It’s a lovely morning on the trail. The sun is up, shining golden and filling the tree tops with light. The air is cool and hints at fall ahead. Summer scents of mown meadows and blooming flowers fill the still air. The distant hills are hazy; it’s wildfire season. I pause to sit and meditate as the morning becomes a new day. It is a lovely practice.
Sunlight and oak trees
“Nothing to see here.” I have the trail to myself, this morning. I enjoy that as the pleasant luxury that it is. I don’t own this land. I don’t have any claim on this place at this time. It is a public trail available for anyone who chooses to use it. It’s nice to have it to myself, and quite rare this time of year.
There’s a work day ahead, but it’s not yet time for that. This is time for me. Pleasant solitary minutes for walking and reflecting, for thinking and for meditating, and for snapping the occasional photograph of sunlight in the trees, or wildflowers, small birds, or the rising sun.
The sunrise, as I arrived.
I watch small yellow birds land on weedy stems alongside the path. They chirp together, nibbling at the seeds drying there after the flowers have faded and fallen.
A small yellow bird holds still for a picture.
Lovely moment. Lovely morning. I’ll work from home today, a nice break from commuting to the office. I am grateful to have the choice. I sit watching the little birds flutter among the weeds. There are several now. They ignore me and go about the business of the day.
…Each moment is so precious…
What are you cultivating? What are you working towards as a human being? Are you the person you most want to be? What steps are you taking to get there? What practices are you practicing? We become what we practice, so those choices really matter. Choose wisely.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. The morning chill contrasts with the warmth of the sunshine on my bare arms. I sigh contentedly. It’s a great beginning to a new day, for me, here, now. Your results may vary. You’re having your own experience – make the choices that will make it a good one, if you can. It’s worth making that effort.
… The journey is the destination…
I get to my feet to head back. It’s already time to begin again.
G’damn I am so tired. I’m in pain, and I’m tired. I feel like I’m running in place and expecting to catch-up. I’m laughing over it, for now (mostly), because like it or not it’s largely my own doing. Self-care is hard. It requires choices and clear expectation-setting. Everyone around me seems to want something (and it is often completely expected and normal – as with paid employment for example), and I keep bumping my own needs lower and lower on my list of shit to do until… I don’t. Or can’t.
A new day, a new opportunity to begin again.
When I take a minute and put things into perspective, I know that going off my Ozempic for a few days, then abruptly back on at the dose I’d been taking (no ramp down, no ramp up), it likely fucked with my emotional stability and mood management and “sense of things” – and I may still be dealing with that. I also know that enduring pain without prescribed pain management measures can be very physically fatiguing. So, I guess I’m not surprised by feeling sort of chronically overwhelmed and on the edge of exhaustion in spite of feeling that “things seem pretty normal, though”. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I set reminders for healthy breaks. I double check that I have my medication for the day with me (I forgot it yesterday and had to rely on back ups that I keep in the office, most of which I clumsily tossed into the toilet by mistake – it was that sort of day, honestly). I make a point of taking it on time. I take my walk, but it is shortened by the pain I’m in, in spite of level pavement and having my cane. I feel like I’m working damned hard for very little result.
…The thought brings tears to my eyes, which is a level of emotionality that is unusual for me, these days…
I’m suddenly swamped by a feeling of being wholly inadequate and “not good enough”, like, at all. This is an entirely subjective emotional experience not connected to any real world event or interactions, most likely brought on by fatigue and abnormally high self-imposed expectations. Circumstances being what they are, and “good enough” being very subjective, and me being – in general – “fine” for most values of “fine”, I’m fairly certain that this feeling of inadequacy is nothing more than some rando inner demon having its moment, attacking me from within – that’s what demons do. lol I sip my coffee. It’s also “fine”. Not great. Not bad. Just… coffee. I’m okay with it. I reflect on that for perspective. This cup of coffee doesn’t have to be better than it is to achieve it’s purpose successfully, it just has to be available for me. It is that and that is enough.
In spite of the deer eating the tops of all my tomato plants, I’ll have a few tomatoes. Enough.
