Published February 28th, 2010
Moments. All we know are moments. Sometimes we read something unreal, fiction that touches us. It perfectly captures a moment that resonates with us. All art is about moments. The artist, an emotional documenter, captures a singular moment in word, image, photograph or song. We think in moments. We remember in moments. Think back to a great day in your life. You don’t zone out for 8 hours. You instantly remember the emotion of singular moments, spliced together to tell a story. We perceive reality in an unbroken string of moments - but we live fantasy and remember the past in discrete snapshots of reality.
This is how art imitates life. Not profoundly, but basely. Art is about capturing meaningful moments. The beauty of a song is not measured by how you feel during the song - it is measured by the rise and fall of your heart and by the word “wow” as the last note falls away.
It would be arrogance for me to assume these words have captured a moment, hubris to even entertain the thought that I might have created a moment in you, the reader. And so it might fall silent in your memory, a lost moment, a non-moment. But this moment happened. It meant something to me, if no one else. And so I have become the documenter.
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Published January 31st, 2010
January 31, you have arrived yet again. Feels earlier every year. One of my goals this year was to write more. Sadly, I forgot that I have so, so little to say. So little to write about. But I wanted to get one post a month up here, so here is this one. And it’s not going to be a good one, it’s a cheat to write about how little I have to write about.
I kicked 2009 out the door and gave 2010 a sharp look in the eye and fair shake. So far, 2010 has settled in right where 2009 entrenched itself, firmly wedged up in my face. But 2009 did leave, and there’s signs of a looseness in that impacted socket. Work has moved from uncertain to stressful, annoying but making progress. I’ve managed to get a good, if rushed and incomplete, product out the door - well, figuratively speaking. But I’ve built the beginnings of the system they want, and it does the things it’s supposed to do. And given the time frame on it, that’s a bit of a miracle. My review comes up in 3 short weeks and I’m hoping for some good news, a new title especially. It’s time. I deserve something. I hope they agree.
Everything else? Pretty much the same. I am still on the slog of life that started about 7 months ago now. Still clawing my way out. Still recovering. I don’t think anyone could understand what 2009 did to me…I sure didn’t until only recently. How heavy the weight was of certain relationships. How much it was affecting me. But that’s ok, it’s my fault for not taking better care of myself. I simply wish things hadn’t gone the way they did. Getting over it has been difficult.
I’ve wanted to write something…maybe just for me…I have a *small* idea I’m trying to do something with, but it’s so loose and tenuous that I don’t know…it’s hard to even admit it. I’m afraid it will fly away. Afraid it will turn to dust if I even acknowledge it, like the simple moniker of “idea” will destroy it. I’ve thought about it some…sort of started on it a bit. It’s not right yet though. I hae thought about changing some decisions about it already. But I think it’s something I have to do, I think it’s something I’ll need to force myself to do. Even if it’s crap, even if it’s the worst thing ever committed to digital permanency, I have to do it, because I have to do something.
For far too long in my life I’ve relied on doing nothing when I feared failure and I really, really, really need to get over that. Stop being so safe. Even thinking and admitting that is hard though, because it only makes me regret many of my non-decisions in life even more. Playing it safe is fine, sometimes, but not all the time. I need to drill out the coward part of my brain and fill the void with that thought. And learn better, when in the crucial moment, to take the risk. To be active instead of passive. To avoid regrets of inaction. Because that only guarantees failure. I need to welcome failure on my terms so I can at least say I tried. I don’t think it hurts any less in some cases, but I believe - I have to believe - that it will work out better for me in the long run.
So that’s January. Not exactly a wasted month but still strikingly like the last few. Too much like the last few. With February comes the last of the crummy lonely holidays, or at least crummy when I’m lonely already. Just gotta get through that, get through my review and see what happens next for me. Maybe things will be better come March. And I hope that my February post(s) will not be as crummy as this January post.
Back to reality. Not that I ever left….
