PLAY!

In the last three days I’ve hiked, canoed, climbed, square-danced, done parkour, poked around in mountain creeks, skim boarded on the shore, “porpoised” in the ocean (more later on this), and just walked about having fun.

These are things I’ve done before (except the square dancing—insanely fun!), most of them done usually with intensity and with a serious bent. But more and more I’ve come around to the idea of playing as the most intense, yet non-serious, activity one can do.

Yeah, I know this is nothing new.

First, I was away on the SC-NC border, up in the mountains at 3100 feet, for a school fieldtrip. Try dealing with 105 thirteen year-olds and you will know what it takes to “Work Out.” Yet, for me, I seemed to build energy the more we did. Away from the classroom and the normal boundaries, I felt more alive.

Now, I got a little beat up on the trip but in a good way. Outdoor stuff is my forté so I felt at home, but having been out of it for a while my muscles were weak. The lesson? It doesn’t matter how much time in the gym you spend, real life activity works you differently. I’ve been living in the Lowcountry and we were up in the mountains so I was huffing and puffing a little.

One thing that really tweaked my fitness was playing around with kids who were starting to get into parkour (check it out). I had been doing stuff like that way back before it was ever had a name. So some kids were jumping off stuff, leaping, bouncing, etc. The mountain air must have charged me up enough to want to show the kids how to do it. I showed them that I could out jump, climb, swing, and bounce all of them. I don’t say this out of arrogance, because by doing that I established credentials that I could use to gain their trust and enthusiasm to try new things and appreciate the outdoors or at least appreciate the spirit of physical daring (parkour is not about the outdoors/the wild but I tried to turn it that way).

Even now, my right shoulder is a little tweaked because of particular move I kept trying to perfect, in which I leapt up a flagstone chimney wall and then rotated outward on my right hand, spinning back towards a further section of the wall with my left hand to land again. I never perfected it but damn it was great.

I came home from the trip on Friday night super tired (trying sleeping in the same cabin as fifteen 13 year boys who keep making fart noises!) and thought I was done for the weekend; however, this morning my wife and I went to the beach, like we always do, and there was no way I could avoid skim-boarding since the conditions were perfect. Like begets like. Once started, I felt the same energy I did in the mountains. Tweaked muscles and schwagged-out brain were banished once I started to skim and spin across the inch thin water. I was better today than I’ve ever been.

I’ve been slowly discovering the stuff I used to do all the time twenty-plus years ago. Somewhere between then and now certain aspects were lost or minimalized. Glad to be back.

Mark Sisson, author of The Primal Blueprint and the Blog Mark’s Daily Apple talks of play as a part of his plan for a healthy and happy life. And Erwan Le Corre of MovNat has a whole movement related to working out in nature, something many of us have been doing for awhile, or used to do back in the day, but didn’t have the foresight or confidence to put out there as a full movement.

Do I have any issues with these guys? Nope. Sisson is right on but could link the play more directly to the other aspects of his plan and Le Corre just needs to lighten up a little on the intensity, just like me (hey Erwan, Boulder’s more fun when you play and party!).

I want to extend the idea of play (for myself really since I know this is already going on). For example, when the Primal Blueprint talks of sprinting every seven to ten days, it is something I can’t disagree with, but I wonder if we couldn’t get those sprints in some other way. I thought of this idea this morning when I was skim-boarding with some intensity for about a half-hour. I realized that I had been sprinting for quite a while, every time I bolted after the board to jump on it. Was it a full fifty-yard sprint? Of course not. The difference? It was a shorter sprint but was then combined with balance and core strength. Most important was that it was fun and on the shore and not isolated like so many exercises are—it wasn’t just exercise, it was life, and it wasn’t just life but great living!

The idea is that one plays first and worries about fitness results second.

All of us need to play first.

Rekindling myself and giving thanks

I started this blog to examine myself and catch fire again--rekindle energy. Well the blog hasn't helped but I think life itself has rekindled in fits and starts; that is, some weeks are better than others and some endeavors are sticking fast.

So I want to review some memory laden, chronological nonsense to put my life in a little bit of perspective:

Twenty years ago last weekend I graduated college. Ten years ago this summer, Keely and I moved overseas for the first time to Sao Paulo, Brasil. Wow!

From 1990 to 2000 I managed to do the following (in semi-chronological order):

Travelled and worked around the States and then the World (too much stuff to list).

Ended up in Boulder, CO, where I would meet Keely, keep traveling (especially to New Guinea, Cuba, and around the West), got a Masters, and then fell into Education as a profession.

Made astounding new friendships and partied my ass off in Boulder.

Taught in Oakland, CA and really got tested as an educator. Plus the Bay Area is a great place to experience. Got to hang with my brother Matt and his family too!

From 2000 to 2010:

Moved to Brasil, first Sao Paulo and then Rio. Five years there! Our second home and one I would move back to at the drop of a hat (there is too much about Brasil to write about now).

Made important and lifelong friends there.

Really started writing: had a few things published and wrote two novels (third one underway and is the charm)

Rediscovered my love of the wild and my talent at outdoors stuff.

