Alexandersmap

    Blog

    • Every Setting Sun

      “Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.” – John Ruskin, The Two Paths

      You see the difference in the days now. September brings that perceptible tilt of the earth, shrinking daylight hours and with it a persistent tightening up of that time between sunrise and sunset. Soon the trees will react and the world will turn a kaleidoscope of colors. In the northern hemisphere we’ve turned the corner from the laziness of summer and you can feel the quiet insistence of the harvest season upon us.

      There’s work to do, meaningful work, and it must begin in earnest while there’s time. It’s funny how September does that. Deeply engrained in our souls, this feeling of bringing all your work to a satisfactory conclusion. A harvest. Like the setting sun you can feel when one chapter is ending, with a bold suggestion that something new might begin. But we’re fools to focus on that which isn’t promised to us.

      Sunsets are lovely, but you earn the sunrise. And when you greet the day your thoughts turn naturally to what you might do with it. Life is best lived in the urgency between sunrise and sunset. When the sun sets this evening, what will we have harvested in these brief hours? For the days grow shorter with every setting sun.

    • Work and Love

      “The wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass; And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving. Work is love made visible.” – Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

      Today is Labor Day in the United States, a day of rest for many (not all), and an opportunity to reflect on this thing called work. If you’re doing work you love, then Gibran’s words will resonate. If you’re doing work that grinds your soul to dust, you might think his words are ridiculous. But to live a fulfilling life, shouldn’t that which we labor in be loved?

      Piecing words together isn’t hard labor, but any writer knows that it’s work. Paradoxically, if writing every day is work, it must reverberate with love to be enjoyable for the reader. The jury is still out on this writer.

      In my working life I’ve done everything from sweeping up broken glass to managing salespeople in a Fortune 500 company. I took as much care removing every sliver of glass from the ground as I did managing the emotional response to a quarterly review. Work is love made visible, otherwise it’s self-immolation.

      So on this rare day of rest in our hustling culture, what do we celebrate? A break from the grind or a moment to recharge before leaping back into the joy of a meaningful career? Especially now, somewhere between a pandemic and normal, work should be celebrated for where it brings us in our lives, and for what we may give back to others.

      What can we be great at? Shouldn’t we put our heart and soul into that which transcends work? To rise above the daily grind to joyful, purposeful labor seems the only path to a full life.

    • Soggy Bottom Sunrise

      It was early,
      which has always been my hour
      to begin looking
      at the world
      – Mary Oliver, It Was Early

      No doubt I missed the stunning pink sky on display when I hauled the kayak down to the surf line. No doubt I might have found a better picture had I just gotten up and out there sooner. But why dwell on might-have-beens? Make the most of what’s in front of you.

      There’s a lesson there for the bigger things swirling around you. Things bigger than sandy feet and a soggy bottom as you walk back into the world after greeting the new day as best you could. The world keeps doing its thing whether you show up or not. But isn’t it nice when you do show up?

    • Tides and Time

      “Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.” – Mary Oliver, To Begin With, the Sweet Grass

      We get so caught up in schedules and appointments and such, when all that really matters is conversation and honoring commitments and that most intangible thing of all: progress. Are we progressing in the direction we pointed ourselves in or not? What do you do with the answer to that question?

      Like many, I’m fascinated with people that step off the calendar and follow their own path. The through-hikers and ocean cruisers and the off-the-gridders who opt out of the stories we tell ourselves about time. The older I get the more I recognize the story of time isn’t always in sync with my own natural rhythm.

      So do you reconcile this in your life? Do you favor deadlines and schedules that dictate so much of our short stack of trips around the sun? Or do you prioritize living by your own rhythm? I should think the closer you are to the latter the more fulfilling your life might be.

    • Leaping Forward

      Inevitably around the early days of September I start thinking about the end of the year, of the beginning of a new year, and of the things I said I’d do that I haven’t done. Sure, sometimes I’ll linger on the things I did do, but I don’t find it all that productive to pat myself on the back for past accomplishments. There’s nothing wrong with being happy with where you are, but if that’s your frame of mind you generally aren’t in a hurry to turn it upside down for something else. Growth lies in discomfort, and you can’t be satisfied with where you are if you hope to do more in your time.

