Marsia's Diary

If you do end up having to eat frozen burritos and such just adding some fresh lettuce or something can make a big difference.
 
Love the facts about the bees and their dancing!! What I also find incredible is the people who somehow figured out what all these lttle insects are doing. I would really love to study bugs somehow. I think it's all just so incredible the little lives that are going on all around us--whole worlds that we are mostly unaware of!
Also love your laundry fix--sounds like a really good idea. And wonderful if you can find it relaxing :)
 
At least the day was very productive, Marsia. I think it may be the law of diminishing returns, but you'll get there!
 
So I realized this was taking me so long to wander around finding something that fits perfectly in each box that it's not worth the time. Instead I found a bunch of those air filled plastic bags and I am stuffing them in the gaps of the mostly filled boxes and packing them up and moving on. This should keep me from going nuts now that I can pack at a normal rate again.
Great that you found bottleneck and slashed it off!
I am always shocked at how bad he is at domestic things. But he is very talented in many other ways, so, oh well!
People who "are bad at" basic domestic stuff either lack practice (which may not be their fault) or see it as too far below them to engage their brains for.
 
I found a bunch of those air filled plastic bags and I am stuffing them in the gaps of the mostly filled boxes and packing them up and moving on.
Great solution!
Very nice to hear that once you had that sorted things are moving along so well--the packing and the deck--wonderful!

I need to teach him how to shop one of these days. I am always shocked at how bad he is at domestic things
People who "are bad at" basic domestic stuff either lack practice
Yes I often think of how bad I am at with certain things--i've been especially contemplating my lack of ability with basic building skills lately. I would like to build a simple closet, but just feel completely lost! Lack of training, lack of practice!
 
I am feeling organized and productive now, and when you walk in the rooms, they seem a lot more open and clean, which makes me happy.
That sounds so good! You are doing incredibly well, M xo
I love Buddhism. It just makes so much sense. I loved the shrines & temples in Vietnam. I must explore it more 🧘‍♂️
 
Popping in to comment - Buddhism has had a profound impact on me, to the point where I wrote both my Bachelor's and Master's theses about themes that had to do with it. I also used to go to sanghas and partake in meditation retreats, but group meditation really isn't the right fit for me personally because I always got the sense that in some way a lot of people were "competing" against each other in the sanghas I visited. Similarly to how some church people get all smug about their own holiness. And that made me doubt myself a lot. Probably tells more about me and my anxieties than the other folks, but hey. :D The core ideas still resonate with me and they help me a lot when I feel like I'm not enough and that I'm not in control... Because no one really is.
 
Wow, I'd love to visit Vietnam some day! What parts did you like especially?
I especially loved the North of Vietnam. We went to lots of villages outside Hanoi, but I also loved Hanoi. Sapa was wonderful. I have hundreds of photos printed & in albums. I must get them out & have another look. We did not hear raised voices anywhere in Vietnam & there were little shrines everywhere & lots of lovely temples.
 
I looked up "CBT and overeating" and also "emotional eating" today and found great stuff to research. I can't wait until after the move to really get into this stuff.
Looking forward to hearing what you learn!
I figure if we all put our heads together on this forum we can find a bunch of solutions that should work for us long term!
I'm sure the solution will be specific to every single one of us but I do believe the underlying framework will be similar.
 
Buddhism sure does seem to have a wide appeal these days. i think a big part is that you don't have to necessarily take on all the beliefs/practices to get some benefit. That's good that your teacher teaches in clear and simple ways--I like those sort of teachers as well.
My grandfather was so good with tools, he built his own house, and I always wanted to learn from him, but he had no patience.
That's too bad you couldn't learn from him. My dad was a carpenter, so he was forever building and we always had a workshop. I did try to learn stuff from him, but just couldn't get the knack of it. Course growing up with someone like that I could always have him do all my projects for me--not anymore though!
 
Buddhism sure does seem to have a wide appeal these days. i think a big part is that you don't have to necessarily take on all the beliefs/practices to get some benefit. That's good that your teacher teaches in clear and simple ways--I like those sort of teachers as well.
Sorry to chime in once again, but this is one of my autistic SPINs (SPecial INterests); this is spot on. Buddhism, if compared to f.e. Christianity, has similarities and differences; in large parts of Asia it's politically and historically speaking very similar to Christianity in the West, with a long history of highly organized monastery and temple systems, a monopoly on higher education in centuries when the majority of population was illiterate, and political ties to powerful families who tended to send children who weren't fit to be successors to monasteries to create a spiritual career for themselves.

