Alexandersmap

    Category: Writing

    • 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?

    • Squeaky Toys

      You learn quickly that you simply cannot write as effectively when a puppy has a squeaky toy in close proximity to you (anywhere you can hear it counts). So you redirect that puppy towards another toy that doesn’t squeak, at least for that time when you’re writing. This process works equally well with mobile phones and television news. There’s always another notification, just as there’s always more breaking news. The most unproductive people in the world are those addicted to some form of squeaky toy.

      But not us friend. We sequester ourselves in solitude. We get up early for the quiet it brings. We seek calm for the deep thoughts it brings. And we await the combined rewards of inspired creativity and greater insight. If we so choose, squeaky toys may be the reward for having done the work, not the distraction from it.

      I write this knowing the world is far more complicated and enraged today than it was a few days ago (when it was pretty complicated and enraged already). We cannot control the universe, only how we process our place in it. In order to do this, we must find a quiet place within ourselves to think and do what must be contemplated and acted upon.

      The thing is, the world will still be there in all its madness, barely noticing that we missed anything at all. Think of it as the loud talker in the room that doesn’t give you a second to respond. It only wants to hear itself talk. Sometimes the only thing to do is leave the room for awhile. The question we must always ask ourselves is, what is our verse? Can that be found in a room full of squeaks?

    • 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.

    • The Absolute Self

      “No matter what the art, the most important thing is to establish who you really are. That is, move from the ego-centered self to the absolute self.” — Awa Kenzo, Zen Bow, Zen Arrow

      When I was a teenager I tried my hand at welding in a class. I found it thrilling to take a torch and create something with it. As a novice, my work was pretty basic, but I felt the potential of the craft. Alas, I haven’t picked up a welding torch since then, choosing a pencil and eventually a keyboard for my artistic expression.

      Once, when I was in my mid-twenties, I visited the home of an artist who crafted large sculptures out of commonplace steel he’d acquire at a local junkyard. He used a torch very similar to that I’d tried out a decade before, and for a moment I was startled by the realization that I could tap into that ember of fascination with the craft to become a sculptor myself. And then I remembered all the reasons it was completely impractical at that stage of my life and I released it from my mind as something to pursue.

      Just this summer, I found myself on a small island on a lake talking to another artist who uses a torch (along with a paintbrush) to create his own unique and beautiful art. It reminded me once again of that moment as a young teen, and the choices I’ve made in my pursuits since then. I don’t mourn the choice not to pursue that particular craft, but I’m struck by how it pops up again and again in my life. It feels like unfinished business in a way. Perhaps something to take up one day when I retire (I’m sure that would go over well with my bride if I began hauling old auto parts into the garden to fully express myself).

      The thing is, at each stage of my life that I encountered the craft, my ego told me to take another direction, towards a career, towards respectable ladder-climbing, away from artistic expression. The art, whatever its form, remains incomplete. And so I write every day to put something of myself out there in the world. The portfolio is incomplete, as the artist is a work in progress.

      We are each pursuing our spark of light in this maddening and sometimes dark world. We tend to lean towards the ego-centered self, forgetting the absolute, and yet it keeps popping up in our lives, as if to remind us that there’s still time to establish who we really are. We are each sculpting our identity and who we are becoming. We ought to lean into the absolute, and away from the ego. If only to see where it leads us.

    • As If We Had Wings

      Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
      even in the leafless winter,
      even in the ashy city.
      I am thinking now
      of grief, and of getting past it;

      I feel my boots
      trying to leave the ground,
      I feel my heart
      pumping hard. I want

      to think again of dangerous and noble things.
      I want to be light and frolicsome.
      I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
      as though I had wings.
      — Mary Oliver, Starlings in Winter

      In between letting the puppy out for her morning relief and her post-breakfast exercise, the world lit up in orange. I would love to say I saw the whole thing, but really I only caught the tail end of it. To be in a place where the sky’s open all around you is the thing in such moments. Places like mountains and oceans and vast grasslands. The forest lends itself to its own wonder, but hides much of the sky. Sunrises and sunsets are missed with notable frequency, but we accept the trade-off nonetheless. Still, there are days I wish I could fly up to meet it.

