Alexandersmap

    Author: nhcarmichael

    • Change of State: Crickets & Krummholz

      In late July the crickets start chirping again, announcing the height of summer in New Hampshire. Early mornings just feel different month-to-month.  Sure, temperatures and the progress of the garden are a consideration, but beyond that the soundtrack at 5:30 is completely different in late July than it was in May or June.  Its all different really, beginning with those crickets.  But I’ve been here before, and know the seasons and the changes that will come over the next few months.  Changes come, but its all familiar change.

      Saturday, as I began my ascent above treeline, I took a few breaths of Balsam Fir-scented air and thought of Christmas.  When you get up in between the boreal and alpine zones where the 4000 footers dance in the windblown snow and ice, the trees are stunted and twisted and tough as nails.  Trees in this zone are called Krummholz, regardless of the species, and sometimes the term Krummholz describes this in-between zone too.  At treeline they’re typically Black Spruce and Balsam Firs and a few adventurous others like an occasional birch looking for a way out of the madness it rooted itself to.  Spruce are stoic but don’t flavor the air with aroma.  Firs make you feel like its Christmas in July.  Both struggle for footing and survival in the acidic, hard ground.  I’m a guest in their home, and silently offer gratitude for allowing me a visit.

      Hiking reinforces for me what I don’t know.  I can sit in my backyard in New Hampshire and pick out different trees and birds and bugs and generally know what they are because I live with them every day.  I can feel or hear the changes in seasons just by hearing some crickets announcing they’re back.  But my visits to the mountains are infrequent in comparison, and I’m less familiar with the migration patterns of birds and the trees themselves across the northern forest.  I heard a few bird calls on my last few hikes that are unfamiliar.  I looked at the forest and sedges and rushes and Mountain Cranberries and recognize that I don’t really know them all that well and couldn’t tell you one from the other.  I scanned the peaks on a clear day and recognize the famous Presidents, but not many of the others.  I was in the same state (New Hampshire), but in a completely different state (uncertainty).

      I’m feeling restless in the familiar lately – a sure sign that I need to get out and see more.  A few hours in a different zone reminded me that the unfamiliar isn’t all that far away.  And I’m reminded again of something Pico Iyer wrote that I quoted a few posts ago: “ecstasy” (“ex-stasis”) tells us that our highest moments come when we’re not stationary”.  To honor the restless spirit inside of us and just get out there to find our highest moments.  It seems a noble pursuit on this random Monday.  The crickets have announced that time is indeed moving along, and the Krummholz remind us that life isn’t always easy but if you hold on you might just survive long enough to see a few things.  Surely a good reminder for this crazy year when the familiar isn’t all that familiar and we’re all a bit restless.

    • Breathe

      I admit I didn’t think much about breathing until recently when my son strongly recommended a book for the family.  After some due diligence in listening to the author interviewed on a Joe Rogan podcast I was convinced I needed to read the book myself and quietly slid the stack of real and virtual books aside to read Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art before anything else. I’m well into it now, and can tell its one of those transformative books that influences the way you think about many things. And so it was that I hiked two 4000 footers yesterday with these thoughts in my head:

      “In a single breath, more molecules of air will pass through your nose than all the grains of sand on all the world’s beaches—trillions and trillions of them.”

      “Nasal breathing alone can boost nitric oxide sixfold, which is one of the reasons we can absorb about 18 percent more oxygen than by just breathing through the mouth.”

      “The greatest indicator of life span wasn’t genetics, diet, or the amount of daily exercise, as many had suspected. It was lung capacity.”

      “Moderate exercise like walking or cycling has been shown to boost lung size by up to 15 percent.”

      “The most important aspect of breathing wasn’t just to take in air through the nose. Inhaling was the easy part. The key to breathing, lung expansion, and the long life that came with it was on the other end of respiration. It was in the transformative power of a full exhalation.”

      With apologies to author James Nestor, I wasn’t going to fully commit to nasal breathing hiking up Crawford Path yesterday. I gave it a try a few times but didn’t feel like I was getting enough air. Something to work on for sure, but I opted for the more familiar mouth breathing for the steepest stretches of the path and reserved the nasal breathing for the descent from Mount Eisenhower. I can tell I’ve got my work cut out for me, but anything worthwhile deserves putting the work in. What’s more worthwhile than breathing?

