Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • Upcoming Wonder

      “Stuff your eyes with wonder… live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds.” – Ray Bradbury

      Something switched inside of me over the last few days, and suddenly I’m methodically filling my calendar with upcoming wonder. “Upcoming” is an important consideration, but “wonder” is the key word. There’s no guarantees in life, of course, but book it and it may be all that you wanted it to be. Such was the case with my train ride from Helsinki to Moscow in 1989, whitewater rafting through the Grand Canyon in 1998, my drive across Scotland in 2019, or any such “big” trip. Winging it can be magical, but booking it locks it in.

      Having paid my dues in sweat equity and a mild case of poison ivy putting a fence up last weekend, I have two hikes on my mind for the next two weekends (if the weather holds out). The first is with friends who hike mountains like most people take a walk around the block. That will be a test of my fitness and mobility, but a worthy adventure in peak-bagging. The second hike is being pushed out by the threat of rain but involves a 4000 footer followed by a smaller, and possibly more exciting mountain that I look forward to writing about. Anticipation is funny that way, I’ve heard enough about the smaller mountain to know what to expect, which makes the eventual hike slightly less discovery and more experience.

      Over the last few days I’ve also booked a weekend in Acadia National Park in Maine, committed to a sailing passage from Massachusetts up the Gulf of Maine to Yarmouth, Maine and booked a weekend in Stowe, Vermont in November. Adventures every one of them, and I’ve plotted drive times and reviewed what will be open and closed while we’re there, viewed YouTube videos of vloggers who have been more immersed in Acadia before me. This all borders dangerously close to the spreadsheet travel posted on this blog about almost exactly a year ago. But having a rough plan in place when youI go somewhere new is helpful. You can then fill in the blanks with discovery. For Acadia, I know what I don’t know and wanted to build some structure. For Stowe, I know the place really well and I’m leaving almost everything to discovery. For hiking, I read the trail descriptions, scanned the maps, and if possible look at street view images of where the car is going to be parked. The rest is one foot in front of the other discovery, as it should be. Similarly for the sailing passage, I’ve sailed the Gulf of Maine and on Fayaway enough to know what to expect. But once I’m past Isles of Shoals its all discovery for me. I’m trusting the Captain on that one.

      Trust is an important consideration with upcoming wonder. I trust that I’ll wake up on the day that I’ve booked a cabin in Acadia. I trust that the weather will cooperate enough to make the long drive north worthwhile or make the hikes hike-able. I trust that COVID-19 doesn’t explode and shut everything down before any or all of these trips. None of us is really sure about what happens in the next ten seconds, let alone the next ten weeks. All you can do is set the table and leave the rest to fate. Ultimately we’re bit players in the game of life, but we are players. So we ought to play.

    • Full House Solitude

      “A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

      We got word yesterday that our daughter, a senior in college, would be spending her glorious fall semester studying remotely from home. Not what we wanted for her, and surely not what she wanted for herself. But here we are, and here we’ll make the most of it. There are silver linings in every setback, and we’re deep into a massive setback in 2020. So be it.

      Our son graduated from college in 2020. We’re 2-for-2! Currently working elsewhere, he’ll be home in late September and we’ll adjust to the new normal of four adults living together. For all the celebration of having everyone together once again, we know the reality is that they want to fly, not be back in the nest.

      That nest is what I’m thinking about now. We spent the spring lockdown renovating or updating room-after-room. But we didn’t renovate with four of us working from home in mind. As Goethe says, we all need a little isolation to be our most productive. And now I’m thinking about where to give each of us a bit of space to roam creatively. Divide a house built for living and carve out four private offices for distinctly different career paths. Office in a shed? Thought about it. But there’s space here, if we get creative.

      I always joked about selling the nest and traveling when the kids went off to college. I’m grateful that remained a joke. The empty nest will quickly fill up, clutter and chaos will return, noise levels will be higher than anticipated, grocery bills will escalate. The days will grow shorter and colder as winter sets in, making outdoor time more evasive. And chasing solitude for creative work is going to be a challenge. But there’s always long walks to reset the mind. And early morning hours. And other such strategies. The investment in effort to make it work is worth it.

