Happy birthday to Me. Yep, it’s arrived: The Big 5-Oh.

Now there’s a number that screams for extreme measures. So I made a list of, oh, 50 things I might do to commemorate, celebrate, and contemplate. For the contemplation bit, a BreakAway retreat beckoned. Naturally, I wanted a spa with massage and sushi. But I chose a remote river cabin instead.

The point: Be still. As in, “Be still and know that God is God.” Not the pope, not you, not even me at 50. A prayer pamphlet on the fireplace mantle says healthy spirituality requires persistence. My marked-up copy of “Nothing Special” by a Zen master insists serenity takes practice.

Practice? Damn! Can’t someone come up with some new secrets and shortcuts?

Should the maudlin come calling, you can’t mess around. So I allow diversions—as need be. Light the fire and candles. Play some guitar (and iPod Gospel) when the silence gets shrill. Cook up healthful grub grabbed at the co-op on the way. Take pics of the river running by.

• Now there’s a metaphor…

River. Old Man. Like the years, that thing just keeps rollin’ along; what’s the rush? Yet it’s effortless to sit still beside wild waters. For one thing, my body-mind-spirit is solar-powered. Dash outside and catch some rays? Impossible. The sky, water, and horizon offer only shades of grim.

The Gods must have a crazy sense of humor to give me a November 30 birthday. Ha ha ha. The nine months this soul spent in-utero happened to be the warmest and brightest, while I gestated in the darkness.”

Hence, birthday festivities are forever fated to coincide with Seasonal Affected Disgruntlement. Deal with it.

• Re: Arrangement

For a retreat space, this knotty-pine shanty has ample creature comforts. So I gradually reorganize chairs, lights, and tables to my liking—and make a big mess. I must enjoy nesting, and still don’t travel lite. Soon enough, I’ll put every thing back in order, wipe away any evidence of my brief existence, and move on.

Moving on: Isn’t that what it’s all about?

With apologies to the hokey-pokey, five decades teaches you a lot about moving on. You can seize the day, but you can’t keep it. Your youth disappears like a blossom in the current. And your own toddlers are teenagers before you’ve tossed their Thomas the Tank Engine toys.

Honestly? I’d like them back. Not Thomas, but the days. Oh, to wobble around the carpet again with my droolers, hook up with my adolescent entourage as we prowl fearlessly but aimlessly into the night, and recreate college but with more romp and less circumstance.

• The Big 5 O.M.G.

But no. Those days gushed into the mush that brings me to exactly where I am. Yet, one trusts, the past that brought us here will carry us around the bend. This river water was so far away yesterday, will be God-knows-where tomorrow, yet is also here now. Be Here Now.

That’s what a retreat offers: A chance to sit with the past, present, and future—and see how they somehow flow into one lifestream; e’er the Twain shall meet. Such romantic notions warm my heart during yesterday’s pursuit of inner-peace through kayaking. But gradually, the darkness, like the dirty water, surrounds me.

Decomposing jack-o-lanterns with twisted smiles line the banks. Spooky. Gunshots echo through the woods and bullets bounce off trees. Deadly. Recent heavy rains and snows make the current swift with logs, dock chunks, and trash. Dangerous. A cat with one ear and sick eyes wins our staredown. Ick. A deafening motorboat with three camo-clad rednecks passes way too close and makes rough waves.

Enough creepiness—so says my survival instinct. Night is falling early (hey, it’s November); head for shore.

As I hurry, so do 50 wild turkeys—dumb as bricks and barely able to keep their heads above water as they flail from an island and barely miss me. Thanksgiving? Yes, it’s that time of year too.

• The Grateful Not-Yet Dead

Amid the haunting omens, I choose to interpret the klutzy turkeys as carrying the only message that flies: Gratitude. “Oh the Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord,” sings Johnny Appleseed and happy congregations before potluck suppers.

