The Wandering Hermit: One Step Sideways

Brian 26 June 2024 Leave a Comment

It’s already been a bit of a chaotic day. Maybe that means the rest will be better. Although, that isn’t to say my day has necessarily been bad. It’s just been frustrating so far. We had some heavy rains last night, so this morning everything was just soaking wet. I could have walked, but it was so muddy that I decided to let things dry a bit. So, I didn’t walk until 10am, and only did 1 mile then. It was already getting hot out there. I did do a few minutes of running on the porch, but that wasn’t really going anywhere (pun not intended), so I did my old route in front of the house to the neighbor’s driveway three times. It was a good walk, but it has made me feel off a bit. It was at the wrong time, it was the wrong place. It didn’t feel like a step backward; it felt like a step to the side. I felt like I was in a place I shouldn’t be all of the sudden. I wanted my routine back! I’ll have to do a walk this afternoon to make up for the missing mile, and maybe it is good that I had a difficult morning. I was wanting to test out a split walking schedule. Of course, I was still wanting my morning walk to be the enjoyable experience I expect it to be, but apparently we can’t have everything we want in life.

My VO2 Max number is still teasing me and just hovering below where I want it to be. It has improved a lot this year, so I am trying to remain patient about that. Continuing to do what I’m doing is improving everything. My issues didn’t occur overnight; I shouldn’t expect to clear things up overnight either. It takes time to undo a lifetime of stupid decisions.

[Walk #101]

The Wandering Hermit: Walk #100

Brian 25 June 2024 Leave a Comment

This was my 100th walk! It’s hard to believe I’ve done so many. I decided to start doing a daily walk 1 April 2024, but it was rainy and so I officially started on 3 April, doing half a mile on a good day. It wasn’t until 7 May that I finally started walking past the bridge that crosses over the creek and started walking up to the neighbor’s house and back. On 11 May, I walked to the next road down, a mile away. 19 May, I crossed Fairgrounds, the cross street I live on, walking down a bit and back to the neighbor’s house. Since 28 May, my habit has been always to walk to the next road from here, in any direction, and back. That makes the walks 2-3.3 miles, depending on the direction I go. This morning, I did 4.32 miles, walking East to Prairie Rd, North to Yost Rd, West to Fairgrounds Rd, & South to Burris Rd. That is a little unusual because I was doing it to celebrate 100 walks, but I felt great afterward and was not short of breath or overly exhausted. What I’m not trying to be cautious of is not continuing to increase the distance for no reason. 3 miles feels really good. 4 was a nice amount this morning, but I had started constantly checking my watch at about 3.5 to see when it would be over.

This is all probably painfully obvious to people who are already pretty active, but I started at not being able to walk out to the car without having to stop to catch my breath. Being able to do any of this seems remarkable to me. I’ve been thinking about my next steps. Like I said, after 3 miles I was ready for the walk to be over, but it wasn’t because I was overly tired. I was bored. So, it might behoove me to add an evening walk as well. That would definitely be easier on joining a gym. I like the idea of walking 5:15am-6:15am & 5:15pm-6:15pm. It is so hot this week, that I don’t think I’ll be able to test that out though. Maybe I’ll try running in place with a fan blowing directly on me!

I’m proud of myself. I didn’t know if I could do it, but I was determined to try and feel like I finally figured out something I wish I had learned 20 years ago. I could dwell in that regret, but that won’t actually alter the reality of my life. Instead, I’ll take that knowledge and make a future from it.

[Walk #100]

The Wandering Hermit: Careful! Don’t Bully Yourself

Brian 23 June 2024 Leave a Comment

I was talking to my brother after yesterday’s morning walk. I mentioned that I tried to take a photo on every walk, just as a part of my recent practice of having daily habits, but that as it was my 97th walk since I started I was out of things to take a photo of. This morning, I decided that was a silly thing to say. It was a silly thing to think in fact, so I found a huge number of things to take a picture of today and I didn’t go far out of my way. I did slow my pace, stopping frequently to get a good shot of a particular plant or the right angle of the road. And it was a nice relaxed morning. I’m positive that not every morning needs to be about my pace & speed, but I still tried to make up for that by going a little bit longer than usual.

During a recent video by Mike Pridgen (Mike Needs a Plan), he reminded his viewers to avoid self deprecating humor about themselves. I’ve been thinking about that; I don’t know if I 100% agree, but I think I’m much closer to that than I used to be. One of the traits I value most about myself is that I don’t take myself too seriously. I think there is a difference though between acknowledging the silly things I do, an laughing about them, and taking shots at myself that are unwarranted. It’s a nice reminder to not tear myself down. I’m definitely guilty of that. I find that the older I get, the more I appreciate things that are deemed corny in youth. I like being positive. I like being happy.

