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Lost in a Moment

January 28, 2026 //
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I sat down at a table with my coffee. The muzak in the background is unintrusive. I open my text editor to write and let my thoughts go. At some point I notice I’m not writing. I am gently grooving to a track I don’t think I’d heard before. The bassline grabbed the important part of my attention without any concern for the rest of me, and there I was, immersed in a moment, lost in a bit of music. Sweet moment. The playlist moved on from Dope Lemon to A Tribe Called Quest. Yes, for sure, I can kick it, just like this, for a little while; there’s no reason to hurry through this moment.

Work is work. Life is life. Love is love. This path isn’t smoothly paved every step of the way, and it isn’t always clear where it leads. One woman, many choices. I’m fortunate to be where I am at this place in my life. Is life ideal? No. There isn’t much potential for any one of us to live an “ideal” life. Can you even define what you think that might be, aside from some fantastical daydreams about things you might like to acquire, or places you’d like to see, or experiences you’ve missed or want to have? We complicate our journey with wishful thinking and yearning for what we don’t have now. It’s a very human thing. Finding the perspective on our lives that allows us to embrace sufficiency, and practice contentment and non-attachment without regretful yearning is its own journey – we don’t all share that goal. I enjoy peace and contentment and quiet joy and feeling unbothered in my life. It’s hard enough to get there without adding the weight of greed and material lust and pointlessly competing with people of vastly greater means than I have myself. I’m not suggesting being resigned to having little (or nothing), I’m only saying it has improved my experience of living my life to embrace joy, practice contentment, and to appreciate the good in my life as it is – while I work toward better (without self-harm or some ridiculous grind that tears me down while it builds my bank account).

…This is the wrong blog to be reading if what you are looking for are practical tips for “getting rich quickly” or amassing great wealth. That’s not my area of interest, personally. What I want most for myself is to feel whole and well and generally joyful, and to be capable, approachable, and kind. I’m here looking for the best version of myself, and to help that woman live her best life with the opportunities and resources she has, now. Maybe I should have said so sooner…

(I did).

This morning, I’m sipping coffee, and enjoying the music. It’s enough.

The music changes. I don’t care for the music playing now. This moment reminds me that change is. We walk the path ahead of us, we choose the route, and we walk our own hard mile – we don’t design the scenery along the way, we just choose what to look at. Every path has obstacles and pitfalls. Change doesn’t change that. We’ve each got to do our own verbs – and we’re each having our own experience. I grin to myself, and pause to let the aphorisms that are piling up in my thoughts finish themselves and dissipate. There’s no reason to try to jot them all down right now, on this page, in this moment. There is time. Other moments. Sure, the clock is always ticking and energy, time, and money are all finite resources – but I can begin again, any time, now or later on. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Someone else probably really likes the song that is playing now. It’s not my thing, but it will pass, and there’s no reason to insist that it be changed. There is variety in life, and in spite of how much I prefer a “steady routine”, I’m also aware how much value there is in new experiences. I sip my coffee and let the music play. I even listen for a little while.

It’s a gentle rainy morning that barely feels like winter. I almost went walking, but it’s chilly enough that walking in the rain would quickly aggravate my osteoarthritis, and I’m in enough (manageable) pain now that I don’t really want to choose more. Work from home? My Traveling Partner suggested it (again), and I’m considering it. It’s early; there is time to make that decision, and no reason to rush. Circumstances can change quickly. What seems like a great idea in one moment, feels like a serious misstep in some other. Funny human primates with all their drama and dumb rules. I chuckle to myself; we work so hard to be unhappy sometimes – and we could choose differently.

Choose wisely. The menu is vast.

I sigh to myself, and sink into this pleasant moment. I allow myself to really enjoy the awareness of how pleasant this moment is. Comfortable. Quiet. Uncomplicated. Unbothered. Low stress. No drama. Like a compacted dirt path on a pleasant afternoon; easy. This too will pass. No kidding. Impermanence means moments are moments; they come and go. Life is not a static image, carefully staged to be just so, and remain thus. Life is lived, changing, variable, and filled with seeking, and being, and doing. Sometimes it feels “too busy” and too chaotic and just… much. This is not that. It’s a very pleasant moment that feels undefined and eternal – and that too is entirely subjective and impermanent. Just an experience. A moment. A perspective. It just happens to be so very pleasant that I find it remarkable. (Here I am remarking on it.)

