It was sprinkling when I left the house, but it had stopped by the time I got to the trailhead. I walked down the wet trail, through the oaks and between the vineyard rows, as daybreak became a new day. A Tuesday, and an ordinary work day.
I make my way down the trail, around the bend, and along the creek. Gray morning. Looks like winter, feels like Spring. I meditate as I walk, stopping to write a few words along the way. I’ll resume walking soon. The morning feels shorter somehow.
… Shorter than what? I’m not certain…
I’ve got an entire new day ahead of me. It’s already time to begin again. I sigh to myself and get ready to finish my walk and get started on work. The clock is ticking…
… I sit a moment longer, enjoying this quiet moment, and wondering where this path leads…
It’s raining. The sound of the raindrops on the roof of the pickup truck sounds like someone’s fingers flying across a keyboard, typing out the words of some dramatic narrative very quickly. It’s just rain.
…It wasn’t raining when I left the house…
Change is. I sip my coffee, enjoying the moment as it is. Later, work, still later than that, contractors at the house for a maintenance task. Routine enough, not at all exciting.
This morning I woke to blazing bright lights; I had slept until my silent alarm went off (rare). The morning has felt a little surreal so far, as though it is only a template for an ordinary day, a placeholder for choices not yet made, experiences not yet determined, or… something.
My arthritis is bad today. My tinnitus is loud. My left shoulder hurts with fresh pain, recent but I don’t know what I may have done to injure myself there. My left foot vexes me, now that I think I know what’s up with that (a worn out boot), it just annoys me. It’s a difficult morning for pain. I look grimly out over the vineyard and sip my coffee. It is what it is, and it’s not new that the rain and chill make it worse. I shrug in response to the thought, and feel pain shoot through my left shoulder. A strained or torn muscle? Certainly possible. Meh. I let my mind move on.
Yesterday evening, my Traveling Partner commented that he thought he might have a fun solution to my challenge finding time and energy for painting, and a creative outlet that might satisfy my yearning to paint. He hands me a tablet with a stylus and an app on it specifically for digital art. I haven’t explored digital art much… Curious, I take it up a bit timidly, but I definitely did find some joy and creative satisfaction there. I’ll be exploring this more. It’s well-suited to “artistic tinkering” and has a lot of potential for more. My beloved was right; it really suits the way I approach early drafts of new ideas.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. The morning still feels like a placeholder for some other day or time, or some moment anticipated but not yet here. Funny. Strange. I stretch and sigh and prepare to begin a new day.
The rain made a peculiar sound as it hit the pavement, this morning, as I left the house. Like plastic pellets being dropped on the ground, more than raindrops. Sleet? Freezing rain? I started the truck and got a better look as once-snowflakes splatted against the glass making patterns and sliding away quickly. Not quite snow, not quite rain, and 35F (1.6C), which amounts to a relatively ordinary rainy winter morning in the Pacific Northwest, in February. Could be worse, but at this altitude it’s not likely to be much worse nor for very long.
I drive to the local trailhead to get a walk in, if there’s a break in the rain, and let my Traveling Partner sleep awhile longer.
I walked briskly with my thoughts, down the slick trail, past the lights and pavement, around the bend and past the bench at my halfway point. Lost in my thoughts, hands jammed into my pockets for warmth, I didn’t stop to write. I make it back to the truck with time to spare before the work day must begin. The gray sky doesn’t really look like snow. The temperature rises a degree with the sunrise. Doesn’t matter. I’ve got the truck today, I could get home even in a blizzard.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’m grateful for the mild weather. I make time for meditation, before I begin again.
I woke rather oddly thinking I was already awake, and uncertain how I “suddenly ended up” horizontal, wrapped in a comforter, on a soft surface, when I’d been contentedly seated at my desk, drinking coffee and writing – “finishing my book” – happy to be done with it. It was an odd sensation. For some minutes, the phrases I’d been typing (in my dream) were still lingering in my thoughts, becoming a sense that it would be a good topic to write about, and slowly dissipating from my recollection as dreams generally do.
