It’s late January and it’s raining. That’s not unusual in this area, particularly over the past few years; ice storms are rare these days, and even weather cold enough for snow is uncommon. It rains. It’s been raining all week and the forecast suggests the rain will continue through the week ahead. I’m okay with it, I like the rain. I’m sitting at a trailhead waiting for a break in the rain to get a walk in on a Saturday morning.
Where I’m parked I have a view of the low lying fields on the other side of the highway. Each Winter when the rains come, these fields slowly transform over days into a broad shallow seasonal lake. The migrating birds love it. I enjoy it, too. It’s good for pictures of sunrises reflected by the smooth calm surface of water on a calm day. In the pre-dawn darkness, it reflects the street lights of the neighborhood beyond. Pretty.
I look over the errands I plan to take care of on my way home later this morning and think ahead to my weekend on the coast next weekend. I’m excited about it, but experience a twinge of anticipatory “missing my Traveling Partner”. I always do miss him when we’re apart from each other. I still need the time away, it’s very much a self-care thing for me. It can be pretty difficult to get the solitary time I need when I cohabitate with a partner or as a family. I’ve learned to make that time happen as a personal priority. I can become pretty stressed and hard to live with when I don’t.
Emotional and psychological wellness is worth the work involved in good self-care. It took too long to learn that. lol
I sit quietly awhile, letting my thoughts drift through my mind like clouds on a breezy day. I listen to the sound of traffic in the rain and wonder briefly why there seems to be so much of it so early on a winter Saturday. I don’t actually care about that and the thought dissipates almost as quickly as it was noticed.
… The rain has stopped. Now I wait for daybreak, hopeful and encouraged, eager to walk the trail that winds between the river and the marsh. Eager to begin again.
It’s early and chilly. I’m at the trailhead waiting for the sun. Here and there are little piles of snow left behind by last weekend’s snow storm, but what I can make out of the trail in the pre-dawn gloom is clear. It’s a good day to get a walk in… because it looks like I can. lol I’m grateful.
I sit with my thoughts. Waiting. The days are slowly getting longer, again. Daybreak comes a few minutes earlier. The sun sets a few minutes later. For this too, I am grateful. I enjoy watching the seasons change. I enjoy welcoming the return of Spring, when it arrives.
I’ve made plans for a long weekend solo getaway a couple weeks from now. It’ll be good to have some downtime and “recharge my battery”. I don’t have ambitious plans or a list of exciting adventures to seek. I’m eager to rest, to read, maybe to write. I’m looking forward to walking other favorite trails and seeing things from another perspective. I’ve kept the planning quite simple, nothing more than a travel plan and a short packing list. I’ll pack the day I leave, and do a grocery run for my Traveling Partner before I go. I won’t be surprised if the first thing I do after checking into my room is… nap. lol Still, I am managing to be quite excited about it.
The sun seems slow to rise this morning. The sky is a stubborn deep gray, featureless and opaque. My bones hint at rain. I check the forecast and it agrees that rain is likely. If it’s not a drenching icy downpour, I’ll probably walk anyway; I’ve been missing this too much to give up on it over a drizzle.
A car pulls into the parking lot behind me. The gate is still closed. They’re not as patient as I am and they leave.
My Traveling Partner pings me a good morning. It feels like the day has begun properly, although I am still waiting for the sun.
A hint of a lighter shade of a bluer gray begins to develop on the horizon. It won’t be long now. I’m ready to begin again.
Another rainy weekend morning at the trailhead waiting for daybreak.
Rainy perspective on a moment.
There’s nothing extraordinary about this wintry rainy morning. I’m okay with that. Life is built on moments and most of those moments are utterly ordinary in every way. That’s not even a criticism, it’s fine. Perhaps better than fine, it’s sustainable and useful.
The rain spatters the car pretty ceaselessly. I’ll have a better idea whether I will be walking the trail once daybreak makes it visible, in the meantime I sit enjoying the sound of the rain and thinking my thoughts. I’ve grown to embrace this waiting time; it’s mine, for me, solitary and still.
I set aside my writing and take time for meditation. I breathe, exhale, relax, and let my thoughts pass as clouds on a breezy day, noticed but without doing anything with them. I settle into a feeling of profound contentment and love. The thought of my Traveling Partner and our shared journey fills my awareness. A sense of gratitude enriches the moment. Pleasant morning. I woke so gently this morning, and now here I sit, enjoying… now. It’s enough.
I sigh contentedly. Daybreak. I hear the clang of the park gate opening. I notice that the rain has stopped, at least for now… If the trail isn’t too flooded, it’ll be a lovely morning to walk it. It’s a lovely morning anyway. Time to begin again.
