Yesterday afternoon the sun came out. I got out into the garden to check on seedlings and pull some weeds. I’d purchased a couple of French tarragon plants to replace those that died during the winter (they don’t care for the cold). I planned to get those planted.
On my morning walk I had continued to consider solutions to “the deer problem”. I enjoy seeing them in the yard, and don’t at all mind them passing through, but I’d definitely like to prevent them from eating my roses! After much thought I’ve decided to plant lavender here and there, hoping it discourages the deer. I planted seeds in starters and my waiting began, but… Lavender is slow to sprout and some of the apparently more temptingly tasty roses (to the deer) need their fragrant companions sooner.
A nice day for it
The afternoon sunshine tempted me to make the trip to the local nursery, and I was delighted to find several pleasing varieties of lavender, well-rooted, in 4″ pots. With a careful eye on my budget, I picked out a nice assortment and headed back to the garden.
I planted the tarragon, and the lavender. I positioned it so that deer approaching a tasty rose would necessarily happen upon the lavender first, and hopefully find that not to their liking. I guess I’ll find out soon. lol I spent time enjoying the new plantings and meandering around the garden for awhile, pulling weeds. It’s not enough to have a garden. There’s work to be done to produce a harvest, and to make it a beautiful welcoming space. Even the most informal cottage garden benefits greatly from a bit of planning and care. I thought about flowers, and herbs. I considered extending the primroses down all along the walkway between the driveway and front door; they do very well here. I thought about dahlias and chives, and wondered whether I can fit another rose in somewhere. I smiled as I worked, feeling satisfied and uplifted.
I keep a map of my garden and make notes about the plan, and the results.
This morning, my thoughts are still in the garden as I wait for the sun. Later in the Spring as it heads towards summer, there will be lupines here on the sunny hillside above the marsh trail. I have a few in my garden, grown from seeds. They take awhile to get going, but so beautiful once they do!
I sit with my thoughts and my coffee. My garden is a haven from the cares of the world, and it is a metaphor for what it takes to live well, and reminder of the value in making the effort. So many verbs involved! So much effort and planning and thoughtful attention required! Totally worth it.
Daybreak arrives. Dawn follows. It’s a gray misty morning, and today the park is almost crowded (or so it seems; I’m not alone). I lace up my boots and prepare to walk my own path. It’s time to begin again. Later? I’ll be in the garden.
This morning I woke to an ordinary Saturday, with ordinary plans: an ordinary walk on a familiar trail, a typical Saturday routine of grocery shopping and some housekeeping tasks. Of course, it’s only entirely predictable (and somewhat amusing) that today there’s no rain. I smile to myself at the utter predicability of such circumstances. Plans are only plans, and the weather doesn’t take my plans into account, it just happens.
Rainy trails, rainy paths, rainy day.
Yesterday rained. It rained hard. It rained persistently. It rained sideways. The wind blew the rain under the cover of the gazebo where I had hoped to paint with a ferocity that ensured I couldn’t. I can only laugh about it. I got some great hiking in (in the rain), and pleasant time spent with my thoughts (listening to the rain fall). It was a good day. I went home early, and painted some there. It was less of what I had in mind, but it was plenty of what I needed.
I saw some beautiful places.
Sometimes “enough” has to be… enough.
I walked some challenging miles.
The cumulative effect of days hiking new trails, eager and energetic, unconcerned about the terrain, finds me aching all over this morning. My ankles ache. My back aches. My head aches. I’m stiff and my muscles are sore. I’m not really complaining, just noticing how I feel, physically. It’ll pass, mostly, and the exertion and varied movement is healthy. (Besides, I’ve been having a great time, and this pain is a small price to pay.) I managed to actually sleep in this morning, waking almost two hours later than I ordinarily might. I woke feeling rested, calm, and content.
I sit sipping my coffee and watching daybreak become the dawn of a new day. I’ll walk this familiar trail, then return home, hitting up the grocery store on my way. Housekeeping today, definitely, but maybe I’ll also paint? The future isn’t written, and this is a very good time to begin again.
Every journey begins where you are. It’s a good place to start.
Interesting day, yesterday. My travels took me up winding mountain roads to new places, new trails to walk, new spots to sit and think and listen to birdsong and breezes. I found a new forest to “lose myself” in, on miles of well-kept trails.
One trail leading to others, some narrow, some steep, some descending to creek beds, others tracing the ridgeline.
Elsewhere, high on a hill, out in the countryside far from the noise of city and suburb, I found a new place to paint with a remarkable view. Well…on some other day, perhaps, or some other moment, the view will be remarkable. lol Yesterday, the view was misty, and obscured by the low hanging clouds that had wrapped the mountainside.
