I slept through the night, waking to the artificial sunrise of my silent alarm. I dressed and left the house in the usual way. I arrived at the trailhead before daybreak, put on my boots, grabbed my cane, and began the trek down the trail.
I walk and breathe, my mind a mostly barren place, nothing really amounting to actually thought going on. I just walked.
… Strange morning…
My Traveling Partner pings me. No “good morning” greeting or inquiry about my state of being. Instead I get a hurt reminder that I had said I would pick up a package waiting in the mailbox. I’d forgotten, distracted by a moment of discord shortly after I got home yesterday. Shit. For the time being (and it is a recent change) we’ve only got one key to the mailbox, and picking up the mail now requires a return home to grab the key, or the foresight to take it on the way out the door. A suprisingly complicated change, once brain damage is accounted for. I sigh to myself. I do my best to do everything that needs to be done… Seems always just out of reach.
I’m now at my halfway point feeling aggravated, disappointed with myself, and fairly disinterested in interacting with “the world”… And it’s a fucking work day. Great. I ignore the slow tears dripping down my face. For the moment I have no patience with this very human experience. My Traveling Partner is having a difficult morning, himself. I do what I can to be supportive, compassionate, and kind. Maybe one of us will turn our morning around and have a good day?
I breathe, exhale, and… Well, I try to relax. I persist with trying to meditate, trying to let go of my irritability, trying to simply breathe and be… Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. How fucking hard does this shit have to be?!
Daybreak comes. I look down the trail and get to my feet. It isn’t all lovely mornings, big smiles, and beautiful sunrises. This is a very human experience, and sometimes there’s real work involved, and however “successful” the outcomes seem to be, the moment may still be quite unsatisfying or unpleasant. It is what it is. Another reason to begin again… and it’s time. I’ll do my best.
I managed to sleep a little later this morning. I arrived at the trailhead at daybreak, a smudgy dirty looking faint orange streak along the horizon hints at sunrise coming soon. No point waiting. I trade shoes for boots, and grab my cane and my headlamp and step onto the trail.
The shallow bowl of the marshy meadow lowlands is filled with a dense mist. When I reach it, the mist envelopes me. Peculiarly, the mist is only about 4 feet deep, and I can’t see the ground I am walking in any detail. My headlamp is worse than useless, and I turn it off, letting it hang from my neck like some sort of awkward ornament. I keep walking, watching the sky lighten, listening to the quiet sounds of the meadow and marsh around me. I hear traffic on the nearby highway. The Tualatin river flows through here, forming one boundary of the park. I don’t hear it flowing by, deep and murky. The air is still and a bit chilly. I’m grateful to be wearing my fleece this morning.
I eventually reach my halfway point and stop for a bit, to meditate and write and reflect on life and the world.
Halfway on a misty morning.
I sit thinking about freedom. I’m not sure why it’s on my mind. Perhaps because, for the first time in my own lifetime, the United States is being lead by someone who appears to think freedom of speech is somehow defined by what he wants to hear, personally. So much to find distasteful and disturbing by the very idea. It’s a good time to buy books on subjects this administration finds objectionable – and to read them – we are realistically at risk of seeing them pulled from bookstores and libraries “for our own good”, “for the children”, or because they have been deemed unacceptable for some reason, by some narrow special interest group. I’m not kidding. No exaggeration, I am deeply concerned about our intellectual freedom.
…When the cold war ended, I felt so hopeful about the world…
I’d love to see truth become more popular. I dislike the media hype machine, and the pursuit of likes, clicks, and views produces some awful results, not the least of which is poor quality writing and reporting that may lack any factual basis. Maybe the move to undermine free speech will result in legislation that requires truth in reporting? That would be hilarious – and might serve us well, in the long run.
I sigh quietly by myself watching the mist spread slowly, obscuring the view. I reflect on the mist as a metaphor, dense, obscuring my view, hiding obstacles on my path, clammy and chilly and clinging to me as I move through it, but lacking real substance, and incapable of impeding my movement. It has no power that I don’t give it. That’s important to understand.
I’m just saying, read the books you see being restricted, withheld from libraries and institutions, or hear those in power seeking to dismiss or “cancel”. Those books wouldn’t be a big deal, if they didn’t say something worth hearing.
“Woke” isn’t an insult. It’s a term used to indicate that a person recognizes institutional and systemic injustices, most commonly those with a racial basis, but also gender (misogyny is still a real problem), and disability. Commandeering the term to use as an insult dilutes and undermines its value – but only if we allow that.
