Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • Sailing the Gulf of Maine

      The Gulf of Maine is a corner of the Atlantic Ocean embraced by Cape Cod to the South and Nova Scotia to the Northeast.  The longest stretch of land in between is part of Maine, which gives the gulf her name.  If you look at Alexander’s map, which this blog is named for, the body of water is just below the land described as “New Englande” and “New Scot Lande”.  A land mass that I’ve grown to love, that I declared I’d explore more, and that I need to return to in earnest once this pandemic is behind us.

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      Yesterday we had the opportunity to sail on Fayaway with friends.  It was an out-and-back sail with one tack.  We left the Merrimack River where they moor Fayaway when they aren’t exploring the world and sailed generally on a compass heading of 90 degrees, which took us roughly along the coast of Maine just out of sight of land.  Sail for 18 miles out one way, tack and return 18 miles the other way.  Not a lot of tactical sailing required, which was perfect for a day of conversation and contemplation on the water.  We had a secondary objective of seeing whales and maybe that evasive Comet Neowise, but each proved elusive on this trip.  A sunfish made an appearance, which was akin to an understudy playing the role when you came to see the star: Wasn’t what you came for, but turned out to be entertaining just the same.

      When we got out of the lee shore of Cape Ann the wave action picked up, with 3 to 6 foot swells that lifted Fayaway and reminded us we were well out at sea.  But Fayaway handles wave action well, and with her sails reefed in the 28 – 30 knots of sustained wind were comfortable for the duration.  Which invited conversation about travel and plans for the future and the kind of catching up you do when it’s just you and others and the wind and splash of waves for hours.

      I’ve learned that I’m a bit rusty with ancillary sailing terminology that goes deeper than the basic rigging, and assisted where appropriate while staying out of the way the rest of the time.  When you see a couple who have sailed together for a year covering thousands of miles you’re witnessing a well-choreographed dance.  I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer but I know enough not to be the clumsy fop who thumps onto stage mid-act.  Instead be the quiet stagehand who puts away the props when the performers are done.  I was grateful for a patient crew who recognized the rustiness in this sailor.

      There are a few highlights when you sail up the coast from the Merrimack.  You begin with the chaos of the Merrimack River with powerboats and jet-skis racing to win perceived races to get “there”.  It reminded me of aggressive drivers on the highway shifting two lanes and back to get one car ahead.  Its the antithesis of the sailing we were doing, and I greatly prefer being out of that race.  Once you clear the Mouth of the Merrimack, sails are up and you set course for nowhere in particular.  The lines of umbrella stands on Salisbury Beach and elbow-to-elbow fishermen and women on charter boats indicate that social distancing is a guideline many choose to ignore.  I’m sure plenty were doing their best to be socially responsible, while others proved more reckless.  I considered the similarities between drivers on the highway, power-boaters racing each other in a narrow channel to get to the fish first and close-talking beach umbrella bunnies in a pandemic for a moment, and released the thought onto the breeze.  We all live our lives in our own way in America, if not always responsibly.  I was observing from the vantage point of a sailboat in close proximity with another couple, but with the mutual assurance that each couple was taking appropriate measures to avoid COVID-19 exposure.  Maybe those beach throngs were doing the same thing.  I hope so.

      Soon Fayaway moves beyond umbrellas, beyond the sight of land, beyond the hum of motorboats, and we’re in our own world.  For much of the duration of our trip out and back we were completely alone other than a couple of commercial fishing vessels busily working the waters of the gulf.  Time on the water gives you time to ponder and think, and, if you let it, to look through the swirling waves deep into yourself.  And Sunday became another micro adventure for the books.  Leaving terra firma for the sea and exploring a relatively small segment of the Gulf of Maine.  It served as a reminder that I have far to go, but where I am isn’t all that bad either.

    • 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.