    • Hiking Pierce and Eisenhower

      201 years ago, in 1819, a father and son team of Abel and Ethan Allen Crawford cut an 8.5-mile hiking trail from what is today called Crawford Notch to the summit of Mount Washington’s summit.  A year later, Ethan Allen would guide an expedition up that trail, which became known then and to today as Crawford’s Path.  That group would name most of the mountains they saw after the early United States Presidents: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. That we hiked on the oldest continuously maintained hiking trail in the United States wasn’t lost on me.  People have been walking or riding horses on this path since many of the Founding Fathers were alive.  The Crawford Path is a bridge of sorts, and 200 years later I hiked part of it to traverse the summits named for two Presidents who came after the trail was first cut: Mount Pierce and Mount Eisenhower.

      Franklin Pierce was the 14th man to be President, and the only one ever born in New Hampshire.  He was President between 1853 and 1857, and was well aware of the threat that the abolitionists from the southern states posed to the young United States of America.  Pierce was a compromise candidate nominated to appease the south, but he wasn’t a particularly popular President, making controversial decisions like nullifying the Missouri Purchase (if we can have anti-slavery Maine be a state we let pro-slavery Missouri be one too) by signing the Kansas–Nebraska Act.  That may be a post for another day, but the act essentially fueled the vigorous anti-slavery movement that led to the Civil War.

      “After the White House what is there to do but drink?” – Franklin Pierce

      Pierce wasn’t a great President when the United States needed one.  He was also a vocal critic of Abraham Lincoln, which didn’t endear him to most northerners then or today.  But he is a native son, and New Hampshire named a 4310 peak in his honor.  It would be the first of two 4000 footers I’d climb for the day.  The second would be the 4780 foot Mount Eisenhower.

      Dwight D Eisenhower was, like George Washington, a great General who became a relatively great American President.  He opposed McCarthyism, promoted civil rights, expanded Social Security and built the nations interstate Highway System.  He was a two-term war hero President who bridged the relatively peaceful decade between the Korean War and American escalation in Vietnam.  When he passed away New Hampshire took an existing mountain in the Presidential Range, Mount Pleasant, and re-named it Mount Eisenhower in his honor.

      “This world of ours… must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.” – Dwight D Eisenhower

      Enough history, let’s get to the hiking.  Hiked up the Crawford Connector Trail to meet up with the Crawford Path, and made a point of stopping for a look at Gibbs Falls. I rarely pass up a visit to a waterfall, and today wasn’t going to be an exception.

      From there we hiked up to Pierce and then Eisenhower. There was a lot of company on each summit (being a beautiful Saturday) but we managed to find a spot to stop for a quick break at each before moving on. Checked two peaks off the list of 48 and had a great day with three great people. We left Crawford’s Path for the Eisenhower Loop, summiting relatively quickly, had our quick lunch and descended via the Edmands Path, a rocky, wet trail that wasn’t a favorite. But it did the job of bringing us back to the quiet road that led to our car and cold beverages and hot showers. A long day, but a heck of a day. And I’ll publish this and enjoy the rest of a great Saturday.

    • All That’s Beautiful…

      “I heard the old, old men say, ‘Everything alters, And one by one we drop away.’
      … I heard the old, old men say, ‘All that’s beautiful drifts away Like the waters.’ – WB Yeats

      Most people don’t like change.  They want to stay in the same comfortable place indefinitely, go to a time share vacation at Disney World every year or to the same beach to have the same experience they had last summer.  Familiar and enjoyable, so why not do it again next year?  And that’s why people buy time shares and beach cottages and permanent camp sites for their Airstream.  There’s a lot to be said for the tried and true.  Immersion for one: Really getting to know a place by going there often.  I’ve really gotten to know a small corner of Buzzards Bay in this way, and find that I still don’t know it as well as I thought I did last time I visited.  Yes, there’s clearly benefit in returning again and again.

