Archives for posts with tag: mindfulness
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But What Will You Do About That?

March 22, 2026 //
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I’ve started including a disclaimer on new posts asserting my refusal to use available LLM tools for writing. I’m annoyed to feel that doing so is necessary, but here we are. I like writing. Why would I cheat to be faster or more frequent, or worse – to camouflage a lack of anything to say? Ridiculous. No thank you. Keep those crappy LLM “tools” away from me. I’ll just write, thanks. 😆

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

In all seriousness, adding that disclaimer is at least a real action I can take to express my objection to having bullshit “AI” garbage forced on me everywhere. I don’t like it. I don’t use it. I’d prefer to keep my own mind sharp, and also to take the time to learn new things myself.

Getting an early start on a new day.

Brunch with a friend, later, on the other side of this trail.  I’m eager to enjoy brunch, but I’m in no great hurry, so I wait for the sun.

After a short wait dawn illuminates the trail and I set off, hands jammed into warm pockets.

Chilly morning. Cold. At just 2°C, it’s a colder morning than we’ve had in several weeks. I’m glad I didn’t rush to plant delicate vegetables more suited to milder weather. That has often been a temptation for me and in many years past, I’ve chosen poorly. This year I focused on the laborious work of cleaning up the garden beds, weeding, and pruning. I am impressed by my own good decision making and self-restraint, recalling years past and frozen seedlings that failed to thrive. I inhale the cold air of early Spring on the marsh. The surface of the marsh ponds are silvery, reflecting the sky as the sun rises. Nice morning, if a bit cold. I’m grateful for the warm sweater I chose this morning.

Choices matter. Actions matter more.

A flock of geese takes flight from the marsh pond behind me. I’m seated on a fence rail betwixt the pond and the trail. The flock rises almost as one and I wonder how they all knew to do so just then? They pass overhead and I pull the hood of my fleece hoodie over my head “just in case”. I consider myself fortunate; no bird poop spatters me. I sit with my gratitude. Sometimes small things leave a big impression; I was once hit by falling bird poop, and getting it out of my hair seriously grossed me out. It may never occur again. I sit considering the numbers of birds, and people, and how often a bird passes overhead, and how rarely someone is actually hit by falling bird poop. It’s not really a high risk.

Go outside anyway. Walk a trail. Smell the flowers. See a sunrise. Trying to avoid all of the obstacles and potential misadventures on life’s journey only results in a life never really lived.

Choose. Do the thing. Experience the moment. Fail, learn, and grow. Walk a path you know you have chosen for yourself. Don’t rely overmuch on your “heroes” to lead the way. They too are mortal creatures with very human failings. Topple them from their pedestals and examine the truth of who they are (or were) as people and maybe do better. It may be easier than you think.

The sunrise is pearly pink and delicate orange, this morning. The meadow grass is tipped with frost. My breath turns to mist each time I exhale. I sit with the moment, enjoying the quiet, feeling myself relax. Looking towards the far side of the marsh and meadow, I see a green haze in the treetops. Definitely Spring.

I sit awhile longer, thinking about this or that vexing circumstance. Each time a grievance or complaint rises in my consciousness demanding my attention, I look it over and ask myself two questions,

  1. Does this really matter enough to give it attention and energy at all?
  2. If the answer (for me) is “yes”, then what will I do about that?

If human primates put as much energy into solving their problems (or changing their circumstances) as they do just bitching about them, we’d likely have a very different world. I don’t know what that world would be like, but I do like thinking about it.

I sigh to myself, filling my lungs with cold Spring air. The wheel keeps turning. The clock keeps ticking. What will you do when it is time to begin again? I think about the path ahead of me, and get to my feet.

Ask the questions. Do the verbs.
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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, thoughts on AI, War and News of War, women, Words

Preserving My Peace

March 17, 2026 //
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[No AI was used to create or edit this human content.]

