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What a Weird Messy World

February 19, 2026 //
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I woke up feeling restless and strange. Nothing specifically “wrong”, just feeling vaguely troubled by dreams already disappearing from my recollection, and starting the day in more pain than usual.

I dressed and slipped away into the darkness as quietly as I could, which wasn’t very quiet this morning. I dropped my phone, my key fob, snagged my handbag on a door knob causing my keys to jingle… It’s been that kind of morning; intention and effort rewarded by clatter and chaos.

I considered taking a seat at the local Big Coffee Chain cafe, but I seriously just don’t want to deal with people, at all. It’s pretty cold for walking (37F/2.8C). I vascillate as I drive… coffee? Walk? Back and forth, even as I pull through the drive thru and get coffee, before heading to the trailhead. I still haven’t started drinking it. I get to the trailhead before daybreak and reflect on how much I have appreciated recent later start times to my days, wondering again what woke me this morning? I sigh to myself, and prepare to start down the trail…

…It begins to rain. Steadily, and hard enough to chill me to the bone quite quickly, I rethink walking. Having lost interest in a cold rainy walk in the predawn darkness, I sit in the warmth of my Traveling Partner’s pickup, feeling loved. I’m grateful to have the use of it while my car is still at the body shop. The comfort and features have even changed my thinking about what vehicle will replace my car when it has reached the end of its serviceable lifespan. I’m not a huge fan of brand loyalty generally, any more than I think mindless partisan voting is a smart strategy. Smart for whom? Only for the brand or party, not for the voter or consumer. I shrug and let it go; it’ll be awhile before I buy a new car. Now is not that time.

The city beyond the horizon illuminates the cloudy sky above.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. The morning quiet here is well-suited to meditation. I feel calm and centered, ready for a new day. It looks likely to be an ordinary work day. My Traveling Partner invited me to work from home today, and his welcoming encouragement had me seriously considering it when I went to bed last night, but here in the darkness with my pain and somewhat antisocial feelings, I’m inclined to head to the university library once it opens and take a seat in one of the quiet study cubicles in the back. I’ll be close to home if anything urgent arises, and my beloved will be unbothered by my bullshit. Lest it seem I’m being overly considerate, this is quite a self-serving decision; I will be more easily able to focus on work without having to juggle consideration of my partner’s needs, too. Generally easier on both of us.

I sit with my thoughts, avoiding the news. The rain continues to fall. I don’t need to scroll through the news feed to know the world is a messy terrifying place right now. Genocide and violence are ongoing. American democracy is at risk, with key positions in government filled by grifters, and wholly unqualified unethical assclowns. Big tech companies are continuing to go about the business of making shareholders and CEOs rich at the expense of the sanity, health, and resources of everyone else. Human primates continue to be vicious, petty, greedy, and unkind to one another. It can be a pretty awful place, this peculiar mudball hurtling through space.

…but…

There is beauty here, too, in every sunrise and sunset, and every smile. I focus on that, this morning, as much as I can. I owe this to myself! The choice where to put my attention is my own. Drowning my consciousness in global misery does not make me more effective at making useful changes, or speaking my mind with clarity. We all need a break now and then,  a chance at rest and opportunities for joy. I breathe in, filling my lungs with rain-fresh winter air. I exhale slowly, thoroughly, letting go of anxiety and concern and worry over things I can’t control here, now.

Daybreak comes. The rain slows to a dense drizzle. I still don’t feel like walking, this morning, too much pain for walking in the rain. I sigh contentedly; the solitude is enough. A few more minutes, and then I’ll begin again.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, War and News of War, winter, Words

Maybe Don’t

February 7, 2026 //
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If you are an American citizen, maybe don’t be a racist sh1thead, and you won’t have to endure the bitter fruits of our racist colonizer forefathers. We live on stolen land. Humanity is potentially already on borrowed time. It matters very little to our dead ancestors, now, but how we treat each other certainly matters to the living. Personally, I’d much rather see our government give broad, compassionate amnesty to every immigrant in the nation, along with a clear reasonable path to citizenship than see masked government thugs in our streets harassing, assaulting, kidnapping, and murdering human beings whose sole crime was crossing a fucking line on a map. Our hands are not clean with regard to matters of territory,  even within our own borders.

