Category: Reporting

Cold December?

Cold December?

CMG-1020592I wonder if people are worried.

It’s December. Do you remember December? There may not always be snow on the ground, but before Christmas approaches things up high things grow white. The air cracks, dry and cold. The skies are grey, hard as flint, and flurries are common.

This, what we are having now, is not December.

I thought about this in October, when summer seemed unwilling to end, when the leaves held way past normal. And I thought about it again in November, when the “Indian Summer” stretched week after week. But it seemed my concern was maybe jumping the gun. Maybe, like last year, winter would rear itself forcefully and all my worrying would be for naught.

But now it’s December. Mid-December. But the sun still carries warmth. The nights seldom to dip to freezing. The mountains are looking like late October. Christmas is almost here, and “white” seems very unlikely. Some days smell distinctly of spring. Something feels off, way off, a long way from normal. I’m worried.

I hope it’s not just me.

Not that I’m complaining exactly. The warm days have been marvelous, and it’s nice to wear a T-shirt when the calendar recommends two fleeces and a puffy jacket. But this is bigger than personal comfort. When things get weird like this it starts to feel like maybe the Earth’s orbit is off-axis, like maybe the planet’s tilt is spinning aloof. What the heck is going on, when April and December switch?

There is politicized discussion/debate about global warming and the role we play in it. I’m not looking to wade into that. Or the equally politicized conversation about whether or not we should be taking steps to counteract it. Like so much today, those issues are too muddied to approach openly. Each side has its staked-out position, and every conversation devolves into a shouting match. Opponents lob rhetorical grenades across a divided no man’s land. I have no desire to walk headlong into that.

But this December feels weird. Like September, the hottest on record. And October, also the hottest. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will release November numbers this week, at which point we’ll see if the trend holds for last month too. The December data won’t be out until January, at which point perhaps the hills will be white and the 55 degree days will seem like a distant memory but, no matter what the final numbers settle out to, something is askew with this month.

And regardless of the data, global temperature rise will remain a schism point, a political fracture. Here in New Hampshire it’s hard not to be pleased with reduced home heating bills, fewer mornings spent scraping the car windshield and a few extra days of tolerable temperatures.

But the Mount Washington Valley winter economy is built on Attitash, Wildcat, Cranmore, Black Mountain and King Pine. Bretton Woods and Great Glen. Bear Notch and Jackson Ski Touring Foundation. Mount Washington Valley Ski Touring, snowmobile vacations and ice climbing trips. Snowshoers and winter hikers. Winter is the unique gift the North Conway area offers, and right now we can’t offer it to anyone. Without 32 degrees Fahrenheit and below, the driver that marks the fourth season sputters.

And it isn’t just the fourth season: Foliage is getting harder to predict, harder to plan around, as temperatures buck and weave. Replacing cold nights with strings of warm days takes a toll on the colors. Springtime warmth, which drives maple sap skyward, is also erratic of late. And rainless summers have an effect on river levels, meaning an excursion on the Saco can be more of a walk than a paddle. So much of what makes the Mount Washington Valley thrive is built upon its seasonal fluctuations, built on a consistency that has allowed entire industries to develop and thrive. What happens if the ski slopes are brown on Christmas week? Right now that doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

And that is the beginning. From there, what happens to the rest of the valley economy without the tourist crowds those recreation opportunities drive? What happens to the hotels and restaurants, to the ski shops and the outdoor stores, to the outlets that entertain non-skiing family members? They will suffer the same weather pinch.

And if those businesses suffer, how long will it take for the impact to be felt down the line, at the local doctor’s and dentist’s office, at the accountant’s? In this valley everyone’s livelihood is tied to tourism, and tourism is tied to the weather. Even the newspaper prays for snow.

This is not an abstraction; the ski industry has been wrestling with this problem for decades. Snowmaking, once a small part of mountain operations, became a focal point after winter storms proved insufficient to coat the trails by Christmas. Today almost every Northeastern mountain can paint the whole hill white with guns, but they need cold temperatures. What if those are gone too? What if December truly is the new autumn? I’m worried.

But in truth, there is no use in worrying. If that is the trajectory, if winter is truly on its way out, then it is a boulder bouncing downhill — there will be no turning it around quickly.

And if not, then I’ve just written an entire column for nothing.

But.