…”Enough” can be a tricky concept to hold on to, sometimes…
Getting caught up in chasing more, better, or other than whatever is can be tiring and distracting. Finding balance sometimes means making a point to practice a sense of sufficiency in a purposeful focused way, in spite of the to-do list, the goals, the aspirations and ambitions… all of that is immediately irrelevant once the sands in the hour glass run out, eh? The whole of the experience, the journey itself, isn’t characterized by any one achievement or detail, and exhausting myself chasing the details is probably a pretty poor choice. I remind myself to slow down and take care of this fragile vessel. Sometimes that takes more effort, or more time, or more care – or more saying “no”, in spite of wanting very much to say “yes”. I sigh to myself. It annoys me to need both more rest and also more exercise.
…”Finding balance” is largely a matter of cultivating and practicing balance… (I’m not saying that’s easy. Honestly, it’s fucking annoying.)
“Baltimore Belle” blooming in my garden.
I try to lift my spirits with thoughts of flowers in my garden. Far away friends. Upcoming camping trips. It’s not really helping much; I just feel run down. My tinnitus is crazy loud in my ears and I wonder (again) how fatiguing it may be that I make attempts to distract myself or diminish my awareness of it, somehow? (It takes real effort, actual work, to present an appearance, regardless how effective the results may be – and my need for self-care increases with my fatigue.)
…Too much bitching…
Not enough time spent looking at flowers in the garden.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I take some time to meditate before beginning the day’s work. What next? Self-care. Seems obvious, but I’m sometimes fairly crappy at following through on it when I most need to. There are verbs involved. Practices. Consistency. Effort. Will. It’s necessary to do the things, not just hold awareness that they are needful, and not just talk about the relative importance. I sigh, again, feeling frustrated and impatient with myself. It feels like too much, and I put my head down on my desk and let the tears come. It’ll pass. It’s not important, really, it’s just a moment.
The bananas and strawberries? Just fruits. I’ve got some very ripe banana in the freezer for making banana bread when things cool off enough to bake – and when I’ve got the energy for it – and I recently enjoyed some delightful genuinely local (picked that morning) strawberries from a farmer acquaintance (which was nice, since the birds got most of mine this year). I suppose I’d meant to say something more or different about them when I sat down to write, but the moment took me a different direction. Very human.
I sigh again, feeling too human to get enough done. I look at the clock. Still ticking. It’s time to begin again. Again.
I’m sipping my coffee and looking out the window on a gray, somewhat rainy, morning. It rained all the way to the office, although calling it “rain” may stretch the point a bit; it was more of a sprinkle, but steady, occasionally becoming a brief shower. I enjoy summer rains. The fragrance is amazing. My back doesn’t care for them so much, the pain of my arthritis is similarly “amazing”, at least as a measure of severity. lol
What a lovely productive weekend. I reflect on the time spent in my Traveling Partner’s good company. There were occasional moments of discord, “wrong notes” in our otherwise lovely symphony. I’m okay with it – there’s gonna be a little rain now and then, however pleasant the climate, in most circumstances. It wasn’t even anything that amounts to a big deal, just little moments where we were ever so slightly “out of step” with each other, and moments when I took some little thing personally that wasn’t at all. It’s quite possible that I was simply cranky because the timing of my Ozempic was a little off due to the kerfufle with the fucking pharmacy and the lack of reliable availability of this medication. When things went a little awry, we made suitable apologies and took steps to restore harmony, though the evening seemed to end on a somewhat frosty note. Here too, I think it’s likely just me, reading something into the circumstances that maybe isn’t there at all. Small stuff can stay small, not gonna worry about something that likely doesn’t need that kind of “cling wrap” – no reason to keep it fresh. lol
Another Monday. 24 left in this calendar year. The time is passing quickly. I breathe, exhale, and relax, and prepare for a new day. I’ve got an errand to run after work that will take me down the commuter-crowded highways and freeways, about an hour in traffic, then turn around and make the longer-still trip home for the evening. It’ll be a long day. My Traveling Partner needs some shelving for a project, and honestly I’m so happy to see him back on his feet doing projects that I’m happy to run errands to keep that going for him. Then I remember the huge box full of styrofoam forms that is in the back of my car waiting to go to the drop-off point for such items, and wonder if I can even get the shelves into the car… I sigh to myself, and go to the website to have a look at the dimensions. I’d rather not even bother my beloved with my sudden doubts, and I have the resources to sort it out myself. Shit. I need the entire cargo space. What to do about the damned box now that I’m already at the office? Another sigh. I feel more than a little stupid not to have remembered the box while I was home, I could have just unloaded it. (Would it be reasonable to do that here, at the office, and then put it back in the car tomorrow?) (I can’t even inquire until much later; I’m alone in the office until after 09:00 a.m. most days.)