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Published December 31st, 2009
I can’t breathe. I’m sucking wind like crazy. Sweat is dripping down my face, I took off my hat to cool off more but that short, fleeting relief is in the past. I look up, ahead and up. The trail continues up, up, up, no leveling out in sight. I’ve got a heavy pack on my back. I’m nowhere near keeping up with anyone else. I’m last on the trail. One hiking buddy is holding back to make sure I make it. And it’s not going to be soon. I can’t see. Tunnel vision. I’m starving. I’m overheating. I have to stop. I’m too old to be doing this, and too young to be failing. This shouldn’t be this hard. It doesn’t seem to be for anyone else. My knees are screaming, my lungs are burning, my head is pounding and I’m in the middle of a trail on a steep hill in a forest miles from anything and nearly two miles up in the air.
I beg to stop. Fuck it, I stop. I stop. I need a break. I need to pretend for a few minutes that I don’t have to keep climbing this stupid hill. I tell my hiking partner I can’t see straight, I’m about to pass out. I get out a CLIF bar to eat. I get some water. This hill is kicking. My. Ass. A 10 year old and his father pass us. It’s not his fault. He doesn’t know any better. He doesn’t know how far up this hill still goes. He’s not carrying a heavy weight on his back. He’s not just turned 30 and climbing up a hill with no end in sight.
In the end I made it up the hill. I beat the kid and his dad by about 5 minutes too, so there. But, sitting there on the side of the trail, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it up the hill anytime soon. It took just about everything out of me. The only thing keeping me sane and hopeful was that we were on our way out, and I knew the trail leveled out for a long way after that. I can walk a long way on flat ground. But hills destroy me. That was September, backpacking in Sequoia. I didn’t enjoy the trip as much this year as I did 5 years ago when I went - and I didn’t really enjoy that trip all that much either. I think I’d rather do camping and less backpacking.
This year has really felt like climbing that hill. All year. This has been one of the most prolonged, stressful years I’ve had. No breaks. No leveling out. Always one thing after another. A terrifyingly wonderful and exciting but miserably broken and agonizing relationship for half the year. Job insecurity and uncertainty for most of the year - and given the economy, it really was scary. And just a complete slog for the back half of the year, both personally and professionally. With false signs and unfortunate detours. Much thanks to my close friends and my kickball mates for helping me hold on to some very tenuous threads of sanity. My goals for 2009 were to really grow myself. I have been trying hard all year. I have not succeeded to any level I consider “successful” - damn.
Everyone says I’m too hard on myself, and I agree. I just don’t know how else to be. I have serious problems accepting partial successes. I set my goals high, probably too high, and so everything I accomplish is short of the goal. But I don’t know any other way. And for some reason, I always feel like a partial success is akin to failure. Even though it’s not. I may have grown, I have grown, but I don’t seem to have much in the way of tangible success at this point. Maybe 2010 will provide that. But looking at where I am now as opposed to say, September of 2008 - hard to see much difference at a glance. And that feels a little like failure to me.
So 2009 has been a constant climb. I still don’t see the end in sight, so that makes 2010 a scary year upcoming. I can sorta see some signposts up ahead but I can’t read them yet. I don’t know if they’re saying “flat space ahead” or “caution, steeper grade coming”.
In the end I made it up the hill in the forest. I made it at my own pace, because that’s the only pace I could keep. I made it under my own power, and I felt a little humiliated and a little proud at the same time. I kinda feel that way every day though. I’m 30. I never thought 10 years ago that I’d be who I am today - and the differences both humiliate and excite me. But I have so, so far to go. I need to build on my partial successes and not only see them as partial failures.
I need to learn from some of my friends who impress and amaze me. I need to be more confident in myself and take more risks. I need to stop being afraid of failure - because I fail all the time anyway. I need to be more aggressive in my personal and professional life. I need to not be discouraged. And I need to be able to better control it all, and recognize that I can’t control everything I want. Which is paradoxical.
So. I can’t head downhill, that’s back into a trap and nothingness. I can only head up this steep, brutal, exhaustive hill. I don’t even know where I’m going, and that’s sort of a problem. I need to find some trail markers to follow. I need to be the person I want to be. I need to continue to grow in the direction I want to go even though I’m not sure what that means a lot of the time. Or how to accomplish anything at all.
So welcome a new year, a new decade. The aughts are gone, here come the teens. I don’t know if I’m up for this. I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to get where I want to go - but I’ll keep going, at my own pace, and I will try to find a level flat space at the top of this hill.
I just really hope it’s soon, because 2009 has been a bear.
