A Brief Note on Libraries

In pursuit of the pilgrimage, I've really grown fond of being outside chasing the sun and putting in miles on the trail. There's a new adventure around every turn, and I've found that the anticipation and the discovery is worth every step in the course of exploration.

Pining for Spring - City Dock - Annapolis, MD

During this time I've found another temple of exploration and adventure. The Library.

I remember reading about the Great Library at Alexandria, Egypt back when I was in middle school.  I also remember heading out to the library in our home town on the weekends with my dad. To be honest, I wasn't always thrilled to be going with him. He'd spend time in the stacks looking up books on fly fishing and camping, and I'd usually be able to find something in the kid or young adult section to occupy my time...once I stopped complaining and buckled down.

Fast Forward to high school and college, and somehow, my view of the library as a hall of drudgery and work became even further entrenched.  It became the place I went to study and put in the grind to get the grades.  I'd avoid it if I could, and when I couldn't stay away, I'd endeavor to make my stay as brief as possible.

It's taken me two decades to get back into the library again after the high school and college experience. That's a real same. During that time, I can't tell you how much money I've spend on books, but you can rest assured that it was in the thousands of dollars. Not a complete waste, but at least a little wasteful.

I'm grateful to be back in this great hall of learning and self-improvement. In addition to being a real money saver over the last six months, I've really come to appreciate the gems of literature that I've stumbled upong wandering the collection. They've all added joy to my life.

If you're a librarian, thanks for waiting patiently for the prodigal son to return. If you only visit the library, please don't take the place for granted like I did for the last twenty years.

I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but I know at least two places I can find peace, learning, and adventure...outside and at the library.

Consolidation Period

Have you ever felt like you've fallen into a rut and things don't seem like they're progressing very much?  I think it happens to all of us, and this situation used to create quite a bit of anxiety in my life. Since I started the "Daily Practice," I've come to understand that these periods of apparent stagnation generally represent a consolidation period.  Progress is being made, even if it's not apparent to me that it's happening.

To explain this belief, I guess I have to go back a bit and let you in on some of my underlying assumptions. The chief assumption I make is that no matter what's happening, the universe will conspire with you to make you successful.  Actually, the universe is always working with you for your success, but it will conspire with you if you let it.  To conspire with the universe you only have to have two things. You have to be willing to listen, and you have be a little bit patient.

Earlier in my life, my chief problems came about because I wasn't listening, and I definitely wasn't very patient.  Oh, I told myself I was open minded and had the patience of Job, but the reality was I'd shut myself off from the opportunities the universe was bringing to me and I was chafing at the bit for things to happen along a timeframe that I'd determined was right and proper.

The Universe Speaks - Anacostia River Sunrise - Washington, DC

I'd shut myself off from any suggestions that were being communicated my way, and I was following my own path with my own timeline.  That's a hard row to hoe, and fortunately for me, the universe in it's wisdom has taken me down from my towering ignorance and arrogance a notch or two.  In the last four years, I've been forced to admit I had a serious behavioral problem, we suffered the death of a child, I missed a promotion, and we were evicted from a very comfortable housing situation through no fault of our own.  I'm hard headed it seems, so it took quite a bit to wake me up to reality. The universe progressed from the kind whisper it normally uses to direct our lives to a full throated scream. It also woke me up, and I'm fortunate that through the work of folks like James Altucher, I'm in the middle (the foggy middle) of coming out of the end of my previous experience.  

During this middle a foggy phase of a transition, I've found that there are periods of consolidation.  They don't last long, and if I don't give up (the daily practice helps with that) I find that the universe has been working in the background on things that needed to line up that if I listen will conspire with me to make me successful.

I don't know what the outcome of all this is going to be, but I know that if I'm patient and I listen there will be opportunities presented to me that I have not yet been able to even imagine.

