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August 14, 2016 //

I’m home. Gear unpacked, cleaned, put away for future use. There’s still the matter of sorting out thoughts and photographs; it was a peculiarly eventful trip out to the trees, but there’s little I can do about the matter of finding the words for it, at least for now.

The trail at Saddle Mountain bested me utterly, and by that I mean I didn’t make it to the top. 🙂 I’m okay with that, still counting it among life’s successes – it’s often more about showing up than whatever the outcome may be. I managed a half mile up the trail, and back down, and learned more about how having a clear-seeming destination can alter the characteristics of a journey. I enjoyed a day out among the trees, and returned home with only 17 mosquito bites. 😀

When I arrived with the sun there was just one site available.

I secured my camp site early in the morning on Friday with the intention of staying the weekend, and I was surprised that the camping was basically full. I quickly learned it generally is so full that incoming travelers quickly grab every vacancy as departing campers make their exit. (The posted rules are ‘check out by 1 pm, check in begins at 4 pm’, but there is no actual gap between 1:00 pm-4:00 pm during which tent sites are actually vacant.)

Heading up the trail.

I hadn’t planned to attempt the trail the first day, but the enticing coolness of the forest drew me in, and I found myself walking. The brochure describes the trail as a ‘continuous incline’ (it is) that is very steep in places (not an exaggeration) and recommends it only for fit, sure-footed hikers, in proper footwear (wise). I went anyway – great footwear, at least, and feeling prepared, if not ‘sure-footed’. lol

…Just keep walking…

I took very few pictures on the trail. Many that I took didn’t turn out. I was amused to find one reminder of the trail difficulties turned out only too well…

The obstacle that stopped me reaching the Humbug Mountain viewpoint.

Life’s journey has obstacles and detours. Part of finding my way is making wise decisions regarding which to overcome, and which to walk away from. I was finding this small side trail enticing and lovely – and relatively easy, until I reached this point. It was clear that hikers had been scrambling around this (tree trunk? branch? snag? fallen-down-something-or-other-that-once-was-tree); in doing so, over time, the path itself had crumbled away. Looking things over, I couldn’t determine with the needed certainty that the bit of tree clinging there to the hillside would truly support my weight sufficiently well to swing over the gap to the other side… and honestly didn’t come prepared to splint a broken leg and drag myself to help from the forest floor below, so I turned back, reminding myself it hadn’t been my intention to hike the entire trail today, anyway. 🙂

I returned to camp after hiking further up the main trail. It took me almost an hour to reach the 1/2 mile marker, and I contentedly headed back to camp. I’d taken some lovely trail pictures – many of which I didn’t yet know hadn’t turned out at all. I’d find that out after I returned home. lol But it isn’t about the pictures, is it? Life, I mean? It’s more about the living of each moment with exquisite awareness…and that doesn’t require a camera, at all. 😀

There are small things of great beauty surrounding us; we only need to look for them.

Moments to be savored don’t really need a camera. “Pictures or it didn’t happen”? That’s no real concern of mine. I don’t need to prove I live; I am living. 🙂

Perspective comes in all shapes and sizes.

I had come hoping to see the meteor shower, figuring the remote location and high elevation would work in my favor. I hadn’t counted on the dense forest. I found two likely locations for good viewing, though, the parking lot, and the mostly dis-used ‘day use area’ on the other side.

The best view of the sky I could find near camp.

I contentedly checked out the somewhat haunted seeming “picnic area” that had fallen into disrepair. It was a rare bit of quiet off the beaten path, at least in those moments that I was fortunate to explore it all to myself. Searching for a specific picture, of a specific moment, I happily discovered that I’d paused syncing on my Dropbox, and ‘found’ quite a few pictures I thought hadn’t turned out. Nice moment. I smile, sip my coffee, and enjoy it.

Once upon a time…

I had found what seemed a likely place to watch the meteor shower, and a reasonably easy & safe walk in the dark (even with a headlamp or flashlight, anything up the trail would be too risky in the dark). I spent much of the afternoon in this strangely forgotten timeless place, content with the stillness and solitude, beyond the sounds of voices and automobiles.