      But as Yeats points out, everything alters.  I look at the neighborhood I live in that once had a roving pack of 50 kids riding bicycles and playing games in each other’s yards (a rare phenomenon in the last 20 years).  All those kids are grown up and moved on.  Some new families have moved in, I don’t really know their names, and have started raising the next generation of kids.  Maybe someday the neighborhood will have those packs of kids playing again.  I hope so – otherwise all that Halloween candy goes in my mouth.

      In general I’m a big fan of change.  I’ve changed jobs when it didn’t feel right staying at a place and longer.  I moved primary residences ten times before settling on the place I currently live in, where I’ve been living for 21 years.  But I’ve painted every room in this house a different color at least twice, and some four times.  Change is part of the deal, whether we move or not.  Embrace the changes that happen around us and adapt in ways that make it work for you.  Nobody misses rotary phones, which made your finger numb when you had to dial a long number.  Nobody misses the days when you had to go into a bank to make a deposit or withdrawal instead of using an app on your phone or Venmo to complete a transaction.  Some change is good.  Its progress – the progression of humanity from one stage to another in our technological development.

      “I see my folks, they’re getting old
      And I watch their bodies change
      I know they see the same in me
      And it makes us both feel strange
      No matter how you tell yourself
      It’s what we all go through
      Those eyes are pretty hard to take
      When they’re staring’ back at you”
      – Bonnie Raitt, Nick of Time

      Then there’s the changes that happen with aging.  The progression of decline in our bodies as we grow older.  Aches and pains we didn’t have when we were kids.  Seeing those around us again as well and recognizing the path we’re all on.  I’ve got a heightened sense of awareness of this now more than ever.  We’ve considered moving to a faraway place just to change things up a bit.  Scotland, Iceland, the Azores, the Faroe Islands, Dominica and New Zealand all remain tantalizing places to relocate to for me.  Sailing around the world sounds attractive when the world is open for business, but what do we leave behind when we slip away from the dock?  I think a younger me might have made the leap had the younger me known the stakes.  The me before kids, before aging parents, and such things.  Now I’m not as sure.  But aging doesn’t mean you have to break down quickly.  Fitness is a way to stem the tide and live well in the time we have left.

      All that’s beautiful drifts away, whether we like it or not.  But its replaced by new beauty, if we only open our eyes to it.  We’re all breathing in the dust of eternity, and exhale a part of ourselves back into the universe, which makes us all connected, really.  All part of the timeless wave of humanity, surely, but also all matter.  We all have our minds wrapped around our own mind and body, but we’re just matter and energy with a soul.  The matter and energy move on in time.  Beauty doesn’t disappear, it just moves on down the chain.  We’re just links trying to jealously hold onto to it as long as possible.  But the soul is ours alone, here today, but where will it be tomorrow?  Time will tell.  Anyone who tells you they have the answer is conning you.

      My wife got a call from her mother yesterday, telling her the bad news about one of their neighbor’s kids who has cancer all over their body and isn’t expected to live more than another 18 months.  I suppose that got me thinking about old Mr. Yeats and his poem.  We’re all drifting away eventually, and sometimes much sooner than we’d prefer.  A good reminder to get on with living already, changes and all.  Life is more than a weekly paycheck and a house with a pool in the backyard and a familiar spot on the beach every summer.  Life is about making the most of ourselves in the time we have left.  Live beautifully alive, changes and all.

    • To Visit All the Celebrated Places

      “Now is the time to visit all the celebrated places in the country, and fill our heads with what we have seen, so that when we become old and bald we will have something to talk about over the teacups.” – Jippensha Ikku

      Credit to Smithsonian Magazine for the Ikku quote, for it made me smile when I read it.  Ikku lived in Japan during a fairly important period in American history (1766-1831) so its easy to overlook what might have been happening in other places in the world.  The quote reminds me that our feelings about travel and aging are timeless.  We all hope to see the world while we’re young and full of vigor, that we might have epic stories to tell over a favorite beverage when we’re older and less mobile.