Now, I’m up, out of the house, sitting with a cup of coffee and my thoughts, on a chilly Thursday. It’s not cold. 40F (4.4C) – so relatively mild for February. The whole season has been “relatively mild” in this location, although elsewhere, in many places, blizzards rage and snow piles up. I hope you are safe and warm, wherever you may be. I sip my coffee wondering how bad the fire season will be this year, having so little rain over the autumn and winter months, and so little snow in the higher elevations. Today’s forecast was precise as to temperature and quite accurate, but the car was frosted over in spite of the mild temperature. The morning manages to feel like it’s almost winter. Early Spring? Late autumn? The seasons “don’t feel quite right” anymore. I fear we’ve broken our planet beyond repair. This does not bode well for humanity, nor for many other creatures whose lives depend on climate. Scary. I’m no expert, and I’m not interested in succumbing to this or that whispered conspiracy, I just see what I see, and live my experience; this very mild winter can be expected to be followed by a difficult summer of wildfires dotted around the state. I’ll have to be very careful when and where I camp this summer, and plan on closely monitored very contained cooking fires (I like my Jetboil best).
I remind myself not to forget coffee!
I sigh to myself. I miss being out in the trees, listening to birds and chipmunks and forest breezes, and watching the sun rise and set filtered through trees that have seen more years than I have myself. I don’t have to wait on camping… I could drive out into one of several large wilderness areas and be among those trees in less than an hour, being fortunate to live approximately midway between the coast and Mt Hood National Forest. The thought jolts me back to this moment; today I have to take my car to the body shop to have the damage done on New Year’s Eve (day) repaired. I won’t have my Mazda for some little while. Weeks maybe? Days definitely. My Traveling Partner graciously offers me the use of his truck in the meantime, and it’s a dream to drive (so much so that I’m planning to buy that make of SUV to replace my Mazda when the time comes). So, today I’ll drop off the car, and he’ll pick me up in the truck. The work day will bookend that errand, and for the most part life will be remarkably unchanged – except tomorrow morning when I step out of the house and am reminded that my car is gone. I’m sure I’ll forget, until I see it missing. lol Very human.
Life is filled with adventure – and misadventure. Choices. Opportunities. Change. Getting hung up on some particular detail is often a poor choice. Mostly the details don’t matter to anyone else; they are having their own experience. We’re all in this together, in a grander sense, though we regularly forget that and start giving people on hard times side-eye, like we have never struggled, or fallen on hard times, or failed to choose wisely. Human beings can be jerks. We like to talk about “pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps” in spite of the practical matter that every one of us relies upon others, depends on others, and probably wouldn’t survive long isolated and utterly alone (think “no internet”, “no credit cards or banking system”, “no infrastructure”…). If you’re feeling quite smugly independent about your individual success, I’d like to point out that the infrastructure, delivery systems, and basic building blocks of your experience are not things you did “all by yourself”. lol
I sip my coffee and smile to myself. The morning feels relaxed and peaceful, and I realize one reason why that is; there is no background music playing this morning in this chain coffee shop. One less bit of noise to filter out as I sip coffee and consider life, this moment, and this woman that I most want to be. Nice morning for it. Chilly, though. I’m grateful for this hot coffee. I’m not too proud to drink branded industrial chain coffee from a Big Coffee Chain Cafe in my neighborhood. lol I don’t necessarily prefer it. I’m that coffee drinker who prefers carefully brewed freshly ground coffee from estate-grown varietal beans imported from the cradle of civilization…but will most definitely lick the bitter dregs out of a packet of instant coffee moistened with a tablespoon of tepid water rather than go without. LOL I have abruptly returned home from a camping trip I was excited about – broke camp and returned home less than 24 hours into it, after driving hours – over forgetting to bring coffee!
