatures.  They come for me first, and those around me, seeing me begin to squirm and scratch as my little friends bite, take this as their signal to move indoors.  I combat these followers with a layer of clothes a bit too warm for the ambient temperature.  The followers have less exposed skin on which to feast, and they often lose interest, especially if I keep moving.

This evening we had planned a walk, hoping to work out the kinks from two and a half hours of driving to visit children and grandchildren.  When darkness falls, a certain member of the aforementioned pair who had resolved to get moving, loses her enthusiasm.  The walk has been postponed.

The porch is sparsely furnished.  A two-seater love seat made of wicker with soft flowered cushions and a matching end table.  I've dragged a small lamp from the living room ("Go ahead, just not the good one.").  It has just enough cord to reach the table if i move it to the other end of the love seat, and stretch the cord all the way out to plug it into the only receptacle out here.  An extension cord is in a box somewhere and when I run across it, I'll rearrange.  I'm not in any hurry.

At the moment, two borrowed sawhorses are folded up in one corner, and a small pile of tools and supplies for replacing screening awaits a day with more than twenty-four hours.  When such a day arrives, I'll replace the screening on the second frame I found stored by the previous owner outside the condo under some bushes.   Or, for all I know they could have lain there for the entirety of the six years he owned the unit.  When I first spied this porch, and noted the absence of screens on the track outside the sliding windows he indicated he didn't know where they were as he never used them.  In one of life's amazing turns, the screens, once their coated aluminum frames are washed and new screening is in place look almost like new (to me anyway) and they perform their intended purpose, letting air in, and minimizing the entrance of flying and/or crawling insects.

Having stalled in my efforts to write here on a regular basis, I started reading a few things I ran across as I unpacked yet another box.  Allowing myself to get distracted as i unpack containers and boxes is among the several reasons our unpacking ordeal remains unfinished.  Another is the dearth of storage space, making us resort to storing things in surprising spaces.  If you find my dress socks in the bottom drawer of our coffee table, do not be alarmed, i knew they were there all the time.  Yes, we opted for a coffee table with several drawers and baskets that can be pulled out and filled with who knows what, instead of the spare kind of table with just the top and four legs.  We need the storage space, you see.  That's also the reason we have replaced the sofa table on which you'd place a lamp in the living room with a "console table," another piece of furniture with drawers where an alternative piece would have open (wasted) space.  I am pretty sure one of those drawers can be devoted to holding a small hammer, a collection of screwdrivers and pliers, and a tape measure or two.  Another can hold duck tape and a can of W-D 40, still another flashlights of various sizes and spare batteries.  You get the idea.  This piece of furniture is on order.  One of us is worried that the color may not go.  By now you've guessed it's not me.  I am welcoming anything with storage space.  I am still looking for a place to store spare light bulbs...

Tonight it's starting to feel like home.