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Finding Peace

March 1, 2025 //
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Grief has its own time, its way of guiding us down a path. It’s not always obvious that the way out is through. Yesterday I took time to really grieve the loss of my Dear Friend, with my whole heart and nothing else on my mind. I needed that. Somewhere along the way I found my peace with it. I still miss her, sure, I always will. That’s appropriate. She was a good friend and our friendship endured almost thirty years of growth and change and even the break-up of my relationship with her first born.

The crocuses have begun to bloom.

I got home at a decent hour. Made my Traveling Partner a late lunch. Got a little gardening done. Evening came and dinner was a pleasant family affair, just the three of us, nothing fancy. My beloved had been busy with something in the shop that clearly had his attention. It’s easy to respect that; I’m delighted to see him on his feet and productive again.

As evening closed in on bedtime, my beloved came to me with a gift. A beautiful lithophane of a wild rose, framed in a light-box, originally (long ago) planned to be a gift for my Dear Friend. It was one of the first CNC projects started in my Traveling Partner’s shop, but had proved to be more complicated than originally expected as designed, and then circumstances pushed it to the side, unfinished. Time passed. Too much time passed, the opportunity to give the gift was lost.

I loved the lithophane more as a thing he was making than the potential gift it represented. I had taken the photo, a favorite picture of a rose. The interest in lithophanes as an art form was mine, too. The potential to be a gift was a way to see the thing done; it felt too complicated and frivolous to just ask for such a thing. So much work involved. Here it was, in his hands, finished, his gift to me to help heal my heart, a fitting moment of closure to a year of grief, this gift that began as an idea of a gift for a dear friend, becoming a gift for me. A demonstration of my Partner’s enduring love. I hadn’t expected it. I wept tears of joy and love and the day felt complete in a way I hadn’t expected it could.

I know my partner felt his own grief and regret that he’d never finished the lithophane, most particularly that he hadn’t finished it in time to give it to my Dear Friend. She’d have loved it, I’m sure; she loved every gift I gave her, and especially those that he had made for her. It would have joined the happy clutter of the many little things she didn’t have room for, along with paintings I’d given her over the years (which have now come back to me). I hope my beloved found his own peace in finishing the lithophane. I know I’ll cherish it always.

I know just where I’ll put it.

Grief has its own way, and follows its own path. Mine led me to peace. Now it’s time to begin again. I wonder where this path leads?

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Categories breathe, Free Will, grief, Love, meditation, Moments, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being

Here It Comes

November 20, 2024 //
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I woke tired from a restless night of strangely lively surreal dreams. My walk felt short, and rushed. My day already feels busy and “crowded” with things that must get done before daybreak tomorrow, and the start of a few days of downtime spent attending to my emotional needs, and indulging artistic inspiration. Self-care is important and worth the time commitment to get a few things done so I can be away without concern, but… good grief I feel so busy right now.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s the start of the workday, and looks to be an easy one. Routine, at least. Then home early enough to take my Traveling Partner to an appointment, then a quick shopping trip, then make (and enjoy) dinner, then pack (omg I should have worked from home today) and load the car, then, if there’s still time, a little time spent just chilling with my partner enjoying the last of the evening. Yeah, it feels like a busy day, but I’ve got a plan, and it’s not really “all that” – it just feels busy. Another breath. Another moment.

I’m in so much pain lately. A few days to myself to sit with that without also feeling like I’ve got to mask it to avoid making everyone around me uncomfortable will be a nice “luxury”. There’s more stress than I want to admit in having to “put a good face on it” when I hurt like this. Pain relief measures only do so much, and I’m not willing to take (nor am I prescribed) the quantities of painkillers it would take to shut down this amount and intensity of my personal combination of arthritis and headache pain. It is what it is. I’m also not willing to let pain call my shots or totally wreck my experience; there’s more to life than the pain I’m in. I remind myself often. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it just annoys me. Sometimes being annoyed about it helps in its own way. My Traveling Partner endures his own pain. Hell, even the Anxious Adventurer deals with pain – and frankly, most people do, to some extent, I guess. The challenge is not being a dick about it, and doing the most we each can to go ahead and live a good life in spite of the pain we’re in, and to remain mindful that we can’t possibly fully understand the pain someone else is in. Ever. Even if they say. We just can’t know their experience the way they do. So…I try to manage mine, and mostly keep it to myself. It’ll be nice to have a couple days to just sit and weep over it, while I paint, if that’s where it takes me, and not be worried that anyone else will be affected by those tears, or my pain.

