Alexandersmap

    Blog

    • From Within

      “I am a writer who came from a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.” ― Eudora Welty, On Writing

      As the air grows crisp and ever colder, the garden recedes back more each day towards dormancy. Why is it now that writers begin to stir and strive towards a higher aspiration? I think it comes from a place of stillness, when we finally slow down enough to feel the restlessness within. Maybe there’s a carry-over from the reading habit and a desire to dance with words at certain times of the year. Mostly I think it comes from a feeling of immediacy. It’s now or never, friend. The things we most want to see written won’t just write themselves.

      The pup has other ideas for me. I have the beginnings of carpal tunnel syndrome in my wrist from all the frisbee throws. She’s a lot like the universe in this way: always expecting one’s complete attention for as long as she wants it and not a second more. If we are to accomplish anything in this lifetime, at some point we must learn to break away and listen to that voice within that similarly insists on our attention.

      The thing is, we run out of excuses not to be daring. We must create the work we want to see in the world. Those aren’t my words, they’re the words of every writer who had the audacity to think they had something to say in their time and got to work. Enough of reasoning already! Be bold and begin, but finish it this time.

    • Icarus Also Flew

      Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
      It’s the same when love comes to an end,
      or the marriage fails and people say
      they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
      said it would never work. That she was
      old enough to know better. But anything
      worth doing is worth doing badly.
      Like being there by that summer ocean
      on the other side of the island while
      love was fading out of her, the stars
      burning so extravagantly those nights that
      anyone could tell you they would never last.
      Every morning she was asleep in my bed
      like a visitation, the gentleness in her
      like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
      Each afternoon I watched her coming back
      through the hot stony field after swimming,
      the sea light behind her and the huge sky
      on the other side of that. Listened to her
      while we ate lunch. How can they say
      the marriage failed? Like the people who
      came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
      and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
      I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
      but just coming to the end of his triumph.
      — Jack Gilbert, Failing and Flying

      We all have our seasons of triumph and tragedy, hope and despair, but we tend to dwell on the end of things too much instead of celebrating all that was when we never thought we’d touch the ground. In a lifetime we repeatedly rise from the ashes of who we once were to fly again. Icarus, like Sisyphus, is seen as a tragic figure in mythology. And yet he flew. Sisyphus, pushing his rock up that hill, might have caught a glimpse of Icarus from the top as he followed the rock back down to start his next defiant act.

      I’ve reached a point in my life where I’m ready to do something different. It’s a familiar feeling, having been here so many times before in my life. Some people settle into an identity and never leave it, cozy as it feels wrapped around their shoulders. Some people are nomads, shifting with the seasons, restless when change is in the air. Deep down we know who we are. In quiet moments we hear the whisper of change calling for us. No wonder so many reach for distraction rather than face the plunge into the unforgiving sea—the unknown next.

      No, we are not gods, and sometimes our audacity is punished by fate. Still, we must rise to meet the season when life brings change. For life is nothing but change, and we may dare the gods again with our boldness.

    • Developing a Voice

      “The voice which a poet forms is not any more something that a poet creates than it is something, over the years, that creates the poet. Throughout my life, unquestionably, I have made decisions one way or the other based on the influence of this inner voice—this authority with which I most intensely and willingly live.” —Mary Oliver, The Poet’s Voice

      Writing a blog is not the same as writing a novel, but it’s writing just the same. And as such, it ought to get one’s best effort. For otherwise, why do it at all? Isn’t life already too full of half-hearted pursuits? We can’t quiet-quit on our personal pursuits too and hope to have any reason to carry on in this world. We must do our best with the time and talent we have in the moment and allow it to carry us to the divine.

      Whatever the world thinks about blogging doesn’t matter a lick to me. I write to develop my voice, and once developed, refine it over and over again until it flows out of me like a Boston accent in unguarded moments. When I ask myself why I begin each day this way instead of simply taking a walk with the dog like a normal person, it often comes down to knowing I have something to say and finding a way to express it consistently, if not always eloquently.