The temperatures are going to be intense all week. I haven’t lost my commitment to not having excuses for my daily walks, so it’ll be interesting to see how well I get on in the sweltering heat. I do normally walk early enough that it isn’t too warm yet, but it was 74ºF/23.5ºC this morning and while it didn’t feel as bad as yesterday, it was still warmer than I would have liked it to be. It wouldn’t be so bad if I stopped complaining about it!

[Walk #98]

The Wandering Hermit: Never “Give Up”

Brian 22 June 2024 Leave a Comment

I’m feeling motivated this morning! It’s a good place to be. I woke up a few minutes early and went ahead and did my walk. It almost feels absurd to be out before 5am, but I like the early morning hours.

This is a little preachy, but I was thinking about a concept that frustrate me, “Let go and let God.” What a convenient way to take no responsibility or accountability in one’s life. It’s interesting that people who tend to adhere so strongly to this idea from the Bible (Ephesians 3:20) aren’t so generous when it comes to the lives of others. They don’t just let God’s will be when it doesn’t align with their beliefs. So, it strikes me that they don’t actually trust in some sort of divine order of things, but that they don’t want to grow up and take responsibility for their lives. These are the cherry pickers who will find the contradictions and seize on them, hanging up decor with convenient quotes. But they forget Galatians 6:5 “For we are each responsible for our own conduct.” Or worse, 1 Timothy 5:8 “But those who won’t care for their relatives, especially those in their own household, have denied the true faith. Such people are worse than unbelievers.” This concept already lives in the English language in the term giving up. “To give up” was, and I would argue still is, “To give up to God.” And I’m not interested in entertaining moral justifications for giving up. This train of thought frustrated me in the first place. I don’t want to spend this much mental energy on people who annoy me, but these people spend a lot of their own physical energy trying to annoy people I care about. It’s hard to not get frustrated with them.

Today is our local Pride event. I’ve never been, which is ridiculous and I don’t really have time to go today. However, I’m making the time to go and at least check things out. I’m looking forward to it and hope that next year I just make the time and go with an open schedule!

I’ve been a little more relaxed on my walks for the past couple of days. I’m trying to not overdo anything. When I really push myself, I feel that all day and I don’t want to create any issues that will cause genuine problems. So, I backed off a little. Walking 7 days a week isn’t even completely necessary from my understanding, but as long as I’m choosing to do that I’m not going to try and beat myself daily. Steady progress is best, and that always happens within a range that just trends in the right direction.

I had started using Cronometer to track my food, but I’m far less likely to enter things in than I was to just write them down. I may need to go back to the notebook. I’ll give it another week and see. I like the nutrient breakdown from the app, but I tend to remember the handwritten tracking better.

[Walk #97]

The Wandering Hermit: Assessing Myself on a Thursday Morning

Brian 20 June 2024 Leave a Comment

I feel inspired this morning. I didn’t get enough sleep, but I still woke up feeling great and ready to do all the things! I’ve been focused heavily on poetry this month and it has me feeling very hyped for new projects, and I even got some writing in the other day. I can always write. But I have been busy with other things and so my writing has been pushed to the back until I’ve settled somewhere. That is a trap I’ve fallen for before. There is no settling. Life is always chaotic in one way or another, but it is a choice to deny myself expression. So, I resumed the writing I should never have paused.

My pace for the entire 3.39 mile walk this morning was under 20 minutes per mile! That was incredible. Once again, I did at times feel like I was power walking like a suburban mom on a Wednesday morning, but most of the walk felt fine. And breathing never became an issue, but a brief exception when a car drove by and I was dealing with some dust for a few minutes. Otherwise, my lungs seem the best they ever have. My VO2 Max number has sort of plateaued, but I just need to keep doing what I am doing; hopefully it moves along soon.

I’m starting to get used to the slower rate of my recent weight loss. I had been discouraged that it was slowing down, but when I started I knew that would happen. It’s actually a good sign to not be dropping 3 to 5 pounds per week. Weight loss at that rate was a sign that I was far too overweight. I seem to be at 1 to 2 pounds per week, with an occasional outlier of 4 or 5. If there’s something I could switch up to increase that, I’m just not all that interested in exploring it. I like how I’m eating, I like my exercise routine, I’m drinking a lot of water, and most nights I’m sleeping well. I don’t really mind this pace because everything is feeling so great.

