Alexandersmap

    Month: January 2022

    • Unbroken Snow & Writing

      There are different kinds of snow, and different kinds of snowshoeing. Snowshoe hiking up a mountain is very different than snowshoeing across a snow-covered field. Like walking on these terrains when there’s no snow, there’s a certain tactical change that develops with each. Hiking up a mountain, there’s a unique relief in flipping up the heel lifts on snowshoes to level your foot to the incline that you naturally wouldn’t feel on flat terrain. There’s also a wholly different intensity in grinding up an unbroken mountain trail. Steep terrain and unbroken snow are a workout. For me it’s a bit like technical writing, you know the payoff will be big but in your lowest moments the effort feels like it isn’t worth it (it’s almost always worth it).

      Flat terrain snowshoeing is a different story altogether. Easier, in a lot of ways, but that ease releases you to explore more than you might on something more technical and demanding. But that very freedom can force people to stick with the formula of the familiar. Why be uncomfortable in breaking new ground? Because that’s where things get most interesting!

      There are times when you’ve got to stay on the path. Inevitably, you’ll begin on broken ground: trails that lead from a parking lot to open fields, or woodland trails that must be honored before you reach open space. There’s an obligation, unsaid, to help groom the trail by tamping it down with your snowshoes. We do our part, but it feels like paying penance, and you look ahead to where you might break free. The very unevenness of the broken trail is what makes it a chore. Compacting broken snow means staying in your lane, taking what others have left for you and finding a path through it. Broken snow, especially when regular walkers use the same trail, exposes boulders and roots and ruts that lead to post holing on the trail. There’s a certain satisfaction in tamping down the brokenness, akin, in a way, to editing a sloppy bit of writing.

      But the real fun begins when you find an opening to fly. A small break in an old stone fence that leads you to a virgin field of unbroken snow, or a wide open field with a single broken path going across it each whispers, “It’s time: FLY!” and gives you the opportunity to break from all expectations and obligations and just go for it. Like a plane freeing itself from the obligation of the runway, launching yourself into unbroken snow is freedom. It’s just you and the snow, and you can go in any direction you want.

      Writing can feel very much the same. You chafe at the obligatory structure, you get caught up in the rules of punctuation and order, you try to clean up run-on sentences and spelling errors and the like as you go. But to really fly with writing you’ve just got to just launch yourself into it, technique and order be damned, and just see where it takes you. Inevitably to places you never imagined when you started. If you truly let yourself go you don’t worry about editing the broken trail you leave behind you. There’ll be time for that another day. No, this is your time to take wing.

      If you’ll forgive me another analogy about snowshoeing and writing, it’s the conditioning. When you haven’t been out on snowshoes in a while you forget the pace and rhythm and become a bit breathless. When you do it every day you quickly find your pace and rhythm and just get right to it. It becomes natural–a part of you. And when you reach that point you can cover so much more ground than you would otherwise. The lesson, of course, is to get to it every day.

      The obligation of the broken trail
      The freedom of unbroken ground

    • Finding Balance in a Hot Tub in a Blizzard

      The forecast called for a blizzard, and officially it met the requirements to be called one in some places. Not so much where I call home. But a significant storm nonetheless. A storm you take seriously. A storm you hunker down in. A storm in which an adventurous spirit might look out at the hot tub and think to oneself, “I’m going in, now”. And fancying myself so, I changed into a bathing suit, slipped on my adidas slides, a cap and the warmest shirt I own and headed out into the swirl.

      Taking a broom with me, I swept a path through the 4 inches of light accumulation to the tub, swept off the cover, opened the tub and took a deep breath. Off came the warm shirt and the tickle of snow landing on my back greeted me immediately. Stepping out of the slides into the 39 degree Celsius/103 degree Fahrenheit water, I felt the sting of fast-frozen toes meeting heat. I quickly brought my other foot in for the party and dropped down to chin level to warm myself.

      Immersing yourself in hot tubs (or hot springs) is supposed to improve your health in several ways. First, it puts you in a state of weightlessness, easing stress on your joints and relaxing muscles. But it also improves cardiovascular health and helps lower your blood pressure. The jets in a hot tub offer some massage for those sore muscles. But mostly a hot tub draws the stress out of you and plunges you into a relaxed state.

      That state change is most obvious when you’re sitting in hot swirling water in a snowstorm, with the steam rising up to meet the snow as it swirled down to reunite with the water. That’s some extreme swirling, to be sure, and with your head places squarely on the line between chaos and order, Yin and Yang, you have a front row seat for the dance. Too much in either direction and you’ll freeze or drown. Choices. It was life, amplified, in the splurgy decadence of a hot tub in a blizzard.

