Groundhog Saturday

Today was a fairly routine Saturday. I'd hoped there might be some interest in going out to DC to see the cherry blossoms, but instead we all treked out to work on the most expensive vacation home that never gets visited in history. Before that little trip, I chased a sunrise that I'd gotten behind by about 20 minutes.

Sunrise over the Severn with ELF Towers on Greenbury Point

Not a bad view, but if you miss a sunrise it's pretty pointless to chase it. Given the late hour (at least as judged by the height of Sol), I was a bit surprised to come upon three deer that had not yet made their way back to the treeline and were placidly grazing out near the fringe of the road.

Three Does at Naval Station Annapolis

I followed up the morning ambulation with a two hour nap and then made the trip down to paint the expensive non-vacation house.

The day wrapped up reasonably well with a sunset and an eight man (actually woman I believe) crew shell.

College Creek Sunset with Hubbard Hall

Cloud cover and a light breeze precluded the burning sun views that are frequent from this vantage point, but it was still pretty in a more subdued way.

Who is...?

On my way back from the sunset, I happened across this crew shell. This picture with the accompanying caption elicited some chuckles. I've decided that making at least one person laugh every day is a worthwhile goal. Mission accomplished today, so we'll see what tomorrow might roll down my alley.

Any Given Friday

Today started off normally enough with a shortish hike down the Anacostia River Trail.

Yards Park Bridge Undulating into the Darkness

The weather is warming up nicely, and spring is most certainly in the air. The breeze is still cool, and this is probably one of the most pleasant times of the year to walk. With the passing of Daylight Savings Time it's now possible for me to catch the sunrise before hurrying into the first meeting of the day, and I welcome the return of the light to start the day with a splash of color.

Anacostia Waterfront with USS Barry

I happened to be running a little early this morning, so it was a dusky backdrop when I captured the daily shot of the USS Barry.  We have just a little over a month before she makes her way down the river. 

Later this afternoon, I went for the first jog that I've done since getting out of the boot on my left foot. Five weeks of downtime has led to a degradation in my fitness level that I'm not too keen about. This was particularly obvious because one of my running partners has used her time wisely and has put in some pretty serious distance over the last month. She says she doesn't feel fit or in shape, but she's cut one minute a mile off her split times, and I'm pretty sure she was holding back as I struggled along. Fortunately for me, I'm still about on par with the other partner because it appears he's not taken full advantage of the time to outdistance me.

During the jog, we were crossing the bridge over the railroad tracks near Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, and we came across a man laying in the road surrounded by the police. I'm pretty sure he was dead because no one was really attending to him, he was very still, and on our way back the ambulance left without the lights and siren. It is not the first time I've seen something like that, but it was a little unsettling.

On my commute back from work the family requested a Taco Bell run, and when I pulled up to the drive through I noticed that the mulch surrounding the ordering speaker was involved in a smoldering fire about two feet in diameter. I dispatched the smoky flames with the application of two liters of water and two liters of seltzer from the the back of the car. I made my order, made sure my bean burritos and soft tacos were on their way, and then reported my firefighting efforts to the cashier.  She said that I was the second person to report the smoldering smudge of a fire, and that someone had been dispatched to make sure it had been fully contained.

I've grown to expect some pretty fantastic vistas, although instead of becoming routine I'm growing to appreciate the subtle nuances of these land and waterscapes the more frequently I encounter them.  I didn't expect to run across a man having what appeared to be a relatively unfortunate end ot the afternoon, and after seeing that, I was totally surprised by the opportunity to practice my firefighting skills.

I've said it before, but life is a really remarkable experience when I'm able to focus on being right there in the moments that happen as it unfolds. Looking forward to whatever tomorrow might bring.

Gratitude Thursday

As has become my occasional habit when I tend to run low on inspiration, I fall back on the good old gratitude day to tide me over until something else grabs my attention. Today is one of those days.

I am grateful that I woke up this morning. I rediscovered a new little nook at a slightly different time of the day, and this is what I saw.

Anacostia Waterfront at Daybreak with the USS Barry

I am grateful for the visionaries, the financiers, and the people with a dream that have transformed Southeast Washington, DC from a run-down, crime blighted area into something that is going to be truly stunning and mostly publicly accessible. It already is very nice, and I'm looking forward to attending summer concerts in "The Yards" park. They were good last year, but they will be particularly interesting this year when the water access via the new recreational boating docks are finished.

The Yards Park Bridge framing the Setting Moon on the Anacostia

I'm grateful to have been born in a country brimming with opportunity.

I'm grateful for the freedom to fail and still manage a recovery in relatively short order.

I'm grateful that I'm learning that happiness is a choice and is within the grasp of just about anyone. This is a lesson that I had heard, but I've finally gotten enough life experience to begin to feel the truth of it.

I'm grateful for the folks at work that put up with my speechifying, passionate outbursts, and even my brief stints of moodiness.

