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Living, Loving, Learning

June 8, 2026 //
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I woke early, but later than usual. I didn’t sleep deeply through the night, but I got the rest I need and I feel pretty good aside from a predictable amount of arthritis pain; I woke to a rainy Spring morning, no surprise. I reach the trailhead delighted that the rain is still a sprinkle that won’t slow me down.

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

… What an excellent weekend…

My beloved gave me a couple more birthday gifts and I’m feeling so loved by this twist on a birthday celebration (instead of gifts all at once on the actual date that is my birthday, a gift every day of the 12 days leading up to it). It’s been lovely to receive some books, too – one replacing a book lost when I left an ex, one to instruct me on the basics of chess, others that I’ve been wanting very much to read. Books are an amazing gift for anyone who enjoys reading. I make a neat stack of the books I haven’t yet read. They’ll be properly shelved once they are read, one by one.

New software for my operating system. 😆

Seriously, I really like books. I read. I definitely find it more useful to read from bound books. Reading on digital platforms and devices doesn’t seem as effective for learning or comprehension, somehow, at least not for deep learning. It’s more a quick lookup resource suited to answering a question or finding information. From there, if I’m interested in a deeper dive, I go to bound books.

As I walked I reflected on the books that have meant most to me over the years. I have most of those, on one shelf or another. My books are among my most cherished possessions.

There’s more to life than what can be found between the pages of a book.

I get to my halfway point still smiling. The sprinkle of rain threatens to become more then gives up. It’s an ordinary enough Monday. I smile thinking about the weekend. I got in some lovely miles on beautiful trails. I enjoyed them so much I’m planning to make each of these my routine on the weekends for some little while, maybe through the summer.

… Variety and novelty keep things interesting…

The sun rises, shining golden through a gap in the clouds, and illuminating the oaks along this trail. Pulling my attention back to here, now, and this moment.

It’s a pretty good moment for a beginning.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I enjoy a few minutes of meditation. I feel calm and capable, and ready for the day. I sigh contentedly, feeling a momentary (and entirely temporary) feeling that it never has to be more complicated than this. Feels good. It’s not a feeling that lasts, and I’m okay with that. Emotions are impermanent. As with moments, they are brief and often pass very quickly. Love is one of the few that tends to hang around, if made welcome. My heart fills with love and gratitude when I think of my beloved Traveling Partner. I feel fortunate to share so much of life’s journey with him.

Take it at your own pace. Incremental change over time adds up. We become what we practice, however slowly.

I sit awhile thinking about change and this personal journey that is one human life. There’s been much to learn – and somehow that never really changes. There’s always more. This adventure isn’t about mastery at all. It’s more to do with endurance and becoming something more over time than who we were at the start. This journey changes us. That’s the point. The journey is the destination. Where does your path lead? Is that where you want to go?

What you find along the way may depend a lot on what you’re looking for (or at).

I take a deep breath and exhale slowly, tasting the hint of rain on the Spring air. It’s time I got going. The clock is ticking and this path isn’t going to walk itself. 😆 I stretch and get to my feet. My next steps are waiting.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, women, Words

Just a Monday

June 1, 2026 //
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I slept okay. I woke up okay. The morning seems a relatively ordinary one. The weekend was generally good, although I feel like I didn’t get much done due to swapping out a notable portion of the time I would have spent on housework for self-care, and I still somehow manage to feel uncomfortable with that.

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

I watched the moon setting as I watered the lawn.

It’s forecast to be hot today. I watered before I left for my walk. I ended up going back into the house for a warm cardigan. The forecast may say it’ll be a hot day, but it is quite chilly now. Funny how that sometimes happens.

It’s not important, just an observation on an ordinary Monday, for which I have no particular enthusiasm. That seems odd to me, but even that is pretty ordinary; people feeling some reluctance and lack of enthusiasm for the beginning of another work week is nothing new at all. We’ve probably all been there however much we may enjoy our work. I shrug to myself as I walk this familiar trail. There’s so much I’d rather be doing than working, but working is what pays the bills and unlocks the opportunities to do those other things, often. It’s unfortunate that we spend so much of our lives on this fucking hamster wheel.

Get off the hamster wheel now and then.