      The fine snow accumulated all around me, coating all cool surfaces. I felt it landing on my exposed skin, sliding down to greet the hot water or melting in surrender to the warmth of my body. But the snowy assault kept on relentlessly. My knit cap, my eyelashes and nose collected snow. The line between chaos and order is very thin in such conditions, and I delighted in the opportunity to be right there. Nothing else mattered in that moment.

      But all good things must end, and at some point you’ve got to brace yourself for the retreat from the hot tub through the swirling snow to the warm house. This is best done with purpose, and I reached up and shook off a towel, quickly stood and wrapped my shoulders and reached for my wool shirt, shook that off too and replaced the towel with the cold shirt as I got up. I offered the adidas a dip in hot water to clean off the snow and slipped them on.

      It was all a choreographed dance on the edge of chaos, and I loved it without lingering. Buttoning up the hot tub and walking through the accumulation was my penance paid for the indulgence. Still radiating heat, I shuffled back to reality while scheming a return.

    • Be Yourself

      To be nobody but
      yourself in a world
      which is doing its best day and night to make you like
      everybody else means to fight the hardest battle
      which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.
      ― e e cummings

      “Whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.”
      ― e e cummings

      Delighting in a blizzard, I forgo the endless news telling you what’s right in front of you and instead read poetry and sip espresso. Were the snow deeper I might slip on the snowshoes and fly. Give it time, I think, and it will catch up to where my dreams are. Who doesn’t become a child again when hunkered down in a snowstorm?

      There’s a spirit in a blizzard that calls me outside. Swirling snow globe bliss, shaken again and again until it spins madly about. The landscape is cloaked and the familiar appears foreign. I suppose it’s the adventure of being immersed in a storm that draws me outside, or maybe it’s the thought of doing what most people would tell me not to do. A blizzard is a rebellion against the norm. It turns our expectations upside down and does its own thing, and I find it reassuring and a bit thrilling.

      “The snow doesn’t give a soft white damn whom it touches.” — e e cummings

      The ego is the enemy, the Stoics and Ryan Holiday would suggest, and this week my ego experienced a generous portion of highs and a healthy dose of lows. I put it all aside and focus on who I’d like to be instead. There’s no use living your life for the approval of others, for they only see the world through their own filter. You’ve got to be yourself, and find out who you are with every new experience, every new thrill and setback and odd twist of fate.

      The wind picks up, and billions of snowflakes surf the breeze to beach themselves where they may, transforming the landscape in their huddled masses. Packed in together in swirling madness, most land where the wind takes them. But the funny part of a blizzard is that where the snow lands isn’t always where it might stay. The wind can easily lift snow up again, to land in an entirely different place.

      The world is similarly mad. The masses land where they’re carried by the wind currents of place and expectation and obligation. Yet we might still surf the breeze and find our own landing place. Should we choose to get out there and fly.

    • Catching Up & Bridging Gaps

      The idea of catching up is tantalizing. I use this phrase often in two contexts; catching up with someone I haven’t spoken with in some time, and catching up on work that’s piled up in my work or personal ambition buckets. This week I did a fair amount of catching up in both contexts. But we never really catch up, do we? We mostly just shrink the gap between people, workload or expectations before we inevitably see the gap widen again. We’re all just so… busy.

      The act of getting reacquainted, of meeting to see how someone’s been, what’s up with the family, how so-and-so’s doing, is a lovely form of catching up. There’s so much loneliness and division in the world today, fueled by the pandemic and political inclination, and the general categorization of people into one camp or another. It should be so easy to just put it all aside and listen to each other. Many people just don’t want to deal with conflict or focus on differences of opinion, and so we just don’t communicate at all.

      But there’s joy in bridging the gap. Finding common ground and dancing in the light of understanding and acceptance. When we close that gap we draw closer together, and feel the humanity of another. When we ghost each other, block people on social media, and gossip about what the other is doing the gap widens. I’ve shrunk from a few people over the last several years, finding their opinions repulsive. Yet I know there’s still common ground should we ever sit down to catch up. We go on with our lives without those people in it, but feel the void where the relationship calved. Stack up enough of these and it’s death by a thousand cuts. No wonder people are lonely and stressed out.

      At least there’s work to take our minds off the world, right? But even here the gap between what needs to be done and what we can possibly accomplish feels impossibly large. We catch up on one thing and see the gap widen in another. Supply chain issues, labor shortages, trust issues… it’s enough to make you throw your hands up in the air and buy a boat or camper to get out of Dodge. We work until the wheels come off and then teeter trying to balance on what’s left.

      The reality is we’ll never quite catch up, and that’s okay. We decide where to close gaps and where to let things stay adrift. When the time is right–if the time is ever right–we’ll come back to that which we’ve neglected and, well, catch up once again.

