I woke with a terrible headache. I woke much earlier than I needed to be awake. I used the opportunity to open the windows and patio door to the pre-dawn breezes and fresh air, and cooling the apartment before the heat of the day. Doing so had no effect on the headache. I didn’t really expect it would. The headache made me ill with vertigo. I made it to the bathroom in time for nausea to avoid becoming a mess that requires cleaning up. A migraine? No, I think it over and realize it’s just one of the occasional outcomes of taking Rx pain medication (for me), pretty commonly; I was in enough pain last night to take pain medication.

I made coffee, did my morning yoga and physical therapy stuff. The headache continues. I take some Tylenol for the headache. I have a mammogram today. I barely care; this headache is kicking my ass – and winning. Half-way through my coffee, the nausea wins, too. 😦 Sometimes being a human primate is fairly disgusting.

I write a bunch, delete all of it, deciding I don’t prefer to write about war, violence, or hate today. My heart aches for the victims of violence, the living and the dead. What action am I taking? I am living my life peacefully, refusing to take up arms, and treating my fellow human beings as human beings; we’re all in this together, each of us quite human. Each having our own experience. Each likely thinking we’re the good guy, regardless what the other guy thinks of our actions.

Love matters most.

My evening with my traveling partner was delightfully well-spent. Even this cursed headache doesn’t dim my smile when I think about our evening together. It wasn’t fancy, but love isn’t about fancy things, or planned events, or expensive trinkets. Love depends on a quality connection, not a fat bank account. 🙂

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

This headache continues to mess with my enjoyment of the morning, although it has begun to fade after a third round of nausea becomes a third opportunity to become really skilled at vomiting. (So gross.) Wow. Headaches, puking, violence, love… this blog post has it all! I chuckle to myself, aware that this morning’s writing hardly amounts to ‘content’ at all. I feel very human, in the most limiting sense.  There’s no disappointment in that awareness, in spite of the headache, the violence in the world, or a few moments of nausea on a Friday morning; being human is so much more than those details. I love. I am loved. Each morning I face a new opportunity to choose well for myself, and to be present, to love – and to love more. Good stuff.

“Emotion and Reason” 18″ x 24″ acrylic w/ceramic and glow details

There’s so much fear and violence in the world. Fear. Violence. Fear and violence. Fear of violence. Bleak. It’s both bleak and tragic, on top of being so entirely unnecessary. Today I’ll do my small part to change the world by engaging strangers in genial conversation: brown strangers, dark strangers, fair strangers, ginger strangers, foreign strangers, male strangers, child strangers, woman strangers, strangers of no obvious gender or ethnicity, strangers of poetic beauty, strangers who appear disengaged and uninvolved with the world around them, strangers who want conversation – we are all human beings, and in that sense, we are not strangers to each other at all. There’s no reason to be afraid.

Today is a good day to choose peace.