However bad it feels in some one moment… it’ll pass. If you let it pass. Give yourself that chance. Take care of that fragile vessel. Have a cup of coffee (or tea), or a drink of water. Take a shower. Breathe. Go for a walk. Listen to the wind. Get some fresh air. Listen to some music…
Oh no, love, you’re not alone You’re watching yourself but you’re too unfair You got your head all tangled up But if I can only make you care Oh no, love, you’re not alone No matter what or who you’ve been No matter when or where you’ve seen All the knives seem to lacerate your brain I’ve had my share, now I’ll help you with the pain You’re not alone
“Rock-n-Roll Suicide”, David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust 1972
I must have worn that album out in half a dozen different formats over the years… lost it… come back to it. It lives on in my memory. I know the words by heart, but can’t sing the tune (human limitations being what they are, I’m no David Bowie! LOL).
Sure, sure, we’re each having our own experience. Fuck that can feel so lonely sometimes, right? But… we’re also “all in this together” – humans being human, stranded on this one mudball hurtling through space, together. So fragile. So… amazing.
I smile quietly to myself and reflect on that much younger woman in the mirror… so damaged and cynical and angry. There were still so many tears ahead, too… I’m not sure I could have endured that had I known what was to come, but the lived moments have passed pretty fucking quickly in all their complexity and beauty and sorrow and love. It’s been a complex and interesting journey so far… and I’m not alone. Here we all are, eh?
I sip my coffee and watch the clouds beyond the window as daybreak arrives and becomes dawn. There’s Winter weather in the forecast and perhaps I’ll be stuck at home for the weekend because of it, but… maybe not? Like anything else to do with the future, it’s an open question. There are a whole lot of possibilities that may – or may not – unfold. I’m feeling philosophical about that, and peculiarly, intensely, grateful that I stuck around to find out, and let the future unfold.
…You’re not alone. Give yourself a minute, and a bit of care. Let the tears fall. Begin again.
I slept poorly. I mean, it could have been worse, and I am adequately rested, but I woke several times to imagined noises and vague discomfort. I was up, at one point, for more than an hour, trying to ease stuffy sinuses, the result of sleeping too long on one side, with my CPAP mask pressed too firmly against my nose. I eventually woke, and got up, to head out for my walk. It was before daybreak, and I was wrong about the time by more than an hour, although I had looked at the clock when I woke. (To be fair, I didn’t have my glasses on yet.)
I sit contentedly at the trailhead waiting for daybreak. Sunrise won’t be until almost 08:00. It’s a chilly drizzly morning, and I am bundled up for the weather. My tinnitus rings in my ears noisily. The sound of my breathing is soft and steady. There’s nothing going on to remark up on, and I am quite okay with that. I use the time to meditate.
… This imperfect world… This imperfect life… I sit quietly with my thoughts. The holiday weekend begins on the other side of the walk I will shortly take. What will I do with the day? Mundane things like laundry most likely; I’m a little behind. lol It’s like that this year. Slow and easy and uncomplicated because sometimes life is hard and I need a break. I’ll enjoy the holiday with gratitude this year, and keep it small, and filled with love. That’s enough.
Also? Fuck pain. lol Just saying. I could do without that complication. In spite of that, there’s quite a lot to celebrate. I smile thinking about my Traveling Partner, at home, still asleep. I breathe, exhale, relax. I notice a small bird nestled in the top of a hedge quite near me and realize daybreak has shifted to dawn. It’s time to begin again. I grab my cane from the passenger seat… This walk won’t take itself. 🙂
Between the greater than usual quantity of coffee I consumed yesterday, and the lateness of the hour when I took my last dose of pain medication, I knew there was a chance I’d spend a sleepless night – or at least find it a challenge to fall asleep. True, for what it was, but more likely that the storm that rolled in gets the larger share of the credit. The blustery storm winds howled outside the windows, slamming the raindrops against the balcony door and rocking the building, making it creak and give loud testimony to its age and reluctance to face another storm. I read awhile. Sleep did not come. I thought, for a moment, that I was about to drift off, but merely making the gentle observation was enough to thoroughly rouse me. I am not asleep.
