Alexandersmap

    Month: January 2023

    • Sipping Coffee, Reading Poetry

      He is seated in the first darkness
      of his body sitting in the lighter dark
      of the room,

      the greater light of day behind him,
      beyond the windows, where
      Time is the country.

      His body throws two shadows:
      One onto the table
      and the piece of paper before him,
      and one onto his mind.

      One makes it difficult for him to see
      the words he’s written and crossed out
      on the paper. The other
      keeps him from recognizing
      another master than Death. He squints.
      He reads: Does the first light hide
      inside the first dark?

      He reads: While all bodies share
      the same fate, all voices do not.
      — Li-Young Lee, In His Own Shadow

      Feeling reclusive lately, too reclusive for the part played in this life, I’ve grown weary of online planning meetings and year’s end introspection. I’ve begun to reach out to the world again in earnest, just to be sure it’s still there. I’m a social being trapped in an introvert’s mind, or is it the other way around? We humans are complex creatures.

      Amongst the pile of books crying for attention was a book of poetry, purchased eagerly, stacked deliberately, shuffled downward reluctantly. We prioritize finishing what we started, after all, and then some other pretty thing catches our attention, and soon that work of enchantment is put aside for weeks on end, biding its time while we squander our own. Until the moment of reckoning when it surfaces again.

      Sitting in the morning darkness, quietly shuffling with a fresh cup of coffee back to a reading chair, my mind rebelled against the non-fiction staples demanding my attention. Mind craving sustenance of a different kind, like vitamin A to help my vision, I find what’s been calling to me all along. In the growing ambient light of morning, sipping coffee and focusing my mind for the cadence of poetry, I’m quietly floored by a simple stack of words, set just so. And forgot I’d had coffee at all.

      While all bodies share the same fate, all voices do not. The spell cast upon us through poetry is in the way it slays you in these moments of truth, a mirror of words reflecting back at you. Recovering my senses, I set about finding my own voice again, knowing the steepness of the climb before me, feeling my own shadow and the lesson to the core.

    • Fighting the Guardians of Treasure

      “Don’t forget that dragons are only guardians of treasures and one fights them for what they keep – not for themselves…” ― Katherine Mansfield, Katherine Mansfield Letters And Journals: A Selection

      These are early days and late days, all at once, for we each are in the beginning stages of the year while looking back with chagrin at the years gone by. These Are Days by 10,000 Maniacs rolls in my head, competing with These Days by Jackson Browne. One is joyful, one is tinged in regret, each bouncing around in the same brain as if coming from a juke box in hell. But that’s the nature of being human, we think too much, we hope and dream and dance with our feelings, and we wake up and do it all over again the next day.

      Writers take all of this and put it out there for the world to see, and to comment on next time the world sees you. It makes for awkward moments in the early days, when you’re still on edge about writing with your name attached. This is who I am, we say, feel free to drop a comment in at the end.

      I wonder, when Mansfield was writing in her journal, slowly dying with Tuberculosis, if she meant for them to be seen for generations? I’d like to think she’d have smiled at the thought, for the act of writing is sharing, even if at first we’re the only ones who are meant to see it. Mark Twain’s diary was released 100 years after his death on his request. It was not to be evasive, I expect, but to spare those he was writing about from knowing his thoughts on the matter.

      We fight for what we keep, and every artist knows what it is to fight with dragons. It takes courage to fight for the treasure and then give it away to those who weren’t in the fight with you, knowing they may use it in their own fight, knowing that most will never see the gesture at all, publishing just the same. It’s not our treasure, after all, it’s only our fight that matters in the end. Knowing this, one should take courage and fight bigger dragons.

    • Spending Time

      Planning is generally done in earnest this time of year, but at some point, action must take over. Too much planning becomes procrastination. We can plan ourselves all the way to the grave if we let ourselves. We must do to become. I believe it was Melissa Heisler who said living is a verb, not a noun. There’s a deep truth in that statement. We must act to live a full life.

      We must begin in earnest, today, to build on those hopes and dreams we spent New Year’s thinking about. For if not now, when? There is no other time. Baby steps turn into long strides that turn into giant leaps forward. There’s momentum in forward motion.

