Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • International Arrivals Gate

      You want people watching with stakes? Hang out at the International Arrivals gate for awhile. Hugs and smiles and screams and tears are commonplace at Arrivals, but every reunion is different. That stoic gentleman standing next to you? That teenager feigning indifference? They light up when that special person walks through the International Arrivals gate, with waves and shouts and a run through the crowd for giant welcome hugs.

      The International Arrivals gate is an amplified version of the Domestic Arrivals gate, not just for the distance traveled to get these people face-to-face with each other, but for the big differentiator in International: the reveal. As a passenger you walk off the plane, walk twenty miles to check into the country, stand in line for customs, and then to baggage claim. This process can take minutes or hours, all the while your loved ones await unseen on the other side of a secure door, watching the doors open, hopes rise, but ahh… someone else walking through. Someone else’s reunion, with flowers and signs and joyful celebration. The reveal amplifies the intensity. The anticipation grows, and the doors open and you watch another reunion, and another… until finally you see the person you’re there for and it’s your turn to turn from stoic stranger to wild hand-waver and giant bear-hugger.

      As you roll overstuffed bags around the crowd of people staring past you at the gate waiting for the next reveal, it emphasizes our human connection. We’re all the same, really, and we’re all in this together. The International Arrivals gate shows people letting their guard down and being humans connected to other humans. None of the divisive nonsense, just reconnection. And that’s what brought me there too. Reconnection. It’s nice to have the nest full again, if only for a little while.

    • Sunrise in Bitter Cold

      It’s no secret in my world that I’m a sunrise junky.  There’s nothing wrong with sunsets, and I love a good one as much as anyone, but there’s something to be said for earning the show the way getting up early for a sunrise does.  There’s also the mindset of the beginning, rather than the ending to the day that I appreciate.  I like beginnings it seems.

      This morning the sunrise rose over the hills, split into fragmented rays by the trees in the woods, and finally reached my face as I did some outdoor chores before work.  It’s been bitter cold the last few days, but the sun would have none of my complaints.  Blame your Mother for turning a cold shoulder on me, the sun seems to say.  And I nod, silently thankful for the warmth that does reach me.  And I thought of a beautiful turn of words from this Mary Oliver poem that I’d read recently, appropriately named Sunrise, “it is another one of the ways to enter fire”:

      “… I thought
      how the sun

      blazes
      for everyone just
      so joyfully
      as it rises

      under the lashes
      of my own eyes, and I thought
      I am so many!
      What is my name?

      What is the name
      of the deep breath I would take
      over and over
      for all of us?  Call it

      whatever you want, it is
      happiness, it is another one
      of the ways to enter
      fire.”
      Mary Oliver, Sunrise

    • Telling Stories

      “No story lives unless someone wants to listen.” – J.K. Rowling

      There are two ways to look at this Rowling quote. There’s the story we try to sell to the audience – read my blog or my book, buy my product or service, hire me for the job, let’s do lunch… whatever. The story we tell others to persuade them to invest time, attention or money into what we’re offering. But there’s also the story we tell ourselves, “I am a writer”, “I am here to help others”, “I am a rainmaker”, that ultimately has to come first. If you don’t believe your own story how can you expect others to buy into it?

      I was thinking about a George Mack Twitter thread on high agency that’s stuck with me for since I read it a year ago. Here are the key points from that thread:

      “High Agency is a sense that the story given to you by other people about what you can/cannot do is just that – a story.
      And that you have control over the story.
      High Agency person looks to bend reality to their will.
      They either find a way, or they make a way.

      Low agency person accepts the story that is given to them.
      They never question it.
      They are passive.
      They outsource all of their decision making to other people.

      If in doubt, ask yourself, what would Wetzler do?
      1. Question everything
      2. Bend reality
      3. Never outsource your decision making”

      (Alfred Wetzler was a prisoner who escaped Auschwitz and helped bring awareness to what was happening there).