Beautiful day for a picnic.

I spent the day whiling away hours in meditation, wandering, breathing in the scents of summertime, and naming all the shades of green; it was a day well-spent.

How many shades of green are there?

The night passed less comfortably, and my astonishment at how discourteous and inconsiderate people can be was quickly exhausted. Weary travelers arriving past midnight, disappointed to find no obvious vacancies didn’t just turn around and drive on, instead they illuminated the night forest with high beams, certain that if only they had the light of day to work with, they’d surely see the tent site they need… The regular interruption of the darkness was accompanied by a soundtrack, too, the cacophony of loud voices, strident, frustrated, insistent – tired people wanting rest who did not plan to arrive “early enough” to secure a tent site didn’t generally put the onus of their failure on their own shoulders, and seemed to seek silent validation from the rest of us, by shouting their tale of woe to each other across the dark parking lot and into the trees. Quiet hours after 10 pm? The park was actually noisiest from 11 pm to well past 1 am.

On the one hand, I didn’t sleep. On the other hand, the periodic interruptions that woke me also ensured I was indeed awake between 1 am and 4 am, and enjoyed a decent view of the starry night sky, and got to observe the meteor shower for some little while, although the experience suffered for the regular arrival and departure of visitors seeking a place to lay their heads for the night (see my earlier remarks on discourtesy and inconsiderate decision-making).

Even a day later, I am more than a little bit irked by hike/camp travelers who arrive on site past darkness, unprepared, and making a crap ton of noise. Surely planning is a small investment to arrive at a destination in a timely fashion so as not to intrude on the pleasant experience of others? I’m pretty sure most people approach that from a ‘fuck you, your experience doesn’t matter to me’ position these days… that sure seemed to be the case from the perspective I had from site #9 at Saddle Mountain. That’s a trivial matter, and it’s behind me now… seeping into my awareness of other circumstances and experiences, and I hope that I will take it to heart, myself, and act such that while I am out in the world enjoying my experience, I’m not wrecking the pleasant experience others are having around me. A small amount of consideration goes a long way. 🙂

I woke early yesterday, and dithered through my morning coffee… stay or go? Stay? Go. Stay. Go? One cup of coffee. Stay. Stay? No… go. Another cup of coffee. I’ll stay. It’s cooler up here. I’m not sleeping, though… I’ll go. Back and forth. I started heating water for oatmeal… and noticed I’d packed most of my gear in the car without really planning to in any specific way. (Trip to the rest room; take a bag to the car… Trip to get more water for coffee; take my hydration pack to the car…) Apparently, I had decided to return home – and the decision felt comfortable, natural, and relaxed. No pressure. No stress. I was ready to go home and didn’t need any other reason.

It was a lovely bit of time away, and I returned home with plenty to think over. Today is a good day for thinking thoughts, and preparing for the week ahead. 🙂

Tags being and becoming, consideration, emotional self sufficiency, experience, I am my own cartographer, I'm easy, mindfulness matters, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, Saddle Mountain Trail, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, the forest and the trees, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walking my own path

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being

Choosing Peace

July 15, 2016 //

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.

Tags be love, be present, choose peace, compassion, consideration, don't bomb me bro!, don't hate, don't shoot be bro!, emotion and reason, fear carries a gun, Fearless, headaches suck, mindfulness matters, openness, perspective, put down the gun, Reciprocity, respect, The Big 5, vote with care the world is depending on you, we are humanity, You Always Have My Heart

Categories Art, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words

Easy and Hard

July 5, 2016 //

I could so easily mess with today by getting myself invested in expectations of misery, frustration, and boredom… I caught myself on the first attempt, and gave myself a chance to reconsider. I’m going down to the VA today, to wait on a cancellation or other opportunity to get my imaging done sooner than the [only available] scheduled appointment more than three weeks away. I’m hopeful I’ll be fortunate, and that my patience will pay off today. If it doesn’t – there’s tomorrow, and I’d likely commit 2-3 days a week to this, to get the images done sooner than later.

