Creative Caffeine Daily

This week's offering from the Creative Caffeine Daily community is this wonderful meditation on whether we really need to understand everything by Elyse Puertas. Enjoy!

So much I still do not understand. I’ve been alive for almost 74 years. I’m naturally an introspective person, and I write mostly to understand myself. It’s helpful. I’ve been meditating and doing yoga (which for me is a moving meditation) since my late 20’s, and these things have also helped me understand myself. But there’s still so much I do not understand not only about myself but others and the world in general.

I watched a live dharma talk on Zoom on Saturday morning, and the teacher, while talking about trying to figure out something that was going on in his life, said he decided to “meditate on it.” I hear that phrase a lot, to meditate on something. I don’t understand what that would look like. I mainly practice insight meditation and have been taught not to get caught up in thoughts while meditating. One idea is to see thoughts as clouds in the clear spacious sky of the mind and watch them come and go. If I was to “meditate on” a particular problem or situation, wouldn’t I consciously be bringing specific thoughts into my mind and staying with and/or analyzing them? Maybe the concept of “meditating on…” something is a form of meditation that I haven’t learned or practiced. This is one thing that I really don’t understand.

I know there are many things that I still don’t understand. I wonder, though, if I need to understand everything. I think as time goes on and I accumulate more life experiences I will understand more, and if not maybe that’s okay. It’s probably better not to force understanding, and just continue to let my life unfold.

This week's offering from the Creative Caffeine Daily community is this terrific piece by Bonnie Smetts called...Every Wound is Registered.

Every wound is now registered. You line up with the others and wait to reach the check out kiosk. You show your wound, if necessary write it down on a single piece of paper, double spaced, New Times Roman. Or you show up and are allowed to lift your shirt to reveal your heart. Whichever way, you receive a receipt. You can take the receipt with you or just say no thank you.

But point is, it’s recorded. That wound has a case number. Later at home you can return online and enter a friendly name as well. I do that. Mother and Brother. Chuck. Pond. Those are the names I’ve given. You only get twenty-five characters, so it has to be concise.

Each time I go to the Wound Center and register what has happened to me, I leave feeling light and free. Usually later I regret not having taken the receipt. Perhaps it would extend the lightness in my heart. Unfortunately the immediate release that I feel diminishes so quickly, sometimes by the time I reach my car. During the summer it seems even quicker. Maybe the receipt, the sign of recognition, could bring back the release. But I never want to take it because I might look like I’m holding onto my trauma.

At the Wound Center, a banner hangs over the checkout area. “You Are Heard.” That is the point, right? But I wonder, is someone collecting our data? Hurt Data. Maybe they are training the AI shrinks (that we can now visit for free) to adapt to our hurts. I fear they have nefarious reasons and that frightens me. But I can’t give up the high I feel when I leave the Center. So I’ll go back until people start whispering that it’s all a sham and we’re being played.

This week's offering from the Creative Caffeine Daily community is this fairy tale with a twist from Elyse Puertas, called Her Wishes...

She had a set of wishes. She wrote them down in her journal, each entry detailed out in her precise handwriting.

When she was a little girl she wished that she would be happily married when she grew up. Not in a marriage like her parents or her grandparents had, full of tension and infidelities, but in a happy one which would last forever. Happily ever after like in the fairy tales.

She was an only child, and she made lots of wishes through the years for a brother or sister but that never happened. She finally gave up on that wish and changed it, wishing instead that she and her fairy tale Prince Charming husband would have four adorable, happy, well behaved children who all got along.

She was in her last year of high school when she found out that she was pregnant. Although the circumstances weren’t perfect – her husband-to-be hadn’t gotten down one one knee to make a romantic proposal and he hadn’t presented her with a beautiful diamond ring – she was very happy to be marrying the boy she loved. She made a wish that they would have a wonderful life together with four great kids and a bunch of cats and dogs and they would all live happily ever after in a yellow house with a white picket fence. Her wishes were very specific.

As time passed her wishes began to change.

Each time she caught her young husband cheating she made a wish that he’d follow through on his promises to never do that again. When he told her that he loved her and only her she wished that she could believe him. But after two years of cheating, staying out all night, and using their money for drugs so that they had to scramble to pay the rent each month, she began to wish for a way out. She figured out how to make that wish come true.

When she finally left him and was alone with her young toddler, she began to wish that she had more skills so she could get a better job that would pay enough to get them out of the seedy neighborhood where they lived. She thought and she thought about how she could do that, and then she made that wish come true.

She began to see that she was strong and that she could take care of herself and her child. She began to believe in herself.

She never again wished for a Prince Charming to come into her life. But, she decided, if she chose to have a man in her life one day her wish was that she would continue to be a strong woman and to believe in herself.

She made that wish come true.

Here's the latest from Writing Zen. Please feel free to share!

Letting go The latest from Writing Zen

Last night, a group of Creative Caffeine Daily members got together to raise a glass and read their (brilliant) work in honor of the platform's one year anniversary. If you missed you, you can watch the recording (which is so worth doing!) here (Passcode &H28HRWV) https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/P9OwCiy_rAmQ8yaycLdgj1h42O3S2S98JFWznK83bXyw2EaKQbXzQ3M94TH_T2Dn.UAsKRXdBLn-1LE2s

Our anniversary celebration is tonight! Below is the link to join us at 4:30 pm (PDT). The passcode is 548195. We've got a baker's dozen of CCD members all set to read their super short pieces. See you there!

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82919341847?pwd=ekRYTTRwdXpiZnJZd1p3K1U3K3F1UT09

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We're just about a week away from our one-year anniversary celebration. If you are a CCD member and would like to read at the event, please email us at [email protected]. If you are not a member and you'd like to be, you can join during our anniversary month for half-off your first month (a $20) value. Just use coupon code ANNIVERSARY when you sign up at the link below https://creativecaffeinedaily.com/

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