This morning is cold and foggy. I slept in (for some values of “sleeping in”), and still arrived at my selected trailhead well before dawn. This trail is lit for much of the distance I walk, but beyond the vineyard, near the river, I still needed my headlamp. I’ve been, and returned, and it is still quite dark, though there is a hint of daybreak on the horizon. It’s not yet visible from the lit area of the trail, or the parking lot. The new artificial lights are much too bright.
A walk through winter fog.
The morning is foggier than I expected, and somewhat warmer (still quite cold, near freezing). The fog makes everything seem quieter and more mysterious in the darkness. I see the headlights of workers arriving to a nearby construction sight, filtered through the fog, before I hear the sounds of their pick-up trucks. I’m okay with that. The dance of the lights over irregular pavement is fascinating, and I don’t care for the noise at all. I walked and watched with wonder, alone with my thoughts.
The Author arrives later this morning. 10:30 or so, though I’m not certain whether that means to the house or at the airport. I didn’t ask for clarification – I guess I’ll know soon enough. lol I’m excited about this visit from a dear long-time friend. It happens too rarely. I think of other far away friends and wonder whether to plan a trip to see some of them in the summer? I wonder whether my Traveling Partner will be up to being without me for a week…or in shape to go with me?
I sit quietly with my thoughts. The sky is beginning to be a hue of deep gray-blue, visibly no longer “night”. A new day. There are things to do, and a visit with a friend to look forward to. I consider getting a coffee somewhere nearby, but I am just as content to sit here, watching the sky slowly lighten as dawn unfolds. G’damn, sometimes I am such a simple and easily satisfied creature. I chuckle quietly to myself. I’m okay with it.
I’m sipping my coffee reflecting on love, life, and how incredibly fortunate I feel, how grateful I am, for the partnership I share with my beloved Traveling Partner. Fuck, this has been a hard year (and then some) since his injury back in – was it November? December? – of 2023. Learning to be a caregiver, not just a partner, friend, and lover, definitely showed off some of my unpreparedness in the vast world of adulting skillfully. I had (have) a lot to learn. I’m glad things are improving (every day) now. I feel relieved. Did I say already? I feel grateful. Fortunate. G’damn it could have been so much worse.
We become what we practice. Once we are adults, our quality of life is largely in our own hands. Not entirely, to be sure, because we don’t all face the same circumstances, and just keeping it real – “the playing field” is not level. No one is in this alone, but we’re each having our own experience, and there is no question that some people are dealt a far more valuable hand of cards in the game than others. So…yeah. There’s that. Beyond that, though, we each have (and make) choices. Those choices really matter. Giving up on that is an unfortunately common mistake, but it’s an easy one to make. I think about that, and times that I’ve abdicated my responsibility to myself, yielded to cynicism, bitterness, or feelings of futility, and made things so much worse than they could have been, if I had chosen differently. Worth reflecting on, but as with so many such things – the lessons we learn after-the-fact can’t help us in the moment. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Sip my coffee. Listen to the woosh of the ventilation in the office – and feel grateful. Love has made a huge difference in how I make choices, and what matters most. I would not be the woman I am without the love I share with my Traveling Partner. Grateful barely describes my feelings.
“Communion” 2010
I feel so loved. My Traveling Partner can (and does) come to me openly and talk about his feelings and his worries. I can go to him when I am feeling feelings, and share my experience and feel supported and heard. Do we have challenges? Sure. We’re human beings, being human. This love, though… g’damn, am I wrapped in love. I woke this morning feeling loved. I’ll work through the day feeling it, too. It’s reciprocal. I love this man with a love that I don’t even know how to contain. Is it reasonable, practical, or even “sane”? Hell if I know – I don’t even care about that. I just love him. He loves me back. That’s worth something in this fairly scary world of chaos, violence, and human suffering. It’s something to “come home to”. I sip my coffee thinking of the moments we shared last night, talking and connecting, and loving each other. I hope every time I’m ever annoyed or angry over something trivial or stupid that my memory will carry me back to last night, and remind me that I am loved, and that love matters most. I hope the same for him – I can be damned frustrating to deal with sometimes – I hope he always feels loved, in spite of that. I sigh quietly and smile.
Is love a journey or a destination? Or… is love a verb?
…To experience an uncompromising, enduring love for so very long is a rare thing. For me, there’s only been this one, and all other relationships and moments of affection are dim lights compared to this roaring blaze. Love is always uniquely special, as feelings go, and I can only say again how fortunate I feel, and how grateful, to experience this one. This moment, here, now, wrapped in love – and all the others that my Traveling Partner and I have shared. I hope the journey goes on “forever” (or some close approximation of that idea), it’s been a journey worth sharing with this singular human being who loves me so…
“Cherry Blossoms” 14″ x 20″ acrylic on canvas. 2011
I sit quietly, smiling. Nothing else, really, just sipping my coffee and thinking about love. Work can wait on lovers, surely…?
