Alexandersmap

    Category: Travel

    • Orange and Order

      “Rejoice! The purpose of life is joy. Rejoice at the sky, the sun, the stars, the grass, the trees, animals, people. If this joy is disturbed it means that you’ve made a mistake somewhere. Find your mistake and correct it. Most often this joy is disturbed by money and ambition.”
      — Leo Tolstoy (via Poetic Outlaws)

      “No one is singular, that no argument will change the course, that one’s time is more gone than not, and what is left waits to be spent gracefully and attentively, if not quite so actively.” — Mary Oliver, Winter Hours

      Productivity and bold action have their place in this world, for progress depends on it. Progress for humanity, surely, but also for the individual. But we must remember too that we skate a line between Yin and Yang, and balance is the key. If Yang represents boldness and action, Yin represents temperance and reflection. It’s quite figuratively day and night, which may be why some of us find the orange hour in between to be our happiest place.

      Our best life is found in balance, and we feel the urge to lean in to both extremes now and then when our body and soul remind us of our imbalance. This disturbance of the Force (if you will) creates restlessness, which in turn triggers change. We all feel it in our own way. For me, it’s often the nagging question of “what’s next?” wrestling with the emphatic reply of “here and now”. Action calls, joy reminds. What will we listen to today?

      Somewhere along the way I’ve put aside some goals I’d been chasing for a lifetime. Somewhere along the way I’ve leaned into different objectives for the balance of my time. We are each in the process of becoming what’s next, and possibly even savoring what it is we’ve become thus far. Life is balance between the two, represented by orange and order. That balance is where the joy is.

      Orange Hour

    • A Dash of Flavor

      If most of life is lived in a steady state of routine, we have the opportunity to add micro-bursts of exceptional living now and then to spice up this dish. Some people take that opportunity whenever a free moment comes along, some embrace routine for their entire journey. Bursts of unique experiences can be quite thrilling. Conversely, routine can be quite fulfilling. Who are we to judge which is best? Maybe the answer is a wee bit of both.

      A couple of senior sisters I know recently took an epic roadtrip from New England to Florida, stopping at bucket list historic sites along the way. These were places they’d always wanted to visit, but kept putting off to prioritize the routine things that came up in their lives. This trip was a burst of adventure that they’ll talk about for years to come. I hope they’re already planning their next adventure.

      I’ve come to terms with not selling everything and sailing around the world. Simply put, I have a lot to do right here and now that compels me to embrace some level of routine that reinforces the productive, creative soul I’ve decided to be. That doesn’t mean I’ve accepted blandness in my life diet. Every day offers the opportunity for more flavor than we’d otherwise consider. Add a dash.

      The rower in me knows how this goes. Most of the race is intense steady state, with a few bursts of all-out effort to pull ahead. You don’t win the race rowing steady state the entire way, nor can you sustain all-out effort for 2000 meters. You must be strategic in where you use your energy, ensuring that you don’t run out of gas before the finish (“fly and die”), while also reaching the end with an empty tank (thus, doing your best). A productive life has similar cadence.

      “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Aristotle (or was it Will Durant?)

      Surely, we can do more than we believe is possible in a day, let alone a lifetime. Another lesson from rowing was to just focus on the next stroke, and then the one after that. Dwelling on what is sustainable is a sure way of talking yourself out of doing anything at all. Still, we must use our power budget wisely. Micro-bursts of activity teach us what is possible, while offering a light at the end of the tunnel. Knowing we only have this brief time to do things, why not maximize the moment?

      We can’t have it all, but we can have a lot more than we give ourselves permission to go after in life. Spice up life with a burst of adventure now and then, for it’s good for the soul. It also informs us of what’s possible. Too much spice can ruin a dish, but not enough and it’s bland. There’s that line between chaos and order again, showing us that balance is the key. Just don’t confuse balance with timidity. Be bold.

    • Santa Monica Sunset

      I learned a few things yesterday that change my worldview. Most notably, I’m not the Skee Ball player I once was. Someone’s got to finish last. I provided enough evidence to convince myself, grudgingly, that I’m not as good as my wife and daughter. So be it. More importantly, I suppose, was spending the time with each of them.

      The Santa Monica Pier is a classic California beach pier, jammed with people watching the waves roll underneath while the sun drops towards the horizon. The arcade and amusement park rides were active, despite a chilly breeze off the Pacific Ocean. Dining choices were strictly fattening and a bit greasy, and nobody seemed particularly concerned about the lack of kale and spinach smoothies on the menu. There’s plenty of that elsewhere in California, this place is for fun.