I’m sitting at the trailhead, early on a Saturday morning before dawn, listening to the rain on the windows of my car. I watch the lights of passing cars on the nearby highway sweep over the soggy roadside and the marsh beyond. I am waiting for a break in the rain and for the gate to the park to open. I won’t have to wait much longer on the gate, it opens at daybreak.
I’m sipping an iced espresso, more ice than coffee, and thinking about yesterday. New job. Well… Same job, but as a full-time employee rather than a contractor. I’m smiling as I recall the moment, because my boss seemed every bit as excited to make the offer as I was to receive it, and said some pretty great things about the work I’ve done so far. It feels really good to get that kind of validation.
… I remind myself not to take the compliments personally, just as I would if I had been grievously insulted; they’re words. Opinions. Impressions in the moment. They provoke an emotional reaction, sure, but my own lived experience reminds me they guarantee nothing and provide no assurance of a particular outcome.
… Still… I’m pleased and excited. It’s a step I wanted to take and it puts me in a good place for the year ahead. I sit quietly with the feeling of eagerness and contentment for awhile, waiting for daybreak.
Daybreak comes. The park gate opens. The geese begin their day and I hear them honking at each other before I see them overhead. The rain just keeps coming down steadily. Too rainy to bring the camera out. I wait, still hopeful I might get a break in the rain sufficient to walk a couple miles along the soggy marsh trails. Maybe. Maybe not.
I sit wondering what to do with the day before remembering it’s time to take down all the holiday decor and put it away for another year. I’d almost forgotten all about it. lol My heart is still celebrating, I suppose. It’s not that there’s all that much joy available in the world right now, more that it is more urgent that we savor the joy there is.
I sip my coffee (honestly more ice water than coffee at this point) swirling it in the cup to hear the ice rattle. Life can change so quickly. I sit with my thoughts, my joys, my sorrows. I enjoy the pleasant stillness and solitude awhile. No agenda. No demands on my time or attention. Just this moment, the rain, and the sounds of the geese… It’s enough.
Here it is the first day of a new year. I’m sipping my second coffee, which is quite good (primarily because I enjoy coffee – not everyone would feel similarly, and I recognize that it is an “acquired taste”). I am thinking over the year ahead and specifically, giving thought to “doing more better” and making progress on personal goals. I’m not inclined to making “resolutions”, but I have ideas of what matters most to me, what sorts of things will help me thrive and achieve and maintain better wellness, and even what sorts of things I’d just frankly really like to do, see, or enjoy in my life. It’s a finite thing, this mortal life, and it makes sense to take steps to “make it my own”, or “leave my mark”, or simply thoroughly enjoy a life well-lived. So, yeah… thinking about it.
The obvious stuff is… obvious. Tidying up the chaos that has accumulated during the busy holidays while also carrying for my injured Traveling Partner makes a lot of sense. Very practical. Healthy – the real-world chaos in my living environment tends to rather directly reflect the likely chaos in my own inner world as well. With that in mind, it seems to easy to grab a quick win, here, by finally unpacking (no kidding, and omg) from my coastal getaway earlier in December, and picking things up in my studio, which was left in chaos after I spent a weekend making holiday cards. Very practical. Very much within the reach of my abilities and my energy (I think).
A subtler detail like “finding a home” for the Tachikoma model my Traveling Partner gifted me, and which I built over the holidays, would be a pleasing “small win” to begin a new year… it’s not a tiny model, and I’d like to put it somewhere that I can see it often and enjoy it, and contemplate next steps for giving it some “aging” details and “realism”. (It’s amazing how much real delight this project has already given me.) Funny thing, though, it’s the sort of placement of an object that relies heavily on tidying up other chaos, first, or the placed object quickly topples from it’s beloved status to become just more clutter. So… I’m back to the necessary tidying up, which clearly has to come first.
…I sip my coffee and consider the matter from the perspective of an analogy for greater things, and a metaphor of life’s interplay of complex and simple. We walk our own path. We make our own choices. The “map” does matter…but we’re drafting that map while we explore this life, so… it’s not very handy as maps go, for making decisions about the next steps. It mostly just tells us where we’ve been.
…Speaking of “where I’ve been”, I really should update my Life in Weeks chart…
I look around this rather cluttered room. I’m glad now that I didn’t take a walk this morning. Although it would have been lovely to see the mists on the marsh, and hear the cries of the flocks of birds taking flight as the sun rises, it would fill me with optimism and contentment, too satisfied, too soon, for taking on the matter of “what next, 2024?”. My Traveling Partner encouraged me to stay home. We shared a few moments over coffee, before I began yawning. He encouraged me to go back to bed with a laugh, and I did so, thinking I’d be unlikely to sleep in spite of my general fatigue lately. How wrong I was! I woke more than two hours later, feeling substantially refreshed and much more rested. He was still asleep, himself, having also gone back to bed. I happily picked up the book I’m reading, and sat sipping what remained of my first cup of coffee, contentedly reading, losing myself in some other world, some other time. I do love reading… always have.
