Alexandersmap

    Category: Culture

    • A Perfect Cup of Coffee

      I’m deep into a phase of life where I invest time in the ritual of making excellent coffee. That doesn’t mean investing in expensive coffee making equipment. No, that would be absurd and counter to what a ritual should be. You should be able to make a great coffee anywhere you can boil water – camping, on a boat, in a hotel room, in your office (remember those?), on the side if the road or maybe even at home. And I’ve found the trio of products that make the ritual of making java easy, and dare I say, a meditative experience.

      Readers of this blog know of my affinity for AeroPress. The AeroPress has raised the standard of what great coffee can be. After years of dealing with frustrating French presses, drip coffee makers and slow-as-molasses single serving drip rigs, the AeroPress took the best features of each and rolled them into a highly functional, highly efficient coffee press. Fun fact: the inventor of the AeroPress also invented the Aerobie frisbee. You can see it referenced in the design of the AeroPress.

      I’ve raved about the AeroPress since I started using it.. What makes the experience a ritual is the grinding of the beans while you wait for the water to boil. I use a compact ceramic burr hand grinder made by Hario to do the job. I’ve had this device for a few years, but it was only when I started using the AeroPress that I found it made sense. Since the hand grinder takes one or two scoops of coffee at a time, it pairs well with the AeroPress. Combined with an electric kettle to boil water and you’ve got all the ingredients for a perfect cup of coffee. The water boils in roughly the time it takes to scoop your favorite coffee beans into the grinder, hand grind the beans and set up the AeroPress. There’s no rushing, no loud electric grinder waking up the neighborhood, and simple cleanup afterwards. It’s perfect.

      If it seems I’ve carried on a bit too long about making a cup of coffee in a world of chaos and pandemics and injustice, well, it’s because I have. All that stuff will still be there in your face when you walk out the door or turn on the news (please: don’t), but this perfect ritual of coffee-making zen quiets the mind for a few minutes. And that’s a lovely way to start or re-set your day.

      Okay, who’s ready for another cup?

    • All That’s Beautiful…

      “I heard the old, old men say, ‘Everything alters, And one by one we drop away.’
      … I heard the old, old men say, ‘All that’s beautiful drifts away Like the waters.’ – WB Yeats

      Most people don’t like change.  They want to stay in the same comfortable place indefinitely, go to a time share vacation at Disney World every year or to the same beach to have the same experience they had last summer.  Familiar and enjoyable, so why not do it again next year?  And that’s why people buy time shares and beach cottages and permanent camp sites for their Airstream.  There’s a lot to be said for the tried and true.  Immersion for one: Really getting to know a place by going there often.  I’ve really gotten to know a small corner of Buzzards Bay in this way, and find that I still don’t know it as well as I thought I did last time I visited.  Yes, there’s clearly benefit in returning again and again.

      But as Yeats points out, everything alters.  I look at the neighborhood I live in that once had a roving pack of 50 kids riding bicycles and playing games in each other’s yards (a rare phenomenon in the last 20 years).  All those kids are grown up and moved on.  Some new families have moved in, I don’t really know their names, and have started raising the next generation of kids.  Maybe someday the neighborhood will have those packs of kids playing again.  I hope so – otherwise all that Halloween candy goes in my mouth.

      In general I’m a big fan of change.  I’ve changed jobs when it didn’t feel right staying at a place and longer.  I moved primary residences ten times before settling on the place I currently live in, where I’ve been living for 21 years.  But I’ve painted every room in this house a different color at least twice, and some four times.  Change is part of the deal, whether we move or not.  Embrace the changes that happen around us and adapt in ways that make it work for you.  Nobody misses rotary phones, which made your finger numb when you had to dial a long number.  Nobody misses the days when you had to go into a bank to make a deposit or withdrawal instead of using an app on your phone or Venmo to complete a transaction.  Some change is good.  Its progress – the progression of humanity from one stage to another in our technological development.

      “I see my folks, they’re getting old
      And I watch their bodies change
      I know they see the same in me
      And it makes us both feel strange
      No matter how you tell yourself
      It’s what we all go through
      Those eyes are pretty hard to take
      When they’re staring’ back at you”
      – Bonnie Raitt, Nick of Time

      Then there’s the changes that happen with aging.  The progression of decline in our bodies as we grow older.  Aches and pains we didn’t have when we were kids.  Seeing those around us again as well and recognizing the path we’re all on.  I’ve got a heightened sense of awareness of this now more than ever.  We’ve considered moving to a faraway place just to change things up a bit.  Scotland, Iceland, the Azores, the Faroe Islands, Dominica and New Zealand all remain tantalizing places to relocate to for me.  Sailing around the world sounds attractive when the world is open for business, but what do we leave behind when we slip away from the dock?  I think a younger me might have made the leap had the younger me known the stakes.  The me before kids, before aging parents, and such things.  Now I’m not as sure.  But aging doesn’t mean you have to break down quickly.  Fitness is a way to stem the tide and live well in the time we have left.

