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Just Do Something

March 4, 2024 //
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I’m sipping my morning coffee and thinking my thoughts. The weekend was a pleasant one, comforting, healing, and nurturing. The time spent with my Traveling Partner in his steady comforting presence has gone a long way toward processing my grief over losing my dear friend. I’m still stricken with a moment of sadness when I think about the loss of her presence in my life, but it’s more poignant and less acute, and that’s progress.

A little March snow.

The peculiar March weather continues, with occasional passing snow showers, and strangely icy mornings, and mild rainy afternoons. I never made it into the garden over the weekend. Between the pain of my arthritis, and a rather long list of other shit also needing to get done, and also wanting to spend time with my Traveling Partner, I chose differently, although I did get the compost I need to get started with Spring planting. The days are noticeably longer, already, so perhaps one day after work this week…?

I’m not feeling any sort of regret over not getting into the garden. I spent plenty of time there “in my head”, thinking about flowers, and roses, and vegetables, and Spring. Time well-spent. Time planning the season ahead is still time “in the garden”, and besides, I got quite a lot done this weekend, and I’m coasting on that sense of accomplishment as the new work day (and week) begins. (I finally got all of my laundry folded, hung up, and put away that had piled up – ignored – after my Traveling Partner was injured and needed a lot of my “spoons” to be available to care for him. Laundry in a basket was not my highest priority!) Being able to put so much attention and energy on quality-of-life-maintaining tasks without finishing the weekend completely exhausted was a win. I’ll take it.

…Do the things, when and if you can. Yes, there are verbs involved. Yes, your results may vary. For sure, you may not always achieve your goals, or get the outcome you were hoping for, but the doing itself is a worthy achievement, and the clock is always ticking…

Last night, after a day of doing load after load of laundry, and even putting it all away, and also finally properly and fully unpacking from my last trip away from home, I cooked a proper meal at home. No cheats. No convenience foods. Real home-cooking. Hell, my lunch today will be leftover stir-fry from last night, and it was yummy. 😀 I’m pushing myself harder on the trail when I go walking, too; more distance (a little at a time) and picking up the pace. One byproduct of saying goodbye to my dear friend was the visceral reminder of how fragile this mortal form actually is, and the unfortunate potential to lose an ability over time through lack of continued use. One injury, one prolonged period of recovery, can become a major fitness setback – to the point of potentially losing the ability to do something basic like walk easily, or pick myself up off the floor. Scary. As was the case when my Mother died, I’m feeling a renewed sense of commitment to my own fitness and wellness – and I don’t plan to waste that momentum. I’d like to be around for a long time more, enjoying life with my Traveling Partner, seeing and doing new things, and enjoying the things that I love.

…Do something. Keep doing things. Fail or fall, and begin again. And again. It’s just another practice…

…My legs ache this morning, from yesterday’s efforts. I’m okay with this, and I’m feeling it in the context of progress. I raise the sit/stand desk to standing height and get on my feet for awhile – it’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, weight loss secrets, winter

Rain and Snow

March 2, 2024 //
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It’s March in the Pacific Northwest. I’m sipping coffee at a trailhead, waiting for a break in the… rain? Rain. At least, it’s raining here; a sort of steady drizzle, barely enough to discourage me from walking.

No tears this morning, I’ve got the rain.

When I woke and dressed for my walk, I hadn’t checked the weather. I kissed my Traveling Partner, and went to the door. I was surprised to see everything dusted with snow when I opened it. I stood there rather stupidly for a moment, stalled by my astonishment. I turned back to my partner and commented that perhaps I could not go… I must have sounded disappointed (I was), because he reminded me I could just take the truck; this small amount of snow would be nothing for the truck, at all. Of course. Totally made sense and I grabbed my other keychain and left, stopping to grab my hiking boots and cane from my car.

For a short distance, I enjoyed a basically very ordinary drive, aside from the dusting of white everywhere. Within minutes the snow started falling heavily, filling the sky with fat snowflakes, dense and visibility-limiting, but that didn’t last, and I reached the trailhead safely just as the snowfall stopped altogether, becoming this drizzly rain. It’s a rather ordinary rainy March morning.

I think about the garden and the work I am hoping to do this weekend. There are seeds to plant, weeds to pull, and I’d like to get a fresh layer of compost down on the vegetable bed. Weather permitting. I’m thinking about adding a rose with my dear friend in mind… perhaps missing her will be just a little less painful if I honor her memory in my garden… some lovely spot, where I can “sit with her awhile”, now and then? I think about beautiful roses and which of the many I had grown or shared over the years she liked the most or commented on most often… Or perhaps entirely new-to-my-garden roses that somehow capture my dear friend’s sense of style and creative nature? A splash of contrasting colors… A relaxed informal habit… I think about her fondly with roses, flowers, and fragrant herbs in mind. No tears, just love and fond memories. Progress. Even grief is a journey.

