I’m thinking about moments. So many moments make up a lifetime, eh? Opportunities. Chances. Choices. Sometimes I stumble down life’s path, sometimes I stride down the path feeling confident that I am heading in the “right” direction. Wherever the journey takes me, it is my own.
Stuck in summer construction traffic, I take in the view.
I watch the mostly full moon setting as I lace up my boots. I’m at the trailhead. I remember that I have an appointment this morning, and that timing matters. I add things to my shopping list; that matters, too. Small details. Steps on a path.
Trying to capture the full moon as I head out this morning, a mostly unsuccessful endeavor; it’s the wrong camera for this shot.
Sirens in the distance remind me that life is fleeting, and moments pass quickly. My tinnitus is loud in my ears. In an instant, I am aware of my mortality, and the passage of time. These precious mortal moments so often pass by unnoticed, uncelebrated, and unshared. “Is there anyone even out there?” I wonder to myself. I think about bots, algorithms, and attempts to create artificial intelligence…to what actual purpose? “Efficiency?” Profit? I don’t think these things are actually meaningful or worthy, really, and it is so human to get that shit so very wrong.
I keep walking.
How long does it take for the moon to set on a summer morning?
I sit at my halfway point thinking my thoughts and considering my path, “in real life” and as a metaphor. I breathe, exhale, and relax, enjoying this moment, right here, now. It’s a fleeting fragile thing, a moment. It exists, and then it is gone, leaving behind only a memory (and sometimes not even that).
I watch little birds for awhile. Swallows so swift in the air, and little reddish birds on the fence rail chirping merrily. I wonder if they are aware of moments? I sit with my thoughts and my breath, on the edge of this path, between moments.
Soon enough it will be time to begin again, in some other moment…
It’s rare to put things in order such that some need of my own really “comes first”. I usually put specific key responsibilities at the top of my list, obligations to home and hearth, family or colleagues, because doing the needful matters, and people are counting on me. Last night I chose to play a current favorite video game for a little while, instead of tidying up or hanging out with the family. This morning I’m writing before I do the budget (it’s a payday). Choices have consequences, and as I sip my coffee I find myself feeling like a jerk for putting myself first last night; I forgot to make tuna salad for my Traveling Partner, which he had specifically and fondly requested (he really likes the way I make it).
…Well, shit…
I sigh to myself and make a note to include an apology with my morning greeting, later. I could do better. Very human; my results vary. But, it’s also not helpful to kick myself over it for any length of time, once I’ve acknowledged my error, commit to making amends, and am ready to move on contrite over the miss, but also grateful that I did take a moment to treat myself well. I’ve just got to do a little better at balancing such things.
…I’ll keep practicing…
I sip my coffee listening to a bit of music, and getting my thoughts organized for the day ahead. The weekend is almost here. It’s a lovely summer day. I feel a peculiar pang of nostalgia for long lazy summer days of adolescence, hanging out at the edge of the woods with my boom box, listening to Atlanta Rhythm Section or Van Halen. Funny to feel it so sharply from this office desk, simultaneously feeling the gratitude and joy of living a substantially better life than I knew in those earlier times. Humans are weird. We cling so tightly to illusions of what was, forgetting for the moment the realities that hurt us so deeply. I guess it’s better than being mired in sorrow. I smile to myself, as I listen to a favorite song from a long gone time ago.