      All that’s beautiful drifts away, whether we like it or not.  But its replaced by new beauty, if we only open our eyes to it.  We’re all breathing in the dust of eternity, and exhale a part of ourselves back into the universe, which makes us all connected, really.  All part of the timeless wave of humanity, surely, but also all matter.  We all have our minds wrapped around our own mind and body, but we’re just matter and energy with a soul.  The matter and energy move on in time.  Beauty doesn’t disappear, it just moves on down the chain.  We’re just links trying to jealously hold onto to it as long as possible.  But the soul is ours alone, here today, but where will it be tomorrow?  Time will tell.  Anyone who tells you they have the answer is conning you.

      My wife got a call from her mother yesterday, telling her the bad news about one of their neighbor’s kids who has cancer all over their body and isn’t expected to live more than another 18 months.  I suppose that got me thinking about old Mr. Yeats and his poem.  We’re all drifting away eventually, and sometimes much sooner than we’d prefer.  A good reminder to get on with living already, changes and all.  Life is more than a weekly paycheck and a house with a pool in the backyard and a familiar spot on the beach every summer.  Life is about making the most of ourselves in the time we have left.  Live beautifully alive, changes and all.

    • A Shelf Full of Worthy Pursuits

      “We are our choices.”  – Jean-Paul Sartre

      I found myself in a store that specializes in astronomy-related equipment like higher end telescopes and the like. I was there to upgrade my binoculars, which left a lot to be desired when hunting down that elusive Comet NEOWISE. While there he showed me a stunningly gorgeous Questar Standard 3.5 telescope that would only set me back $5000 dollars.  It was breathtaking in its detail, and I could imagine myself having it set up on the deck gazing in wonder at the universe with a glass of scotch in my hand conversing astronomy tidbits with adoring family and friends.  Enticing?  No doubt.  But I stuck with the binoculars and kept my savings account and marriage intact.  I also took his brochure on the local astronomy club and tucked that away safely on a shelf with my other worthy pursuits.  Life is about the choices we make, and Lord knows there’s an abundance of choices we can make in this country.

      “You can’t always get what you want
      But if you try sometime you find
      You get what you need”
      – The Rolling Stones, You Can’t Always Get What You Want

      You may recall a recent post about getting back into scuba diving.  I had almost the exact interaction with the dive shop I visited as the one I had at the astronomy shop, complete with cutting edge dive gear, underwater photography equipment, and that special pricing that comes when you’re in a pandemic and concessions need to be made to keep business flowing.  I’ve shelved that indefinitely as I tackle other projects, and added the brochure about scuba certification to the shelf to revisit another day. Such is the way with worthy pursuits: you can’t have it all. But you just might find you get what you need.

      “Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.” – Samuel Butler

      Those shelves that imprisoned books also hold those brochures with unfulfilled dreams of adventure travel, cooking with fire, sailing around the world, hiking the Appalachian Trail, gardening, sea kayaking and other pursuits waiting to break free, or dare I say, mastered.  Life is chock full of worthy pursuits, and full of experts to guide you down the path.  But life isn’t full of enough time to master every pursuit that strikes a fancy, and so we must choose what to live with and what to live without.  Something has to give, and the shelf is stacked with victims of the time, money and focus equation not working in their favor.  I’m very interested in astronomy, but I’m not quite there yet for jumping into the deep end on astronomy club activities and diverting $5K towards a telescope…  No, not just yet.  But hey, if we’re both still around in ten years let’s get reacquainted.

      In the casual pursuit of Comet NEOWISE, the binoculars made all the difference.  Even with wispy clouds threatening to mask the view, I was able to see the comet clearly with the new binoculars.  And here’s the reason I chose those binoculars (besides the price tag relative to the telescope of my dreams): the binoculars are small enough to fit into a backpack or a sailing bag or brought outside with a cup of coffee for backyard bird-watching.  And thus combining multiple worthy pursuits with one modest purchase.  Is that the answer when choosing the worthiest of pursuits – what offers the best bang for the buck?  Not necessarily, but surely it helps justify the initial financial step into the new-to-you.

