Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • Capturing the Light

      There is a scene in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty where Walter Mitty looks at a picture of Sean O’Connell.  Walter is the daydreaming, play life straight ahead guy, Sean is the bold, adventurous photographer who masterfully dances on the edge between chaos and order.  Walter looks at the picture of Sean looking back at him and sees Sean waving to him “Come on, already!” as Wake Up by Arcade Fire begins to play.  I find it impossible to not be stirred up by this scene, no matter how many times I’ve watched it.  Because that’s all of us who play life straight ahead, looking at the bold and adventurous and wanting someone in that world to look us in the eye and tell us, “Come on, already!”  Mostly we forget that we can say it to ourselves.

      I took my typical plunge into deep water this morning and watched the sun beams streaming through the forest, lighting up each leaf it landed on in thousands of fluttering florescent green glowing congregation of the faithful.  Those who remained in shadow seemed to gaze longingly at the brilliant dancers, and I understood the look as my own.  I confess I’m awestruck at moments like that, and floated in the water watching the light probe deeper into the forest and continue the dance beyond my line of sight.  Light and shadow and me treading on the surface, floating in wonder.   It occurred to me at that moment that writing is capturing the light, and having the audacity to try.  There was better poetry in that moment, and I don’t quite have the words to reveal it to the world.  But I recognized it nonetheless and work to serve the muse who patiently awaits my contribution.

      I’ve been pondering the word audacity since I woke up this morning, but I don’t feel like it’s a word I can own.  After all, I’m not living an audacious life.  I fancy myself bold and audacious, but really I’m rather conservative in every day living.  I do audacious things on occasion – little exclamation points on a moment as I’ve written about previously.  But upon further review I’m more Walter than Sean.  I suppose most of us are, and that’s the appeal of a Walter Mitty moment.

      Whenever the fog of life clogs my line of sight I put on those noise cancelling headphones and watch Arcade Fire perform Wake Up at the Reading Festival and I’m jolted to clarity.  I suppose that’s what plunging into water does for me too.  An immediate state change.  An opportunity to reset.  But ultimately I come back to the reality that I’m still in the Walter skin.  And I choose to stay in it.  Secret conspiracies for audacious living remain, but Sean hasn’t waved vigorously enough to shake the inertia just yet.  Come on, already!  Absolutely, but could you wait for tomorrow?  I’ve got to finish this project I’m working on.  That wouldn’t be a very good movie at all, would it?

      Audacity has a negative connotation, but I’m rather fond of the positive connotation.  It derives from Latin, audacia  and means daring, boldness, and courage.  Three traits we’d all like to think we have in abundance.  Like most people, I’m chafing at the bit, restless at the quarantine and the impact on travel and getting out there.  It’s hard to live audaciously when you aren’t allowed to cross borders.  But then again, maybe it’s just waiting for you to wake up and get to it already.  Audaciousness is capturing the light within ourselves and showing it to the world.  Highlighting our spirit within for the world to see.  It seems you don’t have to cross borders to be audacious.  You just have to get to it.  Cue the music.

       

    • The Second Best Time is Now

      “The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese Proverb

      Today is June 15th, which is the halfway point of the month that concludes the halfway point of the year.  The first half of 2020 felt like a decade with the massive shifts happening in the world.  I won’t subject you to a retelling of the tale now as you’re quite familiar with the journey we’ve been on.  If there’s a silver lining during this first half of the year, it’s the re-focusing on what’s important.  It’s the time with family and friends and looking at the simple things we’ve taken for granted, like going out for dinner or to a concert.

      I’m grateful for the opportunity to spend more time with immediate family, regret the opportunities lost, and look forward to getting back to it when there’s less risk to others.  Risk to others is always the calculus, not risk to myself.  I wear a mask in crowded places and wonder at the growing crowd of people who aren’t wearing one.  We aren’t there just yet folks, as much as we want to be.

      I’ve completed a long list of home improvement tasks and find that the list doesn’t get shorter.  Still, I walk around and I’m less inclined to say to myself I need to get to that someday when I look at a wall or ceiling or some other nook and cranny of this place I spend so much time in now.  Better weather has opened up an entirely new canvas for improvement.  It’s all a work in progress, and will continue until the pandemic releases its hold on us.

      I’ve taken to rowing 5000 meters at lunchtime every workday.  Weekends are reserved for other activity with the nicer weather.  Rowing replaced walking at lunchtime because it’s more efficient and there’s a timeless feeling I get when I’m on the rowing ergometer.  It could be 2020, or it could be 1990, the only thing that changes are the splits and the soreness afterwards.