But the conversation about rising temperatures is not an abstract political argument about ice caps, polar bears and Polynesian islands. It is a conversation about this valley, about an economy built on seasons, a conversation about our jobs. If global warming is real it will hit us where it hurts. And this December it is feeling very real.

This piece appeared in the Conway Daily Sun in December 2015.

No Resolution

No Resolution

12419170_1370918652934216_2490529582253069540_oIt’s that time of year again: New Year’s. A time to reflect on the past year, review what we’ve done and haven’t done, and ponder the next 365 days. A time for self-examination and resolutions. Sometimes, it seems to sneak up so fast.

I don’t remember what my resolutions were for last year. I actually don’t think I had any. It’s never been my thing to peg a behavior shift to the flip of the calendar. But like everyone the end of the year has me reflecting on 2015. Which in turn has me thinking forward to 2016, considering things I’d like to do differently.

To start, it’s important to remember resolutions are not redos. There are no redos. If there were, I might not write the column I wrote last week. Did you read it? It was about the presidential race, about Marco Rubio, about how wooden and impersonal he seemed visiting the Sun office.

At least, that’s what most people seemed to get out of it. That’s what made it popular enough to bounce its way around the Internet until it eventually landed on MSNBC and the Drudge Report.

But to me that was not what the column was about. It was written in frustration not at Rubio but at how the modern presidential contest forces candidates to aim for perfection, to be always on, always be cognizant of any missteps. That expectation of perfection forces them to close the door to authentic interaction, to limit what they show to talking points only. Being a person, as well as a politician, is not allowed. I wrote it knowing Rubio has little choice — those candidates willing to be authentically themselves (Rick Santorum comes to mind) say things that keep them at the fringe. They let voters know what they think on controversial issues, and in so doing never risk a serious shot at the office.

Winners, meanwhile, never say anything of substance, anything revealing. Such risks are not the way to the White House today. This is the democracy we have inherited.

That is what I was looking to say last week. I thought I wrote one thing, but readers thought I wrote something completely different. And once the words hit paper, my thoughts are no longer my own. They become open to interpretation, and readers’ interpretation, not mine.

From a writer’s perspective, it’s a confusing position to be in. What I put down in print is not always what the reader picks up. It’s like watching words coming out of my mouth get jumbled, reorganized and reenergized before they reach your ears. The resulting conversation leaves me frustrated and confused. I am not saying what you think I’m saying. At least, I don’t think so.

It might be my fault. Maybe what made sense in my head didn’t land cleanly on the page. Maybe the salient points were left unstressed, and my delivery carries the blame.

Part of it, though, lies in the political atmosphere today, one that reduces democracy to a binary scorecard of wins and losses. I write about Rubio getting caught in an impossible system with impossible expectations, and readers interpreted my words as a condemnation of Rubio. A Rubio loss. Minus one.

That interpretation, the binary version of life, is exactly the sad state of affairs I was hoping to point out.

Candidates are caught only looking for wins, and that’s what makes them choose an affect that comes across as something other than human. Maybe my words were poorly chosen. Maybe they were just wrong. But watching the story unfurl as a loss for Rubio felt like I’d fallen down the rabbit hole I’d only intended to point out.

This is not the first time. I’ve often had people unwittingly tell me about stories I’d written, and explain in great detail what was really going on not realizing I was the original author. I would listen dumbfounded, wondering where in my story was all this subtext I never intended.

But as readers, and as people, we come to the world with our own interpretations. They silently steer us, even when we think of ourselves savvy. We all do it. I, for instance, did it in last week’s column, interpreting Rubio’s wooden affect through the lens of a broken political system rather than some personality flaw. Perhaps I twisted the truth to match a narrative I was looking to comment on. Perhaps Rubio has no interest in warmth — I spent 20 minutes with the man, so in all honestly I have no idea.

But there are no redos. I cannot take back my column, any more than I can take back readers’ interpretations that were not what I intended.

I can, however, remember that my interpretations are as steered by assumptions as my readers. Is Rubio caught in a broken system, or simply a cold person? Or both? Or neither? I have no idea. I can only write the world as it seems to me, transformed as it is by my assumptions, into words for publication.

Every one of those words is then interpreted a second time, this time by the reader. These interpretations are again rife with assumptions.

The result? A fleet of stories produced and consumed through twisted lenses. Like all stories, they are infinitely more complex than the page suggests. They aren’t broken, but they are not crystalline either.