      I may not own the title of the most interesting man in the world, but who has time to do everything anyway?  Follow your passions where they might lead you, but do it responsibly.  The world has enough attention deficit disorder with Twitter and YouTube and sound bite news.  Keep trying new things and you never know what rises to the top of the priority list.  I’m a jack-of-all-trades, who invests time to eventually master some. Or not master some but enjoy the ride anyway. I’ve seen friends drift further and further into pursuits as diverse as sailing and hiking and photography, and I recognize and admire the passion of pursuit and growing expertise within them.  Everything has its time, and some pursuits will be there when the time is right… or perhaps not at all.   There’s joy in focusing on the singular pursuit of something, and happily living with the sampler pack with other, otherwise worthy pursuits.   There’s freedom in learning to say no, not now.

    • Setting the Tone

      I had a professor in college who pointed out that the greatest books in history had great opening lines that set the tone for the everything that followed.  He pointed out the Bible as the most unambiguous example of setting the tone for everything else that follows, but you can’t forget the brilliance of Homer or Dickens or Melville.  Consider:

      “In the beginning, God created heaven, and earth.” – The Book of Genesis, Holy Bible

      “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story” – Homer, The Odyssey

      “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

      “Call me Ishmael” – Herman Melville, Moby Dick

      I’d humbly point out that great songs have a similar tendency.  And since most people seem to have shelved their discipline of reading the classics after graduation, it may be an easier example to illustrate.  Consider the following immortal songs and how the opening line sets the tone for all that comes after:

      “Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call” – Jimmy Buffett, A Pirate Looks at Forty

      “If you could read my mind love” – Gordon Lightfoot, If You Could Read My Mind

      “Something in the way she moves” – The Beatles, Something

      “Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum” – Carolyn Leigh, The Best is Yet To Come

      “Don’t worry about a thing” – Bob Marley, Three Little Birds

      “Imagine there’s no heaven” – John Lennon, Imagine

      “There must be some way out of here” – Bob Dylan, All Along the Watchtower

      And so it is that I think about the words that set the tone for this blog, and took the immortal words of Henry David Thoreau that grace the home page of this site and made them more prominent.  For his call to action is also my own, and set the tone for all that this blog aims to be:

      “Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures.” – Henry David Thoreau

      I realized somewhere along the way that this is exactly the way I try to live; rising early, seeking adventure in this day, writing about it when it deserves consideration (and perhaps sometimes when it doesn’t), savoring the day and then putting it behind me, that I might rise from care once again tomorrow.  This isn’t head-in-the-sand optimism, it’s a calling, and some days are more adventurous and free from care than others.  But string them together and you set the tone for a life more interesting.  What sets the tone for your life?  Be bold in your selection.

    • What’s a More Soulful Way to Live?

      “What’s a more soulful way to live?  What’s a way that I can benefit from the dynamism and prosperity of American society without having to play by these rules that keep us in a holding pattern?” – Rolf Potts, from his Deviate podcast

      Leave it to Rolf Potts to ask the question.  The question that drives much of what I write about, and seek in travel and reading and gardening and hiking and in lingering solitude in the early light of dawn and the spaces in between notes and in the eyes of kindred spirits.  What’s a more soulful way to live?  And this is the path I live my life on.  Travel might not be as readily available in this moment, but it will return in time.  In the meantime there’s this living thing to do, and why not make it a dance instead of a holding pattern?

       The world is alive around us. I see it in the trees as the wind swirls the leaves and branches bounce in delightful prances. In the leaves and flower buds earnestly unfolding and reaching for the light. I hear it in the birdsong and buzz of pollinators and I feel it in the dampness of the earth after a night of rain. And we are alive as well, at least for now. Shouldn’t we dance while the music’s still playing?

      I’m very good at creating to-do lists. Projects to complete, places to go, bucket lists of experiences and other such compilations. The question, what’s a more soulful way to live? is a useful lens for planning the future, but I find it as valuable as an earnest sounding board for the moment. How do I highlight this moment in time soulfully? How do I fill my remaining days with a more soulful life? Both questions have value. Life is best lived in the moment, but with a realistic eye on where you’ll be tomorrow, should it arrive.

      Collectively it feels like we’re all in a holding pattern, but that doesn’t mean we can’t live more deeply. Thoreau showed you don’t have to travel far to explore soulfully. And so it is that the trees dance, the dappled light sparkles on lingering droplets and the world wakes up around me. I find myself a witness in the moment but also a willing participant, alive and grateful for the opportunity at hand.