Still, once inside, it takes some scalding 70s Rolling Stones and a long shower to wash both chill and demons away.

But that was yesterday’s voyage. Those things have passed. For now. So let go of these digital crutches. Get out of your head and hut. Walk full of grace into that bracing, gray November day. Go paddle that perilous river—while you can.

Afterward, go ahead—sip some wine if you feel like it. It’s a Christian Brothers retreat center, after all; what righteous wine snob didn’t practice on gallons of their sweet Burgundy? Blood of Christ! Water into wine! Maybe a midlife miracle (not crisis) awaits those with faith!

After the paddle, raise a full glass to floating through five decades. No revelations. No regrets. No one but myself to toast with. But it’s good to be here.

Still.

Here in the USA, there seem to be increasingly few things we can all agree on.  But there is still the sanctity of a several significant holidays:  New Year’s, Thanksgiving, and the 4^th of July.  I’m a sucker for all three celebrations, if only because we seem to collectively  embrace them—and most hard-working folks get a day or four off. 

In other words, you won’t hear me complaining about busy lakes or crowded parks today.  I’d rather jump in and hang on. 

The 4^th remains particularly meaningful, since between the bar-b-ques, beerfests and fireworks, we still manage to observe the greatest gift of them all:  Freedom itself. 

What skill, courage and daring our forebears somehow mustered up!  Indeed, that’s what it takes to break away from most anything, be it ennui, an oppresive job, or England. 

So I raise my one-pound, red-white-and-blue PBR to our founders, enslaved folks everywhere, and the good people of America on this day of freedom. 

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”  

Jean Jacques Rousseau

Sometimes the schedule gets hectic.  The car becomes a second home.  Then the house gets messi(er).  The sleep turns fitful.  And healthful rituals like exercise, eating well, and chilling out go to pot. Sometimes that’s precisely the time you need to take some time—for yourself, for some good yucks, for something completely different. 

That’s what I did today.  I got lost on purpose—only to find a place that I’d been meaning to find for a long time now:  The St. Paul Hmong Market.  

I wandered about aimlessly and let the sights, sounds, and smells overwhelm me.  I bought produce of all shapes and sizes, and don’t even know what some of it is.  I got lost—again—until I found the little food-stand section I’d heard so much about. 

Then I sat down and slowly, oh so slowly, ate spring rolls, curried chicken, and purple sticky rice.  Hmong folk of several generations stared and smiled at me—the only white person in the whole market.

For 55 minutes, I felt transported to someplace else.  Because I was.  And that little hiatus felt so much more important than whatever I was supposed to be doing. 

Get lost.

Well, it’s been a pretty quiet week on Lake O’begone…Whoa!  Hold that thought:  It’s been craaaazy around here.  As everybody knows, the ice shacks must be off the lakes by March 1.  Time is running out!  So the action has been cold and heavy.

Folks make fun of ice-fishin’, but nobody’s having more fun than the fisherpeople.  They’re laughing all the way to the snowbank.  Here’s what they know that the rest of us sometimes forget…

• Fishin’ is outdoors—which kicks butt over most any indoor doings.
• Supper is super—if you get lucky and land a fresh, cold keeper. 
• Nobody calls you a wimp out there—with any luck, nobody calls you at all. 
• Fishing makes for serious BreakTime—and that’s what head and heart crave. 
• It’s soothing solo, fun with friends, and super-cool with a large party—like today’s picture proves. 

Avoid a breakdown: Visit BreakTown.

Away, stress recedes.

Struggles, stuff, lists: washed to sea.

Just for now, all’s cool.

Coral Bay on St. John offers a stunning setting for a retreat, and I’ve loved this place for 21 years now.  But unlike a family farm, getaway sites feel eerily ephemeral.  CB may be “where tired angels come to rest,” yet devilish change is everywhere.  And “free time” itself sometimes seems neither unplugged nor uncomplicated.  It’s certainly not cheap. 

