Alexandersmap

    Category: Culture

    • Breaking from the Routine

      “If you wanna fly you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.” – Toni Morrison

      It’s simple, really. You decide what to be and go be it. But then the excuses begin. The commitments. The stuff to do. The comfortable routines that drag you back to reality (the reality you choose) and keep you right where you were yesterday and where you’ll be tomorrow.

      Habits are a path to fitness, wealth, knowledge and power. But habits are also a path to sloth, financial stress, mindless binge watching and low agency. The choice, friends, is ours.

      Do you really want to fly? Then break away from the things that hold you down (Morrison put it more succinctly). That might be stuff, mortgages, and relationships, or it might simply be habits. More likely it’s a combination of both.

      There are very legitimate reasons for not traveling right now. But no reason not to explore. To get up early and ride or walk to places nearby that you’ve never seen before. Burning calories and firing up the imagination.

      The pandemic either jolted you free of the routines that held you back or boxed you more tightly in. The fitness world exploded last year even as it imploded. You couldn’t get a bike or kayak or pair of snowshoes to save your life. But you could walk out the door and keep walking until you reached your goal. You don’t need stuff to fly. You need courage to break away.

      I picked up one of the barbell plates stacked neatly on the weight rack and walked around with it for a while. It was exactly the weight that I wanted to lose. Exactly what I was already carrying around with me with the excuses for not losing it. It was a wake-up call. A reminder of what I’ve drifted away from lately. Of what I’d drifted to.

      If you want to fly, you can’t be weighed down with shit. This applies equally well to anything that matters: reaching peak fitness, accumulating knowledge, reaching peak earning power, and efficiently exploring the world.

      I put that weight plate back on the rack and then walked around without it, looking at the accumulation of stuff in the house, thinking about the accumulation of obligations… and recognized that the routine was quietly killing me. Something had to change. Someone has to change. And I took the first small step.

    • Living in the Layers

      I have walked through many lives,
      some of them my own,
      and I am not who I was,
      though some principle of being
      abides, from which I struggle
      not to stray.

      We’re all collectors of sorts. Accumulating experience, relationships and perspective as we march through our time on this spinning blue ball in the dark vacuum of infinity. We acquire it all and, if we’re generous, bundle it up into shared wisdom before we become part of infinity ourselves. This sharing of experience differs from shared experience; that which you and I might experience together. Sharing is passing something of ourselves along to others, as I’m passing along this Stanley Kunitz poem.

      When I look behind,
      as I am compelled to look
      before I can gather strength
      to proceed on my journey,
      I see the milestones dwindling
      toward the horizon
      and the slow fires trailing
      from the abandoned camp-sites,
      over which scavenger angels
      wheel on heavy wings.
      Oh, I have made myself a tribe
      out of my true affections,
      and my tribe is scattered!

      The last few weeks are a whirlwind of my tribe coming home and leaving home. One returns, one leaves, friends stay for the weekend, other friends drift apart. We all scatter about to wherever the song in our hearts lead us. That we remain together at all is a blessing of shared moments.

      How shall the heart be reconciled
      to its feast of losses?
      In a rising wind
      the manic dust of my friends,
      those who fell along the way,
      bitterly stings my face.
      Yet I turn, I turn,
      exulting somewhat,
      with my will intact to go
      wherever I need to go,
      and every stone on the road
      precious to me.

      I try to explain how this will go to my children as they graduate and move into new phases of their lives. Most relationships are based on convenience and proximity. Teammates, classmates, coworkers, soccer parents… in each case you share something in common at the same time and place, and meaningful moments collect here. But the bond is only as strong as the links that hold it together. Most relationships eventually drift apart, though you might pick up exactly where you left off when you see each other again and piece together what you’ve each been up to in the interim. Some relationships seem to stand the test of time and trial and absence.

      In my darkest night,
      when the moon was covered
      and I roamed through wreckage,
      a nimbus-clouded voice
      directed me:
      “Live in the layers,
      not on the litter.”
      Though I lack the art
      to decipher it,
      no doubt the next chapter
      in my book of transformations
      is already written.
      I am not done with my changes.
      – Stanley Kunitz, The Layers

      Life is littered with old bonds broken by circumstance. But experience informs. We’re all changing, and our transformation continues even as the tribe changes too. Each layer of our life makes us deeper. Each chapter adds context and richness. We are the sum of our accumulated experience, relationships and perspectives to this point. All these layers add up to one hell of a stepping stone.

      Which makes you eagerly wonder… just where might this next step lead to?

