Traveling and the Big Lie

Right now I’m staring past Megan’s foot. It’s atop a weathered 2x6 rail that could so easily be the rustic studio on Matinicus. If it were, I would be looking past her foot into the scape of  frisking horse tails of white surf, granite fortifications shaped by molecular structure and the last ice age scraping through, sharp salt breezes, brilliant blue gray water and endless spruce trees.  I would also likely be huddling with watery eyes and cursing the wind chill, and her foot would be wrapped in smartwool and rubber boots  Instead I see lush fields, triangular mountains piled high with jungle trees, massive airborne humidity and a flat ass calm ocean. Ears are filled with free range chicken talk, an occasional moo, goat blat, bird, and passing Puerto hip hop from car windows.

If you are traveling, I can heartily recommend a light dose of 5htp, a version of tryptophan available over the counter without the necessity of stuffing, gravy, family dynamics or pant size changes. It is especially helpful at keeping one’s adrenal and irritability glands in check if you’ve had a 9 hour layover in Newark and arrive in western Puerto Rico at 2:30 in the morning and have to drive up into the rainforest to meet your Airbnb host, without much in the way of road signs or brain function. 

I’ve always loved maps, and so looked a bit before we left Maine, then followed my nose for a bit to find Sur 107 out of Aguadilla.

I can also heartily recommend the GPS lady inside of Verizon android phones. My nose was good for getting out of town, but she made it possible to navigate the twirly up and down switchbacks once we left the main roads. She was spot on.

After picking up Brandon at the Casa Linda restaurant parking lot , we shoehorned into side roads and driveways where it seemed the car would need to bend in the middle to make it. Our host hopped out to swing the gate so we could pass by the shredded carcass of a Hondoyota and into the manure spotted parking area.  Several (fortunately) friendly dogs and an elderly gentleman who muttered in some vowel rich and tooth-free version of two languages greeted us.  I shoehorned and bent my 3:45 a.m. brain into not thinking about how we could possibly turn around the next day, and embraced the shanty in the mountains.

Now after a day of finding grocery stores, walking the Rincon beach, listening to all the goats, chickens, car horns, turkeys and other profusion for the ears, we are able to relax.

I am always emotionally thrown open by travel. It’s exhilarating and scary and the sight of small children saddens me a little until I remember traveling with small children. Being out of my usual tracks puts my own life tracks right in my face for reflection even as I’m soaking in new sights and sounds and getting away from those grooves and ruts.

This time I was struck particularly hard by two things. One was my prejudice, the other the great ordinary beauty, love and daily function of a stupefying number of people you encounter traveling.

At the bus station in Maine, two obviously Islamic gentlemen were praying in a corner; one a very tall and unsmiling and bearded older person and the other a dour 20-something. They prayed and parted and the young man, looking tired and vacant, boarded the bus with us, stuffing his back pack in the overhead bin.

The logical brain first says, ‘don’t be a dick,’ but then says ‘there’s no security screening of any kind on buses, this bus is full, passing major bridges and tunnels, groups claiming association with Islam have publicly and repeatedly promised to strike the United States, this would be a great way to wipe out people, stifle the economy through fear of buses and costs of increased security screening, and paralyze a major Boston artery, and whoah, I need to not ever watch Homeland again.’

The ‘don’t be a dick side’ lost.  The fear was powerful and physical.

The irrational brain was plain scared and thought of finding another way to Boston.

All this coursed through me in 45 or so seconds.

I realized as we got rolling and Megan handed me a swig of wine, that staying on the bus, and trusting was actually- in this day of slickly marketed fear campaigns by ISIL, presidential candidates and news outlets alike- a radical act of peace and brotherhood.

Coming out of the old white cocoon that is Maine, I am overwhelmed by the shades of beauty, young and old, that I see in airports, on city streets and in stuffed subways.

The big lie, the really, really Big Lie is that we live in a dangerous, bad world.  Yes, there are horrible things done to innocents.  There is poverty and corruption.