Happy New Year, everyone. May 2010 bring you joy, wonder and riches beyond compare.
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Published November 3rd, 2009
Driving up Whitsett again. It’s only been 2 years or so…a year and half since we last spoke - but it seems much, much longer. So much has happened to me since. But I drive past her old apartment, the one I first saw her again after a year apart, the one I helped her move out of…and it all comes back. The exhilaration. Walking her dog up and down this street. The feelings. They are still strong and I miss her.
Yeah. I miss her. I loved her. I miss all the girls, the women now, I’ve loved. It hurts to have lost them. Does that mean I’m not over them? No. It should hurt. There was a vast goodness in them and I loved them for it. If I were able to discard those feelings, to ignore them, if that loss did not hurt - to me that means I probably didn’t love them. The loss of something important, something special, involves pain. For me, deep pain. And that’s OK. That proves to me it’s real. Proves it was real. I don’t want someone who loved me, who said they loved me, to forget about me that easily. Would you? I will miss the people I’ve loved forever. That to me is something about me that is a strength, not a weakness. And if they needed me somehow, even now - I’d be hard pressed to say no. Even if I’m not sure they’d do that for me. Again, that proves to me - it was real. For me.
I can’t speak for them - but I don’t have to, I don’t need to - it was real. For me.
So I drive on, there’s pain there, there’s hurt. There’s nostalgia. There’s wonderment. Someday I hope to find a love that sticks. That lasts. That endures regardless of differences. Maybe I’ve loved people who are flawed - but we’re all flawed. Maybe my flaw is that I couldn’t look past theirs. Maybe their flaws include not looking past mine. I continue to flail in the dark.
Turn the corner, head home, the same way I always have from Whitsett. Now, for different reasons. Tonight was a night of fun, of camaraderie,one of the few things I look forward to these days. It’s a dark night - they all are of late. But there’s two beacons of hope, two shinings in the darkness. One, my friends and the fun we had tonight. Two, the lost love that used to live on this street. One is current and I’m so glad I’ve found it. One is in the past, but that I hope to find again, elsewhere, one day.
These memories are mine. I will feel about them how I feel. It is my opinion that the hurt of the loss is actually a good thing. Don’t try to take it away from me - because I respect that person too much, and those feelings too much. They’re mine, OK? Mine. I don’t need them to be any different than they are.
Good night, everyone.
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Published October 24th, 2009
LE If you’re not failing some of the time, you’re playing it too safe.
Cephyn @LE my problem is failing almost of the time, since i play way, way too safe and never try at all. i break axioms.
JM @LE @cephyn hmm I have never been good at playing it safe. It bores the crap out of me.
LE Agreed. I’d rather be called reckless than boring. RT @JM @cephyn I have never been good at playing it safe. It bores the crap out of me
cephyn @LE @JM I admire and envy you both. cheers.
We were all standing up on a mountain…high up on a wall, staring down and across a deep valley. Thousands of vertical feet of open air lay before us and we could see as far as anyone could see. The distance was line after line of increasingly higher mountain peaks, the last being the Great Western Divide. Many of the highest peaks in the Lower 48 formed our horizon. Sitting up there, looking at the splendor of the world.
What do you do, when staring into a natural chasm? What does anyone do – what have humans done, as long as anyone can remember, when standing on a mountain peak above a valley? They yell. They wait. They listen. Then they hear themselves yelling back, echoing from thousands of feet away. Granite walls all around us, perfect echoing surfaces. So my friends whooped and hollered. They laughed and smiled in wonderment. When else will you have the opportunity to hear an echo from miles away? It is not an opportunity to be missed, right?
And yet, I stood silent. Like I so often do. Why? It made me uncomfortable. Nervous. Anxious. What if someone heard us? We’re in a National Park, that nature is here for us all to enjoy – what if we disturb someone else’s appreciation of nature? What if we ruin someone else’s trip because, in the middle of their solitary nature hike – they hear us yelling down from on high? What if, what if, what if, what if. What if. That’s all that I could think of. So I said nothing. I did nothing. I missed that opportunity.
And that was an opportunity I recognized. Usually I don’t recognize them until long after the critical moment has passed. And many, I’m positive, I never recognize at all. But I can’t prove that.