      Pushing myself to become more high agency, less low agency has been a mission ever since.  What story am I telling myself?  That I’m someone that gets things done, or someone who falls in line and does what is expected of me?  In general I’m proactive in reaching out to others, tackling projects (high agency) but tend to stall when I hit roadblocks (low agency).  In general I follow the rules of the game (low agency), but what if the rules aren’t really there in the first place?  Everything in social life is a construct, so why not construct my own life?  That’s high agency, and a better story than passively going through life as a cog in someone else’s story line.

      And so I’m pushing myself more in my career (which requires high agency thinking), and I’m writing more out of my comfort zone, and questioning other things in my life that I might have let slide before.  This bending reality to my will thing seems arrogant on the surface, but that’s passive thinking, isn’t it?  I have plenty of examples of people in my life bending reality to their will who I wouldn’t call arrogant, but instead adventurous and bold.  And who doesn’t want their main character to be adventurous and bold?

      The thing about high agency living is that it builds on itself.  You start with one bold question, push back a little and go in a different direction and it changes you.  Do it again and you change a little more.  Pretty soon you have momentum on your side and step-by-step eventually you’re living audaciously.  And that’s a story I’d like to see more of.

       

    • White As Snow

      (Reposting this from December 7 after it reverted to a draft for some reason)

      A few days ago I said let it snow, and 1200 miles of driving in it constantly across the middle and Southern Tier of New York and through Massachusetts and New Hampshire I regret not being more specific in my statement. Lake Effect snow made Upstate New York a snow globe, and bands of snow stayed with me all the way back. Slushy roads and slippery when wet caution cones mocked my dress shoes the entire week, and I deserved the mockery for leaving my boots and waterproof hiking shoes sitting in the car instead of on my feet. I know better but slipped and slid my way along anyway. Common sense did not prevail in footwear this week.

      Still, there’s nothing like fresh snow on a sunny morning, and I can finally pause long enough to appreciate it. It’s a stark background that pushes things that normally recede into the background forward. Hillsides of gray and black tree trunks rolled in waves alongside me for much of the week. Back home with the sun unmasked for the first time in a week, I watch the dance of illumination and shadow as sunbeams find their way through the woods with no leaves to block them as they explore. Puffs of snow drift of branches, stirred by the wind, mixing with rays of light and remind me the woods are never still, even after snowfall. Looking deeper into the woods squirrels scurry about, puffy gray tails bouncing all the while, in search of food hidden under the snow. Birds zip to the feeder and back to cover, always watchful for hawks and neighborhood cats. I wonder at the performance as my indoor cat snacks me with her tail, yearning to be free of the glass keeping her from the hunt.

      Those birds demand attention, and I count dozens moving in turns to the feeder. Food brings life to the stark backyard of winter, and it enlivens this cat’s tail as I write. Empty mug and stomach are looking for attention to, and this writing session comes to an end. The empty page soon filled with words, like tree trunks on a snowy hill, and I’m grateful for the inspiration.

    • Friday the 13th and Ghost Stories

      Here we are again, at a point where the days and numbers on the calendar align and give us another Friday the 13th.  In general good things have come my way on a day many people associate with bad luck.  My son was born on a Friday the 13th, making it a very lucky day indeed.  More often than not you get what you expect in life, and if you’re primed to look for the negative it’ll find you.  I’ll stick with the opposite point of view, thank you.  Optimism with a healthy dose of stoicism seems to work for me.

      I’ve written before about dancing with ghosts.  For me ghosts aren’t the creepy spirits that get annoyed that you’re in their space, they’re the people who lived in the past who’s story is all around us.  Historical figures and anonymous lives alike, all lived before we were here.  The stone wall standing alone in the woods, the old foundation on Isle of Skye left from the Clearances, the soot on the ceiling of a cave from fires long ago, and the groove worn into a stair tread; These are my ghosts. I love uncovering the stories of some person from centuries ago and visiting the place they did something memorable, and maybe their grave to remind them they aren’t forgotten.  We all want to be remembered, don’t we?  At least for a few generations.  Make the ripple last as long as possible, hopefully in a positive way.