    • Seeing Our Soul in Things

      Weeks just fly by, we remain in a pandemic, but the writing continues.  The writing must continue.  Some days the words come to me immediately, some days it’s a struggle, but I always attempt to get about 400 words into a legible and hopefully enjoyable blog post.  Prior to writing today I read 10-11 pages of thoughts from long-dead souls before turning back to my own thoughts.  When traveling is limited, there are always books to take you places.  So I went back to 1850’s Switzerland with Amiel’s Journal and 1910 Russia with Leo Tolstoy’s Calendar of Wisdom.  I know what you’re thinking: this guy must be a lot of fun at parties.  But there’s tremendous wealth to be mined from the masters, and these books largely stand the test of time:

      “Common sense is the measure of the possible, it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life.” – Henri Frédéric Amiel

      “We are all visionaries, and what we see is our soul in things.” – Henri Frédéric Amiel

      “Do not fear the lack of knowledge, fear false knowledge.  All evil in this world comes from false knowledge.  Knowledge born in argument and discussion is to be doubted.” – Leo Tolstoy

      So these guys, language and cultural barriers aside, might be interesting at a party after all.  I could see myself diving deep into a discussion on the use of common sense in measuring the possible with Amiel, or the rise in false knowledge with Tolstoy.  These guys might not recognize the players of 2020, but they’d surely recognize the character of the players.  Just as we recognize the character of historical figures from the past.  The more things change the more they stay the same.

      Like most books, I didn’t just fall upon Amiel’s Journal and Calendar of Wisdom.  Each was referenced multiple times by other writers I’ve read.  When someone you’ve mined for knowledge and timeless wisdom points you to the source of their own development of thoughts, doesn’t it make sense to go check out that source?  And so it is that reading leads to more reading, which influences my writing, which drives an appetite for more knowledge, which brings us right to this cocktail party with Amiel and Tolstoy and me trying to keep up my end of the conversation.  But the long-dead have infinite patience with rakish amateurs like me (thanks gents).

      So if there’s a take-away from all of this, it’s to do interesting things, and read interesting things, and it will in turn make you more interesting in your writing and at random cocktail parties with dead people.  But seriously, we’re all just participating in the Great Conversation, and skipping from source-to-source collecting a wealth of information and insight that we might, if we’re lucky, develop into a philosophy of our own. Do not fear the lack of knowledge, fear false knowledge.  Go find the truth in that which you observe.  We’re all visionaries, after all, and what we see is our soul in things like the truth.  You’ll know it when you see it.

       

    • Life In Four Native American Quotes

      “When it comes time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.” – Chief Aupumut in 1725, Mohican.

      The Chief Aupumut I’ve read about was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and fought in the Revolutionary War as an important ally against the British.  He wrote an extraordinary letter to Thomas Jefferson asking for lands for a reservation in Wisconsin, so that his people wouldn’t have to keep moving further and further until they ran out of land.  He was also known as Hendrick Aupaumut, the Chief of the Muhheconneck Nation.  Given the date, the quote above may have derived from his father.  I’m not really sure, I’m relying on a web site dedicated to quotes from Native Americans.  But it took my breath away whomever the source was.  There’s a fair amount of stoicism in Aupumut’s words, not unexpected, and he challenges all of us to live more boldly in pursuit of our own dreams.  That’s a lot to live up to, living that we might die like a hero going home, but what else is this wild and precious life for if not to reach our potential?

      “What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.” – Crowfoot, Chief of the Siksika First Nation, Blackfoot warrior, peacemaker

      Crowfoot died relatively young at 60 from tuberculosis, so there’s wisdom in this quote reminding us of the briefness of life.  We’re all here for a short time, whether 60 years or 100, it’s all just the flash of a firefly in the night.  So why do we waste time on the trivial when time is so precious?  Because we don’t believe the truth before us.  There’s always another tomorrow, always next year, always an I’ll get to it…  until there isn’t.  Do it now.  If ever there was a consistent call from those who came before us its to make the most of this moment, not some future moment.

      “All who have died are equal.” – Comanche or Navajo quote (source uncertain)

      Google this quote and you’ll find multiple sources for it.  But generally it comes down to either the Comanche or the Navajo.  I wouldn’t be shocked if they both had a version of the same quote.  All who have died are equal.  And all who live are equal as well, even if treated differently.  I was raised to treat everyone the same, no matter what their skin color or nationality or sexual identity or preference.  But I’ve taken my own identity for granted, not seeing the struggles of those who fight unseen battles with those who weren’t raised the same way.  The world is full of struggles for equality and the respect and dignity of all.  But collectively we can make significant improvements in our lifetimes.