It’s hours now since I wished my Traveling Partner a good night, doused the lights, and stretched out to slumber. No slumbering here. lol Eventually, I turned on one soft light and got up. There wasn’t much else to do… I started packing. Oh, there’s stuff I need out for the morning, but there was no reason not to yield to the moment and make use of it. So I picked out what I’d wear. Looked over the toiletries spread over the counter chaotically, and tossed what I would not expect to need back into my toiletry bag. One less thing to do in the morning. I gathered my camera gear, setting it aside to take to the car (in the morning – no way I’m going out in this storm!). I consider packing my pillow and the soft blanket I brought for comfort… but I would like to get some sleep, so I reconsider and leave them on the bed. I pack up my work laptop and peripherals, leaving out my own laptop for a bit of writing in the early morning – as eager as I am to be home, I also want to give my Traveling Partner whatever chance he may have to sleep in, too, and hope to arrive after he wakes, and is maybe enjoying his first coffee. I put away my sketch book. My pencils. I put away the book I finished, the book I started, and the other one I’d been reading and didn’t read on this trip at all; they all go into the suitcase. As the bags get packed, they go over by the door, out of the way, ready. I work with care, and without any pressure – it’s the wee hours of the morning, and there is no rush.
The storm continues to howl and blow, outside. I stepped out briefly, onto the balcony. The shallows of the bay, along the beach at the foot of the hotel, are being whipped into white-crested waves that slap the rip-rap retaining wall. They come fast, close together. The wind is blowing furiously. I watch a chair on a neighboring balcony skid from one side to the other in the wind. The drenching rain is driven almost sideways in the wind’s fury. The balcony almost seems to lift in the wind. It offers no cover from the driving rain. The building seems to rock. Yeah… I’m not sleeping. LOL I go back inside, and feel vaguely relieved when I close the balcony door and the wind is somewhat quieted. I am grateful for the safety and warmth of this room, as the storm rages on outside.
…I could immediately return home, leave this storm behind… but I’ve got to admit, I’d rather stay warm and safe in this room, listening to the storm doing its thing through the night, rather than make the drive home in it in the darkness and in the intense rain. It’ll likely play out by daybreak (I tell myself), or at least be somewhat reduced in intensity, and the drive will definitely be less stressful in the light of day on winding mountain roads. The choice is made. I just wish I were sleeping through it. lol
…………………………………………………………….
I laid back down to rest, hoping for sleep. I guess I got enough of both to make through a new day. I woke well before dawn, no hint of light yet in the sky. The winds are still blowing fiercely, rain still hammering at the windows. I make coffee. The weather app on my phone assures me there is a 100% chance of the rain continuing for the remainder of the day and into tomorrow, in this location. Sunrise won’t be until 07:43, apparently, but I know I can count on daybreak arriving sooner, and I’ll likely leave around that time… (I think to check my communications with my Traveling Partner over the past couple days to see about when he’s been waking, and it looks like a good plan.) I sip my coffee contentedly. In spite of the lack of sleep last night, I feel rested – and I can grab a nap later on at home, if I want to. 😀
So much rain.
It’s a stormy seaside Sunday and there are no cars at all on the highway, beyond the bay. The rain continues to drench everything. I certainly can’t step out onto the balcony with a camera in this shit. lol I reflect on my days away. It’s been nice. A couple of work days, a day for me… it’s been a good visit with a couple pleasant beach walks and a lot of pictures. I’m not at all reluctant to end this adventure and head home…but…I’m also not eager to drive in this rain. Waiting for a bit of day light makes sense to me. I douse the lights in the room, and sit awhile listening to the wind and the rain and feeling quite grateful to be living my mortal life in this here-and-now. Certainly humans in the distant past lacked the luxuries and comfort and convenient shelter from a storm that I am fortunate to enjoy. No doubt there are humans in other places, even now, who lack some of these “basics” I likely take for granted far too often. I breathe, exhale, and listen to the rain fall. I sip my coffee, hot, and convenient, with appreciation. It’s not the best coffee I’ve ever had, but giving the matter some thought, it’s pretty fucking amazing to have coffee to drink at all.
Gratitude is a reliably pleasant way to begin a day. I sit here awhile feeling grateful for so many things, and eager to return home – just needs a bit more daylight, and then I can begin again. 😀
First things first, there are no pilgrims or indigenous peoples in this particular tale. No genocide, not as any sort of direct cause or horrific result, either. This one is about gratitude and celebration, often of the most mundane details of life, and definitely about enduring and surpassing adversity, hard times, and struggle. Now.
Thanksgiving morning 2023
Gratitude is an important and healthy practice, and helps build emotional resilience and perspective. Our very human tendency towards ritual brings us together as families, tribes, and communities. Our likely most ancient and commonplace way to celebrate just about anything is through the communion of a shared meal. Wrap all of those elements together and the result is Thanksgiving. That’s the heart and soul of it, and it is worthy and beautiful.
