Alexandersmap

    Month: June 2020

    • Think Like a Mountain

      “We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes – something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.…  I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades. So also with cows. The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf’s job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea.” – Aldo Leopold, Sand County Almanac

      We all have favorite writers who take our breath away.  I’ve quoted a few of my favorites frequently in this blog, but not as much Aldo Leopold as I should.  Can you read the passage above and not be breathless at the prose?  Not if you have green fire in your own eyes.  I’ve been trying to think like a mountain since I first read A Sand County Almanac in college, but I find that when you grind away at life too long, stay in too many hotels, endure too many long drives and time in airports, spend too much time in business-speak meetings, and focus a bit too much on your net income the green fire fades.  I’m finding my way back again.

      Writing every day teaches you things about yourself.  I highly recommend it if you aren’t doing it yet yourself.  I thought I heard the call to write and so I wrote, but until I started publishing something of substance every day I didn’t really understand.  Understand the process of disciplined writing.  Understand the formation of thoughts and quotes and observations and molding it into your own creation that you nurture and place gently into the world, whether it’s perfect yet or not.  Blogging isn’t writing a novel, with an editor and time to get just the right phrasing down.  You ship every day no matter what.  No expectations of glory or financial gain or viral explosions of followers, but because it matters to you that its out there.  And its transformative: You’d rarely hear me sorting things out in casual conversation the way I write about it in this blog.  I wrote yesterday about taking on too much and working to simplify things.  That’s my own version of trimming the herd to fit the range.  I just happened to publish it for all to see.

      Aldo Leopold died a week after hearing that A Sand County Almanac was going to be published.  He was only 61 at the time, and had no idea how much his book would resonate and influence generations of people.  He simply created it and gave it to the world, perhaps hopeful it would gain an audience.  He would have been amazed at how transformative his work was for the environment and for those who fight for it. Teaching generations how to think like a mountain.  It’s his enduring gift to the world.  We never really know what can happen if we just put ourselves out there, do we?

       

    • Keep it Simple

      I quietly shelved plans to hike yesterday. Thunderstorms in the forecast, friends coming over, yard work to do… you know: excuses.  Instead I did projects and regretted not getting out there and hiking.  Lesson learned.  But the bulkhead looks better than it ever has with a fresh coat of paint and the lawn has been cut and treated to prevent grubs, which are the offspring of the Japanese Beetle, an invasive species that can ruin the garden and the lawn alike.  The plan was for the soaking rains forecast for the day to soak in the chemicals, but the rain never came in Southern New Hampshire, instead tracking north and south of us.  The drought continues.  Progress on the hiking paused.  Seeing pictures of my cousin hiking one of the 4000 footers and describing the perfect conditions completed the thoughts on what might have been.  But hey, the bulkhead looks nice.

      I admire the people who just say no:  Thanks for inviting me to go to the party, but nope, I’m going mountain biking instead.  Thanks for the generous offer to join your company, but no, I’ll stick with what I’m doing now.  I’d love to participate in that Teams meeting you’ve organized, but I’m using that time to develop a strategy for growing this other business.  Focus on the specific and elimination of the unnecessary go hand-in-hand.  My mind tends to add more stuff.  More books to read, more projects to finish, more people to see, more commitments to honor.  More excuses for not doing the things that I wanted to prioritize.  The answer is simplicity.  Elimination of the extraneous.  Essentialism, as Greg McKeown would call it.  I’ve read that book and a few others on this idea of boiling life down to the most important things.  It seems I’m highly resistant to adopting this concept.  Exhibit A: Attempting to add recertification in scuba diving to my list.  Exhibit B: Downloading War and Peace to add to the virtual pile of books to tackle, even as the other 100 titles whisper WTF? to each other…  if books could whisper anyway.  Exhibit C: Adding Portuguese to my list of languages on Duolingo even as I just barely skim the surface of fluency in French ( I confess I like the challenge of two languages at the same time).  Shall I go on?  No?  Got it.

