Alexandersmap

    Category: Relationships

    • Searching for the Marvelous

      “Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous. I want to be a writer who reminds others that these moments exist; I want to prove that there is infinite space, infinite meaning, infinite dimension.
      But I am not always in what I call a state of grace. I have days of illuminations and fevers. I have days when the music in my head stops. Then I mend socks, prune trees, can fruits, polish furniture. But while I am doing this I feel I am not living.” — Anais Nin

      “The secret of a full life is to live and and be open to others as if tomorrow they might not be there as if you might not be there. This eliminates the vice of procrastination, the sin of putting things off, the missed communions.” — Anais Nin

      I’m often accused of talking to everyone—this is often true—for in each of us there’s a story worth discovering. Every now and then you discover magic, sparked by interest. These are the high moments I believe Anais Nin was seeking as well. She seemed a woman I’d have loved to have met. Forget for a moment her fame for writing erotica, she just seemed so damned interesting. We must each find the fascinating things about living and bring it to the world. When you meet someone equally compelled to discover, the space between us erupts in wonder. You don’t have to take your clothes off for that to happen.

      There are moments when I feel the infinite meaning, when I feel the marvelous. You sense these things all around you when you’re attuned to discovery. It might be something as exhilarating as travel or as commonplace as gardening: I’ve found it in waterfalls deep in the forest and in the crashing surf seen from high on a cliffside trail in western Portugal. These are to be expected, and the compelling reason why we seek out such places. But I’ve also found it hiding in plain sight in my backyard garden, in the scent of tomato vines on a hot summer day. It’s all around you when you look for it.

      The trick is to be open to experiences. Find possibility in the circumstance we’ve stumbled into. These occasions are fleeting at best, and gone in an instant. To be fully alive is to tune in to everything around us and savor its sweetness in its season. For this is also our season, and we may never pass this way again. Carpe diem. Let’s not waste another moment.

    • Be Yourself

      “What is the point of being on this Earth if you are going to be like everyone else?” — Arnold Schwarzenegger

      We’re all unique, yet so much of our time is dedicated to fitting in with the pack. We instinctively know the pack helps us survive, but we often chafe at the limitations of it. This is the ongoing dilemma of humanity: to be yourself or to be a part of things. As with everything, balance is the key.

      Still the call of the wild persists. We can be so much more than the average (and who wants to be average?) if we just push the boundaries a bit more. To test not just our limits, but the limits of the social construct we’ve immersed ourselves in. Yet we can never ignore the power of family and friends to pull us back in, for the better or worse, depending on the box we reside in. To believe that it doesn’t influence how far we go is delusional. The trick is to find creative ways to step out of that box. When that doesn’t work, immersing ourselves in a new social construct offers the freedom we require.

      My daughter has a friend who moved from another country to go to college in the United States. While attending college, that person decided to transition from a he to a she. In their home country they’d be murdered for such audacity as being gay, let alone transitioning. In this new social construct, she’s building a life for herself in the relative safety of California. If I got any pronouns wrong there, forgive me, for I came from a social construct that is still trying to sort it all out in our own heads. That’s not a form of resistance, that’s simply trying to learn the new game. Akin to an American watching a cricket game and trying to figure it all out.

      The point is, just be yourself, whatever that is for you. Most of us will catch up eventually. The world doesn’t turn on a dime, after all. There’s a lot of momentum forcing us to stay in line. People get spun up easily over change, and the fervor from the familiar voices (family, friends, church and state) can be compelling for people who otherwise might be more open to acceptance. Most people just want to believe the same stories they were brought up with are true. To hear otherwise is to challenge the core of who we are. Knowing this, we ought to tread lightly on their identities. Change can be hard for everyone.

      Just as we work to change ourselves incrementally with good habits, systems and routines, so it is with the world we live in. Steady progress wins in the end. We become what we consistently work towards becoming. Go be yourself. I’ll do the same. Let’s meet somewhere in the middle.