So much of life is about love and loving.
My Traveling Partner is more than my spouse – so much more – he is my best friend. My muse. The inspiration behind so much of my artistic work over the past 15 years. The maker of so many delightful moments, and thoughtful things I use every day. I’d be pretty fucking lost without him – and very alone.
An alternate spelling of “I love you”.
I think about writing my beloved a love note, and realize as I sit here that I sort of already have. It never feels like enough; the love we share is so huge in the experience of a single moment. lol Filled with quiet joy, and wrapped in love, I begin again.
I am lingering in this moment, waiting for a break in the rain at this favorite trailhead. Nice morning for walking, if the rain stops for a little while. The forecast suggests it will, soon.
For some time I simply sat quietly, listening to the rain, the traffic on the nearby highway, and my tinnitus. A pleasant and uncomplicated interlude, and time well-spent alone with my thoughts, just being.
I am contemplating contemplation. Thinking about vita contemplativa. Considering solitude, stillness, and self-reflection. I am pondering presence, and the idea of ichi-go ichi-e. We live such busy lives. It’s clear to me that there is more to living a “good life” than being busy. Work and “productive effort” really isn’t all there is, and I have real doubts that it is even the most important part of life… In fact, I’m fairly certain it is not. So much of what we are exists apart from the work that we do.
Work and consumption and doom-scrolling through the various feeds seeking to profit from my attention span are a relatively meaningless piece of my life. Why let these details consume my precious limited mortal lifetime? There’s so much else to experience, to enjoy, and to feel. I sit with my thoughts and my awareness of this moment. Time becomes irrelevant when I am fully present in my life, experiencing the journey, awake, aware, and really “here for it”.
I’m not busy right now. That’s intentional. I’m also not bored, nor seeking anything to become busy with. I’m okay with this quiet moment spent with my thoughts, living this moment, listening to the rain fall, and watching the slow approach of dawn.
When was the last time you took a moment to do nothing at all, but to do that very deliberately, quite aware of your experience of the moment, simply being, without agenda or impatience? Without drama or bullshit? Without occupying your attention with a screen in front of you or a device in your hand? I’m finding such experiences very worthwhile, restful, luxurious, delicious moments of freedom from the clock, “hearing myself think”.
I write a few words. I’ll sit awhile longer. The rain will stop, and I’ll lace up my boots, pick up my cane, and head down the trail eager to begin again, aware how much it matters to really experience the journey.
I’m sipping my coffee. Just that. I’m taking a moment of time out of the day to simply sit, quietly. Not only is there no “shame” in taking this time for myself, between doing the budget for this pay period and starting the workday, it’s quite necessary for me to thrive that I take this time to simply be. No pressure to perform. No agenda. Nothing that must be done right this minute. There are opportunities to make room for stillness throughout any given day – for all of us – it’s a matter of taking that time and making it one’s own. It does require an act of will, particularly on a busy or stressful day. A moment spent just being… not fixing things, not ruminating over the latest stressful detail, not troubleshooting nor planning, simply a moment of stillness spent… being. I breathe, exhale, and relax.
…I could be doing a thing, my busy brain reminds me somewhat anxiously…
Another breath, another sip of coffee. I look out the window onto the morning. It’s not yet daybreak, and there is no hurry. There’s only this moment, and me, some stillness, and this coffee. It’s enough. More than that, it’s quite necessary.
…Metaphorically speaking…
I sit contentedly for some time before I turn back to my computer to write these few words about that simple experience. It does require a choice. Recognition that I am deserving of my own time and attention for this little while. The willingness to make inaction the action I am choosing to indulge for some little while. Purposeful contented stillness in the midst of a busy day feels… luxurious. No shame, guilt, nor reqret, just a lovely moment spent on… quietly being.
I am reading Vita Contemplativa by Byung-Chul Han. A worthy read about the pursuit and value of inactivity. The luxury of leisure. The worthiness of stillness to fuel creativity and thought. Another quite slim, small volume filled with big thoughts. I’m having to take it in small moments to give myself the chance to reflect and consider what I’ve read – and I am inspired. These notions about the value of stillness, inactivity, and rest really resonate with me.
I consider my dueling nature; the artist and the analyst. The girl who can read for hours and the woman who is aware there is yet more housekeeping to do. The daydreamer whiling away the day and the purposeful individual completing tasks on a list one by one. The driver heading for the horizon without a destination, and the one with a carefully planned route to a place that must be reached. The woman with a deadline and the one who does not care about time. What matters most, I wonder? Who am I when I am alone with the woman in the mirror?
