[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.
It’s the first morning of 2025. Unimpressive in most respects thus far, but that isn’t the point of a new beginning, nor is it the goal of this very human journey. There’s really no one to “impress”, and nothing much with which to impress them, not really. Thoughts to the contrary tend to be illusions we create in our own heads or adopt from others and subsequently use to torment ourselves with further illusions of disappointment and perceived failure. We could do better by ourselves than all that nonsense. It’s at least worth the attempt.
A new year, a new beginning. Choose your verbs, and practice.
We’re each human beings, having our own very human experience, each walking our chosen path alone, all of us in this together in spite of that. I look down the trail. It is a chilly misty morning that threatens rain. The world is damp and quiet. I sit with my thoughts a moment after lacing up my boots. Another mile ahead of me. Another moment of this precious mortal life, in which to consider, to choose, and to act. Where does this path lead?
In practical terms, last year I walked 788 trail miles (according to my tracker), and lost about 50 lbs. They may or may not be related. I’m not doing the walking to lose the weight in any specific direct way. It’s probably helpful to keep walking. Certainly it’s helpful to eat in a healthier way and manage my calories more closely. I’m very certain the semaglutide is a huge part of the weight loss, but even that is more about my health overall, and managing tricky details like my blood sugar, and oddly, my cognitive and emotional approach to food. It was always more complicated than “willpower”. It took a long time to be okay with that and to give myself a fucking break and be as kind and compassionate with the woman in the mirror as she seeks to be with the world. Humans being human.
I don’t really do “resolutions” at the New Year. I do take some quiet time to reflect quite seriously about who I am, who I most want to be, and what it might take to close the distance between the two. It’s a journey. The journey is the destination. There are so many steps in a mile, so many miles in a journey… and so many choices. I’ll definitely keep walking, both practically and metaphorically. In practical terms, I hope to reach one thousand trail miles this year. (Sounds like a lot but it averages to less than 3 miles a day over a year, which sounds pretty doable.)
I’ve got a list of books to read, and some quality of life goals that require changing some behavior. Nothing fancy or drastic, and incremental change over time can have really big results. We become what we practice. It’s enough.
I had a modest plan for today, and I don’t know if I am realistically up to it. I spent yesterday pretty ill, and I’m not yet back to 100%. I’ll take it easy in my walk, keep it short and unambitious, and be gentle with myself. Later I’ll take down the holiday decor – I’m pretty sure I’ve got enough in reserve to get that done. My other thought was to do the floors, all the floors, all the ways. Sweep, mop, dust baseboards, spot clean here and there were needed, and vacuum thoroughly – it’d be nice to begin the year bringing order out of chaos in this humble way, and I always enjoy how the house looks after some serious “detailing” of some kind… but… I’m fairly certain that project might be too much for me, today. Pushing it off to the weekend feels like “giving up”, but it also feels like self-care.
New year, new beginning – there are choices ahead, some simple, some complicated, and there’s a life to be lived. It’s definitely time to begin again. What will you be practicing? Where does your path lead? See you on the trail (metaphorically speaking).
I’m watching the sun rise from my halfway point on my morning walk. It’s not exactly chilly, and today will likely be another hot one, but I am grateful to have worn this fleecy long-sleeved top. I’m comfortable as I sit here.
I made a point to have an expectation-setting conversation with the Anxious Adventurer yesterday evening. It went decently well, although I am certain I’ll be needing to reinforce a lot of very basic stuff with my well-intentioned (but sometimes surprisingly ignorant) stepson. It’s a process. Growth happens over time with persistence, patience, and practice.