Yesterday was a good day, a better than average Monday. I arrived home from work with a headache, an unfortunate result of working from a seat at the library where the afternoon sunshine was directly on my face. “A sunshine headache,” the sort of thing I find difficult to explain. Surviving head trauma can have some peculiar lingering consequences, and in my case those include this particular type of headache (which were much worse when I was younger but still occur in a dim fashion now). It didn’t last; I spent awhile contentedly doing my own thing in a quiet darkened room and it passed.

We often have the tools we need for the circumstances we find ourselves in.

For me, it was a pleasant evening. I am not certain what kind of experience everyone else was having. I managed to refrain from allowing concerns about experiences that are not my own to overcome my experience, and instead simply lived my moment. I slept well and deeply. The night passed uneventfully. I woke early, earlier than usual.

When I woke, I noticed my Traveling Partner was already up. I could have made assumptions about why he was up so early, but doing so could potentially lay the foundation for stress or misunderstandings. Instead I observe that he is awake and leave further understanding for later on, when I have more information. I dress and go through my morning routine, and head out for the day. On my way, I pass my beloved, in the open doorway to the deck, breathing the cool morning air. I say good morning. He returns my greeting with a few words of explanation. I depart without disturbing his peace, nor does he disturb mine.

All of this to say we are making choices. It’s not fancy or particularly complicated. We choose our words and choose our actions. We choose peace or we choose something else. Our choices definitely matter. We become what we practice. We create the person we are with our choices.

Who do you want most to be? How do you want to be remembered?

I sit at the trailhead, waiting for daybreak to come. It is a mild morning, and the warmer Spring days after so much rain have created slippery conditions on this trail, even on paved portions. Moss is growing over the trail in places. Fallen leaves, partially decomposed, are slick mats waiting to create a slip and fall accident for some unwary walker. I choose caution – and a bit of daylight. I reflect on choices and change, and preserving my peace under challenging circumstances.

I don’t look at the news this morning. Why would I? I already know enough about what’s going on to function in society. More would be too much. I’m taking “preserving my peace” pretty seriously. If asked, I would encourage our leaders to do the same; preserve peace. I doubt they would listen to me; they are making too much money off of war and enjoying the thrill of having so much attention. I find the whole mess distasteful and frankly crass. Humanity could do better.

Choose your actions and your words with care. They have consequences.

Daybreak. The first hints of the new day dawning reveal a stormy overcast sky. The forecast says the day will be warm, like yesterday. I look down the familiar path, feeling capable and prepared, and ready to begin again.

What will you choose? It’s your path to walk.
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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, health, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, women, Words

Nuance and Subtlety

March 9, 2026 //
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Chilly morning. It’s not seriously cold, but at 4.4C (40F), I definitely feel the air as chilly this morning. The morning feels darker than it has been at this time of morning. (Time for America’s idiotic attempt to force daylight to follow a new schedule. Ridiculous.)  None of this matters much. I’m rested, more or less over my cold, and feeling merry.

It’s Monday.

I started down the trail in the darkness, the light from my headlamp bobbing along with the steady beat of my footsteps. The feeling of merriment percolates within me. A new day is ahead of me and I feel loved and encouraged, which is a great way to begin a day (and a week).

There’s a new (muddy) temporary detour on this trail due to construction (and agriculture). I step carefully, avoiding slipping or falling. I’m grateful I knew the detour would be where it is. Unexpected muddy detours in the darkness are a more serious hazard than those detours I know to expect. This is true in life as well.

As I walk I think ahead to coffee. I pull myself back to this moment here, and immediately find myself reflecting on the weekend. I pull my focus back to this moment, again, and walk on. Eventually I reach my halfway point and write a few words with stiff fingers. Chilly morning. I’m okay with it.

… and if I weren’t okay with it? What then? 😆

I reflect awhile on the challenge of finding balance between simply being and self-awareness. I watched an interesting (and deeply considered) video about self-awareness yesterday. It provided food for thought and a lot of nuance to something I hadn’t considered so deeply before, myself.  I’ll probably watch it again.

