Seasons

by Jon Sullivan - 2023-10-09 - Status

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One of the most confusing things in my life right now is seasons. I lived without them for 27 years. They are very inconvenient.

Things in Oregon are very season based. Want to pick blackberries? Then Oregon is your place. Wall to wall berries, mile after mile. Juicy and delicious. Should be easy, but it's not. Because properly ripe blackberries are only around for a month. So you either plan and organize blackberries very early or berry picking just doesn't happen. And for me this year it didn't happen. It should be easy, but the berries are just one seasonal thing amongst many. So next year I'll have to plan on berry picking at least a couple months out, rather than just assuming a good weekend for it will materialize. Same for king tides. Same for festivals. Same for rare concerts. Same for road closures. Same for tons of great stuff.

That's basically been the last year of my life. Assuming I'll fit in cool seasonal stuff for all four seasons, but then letting time run out because there is too much to do. I need to change my attitude. Fewer random spontaneous adventures. More locked in dates on the calendar marked "do it now or lose it". A similar problem is that the current US economy is so bad many restaurants aren't open for lunch at all anymore, and those only serve dinner 3-4 nights. So being spontaneous and just showing up is a fool's option. But even though it's been a full year of settling in, and I accept the need for a much more buttoned down schedule, there is just too much. The PNW has more to do than I can fit in. Full stop. More advanced planning will be required. More early reservations. Less spontaneity than I'm happy about, frankly.

And yes, I could get out more. But I am still very much a gamer, so that time is set in stone. And I'll always devote a lot of time to wisdom, currently in the form of reading up on the Many Worlds vs Pilot Wave theories in quantum mechanics. We also won't forget Jon is a parasocial hermit by nature. Are you seeing the problem here? Jon is inclined to not go out, and even if he wasn't there's too much to get done, so here I am staring at my computer monitor rather than driving out at 5am to get to an incredible destination.

Making it all even more impossible is all the admin. Learning new tech skills, finding a job. Sort of important. Then add the less important - housework, post processing, and mundane tasks. Whine whine whine.

I'm very lucky. I have privileges and resources many others don't. I try to always remember that. I have opportunities others can't access. I shouldn't waste that. And I feel like much of the seasonal stuff is currently getting past me, wasted. But perhaps that's the point of moving here. So much good stuff that wasting a bit of it is just fine? Yeah. That's it. Wasting is fine. Yeah.

Today's photo - I took this one in the Eugene rose garden. First time there and it's quite well done. Got lucky with the dew. Made some homeless people nervous. To my eye this photo encapsulates much of my photo brand - Rule of thirds, over saturated and sharpened, high contrast, dark. It's the sort of photo you'd use as an example of f/5 in a textbook. Esthetically pretty, artistically boring. It's Hallmark-card perfect.

Also...... Sometimes I don't blog very often. Thank god for that. Sorry, not sorry.

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