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Weather or Not

September 5, 2025 //
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I am waiting for the sun, at a local trailhead. I’m not in any hurry, and it is a calm, quiet morning. The forecast says maybe it’ll rain, later. For now, I amuse myself wondering if that’s lightning I just saw. What I definitely saw was a brief very bright diffuse flash of light somewhere beyond the clouds obscuring the predawn sky, and then, later, another. I didn’t hear thunder, so I guess that if it was lightning (what else would it be?) it must be quite far away.

In the darkness, before dawn, it’s easy to wonder.

Another work day. Nothing much to say about that.

My tinnitus is crazy loud in my ears. My spine is a column of pure pain; I tell myself it’s “only” arthritis. It’s an unhelpful bit of exaggeration, but I count on it to persuade me that the pain can safely be ignored. I take my morning medications, which include prescription pain relief. It helps some, but only serves to “take the edge off”. It’s been a long time since it was any more effective than that.

I sigh to myself and grab my cane. I’ve got enough daylight now to walk this trail safely. I get started…

… I walk, lost in my own thoughts, and find that I’ve gone down and around and back to my starting point, already. It’s still early, barely daybreak. I decide to walk the loop again (it’s only about a mile and a half)…

I stop at a favorite resting point, when I reach it. My mind wants to dart ahead, to focus on work, but it is not yet time for that, and I pull myself back to this moment, here. The sky is gray, and cloudy, with the look of a sky that might rain, maybe. The air smells of rain, too. Another flash of distant lightning, another hint at rain.

Weather…or not.

The hills far to the west are hazy, looking more like a watercolor impression of hills on the horizon, and a bit unreal. This moment even feels a little unreal. Too quiet. Too still. The darkness of the trees between me and the river beyond seem vaguely spooky, although they have no secrets. It’s just a row of trees along the river bank. I walk here often.

I watch the sky continue to lighten, as daybreak becomes dawn, and an unseen sun rises somewhere beyond the clouds. The sky shifts from night black, to the deep blue of dawn, to the gray and cloudy sky I see now, and hints of pale blue behind the clouds peeking through where the clouds shred slowly as they move… north? North. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Somewhere nearby, the noise of a trash truck interrupts the stillness.

I sigh to myself as I get to my feet to finish my walk and head to work. Whether or not it actually rains, there’s still weather of some sort. Whether or not my path takes me where I expect to go, it still leads me somewhere. Having the experience is what matters most – the being and doing are the point. The journey is the destination. Isn’t that enough? I think about that as I stretch. The clock is ticking, and it’s time to begin.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being

Press Pause

September 4, 2025 //
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It was dark when I left the house for my walk. It’s still dark now. I decide to meditate and write before my walk, instead of during, or after. I’m not in any great hurry, this morning, and it would be helpful to shift my routine to begin and end just a bit later each day, if I can. (The local university library is open to the community, and is a very pleasant and convenient place to work, but doesn’t open until 08:00). I can definitely take a few minutes for myself, early in the morning.

This first week at the new job is going well. Expectations are high, and I feel comfortable with those; everything asked of me is within my abilities. I smile contentedly to myself. It’s also very nice to have found a new very local place to co-work that isn’t a cafe. I like being near to home in case my Traveling Partner is faced with some urgent need, though that’s quite rare now. It’s nice to get home after a busy work day without the experience of a long sometimes aggravating commute.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s just me, and this quiet moment, waiting for enough daylight to see the trail without a headlamp. The sky is already turning a deep bluer-than-black and the trees are clearly silhouetted.

A moment of quiet, a ticking clock.

I think about work, and life, and rest, and the ongoing challenge of finding balance midst the chaos. Still feels like the world is burning, and I’m deeply disappointed in American “democracy” every time I contemplate the shit storm that is the current “administration” – seems more like a clown car, driven by a rapid squirrel, full of angry weasels with a trunk full of explosives, headed straight into a fucking dumpster fire, but I’m sure my expectations that elected officials be both qualified and ethical is unreasonable. Fucking hell, do better, People. Cast your vote with at least a modicum of basic consideration for the consequences, if you are unable to choose wisely based on demonstrable truth. I’m so over all of the partisan bullshit, corruption, and self-serving bootlicking of billionaires and special interests.

I breathe deeply and exhale slowly, and let all of that go. Daybreak is here. The trail begins to reveal itself. I lace up my boots and grab my cane. It’s time to begin this new day, and follow my path where it leads.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, War and News of War, Words

So Human

September 3, 2025 //
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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.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Logic & Reason, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Routine and New

September 2, 2025 //
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This morning is a new beginning. New job. First day. It’s a fully remote role, which is pretty routine for me these days, but… some things are not routine at all. New tools… some of which are familiar from other roles, at other times, but in other versions or configurations, too. New. Novelty can be challenging, sometimes. It tends to crack open any bit of complacency or assumption-making foolishness, presenting things from a new perspective, or by being wildly different than my recollection of that thing. Novelty isn’t bad. It can be refreshing and a wonderful route to new perspective or deeper understanding. It can be frustrating and vexing (mostly only if I fight it). I breathe, exhale, and relax.

