I am lingering in this moment, waiting for a break in the rain at this favorite trailhead. Nice morning for walking, if the rain stops for a little while. The forecast suggests it will, soon.
For some time I simply sat quietly, listening to the rain, the traffic on the nearby highway, and my tinnitus. A pleasant and uncomplicated interlude, and time well-spent alone with my thoughts, just being.
I am contemplating contemplation. Thinking about vita contemplativa. Considering solitude, stillness, and self-reflection. I am pondering presence, and the idea of ichi-go ichi-e. We live such busy lives. It’s clear to me that there is more to living a “good life” than being busy. Work and “productive effort” really isn’t all there is, and I have real doubts that it is even the most important part of life… In fact, I’m fairly certain it is not. So much of what we are exists apart from the work that we do.
Work and consumption and doom-scrolling through the various feeds seeking to profit from my attention span are a relatively meaningless piece of my life. Why let these details consume my precious limited mortal lifetime? There’s so much else to experience, to enjoy, and to feel. I sit with my thoughts and my awareness of this moment. Time becomes irrelevant when I am fully present in my life, experiencing the journey, awake, aware, and really “here for it”.
I’m not busy right now. That’s intentional. I’m also not bored, nor seeking anything to become busy with. I’m okay with this quiet moment spent with my thoughts, living this moment, listening to the rain fall, and watching the slow approach of dawn.
When was the last time you took a moment to do nothing at all, but to do that very deliberately, quite aware of your experience of the moment, simply being, without agenda or impatience? Without drama or bullshit? Without occupying your attention with a screen in front of you or a device in your hand? I’m finding such experiences very worthwhile, restful, luxurious, delicious moments of freedom from the clock, “hearing myself think”.
I write a few words. I’ll sit awhile longer. The rain will stop, and I’ll lace up my boots, pick up my cane, and head down the trail eager to begin again, aware how much it matters to really experience the journey.
12 years ago I started this blog. It was a difficult time in my life, in spite of having a lot of the ingredients available for contentment, emotional security, and joy. I was deeply unhappy, and mentally unwell. I was teetering on the edge of making very final, very poor decision about my life that I wouldn’t have been able to revoke. Things felt incredibly bleak and I was “trapped in the mire“. When I considered starting this blog, I didn’t have a clear idea of what I was seeking from it and I could not see my path ahead. I was wandering in darkness, metaphorically.
Sometimes our path is illuminated. Sometimes we walk our mile in darkness.
I sought encouragement from one of my partners at the time, asking her thoughts regarding beginning a blog. I had kept a pen & ink journal for many decades, I just wasn’t certain I had something to say that was worth “sharing with the world”. She had a blog, and I hoped that she would have words of encouragement and maybe some insights. No, she did not have that. Instead, I received a valuable lesson regarding the likelihood that any given person has any interests but their own in mind, and a reminder that regardless of the relationship, however close I may think someone is, there’s a real chance that they do not have my needs and interests in mind at all. She smirked at me with a certain smugness, and told me rather dismissively that it probably wasn’t worth it for me to write a blog, and that chances were that no one would ever read it anyway, and I probably wouldn’t be able to “keep it up” more than a couple days. I was… hurt. I felt “invisible” and misunderstood. I felt exactly what she intended; dismissed and diminished. Then the anger – did she even know me? (She did not.) It was a lesson worth learning, and although I am fortunate to be so well-loved by my Traveling Partner in my current relationship, I have also learned to take care of myself, and to be the one meeting my emotional needs, first and reliably, as much as I know how to do.
Wherever it leads, the path we choose in life isn’t going to walk itself.
That first blog post was barely a beginning – but it was a beginning. Since then, I’ve had so many beginnings, and so many words of encouragement from so many people dear to me. I’ve shared my voice: my thoughts, my fears, my ideas, my astonishment, my affection, and my anger – and so many emotions and experiences on this path. I’ve practiced practices, and shared those here. I’ve failed and started over, and shared that too. Once a year, I am reminded of her dismissive words so long ago, and I smile and sip my coffee; she definitely didn’t know me. lol (As it turned out, I didn’t know her either, but I soon learned all I needed to know.)
Where does this path lead?
Since I wrote that first post, I’ve written 3111 3112 blog posts, with an average of 163k words each year (about 750 words each time I post, sometimes more, sometimes less), posting an average of 258 days per year. Consistency has worked for me. I’ve found my way into the inboxes of a couple hundred long-time subscribers (thank you), and turned up in more than 5 thousand searches and every search engine I’d ever heard of, and a few that were new to me. More than 34k people in 123 different countries have found their way here (I’m not surprised that most of my readers are in the United States, Canada, and the UK). I’m not “famous” (and not seeking fame), and I wouldn’t consider this blog wildly popular, but I’m definitely glad I started writing here – and grateful that you’re reading. I hope my musings have been helpful in some way, and if not helpful, I hope you’ve at least been entertained for some little while. Thank you for reading.
