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Rain, Fog, and Walking Anyway

October 21, 2024 //
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Monday has arrived. Here it is, a new week. The rainy foggy morning has enough chill in the air to remind me it’s autumn, already October and there are holidays ahead to plan. I lace up my boots wondering where I’ll find the energy for all of it. One foot after the other, eh? Every walk, every morning, serving as a living metaphor of persistence and momentum.

I sigh to myself, have another drink of this coffee that will be waiting for me on the other side of my walk through the rain and fog and darkness. I grab my cane, tuck my handbag out of sight, and save the beginning of my writing (I’ll finish it later). I stand, stretch, and set off down the trail, visible only within the circle of light provided by my headlamp. Another metaphor, I guess, and I walk on thinking my thoughts.

I get to my halfway point glad to be wearing long sleeves under a favorite heavy baggy sweater. I’m not cold, though my hands feel the chill in the air. I turn off my headlamp when I sit down on a convenient bench, and see hints of imminent daybreak in spite of the fog. My back aches with the arthritis pain that vexes me most during colder wetter weather. I mostly succeed in ignoring it. It’s not as if I can do much of anything about it that I don’t already do.

I breathe, exhale, and relax, taking a few minutes of stillness in the morning quiet. I’ve got a busy day ahead of me, and I need this quiet time for reflection and meditation to face it and somehow manage to get it all done.

I sit with my thoughts awhile. I’ve got some shit on my mind. I try to avoid minimizing it, or wishing it away. The way out is through. I consider the questions, the doubts, the unhealed hurts, and the stressors that complicate everything else. I try to avoid complicating things by conflating circumstances with the feelings about the circumstances. It’s an easy mistake to make.

… Life might be easier if I weren’t the sort of person who so very much truly wants things very specifically to be “easy”. lol It seems healthier than not to be able to laugh about that…

The fog becomes more dense as the sky lightens. I sit with my perception and wonder if it is an illusion. I sigh and let my mind wander on. There are surely more important things to think about. I find myself feeling regretful that it is so hard to find time alone. Going on 5 years in this little house I love so well, and I’ve still never spent a night home alone (or even more than a few hours, really). The Anxious Adventurer only moved in in July, and has already spent more hours alone there (taken as a total) than I have. My Traveling Partner has spent by far the most time home alone in our house (and doesn’t want or need all that, it’s just a byproduct of circumstances). Frustrating (for me).

I really miss the luxurious solitude that comes of living alone, sometimes. I don’t regret living with my Traveling Partner, it’s one of those things I wish I could have both in equal measure; the delight of his companionship and good company, and also my solitude. I don’t know how to make that work out aside from taking occasional getaways to camp or paint, and those clearly don’t happen at home. Before his injury, my partner’s work kept him home. Since his injury, it’s been the realities of injury, surgery, recovery, and day-to-day limitations (for now). It is what it is. It’s not intentional or in any way intended to limit my experience or prevent me meeting that need. It’s purely an unfortunate coincidence that the person in the household with the greatest need for solitude has the least opportunity to meet that need. It’s not personal, it’s just life.

I sigh. I would definitely not trade my beloved or one moment of the joy we share for lasting solitude. It’s true that I have to put some thought and effort into meeting this need. That’s just adulthood. I laugh silently and chastise myself – something about building character.

I sit wrapped in dense fog awhile longer. I amuse myself with imagining that I must create the day ahead from pure will and see it emerge from the fog as I do. A useful notion that encourages effort and discipline. It’s something to start with – and it’s time to begin again (already?). I take another look at these words, hit “save”, and “publish” and head back to the car to face the day.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being

For Goodness’ Sake

October 15, 2024 //
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“Are you even a good person?”

I sip my coffee, listening to the rain fall, thinking about goodness, character, doing and being good, and what any of that really means in the world we actually live in, where nations hold themselves up as righteous while committing genocide, and human beings individually lay claims to being “good people” while espousing hate, and “othering” human beings who have never harmed them at all.