      But what do we then do with a voice, once developed? Write more blog posts? Make the shift to long form essays and Substack? Or something <gasp> more? We can’t very well stuff our voice into the back row of the choir with the mimers, can we? We must sing our verse with passion and the skill honed through those ten thousand hours of chipping away at the marble. What emerges may just be magical. But magic doesn’t just appear out of thin air, it only seems that way to the casual observer.

      An acquaintance of mine wrote a few novels and published them as e-books just to give his children an example of doing what he said he was going to do. He’s also an active and talented podcaster with a silky smooth voice and the insightful questions that betray active intelligence. His voice may have been there all along but the full package took time and effort to develop. Whatever his motive for writing the novels and doing the podcast, the point is that he’s doing it. And so are we, at least if we have the inclination to see what emerges from that once quiet voice whispering to us in the back row.

    • Have a Look

      “Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you’re no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn’t just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here’s where things grow.
      But of course, without the top you can’t have any sides. It’s the top that defines the sides. So on we go—we have a long way—no hurry—just one step after the next.” — Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

      I see it in the pup when we get home. She bolts into the house, looks for our friends who’d been staying with us, and realizes the emptiness in a sad look back at me. Life is change, I want to tell her, but the beauty of being a dog is there’s always a chipmunk to chase down outside, and she’s soon forgotten her sadness and is out hunting instead.

      The thing is, it’s humans that really pay the price of change every day. It’s part of growing into who we may be next. Holding on to the past wastes today. And so the only answer is to savor more. Carpe diem is more than just seizing the day, it’s embracing all that it offers. In this way it pairs well with that other reminder from our stoic friends: Amor fati: Love of fate.

      We grow in the climb itself, even as we aspire for the summit. And so on we go. We ought to be careful what we wish for, for as Pirsig points out, we’ll miss all the good stuff charging ahead through life in hopes of reaching some imagined better place. Our place is simply where we’re standing now, friends, even as we’re poised for the next step. So have a look.

    • The Mask

      “Masked, I advance.” ― René Descartes

      Later today I’ll be presenting to a group of people I’ve never met before, like a thousand times before. There’s nothing unusual about speaking to strangers when you make a living building bridges and nurturing trust. More essential in that moment, the subject matter I’m presenting is very familiar to me, and not so much to them. I hope they surprise me with deep familiarity and the inclination to challenge every word I say, because that would indeed be interesting, but more than likely they’ll simply accept what I say for what it is. We tend to simply believe what we’re told, rarely questioning the validity of the statement unless it’s especially incendiary or directly challenges our worldview.

      We all know those characters who navigate word soup with the stage presence to pull it off. But to pull it off, we’ve got to believe it ourselves. We are all actors in the play, and stage presence matters a great deal, but so too does some underlying belief in why we’re up there on the stage in the first place. Every day we wake up with a collection of beliefs in who we are and why we’re here. To break away from those beliefs requires an assumption of faith that the gap between who that character we’re stepping into and the one we’re leaving behind isn’t so great that we plunge to our doom.

      But what is doom anyway? What’s the worst that could happen in putting on the mask and advancing into the unknown? We’re pushed back? We’re cut down? Parry and redouble, friend. Thankfully, few matches are fatal. We live to fight another day. When we believe in the mask we’re wearing we may advance with courage.

      Sounds easy, right? The thing is, false bravado is easy to unmask. The first person we have to convince is ourselves. Yet often we’re the last to know. Assuming a character often helps us find something in ourselves that was waiting to emerge. Small steps at first, then a little bolder, and there’s no telling where we might find ourselves next.