      The world is full of wonder and beauty—far more than we’ll ever see in our lifetime. We simply can’t have it all. In fact, like the tail end of that sunrise, we witness precious little in our days. So seeking it out becomes the thing. Awareness and giving yourself permission to be awed by our insignificance offers a window to view and wonder. We know that we’ll never see everything, but perhaps we’ll see just enough to love our place in this universe.

      I know I should write more, and better. I know I should rise to meet the day, to put myself in the way of beauty as Strayed’s mother used to say. We see the days passing by so quickly and feel the urgency. And we feel the commitment of place and time and love for one another. There is a season for everything in this lifetime. We must believe that, mustn’t we? But some things will never be seen in favor of other things. We aren’t gods, you and I. This is the trade-off of being human. We must prioritize what’s truly important over everything else.

      Life will take our breathe away in both it’s beauty and in beauty lost. We know this to be true. The only way forward is to breath again, and rise to meet the day. As if we had wings.

    • Being Hard to Find

      I stepped away from the platform formerly known as Twitter some time ago, losing a familiar information source but gaining meaningful time in my life. The replacement platforms haven’t measured up, but I stay with them anyway. For all the hype about Nest and Mastodon, they haven’t come close to what Twitter was at its peak. But neither has Twitter in its current incarnation. The wisest among us warn against relying on any platform too much. Build your own platform, they say. Right.

      It seems that I’ve become hard to find. Tactically, I’ve been meaning to change this for months. Changing the look and feel of the blog, bringing back email subscriptions, and good heavens; putting the blog on more platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn were all possibilities. All this to make a bigger splash.

      The question we all ask ourselves about this blogging thing is why. Why do this with our precious time instead of something else? Why do we seek out readers? Why write and publish regularly at all? The answer is ours alone. Some of us are promoting our work or art, some are motivated to hone their craft, some are absolutely trying to make money, and others are simply keeping score of where they’ve been in this world. At some point all of these cross your mind. But there’s always a core why.

      I’m just writing and publishing every day until one day I won’t anymore. It may be hard to find at the moment, and possibly always will be, but the core why is represented well: To be curious, to seek to understand, to close the gap between who I was and who I seek to be and to write about this magnificent journey daily.

    • Shards of Light

      “We’re only here for a minute. We’re here for a little window. And to use that time to catch and share shards of light and laughter and grace seems to me the great story.” – Brian Doyle, from the Forward of One Long River Of Song

      The news about the Sycamore tree at Hadrian’s Wall reached New Hampshire perhaps around the same time that it reached everywhere else in the world. That one person can bring light or darkness to an inordinate amount of people is secretly understood by most of us, but we all hope that people will choose light. Surely, most do, or our species would never evolve and grow. And yet we must be prepared for the darkness.

      The obvious thing about my writing is that I remain almost singularly focused on the positive. This is a reminder to myself and anyone who might stumble upon this blog that there is grace and beauty in this world, in spades, and it’s often the common ground that illuminates all of us. Sometimes it’s a simple thing, like a dahlia holding on to summer after the rest of the garden fades away. In a way that tree along Hadrian’s Wall was like that dahlia, holding on long after the rest of the forest was swept away. Do we focus on the beauty in that realization or the darkness of how it came to be?

      Like a muscle broken down through physical stress, darkness brings with it the opportunity for growth and improvement. Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls this antifragility, in which we grow stronger collectively in the face of the stressors that life throws our way. But only if we learn and grow together. Alternatively, we might shrink back within ourselves and atrophy. We must choose growth, and go to the light.

      Forget Instagram-worthy singularity. I’d plant a thousand trees where one stood at Hadrian’s Wall. Return the forest to the land. Bring beauty back a thousandfold to honor the last holdout. That would be a great ending to a dark story.

    • Inflexible Disciplines

      “I have always believed that exercise is not only a key to physical health but to peace of mind. Many times in the old days I unleashed my anger and frustration on a punching bag rather than taking it out on a comrade or even a policeman. Exercise dissipates tension, and tension is the enemy of serenity. I found that I worked better and thought more clearly when I was in good physical condition, and so training became one of the inflexible disciplines of my life. In prison, having an outlet for one’s frustrations was absolutely essential.” — Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

      Life spins along at a rapid clip. It’s easy when we’re busy to push some things to the side and realize one day that we haven’t done something essential for some inexplicably long time. Habits we’ve folded into our identity can slip away in a few weeks of inaction. If we are what we repeatedly do, we are also what we repeatedly don’t do. So we must zealously hold on to the things we want in our lives. I can’t help but think of Nelson Mandela as I write that. He had a rigid exercise routine throughout his life that began at 05:00 every day. This carried him through his worst days in prison through his best days as President of South Africa. Who am I to use excuses for not being more disciplined?

