Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • A Day at the New Hampshire Highland Games

      This weekend the New Hampshire Highland Games take place at Loon Mountain in Lincoln. Want to feel like you’re in the Scottish Highlands in America? Go to Lincoln. The games seem to grow more popular every year, now a 3-day event peaking in popularity on Saturday. Saturdays bring a crush of people soaking up all that is Scottish culture, sampling whiskey, buying kilts and t-shirts, watching the games and the pipers, listening to lectures and traditional music, and of course eating; eating fish and chips, haggis, meat pies and the like.

      Advice for anyone going: Friday and Sunday are less crowded and less expensive. Purchase tickets in advance and bring cash. Both help you avoid long lines for those using plastic to enter. Almost everything is cash only, so come with plenty. The ATM line was as long as the beer line, and three machines were down to one for a time as they struggled to keep with demand. And by all means get there early! The lines to get on a shuttle bus were extremely long. From parking my car Saturday morning (when admittedly I got a late start) to when I finally entered the games was just north of an hour. As with the ATM’s, the shuttle buses struggled to keep up with the hordes of people. Get there as early as possible!

      The New Hampshire Highland Games are spectacular, and no surprise it grows in popularity every year. Blessed with good weather, I soaked as much as possible (lot happening this weekend and I only had the one day). Waiting in lines is a requirement, but simply staking a claim on the ski slope and watching the caber toss and stone press was easy enough, and wildly fun. The crowd roared when Steve Schmidt set a world record in the stone press, and was abuzz when the announcer pointed out a bear passing by further up the slope. The crowd was here for a good time and they found it. And so did I.

      In just over a month I’ll be visiting Scotland for a week. Thats not nearly enough time to see everything, but it just means I’ll have to go back. The Highland Games were a good primer for that trip, but they certainly stand on their own as a must-do event. I’m already planning for a return next year.

    • Frogs and Acorns and Autumn Joy

      I’m not going to sugarcoat it, the garden is fading fast.  Sure, there’s crisp fall air to appreciate if you must.  Autumn is my favorite season, and particularly this year I’m excited about an upcoming trip to London and Scotland.  But this year summer ended abruptly with two events changing the backyard paradise I worked all spring for.

      The first affront to summer was having the roof done.  A new roof is a lovely thing indeed, but the damage done to the summer garden was catastrophic.  Some of it was my own doing of course – strategic weed wacker work through the faded bee balm and daisies to carve a path for the inevitable tarps and plywood needed to catch the roof debris.  But alas, a few prized perennials caught errant shingles as well.  The garden will rebound next year, but it may hold a grudge.

      Second, the pool is covered over for winter weeks earlier than normal.  I can hear the condensation drips splashing into the pool now, saying “What happened to the sky?” while frogs circle the perimeter wondering where the trendy amphibious nightclub went.  I expect I’ve ruined a lot of frog dates closing shop so early.  Sorry frogs.  Not seeing the water hurts me too, but not as much as watching acorns ricochet off the deck, bounce across the patio and splash into the pool to serve as beach balls for coy frog daters.  Autumn is called fall for a reason, and we’ve got some serious fall happening.  Something had to give and this year it was pool season.

      So what we’re left with is a few survivors dancing in the garden, faded potted tropicals wondering where they went wrong in life, and the extraordinary Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ standing proudly amongst the destruction in the garden; a miracle of color in an otherwise sad garden.  Even the roofers seemed to be rooting for it, and I appreciate their protective efforts as so many of her neighbors fell.

      So here we are.  Autumn in New Hampshire.  A bit different this year, but autumn nonetheless. September eases you into it, with apples and pumpkins and outdoor evening fires.  October will bring the foliage and then the leaves grudgingly join the acorns scattered throughout the yard (there’s no walking barefoot at night in September when you have oak trees).  Autumn joy indeed.

       

    • I Mourn for the Undiscovered

      Up early, reading some Robert Frost poetry I don’t remember reading before.  I’m mesmerized by a line and read on.  I get like this.

      Millions of songs on iTunes, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s out there despite a lifetime focus on music.  I’ve spent huge chunks of my time exploring new music, Shazam’ing songs in loud bars and quiet coffee café and back in the day hanging out in used record stores in Harvard Square trying to find that one gem, that magical song.  And I’ve found many over the years.  Eclectic collection perhaps, but dammit, interesting.