    • Becoming Rich With Memories

      “The business of life is the acquisition of memories. In the end that’s all there is.” — Mr. Carson of Downton Abbey

      “You retire on your memories. When you’re too frail to do much of anything else, you can still look back on the life you’ve lived and experience immense pride, joy, and the bittersweet feeling of nostalgia…. Making deliberate choices about how to spend your money and your time is the essence of making the most of your life energy.” — Bill Perkins, Die With Zero

      We all talk of how the time flies by, but perhaps we ought to focus on how many great memories we accumulate in that span. If we’re living well, experiences are acquired and flipped into memories with the turn of the calendar. We may not become financially wealthy, but surely we might accumulate a lifetime of memories worthy of our time. As the quote above points out, in the end, isn’t that all there is?

      What are memories but the realization of deliberate action? As much as I love a good spreadsheet, I know deep down that working in them isn’t creating memories that will last a week, let alone a lifetime. But I may just remember the conversation I have with someone important in my world a lot longer. I may recall the thrill of peering over a cliff at an angry ocean in Portugal and smile someday when I’m too old for such things. I expect I’ll still smile at the recollection of my kids realizing the amusement park ride they insisted on going on was going to be a lot scarier than they’d bargained on when they begged to go on it. This is the accumulated wealth of memories.

      Perkins’ book challenges us to stop accumulating savings and start spending our money while we’re healthy and fit enough to actually do the things we promise ourselves we’ll eventually do, someday, when we retire. As if we can do at 65 what we might do at 25 or 35. Do it now. There is no tomorrow, and if there is, we won’t be able to pull off some of the things we believe our bodies and minds will be capable of someday when.

      I’ve watched too many people in my life hear the news that they won’t make it to retirement. Cancer seems to be the most common thief of dreams, but maybe an accident or a heart attack steals everything you’ve ever planned for “someday when” away from you. Your life is now: accumulate the memories that will make you richer then. It’s the best return on investment we can have with today.

    • On Father’s Day

      Father’s Day means something different when you’re a father. You learn to view your own father(s) through a different lens. After all, parenthood and marriage change us, and how we react to such changes has a profound impact on everyone within the nuclear family. Most would agree that to sire children is the easy part, but it doesn’t make one a father. You have to earn that part through presence and perseverance.

      My bride points out that Mother’s Day is not for the person who is the mother, but for that person’s mother. It surely applies to fathers as well. When you’re a parent, it never should be about you, only those you care for and protect. Nobody said it would be easy, let alone about us. It’s never really been about us anyway. Parenthood teaches this more than anything. Living for others makes us good humans, not just good parents, don’t you think?

      My own fathers, and I count two as fathers, weren’t fully ready for the role but did the best they could with the opportunity. I try to honor the best in both of them in my interactions with others, especially my own children. You become aware that many don’t rise to meet the role, and appreciate those who do. The ego truly is the enemy when it comes to being a great father. You know one when you meet one, and do what you can to be one.

      Father’s Day means something entirely different when your father slips away from you. Dementia, death, obligation or indifference are all forms of slipping away. Eventually something pulls our fathers away from us. Once you’ve experienced this, being fully present with our fathers while we have the opportunity seems the only way to truly honor and thank them for being a part of our lives.

      Happy Father’s Day.

    • Accumulated Value

      “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” — George Bernard Shaw

      “Those were steps for me, and I have climbed up over them: to that end I had to pass over them. Yet they thought that I wanted to retire on them.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

      There are times when doing nothing seems better than stumbling along making one mistake after another. There are times when standing still seems far more attractive than sliding sideways off the cliff. We are progressing one step at a time, even as some of those steps feel like a plateau. What are we reaching for but some better version of ourselves?

      As we grow and acquire skills and knowledge we become more useful. Our usefulness to others is a trade-off of sorts, a curriculum vitae of accumulated value used to trade our time and applied energy to the greater good, or at least a paycheck and a place in the room where it happens. But that accumulated value also applies to our usefulness to ourselves. We reach our potential through the climb.

      I spoke with an old college friend recently. Conversations with people you haven’t seen in a long time turn into a gap analysis: What have you done in the time between then and now? Relationships, children, jobs, affiliations, beliefs and habits all fill the gap, determining who we become. Some people grow apart, some grow together. Life is a game of place and time, yet we still have a say in who we might be. The thing is, a conversation like that allows us to see the gap in ourselves too. Those steps passed over summarized as growth and setbacks, lessons learned or missed, all bringing us here.

      Do we like the view? We must remember that we’re simply passing over another step. It’s helpful to ask what value we’re accumulating in this present state, and how that might ease our ascent to the next. For the journey continues this day.

