It’s a quiet start to the day. The morning air feels subtly autumnal. I find myself regretting that I didn’t wear my fleece hoodie. The walking warms me up though.
One perspective on the morning.
There’s a low mist clinging to the ground along the river when I begin my walk. It drifts over the meadow adjacent to the trail, becoming a thin fog. It’s very quiet this morning. I don’t hear any birds, or traffic, only my footsteps and my breathing.
It is a routine work day, possibly a busy one. There is a project to be done, later, and later still an evening meal to prepare. I sigh quietly as I walk. The to-do list is long. Having the Anxious Adventurer in the household lifts a measure of the everyday housekeeping burden, but greatly increases the “mental workload” and emotional labor landing on me day after day, on top of the increases associated with caregiving for my Traveling Partner. I’m less physically exhausted than I had been…but… I often find myself very much “over” dealing with people at all, far sooner than I typically might. It’s a struggle to get enough time alone, unbothered by what everyone else needs moment to moment, and undistracted by pings, questions, or requests for my thoughts on the various topics. I often end up feeling like a bitch just trying to get a moment alone with my thoughts.
… I’m grateful for this solitary time in the mornings (and I am pretty certain it’s keeping me sane).
I turn the last bend on the trail and sit down for a moment to think and to write. “This too will pass,” I remind myself. I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s time to begin again… I head down the trail towards the car, and the beginning of the work day.
Moods can be contagious, good or bad (though it often seems the bad moods spread farther, faster, and result in a deeper change). The words and actions we choose also create ripples through the world around us, affecting other people and events, sometimes in unanticipated ways. Think about that for a moment. How we each behave, what we say, and how we say it, creates this world we live in.
All this? This is “your fault”. Yes, it’s my fault, too. Among us, as a group, we share the blame for the bullshit fucked-up mess that is this modern world, with all its pain and sorrow and inequity and violence and misogyny and terror. Humankind. We did this. We created it. We continue to benefit from it and to maintain it. Gross. Do better, people, please – before there’s nothing at all left that is worth saving.
What are you personally doing to make the world a better place today? Are you practicing kindness? Are you gentle with your words (yes, even when you are angry, frustrated, or hurt)? Are you practicing good self-care and consideration of others? Are you doing your best? Are you making a point to use whatever privilege you may personally enjoy to lift others up? Do you take steps to recognize and acknowledge injustice and seek to right those wrongs? Do you at least care enough to do what you can in the world to ease suffering by not fucking adding to the suffering in the world?
Are you looking for opportunities to do just a little more, just a bit better than you did yesterday?
I have serious doubts that any one human being regardless of apparent influence and “reach” can truly heal this fucked up messy violent world we live in… but g’damn, people, I am pretty fucking certain every individual one of us could do just a little bit more and better than we do right now. Think for a moment what a profound change it would make in the world if we each, as an example, simply stopped being petty and spiteful. Ever. At all. How much better would the every day experience of humanity as a whole become? What about anger? If 100% of every one of us learned to manage and express our anger more gently, and using only gentle words, how much more pleasant would the world be?
… And don’t even get me started about greed…
Every act of violence is an act of will. Every harsh word is preceded by a choice to say it. Every moment of pettiness, spite, and meanness is a moment that could have been handled quite differently. We have choices. Choose wisely. Be your best self because it actually matters to you – and to the world.
Maybe it’s not enough to do our best in these ways, but damn it sure beats doing nothing at all, doesn’t it? It’s free, it’s within our control, and each small effort to be kind, and compassionate, and considerate has the power to truly change the world in some small way as it ripples across the consciousness of humanity.
Choose your words and actions with care – because it does actually matter.
You have the power to make the world a better place. Will you though?
I’m waiting for the sun. The morning is chilly, hinting at autumn ahead. I’ll get a walk in, then head home to start the work day. So far this feels like a fairly ordinary Wednesday.
Perspective and a new day.