      This idea of inflexible discipline is the key. We all must have our line in the sand of what we will always do or not do. This is our core identity. For me it includes writing and publishing something every day, along with a key set of other habits I track daily. A fitness routine is woven into that essential habit list, but it comes and goes like the breeze. As with writing, it has to be a box that must be checked every day. And as with writing, it’s better to check that box early in the morning before life’s distractions stack up against us. Like Mandela and others in human history who represent a disciplined life of fulfillment and transcendence from the ordinary.

      Our actions determine who we are and will be. It seems that being inflexible with ourselves may be the difference between reaching a desired identity and forever punting it away. Decide what to be and go be it, as the Avett Brothers put it so well. Being it begins today and every day.

    • We’re All Carried Along

      In the middle of the night
      I go walking in my sleep
      Through the desert of truth
      To the river so deep
      We all end in the ocean
      We all start in the streams
      We’re all carried along
      By the river of dreams

      — Billy Joel, The River of Dreams

      Some people seem to remember every dream. Some of us remember precious few. Is it the sign of intelligence to remember? Is it a sign of peace of mind to forget? Who’s to say?

      This is post number 1919, a river of words placed just so, to join the countless other words swirling through space and time for as long as there’s an Internet and a pale blue dot. Words are our dance with infinity. And I have to re-read most posts to recall what I was saying at the time. That my words are deeply familiar to me is reassuring, but I’m not that person who remembers everything. I’d be a terrible actor, trying to remember his lines. Yet I can sing an old Billy Joel song I haven’t heard in years and largely get it right.

      Memory and dreams are funny things. Is this too few active brain cells or too much focus on focused on this day and what’s to come? I’m not sure, but I’ll live as deeply as this dream carries me, and keep writing about it, carried along with the current of time to the ocean of infinity.

    • Talkin’ to Myself

      Talkin’ to myself and feelin’ old
      Sometimes I’d like to quit
      Nothin’ ever seems to fit
      Hangin’ around
      Nothin’ to do but frown
      Rainy days and Mondays always get me down
      — The Carpenters/Adam Williams, Rainy Days and Mondays

      Rainy days and Mondays never really drag me down. Sure, we’ve had way more rain than we should this season, while others aren’t getting nearly enough of it. I can fret about climate change but I don’t usually care that it’s raining or sunny on any given day. Likewise, I don’t worry all that much whether it’s a Monday or a Saturday, as each is a gift. The key is whether you feel in control of your days or whether you feel someone else is controlling them. We can’t control the passing of time or the weather, only our reaction to it. The jury is still out on whether we collectively have the fortitude to do anything about climate change.

      I saw a friend the other day who parroted the dangers of “mass murderers swarming crossing the border and descending upon innocents across the country”. I didn’t have the energy to get in a debate with him, having learned during the last two elections in the United States that people are going to believe what they believe and you just can’t force an alternate story line upon a zealot. It made me sad to see another one gone though, reminding me of that closing moment in Invasion of the Body Snatchers when you realize someone you once believed in had switched over to the dark side. Sometimes you just want to scream. But like the weather, this is a reaction we can choose or opt out of. Instead I focused on what we had in common.

      The quality of our lives is always going to be about who is controlling our time and our belief system. When we accept that some things are out of our control, we learn to work with what we can. Amor fati. Our beliefs, on the other hand, can be developed independently of what those around us may believe. We may yet become who we want to be in this life, and we ought to have faith in others to find a way forward too.

      Lately my posts have been all over the place in both content and when they’re published. It’s a sign of a complicated life, perhaps, or maybe it’s just the time bucket I happen to reside in at the moment. Either way, it’s documented and best viewed through the lens of time. What I’m sure of is that I’ve often wanted to quit, but just keep writing anyway. That’s how life works too. Just keep showing up and doing the work and things usually work out in the end. Nothing to be down about at all, really. Just one soul in a wild world, talking to himself.