10.27.11
Posted in Experiences and reflections at 12:04 pm by admin
Come back and we will set you up for life!
When Cardinals grounds keepers were humanely trapping and removing the rally squirrel, several Innsbrook owners suggested that we offer the squirrel refuge at Innsbrook. That really didn’t come as a surprise. Our residents are incredible nature lovers and there really isn’t a better place for a squirrel to hang his hat post-season. Innsbrook has thousands of nuts – the tree-kind of course. We have 8,000 acres of oak and hickory trees, all pretty much loaded with nuts right now. And every home at Innsbrook has a least one birdfeeder and many have stations reserved just for squirrels.
Innsbrook squirrel enjoying the good life. Photo by Cindy Bowers.
And a famous squirrel can relax at Innsbrook. There is no hunting here and we have been named a Wildlife Sanctuary by Audubon International in recognition for our commitment to the natural environment. It’s Squirrel Heaven. And while Castlewood State Park is very nice, there aren’t 13 beaches, 100 lakes and 1,500 nature lovers putting out treats for lucky squirrels.
The Cardinals organization would’ve been wise to entice the squirrel to leave Busch Stadium to pursue a “resort lifestyle” as opposed to just “kicking him out.” Perhaps it’s not too late to make the squirrel feel wanted though… there are rumors that the squirrel trapped and taken from Busch was a relative of the Rally Squirrel and not the authentic item.
It’s never gone well for major league teams when they insult animal visitors. Bad luck almost always ensues. One has to wonder if Phillies Manager Charlie Manuel’s comments about shooting the squirrel could have played into the Phillies’ ultimate demise. Manuel who grew up in the hills of Virginia where he was a self-proclaimed squirrel hunter said of the Rally Squirrel, “I’m a pretty good shot and if I had a gun I might have did something” (yes “did’).
While on the other side, Cardinals skipper Tony La Russa is a celebrated animal rights activist. There are those who believe that if the squirrel needed a safe place to stay at night, there’s a good chance he is bunking at La Russa’s place. La Russa’s daughter was quoted as saying she thought the chances of the squirrel being at La Russa’s was about 98%.
It sounds crazy, but baseball has quite a history of animals being associated with the demise of teams after the animal was mistreated. In 1945 the Cubs ejected a billy goat from a World Series game against the Tigers and were cursed by the goat’s owner. The Cubs haven’t been to the series since. To reinforce the curse, 9-9-1969 a black cat walked out of the Cubs dugout In the middle of a heated pennant race with the Mets, made a circle around team captain Ron Santo, then disappeared. Two days later, a throwing error to Santo cost the Cubs the National League lead, a position they had held all season. They never recovered.
In 1983, Yankees Hall of Famer Dave Winfield accidentally killed a sea gull while warming up at Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium. Winfield was charged with animal cruelty and the Yankees went on to be absent from post-season play for the longest period in their history, earning Winfield the title of “Mr. May.”
Of course hitting a bird with a ball has not always resulted in bad luck. On March 24, 2001, during a spring training game against the San Francisco Giants, Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Randy Johnson threw a fastball that struck and killed a dove. The bird had swooped across the infield just as Johnson threw the ball. No charges were filed and no bad luck ensued. In fact, that year Johnson and Curt Schilling led the Diamondbacks to their first World Series Win and shared the MVP title.
So why didn’t Johnson’s bird bean-ball bring down a curse upon the Diamondbacks. It’s possible that being hit by Johnson’s fastball (once clocked at 103 mph) didn’t give the dove much time to consider the source of its demise.
The New York Yankees made their next animal faux pas in 2003 when the Challenger, the bald eagle who traditionally flew during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner, was frightened during an ill-timed fly-over by a squadron of F-14s during the second game of the American League Championship. Challenger changed course heading for Derek Jeter and Jason Giambi instead of his handler, causing the players to duck for cover. After that day, Challenger became conspicuously absent, though the Yankees claimed scheduling problems.
Eventually, under pressure to bring back Challenger, Yankee Owner George Steinbrenner famously said “I want that bird” and Challenger made an appearance in the third game of the World Series. But the damage was done. The Yankees went on to fall to the Marlins in 6 games.
But the animals weren’t done with the Yankees. In August 2007, a squirrel climbed up a foul pole at Shea Stadium during a Red Sox game. Perhaps the Yankees weren’t as hospitable as they could have been, because the Red Sox defeated the Yankees in the pennant race and went on to win their second World Series in four years. The animals had an additional hand in that loss. As the Yankees faced the Indians in the second game of the playoffs, gnats attacked young reliever Joba Chamberlin literally blanketing him as he tried to save the night. Alex Rodriguez fanned for his sixth out in the series and Derek Jeter called the bugs “the Indian’s home field advantage.”
