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Can You Hear Me Now?

November 10, 2026 //
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Restless dreams, strange morning. Strange in all the best ways. My Traveling Partner was already awake, when I woke, and invited me to stay and join him for coffee, this morning.

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

By itself, enjoying coffee with one’s partner is not a strange thing. We don’t do it often (a combination of timing and temperament). It was quite nice to relax over a cup of excellent coffee together. He told me about a project he has started. I asked some questions. Good conversation.

At one point his temper flared up, but he bested it quickly, I didn’t fall apart over it, and the morning continued, rather delightfully. There is real value in giving people room to be, to err, and to grow.

I have been watching my beloved battle his loss of resilience and patience, since his injury (and more so since his surgery), and I am impressed and looking for lessons and practices I can also make use of. He understands his anger better than I do my own. He is my muse, surely, and oddly enough also a role model to me, always has been. We both (each?) have an eye on our tempers. (Maybe that’s just smart approach to human behavior and emotions? Human primates don’t domesticate easily.) I see him recover from a moment of anger and genuinely reset, quickly. He catches himself, takes a moment, and lets it go. Given the emotional space and safety to do so, he regains perspective quickly. I tend to “drink the poison” and seethe for days in an unhealthy way over some pretty small shit. He gives me hope that I can do better, with practice.

…I handle my anger so much more skillfully than I did when my Traveling Partner and I got together, and the memory of his firm, calm voice telling me frankly and simply that my uncontrolled rage was a relationship deal breaker got through to me more than the words of any therapist had. I am so grateful that he gave me the chance to work on it, instead of walking away.

The coffee was delicious. The conversation was interesting. The mood was relaxed. The memory of the morning is quite lovely and I smile as I walk down the trail, recalling various details, and thinking over an observation my beloved made. “You’ve been in your own head a lot.” He said it in a loving way, concerned about me. He’s right about that, too. I walk on, thinking that over.

… Feels like a Friday. It is the ripples of the lovely morning extending across my sense of the day…

Resilience needs practice. So does communication. I reach my halfway point thinking about practices, successes, failures, and beginning again. I breathe, exhale, and relax. This morning, meditation feels easy and my mind feels calm and settled. There is a work day ahead of me. My pain feels managed. I watch white clouds scoot across the black of the night sky. Daybreak soon. I could use more coffee.

The world is what it is, and most of it is not within my sphere of influence in any way. I can do my best, here, now, to live well, to love well, and to be my best self, and thereby do something to improve the world in some tiny way. It matters. Letting all the ills of humanity rest on my shoulders is neither useful nor healthy. It only serves to reduce how much I have to give, closer to home where my actions have real effects. The result isn’t only that I have less to give, I also end up missing out on so many potentially delightful moments because I’m not fully present and anchored in this moment. I reflect on that.

Daybreak comes. A sprinkle of rain starts falling. It’s a good time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

All Those Yesterdays

November 9, 2026 //
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My sleep was interrupted and uneasy. Strange dreams were only part of it. I had intended to change the linens on the bed over the weekend, and didn’t (between Saturday’s arguing and Sunday’s pain I didn’t have it in me at all).

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

… My Traveling Partner woke me during the night, sleepless, vexed and wanting fresh linens. I got up and changed the linens, remade the bed, and went back to sleep. Further discussion of any sort would only have served to prolong the interruption of my own sleep…

Fucking hell I am tired this morning. It is what it is. I step out of the car in the predawn darkness, grab my cane and stuff a pack of travel tissues into my pocket. Good enough. I set off down the trail briskly. Well, as briskly as I can manage this morning. I’m halted several times by sneezing fits. I pause and deal with it, before walking on.

I think about the weekend as I walk. My mind wanders to life, work, love, art… I am grateful for the life I have lived, rich in experience. I contemplate my growth and change over the years. I think about Plato’s Cave, and the Ship of Theseus. I consider all the yesterdays that have brought me here, as surely as steps on this trail will take me around the vineyard and back to the car…

… Am I there yet? Am I the woman I most want to be? (Short answer, no, not yet.) And who exactly decides who she is? Well, that’d be 100% all me, although there are plenty of non-me entities that would like to have some influence over that vision. (Thanks, I’ve got this.) I consider myself fortunate; I may not have an easy relationship with the woman I have been, but I have a clear understanding of who I most want to be. Though that can present occasional challenges, when it turns out someone else wants (or expects me to want) some completely different set of characteristics or thinking, and I don’t seem ready to comply. Awkward. I will persist in walking my own path. I am my own cartographer. This life is mine.