But how many times in a 36 hour travel process did I see- just in my tiny little perceptual scope- Dads and Moms loving and caring for their babies, older couples sitting together, janitors doing their jobs, baggage check staff making the effort to help with a smile, friends walking together, those alone going in the direction that was right for them in that moment? In my 36 hours, I must have seen tens of thousands of simple, loving, decent good things done. Multiply that by every place that wasn’t in my little world view and what do you get?

Fear gives control and these days fear is a red hot sales vector for ISIL and presidential candidates alike.

Mr. Rogers, help me out here, but isn’t love and ordinary life so much, so astronomically much bigger and better? How come we don’t see it?

Actual Surfing Class

 

My six awesome surfing runs probably totaled about 4 seconds of upright time, but I learned a few things.  The best run was laying down at the end of the session and catching a wave that had me going about 28 knots into the channel or safe zone. 

That I tried at all was something. It was an ordeal; a transformative one. The experience was also one of those that if you really knew, you’d just find a ukulele and sit on the beach crooning to your sweetie instead.

My first mistake among many, perhaps my second mistake after signing up, was that I forgot shoes. By the time we’d walked down the scorching tar road and ouchy, rocky path carrying surf boards and gotten the final “site specific” advisories about currents, channels and scary places, it was the time to “paddle, Paddle, PADDLE!”

"See that channel there? You can rest there, and see out past the breaking waves? You can rest there. In between, you MUST NOT STOP." Had herding instinct not impelled me forward, I would have just taken a walk on the beach, but I hopped aboard and tried to get a feel for paddling, while promptly regretting the 3 beers worth of fortification I’d taken in prior to the class orientation.

Our group got as far as the inside stretch of calm water a or so hundred feet off the shore. The instructors watched the waves and the channel out to the outer safe zone where there was a gap in the big curling breakers. They then gave the signal to charge. I was awed by the noise and the bounciness of the ocean, but tried to get a good rhythm going and to take advantage of my stringy arms to get good long strokes. It didn’t really happen until the end of the session, but I did get the feel for that part at least.

I could see the reef looking like it was about a foot under water as the waves started plowing toward us and the time had come to contend with a real wave on a real reef that would just as soon peel me off the board like a post-it. I dug into the water as hard as my 53 year old 3 beer self could manage and did the push-up maneuver as that wave bore down on us.  Even with the clear instruction back at orientation to do the snap push-up move and to hold on tight to the edge of the board, the force and noise of the wave yanking me in five directions and blasting my ears and head was much more than I expected. Somewhere from the water balance and movement cortex (thank you Charlie, John, Clayton and Steve Ross once again), I felt what I had to do, and never got flung off or flipped over. There were several more to get through, over and under before reaching safety.

The waves kept coming and we desperate baby sea turtles paddled until the instructors told us two things. First, we could sit up on the boards and rest, and second, to have a look back to the now distant shore to see how far we’d come.

As much satisfaction as it gave me to get out there without dumping myself, it was as good as my performance got for the day. 

Humility and reality came into play. I was overwhelmed and had just enough common sense to know it.  I decided I’d just sit on my board out past the breakers and wait for class to be over and hope that no one noticed. No f-ing way was I getting in the middle of that churning mess again.

There were two intervening circumstances. First was that being out past the breakers is not really the same as being out past the big breakers. There were a couple of oh F moments where I had to do a quick turn and a panicked wave survival move through an extra big wave. 

The other circumstance was my baby sitter, B. She knew I was in over my head and stayed very close by the whole time. We talked about the Outer Banks where she lived, Prince Edward Island where she had relatives and had lived and my humbling experience- feeling like a fairly tough person who has taken up lobster gear in January 20 miles off the Maine coast, but who suddenly feels like a total wuss. She probably kept me talking to avoid having me lock up and become a major management issue. That wasn't going to happen, but I appreciated the attention and concern.

Eventually, the nagging voice came back and I decided I needed to try a wave. I got in position, paddled when they said, stood up when they said, and fell off immediately. The white water rushed over me and I found my way back to the board with some help from B. This was not a problematic fail because the run was so short that I only had to paddle a little way back to the outer resting zone.