      I’ve been bumping into the other kind of ghost stories lately.  People who encounter poltergeists.  A poltergeist wants attention, making its presence known by messing with things in “our” world, crossing some border between death and life.  Frankly I never think about the poltergeist kind of ghost.  Maybe I’m closed-minded about it, or maybe they see me dancing with other ghosts and leave me alone.  But I’ve got this stack of stories people tell me about poltergeists they’ve encountered, and after a while you have to wonder what’s real and what’s imagined.  I see good things on Friday the 13th, others see bad things; who’s right?

      Yesterday I was speaking with a Town Clerk in Connecticut.  I’d stopped to pick up a death certificate for an ancestor as a favor for my mother.  We noticed on the death certificate that this relative had died from a fall down the stairs, breaking his neck.  I joked about that house being haunted and the clerk, not missing a beat, told me about Antonio, pointing to the vault and saying he died right in there and still haunts the place. I looked in the vault and asked if he preferred Antonio or Tony.  We finished our transaction and I was on my way, with one more ghost story added to the list. I don’t know if Antonio is a poltergeist haunting the vault at Town Hall, but I do know that he tragically died in the vault at some point in history.  And people are still talking about him to this day.

      I’ve heard similar stories from separate friends about encounters at hotels in Boston and Nashville, and some good friends that insist there’s a ghost in a family home on Cape Cod.  What do I know?  I’m not in the poltergeist business.  I have no desire to stay in Lizzy Borden’s house for a night trying to bait unseen ghosts to come out and play.  No, I’m trying to bring their stories alive without all the mischief.  But now and then I do hear a whisper in the wind, feel a spirit in the air, and I give a nod to acknowledge.  Walking alone in the woods at Holy Hill in Harvard, Massachusetts in Autumn once had me thinking of Shaker ghosts.  Visiting King Philip’s Seat in Bristol, Rhode Island and spooking a hawk into flight had me hearing whispers of Metacom and the lost Pokanoket tribe as I explored the woods.  And visiting the Winter Street graveyard in Exeter, New Hampshire looking for the grave of Major General Nathaniel Folsom felt like I was being directed around to look at every other Revolutionary War hero’s grave before finding his.  I felt it that day too.

      So here we are on another Friday the 13th.  We generally get what we look for in life, and I hope today brings you good fortune.  If you happen to run into any ghosts, I hope they aren’t poltergeists – those buggers are nothing but mischief.

    • Four Songs for Late Night Walks and Long Drives

      “Lay your blouse across the chair
      Let fall the flowers
      From your hair
      And kiss me
      With that country mouth
      So plain
      Outside the rain is tapping
      On the leaves
      To me it sounds like
      They’re applauding us
      The quiet love
      We’ve made
      Will I always feel this way
      So empty
      So estranged?” – Ray Lamontagne, Empty

      Some songs stay with you forever.  Empty is one of those songs.  I’ve had it playing in my head off and on for 13 or 14 years now. But it’s on the list of songs I usually save for myself, not on playlists at parties or around the fire. Empty is a song that catches you in the throat so thoroughly that you’re reluctant to share it.

      Some songs are for late night walks and long drives, and some are for the masses.  Here are a few more songs I mostly keep for myself on those lonely stretches of highway… until now anyway:

      “When there’s nowhere else to run
      Is there room for one more son
      One more son
      If you can hold on
      If you can hold on, hold on” – The Killers, All These Things That I Have Done

      I first heard this song on a borrowed CD from a friend.  I kept that CD way longer than I should have, and think about that person when I hear this album.  And it’s a complete album worthy of listening to from beginning to end many times over, but this song remains the one that stays with me years later.  Good dose of pep talk with some soaring music, and who doesn’t need some of that?