Lived in Florida where Keely's talent took off.

Trained as Wilderness EMT at one of the best programs in the world.

Lived in Europe! Hey, being able to fly to Paris for the weekend or take a train up to Prague ain't bad. And visits to the motherland of Italy didn't hurt either.

Lived in Tanzania. Now this time was rough for Keely and I but the things we experienced, the new tight friends we made, and the connection to the wildlife was outstanding.

And here I am in a beautiful part of the States, the Lowcountry of South Carolina. Not a permanent home but a cool place to be for a while. The forests and swamps + beach + Charleston = a great interlude. Plus Keely has moved to yet another level of her very rare and yet important career. I honestly think there are very few in the world with her level of expertise and competence. The great raptors of the world thank her!

So, I give thanks and praise.

Diarrhea of the Pen

Yeah, I haven't been successful with this blog but that's okay--it is a work in progress and will evolve. I've been talking to my friend Jeremy and I'm hoping he will jump on this blog and add some things that are related to rekindling life and energy and all that. Anyway, why so reticent to blog? Anyone who really knows me knows that I have plenty to say about everything and anything, so that ain't it.

I think it comes down to the fact that I'm not enamored by the form and the idea that one should blog a lot about whatever. Also I feel guilty about writing some puff piece just to say I've written it. Over and over, blog experts say you should write about what you know. Yes but write well about what you know well. I don't want to add another mediocre piece to the blog pile. I find this especially true with travel/adventure/outdoors stuff. I keep hearing I should write about that yet most of that stuff I see on the blogs is the same old shit rehashed and embellished. I won't do it!

Let me be honest too--I think there is the typical Cronin arrogance at work. On one of the adventure travel sites, someone will write their top ten things to do in Cuba after having been there for whole two weeks. I read that and then say, "Shit, I went there multiple times, lived in a regular Havana neighborhood, and experienced quite a bit that is off the radar." Yet even in that arrogance that I know more, I still think I don't know enough to really do it justice--it all comes off so contrived.

And there it is, a lot of blogs and daily blogging comes off as contrived. So I struggle with it. I know I need to do, expose myself, etc. but damn it is hard work trying not to write contrived bullshit.

So this has been just one big diarrhea of the pen.

Five to Teach

Haven't blogged in a while because I had nothing to say and I didn't want to babble. I'm a bad blogger. I currently teach 7th grade Language Arts, so I'm not teaching the advanced stuff I'm used to. So, I started thinking about five literary works I like to teach (and read). So here they are, in no particular order of importance:

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien: never met a teen that didn't like this collection of interwoven short stories about Vietnam and its aftermath. Not only powerful and vivid and realistic, but a great resource to really show the author's craft. Need to really show why syntax is an important device that can carry theme? Use this. Need to discuss metafiction? Use this. I could go on.

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. There is a reason this is taught so often--its theme of rebellion and sacrifice resonates with most. Like O'Brien's collection, the novel is well-suited to showing young readers and writers the author's craft. I love the movie and always show it after the kids have read the book, and they all say the book is far, far better.

The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot: The poster child for complexity and for intimidating even the highest level students. Many don't like it even after they have fully digested it but damn it they respect it. It's like running a marathon or climbing a mountain. Sometimes it doesn't have to be fun to be fun. And you know what? Everyone should know the Fisher King motif!

Poems by Emily Dickinson: See first sentence about Eliot; however, many students come around to loving her style and her complete control of language while expressing the sublime. I like pairing Eliot and Dickinson to demonstrate opposing ways of writing, and then I watch the students' heads spin.

The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima. A work in translation, and the translation is so good, so well-crafted, that I can't imagine how good the original Japanese novel is. This work is very disturbing, puts the kids on edge, and yet has them determined to really delve into the symbolism, diction, and narrative technique.

So, there you go.

Ambivalence and Blog Tautology

Since I started this blog, I've read lots of advice/how-to columns on blogging. Lots of good advice, but I've failed to follow some (or most?) of it. First, the idea of blogging everyday is great but I can't pull it off. I actually become guilty when I'm about to write some crap just to write something. A few weeks ago I almost took the bait and submitted a piece of writing about expat life to a blog that was looking for writers. Why didn't I? Well I started reading that blog and the related blogs that all feed off of one another. What did I discover? The writing was mediocre, and worse there were far too many articles that were "slapdash" (thanks, Izzard, for the term). By that I mean the writer just wanted to publish something and post it on his/her site, and then have it linked to another site that linked back to the original site (blog tautology). Many of these blogs are lists/top tens and they say nothing. A recent one I read discussed the top ten new eco-adventures for 2010 (or something like that). This area I can speak with expertise: the adventures weren't new, the descriptions were prosaic, and the accompanying pictures were stock photos. But hey, the blogger fulfilled the "publish no matter what" ethos.

The publish no matter what and publish quickly ethos results in sloppy writing, which of course reflects sloppy thinking. More, it reflects a self-satisfaction on the part of the writer that can be dangerous: "Hey, I'm writing and my blog is followed so therefore I am legitimate and my writing has weight." I question this about myself and others.

