Alexandersmap

    Month: April 2023

    • A Thing Promised

      Who hasn’t thought, “Take me with you,”
      hearing the wind go by?
      And finding himself left behind, resumed
      his own true version of time
      on earth, a seed fallen here to die
      and be born a thing promised
      — Li-Young Lee, To Life

      We feel the urgency to live, feel it deeply within. We see the days go by so rapidly—blink and you’ll miss it quick—and something wells up inside of us to do something with the moment. Before it’s gone forever. Each moment matters, the moments of inertia just the same as the moments of peak performance (whatever that might mean for us). We are the sum of each, collected in our time, defining our lives.

      Each of us wrestles with the desire for more against the desire to savor what we have already. This restlessness is expressed in different ways, varying from bucket list experience-checking to home improvement projects to staying up all night to read a page-turner, or perhaps binge-watching a favorite show just to know how it ends. What satiates this restlessness? When do we linger a beat longer?

      As we accumulate experience, we naturally want more of it. To leave this world with boxes unchecked seems a waste. But rushing off to the next big thing usually means missing the best part of the big thing we’re already living in. The moments that are locked in the amber of our memories are those moments we paused a beat and payed attention. Dwelling in place and time offers opportunities to add layers of experience too.

      Seeds are often carried by the wind, but grow in place. Aren’t we the same? Our best relationships with people and place are developed over time. Our promise in this lifetime is fulfilled with our presence.

    • Mining for Gold

      “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need” — Cicero

      My attention comes back to the garden this time of year. It’s too soon for annuals, too early for most perennials, and my sinuses are reminding me that the cool air is filling up with pollen. We celebrate the great awakening of the garden and surrounding landscape, even with a few sniffles and sneezes to punctuate the season.

      I know a few things about awakening. I came into this world in April, so I mark the end and subsequent beginning of another trip around the sun this month. Take enough of those trips, and reinvent yourself enough times, and you begin to see patterns of behavior. Learning who we are is like reading the current in a river, finding the deepest channel and accelerating downstream towards our destiny.

      I mostly write in a home office with a solid library of books patiently awaiting discovery. There are books I’ve read many times and books I’ve told myself I’ll get to someday. For better or worse the convenience of a Kindle tends to dominate my reading selection nowadays. So why keep books at all? For the same reason I plant daffodils. Daffodils are planted once and reappear in your life regularly to punctuate the moment. Books tend to do the same. I’ve turned to my collection many times over the years since I’ve planted them on the shelf.

      What we plant in ourselves tends to grow. Will we amend our minds with rich content and labor, or simply lean into whatever other’s grow for us? Give me dirty fingernails thumbing through favorite books. We mine for gold in the garden and in the library. These are our days to dig deeply and plant that which will live beyond us.

      Daffodils

    • A Dip Towards the Immeasurable

      “Who knows what is beyond the known? And if you think that any day the secret of light might come, would you not keep the house of your mind ready? Would you not cleanse your study of all that is cheap, or trivial? Would you not live in continual hope, and pleasure, and excitement?” — Mary Oliver, Winter Hours

      I woke up much earlier than usual, mind still processing the noise of the previous few days, and reached for a familiar voice in Mary Oliver. In the quest to live a larger life, sometimes we find ourselves overloaded with responsibilities, frenzy and noise. Like a wave crashing on the beach, the chaos will recede but inevitably return again. Life is ebb and flow, and we must find a place of peace away from the churn. Meditation and prayer come in many forms, for me best found in nature, motion and poetry. We are at our best when we leave ourselves and focus on the universe instead. When we stay within ourselves we forget the connection.

      We’re forever walking in the churn, seeking reassurance and a clear path. Sometimes the answer is to step away from the madness, and sometimes we must wade deeper still, but we often won’t know for sure. Simply taking the next step is better than trying to stand still as our footing erodes beneath our feet. The universe respects active participation.

      “And as with prayer, which is a dipping of oneself toward the light, there is a consequence of attentiveness to the grass itself, and the sky itself, and to the floating bird. I too leave the fret and enclosure of my own life. I too dip myself toward the immeasurable.” — Mary Oliver, Winter Hours

      We tend to confuse the structure of organized religion for spirituality and purpose. There may be a net benefit to knowing the rules of the game, but we often lose sight of our reason for being in the game at all. Life is a brief dance with the light, the brilliance of which we barely understand when we step aside for the next dancer. We forget that we are all collectively a part of this lean into understanding. It will continue long after we’re gone. And so it is that what comes next is not for us to dwell on. Our attentiveness to now is all that really matters.

