There’s something about the quality of the light in the evening.
Breathe. Exhale. Relax. Stop – or, at least pause. Breathe in the evening calm. Exhale and embrace the next moment. Moments are so fleeting.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
I sit for a pleasant little while in the stillness between chapters of The Stand. Will I finish it? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m enjoying the time spent reading, carried off to some other place, although I’m definitely glad it is a book and not a first hand account! 😆
The light is going dim. The distance between day’s end and Road’s End seems far, now, connected only by moments.
… There’s something about the evening light that beckons me to pause and reflect…
I miss my Traveling Partner more than a bit, paradoxically, considering how much I’ve been craving time alone with my thoughts. I sigh to myself, and pick up my book. I’ll begin again in a moment – a different moment – for now I’ll just watch the tide come in as the evening light fades to night.
I slept well and deeply, woke gently, on time more or less, and made my way to the trail for my morning miles without any fuss. I think I even managed to avoid waking my beloved Traveling Partner on my way out. The day begins well.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
In the distance, clouds, hills, a horizon.
As my steps carry me along the path, I notice the distant mountain foothills have snowy patches, partially obscured by low clouds clinging to the hillsides. Instead of blue sky above, more clouds. Even nearby, the weather seems less like the Spring I expect, and more like late winter in the Pacific Northwest. It’s cold, too. 1°C, very nearly freezing. The path is slick and frosty. There are little birds everywhere. They don’t seem to mind the chilly morning.
Here and there, blue sky peeks through the clouds, like a promise. Everything looks green and ready for warmer days. This chilly morning was unexpected, but not wildly outside the obvious possibilities, for the area. I was less than ideally well prepared, this morning. I walk briskly to my halfway point, hands jammed into warm pockets. I sit on a cold bench at my halfway point, pausing my writing now and then to warm my hands again before I continue. I’m okay with it.
My fingernails are a shimmery shade of blue that seems fitting for reflecting this sky on this cold morning, and I smile each time I see them. Getting a manicure is a treat, and I was a bit overdue. I like my new manicurist, too. She does beautiful work, and makes pleasant conversation.
What do you see when you look?
The tangle of oaks overhead seem as if they have captured the cotton candy pink of the dawn sky in their branches. I feel merry in spite of the chilly weather. Another work day ahead. I’m eager for warmer days and long afternoons in the garden. The deer have begun wandering through each night, eating the tender shoots and new growth from the tops of all the roses. I’m glad I didn’t hustle to get starts planted! Between the cold and the deer it would have been a wasted effort.
I think about that for some little while; the idea that practicing non-attachment, and taking a more relaxed approach to getting things done sometimes allows me to out wait some vexing circumstance, and move on more easily, isn’t a new idea. It is the “wait and see” approach on of many relaxed people. Low stress. Low drama. I’ll still get the garden planted, probably this weekend when I also have time to put together the fence I’ve planned, hoping to keep the deer from also eating my garden (as they did last year). Maybe rose cages for early Spring, next?
The chilly morning begins to distract me. I’m not really dressed for the cold, although my cardigan is quite warm. In the distance, I see sunlight touch the hillsides. I wonder what the day holds? I get to my feet to begin again.
Yesterday… Interesting day, and simultaneously uneventful, and also notable in several ways, which is why it was interesting. My studio is coming along and I plan to be painting this weekend. I got so excited about that idea that I left work early to get the weekend started. My Traveling Partner knows how important that is to me and dropped everything to figure out weekend plans that would give me the house to myself. (I feel very loved.)
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
By evening, two things were clear; there was bad weather brewing, and my partner’s attempts to throw something together for Friday night hadn’t worked out. We’d definitely be spending the evening together. Hell, how could I be disappointed by that? Sure, I’m yearning for some solitude and creative time that isn’t interrupted by all sorts of routine requirements of adult life, but I’m also okay with planning ahead. I’ve long found it quite necessary. And also? I really enjoy the company of my beloved.
… What to do?
My Traveling Partner asked me if I wanted to go get frozen yogurt together? I surprised him with an immediate yes, and went to put on something suitable for to leaving the house.