A new favorite place to paint, weather permitting.
The mist didn’t stop me from painting. It’s beautiful there, exactly as it was. What stopped me from setting up and painting the lovely scene was the rain that fell steadily. There is no cover, there, and I wasn’t set up to deal with that. Water falling from the sky is no way to treat soft pastels! lol I sat listening to the rain fall contentedly, thinking about how to set up my easel in the car, such that I could comfortably paint. It’s a smallish tabletop easel, and it seems likely it might be possible. I was entertained by that thought, and satisfied to sit quietly, listening to the wind in the trees and the sound of raindrops on the roof of the car, waiting for the rain to stop. It never did.
Mist and mud.
I whiled away a good bit of time enjoying my thoughts and the moments as they ticked by. I got out into the wind and rain to explore the muddy slopes and trails that clung to the hillside, twice. Time well spent, but the park is a small one and I quickly completed the few short trails, and got soaked and chilled in the process. No complaints, I enjoyed the morning. By afternoon, my thoughts were of hearth and home and the prospect of a hot shower and warm dry clothes.
The dense fog accumulating seemed to be a hint that it was time to head home.
The mist became a dense fog, and I decided to head home rather than risk a more hazardous drive later. (Conveniently, my Traveling Partner was missing me, and eager to welcome me back.) The drive home seemed both shorter and easier than the drive to the park had been.
Damn that hot shower felt so good! A simple luxury elevated by a chilly rainy morning hiking muddy trails. Perspective.
Now, it is morning once more, and another new beginning, another day off spent (hopefully) painting in some beautiful place. I am listening to the wind and waves at a favorite bluff above the beach at Road’s End. It’s not my destination, today, but a good spot to wait for daybreak, and watch the dawn come.
A long exposure lets me capture something of the moment, although it’s barely daybreak and still quite dark.
I have this place to myself, other than the gulls already busy overhead, and quite noisy. Another beautiful place. A soft misty sort of rain covers the windshield in tiny droplets. I don’t hear rain, just the wind and the waves on the seashore. I laugh quietly to myself. Will I be “rained out” (in?) again today? It was raining quite hard when I left the house a little more than an hour ago. The forecast is rain, everywhere, all day. I’m not bothered; the moment is my own, in spite of the rain.
I wonder briefly about the affairs of the world, then let all that go; it is reliably an insane clown car tossed into a dumpster fire in this current administration and I really don’t want to hear another word about the insanity, the corruption, the cruelty, the lies, or elon-fucking-musk. 100% of all of that can wait. For the moment, my own sanity and self-care are by far more important (to me). It’s not as if anything particularly unpredictable is going to develop. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I let all that go, and pull myself back to “now”, the wind, the waves, the gulls overhead – this moment, here.
A misty gray dawn, a new day.
The dawn comes. I swap my soft shoes for my sturdy hiking boots and grab my cane. I love this beautiful place, familiar and cherished. I stop here as often as I come to the coast. This view brings to mind my Granny, who loved the sea, and my Dear Friend, although she and I never made it to this place together. I’ll walk down the steep rocky, muddy, path and walk the shoreline for some little while, before I head down the road to the place I hope to paint from, today. Whether I do or not, it’s a new day, and it is mine. I don’t know where this path leads, in any specific way (metaphorically speaking), but I know I will see some beautiful places.
… Funny… when I planned my time off, the forecast had suggested that these would be mild days, with a limited chance of some rain… I laugh at myself trying to plan around the weather. The plan is not the experience. The intention does not determine the outcome. It doesn’t really matter, my time is my own, and the clock is always ticking – I’ll just have to walk the path ahead of me as it is.
I’m sipping my coffee thinking about a strange dream from which I woke this morning, groggy and unprepared for a new day. (I really don’t like the change to DST at all; I’ll be groggy in the morning for days to come.) In this dream, I’d somehow made my way into the basement of a large modern museum, and from wainscot to rafters that space was hung with my art – but only that difficult-to-access basement space. lol Large work, small work, framed, unframed – crammed along the walls, a chaos of color, mostly unsigned. I recognized all of it – even the pieces I haven’t yet painted – and I could examine each one clearly, and recall when (and why) it was painted. I walked through the space, eyes wide with wonder to see it all – so much! There were other things to this dream, a shared living space elsewhere, other artists (with whom I am not yet acquainted), friends (some of whom had slyly snatched a favorite piece from the walls of that place to take along for their own personal joy). What had my attention was the art – so much of it! The pieces I hadn’t yet painted drew my attention most often, and most clearly. I examined them closely, hoping to understand the journey ahead of me more clearly… “When will I paint that?” I wondered as I walked.
