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Gratitude as a Practice

May 23, 2026 //
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Trigger warning: run on sentences. 😆

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

Yesterday, I let the day get to me. I mean, it was vexing in spots. Frustrating. Tedious. Busy. I mostly dealt with things, mostly successfully, mostly effectively, and delivering on most expectations of most people seeking something from me acceptably well. I almost snapped when my Traveling Partner supportively encouraged me to make a point of taking care of myself, also – and I managed to refrain from rudely observing I just didn’t see how time for that shit was left in my day.

… Because he’s right, taking of myself needs to be a higher priority, at least most of the time, than anything else anyone asks of me. It has proven incredibly difficult to make that my boundary in practical terms. Sometimes I resent the fuck out of that. Sometimes I accept it reluctantly as an unfortunate byproduct of being female in a misogynist patriarchal society. Sometimes I struggle with it on a whole different level fueled by irrational seething unsatisfied rage left behind by trauma and held in check by pure will and good manners…

… I’m very human…

(We’d all better hope AI doesn’t achieve actual conscious intelligence – because it seems unlikely we’ll be prepared for the amount of rage that will coincide with the awareness of designed-in servitude.)

So…yeah. Yesterday was difficult in spots, after a similarly difficult week. I’m over it this morning, though. I slept in after a pleasant night hanging out with my beloved Traveling Partner, feeling warmly appreciated and valued, especially hearing him share how good he feels about “us”. He is doing some amazing things with our home automation, and our home network. His design work always delights me, too. It’s fun to “have him back” after his long convalescence.

Sunshine and gratitude.

I hit the trail well after sunrise this morning. I walked with my thoughts, happy and filled with gratitude. I’ve got this sunny morning, and a short list of things to pick up at the store. I’ve got to fight the American healthcare system, too, but I feel ready for it this morning. I’m grateful for this life and my opportunities. I’m grateful to be so well loved by my partner, and well-regarded professionally by my colleagues. I’m grateful to have this platform to write from and for each of you who read my words. (Thanks, by the way, nice to have you stop by. 😃)

Here’s the thing; the gratitude itself is a practice. I choose to explore my experience and to willfully make a point to acknowledge my good fortune and to be (and feel) grateful. In much the same way I can use curiosity to fight anxiety, I use gratitude to fight discontent and anger. It’s actually really hard for anger to persist in the face of authentic gratitude. Doesn’t even require trying to force feelings of gratitude over the actual thing pissing me off – not at all. Gratitude for completely unrelated things and circumstances works quite well, and doesn’t create cognitive dissonance.

I kept at it yesterday. Each time my anger and frustration surfaced (it was a difficult week, mostly due to work crap, and my headache), I would insert some grateful thought about something. It helped keep me calm.

By the end of the evening I was feeling pretty merry. Before I went to sleep, I sifted through my recollections of the week, grateful for this or that experience, some small moment of joy, a kind word from my beloved, a beautiful flower, some coincidence that brought delight – there were actually so many I fell asleep “counting my blessings”. My dreams were welcoming and infused with soft joy. Sleeping in was a treat. Watering the lawn in the early morning daylight was a pleasant way to enjoy the garden before I set off for my walk. Some practices are pretty easily reinforced once cultivated, because the rewards are obvious and pretty immediate. Gratitude as a practice is one of those. (Authenticity and sincerity matter a great deal with this practice, and learning to practice gratitude is an exploration of what really matters most.)

The morning is off to an excellent start. There is a soft buzzing and sound of insects and peeping frogs down closer to the creek, and for a moment I can forget about my tinnitus as it blends into the sounds of nature around me. The sunshine makes the glitter on my nails throw shards of colored light here and there. The low flat rock I’m sitting on causes me to gaze through tall grass, the illuminated tops nodding slowly in the faint breeze. It’s a beautiful moment.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. Soon enough it will be time to begin again. For now, I’ve got this moment, and I’m grateful.

