My head aches. I woke with it. I allow myself the luxury of assuming the national news coming out of Washington DC is more of the same terrifying crazy destructive billionaire greed-driven bullshit that will cost millions of good people of modest means their livelihoods, or possibly their lives. I don’t bother looking at it. I sigh quietly and look to my mental health and survival.
There are verbs involved. Seedlings to thin. Weeds to pull. Practices to practice.
I think about my garden. I’ve got plans to add another raised bed, and to put in the effort and care necessary to produce a significant amount of our food. It may ultimately be actually necessary. I’m expecting imported produce to become ridiculously costly very soon. I remind myself to consider joining a local farm co-op, too. I’m fortunate to live in an agricultural area, and there are multiple options. I’d keep a couple chickens if I had room to do so, but I don’t. I’ve kept chickens (and once a turkey), best eggs I’ve ever had. It would be worth the effort if I had the space.
I think about time spent in the kitchen, and how rewarding home baked bread and cookies and snack cakes are. Time consuming, too, and I’m often so tired that it’s hard to imagine doing even more, but it may simply be necessary.
Simple pleasures, lasting memories.
Go fewer places, spend less money, read more books, and enjoy simple pleasures; I feel fortunate that these are options that are both effective and (for me) pleasant. I sit with my thoughts about sufficiency and sustainability, and the many survival crafts I learned at home. I’ve got a new appreciation for the things my parents taught me as a kid about getting by in hard times.
Repair, re-use, recycle… getting more out of less may become something urgently necessary for a lot more people, just to get by. I sigh over my coffee – a luxury I may see myself giving up, depending on how tariffs hit coffee imports.
Quite a lot has gone into getting from “there” to “here”. 🙂
Are you worried too? Probably a good idea that we (as a nation) stop voting grifters, criminals, cheats, and unqualified nitwits into office, you know? This isn’t a partisan concern. It’s an ethical concern. It’s a matter of character, the character of our nation. People out for their own interests and focused on personal gain exist in every party. You can choose differently. That’s not really what I’m focused on this morning. I’m not telling you what to do with your vote or your voice. I’m just thinking about getting through this crap for at least the next four years, supporting my family, enjoying life with my Traveling Partner, tending a productive beautiful garden, and reading more books – especially any books that people in power think I ought not read. lol Buy books while you can (yes, it could get that bad, though I hope very much that it doesn’t).
I sip my coffee, really tasting it. I think gratefully about the next hot shower I take, and consider putting in the effort to make a batch of shower fizzies, and wonder if I put the ingredients in storage, or just tucked them into a corner somewhere? I think about baking bread this weekend, and making jam this summer. I don’t really like to work so hard, not gonna lie, but I do like to live well.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I meditate awhile listening to the robins cheerily greeting the new day. The sun is rising. It’s time to choose a path and walk it. It’s time to begin again, and the clock is ticking.
I’m sipping my coffee and ignoring (as much as I can) the chronic pain of my osteo-arthritis, which radiates upward from my spinal fusion, which was done years ago, when the state of the art was quite different than it is today. I knew then that my surgery was a new approach to the problem, and that some outcomes were unknown. The goal was to prevent me from ending up in a wheelchair partially paralyzed, and to allow me to continue to serve on active duty (Army). I guess for most values of success, my surgeries were a great success. I’m still walking. I did continue to serve (was even deployed to war in the 90s’), after a period of convalescent “retirement”, although I got “RIF’d” after that war (which broke my heart, but is an altogether unrelated story). So, generally, I’ve nothing to regret about that surgery if I’m just thinking about those details. But…
…There were consequences – of both the injury itself, and the surgeries that followed. The arthritis started to develop in my spine about 3 years after my surgeries. I didn’t understand why I was in so much pain all the time, and it took a rather stupid amount of time for that to be appropriately diagnosed; I was young. Medical bias being a real thing, many doctors were persistently just as “mystified” as I was. What could be causing my pain? How could I have arthritis at my young age? I still feel frustration and annoyance by that lack of curiosity, and lack of diagnostic skill (or persistance). Pain they could not feel themselves did not matter to them.