      The travel list of celebrated places is ready, and all earnest travelers wait for the starting gun to set us free to explore once again.  We’re all rooting for a vaccine and some level of herd immunity, some measure of personal responsibility from society at large and perhaps stronger political leadership to set policy that makes sense.  May we see it sooner than later.  But in the meantime, I’m traveling as Thoreau traveled: exploring the place where I am in ways that I hadn’t before.  Walking fully aware in the woods, or the mountains and shores of New Hampshire, stopping at local landmarks previously unknown to me, and exploring space  while looking up at the stars to pick out planets and constellations.  For the adventurous spirit, there’s no shortage of opportunities to explore, even in a pandemic.

      “Travel spins us round in two ways at once: It shows us the sights and values and issues that we might ordinarily ignore; but it also, and more deeply, shows us all the parts of ourselves that might otherwise grow rusty. For in traveling to a truly foreign place, we inevitably travel to moods and states of mind and hidden inward passages that we’d otherwise seldom have cause to visit.

      All [great travel writers]… believed in “being moved” as one of the points of taking trips, and “being transported” by private as well as public means; all saw that “ecstasy” (“ex-stasis”) tells us that our highest moments come when we’re not stationary, and that epiphany can follow movement as much as it precipitates it.

      Travel, then, is a voyage into that famously subjective zone, the imagination, and what the traveler brings back is — and has to be — an ineffable compound of himself and the place, what’s really there and what’s only in him.” – Pico Iyer, Why We Travel

      While nice on the surface, I chafe when spending too much time at resorts because I’m not looking for pampering or losing myself in a cartoon world.  Travel at its best isn’t distraction, but exploration.  It isn’t running away from ourselves, but finding ourselves.  And that can happen anywhere if we let it.  Our highest moments come when we’re not stationary…  and so we hear the call to explore.  I’m conspiring to travel locally over the next couple of weeks to places near, while foregoing far.  At least for now.  For there’s so much to see right in our own backyards that we rarely celebrate.  Over the next few weeks I’ll explore some of those places in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.  And as you might expect having read any of this blog, explore hidden inward passages too.

    • A Shelf Full of Worthy Pursuits

      “We are our choices.”  – Jean-Paul Sartre

      I found myself in a store that specializes in astronomy-related equipment like higher end telescopes and the like. I was there to upgrade my binoculars, which left a lot to be desired when hunting down that elusive Comet NEOWISE. While there he showed me a stunningly gorgeous Questar Standard 3.5 telescope that would only set me back $5000 dollars.  It was breathtaking in its detail, and I could imagine myself having it set up on the deck gazing in wonder at the universe with a glass of scotch in my hand conversing astronomy tidbits with adoring family and friends.  Enticing?  No doubt.  But I stuck with the binoculars and kept my savings account and marriage intact.  I also took his brochure on the local astronomy club and tucked that away safely on a shelf with my other worthy pursuits.  Life is about the choices we make, and Lord knows there’s an abundance of choices we can make in this country.

      “You can’t always get what you want
      But if you try sometime you find
      You get what you need”
      – The Rolling Stones, You Can’t Always Get What You Want

      You may recall a recent post about getting back into scuba diving.  I had almost the exact interaction with the dive shop I visited as the one I had at the astronomy shop, complete with cutting edge dive gear, underwater photography equipment, and that special pricing that comes when you’re in a pandemic and concessions need to be made to keep business flowing.  I’ve shelved that indefinitely as I tackle other projects, and added the brochure about scuba certification to the shelf to revisit another day. Such is the way with worthy pursuits: you can’t have it all. But you just might find you get what you need.

      “Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.” – Samuel Butler

      Those shelves that imprisoned books also hold those brochures with unfulfilled dreams of adventure travel, cooking with fire, sailing around the world, hiking the Appalachian Trail, gardening, sea kayaking and other pursuits waiting to break free, or dare I say, mastered.  Life is chock full of worthy pursuits, and full of experts to guide you down the path.  But life isn’t full of enough time to master every pursuit that strikes a fancy, and so we must choose what to live with and what to live without.  Something has to give, and the shelf is stacked with victims of the time, money and focus equation not working in their favor.  I’m very interested in astronomy, but I’m not quite there yet for jumping into the deep end on astronomy club activities and diverting $5K towards a telescope…  No, not just yet.  But hey, if we’re both still around in ten years let’s get reacquainted.

