Archives for category: Sleepless Nights
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To Sleep, Perchance to… Sleep.

January 19, 2025 //
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I woke from a restless slumber to a note from my Traveling Partner letting me know he hadn’t been sleeping well, himself. Sometimes that’s how it is. He doesn’t need me to rush back from breakfast with The Author, nor bring him an interesting bite of brunch from a favorite local restaurant. Maybe just make him some scrambled eggs later, he suggests. Easy enough.

I dress for another cold morning. 25°F this morning, definitely a winter morning. It’s clear and icy and I drive to the trailhead still thinking about my dreams. The evening went later than it typically does (for me), and although my sleep was restless, it was filled with dreams and I slept past my usual waking time. I’m not complaining; my dreams were more thought provoking than distressing, and I clearly needed the sleep. My dreams seemed filled with personal significance and reminders of important things, but now they are slipping away, leaving behind only colorful surreal remnants, and an incoherent recollection. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I let them go. They’re only dreams.

I lace up my boots for my walk down the frosty path. I’ve got my cane, and my headlamp. I open my gear tote in the back of the Mazda, and pull out my hat, scarf, and gloves. My writing will be done before I walk and after I return, from the warmth of the car. It is too cold for sitting at the midway point writing in the darkness of the morning. The cold path beckons me, and I go…

… I stepped along the path briskly in the cold. The frost sparkled everywhere that my light hit it. So beautiful! So cold. My thoughts stayed quite practical, fixed upon the moment of cold quiet darkness. The path was icy in spots. I walked with care but didn’t slow my pace any more than necessary for safety. I was ready to be done with it before I reached my halfway point, and considered turning back again and again, until turning back had finally become likely to be further than any sort of shortcut. Then, I simply pressed on with determination, ready to be done with it.

I think thoughts about the delightful time I am spending with The Author. Making it an annual thing is discussed. It sounds like a great plan. I grin, thinking about our visit to Powell’s yesterday, and their rare book room. Wonderful! I feel the warmth of my friend’s affection all over again remembering his gift – a book I am wanting to read, in an unusual edition. I’m moved, and grateful. I’m fortunate to have the friends I do. This friendship is special, indeed.

When the path finally turns me back to head towards the eastern horizon, I see an ever so faint hint of pale orange painted across the sky, clinging the the ground and silhouetting the distant trees. The sky began to lighten, a new day becoming more real each moment.

By the time I reached the car, I’m quite grateful to be at the end of my brief journey. Soon enough, coffee and a bite of breakfast with an old friend. We make good conversation and have not yet exhausted the many things we’d hoped to catch up on. I hope we find breakfast worth lingering over, and something to do to occupy us sufficiently long to let my beloved sleep awhile more. I sigh and warm my hands.

…A good time to begin again…

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being

Intentions, Choices, and Change

January 15, 2025 //
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So, the tl;dr on the visit to the new doctor is that I have a new doctor, and feel pretty well cared for, and one result is a renewed feeling of commitment to my health, generally, and less frustration and fewer feelings of futility about the work involved in being in good health. I’ve got a way to go, and there’s work to do. Predictably enough, I got pretty lax about things like my diet over the holiday season. Time to return to good practices and healthy choices, and there are a bunch of fucking verbs involved. lol

I spent some time this morning, over my black coffee (iced, no sugar) thinking about diet, nutrition, exercise, and cooking for a family while also staying focused on my own needs (and limitations). There are some foods I really like, that I can’t have (or have to limit very strictly), and that just has to be a practical part of the day-to-day without fussing or frustration. Examples? Cheese. Butter. Sugar. Non-nutritive carbs. Those are the biggies. I definitely enjoy cheese…and if I’m having cheese, I probably want that on a cracker… which are purely empty carbs with added sugar. So… no. Butter? Damn, I like cooking with butter. I don’t like the results with butter substitutes, and some recipes don’t turn out quite as well using oil – even healthy oil like avocado or olive. So… yeah. Butter needs to go, too, at least on my meals. Sugar? Just being real, that shit’s basically poison to me. I don’t need to be convinced. The hard part isn’t giving up gummy sweets (which I do really like) – the hard part is strictly limiting fruits to appropriate, measured, controlled, limited portions. These necessary restrictions don’t exactly leave me starving for flavorful meals. lol I’m not that fussy an eater, and I really like squash, and spinach, and eggs, and lean chicken, and broccoli, and beans, and nuts, and salads… so… yeah. Change is. I just have to do the work and demonstrate the commitment and the discipline, and I know that I feel better when I do. Choices.

