Alexandersmap

    Blog

    • Time Enough

      “The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” — Rabindranath Tagore

      We often get hung up on time and how quickly it all flies by. Yet we have more than enough for one lifetime when we use it well. We just waste so very much of it on things that aren’t all that essential. The moment is all that matters, we keep telling ourselves, and yet we measure time. The instant we recognize the fragility of the moment and our place in it, the more we begin to fully live. This is everything, all at once, and it’s a wonder to behold.

      This morning I reconciled myself to spending money and time on a problem that I inadvertently created several years ago. To spend money and time on things that I once thought were finished forever is frustrating, but instead of getting spun up in the error I’m finding joy in the resolution of the problem. With every decision we have the opportunity to set the future straight. We may celebrate this and move on to the next.

      As a rower I know the value of the current stroke in setting up the next one. Effort and recovery are forever linked in a quest for that elusive perfection. A life well spent isn’t all about the highlight reel stuff seen on Instagram, it’s the daily grind and the challenges we overcome that we may live to fight another day. Effort, recovery and setting ourselves up for the next—again and again. Stitch together enough such moments and we may build something meaningful that transcends the ordinary.

      We have time enough, even as we wish for more. Aspire to make more of the moment instead of wishing for more moments. Excellence is found here, awaiting our rise to meet it.

    • Crossing the Sea

      “You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.” — Rabindranath Tagore

      I was thinking about some friends I won’t see this week, as they’re at a conference that I’m not at. They’re almost certainly going about their days with productivity in mind. I may choose how I feel about the matter. We may choose misery or acceptance when we aren’t a part of something. I’m approaching it like I’m looking at my hotel points that haven’t accumulated this year at the rate they normally would: I have far more important ways to spend my time. The trick is to invest our time savings into something with a great return on investment.

      This ought to be our marching order as we stare across the water wondering how we’re going to get to the other side: Be productive with the right things. Whatever those things are. Everything else is stalling. We have no time to waste on trivialities and busywork. We must do the things that must be done at the expense of all the rest. Nothing clarifies our lives like seeing where we want to go and knowing the steps that will get us there. The rest is simply having the courage to begin.

    • Bundles of Rain

      Are the clouds glad to unburden their bundles of rain?
      Most of the world says no, no, it’s not possible. I refuse to think to such a conclusion.
      Too terrible it would be, to be wrong.
      — Mary Oliver, Do Stones Feel?

      After a month of no rain, it’s rained at the most inconvenient time, at least for the outdoor projects I’ve had planned for the last few days. But so what? Rain is to be celebrated just as much as sunshine. At least in moderation. This hasn’t been moderation, but I loved it nonetheless.

      People who wish for sunny days all the time ought to live in the desert. The rest of us quietly yearn for change. We’d be ungrateful if we complained about it when it arrived. And so it is that we ought to dress for the occasion and worked with the gift the universe presents to us.

      I’ve learn that I’m not lazy when it rains. Instead of sitting quietly with a book and a steaming mug of tea, I do bundles of projects that have been postponed too long. Indoor projects, surely, but also outdoor projects that want for a bit of watering anyway. The garden is as grateful for the rain as I am in such moments.

      Rainy day projects are beneficial, but sometimes the best answer to a soggy day is to immerse ourselves in the solitude it offers. Soon the productivity will concede to completion. To celebrate the rain for all it brings to the day is just as essential as any project might be. And those books, and that solitude, call to me, reminding me that I must return to them soon.

    • Changing Seasons

      “There is nothing permanent except change.” — Heraclitus

      Somehow cycling season is drawing to a close. Sure, there are plenty of nice days to ride all year, but the challenge is finding enough daylight to ride safely. I’m more grateful for rail trails as the days get shorter. But there’s something to be said for those favorite routes on narrow country roads on a warm, sunny afternoon. I’ll remember a few rides fondly on those cold and dark winter afternoons.

      The obvious thing is that when we spend more time outside, we become more aware of the weather, but also the seasons themselves. A slow turn towards autumn is detectable well before September, a bite to the air in late November will signal a turn towards winter, and so on. Having experienced the seasons, we feel it when there’s a change in the air. Some of us quite literally feel it in our bones. Old injuries become reliable harbingers of a variation from the norm.

