Posts Tagged ‘coping’
Ugly Air
I’ve lost track of how many days in a row we’ve been suffering under a “poor” and “low” quality air alert due to wildfire smoke. This morning, it shows up as “Moderate,” but the cumulative impact is lingering to the degree that we aren’t feeling much better. The lethargy I have been experiencing has helped me to avoid doing anything that requires heavy breathing, but we haven’t stayed indoors or worn masks while outside.
The horses and Asher appear to be responding to the nasty air in much the same way as we are. 
They are moving pretty slowly. I watched as Light stepped away from her bucket this morning and turned around toward Swings’ station. She then stood there for a minute or two, as if contemplating whether it was worth the effort to walk over there. When she eventually did, Light slid her nose into the bucket without asking, so Swings lifted her head up out of the way and chewed with her mouth open directly above Light’s head. Light ended up with a little crown of grains on top of her mane, where it covers her slowly healing head wound.
Horses are masters of taking things in stride.
Asher seemed to be looking for better air underground.
One complaint we don’t have during the bout of bad air quality is high humidity. It’s really sad that the dryer air that would otherwise feel so refreshing is being tainted by the smelly smoke particles.
When Asher was taking pauses between digging toward the center of the earth, he plopped down on the cool soil in hopes it would give him a little of that refreshing feeling that we are all longing for.
We are feeling a new level of appreciation for clean air and fresh breezes. If only they would arrive in a more gentle form than the hurricane-wind thunderstorms that seem to be joining wildfires as the new normal on the planet.
I’m afraid my lethargy has me feeling a little more gloomy about the state of things in the world this morning. Luckily, we have a lunch date planned today with friends, Rich and Jill. That will do oodles to bring me to my happy place of love and laughter again.
May you all find a way to spend some time in your happy place today, despite any of the gloom that may be crimping your styles!
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Detail Oriented
Someone made a reference to me being anal in some of the things I do, in this case, related to my methods tending to the horses’ emptied grain feed bags. I’m not going to argue with that assessment, though I might use other words to describe my proclivity for order. I can come across as rather particular about how I want things to look around here. Maybe even fussy. Meticulous. Discriminating. Fastidious?
I can be detail-oriented. The height of the unmowed grass when we arrived at our driveway was rather shocking. That was a detail that was hard to miss. A less astute person might not pay attention to the grass growing in the seam of the concrete apron of the shop garage.
Was I being anal when I got on my knees and plucked all of those out before setting off on the riding mower? At least it looks like someone actually lives here again.
The grass blades were ten inches tall in some places along the driveway where I started cutting as soon as we got home yesterday. I needed to let go of my usual fussiness about achieving a clean-looking cut and settle for a version I’ll call: at-least-it’s-been-cut.
The mower balked a little at the complications of such long grass, but I think it still did an impressive job for an electric. The exit chute plugged once, and one of the blade motors overheated a couple of times. I needed to use the higher blade speed setting, which drains the batteries faster than normal, so I didn’t get as far as I wanted before quitting for the day.
There was a thunderstorm last night, so I don’t know if the grass will be dry enough to start mowing right away this morning. If it’s not, there is plenty of trimming to be done with the string trimmer and the hedge trimmer that I don’t mind doing when it’s wet.
I’ll be playing catch-up for a few days before starting over without pause to get a more reasonable, cleaner second cut before it has a chance to grow much.
The freshly cut hay field looks great, but that makes the tall grass left along the fence lines stand out that much more as needing to be addressed. Beyond that, the work of cutting up the giant oak limb remains as a large burden on the to-do list.
Lazy days on the lake are definitely over. For a couple of weeks, anyway. We plan to head up again for a 4-day weekend in the middle of the month. Then, again, the week after that, so don’t feel sorry for me in the least.
I look forward to seeing what the remains of the lodge destruction will look like upon our return. I like paying attention to the details of the work they are doing.
Before we left yesterday morning, we stopped down to watch the start of the serious demolition getting underway.
Might be time for an update to the song I wrote about Wildwood.
The old lodge don’t look the way it used to look…
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Coping Nicely
While Asher, Cyndie, and I are able to take refuge from the extremely hot weather by retreating to the air-conditioned house, the horses must endure the blast furnace nonstop until it abates. In the same way that they stand stoically against the worst of winter’s cold, they find ways to make it through the worst of the muggy heat.
It’s a bit shocking to me that I didn’t find them the least bit ill-tempered when I showed up to serve their afternoon grains.
Later, when I arrived to retrieve the feed buckets, all four of them were out grazing in the back pasture. I thought it was weird that they were standing in the direct sunlight, as the heat had yet to loosen its grip.
One second later, Swings and Light had returned to the shade of the paddock. Out in the field, Mix and Mia were a picturesque pair. As I had my back turned, dumping a load of manure into a compost pile, Mix and Mia returned, as well.