      Route 66 terminates at Santa Monica Pier. You could drive your car from Chicago to Santa Monica, park on the pier and watch the sunset with some fried dough if you want to. I settled for the sunset, which seemed a great way to wrap up a brief few days out west.

      There’s no doubt this place is touristy, but the beach and rolling waves back it up with substance. Sometimes we just need to forget the world’s problems and have some fun. This place has offered up fun for generations.

    • A Visit to Joshua Tree

      California’s Joshua Tree National Park is technically a part of the Mojave Desert, but it straddles the Colorado Desert. Where the Mojave is considered a high elevation desert, the Colorado Desert is a low elevation desert. So Joshua Tree is the unique meeting place of the two extremes. It was protected as a national monument in 1936, largely to stop cactus poachers from taking everything, and elevated to a national park in 1994 as part of the Desert Protection Bill. It’s namesake, the Joshua Tree, or Yucca brevifolia, earned its nickname for resembling arms raised in supplication, and became famous when U2 gave the name to their biggest album. U2 put Joshua Tree on my radar, and I’ve felt compelled to visit ever since.

      Joshua Tree is famous for more than just the yuccas dotting the arid landscape. There are massive boulders and rock formations to explore. Three of the most famous of these are Arch Rock, Skull Rock and the once evasive Heart Rock. Fame comes with a price, and each had swarms of tourists descending on them for photographs. I descended on them too, of course, and managed a few pictures without people crawling into view with patience and creative staging. Each picture you see below was the result of waiting out the people taking their version of the same picture. But this is what you get in a place like this. Better to share than to have it owned by a private individual who bars access. National Parks are a treasure for all citizens to enjoy.

      My visit to Joshua Tree National Park was a detour from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. This drive took me through the stark landscape of the Mojave Desert. This is a place where a full tank of gasoline and plenty of water are essential elements of your self-preservation. It’s so very different from the two cities on either end of the journey. You can see no signs of life for miles around you driving through the desert, and the desert is indifferent to your desire to stay alive in it. Come prepared.

      There are several places to camp in Joshua Tree, and some additional motels nearby. There’s even a Starbucks in Twentynine Palms, not ten minutes from one of the entrances to the park. Civilization isn’t far at all from some parts of Joshua Tree, but you’ll feel like you’re on another planet anyway.

      Arch Rock
      Heart Rock
      Joshua Tree (Yucca brevifolia)
      Cholla Cactus Garden
      Skull Rock
      Rock scrambler’s paradise

    • Desert Decisions

      Caffeine and alcohol hit you a bit differently in the desert. The desert sucks you dry. Here, you’re always skating the line between chaos and disorder with dehydration already. Pour in some stimulants or depressants and see how it goes. Looking around Las Vegas, it seems it often goes badly.

      Las Vegas can be invigorating and off-putting all at once. Jaw dropping moments occur regularly, from the extraordinary talent of the performers here, the sheer decadence on display, the choices some people make balancing their wardrobes with other decisions they’ve made in their lives, or the gritty, desperate living death of those cast aside all around you. You see things you want to see in Vegas, but good god you see things you you never wanted to see too.

      The desert dryness is catching up with me, but so too is immersion in this place. I’ve spent a lot of my ration of days in a place I’m completely ambivalent about. Life is very much encapsulated in Las Vegas. We can live boldly or slide sideways off track. For all the incredible, wonderful people making something for themselves here, there are others who descend into the abyss. If this city teaches you anything, it’s that we become what we focus on, one decision built on the next.

    • What Doesn’t Happen in Las Vegas

      Las Vegas keeps growing, and growing more crowded. If your desire is to immerse yourself in thick waves of people looking for their moment that stays in Vegas, it may be just what you’re looking for. To be fair to the city, the Strip has never looked so spectacularly lavish. Every time I visit they’ve thrown up another massive structure. Casinos and arenas grow bigger and more elaborate. The classic older casinos remain the familiar smoky maze that brings comfort to a certain crowd. The new casinos draw in the hip, young, and beautiful with their seemingly unlimited bank accounts. To walk through one and then the other is to see almost the entire history of this place. One can become almost invisible to the throngs staring in wonder at the visual display around them.

      Finishing a dinner at the Paris Casino, a business associate and I chose to walk back to the casino we were staying at. Our other associates chose to take a taxi back. We beat them by twenty minutes. That doesn’t speak to the briskness of our walk, but the crush of traffic from one to the other. The sidewalks might be crowded too, but at least you can keep moving along. I shudder at the gallons of fossil fuel burning wastefully as the long line of cars awaits the next light. But that’s part of Las Vegas too. Building a city in the desert necessitates an embrace of wastefulness. Water, electricity, gasoline and lives drift away in unison.

