I know I haven't written for a bit; it's been busy. I'll share a few of my Favorite Fifteens with you though.
On my last ride in Lake Placid, there's a 6 mile descent after you've climbed seemingly endlessly out of town. It then drops 1200 feet in a series of 3 hills. My cycling computer was dead, so I have no idea how fast I was going, but I was pretty sure that if I crashed out that I would be dead. It did occur to me though, that if I had to die in a cycling accident, that this would be where I wanted it to happen (as opposed to, for example, a 4-way stop in Narberth). Needless to say, I (1) did not crash or die, and (2) was exhilarated beyond belief. That makes it an easy Favorite Fifteen moment.
I should note that you spend the last 15 miles of this route regaining all of this elevation, but it's easier than doing it in the other direction, which I've done a couple of times. It's amazing how steep a 5% grade seems when you're going up it for 2 miles straight, times 3.
Since I got home, I've had some other favorite moments, ranging from picking up our very happy dog, to sitting with my 16 year-old twin niece and nephew for nearly an hour, just talking, to having an old friend from high school whom I'd not seen in 25 years drop by for an afternoon, to spending a couple of hours with a much-missed former colleague.
It's easy to pick out the peak moments when you're doing something exciting, but it's equally important to savor what you get every day. On today's bike ride, I felt like everything was flowing perfectly and I just enjoyed the sensation of being strong and smooth, and then a jump in the pool to cool off was wonderful.
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Monday, August 22, 2016
Please sir, may I have another?
And it's over. They always have to end. I've been here probably 20 times and there has never been once (except maybe the time I was severely injured) that I've wanted to leave, felt like I'd had enough. I could easily handle another week here; I actually teared up a bit on the way out of town.
In the 6 non-rainy days I rode my bike 153 miles, including yesterday's 43.5 mile, 3 hour loop that includes a total of over 2000 feet of climbing. I've swam (swum?) further than I'd ever done in open water, kayaked and SUP'ed all over the lake and various walking things. Eaten lots of good food and had company for our children the entire time. It's been a great 8 days and I'd like 8 more just like them. I'm already trying to figure out how to stay longer next year.
The ride home was awful. It started off badly when I got honked at a red light in Keene Valley, a tiny town 25 miles east of Lake Placid. The guy behind me wanted to make a right turn, and so even though I was in my lane, he wanted me to move over so he could use the road and the shoulder. It wasn't a polite little "May I please?" kind of honk. It was long hard one, and the guy looked angry too. Sorry I couldn't read your mind bro, I'll try to do better.
The entire drive wasn't horrible- it was mostly okay until we reached Albany, but the New York Thruway is an awful road. I guess it doesn't have potholes, so I can't say it's substandard in every way, but certainly as a road you pay to drive on it's bad. The road is only 2 lanes for most of its length, so any little thing, like a merge, causes a back-up. It took us 3 hours to go a bit more than 100 miles. The rest areas are tiny and horribly overcrowded. It makes the New Jersey Turnpike look like heaven on earth.
Once we got through that part it was fine, aside from the heavy rain and the stupidity of people driving in it. I don't know why people think they can drive the same during a downpour. There were the remains of crashes left and right, and people are still swerving on and out and even more honking. Assuming they were all coming back from vacation, it must not have been as relaxing as mine was.
So now I'm home and I have to get back to it. School starts, the student part anyway, in 2 1/2 weeks but meetings start next week. Ugh. One more week, that's all I ask.
In the 6 non-rainy days I rode my bike 153 miles, including yesterday's 43.5 mile, 3 hour loop that includes a total of over 2000 feet of climbing. I've swam (swum?) further than I'd ever done in open water, kayaked and SUP'ed all over the lake and various walking things. Eaten lots of good food and had company for our children the entire time. It's been a great 8 days and I'd like 8 more just like them. I'm already trying to figure out how to stay longer next year.
The ride home was awful. It started off badly when I got honked at a red light in Keene Valley, a tiny town 25 miles east of Lake Placid. The guy behind me wanted to make a right turn, and so even though I was in my lane, he wanted me to move over so he could use the road and the shoulder. It wasn't a polite little "May I please?" kind of honk. It was long hard one, and the guy looked angry too. Sorry I couldn't read your mind bro, I'll try to do better.
