.As I was twisting around in the mirror, turning lights to reflect illumination on the upper quadrant of my back, I thought about the ideas of “seeing” and “flexibility.”

I was bitten by a brown recluse spider three weeks ago and part of my morning ritual is now to go stand with my back to the mirror holding my phone on camera and trying to set up a clear shot at the inflicted area.

Almost immediately after I was bitten, the two puncture wounds showed themselves but over time with strong antibiotics and tetracycline cream, it is down to a distinct area of red. However,  I am under compulsion to view it. It is “behind” me. I cannot reach it easily. I cannot see it clearly. The ritual of self-protection is built in the monitoring of my body.

The entire OCD driven idea of assessing how I am at this moment, how my past decisions and actions impact on my physical, emotional, spiritual energy, is the place I have landed in my life.

The bite is no longer spreading. The dark ring around it is no longer turning black. The center is beginning to collapse inward as the online information had predicted. But what about the rest of me?

I keep coming back to the idea of blind spots or black boxes. There is an obstruction in knowing the self and it is held in the steel-like neurons that form a spider’s web of concepts.
I know I cannot turn easily to look at my spider attack but that information goes into the basket: “Must do yoga- I hate yoga.” It is filed away.

I watched a video today by a 92-year-old weight lifter who began his self-improvement beyond the age of 80. As I watched, I felt the flush of the warmth of excitement and passion for what I in my secret most heart want for myself. And as time elapsed I filed the intention in the: “Must work out more but don’t feel like it now” basket.

The issue I explain to my patterned self, my toy train on a track self that goes round and round and reaches only the same train station as it ever reached, is that I have a bankruptcy of using time.

Time is energy. Time is optimism. Time is the ultimate expression of the physical. Since I have been retired in 1999 I was outer directed as an artist. I prepared for shows. I worked to deadlines. I spent money in the hopes of making money. I “was” something.

over view

And then I opened the Airbnb for eight very successful years. I was once again outer-directed. The customers coming in would trigger action. The six to eight hours a day spent making beds, doing laundry, wiping down surfaces was not negotiable.

Now, at 75, I have my debt paid down. I have all the time in the world. The Pandemic has turned off the switch of the impulse of action triggered by the outside world and I twist around attempting to see myself.
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And what I see is the problem with “float”. I float in time because “I deserve it.” They tell me that. The inability to look forward to appointments, to trivial meetings with others, to pleasurable strolls through thrift stores to buy things I have no use for and store in the dark peripheries of my house has left me bereft.

Issues such as age, the constant mirroring back to me of what I am expected to do or be as a senior, an inborn faulty setting due to years of being a workaholic and one who has trained herself to jump for the reward cookie held in someone else’s hand haunt me now.

But when I drift in the mornings, I do it listening to coaches, watching videos, reading teachers.

training the mind

I think of the trips I took to Europe and how I spent so much time buying maps when I could have been learning a new language.

Always, always, always my mind runs like a sheep dog herding up scattering thoughts. I come back to the knowing surety that I am a construct. The habits that I build create my choices.

So can we ever know ourselves? How can we twist around enough to get a clear view?

I can only register in my mirror the actions that I am taking. Some of them are shaky, unskilled, full of frustration. But some of them have removed countless moments of drama and struggle that used to occupy my ego.

The spider bite is healing because I followed doctor’s orders even though the antibiotic was very unpleasant. The food I eat is kind to my body and supports my health. The friends I have around me are loving and supportive.

Each day is another construction site. Each day is another laying down of more track for my train to go further, to explore more, to not be so tightly wound.

Ultimately it is a better use of my time to focus on the use of my time instead of looking behind me to see if there is any scarring from past poison. I see my mind grabbing at me for security and I understand the fear that drives that grasping.

Can I loving schedule my time so that I am being rewarded for each minor victory? I begin. I begin again. I begin each every now. Eyes forward.