Ripples and Reflections

April 20, 2026 //
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Self-reflection is not a five minute exercise that reliably results in some sort of personal transformation. It requires time and repetition. I’m still processing the weekend, and it’s already Monday. The shift back to the work routine comes with the sound of grinding gears, metaphorically speaking.

Sometimes illumination comes as a flash of insight, sometimes it comes in waves.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

This morning I am thinking about my (possibly excessive) reliance on habits and routines so well established they amount to a sort of “autopilot”. Very efficient, cognitively, but my partner has pointed it out more than once as potential problem, because autopilot doesn’t “read the room”, nor does it have the capacity to listen deeply, respond in a considerate way, or adapt quickly from an emotional perspective. Not mine, anyway. It’s better at driving the car than being present.

Efficiency and being “productive” get a lot of emphasis in our excessively work-focused culture. Funny thing though, reading articles about end of life regrets or quality of life recommendations from elders, it’s rare that anyone ever lauds work, and regrets are commonly to do with missed opportunities to connect with friends and loved ones. Autopilot is better for work than for relationships. Autopilot is not mindful, present, or self-aware. It is a tool with limited value.

For a brain damaged teenager trying to master the basics of driving a car safely, there’s a certain limited value in putting a few things on “autopilot” (check both ways before turning onto the street, stop completely at stop signs, use the turn signals…) but a grown woman seeking to build or deepen a romantic connection with a beloved partner, autopilot is not only inappropriate, it’s ineffective. It’s also…rude.

I walk with my thoughts, grateful for a partner who loves me enough to communicate what doesn’t work for him in an honest way. It’s hard to hear, when I’ve been a jerk, but being open to hearing honest boundary setting and feedback also gives me a chance to reflect on my choices and consider new ones. Autopilot improves cognitive ease, but improving cognitive ease comes at a cost. I sigh to myself. Choices. We become what we practice.

Deep listening, openness, consideration, being present, and emotional intimacy are among the most challenging practices; doing any of them well requires attention and self-awareness, and a willingness to be “in the moment” with another human being, awake and aware, no shortcuts. No autopilot. Another sigh as I pause on my walk to gather my thoughts, write, and reflect. I definitely need to make some changes. I feel comfortable with my sense of what those changes need to be.

Sure, autopilot is more efficient. I go faster, get more done, but the tradeoffs come in a combination of silly mistakes made in haste, and a shallow superficial presence that lacks real connection. It’s not really a difficult choice, just a ton of practice to do. There are verbs involved. Understanding isn’t enough. Recognition isn’t enough. There’s real work involved in slowing down and being really present – and also setting clear explicit boundaries and expectations when I am not available for deeply connecting, or for paying attention to something different than I am doing in some moment (these may be the hardest things for me to learn to do well).

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I watch a gray dawn become a new day. Seems like a good one to begin again – with changes. Change is.

Sometimes the path takes an unexpected turn. Follow it? Choose another path? It is a choice.
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Categories Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

More Than a Happy Place

April 19, 2026 //
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I sipped my first coffee, feet up, sitting by a cozy fire, watching the light change with the gray coastal dawn. The view to the west is layers of gray and soft blue. For me, this place is more than a delightful destination to get away for a little while; the ocean symbolizes a relentless force of reality that compels self-reflection and forces me to face myself as I watch the waves roll in. There’s no arguing with the ocean. It represents a resilient nature indifferent to external storms, even in the midst of them. Obstacles are washed away, or, like driftwood, piled on the shore, visible, removable, and easy to avoid. The ocean is unyielding about her boundaries, and for me she provokes deep thought, and a presence that I find I must linger with.

…The views from this hotel are spectacular…

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

I pour a second coffee. The coffee machine here is quite clean, and the coffee must be fresher than usual (for a hotel); it’s quite good. I sit watching the waves. The tide is going out. I am surprised by a deer ambling up the steep slope just beyond the window.

It’s worth it to slow down and observe what’s going on, even when nothing seems to be going on.

She looks at me through the window, pauses to nibble some tasty plant, and ambles on.

Two of the women most dear to me (and most significant in my own life as a woman), loved the sea and seaside places. My Dear Friend and my Granny have ended their mortal lives some time ago, but when I am at the seashore, I feel them with me. It doesn’t matter whether it is the rocky coastal beaches of the Pacific Northwest, or the marshy edges of the Chesapeake Bay, or the kitschy seaside towns that tourists flock to each summer. I love being by the shore, too, if only because it connects me so deeply to these two women, who are so much a part of who I am myself. Sometimes when I most need to be alone, I am taking that time to “talk with my ancestors” in a way I find difficult to describe. It sometimes seems funny that I never feel my Dad’s presence in such places; his are the forests and meadows. The ocean seems to me to be a very feminine sort of energy. I find myself wondering if sailors feel that way, too? Theirs is a very different relationship with the sea…

Fisherman early in the morning.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I feel well and whole, and capable. I feel comfortable in my skin and grounded in the goodness of my life. I’ll head home eagerly to see what my Traveling Partner has done while I’ve been gone. He is, himself, a force to be reckoned with, and as his abilities return he is capable of moving mountains (and definitely furniture). Certainly, he moves me.

