Alexandersmap

    Category: Travel

    • Saluting the Ghost Ship

      “I’ll never know, and neither will you, of the life you don’t choose. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore.” ― Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

      I sometimes dwell in the things that haven’t carried me. Places I might have gone, or lived in, surrounded by people I might have known, as the person I might have become. There’s nothing productive in what-might-have-been’s, unless we use them to set our current sail. This life is just fine, thank you, but the world will always whisper: “Vienna waits for you”, whatever your personal Vienna happens to be.

      Strayed puts this beautifully—these are but ghost ships that didn’t carry us. Sister lives we didn’t live. I know that I’ll never hike the Appalachian Trail or live on a sailboat in some remote fiord in Norway in winter, but that ghost of a me that will never be still drift into my mind in quiet moments now and then. Except they aren’t always quiet. Sometimes I’ll jokingly state that we’re selling everything and buying a boat, or a camper van, or just jetting off to the Vienna that haunts me that day. The people in my life know my ghost ships and roll their eyes, carrying on maintaining the ship we’re on in the real world. And so do I.

      I blame the artist in me. Creative types create alternative worlds all the time. Not Walter Mitty dreams, for we aren’t daydreamers in that way, but whispers of what may be just over the horizon of our current world, or an idealized version of ourselves as the protagonist. I ought to write more fiction, just to release these would-be characters into the world they crave to be in.

      Watching the crescent moon dance with Venus and Regulus in the early morning sky stirred up the ghost ship once again. Looking westward, Jupiter was dipping towards the west. It was magic time, when the universe whispers to the few cherished souls who awaken to be part of it that life is full of possibility. We may choose and love the ship we’re on for this passage while admiring the ones that slip away to the horizon. Some things will never be in this lifetime, but ’tis a beautiful life we’ve built for ourselves nonetheless, don’t you think?

    • Make it Poetry

      “The poet doesn’t invent. He listens.” — Jean Cocteau

      The thing about listening is we sometimes hear things contrary to the way we’ve always done things. Do we follow this path or stick with the tried and true? What’s so true about the tried anyway?

      The muse isn’t the author, it’s the voice of countless generations of poets and writers, philosophers and gurus who precede the author, channeled into insight. We derive from the act of listening and act upon it. There’s a lot of action in that statement. A great artist creates something meaningful and profound from what they’ve observed, which requires action and a healthy dose of boldness. Listening is passive until it serves as a catalyst for something more.

      We must begin. Simply if necessary. A timid step forward is nonetheless a step forward. We must progress in our work. We must be out in the world to know the world. We must accumulate knowledge and experience and then do something with it, or it becomes trivial. I think back on the accumulated knowledge I picked up in school and laugh to myself at how much was actually utilized in real life. The real game in school was the human dynamic flowing around the structured learning. Doesn’t it remain so still?

      Of course, that Cocteau quote applies to so much more than poetry. Take a look around and listen to the world, for it’s telling us plenty. It too should be a catalyst for something more. The trick is to create something better out of that which we observe. Again, we must progress, or it’s trivial. Haven’t we had enough of trivial? Whatever our life’s work, we must make it poetry.

    • Morning Coffee

      The line for coffee in a hotel Starbucks is informative. We learn about the lives of others in cross line chatter between coworkers, learn who slept well and who was having a rough morning and we learn who in line has never ordered a Starbucks coffee before. The barista, seeing the confused looks, explains automatically that a Tall is a small and a Venti is a large, and I watch their eyes glaze over in confused despair. I think to myself that I’ve been ordering Starbucks for three centuries and I’ve never seen so many novices in one line before. It’s the arrogance of the familiar. I shift to helpfulness to expedite the ordering process that I may get a coffee before lunch.

      I write this next to a brand new Keurig machine in my hotel room, still with packing tape on it and never once plugged in. The hotel staff had stocked it with decaf coffee pods, which explains why it has never been used. If you’re going to use an in-room coffee-making system at all, make it matter. Some of us take our morning cuppa very seriously.

      It’s not about the coffee, really, but the ritual. It marks the beginning of the day, and importantly for this coffee snob, the start of the writing process. I’ve had to write without it before, but it’s nothing to celebrate. To reveal the extent of my love for coffee, I’m meeting people for breakfast at a local diner, where I’ll surely have more coffee. But it’s not stopping me from having this one first.

      We all have our routines and rituals. Those people in line used to pouring a cup of the hotel courtesy coffee had their morning routine turned upside down. I can understand the feeling of exasperation they were feeling as they ran into the strange world of Starbucks. We are, each of us, dealing with some challenging circumstances. Some are Tall, some Grande, and some are Venti. We’re all in this together friends.

    • Being Alive

      “People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.”— Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

      We are most alive when we are actively engaged with the world. This can mean summiting a mountaintop, or stepping into the unknown in a room full of people you don’t know, or reading the words of someone who passed from this world centuries ago. The point is to put ourselves out there to experience what we would completely miss were we to stay in our shell. So step out of the comfort zone and be alive.

