Couchtime Is My Favorite Time

Play Ball!

Sun on the Water

It really was lovely to see the ocean on our recent trip. 

Her Gym

I joined a gym yesterday.

I am unhappy with my weight and physical health, and angry at myself for my lack of willpower and motivation. I disgust myself. I am hoping to shed a few pounds, as well as rid myself of some personal baggage and self-loathing, at the gym.

It's a "women only" gym, which should alleviate some of my horror of exercising this overweight middle-aged body in front of other people. Hopefully the gym will not be populated by slender young things who (through no fault of their own) will make me feel worse about myself. We shall see.

Wish me luck.

That Was Quite a Trip

As you may have surmised from the past few posts, we made a quick trip to Points Elsewhere over this past weekend.

The trip was delightful in that we got to see a family member we hadn't seen in quite a while, as well as to meet that family member's new spouse. Plus we got to lay eyes on the Pacific ocean, which we hadn't seen for three years. Nice.

The trip was also awful in parts, due to an unfortunate episode of food poisoning, plus a cancelled flight (American Airlines, I am looking at you. You have let us down yet again.) that marooned us 400-odd miles from home. Rather than wait 24 hours for the rescheduled flight, we rented a car and drove six hours through the wee hours toward our corner of the desert, arriving home at 4:45 AM, mercifully safe and sound. 

The best part of that drive was the magnificent half moon that arrived suddenly over a mountain to the right as I drove through the badlands. Lovely.

I am glad to be home.

Pier

Half Moon Guide

Pacific

Where I Wish I Were Right Now

Pig Accoutrements

Happiness is a New Fuzzy Blanket

The Head

Look closely at this photograph. What do you see?

It is the front of the USS Constitution. And those are the heads. 

Look again, at the composition of the picture: the colors, the reflections of the light, the angle from behind rigging toward the front of the ship.

Stunning. 

I wish I could see the possibilities in the world through a lens this way.  

Picture copyright 2014, 2015, 2019, Mediocria Firma. 

All rights reserved. Used with gratitude.

The Company I Keep

Both Tiny Dog and New Old Dog like to keep me company when I am upstairs to use my elliptical trainer. New Old Dog stalwartly protects his Man Cave, and Tiny Dog makes use of the cushiest of dog beds. 

Passing By

Twice this past month, I've seen Cherished Friend quite briefly. The first time was in an airport far from this desert land, where our paths fortuitously crossed as I went in one direction and he in another. The second time was yesterday evening through this morning, when his personal activities brought him briefly through my corner of the desert. It was, as always, lovely to see him.

In quotidian days, I am primarily -- even exclusively -- defined by my relationships to certain other people. Ofhusband. Mother of Offspring. Daughter, Daughter-in-law. Sister, sister-in-law. Even at work, many of my colleagues knew me first as wife of Beloved Husband before I became an employee, and that relationship colors how I am perceived in the office. Such is the way it is. My relationships with these others govern to a great extent my activities and how I move through life; and that is as it ought to be, for these people are my Family and I love them.

Friendship is defined differently: in forming a friendship, we are not confined by the social expectations and obligations placed upon family relationships. Friendship is unencumbered, unfettered. It a willing openness of self with another person, defined not by blood or marriage, but by affinity.

Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity. - Kahlil Gibran

Friendship gives us an opportunity to be ourselves, without preconceived expectations. It adds a new component to our lives -- an element of depth and color to our existence. Life is more full with a friend. And especially with Cherished Friend.

I shall always be grateful for his presence in my life. Even, and perhaps especially, in those brief moments in passing.

A friend is a second self, so that our consciousness of a friend's existence...makes us more fully conscious of our own existence. ― Aristotle

Erotic Cowboy

Orville Peck, about whom I've written before here, has released a new video for one of his songs from the Pony album:  Hope to Die.

Oh. My.

I'm not a particularly visual person, yet even I can see the marvelous visual images:

The flow of the fringe of his costumes.
The curve of his hands and his wrists, and his sinuous arm movements. (Most men vastly underestimate, I think, the allure of hands and forearms. Orville Peck, though, is kind enough to show his to us.)
The contrast of the dark mask and the dark bandana at his throat with the glow of his skin.
His sensuous dancing, reminiscent of flamenco dance crossed with traditional western line dancing.

