Oof. I slept restlessly, and woke often. I wasn’t sure why until I finally got up from the bed, around my usual wake up time, shaking all over, and feeling… “off”. It was a familiar uncomfortable sensation that woke me; I made haste to the bathroom.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
I’m still trembling, a little. My nausea has been (hopefully) handled – Pepto Bismol for the win on that one. After a dreadful experience at McCarran International Airport (now Harry Reid Int’l Airport), I always have some tucked in my bag where I can get at it. One more reminder of human frailty, and even of our mortality; being ill in a hotel first thing in the morning (or during the night, which I guess this is, as it is still quite dark outside). I fight the vertigo the way I fight the nausea and the diarrhea; I don’t “fight it”. There is literally no point in trying to “fight” such things. Recognize them, acknowledge them, and deal with them as they happen. What other way is there? Oh sure, OTC remedies, that just makes sense, but it’s not the sort of thing to wish away, argue with, or defy.
I sign to myself, resigned to the annoying limitations of this “meat suit”. In spite of the trembling and the cold sweat, which suggest I’m not yet done with this (where the hell did it comefrom??), I make coffee. It’s not great coffee, this morning I don’t even care at all. I’m just getting through this.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. Coffee? Really? Maybe go back to bed…? It’s not yet even day break, and I don’t think I’ve even slept more than an hour at a time. Why? No idea, and I’m not going to get spun up over that. It is more likely than not that my restless night was due to precisely what woke me – feeling ill. It just took awhile. I sip my coffee, grateful for the cheap-ass little single serve drip coffee machine. This one is quite clean and works well. The coffee is as good as the quality of the original beans, and having been ground sometime in the 70s (maybe not, but they are stale). It’ll do. I may yet lay down again, and maybe sleep. I decide to try my luck a bit, and cross the room to take my morning medication. I daringly leave behind the small trash can I’ve been carrying “just in case” since I woke. The room feels much larger this morning than it did yesterday. lol
Another breath, another moment. So far so good. I mean, for most values of “good” and all values of “so far”. It could be a lot worse. I look out the patio door. How is it still so very dark? I look at the time on my phone more carefully. Oh. It’s two hours earlier than I thought it was, and definitely still “night”. I laugh quietly to myself, and just go with it.
It’s been a worthwhile bit of time away to reflect and to paint. I sit quietly for a few minutes, not doing much, mind mostly empty. I’m looking forward to being home. I’m looking forward to beginning again, only… not just yet. I decide to lay down awhile. Maybe I’ll sleep? I open the curtains and the patio door (enough to let some fresh air in). I’ll wake when I wake, and then I’ll begin again.
I woke gently a bit later than I might generally. Hardly enough to call it “sleeping in”, though it was lovely to wake quite slowly, making the transition from sleeping to waking so gradually, I wondered for what seemed like a long while whether I was asleep or awake, as I listened to the sounds of the sea through the patio door left cracked open to enjoy the breeze.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
I yawned and stretched as I rose from the less-than-ideally-comfortable hotel bed. I’m still just a little astonished to have whipped together the ingredients of this brief getaway so quickly. I could not have made it happen without my Traveling Partner’s suggestion, and resolve to see it through. He recognizes a need for self-care when he sees it. (He is a man of great discernment, and loves me deeply.) So, here I am, sipping acceptably ordinary (thoroughly average) coffee, and watching the dark night become the gloom of twilight as daybreak pushes forward through the fog. The tide is coming in – high tide in just a few minutes, actually, but irrelevant to my activities.
I get up between thoughts to layout my easel, my pastels, and bits of things I use when I paint (artist’s tape, wee spongy smudgers of various sizes, finger cots to protect my skin from some of the less safe pigments). Real cadmium, cobalt, mercury, nickel, manganese, arsenic, antimony, and (less commonly these days) lead pigments come at a cost – and it’s not included in the price tag on the box. To one degree or another, quite a few of the beautiful colors in an artists paint box may be poisonous or toxic to some degree, and insidious because those effects are cumulative over time. Maybe Van Gogh’s suffering was due to lead poisoning? We may never know – but for fucks’ sake don’t lick your g’damn paint brushes, and use appropriate safety gear! Wash your hands well after you clean up. Keep a tidy studio (and don’t let children randomly wander there alone). Dust and vacuum!