This is the mess that is the modern media environment.

So my resolution? To remember each time I write that no story exists outside the rabbit hole. Every piece is a tumbling of assumptions falling through the blackness. The words on the page may print in black and white, but in truth they will only ever reveal dim shadows. Readers create the full version by filling in the dark spots with their own assumptions. Corruption is part of the reading process. No narrative will ever be perfect.

There aren’t enough pages to say it all. Hopefully readers remember that, too.

This piece appeared in the Conway Daily Sun in December of 2015.

In the Face of Terror

In the Face of Terror

national_park_service_9-11_statue_of_liberty_and_wtc_fireIn the days immediately following 9/11, President George W. Bush visited the Islamic Center of Washington D.C. Standing before a lectern, sandwiched between a dark-skinned bearded man and a woman wrapped in headscarf, he addressed cameras directly.
“The American people were appalled and outraged at last Tuesday’s attacks,” he began, “and so were Muslims all across the world. These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith, and it’s important for my fellow Americans to understand that.”
“The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam,” he said. “That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. When we think of Islam we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world.”
He quoted the Quran. He urged Americans to treat their Muslim neighbors with respect. “Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country,” he said. “Women who cover their heads in this country must feel comfortable going outside their homes. Moms who wear cover must be not intimidated in America. That’s not the America I know. That’s not the America I value.”
“Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don’t represent the best of America,” he said. “They represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed.”
That was six days after the towers fell. What a difference a decade makes. Today, Donald Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, is advocating putting certain mosques under surveillance. He also told a reporter he would support a database to track American Muslims.
“That’s not the America I know,” President Bush said in 2001. “That’s not the America I value.”
But Trump is not alone. In the wake of Paris, where 130 were killed and 368 wounded, people are scared. We Americans are scared. Paris reminds us of our own loss, of our own brutal encounter with terrorism, and calls for enhanced security have understandably poured out as a result.
But in the scramble to protect ourselves, we are forgetting ourselves. We are forgetting the things that, as President Bush said, “represent the best of America.”
This isn’t just in international circles or in Washington, D.C. This is right here at home, in New Hampshire.
In the wake of a crumbling Syria, 4.3 million Syrians have fled their country. They left in hopes of evading Assad and ISIS, and escaping civil war. They now sit stranded in Turkey and Europe, unable to return home, with nowhere to go. To date, Germany has accepted more than 38,000 of these refugees; Canada, more than 36,000. America, meanwhile, has opened its doors to 2,200.
That number was poised to jump to 10,000 in 2016, but with Paris serving as a punctuation point, governors across the country are demanding the border closed to Syrian refugees. A terrorist could be in their midst, they argue; the risk is too great.
French President Francois Hollande, meanwhile, said France will accept 30,000 Syrian refugees over the next two years.
The American fear is real, palpable. And it is understandable: Terrorism, the extremists’ chosen tactic, is designed to foment, to amplify, the fear response. The true victim of terrorism is society: Those killed are simply murdered, but the fear generated by the act reverberates among the survivors. Terrorism reigns among the living, and in the wake of Paris we are the survivors.
America is 320 million scared. Terrorism is proving its effectiveness.
“That’s not the America I know,” President Bush said in 2001. “That’s not the America I value.”
The lens of fear has twisted us. We are in the throes of the greatest refugee wave since World War II, but instead of seeing 4.3 million victims of terror we see 4.3 million possible terrorists. We stand in the land of the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” still emblazoned on its base, and shut the door. Why? Out of fear.
“That’s not the America I know,” President Bush said in 2001. “That’s not the America I value.”
Terrorism is real. The threat is real. But the threat is not the number of victims it claims by murder but the pressure it puts upon free societies to abandon their freedoms. We are fighting a war of ideas, and in the scramble to make our lives safe we are losing our principles. The roots of our strength are in our pluralism, our openness and our diversity. ISIS cannot change that. Only we can.
And we are. Last week, Gov. Maggie Hassan joined that call to put a pause on the Syrian refugee resettlement. Sen. Kelly Ayotte echoed close behind. And Rep. Frank Guinta and Rep. Annie Kuster both voted to add additional screening measures to the refugee resettlement process when Syrians are involved.
“Live Free or Die” be damned. New Hampshire marches to the chorus of fear.
Only Sen. Jeanne Shaheen has staked out an alternative position: “After the Vietnam War we took 750,000 Vietnamese,” she told WMUR. “We took over 500,000 Cubans when Castro took over Cuba. We’ve taken Somalis, we’ve taken people from all over the world.”
“We do need to vet them,” she said, “but we also need to look at how we can expedite that process so it’s as efficient as possible.”
An America that sees victims of terror and is unafraid to respond? One that rushes to wrap them in her cloak, to welcome them to her shores? That’s the America I know. That’s the America I value.

