I reach my halfway point on this local trail at dawn. The sky is just beginning to lighten. I turn off my headlamp and have a seat on the bench that is conveniently here. Truth is, this is my “halfway point” specifically because of the bench. It’s actually a little further than halfway. The morning is quiet. This new day is still more darkness than daylight. It’s early, but not particularly cold (40F/4.4C). The forecast says rain later, and my arthritis agrees.
I sit quietly awhile, without writing, breathing in the moment. It’s enough as it is: complete, quiet, serene, and mine.
My beloved Traveling Partner gave me some really cute stickers as a sweet token of his affection evening before last, and some cute Bubu & Dudu charms for my computer monitor. Last weekend, he got me a delicious little cake that caught my eye during a rare moment craving chocolate. It was delightful!
Love takes many forms.
(So many forms.)
We don’t tend to make a big deal of Valentine’s Day. But… I’d like to get him a little something. I don’t know what. Considering his sweetness this year, I probably should have been thinking about it sooner. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. 😆
A small herd of deer ambles by, single file, staying on the trail. Each eyes me curiously as they pass, unconcerned. I sit quite still to avoid startling them. They pass by so near to me I could reach out and touch them.
I sit with my thoughts awhile longer. No reason to rush through the moment. Savoring pleasant moments is a way to slow that ticking clock a little bit. Present, aware, and enjoying the moment as it is, time really does seem to slow down. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Taking time to meditate each morning does a lot to set up the day to be a good one. Later, coffee, work, people…all of it. For now, this quiet solitary moment. It’s enough.
I sigh softly, contentedly. I’ve got a three day weekend ahead. I haven’t made any plans. My Traveling Partner has mentioned wanting to get away for a day or two himself, if he finds himself feeling up to it. I smile, thinking about the care I’ve taken with his truck while my car is in the shop. I remembered to fill the tank this morning, too. It’ll be ready for him if he should choose to take off for a day or two.
The prematurely mild weather keeps bringing my thoughts back to camping, but realistically I’m pretty miserable camping in cold (even chilly) weather. I definitely prefer nighttime lows to be above 55F (12.7C). I can wait.
I bring myself back to this moment, here, now. Sunrise is still a way off, but there’s enough light now to see the trail without my headlamp. This seems as good a time as any to begin again.
I’m sitting at the halfway point on this local trail, enjoying the moment of rest, and the quiet of the predawn darkness. It’s not cold, only chilly. The pavement is damp from recent rain. I breathe the rain-freshened air contentedly, and sit in this moment. I don’t need more, not right now, anyway. This is enough.
I am briefly distracted from this real life moment by a notable urge to uninstall apps from my phone. 😆 Like a lot of people, I’m over so much of this deceitful invasive bullshit seeking to scrape another dollar from my bank account. It’s gross. Sell me a product or service and let me enjoy it – or at least use it without interference or hindrance, and definitely without a fucking subscription, or mining my personal data.
When did you last read a bound book? When did you most recently meet up with a friend in the real world, and spend the time talking with each other without ever touching your smartphone? Take notes on real paper? How about board games with friends? Drinks and conversations by a fire outside? Window shopping in town, on foot, for the fun of it? Real places and real experiences with actual human beings have so much more depth and nuance than text-based interactions online, or anything at all to do with LLMs and chatbots. Real world experiences may feel a bit less “safe”, (mostly due to the potential for contagion or gun violence) but the nuance and authenticity are worth risking a head cold, and with some care and situational awareness gun violence is relatively rare and generally avoidable. The virtual spaces we frequent have risks of their own. We’re making choices. Choose wisely. Choose human.
No AI here. No subscription (for you – I do pay for the hosting and services on this platform). Just one human being sharing thoughts, experiences, and practices with other human beings. (Thanks for taking the time!) … But seriously? You could be having a real conversation with another person on this very same topic, right now.
… I’m even suggesting it…
How many hours a day are your eyes on a screen, instead of the horizon? How many interactions with others are through some user interface on some digital platform, instead of looking into the eyes of that other person and hearing their words? Many hours probably, and dozens or even hundreds of people. Isn’t that a little sad? Go outside! Talk to your neighbors! Make actual friends of other real human beings… while you have the option, and the social skills. I’m just saying the digital world is a dim substitute.
Our mortal lives are too short as it is, please don’t waste yours as a consumer cog in a billionaire’s infinite money machine. Life has so much more to offer you. Books, movies, flowers, clouds, flavors, trails, shops, cafes… An entire world exists for our enjoyment. Don’t waste your moment.
