I sat down with my coffee to write a few words, after a restless, interrupted night’s sleep (I woke several times, though I only got up twice, quite briefly), and a somewhat tense commute. Humans being human. I started with “No Good-Guys” as my working title, because I started my day already disappointed in humanity. Mine. Everyone else’s. Just… yeah. All kinds of annoyance with the fundamentals of people doing the things people do. I mean, ffs, even children don’t get a pass (a six year old shoots a teacher?! a 10-year old shoots a friend over a bicycle race?? what the hell?) – the world feels very messy, chaotic, and whether I view the world through the lens of the media reporting, or simply my own day-to-day experience of self and others… it’s not looking good. I’m disappointed and vexed by both the circumstances that find me feeling this way, and the feeling itself.
…Emotions are not reality, I remind myself, the map is not the world…
I breathe, exhale, relax – and sip my coffee. What can I do better, myself? Probably a fucking lot. I could do more to communicate more clearly and more gently. I could work harder/more attentively at being a good listener. Good places to start. Probably for 100% of everyone out there, it would at least be a worthy starting point.
I sigh out loud. It breaks the stillness in this quiet morning place. I haven’t lost my interest in living – that’s something, anyway. I sit with my thoughts awhile. I think mostly about love, and how irksome it is that loving well and deeply over time isn’t easier than it seems to be (at least for me, with my hearty helping of chaos and damage, and a lifetime of baggage to deal with). The work involved in being the human being I most want to be, reliably, consistently, skillfully… fucking hell, it’s a lot of work. Sisyphean just about covers it. Every step forward on this path seems followed by some irritating detour or setback, and I find myself harshly judgmental of my efforts and deeply critical of my failures. I could do better there, too.
In a moment of harsh words, my Traveling Partner asked me to “set a better example”, to “model the behavior” I’m asking for, and to “show what that looks like”… which, strangely, caught me by surprise with A) its utter reasonableness and B) how truly difficult that looked in my head when I gave it a moment of thought, later. Yeesh. Fucking human primates – we think we know what we want, but again and again we set ourselves up for failure. We’re not actually all that good at being wise, or being kind, or being consistent, or being nurturing, or being positive, or being supportive, or being open, or… I guess what I’m saying is that this is a difficult journey in spots.
…I find myself asking “am I the bad guy?”, and having to admit that at least sometimes, yeah, I totally am. Well, shit. Okay, then. I guess I’ve got to work on that…
My coffee manages to go cold between the start and end of this fairly brief bit of writing, today. It’s a reflection of how often I stopped to ponder some point at length, and how deeply I am thinking some of this over, although I don’t think I’m really “getting anywhere” – at least not yet. There are more thoughts to think, more practices to practice, more work to be done – the journey is long, and there is no map. I guess I’ve just got to begin again.
I’m frustrated, sorrowful, and filled with fury. Emotional weather. I don’t know where I’ll be standing when this storm passes, but I’m not in a good place right now.
Breathe. Exhale. Relax. Repeat.
Drink water.
Stand up and stretch. Maybe take a walk.
Breathe. More. Find that calm place.
My heart is pounding so hard it rocks my entire body, and my clenched jaw makes my headache just that much worse.
…Where does this path lead?
…What matters most?
…That woman I most want to be? What would she do, right now?
Another breath. Deep, and steady. “Forcing calm” is a bit like shaking someone and yelling at them to “be mindful!!” – not especially effective, however well intended, but I’ll get there at some point. This moment, here, now, is difficult.
Breathe. Exhale. Relax. Repeat.
…What matters most? Finding a way to hold space for empathy and compassion. Finding patience and kindness in my heart. The effort feels superhuman, and I am so tired…
…These are just emotions… I can choose my actions…
Breathe. Exhale. Relax. Repeat. Keep at it. I’ll get through this. It’s a moment, nothing more than that, whatever the outcome.
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.
I’m sitting at a favorite trailhead, listening to the quiet of these predawn moments, and waiting for daybreak to illuminate the trail enough to walk without a flashlight. It’s the last day of the year.
An occasional car passes as I wait for the sun.
This nature park is only open from dawn to dusk, but there’s also parking near the gate. I wait to hear the quiet “clang!” of the gate opening, which reliably occurs just at daybreak. There are a couple other “regulars” who turn up to walk or take pictures as early as I often do, but this morning it’s just me. I’m okay with that; I’m not here to make conversation. None of the early morning people are. lol
2023 is over. What a year. So many lives lost to conflict or genocide. Humanity can be so terribly disappointing. The amount of violence and trauma left behind by 2023 would be shocking if we weren’t all so numb. I sit quietly, in solemn reflection and acknowledgement; we’ve got to do better if we’re going to survive ourselves at all.
2024 is just about here… I think about the year behind me. The challenges. The successes. The failures. The unrecognized opportunities. The missteps and course corrections. Work. Life. Love. Change. I consider how fortunate I am to enjoy the relationship I have with my Traveling Partner. I reflect on my current job and how much I enjoy it… And how little my enjoyment of my work ultimately actually matters, inasmuch as it has very little correlation with my longevity in a given role, at all. I think about the books I’ve read this year and the books I hope to read in the year ahead. I think about how wretched and poisonous corporate greed is, and the way it taints just every-fucking-thing. I think about hearth and home, and how much difference love makes, day-to-day. I reflect on how fortunate I am to have this life and another year to live it.
One more walk in 2023.
It’s daybreak and I can see the trail. I take a moment to move the car past the gate into the parking lot.
I sigh. Finish my coffee and lace up my hiking boots. It’s time to begin again.
It’s early. Pre-dawn. I’m waiting for daybreak at a favorite nearby trailhead on a drizzly chilly-but-not-cold Winter morning, on a Saturday morning, a day before this year ends. I enjoy walking as a metaphor for forward progress, for momentum, and for pursuing a path. Good morning for it. It’s even seeming very likely that the rain may hold off long enough to get a proper walk in without returning home quite sodden and chilled, which is a nice bonus this morning. I’d be here, now, even if conditions were colder and wetter, but I am glad the weather is relatively mild.
I rub my eyes and sip the iced coffee I picked up as I headed up the road to this place. Good morning for that too; I’d hoped to sleep quite a bit later, and I am tired. So tired. I suppose I could nap in the car until the sun peaks over the horizon… but… I’d miss watching the sunrise. lol I do enjoy a sunrise. Another beautiful living metaphor, a sunrise speaks to me of change and renewal and new beginnings, and I enjoy each one I am so fortunate to see.
… Fuck… I could be sleeping right now, though… only I’m not. Nothing much to be done about that, however , so I make the best use I can of these precious minutes of mortal lifetime to do something nice for/with myself. That’s how I find myself here on this trailhead so many mornings, waiting for the sun. I’m okay with it. I’ve waited on the sunrise for far worse reasons in this life.
This iced coffee is very good. The barista did a great job pulling the shots for it. “Shaken espresso”, but without anything to flavor or sweeten it, and no milk or cream, just coffee and ice. On a colder morning this wouldn’t be an ideal choice, because I’d want to be able to warm my hands with the cup. lol This morning it’s 48°F, and an iced coffee seems fine. I sip it contentedly, as the waning moon overhead perks through the clouds and a gentle rain spatters the moon roof of the car intermittently.
It’s a good time for meditation and quiet contemplation of the year that is almost over. It’s a good time to reflect on what has worked and what hasn’t worked so well. It’s a good time to look ahead and wonder, question, dream, and plan. Later, the sun will rise, and it will be a good time to begin again.
Evening Light 