Then, there were the other things… the persistent chronic itch below my left shoulder blade, that I couldn’t quite reach and that scratching didn’t ease. A “phantom itch” that still bothers me occasionally (CBT really helped with that). A chronically cramped muscle down low on my back, on the left side of my body, most likely a result of the disturbed section of musculature attaching to my spine being put back “not quite in the right place” during my surgery (to make room for the hardware that was there for a year) and which healed into a new, less than ideal, location. This, too, still bothers me, often. Most of it I had to “figure out” in pieces, with limited help from too many doctors, and a lot of study. Sexual challenges (both neurological, and also to do with practical matters like lubrication) that were awkward to discuss were another thing; I was past 60 before a physician finally said, with some surprise, “of course that’s related to your spinal injury” after looking at my records, surgical reports, and images, and listening to me with great care. She seemed so matter-of-fact about it, I ended up enraged for days that no one else had said as much. I went through some shit over that issue with more than one lover, I can tell you. Turned out it wasn’t “my fault” or “a lack of desire”, or anything I could actually do much about; I have a spinal injury. Duh. I spent a few days moping around pretty pissed off about it.
What I thought I understood.
Why am I on about this, today? It’s to do with perspective and knowledge, and how those create our understanding (or don’t). I knew coming out of my surgery all those years ago that I had a permanent “30% stenosis”, and I felt that I understood what that meant. I mean, words having meaning, and I knew the meanings of the words…so… I understand? Don’t I? I thought I “got it”. My lack of real understanding was stunning, and it would be decades before that changed. It wasn’t actually a doctor that changed my understanding. It was math – and a moment at the dining room table with my Traveling Partner; a “lightbulb moment” to do with circles, that was completely unrelated to my spine, my injury, or my pain. lol (Pay attention in school, kids – math matters, and it’s useful stuff.) Something clicked.
What I hadn’t understood, in spite of seeing the images, reading the reports, and discussing with doctors, was what my stenosis meant in my case, specifically. For many years, I imagined 30% percent stenosis as a uniform 30% reduction in a circular area. (I felt pretty stupid when my understanding changed.) Firstly, the spinal canal as a “tubular structure” is not a beautifully perfect mathematical cylinder wherein a slice would appear circular. Not at all. It’s quite different than that. Also, and more importantly, my injury (which crushed two vertebrae, and broke off a spinous process which was then forced into my spinal canal by the impact and subsequently could not be removed) and the repair of that injury did not result in anything like a uniform reduction in area all the way around. Not even close.
Geometry for the win. lol
Reality doesn’t care what we believe. Our pain doesn’t care what we think we understand about our body. Reality is. Pain is. Conditions are what they are regardless of our understanding. So, for years I had struggled with symptoms that made no sense to me – because I so poorly understood my condition – and which I could then not clearly articulate to doctors, who may also not have understood my condition, because (let’s just be real about this, eh) doctors are also human and also have limitations to their own knowledge (and limitations on the amount of time they can spend reading patient histories with the care needed). I understand more/better now, but… I’m still limited by all the things I do not know. I still live within a reality that I perhaps only partially understand because of those limits.
…And reality doesn’t care at all what I understand…
Our perspective and our knowledge limit our understanding – but reality goes on being real, regardless of what we think we know or how we think we understand the world around us.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. Living with the pain is pretty much a requirement. There is no option to live without it, at least not now, not really. I do my best. Maybe that reality will change at some point in the future? Technology changes. Medical progress is made. I’ve learned to practice fairly skillful pain management in the meantime. I’m not complaining, not really. Good self-care and skillful pain management may not add up to a “cure for pain” – but it does help.
I sip my coffee thinking about my Traveling Partner, his injury, his surgery, his progress… he’s come so far, so fast, relatively speaking (although I know it doesn’t feel that way to him). We both deal with pain, and I don’t personally see a future where that’s not a thing we deal with, each having our own experience, each doing our best. I feel fortunate to have a better understanding of my injury than I once did. I’m grateful for a conversation at the dining room table about math and circles and ratios and areas, and grateful for a partnership that understands pain and makes room for love anyway. Grateful for love. Things could be worse.
I look out the window. My mind wanders away from the pain I’m in – probably a change for the better. It doesn’t do to dwell on the pain. Don’t get me started about this fucking headache. I sigh quietly and glance at my calendar, and the clock. It’s time to begin again.
I’m sitting in the artificial twilight of a lamppost at the edge of my preferred local trail. It’s not yet fully dawn, but there’s a hint of daybreak in the changing color of the sky. I caught myself scrolling through the news headlines, though there is nothing there worth reading. Nothing new. Mostly intentionally distressing – or selling something. I put it aside. I don’t benefit in any way from becoming sucked into that garbage.