I sigh to myself. These are not new thoughts. I often turn my ringer off to allow myself to focus on my lived experience in the moment. I’m not inclined to be bullied by a device. Two years of caregiving meant leaving my notifications on almost 24/7, and it has been hard dealing with the constant other pings on my consciousness while staying alert for my Traveling Partner to reach out if he needs me when I’m away from the house. Necessary for the time, less so now. It is a difficult habit to break, but it is important not to allow these devices to determine what I put my attention on. It takes practice.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. The sky lightens to a gray-seeming dawn, although the sky is clear. There’s a smudge of dirty orange on the eastern horizon. I hear footsteps and tense up momentarily, as I turn to see the night watchman from the nearby construction site approach on his end of shift walk. “Good morning, young lady!” he calls to me, “Almost didn’t see you there.” I wave and wish him a cheery good morning as he passes, and watch as he disappears around the next bend. I continue to sit contentedly awhile longer. It is a work day, but I’m in no hurry. This moment is mine.
Real.
The clock ticks on. Winter is already slowly becoming Spring. I gaze into the tangled treetops, no specific purpose or thought on my mind, just enjoying the moment as it is. It’s enough. I breathe, exhale, and relax, and get comfortable for meditation, before I begin again.
I woke rather oddly thinking I was already awake, and uncertain how I “suddenly ended up” horizontal, wrapped in a comforter, on a soft surface, when I’d been contentedly seated at my desk, drinking coffee and writing – “finishing my book” – happy to be done with it. It was an odd sensation. For some minutes, the phrases I’d been typing (in my dream) were still lingering in my thoughts, becoming a sense that it would be a good topic to write about, and slowly dissipating from my recollection as dreams generally do.
Now, I’m up, out of the house, sitting with a cup of coffee and my thoughts, on a chilly Thursday. It’s not cold. 40F (4.4C) – so relatively mild for February. The whole season has been “relatively mild” in this location, although elsewhere, in many places, blizzards rage and snow piles up. I hope you are safe and warm, wherever you may be. I sip my coffee wondering how bad the fire season will be this year, having so little rain over the autumn and winter months, and so little snow in the higher elevations. Today’s forecast was precise as to temperature and quite accurate, but the car was frosted over in spite of the mild temperature. The morning manages to feel like it’s almost winter. Early Spring? Late autumn? The seasons “don’t feel quite right” anymore. I fear we’ve broken our planet beyond repair. This does not bode well for humanity, nor for many other creatures whose lives depend on climate. Scary. I’m no expert, and I’m not interested in succumbing to this or that whispered conspiracy, I just see what I see, and live my experience; this very mild winter can be expected to be followed by a difficult summer of wildfires dotted around the state. I’ll have to be very careful when and where I camp this summer, and plan on closely monitored very contained cooking fires (I like my Jetboil best).
I remind myself not to forget coffee!
I sigh to myself. I miss being out in the trees, listening to birds and chipmunks and forest breezes, and watching the sun rise and set filtered through trees that have seen more years than I have myself. I don’t have to wait on camping… I could drive out into one of several large wilderness areas and be among those trees in less than an hour, being fortunate to live approximately midway between the coast and Mt Hood National Forest. The thought jolts me back to this moment; today I have to take my car to the body shop to have the damage done on New Year’s Eve (day) repaired. I won’t have my Mazda for some little while. Weeks maybe? Days definitely. My Traveling Partner graciously offers me the use of his truck in the meantime, and it’s a dream to drive (so much so that I’m planning to buy that make of SUV to replace my Mazda when the time comes). So, today I’ll drop off the car, and he’ll pick me up in the truck. The work day will bookend that errand, and for the most part life will be remarkably unchanged – except tomorrow morning when I step out of the house and am reminded that my car is gone. I’m sure I’ll forget, until I see it missing. lol Very human.
Life is filled with adventure – and misadventure. Choices. Opportunities. Change. Getting hung up on some particular detail is often a poor choice. Mostly the details don’t matter to anyone else; they are having their own experience. We’re all in this together, in a grander sense, though we regularly forget that and start giving people on hard times side-eye, like we have never struggled, or fallen on hard times, or failed to choose wisely. Human beings can be jerks. We like to talk about “pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps” in spite of the practical matter that every one of us relies upon others, depends on others, and probably wouldn’t survive long isolated and utterly alone (think “no internet”, “no credit cards or banking system”, “no infrastructure”…). If you’re feeling quite smugly independent about your individual success, I’d like to point out that the infrastructure, delivery systems, and basic building blocks of your experience are not things you did “all by yourself”. lol
I sip my coffee and smile to myself. The morning feels relaxed and peaceful, and I realize one reason why that is; there is no background music playing this morning in this chain coffee shop. One less bit of noise to filter out as I sip coffee and consider life, this moment, and this woman that I most want to be. Nice morning for it. Chilly, though. I’m grateful for this hot coffee. I’m not too proud to drink branded industrial chain coffee from a Big Coffee Chain Cafe in my neighborhood. lol I don’t necessarily prefer it. I’m that coffee drinker who prefers carefully brewed freshly ground coffee from estate-grown varietal beans imported from the cradle of civilization…but will most definitely lick the bitter dregs out of a packet of instant coffee moistened with a tablespoon of tepid water rather than go without. LOL I have abruptly returned home from a camping trip I was excited about – broke camp and returned home less than 24 hours into it, after driving hours – over forgetting to bring coffee!