Daybreak finally touches the sky. I can make out the trail now, without my headlamp. A useful metaphor for life and experience, I suppose. I smile to myself and prepare to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, art and the artist, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, Words

The Unexpected Detour

February 15, 2026 //
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Once upon a time, many years ago, a younger version of me was making the trip down to visit family in Baltimore over a weekend. At the time, I was stationed at Aberdeen Proving Ground (more specifically, at Edgewater Arsenal). It was winter, and the roads were icy and there was a heavy snow falling. A smarter human primate would have more carefully considered the risks and stayed “home”, safe and warm in the barracks. I chose differently.

As the rear end of my Honda CRX Si broke loose from the icy road, and the car began to slide sideways around the tight curve of the offramp, spinning slowly, I resisted the urge to apply the breaks, began down shifting gently, and steering against the spin. I began rethinking my life choices. I came to a stop at the foot of the offramp, grateful there was no one behind me, and that I hadn’t hit anything. The car stopped, centered in my lane, but facing the wrong direction. I counted myself lucky, and got turned around, then finished my drive to my Aunt’s house.

… It’s a metaphor…

The unexpected is going to happen. However well-prepared we may think we are for this or that circumstance, we are mortal creatures of limited vision, and our meager preparations are no match for the vagaries of reality. Sometimes shit is just going to go sideways, whether we are prepared or not, and all we can do is hold on and do our best to “steer out of it”, and maybe learn something.

Yesterday was pleasant. The additional rest of sleeping in made a lot of difference and I enjoyed the day in my Traveling Partner’s good company. We are each having our own experience, and today is a new and entirely different day. Had I known when I woke this morning what I know now about where we each stand with our own shit to deal with, I might have made very different plans. 😆 Here I am, thoroughly human, crying in my partner’s pickup, parked at a local trailhead, thinking perhaps I’ll “just walk it off”, but it’s hard to walk while crying. My tears make my eyes burn, and the trail is crowded with strangers today. I don’t want to deal with them any more than I want to deal with me.

My head aches and my tinnitus is loud enough to be a distraction and uncomfortable. I’m irritable, partly just because those things are irritating, but also because my beloved is similarly irritable himself, for his own reasons, and we can’t manage to coexist in shared space, for the moment. Easier to just leave the house and know that one of us may find something like peace, maybe. Maybe not. I just don’t know what else to do at this point, besides give him space and take some for myself.

Like winter, circumstances are not personal.

The sky is gray. The trees are bare. The mild temperature doesn’t hide the fact that it is a bleak wintry day. I’m probably bringing the gray bleakness with me. I’d like to be at home, reading and resting or playing a video game, or baking or just anything besides sitting here crying in a parking lot. Acknowledging these feelings only serves to remind me I could have grabbed the book I’m reading and brought it with me. Stupid drama-prone primate brain! Inefficient. I sigh to myself. I try to meditate. I breathe, exhale, and… It’s hard to relax with my tinnitus shrieking in my ears this way.

A lot of the shit we go through is hard, but very little of it is “personal”. I remind myself to let small shit stay small, and to assume positive intent. I remind myself to do my best, and to take care of myself. I remind myself to be kind, patient, and compassionate – to my Traveling Partner and to myself. I remind myself to ask for help when I need it, and to accept it graciously when offered.

I reach out to the Anxious Adventurer, and ask if he can handle doing the dishes and making dinner? I’m grateful that he can. My feet already ache from my walk earlier, but I grab my cane and my resolve and get ready to put another mile on my boots. I want something better out of the day, and I will have to begin again to get there.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, winter, Words

Sleep

February 9, 2026 //
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My sleep used to be much worse than it is these days. I’m certain the CPAP machine helps (although wearing the mask and the experience of continuous positive air pressure are somewhat unpleasant and took getting used to). Sometimes my sleep is still of poor quality for one reason or another. Sometimes it’s just not enough sleep to feel rested. Sometimes I’m plagued by nightmares. This morning I’m faced with insufficient sleep of poor quality, due to interruptions (noise mostly).

