Wanderlust or kick it root down?

I've never had a passport. I've driven to Colorado; driven to New Orleans for Mardi Gras; driven to Chicago; driven to Key West and to Maine. Put my feet in the Pacific Ocean at Santa Cruz. I've hiked in the White Mountains of New Hampshire; I've finished a 50-mile foot race. I say all that as background so that it may make some sense when I say that if I die without having left the country, my life won't be less for it.

The Universe itself is the scripture of Zen, for which religion is no more and no less than the apprehension of the infinite in every moment. - Peter Matthiessen, "The Snow Leopard."

A zen guru, I am not. But Matthiessen is on to something, that I try to bring to my life. I've spent a lot of time running, trails, roads, mountains, around lakes. I've spent a fair amount of time on a skateboard, looking at my surroundings differently than someone who hasn't marveled at a painted parking curb, a loading dock, or an embankment. I try to experience places deeply. I can go running at Tuckahoe State Park, where I can't begin to count how many miles I have logged there, and still see things I've never seen before. There is always something new. Part of that comes with the idea of beginner's mind; of not assuming I've seen all their is to see.

All that said, I don't sit still well. I have always been one ready to throw a backpack, running shoes or hiking boots, a book or two and a notebook in a car and hit the road. I have convinced others and been convinced for road trips with zero planning or budget and poor designs. Sleeping in cars has never been a deterrent. Wanderlust and I have always been good friends. Wandering and roving about. The thing about roving is that it doesn't need a clear direction.

The fact that I can't stand flying could sway my form of pilgrimage. But I will fly when it's warranted. If I do pop my passport cherry, it could well be to go check out Finca Bellavista, a treehouse community a friend and former classmate founded in Costa Rica. Or maybe to hike England's Lake District, a la Wordsworth, and hang in taverns or catch a Liverpool match at Anfield.

There is a difference between me and a nomad: my restless soul has deep roots. My family has been connected to Maryland's Eastern Shore since the 1600s. I can feel a source of strength in being on the Tred Avon or Choptank Rivers. I feel most at home here. I've described it before, but coming across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, eastbound, is a daily euphoria, of feeling like I am coming home to a magical place, all over again; its newness doesn't disappear because of my familiarity. There are parts of the Shore that I will likely never tire of experiencing.

Running and skateboarding have both allowed me the opportunity to keep my body, mind and soul in motion. So has being on the water in whatever form. Oddly, they've also helped me explore my roots. Roots are an interesting phenomenon. When we look at a tree, we look up. Maybe we climb it. But there is a huge part of the tree not visible to us. Not without some digging.

If we always explore, looking up, looking ahead, moving to the next thing, we are missing a shitload of what is in front of us and underneath us. Sometimes maybe exploring the wilderness means delving into the things around you that you have left unexplored.

"Know thyself." For some people to know themselves, to understand themselves, they have to cover new ground, explore new terrain. And that is awesome. But it's also possible that the push to move on to explore new things, abandons life around you with only a skimming of the surface.

Trees and people, we all have roots. Occasionally we can learn a thing or two from trees. Just ask Herman Hesse:

When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk; in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured...

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward...

Hesse's wandering isn't an escape. It's a longing for home. And that's not the kind of longing that gets answered without going deep. You can't understand the tree, without knowing the roots. This kind of understanding came to folks like Aldo Leopold. Gary Snyder. Thoreau. It comes from depth and familiarity. And yet, it's hard to argue with Tom Robbins, when he reminds us:

People aren't trees, so it's false when they speak of roots.

Robbins of all people should understand metaphors. I dig being able to show Anna and Ava something of roots. Something of being connected to a place. Something of what home means. Sometimes it is a place. Sometimes it is a feeling, a state of mind. But it has to come from somewhere.

I will always have a backpack ready to go. My soul will always have restless legs and I've not traveled or explored my last mountains, trails, cities, towns. But if someone asks me how we're gonna kick it, I'll direct them to Mike D. (who just turned 49): we're gonna kick it root down.

