I woke later than usual. No alarm. Sunday. I woke feeling genuinely better for the first time in many days. I got up, dressed, and slipped out of the house quietly.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
It’s been awhile since my Traveling Partner had a chance to sleep and wake without my (sometimes uncomfortable) presence first thing. I also prefer to wake alone and get myself together before I have to deal with people. Yes, even my beloved. I hope he sleeps in, and enjoys waking slowly.
I’m probably not yet up to a long walk, so I make a shopping list and head up the highway to a favored grocer to pick up a few things. I grab coffee on the way. I take my time with things. This is that delicate time between being ill and being entirely well where a morning of exertion could easily result in a relapse and days more being sick. I am taking my time. There’s no reason to rush.
Autumn is all around. I enjoy seeing the fall colors everywhere. I’m eager to take my recollections into the studio with me and paint thoughts of autumn, seasons, and change. A steady rain has been falling. My arthritis pain is well-managed and not vexing me. Good day to paint.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I finish my coffee and check my shopping list. It’s already time to begin again.
It’s Monday. 10 more Mondays left in the year. How wild is that?
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
It was an ordinary night. I slept through it, waking only once. I woke feeling rested, and also feeling as if I’d been away for quite a long time. 😂 It was a good weekend. I got home around noon and enjoyed hanging out with my beloved Traveling Partner. I missed him as fiercely as if I’d been quite far away. Funny how perspective can be quite different than reality.
Unpacking didn’t take long. I’m glad to be home. I was glad to take the weekend away to paint. I’m grateful for the opportunities. I’m grateful for my beloved’s support.
I yawn from the side of the trail. I’m not actually sleepy. I watch the stars awhile. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Daybreak is aways off yet. My nose is running. I reach for the tissues in my pocket. It’s all very ordinary. I think back to a conversation yesterday afternoon with my beloved, speculating whether or not we may have COVID or lingering head colds. Neither of us seem particularly ill, just a bit under the weather. The sinus congestion and this bit of an irritating cough do make me wonder, though. It’s going around. “What is?”, you might ask. “All of it”, I would likely reply.
Be safe, Readers, get vaccinated. (“Against what?”, you might ask. “Against everything”, I would likely reply.)
I sit watching the stars awhile longer. I think about love… And dinner? Seems premature, but it takes longer to figure it out on a glp-1. 😆 I’m barely interested in food, ever, a mild inconvenience. It does tend to make planning harder.
Chilly morning, but not really cold. I could happily go back to bed, cozy and warm, and wrapped in blankets. It is, however, Monday. It’s already time to begin again.
Interesting day. Art that I’m happy with and some good photos.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
I spent most of the day quietly contemplating some things my beloved has said recently, and some useful perspective offered by my therapist – and my own past writing. Sometimes having memory issues is almost comical, it’s often seriously frustrating, but in this instance it’s actually sort of useful. I can go back and look at my own experience of life, and take my own advice. 😆 I chuckle to myself, although I’m quite serious.
Good day of painting. Strange day of random human stuff. A drunken man raising hell by a nearby restaurant. He punched a woman in the face just a few steps from the hotel. The police were called. Nothing much came of it and the man along with the woman he’d struck retreated to their hotel room. There’s a strange woman on the second floor with a small pack of agitated tiny dogs on perpetually tangled leashes. They yap a lot. In the early morning, when I stepped out for a good quality coffee, the elevator was filled with fishermen and a very strange uncomfortable vibe. I ignored all of it, and kept to myself. I painted, and when I wasn’t painting, I was thinking about painting, and moving colors around in my paint boxes thoughtfully.
Later a bite to eat. Cold fried chicken. It was fine. I crashed pretty early, napped, and woke in time to watch the moon set. Nice interlude.
I catch myself yawning. Tomorrow I’ll head home. I miss my Traveling Partner, and I miss my studio! My beloved is right though; it isn’t so easy to do this kind of thing in the winter. I take a deep breath of the sea air. The last bonfire on the beach has gone out. The scent of wood smoke is dissipating.
I sit star gazing awhile after the moon sets. I think I’m seeing Antares, maybe? I sigh quietly and yawn. Beginning again can wait for the morning. I get a drink of cold water and head back to bed.
I’m okay, for most values of “okay”. It’ll have to do. It’s honestly not worth the effort to bitch about anything going on with me. Mundane stuff. How are you? I care and I’m curious. (Comment if you wish.)
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
I’m sitting at the halfway point on this hike, and probably life as well (if I’m lucky enough to be around to see 120-ish). I have felt as though I’ve been living life “at the halfway point” for awhile now, 15-20 years maybe. It has been a time of struggle, change, healing, and growth. I’ve made some good friends in this time, I’ve probably lost more.
