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Where Does This Path Lead?

August 30, 2025 //
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I arrived at the trailhead just at daybreak. No waiting required. I laced up my boots, grabbed my cane and stepped out onto the trail dimly visible in the gloom of dawn. There’s a dense mist clinging to the low places, and the air feels a bit more brisk than recent summer mornings. Fall is coming.

A new day, a new moment, a new beginning.

The trail crunched under my feet as I stepped along carefully. With each step the sky lightened, dawn becoming day, and more of the trail being revealed to my eyes. Sounds in the brush became little birds, an occasional squirrel, and a possum. Further down the trail, I passed by a family of racoons, and wondered if it is the same family of racoons I’ve seen here before? Out in the mists of the meadow, I see a small herd of deer. I have the sensation of solitude, though I know there are other people on the trail this morning; I saw two cars parked nearby when I arrived.

I walk with my thoughts. I’m back to work Tuesday, though not inclined to fuss about it much or celebrate too eagerly. No particular doubts or concerns that it could fall through, it’s not that at all, it’s more that these feel like uncertain times, and I’m very fortunate to secure a new position so quickly, and not inclined to have that information create stress for folks who may not be similarly fortunate. So, I take a chill and somewhat discreet approach to the whole thing, to avoid being callous or haplessly cruel. I am excited though. It’s a new beginning, and a new adventure.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. It is a Saturday, at the start of a long weekend. I don’t have any plans, besides a bit of housework and getting myself ready for a new job. I decide to go to the co-work space I’d been frequenting in my previous job, for day 1. Convenient, familiar… and “colleagues” there will appreciate knowing I am back to work and okay. I’ll work out something closer for the long-term if I can. Gas is expensive and it makes very little sense to drive so far to work remotely! 😂

Summer oaks

Arriving at my halfway point, I see racoons playing where I generally take a seat, on a fallen log. I walk on a little way to a large rock, out in the open, past the oaks. The meadow stretches out before me, and I can see headlights sweep around the curve of the highway beyond. In a few more weeks, most of the meadow will become marsh, and the seasonal trail will close. I take a deep breath of the fresh morning air. It smells of summer flowers and mown grass.

I’m feeling mostly pretty ready for the changes ahead. I know change can be hard on me, though, and I give thought to what sorts of things might ease the feelings of upheaval and disruption. Like doing the first shift from a familiar co-work space, there are little things I can do to make the experience feel more comfortable. It’s mostly a matter of good self-care.

I watch the dawn become day. No sunrise, really, the sun is obscured by dense gray clouds on the eastern horizon and the clear starry night sky has become a milky overcast backdrop for silhouetted birds and trees, with only the faintest suggestion of blue. Will it rain, I wonder? The forecast says it’s unlikely, but the air smells like rain, here, now. The morning mist spreads, creeping towards me until I am surrounded by it. I’ll sit awhile longer with my thoughts… and enjoy this new beginning.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, gratitude, Healthy Living, joy, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being

Autumn Leaves, Raindrops, and Once Upon a Time

October 16, 2023 //
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I’m sipping lukewarm too-strong less than ideally good office coffee and looking out the windows onto a rainy day, in Autumn, in “the city”. It could be any city. There are trees along the sidewalks, green summer foliage has begun turning to shades of gold, amber, and red. The soggy gray sky obscures the distant hills and creates silvery featureless reflections on office buildings beyond the windows. I’m thinking about life – and how fortunate I am – and how peculiar it is to be so contented, generally, when my actual life is so very different than what I once thought I wanted from it. Very strange.

A rainy autumn day suitable for thinking thoughts.

The day begins rather slowly for a Monday. It’ll be busier as the day progresses. I use the time to get my thoughts sorted out, and my week planned. There’s much to do, but a significant portion of the doing rests on good planning, and awareness of projects already in progress; rushing through the “thought work” has proven to be a poor choice on more than one occasion. I take my time with it. I think things through. I take notes, and review other notes. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I drink my coffee.

Past tense. Autumn colors. Memories like fallen leaves.

Funny how what we think we want doesn’t always turn out to be what we actually wanted, at all. Funny how things that are in the past become something more than mere memories, over time, taking on stature far beyond whatever humble object or event they represent. I find myself thinking about the past, and wondering how I got from there to here… “Here” isn’t where I expected to be, honestly.

…There are conversations I wish I could have with my Dad, my Mom, with Granny…

I sip my coffee contentedly. The day and week stretch ahead of me. My Traveling Partner is at home, working. I’m in the office, working. I’m thinking about life and love, and smiling at the raindrops spattering the grand windows that seem display the city for my view alone in this quiet space. It’s enough. I guess I’m just puzzled about how this can feel so good, so safe, so satisfying… and still find myself vulnerable to the chaos and damage that still linger, and sometimes take me by surprise. I’m fortunate to have come so far. It’s taken time and a lot of verbs and considerable effort and the will to just keep at it… again and again, failure after failure, frustration after frustration… but I am here. This is now. I’m okay with it. More than that… I may even be… happy. At least in this moment. That’s enough.