    • Hiking Mount Tecumseh on a Foggy Night

      It seemed like a good idea at the time is a beginning statement that might indicate more adventure than bargained for.  And so it was that I hiked solo up Mount Tecumseh at 6:30 PM on a random Thursday, with noble intent to meet the Comet Neowise halfway by climbing a relatively easy mountain and looking at the stars.  Except that the stars were hidden in overcast, and the stakes of a solo hike ratchet up when it gets dark on a steep and wet trail.  But I had a plan B for the descent all the while, which turned out to be an epic adventure of its own.

      Mount Tecumseh is a relatively small mountain that was recently demoted from an official 4000 footer to a just short of greatness 3997 foot.  The mountain is named for the Shawnee Chief who unified tribes against settlement in the Great Lakes region and fought against America in the War of 1812.  There’s no logical connection between Tecumseh and New Hampshire that I’ve seen, but I can respect his name more than some others I’ve come across hiking.  I’ve hiked it before and remembered it as a relatively easy hike save for a steep mile of the trail known as the staircase.  This made hiking the trail as it was getting dark less concerning for me.  But the last time was in winter when Tecumseh’s famous staircase is softened by a heavy snow blanket.

      The ascent was easier than I thought it would be, which bodes well for the trend in my overall fitness level I suppose.  I arrived at the summit at 8 PM with plenty of light to see the view, if the clouds hadn’t dropped down to start blanketing the mountain anyway.  I changed into a long sleeve shirt and began my descent quickly after arriving.  I knew I had a challenging descent to deal with if I chose to hike down the Tecumseh Trail, though I had the gear necessary for a hike in the dark.  But there was that fog to consider, which makes a headlamp beam about as effective as your high beams in your car in fog.  I decided to hike as long as it was safe to do so without using the headlamp.  And after considering the Tecumseh Trail made the decision to hike the Sosman Trail on the descent.  I’ve hiked this one before and knew it was relatively easy for a descent, partially following the ski trail for Waterville Valley.

      But here’s where the story takes a twist.  The fog and darkness made it very difficult to mark the trail, and I lost it in the swirling mist at the summit of the ski lift.  And so I said my first WTF of the night, looked at the ski trail sloping down and decided to just walk down that instead.  I kept to the green trails, which are a combination of gravel road and grassy meadow in the summer.  Skiing down a slope and hiking down are very different things, and I found it slow going.  At one point I spooked a couple of large birds roosting in a tree – likely those turkey I’d been wondering about earlier in the week, and it startled me enough that I thought I might just expire right then and there.  But that would’ve been too easy.  I uttered another WTF and kept descending.

      After walking for what seemed like hours I reached the middle chair lifts at the ski area and looked down to see the lights of the ski lodge depressingly far away.  I said another WTF and made the fateful decision to follow the chair lifts down instead of the gravel access road that would add a lot of time to the hike.  And I discovered just how tall the meadow becomes on the walk down.  By now it was completely dark and I used the beam to illuminate every step and the hiking poles to probe for gopher holes and other hazards.  Eventually I made it down to the base and glanced around at just how lonely a ski area looks at 9:30 on a foggy summer night.  I arrived at my car, used the beam to check for ticks and headed home.  Not your average Thursday night.

      Lessons learned on this one.  Hiking solo in the dark wasn’t the best idea I ever had.  Even though I knew the trails I was hiking, they always look different in the dark, and especially when there’s fog.  I would’ve been better off descending the Tecumseh Trail.  Even if it was slow going its clearly defined and I would have arrived at roughly the same time as taking the Sosman Trail.  The point of this hike was to see the night sky, and I might have been better off just bagging the hike when I saw the overcast at the summit.  But I don’t panic when I hit WTF moments, I assess.  There were things that could have gone wrong but I took it slow and easy and got back safely.  I’m glad I hiked it, and all the extra drama of darkness and fog and overgrown ski trails made it memorable, if slightly reckless (but calculated reckless). Another 4000 footer completed, and a story to tell.

    • Collecting Daily Microadventures

      I heard a Rolf Potts podcast interview with Alastair Humphreys during a long walk around town.  I listen to podcasts when walking on loud roads because I can never fully immerse myself in nature when heavy objects traveling at terminal velocity are close enough to know the deodorant of choice of the driver.  Of course, I always keep an eye on the driver and the relative distance between their passenger mirror and my rib cage.  But a podcast gives me something else to think about during this regular dance on the narrow shoulders of New Hampshire roads.

