Alexandersmap

    Author: nhcarmichael

    • This is Our Dance

      At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
      Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
      But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
      Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
      There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
      I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where. And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
      — T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton

      “Of what is the body made? It is made of emptiness and rhythm. At the ultimate heart of the body, at the heart of the world, there is no solidity… there is only the dance.”
      — George Leonard, The Silent Pulse: A Search for the Perfect Rhythm that Exists in Each of Us

      Read enough and you begin to hear echoes in the work of one writer to the next. As with music, there are only so many notes to play with, and sometimes you hear the hint of one song whispering to you from another. So it is that Leonard’s quote reminded me of T.S. Eliot’s poem. Eliot and Leonard aren’t really writing about the same thing, and yet they each come back to the dance with phrasing that catches one’s attention. Whispers across time and place, where past and future are gathered, dancing in the wind.

      Our lives are stillness and motion, emptiness and rhythm, past and present with a dream of tomorrows. We write and observe and play with words and thoughts and ideas. Just as we live our lives as best we can given the circumstances, so we pull together everything we have in the moment and write what we can with what we have at our disposal. Sometimes we find magic, sometimes we simply live to fight another day. We’re changed either way.

      I write this, not from stillness, but in the midst of the dance. Like that hike through the wild mustard I wrote about yesterday, the path is uncertain and each step presents a new challenge. The only answer is to push on through, finding the path with each step. This is our dance.

      Do you see the path? It’s hiding right in front of us.

    • A Hike in the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve

      I don’t hike enough. And I don’t see my daughter nearly enough, so a weekend in Los Angeles filled the gap between East Coast and West Coast. She found a gem of a hike in the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve for our final day together before I flew home. And as usual, we found adventure.

      “The more than 5,600-acre Upper Las Virgenes Open Space Preserve in the Simi hills at the western edge of the San Fernando Valley, is part of a critical ecological linkage and wildlife corridor between the Santa Monica Mountains and the ranges to the north. Hikers, runners, mountain bikers and equestrians enjoy miles of trails through rolling hills studded with valley oaks, sycamore-lined canyon bottoms, and vistas of unspoiled California landscapes.” — Upper Las Virgenes Open Space Preserve web site

      Our hike in May coincided with peak blooming of the wild mustard, painting the rolling hills in yellows and greens. That wild mustard is an invasive species and takes over the landscape. It also grows pretty tall, well over my head. On the main trails that’s a pleasant observation. On the single-track side trails, it becomes a gauntlet of greenery that almost fully obscures the trail. Those flower petals quickly cover you head to toe. Naturally, we chose these trails to close out 2/3rds of our 4 mile hike. Who doesn’t love an adventure?

      Neither of us would have hiked it solo, but with me parting the sea of mustard and my daughter keeping a close eye on All Trails, we found a strong pace for the trail. The only lingering concern was the distinct possibility of disturbing a rattlesnake partially obscured on the trail. So every step was a close survey of where I was about to step. And one step at a time we eventually completed the hike and savored a celebratory tap of our Garmin watches as we got back to the car.

      Our hike was admittedly unique. Anyone sticking to the main trail will have an easier time of it, and be able to fully savor the views. We also hit the trails while the wild mustard was at peak. Beautiful for sure, but also a contributor to the state of the single track trails. Know what you’re walking into and choose wisely. For us, it was another strong memory built on a bit of boldness.

    • The Hollywood Bowl

      It’s the rise and the fall of the clocks on the wall
      And it’s the first and the last of your days flying past
      Oh what a beautiful world
      Oh what a beautiful world
      — Willie Nelson and Rodney Crowell, Oh What a Beautiful World

      The Hollywood Bowl is one of those venues that appears regularly on lists of the most beautiful concert venues in the United States, along with Red Rocks in Colorado and The Gorge in George (Washington, naturally). And it lives up to the hype. Set in the iconic Hollywood Hills with a view of the sign when you sit up high, you spend as much time looking around you as you do watching the concert. A venue this beautiful is a blessing for the community and a milestone for every artist touring the country.

      When my daughter asked me if I was interested in seeing Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan perform in Los Angeles , the answer was immediately yes. That was before I realized it would be at the Hollywood Bowl. For those keeping score, that’s three legends in one night. That’s a can’t-miss moment in a life that demands our active participation.

      The tricky part with a venue like the Hollywood Bowl is getting tens of thousands of people safely in and back out again. Parking isn’t great, and the traffic makes it prohibitive to simply have people drive right to the venue. The answer is an extensive shuttle bus system from different parts of the city. We took route 672 from the LA Zoo. Yes it rhymes, and they made a point of emphasizing that. How many tipsy concert attendees get on the wrong bus late in the evening? Enough for them to play the memory game. The whole thing could have gone very wrong, but it worked out perfectly. Not their first rodeo.