      I’m quietly scheming to check some boxes in the next month.  Not faraway places boxes – no, that’s not possible just yet.  But pretty substantial boxes nonetheless.  Meaningful, if only to me.  So, the experts tell me, in order to complete a few of those tasks I need to get better at saying no to other tasks, and knowing what to prioritize:

      “Essentialists see trade-offs as an inherent part of life, not as an inherently negative part of life. Instead of asking, “What do I have to give up?” they ask, “What do I want to go big on?” – Greg McKeown, Essentialism

      “Don’t be on your deathbed someday, having squandered your one chance at life, full of regret because you pursued little distractions instead of big dreams.” –  Derek Sivers, Anything You Want

      “Doing less is the path of the productive.” – Tim Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek

      “We should be choosing what we want to keep, not what we want to get rid of.” – Marie Kondō, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

      “Simplicity is so attractive and so profitable that it is strange that so few people lead truly simple lives.” – Leo Tolstoy

      “Being poor is not having too little, it is wanting more.” – Seneca

      So keeping things simple and focusing on the big dreams instead of little distractions seems to be the consensus amongst our panel of experts.  Alas, this remains my achilles heal, the mindset and behavior I work to overcome.  I don’t believe I’m alone in this one, judging from the success of the modern authors on this panel of experts or the timelessness of the older panel members.  You believe adding more is the answer, when really it’s just the opposite.  Lesson heard once again, but not yet mastered.  But we’re all works in progress, aren’t we?

      There are lifetime “go big” dreams and short-term priorities.  They should ultimately be pulling you in the same general direction.  Want to be a healthy and vibrant centurion?  Hiking, stress elimination and keeping the mind sharp through reading, travel and language learning seem to be a good path.  Want to complete that bucket list of places to go before you go?  Spend less time and money on stuff that doesn’t matter as much and book the trip already.  Vienna waits for you.  Want to write that book?  Write every day and experience more so you have a full well of ideas to tap into.  Want to have a healthy, lifetime marriage?  Choose every day to nurture it and keep it alive:   Hug more than you bicker, listen more than you talk, sprinkle quiet magic into the minutes as they add up to a lifetime.  In short, keeping it simple gives you a full enough bucket to accomplish the things that really matter, and maybe to reach your potential.  At the very least you’ll live a more interesting and less stressful life.

    • Getting Lost is Not a Waste of Time

      “We can park the van and walk to town
      Find the cheapest bottle of wine that we could find
      And talk about the road behind
      How getting lost is not a waste of time
      Le Bois d’Amour will take us home
      And in a moment we will sing as the forest sleeps”
      – Jack Johnson, What You Thought You Need

      I was thinking about getting lost, and how it never really turns out that badly.  There are different ways to get lost, of course.  Getting lost on the road used to be common until we put global positioning services in our pockets.  Shame really, in most cases when I wasn’t in a particular hurry, I used to love pulling the atlas out and looking up the street name I was looking at to figure what the heck went wrong on my drive.  There’s magic in maps, and the whole world would open up for you in that moment of realization of where you were.  Now people just follow directions from a phone.

      I see a generation of students graduating with degrees that don’t really tell them what the directions are.  You get a degree in Electrical Engineering you generally know the first step on the path after that.  But what of the Philosophy or the Business major?  What shall they do as a first step out into the world?  Suddenly lost in a world that seemed to offer clear steps to take every moment until this one.  And to double down we’ll throw a pandemic at you.  Enjoy!  So it’s no surprise that so many are looking around saying What next? and hoping for an answer.  The answer lies within, friend.  You’ve been told what to do for your entire life, now it’s your turn to tell us what you want to do.  Don’t know?  Welcome to adulthood.  Take the time to listen.  Do things that pull you in different directions.  Uncertainty is a gift should you use it wisely.  Most don’t use it wisely. Life is full of transition moments where you need to sort through things to find your way.  Not what you “have to do” but what you wish to experience.  What is the path that brings you there?  Be patient, you’ll find the way.

      “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
      – Ralph Waldo Emerson

      Closely related is being lost in your mind.  Not losing your mind in a road rage sort of way, but lost in your thoughts.  Driving an hour and realizing you’re already there and not quite sure where you were for the duration.  Where did the time go? Getting lost is a gift.  It’s the soul’s way of gently steering you towards another track.  I find I’m spending less time lost in my mind as I write more and as I’m more present in the moment.  I take long walks trying to get lost in my mind and realizing that I’m present the entire time.