    • Opening the Blind Eye

      I’ve heard a few people describe Boston as a racist city. I tend to get defensive and indignant when I hear this, because I don’t think of the city as particularly racist compared to other cities I’ve been to. But then again, I’m a white male with limited experience living with the encroaching beliefs of other races. Perspective filters. And comparison is a weak platform for a defense.

      So does my default position of treating everyone as equals translate to the rest of the population of Boston? Obviously not. I don’t even live in Boston, I’m north of Boston, in New Hampshire, one of the whitest states in America. The state I’ve lived in since my late twenties is 95% white, so who am I to even think about racism?

      Well, I’m a citizen of the world, a traveler who seeks new perspectives, an embracer of diverse experience and cultures. But it’s overly smug to say I’m fully “woke” when I might visit a predominantly black neighborhood in Boston or New York ocassionally and then return to my 100% white neighborhood. This offers the luxury of distance from the everyday immediacy of multiracial interaction. You tend to think you know, but do you really? And so I wonder, what am I missing?

      When my son played AAU basketball and I spent entire weekends in a gym with a highly diverse population I learned more about myself than I did about basketball. I learned that the world doesn’t always see things the way I do, because they don’t experience things the way that I do. We’d come together in some random gym, experience the highs and lows of a weekend tournament and go our separate ways. That’s skimming the surface, not seeking to understand.

      If my default position is to treat everyone as equals, when does that wiring short out? When I’m the minority on a city street or on a subway car? Or when someone I thought looked at things the same way I do starts parroting racist propaganda at me? When do we turn our blind eye back on the harsh reality someone else is facing and stare down the ugly truth?

      Boston was once overtly racist. Is it now? I’m not sure. Each generation seems to move closer to acceptance. When I hear someone call Boston a racist city, my indignation is rooted in my own position. But my defensiveness is rooted in knowing that there are still too many racists who are quite vocal with their hate. And this is a key point, they’re vocalizing a position, held by some but certainly not most. But what the hell are most of us doing when the racism happens?

      Not enough. Clearly we need to lose the indignation and look squarely at the situation. If the majority of people feel that everyone should be treated equally, then act that way. A chorus of welcoming acceptance should drown out the toxic voices of the relative few. If we’re all in this together we ought to start living that way. Not by wringing our hands together but by lending a hand and building something better, together.

    • Life From the After

      “I wrote a song called ‘Death Is Not the End’ a couple of years ago, and I never finished it. But I liked the idea, because I guess I don’t believe that it is the end. I carry so many ancestors with me on a daily basis. I experience my father regularly. I experience Clarence. I experience my old assistant, Terry Magovern. They visit me in my dreams quite often — I may see them, you know, several times a year.

      So, this idea is you don’t lose everything when someone dies. You do lose their physical presence, but their physical presence is not all of them, and it never was all of them, even when they were alive. Spirit is very strong. Emotion is very strong. Their energy is very strong. And a lot of this, particularly for people who are very powerful, really carries over after death.” – Bruce Springsteen, from Robert Love Interview: Bruce Springsteen, A Homecoming, AARP

      I recognize the larger than life people who have passed from my life in this quote. I hear their laughter, see the twinkle in their eye, feel their presence in certain moments. Those we’ve lost return to us over and over again, if not in physical form.

      Memorial Day in the United States honors those we’ve lost in battle, and I honor them as well. I think of my uncle, whom I never met, who died in the Korean War. I feel his presence, not as a person but as a hole in the family often mentioned with reverence by those who once knew him. Even as those who did know him pass away themselves, his presence remains. His presence was very strong, and amplified by his abrupt and premature passing in war. Those who were touched by him have touched me, and the ripple continues across the pond.

      That’s the thing about losing someone. Their presence filled us, and without that there’s a void in our lives. The void remains, even as other things like children and work and friendships fill in around it. Springsteen points out that they’re never really gone, they’re just physically not here. The larger they were in life the more of them remains with us after life.

      This Memorial Day I think about those who carry over after death. Ripples big and small, reverberating in this life from the after. And I honor and celebrate their time here. And know they’ve never really left us.

    • Let It Rain

      “The sound of the rain needs no translation.” – Alan Watts

      A rainy weekend dashes the dreams of many. For me it provides an opportunity to refill the pool, water the garden and catch up on reading and favorite old songs from years ago. Songs that pair well with raindrops tapping on hard surfaces. Rainy days are a necessary chapter in the story, and I welcome the cool, soggy embrace. The world is changing, and collectively so are we.