And his smooth voice. Ah, that voice.

Thank you, Orville Peck, for bringing your music to life so beautifully.

The Night We Met

Tonight's earworm: The Night We Met (Lord Huron).  I may have posted this song before; I warrants hearing again nevertheless.

I found the lyric video for this song on YouTube this evening. It is just right for this song.

I am not the only traveler
Who has not repaid his debt
I've been searching for a trail to follow again
Take me back to the night we met
I hope you enjoy.

Double Decker Donut Dogs

Vide Noir

Tonight's earworm: the title track from Lord Huron's latest album: Vide Noir. 

Vide Noir: the black void.

I have given some thought to the Void.  You know the Void: it is that place of despair into which we all fall from time to time.

I have learned that I know what the Void is. English will not do to describe the Void, and so I will name it in another tongue:

gan ghrá

Now that I can name the Void, I can fully embrace it, make it a part of myself -- and by doing so, I will no longer be in danger of falling into the Void, for it will merely be falling further into myself.

The Void, like the creature called forth by Sparrowhawk in A Wizard of Earthsea, will no longer pursue me when I have caught it and brought it into myself.

Imagine how peaceful it will be.

Facebook Ads Strike Again

Oh, Facebook. WHY have you shown me this ad? Not a soul wants to see me wearing this... 'outfit'. Myself included. 

A Decade of Words

It is the tenth anniversary of this blog.

Thank you, my treasured readers, for walking this journey with me.

All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind. - Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam

Sprouts

This wooden railing by the sea was bringing forth tiny sprouts. Lovely. 

Ocean

After attending college reunions, we went northward to Massachusetts for a couple of days to visit relatives. One afternoon, we took a scenic drive along the coastline.

It has been eons since I last saw the Atlantic. As I looked out at the deep blue of the water and caught the faint scent of salt on the breeze, I realized that I have missed the ocean.

The desert has its own unique beauty, to be sure; yet the flourishing green of the trees and the grass, juxtaposed with the azure of the sea and the clear sky, was stunning. Far beyond words.

Where Did She Go?

Herself speaks.

I attended my 30th college reunion this past weekend. Beloved Husband, who graduated a year before I did, joined me. (We had attended his reunion last year, so it was only fitting that we go to mine as well.) Without the spectre of the bar hanging over my head (as it did last year), it was a good experience for us to revisit old haunts together. We had spent so little time together on campus back in Days of Yore, having started dating just a month before he graduated and moved home to this desert land, leaving me there in the green humidity of the college campus. It was a full circle, to be on campus together once more.

So much water under the bridge in the past thirty years.
-----

Reunions were well attended by my classmates. It was a strange experience, to see people I had not seen for three decades, and not only to talk with them about where we all are now, but also to reminisce about Back Then.

I was struck first, by the fact that some people remembered me at all -- I never considered myself to be a particularly social or visible person. And then I was struck more, by the little things people remembered about me:  the fact that I had named my rubber tree plant my freshman year (though we could not recollect what the plant's name was); or that when I made announcements in the dining facility, I would do so by standing on a chair and calling out, "PEOPLES".  Other stories with details so minuscule as to be like grains of sand on the path of my life -- yet those details were part of the lore surrounding me, embedded in others' memories for all these years.

One woman was there with her son, who now attends the same school. She eagerly called him over to meet me, and told him: "THIS is the person I was telling you about." She explained: when she was a freshman and floundering in her major and unsure what to do, I spoke to her at length and advised her. And I saved her. She emphasized to her son that I was the kind of person he should find at college: someone who can listen and help.

Bless her. I didn't know I had had such an impact. At all.

I was humbled.  I am still humbled.
-----

I think back to the person I was in college, and I wonder how similar I am to that young woman of ages ago. College was not easy -- I think of college as being a lonely and isolating experience. Perhaps, though, my internal viewpoint does not fully reflect how things were.

I heard the stories of others, and I miss her: that person with a youthful exuberance, a joie de vivre. I feel as though I may have lost the woman I once was so long ago. Or perhaps she is not truly lost. Perhaps she is just a bit buried.

I am going to try to find that person inside me again -- the person who names rubber trees; who plants tiny seeds of moments that grow into meaningful memories. I would like that.

One day at a time. We shall see where the road goes.

 

Good To Be Home

Rockport

Boom Pow