Archives for category: War and News of War

I’m sipping coffee on an icy freezing morning in January, in a cafe space that seriously wants to be cozy and welcoming. The baristas here do their best, and they are cheery and familiar, and greet me as if genuinely pleased to see me. It’s nice. On the other hand, I may be the only walk-in customer for the first several hours they are open, and it’s a largish space with quite a bit of available seating that goes unused day after day. Chain coffee with a busy drive-through; “cozy” is not quite the correct descriptor, but it is warm inside and the coffee is hot.

I sit for some while sipping my coffee and thinking my thoughts. I’m in a weird headspace this morning. Not really looking forward to work. Not looking forward to the day itself, in any particular way. The news and the world have me vexed, stressed out, and even angry (sometimes). I don’t look at the news this morning, but I can’t pretend that we didn’t get so close to eradicating measles – then fail by our own deliberate (fairly stupid) actions. I can’t pretend that masked government thugs are being civil and professional as they go about the business of kidnapping US citizens from the streets, shooting, and maiming people for at worst some civil infraction that barely rises to the level of a criminal act by any definition (Seriously? tell me again how entering the US looking for a better life for yourself and your family by becoming a contributing citizen is “criminal”? This country was built by immigrant labor.). We’ve lost our fucking minds. Our president thinks it is appropriate (and feasible)(and worth doing) to talk about taking Greenland for ourselves – as if they don’t have a population that governs itself, and might have a fucking opinion about that. What the actual hell?

…All that and more. So much nastiness, pettiness, and bullshit, so much destruction and cruelty…and here we are. Cruelty is now policy. It’s on my mind a lot more than I write about it, and I sometimes find myself “picking at it” like the raw bleeding edge of a torn cuticle, thoughtlessly causing myself more damage and pain. Fuck. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I let all that go – again. I pull myself back to “now”. To “here”. This moment, this place, this experience…

I’ve got my own shit to worry about, right? I mean, the usual real life day-to-day fuss and stress that goes on for anyone, nothing tragic or terrifying (the world provides plenty of that, and I’m grateful for my relatively good circumstances presently). I worry about household maintenance that is needed, and I worry about my recently damaged car being properly repaired. I stress out over traffic when I’m in a hurry to be somewhere, and whether or not my Traveling Partner has what he needs for a comfortable day while I’m in the office. I juggle work and running errands and maintaining the household and getting meals on the table – all the usual shit in an ordinary life. (G’damn am I glad I don’t also have little kids to care for!!) I do my best to avoid taking mundanities personally. I avoid making assumptions that include some entity or individual being personally out to harm me (it’s rarely true, ever, and it does me no particular good to color my experience with that frame of mind). Chronic pain. Disability. Resource limitations. Health generally. Aging. Employment. An ever-growing to-do list that keeps me on a short leash with limited “free” time to read, relax, reflect, and enjoy a pretty good life… ordinary shit we all deal with to one extent or another (unless we’re among the very few with the means to shape our life very differently). I try not to just bitch endlessly about that kind of crap. It doesn’t help me to do so. Venting has been shown to have limited value for good mental health. It’s also probably pretty dull reading. So… yeah. Sometimes I’ve got shit on my mind that I don’t care to be fixated on, or to spend a lot of time writing about or discussing. It’s unproductive and unhealthy to become mired in other people’s drama – or our own. Some mornings the best I can do is sit quietly, drink my coffee, and think my thoughts until they carry me elsewhere.

Why go on about what I don’t write about? I dunno, I guess my thinking is that I’m as human as anyone, having my own experience, but still seeking solutions, still walking my path alert for obstacles along the way – and still walking on in spite of those obstacles. I’m not looking for opportunities to “get it off my chest” so much as I am seeking, finding, and sharing the tools and practices that light my way to a better experience living my life. It’s been rough sometimes. I’ve been through some shit. (You, too, I bet?) I live a better life than I ever expected to – and I’ve made a lot of changes to get here. I want to mostly focus on that. The changes. The possibilities. The practices.