      “Six months from now, what you will you wish you had spent time on today?” — James Clear

      Where we spend time matters a great deal. We forget that sometimes as we go through our days getting from here to there. But where is there anyway? Is it simple here with a few more aches and pains? Time well-spent resonates differently for us than wasted time does. Wasted time feels hollow, while our well-spent time feels far more fulfilling. Who wants to look back on a day or a year or a life feeling empty?

      We intuitively know not to drink stagnant water, but forget we’re mostly water ourselves. Are we flowing towards something or settling into stagnant? Puddles stagnate then evaporate. We must find our ocean before we turn to dust. Too harsh? The point is to find the channel that keeps us flowing creatively, contributing to a greater purpose, so we might ultimately look back on this part of the journey as the point where we broke through the dam and really began making a splash.

    • A Winter Hike on the Welch-Dickey Loop Trail

      The Welch-Dickey Loop Trail is one of the most popular trails in New Hampshire. There are many reasons for this, including its relative closeness compared to trails further north and its proximity to popular recreation destination Waterville Valley. But really, people hike this trail because the views are spectacular and you can do the hike in a few hours if you want to push, or linger with those views if you wish to take your time. In summer the blueberry bushes are generous and those ledges are great places to sit awhile. In winter, those ledges look like toboggan runs to a hard landing. Best to stick to the trail, wear spikes and respect the unforgiving nature of the White Mountains when people get careless.

      As the name infers, there are two mountains on this 4.4 mile loop: Mount Welch and Mount Dickey. Both have a ton of exposed granite ledge that let the world open up for you, making the payoff in views exceptional for the effort expended. In summer, it’s a fun scramble up the granite, in winter, it’s strongly advisable to have micro spikes or crampons. Even with spikes on, I was very deliberate with every step hiking up Mount Welch. It’s not a trail to be doing in casual footwear in winter.

      At some point along the way, I recognized that the prominence of the summit wasn’t ever my goal, it was simply getting out in nature at elevation, to a place where I earn the view with every step. I’ve been too distracted by numbers (48, 200 & 4000: there are 48 4000 foot mountains with a prominence of 200 feet or more) lately, forgetting that lists are not the point. While it’s in my nature to finish what I started and complete the 48, it took this winter hike on the Welch-Dickey Loop Trail to remind me that deep down I’m seeking experience, not validation. The numbers can take a hike. I’ll finish when I finish.

      If you’re looking for incredible views with a relatively easy hike, the Welch-Dickey Loop Trail brings you to two summits of the five I’d recommend in New Hampshire, along with Mounts Monadnock, Major and Willard. In summer or during foliage season these hikes are maddeningly crowded on the weekends, but winter brings relative quiet and pristine beauty. Just remember those micro spikes.

      The steep ledge scramble up Mount Welch
      Would you hike this without spikes?

    • Plant the Good Days

      “Don’t plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me. Choke those little bad days. Choke ’em down to nothin’. They’re your days. Choke ’em.” — Tom Waits

      We look up sometimes and wonder where the time goes. Times flies for all of us, good days and bad. It’s guaranteed until the very end. The trick is to work on our days—to string together as many days as we can full of joyful nuggets and fanciful moments. This requires active participation and an inclination to change things up when we see a trend in the wrong direction. We can’t control everything, but we can do something today to make it better than it might have been.

      When we have a few bad days, do we plant them and let them grow? We ought to let them wither, never gone but not sustained. And what of the good days? Shouldn’t these be nurtured and brought to light? Plant the good stuff and watch it grow.

    • Experience and Understanding

      “If I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.” — Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–82

      “I shall act as I now think—as a man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” ― Charles Darwin, The Life & Letters of Charles Darwin

      (Quick aside: I’ve posted a link to Darwin’s autobiography above, just know that the content is included in the Life & Letters link as well if you’re interested in reading online without purchasing.)

      I read these two quotes from Darwin as the reflections of a man who realizes that life is short and all work and no play makes Charles a dull boy. Darwin was anything but dull, of course, and lived an extraordinary life full of contribution to our understanding of evolution and humanity’s place in the universe. But it seems he couldn’t summon a verse of poetry off the top of his head. We all beat ourselves up over something, don’t we?

      The thing is, the accumulation of experience and seeking to understand it all are bold and beautiful acts, and transform us from soulless cogs in the machine into free-spirited humans actively engaged in living. This blog evolved from a travel blog to a living experience blog in which I process all that I encounter as best I can in the moment. Sure, I may lean in on philosophy and productivity more than the average bear, but it all counts, doesn’t it?