It was clear some of what I had to say was hard for the Anxious Adventurer to hear in the moment. I felt for him; it’s a lot to learn and grow into when we uproot ourselves from what we know to embrace something entirely new. I’m sitting and thinking about two important things he communicated to me during our conversation. Firstly, he is suffering from a ton of self-loathing, which is sad to hear (a lot of us have had to deal with it, ourselves). He’s a rather human assortment of good intentions and poor decision making that seems pretty ordinary, really. Nothing especially hateful or disappointing. He added the second point, which is that he doesn’t have a sense of who he would ideally like to be, and that he lacks a clear picture of what that could look like (or what it would require to achieve). Rough. How does a person go from “here” to “there” without a sense of some sort of general direction to go?
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I take a moment to feel grateful for my sense of self, and my sense of purpose.
I sit with my thoughts and consider what tools and practices brought me face to face with the woman in the mirror, and allowed me to begin building a clearer picture of the person I most wanted to be. I think about the conversations and self-reflection involved in eventually learning to be my own best friend, to be the first one to really listen to myself, reliably, and to embrace the person I am as actually worthy. It’s been years of practice, of self-care and self-reflection, and of therapy… I can (and do) encourage the Anxious Adventurer to seek therapy, definitely. There’s so much of this fairly mundane shit that he could so easily work through himself, it’s hard to know where to begin with a suggestion… (I’m no therapist). I do dislike seeing my stepson suffer, but realistically he’s the one who has to do the verbs here. No map. No user’s manual. Life is messy and sometimes complicated. Being human can be so difficult to do well.
What matters most?
How did I get from there to here?
What practices are most likely to produce quick encouraging results?
How can I most helpfully foster growth and appropriate behavior without undermining the Anxious Adventurer’s agency or taking on work he needs to do for himself?
What exercises in meditation and self-reflection can I recommend that will help him understand his lived values, select the values he wants to live with real care, and sort out who he most wants to be?
I sit awhile longer with my thoughts and my questions. Soon enough it’ll be time to head back to the car and start a whole new week. My Traveling Partner’s surgery is now only a week away. There’s a lot going on in life. It’s a bit chaotic and rather demanding to adult at the required level. S’ok, I’ve got practices for this. It’s just a peculiarly busy time.
Most of the time, things are pretty ordinary.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. This morning’s sunrise wasn’t much to talk about, but it’s a new day nonetheless. There are practices to practice, and it’s time to begin again. I get to my feet with a sigh, straightening my stiff legs, and hit “upload” before I walk on…
I’m sitting with my first coffee of the morning. I came prepared, and although it is instant, it’s a good quality instant, and a good cup of coffee. It’s hot, clean tasting on my tongue, and satisfying.
A rainy coastal Monday.
My first sight upon waking, was the rainy day beyond the balcony of my “ocean view” hotel room (which lacks any hint of ocean view, by virtue of being on the first floor, but offers a lovely view of Siletz Bay). The second thing I noticed was a couple of young… sea otters? Seals? They were relaxing on this side of the bay, quite nearby. I went to grab my camera to get a shot of this not-all-that-common sight (usually they’re on the other side of the bay, too far away to get a good picture with my lens). Returning to the balcony, I see that a man walking his dog has also spotted them. Does he stay well back to let them be? Oh, hell no, he’s American; he quickly moves forward to take his fucking dog closer. Jackass. The sea otters (I think, based on how they moved) slipped back into the water as he closed in on them with his (thankfully leashed) dog. I got a couple of truly pointless shots of the larger pod they are clearly part of, as individuals bobbed above the water, and the pod moved on down the bay. Still – what a fun sight. I take a moment to enjoy that, and I forget about the man and his dog.
