Archives for posts with tag: be here now
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Back to Reality

October 7, 2024 //
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Nice break from the day-to-day, and I definitely needed it. Now it’s back to life, back to reality…. and, oh, hey, there’s a song for that. I add it to my playlist, queue it up, and sing along as I drive to the trailhead feeling grateful that I took today off to “reacclimate” to real life after I returned from the coast.

I slept deeply last night, the first really good deep sleep I’ve had in days – since before my trip to the coast. I rarely sleep really well in a hotel. I often sleep poorly at home. I don’t take it personally or fret much about it anymore; I have sleep challenges and I’m pretty accepting and real about it. Sleep disturbances have been “a thing” for me since I was a child. I’ve experienced multiple parasomnias, some of which persist to this day, and some that I seem to have “grown out of”, or recovered from with medication or therapy. I don’t think of them as “part of who I am” so much as relatively commonplace challenges I happen to endure. I’ve long since given up seeking a root cause or wanting to assign blame. It just isn’t about that. I’m generally grateful to sleep well and deeply. It’s quite a wonderful experience when I do.

Watching the traffic pass by, waiting for the sun

The morning is dark and foggy. I watch the traffic pass by on the highway and sit quietly with my headache (which is a 7 out of 10 this morning) and my tinnitus (which seems to be turned up to 11). Unpleasant, uncomfortable sensations on an otherwise pleasant morning. My head is filled with the remnants of surrealistic dreams of running down forested paths between festival tents and brightly painted caravans, and strangers doing strange things. I was playfully evading a group of my friends for some reason, and woke before I could figure out why some angry old man was hucking tangerines at me. lol

… How’s that for having nothing at all to do with reality?…

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I am vexed by this headache. I feel certain I have “things” to do today… but for the moment I don’t recall what, and there’s nothing on my list to guide me. What am I forgetting? Anything? Is it just that nagging feeling, unattached to anything real? I sip my coffee, and wait for the sun.

…Fuck this headache, though…

My Traveling Partner definitely missed me while I was gone. The reality of having me back home, in his presence, with all of my issues, and very authentically me, this woman that I actually am, wasn’t embraced with the same enthusiasm, or so it seemed to me. I’m sometimes quite frustrated by the sensation that the woman he loves so deeply may not actually be the woman I am. I’d love to be able to see myself through his eyes…both the version he holds in his heart when I am away, and the creature who vexes him so when I am with him. I wonder what I might learn about myself – or about my partner?

Daybreak comes.

The gate to the parking lot finally opens with a familiar rusty screech and a quiet clang. The timing has changed. I take note.  Reality legitimately does not care about my expectations one bit, and it’s a useful practice to reset expectations with new information. I try to do it often.

It’s still early. Chilly morning. I’ve got a warm shirt on, and a comfy zip-up fleece. The sunrise is orange through the mist. I lace up my boots and grab my cane. Good morning for walking and for self-reflection, and a good morning to begin again.

This path won’t walk itself.
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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, The Art of Being

Dark of Night

October 5, 2024 //
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It’s shortly after midnight. I’m awake, not because it’s Friday night and I stayed up late doing something. Nope. I went to bed a bit early, in spite of the somewhat noisier Friday night guests, and crashed pretty hard. I slept deeply for a little while, but woke several times to discover I’d pulled my CPAP mask off in my sleep. Weird. I’m not surprised that woke me each time that it did; I struggle to fall asleep without the mask these days, in spite of it giving me occasional nightmares of having to wear MOPP gear. Not an experience I ever enjoyed, and not a bad dream I want to have. Tonight wasn’t about that, though, it was just weird. lol

I woke a little while ago, and my consciousness roused sufficiently to recognize more than that I had removed my CPAP mask – I recognized the likely cause(s). Acid reflux. Headache. Osteoarthritis. The exceptionally quiet darkness after a rather noisy evening. Now I’m awake. I took an antacid. I got a drink of water. I put on a capsaicin patch where my pain was worst. I took something for my headache. I got up and stood on the balcony looking out into the velvety dark night, out across the bay, feeling the cool air on my skin, and looking out into the night for some little while. No moon. Few stars – fog? Mist? Clouds? Across the bay, most of the homes along the Salishan Spit are dark tonight, which surprises me at this relatively early hour. No bobbing lights of shallow bottom boats on the bay. The tide is coming in. I stand awhile, listening, watching, embracing the solitude and the darkness.