      “To be awake is to be alive.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Thoreau was awake, but he was restless and lost until he had time to sort through things.  Walden was a great example of sorting through things and putting it on paper to help the rest of us find our own way.  I think of the moment before he went into the woods, when he was living a life of quiet desperation and lost on the path.  He found it in writing and contemplation and conversation with great thinkers like Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne.  I should think there might be no better place to find your way than getting lost in conversation amongst great thinkers.  That might not be possible with that cast of characters, but we can still tap into their thoughts, conveniently downloadable right onto that magic computer in your pocket.

      “Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne

      And here I think of the scene from Dead Poet’s Society where the boys find the cave and reveal the great works of time to each other.  The magic is in discovery and sharing and lifting each other up.  Conspiring with some fellow soul and realizing that hours have gone by like minutes.  Helping lost souls find their way, together.  Until the adults get in the way anyway.  Rejoice in getting lost in conversation and in reflection, for getting lost is not a waste of time.  It’s a pivot point in our lives and a chance to find a new direction.  If you’ll just stop listening to the adults telling you where to go and listen to yourself.

      “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” –  Ralph Waldo Emerson

      It’s easy to get lost in this mad world.  Billions of souls all trying to find their way – how do we figure out our place in all of this?  The world sparkles in light and breathless magic.  The world also grinds down dreams into dust and feeds it back to you as cake if you let it.  Who says everyone else has it figured out anyway?  I can assure you they don’t.  Celebrate being lost.  It’s far more interesting than knowing every step laid out in order like those cars in amusement parks that ride on tracks.  Remember how boring that got as you realized you weren’t really going anywhere special?  Suddenly the only interesting part was crashing into the car in front of you or getting bumped from behind.  I’ve seen many career paths that look just like that.  There’s nothing wrong with finding yourself off the track.  You’ll be amazed at the view as new paths open up ahead of you.

    • On Humility

      “I began, slowly and dimly, to realize that humble was the only finally truly honest way to be in this life.” – Brian Doyle, The Final Frontier

      “You must trust that you being the best possible you matters somehow. That trying to be an honest and tender parent will echo for centuries through your tribe. That doing your chosen work with creativity and diligence will shiver people far beyond your ken. That being an attentive and generous friend and citizen will prevent a thread or two of the social fabric from unraveling. And you must do all of this with the certain knowledge that you will never get proper credit for it, and in fact the vast majority of things you do right will go utterly unremarked.” – Brian Doyle, The Final Frontier

      There are recurring themes in Brian Doyle’s writing; of wonder and humility, of facing hardship and death with dignity and grace, and of striving to do your best in the face of it all.  This frantic, breathless, clickbait world could learn something from reading Doyle. But mostly they’ll read 7 Easy Steps to Millions or watch a TikTok video instead.  Doyle is for thinkers and seekers.  Count me amongst the shivered, Brian.  I’d like to believe I’m a thinker, but that wouldn’t be very humble, would it?  No, more a student I suppose.  So I seek his writing out the way I linger on Mary Oliver poems or ponder Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

      Humility is the path to happiness in this insane world.  But humility isn’t celebrated, isn’t sexy, and most of all doesn’t drive traffic to your web site or prompt viewers to binge watch your work.  And so there’s a disconnect on how to live and how the world projects how one should live.  I believe most people live in distraction to avoid the naked truth of existence.  They puff themselves up into characters that startle and awe the crowd, and are celebrated for being larger than life by other people seeking distraction.  It all explodes into an orgy of narcissism and ego and greed and hunger for more.  Empathy and humility are shoved aside as signs of weakness by the loud talkers and outraged finger pointers and the UPPER CASE WRITERS who want to be seen as the experts on all such things.

      Last night I took a walk in air so thick I could swim in it.  Just me and the bats swirling above, and nobody else lingering in the soupy air.  I noticed more contrails splitting the atmosphere than I’ve seen in some time.  Perhaps things are getting back to normal again, or maybe it’s just planes full of Amazon Prime packages floating across time to the waiting arms of consumers everywhere.  Either way there were more planes than before.  But thankfully more bats swirling in their chaotic dance across the dusky sky.  The silence was broken by the roar of a testosterone-fueled, would be Fast & Furious stunt driver with modified muffler accelerating on the main road to speeds well above safe limits.  I quietly saluted him as he roared past, oblivious to my presence on a side street nearby, but surely celebrating his Right (capital R) to express himself under God and the Constitution he’s never read.  On the face of it he and I don’t have a lot in common, don’t listen to the same music, don’t watch the same movies (I’ve never seen a Vin Diesel car movie) and might not even vote the same way.  But we’re both living at the same point in history, dealing with the realities of a pandemic and economic uncertainty and climate change and political divisiveness, albeit in different ways.  In short we’re roughly the same, just handling things differently.