      Las Vegas has built itself up to be whatever you want it to be for yourself, so long as you’ve got the money to fund your life choices. Gambling, fine dining, shows, sex, drugs and alcohol are all here awaiting those who choose to embrace it. Some of these choices will be lifetime memories, some will be things you’d like to forget. Always choose wisely. No matter what the slogan says, some things don’t just stay in Vegas. Being a prudent practitioner of what doesn’t happen in Vegas is a sound way of having just enough fun to make it out unscathed.

      This may read like an indictment of Las Vegas. It’s not meant to be. Simply put, it’s hard not to have fun in this city, and I always find it enjoyable, just in more moderation than the majority of people around me. This has always been my way. Give me quiet places in abundance, and the madness of this adult playground to remind me of why I choose those quiet places far from here.

    • Where Love and Need Are One

      My object in living is to unite
      My avocation and my vocation
      As my two eyes make one in sight.
      Only where love and need are one,
      And the work is play for mortal stakes,
      Is the deed ever really done
      For heaven and the future’s sakes.
      — Robert Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time

      When people ask whether I’m traveling for business or pleasure, I sometimes pause a beat to ponder the question. Business travel is a trade-off of obligation and discovery. We can be productive and explore the ripe potential of place. This blog was born of an inclination to wander about during business travel, and I’ve been the better for having closed the gap between work and my curiosity about the world around me.

      And what of the work itself? I hear the laugh of a friend who thinks of work as nothing but a means to an end. It’s called work for a reason, she would tell me. What’s love got to do with it? But looking back on every job I’ve ever had, even the most tedious and miserable of jobs, I still found delight in discovery. Like Robert Frost finding joy in splitting wood, the joy lies in learning new tricks in our trade. We each have our verse to write in this world. There ought to be joy in finding ourselves in it.

    • Art With a Spritz of Lime

      “Art is art and life is life, but to live life artistically; that is the art of life.”— Peter Altenberg

      A close friend has a flare for living well. He’ll spritz lime on a potato dish and make something extraordinary of what was moments before thought to be disparate produce. He’s always looking for the exceptional in an otherwise average day. And he drives many people mad as a result. Like that burst of citrus in a starchy dish, I find his perspective punctuates life perfectly.

      This business of living artistically is something to aspire to. Capturing moments with a bit of magic and moving through the ordinary with je ne sais quoi, these are the things that matter very much in a world that wants you to fall in line and fit right in. Certainly, we must do our job and do it well, but why always settle for vanilla?

      We each live on both sides of ordinary. It’s a gift to be human at a time and place when you can express yourself freely. We ought to use that gift and add more flavor to our days. Like every gift, we must choose to use it. Art is a deliberate act, expressed uniquely. What might we bring to the table if we have the gumption to try something new?

      We all know the expression: when the world throws you lemons, make lemonade. There’s another clever expression I once found on a kitchen magnet that adds a twist: when the world throws you limes, make margaritas. To this I’ll add, don’t forget to save some lime for the potatoes.

    • Others

      “In order to be the person I want to be, I must strive, hourly, against the drag of the others.” — Mary Oliver, Sand Dabs, Four*

      Some of them mean well, wanting nothing but the best for us. Some don’t care a lick about what we want, only that a glow might reflect on them. Some mean us nothing but harm in their own devious way, feelings born in some moment of contempt. We learn who some of these characters are over time. Some we go to our graves believing are one but are really the other. In the end they may scarcely matter, or they may matter a great deal. It depends, always, on us.

      We must find our own way. Sometimes this is with the help of others, sometimes despite them. We can’t be carried to our potential, we must reach for it ourselves. This is how we grow into the person we want to become.

    • These Roads

      These roads don’t move;
      You’re the one that moves.
      — Jay Farrar and Benjamin Gibbard, These Roads Don’t Move

      Jay Farrar framed this song around the words of Jack Kerouac back in 2009. I’d first heard it while driving around the northeast, trying to make things work in a job I’d eventually leave. The song has been a favorite ever since. Jobs come and go, songs and memories stick with us for a lifetime.

      Back when this song was released, I often thought I ought to write more, but never got around to it. Mostly I felt I didn’t have enough to say. I wonder what that me would have come up with? I can guess, being me at the time, but not really the me of now. Somewhere there are old journals full of quotes and restless thoughts of a younger man, then, as now, trying to figure things out. What was missing was the act of publishing. But the universe wasn’t exactly feeling the void. Only me.

      Writing is simply a routine developed over time. So it is with collecting experience. We move through the world bearing witness to all that we stumble upon, while doing our best to rise to meet the moment. Each road brought us here. But we’re the ones that moved.