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Like Ripples on a Pond

April 3, 2026 //
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Yesterday was busy. So busy. Changes. I took off work to help the Anxious Adventurer finish moving out. It was a lot of manual labor and by the time we were finished, I was “done” – but there is so much more to do.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

I’ve spent the past two years accommodating a relative stranger in our home. No ill will; it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I got used to a lot of compromises. Now… I’ve got my space back. My own bathroom once again, and my studio, my library… my peace. I’ve also got to deal with the changes, and it is a lot for me. So much upheaval, so suddenly.

Around 17:00 in the evening, I “hit a wall”, figuratively speaking. My feet were hurting. I was fatigued. I just couldn’t move one more thing and started weeping. My Traveling Partner, set up a lovely footbath for me, it smelled of orange blossoms. It felt wonderful. We relaxed together and watched a favorite show. He reminded me there is no hurry and to have fun with the process. I feel very loved and understood.

Last night we both slept well and deeply, through the night. That has been rare for the past two years. I woke to my alarm, also rare. My routine is a bit broken, but I’m adaptable as hell, and a new routine will quickly develop. This morning, though, was a bit chaotic. “Be careful what you wish for,” I muttered, as I wandered around looking for my boots.

… I still managed to be on the trail by sunrise, with plenty of time for my walk before work…

This morning my muscles are sore, and very few things are where I remember leaving them. There are paintings to rehang, and paintings in storage to bring home (to store in better conditions). There are work surfaces to return to my studio, and books to put back on shelves. It is all joyful work, really, but change still feels like a lot to take. For me, that’s a complication that exists at the nexus of brain damage and PTSD. I’ve learned to deal with it more skillfully than I once did. That’s not nothing. In fact, it’s an important improvement in my experience and I’m grateful for how much better this experience feels now, because of it.

… That, and having a partner who is willing to help, and to love me as I am…

One moment of many. Change is.

There’s so much yet to do. I’m okay with that, I just have to give myself time and some consideration. I sit with that thought at the side of this trail watching the dawn of another day. I’m grateful to see it. I’m even grateful for the joyful work ahead. I look up the path. It disappears around a bend. That’s a bit how life feels. Or, perhaps more like ripples on a pond after a stone is cast into the water? I consider that for some little while.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I meditate. I write. I enjoy the quiet of morning on this trail. I glance at the time and get to my feet. It’s time to begin again, and this trail won’t walk itself.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, joy, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, Words

What’s the Vision?

August 13, 2020 //
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The morning starts well. A soak in the spa. A hot cup of coffee. A soft gray daybreak. A great (explicit) new rap track. There’s so much potential in a new day. Later there’ll be work to do, maybe errands to run, effort to be exerted, or conflict to resolve, but right now? It’s just this quiet moment, early on a Thursday morning. I don’t know what the future holds in a post-pandemic world (or if there even will be a post-pandemic world for humanity, at all…). I don’t know who the next president will be. I don’t know what tomorrow has to offer. The future is undecided.

What do I want life to look and feel like? That’s a good question to ask, to answer, and then to reconsider. What quality would I want to characterize my general experience of life well-lived? My answer to that question has changed over the years. My understanding of “success” has changed. My understanding of “what life is about” has changed, too. What I want for myself – and of myself – has changed. I sip my coffee and think about that. Who does the woman in the mirror most want to be? What are those qualities that are most likely to ease me into the life I most want to live, long-term?

…I suspect I’m either “late to the party” on some of these questions, or simply prone to having this conversation with myself regularly, forgetting all about it, and having to do it again. 🙂 It feels a bit adolescent, but in my own adolescence I felt pretty sure of most things, in my grim angry cynical way. My level of “certainty” about life probably impeded my growth and forward progress, if only by preventing me asking some significant questions of myself. I’m okay with uncertainty these days – which is pretty useful, since there’s a lot of that around. lol

…It’s a nice morning for reflecting on life, over a good cup of coffee. Decent playlist, too. 🙂

I think about life in the context of this place, this dwelling, this address, this community – this is where I am. It’s been a complicated journey of 57 years. As my coffee begins to grow cold, I think about where this path may lead, accepting the uncertainties, embracing the practices that tend most to keep me on this path I’ve chosen. I feel fortunate, and make room for a moment of gratitude. It’s not that there haven’t been some terrible moments in life, some damage to heart and mind and body (some of which I feel even to this moment, now) – but those experiences don’t define me, now. They are not “who I am” – only what I’ve been through.