… And in case you hadn’t noticed, these government goons are violating the rights of citizens, too, and yes, even murdering them. How do you reconcile that with your values and understanding of our civil rights? Asking for everyone who thinks this shit is pretty g’damned terrible and inexcusable…

G’damn, I wish America didn’t have so many petty assholes and racists in it. We didn’t do right by the indigenous peoples of this continent, and we are failing the immigrants who risk so much for the dream of becoming American. Do better America.

I sigh to myself, wondering where this path leads. We are facing a new cold war era, it looks like. This saddens me deeply. We had come so far as a global society, but rather stupidly we’ve allowed fascists and authoritarians to move into power again, and here we all are. Be more careful with your vote, people, for fucks sake, this crap actually matters! Pay attention.

Yes, I’m angry about this stuff, no I won’t shut up about it.

I breathe, exhale, and relax, and pull myself back to this moment, right here. It’s hard sometimes; I want so much to be able to do more. 

Waiting for the sun.

I get comfortable in my Traveling Partner’s truck, here at the trailhead. I’m waiting for the sun, or at least enough daylight to make out the trail ahead of me. It’s a familiar trail and a mild morning. I’ve got my headlamp, somewhere down in my purse, I just don’t feel like walking in the dark this morning, and my time is my own, for the moment. Hopefully my beloved gets to enjoy sleeping in. I’m in no hurry.

I spend peaceful minutes meditating, watching the sunrise-to-come slowly touch the horizon with streaks of a hue I have no word for. Something between tangerine and magenta, and striped with clouds that want to be lavender, perhaps, but are a grayer hue entirely. Well above the horizon, almost overhead, spots of cerulean peek playfully through the clouds, hinting at blue skies to come. The view isn’t ideal for photograhs; it is obscured by signage, and the highway and power lines cross my field of vision, but I look past all of that and watch the colors and clouds shift with the evolution of dawn into day. Nice morning for it.

Today I’m not alone. Already the parking outside the gate is filling, and space is limited. This hour, this weather, it’s a near certainty these are birdwatchers and photographers, rather than casual walkers or noisy friend groups. It’s fine. I don’t prefer to share the trail, but that’s probably a pretty common sentiment in this group. 😆

Perfection isn’t part of the experience.

The main gate opens with a groan and clangs into place. The trail, and this moment, await me. It’s already time to begin again.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, anger, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, winter, women, Words

Dream a Little Dream

February 5, 2026 //
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I woke rather oddly thinking I was already awake, and uncertain how I “suddenly ended up” horizontal, wrapped in a comforter, on a soft surface, when I’d been contentedly seated at my desk, drinking coffee and writing – “finishing my book” – happy to be done with it. It was an odd sensation. For some minutes, the phrases I’d been typing (in my dream) were still lingering in my thoughts, becoming a sense that it would be a good topic to write about, and slowly dissipating from my recollection as dreams generally do.

Now, I’m up, out of the house, sitting with a cup of coffee and my thoughts, on a chilly Thursday. It’s not cold. 40F (4.4C) – so relatively mild for February. The whole season has been “relatively mild” in this location, although elsewhere, in many places, blizzards rage and snow piles up. I hope you are safe and warm, wherever you may be. I sip my coffee wondering how bad the fire season will be this year, having so little rain over the autumn and winter months, and so little snow in the higher elevations. Today’s forecast was precise as to temperature and quite accurate, but the car was frosted over in spite of the mild temperature. The morning manages to feel like it’s almost winter. Early Spring? Late autumn? The seasons “don’t feel quite right” anymore. I fear we’ve broken our planet beyond repair. This does not bode well for humanity, nor for many other creatures whose lives depend on climate. Scary. I’m no expert, and I’m not interested in succumbing to this or that whispered conspiracy, I just see what I see, and live my experience; this very mild winter can be expected to be followed by a difficult summer of wildfires dotted around the state. I’ll have to be very careful when and where I camp this summer, and plan on closely monitored very contained cooking fires (I like my Jetboil best).