So… there’s that…

Then… I need to do a little more, and do it a little faster. Basically, I need to make a point to burn those calories. lol I walk – but I’m not walking at the brisk pace I once did. I’m more… ambling along pleasantly enjoying the scenery. I’m in pain, and pushing harder isn’t easy. I’m grateful to be walking at all. Still, it’s time to pick up the pace and make real gains in strength. My doctor was frank with me, and also kind and encouraging. I know I’ve got this – it’s just that there really are verbs involved, and I’ve really got to do them for myself. Maybe that means on some days throwing in an extra walk, just around the neighborhood, at a proper quick pace with my cane and without taking pictures of flowers? I can easily get a mile or more in 20 minutes if I maintain a steady pace – and I know I should be able to do that without being breathless, at all. It’s worth doing. The more able I am, the more I’ll be able to do. More trails become attainable, greater distances become practical for a day hike. It’s worth the effort – and it’s okay that it will be an effort. That’s part of the point; doing the verbs.

This isn’t about new year’s resolutions, and these aren’t unexpected or unreasonable changes to need to make. I’ve been here before. I’m here again. That’s okay – it’s time, that’s all. The holidays are over and there’s work to do to be healthy and fit. Will I fail? Fuck yeah, probably; I’m very human. Will I begin again when I do? Definitely. I’ve got a goal, and a journey ahead, and it’s my path – I’ve got to walk it myself.

I smile and finish my coffee. I feel okay. I slept restlessly, and woke in pain, but neither of those things are out of the ordinary, nor do they cause me any particular concern, they’re just details to work around, and to cope with. It’s a very human experience. I’m feeling pretty encouraged and motivated. It’s time to begin again. Again.

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Categories Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Practices, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, The Art of Being, weight loss secrets

In The Wee Hours

January 15, 2025 //
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I’m awake. No point in it. I hear my beloved Traveling Partner sleeping in the adjacent room. I hope not to wake him. I tried just going back to sleep. Tonight, that doesn’t work. I’m awake. It’s been an hour of quiet sleeplessness.

I get up. Take a Benadryl (sometimes that helps). I make some Calm and drink that. Sometimes that helps. I put Capsaicin on painful places. Sometimes that helps. I meditate. Stretch. Breathe quietly and calmly in the darkness. I read for a little while.

… Still awake…

Well, shit. I sigh and shrug, unseen in the quiet darkness. I try “changing the channel” on the little noise generator the VA sent me. Huh. I feel sleepy…a bit, at least. I write a few words, let that feeling of sleepiness catch up to my busy mind.

… I try sleep again…

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Categories Allegories, breathe, meditation, Moments, pain, Practices, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being

Willful Change Takes Effort

January 12, 2025 //
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I woke from restless dreams about change and started my day the usual way, more or less. The evening, yesterday, ended on an unfortunate contentious note that seemed neither necessary, nor helpful. I finally gave up on conversation and went to bed, feeling irritated and frustrated.

I managed to sleep, but my sleep was both unsatisfying and filled with strange dreams of things not turning out properly regardless of effort or attempts to fix things. I woke feeling glad to be released from my dream life.

View from the trailhead before dawn.

I got to the trailhead still fighting the fairly stupid very human urge to “prove my point”, left over from last night. That kind of horse-flogging, tail-chasing foolishness is an incredible waste of precious limited mortal lifetime. I snarl quietly at myself to let that shit go. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I roll my eyes in an unseen expression of exasperation, and sigh. Letting a moment of discord take over my thoughts and “live in my head” that way does nothing to add to my life, and it’s pretty fucking pointless, generally. Seeking to convince someone else of something that directly contradicts their experience or beliefs is unproductive.

Either, or. Neither, nor. Grammatical details matter most if the result affects meaning or understanding. The rest, I think, is a matter of style… but… language functions by agreement, does it not?

… I still catch myself doing a search of my written work for a turn of phrase and a keyword I’d been accused of not using (or not using correctly), and easily find dozens of examples, old and new. It’s neither rare nor used incorrectly, where I find it. On the other hand, to the point my Traveling Partner was making, it’s also not at all consistent and I often don’t bother with it. I write very much the way I talk, so it’s a given that in spoken conversation and day-to-day use, I’m certainly also quite hit or miss, and probably misusing grammar on this detail a lot. I sigh. Is he right? Is he wrong? Am I? Are we both? Are we neither of us specifically exclusively correct? The particular point of grammar involved really matters to him. Less so to me (aside from how much it matters to him).

“Emotion and Reason” 18″ x 24″ acrylic w/ceramic and glow details, 2012

I sigh to myself and let my vexation melt away. What matters most to me is how much I love this particular human being. Enough to work to change. Even to flex my style. There is work involved, especially because I just don’t actually personally care much about this particular point of grammar, myself (using”neither/nor” to support the negative most correctly vs lazily defaulting to “either/or” all the time). Being very grammatically correct on this point has often gotten me teased for sounding pretentious or stuck up, and I suspect that drove me to discontinue it in favor of a more relatable approachable conversational style. I think it over as I lace up my boots before I put the whole vexing thing aside to walk the trail.