      To leap forward requires vacating the spot you currently reside in. New habits, new conversations, new attitudes about what is possible and what you’ll let yourself get away with. Leaps are exciting and a little intimidating. Sometimes really, really intimidating. So most people settle for baby steps instead. Less risky, maybe, or maybe it’s a way to trick yourself into thinking you’re making progress without the discomfort of having both feet in the air at the same time, not entirely certain where you might land.

      This isn’t a leap year, not if you use the calendar to tell you where you are in life anyway. But leaping is an attitude, not a story we all tell ourselves about what day it is. Every year can be a leap year if you want it to be. Leaping doesn’t require burning the boats, but it does require commitment. You can’t very well change your mind after you launch yourself. So decide the direction you want to go in and how far to leap (what you might want to become) and launch yourself that way with resolve.

      It’s a thrill when you wind up and go for it. Doesn’t this short life deserve that kind of thrill? Decide what to be and go be it. I hope to see you there.

    • To Leap in the Froth

      May I never not be frisky,
      May I never not be risqué.
      May my ashes, when you have them, friend,
      and give them to the ocean,
      leap in the froth of the waves,
      still loving movement,
      still ready, beyond all else,
      to dance for the world.
      – Mary Oliver, Prayer

      It’s been almost a year now, and I think of you when I come across a poem like this. You were a dancer, covering a dance floor with the same elegance and ease that you’d use in a tricky conversation. And sure, you were equally at ease leaping in the froth of the waves not all that long ago. Measuring up to that standard hasn’t been easy, friend, especially in this pandemic and the lingering bitterness of political strife. You’d navigate that more easily too.

      There were times over the last year when I could have used your perspective on things, but then again, I can hear exactly what you’d tell me in those imagined conversations. So we press on, doing what must be done, leaving that stuff to sort out another day. And honor your memory with action, humor and a healthy dose of friskiness.

      When I pass, sprinkle my ashes in the ocean on an outgoing tide. Life is movement and a dance through our days. I don’t want to rest in peace when it all ends, but to skip across the waves to the ends of the earth. And there, maybe, we’ll meet again.

    • Wait Times

      Arriving at a popular restaurant without a reservation informs. It tells you a bit about the restaurant, but also a bit about yourself. For those moments when you don’t have the instant gratification of bring seated right away, there are questions that come to mind during your time in restaurant purgatory:

      Just how popular is this place anyway?

      How long is the wait at that place down the street?

      And of course, Just how many minutes are acceptable? 20? 40? 60+?

      When you’ve heard the answer about wait time and you know roughly what you’re about to experience, the calculus begins:

      Is this the kind of place I want to spend that amount of time waiting?

      How far away from the restaurant can you wander without jeopardizing your spot in line?

      If going to a restaurant is an experience, then a bit of anticipation shouldn’t be a strike against the place. If anything, it enhances the experience. At least it should! What will make this experience memorable? It probably won’t be the wait time. But what if a restaurant made it memorable and fun? The ones that do tend to jump out at you as places to try again and again.

      That, I imagine, is one reason they have wait times in the first place.

    • What We Create, What We Leave Unfinished

      We create ourselves by our choices. – Søren Kierkegaard

      In my house there are a hundred half-done poems.
      Each of us leaves an unfinished life.
      – Mary Oliver, Thinking of Swirler

      It’s an oddity in my character, admittedly, that I linger with poetry and well up with emotion over words. After a particularly stunning pink swirling sky at sunrise I could think of nothing better to do with my morning coffee than pair it with Mary Oliver. Life is a series of choices, one quietly laid upon the other, carrying us to eternity. I’ll regret many, but not this one.

      What will we create in our time here? What will we leave unfinished? These are the questions of a lifetime, and the questions of each day.

      I’ve mentally cast aside this blog dozens of times, but each morning I wake up and write anyway. It isn’t the writing that challenges and mocks me, it’s measuring up to the words. Knowing what’s unfinished, knowing the choices that make up a lifetime. Waking up with a chance to measure up once again.