Maybe you have thoughts, too? I rarely ask – but I am interested. Curious. If a particular post on this blog moved you, gave you insight, or lit your way somehow, would you consider commenting and linking to that post? Was it just a thought or some often shared aphorism that anchored you? An “eye-opening moment”? I’d love to know, if you are willing to share that with me. You are a presence in my life, though we’ve likely never met. What brought you here? What brings you back? You matter. I write with you in mind.

I sigh and shift uncomfortably in my seat. Arthritis and chronic pain – that’s fucking real as hell this morning, and I ache with it from my fusion (T12-L1) to the base of my skull these days. I will dutifully report it on my next doctor’s appointment, he’ll make a note and do nothing much about it; there is nothing much to be done. Still, it could be worse (so much worse), and I’m grateful for the day, this moment, and this cup of coffee. Life is more better than bad, and has been for awhile. The day-to-day inconveniences, nuisances, and moments of frustration or annoyance are inconsequential, generally, and do not define my experience unless I allow them to fill my awareness and crowd out my joy. It’s a journey, and I keep practicing.

I sigh to myself and get ready to begin again.

I can remember my father mocking people who lacked “real skills” but who were also educated people with college degrees. He had no fondness for abstract intellectualism that could not get anything done in the world in a practical sense. It’s a fairly commonplace perspective, frequently held by practical minded working people, perhaps to secure a sense of achievement in spite of the lack of a degree. Memorized facts without comprehension aren’t particularly useful, generally. Applying knowledge in the real world can create change.

Books make great gifts!

Why do I mention it? I mean, it’s probably pretty obvious that “book learning” alone doesn’t amount to understanding a topic deeply or being able to make suitable use of the knowledge. I watched a video yesterday talking about the increasing lack of ability to read that seems to be developing in young cohorts of students (in the US). Book learning isn’t all there is to education, but g’damn reading is a pretty critical life skill, and if our youngsters receiving their education aren’t learning to read, we’ve got a real problem ahead. Traffic signs, price tags, menus, clocks, rental agreements, job offers…we need to read a lot of things, and recognizing shapes and colors is not an adequate substitute for reading comprehension.

Books can be filled with practical information.

Why learn to read when an LLM can read a summary aloud and save us the bother? (Why learn math when there’s a calculator always at hand?) I struggle with why these would be questions, but I remember teachers answering my own youthful “why learn math?” question by trying to give examples of the raw power and utility of having a basic understanding of math. One truth that is more important than any one example and might have been more persuasive; we need to learn math (and reading) to develop problem solving skills, and for depth and nuance in our understanding of the world. We need these skills to support our ability to think critically and recognize misinformation. If we lose our ability to read we become dependent on spoken opinion, and susceptible to marketing hype and outrageous lies by politicians and pundits.

Other books take us on an adventure.

I am fortunate to enjoy reading, myself. (It took me awhile to come around to the legitimate value in math, but eventually I got there, too.) I am happily reading The Stand, a gift from my Traveling Partner. I prefer to read the news rather than watch it. I can’t actually imagine not being able to read. If nothing else, the amount of paperwork required in life would be far less manageable if I couldn’t read the forms!

Thanks for being here, by the way. If you’re reading these words, now, I’m grateful that you are literate. (Not only because you’re reading what I wrote, but also because you can.) One day you may be considered to be among the elite intellectuals of the world, simply because you can read, at all.

Books are the software upgrades for our minds.

I sit at my halfway point on this trail, watching Venus setting slowly on the western horizon. I spotted it one morning some time ago and looked up what this very bright “star” might be. I read about it. Now I gaze upon Venus with even greater wonder and appreciation. I smile to myself, eagerly considering spending the day reading. Maybe I’ll pull a cookbook from my shelf and peruse the recipes and bake something? Seems a good day for it. I could spend more time writing, later – I hear snail mail is making a comeback as a hobby or lifestyle choice. Promising.

