The sun seems to rise slowly against the pastel shades of pink and peach. The sky is hazy with the disbursed smoke of far away wildfires. Summer. Fire season.
Outcome to be determined.
I walked with my headache, my tinnitus, and my thoughts. The sounds of traffic on the highway nearby, and construction somewhere, create a “fuzzy” nothing sort of background noise. My thoughts are not important, nor are they particularly coherent. I’m just walking and thinking. I let the thoughts come and go. I stop at a favorite view point to sit, meditate, write, and watch the sun rise. I’ve got the trail and the park alone this morning, so far. I breathe the meadow-sweet morning air contentedly. I enjoy this moment; whatever else the day may throw at me, I’ve got this lovely peaceful moment to enjoy.
Yesterday was a strange mix of pleasant and difficult moments. Very human. I don’t stay focused on the difficulties; those things were sorted out yesterday. Resolved. Corrected. I do reflect further on the pleasant moments, letting them fill my thoughts for some little while. Savoring those moments because they matter most. I let my heart fill with recollections of joy, love, and laughter. I smile. I have a good sense of what matters most (these days, to me).
The yellow and white meadow flowers bobbing back and forth in the slight breeze atop brown summer stems are a pleasantly fragrant distraction from my headache. I watch small birds picking at the ground next to the trail. The sun continues its slow journey upwards from the horizon. Mornings hold so much promise. I sit quietly thinking about the day ahead without forcing it to become more than this moment, here. The future is unwritten, undetermined, and full of potential. I let it remain so. I watch the sun rise.
Every journey, every new beginning, starts where I am.
I experience a moment of sorrow, and a stray tear wells up and spills over. I am missing people who are dear to me, now gone. It’s a lonely sort of moment; there is so much to share, so much that I would talk about… I quietly say “I miss you” out loud, to no one in particular, and cry a little. Poignant. Human.
…The journey is the destination. Loss is part of the human experience…
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I let go of my sorrow. It’s a new day, and it’s time to begin again. I get to my feet and stretch, and turn back up the trail…
Some words of encouragement on a Thursday, over a cup of iced coffee and a side of sunrise.
New day, new beginning.
We become what we practice. Choose your practices with care, and an eye on becoming the person you most want to be. Don’t like the results? You can change your practices.
Forgive yourself for your very human mistakes and treat yourself with kindness. (Why bother when you may be feeling beat down and unworthy? Precisely because you’re feeling that way.) If nothing else you are worthy of kindness from yourself. We 100% all make mistakes. We can choose to learn from them.
Feelings are that – only feelings. There is no requirement that emotions be what do your thinking for you. Feel your feelings. Process your thoughts. Act with consideration and willful intention. So much less drama when our emotions are not left in charge.
Breathe. Take time for stillness and self-reflection.
Practice non-attachment. Clinging to objects and expectations creates chaos; reality doesn’t care about our expectations. Often our own expectations are enough to create our pain, stress, and unhappiness. Let that shit go.
Begin where you are.
You will be criticized. You will hurt. You will face disappointment. You will feel sad and you will feel angry. You will fail. You will struggle. These are all part of the human experience. You’ll also feel joy. You will feel merriment. You will laugh. You will endure. There are verbs involved, and real work to do. This is true for everyone and it is statistically unlikely that you are uniquely cursed.
Begin again when you fail. You will fail, everyone does. Begin again with each sunrise. Begin again with each disappointment. Embrace impermanence. This too will pass.
Unhappy now? It’s only a moment. You are your own cartographer. The journey is the destination. Keep walking. Keep practicing. Incremental change over time is a real thing. We really do become what we practice.
Breathe, exhale, relax, and get ready for a new start. Was yesterday bad? Let that shit go; it was yesterday. Today is a new day. Was yesterday great? Wonderful! Here’s hoping you ride the wave of joy and contentment into this new day. Begin again, regardless. Give yourself a fresh start. Turn the page. Make the choices that reflect the person you most want to be. “Being” is a practice. “Becoming” is a process. You get a new start on both with each sunrise.
What will you do with it?
I can’t walk your mile, or undertake the verbs you’ll need to do to get where you want to go… But you can. (And you must, otherwise you’re just sort of standing around waiting for shit to happen to you.) The choices are yours on your journey. Choose wisely. Choose to be the best version of yourself you know how to be, today. Then, tomorrow, do that again, more and better, because each day will bring you the additional knowledge and experience to do that, too. Incremental change over time; we become what we practice.
None of this is “easy”, but most of it is quite simple. It just requires action and presence. Yours. Your choices. Your actions. Your journey. Don’t like where life is taking you? Choose to follow a different path. The choices (and the power to choose) are yours.
I smile to myself and watch the sun rise. A new day unfolds ahead of me. So many choices. I feel hopeful and merry. It’s time to begin again.