It’s a journey, there is no map. Sometimes, there is no trail.

This is where things start getting trickier for me; my perspective, my experience, my emotions… those are just me. What about ‘everyone else’? It’s a matter of balance, and sure, perspective, too. It matters that “we are each having our own experience”, because “we’re all in it together”. Today I will do my best to be approachable, to-the-point, and calm. I’ll listen deeply, and do my best to avoid interrupting. I’ll ask clarifying questions. I’ll be patient with others and respect their humanity. I will remind myself regularly that at the VA almost everyone hurts in some way, and be considerate and compassionate – with myself, too. It’s a lot to practice…

A deep breathe. A lovely flower.

We become what we practice. I’ll have to face the woman in the mirror at the end of the day. I hope to choose my practices wisely.

Practices… perspective… mindfulness… balance… It’s a lot to keep up on, if I take them one by one. Thankfully, they’re sort of ‘bundled’ together in one practice-filled mindfulness package. 🙂

I balance my bee sting allergy with my fascination for bees by keeping my bee sting kit handy, and using great care.

Balance is important enough to practice. I thought about it, metaphorically, while I worked on balancing literally during my workout, this morning. One portion of my workout is entirely about balance, and when I began it, some of it seemed pretty silly… “stand on one leg”. Huh. Okay, sure. Easy! Oh… not so easy these days. Hmm. I begin again. Again. And again. I wobble. I sway. I keep at it. I practice. Seems easy. I guess, in most practical regards, it actually is quite easy. It’s the doing it well reliably bit that complicates things… and then… well… I’ve been on this new workout routine for…a week? About a week. A bit more maybe. It’s feeling really good, in the sense that my muscles tell me each day that there is change. Then, yesterday, I was able to put some real miles on my boots with much more comfort. Bad posture and pain had begun really holding me back… By the time I got home, feeling refreshed, strong, and exhilarated, I was also feeling my left knee ache. (Damn it!) This morning, I got up and felt it as soon as I took a step. I reached for my hiking staff before I even made coffee – looks like I’ll be walking with support for a few days. Balance… definitely not ‘easy’. Definitely takes practice.

Perspective matters, too; it’s easy to focus on how much my knee aches… or how unpleasant I find dealing with the VA…

There’s more to it than this moment! I consider my needs over time; how do I best take care of myself long-term?

We become what we practice. Incremental change takes time. Building new skills – or restoring old ones – requires both. A good measure of patience with myself, and some perspective on the challenges, will probably be useful, too. 🙂

Practicing patience, self-soothing, and learning balance has unexpected delights.

Tags a few deep breaths, balance, be love, be the change, compassion, consideration, listening deeply, meditation, mindfulness matters, patience, perspective, practice, practicing the practices, The Big 5, trust the process, we become what we practice, what are you perfecting?

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, health, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, women, Words

Opening Up

May 15, 2016 //

A few days ago I went into my Facebook settings and ‘followed’ everyone on my friends list. (Over time I had ‘unfollowed’ several friends, for a variety of reasons, and recently recognized how limiting that could potentially be for those friendships.)

I consider myself fairly open-minded at this point in life – though, actually, I ‘always’ did… and… I just wasn’t, for a very long time. I grew up with hate, primarily racism, sexism, and homophobia, with plenty of extra hate laying about for ‘strangers’ and ideas that didn’t suit my community – or my father. He was a fairly well-educated man, professional, with broad life experience and a good intellect. He also thought of himself as ‘open-minded’. He also was not. Definitions of terms are surprisingly stretchy, varying rather a lot between how we apply a word to others, versus how we apply it to ourselves. Why do I mention it? The quantity of peculiarly subtle hate that cropped up in my Facebook feed when I followed everyone on my friends list. I admit I was taken by surprise by the rationalized lack of tolerance, lack of compassion, lack of understanding, and the intensely dogmatic (and more than a little nationalistic) ‘us versus them’ perspective on the world. Fear-based thinking. Entitlement. Ad hominem and straw-man fallacies in abundance. It was an eye-opening and thought-provoking experience. It got me thinking about hate… and the woman in the mirror.