      Willie Nelson was wonderful. Everyone in the Hollywood Bowl knows he’s in his 90’s, especially him, but he plays to it so well, with two talented performers who alternate songs so Willie doesn’t have to carry the full load. Bob Dylan was subdued, but performed with a tight band who covered some rough ground. Unlike Willie he doesn’t play all his hits, choosing deeper cuts and newer music over the obvious opportunity to choose cuts from his “A Complete Unknown” career phase. That’s just so Bob Dylan of him.

      The revelation of the day was Billy Strings. He’s a brilliantly talented bluegrass musician with a band that meets the challenge themselves. They met their moment at the Hollywood Bowl and picked up a new fanbase along the way. An artist on the rise, playing a magical venue with two that have seen time flying past, on a night to remember for all of us.

      I run up and down the road making music as I go
      They say my pace would kill a normal man
      But I’ve never been accused of being normal anyway
      And I woke up still not dead again today
      — Willie Nelson & Buddy Cannon, Still Not Dead

      I write frequently about death (memento mori), not as an aspiration but as a reminder to get out and live. Nights like this at the Hollywood Bowl are just that—an opportunity to put our money where our mouth is and live. Because we ain’t dead yet, friend, and there’s just so much to see and do in this world.

      The Hollywood sign as seen from the back
      Earlier in the day we chanced on this lookout point with a view of the city beyond the Hollywood Bowl

    • A Curmudgeon Meets Wonder

      “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” — Walt Disney

      I visited Disneyland yesterday. Admittedly, I’m a reluctant visitor to all places Disney, yet I’ve never been to one of their resorts and had a bad time. Sure, there are plenty of reasons to avoid ever going to Disney again, but life is what we make of it, and dammit if they don’t force a smile on even the most curmudgeonly of visitors. If that curmudgeon was me, he had more fun than he expected to.

      I’m not going to make this a travel blog about Disneyland, but let me tell you there were a few jaw-dropping moments for me. Everyone should experience the Incredicoaster and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance at least once in their lives. For all my own resistance to that Disney magic stuff, there’s no denying the thrill of a great roller coaster or the wonder of a stunningly immersive experience. When we encounter excellence in this world in any form, our natural reaction is wonder.

      “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” — Walt Disney

      And that brings us back to the bold act of doing something extraordinary in our time. What audacious things stir in our mind, crying for attention? What is our work in progress, continuing to grow and change shape as our vision of what is possible changes? We may take inspiration from the boldness of a Walt Disney and be bold today with our own vision, if only to discover what’s possible if only we were to finally take action.

    • A Day Among Days

      “Yesterday nobody dreamed of to-day; nobody dreams of tomorrow. Hence the weather is ever the news. What a fine and measureless joy the gods grant us thus, letting us know nothing about the day that is to dawn! — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      I caught up with a neighbor yesterday. It seems that he quit his job a year ago to write and I never realized it. He simply did his outdoor chores, came and went and never talked about what he did the rest of the time. Now he’s going back to a job and debating whether to publish his writing or to

      remain anonymous. I encouraged him to publish even as I failed to mention in our conversation that I’ve published something every day for years. Who’s the anonymous one?

      The same day a business associate encouraged me to apply for a VP position in his company. I didn’t say no, but I definitely didn’t say yes either. Am I a creative person if I chase titles? Does my work suffer if I don’t explore all of my options? A day writing is similar to a day climbing the corporate ladder: what we produce determines the value we perceive in the time spent. Just what defines personal excellence for us anyway? There’s your value.

      Each day greets us with questions like these. And honestly, aren’t they really about what to do with our brief time? Whether we rise to meet the moment or let the opportunity slip away comes down to a combination of mindset and routine. Thus, our attitude, habits and grit determine the day. Stack enough together and we build a life. As we greet each new day with the tools we have at our disposal, we ought to remember to see this one like a tree in the forest: a day among all our days, but unique just the same.

    • An Authentic Poet

      “And I tell you that you should open yourselves to hearing an authentic poet, of the kind whose bodily senses were shaped in a world that is not our own and that few people are able to perceive. A poet closer to death than to philosophy, closer to pain than to intelligence, closer to blood than to ink.”
      — Federico Garcia Lorca (translation by Steven F. White)

      Federico Garcia Lorca was a Spanish poet who was either assassinated or murdered at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. The historian in me thinks about such things as wars and the silencing of voices forever through violence. The student in me seeks out the poetry that was so incendiary that someone was prompted to silence the poet. The philosopher in me sees that we are all on the road to find out, and it we would be prudent to use our own voice before it too is silenced by the infinite beyond.