Holding Pattern

Occasionally, I find that my life gets into a holding pattern.  I'm doing the daily practice.  I might even be hitting some elements of the practice better than I have at other times during the journey. For whatever reason, during these time, it feels like my progress has stalled.

I haven't been able to correlate these episodes to anything in particular, and I've come to assume that they are really just a normal part of existence. I like to think of them as time when the universe is just consolidating. If I'm fortunate, and I often am, I still find the beauty that I'm seeking in the daily rising and setting of the sun.

Night Shatters - Spanish Fort, AL

When I get into one of these spots, I find it best just to relax a little.  Great experiences sometimes take a little time to put together, and the world is an infinitely complex place. Forcing the issue or trying to get ahead of the way things are meant to be often just leads to frustration. Better to keep pressing on with doing the next right thing and enjoying the ride.

Sol Beats a Retreat - Mobile, AL

I'm a little impatient, but I've seen this movie before. I don't know if the dam will break and things will start happening tomorrow, but I know if I'm lucky the answer will be revealed.  Until then, keep walking.

Returning to the Scene of the Crime

It's been 20 years since I graduated from university. I don't know about other college graduates, but I left school thinking that I'd finally arrived. I knew I was inexperienced, but I also assumed that I had the knowledge and learning required to go forth and make a successful life and career.

Canoe U. Satellite Antenna

It turns out that there remained a whole world worth of learning to accomplish along the winding path that I took over the subsequent two decades. A short an far from comprehensive list of things I've learned since then include:

1. If you find yourself in a situation where you dislike someone because their job seems easier or more fulfilling or less tiresome than yours, maybe you should look into how you can get that job.

2. The value of persistence. I thought I was pretty bright. It turns out that there are quite a few witty, smart, charismatic folks out there in the wide world. What sets folks apart are the ones that make just a little more effort. You don't have to give 110%. That's horseshit, and I don't even really know how that would work. If you would have success, you'll work just a little bit harder than the person next to you. My hypothesis is that it only takes about 2%-4% more effort, but that effort needs to be over the long haul. I didn't really learn this facet of life early enough. If you're young and just getting started, just take my word for it. The value of compounding persistence is similar to the value of compounding interest. It's not really that difficult on any given day, but at the end of a decade you'll find yourself miles ahead.

3. If you find yourself in a situation where you think someone may be crazy, you'd do well to examine whether you might be the one who is crazy. This is especially true if the majority of the folks around you also think the one individual is crazy and the rest of you are sane. The parable of Saddam The Cat (which is a story for a different day) applies here.

Severn River Bridge - Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard - From Hospital Point - USNA

4. Every moment of your life is change. There is zero value in saying that you don't like change because fundamentally the smallest increment of time is empirically different from every other moment anyone has ever experienced. We're not living life. We're creating it every step of the way. Things rhyme of course, but living in the past is foolish and living in the fantasies of the future is equally ill informed. The only thing that exists is right now, and it lasts like a vapor until you invent the next small increment of the new now. This is important because NOTHING is ever as good or as bad as it seems. There is not permanence to anything, so if you find yourself having a terrible day, take a breath. Focus on the moment. Now...right now is your life really crashing down around your ears. Probably not. No matter what is happening, the air is probably sweet(ish), the ground under your feet is probably solid. Gravity still works, and there's another moment just around a quick corner that is an opportunity to invent a new reality. If you think something is bad, it's likely to be either fear (future looking) or regret (past looking). Since neither of these things actually exist, focusing on the moment will find you in a much better place than you IMAGINED you were experiencing.

5. Patience, forgiveness, and love are NEVER over rated. More on this later, but take my word for it in the interim.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow from a very good place right now.

Inconveniences

If you can possibly avoid the mistake of misplacing the keys to your rental car, you should. Misplacing the keys to your rental car presents the opportunity to practice patience, kindness, tolerance, peacefulness, and a number of other virtues in trying circumstances. Mostly, you wait on the phone, and the rental car company tries to tell you that you're on your own...good luck in as many words and hours as possible, The car company's trying doesn't end until you give up and call a taxi for a ride back to your hotel.