“DEI”… When did we decide that being a melting pot of cultures and ideas is a bad thing? That’s diversity. Can you explain how “equity” is a problem? Don’t you, yourself, want equitable treatment in the workplace, and in the world? “Inclusion” seems an unlikely villain – do you not want your children to be included by their peers, in games, in events, in life? Where is the problem?
“Woke” people, seeing the injustices and inequity in our institutions and systems of power and governance, moved to make changes – and DEI as a movement was born. The greatest impact was likely felt in the workplace, initially. Codes of conduct changed to be more fair, more focused on consistent and equitable treatment in hiring. People who had been prevented from advancing, in spite of their qualifications, began to get ahead in life. These changes for the better began to spread. Life began to get better for so many people!
… We’ve lost momentum because a handful of vocal shitheads are mad that they can no longer rest on their privilege (whether that’s to do with being male, white, Christian, affluent, or connected is irrelevant), and now have to put in a bit more work to get ahead. Now, here we are…
How are those “guaranteed” freedoms working out for you?
I sigh to myself. Human primates can be so g’damned stupid – and greedy. That’s likely what most of this is actually about. Greed – and power. So gross. The worst.
A rose blooming in my garden.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I let all of the bitterness and disappointment go. I can only do so much. I speak my mind fearlessly. I vote. I served my country ethically and with honor (at least as I understood it at that time).
…I remind myself to reach out to former comrades at arms, some of them are no doubt struggling with this bullshit much as I am, and there is solace in sharing and a feeling of safe haven in community…
The sunrise has come and it is a new day filled with promise. I’m hoping to spend it enjoying my Traveling Partner’s good company. It was a very busy week at work, and he has missed me. I’m planning to try a new recipe, later, and maybe fit in some “me time” later this weekend. Long weekend – I’ve taken Monday off for the equinox. Maybe I’ll take my camera or my pastels up the Nestucca River Byway and enjoy some solitary creative time?
The meadow is still covered in mist, as though someone rolled out cotton batting over the whole thing. I smile to myself, grateful for the lovely moment of solitude and rest from the busy week behind me. Sunlight illuminates the tops of the oaks. It’s already time to begin again.
I’m just saying, it’s a short distance from anger, resentment, and thoughts of paybacks to becoming the person you despise for the same characteristics you’ve adopted over time, as your anger and hate ate away at your good heart, good values, and sense of self. We can’t correct the injustices we see in the world by becoming less just, ourselves. We can’t force the world to be a kinder more compassionate place through violence. Worth thinking about, isn’t it? I mean, generally speaking, there is value in self-reflection, self-awareness, and becoming the person we most want to be through willful practice of those qualities we value most highly, isn’t there?
… I’m not telling you what to do, just pointing out that you are making choices (we all are)…
I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s a week of cool nights and warm afternoons. In the morning, I wear my fleece. In the afternoons, I remove layers and enjoy bare arms and the sun on my back. The darkness on the trail before dawn requires my headlamp. The walk after work from the university library to the parking nearby is lit brightly by summer sunshine. It is time for the season to change (here), and I feel it everywhere. Fall is coming.
The trail is dry under my feet, and the night sky is dark. I get about half way, and it’s still quite dark. I turn off my headlamp and sit quietly, gazing into the night sky, scattered with stars, the thin crescent moon rising in the east. I enjoy the quiet.
“A season for change,” I say to myself, softly. Aren’t they all, though? Change is. I sit awhile listening to the zing and buzz of my tinnitus, and the sound of my heartbeat in my ears, like a ticking clock. I remember a time when even the recollection of a ticking clock (and definitely the sound of one) could immediately transform me into a seething quivering wreck, breathless with anxiety, and keep me from sleeping. Not now. Now a ticking clock is only a ticking clock. Oh, surely, a ticking clock is also a useful metaphor, a reminder that time passes, that moments are individual and precious, and time itself finite… but it no longer has the power to keep me awake at night or cause an internal solitary war of nerves. We made it up, that ticking clock, and it need not hold power over us.
… Let the clock tick. It will, regardless. Be here, now, in this present moment. Let change happen. Embrace it, and make each change another milestone on your journey. Better to grab each moment of joy and savor it before it passes, than to fight circumstances we do not control.