For now, it’s me and this beautiful expanse of beach, and this gray ocean under a cloudy sky – and another cup of coffee. I’ve got plenty of time to begin again, a little later.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, women, Words

Evening Light

April 18, 2026 //
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It is evening. Between sunset and nightfall.

There’s something about the quality of the light in the evening.

Breathe. Exhale. Relax. Stop – or, at least pause. Breathe in the evening calm. Exhale and embrace the next moment. Moments are so fleeting.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

I sit for a pleasant little while in the stillness between chapters of The Stand. Will I finish it? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m enjoying the time spent reading, carried off to some other place, although I’m definitely glad it is a book and not a first hand account! 😆

The light is going dim. The distance between day’s end and Road’s End seems far, now, connected only by moments.

… There’s something about the evening light that beckons me to pause and reflect…

I miss my Traveling Partner more than a bit, paradoxically, considering how much I’ve been craving time alone with my thoughts. I sigh to myself, and pick up my book. I’ll begin again in a moment – a different moment – for now I’ll just watch the tide come in as the evening light fades to night.

A sliver of moon and a star. A moment.
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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being, Words

Reality Almost Always Wins

April 18, 2026 //
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I’m sitting at a favorite spot on the coast. Beautiful coastal forest, nicely private cove with a beautiful beach and a rock formation with great tide pools. I’m not on the beach; too crowded. One end is crowded with loud families doing beach-y family things. At the other end, some gathering of a … tribe?.. of fundamentalist looking folks of one variety or another, the women inappropriately dressed in heavy ill-fitting sack dresses and bonnets, thick stockings and uncomfortable looking very plain shoes.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

The two groups don’t mingle. In between there is almost some sort of understood zone of bare beach, by way of which a random neutral party could make their way from the parking lot to the water’s edge. I got close enough to see the arrangement. I’m not here to feel crowded or scrutinized. I go back to the car and park in a shady spot well away from anyone else.

I grab my coffee and my power bank, and sketch book. Turns out I don’t feel like sketching. I sip my coffee listening to the birds and savoring the breeze. It smells of ocean and forest flowers. It’s quiet here. I like that about this place. Every passing stranger feels like an encroachment on my consciousness and I’m eager to check into my room. Check-in time is not until 16:00. I’d hoped for an early check-in, but the hotel let me know that would not be available today, after all.

Well, shit. Today has been like that, generally. Plans? Let me welcome you to reality. I’m not bitching, I’m just being reminded that plans or no plans, without any consideration for expectations, wishes, or hoped-for outcomes, reality is what it is.

Lovely day on the coast feeling loved and grounded? Nope. Not this morning.

Pleasant brunch at a favorite breakfast bistro? Sure, if I’m okay with being elbow-to-elbow with other customers. Popular morning for brunch, I guess.

Soul-healing walks on favorite beaches wrapped in solitude? Um… not exactly. It’s a beautiful day; the beaches are crowded.

… I also don’t feel like dealing with my bullshit, and apparently I brought that with me…

Early check-in and feasting my eyes on the gorgeous ocean views at a hotel I’ve long wanted to try… Well, I’ve got the room reserved, but no early check-in. I won’t know what the room itself is like until later. (If I had come expecting to paint I’d have been disappointed.)

I had hoped to do a bit of shopping, but retail spaces are also crowded and my mind recoils from the contact. I really just want to be quite alone for a little while. I don’t find what I’m looking for.

…My fucking left foot is already hurting (plantar fasciitis)…

I sigh to myself and sip my coffee. It’s cold now. I don’t really care. It’s fine. I’ve now gone from Road’s End to Fogarty Creek, and two things are demonstrably true; everywhere I stop there are other people, and everywhere I go, I’ve still got to deal with the woman in the mirror.

Reality does not care about my plans, my needs, nor my beliefs. It’s just real. A smile breaks through; I’m okay for most values of okay. I’m finding enough solitude to recognize patterns in my thinking, and to process shit that has been on my mind, and to meditate and reflect without interruptions, even from my own wandering primate mind. A chance to unpack some baggage maybe, or find a clearer sense of direction in life. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Enough has to be enough, at some point.

I think about my Traveling Partner and let myself wonder frankly and without evasion whether our paths have begun to diverge, has paths often do. I think that would break my heart. I would probably bounce back, eventually, but I doubt i would ever be quite the same. This relationship has changed me so much. It has become a defining part of who I have become over time and has influenced what I choose to practice and how I see the world. I’m suddenly aware of my back pain, amplified by the moment of sorrowful contemplation.

I love this man too much to let this partnership just fall apart. Funny thing, on the subject of reality, this partnership – this love – sometimes doesn’t “feel real”, even after 16 years. I don’t mean that it feels somehow insincere or performative, I mean that it is often like a fairytale, at least from my perspective. We have to work at it, we’re human beings after all, but so often I feel as if I am living a romantic story. It’s beautiful. I reliably feel like a jerk when I break that spell.

I’m human, too.

I move the car to a different beach. There are still “a lot of people” here, but this beach stretches seven walkable miles when the tide is out, and people in small family groups tend to spread out.

