Thought of this as I was walking today. Thought we could all use a mellow music break from the news about politics, death, wildfires, and other disasters.
Here’s Alanis Morrissette with “Ironic” from sometime last century.
Masks
With our AQI drifting between unhealthy and hazardous in southern Oregon because of smoke from wildfires, masks are the new norm. The N95 is the most popular and the lowest level of protection that should be used if you’re outdoors.
While the masks help us stay healthy, I’ve encountered drawbacks, like it’s harder to exchange greetings and smiles as you encounter others. You can’t sip a beverage or eat anything with the mask on, and the mask makes my nostrils itch. With temperatures rising and smoky sunshine, sweat sheathes my face. The combination of breathing through a tight mask and being hot and sweating also recalls my twenty years in the military and the times when we wore our NBC gear. Ah, good times!
But, besides staying healthier, I’ve found wearing the mask protects my beard and mustache from the sun. Without the sun’s influence, my beard and mustache grows in darker and stays darker.
The darker beard and mustache don’t make me look younger, however. There’s a few other things that need to be overcome to rejuvenate my appearance. The mask, though, hiding my nose, mouth, chin, and most of my cheeks, does help with that.
Stay healthy, everyone.
Disgusting
One thing that I’ve found about myself is that, after I go out and get hot and soak my shirt with sweat and then go into someplace cool, I DO NOT like putting my sweaty back against a cool chair surface. It disgusts me. No reasoning behind it; it’s just disgusting.
To me.
The Smoke
It’s a new habit. Reaching the corner where my street meets Siskiyou, I look left.
Although there’s a soft, steady down slope, it’s a straight shot into downtown Ashland. I know that two miles away is the Ashland Springs Hotel’s yellow building. I can’t see it today. I can see the first traffic light, at Walker. That’s just under a mile away. With today’s smoke, the prevailing visibility is about a mile away, as it has been for the last three days.
Fires ring our valley, sending smoke into it. Most of the fires started on July 15 when lightning strikes lit the dry brush and trees.
Although it’s the third year that I’ve been forced to do this, I’m not used to wearing a mask to walk around. We used to do it in the military as part of our war games, during simulated attacks. They were never fun. Neither is this.
Thoughts about the fire’s causes are inevitable, as are hopes and worries for the other people driven from their homes by the fires, and fears for the animals, and concern for the land. Thoughts about the firefighters out there fighting the fires on our behalf arise, along with thoughts of thanks.
Containment is the word of the month, followed closely by conflagration. When will the fires be contained? The closest, the Hendrix Fire, isn’t that large, just one thousand plus acres. Nine miles away, it’s thirty percent contained, but it’s not the fire delivering most of this smoke. That’s an accumulation from all the fires to the north and west.
What’s striking is how the smoke changes Ashland’s character. Outdoor events are canceled, curtailed, or moved indoor, if possible. There are fewer hikers and walkers, because part of the Pacific Coast Trail is also closed. Cyclists, usually so common, are rarely seen. With the diminished visibility, we can’t see the mountains. Ashland could be a plain town, or one on the seashore.
You’d never know it, with this smoke.
Albert Said
I’m certain this doesn’t apply to everyone, but it applies to me. That’s why long, solitary walks feel right to me.
Embedded Plans
A friend asked my wife, “Is Michael always so affable?”
I laughed, of course. The friend was encountering social Michael. He’s affable, but he has a very short half-life.
To her credit, my wife said, “Mostly. He has his moods. He’s okay as long as I don’t disrupt his writing time. Then he turns into a bear, and it’s not Yogi or Boo-Boo.”
My writing day doesn’t begin until about eleven A.M. I walk before my writing session as part of my process. When I’m writing, I target scenes to measure progress, and not word count. I’m frequently able to think about where I left off, and then resume writing it in my mind as I walk. When I get in and sit down, I usually know what I want to write.
This doesn’t always work because the muses have their own plans. I try to be flexible, but it’s a struggle. I like having plans. Plans provide me with structure and illusions of control.
When the muses throw me off with their reveals, I often need to stop to see where they’re taking me. Since my writing time is precious, I’ll frequently go back and edit what I’ve written when that happens. That keeps me engaged in writing while giving my subconscious mind the opportunity to meet with the muses and hash it out. (There’s not actually any hashing out. The muses know where they want to take the story. It’s up to me to do as told. I like to say we’re hashing it out because it gives me the illusion of it being a collaborative effort.)
My writing session only lasts about two and a half hours. Plans are embedded around it, especially walking. Walking is my number one form of exercise, and it helps me process information.
My walking plans change by season. That’s not just spring, summer, autumn, and winter, but the embedded seasons of hot, fucking hot, cold, fucking cold, wet, and smoky.
We’re into the fucking hot season now, defined by jokes like, “Look, the temperature has dipped. It’s ninety-seven.” The forecasted highs range between ninety-nine and one hundred two for the next ten days.
For all the seasons, I break my walking down into bite sized goals. My overall walking goals remain about twenty thousand steps and ten flights. During the FH season, I try to make fifty-five hundred steps before I start writing at eleven. After I write, I then target ninety-one hundred steps. That gives me four miles by three P.M.