I’m sipping my morning coffee contentedly. It’s instant. I don’t care much about that – it’s fine. It’s even fairly good. There’s a sea breeze blowing through the open patio door. The breeze carries the scent of the sea from beyond the bay, and the sounds of sea birds beginning their day. It’s quite early, but past daybreak. A sunrise that I won’t see is imminent, and the skies are cloudy and hinting at more rain. From the desk in my hotel room, I can see gulls walking over the sand of the beach. The tide is out, and Siletz Bay has emptied and become a vast muddy flat, speckled with various seabirds: gulls, herons, and other birds I can’t name.
Morning on Siletz Bay at low tide.
I woke gently after a long-seeming night of decently good quality rest. I woke several times for no obvious reason, but it is a hotel, and it is rather noisy here even during the wee hours. Still, I got ample rest and woke feeling merry and definitely ready for coffee. Without hesitation, I dressed and made my way out and down to the beach for a walk in the cool morning breeze along the edge of the beach before returning to the room and making this very satisfying cup of coffee.
I opened the balcony door wide, to let in the sea breeze and the sound of the ocean. I can’t see it from this “ocean view” room on the first floor, but I can hear it. I’m not complaining, and I’m not dissatisfied, just saying – there’s no actual view of the ocean from this room. The bay is plenty entertaining and visually beautiful (the changing tides see to that). I gaze out through the open balcony door across the bay. Am I hearing thunder? I start feeling a bit chilled, in spite of this cup of hot coffee, so I put on my favorite baggy sweater for warmth, rather than close the door. I sip my coffee.
It’s been a good trip for creative work. I’m very satisfied so far with my progress, as I’ve switched to pastels and now need to learn this new medium. I’m enjoying the studious work of learning something new. I’m focused on landscapes for the most part, and it’s these that drew me to pastels – specifically sunrises and sunsets. There’s no further “why” to any of that, it’s simply the source of my current inspiration. I see a lot of sunrises.
New medium, new work.
It’s been a wholly satisfying break, and I definitely needed the downtime. Today, too, is mine. Mine for reflection, mine for walking, mine for reading, napping, wondering, and wandering. Mine for artistic study and for painting, or even for simply “playing with the colors”. Today begins with more rest, less stress, and hopefully ends with still more rest, and more resilience. The goal is to return home tomorrow ready to see my Traveling Partner through his recovery from his upcoming surgery without feeling exhausted, burdened, or so stressed that I just … can’t. It’s an endurance race, not a sprint – and this much needed pause along the way is intended to keep me in the race, all the way to the finish line, probably some time close to the winter holidays. (Realistically, although his initial recovery from the surgery itself may be pretty quick, I expect it may take some weeks or months for my Traveling Partner to get back to 100%, and I’d like to be quite useful and helpful and available for anything he may need to get there, over that time.)
I breathe, exhale, and relax. The sea breeze fills my lungs, and freshens the room. As the unseen sunrise progresses, I see the palette of the morning beach scene beyond the window change. There are now more shades of sandy beiges, and hints of bright green where strands of seaweed have been left behind by the receding tide. The darker browns of large pieces of driftwood, and the dark grays of the rocks that dot the beach along the bay stand out against the sand. The water is a chilly pale gray, with a hint of blue, and the sky above is quite the same, with a fluffier quality. To the west, a heavy foggy mist clings to the mountainside, obscuring the view. What sort of day will it be, I wonder?
…Where does this path lead?..
It’s too early yet to paint. The natural light coming in through the patio door isn’t yet enough. The interior lights of the room “aren’t the right color”. I laugh at my preferences regarding such things. I know me; if I were truly moved to paint something, with a specific idea in mind, the lighting as it is would not be sufficient to stop me. It’s just not my moment, artistically. I’m happy to sit, write, and drink coffee awhile longer. I think about making breakfast. I think about… beginning again. It’s a lovely day for it.
I breathe. Exhale. Relax. This moment, just as it is, is quite enough. I smile to myself and sip my coffee.
I’m sitting with my first coffee of the morning. I came prepared, and although it is instant, it’s a good quality instant, and a good cup of coffee. It’s hot, clean tasting on my tongue, and satisfying.
A rainy coastal Monday.
My first sight upon waking, was the rainy day beyond the balcony of my “ocean view” hotel room (which lacks any hint of ocean view, by virtue of being on the first floor, but offers a lovely view of Siletz Bay). The second thing I noticed was a couple of young… sea otters? Seals? They were relaxing on this side of the bay, quite nearby. I went to grab my camera to get a shot of this not-all-that-common sight (usually they’re on the other side of the bay, too far away to get a good picture with my lens). Returning to the balcony, I see that a man walking his dog has also spotted them. Does he stay well back to let them be? Oh, hell no, he’s American; he quickly moves forward to take his fucking dog closer. Jackass. The sea otters (I think, based on how they moved) slipped back into the water as he closed in on them with his (thankfully leashed) dog. I got a couple of truly pointless shots of the larger pod they are clearly part of, as individuals bobbed above the water, and the pod moved on down the bay. Still – what a fun sight. I take a moment to enjoy that, and I forget about the man and his dog.
