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Where Do I Go From Here?

May 17, 2021 //
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I’m sipping coffee before work. Taking a few minutes to write. My fingers feel light on the keyboard, this morning. I feel comfortable in my skin. I feel safe here at home. I am reflecting on the weekend, and on life, and love – and taxes. I flip through the pictures I took over the weekend. The camera seems to have captured details that I missed with my eyes, in the moment. The pictures delight me.

Gray skies greeted me when I arrived.

The slow calm minutes alone with my thoughts for a couple days was a nice break. I needed the rest and the quiet time. I say “quiet time”, but this too is relative. It wasn’t that quiet at some points; Friday night there was a “hotel party” in the room next to mine that lasted until 1 am. It woke me a couple times before folks finally called it a night and settled down. Saturday night, on the other side of my room, a very intoxicated couple checked in, early in the evening. By 9 pm, they’d been removed by the local police for creating a disturbance, after several people complained about yelling, threats of violence, intimidation, and noise. Home is much quieter. lol The disturbances were an interesting opportunity to reflect on exactly what I need out of my solo time, and how best to get it. It’s not a need that is always easily met simply by being somewhere else. 🙂

I considered going home early, at one point. I know I’d have been welcomed home eagerly; my Traveling Partner was missing me quite a lot. Another quiet night, though, and another slow solitary morning, was a nice investment in my wellness and contentment, and I’m glad I stayed and enjoyed the time (the money was already spent).

One last shot of the ocean before I left… blue sky breaking through the clouds, reflected in the water.

It’s nice to be home again. We shared a quiet afternoon gardening, and a quiet evening watching short videos and nature shows. It was supremely pleasant. Now…? Now it is a Monday. Time to get back to work and life and life and work, and all the details that connect and surround those experiences. I’ve got 158 pictures to remind me of my weekend away, even a couple videos of waves and the sound of the sea. 🙂

I’d end with an observation that it’s time to begin again, perhaps, but… where does this journey lead? What’s next? Roses and gardening? Meditating and writing? Life and work? Love? What matters most? Who do I most want to be, when I see myself in the mirror? Is my path taking me there? Can I even know that? So many questions – and really, not one of them answered by a weekend walking on the shore. lol Just more questions. More moments upon which to reflect, later.

…It’s still a journey. My morning walk took me past each house in the neighborhood. At first, I counted off the roses I passed by, sometimes by name (when I recognized them). I lost track; there are so many roses, they quickly become uncountable. There are so many gardens, tended by so many hands, with so many different visions of “beautiful” in mind. I take note of the details I like the most, as I pass by. I smile and wave to other early risers when we spot each other. I keep walking.

What now? Where does this journey lead? What does the day hold? What of the future? My heartbeat feels like the tick of a clock. I glance at the time – it’s definitely time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being

“Down for Maintenance”

May 16, 2021 //
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My Traveling Partner is quite human, but he’s also right about a great many things. 🙂 I definitely needed this break! He was right about that. My boss must have agreed, because he encouraged me to head out even a bit earlier than I’d planned to do, on Friday. It was a lovely extra, too; I spent the morning with my Traveling Partner, instead of working, before I headed for the coast for the weekend. We enjoyed our morning coffee together. Talked about garden plans, home improvement plans, and how much we would miss each other. 🙂

…I have greatly enjoyed missing my partner for a couple days. I do miss him, though, with my whole heart – he’s rarely more than a heartbeat from my thoughts – and I am ready to return home, to his welcoming embrace… to my own bed… my own shower… our pleasantly comfortable little home… the merry wave of a neighbor… and, omg, the mild lovely Spring weather. LOL (It’s been rather uniformly gray at the beach, this weekend, amusingly enough.)

The Alchymist finally in the ground (it’s been almost 10 years in a container).