Another day, another set of choices, and new steps on this journey to becoming the person I most want to be. I know I can count on my results to vary, and I’m grateful for each new opportunity to begin again. Change is. This path definitely leads somewhere. I guess it’s time…
I’ve got an old song stuck in my head from a long long time ago. No idea why – it wasn’t even a song I really liked when it came out in 1978 (I was too young to understand much about nostalgia). Strange time for me then; I was 15, and that’s a strange time for anyone. lol
So, I’m sipping my coffee and watching the storm clouds, dark and threatening on the eastern horizon, and listening to this song (to get it out of my head), and wondering “what the hell?” A glance at the Billboard Top 100 from that year shows me songs that would do a better job of “taking me back”. This old Al Stewart track doesn’t even make that list. lol Why is it in my head? I don’t suppose that really matters – it’s gone now. 😀
The weather forecast says it’ll be another summer day. There’s no rain in the forecast, but I’m not sure how much I can (or should) trust the weather forecast these days, with all the recent indiscriminate staffing cuts in relevant government agencies. I watch the clouds begin to break up, revealing streaks of a clear robin’s egg blue sky beyond. Summer. It’ll probably just be hot, and maybe a little muggy (like yesterday). I lose interest almost immediately; I’m indoors, and the office has AC. I’ll return home in a vehicle that has AC, to a home that has AC. I sit with that thought awhile; I’m very fortunate. I take time for gratitude, and to consider how many places in the world suffer with terrible heat, and how many people must endure it without AC, or any sort of indoor climate control at all. I remember the stifling heat and humidity of my childhood (no AC) in Maryland – and that was years and years before people were seriously discussing climate change as a problematic force to be reckoned with (and “hot” was cooler than it is now). I’m fortunate to enjoy this good iced coffee, looking out on a hot day ahead from this comfortable place. Hell, I could be drinking my coffee hot and it wouldn’t feel like any sort of hardship or inconvenience at all – I’d still be enjoying the experience, and grateful to have coffee still available. My anxiety about that concern surfaces briefly; can we really expect coffee (and similar luxuries) to remain available in the face of profound climate change and bullshit government shenanigans that impair both the supply chain and the value of… everything? I feel certain that we are facing real potential that something as simple as a cup of coffee could become a luxury on the order of a fucking Birkin bag in the relatively near future… I try not to get spun up over it. It is A. not a thing yet, and B. not a thing I could directly change, even if it were imminent. I breathe, exhale, and relax. If my brain is going to attack me from the inside with my anxiety, it’s damn well going to have to work harder than that. lol
I skimmed the headlines this morning. Hilariously enough, it’s become unnecessary, generally, to bother with reading the articles. Many of the most reputable sources are behind paywalls, and I’m not going to pay for more subscriptions (can’t afford to be careless with such things these days), and the less reputable, more readily available sources often appear to be copying one single source with nearly identical articles (why bother reading that), others are clickbait (no thank you), and what is left over gives enough information in a headline that I often already know the basic facts and where I stand on matters that require an opinion at all. No point reading AI slop, or bad writing. I catch myself responding silently to the headlines – in some cases just correcting obviously poor grammar or poorly chosen words that don’t mean what the author intended (sometimes it’s obvious). I silently push back on the misuse of “how”, when the author clearly wrote about “why”; that sort of thing really vexes me for some reason. Funny thing about the internet and social media; it has tended to make most of us behave as though “the world” gives a shit about our dumb opinions on all manner of topics that we maybe don’t even know anything about (or not enough to have an opinion worth hearing). We earnestly want to be heard, and social media gives us an outlet to let ourselves feel that we are (whether anyone is actually listening or not). I include this, right here. Does my opinion actually matter, when I share it? Are we in silent agreement or silently arguing? I won’t ever actually know. I chuckle to myself for no reason. I don’t have solutions to these things, if they are problems to be solved at all.
I sit for a moment considering how little the small ripples on still water when a rock is thrown in actually matter when they reach the shore. I sip my coffee, content to be here, now.
The work day is planned and waiting for me. The clock is ticking. Condensation on my coffee cup drips down the sides like sweat and pools around the bottom. “You should put that on a coaster…” I think to myself with a sigh. There are things to do, and verbs involved, the future is not written, but I’ll become what I practice – eventually. The woman reflected back at me in the window smiles. It’s time to begin again. The day is waiting.
I missed a day of writing, yesterday. I think. Did I? I did.
Yesterday’s sunrise
I went walking on a familiar local path, yesterday, enjoying the mild summer air, thoughts on other things, and returned home to work. The work day was busy, routine, and relaxed. When I finished with work, I played a video game for a little while, enjoying that with undivided attention; the Anxious Adventurer would make dinner, as is the practice on Tuesdays. A pleasant day that passed quickly without much to say. It was a good day.
This morning I slept a little later, and hit the trail at a similar time, noticing that already the sunrise comes a little later and the days are a little shorter, as is the way with changing seasons.
A new day
As I walk, I realize I don’t recall the details of the sunrise, this morning, though I am certain I saw it. I chuckle to myself. It’s not as if my mind is on weighty matters this morning, I’m just walking and thinking, and listening to birdcalls. The weeds along the edge of the meadow are quite tall in spots left unmown. They are peculiarly dry and brown in places where herbicides have been applied, near the edge of the vineyard.
I get to a convenient picnic table, not quite halfway, and I sit down to write, which is when I notice that I didn’t write yesterday. It’s fine. It’s not like I write because I am required to do so. It’s reasonable to skip it when I’ve nothing to say, or, as was the case yesterday, I’m simply too caught up in living life, present in the moment.
I’m trying to avoid looking at the news. It’s a shit show of human cruelty, these days, and I just don’t need the stress and anxiety that comes with being immersed in endless repetitions of the same reports of people being horrible to each other, and the wealthy and powerful continuing to profit from the misery created by the current administration. It’s all pretty grotesque and I just don’t need to fill my awareness with that crap in every moment. So… I don’t.