It was a shock to step out into the open and find them standing right in front of me. It’s as if they use teleportation to cross that distance in such a short time. One moment, they are stationary with their heads down in the grass, and an instant later, they are calmly standing in the paddock before me, not even breathing heavily.
When Cyndie was out with Asher on his last walk of the evening, she found the horses mingling around in the vicinity of the shade sail, even though the sun was low enough that trees were shading the whole area. They have given every impression they are coping with the oppressive conditions nicely.
The last few rain threats have missed Wintervale, leaving us pretty dry. Cyndie spent a fair amount of time last night watering all the flowers she has planted around the house landscape. It would be great if we could get rain today and tomorrow, but not on Wednesday or Thursday.
We leave for the lake on Friday and will be gone for ten days, so I would really like to cut the grass one more time right before we go. I’ve got a routine established now with the electric riding mower that I can cover the entire property on three charges over two days.
You could say I’m coping nicely with the rampant growth that is occurring this time of year.
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Coping Well
When it gets extremely cold with dangerously low wind chill temperatures, schools cancel classes and communities postpone events, but nobody cancels walking the dog or feeding the horses. Eighteen below zero Fahrenheit doesn’t keep us from donning our “space suits” to trudge out into the harsh conditions and carrying out our duties the same as every other day.
Asher needs to get out there to freshly mark his territory, and the horses need us to make sure they can get a drink of water and feed them grain and hay. Finding the water isn’t frozen in the morning is a huge plus in having things go smoothly for the early feeding. All four horses appear to be coping well with the biting cold, which also goes a long way toward allowing us to enjoy life here in the Arctic conditions.
While I was standing idle in the morning sunlight, waiting for the horses to finish their grains, I noticed some pigeons were on the waterer. They weren’t satisfied with simply getting a drink. One of them jumped in the water like it was its personal hot tub.
I have no idea how they avoid getting frozen when they step back out into the -18°F air. I would expect them to become pigeoncicles. They have been leaving a lot of pigeon-poopcicles on the horses’ placemats lately that are almost impossible to scrape off. I would say the pigeons seem to be coping with the cold better than all the rest of us.
We are starting to count the days until we can pull blankets off the horses to free them from that annoyance. As soon as overnight temps quit dropping below zero and daytime temps are hitting the 20sF, we will offer the horses some relief. The blankets are helpful during cold snaps or heavy snowfalls, but the horses would prefer not having them matting down the hair on their backs for days on end.
They have done a good job of coping with the necessary evil this week. I’d think they would appreciate having the blankets fluffed and recentered on their backs, but they tend to act non-cooperatively most of the times we try.
We just need to cope with getting a little push-back and reposition the blankets anyway. Having the blankets hanging off-center may not bug them, but it bugs the OCD tendencies in me when I see it.
That’s an area where my coping skills could use a little work.
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Injustice Exists
At times, the expedition I’m on to avoid news media leaves me oblivious to current events happening in other parts of the world until someone brings them to my attention. In reassessing my goal and the progress thus far, Cyndie and I chatted about how news avoidance was going for each of us.
She mentioned that injustices of the past have been survived by many people for ages and that injustices will continue to exist in the future. Coexisting with the atrocities perpetrated is an unpleasant reality. My immediate survival mode involves “turtling” to preserve my sanity and hopefully build some reserves of fortitude to face inequities that close in on my range of influence.
As a beacon of hope, love, and beauty, I present some views of our surrounding natural glory at the lake up near Hayward. Pictures we took on a walk yesterday in the cold on the last day of November.
This morning, there are four white swans swimming around between our shore and the island nearby, frequently plunging their heads deep to feed, with their tail feathers pointing straight to the sky. They have no concerns about what the citizens of the world will face in the coming months and years as they consume some food and give their wings a break from their migration to winter quarters.
I can relate to them entirely. Maybe I am “swanning,” not turtling.
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Barely Enough
It has been two weeks now since I instantaneously and possibly irrationally set forth on an expedition of sorts to live in complete seclusion from political news. Completely unprepared, I threw myself into this odyssey as a mechanism of self-preservation. Two weeks is a pretty small sample size since I could potentially need to keep up this practice for years, but it has paid dividends thus far.
However, my avoidance of news has fallen short of overcoming the sadness that subtly paints the background of each moment, knowing that the very thing I am ignoring continues to exist and wield its negative influence on the world.
For most of my life, I have escaped periods of deep angst by fantasizing about imagined outcomes. In my most unhealthy periods of depression, the scripts usually involved outcomes where I no longer existed. Since treating my depression, I have been practicing healthier fantasies.
I like to imagine…
- a world filled with honesty, truthfulness, equity, justice, love, peace, and an endless wealth of happiness.