…I’m not telling you what to do; those reminders are for me.
I sip my coffee listening to the gulls beyond the balcony. I find myself wondering, and not for the first time, how much of my own disturbed inner life is a byproduct of being an artist? Oh surely not the head trauma; that’s got an obvious cause, and it isn’t cadmium. Same with the PTSD; I know where that came from. I know better than to lick a paint brush to moisten and narrow the point… but when I first started in watercolors, I sometimes did do that. I know to mask up for work with any sort of paint that is volatile, and have rarely ever used such things, but rather carelessly when I was much younger and struggling to afford paints, and working in oils, I’d sometimes buy left-behind art supplies at estate sales and flea markets. (This can go very wrong, and at no time in art history have lead white, Scheele’s green, or Naples yellow ever been actually safe to use.) To this day, my favorite deep reds and bright orange hues are cadmium pigments. Working in acrylic, most of this just isn’t a bother; the pigment is safely coated by the medium, which is basically plastic. Working in pastels, however, I am touching raw pigment, pressed into shapes, and used directly, every time I paint. I wear finger cots. I wash my hands. I’m careful with dust and work in a well-ventilated area. I still wonder.
…I also still paint.
I watch day brighten the bay. Shades of gray, almost as if in black and white. Subtle. A bit gloomy, perhaps. The plaintive cries of the gulls hints at the obvious; there is no one on the beach this morning. Not nearby, anyway. Far down the beach, where the bay meets the oceans, there are a handful of dedicated fisherman. No one else. No one walking. No dogs. Just the sea, and the gray of the sky above and the bay below. Seems suited to spending the day on self-reflection, self-care, and painting. Call it “art therapy” and leave me to get on with it, eh? lol
I sigh to myself contentedly. First things first; a better cup of coffee and a bagel. Then… painting. I’ll say something obvious before I wrap this up. I am here, now, doing this thing because I came here. Start where you are (you don’t really have a choice). Don’t like where you are? Go somewhere else, and start there. Taking the future in hand, living my own life has reliably meant doing the verbs. Doing them myself. Making real choices. Some with deep prolonged contemplation – but others, now and then, quite spontaneously. One thing remains reliably true; I can only start where I happen to be, presently. I can begin again any time.
I finish my cup of weak-ass hotel coffee and check the time. Yep. Definitely time to begin again.
I can smell the ocean, and the briny muddy scent of Siletz Bay, in the darkness beyond the balcony. I hear voices down on the beach, and on the adjacent balconies, hidden from view. This was unexpected. The “how was your day, how was therapy?” conversation turned into my beloved sharing some deals on coastal hotel rooms… and a question to answer; would I like to take off for a night (or two) and grab some solo time to paint? Well… fuck yeah,
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
The view of the bay. long exposure.
The drive was unmemorable, which, I guess, is a good thing. Could be worse. I’m here, now. It is evening. I pause as I get ready for bed – long drinks of cold water, deep breaths of ocean air balcony door thrown wide to the briny breeze. I enjoy the fourth floor room, it has a great view, but getting the bags up here was… exhausting. Yes, there’s an elevator. There was also a bit of a trek to the one remaining parking space. lol I’m not bitching, nor making excuses, just saying… I didn’t plan for this, and I’ve managed to use up some spoons making it happen.
…But oh, damn, come the dawn, and I’ve already got my easel set up, my pastels sorted, the coffee machine ready to coffee me up first thing. I am eager…
…And I miss my Traveling Partner, as the night goes quiet. I sigh to myself. He’s close. There’s safety in that relative proximity. I could run to his arms at any hour, should the night terrors come after me in this quiet place. I feel reassured by the knowledge that he would welcome me, at any hour.
