Today we took one of our all day sightseeing tours. The Mystic Seaport is a completely reconstructed 19th century village devoted to shipbuilding - just as Mystic was in the 1840's. This is one location where whaling ships as well as many other types of boats and ships were built. The economy of the entire town revolved around the several ship builders who had their companies located here - on the Mystic River where it flows into the Long Island Sound.
A few miles from Mystic is the village of Stonington - this sits on a peninsula that juts out into the ocean, and is the only port in Connecticut that opens out onto the Atlantic. It has a unique lighthouse and is filled with beautiful 19th century architecture. We had a terrific meal here at the Dogwatch Cafe. (The dogwatch is a short 2 hour watch from either 4pm - 6pm or 6pm - 8pm).
The surprise was the tiny ferry we found on the scenic drive back to New Haven.
This is better told with pictures. Here they are with commentary in the captions:
https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/2013ConnecticutTourTwoMysticSeaportStoneingtonVillage?authkey=Gv1sRgCIeMqZzawIHD9gE
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Sunday, June 9, 2013
What is the Life Well Lived?
On a time continuum, our lives are ending. Sarah and Jay's lives are beginning. I've discovered that getting ready for a wedding and the attendant parties and events is a marathon, or at best a really involved project requiring management skills, organizational genius, and the ability to draw upon life experiences to maintain focus and perspective. What doesn't happen is a lot of time for reflection.
I just read an essay quoting Annie Dillard, a successful, famous American writer, who was musing on the idea that "How we spend our days is how we spend our life." She suggests that we set ourselves into schedules imposed from within and without, and the days blur together. When we look back, what we perceive is "a blurred and powerful pattern". That idea of pattern really struck me. We divide our lives into pre and post events. We define and redefine our schedules at those points.
Snugly entrenched into our current schedule, we occasionally look up and back. What we see is the pattern - of junior high, of high school, of college, of graduate school, of law school, of medical school, of CPA school, of welding school, of trade school, of cosmetology school. Of the single life, the married life, the pre death and post death life.
Out of the blur we only have a few spikes of time sticking up; times of intense emotion which have evolved into static snapshots of feelings often the basis of told and retold family stories to codify and classify. We adjust our schedules and cement our snapshots as we move in and out of one another's lives.
Would you want to vividly remember each day in each phase of your life? I can remember being grateful I was old when Sarah was born and, thus, had a better appreciation of how fast time flows. I vowed the day she was born to not take my time with her as something to be gotten through or rushed along. I still only have snapshots as hard as I tried to savor the time. The other end of the birth and growth experience spectrum is so painful I'm grateful for selective amnesia. Are we genetically wired as a species to blur our lives?
Do some people deliberately set out to live a life of meaning? Can you deliberately choose to do that? Who are these people? Are they plugged into one of the many faces of God accepting direction and instruction? I have Christian friends who would certainly say so. Meaningful is a loaded word, isn't it? Children make my life meaningful. Altruism is meaningful. Productivity is meaningful. Creativity is meaningful. Contemplation, serenity, action, decision making, can all become frameworks for a meaningful life.
I'm charged and upbeat about being in a new place since it gives us the opportunity to redefine the daily schedule. What gives this current phase of my life joyful meaning is getting up each morning knowing today can be a wild card. If I choose, it can be totally different from yesterday. It's freeing; it's scary; it's as much of a responsibility as committing to the monotonous schedule of younger years. Is it meaningful? I don't know.
I do know "the family" is looking at pictures, and developing our stories of this momentous wedding. And, yes, momentous is relative depending on what circle you are orbiting. I've tried to tell Sarah that her life is now forever changed by formally committing to marriage. The wedding is the spike; now comes the blur. Her life is in her hands.
I just read an essay quoting Annie Dillard, a successful, famous American writer, who was musing on the idea that "How we spend our days is how we spend our life." She suggests that we set ourselves into schedules imposed from within and without, and the days blur together. When we look back, what we perceive is "a blurred and powerful pattern". That idea of pattern really struck me. We divide our lives into pre and post events. We define and redefine our schedules at those points.
Snugly entrenched into our current schedule, we occasionally look up and back. What we see is the pattern - of junior high, of high school, of college, of graduate school, of law school, of medical school, of CPA school, of welding school, of trade school, of cosmetology school. Of the single life, the married life, the pre death and post death life.
Out of the blur we only have a few spikes of time sticking up; times of intense emotion which have evolved into static snapshots of feelings often the basis of told and retold family stories to codify and classify. We adjust our schedules and cement our snapshots as we move in and out of one another's lives.
Would you want to vividly remember each day in each phase of your life? I can remember being grateful I was old when Sarah was born and, thus, had a better appreciation of how fast time flows. I vowed the day she was born to not take my time with her as something to be gotten through or rushed along. I still only have snapshots as hard as I tried to savor the time. The other end of the birth and growth experience spectrum is so painful I'm grateful for selective amnesia. Are we genetically wired as a species to blur our lives?
Do some people deliberately set out to live a life of meaning? Can you deliberately choose to do that? Who are these people? Are they plugged into one of the many faces of God accepting direction and instruction? I have Christian friends who would certainly say so. Meaningful is a loaded word, isn't it? Children make my life meaningful. Altruism is meaningful. Productivity is meaningful. Creativity is meaningful. Contemplation, serenity, action, decision making, can all become frameworks for a meaningful life.
I'm charged and upbeat about being in a new place since it gives us the opportunity to redefine the daily schedule. What gives this current phase of my life joyful meaning is getting up each morning knowing today can be a wild card. If I choose, it can be totally different from yesterday. It's freeing; it's scary; it's as much of a responsibility as committing to the monotonous schedule of younger years. Is it meaningful? I don't know.
I do know "the family" is looking at pictures, and developing our stories of this momentous wedding. And, yes, momentous is relative depending on what circle you are orbiting. I've tried to tell Sarah that her life is now forever changed by formally committing to marriage. The wedding is the spike; now comes the blur. Her life is in her hands.
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