Fumbling Through
In the garden of love and hope
things appear level
but this is a slippery slope
where loss hurts like the devil
words drive worrying stumbles,
and feelings force hurtful falls
sometimes no one answers
your quiet, urgent calls
you fall
you lie
you get up
you swear
never again
but you keep on going in there
to see
what you find
hoping love and answers
will find you there
in time
Sundaz Wandering Thoughts
My wife and I were in Albertsons. A light replenishing mission, this wasn’t a full-on shop. Certain items are only available at Albertson’s or Safeway in Ashland. Albertson’s is closer, and so there we were.
I was in the sprawling produce section, which shares space with the deli and bakery. A frozen section of frozen mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese lines another wall.
Standing on the end, I gazed across these commingled sections and all of their offerings, looking for my wife and trying to remember what she was wearing, eagle-eyed for a purple hat or blue jacket. I think that’s what she was wearing.
As I did, I questioned myself and chuckled, “How many times do I end up like this, looking for my wife in a store?” Seems like every shopping venture with her has a moment like this.
I was perplexed. Everything — just five items — on our list was in the basket, and I had the basket. Clearly, my wife had gone rogue and was shopping ‘off-list’. That happens, but what did she seek? Answering that would let me find her.
I noticed a woman looking at me as she pushed her cart my direction. Not recognizing her, I decided she wasn’t looking at me but something around me.
She came right up to me. “You look confused. Are you looking for the frozen fish? They’ve changed everything around again.”
I smiled. “No, I’m looking for my wife. But you’re right, they’re always moving things around.”
The woman nodded. “Yes, they want us confused and lost, so we spend more time in the store, which might lead to more impulse buying.”
She wheeled her cart away.
I watched her heading down another aisle. She’d clearly given this a lot of thought.
But she was right. Like, right now, my wife was probably pursuing another impulse buy.
Then I turned and added a bag of pistachio nuts to the basket. I mean, as long as it’s there, and I’m there, waiting…right?
Sundaz Theme Music
Sunda, January 11, 2026, silently settles in around us in Ashland. My wife and I gage the outside weather together.
Alexa told us it’s 36, cloudy, with fog and stagnant air, and a high of 56 F upcoming. My system says it’s 30 F.
“Look at the fog,” my spouse intones.
I nod. “Fortunately, it’s the invisible kind.”
Yes, we can see blue skies, sunshine, and the treed mountains as far as forever and perspective allow us. I suppose other parts of Ashland are soaked in fogs, cloud, and warmer air, and that’s where Alexa gleans her report.
Sis reported that Mom was very loopy this week. Mom again fell out of her wheelchair, again insisting that the chair ‘threw her out’. Sis and I have seen Mom in the chair and warned about leaning too far and not paying enough attention to her posture and balance.
From Mom’s point of view, she was doing everything right. What was going wrong was the chair. But we saw the same thing when she was walking last year but frequently falling. In that case, absently turning and reaching and becoming overextended caused her to fall. She always blamed something else.
Perspectives often matter. Judging from news reports and blogs, politically progressives are as enraged and watchful as me with ICE matters.
It’s dismaying. After an ICE agent killed an unarmed American citizen, Renee Good, in Minneapolis, many called for restraint. Using reports of more ICE confrontations, ICE responded with more aggression.
I watched multiple videos of Good’s encounter and death. They all left me stunned as others. I questioned why ICE agent Ross drew his weapon in the first place. The agent seemed overly aggressive, as if he wanted a chance to shoot.
ICE agents were bellicose, shouting, “Get out of the fucking car.” When Good was shot and the car went off and crashed as she died, someone said, “Bitch.”
I read a report that the killing was the first in Minneapolis in 2026. That doesn’t bode well for a calm and peaceful 2026.
Music helped reclaim some sense of calm this morning. Papi did too, coming by to greet me with chirpy purr-mew. As my oatmeal with cinnamon was made ready, The Neurons put Ray LaMontagne singing “Trouble” in the morning mental music stream.