      A bucket list of places to see, and slowly I chip away at it.  My list grows shorter, not because I don’t want to go to all the other places, but because I want to focus on the specific few.  Linger in special places, like listening to a song over and over until you really know it.  Instead of trying to chase everything in a spin of futility.  No, not that.  Give me Thoreau at Walden or Hemingway in Key West.  Or Frost in Derry.  I’ve visited each of these places and understand the power of immersion it had on them.

      I mourn for the undiscovered songs, poems, books and places.  The conversation you never had with a grandparent.  The sunrise you slept through, the lonely beach you didn’t stroll on in winter, the ridge line you didn’t cross, the Northern Lights that danced unseen, the big city that woke up without you, the swims in bracingly cold water and salt on the tongue that you’ll never taste; the places you’ll never be.

      We can’t be everywhere of course.  But I’ll do my best to be present in this moment at least.  Tomorrow will come and I hope to see it.  But don’t mourn for losing today if I should get there.

    • Move to Live

      “To be human is to be on the move, pursuing something, after something. We are like existential sharks: we have to move to live.” James K. A. Smith

      Early start today, and my routine was subsequently turned upside down. Writing and exercise were postponed for commuting and work tasks. And so be it, here I am writing, and the exercise will happen this evening instead. We all need a little agility to effectively navigate life’s twists and turns.  If I look back on this summer, I’ll say I regret not swimming more, not hiking more, not taking more late night star gazing walks….  but also not meeting with more customers, not writing more, not reading more.  I do something, but I could do more.

      It all counts. Do more. Keep moving forward or we atrophy and die. Existential sharks… moving to live.  Write the book, start the business, ask for the date, take on the project, take the chance today on something bolder than you might have done yesterday.  Fortune favors the bold, after all.

      “Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth.” – Machiavelli

      James Clear highlighted this Machiavelli quote in his weekly newsletter and it hit me like jumping into a cold lake early in the morning (something I’ve been known to do):  Boom!  You’ve got my attention!  I’ve made many mistakes of sloth over the years – we all have, but use Machiavelli’s advice and choose your mistakes wisely.

      “Some say risk nothing, try only for the sure thing,
      Others say nothing gambled nothing gained,
      Go all out for your dream.
      Life can be lived either way, but for me,
      I’d rather try and fail, than never try at all, you see.

      Some say “Don’t ever fall in love,
      Play the game of life wide open,
      Burn your candle at both ends.”
      But I say “No! It’s better to have loved and lost,
      Than never to have loved at all, my friend.”

      When many moons have gone by,
      And you are alone with your dreams of yesteryear,
      All your memories will bring you cheer.
      You’ll be satisfied, succeed or fail, win or lose,
      Knowing the right path you did choose.”

      – William F. O’Brien, “Better To Try And Fail Than Never To Try At All”

      Well, there it is; Go all out for your dream.  ’tis better to try and fail than never try at all.  Make the mistake of action instead of the mistake of sloth. Keep moving forward. Be an existential shark already.

    • Moving Past the K-Cup

      Plastic.  It seems to be all anyone is talking about now.  And not in that this is the future way that The Graduate portrayed.  Plastic has come full circle as it’s accumulated so much over the last 50 years that we can’t avoid the reality that it’s a real problem.  And so the plastic straw and the plastic single use bags at the grocery store are under attack.  In this way the younger generation is way ahead.  Both of my college-age children are well beyond the thought process of my generation.

      I hear people mock the straw shaming – but I’ve heard this all before when change hits home.  People mocked ADA compliance when it hit their wallets, or political correctness when it came to changing the names of their school’s mascots (I was a “Chief” in college, so I know how divisive this was).  Change is hard, and especially hard when it begins to hit the way you’ve always done things.  We get used to convenience, and there’s nothing more convenient than plastic stuff.

