Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • The Perfect Day

      When you hear someone say they had a perfect day, what does that mean to you? We have this stack of days, one to the next, before it ends someday. What makes a few of them perfect, while the rest fall slightly short?

      Let’s start with the obvious: Waking up this morning, the day is already off to a great start. If you celebrate that moment the rest of your day may ebb and flow, but starting from a better place you set the tone for what follows. Carpe diem begins with celebrating the gift of life. If you’re bored with life or indifferent to the potential of each moment you’ll never have a perfect day. Each will fall short in some way because your mind isn’t open to the joy of living.

      Perfect requires stacking the moments in a day with just enough beauty and sparkle to reflect back at you, leaving an afterglow in your last moments awake as your cheek feels the cool softness of your favorite pillow. Perfect ought to include certain elements mixed in an elixir: A dash of wonder, moments of connection, the realization of experience, breathless celebration and sensory perception. You drink up this elixir, feel it soak through your pores and course through your veins, and feel high on life.

      We all have moments of perfection in our lives, but to ask for a full day of it seems almost too much. More likely, we forget the down moments in a day. Pushing moments of discomfort or awkwardness or frustration down in our minds for the glow of the rest of the day. And sure, maybe there’s really no such thing as a perfect day at all, but we can surely reach for it.

      As I began my day, I wondered, how can I make this one perfect? I may not reach it, but knowing the recipe you can get pretty close. Does seeking perfection make it artificial, or deliberate? You only find what you look for. There is no perfection, but there is magic in each moment. Often hiding in plain sight.

      And so I seek connection with each of my fellow life passengers that I stumble across, and keep my eye out for new experiences as big as a new summit and as small as watching leaves stir from a hummingbird’s wings, and tickle my senses with a new song on the radio or the scent of garden tomatoes growing on a summer day. These moments of aliveness, stacked together, are where perfection lies. It’s not the day at all, but the moments stacked together. For what is life but that?

    • Is This Enough?

      “Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let him know he has enough.” – Walt Whitman

      The nagging begins in weak moments of fatigue or boredom or frustration: “More“, the voice says. “I want more” it persists. And the voice bleeds over to the blog now and then, with complaints about not being out there in the world, not finishing that book, not reaching that fitness goal…. whatever.

      The moment you woke up this morning you had enough. More than old Walt has, more than every person you can even think of born before 1900 and most of those born before 1921. A hundred short years and most everyone you can ever think of as being alive vanishes to the other side of life. So who are we, complaining about enough?

      Feel life wash over you, in each breath and heartbeat and blink of an eye. For it is enough. That life is outrageously unfair is well-documented. That we might make a difference if we worked just a bit harder is indeed possible. But never forget in those moments of fatigue and boredom and frustration that this business of being alive today is just audacious enough in itself to celebrate the moment.

    • By These Hands

      The gobs of wet leaves and pine straw pulled with bare hands from the gutter weren’t posted on YouTube for the world to see. Nor were the pulled fence posts as they were chipped free of old concrete footings. The world will never wonder at the labor put into such things by these hands. My labor remains undocumented.

      The same fingers that write these jumbles of words once laid brick on a curving walkway only to pull it up two decades later to reset a stubborn gate heaved by frost and refusing to close. This is the price of time in one place, you find yourself undoing what you’ve done before over and over again. It’s the labor of living, and like generations before mine the work goes largely unnoticed by most. Like an Offensive Lineman, you understand that if your work is noticed it wasn’t done correctly. But you know when it’s done well and when it isn’t.

      Labor is done for profit, and it reveals itself in moments. Each time I open the gate without having to kick the bottom corner, I’ll celebrate the sweat and strain of a Sunday in August when the work was done. Each time it rains I’ll celebrate the sound of water running through the downspout and not up and over the top of the gutter. These observations aren’t celebrated in the same way as seeing the Grand Canyon or St. Basil’s Cathedral or the Tower of London for the first time, because they’re mundane. But when you’ve fixed something that needed fixing and see it work, none of those other places matter a lick in that particular moment.