This piece appeared in the Conway Daily Sun in November of 2015.

The Candidate Race

rubio-marcoThe pointman for Sen. Marco Rubio wore a sport coat and thick beard and talked with a southern accent. In his late 20s, he arrived an hour before the candidate was scheduled and sat in the front room of the Sun offices surfing the Internet on his phone. His name was Trip, and he was waiting for his boss to arrive. His job, he told me, was to get things ready. That means his phone battery dies every three hours.
The Sun, however, doesn’t require much prepping. When candidates arrive we pull a pair of armchairs side-by-side, one for the candidate and one for the publisher, and the rest of us form a semicircle. The chairs were still in place from the last interview, so there wasn’t anything to prep. With 15 minutes to Rubio-time the Sun staff was still working on other things. Trip’s trip was being wasted.
But after some strategic texting Trip jumped up to let everyone know the senator was four minutes out. The campaign was going into action. But again, this was met without fanfare — late afternoons are deadline time at a newspaper, no time for distractions, and people kept working.
When the senator finally arrived, however, everything shifted. Phones hung up, notebooks closed, computers went into sleep mode. Rubio made his way around smiling and shaking hands, and everyone stood to meet him. He took a comfy chair, thus beginning one more job interview for 2016’s toughest opening.
In New Hampshire we’re lucky. We guard the frontline of presidential politics. Every four years the candidates come, wave after wave, to sit and discuss the issues, to interview for the job. It’s a democratic utopia, a dreamland for reporters, where the action is.
But it’s a weird place too. It’s a place where you interact on a human level with people more prepared to address a television camera. It’s like they train to address crowds from podiums and lose the ability to engage a room of a dozen.
That was Rubio. We had roughly 20 minutes with him on Monday, and in that time he talked about ISIS, the economy, his political record and his background. But it was like watching a computer algorithm designed to cover talking points. He said a lot, but at the same time said nothing. It was like someone wound him up, pointed him towards the doors and pushed play. If there was a human side to senator, a soul, it didn’t come across through.
That might sound like harsh critique, but in essence that is the point of the New Hampshire primary, to test candidates in a retail politics setting. Rubio said it himself: “New Hampshire is very town hall based,” he told us, the politics “retail-oriented.” After the New Hampshire primary, he said, it transforms into a media race, not a human race.
But then he talked at us for 20 minutes. To him, we might as well have been television cameras.
Now maybe he was in a hurry. Or was tired after a long day of campaigning. Maybe our little paper wasn’t worth putting in the full retail effort. Whatever it was, if Rubio is charismatic, he wasn’t when he visited us.
But he was smart. It was easy to see he is brilliant, capable of winning political arguments. And maybe that’s what we should be looking for in a president — the smart guy. Maybe the transformation from human to politician is just part of the game today. In the modern media environment cell phone cameras run 24/7. There is always someone watching for any potential slip, looking to turn an offhand comment into a career-ending soundbyte.
Remember a dozen years ago when Howard Dean let out “the scream” that ended his campaign? Now multiply that risk by the number of smartphones introduced since 2004. Moments of idiocy, of poor word choice and brain farts are now captured and broadcast around the world. And it’s not uncommon for Fox News or NBC to broadcast to the world something recorded on a cellphone.
The result? An expectation of perfection, and candidates like Marco Rubio, a man so stuck on script it doesn’t even matter when the cameras are off. Living in a political environment where only the script makes sense, where the race is about the television audience rather than the general electorate, why deviate? Those willing to risk off-message interaction also risk alienating. It’s too great a risk, and retail politics drops by the wayside as voters are courted only by the millions, not one-by-one.
New Hampshire sits as the bulwark against that world. We are here to meet and greet, to be the face of the country, to gauge individual interactions and then broadcast that gut feeling on to the nation. New Yorkers will never get to meet every candidate. Nor Californians, nor Texans, nor Floridians. Those states have sway in November. New Hampshire sways now.
In New Hampshire, the presidential contest is recast as a local race. And in local races — the New Hampshire House or Senate, for example — it’s nearly impossible to vote straight ticket. When you know the candidates it’s not just enough to agree with their ideas; we need to trust the individual as well, to believe they are the kind of person we should elevate to power. It’s no longer just party. Here it’s personal.
That ability to build connections is what kept Ray Burton in office for three decades despite shifting political tides. People knew him, liked him and, regardless of political affiliation, supported him. That is a rare thing today. It’s a New Hampshire thing.
And that’s what we offer the country: The chance to face presidential candidates like local politicians. The chance for them to prove they hear us. The chance to support the person, not just the politician.