I'm grateful for a budding spiritual connection to the larger universe, the fact that walking has made this transition local and not overwhelming, and being surrounded by a group of seekers that are pursuing this connection in their own way.

I'm grateful that I finally learned to skip the television and get out of the house and start living.

I'm grateful for working cats.

For a day that felt a bit bereft of inspiration, I'm grateful to be able to fall back into this occasional part of my daily practice and come out on the other side feeling inspired. This gratitude thing really works, and as always, I'm looking forward to what tomorrow may reveal.

Master Daydreamer

Today, I walked again of course, and I also listened to a number of TED Talks under the heading of beauty. There are 27 talks listed in this category, and if my math is not to far wrong, that amounts to about six hours of lectures. Today while walking into the sunrise on the northern shore of the Anacostia River, I passed up the opportunity to listen to a lecture on clouds.

Anacostia Morning with USS Barry

I passed up the opportunity for a number of reasons. When walking, I don't really like TED Talks that only have the recording available in video format. About fifty percent of the lectures via the TED app have a separate audio and video recording.  I like these while walking because the audio recording gives me the option of using other features of my phone (like the camera) while keeping the audio playback going.

The video only recordings require that I stop the playback in order to access any other features on the phone. It's a minor annoyance, but one that might tip the scales against a lecture that does not grab my attention. A lecture on clouds and more specifically cloud watching was just that sort of lecture. I took a pass.

Sunrise from the Parking Garage overlooking the Washington Navy Yard

One of the very consistent features that I've found with TED Talks is that I'm often enriched when I deliberately ignore my initial reaction to the subject of a particular talk. Things that I just know I'm going to find mind numbingly boring much more often than not introduce me to some new concept or idea that challenges my world view or gives me something to contemplate that was beyond my imagination before listening.

Sunrise over the 11th Street, SE Bridge

I circled back on the cloud spotting lecture during my commute home later in the afternoon. I thought, "What the hell...I'm going to be stuck in traffic for the next hour or so. I might as well get this one out of the way." Based on my previous experience in new thinking from less attractive topics, I've learned to force myself to listen to these lectures. I always go into them with a cringe and a shudder, but that path has not failed me yet.

Today the cloud spotting lecture came through in another eye opening way. The speaker suggested that cloud spotting provided the rationalization "to do nothing." He called on the listeners to become "Master Daydreamers" and that cloud spotting was an activity naturally geared toward that practice. Seeing shapes in clouds, be they kissing lovers, the grim reaper, an abominable snowman getting ready to rob a bank, or a naked woman lying on a beach is a test of observation and creativity. I

It is, however, not structured because you never can tell what those wisps of water vapor and ice may bring. To pull the shapes out of your head and project them into the sky, or vice versa, is the embodiment of the unstructured daily practice that I associate with being a "Master Daydreamer."

Working on mastery of daydreaming seems to dovetail nicely with my current set of daily disciplines, and I think I will add it to the milieu of the maladroit manner in which I seem to be conducting my days. I don't know if I'm making any progress, but it sure feels like I'm on the right path.

Looking for Beauty

Today on my morning walk, I was listening to a TED Talk listed under the broad category of Beauty that centered on happiness and how humans related to this particular feeling.  As TED products go, this one was middle of the road for me in terms of inspiration, but the speaker did address an interesting result from a study associated with happiness in relationships. Apparently, one of the conclusions of the study was that it took five positive comments for every one negative comment for people involved in a relationship to characterize that relationship as happy. The speaker's thesis was that this skewed result is due to the fact that we, as humans, are hypersensitive to negative input as a survival mechanism. This survival technique was really very useful out on the plains 10,000 years ago, but it is less valuable now when physical survival is not nearly the front and center concern that it once represented.

Later during the walk, I was talking to Rory, and he suggested that he'd awakened and was a bit down in the dumps. We talked about that for awhile, and eventually, he got around to asking me one of his standard questions in the wee hours before twilight. "What are you looking forward to at work today?"

I've been doing the same job for about two years now, and the bulk of my actions are mostly associated with keeping bad things from happening. It's important work, but if I'm honest, it's not very inspiring work.  It is the day to day attention to detail that I'm pretty good at executing.  It'a also a far cry from what I'd characterize as being an exploration, experiment, or adventure. I've known periods where all of my existence seemed like one, two, or even all three of those things. Those periods were both exhilarating and intensely rewarding. Working the problems using my wits, knowledge, and sometimes brawn (such that it is) and dexterity against unknown odds in the face of uncertainty is what I always imagined I was training to do when I was growing up.

Alas, things aren't always high adventure, but right now the truth of the matter is that I'm not going out of my way to look forward to much of anything at work. The things I look forward to facing are the walks, the learning through reading and listening to smart people, jogging, creating something new, experimenting in the kitchen, etc. My work now facilitates my ability to do the things that I look forward to doing.  I do look forward to getting out on a ship underway for trials and any opportunity to travel, but that's about it as far as work is concerned.

