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Well Hello, Opportunity

May 14, 2026 //
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It is an ordinary morning, begun in the usual way, following a night of very sound and restful sleep. I woke feeling merry and grateful to have a comfortable bed and a partner with the thoughtfulness to adjust the thermostat when the weather changes.

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

All the way down the trail this morning, I thought about the weekend ahead. With my Traveling Partner’s encouragement, I am planning to take a couple days to rest (and maybe paint) on the coast. I’m rarely so last minute about such things, and I am delighted to have the opportunity, if I can make it work out. I walk with my thoughts, sifting through my recollections of various other similar short getaways. I have options. A rough plan begins to take shape… A short work day, a relaxed drive to the coast, an “early” check-in if I can get it, and an ocean view room from which to watch the sun set, sounds like a fine beginning. I sometimes surprise myself by being able to sleep in, at the coast. Is it the sound of the sea? The scent of the ocean breeze? I don’t know, really, but I’m happy to continue to study the phenomenon. 😆

I sit at my halfway point now, thinking about the weekend ahead. Painting or photography? Reading or writing? Meditation or beachcombing? Does it have to be either/or? I can mix and match. I grin thinking about times when I’ve packed for every possible option and found myself just napping, stargazing, and enjoying a bit of sightseeing instead of doing any of the things I had tried to prepare for. 😆 Human primates are weird.

… What do I really need most out of this time? I sit quietly reflecting on that…

What matters most? It’s a big question. I sit with that awhile. I decide to keep things simple, and open, and a very loose “plan” (so unlike me) and see where the journey takes me, for a change. Low effort, maximum rest. I’ve always got my sketchbox in the car, and my cellphone is more camera than phone in everyday use. I’ll bring a book and a change of clothes. It feels like enough. I’m only going for a day, framed by two nights.  It’s more about getting the restful quiet time than any agenda or itinerary. I’m not looking for an achievement.

I smile to myself, feeling easy. This feels somehow “settled” now. I shift gears to thinking about today. I remind myself to stop at the store on my way home from work. It’s not yet the weekend, and there’s today to be lived. I bring myself back to here, now, and draw in a deep breath of cool Spring air. Pretty morning. Cloudy skies but no rain, cool but not cold. I’m okay with this. I chuckle to myself; it wouldn’t change anything if I weren’t okay with it. Reality would just go on being real, at least with regard to the weather. The weather is not within my control.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s almost time to begin the day. I wonder briefly how many of you read the layers of meaning or look for the lessons or metaphors? I smile to myself, unconcerned, just curious. I get to my feet and turn towards the sun. It’s time to begin again.

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

The Weeds In My Garden

May 12, 2026 //
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My garden is not perfectly tidy, in manicured precise rows of flowers and shrubs. Not in real life, and definitely not metaphorically. lol I am a lazy rather haphazard, sloppy, somewhat careless gardener. It’s a problem, sometimes.

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

“Cranesbill”, a common weed around here. It’s a wild geranium.

“Weeds” and wildflowers share one differentiating characteristic; whether or not they are growing in one’s garden or lawn, or out in the wild somewhere. 😆 Cranesbill cropping up in the lawn is vexing, and I’ve been ripping it out of my garden when I see it, too. The other day I saw it thriving in a corner of a flower bed full of native wildflowers at the local university and it struck me quite differently. I’ve decided to let it thrive in my flowerbed, to attract native bees and pollinators to my garden. Maybe also in recognition of how many of my own “flaws” are more than a little dependent on situations and circumstances (or other people) to define them as such. It’s worth thinking about. Who do you, yourself, most want to be? What grows in your “garden”?

… It’s a good metaphor…

We become what we practice. The qualities we nurture in ourselves and in others tend to become the qualities that define our groups and communities. What path are you on? What are you encouraging in those around you? What weeds are you pulling out – and what wildflowers do you encourage? What defines the difference?

I sit at my halfway point on this trail. Quite likely a bit past the halfway point in my life, too. 63 this year. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I don’t get everything right all the time, but I know a beautiful flower when I see one, and I recognize a beautiful sunrise on a Spring morning. That counts for something.

