Colors I'd Forgotten

The Alaskan sun doesn't burn, it blushes, and in the islands day skipped straight to night with no reference to dawn or dusk...

But this week I began to see value in the in-betweens. Sunsets. Autumns. These moments are not transitions, they are now.

An evening walk with Vista along the river

Nostalgia

Is what happens when you're happy and lonely at the same time...

Anti-Pitta

My cheeks are rosy again today- a feature lauded by victorian poets as romantic, delicate, impishly innocent in its likeness to childlike whimsy. I love these descriptions- but I know better today.

My cheeks are rosy as my head grows tight, my skin grows rough, begins to burn... and my Ayurvedic senses tell me (calmly as they are bound to do) and with compassion (as my Buddha nature is apt to be) to breathe in, breathe out, and return to an anti-pitta lifestyle.

Add sandalwood and sleep. Take cool showers- though refrain from hot bathing.
Take a month off from a few things... the delicious things that are apt to stoke the inner fire of my Miche-self... an inner fire stoked by my will, my brain, my fears, dreams, frustrations, and the serrano peppers littering my table.

Forget... for a short month or so
Chocolate and coffee
Vinegar and lime
Forgo garlic, onions- favor ginger instead.
Tomatoes, spinach, alcohols do little to smooth the roughness of the disposition or the fire on the skin... don't eat them. Ever again.

More cucumbers, dandelion shoots, cilantro, burdock root.
Less cheese, no peppers, no chilis, no salt, no white sugar.

More fruit.
Less seasoning.

Kitchari daily. Miso only in dire need... when umami strikes unavoidably.

Calm the mind by calming the body. More forward bends.

Breathe in. Breath out. Cool down.

"The opposite of dread"

Dread:
The feeling in your stomach that is all consuming when something is encroaching that you simply cannot bear to do, eat, watch, experience, or lose. The feeling that, if empowered enough, prevents humanity from fulfilling its dreams, falling in love, facing our fears, painting masterpieces, or going to graduate school. The obsession that sits in the pit of your stomach when you know that you must confront someone about something they’ve done… that you’ve just found out about. The same heavy stomach that comes with confessing great atrocities, and small ones. The feeling that permeates dreams when we fear the death of the people we love, or ourselves. The sound of a whining dog at 4am who you did not take to the bathroom knowing full well it is raining outside. ‘Gut-wrenching’ by definition. In many cases (my own included) the inability to eat or drink due to the total incapacitating-ness of the impending fearful future.

The opposite of dread:
The feeling of delicious confident anticipation. The positive reinforcement that an individual needs (and often imaginatively creates) to perpetuate actions like- sending love notes, opening Christmas presents, falling in love, cooking great meals, (or in some cases, growing great food, or in my case hours spent grocery shopping in preparation for cooking the perfect meal). The emotional embodiment of umami. The warm feeling that swells up in ones chest when they catch a glimpse of someone they may one day, but can not yet, wrap their arms around. The small positive reinforcements that so outweigh the feeling of dread that we cannot help but wait for them, hope for them, dream about them, invent them, and relish them, even when in reality the instance that is inspiring the moment is miniscule. Delicious delicious waiting. Staring at unopened letters. The idea of what the letter will say (though not what is actually does say, which is never enough to encompass the feeling of what it might say).

The opposite of dread: the space between texts messages
The opposite of dread: getting ready for the date
The opposite of dread: two people and the same full moon
The opposite of dread: the promise of a vacation
The opposite of dread: an imaginary puppy
The opposite of dread: almost falling in love

It is the opposite of dread that inspires us to move forward to the things and spaces and relationships that are the object of our creativity- the same creativity that makes up “the opposite of dread.” It is felt with the same intensity as heartbreak. (In fact one may call it the opposite of heartbreak… though that implies the feeling of being in love- which though close is not the opposite of dread. Indeed it is more like the feeling of falling in love, rather than being in it). It is enjoying the pure unadulterated potential of it all.

A good window

A good window may not aid in inputting all of this data. It does not help me to focus to watch the snow turn to rain turn to snow. Like a cat, or a bird, or my own sweet Vista, I look out and imagine the green grass on the either side of the glass.