      Clever quotes inspire us by drawing on the magic derived from a few words written or spoken by someone we might admire. I generally see a quote and wonder where it came from, seeking out the books and poetry that the line was plucked from and trying to understand the larger meaning of those magical words. In each quote above, you’ll see I’ve done just that—going beyond the famous quote to add some meaning. You can do the same by clicking on the latter link and searching for some key words in the quote to find the original. Blame it on the researcher in me: One must get to the source to truly understand the subject matter.

      And here, friends, is our subject matter: Darwin understood what we all know deep down: this ride is a short one, and we ought to make the most of it. This living business is a deliberate act, and we are what we focus on. We must push aside the atrophy of a limited life and expand our experience and understanding. For that is where growth happens. We dare not waste an hour of our precious time.

    • We Are Shaped

      “We, I would venture to guess, are the books we have read, the paintings we have seen, the music we have heard and forgotten, the streets we have walked. We are our childhood, our family, some friends, a few loves, more than a few disappointments. A sum reduced by infinite subtractions. We are shaped by different times, hobbies, and creeds.” — Sergio Pitol, The Art of Flight

      What we experience matters a great deal in our lives, for these are the building blocks to a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us. What we experience defines us, making us more inclined to learn more, which in turn prompts us to leap into another unknown. That accumulation of experiences is our sum. Our sum is us at this moment, with more to come.

      What shapes us is most interesting in the context of omission. For what we miss also shapes us. Perhaps explaining why FOMO (fear of missing out) is such a common experience, but more likely just leaving us not fully fleshed out in an area where we sense we don’t have the full picture. We all wonder at what might have been at times, thinking about pursuits cut short, excuses we made about time or money or priorities that created a void of omission that nags us still. Friends offering a quarter berth any time I want to visit their sailboat is a tantalizing draw even as I write this, wondering if the opportunity will ever present itself again. Omission haunts us, even as life fills in around us.

      “We must resist the temptation to drift along, reacting to whatever happens to us next, and deliberately select targets, from activities to relationships, that are worthy of our finite supplies of time and attention.” — Winifred Gallagher, Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life

      The trick is to avoid the drift. Put aside the insignificant distractions that relentlessly steal our time and attention and decide what will shape us. Life is short enough, we ought to set our sails in the direction we want to go in, and accumulate the experiences that will define our identity for the rest of our days.

      As our accumulation of experiences grows it naturally builds momentum. It makes us more interesting at cocktail parties, perhaps, but it mostly puts wind in our sails. We become more confident in our ability to handle the unknown, to make it known, and in turn make it part of who we are. When done well, we become deliberate in what those experiences will be. In this way we create our identity while we define our lives. That’s something to aspire to, don’t you think? For it leaves us wanting more, which is a great way to begin each day.

    • The Steps Between Hurdles

      “Set it in your mind right now that the process is more important than the result. You don’t control the result; what you control are your actions.” — Brian P. Moran, The 12 Week Year

      It’s that time of year, when some of us are more hyper-focused on improving our productivity and effectiveness in our chosen work than usual. I have a few friends who roll their eyes when I start rattling off words like productivity and execution, but they’re also highly productive and execute on the things they choose to focus on. Think about what you’re most passionate about in life, be it your family, your writing, your fitness level, or your career—each thing that we’re highly engaged in features higher levels of execution and attention than the things we find less interesting. We naturally try harder to be good at the things that matter more.

      But what are we to do with the things that matter less but still matter a great deal? Nobody wants to stumble through life, we all want to lift ourselves and others through our contribution. And that’s where developing good habits and a process or system for living matter a great deal. If we fancy ourselves writers or athletes or accountants, we ought to refine our system of living to optimize our efficiency and results. I write best in the morning but find the afternoon better for a workout. You might find the morning the only effective time for a run, and late night the best time to focus on your best work. We learn what works over time and apply it to our lives.

      “Accountability is not consequences; it’s ownership.” — Brian P. Moran, The 12 Week Year

      If change is our constant companion, then refinement of our processes is our tool to overcome the hurdles we encounter. Each day is an opportunity to reflect on what’s working, what’s not, and what we must change in our system to be effective in this new reality. What we can’t do is bury our head in the sand and hope the world changes back again. We might as well finish the job and bury the rest of ourselves at that point. We must rise up, dust ourselves off and get to work on improving our lot in life.