The entire drive wasn't horrible- it was mostly okay until we reached Albany, but the New York Thruway is an awful road. I guess it doesn't have potholes, so I can't say it's substandard in every way, but certainly as a road you pay to drive on it's bad. The road is only 2 lanes for most of its length, so any little thing, like a merge, causes a back-up. It took us 3 hours to go a bit more than 100 miles. The rest areas are tiny and horribly overcrowded. It makes the New Jersey Turnpike look like heaven on earth.
Once we got through that part it was fine, aside from the heavy rain and the stupidity of people driving in it. I don't know why people think they can drive the same during a downpour. There were the remains of crashes left and right, and people are still swerving on and out and even more honking. Assuming they were all coming back from vacation, it must not have been as relaxing as mine was.
So now I'm home and I have to get back to it. School starts, the student part anyway, in 2 1/2 weeks but meetings start next week. Ugh. One more week, that's all I ask.
Friday, August 19, 2016
Fifteen seconds of drinking pleasure
Thursday in Lake Placid started with my daughter's taxi taking her to her plane in Plattsburgh. That all went smoothly.
Somehow, in the course of her departure, I tweaked some muscle in my leg. I'm not sure how that happened; all I was doing was walking up and down a few steps, but it affected how I approached the day. My intention was to try to tackle a hill that I had been unable to successfully climb on previous visits. It's a vicious little thing, coming after about 1000 feet of climbing from low point to high, there's a fairly steep uphill followed by a short flat followed by a 200 foot rise in about half a mile. That may not sound like much but you try it.
I decided that a wiser course would be to nurse it through a more forgiving course (though there are no flat rides to be taken here of more than 3 or 4 miles and I am not here to do laps) and see just how bad it was. The idea was that if it was actually injured that I only had one hard ride left in me and I didn't want to do it 3 days before the last day. I did around 15 miles and it was sore at times but not awful. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, I think. I kayaked a couple of times (including an unusually close encounter with a loon- they really are beautiful birds) and had another long swim.
I think my Favorite Fifteen (and I'm not going to blog about these forever though I will continue to think about them) was fifteen seconds this time. It was my first sips of a very delicious beer at the restaurant where we had dinner. It was a really delicious farmhouse ale, which is one of my favorite varieties, and it just hit the perfect spot at that moment. I just read that, thanks to the microbrewery explosion, there are now more breweries in the US now than there have ever been, and as someone who has been a beer drinker since 1973 (drinking age was 18 when I was in college), I really appreciate the quality of many of these small batch beers and ales.
I had such a busy summer that I was counting on my time here to actually unwind and relax. I don't like staking so much on any one thing, but in my experience, Lake Placid rarely fails me. I've slowed down but kept my sharpness. I've slept more than usual and spent the vast majority of my time outside in this marvelous air. I don't want to go home. But I'll be back.
And by the end of the day, my leg wasn't hurting at all. A 60 year-old body is such a weird thing.
Somehow, in the course of her departure, I tweaked some muscle in my leg. I'm not sure how that happened; all I was doing was walking up and down a few steps, but it affected how I approached the day. My intention was to try to tackle a hill that I had been unable to successfully climb on previous visits. It's a vicious little thing, coming after about 1000 feet of climbing from low point to high, there's a fairly steep uphill followed by a short flat followed by a 200 foot rise in about half a mile. That may not sound like much but you try it.
I decided that a wiser course would be to nurse it through a more forgiving course (though there are no flat rides to be taken here of more than 3 or 4 miles and I am not here to do laps) and see just how bad it was. The idea was that if it was actually injured that I only had one hard ride left in me and I didn't want to do it 3 days before the last day. I did around 15 miles and it was sore at times but not awful. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, I think. I kayaked a couple of times (including an unusually close encounter with a loon- they really are beautiful birds) and had another long swim.
I think my Favorite Fifteen (and I'm not going to blog about these forever though I will continue to think about them) was fifteen seconds this time. It was my first sips of a very delicious beer at the restaurant where we had dinner. It was a really delicious farmhouse ale, which is one of my favorite varieties, and it just hit the perfect spot at that moment. I just read that, thanks to the microbrewery explosion, there are now more breweries in the US now than there have ever been, and as someone who has been a beer drinker since 1973 (drinking age was 18 when I was in college), I really appreciate the quality of many of these small batch beers and ales.