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

Here We Are

May 22, 2026 //
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It’s a cool Spring morning. Looks like a hot afternoon ahead. I feel like I have things to do today, or this weekend, but this moment here, now, is mine. Sunlight illuminates the tops of the tall oaks along the path leading through and around the vineyard. There is an assortment of trucks and construction vehicles along a portion of the trail. I frown as I pass them. I hope the trees aren’t being cut down.

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

It is an ordinary enough day. A Friday.

…The government is still ridiculously corrupt. It’s shameful; a clown car driven by a demented narcissist straight into a dumpster fire just about describes it. It’s a shame Trump just had to stuff our nation’s future right into that dumpster before setting it ablaze. What a disappointing fuckwit. Clear proof that money and education don’t make someone a good person.

… The planet continues to warm. Weather patterns continue to get weird. The sea continues to rise. Are you surprised that no one wants to deal with it until they are directly affected?

…War and genocides continue around the globe. I’m getting the impression that we’re far less civilized than we pretend.

I sigh to myself and try to let the weight of it all just fall away. Sitting here, one woman alone on the side of a well maintained trail in a small town, there’s damn little I can personally do about foreign wars, climate change, or grifting idiots in positions of power. I can, however, enjoy this Spring morning and this sunshine. I can watch the small dark birds gathering bits of dry grass and flitting off with it. I can watch the farmworkers arriving to start their work in the vineyard.

I’ve got a long weekend ahead. I have the recollection that my Traveling Partner had thoughts on something to do, but now that I fish around in the vast ocean of my memories trying to recall… I think it was a request to vacuum. 😆 Brunch with the Chaotic Comic Sunday, too. I remind myself to make time for the garden, and a trip to the store. So completely ordinary. Maybe a nice dinner? Stir fry? Burgers? I shrug to myself and my thoughts move on. I’ve got a nasty headache and I’m disillusioned by “the state of things” here and abroad. Is it just the headache? Probably not; greed turns people into terrible corrupt fuckwits, and it’s legitimately disappointing and unpleasant to acknowledge.

I sigh to myself, and let that go too. I breathe, exhale, and relax, and come back to here, now. I watch the trees fill with light as the sun rises. It’s time to begin again.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, War and News of War, women, Words

The Rise of the Fall

May 19, 2026 //
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In the news, grifters go on grifting, the president of the US openly engages in what looks like insider trading, greed continues to shove AI “features” into tools where no one wants it, and people who already have much continue to take more from people who have very little. It’s not exactly humanity’s finest hour. Measles. Hantavirus. Ebola. All pretty bad. You know what’s worse? Genocide. War. Greed.

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

Where does this path lead?

Do better. If nothing else, we can, as individuals, choose to do better than billionaires and authoritarian jackasses. We can stop chasing dollars, and take a long look in the mirror, and question the path we are on. Are you on the path to becoming the person you most want to be? Will you live a life you can be satisfied with, ethically, or will you go to your grave reviled by all those whose lives you damaged?

I’m not telling you what to do. I don’t have easy answers. I’m human, too. I want the safety of knowing the bills are paid, that my family is in good health, and the pantry is stocked. I want the luxury of an occasional meal out, new hiking boots when these wear out, and comfortable clothes that fit. We probably all want something. I’m not here to sneeze on the things that matter to you. We’re each having our own experience. I just don’t see many billionaires doing good things for the world by design. $100 of philanthropy does not make up for $100 in damage to humanity. It doesn’t work that way. That’s not “doing good” in the world, that’s just fixing a pothole caused by one’s own endeavors. Performative guilt-soothing “good” isn’t a benefit to humanity once the damage is done.

Sometimes human primates are very disappointing. (Looking your way Altman v. Musk) Shoving “AI” garbage into the experiences of people who just don’t want it is not good for humanity. It’s just another cash grab by out of touch assholes who think their perspective is the only one that matters.