… I’m not pointing fingers or being critical of the shortcomings of other people. I’m quite human myself, and some of life’s critical skills fade with disuse. My handwriting (pen and ink on paper) has gotten pretty dreadful because I don’t often pick up a pen these days. Practice would be helpful. Letter writing has potential, with that in mind. I think fondly back to my great-grandmother, who lived well past 100 years. She wrote letters to friends every day. I used to write a lot of letters… until email and the Internet and the convenience of a keyboard intervened. Creeping incompetence – and I don’t have to succumb to it. I have choices and the freedom to choose change.

Anyway. Read a book. Don’t let that skill erode away completely! You definitely really need to be able to read. Reality can be unforgiving, and doesn’t accommodate ignorance in any gentle way.

Some books we fill with our own story.

I sigh to myself as Venus dips below the treetops. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I contemplate all the many books I’ve read, and the many more I have yet to read. The books on my reading list have guided me along my path. I doubt I could have come so far so quickly without them, and AI summaries would not have been enough to teach me what I needed to learn.

The first hint of daybreak touches the sky. Is it already time to begin again?

Yesterday was foggy, like the day before. This morning is too. It’s a strange persistant fog that lingers all day, obscuring details in the distance and the passage of time.

Different morning, same fog.

My Traveling Partner woke me, ahead of my alarm going off by about an hour. He was up with allergies and sinus congestion. It didn’t take me long to realize I wasn’t going to go back to sleep easily. I got up. He went back to bed. I hope he sleeps. For me, the day has begun. The fog doesn’t surprise me as I leave the house, it even seems to fill my head. The morning has a strange surreal quality. The music playing in the cafe adds to the effect; it is oldies, songs from another era completely. It brings to mind the cold war (somehow a “more innocent” seeming time) , and also Fallout (some variation of which my Traveling Partner and the Anxious Adventurer are playing).

I yawn, and sip my coffee. Really waking up fully is coming slowly, almost as if this moment itself is a dream from which I have not wakened. I’m not rushing it, though, I’m up early. There’s time to take it slow.

The storage move is finished. The Author, who is a good friend of many years, visits this weekend. In spite of the fact that the 19th is in no way about Trump, it’s still a federal holiday (for now), and it is a three-day weekend ahead. I’m looking forward to it. The estimate for the car repair was less than I expected it would be, and my insurance covers most of it. Small wins.

I find myself wondering what surprises lurk in the fog, and how long it will linger?

Some days the fog lasts all day.

As early as it is, I’ve even got time for a walk. There’s a local “fitness trail” very nearby to the university library from which I generally work these days. It’s a level 1.5 miles, mostly open to the sky overhead, passing through a thin strip of trees along one side of a large-ish field that isn’t used for much that I’ve ever noticed, although it is kept mowed and never quite becomes a meadow. It is a convenient and relatively easy walk (not accessibly paved, though, and sometimes flooded in rainy weather). I don’t generally favor it, simply because it is wedged between a strip mall and a highway, and has little to offer in either quiet or view. In practical terms, though, it is quite convenient, lacks any notable difficulty, and is a measured 1.5 miles, and I sometimes walk it for those reasons. This particular human primate, the woman in my mirror, has an unfortunate and sometimes unhealthy attachment to “ease”. I chuckle at myself; I doubt that my fondness for ease is anything odd, if the freezer section of any grocery store is an indication.

I sigh. Breathe, exhale, and relax. Whatever the fog may hide from my eyes in the early hour of morning, soon enough the day begins in earnest, and it will be time to begin again. I wonder where this path may lead?

My thoughts wander on, leaving my footsteps behind.

What then? What turn does the path take once you’ve achieved your goal, or fulfilled some dream for your future, or completed some grand project, or obtained some wonder you long yearned for? What then? I’m sipping my coffee and thinking about that, no idea why; it was the thought in my head when I woke from a deep sleep, groggy and trembling, unprepared for the day. (At first, I wasn’t at all certain “what was wrong”, and it took me a moment to realize I was simply awake.)

The clock ticks on. The calendar turns another page. A new day begins and the path unwinds ahead of me.

