It’s raining. The sound of the raindrops on the roof of the pickup truck sounds like someone’s fingers flying across a keyboard, typing out the words of some dramatic narrative very quickly. It’s just rain.
…It wasn’t raining when I left the house…
Change is. I sip my coffee, enjoying the moment as it is. Later, work, still later than that, contractors at the house for a maintenance task. Routine enough, not at all exciting.
This morning I woke to blazing bright lights; I had slept until my silent alarm went off (rare). The morning has felt a little surreal so far, as though it is only a template for an ordinary day, a placeholder for choices not yet made, experiences not yet determined, or… something.
My arthritis is bad today. My tinnitus is loud. My left shoulder hurts with fresh pain, recent but I don’t know what I may have done to injure myself there. My left foot vexes me, now that I think I know what’s up with that (a worn out boot), it just annoys me. It’s a difficult morning for pain. I look grimly out over the vineyard and sip my coffee. It is what it is, and it’s not new that the rain and chill make it worse. I shrug in response to the thought, and feel pain shoot through my left shoulder. A strained or torn muscle? Certainly possible. Meh. I let my mind move on.
Yesterday evening, my Traveling Partner commented that he thought he might have a fun solution to my challenge finding time and energy for painting, and a creative outlet that might satisfy my yearning to paint. He hands me a tablet with a stylus and an app on it specifically for digital art. I haven’t explored digital art much… Curious, I take it up a bit timidly, but I definitely did find some joy and creative satisfaction there. I’ll be exploring this more. It’s well-suited to “artistic tinkering” and has a lot of potential for more. My beloved was right; it really suits the way I approach early drafts of new ideas.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. The morning still feels like a placeholder for some other day or time, or some moment anticipated but not yet here. Funny. Strange. I stretch and sigh and prepare to begin a new day.
It was raining when I reached the trailhead before dawn. I sat for a few moments quietly, waiting for a break in the rain. Eventually, I gave in to the temptation to scroll through my news feed and immediately regretted that obviously poor choice.
… People can be incredibly cruel, shortsighted, callous, petty, vengeful, stupidly focused on personal gain without regard to long-term consequences, and seriously strange. I don’t even need to give examples, you can see it for yourself, anytime, though I do recommend treating yourself with kindness and consideration, and that you limit your exposure to the fraudulent claims, boldfaced lies, and excessive trolling. It’s much, and can’t be healthy. … And also? Maybe do your own personal best to be a good human being, and a person of good character? It really does matter, every moment, every day.
The rain stopped, and I got out onto the trail, phone in my pocket, and walked to my halfway point before stopping. It’s barely daybreak and still quite dark. Another work day, but I’ve now cleared the 30-day hurdle, and I feel more relaxed. I watch the storm clouds overhead shifting and slowly drifting across the sky, the lowest ones illuminated from below, the trees silhouetted darkly against them.
… I don’t have anything much to say about the government shutdown. I’m disappointed that the clowns we’ve elected treat governing as a weird sort of partisan game, instead of simply partnering with each other to efficiently run the fucking country, ensuring Americans are provided with the services they need, and agencies are appropriately funded so they can fulfill their roles effectively. Why the fuck is running the government a partisan matter in the first place? Do the damned job! How fucking hard does that have to be? I sigh to myself, then let it go for the moment. This is not the time.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. There’s a lot going on in the world, and a lot of that is unpleasant, or even horrifying. War. Genocide. Femicide. Fraud. Deceit. Assaults and kidnappings by masked government agents. Gross inequality. Child labor. The erosion of personal rights and freedoms. Legislated cruelty. I could easily spiral into despair, it’s that bad. Soon enough there may even be armed soldiers in the streets of the largest city near me, which is strange to the point of dystopian surrealism. If I let that shit become the entire focus of my experience moment to moment, it could destroy my perspective and my mental health.
I let that crap go and pull myself back to “here, now”. The sky is beginning to lighten. Daybreak comes. Here is a new day filled with new potential, new opportunities, and new promise – and a chance to begin again, to do better, to be the person I most want to be. Every day, we each get this chance to reset, to start over, to choose more wisely and behave more graciously than we did yesterday. Hard times or easy times, we choose how we respond to events and people. Our choices will determine a lot about the experience we go on to have. I think about that awhile.
