Yesterday was… complicated. A busy, vexing work day kept me at it much later than usual. Rare for me. The afternoon’s timing was thrown off by what seemed like a very poorly timed manicure appointment, when the day had come. The evening was mostly pleasant, but neither my Traveling Partner nor I were great company. I retired early, slept deeply, and woke to a new day.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
I started down the trail just as daybreak started to become sunrise.
A new perspective, a new chance to begin, again.
The sunrise got a beautiful start. I took a moment to watch the colors develop, then started down the trail.
Mt Hood in the distance.
I walked with my thoughts, breathing in the scents of Spring. I’m still yawning. I keep walking.
Staying relaxed and mostly unbothered yesterday was helpful. “Routine chaos, nothing to see here” mostly describes the day pretty well. “We become what we practice,” I think to myself with a smile. Perspective matters. I keep walking.
I walked on past my halfway point this morning, and stopped a bit further on. There is an unpaved “not a road” bit of an agricultural access road through the vineyard and today I stopped there, to write and watch the sun rise. I’ll take that path through the vineyard (is there a precise word for the opposite of a “shortcut”? this path makes the walk slightly longer) and come out on the far side, which is between the main access road into the air museum grounds and the highway. Walking back towards the car will be an interesting difference (I mean, for some values of interesting).
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I meditate. I write. Good morning for it. I get to my feet to begin again. I don’t know what today holds, and I’m okay with that uncertainty. It’s a lovely moment in an all too brief mortal lifetime, and it is enough.
In the news, grifters go on grifting, the president of the US openly engages in what looks like insider trading, greed continues to shove AI “features” into tools where no one wants it, and people who already have much continue to take more from people who have very little. It’s not exactly humanity’s finest hour. Measles. Hantavirus. Ebola. All pretty bad. You know what’s worse? Genocide. War. Greed.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
Where does this path lead?
Do better. If nothing else, we can, as individuals, choose to do better than billionaires and authoritarian jackasses. We can stop chasing dollars, and take a long look in the mirror, and question the path we are on. Are you on the path to becoming the person you most want to be? Will you live a life you can be satisfied with, ethically, or will you go to your grave reviled by all those whose lives you damaged?
I’m not telling you what to do. I don’t have easy answers. I’m human, too. I want the safety of knowing the bills are paid, that my family is in good health, and the pantry is stocked. I want the luxury of an occasional meal out, new hiking boots when these wear out, and comfortable clothes that fit. We probably all want something. I’m not here to sneeze on the things that matter to you. We’re each having our own experience. I just don’t see many billionaires doing good things for the world by design. $100 of philanthropy does not make up for $100 in damage to humanity. It doesn’t work that way. That’s not “doing good” in the world, that’s just fixing a pothole caused by one’s own endeavors. Performative guilt-soothing “good” isn’t a benefit to humanity once the damage is done.
Sometimes human primates are very disappointing. (Looking your way Altman v. Musk) Shoving “AI” garbage into the experiences of people who just don’t want it is not good for humanity. It’s just another cash grab by out of touch assholes who think their perspective is the only one that matters.
I sigh to myself and pause on the trail to watch the sun rise. A beautiful sunrise never disappoints. I breathe, exhale, and relax, and fight off the existential angst I woke with. It’s not as if my bitching is changing anything. (Sorry.) I do dislike seeing humanity’s potential actively being undermined by AI slop and enshittification. It truly sucks to see humanity come so far to fall so hard, so fast.
…It does feel (to me) as if we’re falling (sometimes)…
It’s a chilly morning on the trail. The air tastes of something almost autumn-like. It’s still Spring, so it seems strange to taste autumn in the air… but… I think we may have broken our planet, along with other destructive outcomes of human douche-baggery. I sigh, and watch my breath become vapor.
I reach my halfway point and stop for awhile. A warmer fleece would have been a good choice, but relative to genocide or drone strikes, it’s a minor inconvenience, nothing more. I’m well aware that the world I live in is bigger than this peaceful place betwixt small town living and agriculture. I just can’t stomach what I see going on in the world, and this small personal escape each morning to find a moment of contentment, perspective, and solace in solitude is a practice that keeps me from losing hope.
For a moment I can focus my camera on clear blue sky and rest my soul.
A startled possum out for a late one waddles past in a hurry, sticking to the shadows. Strange to see one out in the open in daylight, but she’s clearly more worried about getting home than anything to do with me. Noisy robins get on with the morning. The clock keeps ticking. My head aches and my tinnitus is almost loud enough to mask the sound of HVAC on a nearby building. I sigh out loud just to remind myself that the tinnitus isn’t “real” at all.