Waking up was a bit disappointing; I wasn’t finished looking yet, and had just gotten into a deep discussion with an old friend about a particular piece he was making his own. I wanted to tell him all I knew about it, but he stopped me. “I want to keep the mystery of it,” he said smiling, “I want to love the work in spite of anything to do with the artist”. When I woke, the thought that lingered was “how much of an artist’s signature is simply ego, nothing at all to do with the work? What might the signature take away from the work?” A lot of my work happens to be unsigned, not for any lack of intention to sign it but only because it’s generally the thing I do last – after the piece is entirely finished, the paint dried, and the work ready to sell or to hang, and because I’ve more or less lost interest in continuing to work on it at that point… I forget to sign it, until it’s necessary because the piece has sold. lol Now I’m wondering if there may be value in not ever signing some pieces, at all, and leaving that mystery intact? I sign quietly to myself, and a bit cynically; if I took that approach, sooner or later someone else would likely claim some particularly good or interesting piece as their work… and my ego rebels. There’s something here to think about… maybe later.
I sip my coffee quietly. This morning it feels… medicinal. I’m so damned groggy. Head still foggy from my dreams, feeling not quite awake, yet, though it’s been nearly two hours since I woke. Everything seems to take longer, and feels somehow less “fluid”, less routine, and taking more than usual concentration and effort. Putting words together feels a bit cumbersome and awkward. My morning oatmeal is an exercise in will; it is 100% quite disgusting this morning, and I wonder why I bother. Nothing “sounds good”, and I am noise-sensitive, and a bit cranky – I’d rather be painting. lol I have in mind a particular piece I saw in my dream… my fingers itch to put it to canvas or paper, to see it come alive in front of my eyes. (Was I actually using the heads of thumb-tacks in that composition – or were those sequins? Where did I get so much gold dust??) I chuckle softly; now is not that time. Even as the thought crosses my mind, I recognize that trying to create that piece today would only be a dim copy; it is not of this moment. I don’t work in that style or with those materials, these days. I breathe, exhale, and relax, and let the dream fade away as I sip my coffee. This coffee is so good this morning, and I am grateful to have it.
I look at my reflection in the window, a mirror in the predawn darkness. I look tired. (I feel tired.) I watch myself stretch, and gently rub the frown lines from my forehead. This too will pass, I remind myself. It’s already time to begin again, anyway…
“What the hell? They’re demanding workers return to the office, but they’re closing offices? That doesn’t make any damned sense…” No, no it doesn’t make sense.
“No one has ever heard of Lesotho”, said the President of the United States (an individual who claims to have a college education). He wants to close the Department of Education. None of that makes any sense.
“We’re going to cut 15% of the VA workforce.” Um… the VA is known to be chronically understaffed, to the point of putting veteran healthcare at risk. This doesn’t make any sense.
These are just samples from today’s news. I’m sorry – I am going somewhere with this, so I wanted to get started with some “crazy world” samples. If you need an intellectual “palate cleanser”, I recommend this outstanding opposition rebuttal speech by Elissa Slotkin, from the night of the (absolutely batshit crazy, error-riddled) President’s address to Congress. (Senator Slotkin’s speech is definitely worth a read – it gives me hope.) I don’t prefer to go on about politics; we each have our own opinions, some well-informed, some less so, all based on what we each understand about the world, and our own personal values. I’m not here to argue those points with you, I just want to take a minute to address the stress, and the feeling that the world has gone crazy around us, and maybe offer up some practices for maintaining our own individual sanity in the face of it. So, let’s do that, eh?
One practice I’m pretty committed to, that does help me manage my background stress is to avoid “doomscrolling” the news media – any source, any platform, any talking head (favored or not). It gets ridiculously repetitive, and is often explicitly intentionally crafted to drive our emotions – to get clicks and views. “Engagement” is the point. Profit. This is how news organizations make money; by grabbing and holding on to our attention. That doesn’thappen to be good for us, though, so… I avoid it. Just skip it. I get enough news filtered through work conversations, and “did you hear…?” remarks from acquaintances, family members, and friends. About twice a week I skim the headlines, once over quickly – and I find that generally this is enough to give me the factual points. I don’t read articles that use “clickbait” headlines at all; I have to assume what they have to say (and their reason for saying it) is either dishonest, or not factual, or they would just say it. I haven’t noticed that this strategy deprives me of any timely awareness of current events, and it definitely reduces my stress, generally.