      In my favorite Navy pilot’s last year on earth, he took me aside and told me that he liked my blog. He said he didn’t think I had it in me to quote philosophy and poetry, because these were things that I’d buried deep within while sorting out how to be a working adult in a world very much focused on churning forward. My only question to myself in that moment wasn’t about how to answer him, but rather, what took me so long?

      A couple of thousand blog posts later, I’m still sorting through things. I’ve realized that I’ll be doing that to my last day on earth, physically or mentally, whichever takes me first. I’ve become less a working adult and more a lifetime student, and the identity fits me just fine, thank you. Walking the pup last night, feeling the pollen burn my eyes, I wondered about the future, plotting moves and countermoves like a chess player, with me the pawn. For every action there’s a reaction, but a good mental map shortens the gap between stimulus and response.

      My favorite Navy pilot was an avid reader and likely wasn’t awed by my writing style. He was simply pleased with the progress he saw in my journey, noting a leap forward he hadn’t anticipated from me. That doesn’t translate into a lack of faith in my leaping ability, more an acknowledgement that I hadn’t shown much of an inclination to transcend the normal path. I still think about him when I write, wondering if he’d note the progress. We can promise more for ourselves, but we must learn to meet that promise through boldness and action. To do otherwise would be inauthentic. And that’s not who we’re striving to be, is it?

    • Body and Soul

      “And here let me interrupt the conversation to remark upon the great mistake of teaching children that they have souls. The consequence is, that they think of their souls as of something which is not themselves. For what a man HAS cannot be himself. Hence, when they are told that their souls go to heaven, they think of their SELVES as lying in the grave. They ought to be taught that they have bodies; and that their bodies die; while they themselves live on. Then they will not think, as old Mrs Tomkins did, that THEY will be laid in the grave. It is making altogether too much of the body, and is indicative of an evil tendency to materialism, that we talk as if we POSSESSED souls, instead of BEING souls. We should teach our children to think no more of their bodies when dead than they do of their hair when it is cut off, or of their old clothes when they have done with them.”
      — George MacDonald, Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood

      Truth be told, I’m not a particularly religious person, I’m more a pragmatic realist with a mix of transcendentalist and stoic tendencies. But I do believe that we are all souls moving through this world in bodies that are merely vehicles for the ride we’re on. Some are blessed with better vehicles than others, but a good maintenance plan makes a big difference in how the ride goes. Likewise, the playlist we have between our ears makes this ride a pleasant journey or hell on earth.

      The quote above was falsely paraphrased as a C.S. Lewis quote: “You don’t have a soul, you are a soul. You have a body.” That’s certainly more concise and a better fit for the sound bite world we live in, but it’s simply irresponsible to blindly quote something without doing a little research to find the true source. Call me old-fashioned if you will, but the truth matters, especially in a world of MAGA nuts. We may tell ourselves anything we want in the moment, but eventually we pay the price that truth demands.

      So what is our mantra as we zip through this lifetime of ours? Just what kind of playlist do we have on anyway? We ought to consider changing it up now and then, if only to hear a different perspective and challenge our assumptions. We can always go back to what we were listening to again later, but will we ever hear it the same way? We must learn and grow and become whatever we were meant to be while we have the time. There is no putting off for another day what must be developed today.

      The older I get, the more I realize that health matters more than age. A healthy body is an extraordinary gift—a superpower, really, that enables us to move through space and time in ways that someone without a healthy body cannot. And the same can be said for a healthy mind. To neglect either is irresponsible. We’re all just building a foundation that will crumble in time. A foundation built on poor nutrition for the mind and body is nothing but a sandcastle waiting for the tide to wash it away. We may nurture by our choices a level of antifragility with which we may stand against the inevitable waves that will wash over all that we’ve built.

      So if the soul isn’t something we have but the sum of who we are, we ought to work on increasing that sum. We are all a work in progress moving through this world in bodies that will one day fail us. What remains in the end isn’t the body, but the soul. Identity, if you will (and a topic for another day, as this post is already growing long). So we are each a soul residing in this body, moving through life and making choices about what to do with this opportunity. Make the most of that realization.

    • Creating State Changes

      “On the day of judgment, surely, we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done; not how well we have spoken but how well we have lived.” ― Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

      Yesterday I saw a moose. Now mind you, I’ve seen moose before, but never from the kitchen. In this case, my mother’s kitchen, visiting with my siblings on Mother’s Day. The young bull was just passing by through the backyard and woods on his way to somewhere else. If you want to experience a state change, throw a moose into a family party and see what happens.