My idea of “a lot of people” has my own desire for solitude as it’s comparison. This may not be accurate for most values of “a lot of people”.

I watch the waves crest as they near the shore and listen to the sound of seagulls mingling with the sound of children laughing. I make a lot of choices that influence my experience (and thus my subjective experience of reality), and I have a lot of control over how I react to, and interact with, that experience. Can I do better? Yes! I keep practicing. I still fall short of my expectations of myself, sometimes. I learn from it and keep going. That’s enough.

My heart fills with love for my Traveling Partner. Living with my chaos and my human foibles and failures has to be hard. I hope it is worth it to him, the way I find loving him as he is worth it to me. We’ve grown a lot together over the years. I still choose him.

I sigh to myself and look at the time. It’s a little while until check-in. I pull my sunscreen out of my purse – seems smart today – I’ve got time for a walk on the beach before I begin again.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Road’s End

April 18, 2026 //
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Roads end. I mean, I guess they do, at some point, even this one, although it doesn’t appear to end here. That’s just the name of this place, “Road’s End”. It’s a small state park at the edge of the shore, with a trail down to the beach. I am here, listening to the sound of wind and waves (and some asshole with their car radio on loud enough to be heard, which I could do without).

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

The view from Road’s End

I definitely need this time alone. I don’t get much solitude as things are, and my Traveling Partner was encouraging to the point of being willing to find me a suitable hotel and book a room for me. (I was going to make it a day trip and call it good enough.) I felt very loved, and excited to enjoy the day on the coast, and a night of solitary fun, reading, writing, and meditating.

A small bird. A moment.

This morning is different. At least for now I am neither merry nor at peace with myself. Instead I’m wrestling demons. It’s fine. Part of life with cPTSD and brain damage, I guess, and in spite of some 30 years in and out of therapy of one sort or another, I still deal with the chaos and damage. I’m not surprised by that, though I am dismayed, disappointed, and even sometimes despairing over it when shit blows up over some little thing, or I disgrace myself by losing my temper or hurting someone I care about with thoughtless words or actions. I do my best, I still fail. This is human.

… It’s also human when it’s someone else having a moment. It is important to forgive, and to make room for people to grow through experience. We’re each having our own experience…

So I’m sitting here at Road’s End, thinking my thoughts. Thinking about endings and beginnings, and change, and trying to be grateful for the solitude I am fortunate to enjoy. I need this time to myself, it meets needs I struggle to meet without the quiet of solitude. I do wish I were enjoying it on other terms than these but feeling mired in my bullshit, I’m glad to be alone with that.

… But is the sky still blue?

What matters most? I sit with the question for a little while, on a fence rail looking out at the sea. The sound of ocean waves reaching the shore and the sea breezes used to be enough to drown out my tinnitus. Now there is a high pitched whine that I still hear, but only on the left side. I frown, momentarily distracted from my thoughts. I hope it’s nothing serious.

I’m thinking about my “baggage”. Not the carefully packed weekend bag I slid onto the seat of the car. I mean “my baggage”. It’s a figure of speech that is so apt it’s easy to forget it is metaphorical. No matter where I go, no matter what relationship I’m in, I drag my bullshit along with me. Baggage. I’ve made so many changes, and I have grown and improved my thinking and behavior so much over the years, but at any moment I may yet again be standing in the middle of my pile of carefully crafted custom matched set of baggage I still lug around with me, somehow only partially unpacked even after all these years. It’s super annoying. Frustrating. Discouraging.

Beginnings. Endings. Practice.

We become what we practice. We choose what we practice. It is important to choose wisely and stay focused on who we most want to be, because if we choose poorly, we may become someone else entirely.

I sit feeling the breeze and watching the horizon. My head is filled with ghosts and regrets. Weird morning to have them turn up and demand attention. My skill with choosing relationships has been poor: a violent psychopath, a manipulative slacker looking for a meal ticket, a cruel woman who delighted in gaslighting me, an assortment of lovers who may have lacked any explicit bad intentions but found value in my limited capacity to understand that I was being taken advantage of… Then there’s my Traveling Partner. One good relationship in a lifetime of trauma and chaos, but the opportunity came late in life, and I still find myself picking metaphorical shards of past damage out of new emotional wounds. I find myself apologizing a lot. That’s got to wear thin after awhile. It still matters, and I keep practicing.

I sit by the sea feeling the breeze, and the weight of all the many mistakes I have made over 16 years with this singular human being. I wonder if he does the same thing, when he finds that he’s hurt me without intending to. Neither of us are perfect beings of pure love and empathy. I feel confident neither of us would hurt the other intentionally. That’s not who we are. We are, however, quite human. I sigh to myself and let it go, at least for the moment. I remind myself that self-care matters, and in solitude there is no excuse to treat myself as second best, ever. I left rather abruptly this morning, instead of enjoying a leisurely coffee with my beloved. Coffee and some healthy calories would be good…

… The descent into madness often begins with poor self-care and low blood sugar…

I guess I should begin again. I don’t know where this path leads…

Sometimes the path isn’t an easy one.
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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words
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