…And I’ve got this cup of coffee…

…And also pain. This morning I woke to pain. Well, shit. It is winter, and the cold and damp definitely do worsen my arthritis pain. I sigh to myself, sit up straighter, and stretch. I guess it could be worse. What did the Chaotic Comic call it? “Radical acceptance.” I sip my coffee and reflect on that. It is a concept commonly associated with DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy), an offshoot of CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). Radical acceptance sound rather grand and impressive to me… I smile a crooked smile and sip my coffee. I just think of it as coping, and as refusing to let pain make my decisions in life, when I have a choice (which tends to be “most of the time”), particularly since it’s been hanging around since I was in my late 20s. There is work to do. There are moments to enjoy. There is a whole life to live. Pain doesn’t change that, it’s just a… complication. I do my best to keep it managed and in perspective. I’m not saying that’s easy. My results definitely vary. Some days are harder than others. I sigh to myself, and let my thoughts move on.

I frown for a moment, looking at the browser tab I used to find linkable resources for the terms “DBT”, “CBT” and “radical acceptance”. What a world; I scrolled through many pages of links to various costly “resources” (booksellers, clinics, specialists, merch) before I gave up and went directly to Wikipedia. A Google Search is just about pointless these days; the first page is an error-laden overly-simplistic AI overview I have no use for, followed by sponsored link after sponsored link to some bookseller, or costly clinic or specialist, dwindling to videos by various unknowns. Wikipedia? I scrolled all the way to page 5 before that turned up (in spite of it being one of my own most-visited resources). The continued enshittification of the internet is vexing. “Platform decay” is real, and “AI” is not an improvement. I sigh, and wish Google a silent “go fuck yourself” before moving on.

Wednesday. Right – today I take my car for an estimate on the repairs it needs following it’s mystery collision in a parking lot on the last day of 2025. Stress shoots through me at the recollection and my anxiety spikes, hard. I breathe, exhale, and relax, reminding myself the collision is in the past, the insurance coverage is already approved, this is just another step on the path. I unclench my jaw, and take another breathe, and a sip of coffee. The memory of the feeling when I first saw the unexpected damage to my parked car brings it back; the sorrow, the hurt feelings, the stress over the damage and the repair cost to come. The feeling now is as visceral as the feeling then. PTSD. I breathe, exhale, and let that go. Again. I repeat the exercise until my heart is beating in a normal and comfortable way, and the pressure in the pit of my stomach has dissipated.

It can be hilariously difficult to describe the experience of PTSD, what it is like to feel it, to go through it, to have a flare up of one symptom or another. The way it is portrayed in the movies isn’t particularly accurate. It’s not always some massive meltdown (or lost-in-the-past flashback) – sometimes it’s a physical re-experiencing of the stress of some moment that is not now, and little more (although surely that’s enough). Sometimes it manifests itself as a lack of perspective or ability to anchor to here and now, a struggle to recognize that this is not that moment, at all – whenever or whatever “that moment” was. For people suffering with Complex PTSD (not recognized in the US DSM-V, but recognized by WHO’s ICD 11), the moments have piled up one upon the next and made things that much worse for being compounded and complicated by each other.

I sip my coffee, reflecting on my life, and finding it maybe just a little bit marvelous that at 62, after years of therapy and practice, I can at long last let my consciousness gently touch some terrible moment of pain or trauma or horror (intentionally!) without immediately losing myself in that past moment, without tears or terror, without profound anxiety or seething latent rage surfacing (sometimes). I can even, if I choose, tenderly and compassionately support myself through processing some detail without falling apart over it (sometimes). Oh, it’s an unreliable skill, and still wants further practice and reinforcement, and it requires self-care and presence, and willingness to let it go and step back if I begin to feel swamped, but it’s surely progress worth a moment of acknowledgement. It took a long time to get here, and it’s a better place to be in my life – and I didn’t know, ever, if I could even make this journey and stand in this better place. My results have varied – a lot.

