#inktober52, "Train"

I used to go to a meditation group once a week.  Our leader turned down the lights and in her soothing voice told us to imagine a beautiful field of wildflowers.  I internally griped, "Why is it always a meadow?", but I complied.  I imagined pretty flowers.  Eventually, we progressed out of the meadow and my grouchy thoughts of sunburn and I found a calm in myself.  I suppose my grouchiness and fears of sunburn were a metaphor for the crap I carried in my head most days.  I got a lot of positives from meditating and our group became good friends.

The place we met was right next to train tracks.  We all giggled the first time a train went by during our meditation and rattled the windows.  Our patient leader gently suggested we could put all our problems on the train and listen to those problems being carried away.  This happened many times.  I dutifully put my cares on the trains.  I can't see or hear a train anymore without smiling and feeling my blood pressure drop.

Meditation comes in many forms.  What I've described above is a guided meditation.  Sometimes I sit at the river and watch the water go by until I find inner peace.  Art and ditch digging can be meditations.  Sometimes I just pay attention to my breathing (which is probably healthy for everyone in Covid-19 days).  Some people focus on thinking of nothing (something I find absolutely impossible).  Some people do yoga or walk.  Whatever works.  I don't think there's one right way to go about it.

For myself, I start out by checking in with myself.  How stressed am I in the moment?  I give myself a numerical grade.  A good day is a 10 or less.  Often, my score is 5,000.  I start counting backwards, sometimes jumping down 100 points at a time until I can feel the stress leaving my body and my breath evening out.  I notice places where I'm sore or tight and concentrate on relaxing those areas.

I often think of meditation as an awake dream.  I get myself relaxed enough to see where my brain will go.  Like a night dream, answers to issues can be seen through a different light.  Sometimes the answers are so obvious I wonder why I didn't see them in the first place, but I doubt I'm the only one who tells myself what I'm feeling instead of actually feeling my feelings.

For example, I go about my day and think about the things I'm doing.  Everything's fine, so why do I feel so stressed?  After calming myself I can see that I'm worried about the state of the world and individuals I care about.  In my regular thoughts, I tell myself I can't do anything about those things so quit thinking about them.  In my meditative mind, I honor these feelings.  It isn't an issue of fixing situations, it's finding my place in them.  Maybe I can't help someone with health issues or a drug problem, but I can go to my food giveaway and feed other drug addicts and elderly people.  I feel good to do that.  Those are people who want the help.  I feel more peaceful which is better for everybody because being wound like a spring about problems I can't solve just makes me testy to be around.

Yes, I have shown you this train before, but having had to paint it twice for this painting it only seems fair to post it twice.  You can see the whole painting here.  I've done more Barbie paintings but haven't seen any appropriate words to show them off yet.

I can hear trains at my house.  They're carrying away my problems.  How do you meditate?

"Transportation"

We finally got a new word!  Wipe 3 weeks from the last lateness tally and hope for future Friday reliability.  Let me briefly shift my irritation to Ohio politicians who passed a $100/year fee for hybrids (electric cars $200) because roads are financed with a gas tax.  I spend about $100/year in gas to give you an idea of how harsh this is.  I suspect the main reason for this tax is fuel-efficient cars are driven by Earth-friendly Democrats.  Grrr.

It's one of those days when the last thing I want to blog about is what's heaviest on my mind.  I notice my burdened brain keeps saying negative things.  Even positive things come out negatively.  Nobody wants to read a depressing post so I keep deleting and starting over -- but maybe negative words is the thing to talk about?

I had a boss who was horrible in so many ways she was called in front of the state board of ethics committee.  Even so, she actually taught me something, which goes to show you can learn from anyone.  She told me to only use positive words.  I was standardizing signs for the park system and thought her directive was impossible to achieve.  "Danger!  Don't lean on the fence" is straightforward.  Everyone understands it, but I wasn't allowed to use words like danger, don't, no, not, etc.  You try it.  What words would you use?*

Some people have the knack for this.  They're perpetually sunny and decorate in pinks and yellows.  They get on my nerves after a while, but they're kind of nice to have around too.  It beats being around people who decorate in black anyway.

It took time to get my mind around positive words, especially when I was around the horrible boss.  I kept thinking she was just making my life unnecessarily hard and words are only words.  I grumbled she only used positive words to manipulate people.  I kept tinkering with my signs and eventually managed to solve the positivity Rubik's cube.  I started making an effort to change the way I speak.  They're only words, but words can make a difference.  Thinking in positives makes for a better life.