So was the Manuel’s threat to the squirrel’s well being enough to bring down the wrath of whatever baseball god visits vengeance on offending franchises? Consider that during the fourth game the squirrel darted across home plate as Roy Oswalt was pitching to Skip Schumaker distracting Oswalt and precipitating a Cardinal home run rally. And who hit the Phillies’ season-ending RBI against Cy Young winning Roy Halladay? I’m just saying….
So Rally Squirrel, if you are still at Busch Stadium, get back in the game. We need you now – and when your work for the Cardinals is done, Innsbrook will set you up with a squirrel-sized cabin, under a canopy of oak and hickory trees with a beautiful lake view.
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04.27.11
Posted in The Woods, Things to do at 2:39 pm by admin
I know how golf works.
I don’t mean that I understand the physics of it – I sort of do – except for the part when the ball changes direction in mid flight (the whole mid-flight-turn thing has me completely baffled). I assume it has something to do with dark matter – or strange attractors – or a special theory of some sort. I assume when Einstein saw that happen on the golf course, he just shook his head and went back to relativity – even genius has its limits and God has to come into the equation somewhere.
When I say that I understand how golf works, I mean I know why people keep playing it after repeated disappointments. They play it because they have seen it done on TV, and so they know it’s possible. They play it because it looks easy. And most important, they play it because at one point, they had done it themselves.
They had hit the ball so sweetly that they didn’t even feel it. Then there was a whoosh and the ball just lifted off the tee on its own – it was pulled toward the target almost following the golfer’s line of thought. It became an extension of the golfer following an unavoidable path, totally in harmony with the universe. The golfer knew it was a great shot before the club hit the ball and everything felt perfect, almost predetermined. And then… it never happened again.
The memory of the perfect shot was much easier to repeat than the shot itself. And days, nay years, were spent trying to recreate that shot. After all, they saw it on TV. It looked easy. They had done it themselves.
I know how golf works because that is exactly what happened to me Easter weekend. Instead of obsessively pursuing the perfect golf shot, my quest was for a little spongy-looking mushroom.
On Easter Saturday, while my wife Pattie piloted our packed minivan toward our chalet, I checked the Innsbrook Facebook page to see what was new and exciting on the IBK social network – and there it was – an entry only a couple hours old.
Morels. Morel mushrooms. A whole bowl of them – overflowing. Gathered just that day. Somebody would be enjoying wild mushrooms cooked in butter, some fresh garlic and a pinch of salt tonight. Toss them with pasta and a little Parmesan cheese (the good stuff, not the sawdust) and you’ll stretch the ecstasy….. mmmmm…. And maybe a little red wine on the side.
I said to my wife, “Morels. They are finding bowlfuls of Morels at Innsbrook.”
“Great,” she said. “When we get to Innsbrook, you and the boys find the mushrooms. I’ll open the building, unpack the car and cook dinner.” That is not the normal order of events when we arrive at our chalet, but Pattie’s mom is a mushroom hunter of many years and Pattie has “drank the koolaid” …errr, “ate the fungus.” When Pattie was a girl, her mom would find mushrooms on trips to their cabin, then she would bread and deep-fry them. (I married Pattie despite that heresy.)
As we passed through Innsbrook’s gate, I imagined me and the boys entering the damp woods filled with mushrooms — the forest floor littered with sponge-shaped food of the gods (easily $45 a pound at Whole Foods). I wondered if I had a bag large enough to carry them back. As I told my three boys what to look for, I wondered if morels could be frozen.
“Look around dead trees,” I said. “Oak and Hickory are best, probably not cedar. Some people look under May Apples. You know, umbrella plants,” I told them. As the car stopped, Aedan, our oldest, got out of the car, bent over, and pulled a decent sized morel out of the leaf litter next to the driveway. “You mean like this dad?” he said. My jaw dropped. I knew it would be easy, but what would we do with all of those mushrooms, I thought.
And the hunt began. Pattie took our first prize in the house to soak it in salt water to drive the bugs out. We spread out into the woods to start the weary, back-breaking work of harvesting what would surely be hundreds of succulent fungi.
Thirty minutes passed. We still hadn’t found a single mushroom. We had covered most of our property. Our enthusiasm for the hunt was barely diminished. “Perhaps they weren’t scattered evenly through the woods. Perhaps they were all concentrated in a huge mass somewhere, surrounded by dead wood, in a hollow overflowing with May Apples. We looked… and looked… the Facebook image of the bowl of mushrooms fresh in our heads… Aedan’s perfect mushroom burned into our memories. We had seen it on TV (Facebook). We had done it ourselves. It looked simple.
After an hour, our mycological zest had begun to wane. Aedan, satisfied that he had won the mushroom-finding contest quit first, then our middle child gave up satisfied that Pattie had the van unloaded, and finally our six-year-old wished me well and went inside to join his brothers.