My head aches this morning. I pay it little attention, it’s nothing new. My back aches, too. I shrug it off as “just arthritis”. My tinnitus is crazy loud, like a chorus of buzzing insects, unavoidable and annoying, but this too is just part of my experience. I try to pay it no attention; it seems louder and more aggravating when I focus on it. I’m not listing my aches and pains to complain, nor to one-up you on your own, I’m just pointing out how utterly ordinary these experiences are – for me, for other people, probably for you (most especially if you’re over 50). Deal with it or don’t, it’ll still be there. Letting pain shut me down would be worse than the pain itself, most of the time. I try my best to limit how often I allow my pain to determine my choices. I’ve got a life to live and shit to do.
A new day dawns.
The cloudy sky begins to turn blue and gray and the trail is visible without my headlamp. Details emerge from the darkness as it gives way to dawn. I’m surprised to see “someone” lounging in the vineyard between the rows. A few minutes later and I can see it isn’t a “someone”, it is a small herd of deer, resting together, a pair of does and their Spring fawns. As the morning light increases, I can see a young buck further down the row, quietly standing watchfully. I am quiet and still. They pay me no mind.
I sit watching the deer, and the dawn. I fill my thoughts with gratitude for simple things that matter most. I reflect on life, the world, and being authentically the best version of myself that I can be.
…”Department of War,” I say softly, out loud, “Assholes.” The words come unbidden, and I am surprised to hear myself speak. On some level, I’m not surprised at all by the sentiment – I’m angry, and disappointed. We’re better than this – or, I thought we were. I guess maybe we’re not.
I sigh and pull my attention back to this moment, here, and the deer in the vineyard. Cars begin to arrive with farm workers. The new day is here. It’s already time to begin again.
I’m sipping my morning coffee thinking about how ludicrous it is that we so often seek to make everything fit into an “either/or” sort of arrangement – two neat columns, pro and con, or two clear choices for or against. I don’t think our human experiences are so tidy and clearly on one side or another of some dividing line. Not at all. We are creatures capable of depth and nuance of both thought and emotion. Our choices are often not so easy, and the problems we face more subtle and complex than a clear “yes/no” decision can resolve. We cheat ourselves and each other when we default to false dichotomies and make believe dilemmas – we often have many more choices on the vast menu of life’s Strange Diner than we take the time to consider.
…I consider our weird two party political system in the United States to be symptomatic of this very human challenge (in addition to being the only likely mathematical outcome of our current election system, regardless how many parties we may attempt to put in the mix). Human beings don’t seem to like complicated decision making at all. What a shame – we have such beautifully well-suited brains for such things. Seems like a waste of our potential as beings.
How are you wasting your potential today? Maybe that’s worth giving a moment of thought to? It’s your life, of course, and I’m not telling you what to do, just saying – you’ve got so much potential as a creature! What are you doing with that? What are you practicing? Where does your path lead?
What love looks like.
I spent time this weekend lingering over love and games with my Traveling Partner, who has been patiently re-teaching me to play cribbage. I enjoy cribbage. I played it with my grandfather. I played it when I was in a warzone (preferring it over pinochle or dominoes). My TBI gives me an irritating cognitive quirk; I don’t easily remember certain sorts of things, and the rules of card games are one of these. If I am not playing a particular game every day, the recollection of the game play and the rules quickly extinguishes, and I’ve got to start all over again the next time I go to play. It had been years since I’ve played cribbage. My Traveling Partner made us a lovely cribbage board. We’ve been playing relatively regularly for the past few days, and I’m enjoying it greatly. Oh, sure, at least for now I still need help figuring the points in a hand – cribbage is a relatively complicated card game – but I’m enjoying the time with my partner, and he with me, and it’s time well-spent. I am grateful he is so patient with me as I relearn a game I once knew so well.
A rose blooming in my garden. A beautiful metaphor.