Eventually, I’ll have to begin again. For now, I’ll just enjoy this moment, right here. 🙂

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, turning 60

If I Had It All

February 3, 2021 //
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Sipping my coffee and listening to the rain fall. Artificial rain…although… it is raining outside this morning. This particular video also has the sound of a crackling fire, a river flowing nearby…and honestly, sounds rather like a rainy day here, in my own living room, on a day when the creek is flooding. It’s a relaxing soundscape, and tends to push distractions out of my immediate awareness very well.

…The relaxing, soothing, comforting, background soundscape tends to be very helpful with managing my anxiety, which has been coming and going rather a lot the past week or so. I could have expected it, I suppose. When my values and my circumstances feel as though they are in opposition to each other, or somehow at odds, I don’t feel “comfortable”, and the longer it goes on, the more my anxiety increases in intensity, and the frequency with which it surges into the forefront of my consciousness also increases. It’s an “early warning system” that there may be a decision-making point coming up very quickly, or that the time to reflect on things and make other choices may be upon me. I could “fight it” with soothing sounds and do nothing more. I could meditate regularly, “accept my lot in life”, and struggle with the anxiety and discomfort – or attempt to medicate it away – and settle for quiet misery.

…Or I can acknowledge that I am unhappy, seek to determine what the primary cause of that discontent may be, and consider other options… this is particular effective if, after all that, I’m prepared to choose change. I mean… maybe the options aren’t really an improvement? That’s certainly a scenario that comes up now and again. I’ve often found that getting to that place where I can critically consider and factually determine that the present options don’t result in a clear likely improvement also serves to reduce my anxiety – it’s more about giving the matter real thought, and allowing myself the consideration and respect required to resolve my discontent with action, where action would do so.

I would use the example of working a job that isn’t ideal. Maybe it really is a poor fit, and making a change would be an improvement? Maybe the available options would not actually present a legitimate shot at the desired specific improvement at all, and would therefore be of no real use? Maybe the options are “more of the same” and “more of the same-r-er”, and time would be better spent in improving skills, and investing time in other endeavors during leisure hours? Maybe it really is time to move on to some other thing? I’m not a fan of reacting in the moment with drastic action built on an emotional moment. Personally? I like self-reflection. I value introspection. I seek self-awareness. I’d ideally prefer all of my decision-making be built on those qualities, and a hearty helping of perspective, self-respect, and non-attachment, besides! 🙂

“Having it all” comes in many forms. What do I really want? What matters most? Where does lifelong fulfillment lie on this path? Am I headed down a path that even leads me in the direction I hope to go? No map.

I’m sipping my coffee and listening to the rain fall. It’s not relevant that the sound of it “isn’t real”, particular when I’m seeing the rain fall beyond the window. What I see and what I hear are well-aligned. Isn’t there real value in also having my circumstances and professional values also aligned? I’m just saying; I have choices. There are verbs involved. My results may vary…

…And I also get to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, winter

Welcome the Day

June 8, 2016 //
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I woke with my calendar on my mind today. It’s not quite so hot, and the thing most prominent in my thoughts is an interview scheduled a little later in the morning. The cool pre-dawn chill easily cooled off the apartment before the sun made its appearance.

A new day, a new beginning; each dawn potentially the cusp of an entirely different future.

A new day, a new beginning; each dawn potentially the cusp of an entirely different future.

My ‘to do list’ this morning looks very different than it has for some weeks. I already have butterflies in my stomach, and feel vaguely as if I am ‘waiting’ for the time to arrive, and then to be behind me. Good self-care practices serve me well this morning, and I go through the routine details of an ordinary work day with reliable comfort; it’s only an interview, but it is my work day as well. I feel prepared. There are last-minute things to fill my head with, like re-reading the details of the job posting itself, and reviewing interview notes from the prior interview call. My clothes are ready, my jewelry selected with care, my nails are done. I am entirely this person, and in this particular instance I am a person hoping to be a good fit – and not out of desperate need to be employed in this moment, but delightfully enough because the position itself looks like it may suit my nature, my skills, and be work I could be proud of, on a team providing a valued service to the community. That sounds pretty amazing… to potentially come home at the end of a long work day, feeling accomplished and proud of what I do, rather than exhausted and resentful of the drain on my physical resources, would be a remarkable (and welcome) thing.

Well…I could write all day to avoid the inevitable reality of getting my “work self” together for this interview I am actually eager to do. (What’s with the foot-dragging, Woman?) Delaying the tasks and activities supporting the morning and the day doesn’t really serve me well, and today I definitely need my best from me. 🙂 Wish me luck? I wonder where the day will take me? What does the future hold? Hang on… I’ll go find out. 😉

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Perspective, Summer, The Art of Being, Words

There’s Always a Bottom Line

November 10, 2015 //
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Where’s mine? That’s an important question…and this is me ranting about the underlying frustration with finding real ‘work:life balance’. You can skip this one if you prefer the lovely pictures and focus on day-to-day mindfulness and search for balance and stillness. This… is not that. 😉

Perspective matters.

Perspective matters.