The sky was stormy looking. I don’t mind such things. We talked about the weather on the way to enjoying a frozen treat together. At least for now, so soon after his prolonged incapacitation due to injury and surgery, every outing feels like romance. Date night. We could have gone to the grocery store and I’d have been every bit as excited. We had fun. It was a good time. He was still talking about fucking off for the weekend to do his own thing, and I was still looking forward to it.
Sometime during the night, I woke for no obvious reason. He was up (still or also was never clear). I mumbled some sleepy greeting, heading back to bed (not really awake, honestly), he called to me quietly and reminded me he actually has a full weekend of project work (business), and really should stay home and focus on that to stay on schedule with his customers. I nodded sleepily, unsurprised (the surprise had been that he was so ready to step away and give me the solitude at home to paint). He assures me he’ll be busy and “won’t be in the way”. I say something, words, affirming I’m fine with that. I’m genuinely unbothered. I’ve got my studio back, and I don’t need much more, really. The solitude is – always has been – a luxury more precious than gems. I’m happy to be mostly left alone more or less to paint. It’s enough. I went back to bed, back to sleep.
I woke this morning in the usual way, no alarm set and still waking up quite early. The darkness before dawn was drizzly. It rained through the night, continuing long after the rare thunderstorm had passed. I don’t mind a drizzle. I hit the trail happily contemplating a day spent at my easel.
A beginning of its own. Beginnings take many shapes.
When I began painting in pastels, in July 2024, I had already collapsed my studio to make room for the Anxious Adventurer. I’ve never had my studio available for working in pastels. This feels exciting and new. After the first flurry of eager creative work in a new medium, the fatigue of caregiving began to overwhelm me, and certainly I had nothing left over for art once life was done with me each day. The Anxious Adventurer proved to be damned little help with caregiving, at all, that was all on me. What help he did provide generally came at the cost of my cognitive capacity, resulting in still more fatigue. He didn’t know our ways, and definitely seemed more an adolescent than the grown adult I was prepared for (based on his age). His chronic negativity was draining. The contentious relationship with his father was… annoying.
…I wouldn’t have an environment I could paint in for almost two years, but I wouldn’t recognize that for some months, and the care my beloved needed and could not get from his son would keep me at home, too… for nearly two years…
Two years. For almost two years I’ve felt my inspiration wax and wane, again and again, yearning for the freedom to paint. The time. The energy. The emotional environment. It’s been rough having to stifle all that for lack of space, resources, or control over my environment. I have resented it more than I wanted to, and mostly because I often felt I’d been taken in by some cosmic bait and switch scheme; the help offered by the Anxious Adventurer’s presence rarely materialized and time and again I felt tricked into having to parent a grown ass man who should have had basic life skills mastered at 32.
… We’re each having our own experience. Sometimes adulting is fucking hard…
I sigh to myself by the side of this rain soaked trail. Things are different today. The rain leaves everything fresh and green. The air smells of petrichor and Spring flowers. The day feels full of promise. I have choices and today I will paint.
There’s a ping in the Anxious Adventurer’s travel chat. He’s almost home to Ohio, just a day’s drive away. He complains about the rain. His mother suggests he complain to the rental firm about the leaky truck and the flat tire. He complains that doing so makes him feel bad. I’m surprised when she and his grandmother rush to offer to do it for him. Huh. That explains a lot. I shrug it off. “Not my circus, not my monkeys”.
I’m sitting at the “halfway point” of this walk on a familiar trail, chuckling to myself over my lack of precision. It’s not actually halfway. Depending on whether I complete the loop, or turn back the way I came, it’s more or notably less than halfway. lol It’s a convenient stopping point sort of halfway-ish, with a pleasant spot to sit for a few minutes, that’s all. I routinely refer to this as halfway, in much the same way I might cut a sandwich in two pieces, and call each piece “half” of the sandwich without regard to how evenly split it actually is. Just saying… I’m not measuring these things for accuracy.