I silently wish my beloved Traveling Partner well, hoping he still sleeps. I’ve come so far – and for much of the journey he has been my companion through the ups and downs, and the new practices, and the moments lost to poor mental health, and the challenges of every day life, and all the work and the bullshit and baggage and chaos and damage. The therapy. The work. The love. Fuck, I am so grateful to love and be loved by this singular human being. My heart fills with gratitude and spills over as unexpected tears. Human beings are weird. lol I sigh to myself, and my inner voice mocks me kindly, understanding, “bitches always be trippin, y’all.” I laugh out loud. A barista calls to me merrily, “good joke?”. I reply “life!” and she laughs, too.

Once upon a time, I dreamed day and night about being “a regular person”, less “quirky”, more able to endure stress and able to heal from trauma. Less “plagued by misfortune”. I yearned for things I didn’t yet have an understanding of… resilience… emotional intelligence… and love. I wasn’t certain life was worth living. I had only the most limited sense of agency. I felt lost and crushed, pushed and pulled, and I seethed with the sort of buried rage that if exposed might erupt into something really terrible. I felt invisible, and unheard, and lacked a sense of worth or purpose. Tough times. It seems very far away now. I can’t claim to be “over it” or “cured” or so thoroughly mentally healthy as to set (or comply with) some standard of “a regular person”…but I am no longer an outsider in my own life. I’m no longer mired in despair and filled with a sense of futility. I’ve got better tools for coping with the reality of who I am. I’m grateful. I’m generally content with life. I’m grateful for love and friendship and good times. I’m okay for most values of okay, most days. G’damn that’s… wonderful. It’s been an interesting journey, and not an easy one. I smile to myself, when I try to pin down “when it started”. I don’t think that’s so easy…so many beginnings, so many steps on this path. The journey is the destination. “Are we there yet?” is not a question with a satisfying answer; we walk on.

I finish my coffee, still smiling. It is, after all, time to begin again. Again.

After a lovely restful weekend (and even sleeping in both days!), I woke earlier than I planned, this morning. I must have felt rested; the transition between sleeping and waking happened without my noticing, and there I was, awake for some minutes before I noticed I wasn’t asleep. I got up and dressed and prepared for the day as quietly as I was able – which, this morning, wasn’t very quiet. I grimaced when I banged my computer bag against the door jam on my way out. I felt certain that would wake someone.

I started the car, the tank read only a quarter full. Shit. I stopped and filled up for the week, somewhat reluctantly. I’ve got another errand to run later, and lately it feels like every dollar has two places to go. We’re a year in, and Trump’s economy isn’t an improvement on much of anything at all. I sighed to myself standing in the cold, pumping my own gas, thinking my thoughts.

A lovely lazy weekend…but I still need to take down the holiday decor.

It is a Monday. No particular feeling of dread involved, no extraordinary measure of anxiety, it’s just a day that follows the weekend. It was a good weekend. I started reading The Stand, by Stephen King. I’m well into it, and grateful I didn’t start it while I was ill. lol That might have worked on my mind a bit too much. As it is, it brings thoughts of COVID and the pandemic to mind. I cough, and look around the cafe a little guiltily. Coughing in public spaces makes me so uncomfortable, since the pandemic. I guess that’s reasonable – as the cold war shaped my thinking about nuclear war, so the pandemic shaped my thinking about contagion and social responsibility.

So… A routine Monday, then, and later some time spent moving boxes from one storage place to another with the help of the Anxious Adventurer. It all seems so very ordinary and routine. I don’t dare look at the news; it will mire me in dread and anxiety, and a forboding “what the fuck?” feeling that is hard to shake off, not so much because the news is bad (it’s unlikely to be good), it’s more that it is just so fucking petty and stupid. I can’t be bothered this morning, I’m still enjoying a lingering good mood from the weekend. I’d like to enjoy it a while longer. It suddenly feels like a busy week…the storage move, the car repair, the housekeeping, the cooking, work, and I still need to take down the holiday decor. I am reminded that what I put my attention on is what will fill my experience, and when I crowd my thoughts with imminent tasks and challenges I lose the opportunity to enjoy this quiet moment, here, now. I breathe, exhale, and relax – and let it go for now. I can take it as it comes. I can walk my path one step at a time.