I sit with my thoughts awhile. I’ve got time. The day begins quite early, this morning, and this lovely moment, now, is mine to enjoy. “Nothing to see here.” True. I’m just one woman, alone in the darkness, waiting for daybreak, enjoying the quiet, alone. Where will this day take me? To my desk and to work, and later to return home. It’s not fancy or extraordinary or particularly interesting as moments go, but it is a lovely quiet one (aside from my tinnitus, which is very loud this morning). It’s enough to see another sunrise. I sit waiting for the inevitable changes.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. Later, I’ll begin again, and face new, other, changes.
It is a new day. Daybreak comes, revealing the trail I walked to get to this place, and the trail ahead that I will follow next. The map is not the world. The trail is not the journey. The plan is not the experience. The choice is not the outcome. The whole of our lifetime is not any one moment we live. It is a worthy endeavor to live each moment fully present, to find out where our path truly leads… but it isn’t as easy as wanting to. There is effort and will involved. Choices. Action.
Hate is contagious and corrosive. It can become lethal. Hate can influence the thinking of entire groups of people. Hate can make one individual do terrible things. Hate can drive people to murder.
… What does it mean when someone perceived as hateful, or who espouses hateful ideas, is themselves the victim of hate?…
I’m as human as anyone. There are ideas and people I find pretty horrible and hateful, myself. It’s most often not a personal sort of emotional experience, it’s more abstract than that. I’m not sure I’ve ever truly “hated” anyone in a direct and personal way. I have actively disliked people enough to avoid them. I have even loathed an individual to the point that I had nothing good to say about them, if asked. Hate, though? That seems a bigger deal, a deeper emotional investment that implies a commitment to infusing the awareness of the individual with persistent steady negative emotion – enough, perhaps, to be a weapon itself. I’d really have to care about someone, in some sense, in order to hate them, I think. What do I know, though? I avoid engaging in hate as an experience. There is reliably always too much I don’t know that could change my opinion.
Don’t shoot people because you’re angry. Don’t shoot people over ideology either. That kind of hateful shit is terrible for the perpetrator, in it’s own fashion, and it’s likely to have regrettable consequences. It’s terrible for the world. Violence is toxic and terrible and the “solutions” it provides aren’t the sort with real value. (Have you seen the images of Gaza and Ukraine since the most recent conflicts began in those places?) I don’t suppose, if you’re reading this blog, that you need that sort of cautionary reminder; you’re likely on a different path.
So… Charlie Kirk is dead, I hear. I can’t say his death moves me personally at all. He represented no good qualities or ideas to me. I did not know him personally, and was only aware of him in the most indirect way, as some favored conservative talking head notable enough to be mocked on South Park. (South Park is hilarious, and definitely knows how to tap the zeitgeist, and my opinion hasn’t changed.) I don’t have any personal feeling of loss over Charlie Kirk’s death. The hateful ideas of our conservative administration get people killed and wrecks lives every day…why would this one guy, famed for saying hateful things, getting shot be at all noteworthy?
I think killing people is wrong. It’s vile and wasteful and morally repugnant. Humanity could do better. That doesn’t change because someone I find unlikeable gets killed. It’s still wrong. I just don’t plan to spend more time thinking or talking about this particular death. Aren’t the innocent lives lost to school shootings, domestic violence, and police brutality more worthy of conversation? Isn’t genocide more important to address than the death of one voice espousing hate? And femicide? Infant mortality due to disease? I guess I’m just saying that this one particular shooting death carries no significance for me. It’s unfortunate people are still so primitive and barbaric that they seek to solve problems through violence. That’s the problem worth solving. We could definitely do better.
Don’t spread your hate around (or anyone else’s) – it’s not fucking jam.
I pull myself back to this gray moment, here, now.
I sigh to myself looking at the gray sky. Daybreak came on the trail and I am sitting with my thoughts before the work day begins. I’m tired and I slept badly. The alarm woke me, and I thought it was a mistake, at first. My eyes still feel gritty and dry. My head aches. I’m feeling cross with myself and with the world. I definitely need more rest than I got. I’m grateful the weekend is ahead and that the week has gone well… but… g’damn I’m just so fucking tired. I’ve got shit to do, and all I really want is to go back to sleep.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I yawn and rub my eyes. I don’t feel groggy – that’s something good. Too much to do to have to deal with grogginess or brain fog, too, and I’m grateful. Slowly I pull my focus back to the things that matter most (to me, right now) and let the rest go. I’m grateful that I remember telling my beloved Traveling Partner I’d run to the store before work, and glance at the clock. Already time to begin again…
New job, first day, and all of that went well yesterday. My headache was a 12 on a 1 – 10 scale as I headed home, and I did my best not to allow it to vex me. I was grateful it was a Tuesday – by longstanding practice, it is the Anxious Adventurer’s night to cook, which means less work (for me) and tasty tacos (generally).