I think about a conversation with my Traveling Partner early in the week, about self-care, and my unfortunate lack of consistency in such things. He’s got a point, and I know that – and for every good practice I develop, there’s another I need to reinforce, and become more consistent with. It’s an ongoing thing (and why they are “practices”). I think about this day, ahead of me, right now. So far, so good. There’s more to it, and I can “do more/better” with my self-care practices. No criticism, no self-loathing – I’m not beating myself up over it, just reminding the woman in the mirror to make the worthy effort. It’s needful. It’s worthwhile. I benefit greatly from those moments, and am bettered for taking care of this fragile vessel with all the skill I have, and all the energy I can muster for it. 🙂

…New day, new beginning. Time to begin again.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, weight loss secrets

Let All That Go for a Minute

February 23, 2018 //
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I woke up angry this morning. I’m feeling pretty raw and bombarded by violent media imagery (recent school shooting, remember?), and omg, yet another round of craptacular memes masquerading as “truth” – that’s propaganda, folks. Memes aren’t cited, they aren’t fact-checked (and how would you know?), they aren’t held to any standard whatsoever of accuracy – do not get your fucking news (or your opinions, holy hell, seriously??) from god damned memes. lol Seriously. Read a fucking book. Read a bunch of books. Listen deeply, instead of waiting for your turn to talk.

Understand that your experience of life is not defining of life itself for all around you; they are also having their own experience.

It was my dreams. The world slid to shit and mayhem on the backs of pro and anti gun memes. lol It’s too much for me and I need a break. It’s literally a “problem” with a known and obvious solution (several of those) that we simply will not put in motion. It’s grim, terrifying, and fairly stupid of us as a society. Yep. Straight up saying it; we’re fucking dumb as dirt on the topic of firearms in America. I don’t need to say more than that; that is my opinion. Americans are not rational about firearms. Go ahead. Prove me wrong by being that rational American. Please. Definitely do that.

…And to the proud rebels out there concerned they may be unable to overthrow the government if they allow the government to take their guns, I have just one more thing to point out; that’s not how it’s done these days. Vote. Just fucking vote – and vote for people who will actually provide the nation with the legitimate necessary legislative support required, instead of a bunch of parasites making themselves wealthy on special interest handouts and stock tips. Maybe elect some folks who are not lawyers. Who are not rich. Who do not have a college education. Who are not white, not male. Not directly financially invested in the outcome of their decision-making. Damn. LOL How hard is that? Elect a government that looks like America – all of America. That’s how “representative” government works. Actually educate yourselves and learn to reason well and clearly, and have actual conversations about what you actually think, without relying on memes, labels, slogans, or name-calling. How many governments have been toppled in the past handful of decades without a citizen militia? More than one. Read a book.

Be kind to each other. It’s such a short mortal lifetime we live. There is no time for hate; it robs of us time we could spend enjoying love.

Begin again. (I sure need to…)

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, War and News of War

Start With One Step

August 6, 2017 //
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To change the world
It starts with one step
However small
First step is hardest of all
Once you get to your gate
You will walk in tall

by Dave Matthews Band

I start the morning with music. Yesterday was a good day of self-care, and housekeeping. Needful things. I woke feeling rested and cared for, with the smile left over from visiting my Traveling Partner still lingering at the edges of my mood. So far, another good day. These good days are not coincidental in my life, I build them with my choices, and my results vary. Oh, that’s not to say that circumstances can’t (they do) intervene and change the course of a day for the worse (or for the better), it’s just that over time I have learned how much power over the quality of my days I actually do have. It’s enough. It’s more than enough, generally.

Today is a work day. A day in a life. A day of choices and practices. A day of moments and opportunities. It could be any day of so many. Where will it take me? What will I do with it? Will it go to waste, lost among bad choices and disordered thinking? Will I build lovely memories from a quality experience? Will I commit to action, but find myself resenting it as “wasted time”, wanting instead to play? Will I snatch the chance to meditate in the evening from the waiting clutches of more moving in that could be done?

