Alexandersmap

    Category: Culture

    • Acorns and All

      The farm through the woods lets the horses loose to run, and I love being outside when it happens; seeing them flash through the trees as they gallop up the hill. This time of year, when the trees between us stand dormant and naked, it’s easy to see them as they run. When the leaves fill in the flash fades from view but I’ll often hear them whinnying to each other and I’m left imagining their joyful charge. When the horses run I’m reminded why I stay in this place.

      The snow is long gone in Southern New Hampshire. All that’s left now is the fallen branches and a million acorns from a bumper crop that fell relentlessly last November. March brings cleanup work and assessment of damage done. Raking those acorns up yesterday I watched the moon rising above the trees. The moon seemed in a hurry to get above it all, and her progress was better than my acorn cleanup. But eventually I got it done, feeling a bit better about the state of things outside. Other neighbors without oak trees don’t have to deal with acorns, but I’ll take the oak trees and live with the trade-off, thank you. It felt good to be outside doing something anyway. I just wish they would be a bit less giving in return.

      Woodpeckers duel for loudest drumbeat on trees out in the woods, and the Mourning Doves sing their sad songs to each other. Their population seems to be increasing at a pace similar to the wild turkeys that roam the woods and spill over into the yard now and then. A mild winter seems to have helped the local wildlife. I know that means the tick population will thrive as well. The human population of Southern New Hampshire grows as developers snap up open space. Maybe the wildlife is just being pushed closer because their natural habitat is shrinking. Hard for me to tell for sure, but it seems related. I know the woods will remain protected but I wonder about the horse farm. I’ll know it’ll be time to move when they develop it. I have no patience for encroachment but I’m a realist. Unchecked development will change this place too. I’m grateful for the good, put up with the bad and wonder about the world as we try to mold it to fit our needs. For my part I’ll keep the oak trees, acorns and all, and hope whoever settles here after me has the same sense of wonder about the world around us.

    • Five Mornings of Watching the World Go Mad

      “I live
      in the open mindedness
      of not knowing enough
      about anything.”
      – Mary Oliver, Luna

      I woke up early, restless and ready to move on from this place at 4:30 AM.  I get like this sometimes.  It’s the fifth morning I’ve woken up in a different place, this time I slept in Poughkeepsie, New York.  This town has meaning for me; I once slept in my car near the boathouse at Marist College back when it didn’t seem like a big thing to do such things.  I’d taken one look around the full boathouse we were all going to sleep in and opted for quiet over shared suffering.  Come to think of it, I still steer in that direction.

      In a week of accelerating news stories about Presidential campaigns and Coronavirus, I’ve been operating under the cloak of business travel.  I gave up on trying to find a bottle of hand sanitizer after the fourth store clerk shrugged and talked of orders pending.  A woman in Glens Falls told me “the virus is close now, with confirmed cases in New York City and Albany”.  It feels too much like a scene in a movie for me.  I just want to have my hands not smell like gasoline after I fill up the car, but I guess I’ll need to ration what I have left in my travel bottle.  The world goes mad sometimes, and Coronovirus has kicked the hoarder’s nest.

      I have more travel in the next couple of weeks, and candidly I thought about cancelling some of it.  Not because I’m an alarmist, but because I’m a pragmatist.  Who needs the drama of flights and edgy fellow travelers around you?  Who needs the potential lockdown of a city I happen to be in at the time?  I love the ocean but I’m just not hopping on a cruise ship right now, thank you.  I saw World War Z, I know what happens when the virus rips through a plane full of people.  I’m not Brad Pitt, there’s no way I’d survive that.

      All this comes up when you wake up at 4:30 on the fifth morning of business travel.  I didn’t feel this way Monday morning in Buffalo, or Tuesday in Rochester.  I had some trepidation in Syracuse on Wednesday but felt great about the world on Thursday in Saratoga Springs.  Then again, it’s hard not to feel like the world is a beautiful place when you spend a little time in Saratoga Springs.  Which brings me to Poughkeepsie, on the shores of the Hudson River.  I once jumped in the frigid Hudson right about this time in March back as a freshman in college too many years ago after we won a race.  At the time that seemed the logical thing to do.  Sort of like buying all the Purell at the local pharmacy just in case you need it when Coronavirus madness starts going down.  Sometimes we get inspired by the odd behavior of those around us.  And that’s why I don’t watch the news or hang out with large groups of angry people.