I smile to myself. Having succeeded in taking a few minutes to just be, and to enjoy that moment without anxiety – or purpose – really refreshed and energized me. I feel “ready for the day” in some way that I don’t reach any other way. Is this “real” or an illusion? Does that even matter, if this is the experience I am having?
I glance at the time and finish my writing. I’ll finish, here, then finish my coffee without hurrying the moment. Stillness and time to reflect and simply be, first – I can begin again sometime after that. My calendar and my list will still be waiting there for me.
12 years ago I started this blog. It was a difficult time in my life, in spite of having a lot of the ingredients available for contentment, emotional security, and joy. I was deeply unhappy, and mentally unwell. I was teetering on the edge of making very final, very poor decision about my life that I wouldn’t have been able to revoke. Things felt incredibly bleak and I was “trapped in the mire“. When I considered starting this blog, I didn’t have a clear idea of what I was seeking from it and I could not see my path ahead. I was wandering in darkness, metaphorically.
Sometimes our path is illuminated. Sometimes we walk our mile in darkness.
I sought encouragement from one of my partners at the time, asking her thoughts regarding beginning a blog. I had kept a pen & ink journal for many decades, I just wasn’t certain I had something to say that was worth “sharing with the world”. She had a blog, and I hoped that she would have words of encouragement and maybe some insights. No, she did not have that. Instead, I received a valuable lesson regarding the likelihood that any given person has any interests but their own in mind, and a reminder that regardless of the relationship, however close I may think someone is, there’s a real chance that they do not have my needs and interests in mind at all. She smirked at me with a certain smugness, and told me rather dismissively that it probably wasn’t worth it for me to write a blog, and that chances were that no one would ever read it anyway, and I probably wouldn’t be able to “keep it up” more than a couple days. I was… hurt. I felt “invisible” and misunderstood. I felt exactly what she intended; dismissed and diminished. Then the anger – did she even know me? (She did not.) It was a lesson worth learning, and although I am fortunate to be so well-loved by my Traveling Partner in my current relationship, I have also learned to take care of myself, and to be the one meeting my emotional needs, first and reliably, as much as I know how to do.
Wherever it leads, the path we choose in life isn’t going to walk itself.
That first blog post was barely a beginning – but it was a beginning. Since then, I’ve had so many beginnings, and so many words of encouragement from so many people dear to me. I’ve shared my voice: my thoughts, my fears, my ideas, my astonishment, my affection, and my anger – and so many emotions and experiences on this path. I’ve practiced practices, and shared those here. I’ve failed and started over, and shared that too. Once a year, I am reminded of her dismissive words so long ago, and I smile and sip my coffee; she definitely didn’t know me. lol (As it turned out, I didn’t know her either, but I soon learned all I needed to know.)
Where does this path lead?
Since I wrote that first post, I’ve written 3111 3112 blog posts, with an average of 163k words each year (about 750 words each time I post, sometimes more, sometimes less), posting an average of 258 days per year. Consistency has worked for me. I’ve found my way into the inboxes of a couple hundred long-time subscribers (thank you), and turned up in more than 5 thousand searches and every search engine I’d ever heard of, and a few that were new to me. More than 34k people in 123 different countries have found their way here (I’m not surprised that most of my readers are in the United States, Canada, and the UK). I’m not “famous” (and not seeking fame), and I wouldn’t consider this blog wildly popular, but I’m definitely glad I started writing here – and grateful that you’re reading. I hope my musings have been helpful in some way, and if not helpful, I hope you’ve at least been entertained for some little while. Thank you for reading.
I’ve still got to walk my own path.
I’ll also say this; you have value. You have something to say in the world, something to contribute. Don’t let someone else’s opinion hold you back. If you’re inspired to write, or sing, or dance, or sculpt, or film, or share who you are with the world in some way, begin! If it doesn’t work out easily – begin again! We become what we practice. What you have to say matters – maybe a lot. We all want to be heard. It’s easy to become discouraged when someone whose opinion matters to us doesn’t support our enthusiasm when we expect it – don’t let that hold you back. We’re each having our own experience, and they have reasons of their own for not giving you the support you want and need, and those may have nothing to do with you at all. Let that shit go. Walk your own path. Find the traveling companions on life’s journey who are actually “going your way” for a while, and walk with them. Sometimes the journey is difficult, but that doesn’t make it less worthy.
Each step along this path has been worthy in it’s own distinct way, although I don’t always see it at the time I take the step.
It’s been 12 years since I began this blog. It’s been worthwhile to write each day that I did so. It’s been helpful more than once to look back on my own thoughts and words, myself, and seek my own council from the woman in the mirror. It’s buoyed my spirits when I felt low to read your comments, and know that I am “being heard”, and to feel that something I’ve said may have helped light the path for some other traveler.
The path isn’t always easy, but it’s mine, and I’ll continue to walk it. It’s time to begin again. Again.
Evening Light 