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Here We All Are

June 28, 2026 //
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It is a gray rainy summer morning in the Pacific Northwest. Nothing particularly unusual about that. The temperature this morning is a mild 14C/58F. Comfortable. A muscle up the back of my right thigh is aching painfully. I mostly ignore it, but approach a favorite weekend trail from a different trailhead, with fewer hills. The more level ground is an easier walk.

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

What’s your moment like? I wonder briefly how it is we each have our own experience, living our individual “now” moment, like pages in a book; so similar at a glance, such differences in the details, and still so common and familiar we are able to understand each other.

I walk with my thoughts, feeling a delicate spatter of occasional raindrops on my face. Not enough to call it “raining”. The marshy places are barely damp now, replaced mostly with meadow until the heavy autumn rains return. The tall grass is already brown. Most of the wildflowers are fading, dropping seeds for next year’s Spring bloom. The trees in the distance are many hues and shades of green, looking fresh and lush from where I stand.

Doesn’t matter where you are, you’ve got to start somewhere, and that somewhere is where you are.

There’s a delicious spicy herb-y floral scent that I specifically associate with Oregon. I don’t know what it is. I love the scent of Oregon. Meadow, marsh, forest, dunes, desert, savannah…it hardly matters to me. I love the places I have seen and been and traveled through. Oregon is special to me, though I have trouble being clear as to precisely why. Of all the places I have lived or visited, Oregon is one of only two that draw me back again and again (the other is “the Eastern Shore” region of Maryland, with her marshy flatlands and peaceful coves). It’s not that I don’t like (and even love) many other places, it’s more that these “two” (Oregon is pretty vast to be a single place) call to my heart to come on home.

I get to my halfway point feeling a soft gratitude just to be alive, existing, and able to experience the simple joy of a summer morning. Uncomplicated. Unbothered. From my perch on a fence rail, I watch a multitude of little birds flit about. They have their own way of enjoying the morning. I breathe, exhale, and relax. This feels like enough. Right here. Now.

…I am, of course, overlooking all the corruption, drama, and harmful bullshit going on in the US, and around the world. I’m ignoring, for the moment, all the violence and genocide. Drone warfare. The bombings of civilian targets. The fuckwittery of our gerontocracy. The obscene greed of billionaires. The commonness of hate speech and incivility. It’s much. We all need to take steps to preserve our individual peace, and our resilience; the future of humanity may depend on our persistence and endurance. This isn’t a sprint. I sigh quietly and let all that go, again, for awhile…

I spent a couple hours in the studio this weekend. I may go back for more. Painting fulfills something for me that nothing else does. It is soul-nurturing, healing work.

“Summer Sunrise, McMinnville June 2026”

I gaze across the meadow observing the changing light and thinking about palette choices, shade, tint, and hue. How best to capture a misty rain drenching a summer meadow, I wonder? I sit watching until the rain reaches me, then laugh with delight when it finally does, as if surprised. It passes by quickly, leaving me a bit damp, glasses spattered.

I grin at my happy predicament. I don’t mind the rain. I get to my feet and stretch. The trail through the meadow beckons me, and it’s time to begin again (already?).  This, here, now, is as good a moment as any to take a next step, to choose, to walk on, and to begin… but really, anywhere is, it’s simply necessary to begin. To walk on. The clock is ticking.

What are you going to do about it?
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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, art and the artist, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, War and News of War, Words

A Hint of Fog

June 11, 2026 //
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The morning mist caught me by surprise. No reason it should, I suppose; the temperature warmed in the wee hours after several cool Spring days, and today is expected to be hot (27C/80F). Tomorrow is forecast to be even hotter, and there is an extreme heat advisory.

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

The sunrise began with a ferocious heat-threatening diffuse orange. Pretty, although I’m not looking forward to the heat or increased wildfire risk. I remind myself to drink plenty of water.

Beautiful sunrise, hot day ahead.

The mist clings to the low places, gathering in near the rivers and creeks mostly. It envelopes me as the trail turns to wrap around the vineyard, leading me down closer to the creek that runs adjacent to the trail. As I walk I wonder if maybe I should have worn a fleece or my cardigan? It’s not hot yet. 😆 I’m chilly, in spite of walking.