… Turned out to be less than ideally easy to get to that moment…
My brain was exhausted when I got home, and the headache was kicking my ass. A shower might help, I’d thought, but no, it didn’t. I took additional pain medication and settled into a darkened room to meditate and hopefully ease my pain and maybe recover some cognitive energy to get through the evening on…
My Traveling Partner alerted me that he was facing unexpected difficulties and excessive time required in a project to do with server maintenance on our home network. My many many (hundreds of) gigabytes of images were…so many. Too many. Backups of copies of duplicates of old drive contents and folders of images I didn’t want to lose were carefully saved – and in several cases nested within each other, multiple times by several names – a byproduct of every tense OS upgrade, or computer replacement over time (for decades), and worse still, it was also all partially backed up as zip files from my old Google Photos app or on a cloud storage platform. Fuuuuuuuck. So many copies…of copies.
…Can I please do something with that fucking mess?!...
Yeah. I was annoyed and aggravated and frustrated to tears by the impatience and irritation in the otherwise entirely reasonable request. I’d even been working on it, piecemeal, much of the past year on and off, whenever I had a spare minute, was also thinking about it, and happened to be on my computer… But I hadn’t finished the important part (deleting the old copies) – I was pretty spectacularly busy with working for a living, caregiving an injured partner, running errands and keeping up the housework, and trying to stave off exhaustion as much as I could while managing chronic pain.
In an instant I felt unappreciated and disrespected – and invisible. I cried the entire time I pushed myself through the steps of reviewing each folder, feeling angry and unsupported. I wept frustrated tears while I deleted folder after folder, fingers crossed that I would not delete the sole copy of some image that has lasting value for me. I managed to finish the work needed in about an hour of mostly focused time, distracted only by my own tears and my Traveling Partner’s continued pings, messaging me continuing to explain why finishing this project matters to him in this moment and more generally, and checking on my progress. Unhelpful for me in the moment (trying to focus and work with a headache), but I recognized his desire to feel heard, and to reconnect and resolve painful emotions. I did my best.
… G’damn that fucking headache though, and not one fucking word of sympathy or care from anyone, which caused hurt feelings that lingered for a while in the background. I was silently mired in a very “fuck all of you” sort of place for a little while before I was able to let it go. Humans being human. I’m fairly certain everyone in the house was doing their best, but…as is often the case, it didn’t feel “good enough”. Our results vary, and as human primates we can expect a certain amount of bullshit and drama to be part of the experience. I chose to let small shit stay small and move on from it without doing anything more to address the circumstances directly.
A new day, a new chance to begin again.
Funny thing, this morning none of that mess is important or relevant at all. My tinnitus is loud in my ears, but my headache is an inconsequential 2 on a 1 – 10 scale. My Traveling Partner was awake when I left the house and seemed to be fairly merry as he kissed me goodbye for the day. It was a pleasant parting and I’m eager to return home at the end of the work day without resentment or ire. Resilience for the win. I’ve worked years to get to this place. I’m grateful that a momentary upset no longer sends me spiraling into chaos, futility, and despair that lingers for days or weeks.
I walked the local trail with my thoughts, enjoying the dawn. It’s a new day. It even feels good to have finished a project that had been stalled (and was seriously taking too long). I breathe, exhale, and relax. I can feel the reduction in the chaos in my life, having cleaned up my files. Funny how that works (for me). I’m grateful to my Traveling Partner for taking such skillful care of our network, and for making it clear that my failure to complete a project I’d started more than a year ago was holding up progress. I’m grateful that his own resilience allows him to bounce back from a tense or angry moment, too. I’m grateful that I never fear violence as a potential byproduct of his anger – he’s not that person.
I watch the sunrise contentedly from my halfway point. It’s a new day, a new moment. I’m okay for most values of okay, and there is no anger in my heart. It’s a fresh start – and time to begin again.
Evening Light 