Alexandersmap

    Tag: Mary Oliver

    • To Squander the Day

      We are reconciled, I think,
      to too much.
      Better to be a bird, like this one-
      An ornament of the eternal.
      As he came down once, to the nest of the grass,
      “Squander the day, but save the soul,”
      I heard him say.
      – Mary Oliver, The Lark

      We become especially adept at committing ourselves to activities with the least return on our time invested. What is an unproductive meeting but an agreement between two parties to squander time? As if we had the time to spend.

      This challenge by Mary Oliver, declaring that we reconcile to too much in our days, pokes deeply at that inner doubt we might have about how we’re spending our time. That (now) she’s challenging us from the grave amplifies the message. Jealously guard your time for that which is most important. Squander the day, if you must, but save your soul!

      We take stock of our calendars and see a growing trend back to the office, back to travel and meetings and getting things done. Some excites us, and some is a reconciliation to the mission at hand. This is the life of a professional, we do what we must to get where we want to be in our careers.

      But what if we saved our soul instead?

    • Among the Trees (for Pops)

      When I am among the trees,
      especially the willows and the honey locust,
      equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
      they give off such hints of gladness,
      I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

      I am so distant from the hope of myself,
      in which I have goodness, and discernment,
      and never hurry through the world
      but walk slowly, and bow often.

      Around me the trees stir in their leaves
      and call out, “stay awhile.”
      The light flows from their branches.

      And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
      “and you too have come
      into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
      with light, and to shine.”
      – Mary Oliver, When I Am Among the Trees

      A year flies by, doesn’t it? And beneath it all, carried quietly, my own grief and sense of loss. Buried so that others might bear their own.

      You knew the trees and taught us to see them too. And you taught us the simple joy of being alive while there’s time. And, as Mary Oliver puts it so much better than I, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.

      Today, among the trees, we’ll remember you again (as if we ever forgot). To feel you stir in the breeze and see the mischief carried on in the eyes of those who knew you best. We’ll close this one chapter and begin the next, knowing you’ve never really left us. Not really. For you’ve filled us with light.

    • An Allegiance With Gravity

      Rivers and stones are forever
      in allegiance with gravity
      while we ourselves dream of rising.
      – Mary Oliver, Mysteries, Yes

      How do you explain yourself when someone jokingly asks you the question, “You don’t watch TV, what do you do?” I heard that question yesterday, smiled and said I keep busy. For how do you tell someone who is so deeply focused on one thing that you choose to use your time in other ways?

      In a bit of indulgence this week, I purchased some beautiful new Petzl crampons. This is a nod to supply chain challenges in the world, to the changing seasons and anticipation of winter hiking, but also an acknowledgement that I just can’t get out there to hike right now. For now, anyway, I’m investing my brief, fragile time in other ways.

      I visited the homes of three family members this week (including the television fan’s), each with some work that must be done and nobody to do it. In each case, knowing that if I’m not doing the work it’s going to get punted down the field indefinitely. So instead the hiking gets punted, at least for a little while. Autumn hiking is too crowded anyway… right?

      “What we think or what we know or what we believe is in the end of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do” – John Ruskin

      I dream of rising: Of winter hiking and digging these new crampons into an icy incline. Of traversing beautiful ridge line. Of travel and visits to faraway places. And (sometimes) of finally watching some program I’ve heard so much about from people in the know. But for now there’s work to be done. And at the moment I’m in an allegiance with gravity.

    • Until We Are Not

      The singular and cheerful life
      of any flower
      in anyone’s garden
      or any still unowned field—
      if there are any—
      catches me
      by the heart,
      by its color, by its obedience
      to the holiest of laws:
      be alive
      until you are not.
      – Mary Oliver, The Singular and Cheerful Life

      We all have gut punches along the way. Moments of bliss interrupted by the fiercest of reality checks. Moments when you question the unfairness of it all. Look around at the world and you’ll find plenty of examples of it today.

      What do we do when we catch our breath from this gut punch?

      We generally find a way to carry on. To make the most of our brief time together. To spin up just a little more magic in the world, if only to reflect in the glow it creates between us. To be alive until we are not.

      There is only this.

    • Soggy Bottom Sunrise

      It was early,
      which has always been my hour
      to begin looking
      at the world
      – Mary Oliver, It Was Early

      No doubt I missed the stunning pink sky on display when I hauled the kayak down to the surf line. No doubt I might have found a better picture had I just gotten up and out there sooner. But why dwell on might-have-beens? Make the most of what’s in front of you.

      There’s a lesson there for the bigger things swirling around you. Things bigger than sandy feet and a soggy bottom as you walk back into the world after greeting the new day as best you could. The world keeps doing its thing whether you show up or not. But isn’t it nice when you do show up?

    • Tides and Time

      “Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.” – Mary Oliver, To Begin With, the Sweet Grass

      We get so caught up in schedules and appointments and such, when all that really matters is conversation and honoring commitments and that most intangible thing of all: progress. Are we progressing in the direction we pointed ourselves in or not? What do you do with the answer to that question?

      Like many, I’m fascinated with people that step off the calendar and follow their own path. The through-hikers and ocean cruisers and the off-the-gridders who opt out of the stories we tell ourselves about time. The older I get the more I recognize the story of time isn’t always in sync with my own natural rhythm.