Dwelling

I am surrounded by pieces of, artifacts from my life. A discarded cleat from Edna Lockwood, a log-built bugeye given to me by the Boat Shop of the museum where I worked; a clothbound tome, "English Romantic Poetry and Prose," a textbook from Washington College where I first encountered Blake and Wordsworth; a coffee table book of the centennial retrospective of the White Mountain Guide; my grandfather's shaving mirror, wooden box and arms with candle holders on top; a book "From Pot Pie to Hell and Damnation," that took myself and a graphic designer a couple years to put in order and the author a lifetime to research and compile.

I am surrounded by books and magazines both read and unread. It's enough to keep my head swimming for a lifetime to come.

But instead, this week I've been trying again to clear my head rather than fill it. I am getting back into the practice of sitting meditation; making time everyday to sit in silence, to focus on my breath, to let my thoughts go and just be present; to clear my mind so I can fill it anew; clear my mind so that I can listen to new possibilities, new directions.

During the past week I've gone back to roots. Trick or treating with the girls and friends. Running a half-marathon in 30 to 40 mph winds faster than I thought I was in shape for. Tending to sick children while I was also sick. Finding some balance. Voting in an election. Searching for orange and red fall leaves with older daughter Anna on our drive to school. Driving my 12-year-old truck on back country roads.

Sometimes these moments are peaceful, sometimes they are poignant. It has been a year of things lost and trying to find meaning and of trying to find me. If you go with the Buddhist outlook then that search is a lost cause since there is no individual self anyway ;)

Miles Davis plays. John Lee Hooker. Van Morrison. Their music is expansive. Soaring. Heart breaking. Alive. Searching.

On the album "Astral Weeks," Van Morrison sings like a meditation teacher:

You breathe in, you breathe out,
You breathe in, you breathe out,
You breathe in, you breathe out,

Thanks for the reminder. I try to stay with that. But when he sings:

You never ever wonder why

We part ways. It's in my nature to wonder why.

I love the word "dwell," in both its meanings of living or inhabiting, and also to think or hang inside a thought. Martin Heidegger, in his essay, "Building Dwelling Thinking" spells out that dwelling is fundamental to being human, dwelling in the sense of being at peace, being preserved from harm, safeguarded.

To dwell.

Smartwool socks and holy-kneed jeans stretched and crossed on the coffee table. The taste of Jameson's lingering on my tongue. Beard slowly returning to form. Contemplating Peter Matthiessen's journey in "The Snow Leopard" and his ability to recall or recount or describe scenery and people. Black pen scrawling in a Moleskine notebook, can't recall how many of these, of various sizes, I have filled. Looking up, taking reading glasses off. Breathing in, Breathing out. Wondering why.

To dwell.

Gonna kick it root down

Trees aren't known for road trips. They seem to dig spreading roots. That's their tree-ness. But don't let trees' stationary nature fool you. They kick it root down. The Beastie Boys and Octavio Paz get it.

tree that is firmly rooted and that dances,
turning course of a river that goes curving,
advances and retreats, goes roundabout,
arriving forever: - Octavio Paz, "Sun Stone"

Firmly rooted AND dances. That's how I see trees. A friend recently wrote about her nomadic nature, how she mostly loves it, relocating from place to place, living on the go, but sometimes gets overwhelmed by it. A few weeks ago my wife, who is from a small town outside Pittsburgh, asked me if I felt like I'd accomplished/would accomplish less because we live in the place where I grew up.

No. Quite the opposite. I feel strengthened living on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I think it's because I kick it root down. I don't know if I'm fully comparing myself to a tree, but there is something to the power of place, for me this place, that is comforting, energizing and inspiring. When I go for a run, either solo or with friends, I see things I've never seen, even running the same route, I pass or meet people I've never met, and there are places to see and things to do I haven't skimmed the surface of in 41 years. Some of our closest friends are people that have moved here, people who felt something about this place, people I'd have never known if I didn't live here.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of road trips. Maine is incomparable, the White Mountains in New Hampshire are breathtaking, the Florida Keys and the Outer Banks are rejuvenating. I can be up for a good road trip in a key jingle.

