The room spun when I woke. It was ahead of my alarm, but I had reset it when I went back to bed after spending awhile during the wee hours up with my Traveling Partner. I still managed to wake up by 05:00. I would have preferred to sleep longer.
… I laugh at myself softly; I had crashed out still dressed, having taken my boots off, and my hearing aids out. It didn’t take long to get up and get going with that kind of “head start”. 😆
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
Getting to walk the trail from beginning to end in full morning sunlight is a treat. I don’t rush, I savor it. I sort of have to; the mild vertigo I woke with persists. I’m glad I can rely on my cane for support. I proceed down the familiar path with caution, thinking about my Traveling Partner and hoping he got some rest. (Probably not; he pings me a good morning greeting as I walk, and it’s still pretty early.)
Headache, tinnitus, vertigo, arthritis pain… As I walk I take inventory and get a sense of my comfort and what kind of self-care and support I need to provide myself, today. Busy day ahead. I try to remember why… Right. An audit. I sigh to myself. A good night of rest would have been preferred, but being there for my partner still feels like the better choice. I keep walking, turning my attention to the morning sights and scents. There is a beautiful clear blue sky. The trees are decked out in deep green summer foliage. Meadow wildflowers encroach on tidy vineyard rows.
I get to my halfway point. I won’t stop as long this morning. I have less time. I’m not even bitching, just being aware of the time and my preferred timing. Up nearly two hours later than a typical morning, it doesn’t throw off my timing for the rest of the day much at all. I’m grateful for the reduction in potential stress that provides. Grateful that hang ups over time and timing no longer set off a panic attack if I am a few minutes late, or miss an alarm. That’s a lot more progress than one sentence can carry.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I make time for meditation. The vertigo? It will pass. The rest? I have tools to cope with most of that adequately well. It’s enough.
Coffee next. I sigh and stretch and look down the sunny trail. Time to begin. Again.
It’s not quite 04:00. I’ve been awake since my Traveling Partner woke me around 02:10, unable to sleep, struggling to breathe. I don’t have any help to offer, and everything I say seems likely to start an argument. I dress and leave the house.
I sigh to myself, grateful to have a good therapist.
There’s really nothing to do but keep walking. Stumble, fall, begin again. Incremental change over time adds up. I can count on that. Impermanence? That’s real, too. Change is. We are each having our own experience, too. What feels like a reasonable question to one, may feel very different to another. Practicing non-attachment feels hard, sometimes. Walls and mirrors, and humans being human.
… The real motherfucker is that I only have the power to change myself or my own choices, regardless whether useful or necessary changes could be made by another person – that’s on them and entirely out of my hands…
I get all up into my head in the wee hours, thinking about values, character, boundaries, acceptable behavior, relationships, choices… We walk the path we choose. We become what we practice – whatever we practice. I sigh to myself in the darkness. Almost an hour yet until daybreak. Maybe I can nap for little while? Later is soon enough for beginnings and choices.
… Until then, I’ve got this path to walk and a bunch of thinking to do.
This just in from the Department of FAFO; our nation is burning, and it’s not just our incendiary politics to blame (although maybe a little… pretty sure DOGE and Trump’s platoon of criminally unqualified bootlickers cut staffing in some critical areas…)
From the wildfire layer in Maps this morning.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
I sigh to myself as I set off down the trail. Nice morning for walking. Cool, clear skies, dry well-maintained trail, and the quiet time to make the walk without rushing; it’s just about perfect. There’s just this subtle haze over the hills on the horizon that isn’t a byproduct of distance alone, and this wildly colorful sunrise. In combination they tell me things elsewhere are burning. Fire season is here. I’m grateful it isn’t closer and that the sky hasn’t turned that sick orange-brown that results from fires nearby.
…I enjoy a colorful sunrise…
I walk on, thinking my thoughts and wishing I’d allocated my time a little differently over the weekend. I had intended to spend some time painting, and I have a head full of ideas. Instead, I chose to hang out quite a lot with my Traveling Partner (time well spent, in spite of some contentious moments mostly to do with miscommunications of various sorts). We’re both studying for our drone pilot license (part 107), and it was pleasant to share that time and the studying is more fun together. As fun as that was, I had still intended to carve out time to paint, and failed utterly. Oh well, at least the laundry got done.
