I woke up feeling cross and headache-y. I rolled up the road in the foggy darkness after making coffee for my beloved Traveling Partner and putting out a fresh glass of water and some morning snacks for him to wake up to. Hopefully his night was better than mine. I get awfully annoyed with him when he’s stupidly cross or frustrated with me, particularly when it is over something I don’t have a lot of control over, or something that isn’t about me at all in any reasonable way. He’s human too, and recovering from a serious injury is difficult and frustrating on its own. That’s not made easier by the medications he is taking to ease this or that symptom. I remind myself often that it isn’t personal, that he’s doing his best, and that he loves me. Doesn’t always make it any easier to endure.
Last night he was pretty crabby, in general, and I was “over it” almost immediately. I have needs of my own, and I definitely didn’t feel supported, cared for, or held in high regard. Didn’t help that I hadn’t slept well the night before, and knowing that was true for him, too, I suspect poor sleep was the biggest piece of our shared experience. I called it a night early and tried to get the rest I needed. That was a mixed success and my night was interrupted and not ideally restful. I’ll get over it.
I remind myself not to be a jerk to people; I can’t really know what they’re going through, and most people mean well, and generally try to do their best. Choosing to do anything else than my own best, to treat people well and kindly, with patience and understanding, comes with real predictable consequences. I know that’s true in work, family life, and love. People have a finite amount of nastiness or disrespect that they’ll endure before they lash out or just walk away. That’s reasonable, too. There’s no need to put up with someone’s bullshit rudeness, mistreatment, or drama, at all – there are other (better) options.
I think about my behavior, and I think about my beloved’s behavior, too. We’re walking this path together out of love, and I’m grateful for this deep and enduring love we share – but I’m no fool; we both have options. There’s no reason either of us should settle for each other’s worst behavior, ever. We have a mutual obligation to each other (and to the love we share) to do our best every day. Sure, sometimes our results may vary, and human is human. Still, it’s worth the effort, and certainly if we give up making the effort, love will bear the consequences. That’s just real.
I sit in the pre-dawn darkness out on the marsh. The fog is dense this morning. My head aches and my tinnitus is louder than the traffic on the nearby highway. I sigh quietly and see the steam of my breath become part of the fog. The VA says I need hearing aids now. I guess I’m not surprised. I haven’t really processed that yet. I don’t know how much it really matters. I hope they’re easy to wear and use and that they help. It’s been frustrating to have to be face-to-face with my beloved to be certain of hearing what he’s saying to me, and it’s clearly been frustrating for him, too. The doctor suggested, kindly, that there’s a chance the tinnitus will seem less loud when I’m hearing voice frequencies at a normal volume once again. That’d be a nice change. I’m grateful for the chance to have this technology available. Pretty amazing.
I sit with my thoughts awhile. It’s a chilly morning. Thanksgiving tomorrow, and I’ve much to be grateful for. I focus on the gratitude. It’s pretty hard to feel annoyed and grateful at the same time. lol Useful cognitive trick.
I get to my feet. It’s time to begin again. I’ll do my best.
Imagine for a moment that you are a traveler on a long journey, arriving at an airport perhaps, after a long flight. You’re groggy from lack of sleep, long hours, and you are deeply fatigued. You’re in a strange busy place, noisy with unfamiliar language, brightly lit, chaotic – and you are hungry. Hungry and fatigued, to the point of tears, in a foreign place. You don’t speak the local language. You enter a Strange Diner, are provided a seat, served a beverage, and given a menu. The menu is… vast. Huge like an unfolded paper map. The print is tiny. You don’t read the language, or understand it when spoken to you. Everything is strange. You feel a little lost by the incomprehensible selection on the menu in front of you. You look around at what other diners are having, point to a picture, figure it’ll do and hope for the best.
Eventually, over time and repeated return visits to the Strange Diner, you learn to fold the menu accordion-style, as you see other diners doing. You pick up some of the language a little at a time, and figure out the characters that make up the language on the menu. You learn the table manners by watching other diners, and you pick up some of the culture and behavior of “the locals”. You begin to conform. Conformity is comfortable. The menu seems more manageable folded small, revealing only the few familiar options you feel safest with. Comfort feels… comfortable. Safe. Easier.
…There is so much you haven’t explored, so much you don’t know, because you’ve chosen conformity, comfort, and safety, again and again, in the Strange Diner. Most people do. This Strange Diner is your life. The menu is as vast and interesting as you allow it to be. It is as narrow and predictable as you insist on it becoming. You are making choices.
What might happen if you were to unfold the menu? Maybe just a fold or two at first, a peek at other options, other flavors, other experiences… other choices. Life’s menu is vast (so vast) – there is so much to choose from, and each new choice could open still another folded section of that menu to reveal still more experiences to choose from. There is so much to see, do, and experience. So much “flavor” to life that you’ll never taste, however boldly you choose from this vast menu; there isn’t enough time in a single mortal life to taste it all.