Thankfully, I was able to see the upside in the situation. The unlicensed cab and limousine company I called sent over a sedan which turned out to be a white 90's Buick that drove me across the causeway for the price of a very nice dinner for one. Sharing the backseat with a walker and two canes that I presume belonged to the driver or his partner was an added bonus.  It's an experience that I won't soon forget.

I did manage to get in some walking today on the Eastern Shore Trail. I took off on foot from the hotel in search of dinner. Since I'd spent my dinner money on a ride, I opted for the slightly less expensive, but equally gastronomically pleasing, "bag o' burritos" from the Taco Bell.  Not bad...not good...not expensive...filling.  Pretty good deal for a person on foot.

I captured the first "sharable" picture of an alligator on the way to my bean stuffed flour tortilla delights. The 'gator, an average sized bugger, was lounging around in D'Olive Creek annoying the fish in his immediate vicinity if they're aerial acrobatics are any real indication.

Alligator - Daphne, AL

I also noticed that the Easter Shore Trail kiosk on US 90 has taken it's second beating in less than a year. Rory Conlan asked me if I thought folks were hitting the trail map shelter on purpose just for the sake of mischief.  I sent him the following picture and explanation.

Eastern Shore Trail Kiosk - Down for the count a second time in a year

Those broken and leaning poles are six inch square pressure treated lumber. There is a broken hubcap, part of a broken windshield, and various other odds and ends that you might find at the scene where violence has been visited on a automobile by something solid and relatively unyielding. If folks are doing this for the sake of mischief, the must be a special kind of joker who likes to perpetrate very expensive (for them or whomever owns the car) acts of very loud vandalism. I'm pretty sure this is happening because folks aren't paying enough attention when rounding the curve that leads up to this point several meters departed from the right lane of the road.

Today I learned a thing or two about the willingness of a certain rental car company's willingness to help you get out of a jam associated with misplaced keys. They're charging you daily rent, and it turns out they're perfectly willing to collect the fee whether you're using their car or it's sitting uselessly in the parking lot at work. Fortunately the keys were located in the back seat of a friend from work who drove us all to lunch. I had managed at that point to extricate myself from the most pressing problem with the application of forty five dollars and without making an angry ass of myself with the folks who were going a pretty far stretch out of their way not to help me. When he called to announce the good news, I was pretty stoked.

You never can tell what lessons life my put in front of you to learn. I'll wake up in the morning an eager pupil with a taste for adventure.

Transformations

Today's weather progressed in a way that I hope is analogous to some happening in my life.  The day dawned cold and foggy.  The mercury in the thermometer indicated a temperature that should have been warmer than what my fingers in the light gloves I was wearing were telling me. At the beginning of the walk, I headed north on a high bridge over the Severn River hoping to capture some snapshots of the dense cloud bank that had settled right down on the surface of the water.  As I marched up the bridge, frost began to form on the outside of my  fleece pulling ice crystals out of the fog.  The thermometer said this shouldn't be happening.

Fog on the Severn River Bridge Path

The last several days has seemed like I was travelling in a cold fog.  The source of this semi-dire outlook has been a sense of anger at how certain aspects of my life appear to be unfolding at the present moment. I've been living far to far out in the future, and my predictions and expectations, really my imagination, have gotten the best of me.  I've projected that things happening now will be interminable, and that's resulted in behaviors that make that imagining more likely than not.  Like my cold hands at the beginning of the walk, I should know that things can change over time.  The sun can rise.  I just have to be patient enough to let it come up and do the slow work of dispersing the icy cold fog.

Severn River Fog

When I arrived at the north end of the bridge, the situation did not seem to be getting any better.  The fog had laid in, my hands were even colder having been stripped of their all too thin gloves in order to take photos, and I could not even see the other side of the river from which I'd just traveled.  As I contemplated this unwelcome development, small glimpses of progress began to materialize.