A small squirrel approaches me hesitantly as I sit, still and quiet, meditating. It approaches close enough to place a tiny unfelt hand on my pant leg, looking into my face as I look back, before darting away. I laugh out loud with real delight. My morning is made in this one brief moment.
I hear voices, loud but distant. Farm workers in the vineyard, calling conversation or instructions to each other in Spanish. I am unavoidably reminded of the current trauma and day-to-day anxiety being experienced by America’s immigrants and migrant workforce due to constant threats of raids and fears of deportation. Sometimes I think the wealthy really deserve to experience the sudden loss of available day laborers and domestic staff that would certainly be one direct outcome of these horrible attacks on humanity, but realistically I know the amount of suffering that would be inflicted would devastate those of lesser means, who would also be affected. I smile grimly to myself, although it isn’t funny, as I wonder just who exactly these rich fuckwits think is going to take these jobs (that often pay very poorly for hard work in poor conditions) if we cut ourselves off from the immigrants and migrant workers who fill them now? Are folks ready to pay citizen workers what Americans demand (and require for a living wage) for their labor? I sure don’t think so.
… One might almost think the very wealthy want slave labor, and might not even pay minimum wage if there were no legal requirement to do so. Human greed is some ugly shit…
I sigh and watch the morning sunlight through the leaves of the oaks along the path. Human beings can be pretty terrible, and it’s quite disappointing that we haven’t yet risen above our worst characteristics as beings, though we’ve had hundreds of years to do so. Very disappointing. I frown as an off-leash dog runs past, in this “dogs must be on a leash” area. I’m sure the owner has found some crappy excuse for this, a way to justify exempting themself from the rules. This. This is why we can’t have nice things. It’s a small thing, but the small things add up until we become terrible people.
I sit thinking about that. It’s not an “other people” thing… I think about my driving. I could do better. Every day, there’s something I could be doing to be more the person I most want to be. To be a better person today than I was yesterday. The clock is always ticking on this journey of discovery, healing, and growth.
Our choices have consequences. The journey is the destination.
… It’s already time to begin again. I can do better – can’t you? Small changes over time can make big differences. Maybe we can change the world?
I “slept in” (for some values of sleeping in), and drove to the trailhead with the sun in my eyes. No traffic. Lovely quiet drive. No pressure, no stress. I walked down the trail eagerly, feeling rested and fit. I hear (and see) robins, jays, finches, sparrows, and swallows. I listen to their calls and songs as they flit about their business in the meadow. A smallish owl perched very still atop a fence post startles me when he opens his eyes and turns his head as I pass; I thought he was part of the fence post! When he takes off and flies past me I get a better sense of his size (not “small”!)
…I keep walking…
A favorite spot to linger in summertime.
I get to my “halfway point” and take a seat on a fallen branch in this copse of oaks. I feel “surrounded by nature” though I’m an easy walk back to the trailhead parking lot, and the adjacent highway. I love this spot for a brief getaway from “the world”. Sunshine, blue sky, birdsong, breezes, meadow flowers…it has everything I want on a summer morning, except my Traveling Partner’s good company and a good cup of coffee. There’s something to understand there about wanting, yearning, seeking, finding, and… sufficiency.
What is enough? Once upon a time, I felt as if every moment had to meet every need and fulfill every desire. That’s a pretty shitty and unsatisfying way to live; nothing can ever measure up to such feelings. Worse still, I wanted so much. I wanted “happily ever after”, and every waking moment felt like failure, regardless how much joy and delight might actually be available. I couldn’t feel the good in my life because I was mired in chronic disappointment. Things didn’t change much until I stopped chasing “happiness” and began to cultivate contentment. Contentment is so… achievable. Turned out to be a useful stepping stone to moments of profound happiness, too, and because I wasn’t chasing happiness, I could really enjoy it with my whole self when I happened upon it.
I sit with my quiet thoughts awhile, listening to the various birds singing their songs. Some I easily recognize, others I’m less sure of. Here too, a lesson; curiosity and wonder leave plenty of room for learning and growth, where “certainty” tends to close that door with a bang. It’s hard to learn when we think we know. “Don’t be too sure” seems like very good advice. I’ve learned to embrace uncertainty and joy. I grin at a little bird approaching me very closely. I don’t bother trying to get a picture, I just enjoy the moment, instead.
The sun is warm on my back. I feel wrapped in contentment and quiet joy. My Traveling Partner pings me a good morning. My heart feels light. I get to my feet to finish my walk, and begin again.
Evening Light 