Let’s go, my poet, let’s dawn and sing in a gray tattered world. I shall pour forth my sun, and you—your own, in verse.” — Vladimir Mayakovsky, An Extraordinary Adventure Which Befell Vladimir Mayakovsky In A Summer Cottage
We look at the world through our own lens. It’s relatively easy to be optimistic about the future when you aren’t facing a violent end, or the relentless oppression of an authoritarian government. Bullies tend to sap the creativity out of most poets and artists. But every now and then you run into one that stands up to the bully, puts their work out there and lets it speak for itself despite it all.
Mayakovsky published this charming little poem about having tea with the sun in 1920. I visit it now not to celebrate the void of positive leadership in Russia since then, but rather the resilience of the poet in the face of darkness. Mayakovsky would eventually succumb to that darkness, committing suicide a decade or so after writing this dance with light. Humans aren’t meant to live in darkness. We must find a source of energy and hope to carry on.
We choose to focus on the positive in this world, not because we’re delusional, but because the only hope for our collective future is in optimism and love. Mayakovsky’s poem ends with a radiance that illuminates us still. It offers an example to press on with our work, to fight for what is right and true. For not everything in the world slips into darkness. We still might shine.
Always to shine, to shine everywhere, to the very deeps of the last days, to shine— and to hell with everything else! That is my motto— and the sun’s!
The Omni Mount Washington Hotel was built in 1902, making it 120 years old this year. When you walk into this place, you feel the history and grandeur. It’s a time machine of sorts, bringing you back to another era. And yet it’s timeless (if a bit creaky here and there). I’d stayed here before, maybe 15 years ago. When the world seemed different. The hotel has grown since then with more than $90 million in modernizations and additions. The old heated pool is gone, replaced by a 25,000 square foot modern spa, now with a newer heated pool a longer walk away down the hill (dress accordingly).
The hotel was built by Joseph Stickney between 1900 and 1902. He died a year after it opened, but his name is still associated with the place. The hotel stayed in the family until 1944, when the hotel, closed for the war, was sold off. Having stayed here twice now, I can say the place seems to be thriving. For Omni, it’s more than just an old hotel, there’s the Bretton Woods Ski Resort, a couple of golf courses, a large nordic center and a number of other properties to manage. Unlike some owners, they’re actually improving the investment instead of milking it for all it’s worth. It’s noticeably improved in the 7 years they’ve owned it.
Any resort begins with the people who support it, and you notice a fair measure of joy in the staff working the restaurants, bars, nordic center and hotel that you don’t always see in the hospitality industry. This mix of international and local staff genuinely seem happy to be there, happy to talk to you, happy to represent the Omni Mount Washington Hotel. This set the tone for the stay, as everything seemed so… pleasant. Hard to pull that off with 800 guests staying there on the first weekend of March, when everyone was busy and the guests can be demanding.
The dining options at the hotel are more than acceptable. There are three distinct restaurants with different menus: the main dining room (which used to have a large dance floor in the middle that’s become a popular bar), Stickney’s Restaurant, and for the busy weekends, a third themed dining option in the Grand Ballroom (on our stay a Chinese food buffet with Disney movies playing for families). The food was excellent for each of the meals we had, but with a notable luxury price tag. You don’t stay and eat at an Omni without throwing down some serious cash. So staying here is either a splurge or a lifestyle choice. Reservations are required for dinner at the Main Dining Room and Stickney’s, and I’m told you ought to make those reservations well in advance. We managed a late table at Stickney’s our first night and settled for the Ballroom buffet the second night.
The bar scene is active, with all the skiers and hikers returning to celebrate the calories burned with a nightcap or three. The Cave is an old speakeasy deep in the basement that reminded us of the Cavern in Liverpool where The Beatles once played. The walls are granite and brick, and you enter through a granite tunnel. There are plenty of other places to get a drink beyond this, and we spent a couple of hours talking about life in this mad world nursing glasses of wine in the Observatory.
