My morning is off to a weird start. I woke to my alarm – rare, I’m usually up earlier. I had forgotten to lay out clothes for today, so had to pick something before I was quite awake (the result being that my earrings don’t seem right to me for the outfit I’m wearing). I left the house feeling rushed, but it had been raining through the wee hours and watering the lawn this morning was unnecessary, so my timing wasn’t off by more than minutes. Perspective and subjective lived experience continue to collide.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
I woke with a poignant love song in my head. It’s the sort of song that can haunt my thoughts for days. It carries so much more meaning and heartfelt understanding of love than some trash pop song. I walk hearing the refrain in my head, grateful to love and be loved.
There’s a strong breeze blowing. Feels like it’ll probably rain more. My bones ache everywhere that arthritis has settled in, and fuck you if you’re perceiving that complaint as a sign of aging. 😆 My arthritis developed in my spine before I ever saw my 30th birthday. It’s been more than thirty years of this shit. (It has worsened and spread with age, over the years though, that’s real.) I could definitely do without being able to predict a rainy day from the way my bones feel, in favor of less pain. Weather forecasting is not a worthy trade off, and not usefully accurate.
I walk on down the soggy path after standing a few minutes at my halfway point. Everything is soaked. No dry place to sit. I walk a bit. Stop. Write a few words. Walk on. It is a different perspective on a Spring morning. It is quite chilly, too. I’m grateful for the warmth of my birthday sweater. A good choice for a chilly rainy morning. I keep walking.
The rain starts and stops, as if uncertain what the day holds, like the pattern of my steps. I don’t know what the day holds either. 😆 Bits of blue sky show through the clouds here and there, and the breeze through the tops of the oaks sounds like ocean waves. The tree tops seem to wave good morning as I pass. For these mature giants to toss about in this effortless seeming fashion, though, implies a real world hazard – branches may break unexpectedly and fall. It happens enough to feel like an ordinary risk, there are downed branches on the trail here and there, but it would be pretty serious if one fell on me.
I happen upon a partially sheltered rock dry enough to sit on and stop for a few minutes. I still feel as if my timing for the day is off somehow. It isn’t, at all. Clear awareness that the feeling and the reality are not aligned makes my anxiety flare up briefly – until I remember how very subjective an individual experience of life and “reality” actually can be (and often are). It’s a nothing moment and my anxiety recedes, slinking away into the background as if ashamed of the half-assed effort.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I take a few minutes for meditation, and to finish up my writing. I break out in a sneezing fit, because of course I do – can’t have a proper Spring morning without allergies, eh? I’m laughing at myself, because I really expected the rain to rinse all the pollen from the air. That’s what comes of holding on to expectations. I’m glad I stuffed a pack of tissues in my pocket. My last one – I pause to add them to my shopping list for my next trip to the store.
I get to my feet to finish this walk and get on with the day. It’s already time to begin again.