And yet... something it helps. I wouldn't leave it and haven't left it all day.
Save of course for the moment or two (or forty-seven) when I ventured out to the other side to see if the wind howled louder in my imagination or in the real life out there. Real life usually wins in these situations and I assure you it won today with howling snowsleetrain.

Now I am back behind the glass. Watching water poke holes in the white ground so the earth can stare back at me. I am surrounded by living plants that could not survive without a good window to protect them from the cold harsh Alaska. Living plants that could not survive without a good window to let in the scant light from the cold harsh Alaska.

I am nose deep in whale tails that may or may not still be in the cold clearing waters just past the trees. I'm told if you stand outside at night you can hear them breathing from the porch. But I have on soft slippers and they get wet if I stand outside so I trust the boys who heard it themselves keeping company breath for breath with the whales. Each exhaling visible breath into the air- only one is steam the other smoke.

There is even a light underneath this window. Giving me reason to stay past here past the 3 p.m. sunsets that might otherwise herd me toward the warmth of my bed. After all, Vista's in bed. She's been there all day (save of course the 47 minute interlude mentioned above- where she ran and ran. Though you wouldn't know it from looking at her that any energy lurks within the pile of blankets she hides under). So here I sit.

Rough Draft... thoughts on the future

Everybody wants to work with whales. To look into their grapefruit sized eyes and see something of eternity in them, a relationship between man and nature proving the existence of inter-species communication. And even though I count myself one of the masses who wants this, who looks at the open ocean with the same sense of adventure that the naive boys bound to the enslavement of industrial whaling did- I find the whole thing a bit nauseating.

It is hard to hear the words "I want to work with whales" without somehow- consciously or sub-consciously- envisioning the marketing genius who spearheaded the "Save the Whales" campaign and giving her a good hard pat on the back.

Despite this I stand proudly before you and say straight faced and sober- I want to work with whales. I have spent the past four years as a Marine Naturalist observing the intricate behavior of humpback whales in Southeast Alaskan waters. It has been both my privilege and my job to interpret this behavior and find a way to make sense of it for the ten thousand cruise ship passengers who make their way to our waters annually because secretly they want to work with whales too.

There's more. I don't just want to watch whales. If I did I would continue to be a Marine Naturalist. I want to actively participate in understanding the behavior of these animals and link that to human activities modern and historic. That is why I am applying to your program. My background in anthropology, in the arts, and as a lifelong public speaker, push me into the realm of social science. My unabashed passion for the natural world as well as my work experience marine sciences pushes me toward the biological sciences. The delicate line balancing between the two fields is Environmental Science.

My research goals include examining the migration patterns of humpback whales and determining, through both biological analysis and ethnographic study, how human technology changes the migration patterns and social behaviors of humpback whales. I prefer to work with the Northern Pacific Humpback population and to study the history of industrial whaling in both Hawaiian and Alaskan waters. Additionally I think a valuable to study of Alaska and Hawaiian native people's relationship with humpback whales would provide insight into the historical changes of Humpback whale migration. This ethnographic information will provide insight into patterns of behavior in humpback whales....

The weddng story

The sun broke the waters edge evenly and in lavender. It was subtle enough that they didn't notice the shift from the cloudy sedges of the milky way turning into the crisp edges of 4:30 dawn and the sleepy five, sweatshirted and toddied hardly knew the night was over as they ended their conversation on infinity and impermanence. The moment was made all the more ironic by the presence of a lobster fisherman just out of sight behind the islands culling in the shellfish with a cynical thought about the wedding the animals would be sacrificed too and how intensely the two in love had scoured the waterline for sight of the midnight boat. They were water people in the company of responsible charmers and the night party made a joyous ruckus to the stars in celebration of the upcoming ceremony. They jeered the couple on knowing that the anticipation of the event would far outweigh the exactly six and one half minutes that it would consume.

In the house with butterflies for bellies the parents restlessly and joyously watched the lavender turn to periwinkle to pink and they prepared to rise just as the vagabonds laid their heads down for sleep... It was a happy meeting unfortunately avoided by moments when the paths did not quite cross in the stairwell of the old Maine house. When wisdom woke and enthusiasm slept and one energy eeked into the other... as is meant for in weddings of this type.