      Look, I don’t know enough about Coronavirus to know whether traveling the next two weeks is a good idea or not.  On the surface it seems better to just stay home and let things play out.  But I’m a traveler at heart, and if everyone else stays home I may just have a little more virus-free air to breath.  I do know I’ve really improved my hand-washing skills, and I try not to touch my face with my hands.  I don’t mind when someone doesn’t want to shake hands, but I don’t shrink back in horror when they offer their hand in greeting.  I mean, that’s what Purell is for…  if you can find any.

      This all seems a little smug, and I apologize for that.  I’m taking a potential pandemic very seriously, but I don’t watch the news and I don’t hoard dust masks, vodka and Purell (maybe a little rum).  I think the best thing we can do is be a little diligent with our personal hygiene, stay out of crowded indoor places, and give those who might be a little vulnerable a little distance in case you have the virus and don’t know it.  If things spiral into madness tap into your water heater for drinking water and carbo load on rice.  All that is unsolicited advice from someone figuring it out like you are.  The only thing I’m sure about is that you really should wash your hands better.

    • The Sometimes Saucy Pedantic Wretch

      I was presenting a PowerPoint slide translated from German to English Tuesday, wrapped up our meeting and was discussing a few key points when a woman next to me quietly yet publicly slid a piece of paper across the table to me. It seems there was a typo on one of the slides and she was helping me out by pointing out the incorrectly spelled word next to the correctly spelled word underlining the misplaced “a” in “intuitive” and the correct “i”. Yup, I saw it immediately, laughed and thanked her. Sometimes you see things that bug you so much that you won’t hear anything else in the entire meeting, and that happened to her.

      I understand where she’s coming from. I fight pedantic tendencies myself and understood her need to fix something that clearly needed fixing. That she did it in front of the group in the meeting might have angered some, but for me it was a chance to laugh about it. I stopped worrying about such things years ago, and I was presenting other people’s material so how could I take it personally? But I immediately corrected the slide so it wouldn’t happen again (Never allow distractions to linger in your presentations).

      I rarely use the word “pedantic” in a sentence. And I certainly wouldn’t ever combine words like “saucy pedantic wretch” into a phrase, but when I saw the three linked together in a poem I smiled. I mean, who does that? See there? My own pedantic tendencies flaring up. Anyway, I plucked these words out of a John Donne poem called The Sun Rising because they leap off the screen in a magical swirl just as they likely did for Donne as he put pen to paper writing them.

      When someone uses the word “pedantic” or “wretch” they’re flagged in some circles as aloof. In this world of hipster speak who uses old dead guy words? Then again, the person lacing their sentence with clever words may well pity us our grasp of the English language. But a firm grasp of vocabulary can be either a gift or a verbal Heisman pushing people away: it’s all in how you use it. As I clumsily stumble along learning a bit of the French language I’m reminded to be more humble with the English language. It was clever for the muse to slip that Donne poem into my reading this morning. It got me thinking that, sure, sometimes I might be a saucy pedantic wretch too. But I have a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor about it. Ever since I read that poem I find myself swirling those words together like a tropical drink. And so I offer a toast to wretches everywhere.

    • The Calendar Waltz

      They say people are increasingly stressed out on Sunday night with anticipation for the work week. I don’t tend to get stressed anymore. Being in a job I like helps, but so does structuring my days with some measure of sanity. Looking at my calendar this Monday morning, I see that the week is fully booked. That is as it should be, but this year I’ve looked at my schedule through a different lens; Is this block on my calendar the best use of my time?

      “A busy calendar and a busy mind will destroy your ability to do great things in this world.” – Naval Ravikant

      Naval throws out a challenge with this statement. And I struggle with the idea of not being busy all the time. On the face of it I know it’s true, but I tend to overbook myself anyway. There is a rush in being busy, but busy doesn’t translate into productive. Nor does busy equal effective. The next time you watch a great TED talk, pay attention to the gaps; the pregnant pause between words. Space to digest what is being said is critical in a great presentation. And space is equally important in our day-to-day. Increasingly, I use the time in between meetings as quiet time to assess what just happened and what will need to happen in my next scheduled meeting for things to progress. No chatter on the radio if I’m driving, no background music if I’m in the office. This is my space in between to reset my mind, line up my follow-up items, take action as required and to think.