If I am over-extended, over-committed, over-worked, and rushed to a point that I more easily overlook needed medication, appropriate breaks for self-care, measured healthy calories to sustain good health and cognition, I can’t sustain emotional balance, physical wellness, and maintain all those logistical quality of life details that matter so much… rent…bills…vacuuming…showering… Just saying – how about we all take a nice deep breath and take a step back from being dicks to each other all the fucking time? That other person over there, that didn’t meet your expectations this time, or that time, or some other time – still human. Still having their own experience. Still entirely worthy of common courtesy, consideration, and patience. How about showing some? If we make a collaborative effort on that, culturally, the whole fucking world improves just a little bit. (This is a reminder for me, myself, as much as anything. I could do better on this.)

Raise the minimum wage? You bet – paying people appropriately is simply the right thing to do, and it is pretty ugly that we can say ‘he works full time’ and ‘he doesn’t make enough money for rent and groceries’ about the same person. Any person. And guess what? We’re all people. The same thing is true of time – we’re all human. People. Beings of emotion and reason, creative, romantic, philosophical beings who live and laugh and love – and need time for those things. No one needs time to be employed by some other person on some other agenda; we do need an exchangeable form of our life force to pay for the goods and services required to support our desired quality of life. That so many are not being paid what our human life force is worth as human beings is tragic. That anyone at all would argue that the life force of some human beings is worth more than others is… yeah. To be approached with caution at best. Go ahead, tell me how the average CEO is truly worth more money hour-for-hour than the guys who built your roads, your house, who pick your produce, who sweat over ensuring you have power after a storm, who work in factories manufacturing the goods you want so badly. I’m ranting. Sorry. This matters to me.  You matter to me. People matter to me. Even in my most solitary least social moments, I still value human life, and struggle to understand why it so often seems that many people just don’t, not even their own.

It makes me ache to see people tear each other down to somehow excuse modern-day indentured servitude: pay so minimal there is limited potential to survive, and no real hope of actually thriving or ‘bettering oneself’. I’m spitting into the wind. Job crisis? No problem; reduce the standard work week, refuse to allow salaried employees to work more hours than that, and insist businesses go ahead and hire the staff it actually takes to do the jobs they want done. Pay people to retire earlier in life if they choose to (so they can afford to). Ensure wages are adequate to live on, and stay so. Job crisis over. Yes, I am saying that businesses take the hit on the bottom line – less profit, more labor cost. Human labor is worth far more than we make it out to be. I’m not afraid to say that; businesses are building their success on the backs of those employees, capitalizing on the limited mortal lifetime of individual actual real human beings who might very much enjoy living their actual fucking lives doing something they truly enjoy and thrive on. So… not fast food, probably. Not a call center, probably. The reason jobs are work is because businesses do actually have to pay people to do them. We don’t all wake up and just go to call centers, food service jobs, or gas stations just because we totally love the fun of it; we do it as part of an agreed to exchange of our precious life force for cash money to use as we may. We have so much more to offer ourselves and the world than 40 hours of grinding unrelenting tedium for employers who are (in some cases) actually destroying the world (or just up to no good).

If you do work you love, I applaud you. If you have found a way to love the work you do, regardless what sort of work that is, or whether it benefits you beyond a paycheck, I applaud you, too. I haven’t figured that one out yet. I earn an adequate living doing something I am very skilled at, and most of the time it’s enough that it be so. Tonight… I am tired. I hurt. I’m struggling to understand why I choose to spend so much of my limited mortal lifespan on something that has no potential to nurture my spirit, or build memories of wonderful experiences, or deliver real value to my life… beyond that infernal bottom line. There are bills to pay. This is such a limited and precious mortal life… what is appropriate compensation for the irreplaceable minutes with loved ones, or hours spent walking in the forest, or… yeah, the entirety of a lifetime we can’t replace once spent?

My perspective on work:life balance is very different at 52 than it was at 25. Maybe that’s as it should be? There’s more to understand here, and some hard questions to answer for myself about what matters most. Maybe for you, too? Perhaps the answers are as individual as we each are as people? Does the man or woman of 70 who is angry about ‘forced retirement’ have any less right to their experience and will than does the man or woman of 45 who would prefer to retire from the world of day-to-day hourly wage employment to write the novel they have within them? Does it matter what drives that preference? I don’t have answers – but I’m pretty sure cookie cutter solutions aren’t the solution, and falling back on what my grandfather found right and proper will likely not work for me. We are not ‘one size fits all’ in life.

Autumn becomes winter; there's only so much time, and all of it is 'now'.

Autumn becomes winter; there’s only so much time, and all of it is ‘now’.

I am more questions than answers. Tonight I am also tired, in pain, and feeling rather terse with myself ‘for even bringing it up’, as if ignoring a wound has any potential to heal it. So, I take time to take care of me, meditation is a good practice in this head space, a healthy meal, a good night’s rest. There is time to consider, to wonder, to contemplate – there is time later to ask questions, to make choices, to figure out what works and do that thing. Tonight it is enough to slow down, and take care of me.

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Turning 50, War and News of War, women, Words
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