Posts Tagged ‘stream of consciousness’
Stream Thoughts
Some things never seem to change.
Everything is constantly changing.
Hummingbirds have returned to our feeders.
Baltimore Orioles continue to hang around them, too.
People in the area have been reporting bear activity wrecking their bird feeders.
Our portable dehumidifier in the basement conked out.
The downstairs bedroom started getting damp soon after.
We are getting quotes for a more robust solution.
I found out my dental insurance isn’t accepted by our dental office because it’s a Medicare plan.
The chipped molar I’ve been living with for months will cost over $400.00 for them to repair with a filling.
If they fix it and the fix lasts for the rest of my life, I can spread out that expense in my head so it doesn’t seem all that much.
The last two overnight thunderstorms each dropped less than a half inch of rain.
The grass stayed wet all day long yesterday, so I couldn’t mow areas that are in need.
Instead, I used the string trimmer to finish cutting our trails through the woods.
On my last bike ride, the derailleur wouldn’t shift into the lowest gear I wanted on the steep hills.
I tried using the barrel adjustment for a quick fix, but that wasn’t the right solution.
To do it right, I need to start at the beginning and recalibrate the entire system.
If possible, I hope to complete that before taking the bike to the lake for Memorial weekend.
Somehow, we’ve reached the beginning of our summer schedule of spending weekends up at the lake place.
This summer, I am not going to be riding the Tour of Minnesota in June.
Instead, friends are planning our own rides and tent camping at different locations on different dates.
The Sparta/Elroy trail system will be our first destination in early June.
In August, I will be Cyndie’s plus one at her 50th high school class reunion.
Next week, I will attend the initial planning meeting for my 50th class reunion in 2027.
Historically, I’ve found the planning to be as much fun as the reunions, so I’m looking forward to it.
As I was walking toward the barn upon completion of my trail trimming, Asher didn’t seem to recognize me.
When I got close enough that he figured it out, he was suddenly bounding toward me with flopping ears and a smile on his face.
That kind of greeting from a dog is unparalleled.
I sure hope he doesn’t come upon any bears roaming around our property.
Some days, a writer just decides to write individual thought sentences.
It’s like a story poem.
Less lyrical.
More informational.
But creative, in its own way.
Don’t you think?
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List Making
Sometimes, it’s helpful to create a list, whether you need one or not.
- That look when a dog tilts its head.
- Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Bark with Almond, Pretzel & Sea Salt.
- Giggles from kids younger than 4.
- Eyeglasses that actually fit and correctly improve vision.
- Effective use of italics.
- Narrators with voices that sound comfortingly familiar.
- Thinking thoughts without perceiving them as [silently] spoken words.
- Knowing the difference between two similar things.
- Being on the safe side.
- LED light bulbs.
- Reading between the lines even when there are no spaces.
- Waiting for a ride.
- Shedding a tear at just the right moment.
- Always remembering to get to an appointment on time.
- Walking in late because there were no convenient parking spots.
- Cuff links.
- Answers to questions you were never asked.
- Jokes and riddles.
- Bullet points.
- Bonus points.
- Ball points.
- Insufficient segue logic.
- Candelabrum.
- Being reminded of something from the past of which you have no recollection.
- Forgetting the reason for making a list.
- Having so quiet a mind that nothing can be identified to add to a list.
- Emptying the garbage bin.
- Refusing to experiment with ChatGPT.
- Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
- Carrying your shoes, one in each hand.
- Super slow-motion replays.
- Poetry and song lyrics that are indistinguishable, one from the other.
- Unsolicited advice.
- Empathy.
- Comedy.
- Politicization of existential angst.
- Tenacity.
- Scratch paper.
- Wing nuts.
- Wing tips.
- Unfinished business.
- Final chapters.
- Feeling so much better after making a list.
I’m glad that’s over. Now I can get on with more important things. What was I going to do today? Oh, yeah… I’m going to spend too much money to get new tires on my Crosstrek. The car is approaching 80K miles on the original tires. Maybe if tires last that many miles, “too much money” is not a justifiable gripe.