      I’m ever so slowly learning French, and I’ve added Portuguese as well.  I have an eye on the world and will return to travel again someday, and speaking one language is simply not enough.  There are place to visit far from the tourist traps, where people expect some measure of knowledge of their language.  Je dois les rencontrer à mi-chemin – I’ve got to meet them halfway.  France is to be expected, but I also feel the pull of Portugal and Brazil.  And so I’ve added a third language, even before I’ve mastered the second.  Aprendi a seguir uma paixão e ver aonde ela leva – I’ve learned to follow a passion and see where it leads you.

      I’ve checked a few important boxes in my job that I’m pleased with and see all that might have been if only the world were normal. But it’s not normal and time flies relentlessly by anyway.  Some of the biggest project I was tracking have stalled in the quicksand of social isolation.  Even as things ramp up they may be a long way from where they should have been.  I’m grateful to work for a company that views the world through a long lens and measures its value by the people who work for it.

      And so we approach the second half of 2020, and more epochal moments are surely in store for us all.  There’s an election coming up in America.  Professional sports are tentatively starting up again.  People are dipping a toe back in the waters to see just how cold it really is.  And I find myself thinking about the trees I haven’t planted:

      When I was 18 I was a certified SCUBA diver.  And then I went to college and discovered rowing and girls and I gently tucked away the mask and fins and never went back to it again.  I’m told that the sport of diving is suffering a decline as people find other ways to spend time and disposable income.  I recognize the pull away from the water that’s held me away since I was a teenager, but also hear the siren call of the deep dive.  I’m going back to the deep water again, and depending on restrictions around COVID-19 I’ll do it in the second half of 2020.

      There’s another siren that’s been calling me for years, and it’s hiking.  I’ve long talked of hiking the Appalachian Trail and hold that out as my 60th birthday present to myself, when I get there.  But in the meantime I’m not hiking any other trail most days.  This won’t do at all.  I’m going back to the mountains in 2020, but not chasing others around.  I’m going to return to the 48 4000 footers in New Hampshire at my own pace, and check this box that’s been nagging me since I was a kid.

      So there you go: My own small version of Navy SEAL training.  Top of the mountains to the bottom of the sea.  Self-paced and documented.  Multilingual, multidimensional and adventurous in spirit.  Beats painting another room.  As my son would say, let’s go!

       

    • The Dreaded Screen Time Audit

      I watched a housefly bouncing about on a pane of glass, attracted to the light but unable to find a way through. We aren’t very different in this respect, are we? So focused on the bright light that we don’t see the opportunities around us. Noses pressed to screens of all shapes and sizes, and what have we to show for it?

      The fly got me thinking about my own tendency to bounce against a pane of glass. I scanned my screen time usage to see what the real story was. I don’t believe I stare at my phone all day (in fact I practice active avoidance whenever possible), but still I’m averaging five hours per day staring at my phone. Say what? But its true: 5h 10m per day. Ugh. Doesn’t seem possible! But let’s dive deeper, where was the time used?

      WordPress, Duolingo, Waze, Mail, Kindle and Podcasts are generally productive uses of my screen time. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Safari and YouTube are generally not productive uses of my screen time. I tend to write in short bursts on the iPhone, and longer writing is done on the Mac, so there’s productivity time missing from the equation. Likewise, I tend to read more on an old iPad instead of the phone, so there’s time missing there too. Podcasts, Music, Waze are all multitasking apps and generally aren’t “counted” as nose pressed to the screen apps. But there’s clearly a trend towards more social media happening right now, and that needs to be sharply reduced.

      Like the housefly, I’m bouncing against the bright glass surface and not finding another way out. Who wants to live like a housefly anyway? Not me, thank you. So I need to wean myself off again. The biggest culprit is Twitter, which has become my default news feed. There are valid reasons to be on social media in this time we live in. But what am I really getting out of it? Validation of viewpoints I already have? On my deathbed I won’t say I wish I’d spent more time on Twitter, but I might regret not spending more time outside, face-to-face with the world and the people in it. At least the ones who aren’t pressing their own noses into a screen. What does your screen time look like? If it’s more than you’d like meet me outside – we’ll take a walk and talk. No phones required.

    • Sunset

      “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

      The end of the day, the end of the weekend, and what did we accomplish? Enough? There’s always more to do, isn’t there? But fight the good fight, ignore the inner critic, and enjoy the view. Tomorrow is indeed a new day… and a Monday no less. Instead of looking backward, maybe this is a good moment to look ahead. Or better yet, maybe instead just focus on… now.

    • Smile

      O wondrous creatures,
      By what strange miracle
      Do you so often
      Not smile?
      – Hafiz, Strange Miracle

      The world is challenging at the moment.  It’s always been challenging of course, but most of us never really felt the full weight of the world like we do this year.  Still, there’s plenty of reason to smile, beginning with waking up this morning.  Hafiz pokes at us, offering a challenge to crack the stoic face more often and smile.  Life is a miracle, and we need to celebrate being alive, even as we tackle the realities of our time. A simple smile breaks the spell, and opens up the wonders of the world.  Smiling is the universal language.  God knows we need more smiles now.