…Would I survive without coffee? Sure. Getting past the first few deeply irritating days without would be annoying, but I’d survive – I just don’t want to. I recognize that this is characteristic of addiction. I’m grateful it’s just coffee.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I consider logging into work tools and beginning that part of my day a little early, but I don’t have to; this moment is mine. I smile to myself happily. Nice moment, this. I sip my coffee and enjoy that feeling. So much less anxiety this morning. Like… none. I slow down and appreciate that, for what it is. I’m grateful. I’ve endured much over the past two years, and it’s been harder than I imagined it could be, and I’ve done more/better with most of it than I would have expected myself to be up for. Things are turning a corner. Change is. Hard times come and go. This too will pass. Impermanence is a characteristic of life – even our human lives, however much control we seek to exert over events. I don’t necessarily like that – I’m a big fan of stability and comfort and ease – but reality does not care about my preferences, and having an easy life was unlikely to turn up in the hand I was dealt; the odds were poor (still are for me, and for most human beings). I’m okay with “okay”. I’m grateful for my good fortune in life, wherever it finds me. Enough really is enough, although I sometimes have to pause and consider my blessings, and take a moment to be aware (again) of how fortunate I truly am. (Like anyone, I find a stupid about of bullshit to bitch about rather pointlessly some days.)
Walking my own path, one step at a time.
Crazy world we are living in right now, eh? There’s a lot of terrible stuff going on here in the US and in the world. What we say about it matters. What we do about it matters more, if we can be moved to action. Heroes will rise. Villains will fall. I feel hopeful this morning (probably because I am not looking at the news). I breathe, exhale, and relax, and prepare to begin again.
I get to my halfway point on this favorite trail before daybreak. Most of the walk thus far was in the gloom of nautical twilight, and it is a foggy misty morning on the marsh. There was a full moon visible when I started, but it was quickly swallowed by the clouds.
We don’t always walk a well lit path.
I walked with my headlamp on until the faint predawn light became enough to make out the path, then switched it off and let my eyes adjust. A dumb idea on an unfamiliar or poorly maintained trail, but this trail is very familiar, kept well, and free of debris or obstacles, generally. My steps crunched along in the dim light. The moon broke free from her cloud prison briefly and in the meadow I saw a herd of deer standing. They disappear into the fog as the moonlight is obscured by clouds again. I kept walking.
By the time I reach my halfway point, I’m wondering again if I may be coming down with another cold or something? I feel like I’ve worked hard to get so far. There is no opportunity to shorten my walk now – it’ll be the same whether I walk on, or turn back. I recall waking during the night, drenched in sweat, somehow still feeling cold, feeling chilled and woozy as I got up to pee. The covers were clammy as I wrapped myself in them again, never really waking up completely. I feel mostly okay, just sort of low energy with a little sinus congestion, which mostly passes as my morning allergy meds kick in. I sigh to myself, sitting on this fence rail at the edge of one of the marsh ponds, swinging my feet like a kid. A passing raccoon gives me a sideways glance, but doesn’t take any real interest, going her own way.
I sit quietly with my thoughts for some while before I pull off my gloves and begin to write. Just sitting here in the stillness before sunrise, I feel my “batteries recharging”.
I breathe, exhale, and relax and wonder what it might be like to feel recharged and energized through companionship and community. Life must feel very different for people who crave the company of others, even needing it profoundly to enjoy life at all. Although I do recognize the interconnectedness and social nature of human beings as creatures, my awareness of connectedness and dependency doesn’t seem to change my need for solitude. This is rarely a problem for me, these days; I have accepted who I am in this regard, and it does nothing to diminish my affection for those dear to me, nor reduce their importance to me. I just also have to take care to nurture myself, and make a point to get enough time alone. Without it my mental health quickly begins to suffer and I have more difficulty managing my PTSD, and my emotions.
I like walking as a metaphor for making a journey, or progress, or growth, or forward momentum in life. I like walking. Giving it some thought, I am aware that I’ve used “going for a walk” as a source of needed solitude for as much of my life as I can remember. It can be g’damned difficult to find solitude in a world of social creatures. I find a solitary walk exceptionally reliable for finding a moment or two utterly alone.
A new day dawns.
Daybreak comes. The fog on the marsh fills the low places. I stretch and sit awhile longer. Soon enough I will have to return to the world and begin again.
