Alexandersmap

    Author: nhcarmichael

    • Bold Living

      “There is freedom waiting for you,
      On the breezes of the sky,
      And you ask ‘What if I fall?’
      Oh but my darling,
      What if you fly?”
      – Erin Hanson

      Salto mortale, means the dangerous or potentially lethal leap. Mortale is the potentially bad outcome. Salto is the tricky part: the leap. We humans tend to dwell so much on bad outcomes that we never get around to leaping. And then we regret the leaps we didn’t take more than we celebrate having not leaped. And that suggests another Latin phrase that stirs those quivering leaping muscles: Quam bene vivas refert non quam diu, or “It matters not how long but how well you live”.

      “I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.” – Joseph Campbell

      Alive time means being out there, taking chances, doing things that make you a little bit uncomfortable but thrill you just the same. Not frivolous risk-taking, but leaping into the calculated risk of bold living. The art of being alive while you’re here and vibrant enough to spring to action.

      Live boldly. Leap. Fly.

    • Beaver Paint and Population Growth

      You know right away when you see it. The trunk of a beech tree painted gray for the first four feet from the ground. But not every tree, just certain designated survivors. The rest are up to the whims of fancy. This is beaver country.

      The paint itself is latex paint, the color doesn’t matter to the beaver, but it does to us. Something that somewhat matches the tree is a nice touch, with enough contrast to recognize from afar that that’s the painted one. But paint alone doesn’t do enough to turn off the beaver, according to the Beaver Institute (!) you’ve got to mix in 20 ounces of mason sand per gallon of latex paint. That makes the bark an unpleasant sandpaper texture that even the hungriest beaver is going to turn their nose at. And in theory that saves the tree.

      Humans and beavers don’t always get along well. They were relentlessly hunted by Native Americans for trade with Europeans in the early 1600’s, and those Daniel Boone hats made a fashion statement even as they kept your head warm and dry. Beaver trappers and hunters wiped out the population in New England and New York over the next couple of centuries.

      According to an interview I read with Ben Goldfarb posted on NENC, there was a time in the early 1900’s when they tried to reintroduce the beaver to New England but simply couldn’t find any active colonies to build off of. They tried New York and they didn’t have enough either. So they acquired some Canadian beavers and some beaver from Yellowstone and relocated twenty of them to New York. Eleven years later they had 15,000 beaver and the population has skyrocketed since. Beavers can have 3-5 kits during the winter months, so that’s some serious beaver mating to achieve that kind of exponential growth.

      They don’t just gnaw them down to make nests; this is their food source. Beaver range in size from 30-100 pounds, and they need to eat to keep that beach body. The average beaver eats about 200 trees per year, from saplings to the bigger trees. They prefer aspen, alder, willow and other soft wood deciduous trees. That’s a whole lotta trees. So proactively painting a few with that paint/sand mix is a good way to preserve a few of them while offering up the rest as sacrificial lambs.

      I wondered at this as I walked amongst the trees along the Moss Glen Brook in Vermont over the weekend. The beaver were clearly busy stocking up their food supply for winter, with several downed trees scattered about near the brook. And here amongst them were the designated survivors with gray paint and sand mix. A wonderful curiosity that demonstrated the health of the beaver population in this area. Welcome back.

      Designated Survivor
      Beaver Food

    • A Weekend at The Trapp Family Lodge

      The cow outweighed me by more than 1200 pounds and had long horns protruding menacingly to her right and left, but I edged closer anyway. Bob, the Activities Director at The Trapp Family Lodge, insisted that it was safe to walk out amongst the Highland Cows. He gave us instructions on what to do if they approached us looking for apples (fold your hands into your body and turn slowly away to show you don’t have food). And he told us when one of the cows was annoyed with us. Otherwise, we were turned out to explore the field. Turning around, I realized I was one of the few who took him up on the offer. But risk has its rewards, and being close to the cattle was thrilling.

