The concept of yutori speaks to me, especially right now in this scary political climate of gestapo-like kidnappings, Alligator Auschwitz, and a real sense of anticipatory dread.
“Yutori” (ゆとり) is a Japanese concept that broadly translates to spaciousness, room, or breathing room.
It’s about creating intentional space in one’s life, both physically and mentally, to allow for relaxation, reflection, and a sense of ease.
This can involve anything from leaving for appointments early to allow for a buffer, to simply taking moments throughout the day to pause and breathe
Yutori aligns with mindfulness practices and encourages a more balanced and less stressful approach to life. For me, that means going outside, watching a magnificent beachy sunset, cleaning the house, thoughtfully organizing a drawer — or my massive seashell collection.
Sometimes the only healing modality for all this stress and anxiety is to go outside and work in the garden. Flowers don’t care if democracy is crumbling; there is regenerative rebirth every spring, no matter what or whom is orchestrating our demise.
After the rain, all my fruit trees burst forth with glorious flowers. It’s a small tree, but full of life. I’m continually fascinated with photographing raindrops.
Infinite peach-blossom shades, her rouged and powdered cheeks.
Spring breezes help her break my heart, blowing peach petals from her dress. — Yuan Zhen
Like the lyrics from that Heart song… “These dreams in the mist Darkness on the edge, shadows where I stand I search for the time on a watch with no hands”
I experienced an incredibly unsettling dream last night that I just can’t shake, one of those dreams that some other protective part of your brain thankfully forces you to wake up from; a heart pounding, traumatizing, scary dream that you can’t quite figure out and you wish you could forget, but some of the details and the feelings of dread and fear remain firmly etched.
In this dream, I had driven to the airport, not to immediately travel anywhere, but for another reason, although I don’t know what that was.
I wasn’t alone–one of my first-born fur children was with me, Sabrina Sue, my beloved Border Collie. (She died when Angel Boy was still a toddler). I parked on the street, close to the airport, because I planned to walk there. I couldn’t explain why Sab was there and alive when she’s been gone for decades, but our bond was strong and it was like old times when that beautiful black and white, bright-eyed little girl was with me, as she always was.
Here’s where it gets weird. I left Sabrina in the car, which I had NEVER EVER done when she was alive, except for a couple of times when I quickly ran into the store or the post office, and only when it was cold outside, so she would be in no danger of becoming overheated.
I finished whatever business I had in the airport and walked back to where I parked my car. When I was about a block away, to my surprise, Sabrina was sitting on the sidewalk, ears up, looking at me. I crouched down low and like I always had done, stretched out my arms and said, “Come, girl!” She ran at full speed, nearly knocking me over, and we proceeded to where I parked.
But the car was gone. It had disappeared, gone, not where it should have been.
My car had been stolen, I surmised, but whoever did it must have opened the back and let Sabrina out, which wasn’t easy, as she was an extremely protective Border. I think she was the best trained of all my kids, and stay was so ingrained in her memory that she could wait forever until I gave the signal that released her to come to me.
My memory is fuzzy about how we got home, but I remember using my scarf as a leash.
As I reflect about the dream, after my heart rate subsided and I was no longer in panic mode, I had a faint recollection that I went there to purchase a ticket to Hawaii, but I’ve lost the rest of that mindthread.
When we got home, I called the police and reported my stolen vehicle.I don’t remember having a cell phone, so I had to wait for a landline.
In my dream state, I was overcome with an overwhelming feeling of shame and anxiety. I remember saying to the police, “But how will I get anywhere? I need my car.”
That’s when I woke up, saturated in self-hatred and shame for whatever I had done to set the wheels in motion to make my car available to be stolen. I must have done something wrong and that’s an intense stressful trigger for me. I always take the blame, it’s always my fault, somehow.
I think I woke up before there was any clear resolution, but I have a fleeting thought that my car WAS found and returned and that it wasn’t damaged, but I don’t recall any details about who stole it, or why.
Of course I researched dream interpretations and learned that dreaming of your car being stolen has many different meanings and scenarios. It could reflect something you feel is out of your control. You shouldn’t ignore a dream in which you lose your car because it shows your deepest fears and hopes. This dream could be the consequence of a number of unacknowledged insecurities that have surfaced in your subconscious and are causing you fear. To overcome your anxieties, you must first recognize them.