…Would I survive without coffee? Sure. Getting past the first few deeply irritating days without would be annoying, but I’d survive – I just don’t want to. I recognize that this is characteristic of addiction. I’m grateful it’s just coffee.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I consider logging into work tools and beginning that part of my day a little early, but I don’t have to; this moment is mine. I smile to myself happily. Nice moment, this. I sip my coffee and enjoy that feeling. So much less anxiety this morning. Like… none. I slow down and appreciate that, for what it is. I’m grateful. I’ve endured much over the past two years, and it’s been harder than I imagined it could be, and I’ve done more/better with most of it than I would have expected myself to be up for. Things are turning a corner. Change is. Hard times come and go. This too will pass. Impermanence is a characteristic of life – even our human lives, however much control we seek to exert over events. I don’t necessarily like that – I’m a big fan of stability and comfort and ease – but reality does not care about my preferences, and having an easy life was unlikely to turn up in the hand I was dealt; the odds were poor (still are for me, and for most human beings). I’m okay with “okay”. I’m grateful for my good fortune in life, wherever it finds me. Enough really is enough, although I sometimes have to pause and consider my blessings, and take a moment to be aware (again) of how fortunate I truly am. (Like anyone, I find a stupid about of bullshit to bitch about rather pointlessly some days.)
Walking my own path, one step at a time.
Crazy world we are living in right now, eh? There’s a lot of terrible stuff going on here in the US and in the world. What we say about it matters. What we do about it matters more, if we can be moved to action. Heroes will rise. Villains will fall. I feel hopeful this morning (probably because I am not looking at the news). I breathe, exhale, and relax, and prepare to begin again.
Each tick of the clock is its own. Each moment is unique and precious, like a breath, or a snowflake. They are fleeting, those ticks of the clock, and those mortal moments. Yesterday, around this same time, the morning was filled with chaos (household internet was down, my laptop had a brand new operating system on it, my work day was shortened by an afternoon appointment and filled with unexpected meetings), this morning this moment is peaceful, and rather mundane. Yesterday’s challenges are behind me, today’s are still ahead.
The time is…now.
With each moment being fleeting, and unique, and the tick of the clock ever ongoing, and our mortal lives filled with opportunities, choices, and changes, it can be easy to feel harried, or pushed around by circumstances, and forget to truly live those precious moments, and to make informed choices from a thoughtful perspective. I sip my coffee and think about that.
I think about the way my Traveling Partner calmed me down after I had hastened home frantically to sort out what had “gone wrong” with my new OS, and get back on track for work as quickly as I could. Hilariously, what had gone wrong was mostly the human being at the keyboard. lol Small details I didn’t recognize in their new form, and tools I was less familiar with, and in a moment of panic, I stopped understanding what little I knew. My partner was patient, and he is deeply knowledgeable of computers and operating systems, as if it is part of his DNA. In an instant, he had identified the issue, sorted things out, showed me where I had gone astray, and I got my day started. He’d already resolved the household internet issue. He’s good like that – and I’m fortunate to enjoy a loving partnership with a human being whose skills complement my own so well. In some other moment, he may have been the one seeking out my assistance with some thing he felt ill-equipped to handle.
I think about my appointment later in the afternoon yesterday, and the lasting feeling of calm loving support that had carried me through the day. Going to the VA often makes me anxious (and angry). The appointment was routine enough, just my annual thing with the VA: blood work, images, a consultation, updated prescriptions, another vaccine. The VA stresses me out most of the time. I dislike the stark reminder of my mortality on display, and I similarly dislike the facade of support for veterans also on display. Oh, don’t get me wrong, the employees at the VA (the doctors, nurses, clinical specialists, technicians, and cleaning staff) do their best for veterans every day against the terrible constraints they face due to lack of appropriate staffing, lack of required funding, lack of approval for this or that treatment for one condition or another – and the frankly performative “consideration” for veterans by our administration is grotesque and disappointing. It’s not the fault of the staff, but the hopelessness, cynicism and disappointment permeate the air at the VA – at every VA facility I’ve ever been in. It’s not a partisan thing, although this current administration is by far the most grotesque and horrifying in my own lifetime – every administration makes new veterans, and none actually wants to pay the full measure of the price to care for them. (And if veteran’s are not cared for, well then their lifespan is further shortened, eh? Less costly by far. It is quite Dickensian from that perspective.)