[Walk #95]

The Wandering Hermit: The House Next Door

Brian 13 June 2024 Leave a Comment

I’m trying to shift my thinking. A few weeks ago I was happy in my ignorance about my future. I’ve been there before; sometimes it’s nice to just know that you’re about to let the wind take you and to not be all that concerned with the outcome. But as soon as I was presented with a plan, I started to settle on it and when it looked like that would no longer be possible, I felt like something had been taken from me, forgetting how recently I had been content to ride the wind. So, let’s reset and regroup. I’m not interested in the kinds of stress I was allowing in. I need to remember myself.

I do not know where I will end up once we sell the house and move on. And at this point, I’m not sure I want to know. This morning I was thinking about how much I’ll miss living out here in some ways. It’s not my dream, and it is very inconvenient to me, but it is nice and peaceful. We are on the corner of Fairgrounds Rd & Burris Rd. The house across Fairgrounds is nostalgic to me. My grandpa used to take us on drives on the gravel roads of Payne County on this side of Stillwater. We might end up driving through Glencoe or Pawnee or Morrison before returning, but that house was one of the landmarks I remember from then; it’s one of the few things that has been the same for all these years. Most of the houses out here are much newer. It was at first a little surreal living across the street from that house. It’s almost like having an old imaginary friend move in down the street. It existed in my mind, but I had no reason to drive out here before my parents moved here, so I didn’t know if my memory was real or if it was all a creation of my mind. It’s not a particularly interesting house. There’s nothing fantastical or noteworthy about it, but for many years it was just a part of those moments spent with Papa, and more recently it’s where the people with the horses that like to escape live. And soon I’ll leave this place and I won’t see it all the time. And I wonder if I’ll still remember it fondly or if it has lost its meaning.

I think walking has been good for me. Sure, it’s been great for my physical health, but I think it has helped me mentally. It is often over-emphasized that walking is good for mental health, but it’s not wrong. It seems to allow my brain to sort things out. I wonder if there is something unique about the action of walking or is it the traversing of a distance. I’m going to be joining a gym soon and doing my walking there much of the time; I wonder if I will see the same benefits in mental health or if I need to be out in the world. I used to do an hour of walking daily at a gym in Anchorage, Alaska. I wasn’t in the same place mentally when I started, so I don’t know that I noticed any shifts. After spending years depressed, anything was going to feel monumental, but the walking has helped quite a bit.

I’m not sure what to do to get started with running, but I am interested if it is possible. I tried it for a minute during my walk, but felt like it was too jarring when I hit the ground. Maybe I’m just not used to it, but it was unpleasant. It felt doable in general otherwise. It didn’t hurt or cause my to not be able to breathe, which had been my primary concern. I’ll look into it. It seems weird that I couldn’t just start running. I feel unequipped. But I also am slightly amazed that I’m even interested in trying it out. I keep saying it, but it is true: I cannot believe that one year ago I could barely walk at all and now I want to walk everywhere.

[Walk #88]

The Wandering Hermit: One Shoulder for the Past & One Shoulder for the Future

Brian 10 June 2024 Leave a Comment

I suspect that this is not sustainable, waking up daily and having to choose to not be frustrated by the absolutely frustrating things around me. For now, I’m managing to reset and refocus each morning, but I imagine I’ll either not be able to do that forever or the frustrating things will have to stop. I’m not sure which.

I do actually feel amazing today, but part of that is related to my acknowledgment that I don’t actually owe anyone anything. There are several situations in my life recently in which others are attempting–unintentionally–to obligate me into participation in their lives and in their situations. I’m trying to find the lines and the balance between caring for the needs of those I love and taking care of my own life. I spent ten years being the person my parents needed to be. That was my choice. I don’t want to complain about that because I value the time I spent with them, but I have a choice in these other situations. I think it is easy to look at the past decade and assume that since I was able to put myself on pause for Mom & Dad, then I must just be a person who will do that for anyone. I do want the best for everyone, but I’m starting to realize that they don’t always even consider what the best for me looks like.