I think about stumbling on the trail a few moments ago. I caught myself, didn’t fall, but it was a moment of inattention and the outcome could have been worse. There’s something to learn there. It’s a metaphor. In a sense, scrolling through the news feed mindlessly is another sort of stumble. Disregarding healthy portion control when I struggle with my weight? Another stumble. Skipping a planned walk or a workout when I have specific fitness goals? Stumble.
Other lives, other challenges, other ways to stumble on a path. An addict in recovery having “just a little, this one time…”. Stumble. Someone making an important lifestyle change yielding to an old habit. Stumble. Important financial goals overlooked for a little “retail therapy”. Stumble. Giving that toxic relationship another chance. Stumble. It’s so very human to stumble, but we really can catch ourselves, and get back on the path. We really can acknowledge our failures and begin again.
I sit with that thought watching daybreak come, turning the sky blue beyond the dark clouds overhead. It’s okay to fail and begin again. It’s okay to pause on the trail to rest or to reflect. It’s okay to be human. It’s a journey. The journey is the destination.
I think of a far away friend admitting to me that she hadn’t been reading my blog. I was surprised by the admission, not because I expect all my friends and people dear to me to read my writing, but more because she found the admission embarrassing or awkward at all. I’m pretty sure it’s a near inevitability that any one reader will eventually stop reading and move on to other things. lol I see “this place” as a resting point on a journey more than a path. Once my point is made, the rest is perhaps noise. Repetition. I certainly wasn’t hurt by her admission. I’m here. You’re here now. For a moment we travel together whether through coincidence or intention, and we nonetheless each have our own experience. I rarely cross paths “in real life” with someone who reads my writing. She’s rare and delightful in that way. I cherish the experience, but don’t expect it. Our Dear Friend connected us, here, through their conversations about my writing. I was fortunate indeed to eventually sit down with them together over coffee. What a joyful day! When our Dear Friend neared the end of her life, we shared that too. I’m grateful.
Dawn. A new day, and the path ahead is clear. When I see the path and walk it mindfully, I’m less likely to stumble. It’s a very human experience, though, and the path is uneven in spots. There’s still a chance I may stumble, or even fall. When I do, I get up, consider my missteps, and begin again.
Huh. Just for a moment I had the strange sense that I was completely wrong about the day, and that instead of the Monday I was thinking it was, as I sat here in the office, it was – perhaps – only Sunday, and I did not need to be here at all. A quick double-check of the calendar (and then my phone, and then the tiny date/time at the bottom right of my computer screen for good measure) reassured me that indeed it is Monday. I may not be overly enthused about that, on its own, but I am at least not incorrect about what day it is. lol
A perspective on some orange flowers.
The morning has been a slightly odd one. I woke much earlier than necessary, but got up and made coffee and hit the road anyway. I didn’t have quite enough time to return to sleep, and definitely did have time to make a point to remember my packed lunch, and to make myself some good coffee. Even the commute was somewhat strange and definitely not routine in any way aside from the route I took. I hit every traffic light green, and there was almost no traffic at all. I drove the speed limit, feeling unstressed, unbothered, and unhurried (which makes sense since it was quite a bit earlier than I am usually on the road). The office is chilly in a Spring sort of way, and my thoughts linger in my garden, in spite of the darkness beyond the window. Funny thing; the weekend was quite productive, and I seem to recall it feeling “busy”, but… at least for the moment, I don’t really recall anything that stands out as eventful or special. No, I’m wrong – one thing does stand out; my Traveling Partner rebuilt, refreshed, and enhanced our household automation, updating and correcting some out-of-date programming and making upgrades that had been planned before his injury. Quite successful and useful, and delightful to use. There’s that. That stands out. Nothing much that I did comes to mind at all, but damn I’m sore like I did a bunch of stuff. LOL I also didn’t do a bunch of stuff – I was supposedly “taking it easy”, but I don’t feel like I actually managed that trick. Feels like I just did other stuff, instead of the usual stuff.
Same flowers, different point of view.
I rub my eyes, yawn, and sip my coffee. I still don’t feel quite awake yet, which is strange; I’ve been awake now for almost 3 hours. Groggy. Foolish. Mind wandering. Feeling vaguely purposeless and “out of focus” and caught in a sticky web of random thoughts and distractions. My sleep was restless, interrupted, and filled with strange dreams. I may not “need” more coffee…but I’m sure going to have more! lol The morning feels a bit surreal, so far. And chilly. It’s chillier in the office than it has been. As if in response to that observation, I notice the small heater that was left in this office space at some point. I sip my coffee and consider the option to use it, without acting on the thought. I could, though… If I choose to.
