koshi bells.
Mar. 29th, 2025 04:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serafaeryListening to some koshi water bell chimes, trying to soothe my anxious mood.
In some pain. Josh and I rode to the post office, bike shop, coffee shop, and park today, since silks was canceled. Not doing aerial today has me all out of sorts. I'm in pain and binging on junk food like whoah.
The eagles are still doing well. I check up on them but no longer leave them on the background for hours like I was (it is a 24/7 livestream of the nest). We are heading into the most dangerous time for the chicks and they most likely won't make it, even though everything looks good right now - this pair has only had three chicks fledge in ten years, and two of them were found perished within the first year (I thought I saw that "Spirit" also perished but apparently her whereabouts are unknown/undetermined and she could have dispersed) - so I don't want to get too attached. But I wanted to comment, in case I forgot, that after one of the chicks died in the storm, I noticed that one of the surviving chicks had similar behavior to the third hatchling. Turns out the volunteer biologists somehow determined that the chick that died was the first hatchling, so, I was right - the remaining chicks are the second and third hatchlings. They have yet to be named but currently are labeled "big chick" and "small chick" as one has far outpaced the other in growth.
The thing about watching them, and reflecting on life in general, is how exquisitely evolved they are. Watching them hatch and develop, watching the parents' behavior - none of this is thought out. They just inherently know what to do. The babies poop outside of the nest, the parents tear off bite sized pieces of food and protect and rebuild the nest - watching them futz with the nest is fascinating, it's not a rational process, it's just, grab sticks that feel good and fluff that feels good and move it around until I no longer feel the desire to move it around kinda thing.
And I think about how ants have learned agriculture and to control for fungus with antibiotics, thousands of years before humans discovered penicillin, and I can't help but think (being atheist/an evolutionist), this is mostly us, too. We can use all kinds of words to describe and explain and rationalize our actions, but really we're all just acting on instinct. One instinct is to constantly explain ourselves in elaborate stories that give us some sense of agency so that we can pretend that we somehow control our lives. Because we need a sense of autonomy and control. But it isn't so. We're going to do what we're evolved to do, whether we want to change it or not, the behavior will be what it will be. This is something I'm realizing as I watch people relive the same toxic patterns on repeat. I do it, too. I feel these clouds of depression descend on me and I go into a panic because I know society expects me to construct some sort of story as to why I am not well.
I'm just not.
I have reached a point where I am exhausted by having to defend and explain my illness. I'm just not well. My brain doesn't work right. This happened in childhood. I can't fix it. Believe me I've tried everything. Short of a lobotomy. I can only cope as best I can, and hide it from others, or hide myself from others, since they find it so distressing and unbearable to witness.
Anyway.
It's a gentle, freeing feeling, I'm using it to try to let go of judgement when I see others behaving poorly. They don't want to behave poorly, any more than I want to be depressed, or arthritic. This is just something that happens to us sometimes. Hopefully it will pass, soon.
Of course we do have some agency, and in a different way than animals. I quit drinking. I took up multi-sport high intensity exercise, until my body revolted. I meditate. I practice gratitude. These things do help. But they're drops in the bucket of my evolutionary drives, and I'm silly to think I have so much control over myself, or that others control what they do. I am my mother's daughter. It's okay. I am finding as I age that I want to understand history better, I wish so much I could talk to my grandmother, and my great grandmother, and her grandmother. I have started to record little videos of myself talking, something I've never done before, in part because I wish I had such recordings from my mom and grandma. I have no offspring who will ever care to see such things, but, I do it anyway, because this is what my biology craves at this time in my life.
I feel like estrogen is helping me feel a tiny bit better. I'm not experiencing any pain from it yet, and only slight increase in headaches.
Friday completely wiped me out, work-wise. I came home, stuffed my face, and fell into bed, and basically just got up to feed the cat and comfort Josh a little and fall back into bed. I went out Thursday night, just to see Amanda, it started rough but I had an okay night, dancing in my monster mask (the mask-maker Ira/Snarlskin was also there in a similar monster head and claws) I only stayed for maybe an hour and a half and was in bed by 12:45pm, which is how it needs to go from here on out if I'm to continue clubbing. I kept my feet flat. Work was OOF but I think I can adjust to these longer hours, the extra income is YAY.
I gave Amanda lit-up balloons, since she was insisting that she was celebrating her birthday. She didn't thank me. She was so stoned she could barely keep her eyes open, and then had an "altercation" with a "friend" that she is still freaking out about on social media, two days later. The drama in her life with all those toxic people often completely consumes her, and all my efforts to try to support her just feel wasted. I am trying really hard not to judge her for this and give her grace. I just cannot tolerate that sort of thing and those sorts of people, but she doesn't know any other way. I can't be mad at her for this. It just... makes me tired. We all have our ways of coping, I am not here to judge whose is better or worse. Just trying to walk through it. I am not looking forward to the show tonight but it's okay. I will wear a mask in the theatre, as I feel very run-down and vulnerable to illness and don't want to get sick right now. Why am I so sleepy. Is it the koshi bells? lol.
