Between Here and the Channel Islands

Enriching My Life

Out on the water it’s mystical.  When sailing under a brilliant sunny sky, a trail of reflecting beams sparkles and flickers its magic upward.  Elsewhere, guided by the fierce strength of plummeting pressure, the water churned by a typhoon spins its moist madness into a churning fury.  And at its frozen edges, the coldest waters surround the polar caps tossing bergs effortlessly and angrily during their longest, darkest seasons.  Regardless of the weather, the tilt of planet earth, the illumination from above and the sea life living below, the oceans challenge and nourish the wellspring of the human spirit.

My passion for the sea, as I often profess, stems from my birth just blocks from the ocean’s edge (see “My Oldest Memory” from April 2012).  I still cling to numerous memories of the most powerful moments of my life and how the beach called to me to cross over from soil to water – my first pregnancy and later a lost pregnancy, an exotic cruise to slip away briefly from parenthood, an epic vacation from Canada to Florida – each a faceted gem that stay with me and enrich my life.  And when I part from its beckoning spell, I taste the brine left from the breeze wafting invisible salt against my lips.

Escaping My Life

Driving out to Ventura County, we find a small building marking the tiniest land-based tip of the Channel Islands National Park.  The surrounding docks lead us to boarding ramp towards the multi-hour excursion westward, and

today the mystical ocean, while clear at the shore, hides beyond the cloak of fog draped before the horizon.  Once away from the shore, the dolphins racing us towards the mist swoop above, below, and back above the water effortlessly and triumphantly.  In the distance, an oil rig appears ominous in the watery haze and the closer we approach, it reveals a less-menacing stature fixed and immovable against the contrasting, bouncing water.

When we cross the shipping lanes ferrying goods across the Pacific, the monstrous vessels tote hundreds of stacked semi-trailers floating away to China.  But we scoot on our double-decker minnow as the massive cruiser fades into the fog and we pull into the cove of the first island with only a ladder to reach the dock.  Shrouded on nearby rocks, we hear the barking of the seals pointlessly harassing each other as a few hearty campers disembark the craft for an overnight on the island. We aimlessly cruise around the smaller islands with their unique fauna and humble heights.  But most notably, these formations, surrounded entirely by the mystical, magical, magnificent source of my constant inspiration, peek out of the beautiful blue ocean, pointing skyward allowing me to feel a million miles away from my life.

To Live And Die In A Week

In The Footsteps Of My Grandfather

Project Fifty

The Corn Husker State, aptly named, eluded me for too long.  Having visited all of its neighbors (Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, and Missouri), it takes a freakishly unusual traveler to circle a state, yet never pass through it.  A number of other states fell into this “missed” category (North Dakota, Rhode Island, Oregon, West Virginia) so I developed a plan: Project Fifty.  In theory, an effectively executed plan would ensure I visit all fifty states before my fiftieth birthday.  Phase one of the plan began with Nebraska, but what do tourists do in the Great Plains state along the Missouri River?

A smidgeon of research highlights the must-sees of Omaha, starting with the zoo.  Justin Bieber played a concert the night I arrived.  By less than a week I missed the College World Series.  Gambling riverboats line up along the banks of the Muddy Mo like the paddleboats of a century ago that sailed the agriculture southward.  I skipped all of them (sorry, Beebs), and I didn’t even partake of a steak dinner.  From the scenery I saw between the airport and the hotel, Omaha appeared to be a lovely city, but I missed the vast majority of it.

The Minors

Downtown Omaha mixes century-old history with shiny new office buildings and converted lofts.  Multiple blocks of quaint shops and assorted cafes bring a small-town ambiance to the center of the city, and the location of my hotel affords me the luxury of a stroll through the old city.  As I wander, I imagine the wooden boardwalks in front of the boom-town era shops combining the cowfolk with the merchants doing business and building the West.  A street musician barely older than Son #1 plays “Hallelujah” on his guitar and I stand quietly in front of a storefront ignoring the display and focusing on the ballad.  Eighty years prior, my grandfather, a former resident of the town, may have stood on this same street corner listening to the sounds of his city.

Grandpa, whom I never met, had a minor profession as a baseball player in this island amid the seas of cornfields. Years before he met Grandma, he smacked the leather

around the ball field and made what historically would have been a barely sustainable wage, and probably only a part-time gig, as he would have sought out other employment during the off season.  More than once in my life I traveled for my love of the game (see “Are You Ready for Some Baseball?” from March 2012), but this venture more than kicks off Project Fifty with a trip to Rosenblatt Stadium for a minor league ballgame.  This excursion pays tribute to Ople who loved the game first.  Thanks, Grandpa, for creating a memory for me before I was even born.