…I wonder if The Alchymist finished opening up the blooms on the long graceful bud covered cane I’ve been watching with such delight? I wonder how my tomatoes (planted just last week) are doing? I sip my coffee and think about love… and lunch. For all the ordinary things I miss, right now, there’s also this awareness that I was missing out on a lot of the joy in them, because my brain was just so fucking fatigued, and my “buffers” so overloaded I could not process new information easily, or even just “find my joy” in simple pleasures. Too tired. It wasn’t a physical thing at all. My partner’s well-wishes as I prepared for the weekend away had included something very telling – he said “have fun being bored!” He gets it; I just needed to put shit on pause. Like, for real, just “stop everything” and chill. Walk. Nap. Write – maybe. Paint? Maybe. I came prepared with watercolor gear and sketchbooks… I never touched any of it, nor opened my Kindle to read. LOL

…As it turned out, I mostly just walked, and napped. LOL I meditated, sitting on the shore, listening to the waves approach and recede. Listening to the wind in my ears. I sat on the balcony of my hotel room, watching the ocean be an ocean, and listening to the passing seagulls ask about my day. I gazed into the milky gray cloudy sky for hours. Now and then I ventured out to walk along the beach again. Mostly, I spent time with my own thoughts, my own feelings, my own experience, without judgement or attachment or assumptions or expectations or inflicting any sort of demands upon myself. It was time I needed.

Chilly, windy, and gray

You know what I didn’t do? I didn’t write. I didn’t read. I didn’t paint. I didn’t sketch. I didn’t go out for fancy meals or explorations of the retail scene. I didn’t interact with many people. I didn’t have much cause to use words aloud or hear the sound of my own voice, aside from a couple welcome phone calls with my partner. I simply did the thing I needed most; I embraced the solitude and quiet, and let myself “catch up” mentally, and get some cognitive rest. Funny thing, although I was initially a bit disappointed about the gray coastal weather, I realize looking at it now that it was quite perfect for the need; almost featureless unexciting skies, and the ceaseless somewhat uniform sound of wind and waves didn’t add any “excitement” or eye-catching wonder to the vista beyond the balcony. 🙂 It was as a neutral canvas, blank, and ready to be painted upon with my choices.

…I say that, though, about the skies and the weather, as if it is “true”, solidly real, and “final”. It isn’t a complete picture at all; it’s subjective, and quite selective, as far as recollections go. It’s equally true that yesterday the afternoon was quite sunny (although the massive cloud bank that had wrapped the shoreline Friday – and again this morning – appeared only to “pull back a bit”, and never wholly dissipated). 🙂 Funny how that works. I am reminded how much of my individual experience is created within my own head – and how real that still feels. It’s worth being aware of that; it gives me so much power to change my experience of my life. That’s a lot of power.

What is also true.

I’ve finished my coffee. It’s still quite early. There is ample time for another walk along the beach before I return home. Time, even for another coffee. 🙂 There is, too, time to begin again. 🙂 I feel much more ready for that than I have in awhile. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, gardening, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Roses, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being

Sitting, Here.

May 8, 2021 //
1

It’s a mild Saturday morning. Not yet sunny. Also not raining. Just a morning. My coffee is hot, sitting mostly untouched in front of me. My Traveling Partner and I are “enjoying” our individual, somewhat overlapping, personal experiences of seasonal allergies. His, a lifetime struggle. Mine? Returning with a vengeance here in this new place, after decades mostly without allergies at all. I’ve minimized my allergies for years; they simply aren’t “anything” in comparison to what my Mom endured, or what my Traveling Partner goes through for so much of the calendar year that even suggesting those are “seasonal” could seem like a mockery. “I don’t have allergies” still seems mostly true for me… but this morning, my stuffy head and sneezes tell a story of Spring, and pollen (it’s the tree pollen that seems to be the issue; I can smell flowers all damned day without concern).

…And of course, my preferred walks each day? Forests. Trees. Shaded paths. Hilarious. 0_o (That’s a rare use of sarcasm; I’m not finding it all amusing really.)