Sunrise over the Severn

A dirty yellow smudge appeared on the horizon.  No warmth penetrated the mist, but this was the first indication that improvement was a certainty.  My hands were still clammy, but my metabolism had begun to ramp up, and the first tingles of increasing circulation began to make themselves known.  It takes me about one and a half miles to really start warming up (if I've dressed appropriately for a medium duration walk), and I'd only covered about one and two tenths miles at this point in my journey.  I put on my gloves and moved forward.

Hospital Point, in the Fog

As I turned my back on the north side of the Severn, I noticed that the fog was receding.  It was being pushed south by the rising sun.  When I arrived back at the south side of the bridge, this was the scene that greeted me.  I doesn't look like much improvement, but I'd noted that on my way past heading north, the satellite dish had been barely visible.  There was not reflection in the water, and the photos I took barely registered the massive metal structure at all.  The sun continued to rise.  The fog continued to clear. The frost on the ground exploded in growth, and then slowly began to recede from the scene.

Annapolis Frost

As I came back across to the south, my hands had warmed up so I headed onward.  Less than twenty minutes passed before I crossed another bridge, but this time the view had completely transformed.

College Creek

Whispy vestiges of the icy fog hung lightly in the shaded areas over the water, but the bulk had burned off. The sun had prevailed, the wind hadn't risen, and I began to think that I might just be a bit over dressed.  I'd shed my gloves completely at the three and a half mile point shown in the photo above, and I have not put them on for the remainder of the day.  It's amazing the difference that a little bit of light and a little bit of time can make.

The day progressed, and I covered some credible mileage.  I even jogged a little.  At the end of the afternoon on the last mile of the day, the sun that had cleared the fog settled in the west, it's work done for the time being.

College Creek Sunset

The sky over College Creek was on fire with the waning of the sun.  The air was still calm, and it was nearly impossible to tell where the water ended and the sky began.  The real giveaway was that in the water the trees appeared upside down.  I'd really hoped that Google would give me a panorama to wrap up what ended up being a glorious day.  Animation was the rule of the evening. As the Rolling Stones observed, "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

More College Creek Sunset

When it was all said and done, I did get what I needed.  I suspect that life works a whole lot like the weather today worked.  That is to say, I should have a little patience, understand that my projections going forward are at best imagination and at worst a complete fantasy - good or bad, temper my anger - or ecstasy as the case may be, and believe that the universe is conspiring toward success.

Still More College Creek Sunset

By the way, that linked YouTube video of the Rolling Stones is the 1973 version of "You Can't Always Get What You Want," recorded live in Brussels during their European Tour, and it is FANTASTIC.  Check it out, and buy their albums.  They are one of the top five rock and roll bands of all time, and it would not be out of line to say they are the best ever.  Just a thought.

Failure to Sync

Today, the timing of things has just been a little bit off.  It could be related to the weather which has seen the longest sustained period of relatively cold dry air making an assault on the senses this fall.  I suspect that's not quite it at all.

Walking went alright, although most of the bipedal motion was conducted during the darkness.  A few photos got taken, but most of those were repeats of the same general scenes that have come to represent the small number or routes that have become my habit.  I did notice a pretty neat view down a side street from my normal route, so I tried to set up a panorama.  No real way to tell if that worked, since my phone seems to be having some difficulty syncing up with my normal off device storage.  For some reason one of those side street shots did get uploaded, but this is the only shot that did make it as of the time of this writing.

Side Street View along my usual walking route

I really do hope that the backup eventually works, and a panorama of the entire scene is born.  I suspect it will be pretty spectacular, but who knows.

Even my brief stint at meditation was slightly unsettled. It almost feels like there is some sort of breakthrough in the works, and it's just not time yet for whatever is about to manifest itself.  Sometimes it gets like this, and the only real way to deal with it is to apply just a little patience and see how things play out. I'm looking forward to finding out how this all gets resolved.  It will be interesting, on that I think we can count.