    • The Penance of Autumn

      O hushed October morning mild,
      Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
      Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
      Should waste them all.
      The crows above the forest call;
      Tomorrow they may form and go.
      O hushed October morning mild,
      Begin the hours of this day slow.
      Make the day seem to us less brief.
      Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
      Beguile us in the way you know.
      Release one leaf at break of day;
      At noon release another leaf;
      One from our trees, one far away.
      Retard the sun with gentle mist;
      Enchant the land with amethyst.
      Slow, slow!
      For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
      Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
      Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
      For the grapes’ sake along the wall.
      — Robert Frost, October

      As this is published on the 1st of October, the foggy world outside makes me feel I’m living in Frost’s poem. Small wonder, as he wrote it just up the road a bit. The aroma of ripe grapes is fading now, but we can still smell them on evening walks. Acorns rain from the trees, crashing through the canopy and thumping to the ground. This is another bumper crop year for the oaks, and the acorn performance follows just after the hickory nuts. To live amongst the trees in this time is to risk all. Only the foolhardy would stroll barefoot now.

      With the nuts come the collectors. Squirrels and deer, wild turkey and chipmunks work the harvest. Some in turn become the harvest as the hawks, owls and fox move amongst the trees looking for an easy mark. The pup works to chase all intruders from the yard, but it’s like trying to hold back the tide. In a few weeks it will all be over, acorns stored for winter by the rodents and the rest raked up ahead of the leaves. This is the penance of autumn in the woods of New Hampshire.

      To live here amongst the trees is to forever be a servant to the detritus they drop. They were here well before I was, they remind me, and they’ll be here until I one day leave this place, I remind them. That was our bargain, but they do love to abuse the current resident. To live life as a poem is not simply watching sunsets capping the days while whispering sweet nothings to our lovely copilot, it’s to apply sweat equity in the seasons with faith that it will be a good harvest that we may be blessed with another. We may not all be farmers now, but we still work the land.

      They say that Robert Frost wasn’t much of a farmer, but he gave it a go anyway. His farm produced timeless poetry instead of produce, so maybe he was a better farmer than he was credited for. Eventually Frost moved away from the farm to find inspiration elsewhere. I can relate to that too, even as I reconcile myself to a few more seasons raking acorns off the lawn and tossing them into the woods. The land is good and the season generous, and all along I’ve been harvesting here too.

    • RIP Kris Kristofferson

      I was born a lonely singer, and I’m bound to die the same,
      But I’ve got to feed the hunger in my soul.
      And if I never have a nickel, I won’t ever die ashamed.
      ‘Cos I don’t believe that no-one wants to know.
      — Kris Kristofferson, To Beat The Devil

      I saw that Kris Kristofferson passed away, but instead of writing a blog post about it and listing a bunch of songs he’d written topped by Me And Bobby McGee, I’ll leave this lyric to stand on it’s own. Any creative type knows the wrestling match we play with ourselves over the work that we put out into the world (or don’t put out into the world, holding out for that moment that never comes). I’m of a certain age where Kristofferson seemed to be everywhere in my youth. I mostly leaned into a different kind of music than he was singing, but I would always listen to what he had to say. It may feel sometimes that no one wants to know, but they’re quietly listening just the same. Put the work out there and let it find its audience. And in so doing, beat the devil within.

    • Character Development

      “How little we still commit ourselves to living. We should grow like a tree that likewise does not know its law. We tie ourselves up with intentions, not mindful of the fact that intention is the limitation, yes, the exclusion of life. We believe that we can illuminate the darkness with an intention, and in that way aim past the light. How can we presume to want to know in advance, from where the light will come to us?” — Carl Jung, The Red Book

      Admittedly, I’m impatient for a future lightness. These aren’t the darkest of days, but they could sure be brighter. When you set a course for a destination, you sometimes just want to get there instead of living with the reality of each phase of the journey. That’s like buying a book and reading the last pages first, that there are no surprises when read from the beginning. Knowing the ultimate ending already, we ought to put our energy instead into the character development possible today.