But for me, the hunt went on. I looked around every stump, under May Apples, on hillsides, along the creek. I found the shell of a half rotted log surrounded by hundreds of May Apples – there should have been thousands of mushrooms there. Not a one. I tried my mother-in-law’s trick of just staring into the leaf litter waiting for them to materialize out of the chaos – kind of like those pictures where you can only see the image if you stare and unfocus your eyes. Nada. I found a mushroom stick and poked piles of leaves for what seemed like hours. Nothing.
Eventually I began to wonder if they were intentionally avoiding me. After staring a long time, I thought I saw a little movement in the leaves. I thought about the dancing mushrooms in Disney’s Fantasia – running through the woods, snickering. I hummed Tchaikovsky’s Chinese Dance to myself. (Note to readers who may be wondering: No, I didn’t find and OTHER type of mushroom either.)
Just then, Pattie called. I had been out three hours. The kids were worried. Dinner was ready. She had made pasta with “baby ‘bellas” she had brought from home. That was kind of like offering an empty-handed fisherman a hotdog that had been bought “just in case.” Really, when you’re hungry, pride be hanged.
I began the trip back to the chalet, zigzagging to every rotted stump, to every cluster of May Apples. It’s always that last hole in golf where you make the perfect shot, the last cast that will hook the trophy bass, the last stump that’s concealing a trove of morels.
As I walked up the final hill to our back door, I kicked something light colored in the leaves. I bent over to pick it up. A golf ball. “Great,” I thought. “The mighty hunter goes out to bring back the mastodon of morels for his waiting family and only manages to scare up a little irony.” I smiled, “…And a story idea. Perhaps the hunt was not a total loss.”
So what’s the morel of this story? I’ll be darned if I can find one.
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04.19.11
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:11 am by admin
Usually, as a writer I try to pick topics that appeal to men and women. But this piece is for the guys.
Girls, you are welcome to come along for the ride, but there may be parts of the trip when you are tempted to question why in the world anyone would care about an old shaving kit, a fishing pole that doesn’t work or a stuffed sailfish with tattered fins and a broken tip. You may actually side with my wife at the thought of a basement full of Dutch ovens, cast-iron pans, weathered canvas, an old rifle and kerosene lamps. You may even take up her battle cry: “Garage Sale!”
So guys, it’s time to get your best Ernest Hemingway on and think about the men in your life. Your grandfathers, your dad, maybe your scoutmaster, a teacher or maybe even a boss.
Chances are you probably had a guy in your life who loved the outdoors, or worked with his hands, or was in the military – a guys’ guy. If you were lucky, he shared his passion with you. Maybe he taught you to fish or shoot or know what wild plants are edible. Maybe he taught you to sail, or frame a wall, or change a tire. Perhaps he showed you how to play an instrument, ride a horse, pitch a tent or cook over a campfire.
While you were with him you learned from what he had to say, and more important, you learned from who he was. You learned not to complain when things got tough. You learned how to work, to fail, and to try again. You learned to listen…. then talk. And you learned to laugh.
And if you were really lucky, you have something to remember him by. Maybe it’s an old canvas tent you camped in or a cast-iron frying pan or a fishing pole or a favorite tool. Perhaps you have the rifle he taught you to shoot with or a lamp you took camping.
Me – I caught my limit. My Grandpa Paul was such a man. During the Depression, his father left and he had to drop out of high school to take care of his brothers and sisters. He wrestled for money at county fairs among other odd jobs. When he had six kids of his own, he started a business that flourished and he was able to travel to Florida every year and fish for Marlin Hemingway-style. Besides a knowledge of several wrestling moves (most of which are illegal in sanctioned matches), I have a Marlin he caught that I rescued from a dumpster after he had died.
My Grandpa Bob was also a Depression-era dad who supported his family by taking every job that came along. He worked in the civilian conservation corps, and I have his web belt and shaving kit from that time. He worked in a factory after that (inhaling asbestos all along the way) until the factory closed. In the course of that time, he raised two smart, independent girls. Then he worked as a handyman until the asbestos finally took its toll. He loved the outdoors… hunting, fishing, gigging frogs. I have his fishing gear, a rifle, some tools and several dog-eared sportsman books.
My dad was the scoutmaster of my Boy Scout troop and also ran the farm on which I grew up. Our scouts camped once a month and he taught us everything from how to build fires, cook in the outdoors and the right way to season a cast-iron pan. He also taught me how to use most tools, to drive a tractor and to know the feeling of harvesting hay, growing your own food and putting up a building by hand. I have several of his tools, some of his camping gear and occasionally his shotgun. He keeps asking for his stuff back though; he’s still a scoutmaster, a Wildwood alderman and a rancher and says he needs it. Some people just don’t know how to kick back and relax.
Seriously though – if you’re not lucky enough to have someone like my dad in your life who’s still teaching and being “that guy” for your kids, the stuff they leave you helps fill the space. It is symbolic of the things they loved — that they taught you to love. And though I really can’t use my grandfather’s open reel bait casting rig very well, the fact that he left it to me worn but well-cared-for means a lot to me… that his hands held it means even more.