      I write this with an eye on the clock, as it ticks towards a stack of consecutive meetings. I’ve just finished a long drive, reset to write, and will jump back into the day. This pause keeps me sane, more effective when I switch back “on” and overall happier in my life. I’m eager to begin the day, as opposed to being stressed about what I’m forgetting or rushing to a meeting cursing and distracted. I’m all in on the open spaces in the calendar. They make the rest of it more of a waltz than a forced march. Isn’t that a better life?

    • Basketball and Icarus

      “Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew…
      I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph.”
      – Jack Gilbert, Failing and Flying

      Last night I watched the last regular season basketball game of my son’s career. With four teams bunched up in the standings with the same conference record at the start of the game, there was a lot to play for, the winner of this game would move on to the playoffs, the loser would go home.  A similar reality was playing out in gyms in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine.  This was the end of some players’ triumph.

      As a parent you think maybe your kid will make the travel basketball team.  If they have some skills you think they may make their High School team, and play AAU ball on a team with good coaching.  And in the back of your mind you calculate the odds of your kid playing in college.  For the record, the odds of a High School basketball player playing in an NCAA college basketball program – that’s Division I, II and III, is 3.4%.  So for the thousands of kids playing basketball and rising through the ranks, only a very small percentage actually play in college.  Crazy small odds when you think of it.

      For my son, basketball was an obvious choice.  He’s always been a head taller than everyone else, he’s always been athletic and he’s very “coachable”.  He’s never been the leading scorer on any team after Middle School, but has always been a leader on the court and a strong defensive presence.  I’m slightly biased, but the team seems better when he’s on the court most of the time.  He had one hurdle that limited him; he had a tendency to pass up shots and open lanes and pass the ball instead.  In a game that’s played more and more at the perimeter, centers are less prioritized than they once were on the offensive end.  But put him on the defensive end and watch him shine.  He’s in the top five in blocks in the conference playing a third of the minutes of the others on the list.

      He grew up playing ball in the Merrimack Valley in Massachusetts.  The Merrimack Valley is a mix of tough city kids and suburban kids.  When you play in the Merrimack Valley you quickly grow a thick skin or you fade away.  I’ve watched a lot of wild college games with hostile home crowds, but I’d put an Andover-Central Catholic or Lawrence-Lowell game up against most college games for level of intensity and the passion of the crowd.  Basketball players are either baked or burned in this environment, and college coaches know it.  Recruiters started talking to my son and many other players during fall league games at “The Barn” in North Andover during fall ball games, and would pop up at games throughout the rest of the season.  College recruiting is a game in itself, and you feel both honored and at times bewildered by the experience.  Where’s the best fit?  Will he actually play there or are they stacking players?

      The best advice we ever heard was to choose the college first and the program second.  If your child doesn’t love the school, they won’t want to stay there.  If they don’t love the program they can still stay at the school and get a degree.  When you get a school they love with a program they like, playing with teammates they love, that’s the best scenario. And that’s where we found ourselves over the last four years.  It carried our son through major injuries and a change in playing philosophy in the program that emphasized shooters on the perimeter over big guys in the paint.  He loved his school, loved his teammates, and respected the program and stuck with it.  No regrets.  His last two points on his home court were an emphatic put-back dunk, his first dunk after two years of building his ankle strength back up.  His last dunk was on this basket two years earlier when a player came down on him as he grabbed a defensive rebound. He wouldn’t play again for a long time, and wouldn’t dunk again until this, his last home game. It came with exactly one minute left on the clock, and it was the perfect cap on those last two years of struggle.  It’s a grainy screen shot from the game video, but I love it because it shows him in flight, near the end of his own journey in this game.

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      For any basketball player to be playing college basketball at any level is a triumph.  A very small number will move on to the NBA or to coaching, but this is the end for almost every one of them.  It’s the culmination of years of playing and learning, injuries and setbacks, making teams and not making other teams, growing as people and learning important life skills like time management and mutual respect and unselfishness and risk-taking.  As with every game, it gets harder as you grow with it, but you do grow with it.  And as a parent I’ve grown with it too.