It’s a luxury to have new tires compared to having everything I own turned to rubble by bombs of war. It is only because I am not living in a war zone that I can waste mental energy creating a seemingly purposeless list.
Throwing words and phrases, sometimes sentences, onto a list can be compared to an artist who creates paintings by randomly splashing colors onto a canvas.
Viewed from a certain angle, a person just might find a moment of resonance with the object, possibly even the creator.
If I were to make the list above again, I’d probably add:
- An audible heavy sigh.
inserted somewhere strategic. Whether it needs it or not.
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Parsed Words
Every last one. Some with meaning, most with none. Flowing from the consciousness stream, but backing up every so often, words that appear and make their way to the forefront grasp what it takes to make the page. First off, they need to beat the sleep that is busy trying to stake a claim on the eye lids. It’s funny how that same claim so subtly plies its trade during the hour-long drive in the afternoon sun after a full day of mental processing. The closer to home, the more tenacious the pull of gravity on consciousness. With the bonus of an unexpected additional night at home before the weekend away, I groggily made my way from the dented Subaru to the lawn tractor. Foregoing the bad habit of guilty pleasure snacks the moment I walk in the door, I moved directly to navigating the terrain to be mowed. Right from the start there was a hint of an appealing aroma in the air. Smokey. Bold. Then I noticed the cut wasn’t looking right. Sure enough, the belt had moved off the middle spindle pulley and was rubbing away. I thought I had checked that last time I re-mounted the deck. About two-thirds through the mowing, I paused to find out what time it was and think about whether I wanted to complete the whole yard at once, or leave some to be done later. It looked like the scattered showers might hold off, and I received Cyndie’s support to forge ahead, so I got right back on the tractor and mowed. Then the clouds started to drip. The rain never fell dense enough to make anything soaking wet, so I just kept on going, eventually outlasting the precipitation to complete the lawn mowing, all on the same day. It was a nice accomplishment. An unexpected bonus. One less thing to wonder about over the weekend. Mowing in the rain is not something I would usually do. It felt good to not fret over the imperfect conditions. Another manifestation of fluidity. The cut did not turn out ideal, but it wasn’t all that bad, either. The damp clippings led to my wanting to clean the deck immediately upon finishing, overriding the equal other “want” to be inside, showered, and eating dinner. That would come later, at the end of a long day, before a long weekend with Cyndie’s family to celebrate a milestone birthday. Whatever happens, I plan to just go with the flow.
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Consciousness Streamed
Never mind that there is no reason not to keep on going despite the obvious restrictions and hesitations that never cease to exist in every manifestation of whatever reality this is at the moment that is surging past unless it’s not and instead is totally stationary and we are the ones doing the moving at such high rates of speed that it becomes difficult to discern what has already happened and what hasn’t actually happened yet in the way we currently perceive things that happen based on the senses that we have relied on to get us here thus far in our lives as measured against the backdrop of the climate as we knew it from the past fifty-some years which someday might be compared with the next fifty as a way of detecting the possibility of there being a difference as in change which would be undeniable one would hope at that point in the proceedings especially since this stream of basically unconscious rambling seems to appear about once every year maybe as a way to scour the surface of residual order in hopes of restoring some reset of rote writing routine repeated in a cycle of day after day wording that tries to make sense regardless the random missing word or unintelligible thought splayed out in broad daylight for all the world to see in the rare situation they just happen to do and willingly hang on till the end with some morsel of curiosity or macabre fascination that there will be some pot of gold at the end of this rainbow of brilliance that reaches in an arc across the screen from one point to another with shapes to decode the message therein however frightening and disturbing the exercise may be but unless some magic or miracle arrives all we’re left with is what we had on when we walked in here plus the thoughts that we carry inside of our heads that we believe must be precious because they haven’t been forgotten and lost for forever like the ones that are gone which we’ll never remember and we live with that fact because we’ve no other choice and speaking of choice that’s something we do have when it comes to this thing called love which when all else has failed is one thing that remains and in this stream unconscious where very little makes any sense love might be an answer worth considering to solve what it is that is bothering your distressed countenance.
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Relative Something 