In some pain. Josh and I rode to the post office, bike shop, coffee shop, and park today, since silks was canceled. Not doing aerial today has me all out of sorts. I'm in pain and binging on junk food like whoah.
The eagles are still doing well. I check up on them but no longer leave them on the background for hours like I was (it is a 24/7 livestream of the nest). We are heading into the most dangerous time for the chicks and they most likely won't make it, even though everything looks good right now - this pair has only had three chicks fledge in ten years, and two of them were found perished within the first year (I thought I saw that "Spirit" also perished but apparently her whereabouts are unknown/undetermined and she could have dispersed) - so I don't want to get too attached. But I wanted to comment, in case I forgot, that after one of the chicks died in the storm, I noticed that one of the surviving chicks had similar behavior to the third hatchling. Turns out the volunteer biologists somehow determined that the chick that died was the first hatchling, so, I was right - the remaining chicks are the second and third hatchlings. They have yet to be named but currently are labeled "big chick" and "small chick" as one has far outpaced the other in growth.
The thing about watching them, and reflecting on life in general, is how exquisitely evolved they are. Watching them hatch and develop, watching the parents' behavior - none of this is thought out. They just inherently know what to do. The babies poop outside of the nest, the parents tear off bite sized pieces of food and protect and rebuild the nest - watching them futz with the nest is fascinating, it's not a rational process, it's just, grab sticks that feel good and fluff that feels good and move it around until I no longer feel the desire to move it around kinda thing.
And I think about how ants have learned agriculture and to control for fungus with antibiotics, thousands of years before humans discovered penicillin, and I can't help but think (being atheist/an evolutionist), this is mostly us, too. We can use all kinds of words to describe and explain and rationalize our actions, but really we're all just acting on instinct. One instinct is to constantly explain ourselves in elaborate stories that give us some sense of agency so that we can pretend that we somehow control our lives. Because we need a sense of autonomy and control. But it isn't so. We're going to do what we're evolved to do, whether we want to change it or not, the behavior will be what it will be. This is something I'm realizing as I watch people relive the same toxic patterns on repeat. I do it, too. I feel these clouds of depression descend on me and I go into a panic because I know society expects me to construct some sort of story as to why I am not well.
I'm just not.
I have reached a point where I am exhausted by having to defend and explain my illness. I'm just not well. My brain doesn't work right. This happened in childhood. I can't fix it. Believe me I've tried everything. Short of a lobotomy. I can only cope as best I can, and hide it from others, or hide myself from others, since they find it so distressing and unbearable to witness.
Anyway.
It's a gentle, freeing feeling, I'm using it to try to let go of judgement when I see others behaving poorly. They don't want to behave poorly, any more than I want to be depressed, or arthritic. This is just something that happens to us sometimes. Hopefully it will pass, soon.
Of course we do have some agency, and in a different way than animals. I quit drinking. I took up multi-sport high intensity exercise, until my body revolted. I meditate. I practice gratitude. These things do help. But they're drops in the bucket of my evolutionary drives, and I'm silly to think I have so much control over myself, or that others control what they do. I am my mother's daughter. It's okay. I am finding as I age that I want to understand history better, I wish so much I could talk to my grandmother, and my great grandmother, and her grandmother. I have started to record little videos of myself talking, something I've never done before, in part because I wish I had such recordings from my mom and grandma. I have no offspring who will ever care to see such things, but, I do it anyway, because this is what my biology craves at this time in my life.
I feel like estrogen is helping me feel a tiny bit better. I'm not experiencing any pain from it yet, and only slight increase in headaches.
Friday completely wiped me out, work-wise. I came home, stuffed my face, and fell into bed, and basically just got up to feed the cat and comfort Josh a little and fall back into bed. I went out Thursday night, just to see Amanda, it started rough but I had an okay night, dancing in my monster mask (the mask-maker Ira/Snarlskin was also there in a similar monster head and claws) I only stayed for maybe an hour and a half and was in bed by 12:45pm, which is how it needs to go from here on out if I'm to continue clubbing. I kept my feet flat. Work was OOF but I think I can adjust to these longer hours, the extra income is YAY.
I gave Amanda lit-up balloons, since she was insisting that she was celebrating her birthday. She didn't thank me. She was so stoned she could barely keep her eyes open, and then had an "altercation" with a "friend" that she is still freaking out about on social media, two days later. The drama in her life with all those toxic people often completely consumes her, and all my efforts to try to support her just feel wasted. I am trying really hard not to judge her for this and give her grace. I just cannot tolerate that sort of thing and those sorts of people, but she doesn't know any other way. I can't be mad at her for this. It just... makes me tired. We all have our ways of coping, I am not here to judge whose is better or worse. Just trying to walk through it. I am not looking forward to the show tonight but it's okay. I will wear a mask in the theatre, as I feel very run-down and vulnerable to illness and don't want to get sick right now. Why am I so sleepy. Is it the koshi bells? lol.