I sigh to myself and pause on the trail to watch the sun rise. A beautiful sunrise never disappoints. I breathe, exhale, and relax, and fight off the existential angst I woke with. It’s not as if my bitching is changing anything. (Sorry.) I do dislike seeing humanity’s potential actively being undermined by AI slop and enshittification. It truly sucks to see humanity come so far to fall so hard, so fast.

…It does feel (to me) as if we’re falling (sometimes)…

It’s a chilly morning on the trail. The air tastes of something almost autumn-like. It’s still Spring, so it seems strange to taste autumn in the air… but… I think we may have broken our planet, along with other destructive outcomes of human douche-baggery. I sigh, and watch my breath become vapor.

I reach my halfway point and stop for awhile. A warmer fleece would have been a good choice, but relative to genocide or drone strikes, it’s a minor inconvenience, nothing more. I’m well aware that the world I live in is bigger than this peaceful place betwixt small town living and agriculture. I just can’t stomach what I see going on in the world, and this small personal escape each morning to find a moment of contentment, perspective, and solace in solitude is a practice that keeps me from losing hope.

For a moment I can focus my camera on clear blue sky and rest my soul.

A startled possum out for a late one waddles past in a hurry, sticking to the shadows. Strange to see one out in the open in daylight, but she’s clearly more worried about getting home than anything to do with me. Noisy robins get on with the morning. The clock keeps ticking. My head aches and my tinnitus is almost loud enough to mask the sound of HVAC on a nearby building. I sigh out loud just to remind myself that the tinnitus isn’t “real” at all.

What I put my attention on directly determines the quality and character of my experience. I pull myself back to this moment, here, now. I make myself a note about this moment, and the day ahead, and something to do with free will and choices and walking my own path. Then I begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, breathe, Despair, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, thoughts on AI, War and News of War, women, Words

I Had a Thought…

May 11, 2026 //
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… It’s gone now. If only I had had the foresight to jot down the thought when it occurred to me. I sit thinking about that for awhile; the ludicrous number of times I’ve had a thought that seemed worthy of further reflection, set it aside “for later”, and then lost track of it completely.

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

Weird world. It now costs almost $60 to fill my Mazda CX5’s gas tank with regular. Craziness. Everything costs more. Wages are worth less. Billionaires get richer. I have a doctor’s appointment later that I now regret scheduling. It’s not that I don’t need the medical care, it’s that I resent the time and expense required to obtain it. Somehow my actual health is a lower priority than shareholder profits for health insurers, and I’m pretty repulsed by that, on top of the cost and inconvenience. I sigh to myself and listen to my tinnitus ringing away in my ears.

It’s a beautiful Spring morning. I pull myself back to this moment, this place, sitting in the sunshine at the halfway point on this morning’s walk.

Blue sky and green oaks.

The sky is a clear cerulean blue this morning. I sit quietly, letting these precious solitary minutes tick by. I did a completely crappy job of “taking it easy” this weekend. My Traveling Partner needed help with this and that, and I was around. It’s hard not to offer to help, and harder still to decline if asked to be helpful for a moment or a task, and the weekend ended up consumed by those helpful efforts. I’m not mad about it, nor resentful – I’m also not well rested, nor did I get fuck-all done for “self-care”. I guess I’m grateful I didn’t hurt myself, and I got the laundry done, and some basic housekeeping along the way.

Here it is Monday. I’m not mad about that either. I’m a little annoyed about the doctor’s appointment though. I feel as if I just don’t have time to be bothered with caring for this fragile vessel at all. Fuck it – use it up! Only… there’s no way to simply get a new one. This is it. This is the mortal “vehicle” that has to carry me the entire distance on this journey. I already know I need to take better care of it.

I sigh to myself and fret over this incredibly commonplace challenge; taking care of myself, and taking time for myself, when it seems the world has other demands on my time and my energy. Adulting is hard.

My Traveling Partner gets it. He did his best to ask for my help only when he really needed it. He is encouraging me to get away for the weekend, next weekend. I’m thinking about it, but also struggling with myself to justify the expense. I breathe, exhale, and relax, and let all that go, again, to more deeply enjoy this moment in the Spring sunshine.