Plans and Expectations Thwarted

I closed out the month in terms of walking on a high note.  The goal for August 2015 was to average ten miles per day of deliberate training walks.  Compared to July of this year it was supposed to be a relative cakewalk.  What I went into thinking would be a "restful" month ended up being quite tiring, and I'm not quite sure why.  It was one of those expectations of the outcome of a well plotted plan that did not play out in reality the way my vision thirty one days ago formed.

That being said, I closed out the month with 310.83 miles of deliberate training, so the target of the scheme was achieved, and though I perceive that I'm more tired now than when I started, it was a good month.

Given the idea that my plans and expectations for the month were generally thwarted by reality, it is fitting that this morning's walk turned out to be nothing like what I imagined.  Being Monday, I had become accustomed to getting in at least six miles in the morning and more frequently than not getting in seven.  That's the nature of the Monday morning routine at work because our first meeting does not start till 8 am.  Every other day of the week we have to be seated and ready to go by 7:30, so that extra half hour translates into additional distance or a at least bit more time to get ready to face the day.

I got started a little bit late because I overslept.  Sometimes I ask myself if sleeping till 4:26 am should really be considered oversleeping.  As much as I'd like to say, "no it is not," I'm forced to admit that since it is outside the discipline of my Daily Practice the tardiness must be evaluated as oversleeping.  That being said, I was still looking good for getting in my goal of six miles until I noticed that the Capitol Police were setting up a perimeter around the U.S. Capitol Building the likes of which I have never experienced.

It's worth noting, that I have spent hundreds of hours at various times of the day around the Capitol Building over the last year or so.  This perimeter was something different.  There were a noteworthy number of additional officers visible, at least two canine units of active patrol, more police vehicles than I've ever seen, caution tape, and who knows what else.  My walking route passes in close proximity to the south side of the building on the way out, and I was gently herded with the rest of the early morning ambulators farther out than I normally go.  At that point I decided to cross the Mall and head up the north side before the perimeter got any bigger.  I was able to take my normal route up the north side of the building, but as I passed my usual landmarks I observed the thin blue line steadily expanding in my direction to heard folks to the north.

I'd escaped just in time, and as I was turning up East Capitol Street facing the mild defeat of only putting in five miles, instead of the usual six or seven, I became aware of the distinct sound of the rotor chop of a Sikorsky UH-1 helicopter.  It's a pretty unique sound and unmistakable once you've associated the auditory track with the equipment.  The UH-1 is the helicopter prominently featured in movies about the Vietnam War.  Modernization of that airframe has done a great many things, but changing the distinctive Whop Whop Whop of the rotors is not one of them.

This particular mechanical bird was decked out in Homeland Security colors, and was making a slow approach over the top of the Supreme Court building.  I thought to myself, "Self, there is no way that helicopter is going to land on the grounds of the Capitol building.  This thought proved once again that I probably shouldn't try to earn my living as a medium or soothsayer because landing in the Capitol building plaza was exactly what it did.  I was even able to snap a picture or two, and have included the best of the lot right here.

Helicopter that's landed in the plaza of the Capitol building

I know this is not the best photographic evidence of this event, but if you squint just right, you can see the helicopter sitting at the end and across the walkway nearly in the dead center of this photograph.

I've never seen anything like this before, and I suspect that it's a pretty rare occurrance.  Even though my plans for the morning had been thwarted, and my expectations for my walk went unrealized, the universe somehow conspired to show me something that I'd never seen before.  I'm grateful for that experience.  I'm also grateful that it gave me something to describe that I hope you find slightly interesting.  I know I did, and it solved the problem of coming up with a topic to write about this evening.

Tomorrow begins a new month, and though I have a few plans and expectations perhaps it will be better to be patient and see what new gifts will be placed before me.