      Potts and Humphreys captured my imagination during my dance with the drivers with a discussion of microadventures.  Microadventures is Humphreys’ term, but the pursuit of adventures isn’t a new concept.  I’ve been doing many of the things he lists on his site already, and think of them as exclamation points on a day of living on this planet.  But impressively he does take it to another level.  This well-made video explains the concept, or do a deeper dive on his web site (I felt a bit of web site envy visiting his site, and it once again prompted me to up my alexandersmap.com game.  You can see my ongoing progress on the site).  There are many microadventures available for the able and willing, I could get in my car and drive to the White Mountains for a hike, or drive to a waterfall for a shower under bracingly cold water, or camp out on a sleepy beach for sunrise.  But I wanted something close to home and on a somewhat smaller scale as a nod to the spirit of microadventuring.

      And so it was that I found myself getting in my car with a camera and tripod and driving a couple of miles away from home to an entirely different world: the soccer fields my kids once competed on, which last night transformed into a dark and mysterious upside down world with vaguely familiar fences and sheds providing anchors of bearing.  I was challenged by three separate people to go out and see the Comet Neowise, dancing just below the Big Dipper just after sunset.  It seems people have noticed my affinity for the stars over the years.  I’ve silently been plotting a viewing all along, but the weather proved frustratingly unreliable for comet gazing.  Last night was a micro adventure of comet hunting, confirming that my Nikon Coolpix B500 camera wasn’t up to the task (or more likely its owner), and learning from the experience.  Perhaps I’ll get that evasive picture tonight or in the next few days before Neowise travels on for another thousand generations, or maybe I’ll just bring the binoculars out and just view it.  Plenty of better photographers are taking stunning photos of Neowise already.   My micro adventure wasn’t for a picture anyway, but for the experience of trying something new right in my own town.  It was me alone in a dark field, strange noises in the forest beyond, constellations and planets spinning above and satellites zipping past.  Memorable even without a digital image to post on social media.

      Here’s the thing: we get caught up in the big bucket list stuff.  Hiking the Appalachian Trail, sailing across the ocean, hiking to Machu Picchu, visits to Amsterdam, Paris, London and a hundred other great cities.  Heck, even hiking the 48 NH 4000 footers in my home state requires time investment and planning on a larger scale than a simple microadventure.  Life should be full of the great exclamation points that a bucket list offers, but lifetimes are made up of a collection of days.  Why not downsize the scale of the adventure and do something interesting today?  So when someone asks you tomorrow what you did last night, you aren’t replaying the same old soundtrack of streaming Netflix series or watching YouTube videos of other people’s adventures.  Yesterday, in between the traditional fare of a random Wednesday, I began my day with a plunge in the pool at 6 AM and ended it with a hunt for Comet Neowise until past my bedtime.  So a memorable yesterday, if only for the endcaps.  So what shall today bring?

       

    • 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.