My friends did the right thing. They indulged. A minute or two of yelling into the ether from the top of the known world wasn’t going to hurt anyone. But it froze me. I freeze all the time, for fear of offending anyone with my actions. I’m worried about ruining their moment. Any moment. Even if I don’t know them – actually, especially if I don’t know them – I don’t want to be annoying or offensive. That fear, of ruining someone else’s day, of making them uncomfortable, paralyzes me.
It’s also an abject fear of being the center of attention. I want badly to blend in and melt away, almost all the time. Subconsciously, at least. I consciously wish I was a much more forceful, magnetic, comfortable and public personality. I admire those personalities. But I am betrayed by my own self-consciousness. To take a risk is to invite notice, to invite scrutiny. That is a scary prospect for me, it is another risk in itself.
But of course, that’s not all it is. I don’t take many risks in any other way either. I guess I’m just a fearful person, sadly. Most people who know me know I’m very reserved. And normally I’m ok with that. It’s who I am. But often – and increasingly so – I’m frustrated by the fact that I don’t choose to be this way, I simply am this way. Because of fear. Because something internal to me is always screaming not to take risks. I’m not sure why – it’s not fear of failure, because by not taking risks I know I fail a million times more frequently than if I did go out on a limb. But I can’t seem to very easily get over that fear.
Trying to fills me with great anxiety and that horrible sinking feeling. Every subconscious part of me fights me whenever I step out of my comfort zones. Strongly. I feel sick. I feel sleepy. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do, where to stand, how to sit, how to BE. I freeze. I panic. I have to leave.
But I do try, in frustratingly and excruciatingly small steps. One at a time. Often, past the moment, whether I actually did anything or not, I’m sweating bullets. I’m overloaded. I feel the need to hide. Just considering certain things puts me in a cold sweat. But I do try. I will continue to try. But it’s slow, and difficult, and hard to identify spontaneously when I’m backing away from something I shouldn’t. And hard to even know how to push myself, because I just don’t possess the tools.
I don’t take risks. I am afraid of risks. But I’m getting nowhere without them. I’m trying. I’m hoping it comes easier someday. Because right now – it’s one of the hardest things I do and when I fail at it (and I do, a lot) I disappoint myself beyond measure.
I do envy those that don’t play it safe. But I don’t know if they realize just how debilitating and terrifying it is for me. I wish I knew a better way to myself, a better way to just BE. I hope to figure it out someday…but for my sake, I hope it’s someday soon.
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Published September 1st, 2009
Sometimes there is just a perfect moment. I never even know it’s happening, I never realize it until the time has long since past, the memory faded away. I don’t ever consciously think of it - and then, something will bring it flooding back and it spurs a feeling of lost contentment so strong that it’s almost painful.
We had been moving her all day. Trip after trip after trip. All that existed in her new apartment was boxes and a mattress. We were so tired - exhausted. We’d been moving the day before too. We faced a choice, one hour before we had to go to her brother’s for dinner - do we make another trip? There was still enough to bring that it seemed like it was never going to get done, but not enough left to make it feel like there was no progress to be made. Or, do we nap. She begged for a nap and I didn’t argue. So we laid down in an empty room with just an hour of quiet to steal a nap. No sounds, from anywhere. Just a phone counting down the hour. It was late in the day and the sun was waning, slanting a bit of light through the window. And we fell fast asleep, on a bare mattress in a silent apartment.
When we awoke, we lay there, silent, having hardly moved - together and still. Not wanting to move. Not wanting to get up and lose the fleeting moment of rest. But we had to, so I got us up and going again.
One hour, most of it asleep, but one hour of perfection with someone I’ve since lost. I don’t know why that particular moment has stuck with me, lodged deep in my heart, now dredged up again by some random association….but it has, and I ache for that that lost feeling. Just that feeling of peace and contentment. I want to go there with someone again - even if I don’t know it at the time. I want to share a moment like that again. This is not the only perfect moment I’ve ever had, it’s just the one that came to me tonight unbidden, unrequested - but not unappreciated.
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Published August 6th, 2009
The Bill of Rights, contrary to popular belief, does not guarantee a trial by a “jury of your peers” - that stems more from a few lines in the Magna Carta (that actually don’t really even apply). The text of the 6th Amendment reads, ” In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law…” So really, your victim’s peers and not your peers. A little less friendly sounding now, eh?