      “Smile and maybe tomorrow
      You’ll see the sun come shining through for you”
      – Charlie Chaplin, Smile

      I smile more now than I did when I was younger.  I wasn’t unhappy then, I just didn’t smile as much as I should have.  Always serious.  Always earnestly charging through life. Always looking grimly ahead, focused on the task at hand.  But grim is no way to go through life.  And so I remind myself to stop being so damned serious all the time.  Bring a little joy to others; smile more.

    • Treasure Hunting

      “It’s not enough to reach the treasure, one must bring it back.” – Roger Lipsey

      I’m a collector of words and music.  I find them in the wild and then bring them back in quotes and playlists.  Perhaps that’s enough for the blog or drinks with friends, but I have all the other treasure that I’ve found that deserves another format.  That treasure I keep polishing and dodging and returning to again.  That treasure needs to be brought back.  That treasure nags me like the Arc of the Covenant burning through the box in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  It wants to get out there.  Quit dodging.

      This weekend, in an exercise in futility, I’ve cleaned the oak catkins out of the pool over and over again.  I’ve taken a leaf blower and blown them off the deck and off the driveway.  I’m being mocked by oak trees each time the wind blows and the sky fills with more catkins floating down onto just-cleaned surfaces and into the pool.  I contemplate the wisdom of putting a pool on the edge of this tree orgy, and grab the skimmer yet again.  Maybe the chainsaw would be the better tool…  but I’m committed to what was here before me.  The next owner of this house will someday have to make the same choice.  I wish them well.

      Weekends are filled with time sucks like catkin cleanup and lawn care and an endless task list.  Weekdays offer their own time commitments.  All of this is my choice.  But I the treasure won’t wait indefinitely.  I can hear it calling me even now.  What’s this?  Catkin cleanup?!  Time isn’t your friend, and I want to be set free. I’ll honor the call – promise – but first I need to clean out the pool skimmers.  And take some allergy medicine.  But the treasure grows impatient, like a jilted lover looking for another partner to dance with.  Quit dodging already.

    • Life, Intensified

      “The purpose of art is not a rarified, intellectual distillate—it is life, intensified, brilliant life. – Alain Arias-Misson

      I stepped into the deep end early this morning, plunging straight down to touch the bottom and felt my body slowly rise with thousands of bubbles tickling my skin as we all escaped to the surface together. I slowly rolled over as we reached our destination and looked at the blueness of the sky broken by the oak leaves that were finally, grudgingly waking up to Spring to join the maples in leafing out. The sunlight streamed through them all, coaxing them awake to dance with the light. Of all my morning routines, the plunge is the one I love the most. When you live in the north you think about these moments in the frozen months. You welcome them back with ecstasy in Spring and reluctantly return them to memory in Autumn. These are the moments when the world disappears and you feel most alive.

      I write to wring out these moments of aliveness and capture them in words. To dance with the light and rise above the depths of routine. And I seek out co-conspirators, searching for the vibrancy of fellow light dancers betrayed by subtle actions and a twinkle in the eye. If art intensifies the brilliance of life, the like-minded amplify it and coax you to do more, just as the sunlight draws out those oak leaves. And when you can’t always find them in the wild, you might read their words or see their art and know you aren’t the only one. We all rise together, like a chorus or a thousand bubbles swirling from the depths to break the welcoming surface once again.

    • Owning a Pool

      I dove into deep water Saturday, grateful for the pool heater and the money to pay for the luxury of it.  I’m pretty sure that if I had to do it all over again I’d never have invested in a pool. I’m not wealthy, but I might be if I didn’t have it.  And since I made the financial leap 13 years ago who am I to ignore it now?  A pool has a price that goes beyond the installation and maintenance costs.  It’s an anchor in your backyard that holds you just as firmly as a garden does.  When I installed the pool I had two young children and a highly active Labrador retriever (dog ear infections from swimming too much: yet another hidden cost).  The children are adults now, the retriever has finally escaped the fences of this world, and I’m still looking at a hole in the ground that doesn’t care whether I want it there anymore as long as I feed it money.

      To say I have a tenuous relationship with the pool is an understatement.  But we’ve recently resolved some of our differences.  It involved money, naturally.  If time is money, then I’ve given a lot of my lifetime to this pool, and I was feeling a bit resentful.  The last straw was the pool heater failing a year ago and the water never really warming up to acceptable levels for the masses.  And so it became an expensive water feature in the garden, with trees shading it just enough that it never really got comfortable, even on the hottest days.  And so this year we ponied up the cash and fixed the heat exchanger, dodging a $6000 replacement cost with an $800 repair.  How long it lasts is anyone’s guess, but the pool is warm enough for the fair weather fans.  And I danced the gleeful dance that only a pool owner can understand; I only spent $800 this time!