Where is this going for me – for my kids? So far, the only one of my sons who has collected a “dad souvenir” from me is Dylan. When my old Motorola smartphone died, he asked for it and put it on the shelf where he keeps all of his treasures. I can hear him telling my grandkids about it now: “I wish you could have seen how Grandpa Ron could use this thing,” he would say. “He was a true master… often texting, talking and checking his calendar all at once, usually while I was trying to tell him something.”
A few weeks after calling dibs on my old phone, Dylan left one of his drawings on my bed. It shows me working at my desk while an alarm clock goes off and a clock on the wall says “Time for a meeting.” He’s not a subtle kid.
Our grandfathers and fathers were hard workers. But when they were done working, we had all of their attention. There were no PDAs elbowing their way into our moments together. We are blessed with our fathers’ work ethic and 21st-century connectivity – and combined, it’s a curse. Our work follows us everywhere, with party-crashing ringtones showing up at the worst moments.
My dad always said “Right tool for the right job.” I imagine he wouldn’t think a smartphone is the right tool for the “job” of spending time with your son. After all, we’ll hear countless cell phone rings in our lifetime, but we’ll get to hear our children calling us “Dad” only so many times.
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02.09.11
Posted in Experiences and reflections at 9:12 am by admin
January 18, 2011 marked the end of an era in photography. It was the day that the last role of Kodachrome film was processed. And while I have the unfortunate honor of being the person who made the decision to take the annual Property Owners Photo Contest to an all digital format, I think the demise of film photography is a loss.
When I first came to Innsbrook as a communications assistant, I was presented with a huge box of slides that had been taken over the years, showing parties and lake scenes and trail rides and tennis matches and so much else. Innsbrook founder Ed Boyce always had a camera with him and over the years had accumulated a treasure trove of memories committed to Kodachrome.
Early beach days at Innsbrook
I remember one of the slides showed an A-frame surrounded by forest canopy glowing in emerald light as the sunlight filtered through leaves. The scene was particularly amazing when the slide was held up to the sunlight coming through the window. I thought to myself, “Ah Kodachrome certainly does capture the greens of summer — makes you think all the world’s a sunny day….oh yeah!” (Sorry.)
Some of the slides were 20 years old and older as well…which actually highlights a bit of a problem. The least stable dye on a Kodachrome slide is yellow, which is predicted to loose 20 percent of it’s intensity in 185 years’ time. The other dyes do better. There are actually slides pre-dating Kodachrome taken on a 1910 trip to the Antartic that are perfectly functional today.
Innsbrook Fireworks Show on Kodachrome
On the other hand, conventional wisdom is that most computer hard drives have a five-year life time. The organic dyes in most CD ROMs begin degrading in about 10 years. Had those images of the early days of Innsbrook been taken in on digital media, it’s possible I would have never seen them. Ah technology — making things better!
Kodak announced last year that it would retire Kodachrome, which it had been manufacturing since 1935. eve McCurry, well-known for his 1984 photograph of the “Afghan Girl” published on the cover of National Geographic magazine in 1985, requested from Kodak to shoot the last roll of 36 frames it manufactured. This roll was processed on July 14, 2010 by Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas. There was such a demand for additional processing, that Dwayne’s went on to develop Kodachrome through January 18, 2011.
While I think I will miss good old-fashioned film for a lot of reasons, it hit me recently that I will miss the scarcity of it the most.
In the days of film, I would wander off into the woods with a couple rolls in my pocket. Maybe 48 or 72 shots. And that was a lot. I couldn’t afford to buy more and I certainly couldn’t afford to develop it. Now when I take nature shots, I have a couple 16 GB SD cards with me which will pretty much let me shoot forever. I just took this image last week on a winter’s hike with our Canon Rebel.
As I take pictures, I might shoot 20 shots of the same scene — in the days of film, I would have to make every shot count. Each shot had to be thought through and planned out. Now I just shoot the bejesus out of it. There is something enriching about having limited tools. The artistic process is much more satisfying when you have to choose how to expend your resources. The mind focuses harder.
Really, the joy of art for me isn’t the result, it’s the process. The moment when the work comes together… where medium and man combine to create something new. With film, somehow that process was more consuming. There was more man in it.
Perhaps I’m just a little sentimental — now they’ve taken my Kodachrome away.
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02.02.11
Posted in The Woods at 5:53 pm by admin
“I am a feather for each wind that blows.”
(Leontes at II, iii)
-William Shakespeare, A Winter’s Tale
Somehow “A Winter’s Tale” seemed like an appropriate play to quote as Innsbrook is experiencing its first true blizzard since I have been around these lakes and hills (read 20 years).
I love this quotation. It really sums up all I like and dislike about myself in nine words — and however you read it, you get “lack of direction” — or perhaps, “too many directions.”