Are you even a good person? If you answer “yes”, the follow-up question has to be “what does that mean to you?” How will you answer that? How do you defend your less than ideally good thoughts or behaviors? You know the ones I mean – and we’ve all got some. We’re human. Our brief mortal lives don’t lend themselves well to aspirations of goodness.

… But are you at least trying, though? Are you making the attempt to be a good human being, a good person? Putting real thought and effort into it? Working day after day to be a better version of yourself than you were yesterday?

This is on my mind this morning because of a brief interaction with strangers waiting in line ahead of me at the pharmacy yesterday evening. I was tired, and irritable. Hungry. They were making conversation to kill time in the long, slow, line (and blocking the aisle, forcing other shoppers to detour around them). They were mostly shit-talking younger generations. One of them was a woman somewhat older than I, the other about my age. The details are pretty irrelevant, aside from admitting they sounded pretty ignorant to me, and more than a little offensive. One of them caught my eye and probably picked up on a microexpression of some critical sort. She laughed somewhat uncomfortably and said, as if in protest of my judgement, “But I’m a good person!”

… Sometimes my mouth has a life of its own…

I held the stranger’s gaze and and replied rather cynically “Are you?” I said nothing more, and she turned away uncomfortably. There was a brief pause in their conversation, before they resumed, quietly, seeming more aware of other listeners. The line continued to move slowly.

Since then, I keep coming back to this idea of viewing one’s self as a “good person”, while simultaneously doing, saying, or thinking things that completely undermine any potential truth to that statement. It wants thinking about.

Are you a good person? I’m not judging or accusing you. I likely don’t know you, and even if I do, how could I truly know the content of your character sufficiently well to judge you? But… Are you, though? Are you at least trying?

Am I a “good person”? Hell, I don’t know. I want to be a good person. I value the idea of goodness. I aspire to goodness. I recognize and appreciate goodness when I see it. I seek to practice goodness as I understand it in all of my relationships. But – and it’s a big but – I am human, I am mortal, I have been traumatized, I was raised and influenced by human beings of poor moral character, and have participated in systems that could not ever be described as “good” – for nothing loftier than a fucking paycheck. At best, I guess I can say I’m generally at least trying to be a good person. My results vary. My efforts are often more aspirational than practical. I’ve still got a lot to learn and I still need an entire lifetime of practice.

I guess my point is… be humble about what a good person you are. You probably aren’t all that g’damned “good”, if you’re truly honest about actions no one observed, lies no one ever caught you out on, or thoughts you’ve never admitted to another person. Definitely keep working at it – the journey is the destination. The world has a serious shortage of goodness, and maybe nothing keeps us from the darkness besides our own will to fight for what is truly good and right. The effort to be the best version of ourselves is worth making, every day, in every interaction. We’re going to fail a lot, all of us, so let’s also be kind to each other about how difficult it is, while encouraging each other and also keeping things real when we see it all going very wrong. “See something, say something” is a useful strategy. Make corrections, not excuses – but for goodness sake, turn that critical eye toward your mirror, first, last, and often!

… Funny that this is where my thoughts are this morning, but I definitely need to reflect on these things as much as anyone…

I could do better. I’ll keep practicing.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. The rain continues to fall. I sip my coffee waiting for daybreak and wondering whether the rain will let up enough for a walk before work. I think thoughts about art, about love, and fill my heart with gratitude. I’m fortunate to live where I do, when I do. This particular “here and now” is pretty good. I can comfortably afford to spend time reflecting on whether I am a good person, instead of worrying about drones, bombs, or whether there will be food or drinking water for my family.

I sit quietly with my thoughts for awhile. What defines a “good person”? I watch the traffic roll by like the seconds hand of a strange clock. Isn’t it time to begin again?

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, inspiration, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words

Who Are You Doing It For?

October 14, 2024 //
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I’m sitting quietly in the pre-dawn darkness, waiting for the sun and sipping my coffee. I was up earlier than planned, earlier than I needed to be. Early. Laying around restlessly seemed more likely than going back to sleep, so I got up quietly and dressed, made coffee for my Traveling Partner, who was (probably still is) sleeping, and slipped out of the house and down the road to this nearby trail.