      We learn to celebrate every season for the change it brings. We may have our favorites, but there’s joy to be found in each. Often it’s just a matter of stepping outside to see what greets us. These are days we’ll remember as the good old days one day. Days when maybe everything seemed so upside down, but still present the gift of people and places in our lives that one day won’t be. We realize over time that a bit of gratitude for whatever season this happens to be in our lives is what changes everything.

    • A Star In Our Hand

      “Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand – and melting like a snowflake.” — Francis Bacon

      September, the seventh month, happens in the ninth month of the year. Rather than simply adding two months to the end of the calendar those Romans just dumped January and February on us up front, and we humans have been two months behind ever since. As if we had all the time in the world to work with, we’re also forever playing catchup. No wonder we all feel like life is flashing by before our eyes.

      We all want to feel that we’re ahead of the game, or at least keeping pace. If productivity is the lead indicator of progress towards a goal, we ought to be very clear about what that goal that we’re being productive towards actually is. Otherwise, why are we going there in the first place? Productivity without purpose is nothing more than busywork. Busywork is a crime against nature, for we all know we aren’t dabbling in eternity. Wasted time robs us of more vital pursuits.

      It follows that if our time is melting away at alarming speed, we ought to be doing more of what we want to be doing now. I may have written a version of that a few hundred times in the course of this blog’s existence, but repetition penetrates the dullest of minds, and my own action demonstrates a good sharpening is in order. So I risk repeating myself if only to remind myself that today, like the stack of yesterdays before it, is fragile and in want of attention. Make it sparkle like the star is wants to be.

    • The Like of This

      “There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season. There is a time to watch the ripples on Ripple Lake, to look for arrowheads, to study the rocks and lichens, a time to walk on sandy deserts; and the observer of nature must improve these seasons as much as the farmer his. So boys fly kites and play ball or hawkie at particular times all over the State. A wise man will know what game to play to-day, and play it. We must not be governed by rigid rules, as by the almanac, but let the season rule us. The moods and thoughts of man are revolving just as steadily and incessantly as nature’s. Nothing must be postponed. Take time by the forelock. Now or never! You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this, or the like of this. Where the good husbandman is, there is the good soil. Take any other course, and life will be a succession of regrets. Let us see vessels sailing prosperously before the wind, and not simply stranded barks. There is no world for the penitent and regretful.” — Henry David Thoreau, from Thoreau’s Journal

      A long quote to start the blog today, and not really a quote at all but Thoreau’s entire entry from April 24, 1959. He wrote this for himself, of course, but like Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations we’re left with his words as guideposts for our own lives. Thoreau reminds us to up our game. Henry never had a 401(k) to consider, this is true, but consider this: He’d be dead three years after writing this journal entry at the shockingly young age of forty-four. What’s a 401(k) to someone who would never live to realize the savings? Today is our day of reckoning, Thoreau implores to himself and now us.

      Lately the world is reminding me that we all have an expiration date. People come and go from our lives all the time, and phases of our lives are merely seasons we scarcely pay attention to until they’re slipping away. To live a long life is to find ourselves navigating many such seasons, and if we pay attention, learning a thing or two from each. Our greatest lesson is the one we’ve been hearing all our lives: There is no postponing life, we must do what calls to us now.

      The trick is to actually do that, isn’t it? The days fly by fiercely, with no apologies from eternity on its march. We are the only ones who are audacious enough to believe that we have the agency to do something in our time. We either rise to meet our days or regret their passing. There is no other life but this, or the like of this. Indeed, we shall never see the likes of this season again in our own lifetime. Will it be remarkable or fall with all the rest?

    • Digging Holes to Yesterday

      “Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.” — Will Rogers

      The pup is obsessed with yesterday. She saw a chipmunk go into a small hole and proceeded to make it a big hole (just when we thought she was past the digging stage of life). This morning she was right back out there, chasing chipmunks because they were right there for the catching yesterday. Of course, the chipmunk has moved on to safer places, it’s just the memory that remains. Still, our pup remains a prisoner of what once was.

      What of us? What holes are we digging to yesterday, instead of being in today’s moment? I can think of a few of my own holes that ought to be filled in and left behind. It’s hard to climb when we’re deep in a hole.