      I’ve recycled plastic for 30 years.  I diligently put my plastic bottles in the recycling bin and place it on the curb.  When you had to separate your plastics from cardboard I’d be in the garage making sure everything was separate.  And I celebrated when I didn’t have to do that anymore.  So moving to cardboard or reusable straws?  Slightly inconvenient, but not that big a deal.  Moving back to paper bags or bringing my own bags to the grocery store?  Habit more than a convenience issue.  I’ll be fine.  In fact, the only thing that has proven to be challenging for me is the damned K-cups.

      I’m a coffee lover.  And I’ve made coffee just about every way you can.  I don’t even mind the ritual of making a pot of coffee in the morning.  In fact, I used to love it.  But I’m trying to drink less coffee and if I make a pot I’ll drink a pot.  Make half a pot?  You’re making too much sense.  I’ve tried French presses, single cup drip coffee makers, and all of that assorted coffee gear that’s been out there for years.  Except for one.  The AeroPress.  I’ve seen the AeroPress in action as my nephew used it for his coffee.  I’ve given the AeroPress as a gift to friends who are sailing around the world and blogging about it.  But I hadn’t purchased one for myself…  until now.

      I can’t reconcile the waste associated with K-cups.  I’ve had just about enough of them.  And so this morning I’ve finally brewed my first cup of coffee with an AeroPress.  From a timing standpoint the Keurig has it beat, but not by much.  If I adjust the amount of water I boil in the kettle to a single cup, turn the Keurig on to heat water at the same time I’m boiling water, then go through the brewing experience the AeroPress is very close to the same time.  I timed my second brew (with boiling water ready to go) and it took me 3 minutes start to finish, including cleanup.  If you figure a minute for a Keurig with pre-heated water, I’m saving two minutes per cup with a K-cup.  I can live with the extra two minutes, as the process of brewing the cup is meditative – something I’ve missed with Keurig.

      The benefits are hard to ignore.  The coffee tastes FAR superior!  I was using a bag of Peets coffee that’s been sitting in my cabinet for the entire summer and it blew away the K-cup.  I imagine a fresh bag will be amazing.  And I had none of the mess of a French press.  Simply unscrew the filter, pop out the coffee plug and rinse.  Done!  Looking at the biodegradable coffee and paper filter in the trash felt a lot better than seeing a plastic K-cup in there.  And I have the option of composting the coffee plug to amend my garden soil for an even greener experience.

      So here’s one man’s experience with taking a step away from the K-cup.  The AeroPress is highly portable, easy to clean, and makes truly excellent coffee in close to the time that a K-cup takes.  The cost of a K-cup averages $.60 cents USD.  A bag of really great coffee will be a fraction of that per cup.  So I’m saving money, creating less waste, and drinking better coffee.  I feel better already.

    • The Siren Call of More

      Energy. Vibrancy. Concrete, glass and steel. Traffic. Relentless traffic. Fit achievers marching to close the deal or set a new PR. Steakhouses and pizza and other temptations tip the scale. Look up and you see money reaching for the sky. Look down and you see the homeless trying to get a leg up or having given up. Urine stains on concrete sidewalks. Sewer system reminds you that there’s another world under that sidewalk.

      Taxis and buses and Uber this way and that. Roar of engines, wail of sirens, honking of horns. This world clamors for attention. Like many big American cities Chicago won’t wait for you. “Be better” it calls. “More!” It cries. As the old business cliche warns, “If you’re not moving forward you’re falling behind.” So get moving already. Play the game or get out of the way.

      It’s easy to get caught up in this crazy world of “more”. The siren beckons… But “less” has its own call.

    • The Deathbed Question

      “You are 99 years old, you are on your deathbed, and you have a chance to come back right now: what would you do?” – Christopher Carmichael

      No relation to me that I’m aware of, but I love the question. This question is referenced by Jérôme Jarre, a young man with an old soul, in a written interview he’d done in Tribe of Mentors, itself a wealth of information and inspiration.

      The answer should never be “not this” of course, but importantly, what IS that answer? The time travel spin is a variation on the dying wish story: I wish I’d spent more time with my children instead of working, or similar wishes. But it’s easy to separate ourselves from the responsibility of that deathbed moment. There’s still time… Carmichael’s what would you do? question brings the future to NOW. And really, that’s all we have isn’t it?

      So, …what’s the answer to the question? Right now?