      The timing of this rainy weekend is unfair for businesses deeply impacted by the pandemic. Imagine riding out the storm and circling this weekend to open up to full capacity and having it rain buckets. Imagine seeing things begin to brighten and suddenly the dark clouds open up again, washing away dreams of outdoor sports and al fresco dining. Have we learned empathy in the darkest of days? I hope so.

      We’re all living through the storm together, and some of us are, apparently, on the other side of it. But storms don’t hit us all the same. Some are going to be hit harder than others. Some will have it linger for years. And some will never see the other side of it. Let it rain if it must, but remember those who are weathering the worst of the storm.

      No, I have no business complaining about a rainy weekend. We’ve seen far worse than this. And we will again. Rain washes away old memories and feeds new growth. The world greens up in celebration. Shouldn’t we? Welcome the raindrops for what they offer. This too shall pass, and what will remain of us on the other side? What new possibilities are germinating even now in the soggy soil?

    • Caretakers of the Present

      “Even when we get what we wish, it is not ours.” – Publius Syrus

      We’re all in a relationship with time. Some relationships are abusive, some are blissful. Time teases us. We think we have so much of it, but that’s a fabric of our imagination, like the belief that we might just live forever. The days fly by in rapid succession, and we do with them what we can.

      Over the last week I’ve wrestled with a yard relentlessly assaulted by the surrounding trees, raining pollen and catkins and samaras into and on to everything I’d worked to clean up until the rains came and turned the tide in my favor. The chores of home ownership are relentless and a fool’s game. Yet it offers the meditative work required for me to sort out the rest of this crazy world. For all my complaints, I recognize this plot of land I’ve squatted on is borrowed from the universe, and I appreciate what it’s brought to me.

      And some day I’ll return it to that universe to do with it whatever it must. Will this land return to the oaks, pines and maples that regularly reach back for what was stolen from them, or will the house will be torn down and the pool filled in to make way for a McMansion as the region continues to face the pressure of urban sprawl. Who knows? I’m the caretaker of the present, such that it is, and recognize the folly in it all.

      What we receive is not really ours. What we have is on loan in the present, be it stuff or relationships or a plot of land with a modest garden. It’s ours to work with as best we can today. If we think of ourselves as caretakers instead of consumers, we might just leave something for those who come after us. That’s not exactly a new way of thinking, but maybe forgotten in the assault of consumerism and consumption and pursuit of “ownership”.

      We might wish for more time, but like stuff we accumulate, it’s not really ours. Once you accept that time is on loan to us, it liberates you. Simply dance with these days and forget the math. We have what we have, and the rest is not our concern. Take care of the present. While there’s still time.

    • Adding Extra to Ordinary

      “A master is in control. A master has a system. A master turns the ordinary into the sacred.”
      – Ryan Holiday

      “The primary math of the real world is one and one equals two. The layman (as, often, do I) swings that every day. He goes to the job, does his work, pays his bills and comes home. One plus one equals two. It keeps the world spinning. But artists, musicians, con men, poets, mystics and such are paid to turn that math on its head, to rub two sticks together and bring forth fire. Everybody performs this alchemy somewhere in their life, but it’s hard to hold on to and easy to forget. People don’t come to rock shows to learn something. They come to be reminded of something they already know and feel deep down in their gut. That when the world is at its best, when we are at our best, when life feels fullest, one and one equals three. It’s the essential equation of love, art, rock ’n’ roll and rock ’n’ roll bands. It’s the reason the universe will never be fully comprehensible, love will continue to be ecstatic, confounding, and true rock ’n’ roll will never die.” – Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run

      I’m beginning to understand the art of weaving magic. I am by no means a master, but each turn in the blog, each tangle with words in other work I’m developing, leads me closer to the sacred. The blog is my apprenticeship, never fully realized because I ship the work daily whether the magic is sprinkled on yet or not. This is a turn of the ordinary, and a march towards something more.

      Routines infer ordinary. We have our habits and generally stick with them, and we feel out of sorts when the routine is broken by happenstance or travel. But routines are where you find the magic, hidden deeply in layers of repetition and persistence. You don’t pull magic out of your ass, you work for it.

      You know it when you see it. Moments crackle with excitement. And one plus one does, for a brief moment, equal three. The greatest artists and performers regularly dance with the extraordinary. But hidden from that brilliant moment of now are the buried hours of falling flat, picking yourself up and trying something else then. You don’t add extra to ordinary without sacrifice.

      I’m well aware of where I am with my own work, and I also know where I’m going. Towards the sacred. Towards three. Towards the incomprehensible and magic and the extraordinary. I hope someday to share that with you.