    • So Many Mornings

       

      “This is the earnest work. Each of us is given
      only so many mornings to do it—
      to look around and love
      the oily fur of our lives,
      the hoof and the grass-stained muzzle.
      Days I don’t do this
      I feel the terror of idleness,
      like a red thirst.
      Death isn’t just an idea.”
      – Mary Oliver, The Deer

      Each morning I jot down one sentence that sums up the day prior in my Clear Habit Journal.  This one exercise alone has prompted me to be more creative in my days; to seek adventures worthy of writing down.  But there are plenty of days when I just go to work (which currently means walking downstairs) and maybe had a meaningful conversation with someone.  And sometimes that’s enough.  But in the back of my mind I feel that tomorrow morning I ought to write something down that was worthy of a day alive.  For as Mary Oliver says above, each of us is given only so many mornings, and death isn’t just an idea.

      Saturday morning brought tales of night swimming with my bride and hot embers warming cold skin.  Sunday morning brought soreness and a note about the magical Franconia Ridge Trail.  And this morning brings a summary of bottles of wine, grilled goodness and laughter with friends at a distance.  This was a string of worthy days and I work to compress the entirety of it all into one sentence that somehow may sum it up.  These are moments of quiet smiles and satisfaction.  Sometimes I write about adventures above tree line, but sometimes I write about installing a new toilet in my parent’s bathroom.  Both count just the same as worthy entries.

      Just as the blog forces me to reach beyond my comfortable place to explore and try new things, the daily sentence lingers as a cold-hearted judgement on the worthiness of any given 24 hours on this planet.  If that seems like a lot to live up to, well, so be it.  I believe we’ve got to live with urgency for all the reasons I’ve written about before that you already know too.  Someday I’ll have my last morning on this planet, and I hope the day that follows it is so epic that I wish I’d had one more to write down what I did.  Those single day entries will pass on to those who survive me, and I hope they’ll see the sparkle and shimmer of a life well-lived, one day at a time.

       

    • Saper Vedere: Knowing How to See

      “And so she woke up
      Woke up from where she was
      Lying still
      Said I gotta do something
      About where we’re going”
      – U2, Running To Stand Still

      This song is about drug addiction.  Thankfully I’ve never been a drug addict and so I guess I don’t hear it that way.  Instead I hear the cry out for more than this that leads the couple to escape through drugs.  Seeking a more vibrant canvas than the one we’ve currently painted is a common trait among humans.  Whether we do it through positive pursuits like travel, art, or exercise or through other pursuits like drugs or porn or consuming media makes all the difference in how we grow.  The character Bono sings about could easily have gotten up and picked up a pen instead of a needle.  Perhaps they didn’t see another path out of their current situation.  Perhaps they never saw the light that glimmers around us in the dim reality of poverty.

      “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

      To reach for “newer” demands we stretch ourselves.  To reach for “richer” infers personal growth as we expand our ideas about what our place in this world can be.  We all face the same ticking clock and react to it in our own way.  And that reaction itself changes with time and experience.  At least if we learn from our experiences as we accumulate them.  I shake my head at some of the experiences I had earlier in my life that I didn’t learn from.  But not learning from what happens in our lives is as much an experience as learning and adjusting the first time.  We all travel the winding path of life at our own pace, and some paths are much harder than others.  But having the vision to see what you want your life to be and building a foundation underneath it is the missing link for so many.