There’s a busy day ahead. I sip my coffee and think about that, too. It is already time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, winter, Words

Taking It As It Comes

January 25, 2026 //
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I woke earlier than I had hoped. It is a colder morning than forecast. My Traveling Partner is awake, coughing in the living room. I blow him a kiss as I leave the house, realizing moments later I could have actually kissed him. He sends me his love in the form of cute “stickers” in a message as I pull out of the coffee stand with a hot cup of coffee, ready to head up the highway. I reply with a couple cute stickers back, and find myself hopeful that he may be able to get a little more sleep.

Daybreak on the horizon.

It’s 22°F (-5.5°C)  as daybreak touches the horizon. Cold. Properly wintry. I sit in the warm car, with my coffee and my thoughts, waiting for the sun. I feel fairly certain the sunrise will bring the temperature up. It’ll still be a cold walk, and I’m already looking forward to a warming luxurious hot shower after I return home, but it’ll be better than walking in the dark on such an icy morning.

I saw a shooting star as I drove up the highway this morning. Yes, I made a wish on it. No, I don’t think making wishes on stars is actually something that works. lol What did I wish for? You’d laugh if I told you.

…What a weird scary world we’ve created…

I sigh to myself and turn my gaze back to the western horizon, now a streak of dirty orange with some blue-ish sky above it. The outline of Mt Hood becomes visible. The oaks that dot the meadow begin to take shape. There is comfort in real things in this real lived moment. I take refuge from my anxiety in this gentle “now”. Nothing much going on right here; a woman in a car at a trailhead, watching the sun rise. Pretty peaceful calm stuff. I have high hopes for a pleasant day ahead.

My head aches ferociously this morning. I take some medication and hope for relief. The cold hasn’t yet had its opportunity to seep into my bones, and my arthritis is not yet vexing me. That’s something, anyway. It’s enough and I’m grateful. My pain may be less manageable by the end of the day, but for now, I’m feeling pretty fortunate. Other than the cold, it’s a lovely morning to walk the trail here.

…I think about maybe getting my nails done before I head to San Francisco this week for work. It’s a definite maybe. 😂 I mean, I’d like to, but I’m reluctant to spend the money. It seems pretty frivolous… Choices.

Dawn comes.

The gate into the main parking area opens with a screech. I move the car closer to the access point for the year-round trail. I add my scarf, hat, and oversized fleece to my layers and put my gloves and cane handily within reach. I won’t want to stop long this morning, so I finish this now, before I set off down the trail. The colorful sunrise is a beautiful backdrop to the oaks.

I take my time enjoying the sunrise.

As the first light of day begins to touch the treetops, the frosted meadow grass sparkles. The hint of white suggests snow from a distance, but there’s been none of that. I’m selfishly grateful, but dismayed when I also think about summer ahead, crops, and the possibility of wild fires. Being good stewards of this one planet that is our home has not been easy for human primates; we tend towards self-serving greed and shortsightedness. We could do better.

Daylight. Across the highway I can see the lowland farm fields that in previous years have reliably become a shallow seasonal lake favored by migrating birds each winter. This morning it is a grassy field, mown short, covered in frost. G’damn I hope the planet recovers from the damage we have done (with or without us). I’d like to be around to see that.

Walking my own mile. Where does this path lead?

I sigh to myself, and begin again.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, winter, Words

Static

January 22, 2026 //
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I’m sipping coffee in the local chain coffee place close to the university library, where I most often work, these days. Work is later. For now, I’m just sipping coffee, and listening to the soft murmur of baristas going about their morning stocking and coffee making, and the sounds of the weird eclectic muzak that plays here. The playlist makes no sense to me, and follows no theme or genre, but it does repeat and I’ve become sufficiently familiar with it over a handful of weeks to easily tune it out.