    • The Best of Our Energies

      “We shall send to the moon 240,000 miles away, a giant rocket, more than 300 feet tall on an untried mission to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to Earth. But why some say the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why 35 years ago fly the Atlantic? We choose to go to the moon. We chose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we’re willing to accept. One we are unwilling to postpone. And therefore, as we set sail, we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure that man has ever gone.” — John F. Kennedy, Jr.

      Walking around Dallas, Texas to stretch the legs a bit, I had one destination in mind the entire time. It had to be Dealey Plaza and the Texas School Book Depository building. This may seem morbid in a way, but it’s similar to me to visiting the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. It’s a place we all know about (though I wasn’t alive at the time of Kennedy’s assassination) and feel compelled to experience to get a feel for what the place is really like.

      The thing about Kennedy that everyone remembers is the sense of hope and youthful energy that he brought to the White House. That it would be taken away so abruptly ripped the heart of the nation, no matter which side of the aisle you sat on politically. There are very few things that seem to unite us today, and we remember the moments when we stand together as one. That I visited on 9/11 wasn’t lost on me. Along with Pearl Harbor, 9/11, the Challenger explosion, Kennedy’s assassination was one of the seminal moments in American history.

      The thing is, Kennedy died but the ripple he made continued to reverberate. It says a lot that I should seek out the final moments of a man who died before I was born. It says a lot that we did go to the moon, and America did grow as a nation after JFK’s death. We show the way in our lifetime, that others may find their way in their lifetime. That we may grow as a society after we’re gone. Kennedy called for a nation to channel the best of their energies towards an audacious mission. That we accomplished it was one of the brightest moments for the nation in some dark days to follow Kennedy’s assassination.

      That phrase, choosing a goal that “will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills” should still provoke us. Are we measuring up to the best we can be? Do we have the right goals in mind for ourselves? That’s what echoes in my mind when I think of Kennedy. We all know where his life ended, but it’s who he challenged us to be that stays with us.

      Texas School Book Depository building

    • Open to the Unpredictable

      “The secret of adventure, then, is not to carefully seek it out but to travel in such a way that it finds you. To do this, you first need to overcome the protective habits of home and open yourself up to unpredictability. As you begin to practice this openness, you’ll quickly discover adventure in the simple reality of a world that defies your expectations. More often than not, you’ll discover that “adventure” is a decision after the fact—a way of deciphering an event or an experience that you can’t quite explain.” — Rolf Potts, Vagabonding

      Inevitably I awaken well before my alarm goes off, and I believe it to be because I rarely set an alarm anymore. It’s saved for early flights and precious little else. As such, my mind is wrapped around the process of travel instead of deep, restful sleep. Did I pack everything? How does traffic look today? What’s the weather at my destination and have I properly prepared for it? Such is the restlessness of a traveler’s mind.

      This idea of being properly prepared is a form of control. We don’t control all that much when we travel, other than our own actions. A series of random events can turn an itinerary upside down in the blink of an eye. And so we create contingencies and build extra time in to ensure we don’t miss the trains, planes and automobiles that bring us from here to there and back again.

      As we open ourselves up to encounters with the unexpected, we face the very things we can’t always be prepared for. Adapting to the challenges we face builds resilience and a higher level of worldliness than we had before. As we become more worldly we condition ourselves for the unexpected.

      Louis Pasteur said that “fortune favors the prepared mind”. When we feel ready for the unexpected we become more open to receiving it when it arrives. Openness is a developed skill as much as it is a mindset. So as I rose to meet the day, I took comfort in the preparation that would carry me through the host of unexpected that will surely greet me.

    • Doing If You Want To‘s

      “If you want to be a poet, write poetry. Every day. Show us your work.
      If you want to do improv, start a troupe. Don’t wait to get picked.
      If you want to help animals, don’t wait for vet school. Volunteer at an animal shelter right now.
      If you want to write a screenplay, write a screenplay.
      If you want to do marketing, find a good cause and spread the idea. Don’t ask first.
      If you’d like to be more strategic or human or caring at your job, don’t wait for the boss to ask.
      Once we leave out the “and” (as in, I want to do this and be well paid, invited, approved of and always successful) then it’s way easier to.”
      — Seth Godin, Are you doing what you said you wanted to do?

      Well, if you want to sing out, sing out
      And if you want to be free, be free
      ‘Cause there’s a million things to be
      You know that there are
      — Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam), If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out

      We complicate things with the stories we tell ourselves. We envision what a writer ought to look like, or an actor or leader or whatever we aspire to be. Instead of just slipping on the role for size and doing it. Just do it, as Nike famously coopted as their slogan. How many do just that? Don’t let it slip away, do some version of it now and grow into the rest.

      I write this blog fancying myself a writer. I wear plenty of other hats as well, so I try to write before the world wakes up and tells me I’m supposed to be something else now. Most of the time I give the world what it wants of me, but for a little time every day I simply write. If the posts are late in the day or seem a bit compressed and scattered, it’s usually a sign that I was running late, compressed and scattered myself. But I still put it out there as a humble statement that yes, I do in fact write.