I woke early enough that the beach was empty (on a rainy morning), and slept in (for real) late enough to wake well past daybreak, dawn, or even sunrise (although there is no sunrise to see on this gray rainy morning, only a homogenous gray sky). I feel rested. I leave the balcony door wide open to let in the sea breeze and the cool fresh air. I sip my coffee, contentedly. I’m here with my pastels, and I can paint as easily from reference photos and from my imagination, as I can from the actual view, so the rain is nothing to me, and doesn’t change my plans, or upset me in any way. It was lovely to sleep so deeply, and to wake so rested. If that were all I got from this trip away, it would be very much worth it.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. My back aches ferociously. The damp climate of a cool rainy summer day on the coast is hard on my arthritis pain, and for a moment I am “feeling my years”, until I think to recall that I’ve had this arthritis since I was 24 or 25 years old – so for almost 40 years – and it’s nothing at all to do with age or aging. I shrug it off as an annoyance of no consequence, and get on with things anyway. It still amounts to an irritating distraction, but little more than that, so far. My tinnitus is not quite silenced by the wind and the waves – it’s a combination of sounds that sort of “drowns it out” when I’m on the coast, close enough to hear the ocean. It’s a nice break from the aggravation of my tinnitus at full volume. I take a minute to enjoy it with my full attention.
It’s not yet late enough for the hotel breakfast, but I rarely find their strange grab-and-go assorted things for “breakfast” to be satisfying, nourishing, or even particularly “breakfast-y”. Just a cheap convenience, and this trip I am more prepared to take care of this fragile vessel. I’ve got salad greens, blueberries, cashews, and hard-boiled eggs in the room fridge, and I make a simple breakfast salad. My stomach isn’t yet particularly interested in food (it’s a bit soon after waking), but it’ll be lovely to have a “real breakfast” once I’m ready to eat something.
These are such mundane details of such an ordinary life – why bother writing any of this down? I dunno, because maybe someone, somewhere, reading this hasn’t sorted it all out yet? Hasn’t “solved for X” in some of life’s math, perhaps, and simply reflecting on the things that work – or don’t – and what matters most (at least now, to me) may be helpful perspective in some way? In 2013, for example, I don’t think it would have occurred to me how much my own choices in life – simple practical decision-making – were responsible for the vast majority of my personal misery. I don’t know that simply saying “you’re doing this to yourself” would have gotten through to me, but perhaps someone simply reflecting on the things that are working well – small, sustainable, simple choices – might have guided me (or at least made me think)? Besides… I just write. It’s a thing I do. (I’m grateful that you are reading. Thank you.) It’s also “for me”; I often go back and read my writing from other days, other circumstances, with new eyes, or seeking new inspiration, or a reminder that “this too will pass”, or that I’ve “been here before”. (One of the lasting consequences of my TBI is simply that I have some memory-related challenges, and some oddities about how I perceive (or don’t) novelty – sometimes I just don’t recognize that I’ve “been through this before”. Helps to have a reminder.)
…I sit awhile, reflecting on how far this journey has taken me over the past 11 years, from being deeply negative, traumatized, mired in despair, and looking for “an exit strategy”, to where I am now – mostly pretty positive, generally contented, often joyful, enjoying life and love (and even enjoying work), and feeling a deep sense of… joie de vivre. It’s lovely. Each sunrise is worth seeing. Each day has something new to offer. Not only is the journey the actual destination…it’s a journey I find worth taking. That’s a long way to come from those dark days standing on the precipice, ready to decide whether to make a permanent end to my pain. I’m grateful that I made the appointment with the therapist who helped me find my way to a better path. (If you’re in despair, please reach out to someone for help. You matter.)
I stand, stretch, and begin to dress. I haven’t yet gone for a walk on the beach (or taken any walk at all yet, this morning). Seems a pleasant morning for it. The rain has stopped, the sand is firm, and although the tide is coming in, it won’t be a very high tide – plenty of beach to walk. The morning feels oddly “out of order”, with coffee and breakfast ahead of my walk. I chuckle to myself. This is the sort of healthy variation from a routine that serves to keep my brain flexible and young. I go with it. No complaints. Rigidity of thinking does not serve a human primate well. I breathe in the fresh ocean air deeply, and exhale, imaging blowing my pain out with my exhaled breath. I’m not sure it’s an effective strategy, but doing so amuses me and diminishes the power my pain has over my mind. I stand in the open doorway, watching the gulls and crows down on the beach. Somewhere nearby I hear a woodpecker. Now dressed, the day feels that it has more truly begun. I nibble at my salad, and finish my first coffee. There’s more hot water ready, so making a second cup is an obvious next step; there’s no hurry. This is my life. This is my time. This is my experience. Every step on this path is my “next step” – mine to choose, mine to walk, mine to reflect upon at the end of the day. Although our lives are intertwined and we are interdependent social creatures, we’re also each having our own experience. It matters to be and to choose – and to experience this life that I have chosen. I breathe, exhale, and relax.