      “The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.” –  Leonardo da Vinci

      Leonardo da Vinci had a philosophy about life called “Saper Vedere” that I find particularly fascinating.  Saper Vedere means “knowing how to see” and it involves visualizing whatever it is you’re creating through a mix of “arte (skill), scientia (knowledge), and fantasia (imagination)”.  (Here’s my source of this information).  So Saper Vedere applied to our lives offers clarity and purpose to the sculptor inside of us.  We’re all inventing our lives every day, or we’re sliding sideways letting the world dictate what we do today and tomorrow and the rest of our days.  I like the former, don’t you?  Every day I try to learn a bit more, to apply that knowledge in productive ways, and to taste, and learn from, experience.  I don’t always achieve everything I visualize in a day, but believe I get closer to the ideal than I might otherwise.

      So Saper Vedere takes its place with Carpe Diem and Memento Mori as a way of living that squeezes the most out of our raw potential.  Slowly creating the life you visualize, one step at a time in our quest for Arete (another word that’s been lodged in my brain since I was a teenager).  In Greek mythology Arete means “Excellence”, or reaching one’s potential in this very human life.  I’m not sure its possible to reach our potential, but we can get a lot closer, can’t we?  The striving for excellence begins with having a vision for the life you’d like to live, and then doing the work to achieve it.  To wake up and do something about where you’re going.  To reach out without fear for newer and richer experience.  To have a vision for your life and to pursue it in earnest, beginning today.

    • Hiking the Franconia Ridge Trail: Little Haystack, Lincoln and Lafayette

      Today’s epic hike began with a 4 AM wake-up call (late by some hiker’s standards) and a drive two hours north to Lincoln, New Hampshire accompanied by Venus flirting with the crescent moon and old friend Orion pivoting in the sky.  A lot has happened since I last saw Orion, and we have a lot to catch up on.  But I focused on the road and the surprising number of cars driving north with me.  Who are all these people driving at 4:30 on a Saturday morning?  Are they up early or wrapping up a late Friday?  At least one car drifting out of their lane multiple times indicated the latter.

      The reason for the early morning was to beat the swarm of hikers that inevitably descend on the Falling Waters Trail.  This is one of the easiest  trailheads to get to, and one of the prettiest returns on your hiking investment with multiple waterfalls along the trail (even in a dry August) and a beautiful ridge line hike across Little Haystack Mountain to Mount Lincoln to Mount Lafayette along the Franconia Ridge Trail, which is a section of the Appalachian Trail (surely one of the AT’s most beautiful sections).  A short detour takes you down to Shining Rock, which lives up to its name with water flowing down a large granite face.  That detour doesn’t feel short when you turn around to hike the tenth of a mile back to the trail junction, but its worth the time.

      So knowing the trail would be crowded, I had my cloth mask at the ready and utilized it many times on the hike.  The majority of hikers brought masks with them and used them in tight quarters as you were passing each other.  I found myself wishing I’d brought a balaclava instead of a mask just for the ease of quickly pulling it up and down as you came across other hikers, and I came across a lot of hikers on this one, particularly on my descent of Lafayette to the Greenleaf Hut, which is open for business once again but requires a mask when you walk inside.  I was very ready for a cup of coffee when I visited, and a visit to the restrooms before beginning the descent down the Old Bridle Path.

      One thing that annoys me about crowded trails is trail etiquette.  In particular the people who leave their toilet paper after peeing next to or on the trail.  Pack it out with you, or if that grosses you out dig a cathole.  But don’t leave it clumped there for all to see.  A friend tells me that there are three times the normal number of people hiking this year because of COVID-19.   After my experience on Pierce/Eisenhower and now Little Haystack/Lincoln/Lafayette, I believe it.  But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t respect the mountains.  Leave no trace people!

      Mount Lincoln is of course named after Abraham Lincoln.  As peaks go its pretty easy, sitting between Little Haystack and Lafayette.  Little Haystack is 760 feet above the 4000 foot mark but doesn’t qualify because its less than 200 feet to Lincoln, which is 5089 feet. As the taller of the two mountains, Lincoln gets the nod for the official 4000 footer list, but I can’t help but feel hiking Little Haystack and not getting credit for it makes up for hiking Tecumseh (3′ short of 4000) and getting credit.  The 48 giveth, the 48 taketh away…

      Mount Lafayette is named after Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, the French hero of the Revolutionary War and a heck of a singer in the Hamilton musical.  The mountain is 5249 feet and the most prominent of the three.  I lucked out with the weather, which offered beautiful views and a refreshing light breeze.  On my descent it started raining a bit, which didn’t amount to much.  But I bet it made some of the granite and basalt slippery.  Thankfully I was well past that by the time those few drops started falling.