A different angle on the same theme.
I sigh to myself, and try to shake off my grogginess by literally trying to shake it off. The sight, reflected back at me in the window makes me laugh. The laughter does more to wake me up than the shaking did. I sip my coffee, now at that “perfect drinking temperature”, and think about my Traveling Partner sleeping at home. I hope he gets the rest he needs – he has a day of work planned (and specific projects in mind) with the Anxious Adventurer’s help. He’s recovered from his injury and surgery to a point that he has begun “picking up where he left off” on all manner of tasks and projects that fell to the side when he got hurt, although he still has a way to go before he will be “at 100%”, maybe a long way to go (there’s quite a lot of work involved in fully recovering from a spinal injury and surgery). I feel relieved and delighted to see him doing so well. I can’t even describe how worried I was at some points, and I don’t like to think about it.
It won’t always be flowers and garden paths; sometimes it’s an uneven path, an uncertain destination, and a distant horizon.
Being a caregiver has been one of the most difficult things I’ve ever undertaken. I give myself about a “C” on that endeavor, if I’m honest. Even with all of my best effort, I lacked experience and skill, and I fucked up a lot (and I was exhausted all the time), and I could have done so much better given time and training and more practice – but that wasn’t how things went down. I did my best. I can say that, and for most values of worth, it was enough – but fucking hell I wish I could have done more/better for longer. Caregiving is fucking exhausting. If you know someone who is a caregiver (or, frankly, a parent), be appreciative, considerate, and kind; that’s a lot of fucking work they’re undertaking to do, on top of trying to live their own life and manage their own self-care, and possibly also working a full time job (especially if they are committed to doing all of it well). Fuuuuck. That’s a lot. Sometimes it can feel like an inhuman amount of effort is required, and it can feel like the stakes are “too high”. Be helpful if you can – and for sure just don’t be an insensitive jerk about the situation, most especially if you’ve never had to provide full time caregiving yourself. It’s a hard mile to walk. I worried the entire time. Worried about the future. Worried about my beloved. Worried that I wasn’t good enough or capable enough – and painfully aware that things could be still worse.
Walking my own path, one step at a time.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s just a routine (mostly) Monday. Things are okay for most values of “okay”, and the day begins well (if a bit groggily). It’s time to get on with that. Another beginning. Another day. Another mile to walk on my path. Time to begin again.
I looked into the mirror with such a serious expression, which seems unnecessarily stress inducing. I was looking at the mark left behind by my CPAP mask, perhaps a bit vainly. It doesn’t really bother me much, and each morning after I wake it fades. Unimportant in the bigger picture of life, lived. My reflection looks back at me and I wonder again why is it that it’s so hard to catch myself with certain particular expressions when I look into a mirror?
The day moved on from the moment; it is the way of moments to pass.
Again and again I find myself contemplating questions, and wondering at their usefulness (or lack). Perhaps the questions I ask myself are not suited to the moment of asking?
Mt Hood in the distance.
The dawn comes, a new day. Pretty sunrise at a familiar trailhead, waiting for the gate to open. I sit with my thoughts awhile, before I head down the trail. I contemplate familiar human struggles; vanity, greed, laziness, temper. I guess most of us probably share these challenges to one degree or another. So often, just when I think I’ve mastered one or another, I find myself facing it again. I’m not complaining, some of this shit just takes practice. A lot of practice, over a lifetime. The need to practice doesn’t end (because “mastery” isn’t something we achieve over some of these very human challenges, ever). We practice. We fail. We begin again.
I sit with my thoughts and my choices, and contemplate my challenges (and my failures). Sometimes I find myself thinking that the question of whether something is “right” or “what I really want” is (should be) enough to guide my path, but those questions often fail me. I find myself wondering if perhaps a more useful, practical question might be “will this choice contribute reliably to my longevity and wellness in a meaningful way?” Practical. Succinct. Putting my attention on a multitude of long-term goals in a single question in a very direct way… Seems worth considering.
I lace up my boots. There’s a small farmhouse adjacent to this nature park. A year ago there was nearly always light on inside and signs of activity at all hours. There was a large garden that spread down the sloping front yard. Now the house is empty, dark, and quiet. Vacant. There is no garden, only grass, tall and unmown. I wonder what dreams died there, as I grab my cane to begin my walk. I wonder what questions were left unanswered.
A gate, a house, a question. It’s a metaphor.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I have this path ahead of me, the clock is ticking, and it’s time to begin again.
Evening Light 