Last week was a reminder that my choices are my own, and that how I make them is what my week – and my life – are built upon. I all but gave up on self-care trying to force everything I thought needed to get done into the limited time I had available to me. I ended up exhausted, aggravated, and too tired to follow through on the entirety of my original plan for the weekend. Lesson learned? I’d like to think so, but it’s doubtful. I’m a human primate. I’ll need more practice. 🙂

Today I’ll meditate in the morning. I know this works for me. I’ll have any dishes started before I’m out the door. The bed will be made. The garden will be watered. I’ll have had my coffee, my oatmeal, a shower, brushed my teeth, and fed the fish. I’ll make a point of hitting the gym at work for some strength training, and get a good walk in over my lunch break. I’ll get home after work… and the evening will be mine. Then what? I don’t really know all that yet; I’m satisfied to have mornings more or less worked out at this point. lol

I notice I’m tugging at a jagged bit of cuticle. In the dry hot weather, my cuticles have begun to split in places. I fuss with the edges mindlessly, often. I try to stop that behavior when I catch it. The effort required is hard to adequately describe, even after a lifetime of partners, friends, and family members nagging me about it. I make the effort of will this morning. Put myself on pause. Actually fully mindfully stop myself… but then, I have to also stop writing, also go get the little cuticle nippers to trim that up so it isn’t so tempting… again with the damned verbs, right? lol Yep. There are always verbs involved, somehow this is true even of the things I want not to do.

Oh hey – it’s already time to begin again. 🙂

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Stalled

May 18, 2017 //
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I’m slow to wake up this morning, even though I woke quite naturally minutes before the alarm would go off. I almost fell asleep again. My night was restless, interrupted by wakefulness, disturbed by strange dreams of disappointment and sad surprise. The worst of those was surreal and hard to distinguish from “real” and I was glad wake to this world, here.

I had dreamt that my Traveling Partner stopped taking my calls, or coming around. We didn’t divorce… he just…sort of… drifted away and became inaccessible. He chose to distance me, but there was no resolution, no certainty. I woke feeling odd, rather than broken, feeling stalled instead of wounded, and mostly just fairly confused that such a thing could be – or that I could even imagine it. I returned immediately to sleep, and to further strange dreams.

It was a  weird night. This morning I am sluggish and my consciousness creeps along slowly instead of soaring. No headache for now, though, that’s nice. My back doesn’t feel unmanageably stiff, either. Also win and good. 🙂 My coffee is hot, tasty (well, for some values of “tasty”; if you don’t like coffee you would likely disagree). I still struggle to really “get going”. I think ahead to the weekend. The blues and grays of dawn sky filled with big fluffy clouds is breaking up and revealing the possibility of blue sky later. The not-yet-peach-or-pink lines of imminent sunrise silhouette the trees on the skyline. I think about hiking. I think about a piece of land I am looking at this weekend and wondering what the sky looks like from that vantage point? I think about the beach, and wonder when I’ll next see the sunset there. I get all the way to recollections of humid summer mornings of childhood, on the screened in porch, sipping root beer after swim lessons before I realize that my brain is “idling” in neutral. I’m just sipping coffee, gazing out at the sunrise contentedly, as recollections and daydreams flow through my still-waking consciousness. I could so easily return to sleep from here. lol

I begin again. I pull my spine erect and find healthier posture that improves the odds I’ll still be mostly pain-free at the other end of the day. I breathe deeply. I finish my coffee and dance to a current favorite piece of music. The day ahead is the last of the work week for me, now. Fridays and Saturdays will be my days off for some time to come. It’s a good fit for me.

As I wake more fully I feel myself vaguely yearning for… something. A moment. Something specific, but just out of reach… I miss my Traveling Partner. My unsettling strange dream finds me taking a moment to fully appreciate the joy in the relationship we share, and all the ways that we are “there for each other”. We’re planning to spend time together on an upcoming weekend (my birthday). I smile. No doubt that will meet many needs. 🙂 In the meantime, I do my own thing quite contentedly, eyes wide to the wonders that life reveals, and taking care of me. I do miss morning coffee together, or brunch… I’ll have to invite him to do that sometime soon. 🙂

The sun is nearly up. The sky is light, and shades of green, lawn, leaf, and tree, are varied and easily seen as distinct. Streaks of magenta, rose, and violet peep through the trees, separating the blue and grays of the lingering clouds from the blue sky trying so hard to take over the day. In an instant, the clouds are painted in hues of orange all along their underside; the sun has risen fully, just beyond what I can see – but I see the clouds. As I watch the sky change color like a Polaroid, I feel the energy of the day to come fill me up with eagerness.

There’s an entire day ahead!

I am awake. It’s time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being
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