I yawn. Breathe, exhale, relax. Listen to the sea.
Sometimes it happens. A sound. A weird shadow. A scent. Something “brings it all back”, and I find myself triggered. Again. This is always unpleasant. When I’m at work, and my time is not my own, it’s beyond unpleasant, and worse than “not ideal”, by far. It has career limiting potential.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
…When a colleague leaves work abruptly for no obvious reason, dropping everything to make haste for the exit, it’s the kind and compassionate option to assume positive intent, and to understand that we all go through some shit…
Well, I haven’t left work (abruptly or otherwise), I guess maybe that’s a win? But I’m sitting here shaking uncontrollably, as if shivering from the cold (it’s not cold in this library, and I have a fleece on). Back to back messages from my Traveling Partner, followed by a phone call (while I was already on a work call) – an emergency? I mean, for some values of “emergency” I guess. No one was bleeding. No one was at risk of imminent death. Nothing was on fire. Being triggered does not ask those kinds of questions or set those kind of limits. My beloved brought his stress to the person he felt could most likely resolve it – totally makes sense. Unfortunately, the details, and the emotional load, were such that I also became triggered.
…Now I’m dealing with my shit. At work. No one needs this. I definitely don’t need this. (I’m sure he didn’t either.) So… now what? My personal demons are taking great delight with the circumstances as I sit here shaking. My headache tears through the left side of my face as the tension causes whatever causes my occipital neuralgia to flare up. I feel my clenched jaw being… clenched. Fucking hell.
No seriously – now what? Now-fucking-what, b1tches?! (Inappropriate. I can do better.)
I take a breath, and exhale slowly. I take another. I keep breathing. Exhaling. Relaxing – or at least trying to. I pull my posture more upright. I stand and stretch – still taking those deep cleansing breaths. I let work fall by the wayside for a moment – well, for 10 minutes, with a timer. I don’t think about it piling up. I don’t think about who may be waiting for a question they need an answer to. I just breath. Stretch. Let my mind wander a bit.
…Type a few words…
It’s not a perfect solution. It doesn’t always resolve the panic of being triggered – but it beats nothing at all. I dig around in my purse; this calls for prescription strength anxiety relief. I take a moment to appreciate how rare that really is these days…
I sip my coffee gratefully. It’s good. Really good. I am having a lovely ham and cheddar scone (“Made right here!,” the barista told me proudly). The scone is also quite good. It is a pleasant beginning to a day of painting. I smirk at myself, aware that although I did sleep in, I was up quite early, and I’ve already gotten a pleasant walk along the beach at low tide, before getting my coffee at the (new) cafe that is very near to the hotel. For most values of “beginning the day”, this misses the mark. It’s fine. Close enough.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
So, yeah, in spite of the title, my coffee was not actually “a beginning” in any meaningful way, it’s more “between” things. It is between my waking and my painting. It is between my walking and picking up more bottled water for drinking. It is between planning to shower, and actually showering. It is, however, before any painting that I may do today. (Fucking writers, man, always twisting things and making shit up. Damn it, words are not toys! LOL)
…It’s good coffee, though, and I’m glad to have it, and I will enjoy it before I begin to paint, sitting here on the balcony of my hotel room, watching the tide come in, feeling the playfulness of this moment in the morning…
Siletz Bay, low tide.
A gull sails back and forth just beyond the balcony, watching me (or more specifically, this scone I’m nibbling on). My laptop is balanced on my lap as I sit here, feet up on the other chair, writing and drinking my coffee. I know how this works; if I take my eye off that scone once I’ve set it down to put fingers to the keys, that scone is immediately at risk of being snatched by a quick and wily seagull. A ham and cheddar scone is probably not the best food for a seagull, but neither are crisps, or cookies, and I’ve seen the gulls snatch those from careless snackers many times. I’m tempted to toss a piece of my scone out beyond the balcony rail to watch the gull skillfully snatch it from the air, but doing so will only bring more gulls, and sometimes they can be aggressive about grabbing snacks, so I decide against doing that.