      “I thought
      how the sun
      blazes
      for everyone just
      so joyfully
      as it rises
      under the lashes
      of my own eyes, and I thought
      I am so many!”
      – Mary Oliver, Sunrise

      I’ve found people to be the same all over the world, largely generous and caring.  We tend to focus on the outliers and the boisterous instead of the humble and kind.  A reminder that we’re all in this together is helpful now and then.  For all my anger at images of the very small percentage of uninformed, outraged misfits burning masks or some such thing, there’s a vast majority of people handling things with dignity and a healthy dose of humility.  And that gives me hope for the future.  Humanity has made a lot of mistakes in how we handle the environment and each other, but we mostly want to get it right so that those we care about can have a good life too.  Humility is thinking beyond your own needs and ego, of recognizing there’s something bigger than you in this world, and for all the madness of 2020 I see far more reasons for hope than despair.

       

    • Blank Places

      To those devoid of imagination a blank place on the map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part. – Aldo Leopold

      Blank places on maps are increasingly rare.  With technology we’ve managed to reveal extraordinary detail on the contours of the land, water sources and potential sites to camp for the night.  You can hike many trails virtually from the comfort of your home with street view images of what you might see.  Even some of the most remote places in the world have 360 degree images uploaded from some soul that visited before.  And yet there are still blank places on maps that tease and mock those who would plot the world.

      Blank places on calendars betray opportunity lost, or not fully leveraged.  Time is money, they say, and to leave blank places on calendars is to waste our most precious resource.  Make the most of your day and fill every moment with appointments, meetings, conference calls, time for tasks, workouts, dates, drive time and even time to think.  There’s merit in a full calendar, but there’s also merit in blank places on the calendar too.  Some of my best career moments came in blank places that developed into magic moments.

      Blank places in ourselves are harder to see, but we know they’re there.  Revealed in quiet moments, in challenging tasks completed, in new things tried and most especially in things avoided.  Risks not taken reveal as much as they forever hide what might have been had we just begun.

      “Oh, I kept the first for another day!
      Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
      I doubted if I should ever come back.”
      – Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

      The funny thing about maps is that they reveal where others have already been.  When you follow the map you’re just following someone else’s path.  Way leads on to way, and blank places might never be revealed.  That’s true for most everyone, isn’t it?  We tuck aside those unreasonable pursuits in favor of the tried and true path, never getting around to seeing what’s down that other path.  Don’t despair for what might have been, but be bold enough to see what might be.  See where stepping into the unknown leads you.  Should you find you need to double back the world will be just as you left it.  They might not even look up from their screens long enough to realize that you left.

    • Thoughts on the Garden

      I spent an hour deadheading the roses early in the morning.  Just me in the garden, giving haircuts and quietly staking overeager plants that have reached too far to the sky for their slender stalks to support.  In the garden I don’t think about the political and environmental mess we have on our hands.  Instead I meditate with flowers and vegetables that don’t care a whit about the makeup on Trump’s collar or the temperature in the Arctic Circle.  I care about climate change and world peace and equality, but you have to have moments where you quiet your mind and take care of yourself for a spell.  For me the garden is as good a place as any to cast that spell.

      I found myself looking up the garden club in the town I live in, wondering who I knew that was a member.  I didn’t recognize a face or a name.  All women with an average age about 25 years my senior.  I could really shake up a club like that if I were to join.  Introduce cocktails with the clematis Tuesday nights, or run for garden club President on  a platform of composting for all ages.  It reminded me that a lot of people assume that my wife is the gardener in the family.  My wife, respectfully, is definitely not a gardener.  She’d rather hit the pavement in running shoes than linger in the loam.  But it’s easy to see why people assume she might be when you look at the typical garden club membership.

      If 2020 had been a normal year I had planned to downsize the garden a bit.  Fewer containers filled with flowers would mean less maintenance, which would mean more freedom to travel, hike, sail or pursue crazy ideas like Scuba diving again.  It takes commitment to have a good garden, that’s all.  Time and money and sweat equity and you get rewarded with a lovely show.  And you want to enjoy the show, but all you see are the bare spots where something didn’t perform as planned, or the leaves the rabbits are nibbling on, or the cursed chipmunk holes.  And you roll up your sleeves and get back to it.