I don’t hate much. I mean that in the verb form, as in “I don’t indulge in the experience of feeling hate, or acting on impulses that may have their source in the experience of hating” when I recognize and can avoid it. I qualify it in that fashion (‘…when I recognize and can avoid it.’) because I’m human. Prone to irrational fears of the unknown, prone to seeing threats where no threat exists, and prone to negative biases – because at one time in the evolution of humanity, we needed those characteristics to secure our safety. Not very useful at this point, I must say, and obviously damnably difficult to let go of, based on what I see in my Facebook feed this past couple days. I’m not immune. I tend toward reactivity, versus responsiveness (as do many of us, it’s very human). I practice another way, deliberately, willfully, and with use of plenty of verbs – because I don’t find positive value in hate. Full stop. No need to justify my values there. This is who I am.

Now.

Yep. There’s the thing; it’s who I am now. I’ve grown and changed a lot over the years. There was a time when I wore hate like a luxurious cloak of finely made fabric; I brandished it, justified it, and felt righteous about my hate. I didn’t call it hate. I didn’t recognize the hateful nature of my words and ideology. I didn’t understand that I was hateful. I didn’t see that I was hurting people. I had little self-awareness and less compassion. I look back on that much younger self of long ago and I am embarrassed – and relieved to be transformed over time, through experience, through choices, and through the patience and acts of loving friends and associates who valued me beyond the hate, the prejudice, and the ignorance.

Thank you. (You know who you are.)

Hate is pretty ugly stuff. A lot of it sources with our fears, and our insecurity about our selves. Worse still, a lot of our fears and our hate, culturally, is manufactured bullshit – created to fatten up someone’s bottom line, either at the polls, or in the marketplace. That’s some sick shit right there, when a human being is willing to foment hate to profit from it personally. I’m not okay with that. I’m okay with being uncomfortable with what I don’t understand. I’m okay with being uneasy about what is strange or new or different. I’m okay with wanting or needing to set boundaries for myself, or having limitations as a human being – I’m a human being. Hate though? Not actually okay at all – not if I intend to say I am a civilized, rational, reasonable, good-hearted, compassionate, human being. The ‘us/them’ bullshit used to justify hate is precisely that – it’s bullshit. We are all human beings – even the fairly hateful loathsome ones who push my ability to tolerate human stupidity – and we are each having our own experience. I can’t actually ‘fix this’, though… except with regard to the woman in the mirror. I don’t do hate. It’s a choice. There are verbs involved.

…I have friends (and family) who do. Hate exists because people hate. That’s an unpleasant thing to have to accept… that there are people who matter to me who embrace hate. These are good-hearted people, generally, who likely don’t see themselves in that light, and who don’t recognize their words or behavior as hateful. They feel justified. They are also having their own experience. I am uncomfortable with hate. I find myself facing an interesting life lesson here. I am thankful that friends and loved ones who knew a more hateful younger me didn’t turn away from me; over time it changed me to see another way modeled by people I value.

There’s no denouement here, no handy lesson, no easy solution or catchy final paragraph wherein the good guys win. This is life. This is messy. This is challenging. Change and growth don’t come easily – and can’t be forced. I can continue, myself, to grow, to do better than I did a year ago, and to practice good practices, learning to treat myself – and the world – truly well. I can refuse, myself, to hate. I hope it’s enough.

Tags be love, being and becoming, compassion, consideration, don't hate, haters gonna hate, how much have you grown?, openness, practicing the practices, Reciprocity, respect, seriously don't hate, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Wheaton's Law

Categories Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Tricks, Traps, and Jokes

April 1, 2016 //

Crap. It’s April Fool’s Day again. I should have taken the day off to stay safely at home, and off-line. I didn’t. It’s a regular work day, and I’ll be in the office and wary of the ‘playful’ side of colleagues, and the ‘spirit of the day’.