      Highland Cow

      I’ve been to Stowe, Vermont many times over the years. Mostly I’d drive up for Heady Topper beer, look around a bit and dream of lingering awhile. I’d even stopped to visit the Trapp Family Lodge, walking into the lobby to see what all the fuss was about. Like most Americans I’ve seen The Sound of Music a few dozen times. This wasn’t the Austrian Alps, but you can definitely see why they sank their roots here. The hills are alive in Stowe too.

      The Trapp Family Lodge is a lovely place, with fires roaring and pilsner flowing freely from taps and a quiet elegance without pretense. Pictures of the family decorate the walls throughout the lodge along with art derived from the story of the family’s escape from Nazi Austria. The mountains surround the property in all directions, and the von Trapp family owns much of the land and has donated many more acres to a land trust, ensuring this view would remain largely as it’s always been.

      We’d explored some of that land on our first day at the Lodge, walking the trails to find the Chapel at the top of the hill, and circling back to check out the Kaffeehouse for a snack. There are hiking and snowshoe trails criss-crossing the woods at the resort, and we had plenty of options for getting to know the lay of the land. Mountain bikers had their own single track trails that offered challenging terrain to explore. And wide cross-country skiing trails waited patiently for the snow to arrive. This was an outdoor enthusiast’s paradise. The outdoor hot tub and spa is a great reward for having done the work.

      After meeting the Highland Cows we walked back up the hill to the Lodge, with massive ravens flying about us speaking a sophisticated language of their own. I wondered at the banter, and wished we had more time to get to know them better. But we had other places to explore, and a long hill to walk back up. It seemed the cows were on the furthest pasture from the Lodge, and we had to earn our visit. It worked out to be about a mile each way, and a good way to work off breakfast with a different vantage point.

      We made a quick trip to downtown Stowe to explore the shops and made a stop at The Alchemist to pick up our Heady Topper beer order curbside before returning to the Bierhouse for lunch and a pint. We made a point of saving room in the cooler for some von Trapp beer as well. The Alchemist helped make Stowe the heart of New England IPA country, but the von Trapp’s make a great case for pilsners with their brews. This wasn’t some mass-produced American lager, this was beer with substance.

      Brewing at von Trapp is serious business

      As luck would have it, the woman who seated us was Kristina von Trapp, the granddaughter of Maria and a Director of the resort. She was a gracious host, with a striking presence about her borne of her family celebrity but honed on an active life outdoors and running a successful business. She wasn’t quietly sitting in the corner office looking at spreadsheets, she was hands-on and engaged with the public. And that made the von Trapp experience all the more impressive.

      We resolved to come back here again in the other seasons. Stowe is beautiful year-round, even on a cold November morning when the trees are bare and the snow is just hinting that it might return again. Staying here in all four seasons seems a worthy goal. And it will help keep the refrigerator well-stocked too.

    • Mountains and Waterfalls

      A weekend in Vermont stirs the imagination, and Stowe is famously rich in beauty, romance and adventure. As with so many other places, the magic crackles and sparks here on the edges of the day. Days are filled with adventure, nights a starry dome. The edges in between are when the light dancers march across the mountains and leap and twirl in the sky. In the morning the mountains are jagged black walls that holds the rising dawn back from our eager eyes. At dusk the mountains turn ember-red as they reach for the last rays of light. My iPhone screen mocks my attempts to capture it, but try I must.

      We stayed at the Trapp Family Lodge to get the full Stowe experience. The lodge is lovely and full of the amenities you’d expect at such a place. For me the abundance of hiking trails just outside the door were a nice incentive to stay here. The spa, Bierhall and Kaffeehaus all spoil the senses. But if you’re in Stowe get your ass outside.

      Hiking options are everywhere here, but we wanted waterfalls on this trip. Stowe has a couple of waterfalls nearby that are well worth the quick hike to see. Moss Glen Falls are a tumbling cascade framed by hemlocks. It’s an easy ten minute hike from the car to the best viewing point, and I smiled at how over-prepared we were for a much longer trek. The falls are postcard perfect, and worth a visit on quiet days when the tourists are elsewhere.