      “When a man moves away from nature his heart becomes hard.” – Navajo Expression

      There are a lot of hardened hearts in the world, removed from nature and seeing the world as asphalt and concrete and electricity.  It’s easy to dismiss climate change and consumer waste as hoaxes when you’re not immersed in nature.  How can you possibly see what you aren’t looking at?  I have seen the plastic washed up on remote beaches, and the oil slicks from spills far away.  I have noticed the shift in seasons and the haze over cities on busy commuter days.  As with equality, we can make significant improvements in our lifetimes, but we can’t wait much longer.  Perhaps a new President and Congress will prove to be the catalyst for change long overdue in the United States.  Perhaps the pandemic has given the world enough of a breather to give us the time to make meaningful change in our collective behavior.  But it always starts with us.

      I linger on the edge of nature often.  Gardening and observing the birds and bees and mammals attracted to the garden.  Hiking and getting out on the water whenever possible.  But I need to plunge deeper into the heart of it, to soften the hardness in my own heart.  We’re all that firefly in the night, with so little time.  How will we use our light?  What are you waiting for?

       

    • To Back Up or Pivot

      Try new things enough and something will go wrong.  The trick is in the recovery.  Yesterday I downloaded a new theme that would work well with Elementor to enhance the look of the blog.  Two minutes after downloading it my site was sending out random posts in Latin.  No, we can’t have that.  I copied my last five days worth of posts and used Jetpack to backup to a different version of my site.  I chose to go back two themes ago, just in case there was anything in the first iteration that triggered the mess that occurred in the second.  As I warned, the blog is a work in progress.  I’m still assessing where to take it from here, but it will continue to evolve.

      Life doesn’t always offer the do-over.  We all find ourselves wishing we’d done something differently, taken the different path, not said that stupid thing, or a thousand other mistakes that proved somewhere between disappointing, embarrassing, disastrous and devastating.  But so long as we avoid plunging too deep into the devastating bucket we’re all human and mistakes happen.  Governors in the United States are facing the real consequences of politics and public pressure over science as they re-open restaurants, bars and beaches and see COVID-19 cases spike.  But so do the rest of us.  We either take it seriously or we risk it all.  No do-overs in a pandemic.

      One troubling thing in our current culture is the tendency of people to judge others by a mistake they made.  Public shaming of people who appear to be doing something horrible or outrageous.  I think of the Covington Catholic High School kids who appeared to be confronting an older protester.  People judged them as thugs until the rest of the video was shown and it became obvious they were just reacting as they passed the man.  I’m sure those kids went through hell, and might still get some hate mail from ignorant people.  The thing is, it’s easy to judge others, it’s a lot harder to look at ourselves and see what we need to work on.

      I quietly deleted the Facebook app again yesterday.  I gave it another three months after deleting it from January to April, and frankly the ratio of angry opinion, shaming of others and political debate remains way higher than the sharing of pictures of family and friends.  Add in all the garbage Facebook is pushing on you and it just doesn’t seem to be a healthy place to hang out.  With the Election coming up in the United States, it’s only going to get worse.  So I pivoted away from Facebook once again.  If anyone wants to know what I’m up to they can find me here.  I make a point of reaching out to others and find I do it more when I don’t rely on Facebook to show me what they’re up to.

      Seeing the need for change is one thing.  Doing something about it is quite another.  Sometimes its as easy as deleting an app or backing up to a different version of your blog, but sometimes it requires a lot more work.  2020 is a year many wish we could have a do-over on.  We can’t have the time back, but we can use it well while we’re living it.  We shouldn’t always move forward, but we also can’t always back up.  Sometimes all we can do is pivot and move in a different direction entirely.  And do the work to make the present a bit better and the future better still.  Here’s to the good days ahead.

    • Dining Out in a Pandemic

      Going out for dinner in the midst of a pandemic, at least in places where people are responsible and informed, requires a shift into the “new normal”.  I’ve dined at restaurants in Massachusetts, New York and New Hampshire since restaurants began opening up again in this new normal, and I’ve taken time to observe a few things.  Before I dive in, count me among the true believers in responsible social behavior at all times, but especially now.  If you’re too casual with your behavior around social distancing, mask wearing and cleaning your hands, I make a mental note of it.  You have a right to your opinion, but mine counts too, and if you aren’t taking measures to prevent people from catching something you might have I simply won’t do business in your establishment.