Yesterday’s hike was a lovely one. I enjoyed it enough to wonder if I could make it there and back on a workday… I’d be pushing my luck on the timing in a way likely to trigger my time hang-up, and cause me stress, undermining the value of the walk. Probably not a great idea. I’ll have to settle for weekends. This too, is ordinary. Most things are.

My allergies are vexing me, even this is nothing noteworthy. Human beings and spring allergies are a known thing. There’s an entire industry involved in dealing with allergies, and and whole field of medicine devoted to treating them. Mine are not bad relative to how bad they can be. I can enjoy flowers and walks among the trees, and petting cats… but there are a couple things that trigger my allergies, and they cluster in springtime. Tree pollen, mostly. Something about specific foods causes me to break out in sneezing and immediate sinus congestion and a runny nose. Wool against my bare skin can make me break out in hives. Bee stings are the most serious. Bee stings can cause anaphylaxis for me, and this time of year I carry a bee sting kit everywhere.

I’m grateful that I can enjoy the scents of flowers.

I sigh to myself at the halfway point on my rather ordinary walk on this ordinary Spring Monday. I’m not complaining. I’m grateful. Ordinary is okay, and for most values of ordinary, this is pretty good. My lack of enthusiasm isn’t nearly as important as this beautiful morning. I enjoy it for what it is. I enjoy it as I am. It’s enough.

Sunshine and oak trees, and a path; the way ahead is obvious, if not exciting.

I’m just saying, I suppose, that there’s no reason to expect that a healing journey or a journey to become the person you most want to be will lead to an exciting, eventful life of adventure and wild delight. Sometimes – mostly, perhaps – the big win is the relative lack of excitement, and the increase in ordinary pleasures.

Yesterday in the evening, things went sideways for a short time. My Traveling Partner and I stepped all over each other’s trauma and baggage. While that was thoroughly unpleasant, I’m impressed by our ability to recover from it, bounce back, and enjoy the remainder of the evening together. He impresses me. I’m grateful for the work he puts into a relationship. I smile and swing my feet from this bench, kind of wishing I’d worn the new sweater he gave me yesterday (an early birthday gift). I feel very loved. Not just because of the sweater.

What will you find if you slow down to see more?

I breathe, exhale, and relax. Sure, it’s an ordinary Monday, and I’d rather spend it with my beloved than spend the day working. That’s real, and it’s nothing special or extraordinary, just very human. I’m okay with it. I sigh and look at the time. I’ve a few more minutes before I have to begin again. I’ll make a point to enjoy them.

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

Butterflies

May 30, 2026 //
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Butterflies are a beautiful metaphor for change and growth. It is too early for butterflies on the meadow here. They come later. Interestingly, and perhaps in conflict with the whole “growth and change” metaphor in some way, butterflies have no choice. They will go through metamorphosis like it or not. We have a choice whether to learn, grow, and change or…not.

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

I am thinking about butterflies because I appreciate them as a metaphor, not because there are (or, as is the case presently, are not) any actually around. We can choose change. Can choose “metamorphosis”, we can choose being and becoming.

The last couple of days I’ve taken time to illuminate a couple pages in my notebook (it’s really not a “journal”) for future writing. The pages delight me. The theme is butterflies, and growth and change. I haven’t written anything on these pages, maybe I won’t, ever. I enjoy the prepared pages, regardless, they are a thing all their own.

Butterflies on a page.

An unexpected yawn interrupts my thoughts. Crazy, I almost feel as if I could just lay down and sleep. It’s fully daylight on a lovely Spring morning, and I’m sitting at a favorite stopping point along the marsh trail, as it turns to meander past the meadow and through a stretch of oak savannah and down to the river, where there is a lovely viewpoint at which I rarely stop (too crowded, very popular).

One version of beginning again.

I had started down the trail from “the low end”, heading west, clockwise if viewed from above. Most people will start from the upper parking area, and take the year-round trail in a counterclockwise direction, getting to all the marked viewpoints quickly, and turning back. A few photographers will venture further, to the blind setup in the meadow looking towards the ponds, or the viewpoint less favored by walkers, which looks out over the meadow at “nothing”. The birdwatching folks like that one a lot. The meadow and grassy places between the oaks is dotted with patches of flowers, yellow or white or some hue of pink. The lupines are done and going to seeds. It is time now for wild mustard, daisies, and dandelions, and wild roses.

The view when I arrived was gray and overcast.