Trouble
Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble
Trouble been doggin’ my soul since the day I was born
Worry
Worry, worry, worry, worry
Worry just will not seem to leave my mind alone
The song’s lyrics are right. Worry won’t let my mind alone since Trump emerged on the politic scene.
May worry and trouble leave you alone and peace and grace come by and comfort all of us. Cheers
The White Square Dream
I dreamed I was presented with a white vertical square.
The square floated in front of my head. Despite no evident attachments to the wall, floor, or ceiling, it was very stable.
Twenty-five photos in five-by-five columns and rows were in the square. All were the same photo of a young, bald, smiling black man — no one familiar to me. The picture reminded me of a high school photograph, but this man was an adult.
Puzzled, I investigated the white square and then the photographs, learning that pressing a photograph opened another set of smaller, identical photographs of the same person.
Trial and error led to discoveries that the man was twenty-five years old. Each photograph represented a different year of his life. Pressing on them opened up other sets of photographs. Although always looking like the same photograph, by pressing it, I learned of his past, present, and future for him at that time of his life.
Over that exploration, I realized that I could shift the man from where he was in his life to another place in his life, including his future and past.
Swiping left brought up another set of photos, only four, all the same, a grinning white man with tousled ginger hair in a green plaid shirt. Venturing to press photographs revealed he was only four years old, but that I could move into his future and past through the photos, and when I moved through them, I was moving him.
The experience was repeated several more times before I sat back to think about what I’d encountered. This was a system to move people in time or reality, maybe both.
With that understanding, I sat back, warning myself, be careful with what you do until I understand more about the ramifications.
Dream end.
Satyrdaz Theme Music
We’ve come to a new 2026 Satryda. Falling on January 10, nothing in my introduction to it portends to anything significant — yet; the day is early.
46 F outside, with clouds and stagnant air planning to shuffle us into the low to mid 50s. Despite storm warnings about snow, none materialized in our town. The surrounding mountains received a chunk. As that’s where the snowbank resides, it’s reassuring that some moisture has been stocked up for the summer. More is still needed.
I’m thinking about patterns today — life, daily, political, weather. A dream inspired the initial thought flow. Then my usual consultation of temperatures, my weather cat — Papi — and the view outside intersected.
Weather shapes our lives, as does technology, relationships, and modern politics. Each day is a snapshot of the present, but we can see the past and future in it. Interpretations of those depends on which details we notice and how we apply knowledge to what we see.
More, some let themselves try to see less to force it into a preconceived framework. They work to strengthen their framework by challenging less.
Conversely, I think knowing less weakens our framework. I always fear that I’m limiting myself, that I’m chasing facts to support assumptions. I know I have biases which emerge to curtail my views.
I can see that happen in the entire spectrum of myself, whether the thoughts are about writing, fiction, sports, weather, politics, or personal relationships. All these things have their own spectrums. I move along them, and they move along me. The resulting dynamics are always complex.
I want to have a fidelity to truth, facts, honesty, and history. But it seems like we’re living in a period in which those elements are under consistent attack.
At the same time, I remind myself that I’ve never lived in another period. I can easily visualize hundreds or thousands of years ago when people struggled to understand and learn the truth and apply it to their lives, just as I’m doing now.
The more things change, the more they remain the same. That’s the essence of all of these thoughts about patterns.
Getting involved with my thoughts, The Neurons planted “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac in the mental morning music stream. The Neurons weren’t focused on the dream aspect, though; they came through with the song’s first lines.
“Well there you go again, you say you want your freedom. Well, who am I to keep you down? It’s only right that you should play the way you feel it.”
Because, you know, beyond all those facts and truths, we’re always dealing too with emotions.
Hope this Satyrda finds you safe and comfortable in your patterns, ready to move forward in positive ways. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 