This piece appeared in the Conway Daily Sun in December of 2015.

Cuba: Island found, or lost?

Cuba: Island found, or lost?

Cuba-2570“How do you get there?” It’s always the first question whenever I tell someone I guide trips to Cuba. Maybe they’ve heard of Americans slipping in illegally through Canada or Mexico. Maybe they figure I’m doing the same.

“Miami,” I reply. “By charter. It’s less than an hour flight.”

The next line is also scripted: “Well, now’s the time to visit. Before the Americans get there and screw it up.”

To be clear, these aren’t Europeans, Canadians, or Mexicans I’m talking to, they are Americans. Most of them haven’t visited, but they know Cuba is opening, and they know when it does Americans are going to ruin it.

The Cubans I talk to aren’t so sure. When they hear “American,” they smile and reach with both hands. “It’s about time,” they say, eager to shake.

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Cuba: An island seeks to connect
I hate to be the one to do this, but I’m here to tell you that the frozen-in-time utopia is not a realistic picture of present-day Cuba.

My job as guide to Cuba is a new one. Before last December, before President Obama announced reestablishing US-Cuban relations and loosening travel restrictions, just visiting could have landed me in jail. Even now the US government forbids tourists from going; our groups are classified as “people-to-people” exchange trips, and they require US Treasury approval.

There are no beach visits or snorkeling trips on our tours. We go to meet Cubans, experience the culture, and explore a country hidden behind 60 years of embargo.

That’s why participants go. I go to watch history unfold. If those Americans are right and we are going to ruin Cuba, then I am the leading edge of the invasion force. The destruction — the Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Marriotts — will come in my wake.

But despite the risk, Cuba’s excitement for what comes next is palpable. On our April trip, every time someone learned our group was American, they got excited.

“Do you think it will happen?” they said. “Will the blockade end?”

Then President Obama shook hands with Cuban President Raul Castro, and overnight we became celebrities. Whenever we were in the street and people learned we were American, they’d grab us.

“You’re Obama,” they’d say, grabbing our hands, “I’m Castro.” Then they’d shake vigorously, smiling. This didn’t happen once or twice. This happened a lot. Our group was there to meet Cubans, and the Cubans used the opportunity to re-create an emblematic moment of their expanding future.

It’s a moment that keeps moving forward: My last trip coincided with the US announcement it would reopen its embassy in Havana. Next time I visit, the embassy will be open. Things are changing fast.

But not everything. The streets are still flooded with 1950s Fords and Chevys, and the faces of Fidel, Che Guevara, and Hugo Chavez still loom large on countless murals and billboards. Soviet-style architecture still dots the Havana skyline, and when the sun goes down, crowds still swarm the Malecon, Havana’s iconic 8-kilometer seawall.

Cuba seems caught somewhere between the developing and developed world: Everyone has health care and a university degree, but buildings are falling down and basic goods can be scarce. But it’s that juxtaposition that makes Cuba remarkable. There are few places in the world where I would encourage people to go out after dark to wander the streets and look to strike up conversations, but social hour in Havana doesn’t begin until 9 p.m. and crime is rare. If “people-to-people” interaction means meeting Cubans where they are, then it begins at dusk on the Malecon.

Other parts of the Cuba experience, meanwhile, seem cribbed from old jokes about the ills of central planning: the three elevators in the upscale Habana Libre hotel that have been down for months; the stores that just keep running out of bottled water.

Then there’s the undercurrent of hard currency that lubricates every interaction; nothing happens without a few dollars exchanged in the palm of a handshake. There are two sides to this game: One is that the government pays so little, everyone must supplement their income with “tips,” the other is that without a contribution, you might be turned away next time. The restaurant might be closed. The tour could be cut short. It’s part of how Cubans get by, and after 60 years in the shadow of the embargo, Cubans know how to survive.