… I’m living my life…
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
The morning feels strangely compressed. Shorter. As though the minutes are somehow going faster. I know it’s not an accurate perception of time. Firstly, I slept past my sunrise alarm, and woke some minutes later to the lights on full brightness. Now, I’ve been sitting here listening to birds chirping and singing alongside this trail for who-knows-how-long – I definitely don’t. I didn’t check the time when I stopped. It’s been… some time. Honestly, it’s already time to head back to the car. Here I sit. Quietly. Contentedly. Enjoying this moment. It’s enough. I’d linger in this feeling for much longer, were that an option. All day maybe, as I might choose to do while camping. I sigh to myself and think my thoughts awhile longer.
… It’s time to plan some sort of camping trip, maybe…
Pause for a moment. Breathe.
Vita contemplativa. Ichi-go ichi-e. Each time for the first time, each moment the only moment. What a deliciously luxurious feeling it is to slow down. I stretch and enjoy the sunrise.
I know, I know, moments are fleeting. The clock is ticking. It’s time to begin again. I will…soon. For now, I’m enjoying this lovely moment.
I woke early. I clearly wasn’t going back to sleep so I got up, dressed, and headed out to take my walk and see the sun rise. Nice morning for it, although all the trees are in bloom and carrying extra tissues has become a Spring ritual. I get down the path to my usual halfway point before daybreak.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
A fit of sneezing overtakes me, and I use up the pack of travel tissues in my left pocket. It’s fine; I have an unopened pack in my right pocket. I giggle out loud to be so well prepared, but to be fair, it’s not my first Spring. 😆 I clear my throat a little hoarsely. I took allergy meds this morning, they haven’t kicked in yet.
Like a lot of people, “the money thing” is weighing more heavily on me lately. I’m not complaining, I’m just saying things that once felt thoroughly affordable and low risk, now require thoughtful planning. A lot of things are more expensive (in some cases by quite a lot), but wages never seem to be among the dollar amounts going up. “Cost of living”… It’s also a cost of thriving, a cost of exploring life’s possibilities, a cost of doing something meaningful with this mortal life, a cost of freedom from struggle, a cost of necessary medical care… Everything seems to have a price tag. Lots of shiny distractions to keep us busy so maybe we don’t ask why it’s worth it to spend many hundreds of billions on a foreign war (which we instigated for no clear worthwhile cause), instead of investing those resources in our national infrastructure, and domestic programs. It’s a question worth asking.
I sigh to myself. Even for me it is a question for another time. It is Tuesday. I was away from work yesterday, finishing up the many moving details of sending the Anxious Adventurer back to his home state and more familiar circumstances. My muscles are sore and my studio (which serves as my home office, too) is full of bland brown boxes containing a lifetime of creative work carefully compressed into about two cubic yards. So strange. There is so much meaning packed into those boxes.
More meaningful than they appear.
I sit by the trail reflecting on the relative value of things and experiences. Which matters most, truly, meaning or money? A sense of purpose, or of financial security? The jobs we do to pay the bills, or the lives we live once the bills are paid? Complicated questions, but only because we are pushed to be “productive citizens” from the day we’re born (unless we happen to be born into profound wealth, in which case, the rules appear to be quite different).
A colorful sunrise, a new day to choose my path.
I sigh to myself and reflect on sufficiency. I’m grateful to have a sense of purpose, and to feel that my life is meaningful. I didn’t always feel this way and it took some work to get here. I sit listening to peeping frogs down on the creekbank, or perhaps in the trees. I let the sound pull me back to “now”, and this fleeting lived moment. Moments are so brief. I smile and think of my Traveling Partner. I am fortunate to enjoy our shared journey through life. 16 years together coming up soon. 15 married. My longest long-term relationship. We’ve been through some things together. My heart fills with gratitude and love.
I smile to myself. I’m fortunate to be so moved by such simple wholesome experiences in life. It is by far less costly than chasing some perpetually unreachable yearning that somehow fails to satisfy, however close I may come to achieving it. I’ve been there too, and I’m grateful to have walked on from that chaos. I’d rather be in my garden.
… Shit. I remind myself to get out into the garden before the recently weeded beds are once again overgrown with nothing of value. There’s a metaphor there. I sit with that thought, and consider the work that always needs doing. How very like life that is.
I sigh as I stand and brush off my jeans. The clock is ticking. Daylight has come. It’s already time to begin again.
Evening Light 