After that, plans are flexible and adjusted according to what else the day requires. I frequently end up walking about two and a half miles in the evening, leaving the house about eight forty-five and returning an hour later. Because we live in a hilly area, my flights go up to about sixty one these days. (I can do that during this season because we have more hours of daylight. This doesn’t work as well when it’s cold and dark, so I adjust.)
For all that, they are just plans. They rarely survive reality. In the end, I ride the wave of the day, seizing moments and narrowing my focus as needed.
Okay, today’s therapy is finished. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Overheard on the Street
“Did you hear what happened when the pink ship collided with the purple ship? They were marooned.”
Sunday’s Theme Music
I like this song, “New Rules”, by Dua Lipa. I like the beat, the embedded humor, relationship observations, and the overall message. It’s a good streaming song when for when I’m out and about walking. (Though, in a mental pause, I think, isn’t that redundant? Can I be in walking? So trite.)
One, don’t pick up the phone
You know he’s only calling ’cause he’s drunk and alone
Two, don’t let him in
You’ll have to kick him out again
Three, don’t be his friend
You know you’re gonna wake up in his bed in the morning
And if you’re under him, you ain’t gettin’ over him
I think they’re damn fine, common sense rules. Not really new, except to her. In a touch of cosmic serendipity, the song was released one year ago today.
Sarah Said
I so agree with this quote. I expended several years finding my quiet place. Because of the classic stereotype, I thought that it was an office in my house with a desk and a typewriter. When that failed to satisfy my writing desires, I bought notebooks and pens and haunted coffee shops. The next step in my writing evolution was to walk to the writing location to clear my mind of non-writing and re-focus on my writing efforts. The last step was to take my laptop with me and forego the pens and notebooks (although I always have one of each with me). The coffee shop is noisy with business, music, and conversations, but it’s free from the interference and incursions of writing at home.
It took years, but the result is worth it. If you want to write, don’t just do what others are doing; find what works for you.
Fitbit Holding
I’ve leveled out on my Fitbit activities and achievements. I’m averaging almost nine miles a day and twenty-three flights, which is where I’ve been for a while.
I’ve settled into this, but I looked at the whys and wherefores behind this leveling.
Weather (and smoke). We’re into summer. I love the weather, except, you know, it gets a little hot. This year is more comfortable in Ashland. We’re cruising along between the mid-eighties and the mid-nineties. Temperatures usually drop below sixty at night, so it gets cool. However, walking during the day is still a sweaty endeavor. I stay well-hydrated and push myself on some days, but after achieving ten miles, I think, “Again?” Then I permit myself to back off (see #3).
Smoke is also a factor. We’ve been fortunate this year in Ashland this year. Smoke from only one wildfire blanketed us for a few days. Last year, it was worse, with fires all around us smothering the valley. I toughed it out on many days, wearing masks when the pollution levels became a health hazard. This year, I asked, why? What am I proving, and to whom am I proving it? So when the smoke was demoralizing thick earlier this month, I curtailed walking outside and did other activities.
In all of this, I’ll share my inherent liability (for this) that I don’t like exercising at the gym. I’ve never gotten into that scene. My wife loves it, and that’s good for her. But being a stereotypical reclusive writer, I don’t go to the gym. When I was in the military, I ran a few miles a week, and played racquetball and handball three or four times a week. Once I went through a hernia and blew out a knee at the end of my military career, forcing me to moderate activities, I stopped doing those things. The end.
Time Management. There are finite hours available. More importantly, my energy levels are finite. Wrestling with where fitness piece fits into my life puzzle required priorities.
- Number one, my writing time.
- Personal commitments involving my spouse.
- Socializing with my wife and friends
- Exercising, yardwork, reading, and everything else.
My writing time is almost sacrosanct. I put it off a lot while I was in the military and then working as a civilian so that we could pay the bills. Not that I quit working, I’m pursuing my dream.
That fourth one, above, is a catchall. Yardwork must be done, in my mind. Otherwise, it bothers me. Sure, I can shrug it off for one day…a week…maybe two, but then it becomes an irritation. Besides that, with the fire threats of our area, keeping weeds down and everything trimmed back is precaution.
And I like to read. I want to read. I read. Sometimes it’s a choice: do I want to read, or walk? Well, am I doing yardwork? Cleaning the house? Washing the cars? Going shopping? What can I shuffle off for another day?
I Don’t Wanna Laziness. Sometimes I just tell myself, you deserve a break, Michael. You’re writing and doing all these things. You’re sixty-two years old, retired from two careers and working on a third. Chill for a while.
Yes, it’s a rationalization. I came to grudgingly accept it. Number one, I grew up believing you are your clean house, your neat yard, your shiny car, and your job and appearance. That’s how I was socialized. Those of you who grew up in America in the last century probably know what I’m talking about. Now I know that, no, all those things are mostly superficial. As with a lot of living and activities, there’s a balance to be found and kept.
Part of my rationalization was also recognition that I was getting a little obsessive about my Fitbit activities, trying to push myself to higher and higher levels to the detriment of other activities. I’d tell myself, you did sixty-five miles this week; do sixty-six next week. I also realized that house-cleaning, yardwork, and other chores are perpetual, never-ending activities. Cut the grass this week, and you’ll need to cut it again two weeks later. Vacuum now, and the floor will have things on it again tomorrow after people and cats go through the house (especially cats!).
So it goes.
Michael Seidel, writer 