Softly, as in a morning sunrise…

I sit with the moment for some little while, noticing that the cranesbill here along the trail hasn’t yet flowered, and wondering about the difference in timing between that and those growing in the university flowerbed. I think about the weeds in my own garden. Most of the weeds are lawn grass encroaching on the flowerbed or trying to survive in the raised beds where I grow vegetables (a byproduct of carelessly strewn grass seed by the Anxious Adventurer). Funny how much the location and circumstances matter to how weeds are defined. I think about it awhile.

The sun rises without any help from me. Another day begins. There are new choices and opportunities ahead, and new chances to tend my garden with care, considering each flower and each weed in context. Pulling the weeds keeps the garden tidy and beautiful – and yes, it’s a metaphor. It’s not always clear which are weeds and which are flowers. “Choose wisely,” I remind myself, and then I begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, 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

One Lived Moment

May 5, 2026 //
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I got well along on my way this morning, heading for my favorite local trail for a morning walk, before I realized I’d somehow forgotten to put in my hearing aids. I didn’t pause or reconsider my plan; generally speaking, if I am alone anyway, I don’t really need them. The chronically vexing tinnitus isn’t improved by the hearing aids in any notable way, and my hearing impairment is limited to a handful of voice frequencies, mostly. It’s fine. It’s human and I’m okay with it.

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

…AI doesn’t “hear” sounds, “see” sights, or actually think about anything at all. It’s a very elaborate Mad Libs completion tool. I smile as I walk. I am having this experience. I see the gray stormy looking sky and wonder what the weather will be like. I don’t check and I’m not looking for an answer. I’m just having this experience and enjoying this moment. It’s enough. I walk on, grateful for this messy weird human life wrapped in a fragile, fallible, meat suit with an unknown expiration date.

A slime mold in my garden.

This morning I spotted a slime mold in my garden. There’s not much more to say about that. There it was, yellow and a little gross looking, but harmless as far as I know, and it will live out it’s life over days and be gone. It will live its own moment, and have its own experience. I wonder, as I walk, what the life of a slime mold is like from the perspective of the slime mold?

“Emotion and Reason” 18″ x 24″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic and glow. 2012

The Spring air smells of flowers. Roses and other sweet grassy and floral scents mingle. The air is still. Feels like it might rain today. Another thing AI doesn’t have; emotions and sensations. “Feelings”. I feel the possibility of rain in the specific type, location, and intensity of arthritis pain in my body. I feel a complicated mixed emotion of mostly anticipation, annoyance, and discomfort. Very human. This whole “human” thing has a lot of potential for profound joy (and sorrow) and feelings have to be felt – experienced – to be understood. Anything else is a facsimile (or, not even that). I can, for example, talk about the experience of motherhood, but without having experienced that myself, my words have little to offer, really. (This is also true of men writing about being women; without the lived experience, they are only observers.)

I walk awhile with my thoughts. Pretty random stuff on a Tuesday morning. I am in more pain than usual and distracting myself with my musings.

What a strange world. We don’t know what we don’t know. We’re each having our own experience. We all seem to assume everyone around us understands the world based on the same lived experience we ourselves are having. Super weird. Very human. Even the very green blades of grass along this trail may look quite different to us as individuals, and we somehow manage to share an understanding of “grass”. We are such complex and beautiful creatures. I sit with my thoughts awhile.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I have a vague sense that I was going somewhere with this, at some point… Now I’m just sort of indulging my wandering mind. I’m okay with that; the daydreams and the flights of fancy of a wandering mind are often the spark that sets ablaze an inferno of inspiration, for me. Maybe for you, too? When was the last time you simply sat with your thoughts? No phone, no screen in front of your eyes, no music playing, no “content” being consumed – just you and your thoughts and your lived experience? Worth doing.

I let the clock tick on for a little while, listening to birds and peeping frogs, and somewhere in the distance the hum and whir of HVAC. I sit considering the far distant future. If AI were to outlast humanity by some bizarre circumstance, and was asked to describe humanity…it would get so much so very wrong; it would have no lived experience by which to understand us. I hope our books and our art survive. I hope we do, too; we’re messy and weird, and violent and sometimes stupid, but we live and love and make beautiful art… I’d like to see us endure and grow into something better than we are.