The faces change.  A fun-loving bar owner gets sick, then dies.  A charismatic captain gives up his craft.  An ubiquitous simpleton has gone missing.  And in our circle, the New York family we’ve met for three years with happily matching children has announced this is their last year here.  Many blessed ties that bind are fraying. 

Meanwhile, the fickle hand of Fate accosted CurlyGirl (6) today when she received a bunch of nasty stings—like welts from a whipping—from an unseen jellyfish. 

Call it her Requisite BreakAway Emergency, or a symbolic slap in the face.  A day of beachy bliss can turn to screaming dread faster than a stinger pricks skin. 

It harkened back to the same child’s medical misfortune almost a year ago to the day.  At least this one didn’t require a trip to the island ER.

It’s enough to make a guy on mini-Sabbatical cast away the snorkel mask and head back into the snowstorm. 

Four days in, the owies and adjustments offer evidence of the difference between a vacation (too fleeting) and a BreakAway (just long enough).  Margaritaville may not exist.  But we all have a craving—and a right—to pursue our cheeseburger in Paradise. 

Guess travel comes with costs

Getting to the place where you can get that burger is rarely half the fun.  It’s dang hard work.  Most folks don’t travel much, and that’s one reason why.  And as for kids, well, let’s just say they hardly ever carry their weight.  So the packing, schlepping, procuring and compromising can threaten your sanity and make sane people ask, “Is this worth it?” 

Is it worth…the price?  There are plenty of loaded (meaning “moneyed,” in this case) people roundabout.  And then there are the rest of us—who must numb our common senses to pony up for ever-rising airfare, and then pay double for everything here (if you can find what you’re looking for). 

I’m not spending my children’s inheritance; I’m spending my retirement!

But hey, I’d rather Die Broke than carry on cautiously.  And as this website repeats ad nauseum, why wait for retirement—since it may or may not happen—when you could possibly take temporary retirement throughout your life? 

The economic downturn has hit like a hurricane, though.  Charming shops are shuttered; eateries have ample empty tables in a peak week; more locals hang out lazily smoking pot while potholes in the road go lazily untended. 

Heck, this family has no business taking this year’s fast-lane vakay—since this self-employed’s business has been stuck in the slow lane for a year. 

I guess sometimes ease stays home.  Just ask the children, even if they are enthusiastic travelers, like mine.  Baby blue eyes cried, “I miss Daisy” (the cat) long before the jellyfish attack.  The tween-ager is missing much school and sports—again.  The new house-sitter missed the security code and the cops arrived in minutes.  What’s next? 

Travel risk is always next, potentially.  Like, our plane got airbound but a few hours later MSP was snowbound.  East Coasters here tell of arriving three days late due to their two feet of snow.  Another terrorist tried to explode another airplane.  And CurlyGirl’s relentless sinus-cum-ocean-bacteria virus may go ear-infection any time now. 

Plus, some prefer cooler climes—including my main travel mate.  They get frustrated by the heat, sand and bug bites and start itching for more to do than this sleepy place offers.  The internet is undependable.  Air conditioning–not.  And despite the water, water everywhere, you still can’t flush after number one or take a nice, long shower. 

And undisturbed views are getting scarce.  That metaphor could apply to many things.  But I’m talkin’ about yonder, in “my” front yard.  The new nayber is constructing a monument to himself that will massively block the pristine sea views and breezes from this Cloud 9. They take Paradise and put up a…McVilla. 

Guess Paradise just ain’t perfect

Yep, the first days have been been hot, wet, muggy, buggy, itchy, crabby, stinky and sting-y.  Way too many sailboats clog and pollute the harbor.  Heavy machinery grinds like monstrous dentists’ drills.  And until your inner clock gets reset to “island time,” you find your patience frequently frazzled.  What’s more…

Strange shtuff happens.  Awfully strange.  And though there may be more folklore than fact on your typical faraway isle, the many signs that linger about the two “Missing” people (including the aforementioned) stir chills.  Locals have stories about “what really happened,” and what hasn’t happened since.  More tales abound. 