Naturally, there’s plenty to do besides eating and drinking. We opted to skip the skiing on our weekend and instead went snowshoeing on the groomed trails that originate at the nordic center. The trails are extensive and relatively quiet. There was just enough snow left for snowshoeing or XC-skiing, but the horse drawn sleigh rides seemed to be suspended as the snow cover in this mild winter didn’t allow it in early March.
What do you do after snowshoeing for miles? You go for a swim in the outdoor pool, of course. With the water heated to—I’m guessing—85 degrees it provided the perfect way to soak in the mild winter air with spectacular views of the White Mountains and the Presidential Range. For all the changes Omni has made, I’m glad they still offer the heated outdoor pool. It was memorable fifteen years ago in the old pool, and it surely was this time in the new one.
There’s one more thing to know about the Mount Washington Hotel, and it’s the connection to history. For the hotel was the site of the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, when 44 Allied nations gathered at the hotel to establish the Articles of Agreement for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The hotel justifiably makes a point of highlighting this history, and you can walk around the table where some key discussions happened that impact us to this day.
So there you have it. The Omni Mount Washington Hotel is a glorious destination year-round. Our winter weekend reminded us just how wonderful this place is. You’ll pay for it, but it surely is an experience worth having now and then. I hope it won’t be another fifteen years for me.
The Omni Mount Washington HotelHeated pool with Mount Washington in the backgroundSite of the Bretton Woods Conference
How do you stay informed in a world gone mad without losing focus on the things that are most important for you? It’s not easy–we can all find something very distracting and completely out of our control just a click away. I allocate time for my daily news update from trusted sources, absorb the weight of it and do my best to keep crossing the stream of time one leap at a time without drowning in the abyss.
When you refocus on that next leap, does it mean you’ve chosen ignorance, or discipline? For all of us to remain sane in a time of escalating tension, we can’t keep drinking from the fountain of bad news. Be aware, react and refocus on what we can control. We don’t cross the street without looking both ways, and we shouldn’t completely ignore the world around us. But it doesn’t mean we should huddle in fear and never take the first step towards our destination. We can’t bring light into this world without action.
Just like those before us, our time is full of challenges and assaults on our senses. And like those who came before we must find a way to focus anyway. The only real choice is to assess our place, summon up the necessary audacity and make the leap.
“You once told me that the human eye is god’s loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone in its socket, doesn’t even know there’s another one, just like it, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty. Opening the front door to the first snowfall of my life, you whispered, ‘Look.’” — Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
We write to express ourselves, don’t we? But also to see. For the writer observes the world. Otherwise what do we hold on to, in the end? Memories and the occasional catchy phrases. For a moment to last we must create. I think all artists work to share a vision with the world. Their work naturally exists after the vision the artist is sharing, and thus becomes a way to retain that which would have otherwise disappeared.
A photographer snaps a picture that represents an instant in time. Immediately it becomes a historical document of what once was. It becomes a way of holding on to the past. We can all play this game of looking at pictures and remembering moments that had otherwise slipped to the recesses of our minds. People and objects that once were but are now just memories and memorabilia. All art drives a similar stake in the ground, capturing that moment in the artist’s life expressed in their creation. Art captures us as we once were.
What do we hold on to? What do we let go of? Some moments are forever locked in amber, some drift away immediately. What we experience and what we hold on to are never the same thing. Think about the things we’ve all experienced over the last few years. We can’t agree on what we all saw, how could we possibly agree on how to capture this moment?
Art is always subject to interpretation. It captures a moment through the perspective of the artist, and is received by the audience with their perspective in their moment. Life, and art, are indeed fleeting. The world passes through us, and we all disappear into the past together. All we can hold on to is the moment. But the artist tries to share it.
There’s a feeling that lingers in you when you finish a magnificent book, a glow that feels a lot like the feeling you have when you’ve had a wonderful conversation with an old friend, returned from a beautiful vacation, or still feel the magic stay in the air well after a stunning sunset slips beneath the horizon. For all the bickering and sickness and change in the world, we know delight and wonder when we feel them. For it makes us forget everything else in the world and celebrate that one brief moment for all it brings to us.