    • Snatching Necklaces From the Sea

      “The wind freshened, and the Spray rounded Deer Island light at the rate of seven knots.
      Passing it, she squared away direct for Gloucester to procure there some fisherman’s stores. Waves dancing joyously across Massachusetts Bay met her coming out of the harbor to dash them into myriads of sparkling gems that hung about her at every surge. The day was perfect, the sunlight clear and strong. Every particle of water thrown into the air became a gem, and the Spray, bounding ahead, snatched necklace after necklace from the sea, and as often threw them away. We have all seen miniature rainbows about a ship’s prow, but the Spray flung out a bow of her own that day, such as I had never seen before. Her good angel had embarked on the voyage; I so read it in the sea.” – Josh Slocum, Sailing Alone Around the World

      I’ve read that passage a few times over the years since first reading this book, and did so again last night.  There’s magic in setting out on a new adventure, and I feel this paragraph captures that exhilaration.  These are the highlighter moments in the novel of life; the first ride without the training wheels when you have balance and velocity with you and you feel like you’re flying, boarding a plane for a flight overseas to a place you’ve always dreamed of going, or simply the first feeling out steps on a long hike when you realize everything is good to go.  Preparedness meets possibility, and the world is in front of you welcoming you to explore your potential.  Ready?  Go!

      Of course, not every moment is a highlight moment, but there should be something in every day that makes you feel alive.  Every dawn is full of possibility, if we’ll only get out and greet the day.  Over the weekend I re-acquainted myself with my sister’s dog Parker. She’s a yellow lab with a highly expressive face and eyes that tell you everything you need to know.  Reading about Slocum’s boat Spray, I thought of Parker’s expression as she realized she was going for a swim in the bay.  Sheer delight, and a sprint to the water.  May we all have more of that in our time here.

      What shall we make of this day?

    • Great is Today

      If you want to fully feel the urgency of “now” watch a veteran roofing crew begin work on a house. There’s no time to get in touch with their feelings, they pull up, assess and get on with it. Get it done ASAP, and move on to the next house tomorrow.

      It’s the first Tuesday in September, and the first day of school pictures will be snapped all over Massachusetts. New Hampshire went back last week, but really that’s just to get a head start on snow days to come. School begins in earnest this week from kindergarten to college. And so [unofficially] summer ends, Autumn begins, and there’s a heightened sense of the moment.

      I read Leaves of Grass last week. More precisely I finished Leaves of Grass last week. Walt Whitman has some brilliant prose, and some sprinkled liberally throughout this work, but there’s a lot of chewing to get this one down. Lot of Walt getting in touch with his sensuality stuff in there that proved controversial for the time, but this isn’t going to be a post about the work as a whole. Instead, this line jumped out at me:

      “Great is today, and beautiful, It is good to live in this age… there never was any better.” – Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

      Whitman wrote that sometime between 1850 and 1855, when Leaves of Grass was published. It was before the Civil War and other dark days in Whitman’s life. But there are always dark days, and always vibrant days throughout history. Life is the ebb and flow. Don’t bury your head in the sand when darkness reigns, but don’t ignore the extraordinary gift of now we’ve been given either.

      “Look around. Look around. How lucky we are to be alive right now.” – The Schuyler Sisters, Hamilton

      Be alive, right now. That’s all there is. We can’t time travel backwards, and we can’t hit fast-forward.  We all know Aesop’s fable about the ants and the grasshopper, but he wasn’t saying there’s no time for play, he was saying that we need to harvest first, then dance and sing.  So by all means work, and build that nest egg, but don’t lose sight of this magic moment along the way. 

      “Do not be concerned with the fruit of your action – just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own accord.” – Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

      I’m weighing that fable as roofers strip the roof over my head and I contemplate Whitman. The irony isn’t lost on me, I’ve been on construction crews and know their world. They don’t stop to smell the roses for very long, but sometimes a moment appears. As I spoke with them before they started I pointed to the ripe grapes they would soon cover over to protect them from debris and told them to help themselves. They savored the sweetness of the grapes with audible pleasure, even as they got on with the work at hand. The fruit came of it’s own accord, then it was time to get back to work.