    • Analog and Delightful

      Change is good, but it can also be a pain in the ass. This is exemplified by the forced version upgrades Apple puts us through before we can resume our regularly scheduled activity. Microsoft has their own version of upgrade hell, and I’ve recently undergone the process of re-learning everything I thought I knew about Microsoft Office when I was issued a new laptop PC for work. There’s something to be said for pen and paper in this constantly changing world of technology.

      If I sound like an old dog, well, forgive me. I pride myself on keeping up, I just prefer choosing the time and place for when my world is turned upside down. Tech doesn’t work that way. Critical updates and staying a step ahead of the bad guys is paramount, and [sorry, but] f**k your feelings, friend. It’s not about us with tech, it’s about the greater good versus the underlying bad. Here we are, buttercup; embrace the suck. Amor fati.

      The thing we must accept is that the people building all these tech tools love to fiddle around with this Pandora’s box. The rest of us, simply wanting efficiency in our lives, are along for the ride. Once we’re on the ride, we’re on. Buckle up and mind your hands. No loose items allowed. Carpe diem.

      I’ve been telling myself that the blog site needs an upgrade for a long time now. While acknowledging that fact, I nonetheless avoid doing anything about it because there is pain associated with that change. Ah, yes, the excuses: I’ll have to learn new things and I don’t have time to learn right now. Re-designing the blog will be disruptive and inherently full of risk. All I really care about is writing and sharing that writing every day, what’s the point of a forklift upgrade on the web site?

      Sooner or later, we have to rip off the bandaid. Technology will continue to evolve to torture us, er, to make our lives easier. We must learn to keep pace. We aren’t old dogs, friends, we’re surfers riding the bleeding edge of technology wherever it takes us. As with most tech, it will end up in the recycling center, dusty and forgotten, soon enough. Memento mori. But that’s then, this is now. Just do it. Just remember to change your password to something impossible to remember, er, hack.

      One of the small joys I have each day is taking out my bullet journal and tracking my progress on tasks, streaks and long-term goals. It’s all so very analog and delightful. I like to think of myself as technologically savvy, but I’m just fooling myself. All this technology is a means to an end, the rest is just a game played by someone else’s rules. Give me simplicity. For deep down, I just want to be analog and delightful too.

    • All the Bees

      It’s all I have to bring today—
      This, and my heart beside—
      This, and my heart, and all the fields—
      And all the meadows wide—
      Be sure you count—should I forget
      Some one the sum could tell—
      This, and my heart, and all the Bees
      Which in the Clover dwell
      — Emily Dickinson, It’s all I have to bring today

      We are more than the best we can muster up in a day. The world is more. Surely, the universe too. And we are a part of it. Some days the magic finds us, some days it flows elsewhere. If we aren’t frivolous with our ration of magic, we might make it last just long enough to make something of the day.

      There is only so much magic to spread around on some rainy Mondays. And anyway, I wonder about all the bees. Who’s job is it to count them anyway? Maybe the same crew tasked with counting the number of coffee beans necessary for a pound of coffee. Measured just so, a proper ration of beans makes all the difference on mornings such as this one.

      It seems magic is all around us, and it’s not about finding it, the trick is to simply see it. It lingers in the clover, whispers in the rain, and gently nudges a nose at us when we aren’t paying enough attention. Be present, it reminds us, and the ration is yours. Be sure to share it.

    • What Can We Live Without?

      Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. — Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Now and then I dabble in intermittent fasting. I can’t always control where I am and whether I can exercise, but I can control what I eat and drink. Fasts range from 13 hours up to 24 in general, but mostly I seem to do two or three per week of either 16 or 18 hours. My longest fast ever was about 48 hours. I’ve heard of some people doing seven days. You won’t find me pushing that kind of limit. Simply put, I like to eat, and skipping a meal or two is a good way to remind myself to ease off on the eating thing a bit. There are health benefits to intermittent fasting, ranging from healthy weight loss to long term resistance to degenerative diseases (I’m told). But mostly, I do it to control the conversation in my own head about when and what to eat.

      The question to ask of ourselves is, what can we live without? We soften ourselves with abundance: food, entertainment, friends of convenience, information… the list goes on. Removing most of this noise offers an opportunity to find that which is most essential to us in our lives. Food becomes fuel and not filler. Entertainment elevates to a highlight moment instead of background noise. True friends are true sounding boards and not frivolous back-slapping small-talkers. Information leads to a deeper understanding, not a sound bite with no substance. You get the idea.

      If there’s an irony to Thoreau, it’s his tendency to jamb a hundred words into a sentence just to get everything out of his head and on paper. For a man that preaches simplicity, we sometimes have to wade through a lot of word soup to get to the key message. But Thoreau lived a short life, and there was so very much to put out there in the world before he left us. We all ought to feel that urgency.