It is a mild Saturday morning, suitable for gardening (I have a list of things to do), and relaxing. I’m eager to do a bit of gardening in this new place – gardening that won’t suddenly face the upheaval of moving away, gardening that can be planned for a future that exists. Maybe. I mean… the future is an uncertain thing, but at least here I can plan for some sort of permanence, as much as one ever can. No, I’m not feeling down or fatalistic, just disinclined to deceive myself with fanciful tales of “happily ever after” or “always”. Those are not helpful concepts, generally speaking. 🙂

“Baby Love”, an early bloomer, will go into the ground this weekend. 🙂

This cup of coffee is good. Not good enough to ease me past the morning frustration of dealing with allergies, perhaps, or to fix any of society’s ills, but it’s a nice moment on a pleasant morning, and that’s enough right now. I think of far away friends I’d like to take time to connect with, emails I’d like to write. Maybe pick up the damned phone now and then? (Does anyone actually answer the phone when it rings, any more? I rarely do… is that a “me thing”, or an “everyone thing”? Has the etiquette of a phone call changed since… before?)

At some point, after our anniversary was past, my Traveling Partner ever-so-gently brought up how much benefit I seem to get out of a weekend away, solo, and wondered aloud if I were, perhaps, due for one…? He admitted to having the thought on our anniversary, and shared that it seemed less than ideal to bring it up on that occasion. I appreciate his consideration… I’d had that thought, too, and felt like a complete jerk for it, considering the occasion. LOL He’s quite right, though; I’m definitely “feeling it”.

…And he definitely feels me feeling it…

I’m not sure why I’m feeling it so hard right now… the new job is intense (in good ways) and quite busy. I do spend nearly 100% of my waking time in the presence of at least one other human being, or on a call, or in a meeting (and yes, Zoom meetings are still every bit as “people-y” as in person, for me)… it gets fatiguing after a while. I enjoy solitude. I want to simply exist, free of social constraints or pressures to perform, conform, achieve, or relieve. I want to breathe my own breath. Think my own thoughts. Exist entirely in the context of my own experience. Make choices with little regard for other tastes, other needs, other timing. It’s complicated when people partner up who have very different needs in this area. I’m fairly certain that while I feel like I “never have a minute for my own thoughts”, my partner may feel that we “never get to spend any time together” – and both those experiences are legitimate perspectives on our individual experience as human primates. I’m fortunate to be in a partnership in which we recognize our differences and value them – and help each other find our best path forward.

Anyway. I’ve been vaccinated. I feel relatively comfortable making the short journey to the coast and taking a day for myself. Masked & distancing, yeah, that’s still a thing for sure. I’m okay with that, too. I got lucky on getting a pleasant ocean view room a few steps from the beach (131 actual stair steps, if reviews are to be believed) – next weekend. The weather is nice for painting. I’ll take my water colors and my camera along with me. My laptop. I’ll walk miles along the beach. Take some pictures. Meditate. Think. Write. Paint.

…I will miss my Traveling Partner so so much…

We benefit from a bit of time to miss each other. I sip my coffee and wonder what he’ll get up to while I’m away… besides missing me, I mean. 🙂 I already look forward to sharing pictures and conversing about time we did not spend together.

…I’m already looking forward to beginning again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Roses, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

It’s Complicated

April 21, 2021 //
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The work day is behind me. The afternoon sunshine illuminates the room through the shade, casting a diffuse blue-gray hue to the entire room. I am relaxed. Calm. Mostly fairly comfortable, physically. I feel my Traveling Partner’s stress and aggravation radiate through the house; I am aware of him, without being part of the experience right now. We had, earlier, enjoyed a celebratory moment of shared joy; he had completed a ton of work on fine-tuning our sound system and home theater, a project that we are both excited about (having a shared love of music and movies). It sounded amazing!

Later, shortly before I finished my work day, my obviously frustrated partner leaned into my studio to tell me he’d had to turn off a component to do something – and all those painstakingly determined settings that resulted in such great sound? Gone. Apparently they don’t save. I can only imagine his frustration – so much went into that! He got it done in the context of being considerate of my noise sensitivity, and is now faced with doing it all again, after assuring me he was done with all that. After I got off work I figured I’d hang out and enjoy his company while he finished off the resetting of settings and all that… It’s not that simple, is it? We’re humans, being human together, enjoying our shared experience of being individual beings. I’m not helping by hanging out – however supportive I want to be, however relaxed I feel myself, however much joy I take in his company, right now, the simplest of truths is that he’d like to handle this without the added anxiety of worried about my noise sensitivity or other “high maintenance bullshit” (my language, not his). I even get it. So… A good time to write? I guess so.