      The loop up Falling Waters to Franconia Ridge Trail/AT to Old Bridle Path back to the parking lot is nine miles.  I’d like to say I did it solo, but I had a lot of company on the trail from my start at 6:15 to the return to the car at 1 PM.  I took a few photos of waterfalls, detoured to Shining Rock overlook, lingered for “brunch” on the summit of Lincoln, for some trail mix on the summit of Lafayette, and for coffee at the Greenleaf Hut and still completed the loop in under seven hours.  Not bad.  I didn’t set any speed records on the trail, and I’m just fine with that.  But I did lose five pounds in a day, even with rehydration and grazing on trail mix the entire drive back.  All-in-all a wonderful day in the White Mountains.

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    • Skipping Across The Water: 20 Places To See By Boat

      Perhaps its my proximity to water at the moment, or perhaps the heavy influence of the crew of Fayaway on my thinking the last few days, but I’ve been thinking about places best seen by boat lately.  For when you combine water and beautiful scenery you can quickly build a list of must-see places that are perfectly situated to or only possible to see by boat.  I’ve managed a few of these in my lifetime, the rest are bucket list items for the right moment, should it come along.  But we all have to have hope for a future where we can once again explore the world, don’t we?

      Interesting if only to me, many of the places I want to go to most are in cold climates.  The tropical destinations are nice, but I’m a Northern bird and appreciate a bit of snow and ice in my life too.  And then there are the places I’ve been to before that I secretly plot to return to again as soon as possible.  You know you’ve fallen in love when a place haunts you for decades after visiting, and a few on this list qualify.

      Without further ado, here are twenty places best seen from the water for your consideration:

      The Outer Hebrides  Begin with Scotland?  I should think so.

      The Faroe Islands Stunning and remote?  Sign me up!

      Westfjords, Iceland – but why stop there?  The rest of the country whispers to me too.

      Iceberg watching between Newfoundland and Labrador (any excuse to return to Newfoundland works for me, and Labrador offers a world of remote exploration all its own.

      Easter Island, Chile to visit those Moai characters at sunrise and contemplate the extraordinary.

      Isla del Cocos National Park, Costa Rica – diving with hammerhead sharks?  Maybe.

      Nahuel Huapi Lake & Nahuel Huapi National Park, Argentina for the glory of the Patagonian Andes from the water.

      Whales and icebergs in Disko Bugt (Disko Bay), Greenland, and maybe a polar bear or two from afar.

      St Helena – maybe because its so remote, or maybe because of Napoleon, or the useless airport?  Whatever the reason, I’m interested in getting to St Helena someday.

      Carribean island hopping: Dominica, Martinique, Grenada, Saba, Barbados, etc. for all the reasons you’d expect.

      White water rafting through the Grand Canyon.  Because once was not enough.

      Inside Passage Alaska, and also because once was not enough.

      Revisiting the Statue of Liberty and New York Harbor again someday when the world is normal, or at least a little more normal.

      A cultural immersion in Okinawa, Japan for all that this place offers, from the historical perspective of Shurijo Castle and the WWII sites to slowing down in Sefa-utaki.  I have riding a bicycle across the Irabu Ohashi bridge on my short list of activities for someday, maybe.

      Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound in Fiordland, New Zealand remains on that evasive list of places to get to as soon as reasonably possible.  I fear that I might just want to stay in New Zealand should I ever visit, but its a chance I’ll have to take.

      Visiting Sydney Harbor and climbing that bridge are high on my list of things to do.