Lately I have been wandering around Innsbrook quite a bit with camera in hand photographing winter scenes. When I go outside to take pictures, I really don’t have a plan or destination. I just follow the advice of a famous naturalist who said something like, “If you want to see nature, just get out of the car.” I find that the moment I step out of my (warm) car, the scenery massively improves. Something about shatterproof glass really impedes the view.
As soon as the snowy scene unfolds itself around me, I become the feather. Over here I find dried flowers covered with tiny ice crystals. Look a little closer and you see the sunlight glinting all around them.
After a bunch of photos with the sun to my back, I discover that if you break the rule about not shooting into the sun, the crystals surrounding the flowers seem to catch fire in flashes of blue, purple and white.
Next, I’m drawn “feather-in-the-wind” style to the bigger scenes around me. The blue sky contrasting against the white snow and tawny brush. The trails and roads disappearing into the snowy woods. The snow on logs and limbs emphasizing the curves of other trunks and branches.
Then I make it to a creek and hear the sound of the water. The creek sound is so much more present on a still winter’s day than on a summer afternoon with its riot of bird, animal and insect calls. In the winter, it’s all about the gurgle. As I approach the edge of the creek, I’m drawn to the minute again as I photograph crystals around leaves and delicate glassy ice sculptures formed by the current on the creek’s edge.
The feather drifts again as my attention is pulled to a herd of deer on the other side of the creek whose attention I have also managed to catch. The deer seem more focused than I am, but they let me change camera lenses and get a picture before they disappear behind snowy trees.
Focus has never been my greatest asset – but as a feather floating in a wind of beautiful natural scenes, I find intense focus. Time stops flowing and all my thoughts are about the landscape around me.
When Shakespeare has Leontes say his feather line in “A Winter’s Tail,” he is sarcastically complaining about others trying to choose a direction for him… infringing on his self control.
Well – as it turns out, Leontes would have been better served to let his friends guide him, but he is so determined to choose his own destiny, that he ignores them. Had he read more Shakespeare, Leontes would have known that our destiny is rarely in our own hands. But, if we are lucky, we can choose which wind will blow us.
So unlike Leontes, as I walk through the woods, I’m celebrating my lack of self determination, all thoughts of choosing my destiny thrown to the wind. I happily give up control to the forces that surround me in my Innsbrook Winter’s Tale.
Of course, I know the other option — to be my own master — to be chased by or to chase life’s necessities. It’s how I spend most of my days. I’m either running after something or from it. And although I decide what to chase, am I really in control of my destination when I’m frantically following something? And while I can choose my course when I’m being chased — some amount of self control there, I guess — I certainly don’t get to choose my pace… it’s as fast as possible. Compared to being my own “master,” spending a few hours as a feather in the wind is refreshing.
In fact, if you read a little further into “A Winter’s Tale,” you come to Shakespeare’s most famous stage direction:
“…Exit, pursued by a bear.
(III, iii),
The stage direction at end of scene!”
Too many of my days end like that. I need to spend more time as a feather on the wind.
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05.26.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:23 pm by admin
I hear more and more that the United States is becoming more polarized… that our leaders in Washington are much more worried about attacking each other than they are about finding solutions to our economic, environmental and social woes. Popular wisdom has it that mudslinging has reached an all-time high… that Tea Partiers and Coffee Partiers are fighting battles hotter than their beverage of choice and can find no common ground(s). CNN and Fox News seem to be objecting to being objective and disagreeing on not only what is right and wrong, but what is real and unreal.
On this Memorial Day Weekend, as thoughts turn to those who serve, have served, fought and died in the US Armed Forces, we sometimes wonder if even they know what they’re fighting for… After all, we as a country can’t even agree on what is real and not real, let alone what is right and wrong… and we’re not being shot at or dodging IEDs thousands of miles away from our homes and loved ones. Soldiers fighting in our current war in Afghanistan have a relatively clear-cut mission compared to those who fought in the US Civil War, where brothers fought brothers. It must have been very hard for them to know what they were fighting for when their families couldn’t even agree.
The truth is they do know — there is no argument about what they fight for. It is not for the government, the president or any political party. They don’t fight for the country itself nor is it for the flag, mom or apple pie. When US soldiers go to war, whether it be in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, National Guard or Coast Guard, they go to fight for one thing. And that thing is less than a piece of paper and greater than the greatest army on earth. It is for the ideas that make up the United States Constitution.
The United States armed services are unique in that when they enlist, their oath is to a set of ideals. They don’t swear to defend god or country or king or state or flag. To them, all of that is second to a document that puts the rights of individual citizens as paramount.
In fact, US soldiers swear to defend the constitution against any enemy foreign or domestic. Every officer from the president to a lieutenant is sworn to disobey any order that violates the constitution of the United States. What a way to set up an army. Here’s a gun — now you have to obey me unless I get out of line.
