The Travel Dream
I was traveling on a large boat. It almost seemed like an enormous barge. Rusted and worn with use, it was safe but old, tired, and without comfort. It was also packed with fellow travelers. Most were women. I knew some, and my wife was among them.
The barge sailed on a rippling brown river so wide that the banks couldn’t be seen. We’d been traveling for days and getting close to the end. While many rode along as gossiping, resting passengers, I had a role of keeping things as organized as possible. This had me racing around. I was often on metal walks above the rest, and would look down and see what was going on as I rushed from task to task.
At one point, I was forced to go down among them. I’d stripped off clothing because I was hot. Wearing only my boxer shorts, I couldn’t find my clothes.
I didn’t care. It was important that I go down and do what was needed. My arrival in my underwear drew attention and comments. I shrugged them off. I overhead my wife undertaking explanations about ‘who I was’, but that didn’t matter to me.
Abruptly, we arrived and disembarked in a chaotic surge. I found myself driving a powerful white sedan filled with people. Racing away from the docks on surface streets, I saw a speed limit sign, 80 MPH. Stepping on the accelerator, I merged with traffic onto a huge white cement Interstate. We were going down a short hill through a curve. Ahead was an enormous hill and multiple exits listed. I called out to my wife, who was in the back seat, for instructions about where to go, demanding, “Which exit do I need to take?”
She replied, “I don’t know, I haven’t been paying attention.”
That infuriated me. I wanted to verbally berate her but then thought, why wasn’t I paying attention?
Dream end.
Satyrdaz Wandering Thoughts
A spider set up behind my toiletries. They were a large one of the daddy long-legs variety, often also called a cellar spider.
Sighing, I advised the spider, “That’s not a good place for webbing. I’m always picking this stuff up and moving it around. I think you need to go.” I gently prodded the webbing a few times.
Dropping to the countertop, the spider strode with dignity across the counter, then slipped in between the drawer and the cabinet, disappearing. I admired them. They knew where they were going with amazing surety, and they went unhurried, unruffled.
I wish I had as much poise as they displayed.
Satyrdaz Theme Music
A still, flat Ashlandia morning, a time of broken clouds and dissolute sunshine. The ticking clock competes with a far-off crow cawing a morning song. Satyrda, September 20, 2025. Two days before autumn but autumn feels like its taken control. 70 F, 86 F is speculated as the high. Summer is taking its last breaths.
Today’s song filling the morning mental stream is “Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie. I’m not sure why The Neurons laid down the 1975 song today. Nothing in my dreams point to this as the dream’s closing song or soundtrack. Nothing in my empty head points to why The Neurons have it playing as I do the morning deeds.
I enjoy the songs’ lyrics about confusion and rebellion, acceptance and dismissal. This live version plays with the melody. As with anything Bowie, he does it with unique style and fashion.
Hope grace and peace finds and keeps us. I know a lot of us are dubious that will happen anytime soon, if at all. I’m logically in the same arena of thought, yet, as an optimist, I still dream of a better time coming. Cheers, M
Mundaz Wandering Thoughts
I’ve often stated that I write to help me understand what I think. Writing is a process that forces me to slot things into a more coherent order. That process helps me dig up what’s really bugging me below the surface of my reactions.
I spent time yesterday walking and then writing myself a letter. It was almost like meditating for me, with surprising results. Turned out that I was angrier, more frustrated, and more depressed than I realized. Baring it all to myself helped me shed those things and reinvigorate myself. Some of the anger was irrational, railing at life for the afflictions happening to friends and family. Some, on a deeper level, were revelations to myself about how I perceived others and my relationships with them.
But once again, writing came through for me. I’m happy with the outcome. Purging my psyche of that anger and depression lifted my spirits and restored my energy levels.
I Might Just Be Okay
When I say I’m alright
I might just be okay
But there could be such a heavy load
That it takes too much to say
You can look for clues in my face
These things usually leave a trace
But what’s going on in my inner space
Is really not in play
I need time to process
To evolve an understanding
Of where I’m at and who I am
After this last round of changes
So when I say I’m alright
I might just be okay
Then okay, I could be miserable
I just don’t want to say
The Exercise Routine
A friend went hiking and then needed a few days to recover. Hips and a bum foot gave her issues. She wins for the best insightful comment about exercising: “I guess my approach of one hard day of exercising a month to overcome the lack of activity every other day needs to be reconsidered.” I’m paraphrasing. She put it better.
I found myself in a similar way. After my arm was broken in two bones a few years ago, I was left without exercising it much. That resulted in atrophied arm and shoulder muscles, which really pissed me off. Just as I was working on recovering from that, I had a ruptured tendon. Repaired with surgery, I was off of intense exercise for over six months last year, beginning in September. Guess what happened to my right leg, home of the ruptured tendon? That’s right, atrophied leg muscles. Like, mother of pearl.
Recognizing these things need to be fixed, I began working to improve. Just free weights, running, pushups, the old-fashioned stuff I’m used to doing. I saw improvements. Better muscle tone and definition, higher energy levels, clearer thinking, weight loss. Then I went on vacay. Other than walking and stretching, I didn’t exercise during the ten-day vacay experience.
Well, when I dropped to give twenty a few days ago, my left arm, the one with the atrophied muscles, was not happy. I barely eked out eleven pushups. The offended limb throbbed in irritation afterwards. Same yesterday and today, proving that it wasn’t a one-day fluke. The throb doesn’t last past five minutes, but it’s another annoyance. It doesn’t affect me when I plank, but it does affect my light weightlifting.
I’ll keep working it. I mean, what else is there to do? Well, yes, I will research and adjust my exercises, and find ways to address the throbbing, but I’ll press on.
That’s the bottom line. Giving up just isn’t an option.
A Little Perspective
I am a person who suffers from first world blues. Viktor Kravchuk’s insights about the war in Ukraine, lifted from Jill Dennison’s blog, helps me with an attitude adjustment about slow net speeds, poor customer service, terrible drivers, and writing difficulties. Mr. Kravhuk’s comments commend an attitude that is too often lost, that it’s easy to despair and give up, but what’s the point of that? Better to pick up and keep going.
Michael Seidel, writer 