      I know many people who do the bare minimum for landscaping, hire someone to mow for them, treat the lawn with chemicals, and even plant flowers for them.  That all seems quite attractive somedays, but that’s not me.  I’ve had a garden for as long as I’ve owned a house, and couldn’t see hiring it out to someone else.  Why should they have all the fun?  I even purchased a push mower so I could get more steps in.  Those days of coming home from work to see the lawn freshly cut in expertly angled lines by the landscaper are behind me for now.  And walking the entire property has proven to be more therapeutic than I thought it would be.  I might not be hiking a mountain, but I’m getting a good amount of exercise and spend a few seconds enjoying the fruits of my labor before moving on to some other task.

      The time to enjoy the garden is when the world is asleep and it’s just you and a hot beverage, watching the world wake up around you.  The garden is a magnet for bees and hummingbirds, but also for rabbits and groundhogs and chipmunks and hornets and snakes.  I take the good with the bad, and try to minimize the damage that the unwelcome visitors do while encouraging more visits from the stars of the garden.  It all becomes an immersive experience, better than any virtual reality game.  Why live virtually when there’s so much to see right outside the window?

      And so this morning at an hour most people shake their heads at I quietly tied twine onto stakes and gently coaxed thorny roses upward.  A few thorns managed to catch the back of my hand in the process and drew blood, which I wiped away and finished the knots.  The roses looked happier for the support, but a bit resentful for the restraint.  We all want freedom, don’t we?  For me the garden is my stake in the ground, offering support and refuge, though at times I grow resentful at the commitment.  But then I remember that the commitment is exactly what I was looking for all along.

    • Resetting the Mind

      Monday morning wasn’t offering me any free rides today.  The well of creativity felt tapped out.  I looked through the 27 drafts I had going and wasn’t inspired to pursue any of them.  I tried sitting in my favorite reading chair and read Seneca’s On the Happy Life for inspiration, highlighting many passages yet finding no inspiration for today’s blog.  I put on headphones and listened to my favorite create something of substance song (Wild Theme) on repeat.  Nothing yet…  but getting closer.  Coffee cup drained.  Walked outside and sat on my favorite outdoor muse capturing device and waited.  And finally it came to me.

      “One of the most effective ways to reduce the friction associated with your habits is to practice environment design….  “resetting the room”.
      The purpose of resetting each room is not simply to clean up after the last action, but to prepare for the next action…
      How can we design a world where it’s easy to do what’s right?” Redesign your life so the actions that matter most are also the actions that are easiest to do.”
      – James Clear, Atomic Habits

      It occurred to me that I’ve set a few spaces to optimize productivity.  Sit/stand desk, noise-cancelling headphones, proper lighting, indoor and outdoor spaces at the ready.  All of this is setting the room, as Clear writes about.  And it’s setting the mind as well.  When I hear Wild Theme I get creative.  When I sit in a specific chair my mind focuses on writing.  And eventually it clears the fog and I get to it.  These are all methods of flipping the switch.  Want to work out first thing in the morning?  Put your workout clothes out so they’re front and center when you get up.  Writing is the same way – take the necessary steps of setting the “room” to prepare for the next action.

      Ultimately resetting the room means resetting the mind for the actions you wish to prioritize.  Having a dedicated workspace is important so personal time and work time don’t bleed over into one another.  I think that particular point has been hammered home by just about every business or lifestyle writer out there.  I won’t regurgitate the key points here.  For me it’s not about the space you place yourself in but the mindset you achieve.  Monday mornings are generally difficult because you’re transitioning from weekend activities to the work week.  I don’t recall having a similar challenge with Friday nights or the first morning of a vacation.  It’s all in the mind, this calendar mentality, but the uncertainty of which hat am I wearing at the moment? is valid.  So in times of transition, to reduce the friction, the question how do we make it easy to do what’s right? is paramount to actually getting things done effectively.