Long exposure with the night settings reveals a hint of purple in sky I wouldn’t see otherwise.

This morning I am feeling aggravated over nothing. I’m not certain why I feel this way. My headache, maybe? Maybe the lingering irritation over yesterday’s attempt to relax at home and paint while I did the laundry. That didn’t go well, although I did do a bit of painting, I gave up on it rather quickly rather than deal with my headache and my partner’s irritation with me. It was just too hard to create a comfortable creative space so I said “fuck it” and put it all away, and laid down for awhile hoping to also put the headache to rest. I wasn’t successful at that either. The headache is with me still.

Tears well up as I think about it. There’s more going on here, maybe something that needs more thought and care? It would probably be helpful to have a better understanding of what is actually causing this feeling of hurt.

“Why do you do this thing that you love?” I ask myself. It’s a question worth knowing the answer to, isn’t it? I’m not what would be considered a commercially successful artist. I sell pieces now and then, but I don’t invest energy (or time, or money) in representation, or the business of art. Definitely not “why I do it”, like, at all. I paint because it’s another way to communicate things I don’t have words for. I paint because the process itself meets an emotional need, and satisfies something within me. I love to see my work hanging in my home. It’s always been “about me” – by me, for me. I’ve always been okay with that, too, though I definitely get great joy from the experience of someone else enjoying my work.

Even in my least comfortable, unhappiest relationships, my partners at the time made room for my art, and for my creative process (and the occasional mess). My boundaries and needs as an artist were respected (and even in my terrifying violent first marriage). I felt valued as an artist even when I didn’t feel valued as a human being. Maybe that’s odd? It “felt right”. The people in my life, regardless how they seemed to feel about me, personally, in a given moment, seemed to appreciate my artistic work.

… Things have been feeling different, lately. Artistically, at least at home, I often “don’t feel heard”. I sometimes have a peculiar sense that “nothing I do” (artistically) matters at all, and that the art is, itself, a nuisance or an inconvenience. As if it’s somehow just “in the way” or taking up space. It’s a very strange and very unpleasant sensation.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I sip my coffee and wonder what there is to learn from this feeling, and this moment. I work on fitting it into the context of life, right now, with so much else going on. It’s been a while since I have been this productive as an artist, and although that is definitely meeting needs for me, what effect does that have on my Traveling Partner, I wonder? He’s certainly got his own shit to deal with right now, and any time I spend artistically is potentially time I am not spending focused on caregiving. Does he have feelings about that?

I am eagerly embracing the joy of feeling inspired by a new medium, and wanting to spend more time on painting (and savoring the feeling of satisfied inspiration), but I’m missing feeling a sense that my partner is enjoying it with me… and I don’t know why. Maybe he honestly just doesn’t care for the paintings I’m doing right now, but doesn’t want to hurt my feelings? Maybe my notion of what enjoying them looks like is a poor fit to the reality of it? Landscape paintings are probably less cognitively demanding of the viewer than abstraction, perhaps they don’t lend themselves to prolonged conversation?

… Maybe it isn’t about any of that at all…

I sit quietly with my thoughts. This isn’t going to be worked out over a single cup of coffee before the sun rises. It feels important, though. It’s a good time to remind myself that I paint to satisfy something within myself. The person who really needs to hear me is…me. Am I listening?

I have been here before. Self-reflection is a process, and a practice.

I sit thinking about the many hours over weeks, months, and even years that I have gazed thoughtfully at my paintings, hanging here or there. I’ve barely gotten started in pastel. Have I truly taken enough time with each new work, once completed, to really “get the point”? Am I feeling as if I were shouting in an empty room because I have not given the new work enough of my own time and attention? This feels relevant and real.

I’ve been painting in pastel for just 96 days. Over 96 days, I’ve painted 25 new pieces. That’s not my most intensely productive pace, but it’s damned close…am I spending enough time appreciating the work, reflecting on each new piece, and understanding what I’m going for? Maybe not. I think I’ve been tending to finish them, take some pictures, and move on to the next piece – sort of the artistic equivalent of talking without letting anyone else get a word in. The art isn’t being given enough time to really “speak to me”, I suspect – and I have to wonder if this is a bigger deal than I understood?