    • Reaching Beyond the Immediacy of Our Experience

      “Men honor what lies within the sphere of their knowledge, but do not realize how dependent they are on what lies beyond it.” – Zhuang Zhou

      “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves and wiser people are so full of doubts.” – Bertrand Russell

      Robert Greene, in his great book Mastery, describes the challenge a missionary had with understanding the language of a remote tribe in the Amazon. The key for the missionary to unlock the code of their language was when he realized that everything they did was based on immediacy of experience, for what was not before the tribe’s eyes did not exist.

      You don’t have to dive too deeply into social media to recognize that this trait is deeply embedded in the larger world today. So many believe at face value what they’re familiar with, and ignore the prospect that what they’ve learned might not be true. Worse, they parrot what they believe to be true, reinforcing their immediacy of experience instead of transcending it.

      Part of the problem is that people become comfortable being comfortable. Sticking with the same social circle that believes a certain thing, not challenging family or a leadership figure in your life that spouts a certain viewpoint to the exclusion of all others, and most of all, not challenging ourselves. For questioning our very beliefs can becomes very uncomfortable indeed.

      “People who do not practice and learn new skills never gain a proper sense of proportion or self-criticism.” – Robert Greene, Mastery

      To reach wisdom is to grow beyond the immediacy of our experience. This seems self-evident, doesn’t it? Growth infers expansion. To go beyond our present limitations. It’s not comfortable, but growth is never comfortable. And we must persist through discomfort to transcend it.

      “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

      The path to progress, mastery, wisdom, excellence… whatever you choose, necessitates placing yourself into the uncomfortable. This may feel at times like being overwhelmed, or being called out by others, or dealing with imposter syndrome, or a combination of all of these things. We’ve got to wade through all of this to reach beyond our limits. Where, deep down, we know that we ought to be.

    • A Hike to Waterville Cascades

      This hike was meant to be a compromise to myself. No salt water weekend, no longer hikes to knock off another 4000 footer or three. But still spectacular, still a light workout on a beautiful trail, and the real payoff; seven waterfalls in a relatively short span.

      I had my doubts. You walk to the trailhead at Waterville Valley Resort and see right away that this hike is going to start between the road and some of the village condos. But you cross a road and leave most of that behind you. From then on you are hiking a pleasant trail to the first waterfall and not really seeing many people (for me, a Saturday afternoon).

      The Cascade Trail is a 3 mile round trip to the Waterville Cascades. The silence of the forest is notable and welcome. You quickly forget that you’re in close proximity to a ski resort, and instead immerse yourself in hiking relatively pristine second growth forest that wraps itself around you and shuts out the outside world. Before you know it the hike brings you to the first cascade on Cascade Brook, a series of seven plunges that feel bigger and more remote than they really are.

      But there are reminders of the alternative paths to the falls. We met a group we’d seen in the parking lot that opted to ride the chairlift up instead of hiking. We spoke to another couple of guys on mountain bikes who had ridden up to the falls to soak in the swimming holes. Both conversations reminded us that there were other faster ways to reach the cascades than hiking. We saw sad proof of this when we passed a pyramid of empty Bud Lite cans that some fools had stacked alongside the brook. Without a backpack for this short hike I had to leave this mess for someone else to deal with. Not everyone who ventures into the woods leaves them as they found them. This is the price of proximity.

      But the falls themselves were each wonders, and we celebrated the unique beauty of each as we climbed higher and higher up the trail. When you reach the last big cascade there’s a bridge for a mountain bike trail that you can cross to descend the other side and return you to the Cascade Trail and your hike back down.

      I’m interested in how people meet the falls. Some are reverent and respectful, some more nonchalant about the experience. I think it’s relative to how much work you put in towards reaching them, and the path you chose for yourself. But that may seem dismissive and smug when a hiker says it. More specifically, it’s not the work you put into reaching it, it’s how your attitude when you reach it that matters most.

      The work-to-reward ratio of the Waterville Cascades makes it an easy choice. The proximity of that resort comes in handy for lunch or dinner and a restroom afterwards. The entire experience reminds you that finding beautiful in this world isn’t all that hard if you just put yourself out there to meet it.