Try number two was a different story, and was the worst/best/most brilliant/scariest thing I’ve done in a good long while. Even though it was a complete and extended failure, it’s what I kept coming back to, feeling later in the evening, and what dazzled in my mind’s eye as I got sleepy.  Fail or no fail, it’s all playing in the ocean, which I like, especially in such warm water.

I paddled when they said. I tried to stand up and maybe made it for a half or possibly a whole second before dumping myself. This time, however, I couldn’t get back on the board and got rolled and tumbled and thrashed by the next wave. I could feel the coral at about knee level. B came to the rescue and said not to worry about the board. Another wave was coming like a Viking battle charge and we went flailing about and trying not to touch bottom on the reef. B then told me to swim under the last wave in the set. This was surprisingly easy. It was not, however, the last wave in the set. Nor was the next or the next after that.

At some point, I told B I felt stuck. Pounded down, trying to paddle out, pounded down, rolled around, trying not to stick my feet down into the corals, swim under the wave. After what seemed like a very long time, there was a calm period and I got paddled back out and rested again, this time with a wary eye to the west’ard. She asked me how I felt. “Salty,” I said.  

As much as I’ve never been a real water person, I managed not to get water in my nose or a mouthful, or a lungful. All the same, everything tasted very salty when she asked.

The nagging voice came back and I offered myself a third swing (“Hey batta batta, hey batta batta swing! … Whiffah”).  Strike three actually saw me upright for a moment and then falling off the back of the wave.

I tried a couple more times with comparable results. The last run, when it was time to quit, was the best. I could have laid down the whole way in, but got up, went for maybe a foot and a half this time, fell again, got back on my board, followed B’s instruction to get toward the stern of the board to avoid going nose under (and ass-over-teakettle as my mother would say) and screamed into the tranquil spot in what felt like a rocket thrust of surf.

Somebody has to be the worst in the class, and today was my turn. All the same, it was about action and play-time in the water, and felt safe because of the Rincon Paddleboards professionals that were looking out for me.

The rest of the day and evening, I had visions going on behind whatever I was doing at the moment. Visions of blue water, white water, motion, loud charging wave sounds, and most of all, the sense of connection, the pleasure and fear and respect that come from interacting with an all-powerful environment.

In my sleep, I saw giant waves, and had some idea what to do.

Somewhere around the corner to the left was where they took us for the initiation...

Surfing Orientation

During orientation from Justin, a very brown and fit combination standup comic, motivational speaker and surfer dude, we were informed we were all going to “do great,” or “awesome” and would be driving to a different surf location, which sounded to me like the spot where Megan and I saw giant waves a couple days earlier.

We were also advised that if we needed to exit our surf boards, we could not go straight in the water because we were surfing over a reef and it was not deep enough to accommodate long limbs pointing straight down (such as mine).

I also had not really understood that there is a significant wave breaking zone where one must paddle to beat hell and not stop for fear of getting “thrashed” – which is a term I would become directly familiar with, and involves repeating cycles of getting pounded, and vigorously rolled a bunch of times, finding the direction of up and starting over.

Paddling must be done on the board in what is much like locust position in yoga. This requires holding one’s upper body up off the board while paddling.  And breathing. What is different from locust in a surfing context is that you also have to paddle to beat hell, do a quick pushup maneuver to avoid getting pummeled when a wave comes, and are very far from being on a mat on a level floor with a soothing voice telling you to be in the moment.

It was hard being told that we would “all do awesome,” and strongly suspecting I would do otherwise.

I was with three other students. I was at least 20 years older than the next oldest guy, who came from North Carolina, and probably equivalent to the combined ages of the Swedish couple.

If there was a Group W bench for surfing, that’s where I was headed. (See Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie.)

Why I Decided to Try Surfing

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Day two on Puerto Rice took us to San Sebastian, a good way into the interior to seek out a waterfall. Megan loves waterfalls, and now I do as well. After more adventures with GPS and narrow, silly-straw shaped roads through giant bamboo groves and hanging vines, we charged up one last stupefyingly steep incline, so steep that horizontal grooves were cut in it to aid traction. Buckety buckety up we went.