      There’s a million things to be, you know that there are, but there’s usually a very short list of things you simply have to be to feel you’re on the right path. Doing those if you want to’s is the only way to feel like the world isn’t passing you by. Most of the universe barely recognizes that Seth Godin or Yusuf Islam put out similar statements, let alone me, but each of us knows that we showed up and shipped the work. We each grow into our identity with the things we do now. Sometimes that’s enough.

    • The Shift From Intelligence to Wisdom

      “When you are young, you have raw smarts; when you are old, you have wisdom. When you are young, you can generate lots of facts; when you are old, you know what they mean and how to use them…. if you can repurpose your professional life to rely more on crystallized intelligence—your peak will come later but your decline will happen much, much later, if ever.” — Arthur C. Brooks, From Strength to Strength

      Raymond Cattell theorized that we have two kinds of intelligence: fluid intelligence, which includes problem solving, reasoning and logic, and crystallized intelligence, which is the wisdom to draw upon our accumulated knowledge and derive what to make if it all. If fluid intelligence is exhibited by start-up hustle and eager undergraduate students devouring information, crystallized intelligence is more the consultant swooping in to help a business define their why, or a professor guiding those undergrads towards enlightenment.

      In my career, I’ve been the eager hustler trying to do as much as I could in the world, and I’ve become the person trying to make sense of it all. It’s probably no coincidence that I began this blog when I reached some measure of crystallized intelligence. Surely it would be nothing but fish and chips reviews (ie: discovery) were I still in that fluid intelligence stage. Ten years ago I was still taking exams to add certification credentials to my resume. I wouldn’t dream of playing that game today. Does that make me an old dog unwilling to learn new tricks, or someone who realizes my best game isn’t about that particular trick?

      The thing is, we can still be eager students of life at any age. We can seek wisdom when we’re young and solve problems when we grow old, but it helps greatly to optimize our lives around our strengths in the phase of life we find ourselves in. To be useful and productive means something different at 25, 50 and 75. we ought to dance with our strengths and mitigate the impact of the absence of those strengths we haven’t arrived at yet, or have faded as we change.

      Brooks’ premise is that achievers often fight the natural decline in fluid intelligence instead of embracing the accumulated wisdom and potential of crystallized intelligence. This leads to frustration at best and bitterness at seeing the world pass us by at worst. The answer seems to be finding a groove that matches the music playing on our particular playlist, and dance with that. The tune changes as we change, but it’s music just the same.

    • Isle au Haut: A Billion Stars and Pristine Trails

      “This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way?” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Anchored in a quiet cove, boat rolling steadily (and indicating why we were alone in this place), we stepped out into a brilliant sky to bear witness to a billion stars. The Milky Way so bright it reflected off the water. This was what we’d hoped for, yet almost missed fleeing mosquitoes earlier in the evening. We were not so alone after all.

      The thing about sailing that is so attractive is your ability to place yourself in places like this, nudged up against a corner of Acadia National Park that few ever venture to. There are no buses or fifth wheel camp trailers on Isle au Haut. Those are fine people too, just more than I seek out when getting away from it all. Here you find the quiet bliss inferred in the very concept of a nature preserve.

      Spending a bit of time on the main stretch (where the road is actually paved), we found the locals friendly and the ice cream sandwiches tasty, but I couldn’t buy a stamp for my postcard after 11 AM. Isle au Haut has what must be one of the nation’s smallest Post Offices. If you want counter service get there early. So it goes. The stamp will have to wait.

      The hiking trails are mostly well-defined here, and in some boggy corners nature’s winning the battle to reclaim them. They say build it and they will come, and surely we do, but not so many that you ever feel you can’t get some solitude. We saw precious few fellow hikers, despite the delightful trail network. This naturally continued out at the anchorage. Precious few fellow sailboats. There is plenty of elbow room on Isle au Haut. May it always be this way.

      Isle au Haut Lighthouse (1907)

    • Two Bush Island

      Maine has 4000 islands, which means some names repeat, while other names stand out for their charming descriptiveness. Two Bush Island is one of those latter names. And coming across them inspires even more wanderlust. You simply want to explore a place like this.

      We saved our wandering for Isle au Haut (surely a future blog post), But I was left wondering about the fanciful, perhaps practical name of this tiny island. As we sailed we tossed around all kinds of possibilities, being a lighthouse station and all, but the answer was as Maine Yankee practical as we originally thought. Here is the official version of where it got the name: “The island was named by local fisherman for two large pine trees which inhabited the island and served as navigational daymarkers before the station was built. Two Bush Island Light Station was established in 1897 to mark the southwestern entrance to Two Bush Channel in Penobscot Bay”.

      That link above also offers a wonderful story of the lighthouse keeper’s dog being involved in a rescue. The dog’s name was “Smut”. One night he heard two men trying to row their dory to safety and Smut started barking at them, luring them towards the island and safety. Sure, smut can be the ruin of many a sailor, but this story clearly demonstrates that sometimes Smut can save the day.

      Two Bush Island