… The things we do for love…

There’s a hint of daybreak in the paler gray of the pre-dawn sky. The moon has set, but I won’t need my headlamp for long. The chilly dampness of the marsh wraps me in mist and silence. It’s a good time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, Logic & Reason, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Responsibility, Fault, and Blame

January 3, 2025 //
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I’m sipping my coffee and thinking about words this morning. My coffee is seriously pretty damned dreadful, and the words I’m thinking over can be vexingly easy to misuse.

People are pecular, and inclined to misattribute what is going on within themselves (or externally) to some cause or another without even a casual fact-check. Humans being human; we are prone to assign “blame”. We think we know the how or why of a circumstance and we decide who or what is at fault based on our “knowledge”. Sometimes we think the fault is our own, and possibly accept responsibility for some event or circumstance, maybe even seeking to make amends for some thing we think we’ve done. Other times, it’s someone else deciding who or what they think is at fault for some situation or event, and they put the responsibility with that individual or group or entity, assign blame, perhaps demand accountability or redress of perceived wrongs. It’s strange stuff, most particularly because it’s often quite subjective, not well-researched, even thoroughly fallacious (or just fucking wrong). We human beings make a rather ridiculous number of assumptions, are exceedingly “gifted” at flawed reasoning, and confirmation bias, as well as offensively fond of maintaining a self-righteous grip on some dumbass notion without regard to any sort of fact-checking. We like being “right”, and we’re often willing to believe we are in spite of mountains of readily available evidence to the contrary. Fucking dumb. Humans being human.

I keep sipping my dreadful coffee. “Why do I do this to myself?”, I wonder, vaguely amused. I could totally go back to the break area and make a better cup of coffee. Instead I continute to sit with my coffee and my thoughts.

When I was much younger, I was often willing to expend a lot of energy arguing against stupidity (or lies). I rarely do now. It’s not that I’m not amused/offended/discouraged by apparent idiocy – totally am – I just… don’t feel I have the time to waste on that, these days. I have a life to live, and it is finite and mortal. I’d rather let wrong-headed bullshit go, and just move on (and potentially simply reduce contact with people perpetually inclined toward lies, stupidity, or negativity). I’d rather just not hang out with someone who is fond of conspiratorial bullshit than argue the point. I’d rather just smile and maintain a comfortable distance or an agreeable presence in the face of someone insisting on being wrong about something for which there is definitely evidence for a different opinion, than fuss over minutiae that may not truly matter for enjoying a moment together as people. It’s not that I don’t enjoy “being right” as much as the next person… I don’t enjoy expending energy fighting for it. If you think differently than I do, but don’t violate my personhood along the way (or anyone else’s), why do I care? You’re free to be wrong. Generally speaking, this seems a win, to me – being accepting, being tolerant, being okay with uncertainty or even being wrong. Only…

…I’m reading “On Tyranny“, and the author makes several very solid cases for specific circumstances in which being accepting or “agreeable” is not a good thing. Something to think about, and I sit with my coffee this morning thinking about words, thinking about ethics, and thinking about the potential risk in being too accepting or too tolerant, under a variety of circumstances. Definitely worth thinking about.

…Although, keeping it real? This doesn’t feel like a world where we’re all at tremendous risk from being “too tolerant” most of the time…

Sometimes there’s real personal risk involved in tolerantily accepting blame (or inaccuracy, errors, or lies) rather than arguing a point. Tolerance is virtuous – unless it is tolerance of actual evil. Real damage can be done. Words have meaning, how we use them matters. The world is complicated, and there’s surely room for many thinkers and many opinions, but there is only one actual reality, one world we all live in, one set of provable, demonstrable, documentable, actual facts – and a lot of people willing to undermine that reality to bolster a narrative that they prefer (whether for power or for profit). Real people can really get hurt. I could become one of those. So could you.

I sip my coffee grateful for this quiet moment of solitude. Right here, right now, there’s just me, this moment, and this dreadful cup of coffee. It’s on okay moment. I’m okay with the bad coffee; it’s real. It’s authentically crappy, and it is what it is. There’s nothing to argue about, and nothing to fear in being honest about it. No particular harm in it. Nothing controversial about a bad cup of coffee – unless perhaps I’m ready to go down the ethical rabbit hole of “should we be drinking coffee at all, considering the terrible exploitation of coffee growers?”. I sigh quietly. Shit is complicated when we “zoom out” and take in a bigger picture.

Reality is what it is. Reality doesn’t care what I believe (or what you believe), or whatever bullshit notions I may be inclined to cling to. Facts don’t lie – but it’s damnably easy to be wrong about whatever conclusions are drawn from them. Another sigh. Another sip of dreadful coffee. My thoughts don’t change anything this morning, and it’s time to begin again.

…Maybe a cup of tea, instead?

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, Anxiety, breathe, Fiction, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Logic & Reason, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words
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