I sigh to myself and get to my feet. I’m grateful to live this human experience, flaws and fears and pain and mistakes and all. I’m grateful for the opportunity to feel and experience love. I’m grateful to taste delicious food and to smell the flowers in my garden. I’m grateful to feel the trail under my feet and the breeze in my hair. I’m grateful to see the many hues of green and even to wonder if you see them as I do. I’m grateful to love and to feel my beloved Traveling Partner’s arms around me. I’m grateful for this moment, and I’m grateful to begin again, every morning, with a new day, a blank page.

What are you going to do about it?
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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, thoughts on AI, Words

A Greater Good

May 3, 2026 //
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I’m sitting alongside this trail on a peculiarly misty morning. It is Spring. The day is expected to be quite a hot one (32C/90F).  The full moon was setting as I drove to the trailhead. By the time I had arrived, daybreak had become a smudgy deep orange on the horizon, edged in a strangely angry looking red.

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

The stillness and the mist hint at hidden mysteries.

By the time I reached this spot, the morning was awash in misty pinks and hues of lavender. Pretty. A magical sort of fairytale sunrise envelopes me as I sit here, part of the landscape for a distant photographer in the blind on the edge of the marsh. I find myself hoping my presence doesn’t ruin her shot.

A new day, with new opportunities.

I am thinking about whether (and how) my choices individually can contribute to, or detract from, a greater good. I know that my words and actions have that potential. I mull over choices I’ve made in life without any regard for the effect on others. I reflect on choices I’ve made with attention and consideration of how they would affect others in my life and beyond.  I’m not sure why it’s on my mind this morning. Something leftover from my dreams, maybe. I wonder how many people really give any thought to whether a particular decision they are on the cusp of making will tend to benefit a greater good, or undermine it? Does it matter “in the bigger picture”?

Here is an interesting thought exercise about decision making and the greater good; imagine you have received an especially good job offer. The pay is fantastic (more than you were looking for many times over, an almost unimaginable sum of money), with equally exceptional benefits. It’s yours for the taking, but with the explicit understanding that in accepting this job offer, one reliable outcome would be that a notable percentage of the population would be…fired. No jobs left for them at all. Your own community and friends and colleagues, and numerous strangers, directly affected. They’ll be without income and without adequate resources. You have no power to change that outcome. Do you take the job? Do you serve your own needs exclusively, even knowing how it will affect others, or do you refuse to do that kind of harm for your own gain?

…I promise you, a disturbing number of seemingly “good people” would take the job. Would you?

Greed is some nasty toxic shit. Human primates are very vulnerable to greed. “More” and “better” are seriously tempting for most of us. Weirdly, it also appears that the more/better we acquire in life, the less we seem inclined to consider the greater good, and whether what satisfies our greed may come at a cost for humanity itself. Aggressively nihilist billionaires are fucking terrifying; they have nearly infinite resources, and genuinely don’t care about humanity at all. They’ve chosen themselves and their own satisfaction over any sort of greater good so many times, it has become easy to destroy what everyone else needs to survive.

I sigh to myself. I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s beautiful here, now. I sit awhile, reflecting on life, and on choices. I planted tomato plants in my veggie garden, and gave them plenty of room in the raised bed. I put cages around them, more to protect them from the deer in some small way, than to support them. I think I’ll plant carrots and radishes in the adjacent space. I remind myself to water the yard when I get home, feeling rather stupid that I forgot to do that before I left. I add an alarm to my phone to remind me to water the lawn and garden beds early each morning, until it becomes a habit. I like not having to bother with that – but there is a greater good involved; the plants need the water in the heat of summer. Best to have the habit of it before summer heat arrives.

… And what about the other uses of the finite resource that is water? People, livestock, nature, agriculture… What is the greatest good for the greatest number? Where does individual responsibility really begin and end, and responsibility to community, society, or the world become the critical detail? I sit swinging my feet, and watching the sun rise. Once, a long time ago, someone told me I think too much. I smile to myself. I tend to think that most people (within my limited knowledge of people more generally) think too little. People seem oddly disinclined to take time for just sitting and thinking. Too busy. 😆 That seems unfortunate; there is so much to think about.

What will you do with it? Where does your path lead?

I breathe in the fragrance of Spring, exhaling as I hop down from my perch on the fence rail. The sun is rising into the clear blue sky. The clock is ticking. There are things to do, and it feels like a good time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, thoughts on AI, War and News of War, Words
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