      I’ve wanted this for so long
      Now the deed has been done
      We shall rise with the sun
      And spend our time as one – One Eskimo, Amazing

      I had it all planned out to play this song in a quiet moment at the wedding of some friends.  It’s the perfect song, really, for a moment like that at a wedding.  It sneaks up on you as your sort of listening, and I tactfully placed it at a moment when I just knew it would make an impact.  But the computer didn’t recognize the song and played Aerosmith’s song Amazing instead.  Not quite the same – and the moment was gone.  That still bugs me.  But the song remains great, and it was the thought that counted….  right?

      At the moment of surrender
      I’m falling to my knees
      I did not notice the passers by
      And they did not notice me – U2, Moment of Surrender

      I’ve been a huge U2 fan since I was a teenager, but No Line On The Horizon took a bit longer to grab me than others did.  Longer as in maybe ten listens instead of three.  But this album holds on longer than some of the other albums in their catalog.  Moment of Surrender was recorded in one take as I understand it, and it’s stunning.  Sure, I play the incredible and vibrant songs like Breathe and Magnificent and Stand Up Comedy at parties all the time, but this one I keep for myself.  Breathe remains my favorite song on this album, but Moment of Surrender is a close second.

    • The Magic Snow Carpet

      Sunday offered the perfect combination of bright sunshine and cold temperatures to be outside. A walk around the block is nice, a walk in the woods is better, but I opted to meet in the middle and picked a rail trail walk. Rail trails are usually paved, and as the name implies they run straight for miles following old railroad beds. The advantage is good footing with much of what a walk in the woods offers. With early snow last week the rail trail was a highway of packed powder extending for miles, a snowmobiler’s dream for sure, and I’m grateful that they groomed the trail for the rest of us.

      The Windham Rail Trail changes with every season. We’re deep into a New Hampshire winter now, even if “winter” doesn’t officially begin until December 21st. Snow came early and lingers with sustained freezing temperatures. Perfect conditions for cross-country skiers and snowshoeing, and I saw a few of each out on the trail. With the packed powder I opted for micro spikes on my boots and never regretted the choice. Walking for miles on packed powder snow is a similar workout to walking on beach sand, with just enough give to increase the workload but not so much that your progress is stalled; 10,000 steps with a little extra effort.

      Today it all changes, with warm temperatures and rain washing away the magic snow carpet I traveled on. By tomorrow night it will be a slushy mess with bare spots. And then Wednesday brings colder temperatures and new snow and a completely different trail will emerge. The old expression about New England weather saying to wait five minutes and it will be completely different applies especially well to the rail trail. I’m happy to have caught it when conditions were perfect, but I suspect I’d have enjoyed it no matter the conditions. To be outside is to accept the world as it comes to you, a perfectly stoic outlook.

    • Force of Fortune

      “The true joy in life is to be a force of fortune instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” – George Bernard Shaw

      I’ve used this quote to challenge myself a few times over the years. Shaw didn’t mince words here, he’s telling all of us to step up and take control of our lives instead of whining about how unfair the world is. Ultimately the world doesn’t owe us anything and the more time you spend blaming it the less time you have to do what must be done.

      Here we are on the evening of December 8th with 22 days and a few hours left in 2019. By all accounts a great year, and yet so much left to do. Goals unmet, weight not lost, business still parked on the table instead of in the books, pages unwritten, and so on. This is a good time to pull Shaw’s quote out of storage and take the kick in the backside he offers. Do what you need to do and don’t complain about the stacked deck, for others have it worse and do more. Don’t be a selfish little clod, get to work and be grateful for the opportunity. Be a force of fortune already.

    • Cracking the Egg

      I still remember the moment I watched the woman crack the eggs on the countertop and quickly move them into the hot pan to cook.  Swift, efficient and thoughtless.  This woman had cracked thousands of eggs for hundreds of guests, and I was just one more in the line.  She didn’t respond to my pleasantries, just cooked the eggs, slid them onto a plate and mumbled something about having a good morning before turning her attention to the next guest.  She was done with me, but ten years later I’m not done with her.  Or more specifically, the way that she cracked those eggs on the countertop.  Years of awkwardly tapping eggs on the rim of a bowl or frying pan hoping you wouldn’t make a mess of it had been eliminated in one encounter with a surly omelette chef in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