Life Is A Highway

Metaphor

I love a good metaphor almost as much as I love a good analogy.  Being the fan that I am, baseball as a metaphor for life ranks as my favorite, and I would wager that has everything to do with my passion for the sport and how baseball has intertwined with my life.  But Tom Cochrane put metaphor to music in 1991 and captured in three minutes my outlook on road trips through the decade.  In fact, I even dubbed it Son #1’s theme song since as a child he so often accompanied me on my traveling adventures across the highways of America.  He tackled thirteen states before his first birthday and left the country before his second birthday.  By his fifth birthday, he visited two continents, eight countries, and twenty states.

Certainly his recollection of many of these early locations remains spotty at best, but that’s why he has me.  I tell him about the Colorado Rockies, the Mona Lisa, Gettysburg, and the Cape Hatteras lighthouse.  Nevertheless, bits and pieces of his childhood clatter around in his head including chasing pigeons in Vatican Square (and a number of other European cities) and riding the subway in DC.  For him, his life truly has been a highway as my number one traveling companion.  Sorry Son #2, but it’s true.

Assignment

At some point in elementary school, drawing a timeline about themselves becomes a common assignment for kids, and they include important chronological landmarks in their young lives, and the larger world community. Son #1, while creative in many aspects, despises projects involving crayons, scissors, illustrations, glue, and poster board (don’t even get him started on glitter).  Only after he decides to duplicate his theme song in his project does he actually begin working on it. Germany unified the week he was born, the Soviet Union collapsed the night after he visited Mount Rushmore (see “Rapid City, Rapid Change" from November 2011), he lived at Ramstein Air Base when the downed helicopter pilot was rescued from

Somalia, and he watched the space shuttle lift off on its mission to rendezvous with the MIR space station a month before starting kindergarten.

But does his life really compare to a highway with its off ramps, concrete slabs, and bridges that may ice before road?  Does he watch for falling rocks, exit at the next rest stop, and observe the miles tick by quickly some days and exhaustingly slow on others?  Do pushy drivers pass on the right, cut him off and ride his bumper, while some cars also allow him to merge from the on ramp and politely flash their lights to warn of an objective in the roadway?  Life is full of figurative falling rocks, even when we aren’t warned.  Some stretches of life seem mountainous or even moderately bumpy, and sometimes life has long, straight stretches that can bore us, or just as easily bring us tranquility.  Son #1, like all of us, will always encounter people trying to get ahead, while others will kindly let him merge into their lives.  Yes, life is definitely a highway, so metaphorically speaking, be good drivers.

You Can See Forever



My Oldest Memory

Theoretically

I have this theory that people are drawn to the types of climates into which they are born.  Granted my theory resembles other less-concrete ideas, like cookie fortunes and paranormal activity – only believable if they apply to you personally.  In my case, my theory applies to me personally.  Born in the sunshine and near the ocean, my ideal environment remains shore side.  I like driving along the ocean, staring at the ocean, listening to the ocean on my white-noise sound machine, and, of course, taking pictures of the ocean.  And to be clear, I am mesmerized by the ocean, but somewhat less delighted by the beach – it’s a sand thing.  But just sitting and looking at the ocean tickles me aquamarine.

And I love the moon.  In all its phases, when hiding in the brightest daylight or illuminating a dark road, when it is waxing or waning, when it saddles up to a planet to make a smiley face, when it dominates the skylight upon rising, and during the less-frequent occasions when I get to see it set, I absolutely adore it.  I often wonder if the correlation between the moon and the tide create a sort of bi-fortnight parallel in my brain.  Most likely, I love the size or distance each represents and how small I feel in comparison to both.

The Turtle

At some point in every person’s mind, when reaching back into the deepest consciousness, a thousand memories of the experiences of a life time are stored.  The brain – the world’s greatest hard drive – categorizes these memories and can cross reference them by date or time or place or people or emotions.  Say, for example, that I wanted to gather all of my great memories of the ocean.  I would retrieve a mental picture of a recent excursion with friends to Vero Beach, I would recall the boat ride to the Channel Islands with Son #2, I would think about the view of the Atlantic between Europe and North America from 30,000 feet, and I would reach all the way down to the bottom of the stack of memories and pull out my earliest recollection.

At less than two years of age, filed under both “beach” and “California,” the image of a moment exists in my mind when I try fervently to make sand fit into the shape of a plastic, yellow turtle mold about the size of a saucer.  For the life of me, every time I remove the turtle, the sand falls away from the mold and looks nothing like the shape in my hands.  In hindsight, I do not know if I feel frustration at the dry sand remaining faithful to its physical properties, or that an adult does not assist with the activity by adding water to my sculpting.  And so the pile of loose grains remains every time I lift the yellow plastic shell to my toddleresque dismay.  Perhaps my lack of success in creating the shape of the turtle in the sand explains my lack of excitement about the beach.  More likely this oldest memory resembles my fascination with the ocean, because whether two or twenty-two or forty-two, I try to wrap my head around how small I really am.

On A Clear Day