This is all vague, but it is important to my journey of self-actualization that started with my need to buy clothes that would fit my body. It started with weight; it did not end with weight, and I don’t see myself giving up on finding ways to improve myself and achieve a life that is as fulfilling to me as I deserve.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time packing up things at my parents’ house. I could see some big issues with my thought processes during packing, but I’m trying to be patient with myself about them. One is my absolute desire to get back to creating art. I love it, but the craft room was a room I shared with Mom and it made me sad to go back in there after she died, so I have spent years just wishing I would get back to it. I packed up a lot of tools I’m looking forward to playing with. The other was an issue plaguing me lately, and it sometimes causes me a bit of existential dread that I’m not sure how to handle. I don’t have children. I’m perfectly okay with that, but I want our family to carry on into the future. I think my niblings will eventually care about some things, but all of them are so young that they don’t seem invested in their own pasts. That’s understandable; I certainly wasn’t at their age. What worries me is how to carry that legacy forward until they are ready. A lot of people pass down the debris of the lives of their ancestor and my family is no different. I have some of my great grandma McGuire’s pitcher collection, my second great grandpa Fuchs’ Bible, my grandpa Tucker’s pocket watches, my mom’s diaries. But the list goes on and on. My dad was a hoarder, and really the message I internalized was that severing oneself from the items of a loved one is disrespectful. That thing was important to someone who is important to you, so keep it. Keep everything. Keep the photos, keep the quilts, keep the sugar dispenser, keep the wooden spoons, keep the emergency sewing kit, keep the receipts from 1972, keep the unopened mail from 1998. And I realized when I was packing up everything to put it all in storage yesterday that I don’t want it.

Now, this is a realization I have been having over and over and over. Typically it ends in me distracting myself into not thinking about it too deeply. I have used it to get rid of massive amounts of stuff, but often with especially well-loved things I stop and think those things need to be preserved. For whom? That’s the wall I keep coming to. I love learning about my family. I might love knowing that my second great grandma Spencer had a book that she loved a great deal, but that does not mean I would want to have her copy with me for the rest of my life.

People are not the sum of their acquisitions. I think about the people I’ve lost a lot more in organic ways than I ever do because I saw a ceramic tortoise or a coin purse full of newspaper clippings. I have no obligation to shoulder the people I will spend my future with, but equally I have no obligation to shoulder the lives of the people I miss from the past. My Mimi doesn’t exist in her Santas, and I don’t have to find a space for them.

[Walk #85]

The Wandering Hermit: Geri & The Economy

Brian 7 June 2024 Leave a Comment

It was an absolutely perfect morning for a nice walk. That said, I did have some trouble getting going. I actually woke up thinking I might just do indoor aerobics today, which would honestly not be a bad idea, but I’m not sure it needs to replace a morning walk, so I told myself as much and decided that if I was going to do aerobics today, I needed to get in one mile as well. That was all just fine until I had walked about half a mile, at which time I was warmed up and decided to get both miles in anyway. And that was a good decision. The temperature was excellent.

Brad texted me last night; Geri, a friend of mine is in the hospital. He says she has pneumonia and a shattered wrist. I’d like more details, but I worry about her; I’ve always worried about her. I worked with her when I was in high school, and we attended the same church congregation. My brother Brad eventually married into a family that she was also married into, so he gets updates on the goings-on as part of updates about his ex-wife’s (and now his children’s) family. I need to go visit.

I’m increasingly eager to get moved, to move on, to find a new place and way of being. This will sound like I’m being down on myself, but I don’t think that’s the case. It’s been so long since I had money that I don’t even understand what to do with it. Whenever I see other people out and about, my first thought tends to hinge on that person’s relative financial security compared to mine. And I think I sometimes get frustrated with people who talk about how bad things are for them and their families, especially when they have a home, they have food, access to clean water, the ability to buy essentials, and usually they have a car and a smartphone and spend a bit of money dining out. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have any of the things they have or not spend money the way they want to spend it. But I do think we have such a comfortable situation that people have started to mistake a reduction in comfort as discomfort. It just isn’t. Not having the excess you once did is probably just fine. I’m also not really saying that I have it bad. I don’t have an income, but I do get a small amount of money through some passive means and even I have a smartphone, a home, food, access to clear water, and the ability to buy the essentials. I just don’t live under the delusion that I am living in poverty.

[Walk #82]

Mindful Musings: Their Ecosystem

While I was doing my meditation, I kept getting the thought in my head: “This is their ecosystem, this is their ecosystem, this is their ecosystem….” On and on and on…. I know it seems a little cliché and silly, but it did come out of my own head. I feel that way a lot living where I do, plopped like a bag of sand in the middle of so many creatures homes; their ancestral lands.