So shut the blog up—and stay home? 

Guess there are too many bloggers & gurus in the cyber harbor.  Guess this site just ain’t taking flight—like millions of others.  Oh sure, I enjoy navel-gazing and spilling some guts and digital shots.  Sometimes I even keep the faith and believe blog star Seth Godin when he preaches, “Just do it more.  And do it better.”  But really now.  Really!

Still, I guess I must like it here.  On remote, sultry islands.  On a deck alone with a hot laptop atop tan thighs while watching squalls blow in from the British Virgins—while the gaffe-rigged ketch I used to crew on blows in from a daysail.  Here, on my fourth, fat, freaking BreakAway in the last 20 years. 

• Guess if that’s failure, bring it on

I haven’t had a margarita in ten years.  But could I still be searching for my lost shaker of salt?  I’m still searching for something (who ain’t?) and stooping so low as to be quoting Jimmy Buffet. 

But hell, if anyone has made a NAME and a BRAND and a BOATLOAD OF MONEY off BreakAway visions and delusions, he’s one. 

I’ll drink to that. 

So on that note, from a yellowed book off the shanty shelf that got nabbed for today’s five minutes of beach reading before the jellyfish assault, just this once, guess I will shut up and let Jimmy have the last word:

There will be no money left as I plan to spend it while I can, and when I die, I would like to be buried under a palm tree on the beach in an unmarked grave away from the maddening crowds like I saw today at Elvis’ grave.”

From “Tales from Margaritaville,” by Jimmy Buffett

photo by Kirk Horsted

Does your mood go down when your floor gets piled up with stuff? Does your mind close when opening your closets reveals overabundance? Have you found that paper and possessions grow like a fungus among us? If so, you’re not alone—but you may need a clean BreakAway from Stuff Management.

No, it’s not always fun cleaning house and clearing out.  But it can work wonders for your Peace of Mind and ability to think (and see) openly.  Sometimes, it can even help others—and inspire a less materialistic lifestyle.  So as we head indoors for the cold season, this week’s BreakAway BreakThrough offers some ways to increase your sanity by reducing your assets… (more…)

photo by Kirk Horsted

A BreakAway is a spiritual thing.  A BreakAway brings on introspection—whether the pause is 10 minutes of meditation or 10 months in the Mediterranean.   It’s an opportunity to come face to face with ourselves–not just an escape to a “happier” place.

Many folks, it seems, deliberately resist slowing down their bodies and minds, and thus they avoid contemplation. We are too busy.  Or we find ways to numb and dumb down our spirit (e.g. TV, FB, PBR).

• Do people actually FEAR downtime?

Many Americans don’t take planned breaks.  Heck, many don’t even take their vacation allocation, as if they FEAR getting fired, bored or too deep into their own navel.

Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (SK), a student of Fear and Anxiety, but also Love, encouraged introspection—and also understood the difference between despair and depression. My alma mater, St. Olaf College, was a place where one rarely graduated without a heavy dose of Kierkegaard (with a chaser of despair).

While my only Kierkegaard course spanked me with my only C, I feel blessed by the exposure and still ponder the wisdom. And despite the modern-day market’s onslaught of simplistic spiritual self-help, SK’s challenging works thrive on.  One need look no further than the hundreds of replies to this NYT opinion piece by St. Olaf’s reigning SK scholar (and part-time boxing trainer), Gordon Marino.

• Are  you happy!?!

“Are you happy?” has become a catchphrase of our times, with “happy” being the relentless pursuit—if not expectation—of everything from prescription pills (like Prozac) to popular blogsites (like “The Happiness Project”) to electronics shopping (Best Buy’s slogan is now “You, Happy”)

SK and Prof. Marino might rankle the unquestioning optimists, as neither seems to believe in effortless, auto-happiness.  As Marino writes,

If Kierkegaard were on Facebook or could post a You Tube video, he would certainly complain that we, who have listened to Prozac, have become deaf to the ancient distinction between psychological and spiritual disorders, between depression and despair.”

