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Night and Day

May 4, 2025 //
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I woke this morning with a song in my head. That’s not so strange. It’s not even strange for it to be a love song; it’s been that sort of weekend. What is odd is that it is a Frank Sinatra version of a Cole Porter classic. lol Nothing against Frank, but he’s not generally my choice of crooner for most jazz standards. lol

… The strangeness didn’t stop me from singing along with the song in my head (and heart) all the way to the trailhead…

It is quite a chilly morning for May. I’m glad I wore my frumpy warm favorite baggy sweater. I almost didn’t and I would have regretted any other choice this morning. It’s almost freezing. There is a dense fog clinging to the marsh lowlands. I swap soft shoes for my sturdier boots and head down the trail.

Dawn beats me to the trailhead these days.

Yesterday was a lovely day. I got home from my walk and spent the day on household tasks, mostly laundry, and made time for some reading and played a video game. It was a relaxed day in my Traveling Partner’s good company. I walked thinking about love and feeling grateful and uplifted, rested and recharged.

I baked the best brownies I’ve ever made.

I tried a new brownie recipe. The results were fantastic. I’ve never made better. I used Joshua Weissman’s Fudgey Brownie recipe from his Texture Over Taste cookbook, which differs slightly from the recipe of the same name online (otherwise I’d link it). Seemed like a good day for brownies – and it was. They were so good my beloved had me talked into baking another batch today (they’re easy), but adulthood caught up with him during the night and he later asked me not to. They’re quite irresistible, and also full of sugar; not ideally healthy, and best served as an infrequent treat.

I ran out of energy before I ran out of daylight, and kept things quite simple for dinner.

Just a bowl of ramen.

I smile thinking my thoughts and hearing the sound of my steps crunching along the marsh trail as I walk. The fog enveloped me in my solitude. I could see sunlight in the treetops as I stepped along. I reach my halfway point and stop with some reluctance; 38 degrees (F) feels colder in May than it did in March. lol Still, I stop and write awhile. It is a thing I do.

I’ll finish my walk (probably with my hands jammed into my pockets for warmth), then go to the store before I head home. It’s another day of housework, minus the relaxed shilly-shallying of yesterday. There is a new week ahead, and it’s time to set aside play in favor of getting things done. Laundry. Tidying up. It’s not really a long list – I’ll even find time in the garden. An ordinary day, in what feels like a mostly pretty ordinary life. It is mine, and there are choices to make, actions to take, and projects to see to completion. I know my results will vary. That’s fine. When I fall, I get back up. When I fail, I begin again. It’s a journey. I smile at the rising sun and get to my feet with a song in my heart…

…”Night and day, you are the one…”

…It’s already time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, gratitude, inspiration, joy, Love, meditation, Moments, Perspective, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Uncategorized

Love

February 14, 2025 //
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Valentine’s Day. Pretty serious “Hallmark holiday”, I know. It’s also, paradoxically, a wonderful thing to see a celebration of carnal and romantic love on a holiday calendar mostly controlled by fairly repressed, repressive, puritannical minds. It’s about the love, not the candy, not the cards, not the children in classrooms exchanging tokens and favors years before they have any capacity for romantic love (and isn’t that just a little weird?). I’ve said it before – all of it. Worth repeating, but maybe not for re-writing. lol

So much love it regularly spills onto canvas. 🙂

It is about the love.

I slept in. Snowy morning, no work, cozy quiet home – it’s lovely. My Traveling Partner woke about the same time I did. I made breakfast and coffee, we enjoyed the moment together. He gave me a little something for the holiday, I added something to the shop that he wanted very much. It isn’t about that, though, it’s about the love. It’s not about the breakfast together. It’s not about the gifts (we often don’t give each other anything at all). The love stands on its own, enduring and sweet and deep and passionate and warm and nurturing.

Love, smiles, coffee – a pleasant start to the day doesn’t have to be fancy.

How do I know it’s love? How does anyone know? I’ve been wrong before – most of us are wrong about love eventually. It’s easy to mistake lust for love. To mistake fondness for love. To confuse codependence with love. To confuse habit with love. Funny (strange) how easily we’re wrong about love, when it is so incredibly important to creating a life to thrive in. So… how do I know this is love? Because I’ve got options, and I’m comfortable with that knowledge – and I’m here because here is where I most want to be. Same is true for my Traveling Partner, and I feel comfortably confident in that, too. We’re here because here is what we choose, because we want to be here. Together on this journey. Love. Neither of us “has to be here”. Neither of us is trapped in this relationship or this life – we could walk on if we chose to. Options. It’s not tragic. It’s not a threat. It’s just real. We choose each other out of love. It’s not always perfect or perfectly easy. We’re individual human beings with our own perspective, our own experiences behind us, our own thoughts on life, love, and the world. Sometimes we disagree. Sometimes we hurt too much to be kind or patient. We still go right on loving each other.

Is love a journey or a destination? Or… is love a verb?