I get to my halfway point and stop. I breathe, exhale, and relax. The morning is mild. No rain. Overcast sky. Daybreak comes gently and I almost miss the moment, lost in a contemplative reverie. The autumn air smells of distant wood fires and fallen leaves.

One of the most difficult lessons I have found in life is learning to accept that we are “each having our own experience”. Hell, we can’t even be certain if we see each of the colors we can name as precisely the same as what another person sees. We sort of trust that pink is pink when we see it, and that another person seeing it recognizes it. We don’t really know what it was they saw, only that they also call it “pink”.

I watch daybreak turning the sky from night’s deepest black to a dark blue gray. The trees are silhouetted, black shapes, indistinct aside from their outline against the paler sky. I love this moment, the tipping point between night and day. Every sunrise is a new beginning. A chance to walk on from what has not worked, on a path to change – it feels full of promise and potential, every time.

I sit with my thoughts awhile longer, reflecting on the power and the purpose of having a sense of who I most want to be. Thinking over life’s vast menu. I think about all the days and decisions that brought me here, to this particular Monday, feeling that I’m still only midway on this journey, and that there is further to go.

I sigh and stretch. I feel reluctant to let the weekend fall away into the past and walk on. There is more to learn and understand. I’m just tired of walking, maybe. (It’s a metaphor.) I breathe, exhale, and relax. I sit with my thoughts, eyeing the path ahead. Soon enough, I’ll have to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

The Way Things Are Going

November 8, 2026 //
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I woke feeling angry following a night of terrible dreams and repeatedly waking to find that I had pulled off my CPAP mask in my sleep, again. (I say “again”, but it is quite uncommon generally. Last night was unusual.)

Note: I notice after I finish this, it’s mostly fairly pointless bitching about physical pain and this shitty mood I’m in. Maybe you’d prefer to skip it? Figured I’d give you that chance right up front.

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

I woke angry, yes, and I also woke aware that I “wasn’t feeling like myself” in some fashion. As I reflect on the experience, my suspicion is that the combination of yesterday afternoon with my Traveling Partner (fraught with contentious angry conversation) on top of not taking a opiod painkiller this morning, is the root cause of my irritable mood. Bad moods, like bad dreams, are temporary, fleeting, and I know they will pass. In the meantime, I’m sitting irritably by the side of this favorite trail, content with the solitude and darkness, and definitely okay with not being around anyone else right now.

My tinnitus is shrieking loudly in my head. The high pitched whine and cicada-like buzz are more than usually annoying. My osteoarthritis is raging up my spine from its origin near my fusion, and climbing vertebrae by vertebrae from about T13 to the base of my skull. It has taken it 40 years to make that journey, one inflamed crunchy joint at a time, over years. Yeah, if you think arthritis is exclusively a disease of aging, you would be mistaken. Each year, the pain is the worst where it is the newest development. I guess I’m grateful I still have a few joints that are not obviously arthritic. Was it last year or the year before that it got to my collar bone? (I know, right? I didn’t know that was a thing until it happened!)

… This year the slow progression of my osteoarthritis reached my thumbs, that first joint, where the thumb connects to the hand. The pain is remarkable. I have no words to describe it. Some days, it robs me of my ability to hold a pen, a pastel, or do anything much that requires a grip.

… What a downer, I know…

Daybreak comes. So far I have managed to beat the rain. It followed me up the highway, and stopped shortly after I arrived at the trailhead. I have the trail to myself. I’m glad. I honestly don’t want to deal with people at all, this morning. No errands to run, and I’ll stretch this morning time out as long as practical, to give my beloved some wakeup time before subjecting him to my pain and my shitty mood.. I will probably duck into my studio and paint, while my hands permit it.

How long will I still be able to paint, and what comes after that? I sigh to myself. Slow tears slide down my face. I don’t know what they are really about; this morning is hard. I pay them no attention, I allow them to fall.

“This just in; middle-aged woman sobs by the side of a lonely marsh trail on a rainy autumn morning. It isn’t very interesting. Back to you.” 😆

… I still have my sense of humor, such as it is (which is, generally, not actually funny to anyone else, but it will suffice)…

Look, some of this angsty bullshit is almost frighteningly mundane. Emotional baggage combined with chronic pain, fear of losing my ability to paint (and the sad  feeling that it may be inevitable), on top of a difficult night, and not taking an opiod this morning (after taking them for several days) seems like a lot to deal with – it would be an incredible stroke of good luck if I didn’t feel like hell this morning in one way or another. That it feels like “all the ways I could feel like crap” is unfortunate, but not my first time dealing with it. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Part of good self-care is taking a minute to observe, acknowledge, and let go. No, it isn’t easy, but it is a shorter path to feeling better again than… not.