And that’s the truth I come back to each time an American tells me we’re going to ruin it. A half-century of sanctions, spies, and submarines didn’t succeed. Instead, that time taught Cubans to think on their feet, to adapt and endure. As the country opens, Americans will come — for both vacations and business ventures — and Cuba will greet them openly, with a handshake and a smile.

But I’m willing to bet it will still be Cuban palms that wind up filled with folded bills, and again without losing their island.

I’ll tell you for sure after my next trip. Or the next.

 

This story appeared in the Boston Globe in August of 2015.

Goodbye

Goodbye

Four days is a long time. A lot can happen.

Four days ago Sgt. Brian Abrams was alive. Four days ago he hadn’t lost control of his motorcycle, he hadn’t crashed into a stone wall, he hadn’t hit his head on a rock. Four days ago he hadn’t needed an airlift to Maine Medical Center, where surgery did nothing to revive him. Four days ago his family didn’t have to decide whether to remove the machines that were keeping Brian alive. Four days ago Brian could breathe on his own. Four days ago Brian wasn’t dead.
Today he is dead. Brian died last night at approximately 4:50 p.m., surrounded by friends and family. I was at IME when I heard the news. I was also surrounded by friends. It did little to soften the blow, however. When I got home I wrote an email to a friend, not really with the intention of hearing back, but more as a journal entry shot into space. I wanted it to land somewhere green, somewhere vibrant and alive, where death doesn’t exist and sorrow, suffering and pain are just echoes. I reread that email today and realized it was more a note to myself than to anyone else. I though maybe it belonged here.

Hi. I need a few minutes to unwind. A friend, a local Fish and Game officer who I had regular contact with through the paper, got in a motorcycle crash over the weekend. He hit his head (he wasn’t wearing a helmet), and suffered a serious brain injury. He was airlifted to Maine Med, but he never woke up. His family turned off life support this evening. He had two daughters, seven and 10, and he was quite possibly the nicest man I ever met. I spent today reporting on the story, calling state officials trying to convince them to release a statement about my friend, then calling around to friends in the climbing/rescue community who had worked with him to get them to share their stories about Brian. I cried a dozen times at my desk today, thinking about the pain his family was going through and what it was going to be like for those two little girls. I skipped singing class and stopped at IME after work. The owner, Rick, was a close friend of Brian’s. While I was there Celia, Rick’s wife, got the call that they had pulled the plug. There were two other rescue team members there. We all cried.

It’s just been a long day. I want more than anything to just melt into the covers and cry. And, well, I can’t. So I’m groping for a little bit of connection.

In my heart I know Brian’s suffering is over, or at least moved beyond any form I recognize. His moment, his life, has passed. This pain in my heart is about me, about my fear, my uncertainty, my own feelings of loss. But there those feelings sit. I’m doing my best to be gentle with them, to not be mad at myself for getting so upset. I want to celebrate him and his life, but the sense of loss is like a wet cloth draped over my nose and mouth — it makes it hard to breathe. And I know my feelings of loss are illusory compared to those of his children and family.

I can’t stop thinking about a short story I heard several weeks ago about three kinds of death. First your body dies — that is one kind of death. Then the last person who ever knew you dies — that is another kind of death. Then there is the last time your name is ever spoken — that is a third kind of death. I don’t know why today made me think of that, but it’s been in my head all daIt’s all a dream. The impermanence, the meaning of plans and expectations, the interpretations of good and bad, right and wrong, it’s all just a crazy mess of electromagnetic pulses across gray matter that starves in minutes without oxygen. There is no up, no down, but our minds yearn for clarity and so they assign such markers. It’s madness, and in the end we all die anyway. The clarity we seek is just a game, an illusion, smoke. 

I’ve stopped making sense. I guess today didn’t make sense, which makes sense because the world doesn’t make sense, no matter how hard we try to make sense of it. The only thing we have is the ability to connect, and even connection is impermanent, transient, fleeting. In this moment, tonight, I’m searching for connection, for someone to tell me I won’t die alone, that I am not alone in the vastness of the space. Because how do I know I’m not? Maybe everyone else is just part of a movie — players with a set script that rolls ever on with no notice of my contribution. Maybe I’m the only one without a copy, the only one with these thoughts, these fears. Maybe I am truly alone.