But there is something to tree wisdom. There is something to the idea that roots actually help me float in the clouds, by knowing the ground beneath me.

And it's not just the firmly rooted part. It's the "and that dances." I'm not much of a dancer, but let's be metaphorical, shall we? Let's look at dancing as celebrating, as joy, as movement and wonder. It's not in addition to being rooted, it's because of being rooted.

I met my wife here. We were married here. Our kids were born and are growing up here. I've worked and lived and played and explored here. I've dug into the history and geography of the place. My history and the history of this place are the same, intertwined. We like to kick it root down.

(By the way, Paz's notion of rivers, constantly flowing the same course, but ever-changing, constantly renewing, "arriving forever" works the same as the tree metaphor, but I can't think of a catchy song lyric to tie that together :)

The first non-Robert

I'm the first non-Robert on the Oxford side of my family in three generations. My father and his father are both Roberts (incidentally, so was my Baltimore grandfather). With that kind of multi-generational gravity going, most of the older folks in Oxford still called me "Bobby," when I was little.

My father, no doubt, looked to avoid the confusion of another Robert. Or maybe it was to break the identity shackles Robert carried with it. It did make it as my middle name.

Besides the reigning first name, the other notable thing that didn't get passed directly to me is my father's love and aptitude for numbers. He's an accountant and has been treasurer of every organization he has belonged to. Words are my currency; we'll hope the math gene is just dormant and has been passed on to our girls.

In the interest of full disclosure, my dad also didn't pass along his hairline (or lack thereof), yet, which is something I'm okay with. But I'm not really thinking of the things not passed on this Father's Day morning.

Anna, our 10-year-old, and I have taken to playing catch, lacrosse style, in our front yard. She picked it up more quickly than I did. I had my dad come out front a few weeks ago to watch Anna play. It took me back to our back yard when I was nine or ten, two gold-shafted Warhawk lacrosse sticks, one with a red head, one with a yellow, trying to get the magic in that stick to work. It was only a couple years earlier we had been after the same goal with baseball mitts and ball.

Learning to play catch, ride a bike, how to fish. Becoming a swept-up baseball, football and Baltimore fan (the last of which has waned a bit in the baseball world, having worked next door to Nationals Stadium for the past three baseball seasons). Immersing myself in sports statistics and history because my dad seem to have it all memorized.

There are things, like those above, that a father can teach his children. There are other things, like the shape of my face, my eyes, the gait of my walk--for years when the two of us walk next to each other, our walks are almost indistinguishable--the sound of my laugh/voice, which were not taught, but undeniably paternal in my case.

Somewhere intertwined and above all this is something I hope I can pass on to our girls as well as my father passed on to me and my sister: how to live life. Those things like going after dreams, not being afraid to try things, not being afraid to fall, but when you do, being able to get up, dust yourself off, and get back at it; looking out for your family; appreciating your shared history/having a sense for your roots. I think these things are taught by example. These things emerge, are imparted by observation, discussion and the shape of a life lived as the backdrop.

The thing I learned most quickly as a father/parent, is that parents don't know shit. At least, that's how I felt, still sometimes feel. There were no handbooks, no answer sheets. I'm mentally scratching my head to answer some of the questions the girls throw at me. But as a child, and through growing up, I have always felt (and still frequently do), that my father (and mother) knew/knows things I didn't/don't. There was a certainty, an authority in his answers that seemed beyond question. Gravitas. I have always wondered where the hell that dad gravitas comes from.

On this Father's Day, looking back at myself at Anna and Ava's ages and the things my dad was able to give, impart, be for us, I try to live up to his example, try to be that kind of father for our girls. Though they won't be fathers, maybe it will help them come up with their own ideas of what one is/does. Dad has been that for me.

Kielbasa, Wives, Babcias, Laureates, Faith

There will always be a place at my table for the Polish. Anyone who has ever contemplated the consequences of commandeering kielbasa off a tailgater's grill at a football game can relate. Throw in halupki (stuffed cabbage) or pierogies sauteing up with butter and onions and you're describing a winter meal(s) with all the stops pulled out.