      So do you reconcile this in your life? Do you favor deadlines and schedules that dictate so much of our short stack of trips around the sun? Or do you prioritize living by your own rhythm? I should think the closer you are to the latter the more fulfilling your life might be.

    • To Leap in the Froth

      May I never not be frisky,
      May I never not be risqué.
      May my ashes, when you have them, friend,
      and give them to the ocean,
      leap in the froth of the waves,
      still loving movement,
      still ready, beyond all else,
      to dance for the world.
      – Mary Oliver, Prayer

      It’s been almost a year now, and I think of you when I come across a poem like this. You were a dancer, covering a dance floor with the same elegance and ease that you’d use in a tricky conversation. And sure, you were equally at ease leaping in the froth of the waves not all that long ago. Measuring up to that standard hasn’t been easy, friend, especially in this pandemic and the lingering bitterness of political strife. You’d navigate that more easily too.

      There were times over the last year when I could have used your perspective on things, but then again, I can hear exactly what you’d tell me in those imagined conversations. So we press on, doing what must be done, leaving that stuff to sort out another day. And honor your memory with action, humor and a healthy dose of friskiness.

      When I pass, sprinkle my ashes in the ocean on an outgoing tide. Life is movement and a dance through our days. I don’t want to rest in peace when it all ends, but to skip across the waves to the ends of the earth. And there, maybe, we’ll meet again.

    • What We Create, What We Leave Unfinished

      We create ourselves by our choices. – Søren Kierkegaard

      In my house there are a hundred half-done poems.
      Each of us leaves an unfinished life.
      – Mary Oliver, Thinking of Swirler

      It’s an oddity in my character, admittedly, that I linger with poetry and well up with emotion over words. After a particularly stunning pink swirling sky at sunrise I could think of nothing better to do with my morning coffee than pair it with Mary Oliver. Life is a series of choices, one quietly laid upon the other, carrying us to eternity. I’ll regret many, but not this one.

      What will we create in our time here? What will we leave unfinished? These are the questions of a lifetime, and the questions of each day.

      I’ve mentally cast aside this blog dozens of times, but each morning I wake up and write anyway. It isn’t the writing that challenges and mocks me, it’s measuring up to the words. Knowing what’s unfinished, knowing the choices that make up a lifetime. Waking up with a chance to measure up once again.

    • Roses Rise

      and out of the silent dirt
      the blood-red roses rise.
      – Mary Oliver, Both Worlds

      The tea roses bloom in abundance in June, and reward you with blooms in bursts of fragrant joy the rest of the season. This is the time when rose petals pile up like seaweed at the edge of the surf, for the dance is so very brief for each individual flower before it rains down to the dirt to make way for the next budding star.

      I’m considered a tall man, and the tea roses reach up to my height, wanting very much to overtake the neighboring crab apple tree and maybe even the oaks should they be so bold. Tea roses love to dance with the sky, to catch the breeze and perfume the air with their subtle scent. Year-after-year they return, despite the relative neglect they receive compared with the pampered annuals.

      I’ve held this line from Mary Oliver in my mind since winter. I thought then of the blooming tea roses (pink, not red in the garden I’m subservient to). Winter is a time of dormancy and darkness, not at all the explosion of delight that June offers in New Hampshire. Each year the blooms are a miracle, and I gratefully celebrate their return.

      For all my talk of travel and exploring the world, I bask in this short time together with the roses each year around this time. A time when the roses rise to meet me at eye level. As if to ask me, why would you ever want to leave us?

      Tea Rose Time

    • Each Leap

      It’s funny how things cluster together. Bursts of activity that lump together depending on the place that you’re in emotionally, physically, developmentally. Like jumping rock-to-rock to cross a stream, these places are where we land at a given moment in our lives.

      Some are easy to identify: “student” to “early career” to “committed relationship” to “parent” are all leaps we’re familiar with. But there are other, smaller leaps that come to mind. Over the last year I’ve had clusters of activity – hiking, chasing waterfalls, devouring poetry, home improvement projects, etc. that consumed me for a time and then I was on to the next thing for a while. Those waterfalls are still calling, just as mountain peaks are, it’s just not their time right now.

      Each leap lands you in another place in your life. Each leap changes you forever. I’ll never be who I was before I had children, nor will I ever be the same person as I was before I read The Summer Day or saw a snowshoe hare sprinting through the snow on the summit of Mount Moosilauke or a hundred other leaps large and small that have brought me to this particular landing spot.

      Each leap brings us further across the stream, further from who we once were while closer to what we might be. Knowing we’ve changed, and fully aware of the risks, we must choose which leap to take next. Sometimes we get wet, sometimes we reach a dead end, and sometimes we reach a landing spot we never dreamed of getting to. There are lessons in each.

      At the moment I’ve landed on a series of home improvement projects that demand the usual investment of time and money. But I’m already plotting my next leap, and have an eye on the one after that too. All while the characters in my life are making their own leaps, some drawing closer, others moving further away. And this is as it should be. The stream keeps flowing, even as we leap from stone to stone.

      Nothing ever has been or ever will be the same. You can’t just sit on a rock in the middle of the stream forever. You’ve got to leap again. So make it a good one.