My Traveling Partner has a project going that he wants some help with. There are errands to run, including a trip to the grocery store. There are housekeeping tasks to get done sooner than later. And work. I’m not even bitching. I’m grateful to have the life I do. My quality of life is better than average and by far better than I’ve known in my own life at many prior points. There’s just a lot of real work involved in maintaining hearth and home and staying caught up on “everything” with very little help (right now). If nothing else, my Traveling Partner’s injury, surgery, and recovery, have served to emphasize his day-to-day efforts (and value), and his contributions to our life together. I definitely miss having his help around the house! He’s really good at some things I absolutely suck at.
Life is busy and the verbs are many. Some days I have been so tired. For now I seem to be managing to get the rest I need, mostly. Having some help from the Anxious Adventurer is an improvement (although there’s also a lot of guiding, coaching, and pointing out things which seem obvious to me, which adds to the emotional labor involved). Improving my self-care has been helpful, but also requires effort and attention from me, moment to moment. It all requires focus, balance, effort… practice. A lot of fucking practice. Sometimes, rather discouragingly, I feel as if I still very much suck at all of it, though I suspect this is bullshit created in my own head. I let that go whenever it turns up, as soon as I notice.
… I really want to be painting…
Yesterday I checked in with my Traveling Partner about his recovery from surgery, and whether he thinks he may be ready to handle things without my help every day by the end of September? I’m eager to take the pastels out to the coast again, and get another camping trip in before the nights are once again too cold for my comfort. I get his loving encouragement and find a campsite, and make reservations. New location. New perspective. New things to see. No way to know what the weather will actually be like this far in advance, but the historical details look promising and I feel enthusiastic and filled with anticipatory joy.
… I pause to hold on to the understanding that if my partner still needs me, I just won’t go…
Non-attachment isn’t about not caring about things. Non-attachment isn’t built on cynicism, bitterness, or disappointment. Practicing non-attachment, as I understand it myself, is more a matter of not clinging to events and ideas that are not happening as planned, or not happening at all, and it is a practice about letting go, generally. Non-attachment lets me more easily endure hard times by making me less likely to take shit personally. Big or small, life’s disappointments hit so much harder if I am gripping my expectations and assumptions tightly and trying to force reality to do my bidding, instead of mindfully observing my experience and the world around me, and just being okay with things as they develop. I’m not intending to “tell you how it is” or what to do with your life, I’m just saying my own experience is greatly improved when I can avoid getting trapped by my expectations and assumptions, and can simply be, as life unfolds ahead of me moment by moment.
…It still takes actual practice…
Being skillfully human takes so much work and practice sometimes. It’s harder than it looks to become the person I most want to be, and then to simply exist as that individual, living the values that matter most to me. I keep practicing. It’s a worthy journey.
I sit with the sunrise ahead of me at the halfway point of my morning walk, writing these words and thinking my thoughts. It’s a good morning for meditation, for mindfulness, for being and becoming. It’s a good morning to walk my own path. The journey is the destination.
I woke early and beat the sunrise to the trailhead. I meditate, then sit quietly waiting for the sun. The cloudy sky creates a sort of false dawn, reflecting back the light of human spaces in the distance.
Quiet time well-suited to reflection.
I wait.
I’m sitting here quietly grateful to be without the headache that ended my day yesterday evening. It go so bad I felt like the left half of my face was on fire, and the sound of human voices was painful and seriously aggravating, without regard to what was being said. That always sucks, and fortunately doesn’t happen often. Generally speaking, yesterday was excellent, aside from the headache that developed early and worsened over the course of the day.
Today is fresh and new. New opportunities. New moments. New choices. New experiences. New. I can begin again with each sunrise and walk my own path. That’s pretty exciting, and full of hope and promise. What will I do with it? Where does this path lead?