      I’m not a runner, but I’m deeply invested in people who are. Having spent many hours on tracks, I know that effective hurdlers use a 3 step technique to clear hurdles in sprints. Some people use 4 steps between those hurdles because they have shorter legs or their gait between hurdles is off. This is less efficient and slower than 3 steps, but the point is to get over the hurdle and try to improve your steps on the next one. It seems this is a good analogy for our lives between hurdles too. The trick is to quickly adapt on the fly for what comes next.

      We’ve all just been through quite a hurdle, and yet we cleared it. Sure, maybe we banged our shin or stumbled a bit on our landing, but we’re on to the next hurdle now. That’s life in the race, isn’t it? We must focus continually on where we are and what we must face next. Best to have a system that enables, not hinders.

    • Not Everything Dies

      Dear heart, I shall not altogether die.
      Something of my elusive scattered spirit
      shall within the line’s diaphanous urn
      by Poetry be piously preserved.
      — Samuel Beckett, Non Omnis Moriar

      Samuel Beckett’s first stanza is a mic drop precisely because we feel the truth in it. Non Omnis Moriar—not everything dies—because we create ripples that reverberate and live beyond our fragile bodies. Our lifetime contribution in relationships and in our work has the opportunity to outlast us. What will it say?

      It might say something of our spirit, our willingness to share and grow and offer something of consequence in a world fraught with characters with no such inclinations. Perhaps it will be that one line, read at the right time, that turns history towards hope. Too bold? Shouldn’t we be? Our work is our time capsule to a future without us, no doubt, but it might also be a time capsule to a future us, older and wiser (perhaps) and looking for evidence that we lived a life of purpose.

      As this is published, we’re a few days into the New Year, when bold plans for a larger life take hold in our imagination. Creating anything meaningful daily amplifies and extends this feeling to the rest of the year and the rest of our lives. When we look at our lives as a creative work, we move beyond the timidity of everyday living and tap into our unrealized potential. We figuratively raise the bar on what we expect of ourselves, and seek to exceed it on our next attempt. In this way our contribution grows even as we grow.

      The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
      Answer.
      That you are here—that life exists and identity,
      That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
      — Walt Whitman, O Me! O Life!

      If your mind immediately leaps to the Dead Poet’s Society follow-up question, then we share the same cultural influences. And isn’t it an example of not everything of the poet dying? Robin Williams, as John Keating, asks his class, “What will your verse be?” We ought to let the question linger a few beats longer. And then get down to the business of answering it for ourselves. It follows that we should be earnest in this pursuit, for it will take a lifetime. And, just maybe, then some.

    • We Are a Spark

      “The universe has no timeless geography. The universe is a happening. The universe is an explosion. Galaxies continue to fly through the universe away from each other at colossal speeds…
      You and I also began with the Big Bang, because all substance in the universe is an organic unity. Once in a primeval age all matter was gathered in a clump so enormously massive that a pinhead weighed many billions of tons. This ‘primeval atom’ exploded because of the enormous gravitation. It was as if something disintegrated. When we look up at the sky, we are trying to find the way back to ourselves…
      But what is this earthly substance? What was it that exploded that time billions of years ago? Where did it come from?” “That is the big question.” “And a question that concerns us all very deeply. For we ourselves are of that substance. We are a spark from the great fire that was ignited many billions of years ago.” — Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

      When you look at the stars, do you feel the connection? When you scan the horizon from a mountain summit or along the ocean shore, do you wonder at how big the world is or reflect on how small we are? When we look up to the stars, aren’t we reuniting with our kindred energy? For if the universe is a happening, so too each of us is happening right now. It’s our mission to meet this, our fragile moment.

      Each star, and our own sun, is a spark from the Big Bang burning in their time. So it is that we too are a spark from the great fire. These, friends, are our days. As we collectively begin another trip around the sun, it’s worth asking, what bold vision sparks our imagination? Feel how it stirs our embers. Can we realize it in our time?

      Life is a precious few moments before our stardust returns to the universe. This might horrify us, or light a bonfire. Choose fire.