      I know plenty of people who hire others to do their labor for them. I understand this particular inclination, for paying others buys you time for yourself. Time spent on yard work is time not spent on a mountain summit or a beach on these briefest of days we call summer. But I know deep down that the work done by these hands reveals something in myself that I’d never find if I left the work to others.

      There are lessons in the labor, residing deep inside of me, that others may not see. Lessons that open up for you like a swinging gate free of obstruction. Flow through you like water through a downspout. When you do the work, even when it might all be undone once again someday, you understand that our brief, fleeting lives only have meaning in these mundane contributions we make. Even if it’s never seen on YouTube.

    • Get After It, Again and Again

      Lingering in the good soreness from a couple of days of long beach walks, I can’t help but wonder how fit I’d be if I walked the beach every morning before the sun rose. Then again, I think the same thing after a great hike, after consistently rowing anaerobic pieces, or doing intense weight circuits or swimming laps in salt water. Active is active, and the point of active is to do what you can where you are with what you have. Otherwise you’re inactive.

      So get after it. Carve out the time and do the work. This naturally goes for anything we pursue in life. Plodding along half-assed is a form of wasting space, and we aren’t here to waste space, are we? Sliding into comfortable complacency is just so… easy. But it doesn’t get us where we really want to go.

      “You can usually accomplish more by giving something your full effort for a few years rather than giving it a lukewarm effort for fifty years. Pick a priority for this season of your life and do it to the best of your ability.” – James Clear

      Beginning in early July I challenged myself to 20 days of rigid eating and exercise. It turned out I wasn’t so rigid with either, but still managed to lose 6 pounds and noted significant progress in kettle bell repetitions (my focus during this time period). It was just enough to make me want a little more. Really, a lot more. And so I begin again.

      Normally I’m an Olympics junkie, and love to watch athletes who put everything into their sport come together to compete. If I were broadcasting the Olympics, I’d be following athletes from different sports and different countries for years documenting the blood, sweat and tears as they grind away at it all. Then put together a montage of each, no matter how they finish in their events, through the closing ceremonies and then back home. Where they look around, smile and begin again. But broadcasters (and most people) celebrate the big moment, not the process that gets them there and beyond.

      The more trips around the sun I take, the more I see that life is about becoming, and it’s never fully realized. It’s celebrated in small moments of lingering soreness and beginning again the next day. We’re here to get after it to the best of our ability, to work towards that person we want to become. Beginning again and again.

    • Traveling Between Variants

      Traveling again opens up the world, and exploring new places for a few days in Miami leaves me ready for so much more. Miami has some of the best dining options anywhere, and also some of the worst drivers. I delighted in the best sushi I’ve ever had, while marveling at some of the most ill-advised driving decisions I’ve ever seen. Each destination offers its own unique reveals.

      You forget how much you learned to love the life of a nomad until you’re locked in place for a year. One business trip and it all washes over you again. The anticipation and cadence of a meeting, the shift from one hotel to another as you change cities, overcoming language barriers, and the food versus fuel debate in your head as you scan unfamiliar menus. It’s all part of the life of a traveler, and you count your blessings when you can travel again.

      And yet this business of fighting the virus and its variants isn’t quite over yet. There’s an underlying unease about the virus amongst the thoughtful, and a heightened awareness of crowded spaces. Eating out in a place like Miami involves many crowded spaces. You hear of Australia locking down and patrolling streets and contrast it with the freedom of movement and the casual closeness in packed spaces in Florida. Who is right?

      We may move closer to normal, but the generational impact of the pandemic on the collective psyche of humanity will be felt for our lifetimes. When you travel again you immediately see the world differently than those who are still sheltering, because you have to. The world is moving on even as the virus is doubling down, and you’re either casual with your personal health and responsibility to others or you’re not. I’m surfing the edge and I know it, but the thrill of travel fills me up anyway.