    • Movies Under the Stars

      When I was a kid we’d go to the drive-in movie places that dotted the landscape to catch whatever summer movie was playing that week. You’d roll up to a parking spot, and we’d roll out of the back of the station wagon and establish our turf with blankets and folding chairs. Half the fun of drive-in’s was the social aspect of seeing a movie with friends, cars parked nearby and bouncing around to see who else was there and to visit the snack shack for popcorn and candy. If you wanted to preview a different movie you’d go to a multi-screen drive-in and simply turn around and see what was happening behind you.
      Drive-in’s don’t make a lot of sense as a business. You need cheap land to pull it off, but enough people to fill it to make any money. And then you factor in the weather and the sharp reduction in opportunities to pack the place for maximum profit and you see why the drive-in’s failed over time. I still see a few in out-of-the-way places in the northeast, but mostly they’re a thing of the past. Sometimes you’ll see a lonely screen standing in a neglected lot or on the side of the highway and recall what used to be. But mostly the land is swallowed up for more profitable tenants, with box stores and condos taking the place of the drive-in’s. The last movie I saw at a drive-in was Top Gun at a place that’s now a Home Depot. I tried to listen for the echoes of movies past one time while buying fasteners, but all I heard was the hum and beep of forklifts.
      Last night we tried something different during a party. We erected a pop-up screen and placed a projector on a table connected to a laptop and had a movie night in the back yard. We streamed Hamilton and sat around the table with a fire and the stars and rising moon lighting up the ceiling. And just as with those old drive-in’s we had to wait out the mosquitos before settling into the movie. Hamilton competed with the sound of exploding fireworks as the rest of New Hampshire celebrated the 4th of July in a different way. But it died down as the evening progressed, and it became easier to lose yourself in a broadway musical as other stars danced above us. It brought back those memories of drive-in movies and simpler times when maximizing the profit of the land wasn’t always the primary consideration. I went to sleep with Hamilton tunes stuck in my head and a smile on my face.

      Originally posted 5 July 2020

    • Keep it Simple

      I quietly shelved plans to hike yesterday. Thunderstorms in the forecast, friends coming over, yard work to do… you know: excuses.  Instead I did projects and regretted not getting out there and hiking.  Lesson learned.  But the bulkhead looks better than it ever has with a fresh coat of paint and the lawn has been cut and treated to prevent grubs, which are the offspring of the Japanese Beetle, an invasive species that can ruin the garden and the lawn alike.  The plan was for the soaking rains forecast for the day to soak in the chemicals, but the rain never came in Southern New Hampshire, instead tracking north and south of us.  The drought continues.  Progress on the hiking paused.  Seeing pictures of my cousin hiking one of the 4000 footers and describing the perfect conditions completed the thoughts on what might have been.  But hey, the bulkhead looks nice.

      I admire the people who just say no:  Thanks for inviting me to go to the party, but nope, I’m going mountain biking instead.  Thanks for the generous offer to join your company, but no, I’ll stick with what I’m doing now.  I’d love to participate in that Teams meeting you’ve organized, but I’m using that time to develop a strategy for growing this other business.  Focus on the specific and elimination of the unnecessary go hand-in-hand.  My mind tends to add more stuff.  More books to read, more projects to finish, more people to see, more commitments to honor.  More excuses for not doing the things that I wanted to prioritize.  The answer is simplicity.  Elimination of the extraneous.  Essentialism, as Greg McKeown would call it.  I’ve read that book and a few others on this idea of boiling life down to the most important things.  It seems I’m highly resistant to adopting this concept.  Exhibit A: Attempting to add recertification in scuba diving to my list.  Exhibit B: Downloading War and Peace to add to the virtual pile of books to tackle, even as the other 100 titles whisper WTF? to each other…  if books could whisper anyway.  Exhibit C: Adding Portuguese to my list of languages on Duolingo even as I just barely skim the surface of fluency in French ( I confess I like the challenge of two languages at the same time).  Shall I go on?  No?  Got it.

      I’m quietly scheming to check some boxes in the next month.  Not faraway places boxes – no, that’s not possible just yet.  But pretty substantial boxes nonetheless.  Meaningful, if only to me.  So, the experts tell me, in order to complete a few of those tasks I need to get better at saying no to other tasks, and knowing what to prioritize:

      “Essentialists see trade-offs as an inherent part of life, not as an inherently negative part of life. Instead of asking, “What do I have to give up?” they ask, “What do I want to go big on?” – Greg McKeown, Essentialism

      “Don’t be on your deathbed someday, having squandered your one chance at life, full of regret because you pursued little distractions instead of big dreams.” –  Derek Sivers, Anything You Want

      “Doing less is the path of the productive.” – Tim Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek

      “We should be choosing what we want to keep, not what we want to get rid of.” – Marie Kondō, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

      “Simplicity is so attractive and so profitable that it is strange that so few people lead truly simple lives.” – Leo Tolstoy

      “Being poor is not having too little, it is wanting more.” – Seneca

      So keeping things simple and focusing on the big dreams instead of little distractions seems to be the consensus amongst our panel of experts.  Alas, this remains my achilles heal, the mindset and behavior I work to overcome.  I don’t believe I’m alone in this one, judging from the success of the modern authors on this panel of experts or the timelessness of the older panel members.  You believe adding more is the answer, when really it’s just the opposite.  Lesson heard once again, but not yet mastered.  But we’re all works in progress, aren’t we?

