This morning my walk began at a familiar well-maintained trailhead. I walked west with the sunrise at my back. The weather is mild, clear and calm. Seems likely to be a warm day and I’m glad I took time to water the garden thoroughly yesterday evening.
Mt Hood in the distance.
I pause my walk occasionally for sneezes, grateful to have thought to grab a pack of travel tissues, mildly annoyed to have to shove them in my pocket after using them; I’ve already passed by the few trash cans along the start of this trail.
I pass a woman going the opposite direction, being walked by her dogs. They pull her along, their leashes taut, she seems to pull back while also being hurried along. Too much dog, I suppose. I chuckle to myself and keep walking. The dogs paid me no attention, they had someplace to be, apparently.
Somewhere over there, the sun rises.
I woke up from surreal dreams this morning, super groggy. Even by the time I reach my halfway point, my head is still foggy, my strange dreams linger, and I have A Tribe Called Quest stuck in my head. I don’t overthink the moment, I queue up the track and listen to it while I watch another sunrise.
Venus sparkles like a tiny diamond on the soft pale blue of a dawn sky streaked with playful pink clouds. Hard to take the world seriously when there is such beauty. Sometimes pausing to appreciate the beauty in the world around me feels like an act of rebellion, as if to say “you have no power over me” to the goblin king. As the morning sky brightens, Venus fades away from view.
I sigh quietly to myself. I sit awhile with private thoughts. The clock ticks on. My journey is incomplete and the path beckons me. This trail isn’t going to walk itself. There’s more to see, more to do. The day has only just begun. I stretch and get to my feet. It’s time to begin again.
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.
We become what we practice. Think about that for a minute in the context of anger, and how you express your anger, handle feeling angry, and how your anger affects others around you. We become what we practice. Practice “venting” your anger, releasing it into the environment, directing it toward other people… over time? You become more skillful at being angry. To be clear, you don’t become more skillful at managing your anger constructively, or harnessing the potential in your anger to communicate violated boundaries, or to seek change. You just become more skillful at (and more easily provoked into) escalating quickly and becoming a monster built of rage capable of doing great damage to those around you without anything much in the way of a positive outcome. I’m just saying, maybe give some thought to what you practice with regard to how you express and deal with your anger.
…I know I could do better, myself…
I’ve been noticing some more recent research being published about the relative value in “venting” one’s anger. Apparently, it’s not such a good practice. Gratifying for the angry person, perhaps, but not “helpful” for managing conflict, or reducing stress, or resolving whatever circumstance triggered the emotion in the first place – but reliably also incredibly damaging for the relationship with whatever hapless other primate is receiving the emotional blast of an angry outburst. Justified or not, delivering that angry blast of emotion to another human being is unpleasant, damaging, and not especially helpful for anyone involved. It’s unfortunate that we’re not taught sooner by knowledgeable practitioners how best to understand, endure, process, and express our emotions.
…Maybe don’t look to me for guidance on this one; I’m still learning…
I sip my coffee thinking about anger. I’ve gotten a lot better at managing my anger over recent years, but it still “gets me” now and then – most commonly when I’m driving. Thinking about that in the abstract, that seems pretty fucking dangerous. I keep working at it, because 1. we become what we practice, 2. disgorging explosively angry energy isn’t useful for anything in that situation 3. it wrecks my experience in the moment, and 4. it’s seriously unlikely that anything any other driver does or doesn’t do is at all personal or “about me” in the first place. This morning, I commuted calmly into the office, with the exception of one brief moment of frustration with a driver ahead of me going less than the posted speed limit. My angry reaction caught me a bit by surprise, but I recognized the inappropriate escalation of temper in the moment, and managed to take a breathe, and dial that shit back. Way back. I was going to get to my destination regardless, and this rather unimportant – and very brief – impediment to my forward momentum wasn’t going to change my arrival time in any notable way (even if it did, there’s no time pressure on my start time each day). I took a breath. Took my foot off the gas. Took another breath. Exhaled slowly and got a fucking grip on myself. I was being, frankly, ridiculous. So… I let that shit go.
Managing anger isn’t easy. It’s worthwhile, though. It does take practice. My results do vary. Still… incremental change over time is a thing. We really do become what we practice. When we practice calm, we become calmer. When we practice kindness, we become kinder people. When we practice listening attentively, we become better listeners.
…When we practice expressing our anger aggressively, we become angrier…
I’ve got choices to make. Practices to practice. Every time I feel my anger rise up, I’ve got another opportunity to practice managing my anger with wisdom, consideration, compassion, and understanding, and without explosively escalating it. Sure, my results are going to vary… but each time I practice being the person I most want to be, I get a little closer to that goal. Like anything else, when I fall short of my expectations of my best self, I can begin again. There will definitely be another opportunity to do better.