But that’s our country, where we have a foundation of law stemming from England and its jury system. That isn’t so in other countries - even ones that have been heavily influenced by our country. Case in point - Japan. Japan has held its first jury trial since 1943. It’s pretty amazing that the US influence after the war didn’t insert right to a jury trial into the constitution, but upon heavier reflection it does make some sense. The guy in charge was an authoritarian military man. The Japanese have a traditionally hierarchical society - not one of “everyone’s equal” like we’re (nominally) used to. But times have changed, the system has become completely bogged down and so Japan - in its never ending quest for efficiency - is overhauling its trial system.
In the Japanese system, 3 judges and 6 citizens decide the fate of the defendant - both guilt and sentencing. All 9 are considered judges for the duration of the trial. It is an interesting system and I think it had great merits. But what can we say about the American system? That is a much thornier topic.
Assume for a moment that you are innocent of a crime, but are about to stand trial. Twelve citizens will decide your guilt. Their decision will be almost certainly be considered final. How comfortable are you knowing that most people don’t want to do that? That they want to be elsewhere, badly, have tried as hard as they could to get out of it and are being paid so little that they want to get it over with as soon as possible to go back to their real job? Does that instill confidence in you as a defendant? Also, what are you on trial for? What are the charges? The system is so complicated that we have lawyers - people who have studied years in school to reach this point - hired to navigate and defend or prosecute. The judge is almost certainly a lawyer as well, with even more schooling and experience. Do you trust 12 average (possibly below average as well as above average) individuals to be able to see through any slick lawyering? To understand the law as explained by biased parties?
Suddenly a fair trial gets scary. Why do we still have it this way? Jury selection has become a game in itself as both sides try to weed out anyone who might hurt their side. It’s considered a “fair” balance because both sides are working against each other…but neither side is fighting for “fair” - and that’s a little scary. Maybe we should consider reforming the US trial system too. Laws are so complex it’s hard to imagine getting a fair trial from a group of people with no special knowledge. I’ve heard that’s part of the beauty of the system, but I think that’s a glaring weakness. I’d rather have educated professionals deciding my fate, not a group who might get snookered by biased legal wrangling. I think we need professional jurors in this country, sooner rather than later. Would you trust your life and your future to 12 randomly chosen amateurs in ANY other setting? Ever?
I think Japan has reformed their system wrongly - though since they’re willing to tweak, maybe they’ll have professional jurors at some point. Time will tell. But it’s pretty cool to see a country actually reforming a system as basic as their trial system - that’s something we should learn from them.
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Published July 31st, 2009
It is a still, windless night - almost airless. I toss and turn, avoiding my back, wishing the air felt cold. But it does not. It has been dark for hours, but the sun has not yet set beyond my flesh. It burns like a tortured soul.
I take some pills. I was out today, having fun and neglecting my usual worries. I paid too little attention to little things and now I will pay in pain. In the coming days, the sun will exact its price, its pound of flesh from me. I worry, now, about the damage I have done. I am not so young anymore. If I were a pro athlete - just an average one - I’d be nearing the end of my productive life. But I am me and many days I feel like I have yet to actually start my productive life.
Sleep has not arrived here. It is too hot. I am too tired to deal with a wet towel. I can barely move. My heart now - once again - barely beats - smothered by my thoughts and my doubts and my fears. It lies dormant until my soul finds something, someone to nudge it back to life.
The sun is still beating on my back, hours after it has gone on to flare unto the other side of the world. I flounder and await my alarm clock to sound - too soon, too soon. I sit in the middle of the world now - the middle, but not the center, far from the center. I am at phantom crossroads, crossed by phantoms all around me. I need to follow them, one of them (any of them?), but I sit at the bus stop of my life, waiting, sleepless and scorched. I can only hope I will be an ember on the wind, soon. It seems I will not be doused, here, tonight - or quenched - or saved. I have a future. I just cannot see where to go right now. I hope it comes soon, I am tired, sleepy, hot and alone. Not alone. No. But just a little - off…
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Published July 20th, 2009
Today marks 40 years since the greatest engineering feat in all of humankind - putting man on the moon with the Apollo 11 mission. I mean no hyperbole - today’s cell phones are orders of magnitude more powerful than the computers used during the Apollo missions. They really did achieve something that could have been considered impossible at that time. But they made the impossible possible and did it. Six times no less. And saved one crew that was within a hair’s-breadth of being lost. This was done by solving a seemingly impossible problem.