      And so we found ourselves in a gym in Maine on Senior night for the team we were playing against.  They were ahead of us in the standings walking in, but both teams knew that the winner wrote their ticket in, the loser had to hope others lost for them to move forward.  As it happened those other teams won their games while our teams played each other, setting up the win or go home scenario.  Parents watched scores on their phones, knowing more than the players did.  But the players knew the stakes.  I found myself drawn to a guard from the other team as the clock ticked down and our team holding a tenuous lead in the game.  Tears were in his eyes, and he’d pull his jersey up to wipe them away.  His coach, seeing his emotion, shouted at him to be ready for the ball should he get one more shot to win it.  That chance disappeared as time ran out on the game and the regular season.  One team moving on to the playoffs, one team at the end of their triumph. But surely a triumph for all of them, being here, playing this game at this level.

    • Buddy, Can You Spare a Mask?

      I’m currently renovating a bathroom in my house, the second time in a year I’ve tackled a bathroom renovation. I’m either ambitious or a slow learner. But for now let’s call it the pragmatic use of acquired skills and available time. Why pay someone to do what you can do if the task is worthwhile?

      Step one in renovation (after confirming permit requirements) is demolition of the old bathroom. Demolition is the process of taking what used to be in your everyday life out of your life forever, using reciprocating saws, hammers pry bars and a lot of sweat equity. With the right mindset this can be a fun workout, like a reverse jigsaw puzzle with power tools. This is pure bliss when things are going right. But for things to go right you need to take a few precautions along the way. Things like turning off water supplies and circuit breakers for areas that you’re working on. Using drop cloths to protect areas not being demolished. And wear safety equipment.

      And that brings me to the strange way that coronavirus in China disrupted my bathroom renovation in New Hampshire. It seems the world has gone mad, and something as mundane as a dust mask for protecting your lungs from fiberglass dust have disappeared from the shelves of box stores and local hardware stores alike. Construction dust masks don’t even filter out viruses; viruses are too small and mock these dust masks as they fly into your lungs. That’s why they call them “dust” masks. But tell that to the zealous hoarders of all masks, sure that the apocalypse has arrived, snapping up shopping carts full of dust masks not matter what they’re rated for. On second thought, don’t bother, they’re not listening anyway. If you’re buying that many masks you’re uniquely focused on anything but reason.

      The quest ultimately ended successfully even as it delayed my start time. I did find a box of dust masks rated for general construction dust, not optimal but good enough for the task at hand. With a mask and safety glasses affixed to my face I cut the fiberglass bathtub into pieces and removed all the debris to the dumpster bag outside. Having done this before I knew the most efficient process and completed my demolition in time to clean up and go to dinner with friends. As a bonus I had an ice breaker story about the lingering elastic marks on my face and a tale of misguided mask hoarders. Coronavirus surely requires diligence, public awareness and precaution, but not dust masks. Could you leave a few for the rest of us? I mean, this bathroom isn’t renovating itself?

    • The Dangerously Distracted Among Us

      It’s happened a few times now.  I’ll be driving along and notice the erratic driving of a certain driver ahead of me.  Speed varying from well below the speed limit to well above.  Drifting from side to side in their lane, or well out into the oncoming traffic lane.  It’s clear that this driver is staring at their phone intently, completing some text or email, or maybe watching Netflix for all I know.  All I know is they’re a hazard to all around them. What’s scary is that I’ve been behind this car a few times, or worse,  I’ve been coming the opposite direction and see him straddling both lanes on the street and swerving back to his lane abruptly.  The sad part?  I know this guy.  He’s my next door neighbor.

      This guy is a divorced home siding salesman for a large box store.  He lives in a pretty large home with two cars permanently parked in the driveway.  He has no children, no pets, and is rarely home.  The house sits empty for weeks at a time, and then he’ll just show up again for some period of time.  He’s the kind of neighbor who blows the snow from his driveway onto the street, expecting the town to clear it away.  He does the same thing with lawn clippings in the summertime, which he mows infrequently enough that it’s a green mess in the street.  He’s not the sharpest tack in the drawer, so nobody believes he’s being antagonistic to his neighbors, he’s simply ignorant.  I don’t believe he’s a serial killer, but he is definitely a serially distracted driver.  And I wonder when he’s going to run over a jogger or drive head-on into an oncoming car.  He’s a ticking time bomb in this way.

