Blessed

I woke up today to find myself falling insanely in love with the possibilities my life has to offer. It seems that each morning brings a better understanding of where I stand in the short curvature of my precious life. I get discouraged about how much I've missed already, but it only makes me more determined to make the best of what I've got. I'm looking forward to the satisfaction of a life well lived, and I'll be damned if I let anything get in the way.

Whenever this liberating perspective bubbles up through the muck of life, I find all my decision-making is immediately simplified. Eat well, exercise, and stay healthy. Be kind to others, offer help where you can, and rejoice with people you love. Listen to music and spend time outside. Pursue what drives you and use it to make a difference in someone else's life. Like Mary Oliver says, "you have only to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves". When held beside these simple delights, all of the fleeting pleasures of our big, confused world ring hollow.

If you make yourself alive, you save yourself. Celebrate being alive, rejoice!

Think of the children!!

Finally finished Three Cups of Tea! What a great book. Mortenson's faith in education as a path to peace is irresistible and compelling. From the beginning, I've felt that one of the most important parts of tackling environmental problems is to improve education in order to prevent new generations from driving the problem further. By reading that book, this idea has expanded to include the problems that plague impoverished rural and urban areas, not only in the Middle East but around the world; economic dead-ends, marginalization, illiteracy, crime, violence. Kids I worked with at summer camp came from dangerous neighborhoods, but a week in the woods was somehow enough to change the perspective they had of their own future. A thing to be built, not shackled to. Likewise, kids born into our hyper-consumptive society are given only one model of living, and without help, the struggle to create a more sustainable livelihood can be overwhelming. Our world needs and deserves much more. You can bail out a sinking ship, but you have to plug the damn hole first!

I've started with Barbara Kingsolver today. The first thing I notice is that she's an excellent storyteller. Her descriptions and reflections of the Tucson landscape are elegantly simple; she calls the cacti "denizens of deprivation" and describes " the sensory extravagance of red hot chili peppers and five-alarm sunsets", drawing any reader almost effortlessly closer. It's such a privilege to read good writing. Sometimes words fit together like puzzle pieces, and their harmonious connection is as plain as poetry.

So Mortenson labors on in the distant peaks of the Karakoram, while Kingsolver strikes out on her adventure to live simply. To live on the land, like Mortenson's friends along the Braldu. These authors somehow sit on different sides of the same coin. Mortenson planting seeds of development, and Kingsolver refusing the produce of industry. A well-to-do American, rejecting her own American Dream. Education, development, yes! - but business, affluence, no. Our middle ground lies somewhere in between.

Family Matters

A preface: don't be deceived by the title, I'm not here to write about Jaleel White.

It's Saturday night, and I'm back in Marin County. I arrived on Thursday for a long Father's Day weekend, and have passed the time reading, eating well, and thinking of things to write on this blog. I wrote about the reading already - we'll get to good food in just a moment.

My mom and I went into Lucas Valley today for some catching up and a brief hike up the Big Rock trail. The trail winds along the hillside for maybe half an hour before coming up behind Skywalker Ranch, the site of George Lucas' movie-making-mega-mill. It's huge. Really, it's huge. It's basically a resort - restaurant, swimming pool, vineyards, rooms, theater, etc. - that pays for itself (and then some). Here's the pic I snapped from the top.

(click for a not-much-bigger version)

We had to turn around at the top because my sister's band was going to Fresno to play a show and she needed to bum a ride somewhere. Anyway, I read a bit more from Three Cups of Tea and snoozed a bit. Later that evening a bunch of family came over for dinner, which leads me to the point of this post.

I've endured, almost piteously, my fair share of dinner parties. Between reunions with family friends and the marathon holiday feasts, I'd become not only tired of the banter of drunken adults, but also convinced that I would need a hearty share of the wine being passed around to ever enjoy myself alongside them. But time passes and, I suppose, things change. I did have a few glasses of wine, but I found myself enjoying the evening for different reasons. The occasion for tonight's gathering was that one of my uncles was in town…except, well, this uncle isn’t actually my uncle; his name is Gian-Luca, and he's from Italy.

Gian-Luca's father was the cousin of my father's father. I met him only once before: on a small roof terrace perched high above the streets of Rome, it's railings ringed with slender vines and petite summer flowers. We had lunch with his wife and daughter. My family had been traveling through Italy during the intensely hot summer of 2003; we fought the infamous heat wave, one which claimed thousands of lives across Europe, by mediating our tourist footslog with copious amounts of Italian gelato. I don't remember much of our brief lunch with Gian-Luca, besides the immediate surroundings and the glass of sparkling, fruity wine I was given. When he first arrived at my parents’ house in Marin tonight, I had forgotten our first meeting on that terrace in Rome. He remembered just fine, giving me a hearty clap on the back and congratulating me on my improved manliness. The benefits of unkempt facial hair are not to be underestimated.