At the end of the day, all of us — coffee party, tea party, beer bash (I’m starting that one) — agree that our right to discuss, to disagree, to speak our minds and to not worry about who might be listening is worth fighting for… and dying for.
And we owe an eternal debt of gratitude to those who took this oath, an oath that at they were willing to sacrifice everything for.
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
Photo credit: Arlington National Cemetery by Bruce Dale, published in National Geographic, June 2007
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02.10.10
Posted in Experiences and reflections at 5:28 pm by admin
Running at Innsbrook is a special kind of experience.
I’ve run in a lot of great places. Chicago, Sanibel, the Rocky Mountains…but Innsbrook offers a fantastic combination of pleasure and pain that is just sort of rare.
The hills at Innsbrook — that would be the pain part for those following along from home — present some fantastic challenges. Sometimes they are straight up, other times our hills will present a long slow burn (literally). There are a couple hills that I swear are a half mile long. One particularly insideous hill is a short steep climb that leads into a turn followed by a long slow burn. That hill has been likened to a relationship in which you thought you where there for fun and just when you think all is good, your partner starts talking about commitment. Hill running inspires some funny thoughts.
The pleasure part of Innsbrook running more than makes up for the pain of the treacherous hills. Every steep hill at Innsbrook is crowned with a vista, or a lake view or a ridge run through a wooded glade. The views at Innsbrook are beautiful in every season and seemed to be heightened by the runner’s endorphen-laced brain. The woodland scenes, beautiful on a normal day, are inspired poetry to chemically enhance sensibilities.
Who wouldn’t want this — all the fun of a mental pharmacopoeia and none of the high cost, health risks and possibility of a new housing situation with a roomie named Bubba.
Honestly — after some thought, I wouldn’t want it…at least not for the runner’s high. I can do without the endorphin rush. I’ve that found a more mild version of runners’ high induced by a cold beer, imbibed on our a-frame deck in a hammock on a spring day is a pretty good substitute. And the trip up into the hammock is a much gentler exercise than trotting up one of Innsbrook’s formidable hills. And they say gentle exercise is good, right?
So if not for the brain chemicals, why run? To build up fitness? Why, sure, until the moment when you have to drop out of your routine for a couple weeks and six months of progress is gone! I will never understand why it take so long to get to a point where you feel like you are running well, and yet it can be lost so quickly. For fitness, I’ll take walking any day.
No, over all, there’s only one good reason I have ever come up with for running, I do it for God. And that is probably not what most people were expecting to see — that is unless you read the title.
We have a wonderful classical music festival here at Innsbrook — and I have become acquainted with more classical composers in the last ten years than I thought I would in a lifetime. I’ve learned much about their music and I can even pronounce some of their names. (You wouldn’t believe how Kodaly is pronounced.) But my favorite composer really hasn’t changed.. as Radar O’Reilly once so aptly put it…”aaaahhhhh…Bach”.
Bach’s music is the perfect combination of mathematical precision and unimaginable beauty. It is that moment when all of physics come together to make a sunset and you forget you are watching light bending over the horizon and then refracting through particles of water and then stimulating the nerves in the back of the eye and finally sending electrical impulses to the brain. What you see are glorious reds, fiery oranges and yellows lighting up the sky. What began as a complex physical and chemical reaction becomes beauty in the mind of the beholder… and that’s what Bach does so well. All of those perfectly timed and chosen sound vibrations come together to create the most unimaginable beauty — truly form from chaos.
And what, you say, does that have to do with running for God? Well what Bach did doesn’t have anything to do with it…why he did it absolutely does. Bach wrote the letter s.D.g. at the end of each of his compositions — “Soli Deo Gloria” which in Latin means “To God alone be the Glory.”
He believed that everything we do should be done as well as possible to honor God. He believed that everyone can create music or art worthy of God. Bach said, “Anyone can do what I did, they just have to work as hard as I did.” He also famously said that “composing music is easy, you just have to play the right notes at the right times.”
Bach wrote these letters as his “signature” on many of the over 10,000 pages of music that he wrote.
As I think about running, I think about Bach’s idea that whatever we do, we do to honor God. When we stretch, when we push ourselves, when we do something as well as we can, it does bring us out of ourselves and we focus on a higher purpose — and we sort of lose ourselves as we blend with the symmetry of the universe.
We use our brain, our body and our spirit to create beauty or ideas… and that beauty is found in the oddest places… in a well-pitched fastball or a sailboat riding the edge of the wind or a horse and rider working as one or even an out-of-shape 45-year-old slogging up a gravel road in Warren County, topping a hill and taking in a crimson sunset over Lake Aspen. It’s easy to disappear into the glory of finding a second wind as you open your stride crossing a dam with sparkling lakes on each side, alone with the sunlight on your back, the smell of a warm breeze coming off the lake and the pat, pat, pat of your feet keeping time with the woods’ sounds.