… Still gotta do the verbs. PT stretches. Healthy exercise. Regular medications on time. Meditation. A shower, clean clothes, healthy calories. Drink water. Be present. Be kind to myself. Rest when I need rest. Ask for help when I need help. Accept that these mortal bodies are only good for so much. Do what I can, and do my best, and only that.

… And paint. While I am able. Less fucking bitching, more g’damned painting. 😂

I watch the ducks and geese floating on the marsh ponds. The ponds have begun to refill with autumn rains. The meadow is becoming marshy again. I sit enjoying the solitude awhile, grateful for the unseasonably warm weather, and the pause in the rain. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’ll just enjoy this moment, here, now, until it is time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, The Art of Being, women, Words

Life.

October 29, 2026 //
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It is quiet here at the side of this trail in the darkness. It is early, before sunrise. It is autumn, chilly but not cold. Everything around me is wet from rain during the night. The clouds are dense and the sky quite dark, no stars shine through.

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

I breathe in the chilly fresh damp autumn air, grateful to breathe easily, thinking my thoughts. The freedom to walk safely in the darkness in the wee hours is precious and I make a point to savor it. I have no reason to expect that I’ll always have such freedom. It’s a strange world, and very few things are truly lasting certainties. So, I sit here contentedly for a little while, just being. Grateful.

The night was a difficult one. I sigh to myself, from frustration, or impatience, or maybe because life itself is often difficult. It could be so much worse. I practice anchoring myself to this moment here, now. It is quite a pleasant one, and it happens to be the one I’m in. Handy.

I breathe, exhale, and relax.

I hope my beloved gets the rest he needs. It is hard on him too when I am having a bad night.

Yesterday was tiring. My annual wellness check with my GP was fine. I’m in good health for my age and considering my history that’s impressive (to me). I got my flu shot. Convenient. It’s a long drive away, though, and I was tired by the time I got home. I shared a quiet evening watching videos with my Traveling Partner. All very ordinary and happily mundane.

… I’ve been having bad dreams, more or less nightly, for awhile now. Dreams of war, of chaos, of having to “mask up” in response to some threat of chemical or biological warfare then discovering the chemical agent is inside the mask… Rough. Worse are the more abstract dreams. How the hell is a dream of a “rainstorm” of strangely sticky confetti a “bad dream”?! I have no idea. What does a dream of blood going down a drain actually mean? Lucid dreaming practices sometimes help me find my way out. Waking up is a reliable way to stop a bad dream, though it does not prevent them lingering in my thoughts, sometimes for days.

This morning I’m tired but clear headed. It’s enough to get by on. The weekend is coming. I am hoping to spend much of it in the studio. How do I most easily put a nightmare to rest? I paint its picture. It is a peculiarly personal way to exorcise my demons.

A sprinkle of rain begins to fall. I get to my feet to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, health, inspiration, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, War and News of War, women, Words

Who Were You Then?

October 16, 2026 //
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Lovely start to the day, today. Coffee with my beloved Traveling Partner before I headed to the trail to get a walk in before work.

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

I walked in the predawn darkness contentedly, on the edge of humming a little tune, but I can’t quite find the melody. I smile and keep walking. I’m okay for nearly all values of “okay”, and better than that for many more. In a word, in this moment I am content and happy. I walked along enjoying it without asking why. Doesn’t matter why.

I think about the woman I was in 1995. Why ’95? That was the year I walked away from a nightmare, and the year I lived alone for the first time, fully independently. It was a peculiar transformation and it took me awhile to catch up with myself. I spent that year beginning the search for the woman I wanted most to be. It’s taken a long g’damned time to get from there to here. By the time I reach my halfway point (on this walk), I’ve mentally drafted a letter I wish I could send back in time to that earlier version of me.

Continuity of memory is strange. It tends to suggest I am that woman I was then. I doubt that’s really true. She was reckless. Irresponsible. Angry (so very angry). She was prone to disrespecting boundaries. She had no clear sense of purpose, and her goal setting was shortsighted and exceedingly practical. Her path was not yet her own choosing. Shared memory connects me to her, but I am not that woman I once was. Probably a good thing, actually; she was headed for destruction.

Daybreak begins. The starry night sky gives way to shades of gray.

She could have done better, or been a better person. I guess so can I, even now. I sit with that for a little while. Later today, therapy, and a manicure. It is a Friday. I think about the weekend ahead. I think about beginnings and I think about love.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. A new beginning starts right here. A chance to be my best self, a better partner, a better friend. I like beginning again. Each day is a new experience, a new chance to choose and to do better… a new opportunity to love and to walk my path. It’s enough.

I breathe the autumn air deeply. It’s already time to walk on, and begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, women
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