Day 245: Curb

Posted on September 2, 2014 by joshdaddy

Maybe it’s because today was the first day back after a long weekend. Maybe it was all the catch-up I had to do. Whatever the cause, today wiped me out.

But still, I had a plan. Way back at the start of this whole adventure, I tackled my pantry, which had become a daily annoyance to me–but one that I never did anything about. So tonight, I planned to tackle the pantry in our new house, which is in an equally dysfunctional state.

So I was all set to dig in when my wife stopped me. We were all tired, she pointed out. She reminded me that the only tasks we really needed to take care of tonight were the dishes from dinner and the kids’ clothes in the laundry basket. Once we cleaned the dishes and folded the clothes, we were done for the day. And she was right.

So I’m curbing my decluttering enthusiasm, for today at least. The pantry will be there, in all of its chaotic disarray, tomorrow. For today, though, I think it’s best if I call it a day.

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Day 244: Transpose

Posted on September 1, 2014 by joshdaddy

Today wasn’t a challenge. It was easy.

We had friends from Atlanta pass by today. They had spent the weekend cycling on the Virginia Creeper Trail, and their drive back home sent them right through our town. We met for breakfast and then invited them back to the house to show them our home.

Of course, I was reconnecting with some Atlanta friends yesterday, and we have had other friends pass through as well.

So maybe today felt a little different because these friends also used to live up in this neck of the woods once upon a time. And now we are living here–and in some ways, we now have a new, shared context for our ongoing friendship.

Same melody, different key.

We had a really nice meal at a restaurant downtown. We shared stories–and we even discovered that one of my new acquaintances up here was an old friend of theirs from over twenty years ago.

Small world. Well, small town at least.

After breakfast, we brought them back up the hill. We walked the property for a bit and then chatted a bit more before they had to head out on the road once again.

It was just a short visit, but it felt good to share a morning together up in the mountains that we all love.

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Day 243: Clean

Posted on August 31, 2014 by joshdaddy

IMG_2865No, not household cleaning. Something far more fun.

I had an amazing day outdoors today. Some friends from Atlanta spent the long weekend in North Carolina climbing in Linville Gorge. We met up with them today to climb at Table Rock.

I have very little experience with trad climbing (placing gear into cracks as you climb, rather than clipping into fixed gear bolted into the rock face). While I have led a trad route exactly two times, I have never climbed multi-pitch. Today we did both.

Given my lack of experience, I didn’t lead at all today. Instead, I climbed second–I cleaned the gear that my leader placed as he climbed. Now before you assume that today’s challenge was all about following instead of leading (and it kind of was), I was focused on something else entirely.

IMG_2863I am not completely obsessed with the grades of the routes I climb, but I am certainly guilty of thinking: the harder the climb, the better the climb. Yes, yes, I know–it’s an ego thing.

Today, that was not the case at all.

We were on a relatively easy climb. In fact, everything we climbed today was at a grade that I would never even bother “wasting” time on in a gym or even at a sport crag.

But trad climbing is very different. Regardless of your climbing level, most folks will dial back when they’re trad climbing–especially on lead. Could I have climbed something more challenging today, and maybe even gotten in a lead? Sure. But not only was a thrilled to be seconding the whole day, I was perfectly happy climbing a “soft” route.

If anything, it made it even easier to experience the awe of the moment.

 

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Day 242: Straighten

Posted on August 30, 2014 by joshdaddy

IMG_2855OK, enough with the feelings for now. Time to empty a box or two.

I haven’t really messed with the garage/ basement since we moved in last month. There are still some boxes down there that haven’t been touched. And then there are the boxes that have been opened, searched through, and left half-unpacked.

Then there’s also the mixture of two eras of clutter–what had already been down there prior to our arrival, plus all the stuff that we added into the mix. The result has been a rather chaotic garage, with very little space to move about.

So I divided today in half. In the morning, I got started on the decluttering and organizing. Then my son and I took a nice, long break to take advantage of the beautiful day. Then back home, and a couple more hours of straightening up.

