I woke from restless dreams about change and started my day the usual way, more or less. The evening, yesterday, ended on an unfortunate contentious note that seemed neither necessary, nor helpful. I finally gave up on conversation and went to bed, feeling irritated and frustrated.
I managed to sleep, but my sleep was both unsatisfying and filled with strange dreams of things not turning out properly regardless of effort or attempts to fix things. I woke feeling glad to be released from my dream life.
I got to the trailhead still fighting the fairly stupid very human urge to “prove my point”, left over from last night. That kind of horse-flogging, tail-chasing foolishness is an incredible waste of precious limited mortal lifetime. I snarl quietly at myself to let that shit go. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I roll my eyes in an unseen expression of exasperation, and sigh. Letting a moment of discord take over my thoughts and “live in my head” that way does nothing to add to my life, and it’s pretty fucking pointless, generally. Seeking to convince someone else of something that directly contradicts their experience or beliefs is unproductive.
Either, or. Neither, nor. Grammatical details matter most if the result affects meaning or understanding. The rest, I think, is a matter of style… but… language functions by agreement, does it not?
… I still catch myself doing a search of my written work for a turn of phrase and a keyword I’d been accused of not using (or not using correctly), and easily find dozens of examples, old and new. It’s neither rare nor used incorrectly, where I find it. On the other hand, to the point my Traveling Partner was making, it’s also not at all consistent and I often don’t bother with it. I write very much the way I talk, so it’s a given that in spoken conversation and day-to-day use, I’m certainly also quite hit or miss, and probably misusing grammar on this detail a lot. I sigh. Is he right? Is he wrong? Am I? Are we both? Are we neither of us specifically exclusively correct? The particular point of grammar involved really matters to him. Less so to me (aside from how much it matters to him).
I sigh to myself and let my vexation melt away. What matters most to me is how much I love this particular human being. Enough to work to change. Even to flex my style. There is work involved, especially because I just don’t actually personally care much about this particular point of grammar, myself (using”neither/nor” to support the negative most correctly vs lazily defaulting to “either/or” all the time). Being very grammatically correct on this point has often gotten me teased for sounding pretentious or stuck up, and I suspect that drove me to discontinue it in favor of a more relatable approachable conversational style. I think it over as I lace up my boots before I put the whole vexing thing aside to walk the trail.
There’s a hint of daybreak in the paler gray of the pre-dawn sky. The moon has set, but I won’t need my headlamp for long. The chilly dampness of the marsh wraps me in mist and silence. It’s a good time to begin again.
Evening Light 