Along with my subconscious mind freaking out, here in SoCal we’re being blasted with multiple energetic events, solar flares, and strong Santa Ana weather with very low humidity. There have been multiple structure fires around here today, and a wildfire up the coast.
Did you know about space weather? That’s new to me. Check it out. It’s NOAA’s (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Space Weather Prediction Center.
Sun activity has jumped to high over the past day, thanks to an M5.4 flare blasted out by sunspot region AR3511. The blast happened late in the day yesterday.
What damage could a solar flare do?
Heliophysicists and other scientists studying space weather warn that flares and related solar outbursts can indeed interfere with modern life by damaging power grids, as well as by increasing radiation exposures for occupants of space habitats and high-altitude aircraft.
Solar storms also affect the circadian rhythm in humans, reducing the production of melatonin and increasing levels of the stress hormone cortisol, effects that are more pronounced in patients with coronary heart disease.
During solar flares, people may feel disconnected or low while others of us may feel imbalanced or emotionally sensitive. This volatile energy can be used to connect with the higher self or achieve spiritual connectedness through meditation and yoga.
My solution? Spend the entire day in the garden.There’s always a project or two that needs attention and love. In Southern California, autumn/winter is a good time to prepare the garden to plant natives so they can benefit from the upcoming rainy season. Fingers crossed that we’ll get some decent rain this year.
At the end of the day, this dream is still sort of haunting me. As much as I loved being reunited with my sweet Sabrina, the idea of my car being stolen triggers every one of my vulnerable abandonment issues. I’ve never had a dream like that before and it’s going to take a while to recover from the intensity of the feelings it generated.
And if you read this far, the calamity that befell me wasn’t a stolen car, but just now when I returned from a walk, the garage was flooded from a very leaky and failing water heater. I don’t know how it happened so fast, but it did. I put a bucket under the drippy part, wiped up the floor, and now I need to find a plumber. Did my dream foretell impending doom? Maybe so…
I don’t know about you, but today has been a day full of frustrations, miscommunications, stress, anxiety, and a general sense of agitation and discord everywhere I turn.
People tell me they didn’t get my emails that I CLEARLY have a record of sending while one misunderstood word engendered disagreements and verbal sparring before the matter was cleared up.
I don’t like stress, not that anyone really does, I guess. but for me, stressful situations cause my poor little heart to pump too hard and raise my blood pressure.
This is when I need to practice breathing and meditation. It will all work out, I’m sure, but in the meantime, I won’t really be able to relax.
In addition to the annular “ring of fire” solar eclipse on the 14th, in SoCal we’re on the verge of a Santa Ana weather event; windy, very low humidity, and lots of swirling energy, so it’s probably a good idea to go outside and water my plants to redirect my mind.
BREATHE!
Oh, and stay hydrated, ‘cos when I get stressed, I shut down and don’t eat or drink, so I’m sitting here with a giant water bottle. There’s nothing worse than a dehydration headache.
I planned to make a gigantic batch of oatmeal raisin cookies so the little people would never feel the disappointment of an empty cookie jar.
I’m on schedule with freshly made mango black cherry ice cream (a flavor request) chilling in the freezer.
Everything was going according to plan until I turned on the oven to preheat and nothing happened.
No heat, no nothing. The panel showed that it was on and preheating, but there was no heat.
UH OH. Those cookies aren’t going to bake themselves.
I was stuck with a batch of cookies all ready to go on two baking sheets with the rest of the mixture in the refrigerator waiting their turn, along with a batch of granola for my son.
I WAS IN PANIC MODE.
NOTNOWNOTNOWNOTNOWNOTNOW
No oven means no baking, no pizza, no lasagna–and that totally stresses me out because this grandma loves nothing more than to watch my kids and grandkids eat the food I lovingly prepare.
It’s a win-win for all of us!
I ran next door to my very very nice neighbors who fired up their oven so I could bake the cookies, (for the price of a few for them to eat, which is a fair exchange, an easy quid pro quo).