I get to my halfway point and stop awhile to meditate and to write. The bold pink hues of the sunrise have faded away, revealing another likely hot day ahead. The sky is clear and blue. The air is still, and still cool. It’s already warmer than when I left the house, though. The forecast suggests 30C/86F today – a proper summer day. I’m grateful for the luxury of air conditioned spaces, and clean drinking water. I consider contrasting my experience with “less developed” nations, then recall Flint, Michigan, and am reminded that there are people in this “developed nation” that still don’t have reliable clean drinking water. For fucks’ sake, really?? Really. Pretty appalling.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I let that go, and everything else that isn’t this moment here, now, too.
Some time later, I realize I’m sitting here frowning, thoughts of packaged items to be returned, a work day ahead, and a short list of small things vexing me somehow already (still?) on my mind. A litany of little reminders plays on repeat in the background of my consciousness like some surreal but very practical chyron. I sigh, frustrated that I’ve failed completely to quiet my mind. Prescriptions to pick up. Figure out dinner later. Drop off the returns. Follow up on that item from my boss from Friday. Hang up the rest of my laundry. Change the linens on the bed. Do I need to stop at the store? Remember everything that has been forgotten, and get to all the meetings on time… All routine and ordinary… and much.
… How the hell do I finish a relaxing three day weekend by starting a new week already tired? It’s not as if I didn’t get enough rest! What annoying bullshit. 😆 Very human. I could do a better job of taking care of myself.
I breathe, exhale, and relax – and give meditation another chance. It is, after all, a practice. We become what we practice. I silence the endless reminders in my head, and get ready to begin again.
In the quiet minutes after tempers flare and the uneasy peace that follows, I take some notes. New or unremembered metaphors, insightful analogies, deep questions, and revealed underlying hurts of times long past… Notes for meditation, for self-reflection, for discussion with my therapist. Tripping hazards on life’s path.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
It’s a very human experience, and a lot to think about. I will think about the path ahead, and also the path that has lead me to this point. I’ll consider my behavior, my choices, and my options. The menu of life’s Strange Diner is vast and the options are many – nearly always more than I can imagine, or accept.
I sigh to myself, and set my notes aside for tomorrow.
A new day, another sunrise, a chance to begin again.
I woke early this morning, from the sound sleep I had sunken into after the neighborhood fireworks finally stopped. I got up, surprised to find my Traveling Partner also already up. I started the watering and caught up on messages, then headed up the highway for my walk.
I walk along the marsh trail, more meadow than marsh this time of year. Swallows swoop and dive, chasing their breakfast. Meadow flowers bob gently in the soft breeze. The bold magenta sunrise begins to fade, first to pink, then to a softer pale salmon hue, before fading away to blue sky streaked with white clouds. I sigh and wonder what distant wildfire is responsible for that crazy magenta sunrise? It was beautiful.
A convenient place to stop and reflect.
I get to a spot that I’ll call “halfway” (it isn’t, but it is a convenient spot to stop and there is a fallen oak adjacent to the trail which makes a relatively comfortable seat). I stop with my thoughts, and my baggage, and sit with the moment for a little while.
… This is me, here, now…
I sit contemplating emotions and behavior, and what separates and defines them. Emotions tend to be what they are, and we don’t have much opportunity to manage or control our feelings, themselves. They are an internal, often immediate, experience. Behavior, on the other hand, we have clear opportunities to manage and control that (and often explicit societal expectations that we will do so effectively). That isn’t any sort of statement that it will be easy, at all, especially if we haven’t been in the practice of doing so regularly. It really does take practice. For some of us, it requires a lifetime of continued, focused, dedicated practice – and we’ll still lob some wildly inappropriate behavior into the world (or an important relationship), in spite of all that fucking practice, far more often than we expect. Humans being human. Some of this shit is a bit complicated, whether by brain damage, poor upbringing, ignorance, trauma, medication, or circumstances.
… Most of the time, most people are probably doing some version of their best in the moment, however thoroughly inadequate it may seem from our own perspective. We’re each having our own experience…
“Emotion and Reason” lit differently – how we view emotions, and how we use reason, make a difference.
