Archives for posts with tag: being and becoming
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OMG Not That Too!?

May 30, 2025 //
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Oh hey there – you okay? How’s your day going? Are you stressed out by all the horrible shit going on in the world? Genocides? Wars? The possible end of American democracy? The return of fascism? The rise of global authoritarianism? Xenophobia, racism, misogyny, and violence? It’s a lot to consider and to worry about and endure. How are you holding up? What are you doing to take care of yourself and nurture your own good heart? What are you practicing? How are you giving yourself a break from all of that to focus on self-care, and tending the garden of your heart?

When was the last time you set aside all the stressful worrisome details to take a walk in the sunshine on a Spring morning, or sit in a garden watching the breeze stir the flowers and breathe the scent of them? Something to consider – don’t get so wound up in the cares of the world that you fail to take care of yourself. Do something nice for yourself – surely you deserve your own attention, affection, and consideration?

…”Put your own oxygen mask on first”…

Lemon-scented geranium on a drizzly morning in Spring.

It’s a lovely Friday morning. I haven’t yet gotten a walk in, my leg is still a bit twinge-y and aching, but I’ll get to it before the sun fully rises and the heat of the day begins. Yesterday was like summer, and got quite warm. Today looks like another summery day. The garden will love it, and I’m grateful to have the help of the Anxious Adventurer – the lawn is thriving under his care, and I am not stressed out about it. I breathe, exhale, and relax, and chuckle to myself about the deer – and the blue jays. The blue jay that follows me around the garden with such curiosity also appears to be the creature eating my strawberries. lol It’s hard to be mad about it. I enjoy the creatures as much as I enjoy the garden, and I’m fortunately not dependent on the garden to feed myself or my family – I take a moment of gratitude to recognize what a privilege that actually is, even in the 21st century.

“Whimsy” blooming.

More and more of the roses are blooming, and I delight in the knowledge that they will be what I see when I return home. I’ll “walk through the garden” as I come up the walk to the front door. I’m grateful to enjoy the little house I call home. My Traveling Partner puts so much thought and work into making things to improve our quality of life, and even simply to delight me. I’m fortunate to be wrapped in his love. Even in the office, everywhere I look there is some little token of his affection and high regard, from the mouse I use (which he recommended to me) to the little desk caddy (that he made for me) to the earrings I am wearing this morning (another item he made with me in mind). I sigh and smile, feeling contented and loved.

This new day is just beginning. I have choices how to spend my time, and where to put my attention. (So do you.) I could choose to doom-scroll the news feeds, and allow myself to get all spun up over terrible shit I can’t personally change. I could spiral into anger and despair over what a terrible place the world seems to be right now. On the other hand, I could choose gratitude, and allow myself the opportunity to embrace the small joys in my life right now, to appreciate my good relationships, and my good fortune, and to consider what sorts of small things I can do to make the experience of my coworkers, friends, and loved ones better in some small way, even if only by being the best human being I can be, with the resources at hand, and by not making shit worse in the world. It’s something. It’s not even a small thing, if practiced consistently. We can change the world by changing our corner of it. There are verbs involved.

…Speak truth to power…

Choose sides. Choose wisely. Become the person you most wish to be. Practice the practices that nurture and heal you. Follow Wheaton’s Law. Incremental change comes over time, and is the result of so many small choices. Maybe go outside and get some fresh air and sunshine, and watch the Spring become summer? I’m not telling you what to do, I’m just saying it’s a good time to begin again.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, Anxiety, breathe, Despair, Free Will, Frustration, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Roses, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War

Lush Life

May 24, 2025 //
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What a beautiful morning! The sunrise was nearly over when I reached the trailhead. I hit the trail as soon as my boots were on. The sky was hues of tangerine and peach, and the sun was a deep orange as it rose. Mt Hood was a misty lavender silhouetted against the colorful sunrise and I walked eastwards, shading my eyes from the glare, full of a sense of wonder.

… I didn’t think to take a picture, I was immersed in experiencing the moment…

The trail takes a turn into the trees, if I bear left where it divides. Everything is so green! It’s that time in Spring when all the marsh and meadow grasses are rich hues of green, the trees are fully dressed in their Spring finery, and all of the Spring-blooming flowers present colorful accents to the lush assortment of greens everywhere I look. So beautiful! I walk with my thoughts, grinning to myself. Robins call to each other. A young blue jay follows my progress on the trail, flitting from tree to tree, watching me.

Spring.

Later a bit of housework, maybe some gardening, definitely a stop at a local nursery to inspire (and soothe) me after yet another sighting of the doe eating my damned garden. I laugh in spite of my frustration. I’d rather deal with the deer than not have a garden at all.

I think about animes that we’re watching as a family, and their common themes of growth over time, and the will to act, and the need to persist in the face of hardship and challenges. I find them inspiring (even when a little ludicrous and exaggerated). There are useful moral lessons in those animes that are nothing to do with any one religion or school of thought, and everything to do with becoming one’s best self, and living ethically and making wise choices. They present stories of complexity and demonstrate the importance of compassion, consideration, and perspective. They teach with kindness, humor, and art. It’s a world worth exploring.