A view of the channel through which the bay empties into the sea. (Squint and you may see fisher-folk enjoying the season.)
It another gray morning. I take my time with my coffee while it is still hot; the light is not yet sufficient to paint by the natural light coming in through the open balcony door, and I dislike the yellow-y light of the overhead light or the table lamp. I think I’ve always disliked that strange stale-looking yellow light of incandescent bulbs. I find something sad and sinister about incandescent lighting, most especially in overhead lighting fixtures. I sigh contentedly, in spite of having to “wait for the light” this morning; this cup of coffee is really good. Also, my beloved Traveling Partner pinged me a good morning greeting, and we exchanged a few words and a couple selfies. Of all the uses of a selfie, this is the one I find most suited to living well; sharing one with someone fondly, to connect and close the distance between us, out of love. That’s beautiful. So is my beloved. I sit grinning at the picture he sent me, sipping my coffee and feeling love, loved, and grateful.
I breathe, exhale, and relax, and enjoy the moment.
A gull lands on the balcony quite near me, eyeing the last bite of scone sitting beside me. I’m a little intimidated by the size of this gull, and I sit quite still to see what is to come of this moment, here, now. The gull steps toward me, one step at a time, slowly, then reaches his neck out and takes the prize, and hops backward quite suddenly, and rather awkwardly, with the last bite of scone in his beak. Fair enough, enjoy that bite, silly bird. “Go on with you, then, you got what you came for,” I say out loud. I reach for my camera – if he’s going to linger, I’m going to get a picture, I think to myself. He immediately takes flight, and soars out across the bay before landing on a broad expanse of exposed mud flat.
I sigh to myself. It’s hard to beat coastal time for relaxation (in my experience). Even the dense beautiful green solitude in the forest doesn’t hit these heights of “chill time” in the same way. The wind and the waves here silence my tinnitus in the most remarkable way, and unless I go to one of the sloughs or marshes, I’m unlikely to be dealing with a lot of buzzing or biting insects. The tides almost beg to be watched, coming and going, for long lazy hours of uncounted minutes. The clock seems to stop ticking. Funny thing, I don’t think of myself as “a seashore person”, and I don’t swim often (I don’t prefer to be immersed in water at all, really, unless it is a deep hot bath). I don’t sail or aspire to it, and don’t own a boat, or spend time on them. It’s the sight of the sea, the smell of the wind and the sound of the waves, that hold my attention. They connect me with my Granny, who loved the sea and life on the Chesapeake. They connect me with my Mother. They connect me with my Dear Friend. I love being here by the sea, and for my own reasons I enjoy this strange shallow muddy bay, along the rocky coastline of Oregon. It empties until only a thin ribbon of the Siletz River winds through it, emptying into the ocean through a small channel between Salishan Beach and the beach here at Taft, where this hotel sits. Yesterday at high tide, I watched a man and his dog playfully wade out almost to the other side of the bay, without ever stepping into water more than waist high. I’ve stayed in this very hotel during a season of “king tides” that were extraordinary, and feeling the hotel rocked by the waves crashing into the rip-rap holding back the sand and the tide, and keeping the hotel on it’s foundation, was quite terrifying at times, and I definitely regretted my ground floor room on that visit, although I don’t think I’d have enjoyed the swaying reported by guests in 4th floor rooms, either.
…this coffee is quite good…
I sigh contentedly, feet up, coffee cup warm in my hand, the sound of the wind and the waves in my ears, and grateful for this chance to really rest and put aside the routine of a typical Monday in favor of this calm joy. “Home, tomorrow,” I think to myself – and I’m happy about that, too. I miss my beloved. I feel the change of the season coming, and I will find comfort in his strong embrace. Soon. In the meantime, I’ve got this day to myself, to paint, and to reflect, and to be. It’s enough. More than enough. I finish my coffee, ready to begin (again).
