By Catherine DiMercurio
Sometimes I reflect on how this blog began, and the name of it. My dog had just died and I was about a year and a half into a new relationship. I was feeling broken hearted and open hearted at the same time. The relationship ended several months later. I took a few months off from dating, then hopped back into something new, which also lasted about two years. Now, that relationship is two years behind me. I didn’t hop back into anything, and another of my sweet pups has passed.
Since that death there have been times over the past two months when it has felt as if things are slowly sliding down a muddy slope. I have struggled to get my footing and little and big things seem to be going wrong. I look everywhere for signs, for tiny joyful things, so I may imprint those things on my heart in an effort stop the mudslide, give me something to hold on to. I know from experience that it is an effective practice, but like everything good for you, it takes consistency and hard work to keep looking. And the more things that go wrong, and the bigger the things, the harder it is to see anything else, harder to feel open hearted in a world full of sharpness.
One of the good things about me is that I like routines. I’m trying to make sure I’m moving more and I bought a pedometer to better monitor myself. Sitting at a desk for 40 hours a week not only has its own detrimental effects but has dulled my ability to gauge how much or little I’m actually moving. Now, my habit is to walk the dog in the morning, take a few breaks to get some steps around the house throughout the workday, then walk again, solo, in the late afternoon or evening. I feel so much better when I do this.
But being a lover of routines has a downside too. It can be hard to try new things. There are a million reasons why I adore the safety and predictability of routines, but basically it’s a combination of how I’ve always been, and what I prefer in the aftermath of some of the roller coaster relationships I’ve been in. Routines keep me writing every morning, keep me and my dog healthy. But breaking them to try other things can be a challenge. Though, trying the New, Big Thing of pottery a year and a half ago was my proof to myself that I can change up the routine and it can be really good for me. And it still feels like a New Big Thing, even though it has been incorporated into my routines.
Routines can also lead us to so many happy moments. My writing practice never fails to ground me, to keep me connected to my self, and to big ideas I want to explore. The quest for little happy moments was most recently undertaken in the aftermath of a storm that resulted in some expensive roof damage. I had been feeling particularly low. But on a routine walk with my puppy Zero, we were led to a beautiful toad. The toad moved in such a lopsided fashion, a half slide, half hop into the grass at our approach that at first I thought it was a wounded bird or something. A good portion of my joy at discovering the toad was seeing that it was an alive-and-well someone instead of a wounded someone.
Other little happy moments that happened recently also occurred as my morning routine unfolded. I typically begin the day with a cup of coffee on the patio when I let Zero out. Yesterday, I was drinking coffee from a mug I threw and trimmed and glazed myself. The coffee contained a drizzle of cardamom simple syrup, as I’m obsessed with cardamom these days. I was surrounded by flowers, including a pretty pot of them given to me by a good friend. It was one of those moments, one I wanted to capture and imprint upon my memory for when times are tough, so that I could draw it like a card from a deck and say See? You felt good and happy and peaceful that morning. This morning too, as I stood on the patio looking out into a pale and hazy morning sky, I was surprised to see an enormous waning gibbous moon. I once wrote about that particular moon phase being my favorite, and it was a delight to see it there, perched and oddly bright in the morning sky. It was such a strange, good light, and I’m glad I took the time to bask in it.
I feel like our brains are constantly shuffling the deck of memories. A song will retrieve a memory so long ago and so good that it bruises you to remember how lost and faraway it is. A smell will bring forth another memory of a kitchen full of people you love, and you will smile. The tough memories get added on their own without any effort. I’ve read that our brains imprint—sear?—bad experiences into our memories as a protective mechanism, but good memories are not written in the same fashion. Though, what greater protection from bad memories is there than good ones? It’s a strange way for our brains to work, but if we want to make protective charms of the good memories, we have to do that work ourselves.
One of the beautiful parts about these little happy moments that we’re trying to imprint upon our brain as memory is that there is a lovely now-ness to them. Somehow noting them as they are happening opens up a pocket of time-space and lets the moment exist for longer than normal. Such moments are as much about future enjoyment of the past as they are about the present. Isn’t it amazing how they can exist and extend in all those different directions?
Still, when things are bad, at least for me, my tendency is to resist seeing things, anything, in a good light. I have to heavily lean into the part of myself that knows what to do, to trust her to pull us out. To take us for a walk, to reach out to a friend, whatever it takes. When I feel clearer-headed, I can see that the part of me that knows what to do knows because she fought for this knowledge. She worked like hell to build the scaffolding for us, to make sure we always had a way out. She helped get us out of bad situations and the unhealthy mindsets that went along with them. When things start to get bad, my thoughts become a mantra of “I don’t know what to do.” But, we have always figured it out. I hope, as I’m building this muscle memory, I can catch myself sooner and sooner each time and remember to trust and work with myself instead of against, to have all the disparate parts of myself pulling together and being a team. One part of my brain looks for the good, joyful moments, another does the research and finds the answers, another knows when we need to get out of the house or talk to a friend. And they all comfort the scared part that is worried about all the bad things that could happen.
Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to have a brain that operates as a singular unit, not a crowd of selves constantly in dialogue. But this is the brain I’ve got so we’re going to keep learning, keep talking, and keep growing. I’m off to jump into my next routine of the day. I hope you have a good one, full of happy, collected moments and good light.
Love, Cath
Chronicles of the Open Hearted 