And where does that leave me? I've started doing this to kick start my writing, my self-examination, and to dabble in new media. However, does this sort of writing and the time it takes up really serve me well? I don't know. So for now I am ambivalent on blogging as a form and where it will take me, and whether I want to take me anywhere.

Hard Thoughts and a "Hard Sun"

I’m feeling pretty good lately; I have been since late summer. Nevertheless I want to revisit a time, a little more than a year ago, when I was pretty damn miserable and experiencing one wave of a multi-wave mid-life crisis. My mid-life crisis has never been strictly about mortality; it falls into the camp of choices I never made or things I have yet to do. That may seem strange to friends and family who would say I’ve sometimes gone overboard trying to see the world, have adventures, and live fully. Still, I can be a malcontent and I am not satisfied with my achievements (or lack of).

I do this to shine a light upon myself, and the world around me, so I can rekindle the sparks of my life. So, onto last’s year’s misery:

Eddie Vedder’s song “Hard Sun” and its direct association with Into the Wild provoked it. I had read the original story at the time it appeared in Outside magazine (Jan 1993) when I was living in Boulder, and I read the book when it was published. I watched the movie last year when it came out, but it was the song itself that, coupled with my renewed interest in those events of eighteen years ago, drew something out of me. The lyrics of the song speak directly to me, and the simple yet stirring music doesn’t hurt either. I won’t analyze the song here, just listen to it (right here on my blog—upper right).

Whether this is skewed or not by time and current perspective, what the song drew forth was the realization of my cowardice/failure in the face of life in those crucial years right after college.

Bike trip, Tahoe, San Diego, Australia, Southeast Asia. By the time I returned I was two years out of college. While in Australia I had applied to grad school back in the States, and since they gave me a free ride and a stipend, and it was in Boulder, I jumped at it. It was rewarding, Boulder was great, and I met Keely there. A “golden age” like I’ve said to many.

Still. In the height of my miserable reflections last year—with Hard Sun blaring on the headphones—I thought that I had taken the easy way out. Why?

Because grad school wasn’t that challenging, and even when it was challenging it was in a way to which I was accustomed. I had to find a difficult professor and fieldwork in Cuba to truly challenge me—and that challenge lay beyond academics. And when the Master’s was finished I had no desire to continue.

The challenge lay elsewhere and I avoided it: hard work for low pay in the outdoor industry with no approval. I had fallen in love with the West a few years earlier and had fallen in love with everything outdoors as well (my semester with NOLs was one of my life’s turning points). Living in Tahoe I lived as a ski bum, working as a chairlift operator and living with about ten people in a party chalet. That was for one winter. Then I turned towards the backpacker travel abroad experience rather than stay immersed in the West.

I just didn’t have it in me to live permanently as a ski bum, river rat, outdoor guide, whatever. I don’t know why, but I put it down to cowardice in the face of internalized societal and, by extension, familial pressure. It was much easier to go to grad school and take my vacation time to explore outdoors. Just notice that I had been drawn to the outdoor sports Mecca of the States, and in my first semester in school, loaded with courses and a teaching assistantship, I jumped on an evening class to get my Wilderness First Responder certification. And I keep doing this—looking for a compromise between my career and my passion. What a coward.

So how does this relate to Into the Wild? I see similarities in Chris McCandless and myself: both from upper-middle class families, both went to good, private universities; both fell in love with the West; both graduated in 1990 and then went out West. I kept going and ended up in California and then Australia and then on to Southeast Asia, before returning to the safety of a summer in Connecticut and grad school in the fall. He kept going too, but he went deeper with his intentions and experiences. Trust me, hitchhiking through the outback from Perth to Darwin or raving at full moon parties in Koh Samui is cool, but it’s not the same as isolation and survival in Alaska. I was skating along from one backpacker experience to another; he was trying to figure it all out.

I see that he didn’t take the easy way out (I’m not referring to his death here but the path he chose). And I wonder what might have been if I didn’t bow to the pressure I felt to do something I, and people from my socio-economic strata, thought acceptable. Everyone always knew I wouldn’t take a 9-5 office job, but bumming around the West, working just enough to get by and live free, well that wasn’t quite right. Somehow there had to be a semi-acceptable path: go to grad school and become a college professor. Well the first part happened but I imploded before the second. Thank God at least for that.

So I made a coward’s choice. The choice ended up being fulfilling and has led me on and on. I’ve spent ten out of the last twenty years abroad, with an impressive accumulation of adventures. Yet even now I still wish to work at a job that puts me outdoors 200 + days a year. Good luck on that one, Paul.

Skins--A recommendation

I am very much into the first season of Skins and so I recommend it to you all. We stream it on Netflix but if you have BBC America I guess you can find it there. Episode 2 is particularly good and a little brave stylistically. It's funny, can be "slapsticky," but is also heavy in the right places. And since it is a British show, without the hypocritical American puritanism, there is more realistic swearing, drinking and drug-use as befits older teens. Good stuff.