Joe Morishige - Journal Entry 2015.11.28

Kids! Kids! Kids! Family!

It has been 2 moons sinceI have stopped smoking weed and drinking beer. This clarity has given me a great chance to look more closely into the manifestations of my mind. Why, when, and where my mind shifts happen. There have been many occasions that I have felt that a beer would do me a great service, especially when my brain feels seriously overwhelmed by screaming kids, lying car salesmen, or lying car sellers.

Most recently when doing the car purchasing and sell dance I was largely a ripe emotional mess. Around the same time I was dealing with the car stuff I was also getting caught up in an excess of caffeine, once again giving way to my personality of always wanting something more, never content with what is presented in front of me. Probably the reason I why I just downed a 2 and 1/2 scoop bowl of matcha before sitting down to write this.

So one of the big things I have identified is that my mind waves can change dramatically when faced with stress. It seems that stress may be one of the biggest factors in dictating my perception swings. That being said it is extremely important for me to approach life as tempered as possible and not get carried away on any emotional rides.

I have also been slowly coming to accept that I have spent so much of the last 10 years of my life neurotically watching my brain that it's been extremely difficult to create new magical memories as the impending fluctuations are generally on the forefront of my mind. I am hoping that with my current sobriety I may be able to become more in-tuned with the fluctuations so I can start building more consistently. I am also realizing that because of the fluctuations of my mind I am always forced to see things from many perspectives. I can feel when over-confidence pumps in my veins to shear terror of the unknown, something that used to completely incapacitate me. There are times of self doubt, there are times of impatience. But I am slowly chipping away at it.

Thursday was one of the most magical Thanksgivings to date, it seems every year thanksgiving becomes more magical. Because both of the kids were sick with hand, foot, and mouth disease and likely myself as well as I've been getting a case of the ebola throat though no rashes. We didn't go to the inlaws as planned. Instead we stayed home and had a magical day. We enjoyed ourselves in the crisp fall air (the last few days have been well bellow freezing at night up here) and everyone was in a relaxed joyful mood, thankful to stay home and enjoy each others company as a family. It's days like this that make me all the more passionate about the creation of a family oriented intentional community. At the foundation of everything is family after that its just a bonus. Hazel picked out all of our clothing and had mom dress up in a nice dress and high heels (oo lala!). I let hazel know how much I liked them too. Though I do feel somewhat sick at myself because of my vain conditioning. When pulling the wishbone however I wished for something much more reasonable that I may have in the past.

Also a last week we came back from a wonderful camping excursion up north. We spent 2 days camping in Olema and 1 night at the sandpiper lodge in stinson beach. The air was much colder than I had expected and I spent two night with little sleep. However, the days were such a blessing. Hazel met two boys on the second afternoon, shortly after she kept talking about wanting friends. We attempted to meet these boys on 4 occasions, Hazel kept asking me to talk for her but instead I simply talked loudly, "Hazel I know you want to make friends, maybe you should ask these boys to be your friend, etc. etc." She kept telling me that they didn't want to be her friends, half crying even though once I set the stage she simply muttered under her breath, "wanna play" or maybe even not that far. Eventually however both parties worked up the courage to play and they had a grand time together. The boys were twins both a little over a year older than hazel, they had a grand time together. They even helped hazel have the confidence to start riding her pedal bike without any assistance.

On the second night I was able to serve myself some tea under the building moon light. Two 70 to 100 foot tall pine trees shot up about 40 feet away between the moon and myself with the fireplace and freshly ember boiler water to my left. The feeling of gratitude was immense as I sat, pondering upon the feeling of gratitude. First thinking about the feeling and its duration then simply being present with it. With the recognition of the inevitable fluctuations of my emotions it can be easy to get lost in musing about when and how mind states will come and go. Whenever I can simply be there with them I can usually act collected through most circumstance. The pine shadows moved from the right of me to directly over me to the left of me before the tea was finished.