    • Trivia Night

      You might say it was doubling down on trivia. A local pub hosts a trivia night contest in Rhode Island. I met family there to participate. I’ve done this before, but the crowd seemed bigger this time, as if people are eager to get out in the world again, variants be damned. I understood all too well. Vaccinated, boosted, and with a mild case of COVID during the holidays (when it became particularly trendy), I felt super immune and ready to get around people again. The couple hacking away at the table next to mine made me wonder if I was pushing my luck. We’ve all become hyper-aware of other people’s sniffles, haven’t we?

      As the questions rolled out, one-by-one, it was clear we could have used another ringer or two in the group. Trivia contests are part knowing the right answer, and part getting the right questions in a series that you know the answers to. The last ingredient to success is having the courage to go big when you have an opportunity to. The last time we played trivia we were leading (!) with one final question to answer. We bet conservatively and other groups overtook us in the end, even though we all got the question right. Such is the nature of trivia contests.

      In the corner of the pub, quietly playing while we all participated in our game of trivia, Jeopardy! was playing on a big screen television. If you haven’t been keeping track, or are from another country that doesn’t broadcast it, Amy Schneider was on a 40-game winning streak, becoming a millionaire in the process. But lately she’s been missing the final Jeopardy! question. It hasn’t been a problem because she’s been building such a lead, but in this game, in front of all these trivia folks, the game was a toss-up going into the final question with Schneider and another contestant. So it would literally come down to who answered correctly and who bet what.

      As you might imagine, in a room full of trivia people, this quickly captured the attention of the entire room. Our own trivia game paused as the final Jeopardy! question was answered, and one-by-one the contestants answers were revealed. The challenger, just behind in money, had the right answer and bet big enough to take the lead. A hush came over the room as Schneider’s answer was revealed–wrong answer! The room erupted in astonishment, the queen dethroned! This is the world of trivia geeks, treating this moment like the Super Bowl or World Cup final. And why not celebrate general knowledge? The world could use a few more educated people agreeing on facts.

      As the buzz in the room calmed, we refocused on our own trivia game. Questions weren’t lining up in our favor, and we finished in the middle of the pack. Such is the way. You get the questions you get, and you go big or you go home.

    • Stop Gulping Life Like a Power Lunch and Savor It

      “What else is going on right this minute while ground water creeps under my feet? The galaxy is careening in a slow, muffled widening. If a million solar systems are born every hour, then surely hundreds burst into being as I shift my weight to the other elbow. The sun’s surface is now exploding; other stars implode and vanish, heavy and black, out of sight. Meteorites are arcing to earth invisibly all day long. On the planet the winds are blowing: the polar easterlies, the westerlies, the northeast and southeast trades. Somewhere, someone under full sail is becalmed, in the horse latitudes, in the doldrums; in the northland, a trapper is maddened, crazed, by the eerie scent of the chinook, the sweater, a wind that can melt two feet of snow in a day. The pampero blows, and the tramontane, and the Boro, sirocco, levanter, mistral. Lick a finger: feel the now.” — Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

      The universe swirls about madly all around us, and we, living in our small circle of sensory awareness, trust in it blindly. When you feel the breeze on your skin, do you wonder where it’s calling to you from? Do you ever look up at the stars and wonder at the infinity in between each? So many feel trapped in their human construct, as if any of our petty human thoughts matters to the universe. What is a construct but a story we tell ourselves? A fabrication of the moment?

      Our awareness of this moment is a celebration of being alive. If that sounds rather New Age crazy, well, I get that. That’s the frenzied mind talking, the part of us that thinks we don’t have time for such mad thoughts. We have things to do, places to be, ideas to bring to the table, transactions to make… Sure. But what else do we have but this instant with infinity lurking all around us?

      So why then do we grind away in jobs, sheltered from the elements, sipping coffee to power through another day? Why do anything disciplined and proactive at all when the universe stares back with blank ambivalence? Because our small circle reverberates. We touch others through our deliberate engagement with the world. Steve Jobs might have thought he was putting a dent in the universe, but really it was a ripple through humanity. Our ripple might not change an industry, but it can reverberate in the now. We’re here to be in the mix: a part of each other’s lives as we each sort out the implications of all that swirls around us.

      Be who you are. Become who you might be. But maybe just savor a bit more. Why do we gulp life down like a power lunch? Pause between the big gulps of living and taste the moment. Feel the now.

    • Lending an Ear

      Every tree, every growing thing as it grows,
      says this truth, You harvest what you sow.
      With life as short as a half-taken breath,
      do not plant anything but love.
      — Rumi, Every Tree

      I had lunch with a man of Ukrainian descent. He spoke with love for his old home, before he came to America, before he raised his family and built his life removed from his origins. We spoke about his country, about what might come to be. He spoke about bringing his daughter there for summer vacation. “I suppose we’ll have to put that off a year.” He said.