It’s a cold morning. It is, in fact, freezing. Too cold for walking in the dark on an icy trail overhung with branches that were recently rain-sodden and are now freezing – and potentially at risk of breaking and falling to the ground unexpectedly. I’ll walk later, sometime after the sun is up and warming things a bit.

I mindlessly run my fingers through my hair, which only has the result of making the static electricity in my hair very obvious, lifting stray strands and creating an uncomfortable sensation as my fingers tangle in the hair and the static. I carefully un-muss my hair. The combination of dry cold air, layers of sweaters, and all this hair, adds up to quite a bit of static and things clinging here and there, or being shocked when I touch some door knob. Winter. The static is a distraction. It’s not important at all.

Somewhere far away (Davos), millionaires and billionaires are patting themselves on the backs for what awesome human beings they are, while they enjoy expensive luxuries and plan how to make themselves even more prosperous in the future. Does any real-world good ever come out of billionaires and power-seekers cavorting and collaborating in private meetings in luxury hotels, making plans for the many millions who have no direct input to the goings on? I’m asking because I don’t know. I somehow doubt it. It would require a legitimate desire to improve the lives of others alongside a genuine willingness to bear the cost of doing so. I somehow doubt that sort of equity and change minded thinking is commonplace among those who have the means and connections to rate an invitation. A person does not acquire vast wealth with that kind of thinking. They can afford to pretend that they got where they are without help, on their own, without exploiting the good will, effort, and desperation, of others. Am I bitter? Not exactly, I’m just over pretending such things have real value to people living ordinary lives, or that wealth hoarding is any sort of virtue.

…The World Economic Forum probably had a lot of promise as proposed (maybe it still does), but how rich does an individual have to be to comfortably afford annual membership (something like $50k per year) and attendance at the event in Davos each year (another $20k or so, I’ve read)? Just some perspective; a lot of regular people are canceling various subscription services these days because they just can’t afford them, or having to choose between bills and medical care. They won’t be represented at Davos.

I sigh to myself. Greed is probably the human character trait I find most vile – and sadly very common. It’s not personal, though, and billionaires frolicking in Davos have more or less nothing at all to do with me, here, now. I don’t even grudge them a good time on the slopes, or a lovely time catching up with their peers and colleagues over a coffee in some pleasant Swiss cafe. Such events generate a lot of click-bait, sound bites, podcast discussions, and celebrity photos, but beyond that, what does it have to do with me? I chuckle over my coffee, and let my thoughts move on.

I once took a tour that stopped in Switzerland when I was a young soldier stationed in Germany. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to see some of Europe, then. The modest costs I often complained about (soldiers are not paid well) were so worth it!

…And my thoughts move on…

I contemplate my general good fortune in life, and who I have been, and who I have become over time.

…And on…

I think about times I’ve traveled here or there over the years, sampling cultures in other countries, seeing sights, enjoying a chance to touch history – the Rodin Museum, the Louvre, and the Museum D’Orsay in Paris, Holocaust memorials in Germany and Czechia, an open air market in Mexico, the underground city in Montreal, the deserts of Saudia Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq, the beauty of Azores, the Cotswolds, Bavaria, and around and about all over the US. I’ve been fortunate to see so much of the world.

…And on…

My thoughts shift gears from places to people, and I think of the friends I’ve enjoyed sharing the journey with over the years. Some were lasting friendships that continue, some that were more fleeting moments to connect and share and then move on as paths diverged.

…And on…

It’s a nice morning to let my mind wander. I’m content with that, this morning. There is no reason to hurry through my coffee or wring more out of this fragile vessel than this moment here, now, requires. The clock ticks on. I smile, filling up on gratitude. Life hasn’t been without it’s hazards or challenges. There have been hard times, maybe there will be again. The company we keep on life’s journey probably matters a lot more than where our journey takes us. I sit thinking about that awhile.

The people matter most; how we treat each other is how we treat the world.

Soon it will be time to begin again.