I sip on a bottle of water, thinking about how easily we become fused with each other’s emotional states. Not just him, not just me, it’s more of a human thing – most of us experience it, at some point. We become invested in that other person’s emotional experience for whatever reason, and it becomes “part of who we are”, ourselves. I suppose in some circumstances that could be useful. As individual, independent, autonomous, equal free-will adult human beings it’s often far from being “helpful”, at all. I avoid emotional entanglements of this sort, when I notice it in time to do something different. Another room. Another task. A different place. A book to read. Something that is more about me, and less about that other person, for a little while. No hard feelings. No regrets. No embarrassment… Just good self-care.

I hear music in the other room. A moment later he puts his head into the room, “I’m finished” he says calmly. I feel calm, too, and fairly fortunate that we have this partnership of equals. Sure, ups and downs, and sometimes quite a bit of work, and occasional resettings of expectations, together, nonetheless… so fortunate. So grateful. So happy to have this beautiful music, and this beautiful love.

“Finished”? Some things never really “finish”. It’s time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Hours Lived Becoming Days Remembered

April 17, 2021 //
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I woke to a misty Spring morning. I even slept in. I woke feeling rested, content, and calm. My Traveling Partner woke, expressing similar feelings of rested-ness, and a similar sense of having slept deeply through the night. A pleasant start to a misty Spring morning. The scents of imminent summer mornings are already being carried along on the Spring breezes. Birds are nesting in the trees beyond the deck; it may have been their morning chatter that woke me so gently.

Lovely Spring morning.

My writing cadence is somewhat diminished lately. I’m adjusting to new routines; Spring in this new place, the progressively less restrictive-seeming restrictions of the pandemic, the new job – new work hours, new workload, new expectations in a new work culture – the end result of it all is that there is so much to process, and so little time for living, that I’m just not crowding my writing into that space very often. lol

…Am I “here”? Finally “arrived” at that legendary mythical destination called “happily ever after”?… Um…No.

No. No, I am not “there yet” – because “happily ever after” is more fairytale than possibility. I’m okay with contentment, and joy, and occasional moments of happiness that linger in my recollection. That’s enough to demand of a good life. Certainly, it’s more than I would commonly expect for myself. 🙂

My Traveling Partner and I are both made of pure human. In most my fragile vulnerable emotional moments, my partner can sometimes seem a bit of an insensitive dick. Sometimes (often?) (whether I want it or not) I need his practical refusal to succumb to my emotional weather, although I’d prefer to see his more tender, kinder, more encouraging side (obviously). Realistically, neither of us reliably 100% has our best nature facing our partner when our partner needs it most; we’re each very human. I can be a bit much. I know this about me. I can be emotionally intense. I can be a ceaseless chatterbox. I can be excessively, cryptically, whimsical to a point that I become… hard to understand. It’s a bit as if we share our sense of humor, but occasionally just don’t get a particular joke… Oh, hey, that’s a real thing too, isn’t it? What matters, what works (for us), is that there is bountiful enduring love here; we “get” each other, and we both want to be here (as far as I know… I mean, that’s one of life’s scariest questions, is it not? “Do you really want to be here, with me, as I am, sharing this lifetime, loving me?”).

I’m smiling on a sunny Spring morning, sipping my coffee, writing a few words before I hop in the shower, before a second coffee, before running a couple errands. I think of faraway friends, overdue for an email from me… I’d been writing last weekend, but a sour moment, a wrong note in love’s symphony, put me off writing. I entirely lost interest. I’d been sharing joy, and didn’t care to share sorrows or aggravation. lol Instead, I dove headlong back into sorting things out and loving my partner with my whole being until our momentary sorrows began to ease. Why not? What matters more than love? (Ok, ok, to the practical out there, yes, breathable air, drinkable water, nutrition food, adequate rest… chances are good these things all “matter more” in the most practical way. LOL)

…My Traveling Partner pops into the studio to share a thought, another practical idea to solve a practical concern, and I feel my spirit lift in the way it does when I see him. Good idea, too. 🙂 It makes me eager to begin again. 😀

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being
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