The cookies baked just fine, but the granola burned to a crisp. OMG, that’s never happened before.
The oven repairman is coming tomorrow and hopefully it’s not a major issue, but I have no idea what’s wrong.
I had to drive to the big city which meant I had to go to a place where they had a parking structure.
Immediately, those are two things that cause me a great deal of anxiety and panic–traffic and bad distracted drivers, along with the terror of driving into and maneuvering my car in a tiny space inside a gigantic parking garage with a low ceiling.
I hate them.
That’s always been a stress trigger for me. How will I remember where I parked? (I’ve gotten lost before.) How do I get to where I need to go from the parking garage? What if there’s an earthquake? What if I forget how to back up? What if all the horrible things I’m afraid of happen all at the same time?
There’s a word to describe the fear of parking garages: Tingchechekuphobia. It’s a neurotic phobia, I know, but I suffer from it. I don’t know who created that word and I don’t even know how to pronounce it, but it is what it is.
At this point, since I had to drive around and around and around to find a bunch of open parking spaces, I was pretty much completely dizzy, disoriented, and confused, because that’s what happens to me in tall buildings and parking structures.
Luckily for me, there was a very kind man who had parked a couple cars away and when I asked for his help because I didn’t know where to go, he must have felt my fear and walked with me to the right building. Like Blanche DuBois, I have always been able to depend upon the kindness of strangers, referring to A Streetcar Named Desire, of course.
I also hate elevators but couldn’t find the stairs so I took the elevator and when I found my destination, I needed to go to the restroom and the secretary pointed into the hallway.
Without thinking, I entered the first door.
OOOPS.
I hadn’t paid enough attention to the little graphic on the door because I had entered the MEN’S ROOM (!!!) although I wasn’t immediately sure because for a split second I thought perhaps I had been away from the world for so long that there were now all genders restrooms and this was the way it was in 2021.
However, seeing the man standing at the urinal convinced me I was in the WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME. (Teehee)
I did what I normally do in life and turned it into a self-deprecating joke…”Well, I seem to have made a mistake. My bad!”
I turned around, walked out, located the PROPER restroom with the girlinatriangledress graphic, used the facilities while I laughed to myself, and re-entered my destination.
Most people would probably not use that embarrassing situation as the icebreaker in a conversation, but I’m not most people…
“I just walked into the men’s room by mistake. I guess that’s why I don’t come into the big city very often.”
We all laughed and totally diffused what could have been a forever humiliating experience and THANK GOODNESS I didn’t see the man who had been at the urinal, but that wasn’t my first time in a men’s room.
Nope. Not my first rodeo, as they say.
When I was twelve-years-old in Detroit, I spent the summer going to the JCC almost every day because there was some sort of pre-teen activities program a lot of my friends attended. On one certain day there was obviously not enough adult supervision because a few of the guys dared me to go into the boy’s bathroom.
I took that dare and entered the boy’s bathroom. Apparently it was bad timing because the program director happened to be in there and I was subsequently asked not to return to the JCC for the rest of the summer.
When I told my parents why I was persona non grata, they simply looked at me and said, “Oh, Rosebud. We’re disappointed in you.” And when I explained it wasn’t my fault; it was a dare, I got that tired old cliche…”If someone dared you to jump off a bridge, would you do that, too?”
However, I believe I detected a glimmer of a repressed chuckle behind their serious demeanor.
Although today’s excitement wasn’t due to a dare, I was able to successfully navigate my way back to my car and drive around and around and around to finally find the exit and return to sky and daylight where I could finally take a breath, but the stress had taken its toll, and there’s only one remedy that always works for me: retail therapy!
I haven’t been to our mall in more than a year, so I decided to see what it was like now as the pandemic is easing up a bit; what stores were open, masked of course. I had a thoroughly pleasant time. It was just what the doctor ordered to soothe my fraught nerves as I leisurely strolled from shop to shop.
I treated myself to a few bits of frothy intimate apparel at Victoria’s Secret. Here’s the bag, but you can’t see what’s inside. Instead, you’ll have to use your imagination.
Have you ever found yourself in a similarly mortifying situation? How did you handle it?
Enchanted Seashells | Princess Rosebud 