I remind myself not to forget coffee!

I sigh to myself. I miss being out in the trees, listening to birds and chipmunks and forest breezes, and watching the sun rise and set filtered through trees that have seen more years than I have myself. I don’t have to wait on camping… I could drive out into one of several large wilderness areas and be among those trees in less than an hour, being fortunate to live approximately midway between the coast and Mt Hood National Forest. The thought jolts me back to this moment; today I have to take my car to the body shop to have the damage done on New Year’s Eve (day) repaired. I won’t have my Mazda for some little while. Weeks maybe? Days definitely. My Traveling Partner graciously offers me the use of his truck in the meantime, and it’s a dream to drive (so much so that I’m planning to buy that make of SUV to replace my Mazda when the time comes). So, today I’ll drop off the car, and he’ll pick me up in the truck. The work day will bookend that errand, and for the most part life will be remarkably unchanged – except tomorrow morning when I step out of the house and am reminded that my car is gone. I’m sure I’ll forget, until I see it missing. lol Very human.

Life is filled with adventure – and misadventure. Choices. Opportunities. Change. Getting hung up on some particular detail is often a poor choice. Mostly the details don’t matter to anyone else; they are having their own experience. We’re all in this together, in a grander sense, though we regularly forget that and start giving people on hard times side-eye, like we have never struggled, or fallen on hard times, or failed to choose wisely. Human beings can be jerks. We like to talk about “pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps” in spite of the practical matter that every one of us relies upon others, depends on others, and probably wouldn’t survive long isolated and utterly alone (think “no internet”, “no credit cards or banking system”, “no infrastructure”…). If you’re feeling quite smugly independent about your individual success, I’d like to point out that the infrastructure, delivery systems, and basic building blocks of your experience are not things you did “all by yourself”. lol

I sip my coffee and smile to myself. The morning feels relaxed and peaceful, and I realize one reason why that is; there is no background music playing this morning in this chain coffee shop. One less bit of noise to filter out as I sip coffee and consider life, this moment, and this woman that I most want to be. Nice morning for it. Chilly, though. I’m grateful for this hot coffee. I’m not too proud to drink branded industrial chain coffee from a Big Coffee Chain Cafe in my neighborhood. lol I don’t necessarily prefer it. I’m that coffee drinker who prefers carefully brewed freshly ground coffee from estate-grown varietal beans imported from the cradle of civilization…but will most definitely lick the bitter dregs out of a packet of instant coffee moistened with a tablespoon of tepid water rather than go without. LOL I have abruptly returned home from a camping trip I was excited about – broke camp and returned home less than 24 hours into it, after driving hours – over forgetting to bring coffee!

…Would I survive without coffee? Sure. Getting past the first few deeply irritating days without would be annoying, but I’d survive – I just don’t want to. I recognize that this is characteristic of addiction. I’m grateful it’s just coffee.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I consider logging into work tools and beginning that part of my day a little early, but I don’t have to; this moment is mine. I smile to myself happily. Nice moment, this. I sip my coffee and enjoy that feeling. So much less anxiety this morning. Like… none. I slow down and appreciate that, for what it is. I’m grateful. I’ve endured much over the past two years, and it’s been harder than I imagined it could be, and I’ve done more/better with most of it than I would have expected myself to be up for. Things are turning a corner. Change is. Hard times come and go. This too will pass. Impermanence is a characteristic of life – even our human lives, however much control we seek to exert over events. I don’t necessarily like that – I’m a big fan of stability and comfort and ease – but reality does not care about my preferences, and having an easy life was unlikely to turn up in the hand I was dealt; the odds were poor (still are for me, and for most human beings). I’m okay with “okay”. I’m grateful for my good fortune in life, wherever it finds me. Enough really is enough, although I sometimes have to pause and consider my blessings, and take a moment to be aware (again) of how fortunate I truly am. (Like anyone, I find a stupid about of bullshit to bitch about rather pointlessly some days.)