The crustafarian gentleman who took our parking money directed us to the paths for the different falls and made sure to point out the bar down the hill. After a modest hike through more dark, Indiana Jones-ish jungle, we arrived at the upper falls. The water falls about 4 stories to a large pool with sitting rocks on one edge, a beach on the other and a rock platform with a swinging rope for the adventurous.

We watched two couples of tan, body-hairless and nearly naked examples of youthful physical perfection gracefully swing out and drop into the pool, one going so far as to GoPro his descent after releasing the rope.

At first it felt pretty ballsy just for us to be here in this wild place and to get in the chilly mountain water to paddle around. I couldn't help eyeing the rope with the nagging sense that I ought to maybe just swim to that side and think about it. A few naggings later, I was getting ready to leap and telling myself not let go too soon for fear of grievous injury. Surprisingly to me, I went for it and didn’t let go until I was out and up as far as I could go. Of course I had to do it again. 

The ribbon that got cut in my brain was that after years of financial terror, feeling professionally like I couldn’t make a mistake or I’d be sunk, or that I couldn’t seem to do anything but make mistakes, I was thoughtlessly doing something fun and a little scary, but scary in the fun way.

Hanging out on the Rincon beach and watching the surfing classes got me nagging at myself again. There in a corner of the beach, young kids and adults had short wave rides and quick falls into the water on mellow little waves. It looked fun and was something completely foreign to me. After a couple glasses of beer, I signed up for the next morning’s class.

The next morning I wondered what I’d been thinking and was relieved when I showed up and the class had been canceled. The gracious woman explained she’d accidentally called my ex-wife at 6:00 in the morning and offered to reschedule me for 1:00 p.m. and to throw in free paddle boards for Megan and myself in the meantime.  Customer service.

The paddleboard experience brought doubts. How was I going to surf if I was slow acclimating to a paddle board on a flat calm morning? Even with that hesitation, I had no idea how much more intense and intimidating the surf class would be.

Where I thought I was getting a surf lesson

Gosa Linda Falls

This is in part because the class I watched bore no resemblance whatsoever to the class I was taken to.  I told them I wanted the surf equivalent of the bunny slope, but no.

Done Early, or Not Quite

Taking up gear is the definition of tedious. Untie the buoy, coil the rope, clean out traps for the last time of the season, stack them on the boat, heave them onto the dock, then heave a little slower into the truck and drive home to the yard, where they are heaved yet again into a stack for the winter. Repeat. Even with a small operation it is brutal. There is the tide to coordinate with; the dock is inaccessible at times on account of rocks being too high and water too low. The weather usually turns around that time so that it is either rough and nerve wracking as waves try to dump traps off the boat, or not doable at all. There is also the inevitable delusion and internal conflict over wanting to keep making a few bux and not letting go of the life on water, while also dreading getting caught with gear out late into the year when all those variables get harder to align successfully.

This year, though, it all went so smoothly. Traps were up and in the yard by Halloween. That is for sure the earliest finish I've had. Then there's the boat. I'm always nervy about crossing and wishing the vessel could just get trailered in my yard on the island. Variables get piled on to the point where I have mainland work, scheduled time with kids, holidays and increasingly challenging weather to sort out.

The swiss cheese holes didn't line up this year until December 1, when there was the perfect weather forecast and an opening in my schedule.

We flew out the day before, on the first really cold day of the year. I went to start the boat and fuel up with the too familiar dread brought on by breakdowns, leaks of one type or another, a vibration here, a little too much smoke there. My sad attempt to stay positive was in vain. I turned the power on, pushed the starter button, but the only thing that fired up was my adrenal glands and cascade of 'what the f do I think I'm doing in this business' thoughts that always rush in at such times. Not a peep, not a turn or cough. Shit. Shitshitshitshitshitfuck. Turn off the breaker and then back on. Try again, pretty fucking please. Silence. Again. Same.

After a couple of panicked calls and visions of either getting towed all the way to the mainland or working on a cold dead hunk of Detroit iron in December, Megan and I went back down to wiggle wires, hook up the portable jumper, beat on the starter or whatever else we could think of. What happened next defies explanation. With none of those interventions, the old Cummins started up as if nothing had been wrong in the first place. Must've been something personal, or Megan's presence, but I figured I'd take it, whatever it was.