I am, however, quite human, and sometimes I still get “sucked into the crazy bullshit”…
Roses don’t mind the rain.
So, another practice I use to manage my stress in this crazy world is to spend time really present and engaged with real life events and circumstances right here at home, with real people who matter to me, and that are nothing at all to do with whatever nonsense is going on in Washington, D.C. right now. The world could begin to burn down around me, but I enjoy a quiet ordinary life in a quiet ordinary suburb in a quiet ordinary small town tucked between agriculture and industry. I have a garden to tend. There’s housekeeping to keep caught up. The weather has been quite mild. My Traveling Partner “has my back” and loves me deeply (and I feel the same about him). There’s dinner later to consider. There’s blue sky beyond the windows of the office, today. Life. My life. You have this powerful advantage too; the opportunity to anchor your emotional stability and your sanity to the humdrum ordinary details of the life you live and the choices you make for yourself. That’s more powerful than we tend to realize, when we’re faced with the craziness of the world beyond our own life and the moments in it. Getting mired in the stress and fear and worry of craziness beyond our lives that we can neither contain nor control is a shortcut to madness – I know this first hand. My PTSD griefs me with it, when I fail to provide myself with adequate self-care, or fall short of maintaining healthy practices for managing my own chaos and damage. That’s just real.
Once we choose our path, we’ve still got to walk it. The journey is the destination. 🙂
We’re so human. This shit is hard, because crazy is scary. We know some of what we’re seeing go on in the world if fucking wrong and terrible – and yet it is going on. What can we do about it? Sometimes… nothing. Sometimes the most important and powerful things we can do about it are to walk our own path, provide ourselves with good self-care, speak truth to power fearlessly (and call the ridiculous shit out for being as ridiculous as it is), and be kind to the people around us who are hurting. The will to action withers when we don’t take care of ourselves and maintain our individual good emotional health. It’s hard to have the energy (or feel like it matters) to write the President directly by snail mail an actual letter that says “what the fuck??” and “this is what I expect and want from my government” – but if 100% of each and every citizen did so, it would be an avalanche of civil action, of protest, of involvement, and might actually change something. I think about that often. Taking action needs me to maintain my own sanity, though, doesn’t it?
I’ve gotten distracted by the crazy, once again, it’s out there lurking, waiting to sneak up on the unwary. Breathe, exhale, relax – bring the focus to here, to now, to this moment that you’re in. Whatever it is, it matters more to you right now than the actions of a distant madman and his cohort of corrupt billionaires. Just saying – finding what matters most to you, right now, has real value. For me? Right now? It happens to be this bit of writing. This cup of coffee. This quiet moment for myself carved out of a busy day. It’s enough. I’m worth a moment of my own time. (You’re worth a moment of my time, too, and thank you for being here with me.)
I look up from my laptop, across the quiet co-work space (so orderly, so calm, so empty). It’s still just me, and it’s quite early in the morning. I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s a good time for a few minutes of meditation – another useful practice. I have a favorite spot for it, here, that is reliably comfortable and quiet. I have it on my calendar so I can be sure not to miss the opportunity. Even something as small as 10 minutes of meditation does a lot to build and maintain my emotional resilience. There are verbs involved; it’s quite necessary to do it, not just observe that it is a good practice. lol That’s the way of practices, generally – doing them is the key to success. “Practice” is a verb. It’s also an ongoing thing – a step on path, on a journey that does not end. The journey is the destination.
And that brings me to another approach to maintaining sanity when the world is going crazy; perspective. Observation, and experience, and the awareness that however bad it seems, this too will pass. I’m not saying that complacence is a wise approach (it is not), just that we can pretty reliably be certain of one thing – change is. The madman in power now is as mortal as anyone else. Change will come. Be part of the change you wish to see – and doing so by living your truth, your values, and staying on your own path. Be the person you most want to be. By doing so, and maintaining a sense of perspective, the contrast between you and the crazy in the world becomes clearer. You stand within your moment less affected by the crazy in the world, and more able to sustain yourself through to the next season of change.
It’s hard to go wrong with good basics…
It’s not perfect as strategies go, I know. I’d love to have a real cure, a solution, a reliable durable fix to what our world is going through right now. I only have this; my certainty that I’m okay right now, for most values of “okay”, and that it is (mostly) enough. If I can maintain my own sanity, I can be part of what is sane. Should work for you too, with practice. It’s something. It may not change the world, but it can be a small part of making things right in little ways. That’s definitely something. I’ll gladly take something over nothing – wouldn’t you?
I sigh quietly, and finish my coffee. It’s time to begin. Again.
Evening Light 