… My dear friend loved my roses, and even more she loved that I love them, myself. We spoke many times about the risk of slowing down and doing less, and the unfortunate “use it or lose it” nature of physical ability as we age. I keep walking, in spite of pain, in spite of “laziness”, in spite of fatigue – and it’s because I am so painfully aware that if I stop, and my fitness falls behind, it will become progressively more difficult over time to get it back. The physical effort in the garden is very much the same sort of thing. I sigh quietly and consider the garden and what I would like to do there this year. It saddens me for a moment that my dear friend, this year, won’t be around to share it with…

The rain stops. It’s daylight. The trail awaits. It’s time to begin again.

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Categories breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, grief, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, loneliness, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Roses, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, weight loss secrets, winter, women

A 20-Year Conversation

March 1, 2024 //
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I’m sipping my coffee and thinking about the 20 year conversation documented in my archived emails that is the friendship I shared with my recently departed dear friend. It’s finally over, and that feels… strange. Over that 20 years, (which wasn’t the entirety of our friendship, just the portion documented in email exchanges) I sent 982 emails, and she sent 712, and then there were all the replies, and many of these include additional bits of back-and-forth within their threads. We spoke of art, love, life, work, and we shared music videos, cat pictures, and snapshots from assorted vacations and trips here and there. As my dear friend aged, some technological advancements became more challenging to adopt, and sometimes her health, or mine, was an impediment to replying (or replying at length) – sometimes it was just too hard to be on the computer, or to type on our cell phone. We never failed to stay connected, to keep in touch, and to start the conversation anew in a few days, or weeks.

We often shared moments of humor, some of them quite poignant “fun/not funny” sorts of moments. Sometimes we shared our challenges, seeking each others comfort, wisdom, or perspective. Sometimes we vented, seeking nothing but understanding, a chance to be heard. Life wasn’t always easy for either one of us.

We first met back in 1995, briefly. I was introduced to her by her son, rather casually, shortly after I began hooking up with him, in the midst of my divorce from my violent first husband. I was 100% pure chaos and damage, trying to rebuild something of myself out of the emotional wreckage that remained after I left my ex-husband. I wasn’t actually in a good place for a relationship, and a 32-year-old woman dallying with a much younger man when she so obviously needed to work on her own shit wasn’t a good look – and my (not yet) dear friend called me out on it, with frankness and clarity, and without being hurtful. She wasn’t wrong. She set explicit boundaries that she wasn’t in a place to make room for me as “family” on the basis of a couple of fun weekends. My motives were not clear (not even to me, and that was part of the problem).

My relationship with her son lingered, deepened, and became something lasting. My friendship with my dear friend did, too. Life throws us some curve balls, though, and later on my romantic relationship with her first-born failed, rather abruptly and painfully. My friendship with my dear friend showed considerably more staying power (obviously, or I wouldn’t be writing these words, now). We grew to rely upon each other, to stay in touch through all our changes and ups and downs and challenges and triumphs. It’s been a blast – hilarious and joyful and fond and intellectual and fun and… g’damn it I miss her already. Shit. She was that friend who got the first look at any new art (after my Traveling Partner), the first to read my poetry manuscript (still unpublished), and often the only one to be my confidante when I struggled with my emotional wellness or mental health, or a romantic relationship, outside of therapy. Losing her feels… so lonely.

…This morning I sip my coffee and I miss my dear friend. I had sat down at my desk first thing with an amusing thought stuck in my head, after my commute to the office. I opened my email and started to share it with her… then remembered. A few stray tears spilled over, and I feel them wet on my cheeks, even now. I didn’t bother to wipe them away. Fucking hell. So human. Death leaves us behind, standing on the precipice of a new beginning…

I don’t know what comes next, or what may someday “fill this space” in my heart where my dear friend’s laughter lived. I just know I’ve got to begin again…

…Some moments later, I sit back astonished to realize my dear friend and I had known each other for 29 years. Wow. More than 48% of my entire life was experienced in the context of this long association and continued dialogue. It’s no wonder I’m missing her, eh? This bit of perspective provides me an unexpected measure of comfort; it only makes sense that this hurts so much – we shared so much. I finish my coffee, and look out into the gray morning sky, thinking my thoughts…

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Categories art and the artist, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, inspiration, loneliness, Love, meditation, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, women

Another Day, Another Chance

February 26, 2024 //
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I’m waiting for in-room hotel coffee to finish burbling its way to being an actual cup of hopefully drinkable coffee. Oh, I know; it’ll likely be pretty crappy, but the hope exists as its own thing, and it’s worth cherishing for its own value. Hope is a good feeling. I like feeling it. Anyway, if you ask someone who doesn’t like coffee in the first place, they’ll tell you how bad it reliably is – all of it. lol. Perspective, too, is a thing that exists.