It’s been a good couple days of painting. I’ve got another day of it, tomorrow. I miss my Traveling Partner – I’ll be happy to head home Sunday. I stand in the quiet darkness wondering how to bring “more of this” to my experience of life at home. I often wake during the night, at home, but rarely get up or doing anything much about it. Shared living subtly discourages it; I don’t want to wake anyone else. When I live alone, I often do something more than roll over and go back to sleep. Funny thing is, when I’m living alone, I don’t easily “just go back to sleep” – so getting up makes sense, and I do. No stress to it, just a way of living. When I am sharing a living arrangement, I tend not to be awake enough long enough to bother. I go back to sleep because going back to sleep makes sense. There’s no effort to it, these days, and no anxiety to being awake. I don’t actually know why there’s a difference in these experiences (for me). Perhaps living with my Traveling Partner simply finds me feeling somehow safer when I wake in the night, and more able to return to sleep because of it. I don’t generally “toss and turn” if I wake… I just go back to sleep, maybe after getting up to pee, or get a drink of water. Weird. I chuckle quietly to myself, that’s a known thing; humans are weird. lol

…The “more of this”, though, that I’d like to bring home with me, isn’t about the wakefulness in the night. I’m satisfied to roll over and go back to sleep, at home, in my own bed. I’m not grousing about that at all. It’s more… the art, the sense of creative presence and inspiration, the subtle feeling of freedom to “do whatever I want” in all the minutes of my day. Perhaps this really is best left to vacations and time away, alone… it sounds pretty “selfish” on paper, and a somewhat adolescent perspective on adult freedom – untethered from the very real responsibilities of adulthood that most definitely exist. I sit with the thought awhile, after I step back in from the chilly darkness of the balcony. I think about compromise. I think about choices.

I’ll go back to bed soon. I’m already both tired and sleepy. I’m only awake because my thoughts continue to meander wakefully, and I’m honestly sort of encouraging that, in spite of my awareness that sleep could easily overtaken me, given a chance. It feels like a luxury to enjoy the quiet of the night. The world sleeps, the moment is mine…

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being

Purpose and Gratitude

October 4, 2024 //
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I woke to a peculiar morning. It was past daybreak. Past dawn. Past the time the sunrise would have brought on the new day. I woke to a most peculiarly beige-infused sky… everything beige. The sand. The sea. The sky. It was… weird. I didn’t know what to make of it at all, and I snapped a couple pictures of the view of the western horizon from the balcony… that look completely ordinary on my camera.

No color adjustments, the pictures look… pink? Mauve? Equally strange, but not at all the color I saw with my naked human eyes, nor how they rendered on my camera.

I tried to find a filter or adjustment after-the-fact that might show the scene more the way I saw it, with limited success.

This is pretty close to what I saw, only even the water of the bay was the same orange-y beige of the sky.

It was strange. Very strange. It threw me off my expectations of the day, for sure. It didn’t last. By the time I made coffee, and made a short trip down to the hotel’s meager “breakfast bar” (a counter with some cereal and instant oatmeal, an air-pot of hot coffee, and a small fridge with yogurt in it), things looked more or less ordinary enough, with a rainy mist rolling in from the sea and showers in the forecast.

…Now I feel rather as if I “don’t know what to think”, which is quite an odd sensation…

I woke feeling rested after my wakeful time during the night. My dreams were rich and interesting. I woke feeling inspired and eager to feel the soft dry sticks of pastels between my fingers (although, for safety, I wear finger cots to prevent cadmium, cobalt, or chromium pigments from soaking into my skin). Seems a good day for it. (For which I am grateful, since it is one of the reasons I came to this place equipped thusly.)