      Mo’orea, French Polynesia – and while you’re in the neighborhood, who doesn’t dream of visiting Tahiti, Bora Bora, Marquesas?  A visit to Mo’orea necessitates lingering to see more.

      Li River cruise China – China is a mystery to me, but a place I’d love to explore someday.  And I can think of no better place to start than on the water cruising the Li River.

      Cruising down the St. Lawrence Seaway and through the Great Lakes has been on my mind for some time.  If there were a reason to get another sailboat, it would be to do this trip.

      Last but not least and closer to home, sailing Lake Champlain is something I’ve contemplated since I was a teenager seeing sailboats moored along the shore with the Adirondacks rising in the distance.  And my fascination with the early history of this region makes it a must-do for me.  Early October would be sublime with the foliage.

      So there you go: twenty bucket list places to see from the water.  All we need is time and a way to get there.  A chance to skip across the water like a stone and see parts of the world you can’t always get to from land.  A mix of salt water and fresh water destinations just ready to explore.  Are you ready?  This list could take some time.

       

    • Be Less Comfortable

      “It takes many hours to make what you want to make.  The hours don’t suddenly appear.  You have to steal them from comfort.  Whatever you were doing before was comfortable.  This is not.  This will be really uncomfortable.” – Derek Sivers, Where To Find The Hours To Make It Happen

      This phrase, stealing hours from comfort, was  plucked from a blog post Sivers wrote last October and highlighted yesterday by Seth Godin, borrowing for one of his own blog posts.  And so I pay it forward here.  For there’s genius in the phrasing, isn’t there?  We all have the same amount of hours in the day, and those who do exceptional things with their lives do so by stealing hours otherwise spent on comfortable things like binge-watching Ozark or SV Delos YouTube videos (guilty x 2).  In the meantime the great novel in your head slides sideways into the abyss.  The language you might have learned remains a mystery to you.  The belly gets soft.  The community volunteers carry on without you.  The work is accomplished by others, and we look on in awe at what they achieved.

      And the answer, of course, is to be less comfortable.  To challenge yourself more.  To do the work that must be done to get from this place of relative comfort to a better place of greater meaning and contribution.  To stop scraping by at the bare minimum and double down on your effort.  For all that is worthwhile in this world requires an investment in time and a healthy dose of discomfort to earn it.  But we have to remind ourselves of this daily, because comfort is a dangerous temptress.  And before we know it the days, weeks and years fly by and the dreams remain only dreams.  So toughen up, buttercup!  A bit less comfort is the answer to the question of where will you find the time?

      As Jackson Browne sings, I’ve been aware of the time going by…  and so I’m trying to invest my time in less comfortable things.  Hiking with intent, writing more, working more focused hours in my career, and slowly chipping away at expanding the possible of today.  But I’m still too comfortable.  When there’s so much more to do in the time we have left, isn’t it essential we get to it already?  And in some ways the pandemic offers us a reason to make profound shifts towards the uncomfortable.  To break from the routine and tackle the meaningful.  A catalyst for change just in the nick of time – in this, our critical moment.  For if not now, when?

    • A Perfect Cup of Coffee

      I’m deep into a phase of life where I invest time in the ritual of making excellent coffee. That doesn’t mean investing in expensive coffee making equipment. No, that would be absurd and counter to what a ritual should be. You should be able to make a great coffee anywhere you can boil water – camping, on a boat, in a hotel room, in your office (remember those?), on the side if the road or maybe even at home. And I’ve found the trio of products that make the ritual of making java easy, and dare I say, a meditative experience.

      Readers of this blog know of my affinity for AeroPress. The AeroPress has raised the standard of what great coffee can be. After years of dealing with frustrating French presses, drip coffee makers and slow-as-molasses single serving drip rigs, the AeroPress took the best features of each and rolled them into a highly functional, highly efficient coffee press. Fun fact: the inventor of the AeroPress also invented the Aerobie frisbee. You can see it referenced in the design of the AeroPress.