    • Love Is Touching Souls

      Oh, I am a lonely painter
      I live in a box of paints
      I’m frightened by the devil
      And I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid
      I remember that time you told me
      You said, “Love is touching souls”
      Surely you touched mine
      ‘Cause part of you pours out of me
      In these lines from time to time
      — Joni Mitchell, A Case of You

      Joni Mitchell, 79 as I write this, recently played live for three hours with Brandi Carlile and a host of other very talented people. I thought about doing a “Joni Mitchell in Five Songs” blog post as I’ve done with other artists, but this isn’t the time to summarize a career that’s once again active. I think I’ll leave it with this one brilliant lyric from A Case of You. Do you wonder who she’s writing about, or reflect instead on your own ghosts? She remains an inspiration for those of us who are forever stacking words together to find the meaning hidden deep inside of us.

      We are, each of us, influenced by ghosts who reveal themselves now and then in moments of clarity. Some are profoundly important souls who reverberate long after they’ve passed (I think of a certain Navy pilot as I write this), and some reveal themselves in a vision replayed from time to time. A gesture or something said that caught your attention in a conversation long ago, which rewards you now as a nod of approval for an evasive line you didn’t know you had in you. What carries these memories even now, after all this time?

      We are each in the business of touching souls, and making something of our time with others. It would be bold to say that we’ll ever be a highlight in someone else’s memory playlist, for being memorable was never the point at all. Too many focus on cleverness, when it’s bringing meaning to another life that ripples beyond our time.

      So what has meaning in our moments? Isn’t it feeling connection with another, for an instant or a lifetime built together? Touching souls begins with revealing our own to another, that they may feel liberated to rise beyond themselves. It’s a flicker of light in the darkness, fragile yet forever illuminating. Prompting reflections that shine beyond their genesis.

    • We Are All Potentially Free

      “To move forward clinging to the past is like dragging a ball and chain. The prisoner is not the one who has committed a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over. We are all guilty of crime, the great crime of not living life to the full. But we are all potentially free. We can stop thinking of what we have failed to do and do whatever lies within our power.” — Henry Miller, Sexus: The Rosy Crucifixion I

      Cleaning out some old files recently, I came across an old letter I’d received from a woman I’d once dated. It was the last communication I’d ever had with her, and the only letter she’d ever written to me, stuck inside a funny greeting card. Reading it again for the first time in a few decades, I smiled at the memories and returned the letter to the box it was stored in. Perhaps I’ll stumble upon it again in a few decades more. It’s nothing more than a time stamp of who we both once were.

      I know another woman who married the man of her dreams. That groom decided that he hadn’t married the woman of his dreams and they separated. He moved on with his life, she never did, and clings to the illusion of who she once was. She never had children, never met another life partner, and is forever in limbo. Friends and family can’t shake her loose from the illusions of the past. She’s a lovely person who inadvertently became a cautionary tale for the rest of us.

      Do you wonder what memories of today will stumble back into your mind in a few decades time? What will we cling to, and what will fade away? Are we like farmers, perpetually working the same land, or hunter-gatherers, endlessly moving forward towards something new? We’re a bit of both, aren’t we? Perhaps the better analogy is a weight-lifter. Each lift breaks something down within us but may strengthen us over time. If we were to forever carry that weight we wouldn’t go very far at all.

      I mentioned before on this blog that I gave both of my adult children Some Lines a Day journals for Christmas, that they might have moments like the greeting card moment I had, but every day going forward. The trick is to regularly write down what was important in any given day. It forces you to observe, but also creates desire to do something worth writing down. The magic comes in subsequent years, when you can look back on what you did on that day and compare it to who you’ve become. May it be growth.

      We can’t live in the past, but we can surely use our days to build a strong foundation, that we may reach higher in our days to come. The people who come and go from our lives, the people we ourselves once were and never will be again, are all memories of a lifetime. They ought to be building blocks, not a ball and chain, and not nails in our coffin. Growth is nothing more than learning who to be next. We’re all just figuring this life out, aren’t we? It’s okay to hold on to memories, but shed the past and go be who’s next. I bet it will be quite a character.