I get to my halfway point and stop to write and reflect. It is Thursday. (Already?) Tomorrow is my birthday, 63. (Already?) I’m taking a few days off, an entire week. My Traveling Partner is in the middle of an important work project. He encouraged me to consider fucking off for a couple days, and I make plans for a couple nights on the coast. It’s nice to have that kind of freedom. I feel very loved. So far this is an extraordinary birthday celebration. Yesterday he gave me another book – and I’m thoroughly delighted – Barbara Walters “How to Talk With Practically Anybody About Practically Anything”, which I’ve wanted for a long time. It was a surprise that it is also a first edition in excellent condition.

There is so much more to find within the pages of a book than mere words on pages.

… I’ve got a lovely stack of books to read…

…63?

I don’t “feel my age”. I’m not sure I gave much thought to what being 63 would feel like, though. I feel more or less as I’ve always felt. The feeling of age or aging only hits me when I notice my capacity for manual labor is less than in my twenties, or I happen to take a longer look at my hands. “Aches and pains” don’t signal age for me; I’ve lived with serious chronic pain since my twenties. There’s some gray in my hair. Arthritis that was limited to my damaged spine for a lot of years turns up in my joints now, too. But, generally speaking, 63 feels like any other year. I will probably enjoy it every bit as much as I’ve enjoyed 62. 😆 The clock is ticking, but mostly I don’t notice.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. Pretty morning for meditation. The morning sun lights the trees along the trail. The mist begins to thin and fade away. There’s a whole new day ahead, then my birthday.

I happily contemplate a couple days on the coast as the weekend wanes… I’ll set off early, after I water the lawn in the morning. I’ll pack light, maybe bring my pastels, and load the car the night before. I’ll be gone just as the sun rises, probably, and I know my Traveling Partner will miss me – that’s part of the point. Having that chance to miss each other prevents us taking each other for granted, over time. I anticipate the joy of walking miles of beach in the cool morning breeze, and enjoying an iced coffee at some choice spot to sit and listen to the waves caress the shore, and the gulls calling to each other overhead. There’s a fantastic bagel shop near a beach I like, and I look forward to a fantastic bagel on the beach. It’s the kind of small delight that I savor. They add up to an immense quantity of joy, over time.

I smile contentedly. The best part about a couple days of solitary time away is returning home to a cozy life filled with love. I’ll never be wealthy but I feel rich; I have love.

I take a deep breath of the cool morning air and taste the scent of flowers. Summer is coming. I look down the trail amazed by how far this journey has taken me. 16 years ago I could not imagine being actually happy, like, at all, ever. I figured settling for surviving my life would be the best I could do. I’m grateful to have given myself a chance to continue on. I would not trade this life as it is for any other. My first real glimpses of happiness left me more confused than appreciative; I was ignorant of real lasting love, and certainly had no skill at being happy when happy moments turned up. It took practice just to accept the possibility of happiness. There was still so much chaos and damage to sort out. So much to learn about love and loving. There’s still more to learn even now. I’m okay with that. The journey is the destination and I’m traveling in very good company.

I glance at the time and the clear blue sky. It’s time to walk on. It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Interference Patterns

May 16, 2026 //
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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.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, inspiration, Logic & Reason, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, women, Words

Chilly, Early

April 17, 2026 //
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It is a Friday morning. I’m sitting at the halfway point of my morning walk. I sat here for some little while before I pulled my hands from my pockets to write. This morning I made a point to grab my heavy fleece, scarf, and gloves from my gear bin in the car. Practical. I’d feel smart to have done so, but it’s more to do with being reminded they are there for me, last night, when I went looking for a spare filter cone for an evening coffee for my Traveling Partner who had put the ceramic one in the dishwasher.

… Reminders are helpful…

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

I feel the cold. Another near-freezing morning, but already daylight (jeez, how long was I sitting?) and things will warm up pretty quickly. Probably. Change is, and warmer days are coming.

I take my medication on time, double-checking that I took all of it. I missed a small pill yesterday morning that resulted in an unfortunate (and deeply unpleasant) emotional meltdown over nothing of consequence. It was inexplicable, and I was grateful to discover my mistake a little later, and felt more myself shortly after taking it. I think there is too little discussion about the very real psychiatric and mind or mood altering effects of common prescription (and nonprescription) drugs. We could do better.