December 1 was as perfect as they come. We got an early start, had smooth water and warm sunshine the whole way across. Aside from being smoky at first and a little vibration probably from junk in the wheel, it was a truly enjoyable trip across. Leaving Matinicus, Two Bush Ledge and No Mans Land, there is a long open stretch before Heron Neck Light on Vinalhaven. Hurricane Sound was full of boats dragging for scallops on the first day of their season. Close Enough was put on a mooring in the Fox Islands Thorofare and left to the good care of J.O. Brown & Son, Inc.. Better late than never.

Transportation and Taking Up 2015

Transportation

This morning, at around 7:00, I was driving down Carrie's Hill toward Matinicus Harbor. Since it was blowing 21, gusting to 23 knots from the southeast, I had doubts. As I was doing the algebra of southeast wind, 26 foot boat, traps on the northwest shore needing to be pulled out for the year, getting out and back without dumping them off the boat, the sleepy voice of Maine Public Radio morning host Irwin Gratz advised me that my adopted community of Matinicus Plantation was incorporated on this day in 1840. Funny thing is how he's in a radio studio someplace and knows this, and I'm driving down the gravel road in ignorance. Today is the 175th birthday of the municipality. The community is a bit older.

I worry a great deal about whether we'll stay incorporated. Because of the apparently overpowering allure of the bland mainland life, fewer and fewer people want to live here year-round.

The power company had to recently drive up its already very high rates due in part to insufficient demand; insufficient year round households to spread costs over. This could either drive down consumption and exacerbate the problem, make an island household unaffordable, or move those of means to go off-grid. 10th grade economics says you can't solve a lack of demand by increasing price.

I see two choices. First is that the island goes Criehaven, becoming an outpost with no utilities, postal service, school, church or other institutions. Second is an active approach to livability issues. On this I feel some qualification for my otherwise eyeroll-inducing opinions.

My family and I were some of the last new arrivals to try and make a year-round life here. Energy costs, isolation, housing and grocery access are all hardships. The deal-breaker to me, though, is transportation; year-round, affordable, reliable, semiweekly access to the mainland; something akin to what the sparsely populated unorganized territories with roads that cost x many hundreds of thousands per mile per year enjoy.

The historical society has published a wealth of pictures from several decades ago. I see two things: a community of people and the Mary A. I don't think it is a coincidence.

My personal life has undergone a great deal of evolution. Work-wise, I've gotten back into legal practice by necessity. I'd much rather be stuffing bait bags, going all spiral-eyed from the fog and waking up sore, but the legal work is good for wretched days or months fit not for man, beast or lobster harvester. I can do almost everything in this line of work from the island. Knowing there was a ferry run a couple of times a week in the crappy months would make all the difference.

Unrealistic? Hmmm... Rutherford Island in South Bristol hosts 40 year round households. They are getting an $11M bridge upgrade. That's in addition to whatever annual plowing and maintenance costs are. Those investments don't just serve the residents, but as well all of the goods and service providers that do commerce over those routes. Is a water based transport system so different?

Taking Up 2015

Back to the boat. The north shore and Burgess Cove were swimming pool flat and easy places to take up fishing gear for the year. The morning was designed by Ansel Adams with infinite gradations of gray, my favorite being the rolling garden furrows of clouds to the west. I was thoroughly content to coil rope, pick out the few lobsters who didn't get the scheduling memo and stack traps in their places on the boat.

Although there is no obvious change in the underwater topography between Black Rocks and the southwest shore, there are funny water patterns. By funny I mean that even with no wind or chop, just as soon as the boat was full, a couple of eccentric waves came a hair's breadth from snatching a bunch of traps overboard. The row of gear slid and oozed, but didn't actually take the plunge. I credit my Uncle Malcolm for teaching me to cinch down on a rope in good shape and secure things that wanted to go astray such as haybales or large, iron-toothed farm equipment. Candidly, if I could've just picked which traps went overboard, I'd have shed no tears.

