Alexandersmap

    Author: nhcarmichael

    • That Dreadful Routine

      “One travels to run away from routine, that dreadful routine that kills all imagination and all our capacity for enthusiasm.”— Ella Maillart

      Two years ago I chose to step away from business travel. I occasionally feel a pang of loss when a trade show in a city I love to visit comes up and I’m not there, but on the whole, I’ve enjoyed the tradeoff of dining with my bride every night and walking the dog with the stars and not-so-distant howl of coyotes for company.

      This week I met with several people who still live the life I walked away from two years ago. It’s reminded me of the old routine, and I find I don’t miss it much at all. Those early morning trips to the airport to make a flight to make a meeting in some faraway place gets old after a couple of decades of doing it.

      The fullness of our lives is in direct proportion to the creativity of our routines. The more we habituate adventure into our days, the more adventurous our lives. Likewise, the more we travel or venture out to meet other people, the more integral a part of the world we will be. We are what we repeatedly do, after all.

      Still, the travel bug never went away, it was simply channeled into travel with people I care about in places I wanted to go. The routine changed to meet new priorities. The routine will change again, no doubt, as I look to the future. We all ought to scrutinize our routines now and then to determine if it’s become a little, well, routine. And then decide what to be and go be it.

    • October Initium

      My life a spreading ring
      of quiet, like the trout’s brief
      in-breath
      at the surface of a river,
      like the slow
      outward movement of a raindrop
      spreading on a still lake.
      — David Whyte, Death Waits

      Initium is the Latin word from which initiate is derived. It simply means a beginning. Today is the first day of October, which seems an appropriate day to begin something beyond a new month. We don’t have to wait for New Year’s Day for such things as life change, we simply need to decide to begin.

      What is a great life but the steady expansion of personal experience? We are collectors of days, filled with that which enriches us. To leave a day empty feels wasteful. Do something with the gift, or squander it. We rise each day facing the same choice.

      Initiative is only the beginning. We must act upon it. On this first day of October, seize what flees. Carpe diem.

    • Lean In

      Oh we’ll talk about
      These days twenty years from now
      Lean in and look around
      The golden days are happening now
      — Layup, Golden Days

      Some days we don’t talk to a soul. Some days surprise us with more souls crossing our path than we ever expected. Today was a surprise, encountering enough old acquaintances to field a baseball team (maybe they would fare better than the one playing the Yankees as this is published). The secret? Getting out there and putting oneself in the thick of things.

      I should be watching that ball game, but instead I’m writing this blog post. I don’t view pro sports the way I used to. Or maybe I simply value my time a lot more now. As Bonnie Raitt put it, time is mighty precious now that there’s less of it to waste.

      What do we make of a day? We see a few old friends, we check off the essential few things that make a day complete, and maybe we add in one or two things that make us feel like we’ve done something more with this one day than we might have otherwise. Lean in and do that which best fills the hour, because when it comes to time, gold is made through what we do with it. Surely making gold is better than squandered hours.

    • Seasonal Ghosts

      Autumn evening sky,
      a single crow returning
      to its distant pine.
      — Masaoka Shiki

      What is autumn to you? Read through a handful of poems and haiku and the themes of falling leaves, harvest and wood smoke come up again and again. For good reason, of course, but there are other themes we associate with autumn: football and crisp air and walks across campus. The return of darkness offers sunrises for late risers and a kalaidescope of stars for those who would otherwise turn in to wonder at.

      In New England, at present, a nor’easter that just won’t quit has brought much needed rain, but a less welcome rain of acorns and branches covering everything. People complained about the rain, forgetting the drought, because they only think of a moment’s inconvenience. Autumn will be remembered for what is memorable in its season.

      Of course, there are seasons within seasons. September is harvest time, October is foliage and Halloween, November is the beginning of stick season and Thanksgiving. Each month brings its own memories, and with it, its own ghosts of seasons past. That feeling we get when we return to a season is not unlike the feeling of stepping back into an old neighborhood we haven’t been to in years. All seasons stir their own ghosts, ’tis autumn that stirs the most.