It’s not a fancy hotel, but it suits the purpose.

My Traveling Partner pinged me a good-morning greeting before I woke. I returned it after he’d gone back to bed. He misses me. I miss him too. I am appreciative of my solitude – but also of the opportunity to miss my partner. Caregiving is hard, and tempers flare when perhaps they ought not. I know I could do better. I fucking love that man – and I mean to do better to treat him with love, patience, and kindness than I sometimes manage to do. It’s easy to take him for granted. It’s easy to be angry with circumstances and fail to differentiate circumstances from the man. Having some time apart reminds me how much I do yearn to be in his good company, how much I love his humor and his tenderness – and how hard it must be to be his best self under these trying circumstances, at all. This shit is hard. Caregiving is hard. Being the one having to accept caregiving is equally hard (and emotionally probably harder). I wish him well from afar, and pause to feel all the love we’ve shared over these many years. I’ve been with him now longer than with any one other human being – friend, lover, or family member. (Though I’ve had some friendships longer, those have endured quite a lot of distance between conversations and shared space – it’s not at all the same.) I left my parents’ home when I was 14. I’ve been with my Traveling Partner now, some 15 years. Wow. I know, I know – it’s not uncommon for monogamous folk who travel life’s path with a single partner they met when quite young to be together many decades; this still feels incredibly special and enduring to me. I’m grateful.

I’ll eat my yogurt (blueberry), drink my coffee, and walk on the beach before it begins raining seriously, then return to the room to paint in the diffuse gray light of this rainy day… a very pleasing way to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, autumn, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, inspiration, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being

A Moment With My Thoughts

October 1, 2024 //
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Another quiet morning, aside from the ringing in my ears. I could do without that, but tinnitus is most vexing when I focus on it, so I turn my attention elsewhere. Inward. It’s a chilly morning. Definitely autumn and I am grateful for the sweater, and my fleece. I sit with my coffee and my thoughts.

… Just a couple more work shifts separated by an evening at home, and I’ll be heading to the coast for a much-needed break from… “everything”. Hilariously, to get this much-needed rest, this opportunity to recover from day-to-day exhaustion, I’ll have to exhaust myself further first, to ensure I’ve adequately prepared for my Traveling Partner’s comfort. Enough fresh towels available. Snacks and things within reach. Fresh tissues and such. Freshly made bed and clean linens. His laundry done and put away….

…Oh, and anything I need for myself…

… G’damn, I am so fucking tired. lol

Yesterday evening, as I happily prepared to gently lay newly arrived pastels in various hues of green into their places in my pastel case, I opened the case and… a tray stuck, then unexpectedly released and fell askew, dumping the fragile sticks. Several fell against the hard edge of the case, others to the firm surface of the wood tabletop. They don’t take well to such rough treatment and several of the delicate beautiful sticks broke into pieces. I suppose it’s no great tragedy, but my eyes filled with tears and my heart with disappointment and hurt. My fault. Broken things. I fought crying. It’s not as if the damage rendered them less useful at all…it just pained me to see them less than perfect, and by my own hand. My Traveling Partner was tender and supportive. He knows I’ve got strange baggage to do with such things. The evening finished quietly, without madness or hysterics. Win.

…Hell, I’d even forgotten about it, until just now, and I’m okay – that’s real progress!

I sit awhile with my thoughts. I watch the traffic on the highway beyond the trailhead parking lot. There won’t be daylight for walking before work this morning, but I came to this place anyway. It’s on the way to the office and lacks the glare of office lighting. lol I find a few quiet moments in a parking lot preferable to those same quiet moments in the office. (I could walk… I’ve got my headlamp. Taking “time for me” takes a variety of forms. This is one; just these few quiet solitary moments writing and reflecting.)