Do we have historical baggage? Oh hell yes. The trauma, injustices, and ugliness of empire and of capitalism and patriarchy are too numerous to count or address in one tiny blog post written by one nearly unknown author. My point, personally, though is that Thanksgiving transcends all of that, if we simply stop trying to force it into some narrowly defined self-serving bullshit nationalist narrative intended to excuse a legacy of violence and othering, and allow ourselves a moment of honest gratitude for what we have and humble appreciation for what we have overcome.
I’m saying keep it real. Genuine. Authentic. Uncouple this beautiful holiday from the nonsensical marketing of the classic (and wrong-headed) good-guy narrative that is largely a lie wholly fabricated by people who probably knew better. Definitely address the original sins of our nation’s founding, it’s needful, but stop trying to use Thanksgiving as some kind of fucking excuse for, or cover-up of, legitimate horrors!
Cook. Feast. Celebrate. Give thanks. It’s been difficult this year and other years past. Share and give thanks – it could have been so much worse, and for so many it very much is worse, right now. Don’t waste time talking about the “first Thanksgiving” – talk about the last one (meaning the most recent) and all that has since transpired. Talk about making the world a better place with what you’ve learned since then.
… And after the feasting and the giving of thanks, put away the leftovers and do the dishes. Then begin again.
I woke to my silent alarm this morning feeling vaguely uneasy. It developed into a pretty notable moment of anxiety in the time between getting dressed and making my way to the living room, where my Traveling Partner was sitting, already awake, headphones on watching something or other on YouTube. I’d planned to work from home, although he had more than hinted that it would be a good day (for me) to go to the office (for him). I figured I’d just get a walk in, early, let him sleep awhile, then work from home, but… why the hell would I drag him along if my anxiety was going to flare up?
“Anxiety” 2011
I could hear the rain hitting the rooftop vent while I was in the bathroom getting ready for work. There’d be no walk this morning – that was when I decided to make the drive into the city after all. Maybe traffic would be light, being the day before a holiday? (It was.) Maybe the office would be quite comfortable since the HVAC was repaired yesterday? (It is.) Maybe I’d feel more focused, and less inclined toward being anxious if I were wrapped in the peculiarly routine mundanity of “the office”? (So far, so good.) So, off I went…
PDX on a rainy Autumn morning.
I sigh and sip my coffee. The day started with that moment of anxiety, but it hasn’t continued, and I feel okay. Absolutely ordinary self-doubt and second-guessing and bullshit that I can certainly get past, given some time and attention, and the appropriate self-care tools. Is it “holiday anxiety”? I mean, honestly, it could be… pretty ordinary human stuff right there. I’m prepared for the day (and the weekend), more or less. We’ve decided on a simple fairly traditional holiday meal to kick of the season, and it’s just the two of us this year, so the modest meal should be manageable for me to tackle on my own, which is necessary this year; I expect my Traveling Partner may spend much of the weekend actually working due to a fairly important project that dropped on him earlier this week (very exciting). Seems likely to be a lovely little holiday.
…I remind myself that his birthday is also coming up fast, and although I’ve already done something for that in a manner of speaking (“…Let’s call this your birthday/Giftmas present, then!”), I’m not the sort to let his birthday pass with not a single actual gift on the day, and I think I’d like to do something special for dinner and dessert… I amuse myself briefly considering the matter, and looking over his gift wish list and wondering how current it actually is. (I’ll have to ask.)
I make a mental note to remind my partner I’d like to get the holiday decoration stuff down out of the attic space, and find myself wondering if that stuff would be a better fit for the storage unit, where I could more easily retrieve it myself without help…? I generally spend the latter part of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend decorating for the Yule season and preparing the holiday “pudding”.
…I’m feeling very festive this year, but also feeling very much “behind on things” somehow…
Funny. When I paused to write, this morning, I had very different thoughts in my head. Something altogether else, that I found perhaps more suited to something I might write on Thanksgiving… something about gratitude, about friends cherished over years, about sharing recipes and memories. But these ended up being the words that tumbled out and landed on this page. I’m okay with that. I’m feeling festive and grateful, and I’m pleased that my anxiety has receded. I find myself hoping that my Traveling Partner went back to bed after I left, and wondering what woke him so early this morning (and hoping it wasn’t me, somehow).
I sip my coffee and “take inventory”. I’m in pain today. It’s the weather, and my arthritis, and the sort of “nothing to see here” bullshit to do with aging and old (physical) trauma. I take something for it, and move on with the moment – it’s already time to begin again, and I’ve got shit to do to get ready for the holiday cooking (tomorrow) and work (today).
Evening Light 