      We all have techniques, life hacks and learned skills that make our day-to-day more efficient, effective and safer.  Most of these we pick up as we march through life from a parent, friend or co-worker.  Some are aha! moments where someone shows you a keyboard shortcut or a way to crack an egg more efficiently, and some are less aha! and more ohhh, now I get it.  Walking on ice is best learned through example instead of trial and error.  When you see someone walk on ice you observe the technique and with practice become adept at navigating your way across a pond or down a driveway.  That doesn’t always keep you from slipping, but it greatly enhances your odds for success.  Learned skills are like spoken word history or fables; lessons passed from person-to-person for centuries.

      I learned how to drive a standard transmission car by learning how to drive a Ford tractor and soon after I took that skill to cars.  Once someone shows you the basics and you practice it a bit the skill stays with you forever, as I learned in Scotland driving a standard on the opposite side of the car with the stick on my left hand instead of my right.  Am I going to win the Grand Prix with this skill?  Nope, but I can comfortably get in a car and drive myself anywhere.  And I can tie a bowline knot, or spin a log to the right spot to split firewood, or know where to step when I’m descending a steep hiking trail, or to blunt the tip of a nail so I don’t split the wood when I drive it.  We all do a million small techniques and skills that we hardly ever think about.  Sometimes I catch myself and think about where I learned that life hack in the first place, and the person who taught me the lesson.  Ripples across time, connecting me to someone long ago when we were both different people.  These ripples I’ll continue to use, and pay forward for others in turn.  Another form of time travel for all of us, connecting the past to the future, disguised as a cracked egg.

    • Bumped Up to the Safari Room

      The woman at the front desk looked at me and smiled as I checked in Tuesday, thanking me for being a Hilton Diamond member and informing me that my room was upgraded to a suite.  I thanked her, still shaking off the miles of driving, accepted my cookie and water and rolled my bag to my upgraded room.  Hilton Diamond is just another way of identifying yourself as someone who travels a lot for work.  Less a status symbol, more a way of life.  But there are perks beyond the free water, wi-fi and shorter check-in line, namely I get points I can use for even more travel.

      My room was on the third floor, and as I rolled my bag around the corner I saw the room almost immediately.  I tapped my prox card on the reader, the light turned green and beeped a greeting and I opened the door to another world.  This wasn’t just a suite, this was an adventure in thematic decorating.  They bumped me up to the Safari Room, and the only thing missing was the soundtrack of wild animals screaming in the night and the pounding of drums as the natives hunted me down.

      Flipping on the light, the first thing I saw was a curved bar with animal busts mounted conveniently at knee height (as I would find out later).  A lion’s head sconce with flickering electric candles watched over the copper sink in the wet bar, gazelles and monkeys and wildebeests were integrated into the furniture.  Bamboo and matted grass-like wallpaper completed the look.  And the room went on forever (I counted 55 steps to circle the L -shaped room).  A glass table with four themed chairs met me around the corner, and far down the other end was the king-sized bed with bamboo headboard.  A massive walk-in closet was off to the side, with room for hundreds of outfits, and hangers for five.  And capping it all off was the bathroom.  This was a suite in itself, larger than many hotel rooms I’ve stayed in, with a hot tub set in the middle, a large walk-in shower to the side, toilet and avocado sink…. that’s right, an avocado sink. Surveying the entire bathroom suite were two jungle masks on either side of the sink that kept staring at me and a large hippo bench that looked like it would roll over and have me rub its belly.  Wow, where do you begin?

      The thing about getting a room like this is it reminds you that you’re traveling alone. It amplifies the solo in solo travel. I’d almost rather have the standard room where I don’t think about what I left behind to be in this crazy room. But you make the most of it and move on to the real world. I had a drink at the bar while running a report, but otherwise it was just another hotel room for me. People make the place, not jungle themed furniture. This room would be wildly fun with friends. Nope, just me. Alone. In the jungle. But it sure was unique.