      I’m typing this as I undergo another state change: the pollen at the moment is creating a desperate need for tissues. If I was smart I’d run off to the desert or sail across the ocean this time of year, but instead I suffer through a few weeks of sniffles and sneezing. All for want of a few flowers and a sense of place.

      And the scale is telling me another state change has crept up on me, which prompts a counterstrike to my current state with more exercise and fewer empty carbs. We become what we repeatedly do, to borrow from Socrates, and doing fewer reps in favor of more chews is no way to build the body of an olympian. And so another pivot is in order, back to a daily routine that sustains desired health, fitness and well-being.

      The thing is, we know what we must do to change our state. The trick is in the doing. We must be action-oriented if we are to do anything in this world. All talk and no action is a life of self-deception, with the outcome a state of disrepair and dysfunction. Dis is of Latin origin, and means a reversal or place apart from the origin of the word. Dys is Greek and simply means bad. Thus finding repair and function have changed for the worse. Whether we use the Latin or the Greek, we’ll find ourselves up the creek without a paddle unless we create a state change.

      And that brings us to action. We must live our philosophy and do the things we say we must do. To do and be, not simply to sit this one out in our brief go with life. Living well is putting our money where our mouth is—it’s walking the talk. We live in a state of being we’ve helped to influence, and sure, we can’t control everything, but we can get off our butts and do something to change our current state when it needs changing. So don’t just say, but do.

    • What We Do Not Know

      “We shall either find what we are seeking, or free ourselves from the persuasion that we know what we do not know.” — Mary Renault, The Last of the Wine

      Some of us remain lifetime students, some feel they have it all figured out. It often depends on how insular a life we choose to live. The comfort zone of insularity is nothing but a weighted blanket, and no great leaps occur while we’re curled up underneath it. We must venture into the unknown and challenge our assumptions if we are to grow and become something more.

      Imagine the brittle hollowness of a life with all the answers? Being a lifetime student is a delightful journey of discovery. We may be curious and not act on it, getting so busy with other things as we do. And then one day something sparks our curiosity and we seek answers. Writing a blog surely kicked my curiosity into another gear. One question answered leads to another awaiting attention. Writing is a thrill when we are seeking to fill something within ourselves and share it with our fellow students.

      Renault used the quote above twice in her book. Once as something Socrates said, then as a direct quote from Plato. No surprise, really, for a student to be saying something the teacher has said before. We are all turning the same questions around in our minds. Is it any wonder that the insights of one generation should be embraced as their own by the next? We all think we’re so different from those who came before us, when all we are is a different draft of the same creative work.

      I have a stack of books resentful that yet another book should leap ahead of them, gathering dust as they are awaiting my interest to return to them. All those books on shelves represent the aspirations of who we once were, looking towards a brighter future of enlightenment. That potential still resides there on the shelf like buried treasure, should we return to it one day.

      We will all leave this world with unanswered questions. Like books on a shelf we never got to, even with the best of intentions. It was always meant to be this way—we just have to discover that fact at our own pace.

    • If We Are To

      “Which was the braver, the one who left, or the one who stayed?”
      ― Margaret Craven, I Heard the Owl Call My Name

      Craven’s book was made into a movie that I think about sometimes. As an upperclassman I watched it in a class taught by a great professor who I wished I’d stayed in touch with. Now that I’m the age that some of those great professors were at then, I sometimes wish aging wasn’t a thing at all—that we might play by a different rule as humans where accumulation of experience might bring us together in the same place and time.

      Aging is a thing. And we do have an opportunity to come together with people of our own time, as those giants from our past grow more distant by the day. Or rather, we do. The person we remember is trapped in the amber of those moments. We simply catch up to where they were once. Who’s to say how far they have gone since? And who’s to say how far we may go ourselves? We know that answer is hiding in plain sight.

      We must move on from who we once were if we are to become something else. If we are to strive to meet our potential. If we are to dare to reach closer to personal excellence. There are a lot of “If we are to’s” in a lifetime. We learn that excellence isn’t static, it’s a carrot on a stick just out of reach but making us hungrier by the day. Sometimes we’re so busy reaching for the carrot we forget we’re satiated already. Sometimes we tell ourselves we’re satiated just to stifle the ache of hunger.

      We play by the rules made by someone else or we step off the trail and blaze our own. What makes the person who steps away any braver than the one who stays to keep it all together? The answer lies in the question itself: What is it that we keep together anyway? What is it that we step away from? Are we trapped in the amber of who we once aspired to be or still striving to reach another version of ourselves? Bravery is facing these questions squarely and having the agency to do something with the answers. Whether we stay or we go, we must dare to grow.