      I’ve raved about the AeroPress since I started using it.. What makes the experience a ritual is the grinding of the beans while you wait for the water to boil. I use a compact ceramic burr hand grinder made by Hario to do the job. I’ve had this device for a few years, but it was only when I started using the AeroPress that I found it made sense. Since the hand grinder takes one or two scoops of coffee at a time, it pairs well with the AeroPress. Combined with an electric kettle to boil water and you’ve got all the ingredients for a perfect cup of coffee. The water boils in roughly the time it takes to scoop your favorite coffee beans into the grinder, hand grind the beans and set up the AeroPress. There’s no rushing, no loud electric grinder waking up the neighborhood, and simple cleanup afterwards. It’s perfect.

      If it seems I’ve carried on a bit too long about making a cup of coffee in a world of chaos and pandemics and injustice, well, it’s because I have. All that stuff will still be there in your face when you walk out the door or turn on the news (please: don’t), but this perfect ritual of coffee-making zen quiets the mind for a few minutes. And that’s a lovely way to start or re-set your day.

      Okay, who’s ready for another cup?

    • Change of State: Crickets & Krummholz

      In late July the crickets start chirping again, announcing the height of summer in New Hampshire. Early mornings just feel different month-to-month.  Sure, temperatures and the progress of the garden are a consideration, but beyond that the soundtrack at 5:30 is completely different in late July than it was in May or June.  Its all different really, beginning with those crickets.  But I’ve been here before, and know the seasons and the changes that will come over the next few months.  Changes come, but its all familiar change.

      Saturday, as I began my ascent above treeline, I took a few breaths of Balsam Fir-scented air and thought of Christmas.  When you get up in between the boreal and alpine zones where the 4000 footers dance in the windblown snow and ice, the trees are stunted and twisted and tough as nails.  Trees in this zone are called Krummholz, regardless of the species, and sometimes the term Krummholz describes this in-between zone too.  At treeline they’re typically Black Spruce and Balsam Firs and a few adventurous others like an occasional birch looking for a way out of the madness it rooted itself to.  Spruce are stoic but don’t flavor the air with aroma.  Firs make you feel like its Christmas in July.  Both struggle for footing and survival in the acidic, hard ground.  I’m a guest in their home, and silently offer gratitude for allowing me a visit.

      Hiking reinforces for me what I don’t know.  I can sit in my backyard in New Hampshire and pick out different trees and birds and bugs and generally know what they are because I live with them every day.  I can feel or hear the changes in seasons just by hearing some crickets announcing they’re back.  But my visits to the mountains are infrequent in comparison, and I’m less familiar with the migration patterns of birds and the trees themselves across the northern forest.  I heard a few bird calls on my last few hikes that are unfamiliar.  I looked at the forest and sedges and rushes and Mountain Cranberries and recognize that I don’t really know them all that well and couldn’t tell you one from the other.  I scanned the peaks on a clear day and recognize the famous Presidents, but not many of the others.  I was in the same state (New Hampshire), but in a completely different state (uncertainty).

      I’m feeling restless in the familiar lately – a sure sign that I need to get out and see more.  A few hours in a different zone reminded me that the unfamiliar isn’t all that far away.  And I’m reminded again of something Pico Iyer wrote that I quoted a few posts ago: “ecstasy” (“ex-stasis”) tells us that our highest moments come when we’re not stationary”.  To honor the restless spirit inside of us and just get out there to find our highest moments.  It seems a noble pursuit on this random Monday.  The crickets have announced that time is indeed moving along, and the Krummholz remind us that life isn’t always easy but if you hold on you might just survive long enough to see a few things.  Surely a good reminder for this crazy year when the familiar isn’t all that familiar and we’re all a bit restless.