Prior to 15 years ago, I couldn't have told you much about any kind of Polish food and my knowledge now is limited at best. But there will always be a place for the Polish at my table because my wife has some pretty strong Polish heritage going on. Robin is Pittsburgh Polish with a bit of Italian and Belgian thrown in, which, when mixed with my French/English/Scottish/Irish lineage, gives our daughters a more fully realized conquest of the European genealogical continent, by way of the United States, of course.

This past week Robin's grandmother died, her last living grandparent. Our girls didn't know her well, but referred to her as "babcia" (pronounced "bub-cha"), which is the Polish word for grandmother. Robin had always heard the Americanized version of babcia's maiden name, which her family called "Sway," and reading her obituary, Robin saw for the first time that it was actually "Szwaja"--funny since we have friends who are Szwajas in Easton.

Babcia was hardcore Polish Catholic, heritage, family, and religion. She lived next door to her church and was there like clockwork. The priest at her funeral gave a great description of his view of the Christian life cycle--(paraphrasing) "We are all eternally in the mind and thoughts of God, then we take these bodies and live out our human experience, then we return to the mind of God, though we've really never left it, you see?"

You could change some words around and use that idea to describe a number of religions. There was a peace and lightness and grace about this priest--qualities they should all have but too few actually do--even during a sad time. He was older and spoke in choppy but eloquent, coherent, and clear chops. Thinking about the service later that night, Robin talked about the comfort and (because of the) familiarity she has with the way Catholics do things. She has grown up knowing it and its structure is easy to fit inside.

Growing up Episcopal is not so different in form and structure, but certainly less in degree. Having said that, I was certainly familiar with the services and the words, but never with the whole concept. I've never been able to cross the chasm of unquestioned faith, more akin to Kierkegaard's Knight of Infinite Resignation than to the Knight of Faith.

Reason and Truth (loaded word) have to be at the party as well. Yet, I'm the first one to admit, Reason's bus won't get you all the way to the school either. I've always found myself looking for a middle path, one that brings reason and faith together--not the Catholic faith and not the empirical sciences. Though I've said I'm all about the Catholicism of Thomas Merton or of Mike Keene, but that's not the norm and maybe another story.

The best description of that synthesis of faith and reason that I have found comes across in Mahayana Buddhism, which I found or found me in philosophy class and has continued to build over the years. Interestingly, the Dalai Lama actually cranked out a book titled, "The Middle Way: Faith Grounded in Reason," which breaks it down into a nice, bite-sized back cover blurb:

"It is vital for us to obtain genuine confidence in the nature of the mind and reality, grounded in understanding and reason. What we need is a skeptical curiosity and constant inquiry, a curious mind drawn toward all possibilities; and when we cultivate that, the desire to investigate naturally what arises."

So there we have a bridge from kielbasa to the Dalai Lama, who may or may not have ever sampled any of the former. I'll bet he'd like them if he did and could get past the whole karma thing. But the latest of the things Polish I have found that are welcome at my table is the Polish poet/Nobel Laureate, Czeslaw Milosz. His cool, quirky book of poems, meditations, reflections, prose, and aphorisms, "Roadside Dog," has kept me thinking in the mornings and his book, "Second Space," hit me between they eyebrows with ethics and actions and art with relation to God or no God. Here's one called "On Prayer:"

You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.
All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,
Above landscapes the color of ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
Where everything is just the opposite and the word 'is'
Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.
Notice: I say we; there, every one, separately,
Feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh
And knows that if there is no other shore
We will walk that aerial bridge all the same.

Translated by Robert Hass

I dig the idea of compassion and acting and striving for something here and now, regardless of what is at the end/or other end of it all.

Remembering the priest at Babcia's service, both his words and his way of being. And thinking about her faith and her devotion to the church, which isn't mine, but is no less real or valid, and what it meant to her and what it gave her, and it all makes me think, "cool."

So my love and appreciation for things Polish. My wife, my family through her, food and history and culture, religion and its baggage and promise, and Czeslaw Milosz. Quite a full table.