Archives for posts with tag: what’s next?

A New Day, A New Beginning

July 5, 2024 //
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I slept well in spite of the noise of fireworks going off well into the night. I woke occasionally and quickly sank back into sleep. I woke up at my usual early hour, no alarm set at all. I rose, dressed, and slipped away quietly into the early light of a summer dawn.

It’s a lovely morning. The sunrise began with streaks of peach and pink clouds across a hazy mostly clear sky. It’s going to be hot today.

I find myself straddling past moments of recollection and future moments of speculation, in this pleasant quiet “now”. The paved portion of this trail is quiet beneath my feet. Small birds explore the weeds and grass for tasty bits as I walk past. The air feels soft on my skin and I hear the sound of distant traffic… and my tinnitus. Squirrels play, chasing each other up and down and around the trunks of trees along the trail. I breathe and walk.

… Summer…

I let my thoughts wander freely as I walk. My Traveling Partner’s surgery is scheduled. I’m not fretting over that; I’m hopeful. Grateful. Eager to see him well (repaired?). I’m thinking ahead to getting some real downtime, sometime beyond the most critical recovery time immediately following his surgery. I’m eager to have a few days alone, spent on creative work and solitary reflection, unconstrained by the requirements of caregiving and service to hearth and home. I’m tired frankly, and any rest I get and all the resilience I can build, have been almost immediately consumed by the next need, week after week, for months. I’m not even complaining; I have been needed and also appreciated. My Traveling Partner has shown me great consideration, love, and gratitude, and I have no resentment in my heart. I’m just tired and eager for him to be himself at 100% again.

I don’t yet have anything specific in mind. Camping? A hotel holiday on the coast? A trip to some glittering metropolis? A quiet stay in some remote bed and breakfast? A stay at some monastery that hosts retreats? “Spin the wheel” and just show up at the airport or train station and grab the next cheap seat to somewhere at random and figure it out when I get “there”? Options.

Rather unrealistically, I want to be sitting in my Granny’s kitchen on a lazy summer morning, listening to the sound of seabirds and the tides changing along the marshy edge of Mine Creek. I’d like to make a cup of fairly terrible drip coffee and pour it over ice, and take it out to the porch, with my pastels and my sketchbook, and while away the cool morning painting landscapes of the shore along Frenchtown Rd. My heart aches for qualities of peace and serene beauty and the joy of solitary moments I don’t find often these days. The world is complicated and messy, as are human beings with their violence and villainy, their petty deceits and corruption. Peace is sometimes hard to find, and difficult to cultivate. I feel momentarily homesick for places that no longer exist outside my memory, and a bit lonely for people dear to me who are gone now.

… Strangely sentimental morning…

The sky is a brilliant clear blue as I finish this bit of writing. The morning is beginning to warm up already. It’s time to head back up the trail to the car, and back to the house to start the work day. I sigh to myself and remember to take my morning medication. It’s already time to begin again…

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, loneliness, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, Uncategorized

What Is Your Essence?

December 28, 2018 //
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I am home for the day, preparing for the long holiday weekend ahead. Having a quiet cup of tea, vaping something pleasant tasting, and watching the vapor curl in wisps as the cloud breaks up as I exhale. “Vaping” is a verb now. I ponder the way language changes with the times. I wonder if things are still “on fleek” and if “fam” is still “lit”. I smile, breathe, relax; this is my time, my moment, and I am content with it just as it is, wedged between the shhh-shhh of commuter traffic at the edge of the driveway, and the chug-chug of the washing machine, down the hall. The noise doesn’t matter, this evening, and it is not disturbing this somehow-still-quiet moment.

I am thinking of “is” and of “isn’t”, and the year just finishing up, as I peer cautiously ahead to the year that is imminent. I am thinking rather carefully of “essence” and “essentials”, and hoping to stay on the path of sufficiency. Right now, at least, it is rather easy not being tempted by excess. I just don’t have the resources for that, and 2019 looks like a year that I will spend rebuilding reserves, planning with care, and being most particular to avoid wastefulness.

I catch my thoughts on a hook as they brush past a word – “essence”. Fancy. What is “essence”, really?

…I love the future. 😀

So… yeah… “the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character”. Essence. Got it. I ponder the word, and the idea of it for some minutes.

What “is” my “essence”? Is that a thing that I am? Have? Is it a state of being? A verb? An experience of self? A defining characteristic identified by others? Do I choose it? Chase it? Live it? Question it?

Is “what is my essence” simply a fancier, wordier, version of the lingering question “who am I”?

How would my “essence” influence my experience of life – or of self?

Are these questions that need asking, and answering, or is this a game?

Just questions tonight, I suspect, as I close in on the New Year. It’s a season of change, and of reflection. It is a season of choices, memories, and moments.

…the new year is a blank page…

I put questions aside, and make time for gratitude. The house is comfortable, tidy, and warm. The bills are paid. I have what I need, generally; I am fortunate. I reflect on good fortune, and the temptation to feel “deserving” or that this life is entirely “earned” on my own effort. Both the notion of being “deserving” and the notion of having gotten here “on my own” are illusions, nothing more, and I turn away from the thinking errors that bring me to those ideas. I’m fortunate. I’ve had a lot of lucky breaks. I’ve had help, encouragement, support – and all of that matters. I would not be “here”, had I been less fortunate, or if I had had to make this journey entirely without friend, or aid, all alone. I’d be somewhere quite different, and, perhaps, however grateful to be in that place, I might also be an entirely different human being, with a different understanding of myself, and different dreams, walking a different path, toward a different future.