One by one I go through the various email items in my inbox inviting me to this or that tool, system, or database. Routine – and also new. The process is familiar, the specifics are less so. I’m shortly finished with those items, and curious about others. It is still quite early in the morning, and it’s likely that the majority of the team members here in the US won’t be on until a bit later in the morning. I sigh with a mixture of contentment and relief. I’m grateful for the quick turn around from one role to the next. I’m even sitting at an open desk at the co-work space that had become so familiar and comfortable in my last role…though the little office that is assigned to that employer is no longer mine. This still feels a familiar and welcoming place, comfortable for working. My Traveling Partner had gently encouraged me to consider working from this location vs my office at home; he knows me well, and it is often the case that my frustration with this or that new tool or login process can cause my emotions to flare up uncomfortably (for both of us) on day 1, though I tend to be very emotionally “well-managed” during work days, generally, at this point in my life. (That wasn’t always the case, for sure, and both my beloved and I live with the emotional scars of that earlier time, and tend to be very considerate about it now.) We both dislike the experience of having to deal with my frustration with myself in the moment.

I smile to myself and just listen to the soft quiet of the office at this early hour. There is so much to learn, to do, to get sorted out – and there’s no hurry, this is just day 1. It’s definitely time to begin again…

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

House of Pain

August 31, 2025 //
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Yesterday was a pretty relaxed day of getting things done, although not that many things, and rather slowly. I spent the day in pain, and that put pain management as a high priority, competing for my attention through the day. My Traveling Partner was also dealing with pain, and struggling to focus on the work he was doing, too. We managed to enjoy the day together in spite of pain. Later, when the Anxious Adventurer returned home from work, he brought his own pain along with him. Nonetheless, we all mostly managed to mostly enjoy the time, without complicating the experience with pain. That’s something, and I sit for a moment this morning, grateful for the good day yesterday in spite of pain. Everybody hurts sometimes… Living with chronic pain is its own special hell, but it can be managed to some extent.

It could have been worse; I found enough “spoons” to bake cookies.

I woke this morning from a deep restful sleep, and was awake for a few minutes before I realized I wasn’t asleep anymore. I got dressed and headed to the local trailhead I favor. I don’t have any reason to drive further, really, and this is a pleasant trail and it is a quiet morning. It’s Labor Day weekend, and there’s no one here but me, so far. It’s the sort of weekend a lot of families use to go to the coast or to the mountains, this little suburban trail is neither of those.

A hazy summer sky reminds me that the world is burning, elsewhere.

I walk the trail, down through the oaks, between the parking lot and the vineyards, winding around the bend past mature grape vines, and down into the trees that grow more densely along the creek, until I get to this spot, convenient to sit a moment with my thoughts. I’ve grown very comfortable with practicing meditation outside, somewhere along the trail I’ve chosen, in the early morning. I’m rarely interrupted. It’s pleasant and quite calming. Lovely morning for it, in spite of the haze of distant wildfires.

… I’m still in pain (again) today. Like a lot of people, I live with chronic pain…

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I reflect on age, and aging, the vagaries of the absolutely crap-tacular US healthcare system, and what it means to balance endurance with joy, and what it takes to thrive in spite of chronic pain. Then I let all that go and enjoy this lovely morning moment of quiet contentment out here on this trail. I’m less anxious, knowing I’ll go back to work on Tuesday, which is helpful. Like a lot of other things, anxiety tends to worsen pain, or at least seems to make it more difficult to manage or ignore.

I watch some chipmunks playing at the edge of the trees. They delight me. I would definitely pet one if it came close enough, and laugh at myself over it. It’s probably not a good idea to try to pet wild creatures, generally speaking. I spend a moment wondering if I’m such a chucklehead that I’d actually do something so foolish, or would I only want to? I find myself unable to be entirely certain. I hope I’d choose wisely. My ability to apply self-restraint and impulse control are much better on the GLP-1 I’ve now been taking for more than a year. It has improved my life quite a lot, because I’m not so likely to do dumb shit “because it seemed like the thing to do at the time”.

The rising sun illuminates the strip of meadow beyond the trail that separates the forest from the vineyard. I see an elder couple walking their dog slowly approaching from the farthest point along the trail still visible to me. Nice morning for it, and I knew I wouldn’t have the trail to myself indefinitely. They wave and offer a cheery greeting as they pass. I wave back and reply.

More housework today, I guess, that’s the routine. Pain slows me down, but I try to avoid letting it stop me. There’s just too much to do, and we’re all in pain (in this household) – someone still has to get things done. When we all commit to doing what we can and coordinate our efforts, we still manage a pretty good quality of life, and sometimes even manage to forget the pain for a little while. It doesn’t do to let things go too long, it’s harder to catch up than it is to stay on top of things.

…New job Tuesday…

I sigh to myself and enjoy the cool summer morning and the scents on the breeze. Meadow flowers. Mown grasses. Forest and creek. The lavender scent I’m wearing, that reaches my nose when I move. My hair feels soft on my shoulders and I wonder again if I should get it cut? I feel comfortable in my skin in spite of my pain, and grateful to have worn a sweater over my lighter summer top. The first hints of autumn approaching are all around, and the cooler morning is just one sign.

I’ve lingered here awhile and my legs are beginning to feel stiff. It’s time to walk on. This day is a good one to get things done… but there are definitely some verbs involved. lol It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, joy, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, weight loss secrets
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