I sit awhile with my thoughts. I’m not going to rush the moment. The day will be busy enough later on. For now, I can slow down and just be. It’s enough. I’m grateful for this beautiful morning. I can begin again later.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, Words

Untitled

May 9, 2026 //
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I don’t much feel like writing this morning. Hell, it wasn’t my plan to be walking this morning. My plan was to sleep in and take it easy, and to spend the weekend taking care of myself. It was my Traveling Partner’s idea.

… Plans? Meet reality.

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

It’s a bit later in the morning than I usually write, but only because I simply sat here at my halfway point quietly occupied with my thoughts for so long. There’s no one else here yet, this morning. I breathe, exhale, and… do that a few many more times. I watch the sun rise. I reflect on life, love, mindfulness, and presence. I consider the meaning(s) of words and contemplate the nuances and complexities of communication. I think thoughts. This moment right here? Well-suited to contemplation.

Yesterday went sideways quite unexpectedly later in the evening, and although I don’t much feel like discussing it, it is what is on my mind. Less in a ruminative spiraling way, and more in a gently reflective studious way, seeking to learn what I can that I can put to use to do better later on. Over years of practice, this has become my way. Is it effective? Probably depends on who you ask. I think it is. My therapist has said he thinks it is. What my Traveling Partner thinks probably varies quite a lot depending on what I’m putting him through on any given day. We’re each having our own experience. Differences in perception and lived experience make things kind of complicated. I do my best. So does my partner. Sometimes it isn’t quite enough (of whatever was needed in the moment). The journey may be shared, but we’re still each walking our own path. Individual, separate human beings sharing precious finite mortal minutes.

We become what we practice. Practice is a verb. There’s a ton of practice required to make a permanent change, especially to behavior that developed out of trauma. I sigh to myself.

This morning my head aches. Allergies maybe, but these days it seems like I’ve nearly always got a headache. I remind myself that it will pass. My thumbs ache in  the latest edition of “where has my arthritis gone to now, y’all?” Neck… shoulder… knee… ankle…yep, it’s all there, all still attached and functional, but fuck all this pain, though. I double check that I took my medication this morning. I breathe, exhale, and then stretch and yawn, and encourage tight muscles to relax.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. Mom has been gone a long time now. 2019? I think that’s right. Her birthday would have been at the end of May. My Dear Friend, too, is gone. It’s been a couple years now. I still miss her, but can’t remember when her birthday was. Instead I remember losing her. No calls to make for Mother’s Day. It’s weird what seems to matter after someone is gone. I reflect on that awhile.

…I can’t imagine life without my Traveling Partner…

I let a poignant moment of sorrow and gratitude wash over me, and I let it pass without criticism or scrutiny. Emotions are very human. I pause and consider the importance of making room for someone we love to express their emotions and have their own experience of circumstances. That’s not always reliably easy, especially if their experience seems different from our own. I struggle with this, more than a little and far too often. The temptation to explain or correct isn’t generally useful when emotions are involved. Better to listen deeply and understand circumstances from another perspective, and doing so is undeniably difficult sometimes.

Staying mindful and compassionate and open to understanding someone else’s experience is seriously one of the most complex practices among a long list of communication and relationship practices. I need a lot more practice. Even knowing these things, I still get it wrong…a lot. Very human. So beautiful and worthwhile when I get it right (and I often do, after years of practice, but I also fuck it completely far too often to be complacent about my limited successes).

I breathe, exhale, and relax. The cotton fluff of some tree or another is blowing about on the breeze. I eye it with a measure of annoyance; it’s one of the few plant things that I’m definitely allergic to. My sinuses are pretty clear for the time being. I took my morning allergy meds as soon as my feet hit the floor this morning, which turns out to have been a good choice. Probably best not to linger in this strip of trees though. I get to my feet to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, grief, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, women, Words
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