      We live in a world full of highly distracted people.  Thankfully most aren’t as dangerous as this guy is.  I was at a basketball game last night and looked around during a timeout at 75% of the people staring at their phones.  There are legitimate reasons to check your phones – checking on the kids, looking at the standings and scores of rival teams playing a game or the statistics for the game your watching.  I get that, and I do the same thing.  But I’m doing my best to limit the screen time.  And I’ve made it a rule to not be like my neighbor, driving like an idiot, staring at nothing important on his phone while driving a killing machine at terminal velocity just looking for some kid on the side of the road.

      I once walked into a fire hydrant while reading the back cover of a book.  I’m not proud of it, but I laugh at myself sometimes thinking back on it.  It’s charmingly, stupidly analog to think about now, but I managed to do it.  Walking down the sidewalk and bang!  Shin, meet cast iron.  That hurt like hell for a few minutes but taught me a lesson.  Focus on where you’re going, not what you’re reading.  That certainly applies in the world of today.  I don’t find my neighbor’s texting and driving very funny at all, and I’ve thought about how to handle the situation.  He’s not a person I talk to often, even though he lives right next door to me.  Those interviews with the neighbors of the person who went postal?  Yeah, I can totally see myself being that guy talking about that other guy.  And my other neighbors would agree.

      I’d love to wrap this up with a bow, saying I spoke with this dude and he saw the error of his ways, apologized and changed on the spot.  But he’s not a guy you have a heart-to-heart conversation with.  He’s a bit of a moving target, pun not intended.  For now, I shake my head in disbelief and frustration whenever I see him driving.  And of course, give him a lot of space.  I’ve taught my kids that it’s not just that you’re distracted when you’re looking at your phone, it’s that when you aren’t paying attention you can’t avoid the other idiots on the road who are looking at theirs.  There’s no better example for them than the guy next door.

    • The Sorting of Stuff

      “Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests, and mines, and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

      We’re all built on the stuff of those who came before us. We inherit the good and the bad stuff, and become who we are based on how we sort it out. Some sort it out quickly, some never quite get there. We’re all a work in progress.

      Whenever I feel a little tapped out on the writing, I fill the bucket back up by reading more, or getting outside. It’s no secret, really, every creative person says this. They say it because it’s true. I don’t believe in writers block, I believe in closed-mindedness, distraction, laziness and apathy. Those are the Four Horsemen I struggle with, and the best way to shake free of their grip is to move the body and move the mind. I have curiosity, patience, persistence, and empathy in my favor, if I just feed them.

      Reading and then quoting Emerson sparks the imagination, which in turn primes the writing pump. The writing in turn is a sorter of stuff, stuff like the quotations that I picked up from my ancestors, stuff like an antagonist when I was 13 who had some twisted quotations in his own life manifested in targeting fellow students, stuff like the picked up pieces from reading and encounters with people over decade after decade on this planet.

      There are other stuff sorters. I’ve sorted a whole lot of stuff walking. Steps stacked on top of each other sort stuff as well as anything I know of. Maybe you meditate, or go to therapy, or talk to a close friend about your own darkest stuff, and that’s good. Everyone should sort their stuff in their own way. Mine is walking and writing. That’s my quotation from my ancestors I suppose, all gift wrapped in a baby blanket. God knows it could’ve been a lot worse.

      Here’s the scary part: I’m passing my own quotations on to the next generation, mixing sorted and unsorted stuff alike into my marriage, parenthood, and the relationships I have with friends and coworkers and siblings and random strangers and blog readers. I feel compelled to sort as best I can in the time I have. We’re all wading through the muck in our own way. Sort it out or get stuck in it. Pass on the best quotations and try to leave the worst behind.