In response to Rory's question, I asked him what sort of beauty he expected to encounter today. He said, "Good question. I don't think I've ever put that much thought into that before. I'll have to think about it."

Moonset on the Anacostia

Since I started walking, I think about encountering and appreciating beauty on a regular basis now. The recognition of beauty started slowly at first over a year ago, but I've found that once I started observing it all around me, it was almost impossible for me to not approach the observation and appreciation in a deliberate manner.  I find that unlike the speaker suggested in the TED Talk, I'm less sensitive to negative situations, and I'm more attuned to positive circumstances. Looking for beauty has changed the way I view the world and my life is much better for the happy accident that evolved into a deliberate seeking of the goodness that flows all around us.

Sunrise over the Anacostia

Today I saw beauty in the moonset and sunrise over the Anacostia River. I also saw beauty in the architecture, air, dogs, fellow humans, and some pretty sweet cars in between these two events during the course of my walk.

I even recognized beauty in the chuckle brought on by a joke, and the happiness shining from the face of a newly married bride and groom as I ground out the pedestrian (no pun intended) task of oiling the gears of the bureaucracy to make sure they kept grinding along.

I don't know what I'll encounter tomorrow, but I am looking forward to and seeking the beauty.

This Is Where the Magic Happens

During political season, or in other words anytime there is national election in progress, it is difficult to rationalize the picture of Washington, DC that is being painted in the press with the Washington, DC where I spend most of my waking hours and earn my keep. I didn't really understand civics until I came to work in this city, and the organization that I work for has a culture of questioning the judgement or at least being highly skeptical of the motivations of folks that also earn their living in this town.

This is Where the Magic Happens - Capitol Building - Washington, DC

I know it's not necessarily very popular right now, but I've really grown to love this city. I've also grown to appreciate the robust nature of the system of government that has been in place, largely unchanged, over the last 250 years. We're a young country yet, but we're beginning to get a little history. I've come to believe in the strength of the representative system and the wisdom of how that system uses the loves and fears, the logic and emotions of the American to steadily, but not necessarily smoothly, make progress.

Those ideals are easy to forget in the rhetoric of the campaign system, but when I get out in the open air and away from the two dimensional analogies that come across the flat screens of technology, I'm reminded of the enduring principles that have guided us to this point so far.

There are things to be learned, and philosophies that still need more exploration and credence, but from a Western industrial perspective the way this place is run has been very good to me.

I believe that we're standing on the edge of an epoch where the first two or three layers of Maslow's hierarchy of needs are achievable on a global scale, and the challenges we face are coming to terms with this stunning technological achievement. If we can come to terms with this new(ish) reality, we can make progress on the next levels of respect and self actualization as individuals. 

When I think of what we have in terms of the the responsibility (as well as the opportunity) that they confer on us, I sense a daunting challenge ahead. A friend of mine remarked that he wished the current crop of political candidates would lay out a vision for the future that looks forward, and instead, he senses that we're falling backward into fear. I don't think he's wrong, and I don't really know how to fix things. I do believe he is vocalizing a great need that is lying dormant, waiting for someone to lead the way to that better vision.

I have another friend that believes the dangers are too great, and that only through a rebirth will we be able to realize those aspirational goals. I fall on the optimistic side of thing, and think we stand on the brink of a great opportunity that carries great responsibility.

US Capitol Building on a Beautiful Spring Afternoon

For now, I'll walk and record my observations, hopes and dreams here.  The time for action is drawing close, and I hope I'm ready for it no matter what form that it takes. I'll look forward to tomorrow and offer help where I find a need.

Spring Has Arrived...With Some Snow

Well, spring has arrived on the east coast of the United States.  I'm happy to report that today represents the longest single day of walking since I injured my foot with just under eight miles completed on the exercise circuit. I could have done without the snow.

Gray Skies Over Spa Creek on the First Day of Spring

My whine about the snow notwithstanding, today was a pretty good day on the walking front. In addition to the continuation of recovery from injury, Rory and I may have identified our first disciple on this pilgrimage. He's and acquaintance of mine that shares a penchant for rash decision making, and after a particularly frustrating day at work with one of the better know non-profits he declared to his boss that he was bound and determined to walk across the United States as an awareness and fundraising campaign.

He later admitted that it was an act of escapism really, but that didn't sound as good when spoken at a high volume in his senior's office. This initial decision sounds eerily familiar the the emoting that landed me in the current predicament, so I suggested that he start training. Like my initial assumptions, he has what is probably an overly high opinion of the number of miles per day and how many days in a row he can put those miles down on the trail. 

I've found there's really only one cure for this sort of thing. The cure is to start to walk. You'll either convince yourself that you're crazy, or you'll find what you've been looking to see for a long time. For me it was the latter. 

Even though he's probably as crazy as Rory and me, it feels good to have a potential partner. With only one, things are lonely. With a partner, things are tolerable. Three...now, three is a coalition, and who knows what will happen when a coalition's ideas begin to acquire a tangible form. We'll see tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it.