It’s not a big thing, I know–everyone needs to straighten up their garage or their basement, right? But the basement was already becoming one of those blind spots for me–an acceptable place for a pile-up of randomness. At the same time, it was becoming a matter of daily annoyance. It had become a major challenge just to get from one end of the IMG_2857basement and out through the garage door without tripping over something.

I admit–some of today’s work involved rearranging and restacking. But it also involved some unpacking and breaking down of boxes too. And I now have a space I can walk through–and I can get a bike in and out of the garage without worrying about what I will knock down in the process.

There’s more of this I need to do–in closets, and cabinets, and other storage spaces. It’s been a bit hard to get back to these sorts of chores after months of house clearing and packing.

So it might be a small start, but it’s a good, first step.

 

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Day 241: Feel

Posted on August 29, 2014 by joshdaddy

This morning, after I woke up to the same song I woke up to yesterday, I decided to go back to edit–slightly–what I had posted. I wanted to add just two more lines from the song. So I did. But then I decided to add a link out to the music video. I hadn’t actually ever seen it before. So I sat there, and I watched it.

And it made me cry.

Yes, I am the kind of guy who gets choked up by songs, and movies, and on rare occasions even television commercials. Usually it’s a sign that I’m over-tired–that’s when I seem more vulnerable to gusts of sentimentalism.

But this morning, I’m not sure if that was the case.

I’m not sure really where all that emotion came from, really. The song has beautiful lyrics, and the video paints a sweet and simple collage of faces in love. I think what got to me was how unexpected the moment was. I didn’t anticipate feeling anything at 6:30am in front of my computer, but there I was, confronted with a series of joyful images that touched me deeply enough to bring me to tears.

I sometimes get a bit embarrassed at my sentimentalism. This morning, though, I just went with it.

So now can be the judge, if you want. Pop back to yesterday’s blog post and see for yourself just what a softie I am. Feel free to roll your eyes.

Or if you want, feel free to smile, or to laugh, or to shed a joyful tear.

Whatever you feel. Just go ahead and feel it.

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Day 240: Commence

Posted on August 28, 2014 by joshdaddy

I retired my old alarm clock during the big purge. Now my phone wakes me up every morning. I set it to a song, usually changing it every few weeks just to have some variety. Right now, my wake up song is “First Day of my Life” by Bright Eyes. So the first thing I am hearing every morning is:

This is the first day of my life
Swear I was born right in the doorway

And that got me thinking.

I suppose it’s quite the cliché–you know: today is the first day of the rest of my life–but today I have been thinking about beginnings. I probably have reflected more on living each moment as though it were my last, but I haven’t really focused as much on the inverse of that sentiment: that every day (every moment, really) I have the opportunity to start anew.

And even though I am developing all sorts of routines, there is still so much that is new about every day. The trick, really, is just being aware enough to see it.

Well, there’s another trick too, I suppose–and that’s to let go. That’s something else I’ve reflected on before: there’s so much I still hold onto–from yesterday, or last year, or even just five minutes ago–when all I have to do is just let it go.

So what would it be like if I were to try to live today and not some shadow of yesterday or fantasy of tomorrow?

So what did all of this mean in practice, today? Mostly, it meant catching myself getting caught up in my thoughts, and then trying to let them go and instead pay attention to what was going on right in front of me. Most of the time, to be honest, it was nothing exciting: hey look at me: I’m sitting at a desk! But regardless of how uneventful that moment might be, it is the moment I am actually living.

So why not live it–and live it as the beginning of something new.

And I thought it was strange you said everything changed
You felt as if you’d just woke up.

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Day 239: Trail

Posted on August 27, 2014 by joshdaddy

I’ve written before about how I often find it easier to lead than to follow–and how there is much that I can learn if I am willing to allow others to take the lead. Today provided me with another one of those opportunities to learn what I can when I let someone else set the agenda.

It turns out that there is a Wednesday night climbing group in the area–well established, with many members, and a very dedicated leader. Today, my oldest boy and I joined up with this group and went off to a boulder area that we would not have had access to without being connected with this group.

We met up with a couple of other guys in a grocery store parking lot, threw our gear in the back of a pick up truck, and climbed into the rear cabin jump seats. We bumped our way along the road until we reached our site. We parked by a water tower and hiked down the trail toward the boulders.