I sip my coffee, distracted by the practical details of an errand that doesn’t even become “a thing” until later today. Aren’t human beings strange creatures? We struggle to let things go once we’ve turned our attention to them (at least I do), even when there is no immediate need to sort things out. The only reason this fucking box is even in the car instead of already gone is that it is for an appliance we have not decided yet to keep. (Difficult to return without the packaging!) Another sigh. It’s a small problem to solve, and if I keep fussing over it I’ll neither solve it (reasons) nor enjoy my peaceful morning moment (due to not being able to solve it or let it go). Fucking primate brain. I chuckle to myself and look out on the rainy morning.
Gosh I hope my Traveling Partner has a good day today! He’s got a lot going on with his current project to rearrange his work and personal spaces to better suit his current needs. It requires quite a lot of moving of furniture and some heavy objects from where they sit to a different location, and of course all the smaller items that fit into or on those heavier pieces have to be moved first (and then again, last). It’s a lot to tackle. Over the weekend, I helped as much as I could, when asked. I also know doing the work himself is meaningful for my partner. There’s a balance to strike, and I often struggle with that sort of thing. Good practice, I guess. I sip my coffee thinking about love and partnership. And peaches. For some reason I am also thinking about peaches. lol
The rain spatters the window. My email pings me. It’s a new day and time to begin again.
In much the same way as “the clothes make the man”, the sunrise makes the day. To be most brief; it doesn’t. At all.
I say this after driving to the trailhead this morning watching a sunrise so colorful and splendid that it obscured all possible awareness of what tends to make such beautiful displays as dawn becomes day (which is typically some sort of terrible pollution in the air, or wildfires, rarely anything good).
I tried to snap a picture of this morning’s unbelievably beautiful sunrise. The sort of bold magentas and subtle lavenders that I feel inspired to paint. They seem unreal even in a photograph. The magenta and lavender hues gave way to bolder oranges, and tangerine and gold, and a vaguely bilious yellow green strip along the horizon as the sun began to rise above the hilltops. In between the streaked clouds, a delicate cerulean blue peaked through. No photograph could capture this tremendous display of beauty and color. I did try. lol
You had to be there.
By the time I reached the trailhead, the sunrise was over. The morning is quite cloudy and hints at rain. The ferocious heat has abated somewhat, and it is cooler than it has been, pleasantly so. The morning is quiet, but here in this place, I do hear the traffic on the adjacent highway as I lace up my boots. I listen to little birds chirping and carrying on, and I wonder what they are so excited about first thing?
Yesterday was interesting. Most of it was quite lovely, and spent in the good company of my beloved Traveling Partner. There were some moments that I will reflect on fondly for some time to come and I feel very loved. There were also a couple of moments that I could have done without, and I feel my expression change when I recall them. Humans being human. The moments don’t define the day.
I set off down the trail. I hear distant voices. I see hot air balloons in the sky, visible but quite far away. I walk the marsh trail, more meadow than marsh this time of year. I walk along the river. Somewhere nearby a duck quacks. A chipmunk darts across the path, as it turns and winds through the oak groves.
The map is not the world.
The journey is the destination, and the map is not the world. Our plan is not our experience. What we choose to wear, the words we say, the things we have or yearn for, these are not the essence of who we are. It’s closer to the truth to say that we are the path we walk, the choices we make, and the accumulated outcomes of those choices. We are the lived expression of our values – our real values, not the ones we say are dear to us, nor some trendy popular sound bite. A flag sticker on a vehicle doesn’t make the driver a patriot, nor does a catchy slogan make a responsible citizen (or a good leader). We tell the world (and those dearest to us) who we are through our actions, everything else is more like something we’re wearing, I think. Still chosen. We are, more than anything, the sum of our choices.
… Choose wisely…
I smile thinking about precious lived moments of love with my Traveling Partner. We’re unquestionably human, both of us, but g’damn do I ever love this particular human being with all my heart. I easily forgive and overlook little hurtful moments because they are few and only moments. No one moment defines the profound enduring love we share. He “gets me”. We know each well and deeply. Our lives have become so entwined over time I can’t imagine what life would be like without him. My smile deepens, recalling the unexpected gift he gave me yesterday, a small figure of a favorite anime character. Doesn’t matter why this character is among my favorites, but it certainly says something about me to see them there on my desk together: Wonder Woman, Major Kusanagi, Professor Chaos, and now Kento Nanami joins them. Aspirational role models? Avatars? Totems? I don’t know… little godlings perhaps, standing as light posts on a quiet street on a dark night. They represent qualities I seek and embrace within myself, or acknowledge and work to overcome. Definitely a bit of both; our heroes are as flawed as we are ourselves.
