As a long time, four decades, student of Buddhism and mindfulness, being in the moment is the central practice of my life, and as someone who is bipolar and has a handful of other mental health diagnoses staying in the present moment is essential for my well-being. Still in all it is easy to slip away, to forget, so I have come to believe that sweetening the deal might make my moments more joyful and easier to stay centered in. I plan to make them as blissy as possible, each moment infused with joy, even if I am just brushing my teeth.
Blissy moments are not goofy giddy affairs necessarily (Though Lord knows they can be and wee willy wonka what fun!) but they are about staying so awake, alive, and aware in each moment that each one is a happening, a joyful thing, full of sweetness. Clean teeth, YAY! A clean kitchen (I did, I really DID folks!)! A chair full of pugs to snuggle; painting, swooshing the paint all around, mixing colors, wheeeeee!; filling fountain pens with ink from bottles, Noodler’s Ottoman Rose, say, or Navajo Blue, GORGEOUS, and then gliding across the page with a smooth writing fountain pen, or dip pen. Simply sublime! Running the shop vac that my best friend Jeff just bought me — I didn’t have one and all 1800 sq feet had to be swept with a broom before mopping. It was grim! — makes vacuuming up the pug balls so much fun. (Like cat’s hairballs, and under the bed dustbunnies, pugs shed a lot and there were “pug balls” everywhere!); Cleaning Scarlett’s cage and seeing it all pretty and her dishes washed and her grey birdy self sitting atop the cage eating walnuts looking all sassy and happy and proud; Cooking a good meal. Seriously. Cooking. Not in the microwave, not fast food, COOKING! I mean last night it was a simple pasta dish but it was so good and I COOKED it.
These are all, most assuredly, #blissymoments, and there are so many more. I am putting these up on Instagram and labelling at least some #blissymoments every single day now. I find this much easier than trying to stick to a #100daysof… project which I failed at, no doubt. My bipolar brain simply wasn’t having it. (#mybipolarbrainsaidno) If you would like to join me in my #blissymoments project I would love that. If what you put up has the hashtag we will find them all on one page. The hashtag shows up as a hyper-link and when you click on it it will take you to the page where all entries under that hashtag are. Fun, fun, fun and blissy indeed.
This is just a short blog post. I plan to blithely skip across the blog and drop a post here and there without having to THINK so much. It’s part of my own personal blissy moment project. I hope I got a little bliss on you, and I would love for you to leave notes in the comments about some of your blissy moments. Let’s Bliss OUT together!
Oh and I just painted my nails sparkly blue! Blissy indeed. (And note my fingers have turquoise ink all over them from filling a fountain pen with Noodler’s “Navajo Turquoise! You can see it in the background on the newspaper I was painting on.)
Hugs and Love,