I had such a busy summer that I was counting on my time here to actually unwind and relax. I don't like staking so much on any one thing, but in my experience, Lake Placid rarely fails me. I've slowed down but kept my sharpness. I've slept more than usual and spent the vast majority of my time outside in this marvelous air. I don't want to go home. But I'll be back.
And by the end of the day, my leg wasn't hurting at all. A 60 year-old body is such a weird thing.
Thursday, August 18, 2016
A very long day
Wednesday was a really up and down day. I got up ready to go for a bike ride and even though the weather looked not so great, out I went. But after around 3 miles I was just starting to think more and more that I was simply not enjoying myself, so I came back and walked around the lake instead.
One of my kids was supposed to fly home from the local airport in the afternoon, and the other kid and her boyfriend were due here around the same time. So I drove her over (around a half hour) and saw her through security and came back, where the others had arrived. And then about 45 minutes later I got a text from her saying they were having a mechanical problem and there was no mechanic on site. So they had to cancel the flight because the mechanic was at another airport 2 hours away and I had to go back and get her.
The stupid part was that there was another flight arriving later and the plane was then returning to Boston. They could have gotten on, but thanks to our Republican friends in Congress and their budget cuts, TSA couldn't authorize the overtime to keep someone on staff there, even though they had all already cleared security. Apparently someone has to stay and watch them.
When I arrived, Joann, the sole airline (Cape Air) employee, was trying to help 3 people at once. My daughter was the only person just going to Boston. Everyone else was missing connections, including someone traveling on frequent flyer miles to Amsterdam. If you've never had missed connections on a rewards ticket, count yourself as lucky. Because the canceled flight was not part of the award ticket, Delta wanted to charge them $6000 for new tickets. It only got worked out because Joann from Cape Air had the bright idea to call her colleague in Boston and have them personally walk over to the Delta office and work it out.
As for my daughter, they first wanted to put her in a van to Boston (which the people who missed the Amsterdam connection took), but ultimately they paid for a taxi to Plattsburgh this morning and a flight from there on another commuter airline. So she’s back in Boston finally.
So we arrived back at the house tired and cranky. I got on my bicycle and rode for an hour on a beautiful clear late afternoon, and then had my Favorite Fifteen, which was a swim across the lake. It's only about a third of a mile round trip, but I'm not really a swimmer. I mean, I can swim okay, but I don't do a lot of swimming for exercise and open water swimming is much harder than swimming laps. I'd wondered if I could make it, and I did with surprisingly little trouble.
I guess I do enough endurance exercise that even if I'm not an efficient swimmer I can keep going. I made sure to stop a couple of times on the way to just look around at where I was, there in the middle of the lake. The weird thing is that there's a law in New York that if you go out on a boat you need a life jacket, so everyone in kayaks or on SUPs had life jackets on. But I could swim without one. Does that make any sense? They are out there with a floating thing and I am not, yet they are the ones who need the life jackets.
At this point I was no longer tired and cranky, so we went out to dinner and had some very good Bar-BQ with pretty atrocious service. Still it was fun. And again the evening ended with some Olympics. So it ended up okay.
One of my kids was supposed to fly home from the local airport in the afternoon, and the other kid and her boyfriend were due here around the same time. So I drove her over (around a half hour) and saw her through security and came back, where the others had arrived. And then about 45 minutes later I got a text from her saying they were having a mechanical problem and there was no mechanic on site. So they had to cancel the flight because the mechanic was at another airport 2 hours away and I had to go back and get her.
The stupid part was that there was another flight arriving later and the plane was then returning to Boston. They could have gotten on, but thanks to our Republican friends in Congress and their budget cuts, TSA couldn't authorize the overtime to keep someone on staff there, even though they had all already cleared security. Apparently someone has to stay and watch them.
When I arrived, Joann, the sole airline (Cape Air) employee, was trying to help 3 people at once. My daughter was the only person just going to Boston. Everyone else was missing connections, including someone traveling on frequent flyer miles to Amsterdam. If you've never had missed connections on a rewards ticket, count yourself as lucky. Because the canceled flight was not part of the award ticket, Delta wanted to charge them $6000 for new tickets. It only got worked out because Joann from Cape Air had the bright idea to call her colleague in Boston and have them personally walk over to the Delta office and work it out.
As for my daughter, they first wanted to put her in a van to Boston (which the people who missed the Amsterdam connection took), but ultimately they paid for a taxi to Plattsburgh this morning and a flight from there on another commuter airline. So she’s back in Boston finally.