I’ve still got to walk my own path.
I’ll also say this; you have value. You have something to say in the world, something to contribute. Don’t let someone else’s opinion hold you back. If you’re inspired to write, or sing, or dance, or sculpt, or film, or share who you are with the world in some way, begin! If it doesn’t work out easily – begin again! We become what we practice. What you have to say matters – maybe a lot. We all want to be heard. It’s easy to become discouraged when someone whose opinion matters to us doesn’t support our enthusiasm when we expect it – don’t let that hold you back. We’re each having our own experience, and they have reasons of their own for not giving you the support you want and need, and those may have nothing to do with you at all. Let that shit go. Walk your own path. Find the traveling companions on life’s journey who are actually “going your way” for a while, and walk with them. Sometimes the journey is difficult, but that doesn’t make it less worthy.
Each step along this path has been worthy in it’s own distinct way, although I don’t always see it at the time I take the step.
It’s been 12 years since I began this blog. It’s been worthwhile to write each day that I did so. It’s been helpful more than once to look back on my own thoughts and words, myself, and seek my own council from the woman in the mirror. It’s buoyed my spirits when I felt low to read your comments, and know that I am “being heard”, and to feel that something I’ve said may have helped light the path for some other traveler.
The path isn’t always easy, but it’s mine, and I’ll continue to walk it. It’s time to begin again. Again.
I’m sipping my coffee, reflecting on the year behind me and thinking ahead to the year that has newly begun. “The journey is the destination.” So it’s said. So I hear. I accept that as a given, actually, after walking my path awhile. It’s the first “proper Monday” of the new year as I sit here at my desk, and I’ve a pen and a small notebook at hand. I make notes as I reflect on my life and my achievements, missed opportunities, and occasional disappointments of the year behind me. The notes are in two columns this time around; “stepping stones” and “pitfalls”. The stepping stones are things I can adopt or continue as practices that will tend to build the life I want to live, and help me become the woman I most want to be. The pitfalls are those things that may tend to hold me back or undermine my progress. Simple stuff.
I’ve given my year a “theme”, intended to represent a destination of sorts, on which I can anchor my intentions, goals, and priorities. This year my theme is “living a quality life”, which I am defining as living my best life without exhausting myself (or my resources).
My list of stepping stones is quite practical, and seems very achievable. It’s not even long, and is made up mostly of things I greatly enjoy. How handy is that? This is by intention; it’s easier to practice things that are either very enjoyable or which have an immediate “pay off”. There are only two wholly conceptual items, but they are important ideas for the year ahead: presence, and consistency. I see them as being necessary to the success of everything else on my list.
Learn a language (I’m already working on this one, by working on rebuilding and improving my Czech language skills, which are quite rusty)
Read more bound books (I’ve got a stack of them, and I’ve already finished one – but it’s not a race, and comprehension is a key part of the experience)
Paint more (this one is a bigger deal than two small words imply, and meets many needs)
Walk more/further (788 trail miles in 2024 – can I hit 1000 in 2025? Self-care? Meditation? Fitness? A bit of all that and more.)
More strength training (an important part of fitness and health as I age, and utterly necessary as I continue to lose weight and use semaglutide to manage my blood sugar.)
Food/diet – explore new recipes and skills (and write down the successes in the new family recipe binder my Traveling Partner gifted me this year! The semaglutide being what it is, food has become a very intentional thing, which seems healthier, too.)
Drink more water (the science says it really matters – and I definitely feel better when I do.)
My list of pitfalls is surprisingly short, but each item on that list is a potential chasm – a sinkhole more than a pothole on life’s journey. Self-reflection lets me get down to basics in a way that prevents me from petty self-criticism or negative rumination, and provides me with positive observations I can really work with to limit poor behavioral choices, and to develop better practices that are themselves in line with my “presence” and “consistency” stepping stones. Win!
Autopilot (no lie, I like things easy, and I rely on habit and routine to stay the course with some healthy practices, but leaving things on “autopilot” is the literal opposite of being present, and it comes with some troubling negative consequences. It’s worth learning to remain present, aware, and mindful even when being consistent with some routine practice – and potentially more joyful.)
Failed practices (being human, failure is a thing and there’s no dodging that, but healthy practices need… practice. Resuming a valued practice that has momentarily failed is a matter of beginning again. Worth the effort.)
The fallow garden (literal and metaphorical; 2024 was a terrible year for my garden. My Traveling Partner needed more from me than I truly had to give, and that wasn’t negotiable from my perspective – other things, particularly my garden, fell by the wayside and need new resolve and attention in the year to come.)