Beyond the pain, I’m looking forward to a couple days of watching the tide come and go, and sitting with my thoughts – and my grief – and just “getting my head right” in my own way. The holidays are coming. The first in decades that my Dear Friend won’t be part of that experience in any way. That hurts more than I expected it to. No need to think about what to send her. No need to share anecdotes or pictures. No need to message her on Giftmas morning so she doesn’t experience the morning alone. No need to delight her with my curiosity about what my Traveling Partner may have gotten me, or made me, this year. She’s just…not here. My sorrow tries to swamp me every time I remember, and I really need to get past that somehow. It’s a lot. Granny? Gone, too. And Mom. And my long-gone girlfriend, T. There are unshed tears waiting their turn to fall, and I need to allow myself time for that this year.

I’m eager to hit the road, and hit the trail. Eager to walk my own path and feel my feelings (there’s no shame in these honest tears). I’m eager to begin again on the other side; the way out is through.

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, grief, health, inspiration, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, women

Reflections

October 22, 2024 //
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I’ve always liked my appearance seen as a reflection in a window. I don’t know why this is, somehow it just seems to be “the best view” of myself, a little diluted, a little less specific somehow, softened a bit… less “real”. I almost always find myself quite beautiful as a reflection in a window. I don’t see myself quite that way in a mirror, or a photograph. Peculiar. Today is no different. I see my reflection and marvel at that woman, there, seen as if through the trees beyond the window, somehow younger than my years, and no hint of the tears in my eyes, or on my face.

…Crying in my office, again? What is this, the 00s??

Things seem harder than necessary lately. By “lately”, I mean most of the last year, honestly. It comes and goes. It’s been the worst since late February, since my Dear Friend died. Yeah, okay, so – grieving is hard. We don’t control how that goes, it just goes. I’m learning more about actual loneliness than I ever imagined I could. I wasn’t particularly prone to feelings of loneliness, before. I’m so very very prone to them now. With my Traveling Partner having the challenges he is, and the one woman I’d have felt free to discuss it with, without reservations, simply… gone… I feel so incredibly alone, now. I chastise myself for a moment; I could have done a better job of maintaining other cherished friendships and preserving more closeness with more dear friends than I have. I enjoy my solitude, and I’ve taken too much for granted. I still enjoy my solitude…but when I need someone, I’m often going to find myself going it alone nonetheless. Often. I’m not bitching – it’s not a bad life, and things could be so much worse. I’m just feeling my years, and feeling lonely as I face inevitable mortality, seeing some vague younger version of me reflected in a window, and wondering what the point of any of this actually is… yeesh. Grim. I ache with it. And also just with pain, physical pain. Fucking hell that just blows. Fuck pain.

…Oh, right… I maxed out all my pain management medication yesterday and here I am today, managing on less, and not hurting quite so much, but… now my mind is altered, and I’m feeling very blue, partly because I did so much yesterday to attempt to manage yesterday’s pain, and I’m paying the price emotionally, now. So… am I actually feeling “lonely”, or is this just “the down” from opiate pain management? Fuck. This shit is complicated. I simultaneously want very much to simply be entirely alone with this crap, and also very much miss someone to talk to about it – and about life, and how difficult some of this very human crap very much is. Too real. Fuck pain. Fuck drama. Fuck this particular moment, right here.

I put my head down on my desk and cry for awhile. This too will pass. Feelings are feelings, only that. Emotional weather. Small frustrations pile on top of other small frustrations and assorted inconveniences; it feels like a big pile. Heavy. Tears flow after other tears. Moments follow other moments. The clock is ticking. Eventually tears dry. Eventually, I can begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anhedonia, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Frustration, grief, health, loneliness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships

Perspectives

June 5, 2024 //
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My walk this morning was early, quiet, solitary, and thoughtful. Pleasant. Nice way to begin a new day.

When I started down the trail, a glance at the sky in one direction revealed dense dark storm clouds, homogenous and gray. Looking the opposite direction the sky was bright with promised sunshine later, and shades of peach and gold. Between these, fingers of clouds stretched across from one perspective to the other, feathering away to nothing into the clear skies from the stormier view. I walked along thinking about perspective.

This morning I am missing my Dear Friend who died earlier this Spring. There is so much I would share and talk over with her. There’s a particular feeling of rather acute loneliness that turns up within me each time I remember, again, that there’s no point in writing an email to share some particular moment with her, to get her perspective, or to share my own. She was always first to see new paintings (after my Traveling Partner, who is right here), and first to read new writing. Now… funny; I haven’t painted anything at all since she’s been gone. I take fewer pictures and rarely share them. I walk on with my thoughts, feeling the solitude from a different perspective.