      Travel by its nature requires a leap of faith and calculated risk. If you have the freedom to travel, then do so responsibly. That begins with getting vaccinated and practicing good hygiene. Risk is never eliminated in life, but it can be mitigated. Because getting back out there illuminates this beautiful gift of living, and it would be great for everyone to get back to the brighter days.

    • Each Precious Moment

      “If you can be annihilated at any moment, then it’s each moment that’s precious. And if you don’t experience each moment, if you don’t understand how precious each moment is, then you are missing out. ‘cause that‘s all you can be sure of getting is right now.” – Sebastian Junger, from The Tim Ferriss Podcast

      I love Junger’s gruff quote above, for he bluntly points out what we all know and assume otherwise. This is all so very short, so enjoy each moment. Go out and find those micro adventures in between obligations. Say yes to the sunrise walks and the sunset celebrations and the meaningful conversations.

      For the second day in a row I was up at 5 AM and heading to the beach for a walk and sunrise. Distant lighting on the horizon was a spectacular pre-event. Feeling the warmth of the ocean in Miami as I walked the surf line helped lock in another memorable moment. These are the days you’ll remember, should you ever reach that future you.

      David Letterman asked Warren Zevon, in the last days of his life battling cancer, what he’d learned during the fight. Zevon’s answer was simple yet powerful: “Enjoy every sandwich”. And that’s what I thought to myself as I watched the sun rise up over the Atlantic Ocean. Just enjoy this precious moment. Experience it for what it is, and hope for another tomorrow.

      Miami Sunrise

    • Walk On Into Futurity

      “What is a course of history or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer? Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Well, which are you – a reader or a seer? Are you going to live vicariously through the adventures of others or seek your own way? There’s no time to ponder indefinitely, you must choose to live, and to walk boldly towards that future you. The world shrugs indifferently at the masses who live in quiet desperation, and opens up for those who dare to break free of the routine.

      Deferring life is a fool’s game, but most of us willingly play it. What meaningful leap will you take today towards that future you so desperately cling to? For if not now, when?

      Decide what to be and go be it.

    • Thinking How I’ll Feel When I Find…

      I deal in dreamers
      And telephone screamers
      Lately I wonder what I do it for
      If l had my way
      I’d just walk out those doors
      And wander
      Down the Champs Elysees
      Going cafe to cabaret
      Thinking how I’ll feel when I find
      That very good friend of mine
      I was a free man in Paris
      I felt unfettered and alive
      Nobody was calling me up for favors
      No one’s future to decide
      You know I’d go back there tomorrow
      But for the work I’ve taken on
      Stoking the star maker machinery
      Behind the popular song.
      – Joni Mitchell, Free Man In Paris

      I hear a big song like this one a bit differently today than I did as a kid. Then I just heard the bigness of the song, the sonic beauty akin to a wall of sound production. Joni at her highest point in her career with one of the great side ones (back when side one mattered a lot). Now my attention locks onto the freedom of going cafe to cabaret and running into friends along the way, which seems like a grand way to spin about in Paris. And so different from the day-to-day grind of making a living and seeing things through. And maybe that’s why it was so popular, more than the inside look at David Geffen from the perspective of one of his biggest stars and closest friends.

      At its root the song is a longing to break free from that daily grind, whatever ours happens to be, and to live that carefree life in lovely places. And that, friends, is the promised land. And doesn’t require a flight to Paris, as lovely as that might be for each of us. Being unfettered and alive is a state of mind achieved just as easily hiking the spine between bald mountain peaks or walking a quiet beach offseason as it is being part of the cafe and cabaret scene in the City of Lights.

      And the question is, how much is enough? When you’ve earned enough to not be homeless or hungry, what more do you need? The restlessness in this song is the thing that’s so identifiable for anyone who climbs those corporate rungs, thinking about how they’ll feel when they find… whatever it is they think is at that next level of accomplishment. That next status symbol that shows everyone that they’ve really arrived this time.