      In the casual pursuit of Comet NEOWISE, the binoculars made all the difference.  Even with wispy clouds threatening to mask the view, I was able to see the comet clearly with the new binoculars.  And here’s the reason I chose those binoculars (besides the price tag relative to the telescope of my dreams): the binoculars are small enough to fit into a backpack or a sailing bag or brought outside with a cup of coffee for backyard bird-watching.  And thus combining multiple worthy pursuits with one modest purchase.  Is that the answer when choosing the worthiest of pursuits – what offers the best bang for the buck?  Not necessarily, but surely it helps justify the initial financial step into the new-to-you.

      I may not own the title of the most interesting man in the world, but who has time to do everything anyway?  Follow your passions where they might lead you, but do it responsibly.  The world has enough attention deficit disorder with Twitter and YouTube and sound bite news.  Keep trying new things and you never know what rises to the top of the priority list.  I’m a jack-of-all-trades, who invests time to eventually master some. Or not master some but enjoy the ride anyway. I’ve seen friends drift further and further into pursuits as diverse as sailing and hiking and photography, and I recognize and admire the passion of pursuit and growing expertise within them.  Everything has its time, and some pursuits will be there when the time is right… or perhaps not at all.   There’s joy in focusing on the singular pursuit of something, and happily living with the sampler pack with other, otherwise worthy pursuits.   There’s freedom in learning to say no, not now.

    • The Methodical Hunt of Red-Tailed Hawks

      Treading water on an early morning swim and looking up to sky, I observed a pair of red-tailed hawks moving across the landscape in a coordinated hunt.  It was an impressive display, with one hawk working to spook prey into revealing themselves and the other perched nearby ready to pounce on the unsuspecting victim.  A methodical dance of deadly consequences for some prey yet to be determined.  This was clearly part of the act I saw last week when a hawk landed on the umbrella, but I’d only seen half the story then.  I was grateful I was a bit larger than they felt they could take on.  When you see a pair of hunters working the neighborhood, you wonder how any squirrel, chipmunk or rabbit survives long enough to reproduce.  This was a highly coordinated, efficient operation in action, and I came away deeply impressed.

      Red-Tailed Hawks are also known as “chicken hawks” because they wreak havoc on chickens, ducks and other domestic birds.  The name is a bit of a misnomer, but makes me think of the cartoon character I grew up watching, always trying to take on the much bigger rooster Foghorn Leghorn.  But watching them hunt made me realize they’re much more like the Velociraptors hunting the kids in Jurassic Park.  But then again, they’re direct descendants of dinosaurs, so it makes sense they’d hunt in such a way.  Velociraptors were the most bird-like of all the dinosaurs, and I saw the similarity immediately watching that pair of hawks (at least to the movie version).

      Red-Tailed Hawks tend to hunt solo most of the time, but when you see a pair hunting together it generally means that they’re mates or siblings or its a parent teaching the kiddos to kill their own meals.  These were adults, so I’m guessing they were mates.  What’s more romantic than hunting small animals together in a choreographed dance along the edge of the woods?  If you read about these hunters, the details of the prey can be gruesome, which I’ll spare you from here.  They live a life of noble pursuit, not killing for sport but for food.  Humans could learn a few things watching them.

      When my dog was younger we had this game of hide and seek we’d play, where I’d take his favorite fuzzy dice and throw them into a different room for him to fetch.  While he was chasing them down I’d quickly run out of the room and hide.  He’d come back, realize I was gone and excitedly bounce up and down like a reindeer, and the hunt would be on.  He’d check room after room looking for me, and when he found me we’d celebrate with a big human and Labrador hug.  Those games of hide and seek would get my heart rate way up into anaerobic territory and I’d find myself out of breath when the game went on for any length of time.  I was the “prey” in those games, but all in fun.  I can’t imagine being prey in a real life and death hunt, and I’m grateful to live in a time when I can casually observe the hunt of hawks.  With a few notable exceptions that quickly make the news, we generally don’t have to worry about animals hunting us down.  More often than not its other humans we have to worry about, and even then its becoming increasingly safe to coexist in the world with others.  I took a moment to appreciate that as I watched the methodical dance of Red-Tailed Hawks.