A small herd of deer quietly and slowly walks past me, one by one. The group of does steps from the trees on the creek side of the trail, each looking at me cautiously as she steps into the more open space, and they cross the trail, and continue into the vineyard, nibbling on choice grasses and tender green shoots. Spring. They’re hungry and lean from winter, and a couple are also clearly pregnant. They are more concerned with finding food than they are with my quiet presence. They walk on, and disappear from view.

My Traveling Partner offered to disappear for the weekend. Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. I feel very loved that he offered. I could fuck off to the coast, myself, and get some solitary time, but the expense is difficult to justify. I sit thinking about things he said yesterday evening about self-care and taking the time I need, and setting better (clearer) boundaries when I’m reaching the limits of my resources. He reminded me that he no longer needs the near-continuous care I was providing after his surgery. This is definitely true. I’m relieved and happy every time I think about it. I’m also struggling to adjust, to step back, to give myself a break.

…We become what we practice…

I sit reflecting on what I need, myself, to be well and healthy, and to thrive in my life. I remind myself how adaptable I am. I remind myself that we become what we practice. I sigh quietly and watch the vapor of my breath dissipate in the chilly morning air.

… Maybe a drive to the coast and coffee on the beach this weekend, if my beloved stays home? Or a very different sort of self-care in the form of some retail therapy? (I could do with some new bras, and prefer to shop for such things in person.) Maybe a different hike somewhere new? Another sigh. No idea. I could stay home and paint, or finish tidying up my studio… I could work in my garden. I feel the “want to’s” begin to collide with the “have to’s”, and feel annoyed with myself when they blend and blur and begin to morph into more of the same scrambling and striving and working that I’ve trapped myself in for awhile now. I should work on that.

I laugh out loud. Adulting is hard. I’m tired. I’m also making choices. I can make different ones. I get to my feet, looking down the trail into the future. It’s time to begin, again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Some Monday

April 13, 2026 //
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I am awake. I’m groggy and clumsy with sleepiness I haven’t been able to shake off yet. Initially, I wasn’t sure what woke me from my deep sound sleep. I rarely get such sleep. I struggled to sit up, to disentangle myself from the hose of my CPAP mask. When I sat up the room was dark. What the hell woke me? I had a vague recollection of hearing my name called, and trying to understand what was being said to me.

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

I got up, dressed, and left the house, still wondering what woke me. My Traveling Partner messaged me on the way out. It wasn’t an apology for waking me. It was information about his poor sleep through the night. Context? The timing suggests he did indeed wake me, and it’s pretty close to my usual time, anyway. I shrug it off, yawn, and pull out of the driveway. Maybe my walk in the fresh Spring air will wake me more thoroughly?

… Sucks that he had a bad night, though…

I sat stupidly at the trailhead, in my car, for rather a long time before I was clearheaded enough to recall that taking actual steps would be required. I just wasn’t awake. Once I noticed I was “stalled”, I grabbed my cane and set off down the trail, my mind still quite foggy.

It’s a beginning.

Down the trail, past blooming cherry trees, and tall oaks. Past vineyards with tall green grass growing between the rows. Along the creek and the strip of forest growing along the bank, I walk listening to the loud calls of the robins and softer calls of a variety of small brown birds. Eventually, I reach my halfway point and stop for a moment. Mostly awake by this point, I sit and write, meditate, and reflect. New day, new challenges…

… Lovely weekend, now over…

It is a Monday. No dread, really, but little enthusiasm, either. I’m here. I’m ready to do the things, but the day ahead doesn’t fulfill any particular purpose of my own. It’s a job. I do the work, collect a paycheck, and live my life. I chuckle to myself, without merriment. Humanity could do better than this.

I sigh to myself. The air tastes sweet and I wish I were headed for some destination, and not to a desk and a digital workspace. I’d rather be at my easel or in my garden. I’d rather be sleeping in or drinking too much coffee at some sidewalk cafe in some forgotten little beach town somewhere, or hanging out with friends beside a crackling fire. This is not that time and I let it go. Clinging to some other moment or some desired moment that is not now robs me of the chance to savor this one. I smile and look at the many signs of Spring around me. A carpet of tiny yellow flowers in the grass beckons me to sit awhile… The clock is ticking, though, and I’ll soon have to begin again. It is, after all, a Monday.

One moment of many, insignificant by itself.

I get to my feet with a sigh, a yawn, and a sneeze, and turn to head back down the trail the way I came. It’s time.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, Words
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