    • A Moment of Wonder

      Yesterday morning I chanced upon an Oriole in the garden. He looked at me and I at him and we both had our moment of interspecies connection before he decided to fly off to join his mate (who was no doubt pissed at him for his boldness). The bright orange and dark black are still locked in my mind a day later.

      That night in the very same spot I stood while the fireflies made their debut in the yard. More likely, it was the first performance I could attend. They lit up the darkness at the edge of the woods, just as the brilliant moon was rising through the trees. I expect fireflies know more about illumination than I do, but I was beaming just the same at their shared performance. That big, bold moon and the small, sparkling fireflies dancing quietly in the dark to an audience of one.

      What do we make of the moon this week? Called the Super Flower Blood Moon because it’s a combination of the May full moon and a timely lunar eclipse. This kind of thing stirs the collective imagination of the press, the talking heads who eagerly point out the big event. As a sky geek I’m aware of it, and appreciate the need of a news celebrity to talk about something besides a mass shooting or some other tragedy happening somewhere, right now, that may impact me next. Those masters of string pulling and I can agree that this moon is something special, and special things should be seen.

      But just because something should be seen doesn’t mean that it can be. As is usually the case when there’s something of note happening in the sky, it was overcast in my part of New Hampshire in the early morning hours. The lunar eclipse, like so much in this universe, wasn’t meant to be shared with me today.

      But the universe giveth even as it taketh away. Yesterday it offered those encounters with a bold Oriole and dancing fireflies, and each changed me in our moment together. I should think a moment of wonder is all we can really ask for from the universe. Just remember to say thank you.

    • The Cushy Life

      My job used to require mobility – go out and meet people in unique places, drive a lot but also walk a lot. Like many of you, for the last year I’ve sat in a chair working in my home office. After several months of Zoom and Teams meetings my tailbone started to hurt from sitting too much, so I made a point of standing more (with a sit/stand desk). But then I found that the ankle I’d injured hiking last summer would start to ache more. Alas, it seems I’d reached the gimpy stage of life.

      Fortunately there’s a cottage industry for such things. Ergonomic products designed to allow humans to do things their bodies were not designed to do, such as sit in front of a computer screen all bloody day. And so I became one of the millions of consumers of ergonomic cushions.

      First up was the ankle, with a visit to an orthopedic doctor who promptly diagnosed me with flat feet and a sprained ankle. I’d known about one of those (the easy stuff even I can figure out), but well into adulthood the other was a revelation. New orthotics were prescribed, and not the kind you buy in the display racks at your favorite pharmacy. No, these were custom fit, wait two weeks to get ’em orthotics. And months later the ankle is like new again, the arches never ache and I’m ready to walk the Appalachian Trail.

      The business of that tailbone was an easy fix too. A gel pad with a notch on the back end eliminated the pressure point that my fancy chair created. Combined with being able to stand for long periods without the ankle screaming at me and suddenly the whole thing is in the rearview mirror (no pun intended).

      It occurred to me that the relative softness of life today that created these cushions for our feet and bottom is to blame for the entire thing. We aren’t moving as much, we eat more than we should and the parts of our bodies that aren’t designed for it are breaking down more. Sure, I had flat feet before, but I was fit enough that it was never an issue. But stick me in a chair and look what happens.

      Don’t get me wrong, I love the orthotics and the seat pad. But I miss the days when I never would have thought to use them. My life became cushy. And that softness just doesn’t feel right. Softness isn’t sustainable. Hard bodies last longer.

      Fortunately, there’s an fix for that too.

    • Remembering the Last Time

      Do you remember in detail the last conversation you had with someone before they slipped away from you forever? I have a few such memories of old girlfriends and other tornadoes that quickly tore through my life, but I can’t tell you with any detail what the last conversation with my grandfather was like. And I’m at a loss to remember the last meaningful face-to-face conversation I had with my father before conversations became just so much small talk on the phone. Now he’s battling dementia and I’m not sure what the next face-to-face conversation will be like, but it will never be what it once was.

      You don’t remember because you don’t believe it will be the last time you’ll ever have that conversation. That last time they asked you how you’re doing and really wanted to probe deeper into the answer. Not “what are you reading now?” or “how was dinner last night?”, but meaningful connection built on familiarity and trust.

      I’m particularly good at dodging this connection with all but the most persistent souls. I wonder if I’m offering a strong enough “last time” for those who might remember me sometime when I’ve forever slipped away from them. It’s something to work on.

      Last time mocks next time. We all think they’ll be another, and put off things we ought to get to sooner. We’ll see you soon turns into we never got the chance. Take the opportunity while it’s still available. Because there are so very few next times.

      This, friends, is the time.