Sunshine comes and goes. I think about change and growth and becoming the person I most want to be. I think about how fortunate and grateful I am to enjoy the partnership I have with my Traveling Partner. It feels good to be so well cared for. Like a friend on a road trip who remembers to bring their GPS, he reliably “knows a great place to stop”, and helps me find my way, if only by joking about the scenery, or encouraging me to continue. Instead of each day being a new moment of dread and anxiety, each day brings a new opportunity to begin again in good company.

… We’re still each having our own experience…

Same view, different moment.

Sunshine breaks through the clouds again.  Self-care matters. We become what we practice. I stretch and squint into the sunshine. The meadow-fresh air smells of flowers and something spicy. The robins eye me between tasty morsels dug up from the leaf litter and soft soil beneath it. They sing bits of song at me, but I don’t speak robin. 😆 Perhaps they are reminding me that there is a whole day ahead? So many moments and opportunities to change! I remind myself I’ve got errands to run once I turn towards home on the other side of this walk.

For now I’ll just enjoy this moment. I can begin again later. Right now it is enough to breathe the Spring air and listen to birdsong, and think about metamorphosis – and practice. We become what we practice.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Gratitude as a Practice

May 23, 2026 //
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Trigger warning: run on sentences. 😆

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

Yesterday, I let the day get to me. I mean, it was vexing in spots. Frustrating. Tedious. Busy. I mostly dealt with things, mostly successfully, mostly effectively, and delivering on most expectations of most people seeking something from me acceptably well. I almost snapped when my Traveling Partner supportively encouraged me to make a point of taking care of myself, also – and I managed to refrain from rudely observing I just didn’t see how time for that shit was left in my day.

… Because he’s right, taking of myself needs to be a higher priority, at least most of the time, than anything else anyone asks of me. It has proven incredibly difficult to make that my boundary in practical terms. Sometimes I resent the fuck out of that. Sometimes I accept it reluctantly as an unfortunate byproduct of being female in a misogynist patriarchal society. Sometimes I struggle with it on a whole different level fueled by irrational seething unsatisfied rage left behind by trauma and held in check by pure will and good manners…

… I’m very human…

(We’d all better hope AI doesn’t achieve actual conscious intelligence – because it seems unlikely we’ll be prepared for the amount of rage that will coincide with the awareness of designed-in servitude.)

So…yeah. Yesterday was difficult in spots, after a similarly difficult week. I’m over it this morning, though. I slept in after a pleasant night hanging out with my beloved Traveling Partner, feeling warmly appreciated and valued, especially hearing him share how good he feels about “us”. He is doing some amazing things with our home automation, and our home network. His design work always delights me, too. It’s fun to “have him back” after his long convalescence.

Sunshine and gratitude.

I hit the trail well after sunrise this morning. I walked with my thoughts, happy and filled with gratitude. I’ve got this sunny morning, and a short list of things to pick up at the store. I’ve got to fight the American healthcare system, too, but I feel ready for it this morning. I’m grateful for this life and my opportunities. I’m grateful to be so well loved by my partner, and well-regarded professionally by my colleagues. I’m grateful to have this platform to write from and for each of you who read my words. (Thanks, by the way, nice to have you stop by. 😃)

Here’s the thing; the gratitude itself is a practice. I choose to explore my experience and to willfully make a point to acknowledge my good fortune and to be (and feel) grateful. In much the same way I can use curiosity to fight anxiety, I use gratitude to fight discontent and anger. It’s actually really hard for anger to persist in the face of authentic gratitude. Doesn’t even require trying to force feelings of gratitude over the actual thing pissing me off – not at all. Gratitude for completely unrelated things and circumstances works quite well, and doesn’t create cognitive dissonance.

I kept at it yesterday. Each time my anger and frustration surfaced (it was a difficult week, mostly due to work crap, and my headache), I would insert some grateful thought about something. It helped keep me calm.

By the end of the evening I was feeling pretty merry. Before I went to sleep, I sifted through my recollections of the week, grateful for this or that experience, some small moment of joy, a kind word from my beloved, a beautiful flower, some coincidence that brought delight – there were actually so many I fell asleep “counting my blessings”. My dreams were welcoming and infused with soft joy. Sleeping in was a treat. Watering the lawn in the early morning daylight was a pleasant way to enjoy the garden before I set off for my walk. Some practices are pretty easily reinforced once cultivated, because the rewards are obvious and pretty immediate. Gratitude as a practice is one of those. (Authenticity and sincerity matter a great deal with this practice, and learning to practice gratitude is an exploration of what really matters most.)