But; while Christianity demanded strict adherence to monotheism and had less leeway for folk beliefs and religious minorities, Buddhism took a very different approach. In most Buddhist majority countries, folk beliefs and minority religions were allowed to coexist; people would go through major life cycle rites like naming babies, getting married, and burials in Buddhist temples, but would also visit shamans and sacrifice food to ancestors and so on and so forth without anyone seeing this as an issue. Of course, folk beliefs kept existing in Christian parts of the world as well, but they could easily get you branded as a witch and murdered if you were poor and/or a woman, or shunned and gossiped about if you were a high class dude who was into alchemy and other occult stuff.

I didn't get baptized until after I had already gotten my Theology degree, because I considered it to be a huge step to take, not something to do willy nilly. I think it speaks of the adaptability of Buddhism that when I told my priest I will still keep Buddhist teachings close to heart, she responded that she doesn't see any issue with this, as the Buddha (or Buddhas, depending how you look at it) are not God; and that the only real theological issue in being simultaneously a Christian and a Buddhist would be the question whether we go through one life-time or several in a cycle of death and re-birth until (hopefully) attaining Samsara.

In my opinion, afterlife is pretty useless to ponder about and my actions are not dependent of whether I believe in the existence of Hell/cycle of rebirths or Heaven/Samsara. This body is going to the maggots anyway, and as I can't see the world from any other point of view than mine, I think doing my best with the wits and capabilities I have should be enough. In a hundred years I might be seen as a monster or a saint, but what matters is the life I am living now. I think the most probable scenario is that we only life once, but that who we are keeps echoing across the universe like waves after you throw sand into a pond. I can't see how our consciousnesses could keep going on after the brain and body is gone, but people are so much more than our flesh and bones, we are our relationships and our drawings and our children, pets, neighbors, and all the steps we leave in the mud outside our homes.

Sorry for hijacking your thread :D
 
Sorry to hear you feeling down about the move Marsia. I can imagine it would be a very emotional time and now that packing is getting finished up, I could imagine the reality of it really hitting.
I hope you are feeling better today. :grouphug:
 
Oh, honey. Getting your house to where you have always wanted it to be, knowing that you will be moving soon would be so, so tough! I really feel for you :grouphug: You have made me realise that we should fix up the things that are not quite right with our place if we can. Sending you lots and lots of love & hugs xoxoxo
 
Wonderful to hear you're doing a little better, Marsia :grouphug: I'm 100% convinced that the future is worth working toward. Change may be hard but it's also exciting. Also: plenty of Polish women here and they can look very sophisticated. I always feel large and whatever the opposite of elegant is, regardless of my size. Feelings aren't always true.
 
Good for you for consciously switching your outlook Marsia. i think it's ok to grieve a little as we experience different losses, but yes, great to see the positives this move will bring you as well.
I hope your back is feeling better.

As for short haircuts...I would like to cut my hair off, but when i was a child I always had short hair and was always taken for a boy--it gave me such a complex that now i'm afraid to cut it off!
 
Anyway, please feel free to write about Buddhism or any other topics as long as you like in my diary. I really like reading what you write. Sorry not to get to your diary lately. I am just so worried about the move, I am being careful to only spend a little time here on the forum until we are out of here.
Don't worry about responding to my diary at all, I understand how taxing it is to have to deal with IRL issues and it makes sense to only have time and energy for so much online stuff. I'm mostly MIA from all of my online friend's diaries however much I would like to contribute and keep up with their stuff.

However, your post here inspired me - I have had a pretty intense past few days, psychotherapy on Friday and a talk with my priest today. And it's pretty much a year to date when I got released from the psych/ neuropsych ward. And it's October, so it's the perfect time for some spooky goodness. While I'm making light of this, it actually did affect me spiritually and made me question some of my ideas about what "health" looks like.

I know this might seem odd or even gross, and it certainly is nutty by definition, but as I was going through my several month long breakdown last year, I was first staying in an acute psych ward and was then transferred to a neuro-psych ward. My stay in the acute ward was pretty chaotic, and at one point I was roomed in with an older lady who stayed up all night talking to herself, making arts and crafts, and complaining how she wasn't allowed to have scissors so she had to rip all her materials by hand. I would ask her to please stop with the arts and crafts and kill the lights as I needed to sleep, but any time I fell asleep, she would put the lights back on and start doing her arts and crafts again, yammering vaguely about all sorts of things... Some of which were pretty queer and occult. Then again, you have to remember I was heavily drugged and sleep deprived, so what seemed very dramatic to me would probably just sound and look embarassing to others.