      And that brings me back to Seneca, which didn’t seem at all connected to this topic when I started writing this morning.  In speaking about virtue, Seneca’s pointed out that he hadn’t quite gotten to a virtuous life just yet.  To which his critics pounced, saying why should we listen to a man who hasn’t mastered the very thing he lectures us on?  But Seneca turns this around on his critics, pointing out that:

      “I make this speech, not on my own behalf, for I am steeped in vices of every kind, but on behalf of one who has made some progress in virtue.”

      We all tend to think that everyone else has it all figured out, don’t we?  And it can be unnerving when someone who is “showing us the way” admits that they’re a work in progress themselves.  But I’ve come to a point where I view anyone that tells me they have it all figured out is a con artist – be it a fundamentalist, politician, overly aggressive business person: you know the type.  Like you I’ve learned to be skeptical of people who say they have it all figured out.  Instead, I write to show myself the way.  On behalf of one who has made progress in the things that I myself strive for.  Finding a way to flip the switch on a misty Monday morning, and sharing in the process for arriving at the desired state.  The well feels a bit less empty even as I tap from it.  Funny how that happens.

    • The House and the Road

      “My house says to me, “Do not leave me, for here dwells your past.”
      And the road says to me, “Come and follow me, for I am your future.”
      And I say to both my house and the road, “I have no past, nor have I a future. If I stay here, there is a going in my staying; and if I go there is a staying in my going. Only love and death will change all things.”
      – Khalil Gibran, Sand and Foam

      Lately I’ve been thinking of the house I’ve lived in as an anchor.  An anchor can have both a positive and negative connotation of course, but I thought of it in the positive way.   I’ve been putting a lot of time in at the old anchor lately, quarantined in a pandemic and working from home.  And the completed projects have stacked up into something tangible.  I could almost stay here forever.

      Lately I’ve also been thinking about the road.  Getting out there and seeing the world again, almost like things were normal.  The list of places to go grows quietly urgent, for time is fleeting and the world changes but so do you.  I imagine a scene akin to the running of the bulls in Pamplona as would-be travelers run the streets, hoping they aren’t run over by time as they make up for 2020.

      I look at the trees when I sit in the backyard, thinking they’re beginning to encroach a bit in their search for light.  This won’t do, not if we stay.  Limb up the trees now added to the list.  The list that grows and nags.  It only takes the right ratio of time and money to make a house work out for you.  You either put in more time or more money, but one way or the other the house demands a mix of both from you.

      I scrolled through a list of the most beautiful place to visit in each state that Conde Nast Traveller put out a couple of years ago.  I’ve been to ten of the places listed.  Ten out of fifty.  For all my travel I’ve only been to 33 of 50 states, if you exclude layovers in random airports.  Using the same criteria, my results are much worse on global travel, where I’ve spent meaningful time in only 12 of 195 countries.  The road mocks me even as it calls.

      There is a season for everything, and the last twenty-two years have been the season of parenting and being present as a father, layered with epic travel blessings.  I travel more than many do in their lifetimes, and I’ve managed to do it while being present for my children in their own lives as they’ve grown into adults.  I see the people traveling the world with their children and I’m awed by the life these families are living, but I wanted my own kids to grow up in a neighborhood, playing sports and riding bicycles up and down the street and building lifetime memories.  I suppose I could have added another dozen countries to the list, maybe even 50 more.  But here in this house dwells my past, and it’s not such a bad past at that.

      “Come and follow me, for I am your future”

      And now?  Now I plot and scheme and decide what to prioritize. I have at least 47 reasons to stay in New Hampshire for the foreseeable future as I quietly chip away at the 4000 footers.  There’s a net benefit in hiking in better fitness as well.  Resuming global travel will have to wait a bit longer.  Same with a few of those places I haven’t seen in the United States.  And I don’t mind waiting, for the house is not just the past, but the future as well.  At least for a little while.  It’s good to have a solid anchor at the ready.  Today, Father’s Day in America, I realize I’ve been an anchor myself.  Paid in full through time and effort and love.  With one eye on the house and the other on the road, but always present when it counts.

    • Beginning With Waumbek

      “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.” – John Muir

      The workout today was pretty straightforward: hike a total of 7 miles round trip up one of New Hampshire’s forty-eight 4000 footers. I’ve hiked at least a dozen of them before , some multiple times, but I didn’t track it officially. So I’m simply starting over again. I’m not imposing a deadline on myself and I’m not in a race. I don’t go to the mountains to set distance records. I go to the mountains because I love the mountains. And I love who I become when I spend more time in the mountains. And so today was, officially, one. And some good tidings.