I spent time this weekend lingering in the garden, enjoying the roses that are blooming, and fussing over the plants the deer have nibbled on. I weeded, and I watered, and I sat in the sunshine. Also time well-spent.
62 soon. Life is significantly less complicated – and less “exciting” – than I once expected it would be (though it often still feels like a lot to manage), and I’m not at all disappointed by that. lol Like a lot of other things, “excitement” is somewhat over-rated (and things are generally complicated enough to feel bothersome), and I greatly prefer joyful contentment, sufficiency, and the kind of broad perspective that allows me room to understand and appreciate others. We’re each having our own experience, and I really don’t have the time to bother with being annoyed by everyone about everything or wallowing in made up drama. lol I do like things “easy”. These mortal moments are so finite and precious.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’ve got a couple appointments today, and it’s a busy workday, and there are errands to run on the way home, and… when the hell would I also find time to enjoy “excitement”? Good grief, a pleasant generally routine life is plenty busy already, isn’t it? I sip my coffee and smile to myself. This is a nice moment right here. Good for self-reflection and new beginnings. Good for gratitude and love. Good for putting some thought into decisions to be made and things to be done. There’s no need to rush, or force everything through a filter that reduces it all to either/or, this-or-that, yes/no, pro or con… I have time to think things through thoroughly, to understand more of my life more deeply, in spite of that ticking clock. I have time for myself before I begin again.
There’s time to pause for flowers, to water our gardens, to chase our dreams.
Sipping coffee between housework tasks. It’s a rather ordinary sunny, chilly, autumn Sunday. I hear my Traveling Partner working on a project in his woodshop. Lovely day. I mean… lovely day right here. Your results, based on a quick look at this morning’s news headlines, may vary.
It’s a beautiful day to make good choices, and to be that person we most want to be.
…What a mess we’ve made… I mean… as a nation, a society… a species. Just saying. We could do better.
So… the U.S. election is in progress. “Election Day” is just a couple days away. I hope you are not imagining any great ease in national tension based on some particular outcome…? It’s unfortunate that we’ve allowed our political discourse to degrade to false dichotomies and ad hominem attacks. Growing and maintaining a society built on equality, rights, and freedoms shared by all requires a more subtle understanding than that, it would seem. We have, by that measure, failed entirely. It’s sad to observe the increasing racial tensions in so many cities, and hate-filled rhetoric becoming so commonplace, everywhere.
Full disclosure? I’m neither a republican nor a democrat. Nope, not “green party” or libertarian, either. (Nor communist, socialist, fascist, or other organized party affiliation of any brand.) I’ve still got a stake in how things turn out; I’m American. I live here. I shop here. I work here. I earn here. I invest here. I hike and camp here. I enjoy the local roads and infrastructure here. I vote here. This particular election season I voted as early as I could. I think our method of voting is fairly horrible, and doesn’t have much potential for any outcome other than degrading into a two-party system (or system in which only two parties have a legitimate chance at a win). Our government is implicitly institutionally racist – it’s also implicitly and institutionally sexist, and extremely so. I dislike both those things. I vote specifically against those conditions, and I look for opportunities to do so.
Feeling down about the election this year? I encourage you to (re)watch South Park season 8, episode 8, “Douche and Turd”. Definitely. If you’re looking for something more… hopeful… I recommend CGP Gray (on YouTude) episodes from his Politics in the Animal Kingdom work. There are better ways available to us. We’d only have to decide to do differently.