Who are your heroes? Why them?
I sit at my halfway point thinking and writing. Realizing that I don’t actually know who my partner’s heroes are. Not explicitly. I don’t think I’ve ever asked, though we share more of our inner lives with each other than most people likely do. Interesting. What an odd thing. I could guess, but guessing is a pretty poor way to gather information. I think I’ll ask sometime.
I sit awhile thinking about this man I love and who loves me so dearly in return. We’ve traveled some miles together. I hope we share many more. He has become part of me. This love we share is one of the best parts of who I have become over time.
If the sunrise doesn’t make the day, what does? No one moment is the entirety of a day unless we allow it to become so. A day is not the entire lifetime, any more than a step is the whole journey. We have so many opportunities to begin again if things go sideways or we step off the path.
What does “make the man”? For me? His values. His lived values. It’s not necessary for someone to tell you what they value with their words, their actions tell you all you need to know. What are you telling the world about who you are and what you value, with your actions? Are you satisfied with the picture your actions paint? If not, you have choices, and you can begin again.
I sigh and glance at the time. There’s this trail, and the day, ahead of me and the clock is ticking. I smile and stretch and get to my feet.
The Willamette River flows past quietly. The air smells of summer flowers and grassy breezes. I hear a variety of birds singing and calling from unseen locations in the trees along the bank. A woodpecker taps out a story of summer mornings and a squirrel nearby chirps her annoyance; I am too close, though I don’t see her.
Here comes the sun, new day, new perspective.
This morning my walk is along a trail I have not walked before. I found it earlier in the Spring, when the trees were bare, and the ground was muddy. Pretty spot, I thought then, meaning to return. It’s taken me awhile, but I am here and the moment does not disappoint.
A bunny on the trail ahead, an obstacle, an observation, or a fellow traveler; it depends on one’s point of view.
There are big thickets of thimbleberries out here. Lots of familiar wildflowers (they would be weeds if they were to turn up in my garden). Perspective.
The trail winds through the trees along the river, and around a planted meadow of clover, covered in purple flowers. In the center of the meadow there are several bee hives. Seeing that reminds me I’m allergic to bees (an allergy I acquired as an adult in my 30s, working in construction in California’s Central Valley). I double back, and grab my bee sting kit from my backpack, in the car, and begin again.
A trail walk on a summer morning.
The sun rises while I walk. I catch golden glimpses as I pass through the trees. The trail does a sort of figure eight, looping around and crossing over at the trailhead. One side is a short loop not quite a mile through the trees. The other side is also short, longer, a little less than two miles if I walk the little side loops, too. All of it quite pretty. I don’t hear any traffic at all. No agricultural noise either, though I’m surrounded by farmland, here. It’s Saturday and still quite early. A man walking two very excited well cared for Irish Setters overtakes me and passes by with a friendly greeting and assurances that his dogs are friendly. I walk on, until I find a convenient rock to sit on for awhile, watching the river flow past and listening to the buzz of insects.
Reflections and a quiet moment.
I don’t need more out of this moment than it offers. I’ll definitely be back – maybe tomorrow? Maybe some other day.
I expected this place might be quite crowded, when I was here in springtime, but I was misunderstanding the paved bit down to the river as a boat ramp, it isn’t at all, that was just how high the water level was at the time. No boat ramp here, just a steep drop off at the end of the sloping trail, and an even steeper eroded “trail” of a sort, for those bold enough to attempt it, leading down to a small sliver of sandy “beach” at the waters edge. I don’t go that far; I’m not confident I could get back up to the trail from there.
… I find it helpful to know my limits. I sometimes find it challenging to distinguish between legitimate limits and those self-imposed by fear or doubt…
Clouds gather overhead, obscuring the blue summer sky, and I feel a chill bit of air coming up from the river. I sigh and stretch and smile. Lovely trail. Lovely morning. Moments are temporary, no point getting attached to this one, and anyway, there’s further to go. Feels like time to begin again.
Evening Light 