    • Killing Follies

      “The overflow of my brain would probably in a state of freedom have evaporated in a thousand follies. It needs trouble and difficulty and danger to hollow out various mysteries and hidden mines of human intelligence. Pressure is required, you know, to ignite powder.” — Alexander Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

      Do you wish for a superpower? Learn to focus. Delete the app, turn off all notifications and put the phone away. This, I know, is an impossible ask in this day and age. We are all so very dependent on our phones (perhaps you’re reading this blog on it right now).

      Honestly, I struggle too, to eliminate a thousand follies. We are super-connected, after all. This should in itself be a superpower, but alas, it’s simply a series of distractions that keep us from diving deep into the well of thought and insight.

      How to focus?

      Go analog. Pick up a classic book like The Count of Monte Cristo, a thousand pages of “I’ll read that someday” deferment, and sequester yourself from all that would draw your attention away to immerse yourself in another world. You’ll be in good company. It’s impossible to know how many people have read this classic, but estimates run in the tens of millions over the almost two centuries since it was first published. Truly a novel that stands the test of time.

      Go for a walk. Leave the device behind and listen to the wind through the trees, or raindrops on leaves, or how wildlife reacts to your presence. Sometimes they go silent, sometimes they chirp a warning to others, sometimes they scurry away with a telltale rustle of leaves. To be present with in the wild is to be connected in the best possible way: no power cord required.

      Write. Journal or write a blog or a full novel if you want. The point is to listen deeply to what we harbor within and turn it out onto the page. All the AI mining in the world won’t duplicate what we find within, if we learn to listen to ourselves and find our own voice. To leave our verse unsaid is the ultimate betrayal to those who wish to hear it.

      Practice presence. Like Thich Nhat Hanh washing dishes relaxingly, we may be fully present with the task at hand. I try to practice this in the garden, walking the dog, commuting in traffic and standing in line at the grocery store. Sometimes I get it right, and sometimes I miss badly. Try again, I tell myself, and sometimes I do better the next time, or maybe the time after that. Presence is a lifetime practice. Be patient.

      The trick, I think, is to question everything that would draw our attention away from that which we desire to focus on the most. In order to do anything, we have to say no far more than yes. What will it be for you and me? We should kill off those follies as they try to steal away our attention. For we have bigger fish to fry.

    • As Best We Can

      “I perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.” — Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

      It’s been a while since I’ve quoted Henry. I think it was the bumper crop of acorns that prompted me to revisit his work. When you live amongst the oak trees, you experience the full gamut of seasons with them, from catkins to acorns to stubborn leaves that hold on long after the maples and ash trees have gone bare. The oaks were here first, and (hopefully) they’ll be here long after I leave this place. I am but a steward of the land in my time.

      We know that time is flying rapidly along, because we experience the fruits of our own seasons. My catkin season is long past, I’m gathering as many acorns as I can before the harvest is over. With any luck, my own leaves will hold as an oaks, and not a swamp maple’s. Time will tell.

      The lesson, of course, is to learn to live according to our nature, but also in harmony with nature. Those who thrive in a lifetime do so with vigor, but also balance. So it is that I got back to my kettle bell workouts, and read in earnest, and yes, write this blog to keep growing and flourishing as best I can. We all ought to strive to deeply root ourselves with a sense of place and time and see just how far we can stretch ourselves towards the light. To exist otherwise isn’t really living at all.

    • Resonance and Depth

      “It goes without saying that a fine short poem can have the resonance and depth of an entire novel.” — James Wright

      Poems are like friends: find the right one and it will change your life. And like people we encounter throughout our lives, they serve as stepping stones between who we were prior to landing on one and who we become as we launch towards some other insightful plateau.

      So what is reading a great novel, if not more time with something of substance? Like a marriage that carries us on a journey of discovery? We may find a resounding truth in a few words, or one that unfolds over the course of a lifetime. A resolve towards discovery is the thing.

      I started reading The Count of Monte Cristo again. And in reading it, I came across a business card from a decade ago that I’d stuck between the pages as a placeholder marking the last time I’d passed this way. Have I mentioned that I’ve started and stopped reading this novel a few times over the years? Perhaps this time I’ll finish it. Twenty pages a day and it will be wrapped up by Thanksgiving. I can surely outpace that metric, given enough time… and the inclination.