Once we choose our path, we’ve still got to walk it. The journey is the destination. 🙂

I sigh quietly and sip my coffee. I’ve settled into a routine that feels pretty comfortable, lately, and it is happily less costly, and removes the hour-long commute I sometimes take to a distant co-work office. Pleasant, somewhat warmer weather will find me on a nearby trail, walking with my thoughts, and wintry cold mornings or inclement weather not suited to walking, finds me in this cafe (it’s just a Starbucks, very near the university library where I generally work most days, now). It works. The cost of a small black coffee for the time, the table, and the connection, is a small price to pay, far less than the cost of the gas for the commuting or the co-work space membership. I’m gonna drink coffee regardless – as long as the beans reach these shores affordably (for some values of “affordable”). Hell, my coffee was already ready and waiting for me this morning, when I arrived. lol

Happy Monday, indeed.

The Chaotic Comic came by to hang out and visit, yesterday. It was a good time, friends talking, nothing elaborate, but I really needed that connection, I think. It satisfies something within me, in spite of my less than ideally sociall nature. I still miss my Dear Friend greatly, since her death, and there is something “familiar feeling” in this new friendship, as if I have stepped into a role with the Chaotic Comic that my Dear Friend once filled for me. The age difference is about right; my Dear Friend was about where I am in life now, when we first met. The Chaotic Comic teeters on the edge of familiar circumstances in her own life, as I once faced in mine. Funny how the wheel turns, eh? My Traveling Partner graciously makes room for my new friendship, still making a point to get acquainted briefly before returning to what he was doing in another room. I’m grateful for his astute social discernment; he knew I needed this before I recognized it myself.

Human beings, being human. Living our finite mortal lives, moment by moment, choice by choice. I sip my coffee and wonder about the point of it. Maybe there truly is none, and we really do create any meaning or purpose that exists for us, at all? Are we only a peculiar cosmic coincidence, after all? Good times come and go. Dark times, too. Reading The Stand has me wondering, if it became necessary to leave it all behind, and walk away (or run), would I have the resilience and strength of character to make such a decision? Would I dither endlessly and meet a messy end as a result? Would I choose wisely or yield to magical thinking in spite of what I can see with my own eyes? Would I die in a zombie apocalypse, or could I survive? I can remember my father’s harsh words in some moment when I was stuck on a decision in a moment that required action, “Do something, damn it, even if it isn’t right!” and how often that lead me to make precisely the wrong choice in some urgent-seeming breathless moment of pressure and panic. Learning to slow down, to consider the details, the resources, the options, and to attempt to choose wisely based on a bigger picture has been worthwhile, and has stood me in good stead. How slow is too slow? How much consideration is too much time spent thinking something over? I sip my coffee and wonder if it is all down to the roll of the dice and the hand that we’re dealt? Do our careful choices matter? I like to think that they do. Maybe careful choices don’t guarantee better outcomes, but they seem to make the journey more enjoyable, day-to-day. The difference between a well-maintained trail through a lovely meadow, and trying to blaze a new trail through treacherous mires or marshes, seems a useful metaphor, perhaps. I think that over awhile, sipping my coffee.

However straight and obvious life’s path seems at a glance… I can’t quite see where it leads.

I breathe, exhale, and relax, and think about this path, this journey. I take a moment for gratitude. I’m aware I have better circumstances than a great many people, although I deal with my own challenges (and they sometimes feel unreasonably numerous). It could be worse. I’m fortunate to love and be loved. Fortunate to have indoor plumbing, and employer-provided healthcare. Fortunate to have a few simple luxuries and modern conveniences. Fortunate to have some useful survival skills and experience with hard times. I’m grateful to walk this path in good company. I finish my coffee thinking how good life is, when I’m not caught up in distant bullshit and vexation about things I can’t change with some action of my own. I smile, thinking of my Traveling Partner, and hoping that if I did wake him this morning, that he woke in good spirits and knowing how much I love him. I finish my coffee, and prepare to begin again.