After working through the topics that often accompany a long meal, the conversation drifted from the future to the past. Blinking my way out of a full-stomached stupor, I heard my father recounting the times he spent with our most distant relatives in an era lost to browning photo albums and hand written letters. They all began talking about a common history: how long ago they met, old friends and good meals shared. I can’t remember all of these stories, but their conversation began to assume, in my mind, the distinctive sepia hues of an old home video. I listened.

My uncle Jim, a stern and experienced man whose health is yielding to age, boasted about his experiences making wine and vinegar in Alameda. The gnats that crowded the front lawn as the vapors seeped out from the basement window. The rigors of winemaking with limited expertise and meager supplies, and the community of amateurs who shared their hard-earned lessons and cherished product. How, upon receiving a crate of wine from a friend, an older relative of his elected herself to taste each one for quality, declaring them unsavory and re-corking them... until, about halfway through, she put down a bottle after a long taste and said, " You know, Jim, it's not half bad!"

As the conversation wore on into the night, I wasn't benefiting from a discourse on the trials of winemaking. I was enjoying a rare and precious glimpse into the past – my own past, the history of my family. My grandparents died when I was young, and I've often thought about how much I would value a conversation with them today. I wonder what it means to have grown up lacking a strong connection to their experiences. I know I’m not the only one, and I wonder what it means for my generation as a whole. My grandparents witnessed the world’s events unfolding on a broader arc than I can imagine. History is too often a broken record, and now that I've begun to sketch my own understanding of that arc, I have questions for them that will surely lay unanswered. When my grandparents passed away, what other wise and winking treasures did I lose?

They also carried life's simpler lessons in their pockets. My grandpa would have taught me how to fix an engine or tie knots on a sailboat, and my grandma could help me figure out what girls are thinking, or even just show me how to cook something properly. If I’m living irresponsibly, I think about all of the sacrifices they made for my parents. Whenever I worry about my future, I imagine what reassuring words they’d have for me. I may have only known them for a few years of my childhood, but I miss them.

Don’t forget about your family. They are your lighthouse in a storm and your dowsing rod in times of drought. In them, look for your own pride and shame, your own avarice and virtue, your fragility and strength. They are your teachers and your friends. From them, learn to love, both others and your self. Most importantly, bring them with you, wherever you may go, in any way you can. Odd and varied as they may be, your bond with them is natural and strong. It shapes and guides you. It is powerful and pure. Don’t forget!

Ahh... the summer reading begins.

Ahh... the summer reading begins.

I can still remember the small public library where I received my first list of recommended books for summer reading. Tucked into a plain little corner of San Rafael, it paled in comparison to the other library, much larger and far more solemn, that bore the soaring lines of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture. Mine was not a library tucked in between courtrooms and government offices, but a quaint and memorable sanctuary of my youth - a place built solely for the fostering of imagination. I spent a number of long and lazy afternoons laying under the sycamore trees growing on the lawn out front, working my way through the laundry list of goofy kids novels and book report fodder until I found something that piqued my interest. The more books completed by the end of the summer, the better the prize from the cardboard box that lay tucked neatly beneath the librarian's desk. I liked the hologram bookmarks best.

The time between then and now is missing more memories of dog-eared pages and long hot days. Maybe I read so often that they blurred together, or maybe I didn't read at all. I couldn't say for sure. My last few summers were spent at a gorgeous YMCA camp nestled under a canopy of redwoods, working frantically to direct the chaotic energy of the wild youth with which I was charged. I know that I read, if only for the precious peace of mind it provided in the evenings, but I can't recall much what. However, just this last summer, after having been assigned to a band of bright young teenagers, I was given a copy of Paolo Coehlo's The Alchemist by one of the girls in my group. It is a tale woven with stunning imagery, touching symbolism and beautiful storytelling. I quickly consumed it in the fervor of my last few days of summer. Consider that a recommendation, if you haven't yet read it.

I've just begun to read Three Cups of Tea, a bestseller about mountaineer-turned-humanitarian Greg Mortenson and his quest to build a school at the base of the Karakoram Range in Pakistan. After failing to climb K2, the world's second highest peak, Mortenson stumbled into the small village of Korphe, just east of Askole. And so, "moved by the inhabitants' kindness, he promised to return and build a school". So says the blurb on the back of the book. Mortenson's commitment to his goal, his struggles in pursuing it, and the effect he has ultimately had in Pakistan and Afghanistan - founding the Central Asia Institute and building more than 80 schools - has enriched my understanding of how inspiration and hope can be spread to others. He receives an astonishing amount of support from others - penniless and discouraged when he began, it seemed impossible at first - but Inshallah (Allah willing, as they say) he was able to do incredible things. I'd have to try quite hard to feel discouraged about any part of my life while reading a story like this one.