I had a later job where I worked with very nice women.  When they talked about TV programs of the night before, they remarked how pretty someone looked, how nice someone seemed to be, how talented, how smart, how wonderful!  I'll admit I looked at these pleasant women with some suspicion at first.  I was used to women sniping at the TV women.  "Can you believe she wore that!"

One of the nice women told me she used to be like that because she grew up with a mother who was depressed and nasty.  The whole family talked in negatives and this nice woman spoke like her mom until she caught herself at it.  She was dismayed and decided to change her ways and spread good around instead.  She said it took her quite a while to master, and now she's a ray of sunshine in the world.  Her positive approach is echoed by others.  We need more people like this.  It's a skill we can all learn and use.

As for my burdened mind, I'll try to think more optimistically.  For those of you who pray, please include Chris in your thoughts.

The model train art is Ad #2 of Mensa's membership renewal campaign.

*Answer:  "Please stay on trail"

"Train"

This train was a bit of tricky engineering because all of the boxes needed to fit inside each other.  That made it much cheaper to ship the boxes from China.  I did this project for 1800Flowers.  They liked it well enough that I did a similar train for Mrs. Fields.  The two companies were working together, so I wasn’t giving away any state secrets in using the same shaped boxes for both.

I used to go to a meditation group that was near train tracks.  This could’ve been seriously distracting, but the woman leading our group gave us the suggestion to put all our troubles on the train and let the train take them away.  I think there must be a stockpile of troubles in Pennsylvania somewhere, but I took her suggestion.  Whenever I hear a train I think it lessens my load.

Sharon Wagner was kind enough to give me a Liebster Award this week.  Yay!!!  This is for bloggers with less than 200 followers, which gives me one reason to be happy not to have too many followers.  (Though I’d be happy if you wanted to follow J)  Visit Sharon’s site  for “illustrations, globe trotting, kitchen creativity, and photography”.  I like visiting because I never know what she’s going to post.

Okay, receiving awards requires me to give you random facts and answer questions…

Eleven Random Linda Facts: 

1)  Athos is my favorite Musketeer.
2)  Filing papers gives me a sense of satisfaction.
3)  I don’t like Mexican food.  It’s a messy textural thing.
4)  Dolls make me angry.
5)  I forget the names of people I know well sometimes.
6)  I remember my best friend’s phone number when we were in high school.
7)  I like to dance.
8)  I write morbid poetry but don’t show it to anybody.
9)  I propagate aloe and give it away because I think everyone should have it in case they get burned.
10) My winter and fall coats are red.
11) I sulked when my brother beat me at chess.

Eleven Questions from Sharon:

1) What did you want to be when you grew up?  An artist.
2) Who was your celebrity crush as a kid?  Rock Hudson
3) Favorite movie?  Good Will Hunting

4) Favorite book/author/illustrator?  I have too many favorites in this category, but love Mary Stewart, J.K.Rowling, Alexandre Dumas, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Hans Christian Anderson, Robert Lewis Stevenson…

5) Do you believe in ghosts?  Why or why not??  Yes.  “I see dead people.”

6) What is your stupid human trick?  Rolling my tongue.

7) If you could go back in time and tell your teenage self one thing, what would it be?  Life will get better.

8) Most embarrassing moment?  Right, like I’m going to go there!  How about a lesser embarrassment like when I wet myself when the teacher didn’t believe I had to go to the bathroom?

9) What’s the one thing you’d most like to be remembered for when you’re gone (you know, dead…sorry, kind of morbid, but it’s a deep thought kind of question).  I want to feel like something I did made someone’s life a better, but I’d also like some of my creative work to survive me.

10) Do you talk to yourself (out loud, when no one else is around)?  No, but sometimes I tell my dog things.

11) What is your favorite guilty pleasure?  Ice cream.

Now I'm supposed to nominate 5 bloggers with Liebsters of their very own even though this makes me feel like playing favorites and sorry I can’t nominate everybody I enjoy visiting, plus it reminds me that I haven’t been visiting as much as I’d like since I’ve been wasting all my time working lately...

Anita at Beyond the Diapers and Spills

Rand at Rand’s Place

Patti at Patti’s Page

Heiki at federfund illustration the blog

Susan Sorrell Hill (Susan recently relaunched her Etsy site, which isn’t a blog, but still worth visiting)