I have a love for this particular human being that has exceeded my understanding of what love could be. I enjoy that, and I work to live up to what love requires. My Traveling Partner is my best friend, and my muse. My enduring source of encouragement, and perspective that isn’t my own. He brings balance and fun to a life that might otherwise lack it (have you met me?). I often think about “how we got here” – more than I think about “where we’re going”. I am surprised that our paths crossed more than once in our busy lives, and that we are so connected now. Love endures. I’m glad that it does. I’m grateful.

Be love. It’s a choice. Love is a verb.

I’m glad I didn’t let myself stay trapped in relationships that weren’t built on love. The best gift I’ve ever given myself has been freedom from bad relationships – the choices to walk on. Sometimes I’ve been too slow to make those choices, holding on to hope for too long, but I did get there. Love is worth working towards, and worth choosing. No substitute is adequate – better to have nothing than to endure less than real love (my opinion).

Love matters most.

I smile to myself and finish my coffee. I grin when I see the plush “mochi cat” pillow-toy my beloved gave to me – reminds me how much I am loved. I don’t know what the future may hold, but I hope that it holds a lot more of this. The love. However long love endures, I am grateful to have had it. There’s nothing else that feels like this.

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Categories Allegories, Art, art and the artist, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, joy, Love, meditation, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, Words

We Live What We Create (a love letter)

January 16, 2025 //
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I’m sipping my coffee reflecting on love, life, and how incredibly fortunate I feel, how grateful I am, for the partnership I share with my beloved Traveling Partner. Fuck, this has been a hard year (and then some) since his injury back in – was it November? December? – of 2023. Learning to be a caregiver, not just a partner, friend, and lover, definitely showed off some of my unpreparedness in the vast world of adulting skillfully. I had (have) a lot to learn. I’m glad things are improving (every day) now. I feel relieved. Did I say already? I feel grateful. Fortunate. G’damn it could have been so much worse.

We become what we practice. Once we are adults, our quality of life is largely in our own hands. Not entirely, to be sure, because we don’t all face the same circumstances, and just keeping it real – “the playing field” is not level. No one is in this alone, but we’re each having our own experience, and there is no question that some people are dealt a far more valuable hand of cards in the game than others. So…yeah. There’s that. Beyond that, though, we each have (and make) choices. Those choices really matter. Giving up on that is an unfortunately common mistake, but it’s an easy one to make. I think about that, and times that I’ve abdicated my responsibility to myself, yielded to cynicism, bitterness, or feelings of futility, and made things so much worse than they could have been, if I had chosen differently. Worth reflecting on, but as with so many such things – the lessons we learn after-the-fact can’t help us in the moment. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Sip my coffee. Listen to the woosh of the ventilation in the office – and feel grateful. Love has made a huge difference in how I make choices, and what matters most. I would not be the woman I am without the love I share with my Traveling Partner. Grateful barely describes my feelings.

“Communion” 2010

I feel so loved. My Traveling Partner can (and does) come to me openly and talk about his feelings and his worries. I can go to him when I am feeling feelings, and share my experience and feel supported and heard. Do we have challenges? Sure. We’re human beings, being human. This love, though… g’damn, am I wrapped in love. I woke this morning feeling loved. I’ll work through the day feeling it, too. It’s reciprocal. I love this man with a love that I don’t even know how to contain. Is it reasonable, practical, or even “sane”? Hell if I know – I don’t even care about that. I just love him. He loves me back. That’s worth something in this fairly scary world of chaos, violence, and human suffering. It’s something to “come home to”. I sip my coffee thinking of the moments we shared last night, talking and connecting, and loving each other. I hope every time I’m ever annoyed or angry over something trivial or stupid that my memory will carry me back to last night, and remind me that I am loved, and that love matters most. I hope the same for him – I can be damned frustrating to deal with sometimes – I hope he always feels loved, in spite of that. I sigh quietly and smile.

Is love a journey or a destination? Or… is love a verb?

…To experience an uncompromising, enduring love for so very long is a rare thing. For me, there’s only been this one, and all other relationships and moments of affection are dim lights compared to this roaring blaze. Love is always uniquely special, as feelings go, and I can only say again how fortunate I feel, and how grateful, to experience this one. This moment, here, now, wrapped in love – and all the others that my Traveling Partner and I have shared. I hope the journey goes on “forever” (or some close approximation of that idea), it’s been a journey worth sharing with this singular human being who loves me so…

“Cherry Blossoms” 14″ x 20″ acrylic on canvas. 2011

I sit quietly, smiling. Nothing else, really, just sipping my coffee and thinking about love. Work can wait on lovers, surely…?

So much of life is about love and loving.

My Traveling Partner is more than my spouse – so much more – he is my best friend. My muse. The inspiration behind so much of my artistic work over the past 15 years. The maker of so many delightful moments, and thoughtful things I use every day. I’d be pretty fucking lost without him – and very alone.

An alternate spelling of “I love you”.