The remaining problem was that although the northwest shore was relatively tranquil, I could predict what was waiting around No'theast Point. Almost, because I am perpetually naive and optimistic. Not yet knowing what I didn't know, I still had to stabilize the load of traps before going 'round the corner. This meant climbing up the pile and tugging things back into some semblance of geometry, while remaining respectful of being alone on the water on a scowling gray day.

I had expectations fulfilled as I came around the point and was then forced to idle all the way in to the harbor holding my breath. I had expected a few good sized gray waves at the point and right outside the harbor, but didn't really think about everyplace in between. For the first time I can recall, I had to tack my way in to avoid being side-to which would have taken both the wicked and virtuous members of my trap collection.

When I got home, my list started with "dry pants" and "fire." After that,  I had a big stack of legal work waiting, but once the obvious email fires were doused and the paper mail checked, I just could not sit down to do it. Instead, I went for a walk that, which, for the latter half was quite wet. I was completely happy with evergreens and the red and orange of fall shrubbery and the wild waves and wind that I no longer had to contend with.

Now at dusk there are fat, warm raindrops and even a couple of lightning and thunder moments. It's October 22, 2015.

Backwards Told Story A

This one is best recounted in reverse order. Once the weather starts to change in October, working on a lobster boat changes with it. It's colder, bouncier, stays dark late and gets dark early. My brain still thinks July, August and September will last forever. Long hypnotic days of calm seas, though, must give way to a sense of urgency and a nervous (for me) eye on the weather. Maybe I treasure the experience a little more when it's a little tougher.

The fire is taking hold in the stove. It just started raining. Seamus, the cat appears at the door.

We're walking across the yard. I have an armload of firewood and Megan has our boat lunchbox and beverages. Even with the dark gray chill and wind, the yard and house are a womb of peace and comfort.

The boat is tied up, turned off. I've made a messy dismount from my skiff onto Robert's to get to the ladder, and we've stepped onto the concrete wharf, which moves under us as though bobbing slowly in the swell.

Since Clayton's and my boats moor very close, I am on edge coming up to the mooring in 30 knots of clammy southeasterly. As I'm pondering how to get tied up and deal with a lobster crate that's tangled ass-backwards with my skiff, the boat is shoved over the whole mess, threatening to sink the skiff, get tangled in my wheel and send me into Clayton's boat. Second time is the charm.

Coming up to the lobster car to sell our catch takes a couple of tries. I aim just like I always do, but slide quickly away from the tie up lines. After lurching my way in, we fasten onto the Matinicus Island Lobster car, commerce hub and gossipatorium. Not that we didn't earn it, but we did well for a day cut 40 traps short.

On the way in, the wind takes another healthy jump upward. The sea is pretty much either black or whitecaps and I'm glad I decided to bag the rest of the day. Close Enough rolls up and over, up and over and surfs into the harbor. 

I'm thinking maybe we should finish another day. But then, maybe we could do a couple more. As I'm thinking this, my hands are putting things away, so I've obviously made a decision. We are done.

The last couple of strings of gear are very sloppy and nerve-wracking. I spend a lot of attention wrestling the boat into the waves, rather than laying side-to and sloshing about. When a wave hits side-to, I'm letting my knees buckle so as to stay on the boat, much the same way as a wily toddler knows how to fold their arms quickly to slip down, out and away from parental control. It's an old reflex.

Along the north shore, the capillary waves come, telling of larger, gruffer conditions to follow. On the way out from shore for the deeper water traps, the wind jumps up abruptly, and with it, the waves.

Throughout most of the morning, enjoying the beautiful day is easy along any of 180 compass points. The other 180 don't look so nice- they are dark bordering on dusk. I figure the darkness will be on us in 15 or 20 minutes, but after a while, I realize the storm clouds are moving more up along the coast than out toward us. They'll find us, but not so quickly as I thought.

Megan and I know the forecast is calling for deteriorating conditions; wind and rain in quantities prohibitive of fishing in a 26 foot vessel. Right now, though, it's sunny and flat-ass calm, as they say. So we go.