So there we have past and present reading... now for the future. I'm happy to be home for a bit because my parent's library is really quite impressive. So here's what I've pilfered to take back with me to Santa Cruz:

• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver
• Hero With a Thousand Faces - Joseph Campbell
• The Spectator Bird - Wallace Stegner

And I'll probably read them in that order, unless I get distracted by something else. I've come to realize how important it is for me to choose books that are compelling and easy to read. I know that Kingsolver is right up my alley, but I'm worried about Campbell and Stegner. I'd heard about Campbell's book long ago, and it's very interesting to me... but now that I'm holding it in front of me it seems quite dense. Also, I've wanted to get an introduction to Wallace Stegner but I don't know if this one is the right place to start. So I won't force my way through them, or any others, if it seems like it might be arduous - that drains all the life out of it. No need to finish them all. I've got my work cut out for me with the Mortenson and Kingsolver, and by the time I'm finished I may have found something new. I'll look for the most enjoyable read - just so long as I'm reading.

Nature Writing

Here's one of the essays I submitted that was accepted by Gaia Magazine for their first issue in Spring of 2009. Gaia is an annual publication from the Environmental Media Project at UCSC. It contains information about campus events, student action, organizations, student essays, and much more, and was devised as a means of gathering UCSC's many environmentally minded projects into one place. Great magazine by great people. I have extra copies... wink wink.

Here we go. Written January 13th, 2009 for Sarah Rabkin's Nature Literature class.

-------------------------

“Nature writers have become increasingly important to us because they struggle, in memorable language, to resolve the deep issue of this in-betweenness, a resolution crucial to the physical and spiritual survival of our world. From their own direct experiences they are aware of the limits of both objectivity and subjectivity in giving accurate accounts of nature that will grip our emotional as well as rational understanding. They pursue this understanding with an avidity for fact accessible only through the scientific method and with a passion for metaphors, patterns, feelings, and self-awareness accessible only through poetry and art. In this way, they seek to make our minds and our hearts whole again. When we look at nature, they believe, we are primarily looking at ourselves.”
Frank Stewart, A Natural History of Nature Writing (pp. xvi)

When we struggle to write about nature, something important is happening. Immersing ourselves in the company of the forest, or slowing to take in the sight of birds wheeling high among the clouds and skimming low among the spray of salt water, we often find ourselves compelled to write. Contemplations of the natural world beckon a set of unique sensations to the foreground, and despite the difficulty of describing them, we often feel the urge to do so. I feel that I will never overcome the struggle to describe exactly what happens to me in these familiar and precious moments.

I have often tried to write objectively. A description of the time and place, or of the activity of the wildlife, is sufficient to begin with. I find that, by using my senses to absorb the patterns of nature, I may slow the anxious churning engine of my mind, and anchor myself to the present moment. The value of this meditation cannot be overstated, and yet it consistently proves insufficient at relieving my desire to approach the deeper truths that live within the moving mosaic of the natural world.

By abandoning my attempts at objective observation, I have progressed further still. My journals hold pages that describe the shifting sphere of solitude that a tree canopy provides to one who perches in its highest terraces. I have attempted to depict the illusion of a gently rolling ocean, as a breeze sweeps across a field of tall and wild grasses, the sun setting upon the horizon. Looking outwards during daytime, or upwards during the night, I have slowly learned to let my words drip themselves onto the pages, and relinquished the urge to be aware of what I am writing. Playing with poetic language has produced a thicker journal than I may have had otherwise. I am, however, consistently faced by the challenge to describe what has happened to me, rather than around me. This is where I still struggle today. This is where, in writing about nature, I have encountered myself.

I am certain that this task is so insistent in my mind because it is the one area of both nature and myself that I have not, and perhaps cannot, make permanent with pen and paper. It is, not coincidentally, the place where nature and myself lay upon one another, be it on the fields of earth, or in the wild thought-swept planes of my own imagination. To describe what happens to me is simple; I experience my relationship with nature. I have, however, experienced this in a myriad of ways: by working in the garden with my father while a boy, by being caught outside in a rainstorm, or even by reading the words of others who have pursued a similar aspiration. Those are all facets of my relationship with the natural world.

It is in pursuing the source of this relationship that I struggle. It is in chasing the wilderness within myself, that I falter. I can find root in the whirling of the sun and moon across the heavens, or the birth and death of the fields and flowers. I find it easy to take comfort in the lawful permanence of nature’s motion; I find difficult to attempt the same permanence with words. It may be for the better. If it is as Abbey suggests in Desert Solitaire that, by seeking to name the things we find in nature, “the world remains…and it is we who are lost”, I am grateful that this mystery should remain elusive. To let the wilderness be wild may be the only way to ever do it justice.

Let's try this again...

Must add more, every day, old or new. Here's what I did with that last one.

Brisk, crisp, breeze fights and finds its way into my eyes. 

A rough brown mug, bitter steam rising.

The land lays washed in night.

The last wild darkness.

Breath misting,

twisting away

distantly

time

unwinds.

Clouds ablaze

morning crawling

through them, light

leaking in around the last of

the soft night. The sun comes now

across the broad slope, relieving the heat of the east.