    • Sailing the Gulf of Maine

      The Gulf of Maine is a corner of the Atlantic Ocean embraced by Cape Cod to the South and Nova Scotia to the Northeast.  The longest stretch of land in between is part of Maine, which gives the gulf her name.  If you look at Alexander’s map, which this blog is named for, the body of water is just below the land described as “New Englande” and “New Scot Lande”.  A land mass that I’ve grown to love, that I declared I’d explore more, and that I need to return to in earnest once this pandemic is behind us.

      cropped-54b94-alexander2527s2bmap.jpg

      Yesterday we had the opportunity to sail on Fayaway with friends.  It was an out-and-back sail with one tack.  We left the Merrimack River where they moor Fayaway when they aren’t exploring the world and sailed generally on a compass heading of 90 degrees, which took us roughly along the coast of Maine just out of sight of land.  Sail for 18 miles out one way, tack and return 18 miles the other way.  Not a lot of tactical sailing required, which was perfect for a day of conversation and contemplation on the water.  We had a secondary objective of seeing whales and maybe that evasive Comet Neowise, but each proved elusive on this trip.  A sunfish made an appearance, which was akin to an understudy playing the role when you came to see the star: Wasn’t what you came for, but turned out to be entertaining just the same.

      When we got out of the lee shore of Cape Ann the wave action picked up, with 3 to 6 foot swells that lifted Fayaway and reminded us we were well out at sea.  But Fayaway handles wave action well, and with her sails reefed in the 28 – 30 knots of sustained wind were comfortable for the duration.  Which invited conversation about travel and plans for the future and the kind of catching up you do when it’s just you and others and the wind and splash of waves for hours.

      I’ve learned that I’m a bit rusty with ancillary sailing terminology that goes deeper than the basic rigging, and assisted where appropriate while staying out of the way the rest of the time.  When you see a couple who have sailed together for a year covering thousands of miles you’re witnessing a well-choreographed dance.  I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer but I know enough not to be the clumsy fop who thumps onto stage mid-act.  Instead be the quiet stagehand who puts away the props when the performers are done.  I was grateful for a patient crew who recognized the rustiness in this sailor.

      There are a few highlights when you sail up the coast from the Merrimack.  You begin with the chaos of the Merrimack River with powerboats and jet-skis racing to win perceived races to get “there”.  It reminded me of aggressive drivers on the highway shifting two lanes and back to get one car ahead.  Its the antithesis of the sailing we were doing, and I greatly prefer being out of that race.  Once you clear the Mouth of the Merrimack, sails are up and you set course for nowhere in particular.  The lines of umbrella stands on Salisbury Beach and elbow-to-elbow fishermen and women on charter boats indicate that social distancing is a guideline many choose to ignore.  I’m sure plenty were doing their best to be socially responsible, while others proved more reckless.  I considered the similarities between drivers on the highway, power-boaters racing each other in a narrow channel to get to the fish first and close-talking beach umbrella bunnies in a pandemic for a moment, and released the thought onto the breeze.  We all live our lives in our own way in America, if not always responsibly.  I was observing from the vantage point of a sailboat in close proximity with another couple, but with the mutual assurance that each couple was taking appropriate measures to avoid COVID-19 exposure.  Maybe those beach throngs were doing the same thing.  I hope so.

      Soon Fayaway moves beyond umbrellas, beyond the sight of land, beyond the hum of motorboats, and we’re in our own world.  For much of the duration of our trip out and back we were completely alone other than a couple of commercial fishing vessels busily working the waters of the gulf.  Time on the water gives you time to ponder and think, and, if you let it, to look through the swirling waves deep into yourself.  And Sunday became another micro adventure for the books.  Leaving terra firma for the sea and exploring a relatively small segment of the Gulf of Maine.  It served as a reminder that I have far to go, but where I am isn’t all that bad either.