Walking my own path, one step at a time.

Crazy world we are living in right now, eh? There’s a lot of terrible stuff going on here in the US and in the world. What we say about it matters. What we do about it matters more, if we can be moved to action. Heroes will rise. Villains will fall. I feel hopeful this morning (probably because I am not looking at the news). I breathe, exhale, and relax, and prepare to begin again.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, winter, Words

One of Twelve

January 30, 2026 //
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Well. January is almost behind us. One twelfth of the year, gone. By this point, many resolutions have failed, and a lot of people are losing (have lost?) the motivation to change that propelled their goal-setting. How about you? Are you still sticking to a plan, pursuing a goal, chasing a dream, or even slogging along at a practice that does not yet feel really settled and part of your day-to-day experience?

Me, I’d have to look back to see what I even thought about at that time when people are adopting some resolution for the new year. When I do, I find myself thinking about debt, and choosing change, the futility of most resolutions. I find myself recognizing that change is, and planning to make a reading list for the new year (which I didn’t get around to doing! LOL). Looking back on the month, I don’t feel any disappointment or regret – only a bit of astonishment at how busy it has seemed, and how quickly it passed.

…January already gone…

I sip my coffee, knock out the budget for another pay cycle. Exchange a few words with my Traveling Partner, who is already up for the day, himself. It is an ordinary Friday. Bills to pay. Grocery shopping to plan (and do). Prescriptions to pick up. Errands. Chores. Life. Ask me what I want to be doing today – I assure you it is not work. I’d so much rather put my feet up somewhere with mild temperatures and pleasant weather, a nice view of… something… and a well-made coffee, and simply be for awhile, at leisure, my time and my thoughts my own. No time pressure. No to-do list. No concerns. Just a sweet floral breeze, or the scent of the ocean blowing in from the shore, a cup of coffee and some solitude. I’d settle for a camp stove and an outdoor pour-over made from beans ground too long ago, surrounded by trees and playful chipmunks… or… here. Now. This moment isn’t that far off the mark. I’m sitting in a chain cafe, with my laptop open in front of me, enjoying my coffee with “an unseen friend” (that’s you). I smile to myself realizing how easily I could distance myself from contentment in this moment by yearning for some other rather similar moment that is not now. I chuckle to myself; a human being, being human. We can be pretty g’damned foolish.

So, I guess what I’m saying is – if that goal or resolution was really important to you, and you’ve already fallen to sloth or become distracted or lost focus…begin again. Just reset, and start over. Seriously. It’s your goal, you get to define success your way. You get to begin again, any time. Redefine the scope of your project. Change the timeline, change the milestones. Refine your approach. It’s yours to do your own way. You’re walking your path, not any other. Hell, maybe putting it down and reconsidering things completely is the correct next step for you? What is the end result you’re going for? How much work are you really willing to do?

…We become what we practice…

I sip my coffee listening to bad muzak, grateful that I’m not out in the darkness and the rain. (I do prefer to walk in daylight, sometimes circumstances present other opportunities. lol) Friday. The weekend is ahead. I haven’t made a lot of plans or anything – I’ve been making a point to get some rest each weekend, this year. It’s been worthwhile. I’ve made time to read – which I promised myself I would – and I’ve made time to play my favorite video game (I rarely play for long, and sometimes go many weeks without playing at all). I’ve spent more time in conversation with my Traveling Partner, and more time enjoying moments of solitude when the opportunity arose. I’m looking forward to camping weather returning, but seasons are what they are, and I don’t like camping in colder weather; sleeping on the ground aggravates my arthritis. S’ok, there are plenty of books to read and recipes to try while the weather is crappy.