    • Stories, and How We Interpret Them

      “Be careful how you interpret the world; it is like that.” — Erich Heller

      “We are defined by the stories we tell ourselves.” — Tony Robbins

      Our beliefs do have a way of defining us, don’t they? Tell a story enough times and it begins to feel like our truth. Stories about who we are, the type of lifestyle we live, the work we do and the people we spend our time with. They usually have similar stories to ours, don’t they?

      Listen to other storytellers. This can be dangerous and disruptive. Wars have begun over stories that don’t jibe with another. Entire cultures have been crushed by stories. There are whispered cries in history for the injustice and pain of a bad story, implemented. An entire lifetime can be wasted when hooked to the wrong story.

      There’s friction in changing stories. How do you shake off the grip of long-held beliefs? The first step is to get out of the echo chamber of reinforcement. Digest new information, find new places, reach beyond what is comfortable.

      Given the stakes, it’s fair to question what we believe to be true in the world. It’s fair to choose to change our story. This is where boldness comes into our story. To be bold is to step away from our previous self and begin the long climb to a better view.

      The trap is to try to pull other people along who haven’t changed their own story just yet. Rarely does another soul want to hear that their story is wrong. Telling people anything is a sure road to resentment and conflict. Let them see instead. When we see we begin to change ourselves, and step towards a new story previously unimagined.

      As with any great story, the first draft is nothing to celebrate. We don’t arrive in this world perfect in every way, no matter what our mother tells us. But we must keep editing. With time and patience and more than a little effort, eventually we’ll arrive at our masterpiece. At least that’s the story I tell myself.

    • The Moments Between Us

      Most people search all
      of their lives
      for someplace to belong to
      as you said
      but I look instead
      into the eyes of anyone
      who talks to me
      — June Jordan, Poem For a Young Poet

      We know how this works when we’ve lived awhile. People come and go from our lives, some never to return, and we move on without them. Some people we will barely recall, but others remain unforgettable. What do you remember most about a person? A tilt of the head and a shared laugh? Something said or done to punctuate the day? Often it’s nothing more than lingering in a gaze, and reaching deep connection with another soul, if only for a moment.

      I have little interest in transactional conversation. If the barista or waiter is expecting to take my drink order and move on with their lives they have another thing coming. I seek connection, even in those brief seconds, that will create a ripple of positive energy in an otherwise mundane exchange. Most of the moment will surely fade away for both parties, but what lingers?

      We are but a moment’s sunlight
      Fading in the grass
      — Chet Powers/The Youngbloods, Get Together

      Knowing everything fades away, wouldn’t the most generous thing we can do in this world be to then reflect light back to another? To illuminate and radiate, one-to-one, in this moment shared. It’s a form of upping the ante, because when the other soul is willing and aware they reflect right back to you too, magnifying the positive vibe.

      This is the opposite of the negative energy seen in the comments section of any social media platform, where darker forces prevail. Do you wonder why? I believe it’s because fellow humans aren’t making eye contact with one another, and thus not feeling the stakes of the game they’re playing. We can’t make real connection with another through words typed in reaction to someone else’s words. Darkness only consumes, it never illuminates.

      So where do we find moments of light? Awareness matters a great deal in building a life of connection and love. We all want to belong to something in this world. We all want to find meaning and purpose and maybe a bit of joy in the rush from there to the next. And there’s the answer, hiding in plain sight. So often we miss the opportunity for joyful connection standing right in front of us, awaiting our response. Look connection right in the eye and shine your light.

    • Aware in the Moment

      “Später ist zu spät.“ (Later is too late) — Peter Altenberg

      This morning I’m driving my daughter to the airport. Once again our time together was all too brief. We each pack a lot into our days, which means never enough time in the same attentive moment, but we make the time that we do have matter. None of us is perfect in our efficiency: We all waste time on unimportant things at the expense of the essential. But awareness helps with prioritization.

      Memento mori—Remember we all must die, one day hopefully many years from now. Or perhaps sooner, we simply don’t know for sure. But we ought to embrace that realization and do something about it. If not now, then when? Anything but now is a fool’s game.

      Whatever we are deferring that matters a great deal must be done now. There’s simply no guarantee for tomorrow. What would we do if we knew this was our last day together? We’d up our game, linger in moments, hug harder and be hyper-aware of everything. Let’s all hope for a longer timeline, but live with that urgency today anyway. Be aware in the moment. For it’s all that matters.