So we arrived back at the house tired and cranky. I got on my bicycle and rode for an hour on a beautiful clear late afternoon, and then had my Favorite Fifteen, which was a swim across the lake. It's only about a third of a mile round trip, but I'm not really a swimmer. I mean, I can swim okay, but I don't do a lot of swimming for exercise and open water swimming is much harder than swimming laps. I'd wondered if I could make it, and I did with surprisingly little trouble.
I guess I do enough endurance exercise that even if I'm not an efficient swimmer I can keep going. I made sure to stop a couple of times on the way to just look around at where I was, there in the middle of the lake. The weird thing is that there's a law in New York that if you go out on a boat you need a life jacket, so everyone in kayaks or on SUPs had life jackets on. But I could swim without one. Does that make any sense? They are out there with a floating thing and I am not, yet they are the ones who need the life jackets.
At this point I was no longer tired and cranky, so we went out to dinner and had some very good Bar-BQ with pretty atrocious service. Still it was fun. And again the evening ended with some Olympics. So it ended up okay.
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Wednesday morning in Lake Placid
I got up yesterday knowing that the weather forecast was ugly. Cloudy, then rainy, then cloudy and then rainy again plus windy. So I decided to get my stuff in early.
I started off with a paddle around the entire lake. I'd never done that before. You kind of have to do it first thing in the morning, because the wind seems to pick up as the day goes on. When I went out, the lake was so smooth that my stepping into it made ripples that seemed to go halfway across the surface. Once I was out on the lake, I immediately had a sense of well-being, the feeling this place always brings me, bad weather or not.
My Favorite Fifteen of the day happened early, on this paddle. Once I'd looped around toward the middle of the lake, I saw 3 loons. I will here admit to being big loon fan. I love their calls and I love watching them in the water. I'd never seen 3 together before, so I stopped paddling and watched as they swam, flapped their wings and then dove, first one and then the other two.
If you don't know loons, they dive for fish and can swim underwater for a good amount of time and distance. Typically, once they go down they are gone for about a minute and then pop up somewhere completely different, sometimes out of my field of vision. So you play a little mental game, guessing where they'll pop up.
We saw them again near the house later, but I then paddled the rest of the way around the lake. It was raining lightly, so I didn't feel like cycling, so I took my raincoat and headed for a walk around the lake. My Favorite Fifteen the first evening here, when the weather was miserable, was on my walk. If I go clockwise from where we're staying, I walk for about 20 minutes and see nothing but houses and trees, and then at one magical point, the houses are done and you see Mirror Lake, reflecting the town and its evening lights. It's always my favorite moment on this walk, which I do almost every day when I'm here, regardless of the weather.
It's always beautiful, but I was so looking forward to being here and the weather had been so awful (and it still wasn't very nice out) that the sight filled my heart with joy. I was here. Ahhh.
As for the rest of yesterday, it was fine considering the weather. After I'd walked around, I did a bit of reading and writing. Went to the supermarket. That kind of stuff. I even did a bit of schoolwork.
We had dinner at a small lakeside restaurant. It was stormy and windy out, and we were right by the window. It was magnificent. Until we had to go back to the car, but what can you do?
Then an evening of watching the Olympics and that was Tuesday. Now the sun has come out and it's almost hot. Think I'll go for a swim.
I started off with a paddle around the entire lake. I'd never done that before. You kind of have to do it first thing in the morning, because the wind seems to pick up as the day goes on. When I went out, the lake was so smooth that my stepping into it made ripples that seemed to go halfway across the surface. Once I was out on the lake, I immediately had a sense of well-being, the feeling this place always brings me, bad weather or not.
My Favorite Fifteen of the day happened early, on this paddle. Once I'd looped around toward the middle of the lake, I saw 3 loons. I will here admit to being big loon fan. I love their calls and I love watching them in the water. I'd never seen 3 together before, so I stopped paddling and watched as they swam, flapped their wings and then dove, first one and then the other two.
If you don't know loons, they dive for fish and can swim underwater for a good amount of time and distance. Typically, once they go down they are gone for about a minute and then pop up somewhere completely different, sometimes out of my field of vision. So you play a little mental game, guessing where they'll pop up.