Carl Sagan said, “We are a way for the universe to know itself.” And whether it’s planting a garden, running through the woods of Innsbrook or writing the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, we are at our best when we endeavor not for ourselves but as a tribute to the wonder of creation.
s.D.g.
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01.01.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:56 pm by admin
For three years now, a friend of mine has been after me to write a New Year’s resolution. But he doesn’t want just a resolution, he wants a goal from me, a statement of intent, a to-do list for self realization.
He writes a goal for himself every year, tracks it and reports on the results when the year is done. He has annual goals and life goals. And every year he goes a month or so at the beginning of the year expressing his disappointment at my inability to draw my own life into such sharp relief. At the end of each year he laments that I have let another unplanned, unfocused year pass by.
I don’t disagree that having a life goal and mission would allow me to accomplish greater things and perhaps even draw greater satisfaction from life. But my problem is, and has always been, that the decision of what is important enough to commit my life to seems to demand the prerequisite of knowing what is important in life. And I just haven’t figured that out yet. What if I would commit my life to the wrong thing? Wouldn’t that be terrible?
So instead of taking a chance on committing to the wrong goal, I commit to none — and go about being living proof of the John Lennon quotation, “Life is what happens when you are busy doing something else.”
But like John Lennon, my life is not without accomplishment. Though I haven’t changed the face of world culture as he did (yet anyway), I have created a life for myself that would have been beyond my dreams graduating from college. I write for a living — I’m deeply involved in my passion of music. My job also takes me outdoors a great deal — and I get to run a kids’ camp during the summer. I have three boys, an unbelievable wife, and live in a great community where I have met a lot of fantastic people. All of this is without benefit of life goals.
The funny thing is if I would have set life goals for myself — these things would have been key. I look at Ed Boyce, the guy who founded Innsbrook, and wonder if our 8,000-acre community was part of a grand plan he had. Some how I doubt it. And yet he has accomplished so much and has affected so many lives in a profound way.
I have a theory. Perhaps achievement goals really aren’t what are important. I have tossed around on the tide like flotsam and jetsam without a tiller and still have been gently deposited on the island of my dreams. The only thing I can figure might have guided my course is that I have always done the things I love and have done them as well as I could. I think there is probably something to the idea that when you focus on what you love and are interested in, those things are drawn to you.
So perhaps by not being always focused on distant goals, I was better able to see what was there in front of me, not missing opportunities. Often the heart is a better guide for living in the present than the mind.
So here I sit, lack of resolve wholly intact. And I am facing the prospect of breaking the news to my friend that once again, I am without a New Year goal.
But perhaps this year I can find a little red meat to throw him (or baked quinoa in my case). I think the resolutions that make real sense are those that help us live better in the present — exercising, eating well, sleeping more, spending time with those I love, being outside, laughing, writing, discussing and reading.
I have come to the conclusion that my boat seems to work well without my hand on the tiller so I’m content to leave my destination unknown. But living well could provide a fresh set of sails to make the trip that much better.
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12.02.09
Posted in The Woods at 5:11 pm by admin
When I was a kid growing up in Pond, Missouri… what? You’ve never heard of Pond, Missouri?
It’s right between Grover and Glencoe. Newcomers call it Wildwood.
Anyway, as an eight-year-old, I was a newcomer myself, a transplanted native from the ”tough streets” of Creve Coeur. So when I was set free in Wildwood on 40 acres of farmland, I was somewhat amazed by the amount and variety of wild plants. It was quite a change from my suburban background where the list of wild plants was grass… ok, that was it. And the one plant that really got my attention was stinging nettle.
Stinging nettle is remarkably common anywhere there are creeks, and we had one that ran right through the middle of our farm. It’s not a plant easily ignored or missed. It is waist high (or better), has big green leaves, a square stem… oh, and covered with little hairs that ooze with a burning toxin.
Plants that attack are a long way from the lush lawns of Creve Coeur where my biggest horticultural adventure had been an encounter with Rainbow Swiss Chard at the corner Tom Boy grocery store.
So the area arond the creek on our Pond farm took on a sort of “no man’s land” feel for me, which I generally avoided unless enticed beyond reason by water striders skating the creek’s surface, an obvious leopard frog or some other irresistable creek occurance. And then I just dashed through the nettle hoping for the best. Growing up, I had no love for the stuff.
Fast forward 35 years to our A-frame chalet at Innsbrook. It sits on a hilltop overlooking about three acres of floodland and just about every inch of ground is covered by – guess what – stinging nettle.
My first plan was to give our local agricultural products company a boost by purchasing copious amounts of Roundup — but I’m a little hesitant to spray herbicides where I know my “weed rat” children will be tramping — so I researched stinging nettle on Wikipedia to ferret out what it’s natural enemy might be — and that’s when I learned that it’s really pretty useful stuff.