I think about writing my beloved a love note, and realize as I sit here that I sort of already have. It never feels like enough; the love we share is so huge in the experience of a single moment. lol Filled with quiet joy, and wrapped in love, I begin again.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, gratitude, inspiration, joy, Love, meditation, Moments, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

How to Happy

December 4, 2024 //
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I woke with a peculiar, nagging, somewhat intense, headache. It’s very much as if the fracture line that cuts jaggedly down the approximate center of my forehead were itself the thing that hurts, which seems odd. Rubbing it doesn’t help, but I keep catching myself doing that as though it might. I acknowledge it, and let it go, over and over again; I have other things to do today.

Today is my Traveling Partner’s birthday! 😁

I’ve already given my partner his birthday gift. It arrived a couple weeks ago in a crate. A lathe for the shop, which is something he’s wanted for a while. Today will be spent in his good company, doing whatever it is he’d like to do. Those are the “house rules”, y’all.  I’m just following the rules! 😁❤️ Birthday cake this year has been swapped out for apple pie with ice cream. No idea what he might like for dinner; somehow we haven’t discussed it yet. I smile thinking about my partner, his birthday, and our life together for the past… 14 years? Yeah, almost exactly. Wow. I feel incredibly fortunate. I hope I can make his birthday special, today.

I sit quietly for a moment before I head down the trail. It’s an icy cold morning. The sky is clear and starry. It’s a good morning for beginnings. I sit with my thoughts of love and gratitude and deep appreciation for the complicated man who is my Traveling Partner. Smart. Funny. Practical. Skilled. Multi-talented. Organized. Insightful. Experienced. Caring. Loving. Romantic. Good-hearted. The list of wonderful things about this particular human being is long. He is human, so he’s certainly got a list of less than ideal qualities too, I suppose. Pretty short list, and entirely offset by the long list of qualities that make this man who I love so well. If that weren’t the case, I wouldn’t be hanging around by his side on life’s journey, you know? 😁

I’ll get my walk in, while the day is young, then head home to be with my beloved on his birthday. I took the day off so I could. Worth it, in spite of this weird headache vexing me.

I wonder what this day holds? I guess I’ll find out after I begin again.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Love, Metaphors, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Making Changes

November 16, 2024 //
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I’m sipping the last of my now-mostly-cold coffee, after my morning walk, and before I head to breakfast with a friend I don’t see often. I’m thinking about life and love and things of that sort. I’m thinking over conversations with my Traveling Partner, and our earnest mutual commitment to the life we share and the love we feel for each other.

… I’m thinking about how much actual work it is to create the life we want to enjoy with each other, and how much work it also takes to create a world worth living in…

What are you actually doing to “be the change”? What kind of experience of community and family do you want to enjoy? What are you doing to make that a reality? Yes, you. I sit with these questions myself. They seem worth answering.

When people decry “woke” culture, what are they actually objecting to? Because it’s become some kind of buzzword or verbal shortcut, I think examining the intention behind it sometimes gets overlooked. Isn’t racial equality a good thing? Isn’t gender equality a good thing? Don’t we want everyone to have access to good healthcare regardless of the neighborhood they live in, the color of their skin, their gender, or religion? Of what possible relevance is a person’s sexual preference or marital status when they are seeking healthcare, housing, or a seat in a restaurant? When people shout down “being woke”, are they making a frank admission that they are comfortable with a very non-equal society, of the sort that explicitly disadvantages and “others” some people? Who gets to decide who is “in” and who is “out”?  It’s on my mind. Maybe for obvious reasons (as we all watch the clown car of the new administration fill up, in the background of our lives).

I sigh and bring my thoughts back to matters closer to home. How do I do my own humble best to be a good partner? A good friend? A good community member? I definitely have room to grow. It’s never too late to get a little closer to being the person I most want to be. There’s a lot to consider and probably a few good opportunities to make changes in how I approach conflict resolution, boundary setting, and communication. I’m no saint. I’m often in tremendous pain, more than I’m inclined to complain about. Sometimes I’m just fucking exhausted, with much still left to do that simply has to get done. “Doing my best” is all I can do, and realistically sometimes it doesn’t get everything done – or done in a way that I could celebrate. I’m very human. Prone to temper and moments of irritability. My cPTSD is pretty well-managed, but it’s still lurking in the background. My brain injury is many years (decades) behind me, but I’ve got some brain damage that I still have to work around day-to-day. “My best” has limitations, and my results vary. How do I do more, better?

I sit with my thoughts. Self-reflection is a useful tool. Practicing self-care improves my chances to be the best version of myself. Practicing gratitude, non-attachment, and loving kindness help me create and maintain a resilient and positive mindset. I breathe, exhale, and relax. This human life is quite an interesting journey. So many verbs. So much work to do.

I watch daybreak become a new day. I’m fortunate to have this moment, and so many opportunities to grow toward being the person I most want to be. Feels like a good time to begin again.

What will you do with your moment? Where does your path lead?
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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words
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