Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Pausing to Remember
As our local temperatures moderate, and we enjoy a brief respite from the biting freeze of the past week, I am feeling some appreciation for what a break in the weather can mean to others around the world. The news out of Nepal lately is revealing another bout of bad weather for flying up to the most dangerous airport in the world. It has again trapped tourists, and a group of climbers who had reached the summit of Everest, that are waiting to get back to Kathmandu.
I remember well the feeling of waiting in the Kathmandu airport for our turn to board a flight on one of the small Twin Otter type planes that fly up to Lukla. There is palpable excitement mixed with anxiety throughout the terminal as groups are quickly ushered out on the tarmac to board their flight. Then there can be a long time when nothing seems to be happening. In April of 2009, one group ahead of us ended up coming back when clouds suddenly obscured Lukla, forcing the pilots to turn around. My friends and I waited most of that day before being told to return to our hotel for an additional night. We would get up and try the same thing on the following day, fortunately, that time meeting with success.
But waiting on the way in is a lot different than on the way out. Going in, we had the planned contingency days to use up, in case of problems. Coming out, we had no such luxury. I doubt many trekkers do. You use all the extra time you can to acclimatize to the extreme elevation. By the time you return to Lukla after hiking or climbing, you are going to be worn out and very ready to return to the comforts of home, and probably out of days and short of money. On our trip, I recall a very strong desire for everything to work out as planned. I must have projected that desire with healthy imaging which helped to assure our success. That morning was clear and sunny for our departure. We experienced no delay.
My heart goes out to those tourists who find themselves socked in for days upon days in Lukla when they are wanting to be going home. It’s a great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to be trapped there!
It Happens
Even I, the great lover of all things winter, snow, and cold, have my moments of weakness…
Not Without Effort
Why does it take effort to see the positive in our world while the negative shows up uninvited? Maybe if I practiced being still and in the moment long enough to see, I would discover that there is no imbalance of negative over positive. In my experience of navigating the world without practicing such meditation, the majority of information that paints my backdrop is less than happy. It takes conscious mental exercise to re-focus the landscape around me to reflect all the positive that is ever-present, regardless appearances otherwise.
I’m afraid there is a significant amount of learned behavior that is responsible for my tendency to find optimism an effort to accomplish. I have many years of practicing fatalistic pessimism to overcome.
But hope springs eternal! Local football teams have signed new coaches. The days are getting longer. The dates for my annual June bicycle trip have been announced. We still have our house. There is food on our shelves. Gas in the car. Heat in our home. Clothes on my back. Family is healthy and free of strife. Love is abundant. We know peace that passes understanding.
Yet it is still an exercise to choose to know all that, over the dismay which presents itself without effort. I bask in the grace that allows me the luxury of doing so. I choose to focus on the unending love that inspires the good we enjoy throughout the entire world. It is always well within our grasp.
We are empowered with the ability to make that conscious choice.
Movie Review
I don’t remember laughing as hard at a movie as I did last night watching Tina Fey and Steve Carell ply their trade in Date Night. Was it that I was expecting much less? Was it that the supporting cast lifted the movie beyond the usual product for this genre? Was it that I was a prime fit for the most logical target audience? Yeah, I think all of that contributed to my great pleasure.
Wow, was that a lot of fun. I don’t recall what I read or heard that had me thinking it failed to deliver on the enticement I felt the first time I saw the trailer, but I sure had that impression. I would like to think that this is evidence that I shouldn’t trust the reviews I hear about these kinds of movies being a disappointment. However, if I always choose to see for myself, I think I would end up suffering through more duds than gems. More often than not, I think the word on such movies is accurate. I think the surprise I enjoyed last night was an exception. A gem among the rest. One that more than lived up to my first impression that Steve and Tina could be darn good in these roles.
It’s hard to say what was more fun for me. I don’t know whether it was that the movie turned out to be better than I anticipated, or that I found myself laughing out loud so often in reaction to a movie.
Relative Cold
There is nothing like jumping from the warmth of a weekend in the Florida sun to the extreme bite of a Minnesota cold snap. It’s funny seeing the reactions of people who have never experienced bitter cold as they contemplate what it must be like.
I am always surprised how many things actually survive the extreme cold temperatures, even though a few things are pushed beyond their limits. If a car isn’t properly prepared, the cooling system can freeze up and, ironically, the engine can overheat. Tires can lose air when the seal of rubber against the metal rim develops a leak. Occasionally, the deep freeze can cause roads to heave and create pot holes that swallow whole tires. But for the most part, life does go on with nary a hitch. Traffic moves, people function. Schools, businesses, and stores continue to operate, regardless the hyper, overly desperate, sensationalized, fear raising meteorologist’s rantings.