I was fully aware in that moment that I was a mentally ill person locked in a room with another mentally ill person; but something about this old woman - an archetypal hag, really, with her droning voice and messy long hair - kept captivating my attention to the point that I could not go to the staff and ask to be transferred elsewhere. I thought to myself that if I'm so pulled in by this odd and creepy lady, maybe I should listen and listen well. And behold; maybe it was by accident or by her sensing I was being sucked into her delusion, she asked me to go to the window and look at the words carved into the window frame. It spelled "APUA", "help" in Finnish. Rationally speaking, this is one of the most likely things a psychotic person would carve into a window frame; my only concern in that moment was that she had done it herself and were still in possession of a sharp object she could attack me with. Maybe she had done it herself with scissors that were later confiscated; maybe it was done by someone else way before. I just kept staring at the markings and wondering how come it is possible that being so insane I was in the moment, I was still kind of forced to look after myself...?

As I was standing by the window, the woman asked out of nowhere whether I saw a tree outside. Of course I did; the window was facing a beautiful courtyard with old, lush trees, well cared for and protected from the elements by the architecture and heat from the hospital complex. But I also had a feeling she was referring to _a_ tree, not the bunch of them. I responded with "yeah, an oak tree", as one was so close I could have touched the leaves dancing in the wind if it weren't for the glass between us. The old woman kept ripping her paper craft stuff and nonchalantly informed me, in an unctuous voice _(*sorry I had to Google what the adjective "mairea" could best be transferred to in English, and this was the best I could do)_ , that the oak tree is my tree.

I shit you not. In that moment, sleep deprived, medicated out of my wits, in green hospital pajamas, looking at the tree... It felt like some grimdark rendition of the Arthurian legend. Of course the oak tree was my destiny, as little as I understood the prophecy itself! The conviction in her voice was not only real to her, it felt... Meaningful. Even after she left the ward, I could not completely shake the sense that she was something more than just a kooky old lady who would hang her - frankly, strikingly beautiful and strange - artwork all over the walls where it stuck after her transfer, only to be trashed a few days later by the personnel. (BTW, imagine if psych wards archived all the art done by patients; there are true artists out there.)

Well, in a few weeks I was finally transferred to a neuropsych ward and taken off antipsychotics, which made me feel a lot better in a matter of days. To my shock and surprise, the witchy lady was there, as well. Considering that this was the only neuropsych ward in my area, not really surprising, but to me it felt really impactful to the point I felt uneasy around her. Once, after dinner, as everyone was watching TV, I approached her and asked her if she remembered me. She said she did. I asked whether she remembered the night she told me the oak was my tree and what she meant by it. And she clearly did remember. Which in the context of psych wards is quite something else. I forced out a laugh and tild her I don't really feel strong at all, to which she gave me the deadest of stares, like she was bored out of her wits, and said - "you just need the growth".

Do you understand how huge it is that she could remember me and our first encounter?

In that moment I giggled to kind of distract myself from the emotional impact, and told her "don't we all?", and she just looked at me all frustrated, as if she knew I knew what she really meant. And, yes, all of this took place in a hospital, but this is the closest thing I have ever come to a genuine shaman or wise person. Like, I know plenty of folks who are educated into the dogma of different religions, and I have no issue with that. But this one woman whom the world will always label as "crazy" provided me with probably the deepest spiritual encounter I could ever dream of, and it was specifically because we both existed in a space where normal courtesy no longer exists.

Maybe my willingness to look at the world from the point of view of this strange old woman had, at least partially, to do with the fact that I kept telling the nurses I'm trans and they called me psychotic for that. And then this holy hag came along and basically assigned a sacred tree for me. Both viewpoints are probably skewed and false, but I choose the oak instead of the sterile and automated system of modern psychiatry.

Sorry about the strange ramble and I will remove it if it's too odd! Think of it as a storytime. I actually really want to write into some of my fiction projects, but it has been way too hard to grasp so putting it into words here really mattered to me.

Take care everyone!
 
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(BTW, imagine if psych wards archived all the art done by patients; there are true artists out there.)
A friend of mine works in a psychiatric hospital and they sell patients' artwork to help fund more materials.
And then this holy hag came along and basically assigned a sacred tree for me.
Which, as I'm sure you know, is a symbol of masculinity as well.
to which she gave me the deadest of stares, like she was bored out of her wits, and said - "you just need the growth".
Even if that wasn't a special moment in and of itself you're making it one by growing into your full self. Which is how prophecies work.
 
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