I sigh and sip my coffee. My appointment went fine. Images taken. Vaccine received. Blood drawn. Hell, I even capitulated to having a pelvic exam and a pap smear (probably my last based on current recommendations for women in my age group). Sexual health is important, even as we age. Anyway, it was fine. Only a moment.
Yesterday I was quickly wrapped in stress. This morning is quite different, calm and inviting. I smile to myself, enjoying this moment. And if it were a shit moment filled with stress and chaos? Well, I know it will pass. There will be other moments. It’s not an easy thing, letting small things stay small; it takes practice, and sometimes some help. I had watched a peculiarly timely video that touched on change and moments and resilience in a way I found useful. I’m glad I had; I needed those words of wise perspective and encouragement yesterday!
…Each time for the first time. Each moment the only moment. “Ichi-go ichi-e” – live your moments with intention, and presence! Show up for your own life. These moments are finite and mortal, and we have so few. Each having our own experience, walking our own path, we connect over briefly shared moments. I smile to myself. Crappy muzak in the background of a chain cafe on a work day morning, sipping on an utterly ordinary cup of black coffee – even this moment is precious. It is mine.
Sometimes it’s a metaphor – sometimes it is just a cup of coffee. 🙂
I smile and sip my coffee, reflecting on this moment, and other moments. The music plays on. The clock keeps ticking. Eventually, I’ll begin again, for now, I’ve got this moment right here, now. It’s enough.
I am recalling the excitement of buying a new album, after hearing something I really like that is new to me, or something from a favorite artist, that I haven’t yet heard. It’s often not the “big hit song” or the single on the airwaves that stays with me, memorable, favored, over-played for weeks. It is more likely to be some unexpected “hidden gem”, that speaks to me in a more personal way, found only because I listened with an open mind to more than what was obvious in front of me. I think about that for some little while.
It’s also true that a great many injuries don’t show on the surface, or leave an obvious visible scar that makes it plain that damage has been done, and may linger. These things sometimes erupt as strange quirks of character, or poor behavior, or coping mechanisms that outlive their usefulness. I think about that for awhile, too. It is sometimes very helpful too look beyond the obvious and to listen more deeply.
I have time for my thoughts this morning. I’ve definitely got a fucking cold (again), but I woke after many hours of unsatisfying sleep feeling restless and irritable, with a stuffy head. All I could think about was getting to my feet, out of the house, and onto the trail, just so my head might clear as I walked. I definitely did not want to hang about the house coughing and blowing my nose while everyone else is trying to get some sleep. I probably won’t actually walk…it was the noise of heavy rain falling that woke me I think, and I’m certainly sick. I should not allow myself to become soaked or cold, and I can wait for the sun, enjoy a cup if coffee and write while the rain falls. Anyway, my sinuses drained and my head cleared some minutes after I started down the highway toward the trailhead. If I get a break in the rain after the sun rises, I might still walk; I always miss it when I don’t.
These are pretty stressful times, and it is hard watching America – part of it – working to become a fascist authoritarian dictatorship or dystopian oligarchy. It apparently makes me ill. Self-care is even more important in terrible times. This is also a hopeful moment in our history, seeing so many organize and protest and speaking truth to power. Wow. This too, all of it, will pass. Even our elected officials and their billionaire handlers are 100% mortal. No one lives forever. Evil governments do fall. I didn’t march or join a protest this weekend, though I considered it. (It would be irresponsible to bring contagion to a protest.) I wrote letters to my representatives, and emails. Complete inaction doesn’t feel like a good choice to me, not while we’re watching democracy burn, and the legitimate progress made since the dawn of the atomic age is being eroded with every injury to a citizen by armed, masked, government thugs.
… And if someone tells you they are in favor of this administration’s policies because they are against all that “woke” shit? Ask them to define, in simple terms, what they mean by “woke”. I’ve been finding this simple question very revealing (and it tends to force people to consider the reality of the cruel policies being implemented with their support). Don’t let petty nastiness go unremarked upon – point it out and ask why it seems acceptable. Instead of laughing uncomfortably at cruelty, jokes, or mockery at someone’s expense – ask why the teller thinks it is funny.
What we see often depends on what we’re looking at – or for.
I sip my coffee feeling some better than when I woke. It’s still raining quite hard without letting up. A gray rainy dawn has arrived. I look out across the highway at the farm fields that in years past have been a shallow seasonal lake this time of year. This rain is welcome, we need it, but I wonder if it is too little, too late? It may be a very dry summer ahead. I think about camping and wildfire risks. (Yes, it’s a metaphor.)
The rain slows down some. The marsh trail tempts me in spite of the muddy soggy trail I know awaits unwary footsteps. I eye my rain poncho and my cane, conveniently next to me. I sigh to myself and wonder if it is a good time to begin again?