I sigh, sitting in the sunshine at my halfway point watching a doe standing quietly in the adjacent meadow, nibbling at the grasses. She bolts when I turn my camera in her direction and the picture I snap is blurry.

I sit awhile longer with my thoughts, ignoring physical pain in favor of enjoying the sunshine. I should definitely make time for the garden…

I breathe, exhale, and relax. Lovely morning for it. I wonder where the day will take me? The air smells sweet with wildflowers. I sneeze a couple times and laugh at myself – I don’t care about the sneezes nearly as much as I enjoy the fragrance of flowers. I’m glad I shoved a pack of tissues in my pocket, though. Handy. Another breath, another moment with my thoughts. Soon it’ll be time to walk back down the trail and begin again.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being

Embracing Now

May 19, 2025 //
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It’s a gray rainy Monday morning, just at daybreak. I’m sipping my iced coffee and working on catching up on things in order to begin the week. Looking over reminders, and setting new reminders for other things. Checking my “day plan” for work and my “to-do list” for things at home. Reflecting on the delightful weekend, surprisingly intimate and connected, spent in the good company of my Traveling Partner. Good food. Memorable moments. A feeling of warmth, affection, and emotional safety. Some things got done, but nothing at the expense of feeling good together, which was clearly the most important thing. I sit smiling, feeling merry, joyful, and loved.

…I don’t need to change a thing about this moment, at all, just relax and enjoy it, which is a lovely feeling…

I am deeply grateful for moments like these, sitting between moments of life and work, simply enjoying this delightful sliver of being, and “now”. I’m also grateful that I know to take my time with such moments, and really wring every bit of joy from them that they provide, savoring the moment, and the feelings. These are truly moments worthy of making room (and time) for. I breathe, exhale, and relax. On to the next moment, soon enough, there’s no hurry.

…This too will pass, at some point, and it will be time to begin again – but for now? It’s just me, this cup of coffee, and this lovely moment. I think I’ll stay awhile. 😀

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Green On Gray

May 15, 2025 //
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Cloudy morning. The deep dark green of the oaks dressed in Spring foliage dominate the view as I set off down the trail this morning. My head is full of vaguely grim musings, like “how many more sunrises?” And whether or not human life is sustainable on this planet at all, or how many idiots it takes to destroy democracy as astonished others watch it fall? My head aches. I woke with the headache and my tinnitus loud in my ears. I walk anyway.

Oaks along a well-maintained local trail, on s gray Spring morning.

It’s a workday. For some reason I feel cross and moody every time I think about my upcoming birthday. I don’t know what to do about my moody bullshit, but I guess I know more or less where it comes from. Change. I feel childish and stupidly emotional over it. Change is, and there are much more serious things going on in the world to be moody about than the details vexing me now. I’m just still dealing with it, I guess.

In spite of making tremendous progress recovering from his injury and the surgery that followed, my Traveling Partner, my beloved, is still healing, adapting, and working to recover skills and mobility that were lost or impaired. (We made dinner together last night and it was wonderful to see him back in the kitchen, cooking!) I’m incredibly impressed and proud of him for the sheer will and commitment he’s shown. I know how hard it is; I’ve been there (though I was in my 20’s when I broke my back, and that’s a very different age to deal with such a thing). So I want to be clear about my angsty nonsense; it’s not about him, or in fact about the current circumstances. Not really.

Love matters most.

I catch myself thinking about my 60th birthday. We’d just gotten the Ridgeline, and we were happily purposeful and excited, and eagerly exploring the local wilds together. The physical intimacy in our relationship was connected, deep, and joyful, and we “had the house to ourselves”. Him getting hurt wasn’t even on our radar. A year later, my birthday was mostly caregiving and preparing for his surgery with him, and doing the needful to help the Anxious Adventurer relocate to move in and give us a hand with all that, whatever he could while also building a life here for himself and working. Then another 6 months or so of crazy intense caregiving that exhausted me and pushed me to limits I didn’t know I have, before my beloved really started to “be himself” again. I’m not complaining. I’m just saying that these are the circumstances and changes that brought me to this weird and moody place, facing a birthday I mostly wouldn’t care much about under other circumstances. 62? Not even a milestone (and I don’t “feel old”, generally speaking, in spite of chronic pain). I just have feelings. Very human. I don’t know what to do with or about this particular birthday. I simultaneously ache with poignant feelings of loss and strange regrets, and also don’t give a fuck and want to put it behind me.

I have planned taking the week after my birthday off work, but I have no actual plans. It’s just all really weird and the emotions have piled on, and I’m having trouble sorting myself out. It’s annoying.