- that every child is nurtured in a healthy way by people who love them.
- no person being forced to live in a situation of housing insecurity.
- religions of the world wouldn’t lead people to do harm to others or act in conflict with the guise of their teachings.
- no countries fighting wars, period.
- all employers offering profit-sharing and opportunities for employee ownership.
- credit card companies never trying to entice me with spam messages and snail mail but being willing to take my application whenever I decide it’s what I want.
- every kid who ever wanted a puppy could get one and pets always come already house-trained and obedient to commands.
- a world where professional athletes don’t do post-game interviews after victories, where they try to use words to describe feelings that no words can describe. It would be a bonus for me if they don’t first thank their god for the win. Heck, it’s my fantasy, they just won’t.
- sadness not having the advantage over happiness in people who experience depression.
- that everyone who I fondly remember senses that I am thinking about them and feels the love I send.
- human bodies not giving out before a person’s spirit and soul are ready for the end of a life’s journey.
- no food insecurity anywhere on the planet.
- as long as I’m imagining, ice cream can be eaten at any time in any amount with no negative consequences.
- there are no precious metals or jewels that humans seek and value for vanity or status.
Will Steger & Paul Schurke navigating, “North to the Pole,” Crown Publishers, 1987
- humans not having disturbing problems over sex and sexuality.
- governments working transparently and ethically for their citizens’ best quality of life.
- people not living in fear and not experiencing unfounded fears about possible worst outcomes.
- being able to watch the news without psychological pain over what is actually happening.
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Can you see how hard it is for me to stay in the positive when I am imagining my happy fantasy world?
It is a long journey into my wilderness of news avoidance, with constant course corrections and frequent healthy reframing of my view of the world. I feel like I should have gotten sponsors and stocked custom thermal insulated outerwear, cool-looking boots, and plenty of high-quality foods to sustain me on this journey of news-free exploration.
For the moment, what I’m working with seems like it’s barely enough.
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Utmost Avoidance
The extreme level of distress I’m feeling over witnessing the election of an authoritarian government led by such a jerk alerts me to my white male heterosexual privilege. I dared to hope. I assumed that an overwhelming majority of people in this country would choose the ethical leader and preservation of our democracy.
I am so aghast over the implications of having all the threats made by the Republican candidate for US President now able to be acted upon; it has me uncertain about how to cope.
That’s when it occurs to me that this is how it must always feel for the many oppressed people for whom this is just another Thursday. Generations of unjustly marginalized people have succeeded in carrying on in the face of enslavement, or their nation’s people being forced onto reservations or forced into internment camps, denied housing, denied jobs, and prohibited from loving whomever they choose.
At my first job after tech school, I discovered I had been lied to about a base salary. I quit on the spot. I knew I would find another job, a better job. I cold-called a company and was given an offer after one interview. No one ever hindered my ability to get a loan and buy any of the homes in the places I chose. No one follows me around a store, watching my every move. I’ve never been harassed or threatened on the street for the way I look, how I wear my pants or who I choose to love.
There is an SNL skit depicting the 2016 election night reactions of a group of white people in an apartment with Dave Chappelle (and eventually, Chris Rock) reacting; the majority being oblivious to their privilege, Dave and Chris commenting in ways that show the comparison of their perspectives and revealing the clueless viewpoints of the others.
I don’t mean to diminish the truly threatening prospects of allowing small-minded people to take control of our entire country. I don’t want my shock over the election results to dishonor others who have been living under unjust discrimination of any flavor throughout lifetimes.
It is what it is. I am resisting the urge to put up a billboard-sized sign on the back of a semi-trailer with a curse word in front of you-know-who’s name or “Not My President” like the ones that have soiled Wisconsin landscapes for the past four years, but I realize we need to be better than that.
I really do want to offer respect for those who have maintained their dignity throughout generations of oppression and rise above vindictive antagonisms at this point. As long as Cyndie and I are able, we will guard our precious property from rancor and resume cultivating peaceful and loving energy, which we will beam out into the world like a beacon of goodness for others to find and absorb.
If something happens in the news that we need to know about, we trust friends and family will let us know. Otherwise, we have decided to aim for the utmost avoidance of all news media. Luckily, we can still safely watch “Shrinking.”
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Self Soothing
There are days when Cyndie and I put our energy toward helping our dog, Asher, learn to calm down on his own. Yesterday felt like a day I needed to practice a good dose of my own self-soothing. Between the US Supreme Court rulings and news of current early-season hurricanes, I put myself through unnecessary trauma by watching the US Men’s National Soccer Team’s futility in their crucial elimination loss to Uruguay in the COPA America tournament.
These are not the kind of warm and fuzzy inspirations that one prefers to be basking in while on a vacation at the lake.
