Wednesday, July 29, 2020

No Ready Reply

I always hope to have that pithy remark ready, should someone require such correction in the course of my life. But when I was on a run a few weeks ago, I turned out to be remarkably unready to deliver anything close to an incisive commentary on this man's choice not to look at the crosswalk before rolling his truck right into it. 

See, I went on my run early in the day so I could avoid seeing people. I pull my buff up to mask my face when I run near people, so the less I have to do that, the better. It's not that early though - the sun is, in fact, nearly over the ridge, and it's plenty bright enough outside. Plus, I'm wearing a bright yellow shirt. I'm plenty visible - the problem was not on that end. 

No, as I ran on the sidewalk on Apple from Parkcenter towards Boise, I only glanced for a moment when I saw a truck moving in the D & B parking lot. I figured they would have to see me; after all, I was right there on the sidewalk. I didn't look up as I entered the crosswalk that bridges the sidewalk from one side of the driveway to the other. Turns out, neither did the truck driver. It continued to roll directly into the crosswalk that I was occupying. 

I finally looked up to see the driver's right ear as he looked at the road, in an apparent attempt to enter the roadway without having to come to a complete stop at all. 

Later, I thought that I should have slapped the truck - after all, it was about to slap me. Or that I should have said something clever. Instead, I spread my arms wide and waved them and uttered these words: "Hey! Hey! Hey! Fuuuuuck!" 

Thus is defined the limit of my ability to produce a comeback mid-run while my heart is pounding extra hard from almost being rolled over by a truck. 

I ran on. I did glance back, but I wasn't at a good angle to see if the driver was as disturbed by almost hitting me as I was at almost being hit. I hope he was, but I bet he wasn't. 

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Introspection

It's 94.95 degrees on my porch, but it doesn't feel that hot to me. Of course, I'm in full shade, which helps with keeping cool, but I think it's mostly because I've been so cold lately. It's taking longer for my body to get warm enough to care about it being hot outside. But I can feel it happening; the sweat is getting ready to pop out on my brow, and I'll soon be forced to retreat into the air conditioned comfort of my apartment. 

But not yet. Now, I'm writing, not distracted by the television or any music. I am a bit distracted by passers-by and the squirrels and birds bold enough to dare eating birdseed mere feet away from my feet. Overall, however, I'm much more able to focus out here. 

I've got a good amount of writing to do in the next few days. I'll be going out of town on Tuesday morning, so I need to have a couple of blogs prepped and ready to go for each of my blogs. I know what I'm writing about for the next couple of Gym to the Mountain posts, since I still have a couple of days of my 4th of July trip to put up, and then I have other exercise related things that are easy to write about. 

Here though, I'm just not sure what to write. I hold myself back, here, from writing about some of the things that occupy much of my mind these days. I don't want to write about politics here, at least, not too extensively. And I don't want to let all my focus here go to the pandemic either. But I find that I consume a lot of politics and pandemic related news. And I grind and think on those items, and I might write about them... but not here. 

I guess another thing that's been occupying my thoughts in this space of strangeness engendered by the pandemic. I find myself thinking about who I am, and what I am. Who I want to be, and how that meshes with who I am now. Who I was in the past, and how I got here from there. I'm a bit confounded about how it is that I came from years of Catholic schooling and never really believed in any of it. Looking at myself, I feel like I've chosen paths that I really had no "right" or "reason" or "impetus" to choose. How did I manage to decide that I didn't need to wear makeup, growing up in this society and in my family? 

But that's not necessarily blog material either. 

Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Writing

I finished up the Endings workshop, and I feel like I got some good information from it. It was a very different workshop than Depth in some ways. I mean, the structure is the same, but the homework was very different. Depth was more about practice, while Endings was about studying.

I also asked for access to the Depth workshop on the Teachable platform since I had taken that workshop before they went to that platform. I got a code to get into the July Depth workshop and I'm going to be listening to those videos again as they get released. I won't turn the homework in for that workshop, but I just might do some of it, because I remember being pretty inspired to write when I did the workshop the first time.

I haven't been writing fiction lately, and I'm okay with that. My focus right now is on other things; I'm adjusting to working from home, it's backpacking season and I've got a wild solo trip scheduled. My mental focus is on the implementation of a new software at the office, and I don't really have much extra.

Which is why I need to refocus writing as play. Telling stories should be fun. If it isn't, then maybe I'm not ready to be writing stories. I'll see how it goes with going through the Depth workshop videos again. Maybe I'll be inspired again.

If not, I won't worry about it. The world's a crazy place right now. Just because I'm not writing right now doesn't mean that I'll never write again. If there's a motto for 2020, it just might be "never say never" after all.

Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Free Floating Anxiety

I've been backpacking for several years now, and solo backpacking as well. I have spent many nights in the outdoors with just a tent (and sometimes not even that) for protection. And while I have had some nights in the wild where I felt trepidation, even fear, I have rarely had anxiety about spending the night in the woods while I'm still home. 

And yet, this year, I've had a couple of nights at home when I suddenly think about spending the night alone in the woods and I'm filled with anxiety, afraid of the worst possibilities. I can feel the fear coursing through my body and I didn't know why I should suddenly start being afraid of something that I'm pretty comfortable with doing. 

Instead of taking the anxiety as a truth, I decided to look at that anxiety as an aberration. I examined myself to try and determine what could be causing me to feel that way since I had no reason to fear that particular thing. 

I came to the conclusion that this whole pandemic thing has probably caused so much anxiety in my mind that it's just floating around and trying to attach itself to any old thing. Next I'll probably reacquire my phobia of talking on the phone, oh wait, that totally did resurface during this pandemic. 

The other day on Facebook I saw someone writing about being able to read the vibes, knowing if the vibes are positive or negative. I didn't respond, because I feel like it would be hard to do so without coming off as trite, but I thought about it. And in the context of my free floating anxiety, I made a connection. I wanted to tell that friend to be careful that he wasn't creating the vibes he felt he was perceiving. I'm certainly not the only one with some extra anxiety floating around, just waiting to attach itself to something in the brain.  

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Work from Home Poetry

My director at work gave us a challenge - come up with a haiku that's related to the fact that we're having to work from home. I played to win with one referencing a meeting that she had been on when a squirrel kept coming into my apartment behind me during the meeting. She had enjoyed the show quite a bit, so I started with the squirrel in mind. 

The one I submitted to the competition was my second attempt. I wanted to make sure that I cleaved to the haiku standard of referencing the season in some way, as well as keeping the syllable count. 

squirrels at the door
grown bolder with summer's heat
I work at their home

My scheme only worked so far; had I known my director has a penchant for rhyming verse, I would have used that technique, nontraditional though it would be for haiku. I came in second place to a rhyming haiku that was also pretty funny. No squirrels though, minus points. 

I used to very much prefer having my poetry rhyme, but as I grew older I came to appreciate the lack of rhyme as well. Though I still like a structure and a pattern. Haiku is nice for that, because the structure is provided. And, quite frankly, in America the syllable scheme is pretty much the only thing we pay attention to with haiku. 

Maybe I'll write a few more of these; they might be a good focus while hiking. I like trying to condense my intentions into such small spaces.