I’m grateful that I’m no longer the seething ball of taking-everything-personally rage that I was in my 20s. That rage didn’t get me anywhere with the underlying traumas that caused it, it just did more damage. I’m grateful that I’m no longer the pensive, frustrated, still-seething-in-the-background resentfully angry mess that I was in my 30s and 40s. There was an impotence and fugue of futility to that which undermined my ability to feel any joy in life at all ruining some otherwise pretty good years. By the time I entered my 50s, I at least recognized I needed to do something quite entirely different… so I began again. It’s been a strange journey of growth, change, and transformation. Worthy. The journey is, after all, the destination.
I sip my coffee, and reflect on the past decade of growth and change. It seems such a short time…
I find one of the most difficult (and worthwhile) practices to be refraining from taking things personally. It’s so easy to bask in the glow of a lovely compliment and take that to heart… but… the same person telling you that you’re awesome yesterday could very well be calling you a fucking bitch when they see you next week. That’s about them.
If I let myself become invested in some other person’s opinion of me to the point that it becomes self-defining, I’m likely to end up constantly spun up every time they change their opinion in some moment of joy – or anger. That doesn’t sound particularly healthy, at all. Using another example; if taken personally, shit talk from another room could be a huge mood wrecker and potentially a source of conflict. Avoid taking that personally, and it’s simply that other person dealing with their own emotions (however well or poorly, which is a separate concern). I’m not saying it’s easy to avoid taking shit personally, at all, I’m just saying its a worthwhile practice. So – I keep practicing.
…An insult is like any poison; it only affects you if it gets into your system. Don’t drink the poison.
Human primates are messy and sometimes unpleasant to deal with. Doesn’t matter if it’s that guy over there, or the person in the mirror – we’ve all got “issues”. Making a point of letting that other person’s issues be their own (and not letting them also become yours) is a good step toward feeling centered and calm, even when there’s a bit of chaos about. It’s also easier to focus on and deal with your own issues if you’re not all wound up in someone else’s moment. It’s one useful thing about being individuals; you can let that person be who they are, let them have their moment, and go right ahead and work on you while they do. Non-attachment is another useful-but-also-difficult practice. I take a deep breath and let it out.
I sip my coffee. The day started early, and less than ideally well. I got up, dressed, and went directly to work. I’m not in a good mood, and just dealing with that is taking quite a lot of my focus and effort. I had my day planned differently, but circumstances often don’t check my calendar. lol Later this morning, I’ll attempt to make the drive to a town nearby to get some lab work done that has been delayed by the inclement weather. I’ll return movie rentals on my way back. Maybe take a package to the post office. All of this is dependent on the condition the road is in, later in the morning. I admit – I’d very much like to get out of the house for awhile. I’m feeling a bit cooped up, and it’s exhausting trying to keep up on work, the housekeeping I usually do, and handle the tasks and chores my partner typically handles, while also doing things to support and care for him while he recovers from being injured. It’s a lot. I’m fucking tired. I’m tired enough that it limits my ability to graciously deal with stress or moments of temper, and since we’re both human primates, there’s reliably a bit of that now and then. I could do better. I keep practicing.
…There’s a lot of practicing going on this morning…
I sigh. Continue to drink my coffee. I could use some real “down time”. My last “coastal getaway” was mostly spent working, and was done primarily with the intention of giving my Traveling Partner time alone to work on a project – neither of us anticipated that he’d get hurt and be both unable to work on that project at that time, but also have to shelve it for weeks while he recovered. I came home from a getaway that provided little down time at all, to increased workload and increased stress with few opportunities to get away from either because I was needed right here at home to provide my partner with care because he just couldn’t get around to do basic tasks for himself. I’m exhausted, and I’m very much yearning for some time to myself to just exist on my own terms for some brief period of time without being constantly aware of the fairly long list of things I still haven’t gotten to that need doing. It’s called “self-care” for a reason; you’ve got to do it yourself, for yourself. I’m betting my Traveling Partner would enjoy a couple days without my constant presence, himself… I remind myself to ask, and to check-in on whether he thinks he is in sufficiently good shape to take care of himself without me for a couple days.