      When we work through the challenges life throws at us, we see how we react to each and find out something about ourselves. Sometimes we celebrate the character we’ve encountered, and sometimes we want to prune off that unruliness immediately. If you’ve ever been deep in the woods and seen the odd directions that sapplings take to reach for the light you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Life wants us to bide our time and grow our roots, but we grow impatient and lunge for any bit of light slipping through the canopy.

      We can’t follow every whim and hope it brings us to our happy ending. To chase everything is to be directionless. Intentions are nothing but dappled light in the forest, sapping our energy in distraction and folly. We must remind ourselves that the living is the thing, not the chasing. When we focus on the steady growth things seem to open up for us at the right time. At least that’s what we tell ourselves when we’re deep in the forest.

    • Breakthroughs and Routines

      “Do not let the world form you. Do not conform to it. Instead, transform yourself through a renewing of your mind.” ― Neil King Jr., American Ramble: A Walk of Memory and Renewal

      We are being transformed as much by time as by deliberate act. We cannot control time, such that it is, but we may control our own transformation through the choices we make, the people we associate with and the course we set for ourselves. We said goodbye to some friends over the weekend, knowing that they and we will be changed by the things we encounter between now and the time we may reconnect in the future. We are all forever being transformed, catching up one day to see the changes.

      The universe won’t remember much of us in a thousand years. Hell, I don’t remember much about myself in any given year of my own lifetime but for the highlights and those few unforgettable moments forever imprinted in my mind. We replay stepping stone moments and stumbles ranging from our youth to just this morning, each retained as memorable for what they taught us about ourselves and the place we were in our development to that moment, each still shaping who we are every time we rewind and play the conversation again in our minds.

      But remembering isn’t the thing, for we can’t carry everything with us and still function freely in the now, transformation happens with those few things that get into the bloodstream and forevermore become a part of our identity. It’s like the pesto breakthrough to me: Back as a teenager I encountered a dish of pesto put out as an hors d’oeuvre. For my entire young life up to the moment I savored that dish for the first time I thought of the world in a certain way. When I tasted pesto for the first time I immediately recognized how incomplete my life had been previously and integrated it into my identity forevermore. Life has since been far more delicious.

      We note such watershed moments in our lives that change everything, but we forget the incremental changes we make influenced by the gravitational pull of habit or environment. Writing this blog every day has changed me more than that first pesto experience, perhaps by prompting me to seek more breakthrough moments, but also by noting the existence of gravity in my everyday affairs. If we don’t acknowledge gravity we will never develop the transformational habits to one day reach escape velocity.

      Life is this combination of breakthroughs and routine, transforming us over time into whomever we are and will become. Breakthroughs are rapid change, while routines are the long, slow climb. The muscles we develop determine how well we can resist conformity and go our own way. To be deliberate in our learning and the experiences we seek out are thus our path to transformation on our own terms.

    • Nice, With Nerve

      “It’s not enough to be nice in life. One must have nerve.” — Georgia O’Keeffe

      “I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I’ve never let it keep me from a single thing that I wanted to do.” — Georgia O’Keeffe

      The old expression that nice guys finish last isn’t completely accurate, but it ought to include the disclaimer that for nice guys not to finish last they have to show some courage and go after what they want in life. We all see the assholes who ascend to positions of power. They wouldn’t have it any other way, really. Nice people don’t have to be assholes to do consequential things in their lifetime, but they must have courage to push through the walls the world wants to box us in with. We must learn to fight for what we want in our lives.

      We can be nice but still have nerve. Nice people rise too. They just don’t leave as many bruised egos in their wake. Remember this when encountering walls and ceilings placed by assholes, but also by other nice people who meant the best for us. It’s not enough to persist, we also must insist and, just do what calls to us.

      Consequential things don’t just manifest themselves. Those climbs to summits, manuscripts and realizations of dreams require action and the nerve to start. We mustn’t wait another moment! It’s not a departure from identity to be bold, for being nice with nerve is how great things happen in this world.