Sunrise -- and sleep

The view from my new (via Goodwill) lawn chair on my deck this morning. It's a truly lovely place to have morning coffee, even before light from the sun begins to streak the sky. For me, I think it's all about a chance to be outside. I will take advantage of this while I am here, as I will not have it at my new place.

Have had two nights of sound sleep, thanks to two vastly different (and even contradictory) efforts.

Effort number one: a mere 15 minutes of focused meditation which helped me release the tensions, fears, aversions and anxieties I was holding around the idea of not sleeping. Did that early Friday morning, and felt better the rest of the day. You could call it rearranging my attitude, but it goes deeper than that. It was simply putting my many years of buddhist studies into practice in real life. And that's really what the practice is all about -- working with real life, real time issues. I knew that I had all that fear, all the anxieties around this. And I realized how much I was pushing it all away from me, how strong my aversion was to the fact of not sleeping. Aversion (call it anger, hatred, or just something that's in your life that you don't want in your life) never works. Letting go of the aversion -- along with the fear and anxiety -- loosens tensions and frees the mind.

Effort number two: I opted to visit a nearby marijuana dispensary later Friday morning, and bought a cookie. Not cheap -- $7.50 with tax for one cookie, but I thought half of it would provide enough of the good stuff for me, and it did, so it was good for two nights.  Key is how much of the good stuff (ie, THC) is in the item. This cookie had 12 %, the highest percentage of anything they sell and apparently perfect for me, split in half. But still, not something I can afford on a daily basis, to be sure.  Maybe weekly, if the problem persists. Edibles like this just went on sale to the public here a couple of days ago, and I was glad to see the day arrive!

Yesterday morning, while it was a mere 80 degrees outside at 9am, I walked to the nearby Goodwill and found a decent and colorful low-slung web lawn chair that I carted home with me and put on the deck.  Today, fairly well rested, I plan to drive into Eugene and get a few herb plants and one cherry tomato plant. The pots are prepared and ready -- just need the plants.

Temps reached 95 here yesterday -- record breaking! More today, then it will taper off again to more normal, but quite comfortable, temps. At the moment, 6am, it's 68.5 at a nearby Wunderground location. Not exactly cool, but for once I'm grateful that this place has AC and that my roommate uses it heavily. I generally keep my door closed to keep the cold air out, but on days like yesterday, and today, it's nice to open the door for a few minutes if needed.

So life is beginning to look better. Amazing what a little sleep will accomplish.