I woke early enough that the beach was empty (on a rainy morning), and slept in (for real) late enough to wake well past daybreak, dawn, or even sunrise (although there is no sunrise to see on this gray rainy morning, only a homogenous gray sky). I feel rested. I leave the balcony door wide open to let in the sea breeze and the cool fresh air. I sip my coffee, contentedly. I’m here with my pastels, and I can paint as easily from reference photos and from my imagination, as I can from the actual view, so the rain is nothing to me, and doesn’t change my plans, or upset me in any way. It was lovely to sleep so deeply, and to wake so rested. If that were all I got from this trip away, it would be very much worth it.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. My back aches ferociously. The damp climate of a cool rainy summer day on the coast is hard on my arthritis pain, and for a moment I am “feeling my years”, until I think to recall that I’ve had this arthritis since I was 24 or 25 years old – so for almost 40 years – and it’s nothing at all to do with age or aging. I shrug it off as an annoyance of no consequence, and get on with things anyway. It still amounts to an irritating distraction, but little more than that, so far. My tinnitus is not quite silenced by the wind and the waves – it’s a combination of sounds that sort of “drowns it out” when I’m on the coast, close enough to hear the ocean. It’s a nice break from the aggravation of my tinnitus at full volume. I take a minute to enjoy it with my full attention.
It’s not yet late enough for the hotel breakfast, but I rarely find their strange grab-and-go assorted things for “breakfast” to be satisfying, nourishing, or even particularly “breakfast-y”. Just a cheap convenience, and this trip I am more prepared to take care of this fragile vessel. I’ve got salad greens, blueberries, cashews, and hard-boiled eggs in the room fridge, and I make a simple breakfast salad. My stomach isn’t yet particularly interested in food (it’s a bit soon after waking), but it’ll be lovely to have a “real breakfast” once I’m ready to eat something.
These are such mundane details of such an ordinary life – why bother writing any of this down? I dunno, because maybe someone, somewhere, reading this hasn’t sorted it all out yet? Hasn’t “solved for X” in some of life’s math, perhaps, and simply reflecting on the things that work – or don’t – and what matters most (at least now, to me) may be helpful perspective in some way? In 2013, for example, I don’t think it would have occurred to me how much my own choices in life – simple practical decision-making – were responsible for the vast majority of my personal misery. I don’t know that simply saying “you’re doing this to yourself” would have gotten through to me, but perhaps someone simply reflecting on the things that are working well – small, sustainable, simple choices – might have guided me (or at least made me think)? Besides… I just write. It’s a thing I do. (I’m grateful that you are reading. Thank you.) It’s also “for me”; I often go back and read my writing from other days, other circumstances, with new eyes, or seeking new inspiration, or a reminder that “this too will pass”, or that I’ve “been here before”. (One of the lasting consequences of my TBI is simply that I have some memory-related challenges, and some oddities about how I perceive (or don’t) novelty – sometimes I just don’t recognize that I’ve “been through this before”. Helps to have a reminder.)
…I sit awhile, reflecting on how far this journey has taken me over the past 11 years, from being deeply negative, traumatized, mired in despair, and looking for “an exit strategy”, to where I am now – mostly pretty positive, generally contented, often joyful, enjoying life and love (and even enjoying work), and feeling a deep sense of… joie de vivre. It’s lovely. Each sunrise is worth seeing. Each day has something new to offer. Not only is the journey the actual destination…it’s a journey I find worth taking. That’s a long way to come from those dark days standing on the precipice, ready to decide whether to make a permanent end to my pain. I’m grateful that I made the appointment with the therapist who helped me find my way to a better path. (If you’re in despair, please reach out to someone for help. You matter.)
I stand, stretch, and begin to dress. I haven’t yet gone for a walk on the beach (or taken any walk at all yet, this morning). Seems a pleasant morning for it. The rain has stopped, the sand is firm, and although the tide is coming in, it won’t be a very high tide – plenty of beach to walk. The morning feels oddly “out of order”, with coffee and breakfast ahead of my walk. I chuckle to myself. This is the sort of healthy variation from a routine that serves to keep my brain flexible and young. I go with it. No complaints. Rigidity of thinking does not serve a human primate well. I breathe in the fresh ocean air deeply, and exhale, imaging blowing my pain out with my exhaled breath. I’m not sure it’s an effective strategy, but doing so amuses me and diminishes the power my pain has over my mind. I stand in the open doorway, watching the gulls and crows down on the beach. Somewhere nearby I hear a woodpecker. Now dressed, the day feels that it has more truly begun. I nibble at my salad, and finish my first coffee. There’s more hot water ready, so making a second cup is an obvious next step; there’s no hurry. This is my life. This is my time. This is my experience. Every step on this path is my “next step” – mine to choose, mine to walk, mine to reflect upon at the end of the day. Although our lives are intertwined and we are interdependent social creatures, we’re also each having our own experience. It matters to be and to choose – and to experience this life that I have chosen. I breathe, exhale, and relax.
…The day stretches ahead of me, unplanned, unconstrained, not yet filled with my choices and the verbs required by those choices. I am my own cartographer. The journey is the destination. It’s time to begin again.
Evening Light 