What I put my attention on directly determines the quality and character of my experience. I pull myself back to this moment, here, now. I make myself a note about this moment, and the day ahead, and something to do with free will and choices and walking my own path. Then I begin again.
Why do I keep coming back to this place? Surely it isn’t just convenience, ritual, or nostalgia? (I mean… but it could be though…)
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
I think about it for a long while, maybe instead of the thoughts I may have thought brought me here. Too long, maybe, between chapters of “A Canticle for Leibowitz”, which I was finishing, and pages of “The Conspiracy Against The Human Race “, which I am only just beginning, both of which feel significant and well-timed. Cycles and patterns in life and living occur often in this mortal experience. I watch the waves of the ebb tide reach the shore, and return to cross and mingle with the next row coming in. It is late afternoon.
Waves against a rocky shore.
I consider the phenomenon of the double slit experiment, and of watching the ripples of water expanding out from a stone cast into the shallow water at the edge of my grandfather’s pier on Weems Creek on a summer morning. Interference patterns fascinate me endlessly. Interference is a subtle thing, natural and irresistible, and perhaps that is why I come to this place, to listen to sea breezes whisper truths that might escape my awareness in the busy-ness of life, as I contemplate the patterns in the waves as they reach the shore?
Sometimes I just need quiet and solitude – some time alone to “hear myself think”. I have been needing it so much lately, I guess, that any effort to do something else has been met with a feeling of profound discontent, and a sense of resisting what is needful, as if I were interfering with my own sense of purpose. What feels useful and right is to sit gazing out at the sea, or to relax with a coffee by the fire. My initial reluctance to fully yield to “wasting my time” on nothing more (or less) than my own thoughts quickly passed once I yielded to it without reservation (or interference).
I sit with my thoughts. That is, after all, what I come here for. What I came here for this time, too.
The medium brown strands of my hair fall in waves down my bosom. There’s not much gray. The auburn highlights sparkle where the afternoon sun reaches me through the window, hinting at red-headed-ness in my ancestry. One notable indulgence on this trip will be a long overdue haircut with a stylist I really like. I didn’t plan ahead, and I am grateful she was willing to make an appointment for me on a Sunday morning, just before I return home.
… Shit. I miss my Traveling Partner. The poignant feeling of loss and absence strikes me hard, abruptly. Yeah… I come here alone also to escape the subtle interference patterns of love, too. It’s a bit harder to focus on me when my heart is focused on my beloved. Here, for a couple of days, my thoughts are truly my own, entirely. At home, and this is not a criticism, my thoughts and the very fabric of my life is woven and intertwined with his. Every thread connects the two of us. My heart shifts gears now, from missing him to feeling incredibly loved. His love gives me ample room to step away, care for myself, and return more whole and more capable, and more able to partner with him in this life we share. That’s so beautiful…
I smile and set aside writing for some other moment, and return to my thoughts.
(Some time later)
My thoughts became, at some point, an unexpected nap listening to the waves through the open window. I woke, soon enough to think about some dinner and a bit more reading. I exchange welcome words with my beloved. He misses me. I am missing him too. Tomorrow is soon, and I’m looking forward to his embrace when I get home.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I sit in the evening light, watching the day dwindle away to night. Tomorrow I’ll begin again.
I am sipping a really terrible coffee, looking out over the ocean at low tide. Funny, I’m in the room right next to the room I had on my last visit here…but the view is diminished (one window instead of three side-by-side), and the coffee is terrible. My results vary. Yours will, too, most likely. It’s a very human experience.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
Low tide, sunrise, western horizon.
I’m still drinking the coffee, as terrible as it is. I’ll go out for better, later, but for now this will do. I am still enjoying the view from this room. It’s beautiful. No complaints, and no need to journey elsewhere to see the sea. Surely, I’ll see more, and from other viewpoints, later today, but for now this is quite enough. This room is somehow smaller than the one next door (and no kitchenette, just a coffee machine and a mini-fridge). Doesn’t much matter; I’m not here about the amenities, I’m here to relax with my thoughts and reset myself, my thinking, and my approach to the day-to-day, hoping to come home feeling refreshed and energized, and somehow more myself than when I got here.
…Will that work? Maybe? It has before…
Here on the seashore I feel my Dear Friend’s presence and my Granny’s. Both women loved coastal places. Whenever I was low, talking with my Granny on the phone from some distant place, she would say “You should come to the shore, Sweetie, and take a rest from all that. It’s just noise in your head. Come listen to the birds, and feel the breeze on the marsh. We’ll take a drive into town and have crab cakes.” I’d often laugh, just feeling relieved to be heard. I couldn’t go as often as I would have liked, but on those occasions that I did, it saved me.