Either way I will die alone, even if it is among friends. That is a trip we can’t partner up for, which is terrifying. A few months ago I discovered a phrase, “I may die today,” that carried me through dark days. It served as a reminder not to be afraid, because life is not within our control. Carefully tiptoeing doesn’t change the fact that I STILL may die today. So live BOLDLY, without the weight of fear. Only I’m not sure how to do that, so I just act the way I think someone who knows how to do it would act. Maybe that way I can get there.

Life is a mess. Not mine, but life in general. It gets places through messing up, through killing off hearts and souls without rhyme or reason. I laugh at the way I used to look at it, trying to understand it all, judge it all, take it all in and make statements of fact like I had any idea. I don’t even know if I’m alive, or if I’m just caught in a dream in the moments before death. Who even knows? It’s all just a play, and the script is burning as it’s written.

Moments of connection are fleeting. Maybe they’re not even real. But when a friend dies you realize you never told them how inspired you were by their kindness, their gentle grace. I remember this same feeling when I learned my high school friend Bill Ballard was dead. At 18 he was the best man I’ve ever known, and I never told him. I’ll never live up to the ideal of telling everyone all the time how much they mean. If I did the words would lose their value, their meaning, their truth. But in this moment, in losing Brian, I realize how much love is out there, how much love is in my life, and how much love is in my heart. So much it fills me up, drowns me, knocks me off guard, confuses and leaves me breathless. I hope that never changes. I’m pretty sure it never will. Life’s beauty overwhelms me.

I haven’t got much else to say. In fact, I’m not really sure I said anything at all, or that what I said made any sense. I was/am just looking for a lantern in the fog, another marker along the way that promises warmth, light, life. They seem spread far apart some days, but I have to trust they are there, even on the nights I can’t see them. I try not to make sense of their blinking patterns and instead just let them be what they are. They float like fireflies in the night — too magical to hold in your hand for more than the briefest moment.

It’s just after midnight, and I have to work in the morning. I’m going to bed. Thanks for giving me a place to just unload. You are not expected to respond.

It was a lot to digest, but I thought it fit here. And you are already missed, Brian. Thank you for the smiles, the quiet honesty of your presence, and all the lessons. They are unfolding still.

Quitting

Quitting

Yesterday I quit climbing.

It was 5:30 p.m. and growing dark. I was standing in my living room, naked from the waist up, a pile of outdoor clothes draped on the arm of the couch beside me. I had been waiting for this moment all day, for work to end so I could go climbing in Crawford Notch, but now that the moment had arrived I was faltering. “Should I go?” I thought, wearing nothing but blue Capilene tights. “Do I really want to? Or am I just going climbing because climbing is what I do?” Would my plan leave me smiling and satisfied, or would I just wind up wishing I was back at home? I didn’t know, so I just stood there in my long underwear watching the sky grow darker.

I tied into a rope for the first time at 17, and ever since I’ve poured myself into my passion. I’ve spent weekends, vacations and thousands of dollar on climbing. Now I can just describe it as what I do. It’s intricately linked to my closest relationships, my work and where I choose to live. It’s how I meet people, what I talk about with friends, how I relax, what social occasions are centered around, the focus of the organizations I donate to and how I volunteer my time. It has become more than a passion — it has become life.

And yet I quit.

I stood in my living room yesterday, lost in my head, naked, exposed, and I didn’t want to go climbing. “No,” I thought, pulling off my Capilene, “I’m not going. It isn’t me, not today. I’m not a climber. I’m just not.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d quit. I quit the day before too. I had plans to go to Tohko on Sunday with Scott, but after two days out at Ice Fest I was tired. I got home and didn’t feel it. “Not today,” I thought as I sat down to read. “I’m not climbing. Not now. Not today.”

It feels good to quit, to reject the passion that in many ways has come to define me. It feels good to put it down, to let it rest, to let the pressures and expectations that built up around it dissolve. Will I send my project? Who knows. Probably not, because I quit. And that’s OK. After weeks and months of doing nothing but climbing, I just walked out the door.

It doesn’t take long to fall into habits, and climbing is an easy one to fall into. When you climb every weekend, every vacation and every free moment it can be difficult to determine whether you are climbing today out of passion or simply because you climb. For me at some point the climbing flips from being a passion to being work. “It is the weekend again. Where are we climbing?” The desire to tick the next project, to push to through the next grade, takes over, and when it does the passion is gone. But I keep climbing because I know nothing else. What meaning does it bring at that point? What value? None. The feelings climbing can elicit are gone, and yet I stick to it. It’s become a habit, just what I do.