…There’s never a guarantee that life’s scale would balance for me as an unremarkable individual human primate, one of many…
I breathe, exhale, and relax. The cycle is a simple one. My day begins. I do my best. I survive the experience. I sleep, wake, and begin again. And again. And again. Eventually, the sands of time will run out on this one mortal experience. I’ve no idea what’s after that – no one has come back to say. I sit with that thought awhile. Uncertainty. Impermanence. Change. Big ideas that seem smaller under the black night sky. Doesn’t matter. My time. My thoughts.
I meditate. Enjoy the mild autumn morning. Watch for daybreak. Write a few words. I’d rather be setting up my easel for another piece, but it’s a work day. I think ahead to the weekend. Soon.
This is one of those mornings that feels almost like a throwaway moment, “nothing to see here”, as if it were a rerun, and not because I have a routine. It’s more that the moment is unremarkable, which is true in all but one way; the very ordinariness itself. The gentle mundanity is so spectacularly strange feeling to me sometimes, I find it remarkable. Very little of my life has been gently ordinary. I don’t really know whether (or quite how) to enjoy it. I wonder how many such moments I have undermined with unnecessary drama or emotional bullshit in the past simply because I didn’t know how to deal with the ordinary?
I sigh to myself and notice the trees seem more obvious, silhouetted against the sky, than they did moments ago. Daybreak soon, I suppose. Another sigh. I get to my feet and stretch, looking down the path. It’s only a moment. I begin again.
I set off down the trail in the darkness. There’s a full moon shining through the trees, and the trail is muddy, which I did not expect.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
A full moon, a quiet morning.
My Traveling Partner is up early. He pings me several times. Conversation. I set expectations that the trail is muddy and lacks good stopping points where it follows the river. I still struggle not to respond to every message (from him, specifically) immediately. He returns with his own expectation setting; this is my problem to solve. He says he was hoping I’d stop responding to everything immediately and let him drink his coffee. 😆 Fucking hell, we’re an interesting pair. I turn off my ringer and continue walking.
… It’s definitely an improvement to give my full attention to the moment I’m in, and the trail I am on…
The moon sinks below the trees, and the darkness is …darker. It is spooky quiet on the trail this morning. There was one other vehicle at the trailhead this morning. Somewhere along the trail here is another person. I am alert and a little wary. I slip on a slick bit of mud and fallen leaves and stop for a moment to let my heartbeat slow back down to something more normal. That was scary.
I reach my halfway point still in darkness. No river picture this morning, not yet. It isn’t even daybreak yet. I sit thinking about my difficulty with disregarding that unique notification sound that means my Traveling Partner and no one else. There are times when it is hazardous or problematic in some way, to be texting. Sometimes it is important to hold focus on the task I am engaged with. Sometimes I may be having a conversation with a human being standing in front of me, or just juggling packages awkwardly. My beloved is such a high priority in my life, I forget everything else and grab my phone immediately when I hear that notification. This does need to be corrected (he’s right about that); it affects my safety, and he is no longer needing continuous care (barely ever needs help).
… Turning notifications off temporarily does work (very well), but sometimes I forget to turn them back on (very human)…
It’s not as if I don’t check my phone often enough when I can. This is fine. It isn’t worth stress. It doesn’t need a more complicated solution than turning off my ringer when I’m hiking, driving, or in a meeting. 😂
I sit with my thoughts in the dark. Now is a good time to check messages; I’m sitting still. 😆 A new message from my Traveling Partner assuring me he’s not mad and wanting to clarify that. A flurry of loving cute stickers follow. I like the stickers, they reinforce the message in a loving way. I find myself nodding and smiling. Sometimes communication is hard. This morning it’s easier.
Daybreak finally comes to this forested hollow on the riverbank. The trees around me take on a strange lacey appearance, silhouetted against the paler blue-gray of the dawn sky. It still feels quite dark. The call of an owl somewhere nearby seems to agree. I hear footsteps (and a dog?) coming down the slope of the trail, just beyond the next bend, and draw back into the shadows reflexively.
I hear a male voice. He becomes visible as he comes around the bend, just a guy and his dog, leashed. I relax a bit, and I’ve forgotten I am camouflaged by the shadows. He’s almost even with me when the wind changes and his dog alerts on my presence and gives a woof and halts. I’ve clearly startled the crap out of this guy, because he exclaims “Oh fuck! You startled the crap out of me there!” “I’m sorry I startled you,” I reply, “and good morning! How are trail conditions further on?”, I ask, hoping to make things feel more normal once more. He relaxes. “Don’t mind Cody here, he’s friendly,” he says, “trail’s okay, a little muddy.” I thank him and he continues on his way with a wave.
I sit awhile longer, watching the sky turn blue, and the trees green and gold, and hues of autumn, as daylight comes. I’ll give the sunrise a little time to light the trail, before I begin again.