Next to hemp, stinging nettle is the best Missouri plant with which to make rope out (thankfully my Innsbrook lot is not covered with the former plant– it would harken to an entirely different stage of my life).
The fibers of sting nettle (and hemp) can be stripped out, wetted and twisted into a very stong cord which is great for all sorts of things. I also learned that another creekside plant, jewel weed, has a sap that quickly quiets the burn of stinging nettle.
Apparently, nettle also makes a good, nourishing tea, and the leaves have a spinach quality when eaten (though I haven’t had the courage to try that).
In short, the part of our Innsbrook woods that had once been a “no-man’s land” has now become a source of food stuff and fiber — a real boon to our woodland hideaway.
I still crash into the stinging nettle (now followed by three enthusiastic weed rats) but it is no longer to chase frogs or water striders, and the woods seem to be a much friendlier place.
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11.24.09
Posted in Experiences and reflections at 1:13 pm by admin
“What are you thankful for?”
I’ll probably hear this question 20 times in the next couple days. At office meetings, at kids’ activities, when I meet friends, and undoubtedly in about 300 e-mails. The kids will bring home art projects about what they’re thankful for, and I will hear countless celebrities rattling off what they are thankful for.
And as many times as I hear the question – I’ll hear the same answers, “my health, my family, my friends.” Of course the kids will give more immediate answers. “We’re having spaghetti for dinner” or “The new Transformers movie” or maybe “no homework over Thanksgiving.” And of course the celebs will be thankful for “hope” or “love” or “the milk of human kindness.” Not one of them will mention their seaside place in Santa Barbara or the new addition to their 12-car garage.
A funny thing happens though, when you ask someone what they are thankful for. They get a sort of searching look on their face – just for a moment. It’s the same look that you can see on the face of guys wandering aimlessly through grocery store – the guys who “didn’t need to make a list.”
“Now what was I supposed to get?” they ask themselves.
And as if this would come as a surprise to any one – I have a theory about this. I think we are all pre-programmed to focus on the next objective. This seems like it would be a natural tendency, after all, for tens of thousands of years – at least until the invention of the Paleolithic agriculture, ziplocks and refrigerators–food was a day-to-day thing. So being thankful for the blueberry bush that served as breakfast probably wasn’t a terribly helpful trait. What really counted was finding the next one that would provide dinner.
Deep inside of us, I don’t think we have forgotten that lesson. Every day is about the next accomplishment – the raise, the commission, the kids’ next report cards – it’s the unwavering march toward one’s own eventual death… “What’s next? What’s next? What’s next?” Rest in peace.
Or if it’s not the blueberry bush that’s the focus, it’s the other end of the food chain that occupies the caveman mind: trying to avoid being eaten by a cave bear.
It’s a bit of a mental gear change to stop thinking about the next blueberry bush or cave bear. And while many readers might be saying “I have ziplock bags and no fear of cave bears,” I think we just have different names for those things today. Instead of blueberry bushes, we worry about 401Ks and instead of cave bears, it’s Swine Flu.
And even when we stop to think about what we’re grateful for, we still don’t leave hunter-gatherer mode. “I’m grateful that my family is healthy” (not being eaten by cave bears) and “I’m grateful for my home and prosperity” (blueberry bush). It seems like most of what we’re thankful for boils down to getting what we desire and escaping what scares us.
I have found that being at Innsbrook can provide a path out of the hunter-gatherer mindset. When I am focused on the beauty of nature, watching sunlight on the lake or hearing the breeze in the treetops or the call of a loon in the evening (sorry – I recently went to Wisconsin), it’s possible to stop thinking about the bear and the bush. In fact – it’s possible to just think about nothing. When I wander down a trail or sit by a creek and listen to the water or smelling the fall leaves or crisp air, my caveman mind stops its constant dialogue and I just experience.
And then, with a mind full of nothing, the most amazing thing happens. I don’t have to reach outside myself to think of what I’m thankful for. Instead, it radiates from inside me. There’s no grocery list pause. All I am is thankful. (And not for the presence of bush nor lack of bear.)
Instead of being thankful for the Dow topping 10,000, I’m thankful for the amazing beauty that surrounds me each day and the sights and sounds and smells of being.
Instead of being thankful for the health of friends and family, I find myself glowing with gratitude for knowing them… for their smiles and their unique characteristics and the very miracle of their being… thankful that the universe came together to create something that laughs and loves and jokes and appreciates beauty.
Thanksgiving is the perfect time to prepare our minds for the holiday season that follows — the season where we celebrate light in the darkness of winter, where we focus on hope.
When we stop thinking about the bear and the bush… when we quiet our minds… when we let the thankfulness that is within us rush forth… there is nothing left but hope.
So I guess I’m most thankful for times when I think of nothing, and experience gratitude in everything.
Photo credits: David Rentfrow (leaves) and Laura Hahn (creek)
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