The Waters

I. Salting the Water

I just finished watering the hillside--it's newly planted, and this July is so hot, the plants need watering daily. Now I'm sitting with my coffee and a cat on the front porch.
You can see why I like house sitting here.

I'm going to make an electrolyte drink to bring along when I bike to work. I've been drinking lots of plain water before, during, and after the ride, but with temps in the low 90s, I wonder if I need a little sugar and salt.
Found a simple recipe--sounds good. (I like citrus.)

• 1/4 cup each, lemon and lime juice
• 2 cups  water
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar or honey

II. Oiling the Waters

Work was pleasant after I raised the social-bonding oxytocin levels. That improved everyone's mood, I think. 
It worked like pouring chocolate sauce on ice-cream---or, hm, like pouring oil on troubled water. I never understood that metaphor before.

The funny thing is it worked on ME too. I'd moved toward my coworker to get him to chill the fuck out, but in the end, I liked him better too.
That is, I feel fonder of him. 
I do not think of him more fondly. (Possibly I think less of him, because it's hard to respect a person you've manipulated, even for good.)

Oxytocin affects emotion, not intellect.
Like how people like the way certain politicians make them feel, then come up with justifications to support the emotion.
But we rarely put this bluntly:
"I don't like them, but they make me feel safe, and I like that."

Looking back, I see that for most of my life I've wanted to achieve mutual understanding with people. When that didn't work, often I wouldn't back off (but stay in place)
--I'd push, sometimes creating conflict, or I'd leave outright.

I like that about myself--that I wanted honest, mutual understanding. But I see now how naive I was. 

My father used to say, "Pick your battles."
I didn't. I tended to put my all into every relationship.

NOT that my father was a model steward of emotional resources! Far from it.
My father used silence as a weapon. He didn't leave or quit, he'd stay and just freeze people out.

My mother wasn't a great model either.
She was a leaver--she quit jobs and relationships, right and left. When she left the family when I was thirteen, she told me she didn't want to be a mother anymore.
As if that were an option. You can change how you're a mother, but not that you're a mother.

We can quit things, we can leave––and sometimes that's the smart thing to do!
But in any case, we can't escape the repercussions, the wake of our actions.