The intersection of angry and old

My lovely sojurn in paradise, i.e., Scottsdale, has ended, and I'm back on the road. I've stopped enroute for a couple days to enjoy free camping in the desert near Marana. Tomorrow I'll head into Tucson to check my mailbox, visit my possessions in the storage unit, and prepare for my afternoon neurology appointment. I'm joking on the last one. There's nothing to prepare. I have very low expectations that anything will change. I had my two months of remission. I'm grateful.

Meanwhile, as the world falls apart, I have had the luxury of complaining about the challenges of aging with my friend. Everytime we tell a story, we begin with the words "Have I told you this before? Stop me if I've told you this before." In my case, I don't remember what anyone tells me until halfway through the story when I realize I've heard it before. My diagnosis is I'm halfway to dementia. Wheee, look at me go.

The sun is setting over the mountains. The desert is half in shade, half still golden with the waning sunlight. It's a remarkable landscape. Mostly dry desert dirt, rocks, some scrubby bushes, and quite a few short green trees. In the distance, the mountains are varying shades of gray-orange with purple and blue shadows. If you've ever seen a Maxfield Parrish painting, you know what I'm trying to describe. I have grown to love the winter desert. In the summer, this place is an inferno no one in their right mind would visit, much less choose as their home. I'm lucky to be here at the best time. Along about April or May, I will vacate the desert and head for clouds and rain, i.e., the Pacific Northwest. I don't like gray skies, but I prefer them to baking to a crisp in Southern Arizona.

I thought I had something to write about in my weekly rant. It was going to be some eloquent poignant diatribe about the unfairness of growing old. Now that it's Sunday, I find I don't have the energy to complain. No one cares, and I include myself in that bunch. 

I emailed my U.S. senators. They are both Democrats. Preaching to the choir, I know. Now I'm composing a message for Republicans. I just need to figure out who to send it to. It's not a frothy plea for mercy and empathy. I know better than to go to the hardware store for bread. It won't be a threat, as in, I'm coming for you if you don't do my bidding. I don't believe in retribution. I'm a live and let live kind of person. I hope it will be a reasonable message from a person who cares about democracy and who hopes others do, too. 

I'm not sure what I will say yet, but I'll think of something. 

Meanwhile, we persist and soldier on.

Here's to the Resistance. 

The year of no thinking

I'm swearing off thinking for 2025. I know that sounds radical, even impossible, but let me make my case. Before you say, I'm with you, Carol. We humans spend far too much time in our heads, not enough time in our guts and our hearts, I disdainfully disgree. I think thinking and feeling are highly overrated. See, there I go again, thinking. It's a chronic compulsion. I'm sure I've ranted about this before, but seeing as how it's a new year, it seems like it might be time for a recommitment to my goal to stop thinking. 

Thinking often leads to feeling. Not always, but for me, until now, there has been a direct line. Think about something, then go nah, way too hard, or yay, sure to bring happiness . . . in other words, conjuring feelings of pessimism or optimism, somewhere on the scale between. 

Not going there. 2025 will be the year of action. Thinking will be allowed only in the service of making goals and the tasklists to achieve them. Feelings will henceforth refer not to emotions but to physical discomforts like hunger, thirst, fatigue, and urgent bucket needs. 

I'll keep you posted. 

Meanwhile, the journey continues. I won't say the nomadic life is all roses and lollipops, but it has its . . . let's not call them joys, that would be much too close to the emotional hole in the sidewalk. Maybe advantages is a more neutral word. Doesn't quite convey the idea . . . perks, maybe? 

Let's say it's not all good, it's not all bad. On the futile continuum of judging one's lifestyle, its somewhere in the middle. I muddle along from day to day, focused on the basic daily activities of living. I try not to think much about the state of things, internally and externally, except beyond the physical needs previously mentioned. People are not in my control, even when they seem insane to me. Circumstances do not bend to my whim. Weather defies me continuously, too hot, too cold.

I could get angry. I see a lot of angry people. Angry people do unpredictable things, sometimes violent. I can understand, but in this new year, I'm not dwelling on the whats and whys of insanity. It just is, like weather. It happens. Deal with it.

I admit, sometimes it takes some effort to stop thinking and feeling. Today, for example, I felt sadness. The fourth anniversary of my mother's death is next Tuesday. Even though I would not want her back from the dead, I miss her. I wonder what I would say if she asked me how I am. 

When I start to feel things, I get back to basics. Is the sun shining? Can I get solar? Do I need to drive to recharge? These things matter to me. I'm going out to Quartzsite next week to be near other people who would not consider my lifestyle weird or wrong. Before I go, I need to get water, trash bags, food. These things will be hard to find and cost a fortune in the small town of Q, truck stop for motorhomes on the I-10. I'll shop at Walmart. Fry's, probably, to stock up on the basics of my nomad life. It's not bad, it just is.