…The day stretches ahead of me, unplanned, unconstrained, not yet filled with my choices and the verbs required by those choices. I am my own cartographer. The journey is the destination. It’s time to begin again.
I’m relaxing on a Sunday afternoon. It’s been a lovely day, and a great weekend. Oh, nothing unusual or strange, just a thoroughly pleasant weekend, filled with love and laughter. It’s been quite nice.
I went to my imaging appointment Friday. It also seemed quite routine, and entirely lacking in any stress or drama. I’ll probably have results tomorrow, the next day? Something like that. It hasn’t been on my mind since the appointment ended; I’ve been enjoying the here and now. The weekend.
I’ve got a few quite minutes to play with. I decide to write. I sat down thinking perhaps I had a thought worth sharing. I ended up watching videos of squirrels, guinea pigs, kittens, and… belly dancing. I know, weird assortment. I wasn’t looking to kill time, but managed to do so anyway. lol
Here’s a thing to know… I don’t know “everything”. Honestly, I know a fair few things, but I don’t put a lot of emotional investment into feelings of certainty anymore. It’s a waste of time to feel “certain” about most stuff; circumstances change, use cases change, recollections change, understandings change, hell – according to physics, it’s likely even reality itself changes. So… what the fuck do I know?? Damned little, when compared to the set of “all knowledge”, frankly. Why mention it? Because – my results vary. Yours will, too. Taking advice from random weirdos or “experts” on the internet isn’t reliably the best option if one is seeking knowledge. I’m just saying; read the fine print. Ask discerning questions. Listen to the answers to your questions. Practice non-attachment. Trust your gut feelings. Also be skeptical of things you “feel sure of” – those are also suspect. It’s a weird puzzle, this funny journey that is one human life. You can select some other human from all the available humans around and follow them… or… you can walk your own path. No map. Be your own cartographer. Test interesting practices yourself, and make your own decisions. It is an option. It’s potentially even your best option… depending on… a lot of things, including what sort of raw materials you’re working with intelligence-wise, emotional intelligence-wise (which may be more important that just “smarts”, by far), education-wise… and so many other resources and experiences that went into the you that you became over time. Can you trust yourself to be your own best friend, and also wise, compassionate, and willing to think critically? It’s a lot to ask, I know.
It’s easy to follow someone else. If they lead you astray, you don’t even have to take the blame for where you end up, eh? Soooo easy. On the other hand… there is so much freedom, and agency, and creativity, and opportunity, in walking your own path! …You just don’t know where you’re going to arrive, when you reach your destination. How could you? The journey is the destination. But, hey… would you have known, anyway? Maybe not. Not really – just a guess, or accepting someone else’s word for it.
Walking my own path has been (is) scary sometimes. No, I didn’t “get here” alone – there are other travelers walking their own hard mile, on their own journey, who happen to share some portion of my path as I walk. It’s good to have company, now and then. Perspective. The tales of travelers are often quite interesting – if not always 100% true. Walking my own path hasn’t amounted to solitude in any particular sense, it’s just a walk, a path, navigated largely on my own decision-making, but often in the company of others. I don’t ask them to follow me. I’m not following anyone else in any specific way. I often seek advice, sometimes I take it. Sometimes I don’t.
It’s a lovely Sunday to reflect on how far I’ve come in a decade. A worthy journey, indeed, and time to begin again. 😀
Evening Light 