      There are lifetime “go big” dreams and short-term priorities.  They should ultimately be pulling you in the same general direction.  Want to be a healthy and vibrant centurion?  Hiking, stress elimination and keeping the mind sharp through reading, travel and language learning seem to be a good path.  Want to complete that bucket list of places to go before you go?  Spend less time and money on stuff that doesn’t matter as much and book the trip already.  Vienna waits for you.  Want to write that book?  Write every day and experience more so you have a full well of ideas to tap into.  Want to have a healthy, lifetime marriage?  Choose every day to nurture it and keep it alive:   Hug more than you bicker, listen more than you talk, sprinkle quiet magic into the minutes as they add up to a lifetime.  In short, keeping it simple gives you a full enough bucket to accomplish the things that really matter, and maybe to reach your potential.  At the very least you’ll live a more interesting and less stressful life.

    • Grilling Pizza

      One silver lining of quarantining is that my cooking game is getting more diverse and adventurous.  More Indian food, more vegetarian options, and now, … grilling pizza.  I know: grilling a pizza isn’t exactly adventurous, people have been doing it forever!  But in this house, homemade pizza was always slipped gently into the oven.  When you spent time and effort making something as lovely as a pizza, why risk it on the variability of a charcoal grill?

      Flavor of course.  Flavor is the reason you grill anything on a charcoal grill.  Not a propane grill – that’s just an outdoor extension of the stove.  Charcoal grilling on a ceramic grill that heats up beyond oven temperatures when closed and the coals are bright orange and alive.  That’s ancient cooking right there –  none of this propane-fueled regulated blandness, thank you.  And that’s what I brought my homemade pizzas out to.  That’s right: pizzas.  Plural.  If you’re going to use charcoal, make the most of the resource.

      The first attempt was a traditional cheese pizza with dough spread thinly across a large, perforated pan that I’ve had since college.  This baby has seen everything in it’s time…  everything but a charcoal grill anyway.  Simple and classic cheese pizza recipe, thin crust, thin layer of sauce, generous layer of cheese, done.  My concern with this first pizza was the grill temperature.  I waited until it dropped below 500 degrees Fahrenheit before putting the pizza on the grill, and watched it carefully to make sure it didn’t just erupt into flames.  Using a grill spatula, I’d gently lift up an edge, inspect and spin it and try again.  Can’t be too careful with that first pizza.  And it turned out to be an excellent first attempt.  Congrats!  We won’t be ordering pizza to replace a burnt offering!

      The second pizza was slightly more daring: A thicker crust on a stone instead of a perforated pan.  This one had thinly sliced green peppers and chicken sausage spread on top.  And generally the results were pretty good.  Thicker crust on a stone meant risking an uneven, doughy crust in some places.  That proved to be the case in one particularly thick spot.  If it were a restaurant I might have sent it back, but in my backyard it was close enough.  Two large pizzas and leftovers for lunch.  And no sacrificial lambs.  Not a bad first effort!

      2020, for all the suffering and frustration, has offered opportunities to see the world in a different way.  Maybe grilling a pizza isn’t exactly tackling social justice, but it’s a step away from the norm.  And now I’m thinking about what else I can grill.  So grilling pizza became one very small measure of audacity that worked out.  I might not ever have tried it in a normal year when getting dinner done after a long day away from home was a task.  But 2020 replaced what is fast and easy? with what is going to be really interesting to try?  And that’s not such a bad thing at all. A moment of fun experimentation with relatively low stakes.  We can all use more fun this year.  

    • 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!