“Alexander Rostov was neither scientist nor sage; but at the age of sixty-four he was wise enough to know that life does not proceed by leaps and bounds. It unfolds. At any given moment, it is the manifestation of a thousand transitions. Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate, and our opinions evolve—if not glacially, then at least gradually. Such that the events of an average day are as likely to transform who we are as a pinch of pepper is to transform a stew. And yet…” — Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow
It would be a disservice to you to offer more than this. Like life itself, this book unfolds before you, revealing wonder and delight and frustration and finally that lingering affection for a novel that has no right to grab you by the shoulders, spins you around and firmly shouts, “Look! Do you see it now? This is how it’s done!”
When you finish a book that completely captures your imagination, that becomes an old friend in the span of a few days, you want to raise your own game. You feel the stirring warmth and the catch in your throat from the magic you’ve been breathlessly consuming. You see once again just what is possible should you commit yourself to it. If you’re wise, you surf that swell of emotion to places beyond the pages of the very book you’ve finished. The very best storytelling lingers, and it inspires greatness within us.
Swap “Life” for “A story” in the quote above. It does something different to you, doesn’t it? All storytelling is just sharing experiences and lessons with each other. Some are completely made up, some are relatively on point, but all are told through the perspective of the writer.
This month a family friend is painting a couple of rooms in my home. Normally I’d do this work myself, but for several reasons it’s better that he’s doing it. In the process, the house is turned upside down, and we’re all feeling the accumulated fatigue of these relatively new places and experiences, stacked one atop the other. The one taking it the hardest is the younger cat, who’s had three years to establish her world order, her safe places, only to have it all turned upside down in a few days. And so she’s a basket case of concerned meows and fearful hiding. New places can be hard to adjust to.
The world is changing rapidly around us, and the stories we tell each other about the future are all so very different than they were not that long ago. We’re collectively in a new place, and finding it hard to adjust to it. What do we do next? Stop using plastic straws? Buy (or sell!) crypto currency? Stockpile canned goods and bottled water? It feels like we all just worked through our pandemic stock!
So now what? It begins with the stories we tell ourselves. What we share with the world. Storytelling is a way to share lessons, to offer a path for others to follow. We listen to each other for shared perspective. Change happens, how we react to it usually determines what happens next.
The last few nights, I’ve coaxed the cat out of deep hiding places. She walks out timidly, fearful of this new place she finds herself in. I’ll give her a moment to adjust, then pick her up and give her a reassuring hug. This too shall pass. Soon we’ll be in a new place yet again. And maybe it will all be okay. We ought to stick together, just in case.
“What one does is what counts. Not what one had the intention of doing.” ― Pablo Picasso
“Do or do not. There is no try.” — Yoda
Intentions. We all have the best of them. I intended to have a stellar week of work and working out. Both have been a struggle. Such is the way. Life is funny and fickle. We either do or we do not. The trick isn’t in the intentions, it’s in the verdict after the fact. Judge or judge not. There is no getting around it.
You reach a point where you become. You decided what to be and you went out and became it. Or maybe you didn’t, but you had the best intentions. Life is assessing what you are and deciding whether you like it or not, and then deciding what to be next. One hop across the stream of life at a time, you look for that next landing spot, with an eye on the far shore. Sometimes you slip and get wet. Sometimes you took a hop in the wrong direction. Sometimes you park yourself on one comfortable rock a little too long. Intention and action are the only things that get you to the other side.
Intentions are nothing but a direction we wish to point ourselves in. Intent only matters when it meets consistent action. Which begs the question, what are you doing?
Do you ever wonder about this Roman character, San Valentino, who was martyred when he died around 268 AD? He was the patron saint of courtly love, beekeeping and epilepsy, according to his Wikipedia page. That’s a trifecta right there. I’m not sure if the beekeepers celebrate him the way the lovers do, but you’ve got to hand it to the Christians, they’ve kept him busy in his afterlife.