I do my best to lead with kindness and empathy. I’m surprised how often and how easily I manage to fuck that up. Deep listening is a more challenging practice than it seems it would be. Practicing healthy boundaries is more difficult than I ever expect it to be, but frankly I’m a relative beginner on that topic, so perhaps that is easy to understand? I sigh and remind myself to also treat myself with kindness, compassion, and understanding. My beloved’s expressions of hurt, frustration, and disappointment in some moment may define the moment, but they don’t define me as a human being. Nor do his missteps or difficult moments define him.
I reflect on my mistakes in the context of my values. I give myself time to think about them as snags and potholes on a clear path. I visualize various moments differently than they occurred, incorporating the changes in my behavior that I’d ideally want to see. I compare and contrast with similar moments that went very differently. I let myself recognize the differences in a useful way, to build additional implicit understanding. I remind myself to be patient and slow down, to take the time I need to do things right, and to avoid taking it personally if (when) the world doesn’t slow down with me.
… The journey is the destination. I walk the path I create with my choices. I have opportunities (so many) to change that path by changing my choices. It sounds easier as words than it is in practice – but “practice” is an ongoing thing. I’ll keep walking (and practicing).
… I keep my focus on my own behavior, because that is what is within my control, and it is what I am responsible for, myself…
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I don’t know what is around the next bend. I’m walking this path, enjoying the journey, and doing my best to be the person I most want to be. There’s work yet to be done. Where does this path lead? I guess I’ll find out when I get there. In the meantime, I guess I’ll begin again. Again.
It is the actual 4th of July. What are you even celebrating? 250 years of… what, exactly? Or… are you celebrating something about the way things are, presently? Think about that. I’m not going to wait – this trail is ahead of me.
Where does this path lead? It’s an important question.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
What are you celebrating today? America’s 250th birthday? The destruction of democracy at the hands of the corrupt and the foolish? Something more personal? (For a long time I celebrated my freedom and survival from my first marriage every July 4th – totally worth celebrating.) What does the day really mean to you? Is it only a third day off, and a cookout, followed by lackluster fireworks and the sound of sirens after some careless idiot blows his hand off misusing fireworks at home?
…250 years of racism and misogyny?..
On a lighter note, my Traveling Partner pointed out, a couple days ago, that we are observing the six year anniversary of moving into our little small town suburban home. Wow – already? I remember that first 4th of July in a new place, still moving in, no AC, listening to our neighbors blowing shit up until well past midnight. The house was stifling hot, the windows open to a breeze that never seemed enough to cool things down. (I’m glad we had the AC installed. Worth it.) I’m grateful to be free from the constant nagging awareness that my rented housing wasn’t really mine, noisy neighbors and all. Worth celebrating. We worked hard to get here. We are fortunate to be here.
A view of the Willamette River from a convenient rock.
I find a spot to sit awhile and watch the river flow past. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I exchange good morning greetings with my beloved. The lovely pinks and golds of the sunrise that I enjoyed getting here are long gone. The day looks overcast, and there is no hint of sunshine for now, although the forecast indicates a sunny hot day. (Maybe the government should have kept their meteorologists and weather data gathering agencies intact after all? Shortsighted fuckwits.)
I inhale the scented summer air. Flowers. Clover, blackberries, and St John’s Wort mostly, and some wild roses here and there. The combination is pleasant. I exhale slowly, and repeat, filling my lungs and my senses. This is a lovely spot to sit with my thoughts.
I watch young squirrels playing in the branches that hang over the trail. The saplings sway under their weight, flexing and springing back as they jump from branch to branch. While my attention is diverted, a chipmunk sneaks up and tugs at the end of my bootlace, then darts away when I look down. I laugh out loud and startle all manner of creatures back into the safety of the underbrush. Noisy human.
Little birds flit about, landing nearby for a moment, singing a bit of their song, then flying away. This is a beautiful spot. Quiet. Peaceful. I sit enjoying it awhile longer, taking note of blackberry vines heavy with unripe fruit. The thimbleberries are laden with young fruit, too. Among the native shrubs, a twisted old apple tree also has young fruits on it.
I sigh contentedly to myself. I’m not inclined to celebrate the dumpster fire that is modern day American “governance”, but I’ve got this beautiful day, and I am fortunate to enjoy this moment before returning home to a life rich in joy and love. That’s totally worth celebrating.
Wherever you are is a great place to begin, again.
Evening Light 