      We are the sum of all that we layer atop the foundation we venture out into the world with. No doubt a solid foundation helps a great deal in reaching a higher potential. Isn’t that why we strive to put our children in the best neighborhoods and schools we can afford? But a solid base means nothing if we don’t grow from it. We may shore up our own foundation, and fill gaps through a regimen of lifetime education. This is our duty to ourselves, to reach for that elusive arete in our time. Or we could simply coast into a lesser version of who we might have been. The choice is ours.

    • Be Inclined

      Had I known that the first was the last
      I should have kept it longer.
      Had I known that the last was the first
      I should have drunk it stronger.
      Cup, it was your fault,
      Lip was not the liar.
      No, lip, it was yours,
      Bliss was most to blame.
      — Emily Dickinson

      Time is quickly devoured, but too seldom savored. Opportunities are sometimes seized, often missed. That’s life; figured out as it’s stumbled upon, scorned when reflected on. Don’t beat yourself up friend, for all of us are figuring it out and being our own worst critic. That’s life amongst we humans.

      Opportunity knocks, daily. We are what we repeatedly do (excellence being a habit). To be better, we ought to work on our inclinations. Be inclined to seize more moments, be inclined to say yes to bold and courageous, even in the face of pragmatism and logic and the biggest enemy of audacity, comfort.

      Fear wears many cloaks. Regrets feed on timidity and indecision. Don’t play tomorrow’s blame game: Be inclined to be bold today.

    • Do You See?

      Said a blade of grass to an autumn leaf, “You make such a noise falling! You scatter all my winter dreams.”
      Said the leaf indignant, “Low-born and low-dwelling! Songless, peevish thing! You live not in the upper air and you cannot tell the sound of singing.”
      Then the autumn leaf lay down upon the earth and slept. And when spring came she waked again—and she was a blade of grass.
      And when it was autumn and her winter sleep was upon her, and above her through all the air the leaves were falling, she muttered to herself, “O these autumn leaves! They make such noise! They scatter all my winter dreams.” — Kahlil Gibran, Said a Blade of Grass

      Stepping out with the pup, the acorns thudding across the yard, the crisp welcome of change in the air. A perfect day for an autumn tale, and Gibran’s classic fits the bill nicely. Why haven’t I used this before? Have I, and don’t recall? Everything is recycled eventually, given enough time.

      We have a few weeks to go before the leaves really begin to fall vigorously. It’s still harvest time for most everything. There’s still time to track the changes, to be aware, to present. Dare wait a day and look at all we’ve missed!

      I’m reminded of a rower I once coached who came from a different part of the country. Autumn in New England was all new to him, and he marveled at everything. Every day he would get to the boathouse early and look at a maple tree to register the changes from the day before. He did that for the entire fall season, from green and leafy to bare tree limbs, never taking a picture, just being present with that one tree every day. And in his shared awareness, I began to see what was right in front of me all along.

      A lot of years have passed since that time. I wonder what ever happened to that rower, and all of those rowers, really. Reflecting on the accumulated distance, I feel compelled to be more aware myself. For the changes come quickly as the days grow shorter. What’s here today will change tomorrow. The cycle continues well beyond our time here to witness it all. Do you see?

    • Been There

      The last few weeks, I’ve noticed friends and family going to places I’ve been as well. It’s interesting to see their pictures, compare them to the ones I took when I was in those places, remember favorite places and recommend they check them out if they have time, and wonder at the places I missed when I was there that they found. Bravo! Now I want to go back again.

      Having been there doesn’t make us experts on the place, it only makes us familiar with it. My six day in Paris were wonderful and I wouldn’t trade them for anything, save maybe more time in Paris. And I feel the same way about Rome and Vienna and Dublin and Edinburgh and London and Barcelona and… you get the point. Having been there is simply a starting point in the conversation. The real question is, what did we get out of the experience of being there?

      It goes without saying that I want to go back to almost every place I’ve been to. But I know it’s unlikely I ever will with most of them. Sure, two or three major cities warrant a return, but if we don’t actually live near that city, the chances of us returning are pretty remote. There’s just so much to see and do in this world, and life, as we know, is ever so brief. So make the most out of every visit, for we may never pass this way again.

      But let’s hope we do.