Malaise (it’s easy to let fatigue push me to failure through exhausted inaction, it’s hard to overcome, but good self-care and careful management of time and energy are worthy tools to prevent falling into this trap)
Resentment (another all-to-human trap, this one is avoided through connection, openness, skillful communication and boundary-setting, and reliably consistent self-care)
Sugar! (Just keeping it real, this shit is like poison for me.)
This stuff isn’t complicated. Just some notes taken as I reflect on my life and consider what I want out of it. What do I want? I want joy and contentment. I want improved wellness. I want improved intimacy and connection in my relationship(s). I want satisfaction in life and “order from chaos”. I want to live on principles of sufficiency, within my resources. As I said – it’s not complicated stuff, and mostly seems pretty doable. It’s not “fancy”, and as goals go these seem rather more “within reach” than grandly aspirational. I still have to really work at all of this, though. I’m quite human.
I make a point to “set myself up for success”. I’m not looking at the calendar telling myself I need to be a size 8 by next Thanksgiving, or that I’ll be fit to run a marathon by the 4th of July. I’m not making a long list of weighty tomes and demanding that I finish them all before the next new year. In fact, these mostly don’t adhere to “SMART” goals at all. (SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based, great for professional project management.) My life is not a corporate entity with a 5 year plan and key performance indicators that must be reached to qualify as a success. lol I’m not saying SMART goals are not worthwhile in a great many use-cases. It’s more that I’m a human being, living a life that I’d like to enjoy. My mortal time is finite and precious. So… these are my goals, approached my way. The success is defined by me, based on my values. This works for me. It’s enough.
Speaking of limited time… it’s already time to begin again. I make myself a calendar entry to remind me to look back on this moment of self-reflection later, and see how I did when this year ends. (I do find purposeful self-reflection very useful.)
…I wonder where this path leads…
Seems to be very effective so far… probably doesn’t hurt that the path is mine, and that I choose it myself.
I’m not even joking, this morning. Have you seen the news? A man in New Orleans drives a truck through a crowd, killing and wounding many…a man in Virginia with a “no lives matter” patch and a stockpile of more than 150 homemade improvised explosive devises at the time of his arrest…a man in Montenegro fatally shoots 12 people… It’s pretty horrible the quantity of killing going on. Let’s not even get started on the multiple genocides being committed around the world. It’s bad. Horrifying. Contributing to the horror is that it also amounts to an enormous distraction from other pretty terrible things going on in the world around us, that slowly degrade global quality of life (at a time when we have so much technology and resources available that we should be easily able to end disease and poverty, entirely).
…Humanity needs a “software update” to our operating systems…
While I intend that metaphorically, I am totally serious about it. It’s hard to “do your best” in the world, if you’re inclined to think that “your best” includes mass murder, fraud, dehumanizing cruelty, and petty bullshit justified by how right you think you are. I sip my coffee thinking about that. How to do better, I mean. I’ve been to war. I’ve seen combat. I’ve seen killing “up close”. I’ve seen violence and rage. I’ve seen the damage done by “othering” groups on the basis of some bullshit criteria. I’ve seen pain and fear and hopelessness – and the behavior it can produce. We can do better. Doing better unavoidably begins with each of us, individually, doing better ourselves – and then setting clear expectations with each other, and holding ourselves and our societies accountable to an ethical standard. I’m not saying it’s easy – I’m saying it probably begins with a change in thinking (and choices). I’m saying starting with a “software upgrade” could be helpful.
…When was the last time you read a book, an actual bound book that you held in your hands?
Consuming media through the internet doesn’t reach us the same way reading books does. There’s science on that. (I recognize the conflict in provide a link to an online source. It’s difficult to link directly to the printed word.) You could “do the thing“, of course, and read about reading (how delicously meta). I’m just pointing out that reading and doing are the two most direct means by which we human primates “upgrade our software”. We become what we practice – and it’s helpful to learn what practices we might do well to adopt, rather than wandering about just trying things out and breaking shit or hurting people.
Why am I even on about this? The current political climate, mostly, but also the nasty shit in the news recently. I just don’t get it – it’s the 21st century, how are people still so ignorant that mass killings seem like an effective solution to anything… or that an indvidual even has that right? So… yeah. Here I am. Reading books and doing my best to be a better human being today than I was yesterday – because I have learned more than I knew yesterday. It’s slow going, no doubt, but it’s better than not learning and growing at all, isn’t it? Steps on a path.
So far this year – and possibly over the past decade – the most important book I’ve read is On Tyranny, by Timoth Snyder. No kidding. It’s even pretty small. I don’t ask much of you, but this one is that big a deal; I’m asking that you consider reading it (please), and if not this book, then some other* that may advance your understanding of the world, and the part you play in the society we live in. Surely that matters?