We saw them again near the house later, but I then paddled the rest of the way around the lake. It was raining lightly, so I didn't feel like cycling, so I took my raincoat and headed for a walk around the lake. My Favorite Fifteen the first evening here, when the weather was miserable, was on my walk. If I go clockwise from where we're staying, I walk for about 20 minutes and see nothing but houses and trees, and then at one magical point, the houses are done and you see Mirror Lake, reflecting the town and its evening lights. It's always my favorite moment on this walk, which I do almost every day when I'm here, regardless of the weather.
It's always beautiful, but I was so looking forward to being here and the weather had been so awful (and it still wasn't very nice out) that the sight filled my heart with joy. I was here. Ahhh.
As for the rest of yesterday, it was fine considering the weather. After I'd walked around, I did a bit of reading and writing. Went to the supermarket. That kind of stuff. I even did a bit of schoolwork.
We had dinner at a small lakeside restaurant. It was stormy and windy out, and we were right by the window. It was magnificent. Until we had to go back to the car, but what can you do?
Then an evening of watching the Olympics and that was Tuesday. Now the sun has come out and it's almost hot. Think I'll go for a swim.
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
New feature!
I'm in Lake Placid now. One of the things I especially love about being in Lake Placid is riding my bike. Unlike my usual suburban deal, here there are very few traffic lights and even the roads are miles apart, so you can have a wonderful, long ride without ever having to even slow down, much less stop.
I'll tell you about yesterday later, but today I rode to Wilmington, the town closest to the Whiteface ski area. It's about 12 miles from here- downhill the whole way there, uphill the whole way back. But today I had to take a detour on my way, because there's stretch of back road, called River Road, that runs from the ski jump area outside of town 4 miles to the main road to Wilmington. This is my favorite place to ride a bicycle for a bunch of reasons, all of them having to do with its natural beauty, its quiet, and a faint but noticeable spruce forest smell that is always there.
As I was riding along, it occurred to me that in all likelihood, this would be my favorite moments of the day, which leads to my newest feature, Favorite Fifteen. What are your favorite fifteen minutes of your day? Today mine was this piece of what ended up being a 31-mile bike ride. The road is rolling hills, first through farmland, and then with the woods on one side and a river on the other. There's a school and around a dozen houses along the road, and a designated fly fishing spot. Today I saw 2 cars the entire time. Sometimes there are a few more. It doesn't matter.
The main road is not too shabby either, with (I think the same) river on one side with mountains beyond it and woods to the right.. Eventually you see a chairlift on top of one of the peaks and you know you're getting close to the ski area. It's kind of behind you when you're traveling northbound, but I got a quick peak. After that, it's into Wilmington, a scruffy little resort area highlighted by North Pole, home of Santa's workshop and a road that goes up near the top of Whiteface Mountain.
I've taken that road before. It goes up. And then you park, where someone built a small castle for some reason (vanity, in all likelihood) that now has a snack bar and bathrooms. You can then either climb up to the top (1/2 mile trail with a 200+ foot vertical) or walk through a long, spooky passageway and take an elevator. Yeah, an elevator in the middle of a mountain. Amazing views from the top on a clear day.
But for me it's just a turnaround, and the climb back to Lake Placid (about 800 ft. vertical) was harder at the beginning because of a headwind, but easier at the end than I remembered. You get a clear view of the ski area in this direction. They're always interesting to look at out of season. Took a bit more than 2 hours of riding overall. But that fifteen minutes on River Road were the peak.
Yesterday, my Favorite Fifteen was a kayak ride with my daughter. Mirror Lake is very nice. Pretty small, maybe a mile long and a quarter mile wide, with no motorboats allowed. It's quiet, and smooth and, well, mirrory. I love being out in the middle of it and just looking around and breathing the air, and doing it together was wonderful.
Anyway, I will keep reporting on my Favorite Fifteens and will ask about yours when I see you.
I'll tell you about yesterday later, but today I rode to Wilmington, the town closest to the Whiteface ski area. It's about 12 miles from here- downhill the whole way there, uphill the whole way back. But today I had to take a detour on my way, because there's stretch of back road, called River Road, that runs from the ski jump area outside of town 4 miles to the main road to Wilmington. This is my favorite place to ride a bicycle for a bunch of reasons, all of them having to do with its natural beauty, its quiet, and a faint but noticeable spruce forest smell that is always there.