    • The Wild Amongst Us

      “Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher ‘standard of living’ is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free.” – Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

      Last week I drove up the street I live on and saw a bobcat cross the road with its freshly-killed dinner dangling from its mouth. Looked like an unlucky chipmunk to me, but might have been a small rabbit. Honestly I was focused on the bobcat. For I’d never seen one before, and even though I knew right away what it was I still called my friend Tom to validate what I believed I’d just seen.

      The next day my daughter and I were looking out the window and saw a red-tailed hawk land on the umbrella next to the pool, look around for a moment and then fly off to another vantage point. Its search for lunch momentarily overlapped in our world. I sit under that umbrella writing now, as I often do.

      Yesterday, while mowing the lawn, I glanced up the street and saw a doe carefully crossing the street at roughly the spot my car was when I saw that bobcat. She was escorting three fawns across the road. Two were more spry, the third a bit awkward on the legs, as if just born. They disappeared into the brush on the other side of the road, just as the bobcat had a few days before.

      All of these interactions with the wild amongst us would be familiar to countless generations of humans who lived on this land. They’d be far more taken aback by the swimming pools, lawn mowers and cars parked in driveways than the wildlife I find so fascinating. The question is whether they’ve been here all along or if they’re just returning in greater numbers as they adapt to the world we’ve dropped down in their neighborhood. Surely the deer and hawks have grown in numbers in my lifetime. But what of the predators like bobcat, fisher cats, mountain lions, coyotes and wolves? Evidence shows they’re returning to the land too. My encounter with the bobcat isn’t uncommon anymore, what was uncommon was the years when it would have been.

      All this points to a relatively healthy ecosystem surrounding the development I live in. Granted, it might have been even healthier were this development not dropped into the woods 22 years ago, but it was, and over time the land adjusts and the wild creatures return. The difference here was a requirement for open, undeveloped space allocated around house lots. Less profitable for the developer, but more attuned to the land. And that land serves as a highway for all sorts of wildlife, and in turn keeps me here, rooted to the land in ways I hadn’t expected when we sunk a foundation onto this plot. And so it is that I serve my tenure as watchman for the land, and wild amongst us. May I serve it well.

    • Setting the Tone

      I had a professor in college who pointed out that the greatest books in history had great opening lines that set the tone for the everything that followed.  He pointed out the Bible as the most unambiguous example of setting the tone for everything else that follows, but you can’t forget the brilliance of Homer or Dickens or Melville.  Consider:

      “In the beginning, God created heaven, and earth.” – The Book of Genesis, Holy Bible

      “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story” – Homer, The Odyssey

      “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

      “Call me Ishmael” – Herman Melville, Moby Dick

      I’d humbly point out that great songs have a similar tendency.  And since most people seem to have shelved their discipline of reading the classics after graduation, it may be an easier example to illustrate.  Consider the following immortal songs and how the opening line sets the tone for all that comes after:

      “Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call” – Jimmy Buffett, A Pirate Looks at Forty

      “If you could read my mind love” – Gordon Lightfoot, If You Could Read My Mind

      “Something in the way she moves” – The Beatles, Something

      “Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum” – Carolyn Leigh, The Best is Yet To Come

      “Don’t worry about a thing” – Bob Marley, Three Little Birds

      “Imagine there’s no heaven” – John Lennon, Imagine

      “There must be some way out of here” – Bob Dylan, All Along the Watchtower

      And so it is that I think about the words that set the tone for this blog, and took the immortal words of Henry David Thoreau that grace the home page of this site and made them more prominent.  For his call to action is also my own, and set the tone for all that this blog aims to be:

      “Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures.” – Henry David Thoreau

      I realized somewhere along the way that this is exactly the way I try to live; rising early, seeking adventure in this day, writing about it when it deserves consideration (and perhaps sometimes when it doesn’t), savoring the day and then putting it behind me, that I might rise from care once again tomorrow.  This isn’t head-in-the-sand optimism, it’s a calling, and some days are more adventurous and free from care than others.  But string them together and you set the tone for a life more interesting.  What sets the tone for your life?  Be bold in your selection.