Then again, I’m not sure how much work sainthood really entails anyway. Cupid seems to do all the early work. He was the son of Venus and Mars, which fittingly represented love and war, respectively. Most relationships have a healthy mix of each, for while we unite as one we remain independent as well. The key is the balance between unity and independence, as any long termer might point out.
The real winners on Valentine’s Day are the companies that cater to the audience: Hallmark, jewelry stores and florists, and the chocolate makers. For what says “I love you” like a gift from Kay? Humph. The hardest part of the lead-up to Valentine’s Day is navigating the card aisle at the local stores. Here you’ll find some of the lamest expressions of gushy love ever created. Which is why I head right for the humorous cards, looking for some magic in a clever punchline just inside. Inevitably most of these fail horribly as well, leaving you to find the best available under the circumstances. For me, a card that gives me enough room to write something more meaningful than the punchline is my first choice.
When you stack up enough Valentine’s Days with someone, the marketing doesn’t resonate quite the same. For you show your feelings with action and consistency and the occasional bouquet of flowers on a random Wednesday. Valentine’s Day is an acknowledgement that another year has gone by and I’ve still got your back. The rest is just clever punchlines and cheap chocolate.
What if we could stay together And simply move on day after day after day Sun and stormy weather You and I together Moving on always? — Ryan Montbleau, The Boat Song
There’s a time warp experience to walking on the same beach with the same person from one year to the next. On an unusually warm Saturday in February I took a 3 mile walk on Hampton Beach with my bride. We had plenty of company, for everyone else had the same idea. Power walkers, casual strollers, hard core swimmers, horse riders, and seemingly every dog in New England chose to be on the same beach at the same time. But at low tide on that particular beach there’s no shortage of elbow room.
I tend to celebrate quiet beaches more, but the people receded into the background on this walk. For it was a walk through time. Reflecting on the past, talking about the future, observing the present stepping across the fragile hourglass of life as we moved across the sand beneath us. She talked about time spent right in this very spot as a child years ago, the memory still fresh in her mind. I recalled a similar walk several years ago and her same observation, when we were both so different and yet the same. Everything changes on the beach, including the people who walk it.
The parade of dogs kept bringing us back to the present. Dogs of all shapes and sizes celebrating the moment at hand. Dogs, like children, have a way of bringing you back to the present. And there we were, walking the beach, considering the deck of cards we’re playing at this moment in our shared life, knowing the challenges coming soon but assessing the opportunities too. You can cover a lot of ground walking the beach, even when you can see the end clearly from where you began.
Sand and warm sunshine Saturday, snow on Sunday. Sun and stormy weather, all in one weekend. Such is New England. Life isn’t always a walk on the beach, but then again, on some precious few days, it is.
“Long had he believed that a gentleman should turn to a mirror with a sense of distrust. For rather than being tools for self-discovery, mirrors tended to be tools of self-deceit. How many times had he watched as a young beauty turned thirty degrees before her mirror to ensure that she saw herself to the best advantage? … When the celestial chime sounds, perhaps a mirror will suddenly serve its truer purpose—not revealing to a man who he imagines himself to be, but who he has become.” — Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow
I was looking for a quote online, recalling a bit of it but not enough to find it easily. In my search I stumbled on a few sites lingering near the very top of Google’s results with titles along the lines of “inspirational quote for your Instagram post” or some such nonsense. And I thought about how fragile the collective ego of this online world really is.
Want to improve your reflection? Put yourself out in the world more. Read more. Join the conversation. Stumble a bit more. Write badly and steadily find your voice. Live a bigger life. But do it on your terms or you’ll never be satisfied with yourself.
Life is about becoming the person we want to be, and learning to live with our shortcomings. Whether your reality check is a mirror or a bank account, number of followers or the stamps in your passport, we all have our reckoning with self-deceit. If we’re honest with ourselves that reckoning might just lead to self-discovery and a new path on our journey. Venture out to meet your future self one step at a time. We never quite reach that perfect image of ourselves, but we reach a point where we’re satisfied with the person looking back at us.