If you knew that reading a book could change the world, wouldn’t you do it? Hell, if you even suspected it might be helpful, wouldn’t you make the attempt? Such a small thing… and another way to begin again. I know, changing the world isn’t easy – there are a lot of verbs involved, and our results vary. It can be discouraging. Still, we become what we practice, and incremental change over time is powerful. We’re all in this together… what are you doing to make the world a better place for all of us to thrive in? Something to think about, and I do. I sit here with my coffee on the first workday of a new year, dismayed by the bad news on display, and grateful to have a chance to begin again. Again.
*Please note; if the books you are reading make you want to kill people, or seem to justify the killing other people are doing, or somehow excuse other vile human behavior, you are likely reading the wrong fucking books. Choose your books with care; you’re putting that shit into your brain.
I woke this morning aware of yesterday’s news; former president Jimmy Carter had died at 100 years of age. Aside from that being a pretty long life for a human being, I was struck later in my own life, by how genuinely decent he was as a human being. Sure, sure, a lot has been said about what a terrible president he was, but I don’t know that that’s actually true, when I reflect on the specifics of the criticisms.
Jimmy Carter took a lot of heat for shit he could not have directly controlled in any way, and other things commonly called out critically were actually things that are easily viewed as actions taken from a positive of moral good, with positive outcomes. He sold the Panama Canal back to Panama for basically nothing. Why is that a bad thing? What business of ours was it to “own” that? (Oh, right – business. Not exactly known for standards of moral goodness or good character, eh?) He pardonned Vietnam draft dodgers – and why not? Fucking hell, are you kidding me with that shit? How is that even a fucking criticism? Vietnam was a fucking horror – we had no business being involved at all, nothing about that bullshit was good, or just, or righteous, or useful, and so many lives were wasted due to conscript service (in spite of having ostensibly done away with slavery) – which we ended shortly afterward in favor of an all-volunteer military. I can’t say that I’m at all critical of pardonning human beings who refused to go to war. I’ve been to war (as a volunteer in a powerful army), and it sucks. You know people kill and die in wars, right? So… yeah. As a young (conservative) thinker, I basically just spouted the “Jimmy Carter was a bad president” bullshit I heard from other people. I’m not sure I agree with it now – because I don’t think I know enough to say such a thing in an informed way. I do know one thing; he proved himself over time to be one of the most generally ethical, decent, and good human beings to have ever occupied the Oval Office.
…Americans don’t tend to elect good, decent, ethical people to political office. There’s something to be learned from that, and it’s probably important…
I shake it off as I dress for the day. I let it go, again, as I drive to the office. (My walk got derailed by a traffic accident on the highway between the turn to go to the office, and the trailhead; I chose to let that go too, avoiding a hassle.)
The office is comfortable, if a bit chilly. I’m finding myself having to “let that go” over and over again, though, as little things surface and annoy me for some moment. None of it “important” in this immediate moment for me as one human being here, now… all of it feeling somehow “important” in a larger picture of what makes life generally worth living, and how best to extend that experience to 100% of all of everyone (and why the ever-loving-fuck is that not obviously the goal for all of us??) I sigh, and remind myself that in spite of humanity’s everyday bullshit and nastiness – Jimmy Carter found reasons to be a good person. Like, all the fucking time, daily, in spite of the shit he took for not being the “good president” (bad human being) that people seemed inclined to want him to be – that’s something worth examining more closely, and learning from. At least, I think so myself.
People are dicks (often). People can be mean (damnably so). People do unforgiveable heinous things to each other (unrepentantly). People are violent (mercilessly). Sometimes it’s hard to remember that they are choosing – and I can choose differently, myself. That’s the important takeaway for me; I can walk my own path. I can be the woman I most want to be. I can choose to be a better person today than I was yesterday – every day. It’s not for me to decide your path – or anyone else’s – and I don’t have to cave to pressure and become something monstrous simply because someone else has, or because it is trending, or because it can be rationalized given enough time, money, and excuses. I can choose – in fact, I don’t really get an option on that; I have and will choose, again and again. What those choices are is very much an individual decision. I will become what I practice. That’s unavoidable. That I do have a choice simply gives me the freedom to be something better than my nature, perhaps.
I sigh and sip my coffee. I glance at a news article shared by a coworker about some jackass saying something pretty horrible in response to something else pretty ugly. Fuuuuck. I’m glad I’m not that guy. I’d choose differently. I smile to myself quietly, and just a little sadly; Jimmy Carter died, and the world is just a little less good because of his passing. I hope I’ve learned something from the example(s) that he set…
Evening Light 