…the new year is a blank page…
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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, winter, women, Words

Begin Somewhere

January 20, 2026 //
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Fresh baked bread has been sounding really yummy and satisfying, lately. I don’t have much bread baking experience, but I’ve got a lot of recipes. My Traveling Partner has skills in this area, and bakes a lovely loaf of bread now and then. He offers to share pointers and help knead…if needed. 😀 Yesterday, I sat down with my cookbooks, selecting a basic looking “egg bread” recipe from the Good Housekeeping Cookbook (although in my later edition “salt” as an ingredient seems to have been simply removed from most of the recipes, I know to add it back for flavor and the recipes are hilariously often my Dad’s “secret recipe”, and it is a favorite cookbook for that reason). I baked a couple loaves of bread in the afternoon, yesterday, which elevated an otherwise tediously ordinary meal at dinnertime. Satisfying.

Where we end up depends on the choices we make.

I could have made a potato side dish, or something else. I was really wanting fresh baked bread, yesterday, enough to make some. lol I’m not any sort of expert baker, just a woman in a kitchen with a handful of carefully selected cookbooks, trying new things. It was fun. I followed the directions, and took heed of the tips my Traveling Partner shared with me. It turned out well. (Life should be so easy!) It was a satisfying experience. The bread is really good, if fairly ordinary. I wasn’t going for anything fancy or complicated – just something I could start, finish, and succeed with. It wasn’t a costly endeavor, at about $1 a packet for yeast, about $0.50 for a cup of milk, and about $1 a pound for bread flour. The eggs still seem a bit expensive (about $0.66 each), but the price has come down some since last year. Whole healthy real food, made from real ingredients – no fillers, no shortcuts, no preservatives, no additives; tasty and healthy. There were verbs involved, and real effort, and time… and that’s okay. The outcome was so worth it.

Self-care comes in many forms.

It was a remarkably restful weekend, for me. Most of the housework was already “caught up” because we had planned on the Author’s visit. When that fell through, my housekeeping routine was rendered sort of pointless with so much already done. With my Traveling Partner’s encouragement, I took it easy, and made a point to rest, to read, to play video games, and generally chill and have a good time at home. I needed that more than I knew. I sigh contentedly. It’s a Monday Tuesday and that’s okay, too. The weather has been odd. Warmer than expected, sunny in the afternoons, and not especially wintry. I teased myself with maybe getting out into the garden and getting some things done there. This morning? This morning reminds me that it is indeed winter; it’s cold. The car was frosted over and sparkled under the street light. The temperature is an icy 28°F (-2.2°C). I’m not interested in an icy walk in the dark, and head to the cafe I’ve been frequenting as a too cold/inclement weather alternative to walking in the dark. My coffee is hot, and made well. It’s a good start to a new day, and I sip it slowly, enjoying the warmth of the cup in my hands.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s an unremarkable pleasant morning that would be a Monday if it weren’t a Tuesday (yesterday was a holiday). I remind myself to call my doctor’s office and request a refill on an Rx that I’ve run out of. (I didn’t fail to notice I needed a refill, I failed to communicate that to my doctor’s office when I noticed I was due – still a failure, and as a result I’m scrambling. It’s a small thing, easily remedied, if I remember to make that call.) Ordinary stuff. Life. Choices. Consequences.

That’s the thing, isn’t it? We sometimes make our lives or circumstances more complicated that they really need to be. We create a considerable amount of the drama that vexes us. We make choices we know are likely to turn out poorly in some moment, and then behave as though we’re surprised that things went so very wrong. Human primates are weird. A lot of our suffering in life is self-inflicted. We’re often more inclined to complain about the quality of the bread we’ve got, than to bake fresh loaves for our own delight. I sip my coffee and think about that awhile. My mind wanders to the many things that can be made from stale bread: croutons, stuffing, breadcrumbs, bread pudding, French toast, semmelknödel, and more. There’s a lesson here, isn’t there? Something to do with choices, with suffering, with creating something satisfying from something less than ideal? Something to do with steps on a path, and choices. Bread as a metaphor?

