A right to be

Perhaps I should clarify what I said in the previous post. It's not that I don't have anything to say at the moment. What's happening is that my mind is too full. It's awash with thoughts and feelings and I can't make enough order out of them to write something coherent or positive. I keep trying and then rejecting what I've written. Inspired however by the new posts that have appeared on some of the blogs I follow (see right) and because the weather is so filthy and I'm putting off taking the dog out, here goes again.

Yesterday, Ellie's day at the dogminder and my day to myself, I took myself into Exeter. I had only a short list of errands and the city centre was almost deserted so I could wander at will without feeling harried.
I took my lunch to the ruined medieval almshouses as I did in October, and again as with that visit I experienced a sudden onset of calm. (And again I so wanted to take pictures but didn't have my camera with me.) Last time a blackbird emerged from a tangle of clematis. This time a pied wagtail joined me, bouncing from flagstone to flagstone in a hunt for food. I could almost see him smiling.
My last errand of the day was the library and as I walked away from it, along the red-stoned medieval city wall, I had a small revelation. I admitted that, yes, my parents did treat Frog and me atrociously, and with that a weight lifted. I felt free. I felt like me.
That admission comes and goes, but I realised that it's the foundation of my wellbeing. What it says is that I have a right to be. It's not that I want to diss anyone, least of all my parents who did so much for me, but I do want to be a person in my own right, and I don't think I ever have been before.

Roselle Angwin in her blog Qualia and other wildlife ('Zen and the human condition' 23.1.18) mentions the five 'hindrances': craving, aversion, apathy, anxiety, doubt. Yup, I have them all, but most of all at the moment - doubt. I've battled with craving in the past (eg not eating and then not being able to stop eating), apathy and anxiety come upon me from time to time, and although it doesn't immediately spring to mind I'm sure I could find aversion if I looked closely enough.
She talks about Zen meditation as a way to be free of the hindrances. That, of course is horrendously difficult. Sometimes simply getting away and breaking the rhythm of one's normal routine can have the same effect.

Frog and Dog just before Christmas - neither of whom have the slightest problem with their right to be