I’m sitting in the sunshine in a favorite spot along a favorite trail, at the edge of an oak grove, between meadow and marsh (although the marsh is less marsh-y and more meadow-y this time of year making the distinction less clear).
A nice quiet spot for a pleasant quiet moment.
I’m taking a few minutes for meditation, and writing a few words before I get to my feet and finish my walk. Lovely morning for it. I enjoy this time and often use it for reflecting on this or that, and sometimes just to relax, breathe, and “hear myself think”. This morning? No agenda. No errands. No necessary shopping on the way home. Just this pleasant summer morning, this sunny spot in an oak grove, and these quiet solitary moments. It’s enough. Feels almost luxurious.
What might you see if you slow down to look?
Yesterday, at my Traveling Partner’s suggestion, I drove over to the coast and enjoyed a couple hours on the beach, exploring tide pools and walking with my camera, my thoughts, and my eyes on the horizon. Time well-spent. I returned home quite tired and satisfied with the day. I don’t know what I’ll do with today. My finger is still healing, no longer wrapped in a cumbersome bandage and surgical dressing, just a bandaid, but it’s not yet healed enough for hard work, gardening, or household cleaning solutions and still needs to be kept quite clean and dry and protected from damage. Maybe I’ll read? Do a bit of laundry? I just don’t know yet.
I sigh to myself and let all that go; it’s not important in this moment that I know what I’m doing in some future moment. Not this morning, on this lovely summer morning, perched on a fence rail, feeling the sun on my back. I let myself just enjoy this moment right here, now, while it lasts. Soon enough it’ll be time to begin again.
What we choose to consume matters. Fact is, all our choices matter to one degree or another. The results we get from any one choice over any other are reliably different. This is true of the food we eat, the books and periodicals we read, the services we use, the consumer goods we purchase, the platforms we subscribe to, the movies and videos we watch, and the politicians we elect. The tl;dr is that our choices matter, in our own life and in the world.
Businesses succeed or fail on their choices – and on ours as customers and consumers.
Societies rise, develop and fall based on the choices of chosen leaders enacting chosen policies.
We thrive or struggle based on our individual choices, and the choices of those around us.
It’s everything. From the choice of the food we put into our mouths (which could nurture or poison us), to the choice of who is best to lead us, every choice matters, every day, all the time. Are you up to the challenge? Are you ready to make willful, informed, eyes-open choices and also to accept responsibility for the choices you have made?
Are you even making actual choices or are you tumbling randomly through life with your choices being dictated by the opinions of others, or based on the constant media bombardment of advertising and “infotainment”? Are you even thinking your own thoughts, or has your mind been taken over by ideological bullet points, loyalty to party platforms, and AI slop?
…Who even are you?
Dawn of a new day.
As I left town heading for a favorite trail, I saw the beginnings of a beautiful colorful sunrise. I knew I had “missed my moment”. My timing would give me brief views of spectacular color, but no opportunity to do more than watch it as I drove. I faced a lived moment of natural splendor that could be appreciated and enjoyed, but not preserved. That’s okay. Hell, that is the truth of most moments. I don’t fight it. I drive on drinking in the scenery and watching the sunrise evolve from the magenta and luminous pinks to bold bright orange, then fading to hues of peach, salmon, and mauve. Gorgeous. Words don’t capture the moment.
I’m driving. Progress. The finger I had surgery on is still bandaged, but I’m back to my usual pain management, and driving, which feels good. My Traveling Partner suggests I take it easy today. I embrace that suggestion enthusiastically; I’m not quite ready to do housework, with one hand still impaired. He suggested maybe I entertain myself with a drive to the coast after my walk, and I agree that sounds like a great idea. Choices, eh? Today, and every day.
Our perspective on the world is informed through our choices regarding where to turn our attention.
I breathe, exhale, and relax – and set off down the trail after watching the last splashes of the colorful sunrise fade to a new day. Reaching my halfway point, I sit awhile on a handy fence rail at the edge of a meadow. I watch the sunshine light up the oak trees in an adjacent grove. Beautiful. Also choices. I don’t think about every choice I make, in every moment. Some things seem to flow one moment to the next in some determinate “natural” way, but these too are choices, and they are the sort of choices that can easily become problematic; they are not carefully considered and thoughtful. Even some brief pause between actions to consider the options is probably better than being on “autopilot” or following some path as though I were on rails (like a train more than a hike). I think about that as I watch little birds living their moments. “How much do they choose?”, I wonder.