I reliably wake up ridiculously early. Generally at 04:30, probably a lasting byproduct of early mornings in the military, construction, and long commutes for morning shifts of various sort. It requires days of leisure time without an alarm being set to boost my chance at “sleeping in”, and I rarely do. When my Traveling Partner and I were developing our friendship, he had encouraged me to take control of one factor I definitely could control to improve how much sleep I got; my bedtime. He suggested I go to bed earlier, based on when I wake and how much sleep I need (back then I was often up until midnight or later, still up early). It was advice that made a lot of difference for me. I go to bed pretty early as a result, rarely later than 21:00. (He has said, now and then, that he’d enjoy my company and would like me to stay up later, but not only do I still wake up early, I also deal often with interrupted sleep. Going to bed early is my only reliable chance at enough rest.)

Why am I on about sleep and sleep quality this morning? I didn’t sleep well last night, and didn’t get enough rest for the day ahead. It’s occupying my thoughts.

This morning I’m tired. So tired. It was after 21:00 before I went to sleep last night. I woke around 01:50, got up to pee and went back to bed, eventually falling sleep again. Sometime shortly after three, my Traveling Partner woke me. He couldn’t sleep, and was having difficulty breathing. He goes to the living room, wakeful and irritable. I try to return to sleep. Not much success. Every time I start to drift off, another noise wakes me, again. A cough. My partner trying to clear his throat or his sinuses.  The scrape of a chair along the floor. His frustration and sometimes panic feel palpable.

I definitely need more than four and a half hours of sleep, and I keep trying. I’m startled from a sound-but-too-brief moment of sleep by a firm hand knocking at the Anxious Adventurer’s adjacent bedroom door, and my partner’s irritated inquiry. I groan quietly and turn over and try sleep once more.

I drifted in and out of a restless sleep from the time my Traveling Partner woke me until the clock read 05:00 a couple hours later. My head aches. My eyeballs feel gritty and dry. I want literally nothing to do with other people, at all. At least not right now. I dress and leave the house. I don’t feel like walking, either. I just want to be alone with my irritation for awhile. I swing through a local coffee chain for too many shots of espresso over ice, black. Fuck Monday. I’m so not ready for this.

My Traveling Partner had returned to bed as I was leaving for the morning. I hope he gets back to sleep and gets some healthy rest. I get no second chances on a work day. I sigh to myself. It’s not his fault he’s having difficulty sleeping (or breathing).

I’ve set clear healthy reasonable boundaries about my sleep and not waking me if I’m sleeping, unless I’ve asked to be wakened (which I almost never do; I know how to use an alarm clock). I respect the sleep of others. Somehow I have still found myself in partnerships in which my partner(s) have found some justification for waking me, under one circumstance or another (and in some past relationships often). There’s rarely any sort of actual emergency that requires my attention, more that someone “wants a word” or to ask a question, or share a complaint. This frustrates the shit out of me, because it’s already difficult enough to get the rest I need.

Where caregiving or real emergencies are concerned, of course I roll my ass out of bed and do the needful without complaint. Everything else, I try to look past my fatigue and irritation to understand what is going on that might push a person to undermine someone else’s very necessary rest, and I try to be a compassionate and understanding partner, family member, or friend. This morning I’m having to fight through more annoyance than usual; I stayed up later last night to hang out with my Traveling Partner awhile longer, and I’m paying for it with lack of sleep. It feels “unfair”, but it isn’t really about that, and it’s definitely not personal. I made a choice. Just damned annoying that this is the outcome.

… I’m so fucking tired…

It’s been many days since I slept deeply through the night and woke feeling rested. I remind myself that it could be worse. I once endured more than a decade of sleep so poor I counted it a good night if I got even two hours of unbroken sleep, and rarely slept more than four hours total in a night. This is not that.

A new day will dawn. We can begin again.

I sit quietly at a local trailhead, listening to rain tapping the roof of my Traveling Partner’s truck. It’s comfortable and warm, and I am alone with my thoughts and my coffee. I definitely don’t feel like dealing with people right now. I’m tired, headachey, and irritable. Unfit for company. It’s too early for work. I don’t feel like walking.

I breathe, exhale, and relax, and focus on sorting myself out to face the day ahead. Soon enough I’ll have to begin again. I’ll do my best. It will have to be enough.

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Categories breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, women
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