    • Ship of Fools

      Save me, save me from tomorrow
      I don’t want to sail with this ship of fools, no, no, no
      Save me, save me from tomorrow
      I don’t want to sail with this ship of fools
      Where’s it comin’ from?
      Oh, where’s it goin’ to?
      It’s just a, it’s just a ship of fools
      — World Party, Ship of Fools

      We’re all collectively setting sail for tomorrow. Who do we want steering the ship? Why exactly are we on this ship anyway? Why not sail to a better place on a ship surrounded by a better crew? We’re acting foolish ourselves when we don’t use our agency to set our course for the destination we wish to go to.

      We’ve been here before. It’s easy to recognize fools when you’ve seen their act in other chapters. We can’t blame the fools, for they only know the fool’s game, but we ought to find another game for ourselves when we see the way the game is going. For this game is played by the clock.

      It’s hard to change. That’s why the ship is so full of people looking around at each other wondering if they’re being foolish but not lowering the lifeboats and rowing like mad for shore. But sometimes we’ve got to risk all that comes with change to find a better ship.

      We may yet be the change we wish to see in this world.

    • Exhausting Our Present Capacity

      “A novel worth reading is an education of the heart. It enlarges your sense of human possibility, of what human nature is, of what happens in the world. It’s a creator of inwardness.” ― Susan Sontag

      As an active reader, I keep searching for the perfect book to read. Someone once said that the only perfect book for us is the one we write ourselves. I think the self-critic in me laughs at the very idea of creating perfection. Perfection is an excuse for not doing our best in the moment. It’s a way of saying we aren’t ready yet, before we even begin.

      There are always excuses. We must put them aside and follow the call. We may still tap into something unique within ourselves and draw it out for the world to see. But why put ourselves through the process of writing—the blank page mockery, the wrestling with the order of words, the feeling of not good enough rewrites—while precious moments of a brief life tick away? With so much to do in a lifetime, why write when there are so many unread books in the world already?

      I believe that the best writers are seeking enlightenment themselves, and the words written are merely the breadcrumbs of where they’ve been on the journey. Those breadcrumbs are a generous gift that show the way for those of us who would follow. Sometimes we find the path is not to our liking, sometimes we find it leads to a better climb altogether, but that path took us somewhere. Otherwise, we’re no better than those unread books, just gathering dust and waiting to be tossed aside in favor of the next generation.

      Perhaps even more than taking a path, each book read is filling up a void within us that we weren’t quite aware was there until we sensed fulfillment. The funny thing is, that substance isn’t subtracted in the process of sharing for the writer, it merely expands the capacity of the writer to share more. In this way it’s like exercise: the growth begins when we exhaust our present capacity. The more we do, the more we grow. And there lies our call to action, with no time to waste. Somewhere beyond our present capacity is possibility.

    • The Beauty in Fragility

      I’m stubborn in some ways, no surprise to anyone who knows me, but sometimes I admit it to myself in quiet moments such as the one just before this one. I was thinking specifically about the beautiful Douglas fir beams that I turned into a pergola back in 2007, rotted now and about to be replaced by new fir beams that I just cut yesterday. My bride suggested PVC or some other engineered product that would ensure it would be resilient. A friend told me to just use pressure treated lumber so I never have to do it again. But I have enough plastic in my life. I have enough chemicals swirling around in my microclimate already. I chose like for like.

      When I built it the first time, I looked into cedar or redwood, but the price tag was prohibitive. Honestly, having replaced the wood a couple of times now, I should have just invested in redwood then, but 17 years isn’t bad for painted fir standing against the elements in New Hampshire. How has the last 17 years treated us? When I think about the wooden pergola that I built with my own hands back then, I feel something differently than I do about some more permanent building materials. There’s beauty in fragility. We know it won’t last forever and look at it differently than we look at something that we know will outlive our grandchildren.

      Working with the fir yesterday, I honored the wood and the tree it came from, with careful measurements, deliberate cuts with a jigsaw and slow turns as I moved the beams around to cut the other end. I’m 17 years older than the guy who did this the first time, after all, and slow and deliberate meant I could get out of bed without feeling like I was run over by a truck. I’m not so stubborn that I don’t see I’m fragile too. But more than that, I know this is the last time I’ll ever rebuild this particular pergola. I’m not just honoring the wood and the tree, but my own moment of youthful vigor. For time conquers all, friend, even this amateur craftsman whose seeing the truth in every project.

      Raw cuts awaiting further attention