It’s a good start to a rather ordinary day. I’m okay with that. I’m not seeking some spectacularly exciting life in which every day is a whirlwind of activity and drama. I’m happy when things are easy, and there’s very little friction or stress. I smile thinking about my elders, when I was growing up, and lazy summer afternoons relaxing with an iced tea or a cold beer on the screened in back porch, looking out over the hillside down to the creek, or gathering in the twilight to watch the fireflies come out. How is contentment not a goal for more people? Why are so many people working so hard to make their own experience more complicated, less easy? I don’t understand that, myself. I’m pretty nearly always looking for “easy”. lol

…I’m just saying, we can reach contentment through practice. Chasing happiness, on the other hand, is a losing race; that’s not how we find happiness. (I most often “find” happiness when it sneaks up on me through a moment of contentment.)

Don’t like where you’re sitting? Choose change. Make a choice, do the verbs. It’s your journey, you choose the route. On the other hand, if you are content where you are, comfortable with your life as it is, okay with your circumstances just as they are, then enjoy that without guilt or shame or awkwardness! Don’t let anyone tell you that you have to work harder to get to a goal you don’t personally value. No one has that kind of time to waste – our mortal lives are all too brief.

What a fucking year this is, already. I sigh to myself and let that go. I’m okay. No bombs dropping here, and I’m grateful. No masked ICE thugs in the parking lot here and I’m grateful for that too, although it is dismaying that I would even have to think about it. Work is work – and I’m grateful to have the job I do. Could be worse. Generally speaking, things are pretty good. I’m grateful for this moment of contentment, and this hot coffee, and the partner I will go home to later on, and the little house we share, and the modern conveniences we are fortunate to enjoy. It is enough.

I look at the clock. I’ll have time to get a walk around the muddy “fitness track” near the library after daybreak, before work. Convenient. That, too, is enough, and it’s time to begin again. 😀

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, War and News of War, winter, Words

First and Second

January 26, 2026 //
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I slept poorly. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. I slept well and deeply until sometime after 02:00. My Traveling Partner was awake, in the other room, coughing. The coughing woke me. I went back to sleep, but from that point my sleep was shallow and interrupted, and I didn’t get much rest. I’m not even bitching, I’m just mentioning it as I sip my morning coffee and try to sort my thoughts into some kind of coherent bit of consciousness. I’m not “groggy”, exactly, just…disconnected and stupid. I’m feeling cross and out of sorts, and the morning is off to a somewhat poor start, but only because of the state of being in which I find myself. In the most practical ways, it is an ordinary Monday morning.

The font and type size look weird to me in the visual editor this morning, and I fuss with trying to figure out if they are actually different somehow, or if I “never noticed before”. There seems to be a lot of that kind of misleading bullshit going on these days; changes being made without notice to users on all sorts of apps and platforms. Updates pushing new integrated AI in a coercive involuntary way. Updates that impair user freedom and control over purchased hardware and software. Other similar shenanigans seeking to harvest just a bit more data (or money) from users. Having the cognitive quirks that I do, I definitely do notice. I dislike that I find myself trying to talk myself out of seeing what I think I’m seeing. That irritates me. I let it go altogether, because in this instance it does not matter at all that the font looks like a different one, and the type size appears smaller and more compact.

I sigh to myself. I’m vexed by pain this morning, on top of fatigue (they are ultimate related; I am less able to manage my pain when I am fatigued, and likely to feel it more intensely). I sit more upright, hoping that good posture will give me some relief.