As I was riding along, it occurred to me that in all likelihood, this would be my favorite moments of the day, which leads to my newest feature, Favorite Fifteen. What are your favorite fifteen minutes of your day? Today mine was this piece of what ended up being a 31-mile bike ride. The road is rolling hills, first through farmland, and then with the woods on one side and a river on the other. There's a school and around a dozen houses along the road, and a designated fly fishing spot. Today I saw 2 cars the entire time. Sometimes there are a few more. It doesn't matter.
The main road is not too shabby either, with (I think the same) river on one side with mountains beyond it and woods to the right.. Eventually you see a chairlift on top of one of the peaks and you know you're getting close to the ski area. It's kind of behind you when you're traveling northbound, but I got a quick peak. After that, it's into Wilmington, a scruffy little resort area highlighted by North Pole, home of Santa's workshop and a road that goes up near the top of Whiteface Mountain.
I've taken that road before. It goes up. And then you park, where someone built a small castle for some reason (vanity, in all likelihood) that now has a snack bar and bathrooms. You can then either climb up to the top (1/2 mile trail with a 200+ foot vertical) or walk through a long, spooky passageway and take an elevator. Yeah, an elevator in the middle of a mountain. Amazing views from the top on a clear day.
But for me it's just a turnaround, and the climb back to Lake Placid (about 800 ft. vertical) was harder at the beginning because of a headwind, but easier at the end than I remembered. You get a clear view of the ski area in this direction. They're always interesting to look at out of season. Took a bit more than 2 hours of riding overall. But that fifteen minutes on River Road were the peak.
Yesterday, my Favorite Fifteen was a kayak ride with my daughter. Mirror Lake is very nice. Pretty small, maybe a mile long and a quarter mile wide, with no motorboats allowed. It's quiet, and smooth and, well, mirrory. I love being out in the middle of it and just looking around and breathing the air, and doing it together was wonderful.
Anyway, I will keep reporting on my Favorite Fifteens and will ask about yours when I see you.
Sunday, August 07, 2016
The wisdom to know
For whatever reason, I had the old Serenity Prayer in my head this morning while riding my bike along Lobsterville Road. I can't just reject such thoughts out of hand, because I try to live by a well defined code. Maybe not so much a code as much as guidelines. Anyway, if you don't know or remember it, it goes something along the lines of "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
From my perspective, this is all perfectly sensible. I think the problem with it is that you can't go there without checking the first draft of the prayer, which, if you must know, I just made up. That one reads, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know that you probably don't understand what the words serenity and courage mean."
If most people knew what serenity meant, there wouldn't need to be the current craze around mindfulness, because you can't have serenity without it. It's not the same as accepting Jesus or whatever the person who wrote the prayer actually meant (the full version mentions that fellow- the familiar part is just the first 3 lines). I think of serenity as true inner peace, where you are completely present and your mind is clear. In other words, a rarity, something that most of us rarely or never touch.
Courage is even stickier, because being serene requires simplicity and courage is much more complex. It's also gotten stuck with a connotation about physical bravery, which is not at all what the prayer is talking about or what courage means. Courage is some sort of indescribable mixture of fortitude and boldness; it's not just about going out and fighting for something, though sometimes that's exactly what it means. And it's not about simply enduring, though sometimes that's exactly what it means. It kind of means doing both at the same time, which is a little hard to picture and a lot hard to do.
I know if I try to go any deeper right now that I'm not going to finish, so I'll have to settle for one of three results. Either I have ruined your favorite little prayer, or I've helped you think a little more deeply about the things you read and hear, or I've accomplished nothing. And I can accept that.
From my perspective, this is all perfectly sensible. I think the problem with it is that you can't go there without checking the first draft of the prayer, which, if you must know, I just made up. That one reads, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know that you probably don't understand what the words serenity and courage mean."
If most people knew what serenity meant, there wouldn't need to be the current craze around mindfulness, because you can't have serenity without it. It's not the same as accepting Jesus or whatever the person who wrote the prayer actually meant (the full version mentions that fellow- the familiar part is just the first 3 lines). I think of serenity as true inner peace, where you are completely present and your mind is clear. In other words, a rarity, something that most of us rarely or never touch.
Courage is even stickier, because being serene requires simplicity and courage is much more complex. It's also gotten stuck with a connotation about physical bravery, which is not at all what the prayer is talking about or what courage means. Courage is some sort of indescribable mixture of fortitude and boldness; it's not just about going out and fighting for something, though sometimes that's exactly what it means. And it's not about simply enduring, though sometimes that's exactly what it means. It kind of means doing both at the same time, which is a little hard to picture and a lot hard to do.