This brings me to another thing I’m looking ahead to; more reading. The convenience and easy availability of video content of all sorts (short and long formats) isn’t at all the same as reading a book. It just “hits different”. Videos, whether documentaries or fictions or news, are a bit more like grabbing a quick meal at a fast food place than they are like sitting down to a “real meal” at home (which, for me, is the “book” analog). The short format YouTube videos I definitely enjoy are very much akin to pulling through the drive through to grab a large order of fries and a coke; delicious, but there’s nothing at all nutritious about it, and as satisfying as it may seem in the moment, it leaves me wanting, and is probably actually bad for me. lol My Traveling Partner and I, seeking more/better, are talking about returning to “durable media” for things like movies and music, and canceling most streaming services. We don’t care for the strange empty experience of “doom-scrolling” or flipping endlessly through feeds that lack content we really want to consume, and the recent announcement from Amazon that they’ll be bringing ads to paid premium streaming customers is just… unacceptable. They’re definitely not going to continue getting our money. lol Streaming was definitely a lovely convenience, but I don’t at all like what the providers of such services have done with it. So… why take part?
The choices aren’t always “easy”. Giving up social media years ago? Hard. Have I regretted it? Not at all. It’s been very good for me, though it’s been an uncomfortable fit for some relationships with distant folks. Our choices and actions come at a cost. That’s just real. I make a point of mentioning it because although the cost is often “worth it” that doesn’t necessary mean it is an easy price to pay. (I think about my busted up back, which was the price I paid to survive my first marriage… a high price to be sure, but very much worth it.)
So… tidying up. Good one. Read more books. Yep, I’ve even got a list.
Other things that I see as having potential to make 2024 a better year (for me)? More miles on my boots day-to-day – fewer short walks, more longer ones. I managed to hit 500 miles in 2023 (that was my goal). Maybe in 2024 I can reach 750? I’ll try. That will mean making a point to be on the trail no less than an hour every time I go for a walk, if I walk every single day (because I also need time to take pictures!)… surely I’m worth an hour of my own time? 😀 I know that I am. So…
Tidying up. Read more books. Walk more miles…
I think I’d also like to make a very practical point of taking better care of myself, generally. I mean, cooking more healthier meals at home, and eating less fast food. I also mean staying more committed and true to my mediation practice, and not allowing myself to take shortcuts that undermine my emotional resilience, leaving me fragile and easily provoked by the world’s madness. Staying on top of my physical health, too, would do me a lot of good – it’s hard sometimes; I’m frustrated before I ever see a doctor, anticipating being blown off or gas-lighted, because I have been so many times before. But… this fragile meat suit needs care, and failing to care for it will legitimately have the potential to shorten my life, a life I am enjoying, and wish to continue to enjoy. So.
Tidying up. Read more books. Walk more miles. Eat healthier food more often. Meditate more consistently. Follow up with my doctor properly about shit that persists in being a problem. Damn. That’s a good looking year ahead of me, if I stick with it. 🙂
This is not about resolutions, though. If I try to make it so, I’m pretty much committing to failure I think. lol That seems the way of it. Instead, my approach will be to stay aware of what I want out of my life, and what it takes to have that, and what verbs are involved. Do those verbs. Repeat. Being committed to doing those things to enjoy those outcomes is, in a sense, it’s own goal. Setting myself up for failure and lobbing a bunch of self-criticism and negative self-talk at myself won’t actually be helpful… so I think I’ll skip doing those things. lol
…I guess I’ll add that I’d like to do more camping and hiking – more time spent constructively alone, instead of beefing silently about how hard it is to “hear myself think” or get a few minutes to myself. Create the world I want to be part of, even on this small scale. Care for myself.
…Crap! I really need to make more shower steamers, too… I’ve run out…
Seems like maybe a lot to commit to… doesn’t it? I’ll point out that it is all – every bit of it – stuff I really enjoy and like to do (yes, even the tidying up, though that’s more complicated than pure enjoyment and delight). Taking pleasure in the doing seems a likely way to put myself on the path to success with these things, I think. We’ll have to compare notes at the end of 2024 (I make a reminder on my calendar to check in with myself… did I “get there”?).
It’s the first day of a new year… and already time to begin again. 😀
It’s your path. Walk it because you want to. The journey is the destiation.
Evening Light 