Minus 10–20°F feels pretty intense when it slaps you in the face and rides the otherwise warm path through your nose down into your lungs. There is a reason it gets described as biting cold. Nature knows about cold like this. Buildings and machines of metropolises, even when designed for such extremes, just don’t appear to belong when the bottom drops out on the thermostat readings.
I’ve been through over 50 of these Minnesota winters, and I still marvel over the way life carries on, despite how cold it might get. It is hard to explain, but no matter how biting cold it is, it is possible to stand outside and have a sensation of being warm. (No, not that desperate point of hypothermia where people start taking their clothes off type of warm.) There is something about feeling your body continue to function when everything around you seems to have come to a complete, frozen halt. It’s a warm feeling.
But it only lasts for a brief moment, and then you actually sense that you are beginning to come to that same complete, frozen halt, and you have to get the hell back inside. Minnesota is not for sissies.
Don’t forget to wear a hat.
Let’s Pretend
I am back where the brisk breeze of winter is bringing extreme cold to the region and am hoping that our little jaunt to warmer climes has done little to alter my ‘thickened’ blood. Yes, I dearly love the wintertime and snowy wonderland, but that doesn’t mean I don’t also appreciate the feeling of having warm water sooth my entire being while sunshine bathes us all under a beautiful sky. It doesn’t hurt when the pleasant atmosphere is combined with freedom from the demands of a couple days worth of backlogged work, but I’m willing to overlook that complication. While I slog through the piles of work on my desk, I am going to pretend I am still on the patio in Florida. While the broadcast meteorologists are ranting and raving over how dangerously cold it might get, I am going to imagine the palms swaying in the breeze and the gulls exploring shells in the sand on the beach. I will visualize that I am eating my lunch beside the pool and a water fountain is spraying the pond in the distance. Watch out for alligators!
Relative Excess
We are home again, and the first thing I was faced with last night was the chore of cleaning up the pile at the end of the driveway left by the snowplow. I shoveled the driveway again! Home, sweet home.
Once again, we have been lucky enough to enjoy some of the pleasures of the extremely wealthy. Yesterday, we took a drive through a neighborhood of beyond-category luxury ocean-front homes on our way to a state park beach. Sunday we had a late lunch in Naples, where we watched cars worth more than our Minnesota home, cruise past the shops that offer $28,000 artwork for sale. People walking past me on the street were wearing clothes and jewelry that look like probably cost more than I earn in a year.
We may be among the small percentage of people in the world who own a home, and multiple automobiles, have money in the bank, and can afford airfare for leisure travel, but we have nowhere near the wealth that I am exposed to when I visit the Florida Gulf coast. And this is just one small place in the world where the wealthy gather. It boggles my mind that there can be enough incredibly wealthy people to account for the lavish offerings that exist there and elsewhere. Who are all the people that have enough money for the yachts, mansions, fancy cars, and other things I once believed were the realm of athletes, celebrities, corporate executives, sheiks, and drug lords?
Maybe in my mind, it is like this: anyone with less money than us, doesn’t have enough, and anyone with more, has too much. Unfortunately, the way it usually plays out for me is that, when I see others around me who don’t have as much as me, I feel like I have too much.
Given the obvious poverty of the majority of the people in the world, I know that I have more than I deserve.
We truly are very lucky to have enjoyed such luxury in our visit to the Florida home of Cyndie’s parents with our friends. We experienced 3 days of fabulous sunshine and warm temperatures in the middle of winter. On our last day, some rain moved in, but not until after we enjoyed one last wonderful walk on the beach. The sun popped out late in the day while we were waiting at the airport, producing a magnificent complete double rainbow that nicely marked the completion of our magical visit. It wasn’t all that difficult to have excessive fun amid all that amazing excess.
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I feel like I’m under-reporting with these text-light posts, but who has time to write when there are beaches to comb, pools to swim, Historic Sites to explore, and restaurants to be dined? Our winter mini-vacation 2011 has been everything we hoped it might be.
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Trudging Onward
Still no shoveling happening here for us! Let me share our current struggles with you, in image…
Hello Sunshine
It was cold and snowy yesterday when I woke up, and then, half a day later, a pilot was telling us that the temperature just reached 70° (F, obviously). We arrived to Fort Myers sunshine and enjoyed lunch outdoors at a bistro where they had heaters on for the locals, which gave us a chuckle. I did no shoveling whatsoever. Marie’s orchids look happy as can be. We grilled steaks out under the moon and stars on the lanai patio and enjoyed a fabulous meal together before catching a movie to round out our day. Felt an awful lot like being on vacation.