If I wasn’t trying to eat healthy as a general rule, I’d binge on a too-large serving of our favorite ice cream from West’s Dairy in town to assuage my angst.
Has there been any encouraging news related to the SCOTUS in the recent past? From ethics disasters to blatantly political rulings that defy legal logic, it’s as if they are in a contest to see how much faith in the institution from average citizens they can destroy.
I’m not sure how much more news from the nine Supreme Court Justices I can take and still maintain my happy lookout on life.
I’d like to meditate on the beauty of a golden sunset but then I start thinking about Hurricane Beryl being the earliest category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record and my happy place gets blown away.
Breathe, John. You don’t need any ice cream.
The wind screaming across our lake yesterday didn’t help much in providing a calm and soothing atmosphere. Still, Cyndie and I got out for a walk around the properties in our association which soothed my nerves some after having watched Portugal eke out a victory over Slovenia on penalties after finishing extra time tied 0-0 in Euro 2024.
My exercises in self-soothing will get a fresh workout this morning after I watch the 4th Stage of the Tour de France which is already climbing mountains in the Alps. Oh boy.
Oooooommmmm.
For the record, I much prefer the stress of spectator sports over that of politics or climate catastrophes.
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Hanging On
It feels like we are waiting for the grand chorus of an epic chart-busting anthem to crescendo and meld all the disparate elements of our lives into a satisfying resolution of peaceful bliss. Another way of saying, “another day, another dollar.” Every day is unique but it feels like the same things keep happening in each different day.
Bright sunshine. Big booming dark clouds. Gushing flood of rainfall. Bright sunshine. Hot steam evaporating. Insects hatching. Humidity rising. Big booming dark clouds return.
Between the dramatic downpours, we try to chip away at one or two outdoor projects that we can achieve despite the swampy conditions left by the cloudbursts.
Being quarantined on our property for the last three weeks has served to make me aware that it is unusual for us not to go out for some reason this many days in a row. Oh, wait, we drove up to get Asher last weekend. I already forgot. Never mind.
I’m just getting punchy because I haven’t felt like doing much of anything, yet innumerable things deserve to be done. I include getting some extended hours on my bike seat which hasn’t happened in far too long despite the Tour of Minnesota week of riding starting in just ten days.
Weather, or not. [it’s a battle to play with words with autocorrect on]
And you can bet we will see some weather while pedaling the pavement and camping in tents. In the 25 years I’ve ridden this adventure in June, there was only one time that the weather was gorgeous every single day. It was my first year in 1994.
I am doing my best to hang on to my sensibilities and accept whatever happens next. Planning has become optional.
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Everyday Thinking
Knowing better doesn’t always prevent me from suffering moments of feeling overwhelmed by the mixture of world events I can’t control and my agendas and responsibilities I can control that need attention. I know that if I just stop thinking about the combination of issues and “to-do” list items I could settle my mind with a deep breath and a pleasant thought, but that does nothing toward making progress on issues I need to address.
Not a day goes by free of reports about the narcissistic grifter whose name I resist typing or saying. Do you know how many days have passed since the Republican party adopted him as their shining light? It is very hard to endure while striving to maintain a healthy outlook about the sanctity of truth and justice in the world over such a long duration of daily pounding.
Is it any wonder why I enjoy losing myself in the athletic competitions of spectator sports?
One basic method of dealing with the unrelenting growth of my personal “to-do” list when it starts to weigh on me oppressively is to simply take action on things that just need ‘a trigger pulled’ so to speak. Get them off the list. Just do it.
I’ve asked for quotes from local landscape companies to upgrade the settled soil around the foundation of our house. Out of 4 companies contacted, I received 2 proposals. There were a lot of differences between the two. I left them hanging for a couple of weeks because I couldn’t decide how I wanted to proceed. I told the outfit that recently phoned looking for a decision that I would let them know this week.
Yesterday, I called and turned both companies down. Think of the money we’ll save! A much more rudimentary version of the upgrade might still happen, but I will be providing all the labor and materials.
Cyndie and I made it to our polling station before noon and voted in our local spring election. Knocked those decisions off my list.
I logged into my Medicare account and finally filled out an application for one of the gazillion options lobbying for my attention. Wish that would curtail the inundation of spam texts, emails, and unhelpful snail mail coming my way. There are an amazing number of medical insurance corporations aware of the fact my birth happened almost 65 years ago.
When I notice there are pending decisions beginning to pile up in my already thoroughly cluttered mind, one fix that helps me is to take immediate action on things that I have been putting off. When I know deep down that additional research won’t add anything substantive to a decision I’m already leaning toward, taking action to instantly alleviate the pressure of that task is good therapy.
Then I can sit down to watch the next great moment in sports with a much freer sensibility.
“Oh! They are going to pull the goalie!?”
What were they thinking?
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Relative Something 