Journal #4: Good times, weird times, bad times
Had a rough past week. It was also a good week.
These two statements both being true, it was, summarily, a weird week.
Got back from the AirBNB Monday. My wife and spent a three day weekend in an A-frame cabin tucked into a forest on the northern back-end of town, celebrating our first wedding anniversary.1 I've got a blog post in my drafts about it, our marriage, etc. From that came a small poem; the first draft is on this blog and the second draft is on my new writing website, which leads me into my next point:
I bought three custom domains:
They will be hosting my personal blog, my artwork, and my writing. I will continue posting rough drafts of my writing, as well as little sketches, here on this blog. Everything else that is finished/finalized will go on the other sites. They will act as portfolios of sorts; hence the conservative themeing. (Meanwhile, I've been tweaking the CSS of this blog).
Emotionally, I've been...okay ~(read: not good!)~ I've had three or four nightmares about politics since Trump won the election. Last night was some sort of psychedelic, post-apocalyptic Americana trip. My other dreams were just vague miasmas of anxiety and speculative doom.
With times like these, I'm learning to fall back on my Buddhist practice, which I've admittedly neglected in recent months (it's also on my ever-growing list of blog post ideas).
Though I am not practicing Tibetan Buddhism, one of my favorite teachers is a Gelug nun named Robina Courtin. I've always loved her style of teaching and communication. This video in particular has given me some much needed solace.
We live in strange times in a strange world. I am trying to remember to take stock in the good as well as the bad.
Sometimes it feels like I'm fighting against the world at large. But problems on the macro scale are nothing but a million microscopic miscalculations; therefore, the inverse must be true: even the smallest victories can add up to move a mountain.
A deep breath, a warm mug of tea, and actually finishing a proper blog post are the victories I've accomplished so far today. What victories have you won?
Take care everyone.
Xavier
南無阿弥陀仏
❤
We got married November 17th, 2023.↩