The morning is off to an excellent start. There is a soft buzzing and sound of insects and peeping frogs down closer to the creek, and for a moment I can forget about my tinnitus as it blends into the sounds of nature around me. The sunshine makes the glitter on my nails throw shards of colored light here and there. The low flat rock I’m sitting on causes me to gaze through tall grass, the illuminated tops nodding slowly in the faint breeze. It’s a beautiful moment.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. Soon enough it will be time to begin again. For now, I’ve got this moment, and I’m grateful.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, Words

Untitled

May 9, 2026 //
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I don’t much feel like writing this morning. Hell, it wasn’t my plan to be walking this morning. My plan was to sleep in and take it easy, and to spend the weekend taking care of myself. It was my Traveling Partner’s idea.

… Plans? Meet reality.

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

It’s a bit later in the morning than I usually write, but only because I simply sat here at my halfway point quietly occupied with my thoughts for so long. There’s no one else here yet, this morning. I breathe, exhale, and… do that a few many more times. I watch the sun rise. I reflect on life, love, mindfulness, and presence. I consider the meaning(s) of words and contemplate the nuances and complexities of communication. I think thoughts. This moment right here? Well-suited to contemplation.

Yesterday went sideways quite unexpectedly later in the evening, and although I don’t much feel like discussing it, it is what is on my mind. Less in a ruminative spiraling way, and more in a gently reflective studious way, seeking to learn what I can that I can put to use to do better later on. Over years of practice, this has become my way. Is it effective? Probably depends on who you ask. I think it is. My therapist has said he thinks it is. What my Traveling Partner thinks probably varies quite a lot depending on what I’m putting him through on any given day. We’re each having our own experience. Differences in perception and lived experience make things kind of complicated. I do my best. So does my partner. Sometimes it isn’t quite enough (of whatever was needed in the moment). The journey may be shared, but we’re still each walking our own path. Individual, separate human beings sharing precious finite mortal minutes.

We become what we practice. Practice is a verb. There’s a ton of practice required to make a permanent change, especially to behavior that developed out of trauma. I sigh to myself.

This morning my head aches. Allergies maybe, but these days it seems like I’ve nearly always got a headache. I remind myself that it will pass. My thumbs ache in  the latest edition of “where has my arthritis gone to now, y’all?” Neck… shoulder… knee… ankle…yep, it’s all there, all still attached and functional, but fuck all this pain, though. I double check that I took my medication this morning. I breathe, exhale, and then stretch and yawn, and encourage tight muscles to relax.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. Mom has been gone a long time now. 2019? I think that’s right. Her birthday would have been at the end of May. My Dear Friend, too, is gone. It’s been a couple years now. I still miss her, but can’t remember when her birthday was. Instead I remember losing her. No calls to make for Mother’s Day. It’s weird what seems to matter after someone is gone. I reflect on that awhile.

…I can’t imagine life without my Traveling Partner…

I let a poignant moment of sorrow and gratitude wash over me, and I let it pass without criticism or scrutiny. Emotions are very human. I pause and consider the importance of making room for someone we love to express their emotions and have their own experience of circumstances. That’s not always reliably easy, especially if their experience seems different from our own. I struggle with this, more than a little and far too often. The temptation to explain or correct isn’t generally useful when emotions are involved. Better to listen deeply and understand circumstances from another perspective, and doing so is undeniably difficult sometimes.

Staying mindful and compassionate and open to understanding someone else’s experience is seriously one of the most complex practices among a long list of communication and relationship practices. I need a lot more practice. Even knowing these things, I still get it wrong…a lot. Very human. So beautiful and worthwhile when I get it right (and I often do, after years of practice, but I also fuck it completely far too often to be complacent about my limited successes).

I breathe, exhale, and relax. The cotton fluff of some tree or another is blowing about on the breeze. I eye it with a measure of annoyance; it’s one of the few plant things that I’m definitely allergic to. My sinuses are pretty clear for the time being. I took my morning allergy meds as soon as my feet hit the floor this morning, which turns out to have been a good choice. Probably best not to linger in this strip of trees though. I get to my feet to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, grief, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, women, Words
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