The Universe Meeting My Needs

Today, my current day job went a little long than I'd planned, and I found myself relatively late at night trying to find a stranger to make introductions to complete one aspect of the daily practice.  I'd gotten a reasonably good photo of Mobile, and I'd finished my calisthenics but I needed a stranger to complete the day.

Birthplace of Mardi Gras - Mobile, AL

When I find myself in this sort of situation, I usually take a little short cut and try to find some sort of retail establishment to make a trivial purchase and use that interaction to meet the store clerk or manager or on odd occasions a customer. Following that pattern, I headed out to a convenience store about a mile down the road.

As I was walking down the path, I began to get a little restless about the approach. It fit within the rules, but the financial transaction to smooth the road to the introduction always struck me as the lazy way out. Just as I was beginning to come to terms with my decision, I looked up and a man on a bike had pulled up. I walked alongside, and he asked me if I knew if the Gator Alley catwalk closed after dusk.  I introduced myself, and he returned the favor when he told me his name was Rick.

We talked a little, and he shared that he was camping just up the road and was likely heading out in the next couple of days after the presidential election was over. He was a good guy.

The real point in all this was that just at the moment I began to think I was cheating myself by contriving a way to meet someone new, the universe delivered.  Two months ago, I would have avoided Rick.  After a little over a month of practicing introductions, I welcomed the exchange with Rick.

I'm probably overthinking things, but there's a lesson in this experience somewhere. I'd walked almost every step to that convenience store I'd targeted a little over fifteen minutes before. Rick (and the Universe) didn't save me a whole lot of steps, but by doing the work he did save me a little money.

It's impossible to know what's around the next corner, but if you keep walking there's a good chance you'll find out. There's also a better than average chance that the unexpected result will be better (and certainly different) than what you'd imagined.

Easing Back Into the Daily Practice

For the last three weeks, I've not been particularly rigorous in conducting the daily practice.  I've gotten in a decent attempt at my current set of habits and given the distractions (moving, travel, churn at my current day job, etc.) the efforts haven't been all that bad.  For the first time today, I finally had enough time with enough rest behind it to start missing some of the rigor that's been spent on other, less fruitful, endeavors over the last several weeks.  It things go well, I'm on the cusp of ramping up into full swing on the elements in the very near future.

It's worth listing the activities that I now consider mandatory work toward a more spiritual future.  Generally in the order I acquired them, they are:

1.   Walking
2.   Talking to Rory on the Phone
3.   Landscape/Skyscape Photography
4.   Blogging
5.   Daily Self Portrait
6.   Calisthenics (push-ups, crunches, resistance band curls, plank, flutter kicks)
7.   Meditation
8.   Minimalism
9.   Prayer
10. Saving Money
11. Introducing Myself to One New Person

Another Glorious Day in Fairhope, AL

Considering that less than four years ago I truly believed that I didn't have even a few extra minutes to spare in my busy daily life, this is a pretty good list of habits to have implemented. That said, I believe there are more than a handful more things that should at least be added to this list for a month or two on an experimental basis at least.

I am grateful for the friends I have met, the help I have gotten, and the relationships that have been enhanced by this steady but sure accumulation of habits that have displaced ones of more dubious value as time has marched forward.

I don't know what will happen tomorrow, but I'm going to go search for an alligator, a sunrise, and a sunset if I'm graced with experiencing the dawning of a new day.

Five Days Into a New Thirty Day Practice

I woke up too late this morning to really catch the glory of the sunrise in digital. When I walked to the window and looked out, the colors were peaking without being washed out by too much light. By the time I made it down to the vantage point I wanted to shoot from, the lightening of the sky yielded picture results that were good but not great.  Two shot turned out pretty good, but these were not as good as the light when I first walked to the window.

Sunrise - Marinette, WI

In every location the quality of the light is just a little bit different than in other locations. You can be across town or across the country, but I've found that it takes a good bit of practice to capture the essence of the scene.

The practice piece of photography set in, and I've begun to expand the idea to other areas of my life. Today was the fifth day of a thirty day practice that requires me to introduce myself to "a stranger" and attempt to strike up enough of a conversation with them that they're memory will linger with me at least long enough to record the encounter.

Like some of the other thirty day practices that I've become involved with, this one has taken about five days to really get just a thin slice of comfort in stepping off into the unknown. Five days in, and I'm no longer dreading the discipline, and today (like some of the photography days) really turned into a great experiment.

I butted my way into a professional tour where I got to meet a federal judge, three Department of Justice attorneys, and the members of the legal team and expert witness panel from the plaintiff in the case that precipitated the tour.

Five days in, and I had one of the more fulfilling professional and personal experiences that I've had in a really long time. Today has me thinking about the next set of practice or experimentation. Since this current practice involves people, and I really like people, I'm beginning to think that in a month I'm going to have to attempt to follow up with some of these folks and establish a more enduring relationship.

We'll see if I feel the same way in a few days, but that is what today brought into my world. More than a handful of interesting folks, a great sunrise, and the opportunity to really get some much needed rest.

I'm not sure what tomorrow may hold, but, as always, I'm looking forward to finding out where the path might lead.

Meeting a Fellow Traveller

Today, I went searching for a slightly different view of the sunrise over the Anacostia River.  I was also running a little short on time for the morning ambulation, and because of the confluence of these events took a route less travelled.  I did get a slight different view of the rising of the sun, but that's not the only thing that happened.

Sunrise on the Anacostia as Seen Under the 11th Street Bridge - Washington, DC

Shortly after taking this picture, I walked up to the crest of the 11th Street Bridge in Southeast, Washington, DC, and on my way to the top I was passed by a relatively young woman jogging and carrying a video camera on a tripod.

She set up her camera on one of the pedestrian overlooks facing downriver to the west and started filming.  I was on the phone with Rory Conlan talking about agreeing on a "new" thirty day practice, so I took little notice.  On the way back, I did think it a bit odd to be filming to the west, and I decided to ask her what the jogging and the filming were all about.

She told me she was filming the sunrise (to the west mind you) over the Anacostia for a documentary film. I countered that I'd been considering setting up a camera to take a series of still photos to create a time lapse sequence, and she said that particular approach was on her list as well. She expressed some concern that she'd be able to find a spot where a camera wouldn't be bothered by other people, and I allowed that I shared similar reservations.

At the end of the conversation, I moseyed along, and as I walked away realized that I'd not given her my name and she'd not volunteered her own moniker. In retrospect, the civil approach would have been to introduce myself, and given a chance to have another go at that conversation I would have tried the introduction route.  I'm not sure it would have worked, but it would have been worth a try anyway.

This realization coupled with the recent conversation between Rory and I has solidified in my mind what form my next thirty day practice will take.  I'm going to introduce myself to a stranger every day for thirty days and see what falls out of that experience. I'm not sure where it will lead, if anywhere, but I'm amazed I have lived for over four decades and have never tried an experiment of this nature.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow and the new experiences that the new addition to my practice might add. I may even have to get a series of business cards printed up to aid in the introductions. I've got a number of professions to list, so it certainly wouldn't be boring. It might even be time to put that Newport, OR phone number to use.