I catch myself missing my partner as though I had already gone. I think of him sleeping (I hope that he is) and tenderly wish him well. My heart is full of love and yearning. I love him and that experience is a huge part of my life. Has been for… going on 15 years now. Wow. The time seems subjectively so much shorter. My longest intimate relationship over a lifetime. He’s stuck with me through an impressive assortment of circumstances and challenges. I’m grateful and… something else profound and heartfelt and joyful that I haven’t got a word for. Interesting. Maybe I can find the colors to describe it somewhere in my pastel case? lol

… I think it would be nice to get a short walk in, in spite of beating the sun to the trail this morning. I reach for my cane and my headlamp. It’s a good time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being

A Greater Good

September 29, 2024 //
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I’m sipping my coffee, thinking my thoughts, and waiting for the sun. It’s a quiet Sunday, and only three days until I take a break on the coast for a couple days to rest and paint. I’m grateful for the opportunity and the means to enjoy it.

This morning I started my day thinking about my Traveling Partner with gratitude and love, and appreciating how much the world has changed since I was a child. Oh, for sure not perfect; we human primates have a long way to go before we’re anything more than fancy fucking monkeys flinging poo at each other across the cages we’ve devised for ourselves. We’re honestly pretty fucking disappointing in many ways. We could do so much better. Still…

In some important ways we’ve begun to do better than we once did, and I can see it without “straining my eyes” – metaphorically – just thinking about how much more free to experience and express emotion men are in America than they were when I was a kid. I’m so glad that’s true, too. They need that freedom and emotional safety as much as anyone. It’s easier now, and more likely, for a man to choose domesticity over corporate life. Men are less often viewed as babysitters of their own children, and more likely to be respected and valued as parents – and recognized for their contributions.

I see signs of change in the acceptable norms for women, too. Fewer of us are dismissed out of hand for having feelings or opinions that differ from those of the men in our lives. We own property. We have our own finances. Our votes aren’t merely tolerated – they really count. We work. We create. We lead. The conversation about reproduction involves fewer people assuming we’re walking incubators of future generations with no human purpose beyond breeding. We’re free to choose to be childless.

Other changes, too – a lot of them. We’re not perfect beings of compassion, light, and intelligent wisdom. We’ve a long long way to go, and there are definitely some holdouts fighting human progress with stupidity and violence. We’re still making slow progress. Hopefully it’s fast enough to ensure our survival…

… There’s still too much violence in the world, way too much… We should do something about that…

Just thoughts on a quiet Sunday morning, I observe them as they drift through my awareness. My Traveling Partner pings me a greeting, and let’s me know he’s going back to bed. His decision to make his own coffee this morning may have been overly ambitious. I assure him I’m happy to make coffee when I return home and wish him good rest in the meantime. Then I sit wondering if I should cancel my trip…or figure something else out to solve the potential “coffee problem” while I am away…

…A pour over is unquestionably a great cup of coffee but it sure won’t “make itself”…

Waiting for the sun.

The sun rises late these early autumn mornings. There’s a dense mist clinging to the ground in the low places. I’ve still got the nature park to myself when the gate screeches open and clangs firmly in place. It’s still too dark to walk the trail without a headlamp or a flashlight. I’ve got both with me, but I prefer to wait for the sun – or at least for daybreak, and enough light to make out the trail without a light.

A hint of daybreak on the horizon.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. Yesterday was a pleasant day in my partner’s good company. I’m hopeful today will be as well. I enjoyed the intimacy of our conversations, and the depth and breadth of the topics we discussed together. We felt like old friends, again, and lovers. Partners. It feels good to be rebuilding that together. It’s too precious to take it for granted or to haplessly let it slip away. Fuck, I love that man. I sit with my thoughts and my awareness of his enduring deep love for me. Love does take work… and it is so worth that effort.

I sip my coffee, think my thoughts, and watch the horizon. It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, health, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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