I sip my coffee contentedly, thinking about fresh-baked bread, self-care, love, partnership, and creating moments of shared joy. I begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, winter, women, Words

Book Learning

January 19, 2026 //
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I can remember my father mocking people who lacked “real skills” but who were also educated people with college degrees. He had no fondness for abstract intellectualism that could not get anything done in the world in a practical sense. It’s a fairly commonplace perspective, frequently held by practical minded working people, perhaps to secure a sense of achievement in spite of the lack of a degree. Memorized facts without comprehension aren’t particularly useful, generally. Applying knowledge in the real world can create change.

Books make great gifts!

Why do I mention it? I mean, it’s probably pretty obvious that “book learning” alone doesn’t amount to understanding a topic deeply or being able to make suitable use of the knowledge. I watched a video yesterday talking about the increasing lack of ability to read that seems to be developing in young cohorts of students (in the US). Book learning isn’t all there is to education, but g’damn reading is a pretty critical life skill, and if our youngsters receiving their education aren’t learning to read, we’ve got a real problem ahead. Traffic signs, price tags, menus, clocks, rental agreements, job offers…we need to read a lot of things, and recognizing shapes and colors is not an adequate substitute for reading comprehension.

Books can be filled with practical information.

Why learn to read when an LLM can read a summary aloud and save us the bother? (Why learn math when there’s a calculator always at hand?) I struggle with why these would be questions, but I remember teachers answering my own youthful “why learn math?” question by trying to give examples of the raw power and utility of having a basic understanding of math. One truth that is more important than any one example and might have been more persuasive; we need to learn math (and reading) to develop problem solving skills, and for depth and nuance in our understanding of the world. We need these skills to support our ability to think critically and recognize misinformation. If we lose our ability to read we become dependent on spoken opinion, and susceptible to marketing hype and outrageous lies by politicians and pundits.

Other books take us on an adventure.

I am fortunate to enjoy reading, myself. (It took me awhile to come around to the legitimate value in math, but eventually I got there, too.) I am happily reading The Stand, a gift from my Traveling Partner. I prefer to read the news rather than watch it. I can’t actually imagine not being able to read. If nothing else, the amount of paperwork required in life would be far less manageable if I couldn’t read the forms!

Thanks for being here, by the way. If you’re reading these words, now, I’m grateful that you are literate. (Not only because you’re reading what I wrote, but also because you can.) One day you may be considered to be among the elite intellectuals of the world, simply because you can read, at all.

Books are the software upgrades for our minds.

I sit at my halfway point on this trail, watching Venus setting slowly on the western horizon. I spotted it one morning some time ago and looked up what this very bright “star” might be. I read about it. Now I gaze upon Venus with even greater wonder and appreciation. I smile to myself, eagerly considering spending the day reading. Maybe I’ll pull a cookbook from my shelf and peruse the recipes and bake something? Seems a good day for it. I could spend more time writing, later – I hear snail mail is making a comeback as a hobby or lifestyle choice. Promising.

… I’m not pointing fingers or being critical of the shortcomings of other people. I’m quite human myself, and some of life’s critical skills fade with disuse. My handwriting (pen and ink on paper) has gotten pretty dreadful because I don’t often pick up a pen these days. Practice would be helpful. Letter writing has potential, with that in mind. I think fondly back to my great-grandmother, who lived well past 100 years. She wrote letters to friends every day. I used to write a lot of letters… until email and the Internet and the convenience of a keyboard intervened. Creeping incompetence – and I don’t have to succumb to it. I have choices and the freedom to choose change.

Anyway. Read a book. Don’t let that skill erode away completely! You definitely really need to be able to read. Reality can be unforgiving, and doesn’t accommodate ignorance in any gentle way.

Some books we fill with our own story.

I sigh to myself as Venus dips below the treetops. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I contemplate all the many books I’ve read, and the many more I have yet to read. The books on my reading list have guided me along my path. I doubt I could have come so far so quickly without them, and AI summaries would not have been enough to teach me what I needed to learn.

The first hint of daybreak touches the sky. Is it already time to begin again?

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being, War and News of War, weight loss secrets, Words
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