Socializing as therapy

Minding my own business here in my apartment smack in the middle of Vancouver proper… doing more, bit by bit. Last week, I spent a couple of hours at the local second hand store chain during their massive 50% off sale.

My aim was to get an armful of old woollen sweaters and an old worn-out XL leather jacket, both to use as fabric for art projects down the road. However, I got a lot more out of the bargain, particularly a delightful experience of the large place packed with every ethnicity, speaking their own languages! So many little kids proudly pushing between adults and excusing themselves in their own languages, which I think became a “thing”. Very delightful. Eventually, I was asking people what was their language, exclaiming how beautiful it sounded (Punjabi, Polish, Farsi).

In the end, I did come away with some beautiful coloured lambs wool sweaters and a cashmere men’s vest, a old leather vest and a leather jacket. I made a couple of acquaintances, a connection with a beautiful couple with a baby, and a woman who asked about my sweaters (she is an artist in paints). I realized I needed to go home because in that conversation, I ended up telling about ancestors and waving my arms over my head to illustrate the named and unnamed ancestors, to a blank stare from my new friend.

I guess that’s what I mean when I say make mistakes in communication. I do realize that my personality has changed a bit. I’m a lot slower on the draw, and I’m paying a lot more attention to everything around me while communicating (sensitivity to light, noise, space constraints, and sudden movements). Sometimes what I say doesn’t make sense, because I’m talking about what I’m experiencing in the moment, and sometimes it has to do with sensitivity rather than the conversation.

Other times, things I talk about don’t make sense because I’m talking about my Dreamscape, such that was constructed in my meditative period when I was in pain and alone in bed for all those days, weeks in fact, over months. That period in mid-2017 when I was trying out all sorts of meds, many of which made me sick… breathing, meditating… dreaming…

It’s almost as if, everyone has knowledge of this Dreamscape too, but consciously, I realize it’s only me. Only I have knowledge of this Dreamscape, such that it is.

Ancestors form part of my Dreamscape. The named are those in my family trees whose names we have, and some stories too. I’ve been working on my family trees since 2002, so nothing new, although I sometimes add stuff when talking to my cousins about our trees and families.

The unnamed are those before, the ones that we know were there before us (because rightly we came from them), but don’t know who they are. We can trace them from our family trees, the great grandmother of the last great-great-grandmother in a particular recorded lineage. Surely she lived. How she lived, where she lived and what her life was like is unknown, but sometimes forms part of my Dreamscape. Her hard life, toiling, mothering, cooking, mending, washing… and maybe, if she had time, something creative or beautiful happened in her days, or once or twice in her life. Maybe.

All in context.

My life has been easy, my choices many. My choices have made me, and have introduced me to beautiful people. I love many very deeply, and I am deeply loved by many. I am profoundly grateful.

I am very, very privileged. I live in one of the most beautiful and cosmopolitan cities in the world. I can choose from the shiniest and most perfect produce imported because of its perfection (if that’s what I want to choose from), and I can do or have just about whatever I want. Now, I’m not saying that I choose these things, or that I have unlimited means. No. I’m just saying, I do have amazing and unbelievable choices. I am very lucky and privileged to live in a place where there is beauty all around me.

Though my income is very limited, and my choices happen to be frugal, limited and close to hearth and home. We choose carefully in our home. I have access to and I actually have more than most, and I am grateful.

While at the second hand store, I picked up a friendly chest virus and have been in bed since Wednesday morning, save being up on Wednesday night for a few hours, and Thursday morning I pushed myself to visit my physiotherapist (who also had a cold, so we felt it was fair that we were both sick in the room together). It’s Friday morning as I write this, and I’m going to proceed with a few tasks to get me to my cousins tomorrow midday for a social outing — which I’m looking forward to — mainly to exercise my social skills.

Social skills which are sorely lacking. Especially timing. Queue, laugh modestly (not uproariously). Queue, ask question. Queue, respond with brief (not lengthy) response. Also practice joking responses for those times when my mind goes blank: modest chuckle, I can’t think of the word; or, modest chuckle, remind me what we were talking about…

I’m sure it will be fine, but I’m definitely out of practice. Speaking with doctors and medical clinic staff doesn’t count.

Here are my latest creative projects. The hat was a gift to my psychiatrist who has retired (yes, I get a new psychiatrist soon). And the other coloured weave, I’m not sure what it will become. It wants to be a faerie hat, but it also wants fancy, small and tight stitches (I’m letting “it” guide the way).

So much Love. ❤️