      Restaurants offer much more outdoor seating than before, which somewhat makes up for the fewer and more distanced tables inside.  Everyone who walks around inside the restaurant is supposed to be wearing a mask, and it seems most everyone follows that rule, whether staff or patrons.  The gray area is the outdoor seating, where some people aren’t sure whether to wear a mask or not.  I think the rule is pretty clear: keep your mask while you’re on the property of the restaurant until you’re backside is planted in the seat they offer you.  Simple, right?  In Massachusetts and New York, the rules are clear: wear the mask or don’t go into the restaurant.  In New Hampshire, the more Libertarian “Live Free or Die” state, it’s more like a strong suggestion.  And behavior reflects this.  I saw several people walk in for a table without a mask on, many in high risk categories.  The staff wore masks at an Italian restaurant I got take-out at, but a few of the servers had the mask tucked below their nose.  Noted.

      The only place that I’ve had my temperature taken before entering was at the dentist.  Getting a haircut everyone wore masks, but there was no screening of patrons.  I checked in to my first hotel since the pandemic began and noticed the rooms are cleaned and sterilized better and the free coffee is no longer in the lobby, but there’s no screening of guests for fever.  That’s been my experience with restaurants as well.  That’s a lot to ask of a small business.  People expect you to self-screen yourself if you’re sick, and aren’t turning people away based on having a fever (if you aren’t screening how would you know anyway?).  Taking a temperature isn’t perfect anyway, and I don’t believe it should be required in most places.  I’d hope that someone who was obviously sick would be politely refused entry should they be bold enough to try.

      The northeast United States was hit by a wave of COVID-19 early, which locked down many businesses.  We tend to believe science over rhetoric around here, and most people have flipped to wearing masks as the price of entry into that new normal.  Restaurants have pivoted too, and most are doing what they can to be open and profitable in this pandemic.  No more buffets, no more candy dishes at the cash register, no more packed restaurant bar full of patrons waiting for their table (wait outside until your table is ready).  But the ones that survived are largely open for business again.  That’s dining in the northeast – follow the rules or go home.  Americans generally don’t like rules and people telling us what to do.  But we’ve all seen what happens when you just open up with no regard for the virus.  Spikes in Florida, Texas, Arizona and other states, even in the heat of summer (sorry, another incorrect Trump statement) are indicative of the danger of COVID-19.  By now we know the drill, this isn’t February people.  So act accordingly.  Eat out and support local businesses, but do it responsibly.

    • Think Like a Mountain

      “We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes – something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.…  I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades. So also with cows. The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf’s job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea.” – Aldo Leopold, Sand County Almanac

      We all have favorite writers who take our breath away.  I’ve quoted a few of my favorites frequently in this blog, but not as much Aldo Leopold as I should.  Can you read the passage above and not be breathless at the prose?  Not if you have green fire in your own eyes.  I’ve been trying to think like a mountain since I first read A Sand County Almanac in college, but I find that when you grind away at life too long, stay in too many hotels, endure too many long drives and time in airports, spend too much time in business-speak meetings, and focus a bit too much on your net income the green fire fades.  I’m finding my way back again.

      Writing every day teaches you things about yourself.  I highly recommend it if you aren’t doing it yet yourself.  I thought I heard the call to write and so I wrote, but until I started publishing something of substance every day I didn’t really understand.  Understand the process of disciplined writing.  Understand the formation of thoughts and quotes and observations and molding it into your own creation that you nurture and place gently into the world, whether it’s perfect yet or not.  Blogging isn’t writing a novel, with an editor and time to get just the right phrasing down.  You ship every day no matter what.  No expectations of glory or financial gain or viral explosions of followers, but because it matters to you that its out there.  And its transformative: You’d rarely hear me sorting things out in casual conversation the way I write about it in this blog.  I wrote yesterday about taking on too much and working to simplify things.  That’s my own version of trimming the herd to fit the range.  I just happened to publish it for all to see.

      Aldo Leopold died a week after hearing that A Sand County Almanac was going to be published.  He was only 61 at the time, and had no idea how much his book would resonate and influence generations of people.  He simply created it and gave it to the world, perhaps hopeful it would gain an audience.  He would have been amazed at how transformative his work was for the environment and for those who fight for it. Teaching generations how to think like a mountain.  It’s his enduring gift to the world.  We never really know what can happen if we just put ourselves out there, do we?