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not an innocent here, and I’ve done my share of April Fool’s Day pranking in younger years; I gave it up many years ago when it finally struck me that willfully sowing chaos and stress in other people’s lives isn’t really funny at all…that was back in the 90s. April Fool’s pranks in some cases are mostly fairly harmless, but very misleading… and once I finally gave thought to how that might affect people who have cognitive challenges to work around already it seemed both inappropriate, and unkind. April Fool’s pranks sometimes fall into a very different category, and are mean and at the expense of someone else’s emotional or physical safety without regard for the consequences to that other human being. I find myself wondering why it would even seem necessary to say that those sorts of pranks are not okay? Are you waiting for me to say ‘April Fools!’? I’m not going to. It’s not my thing. I’d rather treat you well and work together such that our shared understanding of reality is functional and reasonably accurate.

I’d rather find a friendlier way to celebrate spring.

I woke this morning, immediately before the alarm went off – which was nice; I don’t like hearing it. I woke with my thoughts filled with as-yet-unprocessed bits and details and things my consciousness is fussing over in the background, feeling a bit frustrated by the din within. There are fewer moments of real stillness lately, a byproduct of cohabitation that has its charms and its challenges. Taking more time meditating, sitting quietly, and reading sounds nice and I am looking forward to the weekend.

I know that one of the things nagging at me is the very real need to ‘brush off’ the lingering OPD (Other People’s Drama) of exes, and however initially unappealing it may sound, realistically I am aware that forgiveness and letting go are the way to proceed. There will be no ‘closure’, most particularly with the most recent one; these are people having their own experience, too, and in their narrative things are very different from mine. There is no ‘meeting of the minds’ to rely upon, no shared interest in harmony, balance, equanimity, mutual respect or consideration… frankly, if there were, things might have turned out quite differently all around. Any ‘closure’ I find will likely be created from within, based upon the firm foundation of my own willingness to be accepting, to forgive, and to let go of attachments (not attachment to the people involved, those are long gone, but rather the attachment to needing to be heard, attachment to being understood, attachment to being ‘right’…). There are, as usual, verbs involved. This one isn’t easy, but few challenges are.

At the moment, I struggle with seemingly fresh hurts over old relationships; the path ahead is clear, nonetheless, and the choices are mine. I suspect that the attempts to contact me by a couple of exes, and the continued reminders of the more recent hell I vacated (that reach me by way of providing emotional support to my traveling partner as he deals with his own experience), is enough to challenge me to do a more thorough job of taking care of myself by letting some of this bullshit and baggage go, in a more complete way. I continue to practice good emotional self-care. I find The Four Agreements immensely helpful for dealing with symptoms of OPD. Why does it come up again? I wonder, but don’t answer the question easily. I’m not sure the question really rates the work to find an answer beyond the obvious one; there is more to learn, and I have not yet completed that work.

Seeking balance, instead of answers.

The morning unfolds gently. My coffee is almost gone. The clock suggests it is soon time to head to the office. My mind still feels overly busy, and recognizing it I sense a bit of anxiety creeping in around the edges. I breathe. Relax. Let it go. I make a private commitment to myself to spend more time meditating this weekend, and consider getting out on the trail into the calm of the forest… or taking the bus to the beach.

Today is a good day to treat myself well – and everyone else, too. Be safe out there, World, and watch for pranksters. 🙂

Tags April Fool's Day, closure, compassion, consideration, creating closure, don't be a dick, don't prank me bro!, exes, finding closure, good self-care, if you can't say anything nice, looking within living without, meditation, mindful loving, OPD, openness, Reciprocity, respect, seeking closure, The Big 5, walk on, Wheaton's Law

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

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Choosing Peace

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Easy and Hard

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Opening Up

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