“Emotion and Reason” 18″ x 24″ acrylic w/ceramic and glow details, 2012

I breathe, exhale, and relax. There’s so much to appreciate and to be grateful for. I focus on that as I sit at my halfway point, writing and reflecting. Things could be much worse. Change is, and this too will pass. I can count on that. lol I will find small joys to help me past blue moments. The clock will tick on, regardless. A week off spent sleeping in, painting, and puttering in my garden, reading books, and walking local trails, is time well-spent and needs no elaborate planning at all. It’s even enough, truly. Ah, but I do have these feelings, and the way out is reliably through – so I give myself room to experience and process my emotions, without taking them personally. Just feeling the feelings and reflecting on those. They’ll pass. They’re only emotions after all, not truths, not requirements, just their own sort of experience. I give myself a break and let them come and go like gray clouds on a Spring morning; yes, they appear to cover the entire sky, but they will move on, and there is blue sky beyond.

… Clouds make a nice metaphor for emotions…

I smile to myself. I’m okay for most values of “okay”, and this is a good life. I am indeed fortunate. Emotions are so very human. I sigh and chuckle to myself as I get to my feet and stretch. This path won’t walk itself. There are practices to practice and the clock ticks on. It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, grief, health, Healthy Living, loneliness, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being

Perspective & Reminders

May 14, 2025 //
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I woke up slowly this morning, slipping gradually from strange distressing dreams of poverty, privation, and desperate futile “choices”. My dreams were anxious and restless. I dreamt of drinking terrible coffee on a sweltering morning, sitting on the edge of broken second-hand patio furniture – no AC, windows thrown wide to non-existent breezes through the night, hoping for a moment of cooler temperatures. I dreamt fretfully of having to choose between paying the electric bill and buying food, and of having to choose between filling a prescription or putting gas in an unreliable car. Would it even start next time I needed it? I dreamt of times gone by, and times I’ve never lived but recognize to be within the realm of possibility in a human lifetime. I dreamt of being in my final years, without means, without partnership, alone and deeply concerned about seeing another sunrise. I squinted at the rising sun in my dreams, anxious, then woke slowly to the lights coming on in my room, here, now, okay. Fucking hell. I’m not sure I’d call my dreams “nightmares” – there was no terror, really, only sorrow, and despair, and trying to so hard to make something of nothing last long enough to be… enough. My dreams were drenched in the anxiety of effort and insufficiency – and even in my dreams I found myself trying to find the best of it, to find the small joys in that dismal existence, sitting quietly with my coffee watching the sun rise. It wasn’t enough – but I felt some tiny fragment of hope and clung to it desperately.

…Fucking hell. I definitely do not need more nights like that…

Still, I sip my (relatively shitty) cup of coffee this morning, thinking about luck, circumstances, good fortune, and how very hard a person can work at life, at trying to provide for their family, at trying to live well within limited means – and how easy it is to fail at all of that, anyway. People get mired in despair because life can be hard. Very hard. Sometimes it not only seems like there is “no way out” – it may even be true in some limited sense. Rough. Sometimes doing better or “finding our way” requires really difficult decision-making, or even what feels like a complete “do-over”. Scary. None of that is easy. You know what is easy? Being a jerk to people when you do not know, or can not understand, what they are going through. Super easy to be a raging asshole, lacking in compassion and consideration. (For a choice bad example, we need only look to Congress trying to pass a budget.) Maybe don’t do that, though, right? Just don’t be a jerk to people.

Simple joys are worth savoring and it doesn’t take much effort to be kind.

It’s a good morning to reflect with gratitude on my good fortune, and where I am in life right now. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I embrace the quiet somewhat rainy looking morning with a measure of joy; I am not in that place where my dreams placed me. I’m not wealthy (not even “affluent”). I have enough to meet my basic needs. My Traveling Partner and I are comfortable together, managing life together. We provide for each other; it’s likely neither of us would be in the same place in life without each other. I smile thinking of the cute 3D printed earrings I am wearing this morning – he made them for me. That he made them with me in mind matters so much more than their intrinsic value. They’re plastic – super cute and I love them. Diamonds could not ever please me on the same level at all – their cold sparkle would only remind me of what I don’t have and can’t (or have not) achieved. They would exist to say something to someone else, and I would wear them only to “make a statement” – and one which I don’t personally feel moved to make. I’m not competing with the world. I’m walking my own path. I don’t aspire to diamond jewelry – only to loving and being loved, living well (within our limited means), and finding joy in a life that is enough. But that’s me. You do you, I guess. 😀

Who are you? What do you really want out of life? Where does your path lead? You will become what you practice – what are you practicing?

My mind wanders. I reflect awhile on how best to avoid being a jerk to people (even when I’m tired, or in pain, or aggravated by something). So many people suffering, doing what they can with too little, just trying to get by… I think awhile on being kind, being considerate, demonstrating concern and compassion, and how best to be the woman I most want to be. “Being and becoming” seems to be a long, sometimes rather slow journey from the greed and demanding inconsiderate foolishness of childhood to … something else. Something better, ideally, something practiced and thoughtful, and patient, and wise, and… fuck I’ve got work to do on this “being my best self” stuff! So many negative examples out there in the world, too – I know who I don’t want to be. I know how I don’t want to behave. I guess it is a starting point, eh?

The clock is ticking, but there’s time to begin again. Do better. You have choices.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, Free Will, gratitude, joy, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, War and News of War
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