I sip my terrible cup of coffee, marveling at just how really awful it is. The morning sun begins to light up the distant clouds, high in the sky. Beautiful. A seagull stands on the bit of ground between the window and the straight drop to the beach, and looks into the window at me. The ocean is a sleek polished aluminum gray, breaking on the rocky beach in waves of white foam, shining with reflected light. I could sit at this window and watch this views for many uninterrupted hours – even with this gull standing there watching me, as if expecting I might toss some tasty morsel his way. It is windy today (yesterday, too), and it’s expected to be rainy, too. I don’t even mind. Storms make for dramatic skies, and rain means a good night’s sleep (for me).
I sigh to myself. This coffee is even worse once it’s begun to go cold. I chuckle to myself. It’s a good indication that it’s time to begin again, perhaps? The tide is as its lowest, and the tide pools here are something special. My clothes are already laid out. A walk on the beach, then a proper cup of coffee sounds like a lovely start to the day. I let go of my expectations; there is no sense in clinging to what I do not yet know. I already know that change is, and that my results may vary. I’m walking my own path, and that’s enough for this moment right here, now.
I finish this coffee, and think kisses at my Traveling Partner. He’s having his own experience – I hope it is a good one.
Sometimes it’s necessary to do a “reset” and update some settings. I gaze into the little strip of trees along the creek bank. It’s hard not to notice the apartment buildings on the other side. I sigh to myself, frustrated by this feeling of my consciousness being encroached upon. There’s a certain lasting fatigue that seems to linger even after a good night’s rest. I fight it unsuccessfully with sleep, meditation, healthy breaks from work, half-assed attempts at boundary setting… I need to “reset my OS” (metaphorically speaking).
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
I’ve got a room booked on the coast for the weekend, and a couple of meetings I can’t dodge between now and hitting the highway heading for a sunset ocean view. My Traveling Partner is right; I need a break, and I also need to reset my understanding of what he’s capable of, now. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Nice morning for it. I haven’t even packed yet. I rarely do anything so spontaneous. I chuckle out loud to myself, and hearing the sound, I am struck by how much it resembles my Mother’s laugh, and my Granny’s. I smile. I’m okay with that.
I got home last night after some quick grocery shopping, to discover that my beloved had cleaned the house more or less top to bottom over the course of the day. He’s clearly less disabled than he has been. I’ve got to stop behaving as if he needs continuous assistance with everything. It’s not true, and I am myself made of mortal flesh. I’d do well to recalibrate and adapt to the new normal. As I think the thought a wave of relief washes over me. I’ve worked so hard to care for him, and endured much. I’m due a bit of a break and he’s surely due the opportunity to simply be, without my constant worried fussing.
“Baby Love” blooming by the front door.
A simple question remains; will the damned deer ever stop eating my fucking roses?! Oh. “No.” The answer is no. 😆 But that’s not the question. The actual question is; can I get myself to slow down and care for myself, for real? Buy a couple new bras that actually fit? Get my hair cut? Maybe sleep in? Spend a day painting without distractions? Shop without anyone else in mind? It’s not at all easy to give up all the caregiving habits that were so much a part of the last two years. It is now necessary to complete the process of shifting gears again, back from steadfast accommodating caregiver to partner, friend, and lover. I am relieved and grateful… And I need a break to care for myself and update my thinking.
“Rainbow Happy Trails” blooming, too.
… And the deer will go on eating my damned roses, because they are having their own experience and care nothing about the circumstances of my human life…
“Whimsy” finally blooms for the first time since I planted her.
For real though, I’m glad I got some pictures of the roses in bloom yesterday, because this morning the flowers are all gone. I sigh to myself. Life isn’t perfect; it’s a journey. The journey is the destination. (And deer eat roses.) I’m not even bitching (well, maybe a little), by most definitions, things are okay. Hell, I’m making a little weekend getaway to the coast happen on very short notice. That feels good even if the price of gas is still eye poppingly expensive. $5.33?? Are you kidding me with this shit? Ffs, take his toys away and put that senile old clown on a fucking time out. 😆
The sun rises behind me. A low mist in the vineyard hints at a cooler morning. It may be chilly on the coast. I remind myself to pack a warm sweater and wear my fleece. I smile, feeling light. It’s time to begin again.
Evening Light 