      I chose Mount Waumbek in Jefferson, considered a good beginner 4000 footer. I’m not a beginner, but I’m beginning again. Waumbek was as good a place to start as any. At 4006 feet, its one of the shorter 48, but it counts just the same as Mount Washington on the list. And so I announced to the family that I was going and got one taker; my daughter committed to getting up at 4:30 and joining me. You know someone is serious when they commit to 4:30 AM, and sure enough she was ready to go by 5 AM.

      Mount Waumbek is an interesting name. The White Mountains themselves were once called Waumbekket Methna, which either means “mountains with snowy foreheads” or “white rocks” in the dialect of the Abenaki. Or maybe some settler came up with that story after enough time passed. What I’m fairly certain of is that Mount Waumbek was once slated to be yet another ski area, but thankfully it fell through and was preserved. I imagine it would’ve still counted as a 4000 footer, as Cannon Mountain does, but it wouldn’t feel much like hiking then. I’ll take the New Hampshire rock and root tour, thank you.

      I like to start hikes early, especially in hot weather. It’s generally less crowded, making simple things like parking a car less of a process. And early makes a big difference on hot, muggy days. Get it done before the crowds, before the heat, and before the inevitable thunderstorms that roll through the mountains on such days. We began our first steps at 7:45, a bit later than desired, and with a bit more company, but thankfully no raindrops. Instead we ran into swarms of ravenous gnats, flies and a few odd mosquitos. None of them cared much for social distancing. None of them got the memo that we wore generous applications of bug juice, or that according to the small printed label, they’re supposed to hate this stuff. No, they actually seemed to view it the way I view olive oil.

      The only solution was to keep moving. Summit Starr King Mountain (now THAT is a name for a mountain), glance at the view, snap a picture, move. Summit Waumbek, sip some water and nibble on a snack (carefully brushing off the carnivores who made a reservation to dine on you), re-apply bug juice and get moving again. There was no getting around it, I chose the height of bug season to begin again. But a day of hiking, even with the swarm, is better than most workouts I can think of. 19,000 steps today, and I’ll surely feel it tomorrow.

      And so it was, we checked off the first of the 4000 footers, I’ll carefully note it on the tracking sheet, and I’ll move on to the next on the list. Maybe it’ll be a we? After all, I’m not the only one who checked a box today.

    • Is It Yourself You Seek?

      It is yourself you seek
      In a long rage,
      Scanning through light and darkness
      Mirrors, the page,

      Where should reflected be
      Those eyes and that thick hair,
      That passionate look, that laughter.
      You should appear

      Within the book, or doubled,
      Freed, in the silvered glass;
      Into all other bodies
      Yourself should pass.

      The glass does not dissolve;
      Like walls the mirrors stand;
      The printed page gives back
      Words by another hand.

      And your infatuate eye
      Meets not itself below;
      Strangers lie in your arms
      As I lie now.
      – Louise Bogan, Man Alone

      I seek myself in early morning quiet, listening for the whisper.
      I seek myself on long walks in rough terrain, one step at a time with an eye on the footing and the other at the way forward.
      I seek myself in the long drives to faraway places, with nothing playing but the soundtrack of the tires on pavement.
      I seek myself in pictures, vainly attempting to capture the light and never quite reaching perfection but smiling at the moment anyway.
      I seek myself in the dusty soil, that traps under fingernails and turns into beauty with water and time we hope we have.
      I seek myself in deep plunges into water, thoughts rising with the bubbles as we break the surface, clearer than before.
      I seek myself in lyrics captured from songs in the air, hearing words for the first time and desperately grabbing at Shazam to find the source before it disappears forever.
      I seek myself in habits made and promises to myself broken, with hopes of trying again tomorrow.
      I seek myself in reaching out in service to others, to rejoice in the moment of connection ever fleeting.
      I seek myself in old battlefields and graveyards and monuments to ghosts who only wish to be remembered once more.
      I seek myself in freshly chopped vegetables, sautéing in snaps and pops that betray my anticipation.
      I seek myself in the words that dance on the page, my own or those of strangers in my arms.
      I seek myself in skimming across water, skipping like a stone on the pull of an oar or the puff of the wind and wanting only to fly a little bit longer.
      Tell me, where do you seek yourself?