Many years ago, when I was first “trying things from the menu” as an artist, I decided against pastels. My first choices were based first on ignorance (I really knew very little about art, generally, or painting specifically – only that I wanted to do this thing). Later I made choices based on my assumptions about various mediums – and myself as an artist. I like things “easy”, there’s no point saying otherwise. I folded the menu, concealing the options to do with pastels (and sculpture, lithography, anything to do with fine metal work… lots of stuff disappeared from view based on how I folded that menu). I simply didn’t consider them. I was a different sort of artist, and I focused on the menu items I was most comfortable with, myself. I made my reasons make sense to me – and I made my choices. I wasn’t even unhappy about it, not at all – it all made sense to me. That was enough. I enjoyed my art. I didn’t give pastels another thought – that section of menu was concealed from me by my own hand, and it disappeared from view. “Out of sight, out of mind” – quite literally. Life (and art) moved on. The menu stayed folded.
Recently, it became clear that my physical limitations were becoming a constraint on my artistic work. Big canvases yielded to smaller ones. Homeownership placed firm limitations on storage space – and work space. More choices. The menu folded, again. Still more recently, circumstances put a new choice in front of me; give up my studio to make room for my Traveling Partner’s son to move in for some temporary-but-undetermined time, or go without help caring for my Traveling Partner while he recovers from surgery. Well, shit. Not much of a choice, but doing so would constrain my artistic “freedom” still further… wouldn’t it? Over days, I considered the “folded menu” (metaphorically) in my hands in life’s Strange Diner…
…So, I carefully unfolded it, revealing so many artistic options I had mostly given no thought to… I could return to working in watercolor, on paper… why had I given that up? What about pen & ink… drawing instead of painting? Fused glass? Origami? The menu quakes in shaking hands, reminding me that choices have consequences, and not all choices are a great fit for the need of the moment – or the artist that I am. Like someone with a bad case of munchies on a limited budget, I stared at that menu for… days. I thought about the options. How they might fit into my experience. Was it too late for a change? (The equivalent of giving up on it as “not really hungry after all”, I suppose.)
Tucked in a little box, in the corner of a drawer, hidden behind my carefully kept watercolors (it’s a very nice set that I rarely use but definitely love)… a small box of iridescent hard pastels, never used. Why do I even have these? I still wonder… My Traveling Partner and I watched a video – serendipity is definitely a condiment in the Strange Diner, it sits on every table. Pastels appear on the menu in that moment when serendipity hints at something more to a small unused box of pastels that has gathered dust in a box of art supplies since the early 80s. It no longer matters why I bought those then, what matters is what I choose to do about them, now.
The menu takes on new color – quite literally – as I consider pastels. Oil pastels? Soft Pastels? What brand? What colors? What surfaces and what tools? As exciting as trying an exotic new dessert, I make new choices, and try new “flavors”. By July, I’ve given up my studio at home, and purchased a basic set of soft pastels to “try out”. I’ve built a playlist of artists’ video tutorials, and gathered some useful reading material. I study the new medium thoughtfully. On July 10th, I paint my first small piece using the new medium, and distract myself from my timidity by doing it while I was on a conference call during a work day, letting the medium guide the work.
“Recollection of a Sunset” 3″ x 6″ soft pastel on La Carte Pastel Card, 2024 (I’m not saying it was good, just that it was first.)
It’s now been 86 days – and 16 new paintings. It’s hard to imagine working in any other medium at this point in my life as an artist – a bit as if I’d eaten nothing but burgers and fries in the Strange Diner all my life, then finally tried real French cuisine and fallen in love with food all over again. Artistically, this is very much what has happened. I am changed – because I chose change. I opened the menu to reveal new options. There are soooo many options. The menu in the Strange Diner is disturbingly vast. It’s no great surprise that most of us live our lives keeping that menu folded up quite compactly. It’s more convenient. Less overwhelming. It’s generally enough – but there is more. So much more.
Anyway… I’m just saying; you’ve got options. No matter the circumstances. Whatever has stalled you. Whatever is holding you back or limiting your apparent choices – there is more to the menu in your hand. Unfold it. Take a look. See what life has to offer you from the menu of this Strange Diner. Try something new. Maybe you regret it. Maybe you don’t care for it. Maybe it’s too spicy or too bland. Maybe it’s too strange or not a great solution for you in this moment. You do have choices, though, and life has not revealed all there is to know. Not yet; you’ve still got that menu all folded up for convenience. Go ahead – unfold it.
I only woke once during the night. The house was quiet. Quieter than it has been, and even through my tinnitus I could tell. Yesterday my Traveling Partner identified a peculiar ringing noise, something like a finger going around the rim of a crystal glass or something similarly annoying, and turned off the source. Apparently the feeling of relief was immediate – I definitely experienced that myself, when I returned home later in the day. We wondered together how much additional background stress that noise was creating in the household…?