      A bit of temperance is good for us. A bit of solitude with our thoughts brings the truth to the surface. Life in the din isn’t all its cracked up to be, for we rapidly run out of time to find out who we really are. With a little less input, what might we put out there in the world? The more we say no to some things, the more we amplify our yes to other things. Choose wisely.

    • Serving Joy

      “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” — Rabindranath Tagore

      As spring usually goes this time of year in recent years, we seemingly went right from winter to summer, fooling the daffodils and hyacinth into blooming quickly, lest they miss their moment with the sun. There’s something to be said for rising to meet the fragile moment. Flowers know this instinctively. What of us?

      Traveling all week, I almost missed the fragrant offering altogether. This was a long week full of work and follow-up and more than one’s fair share of absence from those one loves. We each have our dues to pay in this transactional lifetime, but there ought to be joy in the work too. What are we here for but to serve our compelling why? Life is service to others, or it is nothing at all.

      We know it when we find our joyful service. It’s work that matters a great deal to us. It’s stirring words together just so, words that stir something deep inside of us, words better shared than jealously sheltered. And it’s doing the quiet daily offering that mundane chores represent, moving us forward in our progression through life.

      Talking quietly in the early evening hours, shedding myself of road weariness, talk moved to the garden and work still to be done. There’s always work to be done in a garden, isn’t there? What mattered wasn’t the weariness of the work week, or the prospect of more chores ahead. What mattered was the why: growing something more, together. Serving our fragile moment with joy.

    • Greek Coffee

      Greek coffee is a lot like Cuban or Turkish coffee. Strong and bitter and best mixed with a bit of sweetness. They warn you when you receive it not to drink it to the last drop, for you’ll find the grounds there. There’s none of that filtering nonsense with Greek coffee, friend. Americans drink to the last drop, the Greeks leave a bit behind. Call it an offering to the gods if you will, or simple prudence.

      You might anticipate the effect of a strong Greek coffee after dinner on my sleep pattern. Timing is everything with new experiences. In fact, I could use another one of those coffees as a reset for the day ahead. The caffeine will be welcome, but it surely won’t be as interesting as that first taste of something similar, but entirely different.

      We’re blessed with so much in this modern world, isn’t it a tragedy to order the same things on the menu every day? Our best life is full of new and enriching moments, grounded by the people and experiences that carried us to this moment. That openness to new experiences rewards us with a richness far beyond our bank accounts. Visit the uncommon places, order something you can’t pronounce now and then, opt for the local coffee instead of the Americano. Live! We are better for having gone there.

    • The Gestures With Which We Honor

      the path to heaven doesn’t lie down in flat miles.
      It’s in the imagination
      with which you perceive
      this world, and the gestures
      with which you honor it
      — Mary Oliver, The Swan

      Heaven is right here, friends. Whatever comes later is unknown to all of us, no matter how much faith we hold. The trick is to be here, now, and love what we have (Amor fati). What comes next has never been in our control, but how we react in this moment is all ours. Not impetuous, not cynical, but earnestly open to all that comes to us in this lifetime.

      I’m excited about the day ahead. Are you? So full of potential, so ready to be experienced. Full of challenges and tests of our will to be sure, but also full of wonder and fresh perspective. That wonder is all around us, a spark of insight into the universe instantly recognized when we pay attention. Pay attention, for it’s there we find delight.

      Don’t wait for heaven. We must find what we can of it today. Tomorrow will take care of itself. It always does.

    • Routines

      “You need to create a routine. Motivation only gets someone going for a little while, a routine lasts forever. Write down three things you’ll do each day. Start small. Walk, only eat real food, stretch. Mark them off every day, no matter what. After a month, make the goals bigger.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger

      I’m a morning person, and do my best work early. For this reason I try to jamb as much as possible into the first couple of hours of my day. The rest of the day usually takes care of itself at that point, but the important but not urgent stuff is already checked off. For me, that means writing, reading in earnest, some form of exercise and a review of my priorities for the day and week.

      Some days are upside down, and all the important things you wanted to start with are nagging at you to finish with. It’s very easy to let things slip until tomorrow when you’re tired and ready to turn your brain off for the evening. This is where maintaining streaks becomes the savior. Some things simply cannot slip. Like writing and reading and a nod at fitness and picking up a word or two of French. We are what we repeatedly do, and all that that represents.

      There’s nothing more satisfying than following through on the things you promised yourself you’d follow through on. Every day offers us an opportunity to improve or slide backwards. As we reach the evening hours feeling a bit tired and worn, we get to tell that backwards slide, “not today”.