    • Shattering the Peppadew Jar

      (Reposted after quirky WordPress delete)

      This morning I was pondering the power of routine in our lives when my routine abruptly changed.  I was filling a glass of water in the refrigerator when I noticed the basket of limes was protruding out because they were crowded by the package of strawberries.  In pushing the strawberries to side I started a chain reaction that led to a jar of peppadews to topple over onto the glass I was holding in my hand, shattering both immediately.  They eventually ended up on the floor, where the juice and glass and peppadews and water began to flow outward in all directions.  Suddenly I wasn’t focused on the next step in my morning routine and quickly began the cleanup process, which included extracting two small slivers of glass from my hand.

      Prior to that moment, I had been contemplating in succession the workout posters on the wall in the basement where we exercise, and then the cookbooks on the shelf in the kitchen, and thinking about how we rarely look at either.  When I work out I generally do the exercises I’m familiar with, I don’t scan the wall for a new one.  When I cook uiuiI usually cook the same things over and over, rarely going to the cookbooks for something new.  In the time I could scan the index of a cookbook I could Google a couple of available ingredients and find a dozen four and five star-reviewed recipes.  And yet the cookbooks remain ready should I need them.

      Routines are powerful things indeed.  I’m better for having changed the start to my early morning from grabbing a coffee and scrolling through social media to exercising first, reading second and writing third before I jump into whatever the rest of the world is up thinking about.  I credit reading Atomic Habits for shaking me loose from the normal routine.  Other books have inspired me along the way, but that book was like a jar of peppadews shattering in my hand, triggering me to change things immediately.

      This is my 200th blog post this year, and this is the 189th day of the year.  I’m well ahead of last year’s pace when I started this thing.  Last year I posted 143 times total.  That’s the power of establishing habits for you.  I’ve read more, and better books.  I’ve worked out more consistently as well. But the writing has been the one I’m most pleased about.  I was contemplating what to write about in this 200th post of 2019 – travel, gardening, history or some such thing, but nothing has done more for my writing than changing my daily habits.    Some of it is pretty good, some of it isn’t so good, but I’m not aiming for perfection.  Instead I’m establishing the habit and the commitment to shipping every day, as Seth Godin would say.

      Follow some friends of mine at fayaway.com to see how they’re doing their own version of shattering the peppadews to sail around the world.  Other friends have completely transformed their lives by focusing on hiking the mountains of New Hampshire.  We rarely see them anymore but they’ve never been healthier or happier than they are now. I watched a niece similarly transform herself through hiking and other lifestyle changes. Another good friend from Maine left an abusive marriage and moved to the mid-Atlantic region, where she just announced her engagement to a much better person. All shattering their own peppadew jars. Anything is possible if you just shake yourself free of the shackles of routine.

      “Don’t think, try.” – John Hunter

      “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle

      What Aristotle left unsaid is that mediocrity is also a habit. Change – getting out of your comfort zone, can be good indeed. James Clear talks about casting votes for your identity. If you identify yourself as an athlete you’re more likely to get up and work out. If you’re identify yourself as a disciplined eater you’re not even going to see that bowl of M & M’s your wife leaves right next to the door. Carrying the metaphor further, shattering the peppadew jar is deciding what your identity is going to be and casting that first vote. Who you’ll be, and who you won’t be on a larger scale.

      Back in my early twenties I used to call rowing an attractive rut, because it’s easy I could see the benefits of doing it in my overall health and fitness level, but I could also see the opportunities I was missing out on to do it. Travel, taking specific college courses because they conflicted with rowing, going out with non-rowing friends to an event because it would impact my performance. When you believe the overall benefits outweighs the costs it’s inconsequential that you’re missing out on things. About when I started identifying rowing as an attractive rut I was changing the equation in my own mind. I still row, but I don’t have illusions of winning the Head-of-the-Charles anymore.

      Achieving anything requires a healthy measure of sacrifice. Establishing one routine at the expense of another. You can remain average at a bunch of things and get along perfectly well in this world, or you can do the work that makes you exceptional at a specific thing and below average at other things. Attractive ruts are found in routine. But life is all too short, and before you know it another decade has flown by.

      “A rut is a grave with the ends knocked out.” – Laurence J. Peter

      So perhaps it’s best to shatter a few more peppadew jars. Sometimes an abrupt reminder to shake up the routine is the best thing that can happen.