Finding Purpose in the Pause

Pauses and stops are disruptive by nature. What if we saw them as opportunities instead?

This morning I woke up to the second snow day of the week. While it is nice to have a more relaxed day at home, it also means rescheduling and restructuring lesson plans and rehearsal schedules and more, I'm sure. But in that re-, there's possibility. I will look at all of those plans with a new perspective and restructure goals under new limitations and dynamics. Being home also allows other opportunities, too (doing laundry while I work is huge).

From a more poetic viewpoint, there's possibility in a day like today - to any pause in our routine. I wrote more about it on the Young Playwrights Guide blog today. You can read that here.

Okay. Back to work!

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Walking

My grandparents' neighborhood was a familiar one to me as a child. A few other relatives lived nearby and I remember playing with some of the neighborhood kids a few houses down. But when I was about 10 years old, I once caused a panic by leaving my grandparents' house for a walk to the edge of their neighborhood.

The story, as I remember it, was that my uncle took a dog for a walk. I don't remember if it was his dog, or a dog he was watching, but they went for a walk. At first, I didn't want to go, but soon after they left I changed my mind and decided I would just try to catch up. The remaining details of the story are fuzzy to me now, but I do remember seeing my uncle a way up ahead on a path heading into the woods by the river. I don't think I called out to him and probably figured I would just catch up so I went into the woods, too. But I never found my uncle. I passed a number of other people, most of them heading in the opposite direction and back out into the neighborhood.

Different trail near the same area
CNY Hiking

This particular path followed the southern bank of the Mohawk River, a tributary of the Hudson River, which flows from Oneida County in Central New York (near where my grandparents lived) east to the Hudson near Albany. It was summer and the path was vibrant and verdant. I remember a big boulder or two and not thinking much about how far I must have walked, or how long I had been gone until I reached the end of the path by a major road. I quickly turned around and made good speed back to the entrance of the trail where I met up with a very worried family. I don't remember if the police were involved in searching for me, but do remember that I had left the family in that kind of panic.

This "exploring" - as I called it as a child - was something I did frequently. Some times it was a walk on the path through the woods behind my house; often it was a trek across neighborhoods on my bike. No matter the method of travel, these journeys make for some of my most enjoyable memories. Of course for these jaunts I made sure to let someone know where I was going. Once among the trees, I would see how far I could go before I couldn't see my house any more. I also tried to get "lost" and orient myself with familiar sites like friends' houses that backed up to the woods, the river path (the Seneca River, this time), or even the sewage treatment plant located deep in the forest. I continued the practice in college with walks along the Niagara River Gorge and even took to the mountains with friends during summer breaks. I even climbed peaks that, in retrospect, I was ill-equipped to manage. I've been on top of a few of the High Peaks in the Adirondack Park, but the pinnacle of these climbs was Mt. Washington in New Hampshire at 6,289 feet thanks in large part to my childhood friend who makes his living as a mountaineer and guide in Alaska for nearly 20 years now. My boneheaded stubbornness, and a youthful ignorance, also helped. Most people train before attempting these kinds of hikes, but I just went out and did it. (Although I've been mollified in this by learning that Theodore Roosevelt did much the same thing in conquering the peaks of the Adirondacks and even the Matterhorn!)

All this to say that I am looking forward to walking again. It has been years since I've made a habit of it and while there can be a number of excuses why I haven't, perhaps it is best to say that our neighborhood is full of nature and very easy to explore: a good start to get back in the habit. The hikes I've taken with my Cub Scouts have encouraged me, too. And who knows... maybe I will wind up tackling another mountain, or two.

Reflections on a Road Traveled

In eight days, I will begin the end of a very long, laborious, and incredibly rewarding, journey. While sitting to reflect upon this moment, I am flooded with imagery of roads, and cannot escape the idea of the "end of the road". Cue Boyz II Men... or Shel Silverstein... or Robert Frost... or any of the other road/path/trail/journey metaphors that come to mind. In thinking on these I've noticed that the path typically comes in two varieties: the road that ends and the road that doesn't. For much of my life I have thought that I was following Mr. Frost's suggestion in taking the latter, but recently came to understand that I've really only understood the former.

This is not to say that I view a road as the path to some kind of finite end. There is only so much life experience a person can have before realizing that this cannot be the case. Far from it. Yet it is interesting to see that while I was provided with the example of the road less traveled, my expectations have been closely tied to the cause and effect logic of the traditional road map:

• go to school, get career, get married, get family

When I recently eclipsed a "mid-life" milestone and looked back on a life lived so far, I awoke to the realization that there's much, much more to that equation - more so to the idea that equation isn't quite so logical anymore.

To put this another way, when I was younger, I dreamed of what I might become and the things that I might do, but never fully understood that there would be twists and redirections along the way. What's more, I had turned 40 and recognized that any plans I had in life had stopped at some vague age that I had probably passed long ago. A line from the song "My Shot" in the musical Hamilton has resonated with me recently - "See, I never thought I'd live past twenty" - with Hamilton's twenty being the moment when I reached the end of the road map above. And the funny thing about that "road map" is that as I sat here writing it, I struggled with what punctuation to use at the end of the sentence. Is that the end of a sentence and punctuated with a period? To finite. Perhaps an ellipse to signify the continuation of the path? Or maybe it is as my wife has lately and so poignantly suggested about this entire year of reflection: that what is needed is a comma to signify that there's more to come. That this spot, this moment, this job, this whatever is not meant forever, but is instead just a part of the larger story. I like that idea (and that's a smart person there, my wife).

Yet, as I wrote the words and paused to consider what to do next, I was drawn to the flashing cursor sitting there waiting, rhythmically for me to continue. It was an placeholder, simultaneously active and passive, ready for me to get oriented and move again in a specific direction. If I've learned anything in the process of traveling through life, coming to the end of one road is not a symbol of "the end", but a chance to take - or better yet, to MAKE - some new way forward. It is relieving to realize that now and frustrating to have waiting so long to come to this understanding. But I am here now: ready and excited to take a new way forward and see where else I might go and what more I might learn. And this time, I will move ahead with an idea in mind and the clarity to know that while there might be stability in following a more-traveled path, it is always ok - perhaps nowadays even preferred - to take out a machete and make my own way... Cue Frank... or Kermit and Fozzie... or whatever else might be...