This morning

Driving to work this morning felt like moving from life into art. As if the road itself grew smeared with the weight of it's own oil paint... and the clouds hanging low over the water and glancing coyly up to the mountains above them were the breath of water colors and imagination. Just for a moment she wakes up- this great something- to sigh gently with kindness and reminds me that it is no crime to have faith in something... even when I have yet to begin to imagine what that something is. The sky so long absent from the reality of this winter stretches her legs and yawns as if she has not been hiding maliciously these months, but merely napping through the lesser part of a harsh wet winter. And I, like all indulgent women, remind myself only in retrospect that I am not being punished as I want to believe, this is no martyrdom, it is simply life on a scale much grander than my own. My frustrations lies in my inability to raise my own awareness to the level of that sleepy monster, that coy compassion, which is the sky, the mountains, the glaciers, and the water. The art I drove into this morning when I momentarily forgot the importance of my life.

It is here that I skip ahead.

It is here that I skip ahead. I want to tell you of how the boy’s eyes grew when he saw his first whale thrashing about the waves. I want to tell you how suspicion rose aboard the ship as men left ranks to join the sea and the ambitious young cabin boy began to climb the shipboard ladder. I want to tell you of the ruddy faced young man who wooed the daughter of a ship builder in Bristol only to have her locked inside the tallest lighthouse on the Irish coast, waiting for her fair man to return. But each of these moments, incidents, has a history in its own right- belittered with nuance and detail- so that I have not enough time to address them all with the mystery and grief they are owe. Instead we will skip ahead to our crew, living underneath our sullied captain, with neither sight of civilized land, nor proper water to drink, nor a kind hand to fall upon, for the better part of eighteen months.

You'll see now how it is helpful to know something of whaling. Signing on with a captain required little skill, rather it required the foolery of a man in debt, a love for turgid waters, or a suicidal commitment to money. Each sailor signing on with Captain McKay read the clause-it was the only reason for the contract- stating that without consultation, without hesitation, and under no burden to increase ration wages or intent, a whaling ship captain may extend the duration of the voyage, indefinitely in six month increments. His only bound duty was to pay the men a share of whatever was caught in those six months. If the catch was low, so was the compensation. It sat low on the contract of every man boarding a whale bound vessel, hidden in the legal jargon and grazed through by those who could read. Few captains exercised the right if the catch was moderate, and nearly none if the catch was high. So sailors had little to fear in terms of slave labor, and much to gain if the takes were low. McKay’s ship always took high, the men never assumed another six months at sea. They were tired men, moving forward on the promise of riches and soft women. McKay denied them that.

He was a young man, even a boy, when ill-fate stumbled him onto the water.

He was a young man, even a boy, when ill-fate stumbled him onto the water. His mother dead and his father a stranger, the lad had no family to gather care for or from. All he knew of his past was a love-sick mother and a father’s affair with the torrents of a great ocean. All he knew of his future was the grime of the streets he was left with in her death. That he survived the plague ridden gutters of his youth with neither alcoholism nor the clap speaks well enough for his strength of character, and at the age of sixteen- as best any records from that time might show- he signed on as a cabin boy with his sights set on the water and what might remain of his family.

Or that’s how one version of the story goes. This story, after all, may or may not be true.

Some say that he wasn’t orphaned at all, that even as a child he was obsessed with the vastness of the ocean. The ocean in his child’s eyes was God’s Magnum Opus. Perfection carved by the liquid hand of the divine. Any man seeking to test his might and worth in the eyes of God must at least once set out upon the open sea- to meet Him face-to-face. His childlike piety grew from endearing to obsessive and where his well-to-do parents had encouraged religion in the boy, his watery version of a malevolent God did not fit with the daily goings on of a protestant household. When they sought to placate the boy with weekends at the sea shore disaster ensued. Nights better spent in bed the not-yet-captain would be found rowing a dory toward the eddies and waves. Father and mother screaming from the waterline would watch the pale face of young McKay begging for God to challenge his devotion. When one such night the boy failed to return to shore his parents were overwhelmed with both the intensity of grief and the guilt of relief. Perhaps it was not their right after all to keep the child from reaching his divinity. When they were informed some years later that their disobedient son had signed with a merchant ship as a cabin boy they let their memory of him fade away, and concentrated instead on the docile girl they had given birth to in his absence.

But that’s just another version of the story. Whether searching for his father or searching for eternity one thing remains true. He lost faith in the power of both God and man when he first set eyes on the Great Whale.