…I have an appointment with my therapist later this month, but it’s nothing like talking and sharing with a Dear Friend…

I’m 61 this year. In about 7 days actually… I feel strange that there are so few around anymore who will care about that at all, or even know about it, if I don’t mention it. 61 doesn’t “feel old”, from this lived perspective, but I’ve lost (or lost touch with) many friends and family members who might once have been celebrating my birthday. It’s a strange feeling. I walk on.

I find myself feeling a bit blue as I walk. I wonder whether it may be some lingering effect from tinkering with my medication in order to do the requested diagnostic test. Seems possible, but I don’t really know. I keep walking.

By the time I am back to the car, I feel rather as if I’ve experienced an entire day’s worth of emotion and shifts in perspective, simply walking along with my solitary thoughts. I’m okay, and I am okay with having emotions (and thoughts about those), but it still feels strange and somewhat empty this lack of my Dear Friend to share some of this with. It’s not as if she were my only friend, nor even the only friend I regularly email… but it’s her perspective I am missing so painfully. I’m very aware of that, this morning.

…Every time I think I might like to paint, or feel inspired, or feel that inner tug to return to the studio, my heart seems to answer “why bother?”. This is an unexpected outcome of my grief over this particular loss…

I relied on this Dear Friend’s perspective as counterpoint or reinforcement of my own for some 25 years. I guess I am not surprised that I miss that. I know I am not surprised that I miss her.

Tears fall as I sit with my unexpected moment of grief. My grief expands as my tears fall. I cry over the loss of my Mother, although we never forged a close adult relationship, and were rarely closer than “pleasantly civil”. I grieve that lack of intimacy and connection. My tears fall for my Granny,  too; she did much to raise me and prepare me to find my own way as an adult and she was more mother to me than my Mother was. I’m not criticizing; we expect too much of women, and motherhood isn’t a good fit for all of us.

…I guess I am just feeling kind of alone with the years this morning, as I approach 61. Strange that it hits so hard on this quiet morning, 7 days from my birthday. Stranger still to feel this way when I am truly not “alone” in life. I have a loving partnership, and a handful of good friends (though some are distant), and the fond regard and esteem of many others…

Feelings are not facts. The map is not the world. The forecast is not the weather. I sit with my emotions and breathe. This will pass. I will begin again. I’m okay for most values of okay.

I give myself a moment for gratitude and reflection. I take time to consider more immediate worries than my lingering grief over lost dear ones. My Traveling Partner’s health is top of mind, often, lately and I find myself wondering if the weight of my worry over that may have provoked my thoughts to turn elsewhere for something that feels more “manageable”? Interesting perspective…

…My Traveling Partner pings me a greeting. He’s awake. It’s time to head home, and begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Art, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, gratitude, grief, health, inspiration, loneliness, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, women

Ring, Zing, Buzz

March 24, 2024 //
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I’m waiting for the sun on a Sunday morning. The forecast is for rain, but it isn’t raining here, now. Across the highway, and further still across some fields, suburban lights glitter low on the horizon. This is no wilderness, although the trail I’ll walk feels at least a bit remote, down along the Tualatin river. Daybreak is approaching. Soon. In the meantime, I sit with my thoughts, listening to passing cars and the ring, zing, buzz of my tinnitus. It’s a quiet morning and at least for now, my tinnitus is the loudest thing I hear.

Daybreak on a cloudy morning.

A break in the clouds reveals the blue of the morning sky. Daybreak is not helpful for walking, this morning. Anyway, I am still waiting for the park gate to open. The lower marsh trail I can reach from this parking space just outside the park is seasonal, and off limits until May. Frankly, some mornings (many), it’s tempting to walk the seasonal trail anyway, although it is off limits this time of year, but doing so would come with additional risks; it’s a lowland trail along the edges of the marsh, often muddy and sometimes flooded in spots. It would be just a bit more stupid to walk it in near darkness than I prefer to be. Also, these sorts of community spaces rely on people following the rules in place to protect them (both the spaces and the people using them), to maintain their beauty for years to come and new generations.

… So, I wait…

Waiting, watching, being.

I sit with my thoughts, enjoying the stillness. It’s a mild Spring morning and a good one for walking. The cloudy sky hints at rain. I’m glad I spent time in the garden yesterday. Between the gardening and the weather, it definitely feels like Spring here. I’m grateful for the change of seasons. Another new beginning.

I feel a poignant sorrow that my recently deceased dear friend missed the coming of Spring. No tears. I have the sense that she “chose her time”, and I can only honor her memory and respect her choice. I’m okay; we are mortal creatures. I’m fortunate to have shared so much time with her.

It’s time to begin again.

The park gate opens with a quiet “clang”. There’s enough light to see the trail. The day and this walk are ahead of me, and that seems like a worthwhile direction to go…

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, grief, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, turning 60, women
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