When that happens, I quit. I walk away. I put down my gear, fuck it, and do something else. I did it yesterday. I pulled of my Capeline, did some Googling, and instead went to a yoga class. It felt fantastic. I spent an hour and a half trying not to fall over. Every pose was taxing. I embraced sucking at something, free from any self-imposed pressure to perform. It felt the way climbing felt that first day. It felt the way it felt when I quit this summer — instead of tying in I went surfing, and I spent hours just trying to stand up. Ego stayed home during those sessions — I couldn’t afford its critique.

Quitting is liberating. It is freeing. It takes the thing that you allow to define you and puts it back in its place. Climbing isn’t life, it is an activity. It is a way to spend time, no more, no less. It can be fun or it can be miserable, depending on the day, but it is neither good nor bad. And when it starts to feel overwhelming, like it has become a job rather than a passion, the best thing I can do is quit.

And so yesterday I did just that. I quit. I walked away. I said fuck it, and in rejecting climbing I found freedom. It was in every yoga pose — the same feeling discovered 14 years ago, that first day I tied into a rope — the wonder of movement, the high of self-awareness, the intense connection between mind, body and breath. Instead of searching for that feeling in climbing like a heroin addict seeking another fix I looked somewhere else. And there it was. I found it. All that because I quit.

I’ve quit so many times before. I spent a year barely climbing once, and three years off the ice. I went on sailing and bicycling trips, spent weekends camping and watching movies, blew money on cameras, concerts and plays. I’ve quit countless times since too, and each time I discover how much I truly love my other passions. Quitting has allowed me to I train and compete in a triathlon, and it afforded me a stint in Iraq and Kuwait reporting for public radio. Quitting has given me much more than it ever took away.

Quitting has also let me discover, once I finally tie back in, how much I love climbing. The quitting helps me see my passion within a proper context, as one passion among many, all of which are rewarding and expand my perspective. Embracing the quit and the subsequent resurrection refills my passion. It allows the beauty of what climbing offers wash over me. It helps me grow.

Passion are meant to support us, to engage us and push us to new heights and levels of understand about ourselves, but if they come to define us they do the opposite — they make us contract. They can help us seek our own self-imposed boundaries, or they can form the foundation for those same walls. Climbing runs that risk for me. It is in so much of my life it can easily box me in if I sit back and let it. But in quitting I reject that mold and embrace the growth. Quitting allows me to look around with clear eyes and see all the other things I am missing.

It also gives me a chance to recommit. Every time I quit I get to rediscover the wonder climbing brought me that first day. Quitting reinvigorates my passion. Yesterday I decided I would not climbing. I quit, and rejecting climbing as a definition. I won’t go again, I told myself, until the drive comes from a place of passion, a place of love, a place of growth and willingness to accept the unknown. If the thought of climbing provokes a question about to whether I want to be there, whether or not I was making the right decision, I wasn’t going. Climbing should provoke feelings of elation, I reasoned, not exhaustion, so I quit. I just walked away.

Then today I got up and packed my bag for the rock gym. I’ll be there tonight, back on the wall, back among friends. My quit has run its course. My willingness to walk was the ingredient necessary to see my passion with fresh eyes again. After years of pitched battles (within myself always), it now takes just days to be ready again (except for those times it takes weeks or months). Today I’m back to climbing out of love rather than obligation. Quitting kicked the habit, and it no longer rules me. I cannot deny I my passion, but through quitting I let it re-bloom into a passion, a love, of my choosing. If it were any other way I’d have to quit.

Truth in Politics

It isn’t often that small papers have the time or the resources to really catch national politicians in lies, half-truths or misrepresentations. Last week, however, several things landed in my lap that were just too obvious to ignore. I was able to pull them together into a story that I hope gets across the problems with today’s political system. Either way, it was fun to take both parties to task for their indiscretions. It’s not every day a small paper gets to do it.

More Globe

I got a PDF copy of the Globe piece that ran last weekend. The photos looked good, the story looked good, and best of all I had a great time doing it. Looking forward to pitching a few more pieces their way.

Best of all, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, more than 365,000 people see the Sunday globe. That’s not a bad readership.