In the wintry months, camping is not an ideal option for me, personally. I don’t care for sleeping on the ground in cold weather, and it worsens my arthritis significantly to do so. Instead, I count on an inexpensive room on the coast, near trails and beaches I enjoy walking. I check to see what the availability is like over the next couple of weekends, and spot a potential opportunity. Just taking the steps to check out my options reduces my stress some little bit; I “feel heard” by the person I reliably need to be listening to me (me). I breathe. Exhale. Relax. Sip my coffee. Repeat. I think about other things I can do to ease my stress and restore my energy and plan my day with those things in mind. The weather seems to be improving somewhat, and the ice is melting… handy. I could use a walk. 😀
I make a short list of the more urgent items to attend to today, so I don’t forget them… I immediately feel overwhelmed when I add “put away your laundry” to the list; I’ve been putting off actually completing that task for literally weeks. It’s one task I can shrug off without really affecting anyone else, but… it does add to the chaos in my living space, and that increases my stress. There’s an obvious cycle to that, and breaking it requires me to hang up a bunch of shirts and tops, which is physically painful and also tedious. That’s it. That’s the “big deal” and I keep dodging it. Fucking hell. And the dishes need doing, which vexes me endlessly because as soon as they’re done, I cook something or fetch my Traveling Partner a snack and there are more fucking dishes. Cycles upon cycles.
…One task at a time…
I look at the time, and my inbox. It’s already time to begin again.
Seriously; human beings can be mean, callous, insensitive, rude, inconsiderate, and yes, even deliberately hurtful. Don’t drink the poison just because it’s offered to you. 🙂 It can be quite difficult in the moment, when we’re feeling the emotional sting of something mean, cruel, hurtful, or just factually incorrect (based on our own also very human recollection), to remember that it isn’t actually personal at all; those hurtful words are a reflection of the thinking (and values, and intent, and practices) of the person saying them. Nothing to do with you, actually, unless you accept it, and internalize it, and make it your own. Why do that? Let it go.
We’re each human. Each having our own experience. Each writing our own narrative in our heads, cobbled together from our recollections, assumptions, expectations, values – and things we think we understand, about which we generally know far less than we assume we do. Even when we’re certain? Even when we’re “quite expert” in the field? Yep. Maybe especially then. We’re human. Thinking errors are built right in. I’m just saying, it’s very likely for any one of us that we are far less correct than we tend to assume, far more of the time than we’d ideally want to be, and waaaaaaay too willing to attempt to force our assumptions and thinking on others without even asking the simplest clarifying questions.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
…We could do better. I mean… I know I could.
recommended summer reading
I sip my coffee and let the day begin. Nothing fancy about it, although it feels very different. My workstation is in the dining room, and my fingers on the keys “feel loud”. I’m temporarily “kicked out” of my studio due to a leak my Traveling Partner spotted Friday (I’m damned glad he did!), and although we’ve gotten that fixed, there is some damage that needs repair, and some mold remediation required, too. Rather not sicken myself working in a potentially unhealthy environment, so with my partner’s help, a temporary workstation is set up. Homeowner stuff. :-\ It’s hard to grouse about it too much; it’s one of the things I signed up for, right? Taking care of everything that ever goes wrong? Yep. That’s on us now. LOL Fuuuuuuuuuuck.
Friday, when we spotted the damage being caused by the leak we later identified, was much harder. Paintings were damaged. I wept. There’s still a weight to the grief of that piece of this situation. It’s possible those paintings will have to be destroyed. 😦 The pain of it comes and goes, but seems mostly behind me, now. (I’m at the “paintings are just things” stage, this morning…) To get through it, to process the enormity of the emotional ache, I’ve spent rather a lot of time this weekend meditating on non-attachment (and how many of the things and experiences we become attached to in life serve only to cause us pain – because of the attachment, itself). I found it helpful, and rather more obvious, after all, that seems reasonable, when I do feel so much hurt. Letting go of some things is far easier than letting go others. Just being real.
I sip my coffee and contemplate all the many things I’ve let go of over a lifetime – often with considerable emotional resistance, sometimes because I’ve been literally forced to let them go by circumstances. I think about the pain of loss, and the relief involved in letting go of attachment. I consider how very many of life’s most painful disappointments feel that way because of the sudden severing of some unnoticed attachment to a thing, person, experience, or outcome. I wonder at the slow progression of healthy attachment toward unhealthy attachment that sometimes occurs in a relationship. I replay things my therapist has said about non-attachment, and practices useful for avoiding becoming “fused” with someone else’s emotional experience. The pre-dawn darkness slowly becomes morning light, and a new day. I finish my coffee. There’s a day ahead, and it’s time to begin again. 🙂
Where does this path lead?
*addendum and a wee follow-up note: I’m fully made of human. I really struggle with this one, like, nearly every day. Avoiding the pitfall of taking other people’s words, or experience, or emotions, personally – becoming attached to the feelings that causes me, and fused with someone else’s emotional experience is a shitty way to treat myself. So, I really work on this… a lot. Tons of new beginnings. Tons of self-compassionate reminders. A lot of moments to reflect on handling life more skillfully, and more comfortably. My results vary. That’s why I write about it. 😉
Evening Light 