About

The tl;dr? E.H. summarized by ChatGPT in 2023:

E.H. is the author of the blog “Evening Light” at chaosanddamage.com. They describe themselves as a writer, artist, and thinker who shares personal reflections, musings, and insights on various topics. The author’s writing style is contemplative, introspective, and often includes vivid imagery and metaphors. They write about a wide range of topics, including mental health, relationships, self-improvement, and spirituality. The author’s approach is to share their personal experiences and perspectives in the hope of connecting with readers and sparking contemplation and growth. The author’s writing is often raw, honest, and vulnerable, creating a sense of authenticity and relatability.

Seems about right… 😉 My original thoughts on “who am I” when I started this blog follow…

What is it ‘about’ me? I started this blog just a few months shy of 50 and I’m still not really sure I know what I think is important about me. What might you want to know about me? Why am I writing this blog? What is there to say, realistically, that actually matters?

The thing is, right now I am mostly about questions, and mostly about words. A lot of words. A lot of questions. I’ve spent a lifetime struggling to ‘be heard’; I’m learning that I yearn most to be heard most clearly from within.  I’ve also spent a lifetime struggling with what I thought were ‘mental health issues’ of a variety of sorts, and found out at the end of 2012 that one possible reason that treatment after treatment has failed is that I’ve also been struggling with a brain injury that happened in the early 70s. I have no explicit recollection of it. The skull fracture shows in old X-rays, and I can feel the cracks that radiate from a triangular point on my forehead, just above and between my eyes. It’s real enough, in all but my memory, but I have long known better than to trust memory alone, since my own is so shockingly sketchy and unreliable, sometimes.

Now you know I have a brain injury. You know I am sometime beyond 50 years of age. I am also an artist, a poet, a philosopher, a war veteran, an analyst, a loquacious being of libidinous appetite and a penchant for pretty language, gray-eyed, a few pounds heavier than I’d like, a few years older than I feel, and a survivor of sexual violence, domestic violence, gas-lighting, the mental health community, and my own failures to anticipate the consequences of my choices. I struggle every day to take things less personally, to clarify instead of assume, to respect and value my fellow human beings, build healthy relationships, and deal with post traumatic stress, approaching menopause, and a world that doesn’t particularly value the voices of women. Oh, and about that, I’m also a woman.

Why a blog? I’ve kept a private journal for many years (about 36 years, about 130 volumes). I write poetry. I correspond with friends and family. I post on social media. I write letters to editors, elected officials, and businesses. I talk. I talk a lot. In the face of this avalanche of words, I still struggle to feel heard. It dawned on me, when I considered writing this blog, (perhaps not for the first time, it’s hard to know) I may struggle to feel heard because I am not entirely sure what it is I’m trying to say…

Why ‘Evening Light’? Because for me, there is a certain ‘quality of light’ about evenings that hints at illumination, at gnosis, at the truth being revealed, and I’d very much like to transcend my own ignorance and cognitive challenges, achieve an internal ‘quality of light’, learn to communicate with real clarity, and become the woman I most want to be.  I would like to tame my personal wilderness of chaos and damage.  I am still hoping to find my answers in all these words.

Too many words?  I’m working on that…mostly by adding pictures. 😀

4/18/2013 – update

…Still reading?  I’m still writing, and it’s months later than the day on which I began this blog.  It is, in fact, 102 days later.  Only that?  Not more?  I’ve come so far…things feel so…different.  Since then I’ve begun a regular meditation practice, started treatment with a new therapist, and begun practicing mindfulness in my every day life.  I’m still more about questions than answers, but that doesn’t seem so scary right now, and there’s so much more to learn and explore! I’m waiting for tomorrow’s mail delivery, hopeful that the books I ordered will arrive… there is always more to learn.

7/2/13 – update

It’s been 177 days since I started this blog. I’ve turned 50 since then. I’ve been learning a lot of things about myself, about living well, about loving well, about taking care of me. I’m finding more peace and balance through mindfulness than I expected to, which isn’t that difficult since my expectations were that it would be another failed effort at finding wellness, or healing the wreckage in my head and heart.  It is an amazing journey, and for now the path seems pretty clear. Thank you for joining me along the way, and sharing the trip for even a few pages.  There’ll be a some lovely pictures of flowers to share, some uncomfortable anecdotes, and a few obvious truths to come…and perhaps some surprises (I hope they are the pleasant sort)…I’d offer you a coffee, but it’d be cold before it reached you – so words will have to do. 😉

1/20/15 – update

I hit the two year mark on this blog a few days ago, and I’m less than 6 months from turning 52. It’s been an interesting journey. I’ve grown some as a person, and the world has added an event or two to the global timeline. Change is. We are each having our own experience. I still have more questions than answers. I’m okay with that.

8/15/15 – update

I’ve been doing this for a while, now. I read the original ‘About’ post and marvel at how much further along on this journey I have gone since thing. There have been incremental changes over time, and I remain the woman in the mirror; how strange to be both so different, and so similar, to have traveled so far, and yet remain entirely who I am. I live alone these days, and find some peace and stillness in the space between yearning for touch and human contact, and feeling safe in this space of my own. There is farther go on this journey, and I am still my own cartographer. I’ve no idea what’s next. My results vary.

1/22/2019 – update

1773 posts, and 2205 days, further on this path and I’m still sipping coffee in the mornings, and gazing out to the horizon in the evening light. Still practicing practices. Still walking my own path. Still my own cartographer on this most peculiar journey. So much closer to being the woman I most want to be, and pretty content, much of the time. My results still vary. There are still verbs involved. I haven’t significantly (or at all) changed the world. I’ve changed, though, over time, and that’s enough.

Thank you for reading all the way to the end of this strange introduction. I’m glad you’re here.

7/15/2022 – update

2416 posts now. 33,716 words, at an average of 636 words per post. 6 gigs of images in the media library (mostly my own photography). 296620 views by 16080 visitors, and 182 long-time followers (in spite of not being on social media these days). Admittedly, my rock-solid-reliable daily writing practice has been thrown into complete chaos since moving to our own home here in rural Yamhill county…but… I’m also happy. I mean, mostly. Generally content. Pretty stable. Life feels good day-to-day, with enough lingering fuss and bother, and shards of chaos, to keep things from being dull. lol I’m okay with that, it gives me room to grow.

…My results still vary. I’m not “healed” nor “cured”. I still deal with my chaos and damage. It’s just less bothersome. I don’t feel chronically hopeless – haven’t for a long while. It’s nice. There are still verbs involved. Lots of questions. Trial and error and mistakes to make. Lessons to learn. The journey is a worthy one, and I no longer question that. My heart is full of love. My days are infused with joy. Mostly. I’m still quite human. So is everyone else. I’ve learned not to take that personally, although even that is a practice that requires effort some days. I’ve got goals and regrets and joys and sorrows – it’s a very rich life, and a very human experience. Thank you for sharing part of my journey – here’s wishing you well on yours.