…G’damn I’m in a shitty mood this morning…

I have The Clash “Know Your Rights” stuck in my head. In spite of making committed efforts to stay away from “the news”, I can’t help knowing that the masked government thugs besieging Minnesota have murdered another citizen, an American, a patriot, a legal-to-carry gun owner with his “paperwork in order”. His apparent crime? Well, apparently that’s not a requirement anymore, at all. The assault on our rights grows, and if it weren’t so incredibly terrifying (and depressing) I might find some measure of humor in the fact that this shit is coming from a Republican administration. It’s not about Republican and Democrat, it never has been, it is about power and greed on both sides of the aisle. Sometimes the scales tip briefly in favor of “the people”. Don’t expect it to last when it happens.

…Oh, yeah, really dreadful mood…

I cue up my playlist for trying times. I add a couple more tracks to it. I definitely don’t want to listen to pop songs or muzak this morning. My heart aches for fallen heroes, and those among us willing to speak truth to power – and pay the price. Dark days, America. Get your shit together before you lose everything.

My phone rings. Unexpected at 05:30. I answer it reflexively; I have been caregiving for a couple of years, and any time I step away from the house, I feel uneasy and alert for some need that may arise that requires me to hasten home. The voice is familiar, but I don’t place it immediately. An old friend from my years on active duty, calling to let me know he’s reached a breaking point, himself, an just… can’t. My heart pounds. (G’damn, surely he’s not calling me to tell me he’s going to end his life? I don’t think I could bear it.) No, it’s not that bad, but it’s a big enough deal that he wanted to tell someone, and somehow that someone is me. He’s moving to New Zealand. “As far as I could go away from here, before someone burns it all down,” he says. He asks me if I think he’s overreacting? I don’t think he’s overreacting at all. I might do something similar if my circumstances permitted it, and just yesterday my Traveling Partner and I were talking about maybe selling our lovely cozy home and going…somewhere else. Quieter? Fewer neighbors? More space? All of that, and a few other things besides. Maybe we will… I find myself wondering how many citizens have emigrated out of the United States since the first Trump presidency, and whether that has accelerated since he was re-elected?

My work trip to San Francisco unraveled, doesn’t much matter why, and I’m not alone in it. The winter storms have thrown transportation into chaos. Can we agree that a late January travel date for a work event was predictably short-sighted? lol

I’m realizing it is likely to be the sort of day on which I am prone to discontent and finding fault. That’s not going to be a particularly pleasant experience. I sigh to myself and ask the question “are you going to stew in it, or are you going to make a change?” It’s an important question and wants an answer. I feel myself set my jaw, full of resistance and irritation, like a kid asked to clean their room on a beautiful day. I don’t want to have to be bothered with being accountable for where I am with my experience, right now. I’d rather be peeved and pick at my grievances as if they are wounds. Ridiculous. Now I am both the woman in a bad mood, and the woman irritated by a woman choosing to be in a bad mood. lol Layers of irritability. It’s pretty silly, but acknowledging that isn’t getting me off the hook for the work involved in changing it – or the choices or practices required to do so. My black mood feels justifiable and vindicated…but it’s honestly just a bad mood. I’m in pain and I didn’t sleep well. It doesn’t need to be anything more than that.

Another sigh. Another sip of coffee. I ask myself where would I be and what might I be doing if I had the means to go anywhere at all and do anything I cared to do? Moments fill my recollection; morning coffee on the shore, or near a beach, or out among the trees in some silent ancient forest, or a quiet cafe in the 1st arrondissement in Paris… I like to enjoy my coffee with a bit of a view and some solitude in the morning. In that sense, generally speaking, I’m pretty much already doing that thing, eh? I sip my coffee grateful for the moment of perspective, even feeling a tiny bit less cross. I guess that’s progress.

When what we’re doing doesn’t work, doing something different just might. I think about that, and enjoy my coffee before the work day. Soon enough, I’ll begin again. It’s not world-changing stuff, but if I can improve this experience in some small way, that’s still an improvement.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, anger, breathe, Despair, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, War and News of War, winter, Words
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