The Wandering Hermit: A Maximalist & A Poet

Brian 6 June 2024 Leave a Comment

I had two things on my mind while I was walking:

1. How can I find simplicity?

I’m a maximalist. While I wish that were only true in my design preferences, it’s actually something take follows me through my life and often robs me of the peace of mind I might otherwise have in a given situation. And I’m not entirely sure how to make it stop. I’ve been loading things up for storage, but what is overwhelming is that I have a lot… of stuff that I love. I don’t really have excessive utilitarian items; in fact, I think my tool collection is rather lacking and I want to try reducing it. What I have is things I love to look at, to surround myself with.

Yes, yes, I’m building a house in the relatively near future, and I will be able to fill it with many of those things. How do I, in the meantime, let go of some of the things that don’t really need to go with me. The things that I’ve attached a meaning to, but which do not have any great significance themselves.

I considered not putting this on here. They were my walking thoughts, sure. But I did think about not including them because in my mind they aren’t directly related to my health journey. Aren’t they though? Why would I set out to work so hard on getting my body healthy, but just ignore something that needs to be addressed simply because it is happening in my head.

2. Why am I a poet?

Or really, why is anyone? Of course I don’t mean that in a what even is the point of this sort of way. I actually find great value in poetry, not just for myself, but for humans more broadly. What I mean by the question is what causes some people to communicate in this way? I think about this a lot actually. The three people I spend the most time around are my two brothers and my closest friend (and housemate). All three of them have expressed how they “don’t understand” poetry or “I wish people would just say what they mean” (meaning I suppose that authors should just be direct and get to the point). And I don’t mind them not getting it; I have poetry friends who I can talk about this stuff with. What it does make me think is that our brains have taken very different paths to this point. That second point in particular–“I wish people would just say what they mean”–is interesting. I hear that one probably the most, or some variation on that theme. But when I employ metaphor to compare my fingers to worms or write about walking and talking with a long dead person, I am saying what I mean. I am getting to the point quickly. In fact, I’m getting there more quickly than if I had to say what I have to say without the metaphor. If I break my sentence up on the page, I am doing that intentionally as well. It’s what feels right in that moment. It’s how I processed information and how my brain needed to communicate that information. I’m not exactly E.E. Cummings, but I do understand why he was so interested in making his readers work to enjoy his words. I have no evidence of this, but I think it is just as likely that Cummings was doing exactly what I do from day to day, but also wanted his readers to see the world in the same way. So he attempted to force it. That isn’t to say that one way of viewing the world is necessarily better than another. Of course not. But it is endlessly fascinating that there are people in this world who aren’t moved to spend hours writing when the sun crests over the horizon is a certain way.

[Walk #81]

The Wandering Hermit: Walks With Mom In The Morning

Brian 19 May 2024 Leave a Comment

I had a nice walk this morning; I decided to go East on Burris, which I hadn’t done. I think I’ve only driven that way once or twice and I live on the corner. I liked it because of the hills; the only concern I might have walking that way is those two little dogs that live across the street on Fairgrounds. I’m not concerned about what they might do to me—they are far too small for that—but I don’t really want to distress them unnecessarily. I’ve been saying I need to go meet them, but I walk so early that I don’t think about it. I think it might be better if they knew who I was walking by. In order to walk that direction, I have to walk in their line of sight for a while. As long as I keep that part of the morning to before 6, I should be okay. They get let out when the sun comes up. I have a strong preference for not walking in front of people’s houses if I don’t have to. I can walk half a mile that direction and only cross one driveway, and that house is set pretty far back.

It’s been six years without Mom, but honestly I don’t feel like that exactly. She’s my constant companion, especially on my morning walks. It’s interesting when we dwell on those we miss. Mom is my morning companion. Dad is with me in the late evening. I know that has a lot to do with my associations with when they were active, but I’m not sure it’s only that either. Why do my grandparents each have their own full season on the calendar, like some kind of mythology I’ve formed? We are in the midst of the transition from Mimi to Pap in fact. Why? When I think about that, Mom being dawn and Dad being dusk feels pretty natural.

The passing on a calendar of a day doesn’t really cause me any extra stress. I don’t need to be reminded; I never forgot. But I have had a stressful week otherwise. I know that weight loss can cause hormonal issues, so I’m not sure if that is what has been going on, but I have been all over the place mentally. And I lack the patience I usually have. Everyone else has managed to make that about themselves, and I cannot help that. Sometimes I just need space and quiet. On paper it would seem like I have those things. In practice, I do not. I’m not entirely sure how to set proper boundaries anymore.

[Walk #59]

Tag: introspection