    • All That’s Beautiful…

      “I heard the old, old men say, ‘Everything alters, And one by one we drop away.’
      … I heard the old, old men say, ‘All that’s beautiful drifts away Like the waters.’ – WB Yeats

      Most people don’t like change.  They want to stay in the same comfortable place indefinitely, go to a time share vacation at Disney World every year or to the same beach to have the same experience they had last summer.  Familiar and enjoyable, so why not do it again next year?  And that’s why people buy time shares and beach cottages and permanent camp sites for their Airstream.  There’s a lot to be said for the tried and true.  Immersion for one: Really getting to know a place by going there often.  I’ve really gotten to know a small corner of Buzzards Bay in this way, and find that I still don’t know it as well as I thought I did last time I visited.  Yes, there’s clearly benefit in returning again and again.

      But as Yeats points out, everything alters.  I look at the neighborhood I live in that once had a roving pack of 50 kids riding bicycles and playing games in each other’s yards (a rare phenomenon in the last 20 years).  All those kids are grown up and moved on.  Some new families have moved in, I don’t really know their names, and have started raising the next generation of kids.  Maybe someday the neighborhood will have those packs of kids playing again.  I hope so – otherwise all that Halloween candy goes in my mouth.

      In general I’m a big fan of change.  I’ve changed jobs when it didn’t feel right staying at a place and longer.  I moved primary residences ten times before settling on the place I currently live in, where I’ve been living for 21 years.  But I’ve painted every room in this house a different color at least twice, and some four times.  Change is part of the deal, whether we move or not.  Embrace the changes that happen around us and adapt in ways that make it work for you.  Nobody misses rotary phones, which made your finger numb when you had to dial a long number.  Nobody misses the days when you had to go into a bank to make a deposit or withdrawal instead of using an app on your phone or Venmo to complete a transaction.  Some change is good.  Its progress – the progression of humanity from one stage to another in our technological development.

      “I see my folks, they’re getting old
      And I watch their bodies change
      I know they see the same in me
      And it makes us both feel strange
      No matter how you tell yourself
      It’s what we all go through
      Those eyes are pretty hard to take
      When they’re staring’ back at you”
      – Bonnie Raitt, Nick of Time

      Then there’s the changes that happen with aging.  The progression of decline in our bodies as we grow older.  Aches and pains we didn’t have when we were kids.  Seeing those around us again as well and recognizing the path we’re all on.  I’ve got a heightened sense of awareness of this now more than ever.  We’ve considered moving to a faraway place just to change things up a bit.  Scotland, Iceland, the Azores, the Faroe Islands, Dominica and New Zealand all remain tantalizing places to relocate to for me.  Sailing around the world sounds attractive when the world is open for business, but what do we leave behind when we slip away from the dock?  I think a younger me might have made the leap had the younger me known the stakes.  The me before kids, before aging parents, and such things.  Now I’m not as sure.  But aging doesn’t mean you have to break down quickly.  Fitness is a way to stem the tide and live well in the time we have left.

      All that’s beautiful drifts away, whether we like it or not.  But its replaced by new beauty, if we only open our eyes to it.  We’re all breathing in the dust of eternity, and exhale a part of ourselves back into the universe, which makes us all connected, really.  All part of the timeless wave of humanity, surely, but also all matter.  We all have our minds wrapped around our own mind and body, but we’re just matter and energy with a soul.  The matter and energy move on in time.  Beauty doesn’t disappear, it just moves on down the chain.  We’re just links trying to jealously hold onto to it as long as possible.  But the soul is ours alone, here today, but where will it be tomorrow?  Time will tell.  Anyone who tells you they have the answer is conning you.

      My wife got a call from her mother yesterday, telling her the bad news about one of their neighbor’s kids who has cancer all over their body and isn’t expected to live more than another 18 months.  I suppose that got me thinking about old Mr. Yeats and his poem.  We’re all drifting away eventually, and sometimes much sooner than we’d prefer.  A good reminder to get on with living already, changes and all.  Life is more than a weekly paycheck and a house with a pool in the backyard and a familiar spot on the beach every summer.  Life is about making the most of ourselves in the time we have left.  Live beautifully alive, changes and all.