Thinking things over is healthy. Critical thinking skills are worth developing, practicing, and using. It’s quite freeing to make a willful well-considered choice. Having real agency is powerful. These are all practices, and they are choices.
Choices upon choices requiring choices about choices – so many choices! I brush off my jeans as I get to my feet, still thinking about choices and the power we have to choose our path, and even the sort of world we want to live in. Every choice matters, and it’s already time to make the next choice and begin again.
It is the wee hours, and I’m awake. I haven’t yet fallen asleep, but I’ve enjoyed some lovely quiet time reading (re-reading a favorite classic, Siddhartha by Herman Hesse).
…I expected to fall asleep quickly.
An experience is very much what we make of it, and reality has no particular relationship to our expectations at all. I chuckle about it in the darkness. I’m unconcerned about having my device in front of my eyes right now, having dimmed the display to less than 25% and only “stopping by” while I drink some water and finish this cough drop to soothe my still irritated throat.
I was not wholly surprised to find myself wakeful. Different pain meds. Substantial changes in routine (to prepare for surgery), which included giving up supplements, and limiting or changing the timing of various medications and over-the-counter remedies. Of course I’m not asleep. I slept in this morning. I was drugged or unconscious much of the morning due to surgery. I slept for unmeasured hours after I was released to go home. Why would I even expect to actually be tired beyond the fatigue of injury itself? (Every healing surgery is also an experience of being injured, and systems interfered with!)
So. I’ve stirred myself enough to get some water. A cough drop. A change of position. (Picked another book, just in case sleeplessness persists.) I’ll meditate, then try sleep again and see where things stand when a new day dawns. That’ll be soon enough to begin again. First I need to take care of me (and brush aside these expectations cluttering things up my thinking, too, eh?).
Once upon a time there was a rose…
Morning of a new day. Why that picture? Because the damned deer ate my roses (again) and I was thinking about that during the night. I’d waited 4 years for that rose (Golden Opportunity) to bloom! I’m glad I got to see her. The deer only eat tender new growth… many roses bloom on new growth – you see the problem? Could be little cages for every rose next year except those that the deer don’t favor (I suspect they are either too thorny, or don’t taste good for some reason).
My cup of coffee is good this morning. Hot. Well and carefully made. Exactly as I like it. I’m grateful, but apparently I inconsiderately left the counter a mess (everything is just a bit more difficult with my left hand impaired, but that’s no excuse for not noticing that I had dripped coffee and grounds on the counter and failed to clean them up). So human. My Traveling Partner called it out with some annoyance; no one likes waking up to a mess. He was kind enough to clean it up as he made his own coffee. I’m annoyed with myself for leaving it, though. I hope our morning together is pleasant otherwise. I’m mostly myself this morning, but still recovering, and a little impaired. I remind myself to slow down and be patient with myself and alert to my surroundings.
I finally slept last night. I slept until I woke, much later than I generally would. My timing all feels off. It’ll pass. There’s no pressure; I’m off work today to recover. I take my time doing the budget and payday stuff; I’m typing with only 9 fingers, presently, and it feels awkward with the finger that is not available being an index finger. This will also pass. A lot of the details of our human experience are quite temporary. Too temporary for a lot of fuss and bother or agitation, generally. It’d be nice if that were an easier idea to hold onto in a stressful moment! It takes practice – and the practice is in the lived experiences; results will vary. I sip my coffee and think about that. We become what we practice – there is persistence implied, and continued repetition over time. Effort. Verbs. Will.
It’s pleasant to have a Greek yogurt drink (peach) with my coffee this morning. I didn’t enjoy having to go to “clear liquids” only, for the 24 hours before my surgery. lol It was more about the loss of the sensual delight in tasting something good, less about hunger or blood sugar – the Ozempic definitely did it’s job there. Turns out that, at least for me, the experience of food and meals and tasting things is one of life’s real joys, and the day felt stripped of something precious without it. It wasn’t actually a big deal, it’s just genuinely nice not having to go without, and I’m appreciating that. There is real value in taking a moment to appreciate something, to feel it, to enjoy it, to be in that moment, so I make it a point to do that. It has tended to result in an implicit experience of life as pleasant and positive, generally, instead of the bleakness and feeling of futility that once characterized how I experienced my life. A very good practice (for me) and a change I’m very glad I made.
Yesterday was quite nice, after the surgery. I mostly slept, but when I woke it was to an experience of being cared for. My Traveling Partner was wonderful, (going with me to my surgery, bringing me home and caring for me all day) and the Anxious Adventurer did his part as well (bringing me a very nice sorbet to soothe my throat on his way home from work and taking care of dishes and trash and housekeeping stuff), and it was so nice to chillax over silly videos and munch pizza together at dinner time. No idea what today holds, really, nothing complicated – I’m giving myself the best chance I can to heal well and thoroughly without complications. I use my hands a lot. I’m grateful to have the use of them.