      Last year Geffen posted a controversial Instagram photo of his stunning yacht Rising Sun in the Grenadines with the sun setting behind as COVID raged and he “self-isolated”. You can see the beauty and smugness in that photo, all at once. As I understand it, that yacht takes 70,000 gallons of fuel and who knows how much in provisions. I wonder if he feels like he’s finally found whatever it was he was looking for?

      How much is enough? Most of us will never have a comparable yacht or a private island or a ticket on a luxurious flight into space with a billionaire. I’m not condemning those who chase for more, but I don’t particularly want that for myself. Because being unfettered and alive isn’t about accumulation or status, it’s about being happy with where you are and what you’re doing in this moment.

      Think how that might feel.

    • Breaking Garden (and Life) Rules

      I regularly break the accepted rules of gardening. Rules like putting the tall plants in the back of the garden. But when something like a balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorus) or bee balm (Monarda) are shoved way to the back you lose something intimate that you gain when they’re right in your face. So my apologies to the garden rule enforcers. Surely you see my dilemma?

      I was offering advice to a former coworker who wants to quite her job and travel the world with her husband, but she feels stuck in the job, stuck in the life she’s wrapped herself in, and is only looking at the reasons why she can’t just do it instead of finding the reasons to just go for it. I dropped my favorite pair of Latin phrases on her to reflect on: Memento Mori and Carpe Diem (Remember we all must die, and seize the day!).

      Some rules are there for logical reasons; if the tall plants are up front you can’t see the shorter ones behind them. Makes sense. Some rules are there because we’ve all grown up believing stories: you have to get a job and work 50 weeks a year, then skip one of the two weeks of vacation and work on weekends to stay ahead. Who made that rule? Someone who wants to profit on your short productive years before they turn you to dust and plan you out for someone else.

      Make your own rules. Rules like walking out in the middle of a work day and seeing how the flowers are doing, just because you feel like it. Putting yourself out there in the world, to meet it on your terms. And maybe find something of yourself that was hidden when it was shoved to the back by someone else’s rules.

      Balloon Flower

    • A Measure of Contentment

      How difficult
      it is to die
      from my
      disbelief
      and kneel
      down
      to the truer
      underlying
      font of happiness
      waiting to
      break
      the enclosing
      surface,
      to believe
      in my body that
      I deserve
      the full spacious
      sense of
      not being
      thirsty anymore,
      of living
      a present
      contentment.
      – David Whyte, Newly Married

      The realization of not being thirsty anymore, of being content with the life you’re living and all that it means; the relationship you’re in, the place you live, the work you do, the mark you’ve made, the places you’ve gone to and returned from, and the fitness level you’ve achieved, this is the promised land of contentment. I look at that list in the previous sentence and know I’m more than halfway there. But the fact that there’s still a list indicates I have a way to go.

      Whyte writes of relationships and having found his thirst-quenching soulmate. When you reach that particular point you recognize immediately that yes, this is more than enough for me in this area of my life. And if you haven’t, well, you’d recognize that too. Contentment isn’t the same as complacency, and each day requires a recommitment to seeing it through. To seeing it continue to tomorrow and the tomorrows to follow.

      Lately I’ve turned my attention back to fitness and nutrition. Eating the right foods, drinking in moderation, exercise and a recommitment to my flexibility and strength that has somehow been missing for too long. I recognize within myself that there’s a thirst, a hunger if you will, to be better than I presently am. This is my current area of discontentment.

      The thing is, things change, and change constantly. If at one point in life I was content with my overall fitness level, I’m not now and work to change it. If I was once content with the number of days I spent traveling and exploring the world, now I’m restless and ready to get back out there. Circumstances change, and we change with circumstances. Contentment is a relative thing, and it’s relatively evasive. We must work for that which we seek in our lives.

      I expect Whyte knows this too. He didn’t say lifetime contentment, but present contentment. We’re dynamic beings coexisting with a dynamic and ever-changing world. Contentment is meant to be evasive. Our purpose is to keep working at this fragile dance, and make of it what we can in the time given to us. To be content with being a work in progress seems the ultimate measure of contentment.