      We dance along in life, oblivious to the stoic pain of those around us. It’s easy to get wrapped around the pole with our own problems, for they nag at us incessantly if we let them run free. No doubt, we all ought to get our own houses in order. But the easiest way to forget about ourselves is to focus on others. To lend an ear. To help those in need. We all need a bit more love and understanding, don’t you think?

      The world keeps tapping me on the shoulder, asking me to listen. For a long time I wouldn’t give it the time of day, so absorbed in my own life as I was. But now I hear it’s cry for help.

    • The Power Is in the Journey

      If a tree could fly off, it would not suffer the saw.
      The sun hurries all night to be back for morning.
      Salty water rises in the air,
      so the garden will be drenched with fresh rain.

      A drop leaves home,
      enters a certain shell, and becomes a pearl.
      Joseph turns from his weeping father, toward Egypt.
      Remember how that turned out.

      Journeys bring power and love back into you.
      If you cannot go somewhere, move in the passageways of the self.

      They are like shafts of light, always changing,
      and you change when you explore them.
      –– Rumi, The Importance of Setting Out

      Talking with a friend of mine, we discussed the logistics of writing about exploring the world when you aren’t presently out there traveling as much. But we’re all on a journey, aren’t we? Sometimes it’s waterfalls and mountaintops and coastal sunsets, sometimes it’s a poem that draws you into a corner of your soul that hadn’t previously explored. Writing about it every day, you end up blazing a trail you might follow back again someday, or offer to others who want to explore similar territory.

      You notice changes in people when they’ve been on a journey. And you notice changes in yourself as well. Life is the processing of the changes we put ourselves through, the growth we see and feel as we move through the world. This world is beautiful and full of joyful encounters. This world is dark and on the verge of collapsing on itself in environmental disaster, war and plague. What do we do with the truth in both of those realities? We go out and experience it for ourselves, wrestle with what it means to us, and if you’re courageous publish it for the world to learn what you’ve been thinking about.

      Who would want it otherwise?

    • For All That Is Life

      “You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.” ― Jiddu Krishnamurti

      Having a nightcap with friends at a clever book and bar establishment in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, my attention drifted to stacks of books all around me, chess boards and kitschy furniture from another era. This was my kind of place, and one I made note to wander around in again in daylight, when I wasn’t compelled to be polite and focused on our conversation, instead of just drifting off into this newly discovered world of wonder so tantalizingly close. Such is the nature of books—they pull you in when you least expect it.

      It’s not just books. How could it be, really? All that is life is around us, nudging us to pay attention, to immerse ourselves in the moment, to listen and understand, to act and to be a part of, to share and empty ourselves to others that we might fill ourselves up again with new and wonderful bits. Like a tide flowing in and out of a bay, our accumulation and sharing of knowledge keeps our mind fresh and alive.

      We spend a lifetime trying to understand what’s all around us, and yearning for all that ever could be. We are the audience in our own life, but also an active participant in the play. None of this is all that it could ever be, but isn’t it wonderful just the same?

    • Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow

      We treat our plans as though they are a lasso, thrown from the present around the future, in order to bring it under our command. But all a plan is—all it could ever possibly be—is a present-moment statement of intent. It’s an expression of your current thoughts about how you’d ideally like to deploy your modest influence over the future. The future, of course, is under no obligation to comply. — Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

      Yesterday I played chess for two hours with my brother, him shaking and physically beaten up from radiation treatments, but sharp-witted and sarcastic as ever, with his gallows humor in heavy use. I chipped away with bold chess moves that almost sunk me a few times before I ended up winning in the end. I don’t take it easy on him when it comes to chess, nor would he expect that from me. He’s won his fair share. Ultimately we were both grateful to play against a fellow human instead of the cold comfort of mouse clicks and a glaring computer screen. Chess is amongst the most beautiful games life has to offer—why do we play it so infrequently?

      Today I’d contemplated a long hike on a 4000 footer, but in the end I’m opting for dinner with friends to celebrate a birthday. I suppose I could have done both, but we prioritize what we will in our brief dance under the stars. The friends will be gone soon, sailing away in the fall to faraway places. Lasso time with them while you can, I think, and stop worrying about what you can’t do. We miss so much in our lifetimes—how many shooting stars did I miss by not gazing upward a beat longer? How many frozen ice sculptures melt away without my ever seeing them? We can’t worry about such things, we can only do what we might in the present moment. And try again in the next should we arrive there.

      Tomorrow may just arrive, and we ought to make our plans and live in hope that it all comes together. We have to place a little faith in a future we might not see, don’t we? Life is a collection of memories of moments gone by, but can only be lived now, with an eye towards then. All that matters is living with intent, and embracing the good while managing the rest. I intend to find a little magic in the world, to keep sending sparks of light wherever and whenever the opportunity presents itself, and celebrate it in my own modest way. Maybe that’s enough.