      Bingham Falls are near Smugglers Notch with a beautiful waterfall falling into a pristine pool worth the descent. What goes down must go up, and the walk up isn’t as bad as you think it will be after descending a couple of steep, muddy stretches. A few people have died falling into the gorge here, and it’s easy to see how. Nothing separates you from a plunge into the gorge but your own awareness. Not a place for little kids to run unattended.

      Mountains and waterfalls pair well together, and I greedily seek out each. I often wonder why there aren’t more visitors when I come across beautiful places, but usually it’s because I go when the crush of visitors ebbs. Like the mountains at sunrise, waterfalls whisper to you when there’s nobody else around. But only if you’re there to listen.

      Moss Glen Falls
      Bingham Falls

    • Life As You See It

      “Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music—the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.” – Henry Miller

      “The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.” – Julia Cameron

      Paying attention is a gift, and writing about it sharpens the focus. I believe that blogging has done more to wake me up to the wonders of my immediate world than anything save the birth of my children. Having children developed my habit of capturing moments in pictures, but the years my kids were growing up were also years the writing quietly lay dormant, biding time. You don’t have much quiet time when the mad dash from diapers to packing school lunches to soccer and dance recitals to driving to away games to picking colleges is happening. And yet I wish I’d written it all down anyway.

      Now, after the mad dash, the writing stirred awake from its slumber. I look around at all there is to see in this world. All there is to learn about the world. All there is to read and taste and see and most importantly, to do. Faraway places will have to wait once again, but there’s so much to see right outside.

      Read a Mary Oliver poem and you see that you’ve been blind the entire time. Chastened yet challenged, you look more deeply at the world in front of you and deeper into the soul. And you write.

    • The Other Side

      “What happens to the leaves after they turn red and golden and fall away?”
      – Mary Oliver, Roses, Late Summer

      I walked out just before bedtime for a quick look at the sky. The Northern Taurids peaked the night before, but we had overcast skies and alas, nothing to see here. A quick scan revealed another disappointing cloud cover masking the show. And still Mars shone through the passing clouds, offering hope that if I tried hard enough, maybe I’d see through to the other side. I went to bed instead.

      The Leonids offer a second chance, peaking on Tuesday night. The forecast doesn’t look favorable for the peak, but Monday night looks promising, and I promise myself I’ll stay up late to see them. We’ll see.

      Promises to ourselves have a way of falling away, like those leaves on the tree. I know where those red and golden leaves go: right over the fence into the woods by the tarp-full. I see them now; mounds of brown, damp leaves transforming back to mulch to feed their kin. And I see them gathering once again on the front lawn, mocking previous hours of work. And I wonder, where did all of these ones come from?

      The other side is that place we can’t see but we know it’s there. The other side of a fitness goal is evasive when you’re looking at the scale or your splits and don’t see much progress. The completed novel, the perfect job, the perfect marriage, and whatever it is on the other side of life all tantalize us with how close they are, yet how elusive they remain.

      All we control is what we do now. The direction we point ourselves. The consistency and honesty of our effort. Accepting this for all that it is. The rest blows in the wind, landing where it may.

    • Misguided Angels

      I said “Mama, he’s crazy and he scares me
      But I want him by my side
      Though he’s wild and he’s bad
      And sometimes just plain mad
      I need him to keep me satisfied”
      – Cowboy Junkies, Misguided Angel

      I saw a Facebook post the other day that broke my heart. A longtime friend who I view as a kid sister posted a picture mocking Joe Biden in a creepy caricature. With this one simple post I realized that she was another misguided angel and mourned losing her as we’ve lost so many others. It wasn’t so much that she clearly voted one way and I voted another. It was the ugliness of blindly following the masses down the rage and accusation path that saddened me.

      This Cowboy Junkies song is sadly beautiful. It’s the daughter who falls for the bad character and will go with him even as her parents and siblings beg her to see what they see. This guy just isn’t good for you. He’s leading you to heartbreak and disappointment on false promises. And of course I feel that way about the guy the American electorate just broke up with but for some reason can’t let go of.