      The world is full of loud people sorting their stuff out in public. The people who have sorted things out a bit better in their lives tend to avoid that kind of look at me spotlight. Which makes the world seem quite mad if you look around at all the screamers, zealots and provokers prodding for your attention. I’m inclined to tune out the noise, seek out the well-sorted souls and build my house of quotations from better material. A foundation built in muck will only sink. Climb to the higher, more solid ground, look around at the better view, and set your foundation there. If nothing else it makes for more stable ground for those who follow you to build on.

    • What a Turkey

      I watched a pair of turkeys walk through the woods, hop the fence and beeline right for the bird feeders, where the buffet of dropped seed from smaller birds is readily available. As they walked across the frozen backyard one of the turkeys slipped on the icy ground, jerked awkwardly and recovered. “Nothing to see here”, it seemed to say. I did a similar move yesterday in dress shoes on a patch of ice. It seems I’m not the only turkey trying to walk on ice.

      Once, wild turkey were a novelty here, perhaps
      twenty years ago, or so. You’d see them now and then, but now…. To see thirty turkey dominate the front yard? Gobbling and bickering, like they own the place? Commonplace. And so is the evidence of their visit, in tracks all over the yard and turkey turds everywhere. No, this won’t do. When Bodhi was alive he’d keep these turkey at bay, but nowadays there’s no deterrent for them. My yard has become free range for poultry.

      I suppose others thought the same thing when we moved in, acting like we owned the place. Cutting down trees, putting up sheds and fences and dropping swimming pools into the ground. Our tracks are more permanent than these other turkeys. So who am I to complain about these characters coming into my yard? It’s only mine because a bank and lawyers say it’s mine. I’m just a turkey with a mortgage. These other turkeys? They might just be smarter than me.

    • People Watching at the Airport

      Arriving early at the airport for my flight home, I knocked off a few thousand steps walking around the terminal. I’m stuck by the commitment to drinking at 7 AM as I passed bar after bar of people nursing adult beverages. I’m no prude, and you never know what time zone someone in an airport is from, but still, it was noteworthy. Then again, I’m on business travel, others are starting vacations, going to the Super Bowl, or calming pre-flight jitters. I don’t get jitters, I’m not going to the Super Bowl, and work beckons. But first those steps.

      I have emails dropping in my in-box and a business plan to write. I have follow-up to do after a week on the road. There’s no time for people-watching, but my eyes are drawn upward to the steady stream of people walking by on their long walk to faraway gates. Well, most are walking, while a few are sprinting at full speed, rolling luggage precariously skimming along beside them. Others are taking the courtesy carts, which hum on by, beeping warnings to drowsy zig-zaggers.

      I check email, draft a few bullet points for the business plan, stretch and look around again. More people streaming by. And more masks than normal as coronavirus makes the news-readers voices pitch upward in alarm and people who take precautions. The world isn’t a healthy place at the moment, with people and the planet exhibiting symptoms of larger problems. I have an equally-low tolerance for climate deniers and conspiracy theorists and party-first politicians alike. I know I don’t know everything, but I’ll be the first to admit that. Zealots who announce they have it all figured out if you’ll just trust their what they say (but not what they do) have no place in my world, thank you. But as you watch the stream of people walking by, you see that we’re all just people making our way from here to there. We’re all on the same journey, even the charlatans.

      I used to think I didn’t like Kobe Bryant or Alex Rodrigues, not because they’re bad people, but because they weren’t on the teams I was rooting for. Bryant passing away highlighted what a great person he was: by all accounts a great dad who was using his money and influence to make the world a better place. I noticed a change in myself about these characters you build up in your mind, opinions formed about someone based on a uniform or a political affiliation. I’m getting better at not passing judgement on people, and travel helps with that. We’re all pretty much the same, with a few outliers muddying up the waters. As I watch people walk by I’m not thinking about MAGA hat-wearers or liberal “woke” activists or which team someone cheers for in the Super Bowl. Maybe I need to stop judging zealots and charlatans too? You don’t have to follow someone just because they’re going in a direction you aren’t going in.

      If Kobe Bryant’s sudden death did anything, it was unite very different people in celebration of a life and mourning for it ending too soon. We’re all just marching down the terminal of life, expecting a certain destination we aren’t guaranteed. Given the tenuous nature of our time here, doesn’t it make sense to support each other on the journey? I think so anyway. And now you’ll have to excuse me, I have a plane to catch.