And I did whatever the others wanted to do. I expressed no preference, made no suggests for which problems to try, or which boulders to explore. I just let other people lead the way.

It’s not a big thing, I know, but every time I put myself in a situation like this–where I realize that I don’t have to run the show, and probably couldn’t even if I wanted to–I end up gaining a great deal from the experience.

And the more I think of it, the more I realize that my challenge in following has a lot in common with my difficulty in receiving gifts and compliments. I’m fine with hosting–but what I need practice at is being a good guest.

Absolutely: there is a time to lead, and a time to strike out on one’s one. But there is also a time just to be along for the ride–and enjoy wherever it takes you.

 

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Day 238: Sound

Posted on August 26, 2014 by joshdaddy

Well, that’s not quite the right word. I was less the sounder than the soundee.

I won’t go into details, because they really don’t matter, but today–in two very different contexts–I had the opportunity to allow someone else the time and the space to express themselves: to share with me what the world looks like through their eyes.

It’s not as though I don’t try to listen to others–in fact, I’d like to think I do a fairly decent job of listening a lot of the time. But today, I guess what was different was that I felt more intentional in what I was doing. In both instances, one at work and one at home, instead of trying to problem solve, or make sure the other person understood my point of view on the issue at hand, today I made it a point, in a very conscious way, to listen, and to allow the other person to share with me their views.

And it wasn’t that hard, really. And what I learned in the process–about the person speaking, and about my self–was worth the “effort” of careful, attentive listening.

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Day 237: Conserve

Posted on August 25, 2014 by joshdaddy

OK, so today is just the start of a challenge that will take a while to address, I’m afraid.

We have a bit of a mystery on our hands: somehow, we are burning about twice as much electricity up here in the mountains than we were down in Georgia–and that’s without air conditioning.

Now granted, we have an electric water heater instead of gas, and our stove top is electric as well. But this house, as I’ve noted before, is quite a bit smaller, and with no AC running, I did not expect to see that we were averaging 77 KWh per day!

So I found an online tool–MyUsage.com–to help me figure out what is going on, and what I might be able to do to reduce our consumption and conserve on electricity. Sure, paying attention to the lights left on is one thing, but there are probably some bigger energy-hog items we will need to address. The old, electric clothes dryer, for example. While I am not a fan of unnecessary purchases, would it be doing the right thing to trade in an appliance probably well into its third decade for something more energy efficient?

Then there’s the water heater. Better insulation would help us conserve energy (both electric and thermal), but I could probably have a look at the temperature settings and scale it back a few degrees.

Sure, there’s a money motivation to all of this, but I think the bigger piece for me today was coming to terms with that gap between what I think I am doing (living somewhat more simply) and what my utilities tell me is the case (burning all those kilowatt-hours).

So, time to look at our (energy) consumption, and time to figure out how to cut back and conserve.

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Day 236: Summit

Posted on August 25, 2014 by joshdaddy

IMG_2848You can reach the summit of Grandfather Mountain, at Calloway Peak, by way of three different trails. My goal is to hike all three over the next couple of months. Today, I took the kids up the Daniel Boone Scout Trail–about a six mile in-and-back hike, with nearly a half-mile gain in elevation. All three kids (and Finn the Crag Dog) had a great time, though it was certainly a long day of hiking.

The weather said we would have intermittent showers. What that meant for us, at our altitude, was a fairly continuous drizzle and mist for most of the first two miles. No one complained, though–and in fact, the rain seemed to add to the sense of adventure and exploration for the kids.

We stopped several times along the way–sometimes for water or a snack, sometimes to check out a view (though in all honesty, the only views we had today were of a thick fog). And toward the summit, we stopped to pay our respects at the wreckage site where a plane came down in the late 1970s.

It took us about two and a half hours to reach the summit. We stood out on the bare rock for five or ten minutes, keeping a close eye on our dog, who seems to have little fear of cliffs.

Then back we hiked back.

I suppose there is something profoundly pointless about climbing a mountain. And I can’t really think of a more compelling reason for why anyone would want to climb a mountain.

Pointless–but profound.

 

 

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