      There’s something in human nature that draws us to the con artists. They say things to make us feel emboldened or powerful, and we fall in line. You see it in some evangelical leaders, in some politicians, business leaders, and yes, in relationships. I’ve learned that I can’t save everyone, but like the family of the misguided angel in the song, I want to try with those I care about.

      In many ways, I guess that makes me a misguided angel myself.

      “Misguided angel hangin’ over me
      Heart like a Gabriel, pure and white as ivory
      Soul like a Lucifer
      Black and cold like a piece of lead
      Misguided angel, love you ’til I’m dead”
      – Cowboy Junkies, Misguided Angel

    • Elton John Proving Me Wrong in Four Songs

      I had a conversation with a friend over the weekend about Elton John. She was surprised that I was a bit ambivalent about his music. The fact is I don’t love Elton John/Bernie Taupin’s catalog the way I love, say Jackson Browne or Billy Joel’s catalogs. Sure, he’s iconic and has some great, great songs, but the underlying combination of sadness and pouting just don’t capture my imagination. Too harsh? I say it with respect for his brilliance, but give me Freddy Mercury’s optimistic campiness over John’s pouty campiness anytime. And still, I do love many of Elton John’s songs. Here are four that easily make the case for why I may be wrong in my assessment:

      Tiny Dancer
      “But oh, how it feels so real
      Lying here with no one near
      Only you, and you can hear me
      When I say softly, slowly
      Hold me closer, tiny dancer
      Count the headlights on the highway
      Lay me down in sheets of linen
      You had a busy day today”

      The opening song on Madman across the Water, Tiny Dancer both sets the table and becomes an impossible standard to follow. Then Levon begins and you realize that this album runs deeper. I’d put the first half of this album up against many of the great albums in rock & roll music. There are thousands of vinyl copies of this album worn out on one side but pristine on the other.

      When I say I don’t love the Elton John Catalog, Tiny Dancer raises its hand and offers an animated challenge. Bernie Taupin’s lyrical pirouette forever married to Elton John’s gentle tap dance across the keyboard. This song remains as vibrant for me as the first day I heard it. And perhaps more so.

      Levon
      “Levon’s sells cartoon balloons in town
      His family business thrives
      Jesus blows up balloons all day
      Sits on the porch swing watching them fly
      And Jesus, he wants to go to Venus
      Leave Levon far behind
      Take a balloon and go sailing,
      While Levon, Levon slowly dies”

      How do you follow Tiny Dancer? With an epic Levon, of course. This is a big song, almost as big as the one that preceded it. Jesus can’t wait to fly away from the domineering father figure Levon and leave his oppressor to wither away. And we’re right there with him, grabbing a balloon and going for the ride. With so many albums why choose two from the same? Because it’s my list, that’s why.

      I love the stripped down version of this song on the BBC performance in the link above. Just three musicians and a gem of a song, with a respectful audience that doesn’t get in the way. A reminder that you don’t have to wear a duck costume to win over the audience.

      Someone Saved My Life Tonight
      “I never realized the passing hours
      Of evening showers
      A slip noose hanging in my darkest dreams
      I’m strangled by your haunted social scene
      Just a pawn out-played by a dominating queen
      It’s four o’clock in the morning
      Damn it listen to me good
      I’m sleeping with myself tonight
      Saved in time, thank God my music’s still alive”

      Well, here we are in Poutyville, with our glam rocker resenting the powerbroker who controls him and his career. But damn it (listen to me good) this is such a great song. And it signals resistance to the people who he believes control him. This song pairs well with Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, another song with the same theme. But I like Someone Saved My Life Tonight just a little bit more.

      Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters
      “While Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters
      Sons of bankers, sons of lawyers
      Turn around and say good morning to the night
      For unless they see the sky
      But they can’t and that is why
      They know not if it’s dark outside or light”

      This is a love song to New York City, and I can imagine the city in the early 1970’s, with its cast of characters making the city their own. This is a song rooted in simplicity and beauty. And just might be my favorite Elton John song. Bernie Taupin paints a portrait of New York in all its gritty wonder, and Elton John strips down the campiness to a stunning piano arrangement. This is a quiet walk through Central Park with a close friend, talking about what you saw in the city this week. November is when I think about New York City, for I always end up there for a few days this month every year. Except this year, of course. But there’s always next year… right?

      And there you go: four songs that prove me wrong about Elton John. There are others standing behind these to help make a strong case; Border Song and Rocket Man come to mind as two more that I love, but I’ll stick with four. If we drift too far into the catalog we might bump into Crocodile Rock, and I’m trying to stay positive.

    • The Next Stroke

      “Every stroke well rowed means a better stroke next time, and so a better chance of winning the race. Every stroke well rowed is felt by all the crew and gives them confidence, and they consequently row their next stroke better; and every careless stroke rolls the boat and puts a nervousness through the crew. So Victory or Defeat depend on the next stroke.” – Steve Fairbairn

      I underlined the above quote in a book back the early 1990’s when I was coaching crew. The quote was almost certainly referenced in some practice session to remind individuals about the essential power of swing in a boat. To focus on the next stroke was all that mattered. The one after that would take care of itself, and so on. Victory or defeat depended on the next stroke. One after another, until you’ve finished the race.

      The rowing began in earnest yesterday. The goal is 100K in November, with only 5K completed. But this is achievable with a mix of 5K and 10K rows over the next twenty days. And then a bigger goal in December. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. One day at a time.

      This is my sweet spot: consistent steady state rowing over a defined period of time. I loved being on the water, and yet I row in my basement on an erg purchased over twenty years ago. I haven’t rowed in a rowing shell on the water in all that time, and yet I row still. And each stroke is a lesson.

      The erg is different from the boat in countless ways, but the essence of the rowing stroke remains the same. There’s a rhythm and fluidity to the rowing stroke that translates as well to the flywheel as it does to the check in a boat moving across water. Mastering each stroke is all that matters in rowing. You might build strategy into the race or the piece you’re rowing; start fast, drop to a pace you can maintain, pick it up with 500 to go and sprint for the last 20 strokes, but strategy falls on its face if you don’t master this stroke and the one after.

      This approach to rowing, mastering the next stroke, certainly applies to the rest of life too. Master the next call when selling, the next sentence when writing, the next step when hiking, the next stride when running. It’s all the same; consistent focus on mastering the moment at hand. The rest will take care of itself. From now until we finish the race.

    • The Lifting Fog

      “Opinions are like nails: the stronger you hit them, the deeper inside they go.” – Decimus Junius Juvenalis

      Or maybe in 2020 it’s “the more you express them the more your friends mute you on Facebook”. Or look at you funny when you see them in public. The lesson, I suppose, is to stop hammering all the time. And, as we all know, you can’t change other people, only yourself. So focus your energy in the right place.

      We begin another work week with deep fog outside. The heat of yesterday gave way to a cold, clammy fog that descended into the woods and surrounds the house this morning. It inspires me even as it drives nails into the ankle I thought was healed. The fog offers lessons: This day marks a new beginning, as every day does. Enough hammering opinions and defending positions.

      If you’re wondering, Decimus Junius Juvenalis, AKA Juvenus, has a wealth of wisdom/great quotes you’re familiar with in The Sixteen Satires (like “who watches the watchmen?”). Worth a search if you geek out on such things (as I clearly do). There are days when I wish I could just read all day just to catch up on things that I skimmed through in school because I wasn’t mentally developed enough to fully grasp what they were saying at the time. But that’s what lifetimes are for.

      “You can never step into the same book twice, because you are different each time you read it.” – John Barton

      And so we change, day-to-day. The fog slowly lifts, and a new understanding develops. I’m clearing out the fog of politics and rancor from the last several months and looking ahead with clarity and purpose. To grow in the new light emerging from the fog. To begin again.