      Look, I know a large percentage of the population is unemployed and struggling to make ends meet.  I know that having a pool available when you’re under quarantine is surely a luxury, and don’t think for a minute that I’m not grateful for it now.  I’ve been unemployed with the pool and two kids to feed and know both sides of this story.  For the moment the pool and I are peacefully coexisting, and I’m grateful for the good fortune.  With the kids home all summer, the pool may be used more than it has been in years.  But I see the pool liner fading, and the cracks in the stamped concrete, and the louder hum the pump is making, and I know that this toll road continues indefinitely.  A pool is a lot like a boat in this way, but without the travel.  If there was ever a year to have it, it’s 2020.  And so I’ll continue to throw money in the hole and hope for some measure of return on my investment.  That ROI is measured in laps, and I have my work cut out for me to make it worthwhile.  Better jump in again…

    • The State of Things

      “For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.” – Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

      I paid a friend to mow my lawn for ten years. I traveled often and didn’t have the time to keep up with it, so I’d simply throw money at the problem and it would be done. Something happens to your yard when you aren’t out in it doing the work. It pulls back from you, feeling shunned perhaps, or maybe reasserting the wild tendencies that were always there, but corralled in suburbia. Walk in the woods and count the cellar holes and stone fences and you’ll know the truth: The land has a longer memory than our lifetime.

      Over the last few years I’d walk about the yard on some gardening task, looking at the state of things. The lawn was cut well, with fine lines at expert angles, but the lawn itself was in a sorry state. So we’re the beds and walkways. In fact the whole yard was feeling a bit worn down and neglected. Sure, I’d rake or spread mulch or pick up the fallen branches after a storm, but the land was slowly returning to a wild state. I’d spent all my time at home on the garden and potted plants, and was getting the cold shoulder from the rest of the yard. No, this won’t do.

      The first step in repairing a damaged relationship is to put in the time building trust back. So I bought a Honda push mower that forces me to walk every step of the land and with the warmer weather I’m out there walking the property. You notice things when you walk every step of the land, things like the quality of the soil in certain places, and weeds you don’t have a name for, and chipmunk holes, and roots and stumps from experiments gone bad. Each step brought me closer to the truth, and forced me to reconcile my decade of indifference to the land. I’d have to do better.

      Eventually travel will return, and weather windows will make mowing an inconvenience. But other excuses like soccer games and basketball tournaments and dance recitals have given back time I’d used to justify the hired help now that the kids are adults. And I’ve found that I enjoy getting to know the land again. It keeps me honest with myself. It’s a form of penance for a decade of neglect, and I don’t seem to mind at all. There’s work to be completed, seasons to mark, tasks at hand, projects to do. A slow march to the infinite, one step at a time. The land might reject me still, but I’m back on it anyway, trying to keep up with the state of things and learning lessons along the way.

    • Catching a Scent of Kiwi

      A flash of memory and I was suddenly on a 28 foot Islander motoring into the mouth of the Merrimack River late in the night after a long, wonderful evening ’round Isle o Shoals, music playing loud and rum flowing freely. We were lucky that night, reckless as we were, but all highly focused when it counted.  And entering the treacherous mouth in the dark is one of those times when it counted.  The entire night is a shared conspiracy between the three of us, and the stories usually come out with the rum.

      That sailboat was full of challenges and maintenance issues and most of all an unplaceable odd smell we just couldn’t get rid of. The smell was the deal breaker, and we finally sold her to an eager gentleman with resolve to bring her back. I recognized that resolve, but that boat broke me just as it probably broke him. I hope not though – I’d like to think that she got a complete facelift and is defiantly darting across the waves as she once did.  She was a great sailor, that Islander.  She had a great name too: Kiwi.  But her body odor was just too…  off-putting.

      Like a bad relationship you can’t get past, I’d like to sail again, but I’m scarred by the first one.  I know the cost of a big boat. Money is one thing, but time is another. There’s nothing wrong with spending either if you’re all in, but I’m not all in. Not now anyway.  And so I crew on other boats in normal times.  And I sail on small boats when the opportunities come up.  And I scheme and plan for ways to get back on the water again.  And follow the adventure of others who do.  When the respiratory vapor settles on this pandemic I’m picking up a small boat to sail around the bay.  One small way to stay in the game.  I know the logistics of that aren’t small either, but nothing meaningful is easy.  And sailing is meaningful.