That, too, I let go, as the twilight of winter evening slowly fades to the darkness of nightfall. No reason to become attached to notions in the darkness. Grateful and inquisitive – these seem worthy of being some part of my essence. Contentment, too. I smile, and make room to appreciate the journey, and the woman I have become over time.

Tomorrow, I’ll begin again. There is further to go. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, inspiration, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, winter, Words

Well That’s Change…

June 15, 2017 //
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… Lately (although I’m not really sure if the perception is grounded in anything real, or even if it really has gone on for any measured amount of time, it merely seems so, perhaps…) I feel a bit adrift, as though I am awake and aware of change, in the midst of change, without the certainty of having chosen change specifically, or planned to its effect on my experience.

I am processing recent experiences, and I’m not all done with that complex internal process quite yet. A weekend of stillness in the forest, definitely a prolonged meditation on life – and change – and it was definitely needed. A weekend of the entire and complete opposite of stillness (and also the opposite of solitude), also in the forest, also a weekend of it – and also a prolonged meditation of sorts, on life’s interconnectedness which fulfilled a certain need for community (and then some).  Next up, weekend-wise, a weekend of details, of tasks, of self-care, of considering the future, of making new choices from new perspective, of revisions, and sorting things out – also needed, and also a meditation of sorts, I suppose, particularly considering the contentment I find in order, and the somewhat excessive bit of disorder I’m finding myself dealing with, due to the chaotic nature of upheaval, and choosing change. So here I am, planning my weekend…

…Planning the future.

Beginning again. Again. 😀 There’s always room for one more beginning!

The time spent with my Traveling Partner was lovely connected time, wholesome “family” time, intimate shared emotional time; it was needed, and it is cherished. I smile each time I consider the weekend we shared. 🙂 It was time so precious it changed my thinking. A singularly magical birthday shared with so many travelers on life’s journey… I hope I never forget the way it sparkles in my memory now.

“Fireworks”, a rose in my garden, a metaphor for change.

Today my Traveling Partner, this being I love so much and so deeply, will head out again for a place, elsewhere, to have his own experience. I’ll be here, having mine. I learned a lot this past couple of weekends about what I really want, and what really meets the needs of my deepest heart, and where I could choose to take life – the menu seems more vast than it did three weeks ago. 🙂 It’s a lot to consider.

What next? Sleeping in. Sleeping in is definitely “next” on my to-do list, I think, and I’m so earnest about that one I’ve put it on my calendar. lol Where will the weekend take me? Where will I choose to take myself? I guess I’ll know more… later, further down my path.

It’s a good time to walk on. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being

Listening to My Anxiety

April 4, 2017 //
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House-hunting is weird. I have generally stayed fairly detached, which seems wise and emotionally healthy. This last little house felt so right, it was harder to maintain emotional distance. Each time I acknowledged, internally, how much I wanted this one my inner voice only weakly replied “how does it feel to want?” in that safely bitter tone that is a steady, more affectionate than not, reminder that until the keys are in hand… it isn’t mine. Well. It isn’t mine. 🙂 I woke to the news from my Realtor this morning, immediately followed by the search result with new listings. So. Okay. The search continues.

Funny thing, I learned more from this experience, because I really wanted this little house that very much. My anxiety while making the offer lingered while I waited to hear back. I was equally anxious about either outcome… but I learned the most from my anxiety specific to success; if I my offer had been accepted, there would suddenly be so many new details to attend to, and I didn’t feel wholly ready to face them. This is something anxiety is good for; teachable moments built on what-if scenarios that really “come to life”. There are things I hadn’t previously thought to specifically plan for, like… this little house lacked most basic appliances, and the result would be that immediately upon moving in, I’d be needing to buy a refrigerator, a washer and dryer, and certainly wishing I’d prepared sufficiently to also afford a dishwasher! Wow… That’s quite a bit of money to spend immediately after closing on a house, and also paying for a move. So… yeah… maybe plan for that? I mean, plan for it anyway, for the undetermined and indefinite future of many possible outcomes that exist until one actual outcome unfolds ahead of me. The more prepared I am for all the many possible outcomes, the less anxiety there will be in the moment, and the more easily that anxiety that does develop can be soothed by the easy assurances of good preparation.

So, this time, I’m not sitting around feeling disappointed (that consumed about a day and a half last time), instead I am making a list of the obvious details that would have required funds in the immediate aftermath of moving (I don’t own a lawnmower, either, or some of the homeowner gear one might expect to need…. like a step-ladder). Many of them are things I can plan ahead for, and certainly… I would do well to live much more frugally leading up to a home purchase; I’ll need every cent available in those first few weeks to be most easily able to just get up and go get whatever small solution to whatever common problem develops. That level of readiness would feel very secure. 🙂 More cash in the bank then seems to have more value that some moment of frivolity now. I find myself resolved to be very strictly attentive to a very lean budget. It even feels comfortable to make the wiser choices.

This morning, yesterday evening’s anxiety isn’t leading my day, but the recollection refines my thinking and keeps me on track toward reaching my most important personal goals right now. It’s a nice change of pace from allowing anxiety to send me into a tailspin, wrecking my days, wrecking my sleep, tainting my thinking with doom-soaked scenarios that never teach me anything, or have any positive result. I smile and sip my coffee, and move on with the morning, having taken some notes.

A beautiful morning full of hope… that was yesterday. Today, too. Probably also tomorrow. 🙂

Today is a good day for perspective. Today is a good day for contentment. Today is a good day to be re-inspired by the ordinary – and even by my own anxiety. Today is a good day for beginnings… and a good day to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Spring, The Art of Being