For some of us, the mental playground at times features wobbly mood swings and melancholy merry-go-rounds.  It ain’t always a walk in the park, but perhaps it beats a lifetime of Prozac dependency or, worse, dishonest self-talk and superficial soul-searching.

After all, Zen teachings insist that despair is not only universal, it’s part of the universal human experience—and offers the essential pathway to enlightenment.  When you think you’ve got it all figured out, think again.  Is there not always more to learn?  More to see?  More to ponder—for better or worse?

• Get lost:  It pays

To live—really live—is to get lost at times:  In a mission, in meditation, in the Caribbean.  How else does the spirit emerge and ascend?

Marino preaches the importance of the spirit, while also distinguishing one’s spirit from one’s ever-evolving mind.  You can have a healthy spirit—even when you suffer from depression.

These days, depression must run rampant; 10% of Americans are now on anti-depressants.  Søren would not be happy.  But he might prescribe more (not less) introspection, as does Marino:

Within a few years, e-mail and Twitter moved the art of letter writing to the trash bin. And in an age when all psychic life is being understood in terms of neurotransmitters, the art of introspection has become passé.”

Which brings us back to the beginning:  “A BreakAway is a spiritual thing.”

This website is dedicated to the notion of taking and making time to wander and float, in all forms and spaces, wherever that may lead (and it’s not always to Cloud 9).  A BreakAway forces (and welcomes) introspection—including to confront whatever despair may lurk within one’s self.  That face-off may feature…

• Longing…to step out of a rut and chase a dream
• Wanderlust…to let self and spirit run free for a while
• Escape…from an oppressive job, relationship or routine

From introspection, one hopes, comes true growth and—maybe—even true contentment, if not simple happiness.  Or, as Søren Kierkegaard put it…

There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.”

photo by Kirk Horsted

Last week my kiddos had a short week of school because of some teacher work/shirk days… Breaks like this are great, but they also present challenges: How do parents work? How do kids stay entertained? How can we take advantage of the extra long weekend? When I offered to take my 12-year old son on an overnighter to Lanesboro—a quaint nearby river town—I was pleasantly surprised by his enthusiastic “Yes! Let’s go!” And so we did.

We were gone only about 25 hours, yet if felt like a bona fide BreakAway. Why? Because it was just the two of us. Because Lanesboro was truly charming and full of friendly folks. Because we spoiled ourselves. Because we needed a break!

So I dedicate this week’s BreakAway BreakThrough post to all parents: Make time to hang out with your kids. While they’re still kids. You’ll feel younger yourself, discover what wonderful creatures you’ve created, and be reminded of all the (right) reasons you had children in the first place.

BABT12:11 Ways to Enjoy a Mini-BreakAway with Your Son

• Drive in silence and let him read an entire book—Jaws!
• Talk about the differences between small towns and big-city life.
• Point out antiques, farm life and natural beauty.
• Walk around town with no particular place to go.
• Peruse the gift shops to buy little somethings for Mom and Sister.
• Take happy hour at the American Legion and let him have extra popcorn & soda.
• Enjoy not one—but two—long, luxurious Jacuzzis.
• Dine at a funky, hippie eatery.
• Turn him on to great “old” music (e.g. CSNY) and show him an excellent but challenging movie (The Red Violin).
• Stay up late, sleep in late, and eat a big messy breakfast.
• Drive home through driving rain while blasting music, snacking and reminiscing.

The crazy-busy lives we lead may present cumbersome obstacles to taking big sabbaticals. But hey: Everybody can sneak in an over-nighter now and then, right? Your child will thank you. And you’ll get rich — with memories.