I think things over another few minutes. I hear my partner call to me from the other room, checking on me. It’s time to begin again.
It is morning. Well past dawn or sunrise. I’m off work – surgery today. Now and then my anxiety begins to flare up, mostly the result of troubling memories of past surgical experiences. It’s a “nothing” sort of thing. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I pull myself back into this moment. This surgery coming up today is quite minor. It’ll probably be done under a local anesthetic and finished in minutes. Regardless; the outcome will be what it is when that time comes. For now I enjoy my coffee in the garden.
A new day.
So… It’s much later. It’s evening. My anxiety was worse than I expected (or was willing to acknowledge). I’m calling it a night and feeling a bit woozy from the last lingering after effects of the surgical stress, the anesthesia, and the pain medication they gave me for today and tomorrow. I don’t really expect to need it past then, and figure I’ll be on my usual meds in the usual way by Saturday for sure. It went fine. I was surprised that it was done under general anesthesia – seemed the sort of thing that could potentially have been handled with an exacto knife and a moment of moment of excessive frugality, perhaps. lol
… Getting everyday shit done is a tad more complicated by being drugged and one-handed, but it’s temporary…
In practical terms my ability to manage my anxiety skillfully was, at best, superficial and only barely adequate. As a result I managed to aggravate my Traveling Partner (first thing in the morning), who was trying to provide caregiving and support and manage his own worry without adding to my stress. He wasn’t fooled. I did manage to mystify the nurse at the surgical center with my higher-than-200/90 blood pressure when my records show my historical average around 135/70. lol She didn’t see my anxiety at all (and I didn’t explicitly call it out). She said later that I seemed very calm and steady, after I thanked her for helping to calm me before surgery. There’s something to learn from that. One clear takeaway is that “managing” and “masking” are not the same practices and can’t get the same results. I gotta work on that. It matters to choose the right tool for any job.
Still, it’s behind me now. My throat is a bit raw from their method of managing my respiration while I was unconscious. That’s not a complaint, just an observation. I’ll have some water, and a cough lozenge, get a good night’s sleep (I hope), and tomorrow, I’ll begin again.
I’m sipping my coffee in the office, thinking about things that have nothing whatsoever to do with work. I’ve got surgery tomorrow (minor), and a day off for recovering after that. The weekend is ahead, but I’ll likely be at least somewhat impaired (due to the specifics of the surgery). Doesn’t really matter, I’m just letting my mind wander, thoughts drifting by like clouds on a summer day. “Nothing to see here.” I’m just enjoying my coffee and a few minutes before the day begins in earnest.
…Clear liquids only for the next 24 hours (I say that like it really matters, but I don’t guess it does)…
I breathe, exhale, and relax. The steady wush of the ventiliation in the background does not blot out the whine of my tinnitus. I notice it, but I let that go – it’s not “important” or relevant to the moment (or to most moments), it’s just an irritant (if I focus on it for too long). Pleasant enough beginning to the day, I guess. There’s nothing wrong here. The sky is gray with heavy summer storm clouds – no colorful sunrise. My back aches. I put that out of my mind, too, as much as I am able. There’s nothing much to be done about it.
I sit with those thoughts that linger, making room for gratitude and thoughts of my garden. I feel fortunate to have gotten to see “Golden Opportunity” bloom (for the first time since she was planted in 2021!), before the deer ate those flowers and every bit of tender new growth from that rose bush. Oh, sure, I fuss about it and it’s aggravating, but like many of life’s most useful lessons, if I make room in my experience to understand a bigger picture, and develop a more nuanced perspective, I could learn something that has lasting value. I sit thinking about what drives the deer to my garden each Spring and early summer, and what they don’t eat. I contemplate what I could potentially do to discourage them from eating my roses and tender salad greens without wrecking the aesthetic of the garden with a lot of ugly fencing. I look at pictures of my roses. The specific thoughts I think in this quiet time are less important than that I do take this time for myself, to “hear myself think”, each day. It is a means of building resilience, and also of ensuring that I feel appreciated and heard by the one person who has to listen to all of my chatter (and internal dialogue) – the woman in the mirror. Self-care matters. This is part of that.
I sigh to myself when I glance at the clock and notice the time. Of course. It’s time to begin again.
Evening Light 