…Honestly, I don’t understand why we have not yet embraced – fully embraced, for real – direct democracy. Legitimate actual democracy. We certainly have the technology to build a secure system for online voting, already. (Do you doubt that is true? I direct your attention to the various online banks and similar systems, as well as your basic banking ATM. Also… the NSA. We don’t lack adequate encryption methods for secure online voting. That’s one challenge we don’t face at this point in time.) We already know the electoral college has nothing whatsoever to do with a democratic election, and is an artifact of another time. (I sound like I am on the edge of ranting. My apologies. You don’t need that from me, of all people. I’m simply continue to be astonished at the lengths parties will seem to go to, in order to restrict people from being able to vote at all. It rather undermines the very concept of democracy.) That’s what sours me most on “this great nation”, I think, we call ourselves a democracy, but we don’t actually mean it “for real”. We very much prefer that our democracy return only results that we personally favor, however harmful or distasteful to the majority. 😦
Please at least just fucking vote, okay? Not a joke vote. Not a “protest vote”. Really vote. Maybe it “doesn’t matter” to you in any way you acknowledge – but it matters to the lives, the literallives, of so many other people… please? Vote. And… just saying… if you’re going to vote at all, why not also make your choices based on outcomes that will truly serve the largest number of Americans in the best possible ways? All Americans. Even the ones you don’t like, personally. 🙂 Instead of focusing on an assortment of party platforms that were chosen to serve those in power (or the special interests they have obligated themselves to), just put your vote on what will serve Americans – all Americans – the best possible way, resulting in the best possible quality of life for every one of us – and not at the expense of other Americans, or even other nations. It’s not a zero sum game. It’s not a fucking pie. It’s time we all changed our thinking to get better results for the survival of humankind. It’s not about the money.
It’s time to begin again. Let’s start with what we’re voting for.
I’m sipping my coffee, watching the dawn become day. I can’t honestly say the morning is “routine”; the move into this house is still quite recent, and a great many of my routines are altered, or broken. The “new normal” is still developing, and I don’t really know what that will look like, in days or weeks, or months, or two years from now. I breathe, exhale, relax, and let that go. The new normal does not need my help, it’ll be what it is once it becomes so. 🙂
…This coffee is fairly terrible…
There is a work day ahead of me. I’m struggling to fully embrace that. I’m tired, as a result of sleeping… poorly? That’s not wholly accurate. The sleep I got was deep and restful. It was just interrupted, a lot, and it takes a lot of 90 minute to 2 hour naps to achieve a restful night’s sleep. lol I feel distracted by tiredness. (I also feel acutely aware there is another, more appropriate word for “tiredness” that I can’t quite recall…) I’d very much like the day to be over, so I can go back to sleep. LOL It’s not quite 6:00 am. So unlike me.
This morning I am lost in thought, contemplating “fairness” and “unfairness”, and what it means to have a “level playing field” in life (or love). I am giving thought to how easily I take things personally – even knowing that generally speaking, “it isn’t personal” applies to most situations. Even those few that are direct, targeted, willful acts (or words) of aggression between human beings aren’t really “personal” – they have ever so much more to do with the person doing the thing than they are ever about the person against whom the words or acts are directed. I mull that over awhile, and drink my coffee.
recommended summer reading
I sit quietly with this moment, and this fairly terrible cup of coffee. I feel fortunate in life (and in love, if I’m being real). I feel grateful for what I have, how far I’ve come, and how much chaos has been transformed into order, and yes, even how much healing has occurred, over time. I sit quietly, and let the scales gently balance, metaphorically speaking. It’s so easy to become entangled with a partner’s experience, or to internalize world drama or conflict. It’s easy to take small things personally, or to make much of something small. It’s easy to wreck the experience of a singularly pleasant moment with a harsh word, a misunderstanding, an erroneous assumption, then place the blame on the circumstances, or some other human being… I sip my coffee aware of the quizzical look on my face. No answers, just questions, and a handful of useful practices. It is, at least, a starting point.
The minutes tick by. The blue morning sky hints at a hot summer day ahead. I wonder what I’ll do with it? Will I be my best self, from moment to moment, or create an emotional inferno of small shit to apologize for, instead? Something in between? (There’s very nearly always “something in between” any two extremes, just saying, “don’t succumb to false dichotomies” is very good advice.) I remind myself that life (and love, and emotion) are very nuanced, filled with subtleties and hidden information. I remind myself to slow down, to be present, to stay centered in my own experience, and in this moment, here. I’m tired… which puts me at risk of drama and bullshit and chaos, but none of that demands that I be a shitty human being – it’s a new opportunity to practice doing a bit more/better at being the woman I most want to be. So… there’s that. 🙂
I notice the time… time to begin again. Again. 😉
Evening Light 