… Sleeping felt so good last night. I woke after sleeping through the night feeling rested and refreshed. I am already looking forward to sleeping, again…
This morning the temperature is mild and feels more like summer than imminent autumn. The air is sweet with the scent of wildflowers and meadow grasses. The quiet and stillness wrap me in a sensation quite unlike a workday, though it is a pretty ordinary Tuesday and I will soon be sitting down to work. I hear a distant train whistle break the stillness. Daybreak comes with the sound, almost as if caused by it.
I smile and stretch and reach for my boots and my cane. It’s a good morning to put a couple miles on these boots and a little distance between myself and whatever baggage I am still dragging through life. The sky is a soft moody blue – no colorful sunrise today. I can see the trail stretching out ahead to the next bend.
A soft misty rain begins to fall, so delicate it’s barely there, but I see it on the surface of the car as I walk away. I smile to myself and keep walking.
We become what we practice. Prove me wrong. When I practice being calm, I become a calmer person. When I practice listening I become a better listener. When I practice kindness, I become more inclined to be kind, generally.
…If I practice being angry, I become more easily angered, more often, and more likely to react with anger to circumstances and people that may not warrant such a reaction at all…
When I practice perspective and consideration, my perspective on life deepens, and I become more considerate.
The next conversation you have with someone may determine whether you continue to have the relationship you do. Good or bad. More connected or more distant. The words you choose and the emotions you embody become reality. A real experience being experienced. A memory being made.
Who are you? Who is that other person to you? If you live as the person you most want to be, how will you behave? What are you choosing to practice?
The way ahead is not always clear. It’s still your path, and you choose your direction and your steps.
You have choices. Choose wisely.
I reached the trailhead before daybreak, park gate still closed. I’m okay with that. I find the quiet solitary time necessary to my well-being and sometimes hard to snatch from a busy day. I enjoy every quiet moment that I happen upon. I sit awhile and reflect before I ever reach for my device, listening to the sound of traffic on the highway, and the ringing in my ears that never ceases and rarely diminishes.
A morning well-suited to solitary reflection.
The gate opens with a sort of screeching creaking sound. This morning my plan is to walk the entire loop trail around the marsh, (3 miles), then cut over to the river trail, and walk that out and back (1 mile each way) for a 5 mile walk. Goals. I change into my boots, remembering to grab my water bottle, my cane, my lightweight collapsible 3-legged camp stool, and a beautiful tangerine for later. The sky begins to lighten, and the fog begins to lift. Nice day for a walk with my thoughts.
I stand ready at the beginning of the marsh trail, listening for a moment, before I begin. I breathe the meadow-sweet air at the edge of the marsh. I feel vaguely sleepy under the cloudy gray sky. I sigh to myself as I step forward; no beautiful sunrise this morning and it looks like rain. As an afterthought, I grab my lightweight rain poncho and stuff it in my back pocket, “just in case”, and head down the trail.
Weed or wildflower? It’s largely a matter of context and perspective.
Sometime later, I stop at my decision-making point, where the marsh trail and river trail intersect. Walk on? Three miles or five? I unfold my little camp stool and take a seat to rest a moment. The air is cool and fresh and scented with something that seems at once both floral and spicy. I breathe, exhale, and relax. This moment is mine to enjoy however I wish. I choose gratitude, contentment, and joy, sitting here with my solitary thoughts.
…It really doesn’t have to be more complicated. Choose. Practice. We become what we practice…
I can’t tell you how to live your life. I’m just pointing out that you have (and make) choices. If your emotional experience of life is characterized by anger, frustration, and disappointment, which definitely sucks, you have the opportunity every day to choose (and practice) something very different. Life isn’t something inflicted upon you; you are living your experience. You choose your words, your actions, and to a large degree even your thoughts. If you don’t enjoy life as you live it now, choose to live it differently. The choices (and consequences of those choices) are yours.
… Sometimes growth and progress are uncomfortable. Sometimes we have to work harder, and go farther. Sometimes we have to chuck out what hasn’t worked and begin all over again. I look down the trail ahead of me. Five miles. I choose to walk on, and go further. I collapse my folding stool and sling it over my shoulder. It’s time to begin again.
Evening Light 