I know if I try to go any deeper right now that I'm not going to finish, so I'll have to settle for one of three results. Either I have ruined your favorite little prayer, or I've helped you think a little more deeply about the things you read and hear, or I've accomplished nothing. And I can accept that.
Saturday, August 06, 2016
How I write something that takes way too long to get to its point
I'm writing this on a boat from Quonset, Rhode Island, home of the world-famous Quonset Huts (kind of like Pizza Hut, but without pizza) to Martha's Vineyard. We're taking, for the 3rd time in 7 days, something called the Vineyard Fast Ferry.
One good thing about Rhode Island is that nobody ever asks where something is in Rhode Island. If it's in Rhode Island that narrows it down enough. In Providence/near Providence, that's it. And before you start wondering why this involves Quonset, let me state that Martha's Vineyard is a pain in the butt to get to no matter what, especially from Philadelphia. It's an island, so you can go by plane or boat- no other options. The pain can be financial (had we flown into the island airport this weekend from Philly it would have cost $2500 for the two of us for a trip that requires a change of plane in both directions, making a 250 mile trip take 4 1/2 hours from takeoff to landing) or mental (the closest place you can drive for a direct flight is JFK Airport, which is its own kind of anguish) or literal (drive 5 or 6 hours to a ferry and I guarantee your butt will not forgive you).
So Quonset is the place where you can catch something called the Vineyard Fast Ferry. It's the closest ferry to New York and points south, which makes it our best option if we're not flying. Last weekend, we flew to Providence and took a taxi to the ferry. That was okay, but the connections required us first sitting in the teeny ferry terminal (not in a Quonset Hut for some reason) for an hour and a half, and then on the way home, at Providence airport for 2 1/2 hours. This time it was a 4 1/2 hour train ride and then a van shuttle to the ferry.
Admittedly, this is a lot of whining and it's not the point I'm trying to make. I've buried the lede. The point is that on this trip, for the first time, I went outside onto the deck of the ferry to see what that was like. And it was pretty great. You don't really understand what Fast Ferry refers to until you step outside. That boat is cooking; 35 miles an hour over water is really fast. The wind is incredible and feels amazing and ultimately is so strong that it renders you unable to see or breathe normally. I loved it.
I'm about to fall into a trap that is endemic to people my age; everything is a metaphor. Going out on the front of the boat was a step, just a small one, outside my comfort zone. That's where the peak experiences can happen. In your comfort zone, the best you can get is, well, comfortable. Outside is where the high highs and the low lows take place, and if you're prepared to deal with the occasional bad experience, you will find yourself feeling more alive.
I guess this is why mindfulness is so important. If you're truly present, there is no comfort zone. Everything is new and fresh, even if it's familiar. It's something I strive for all the time and manage to achieve sometimes.
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| One of the nicer Quonset huts you'll see. |
So Quonset is the place where you can catch something called the Vineyard Fast Ferry. It's the closest ferry to New York and points south, which makes it our best option if we're not flying. Last weekend, we flew to Providence and took a taxi to the ferry. That was okay, but the connections required us first sitting in the teeny ferry terminal (not in a Quonset Hut for some reason) for an hour and a half, and then on the way home, at Providence airport for 2 1/2 hours. This time it was a 4 1/2 hour train ride and then a van shuttle to the ferry.
Admittedly, this is a lot of whining and it's not the point I'm trying to make. I've buried the lede. The point is that on this trip, for the first time, I went outside onto the deck of the ferry to see what that was like. And it was pretty great. You don't really understand what Fast Ferry refers to until you step outside. That boat is cooking; 35 miles an hour over water is really fast. The wind is incredible and feels amazing and ultimately is so strong that it renders you unable to see or breathe normally. I loved it.
I'm about to fall into a trap that is endemic to people my age; everything is a metaphor. Going out on the front of the boat was a step, just a small one, outside my comfort zone. That's where the peak experiences can happen. In your comfort zone, the best you can get is, well, comfortable. Outside is where the high highs and the low lows take place, and if you're prepared to deal with the occasional bad experience, you will find yourself feeling more alive.
I guess this is why mindfulness is so important. If you're truly present, there is no comfort zone. Everything is new and fresh, even if it's familiar. It's something I strive for all the time and manage to achieve sometimes.
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