A new day dawning.

I sigh quietly, and wonder what to do about it. I drink my coffee pensively, looking at the hint of daybreak approaching on the eastern horizon. I shift uncomfortably, pain (arthritis, headaches) isn’t helping my mood. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’ve got this day ahead of me. Things to do. Things to think about. I prepare to begin again.

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Categories Anxiety, Art, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Frustration, gratitude, grief, health, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, Words

Stars Above, Fog Below

October 10, 2024 //
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Another autumn morning, no sunrise before the work day begins and I’m okay with it. I’ve got these quiet minutes of solitude to reflect on upcoming holidays, ongoing genocides, and an important election. (Please vote, I hope that goes without saying.) The world feels like it has gone mad… maybe don’t contribute to the chaos, pain, and mayhem. Don’t add to the body count. Seems almost ridiculous to say such things, but… there’s a lot of killing going on, and it is being perpetrated by human beings. Don’t be one the killers. Actual people are committing atrocities against other actual people, and somehow finding a way to justify their participation in these horrors.  Don’t do that.

It’s morning. I’m okay, though I am aware of the world, and the pain, misery, and destruction we somehow refuse to end. It’s a foggy autumn morning. The sky overhead, though, is clear and starry. It gives me a brief hope.

Traffic in the fog.

Yesterday was a good start on a new week, that is already almost over. I’m over being ill, which is nice. Monday is a holiday, which I had forgotten, and the long weekend ahead feels like an unexpected treat. I sit quietly awhile, grateful for the small win. I gently shift my thoughts away from more worldly matters, and reflect with gratitude on the many things in my life that are working out well. Small moments of joy and satisfaction. Contentment. These things matter, too, and there’s an enormous reserve of resilience waiting within them. I breathe, exhale, and relax, giving myself over to a few moments of meditation, before I begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, grief, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, War and News of War

One More Sunrise Then Home

October 6, 2024 //
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I’m sipping my coffee, waiting for the sun. I’ll enjoy the sunrise, finish loading the car, and then head for home. I miss my Traveling Partner, and it’s time. My coffee is quite good this morning; it’s left from yesterday’s very excellent coffee, purchased on my way to a beach walk not too far away. I knew I’d want a good cup of coffee this morning, early, and it was honestly too late in the morning for coffee drinking when I bought it – so I got a 20 oz Americano, black, and enjoyed something less than half of that with the plan of saving the rest for this morning. It has proven to be a good plan. 😀

I’m more or less packed. I’m showered. Dressed. There’s no particular reason to linger, besides this handful of words, a moment for meditation, and the coming sunrise. Very low stress, as mornings go. I’d intended to get a bit closer to sleeping in, but my eagerness to see my partner overcame any potential for further sleep around 05:00 a.m.. LOL Hardly counts as sleeping in, but whatever. I’m rested. I’m content to enjoy my coffee, and this quiet moment.

A productive weekend, creatively.

The time away has been well-spent, creatively speaking. 9 new pastels, a couple of them exceed my expectations and quite delight me. All of them are adequately satisfying to meet my needs. Another 9 hours or so, over 3 evenings, spent studying the art of pastel and a variety of techniques commonly used. 4 or 5 hours spent walking the beaches. An hour or so spent getting my hair cut. Unmeasured time spent chatting with my Traveling Partner because we often miss each other more than I enjoy my solitude. Time well-spent, indeed.

…Not one single nap, at all, how strange…

… I’m wrong. lol I forgot about my unexpected early evening nap the night I checked in. Good grief, I was sooo tired.

…Now it’s time to begin again, to go home, and hopefully to take with me renewed enthusiasm for the day-to-day, and restored resilience for the things that will go wrong – because things definitely will. lol It’s a very human experience.

I reflect on the days now behind me. Did I get what I was looking for? What I needed? I think so, yeah. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Now I’m just waiting for the sunrise, and drinking my coffee. I’m ready to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Art, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being
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