Yesterday was interesting – and precious. My dear friend woke from her unhealthy repose in the hospital, and we shared some laughs and some lucid conversation. It awoke hope in me, and put my drenching sorrow to rest, and it feels good to connect with a dear friend, even under such trying circumstances. I was also fortunate to get to visit with others dear to her, in one case gently renewing an old relationship that had fallen to circumstances, which was both unexpected and delightful. The friends who had gathered last summer, when I made my trip down the coastal highway in July, gathered again, too, and although the confines of a hotel room were not so merry as relaxing in my dear friend’s home, it almost felt like that party, once again. It was fun. It was also purposeful, as these gathered loved ones were gathering to care for my dear friend together and in turns. I am, in a sense, simply passing through their experience of saying goodbye, to have my own. All for her, this quite wonderful and very dear friend.

I upended my plans, after talking to my Traveling Partner; one more day, another chance to visit, and also a means of taking some pressure off myself to hit the road again almost immediately. It was frankly surprisingly hard on this fragile vessel to make the drive down so directly, all in one shot, in ways it definitely would not have been 3 decades ago. I sit with that thought awhile, and sip my coffee. (Is my coffee as terrible as it seemed likely to be? You don’t know that unless I tell you. Something like the pain of strangers; it probably exists, but you aren’t likely to know unless the information is explicitly shared with you. I don’t know why that feels share worthy – it’s a dark bit of perspective.)(Yes, it’s awful. lol)(The coffee. The coffee is awful.)

I woke at my usual time, this morning, after a pretty good night’s sleep. That bodes well for the trip back tomorrow. I woke missing my Traveling Partner. Missing home. Missing a reliably good cup of coffee on a lazy weekend morning, and I am rather awkwardly aware that I’ve “missed the weekend” entirely. lol I breathe, exhale, and relax – it’s an unimportant detail of the sort that can spin up a heartbreaking amount of pointless stress, so I let that go. Ridiculous bullshit is not welcome this morning. It has proven to be helpful to be open to “success” even in times of sorrow, and I’m welcoming this dawn as I welcome any other; a new day, a new beginning, a new bunch of opportunities and chances. Place your bets, roll the dice – but don’t get attached to the outcome, and don’t bet what you can’t afford to lose. Put that way, this “game” that is life looks so damned easy!! I know, it isn’t – it’s more complicated than a game, and the last hand is always a reminder that we are mortal creatures.

…Maybe this cup of coffee isn’t so bad after all? Perspective…

I’ve learned some other things visiting with my dear friend. Things about mortality. Things about nearing the end of a life. Things about dignity and comfort. Things about health and wellness. Things about… risk management. I’m glad I came down to visit my dear friend. Fucking hell I’m going to miss her, and this visit gives me much to reflect on, myself, for my own purposes, too. I chuckle to myself to realize that even now, under these circumstances, she continues to teach me things I need to know in that gentle and unassuming way she always has. I sip my coffee contentedly. It’s still quite early. I’ve got time to get a walk in, and maybe do some yoga before breakfast. Certainly, it’s time to begin again.

… The clock is ticking. What will you do with the time that is left to you?

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, grief, health, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, women

Driving Lessons

February 21, 2024 //
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I’m contemplating the day ahead, and the commute behind me, and considering the things I’ve learned while driving. I mean, there are really some useful lessons that can be applied in a more general way, too.

  1. You can only go as fast as the traffic ahead of you is going.
  2. Driving conditions vary.
  3. Letting anger control your behavior does not contribute positively to the outcome.
  4. Other people’s behavior is not about you at all. Stop taking that shit personally, but also don’t be a dick.
  5. Open road ahead feels like “freedom”.
  6. Self-care matters; taking a break from stress is helpful.
  7. Until you “get there”, the journey matters more than the destination.

Things I’m thinking about as I start my day. Figured I’d share. 😀

If the stress is getting to you, in life or while commuting, stop and take a break! You’ll thank yourself.
Driving conditions vary.
Traffic sucks. Do your best. Breathe.
Most of the misery you experience is something you create for yourself. You can choose differently. Your results will vary.

I sip my tea and consider this; people who will “cheat” the traffic rules to get ahead in traffic are likely to be the same people who cheat in life, in various minor and major ways. More to think about. Who do you want most to be? I direct the question to the woman in the mirror, and begin again.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Parables, Perspective, Practices, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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