The night was quiet. My sleep was more restful. I still woke in the morning with my tinnitus screeching and whining away in my ears, but that peculiar ringing is not part of it. Win. I woke in pain. Arthritis. It’s not any sort of unexpected surprise, it just sucks; the weather is beginning to turn towards autumn and there will likely be more days of worse-than-summertime pain ahead. That’s just real. It’s part of my experience, and I’m not really even intending to bitch about it, it’s just an observation of how things are today. I sigh, and wait for the sun; a walk will help.
Daybreak just ahead.
My Traveling Partner pings me. It’s barely daybreak, and I’m surprised he is up. He shares his irritation at being unable to rest, sounding frustrated and annoyed. I don’t even want to deal with any of that, although I feel for him and wish he were having a more pleasant experience. I give up on my walk, start the car and head back to the house; it’s early enough to grab my laptop and head into the office to work, which will give him the day in peace. Hopefully he finds the rest and quiet time he needs. I walk away from our brief interaction at the house feeling annoyed with his negativity and stress, and being in pain myself, I start the drive to the office in a pretty savage mood. Unpleasant. I also spend the drive working on letting that bullshit go. I’m not the one who woke up feeling disturbed, distressed, and unable to rest. Not my experience. I’m the partner who had a solution ready-to-go and implemented it promptly without argument or drama. I’m okay with that role, and missing one walk of many is not such a big deal, really.
…I missed the sunrise, and I feel that in a particularly poignant way, which surprised me just a little. We are mortal creatures, and there’s no knowing how many sunrises may remain. I give myself room to have those feelings and respect them, and take time to feel grateful to have seen so many…
The drive to the office is calm, with very little traffic. I spend it more than a little bit “in my own head”, and arrive, park, and set up my day with an efficiency that highlights how much emotional resilience can matter. Worth the time spent practicing, surely. (And we become what we practice.) I breathe. Exhale. Relax. I’ve got the day ahead of me now, and I take a moment to write, and reflect, and savor the pleasant early start to the day; I don’t bother with the brief moment of disappointment over missing out on my walk, other than a gentle reminder to myself that it was a choice, and I could have chosen differently. I made the choice I did out of affectionate regard and loving concern for my Traveling Partner and his needs, on a day when I could easily do so. This is hardly a “sacrifice” worth any measure of sorrow. It simply reflects a mature and loving partnership.
So. Here I am with my tinnitus and my pain, an entire new day ahead of me. Seems like a good opportunity to begin again. 😀
There was a misty rain falling when I got to the trailhead before daybreak. I don’t mind that. It had rained rather heavily at several points during the night, too, and I didn’t mind that either. My sleep was restless and unsatisfying, and I didn’t get enough of it. The household seemed noisy until almost midnight. I struggled to return to sleep each time I woke. I feel fine this morning. Eager to get a walk in along the damp marsh-side trail. It’s a short drive to the office from this nature park, and that’s where I’ll be working today. In general, the day is off to a good start, though seeing it through that lens is largely a matter of practice over time. (It wasn’t all that long ago that a restless night followed by a drizzly morning would likely have found me exceedingly irritated with life and wholly unpleasant to be around.)
…I keep practicing…
A rainy dawn, a new day.
Daybreak comes and I swap my shoes for boots, and grab my cane. I finish off my iced coffee and double check that I have my water bottle ready. I breathe the rain-fresh air and sigh contentedly, stretching before I head down the trail.
Practices come in all sizes. Changing the things I practice in life has done a lot to change my quality of life, my thinking, and my perspective. I’m more resilient. I am calmer. I bounce back from stress more easily and more quickly. I still have challenges. I still have to deal with my own bullshit and baggage. I’m very human. Trauma has changed me over the course of a lifetime and there’s no knowing who I might have been without it. There’s no “going back” – but it hardly matters when I remember that all my choices are ahead of me when I am present in this moment, awake, aware, and ready to begin again any time I fail myself or fall short of living my values. Failures are part of life.
I smile at the cloudy gray sky thinking about how best to capture those hues in pastel. This is a worthy moment to be here, now, and I embrace it. I breathe, exhale, relax, and begin again.
I finished my walk with a contented sigh, and changed from my boots to my shoes, then looked over my list of errands and things to get done. I’ve got a couple stops to make on my way home. Routine stuff. “Normal.”
An ordinary beginning to a new day.
I look over my grocery list, hoping to avoid having to make several trips to the store, where one would do.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s time to begin again, and I’ve got everything I need to enjoy a lovely day. What will I do with it? I sit with my thoughts a while, until the clock catches my attention.
I snarl quietly with cantankerous humor at the mindless “AI” (it isn’t) making suggestions regarding my grammar. Stupid thing can fuck right off. I’ve no interest in sounding “all same-y” as every other writer on the internet, so I’ll be using my own voice, thanks. lol That’s one very nice detail of being a human primates; I can choose the tools I wish to use.
I smile to myself, content with the morning thus far.
Evening Light 