For all this marvel and wonder, the sad fact remains that 1969 was the pinnacle of human exploration of space. We have not since surpassed the achievements of the Apollo program. We have explored no more than a small city park’s worth of the moon, close-up. We have not returned in over 30 years. While we have made great technological strides in robotic exploration and put some semi-long term structures in low-earth orbit, we have not actively explored much of anything since Apollo. And that is a failure.
Science and technology go hand-in-hand but are not the same. Apollo was mostly about applied technology, cutting-edge technology. That technology was meant to eventually facilitate science. But it did not happen that way. Since Apollo we have contracted our horizons. Soon they will contract even more. We do not currently possess even the technology to go back to the moon, in person. No heavy lifting rockets. No lunar modules. Our best bet, if for some reason we had to go back on short notice, would be to dig up any remaining engineers and blueprints from Apollo and try to replicate the designs. This is sad and pathetic. This is like having to fight a war today, but your only way of doing so would be to dig up plans for jet fighters from the Korean War. Or considering the plans for the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria as your best bets to cross the Atlantic. We have failed in our technological advancement in space exploration - and travel, for that matter.
Why is any of this important? People who aren’t particularly interested in science and technology often wonder about space exploration - whether it’s worth it. Apollo was just about rocks and flags - but it was supposed to be a starting point, not an end point. And you have to start somewhere. But more importantly is that humans are explorers - it’s what we do, it’s what we do best (besides fight, maybe). Every civilization that has ceased to explore has stagnated and choked on it’s own problems. Not immediately, but eventually. It is not just about political and economic isolation (things that don’t apply to space) but about societal isolation.
The 20th Century was the bloodiest in all of human history. The greatest technological triumphs were applied to both war and peace. The atom bomb and the Apollo program are pinnacles, their application is separate. We must learn that we cannot fight wars AND advance humanity. Fighting a war brings us all down. We must expand our horizons. The space shuttle program was a contraction of horizons. The ISS is a pathetic joke, it is seen as an end and not a stepping stone. Technology must be used to advance us, to further us, not to build dead ends. The longer we spend collapsing in ourselves, the heavier will be the weight of this rock being all there is and all we know.
Think about this next time someone trots out the line “we can put a man on the moon but we can’t do X” - because right now, we can’t put a man on the moon. We once did. But we can’t anymore. This would be like Columbus crossing the Atlantic but in 1532 no one having had followed him and Europe no longer having a single ship that could make the trek. We must explore or we will shrivel up and die. We must advance ourselves or we will end up consuming ourselves in the fires of our failed dreams and forgotten hopes.
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Published July 8th, 2009
July 4th weekend. Independence Day, for those of us in the USA. How many of us really think about that anymore? What it really means? I don’t know. Mostly we use it as an excuse to drink, grill, eat and blow stuff up. But then again - maybe that’s exerting our freedoms in a very visceral way. Maybe that’s close enough.
I’ve been going through some internally stressful times the past couple weeks. I needed an out, a release of this tension and had to get away from familiar, lazy things. I left town. I headed up the coast to Santa Barbara.
My weekend enjoyment was cut slightly short by me falling ill on Sunday night. Unfortunate. But that’s the way it goes with me sometimes. Once I was finally feeling OK I headed home, down the coast, down the 101. The traffic was thick heading out of Santa Barbara. Just a long trail of red lights on a thin ribbon of asphalt, a sinew of civilization, hanging on the edge of the continent. The moon was out and close to full. It reflected off the water in a way that I’m sure humans have marveled at for thousands of years. The only lights were from the cars, the moon and the oil rigs, clusters of jewels on the horizon in an otherwise black and forbidding ocean. Why is it that the moon looks silver? Moon rock and dust is remarkably dark…but from here it looks like silver or brushed metal. The light off the water is a streak of metallic white. The water was so calm this weekend I could almost make out the features of the moon in the water before the ripples muddled it all up.
I was in that water just the day before. The plan was to join in on a rafting trip of sorts - to float from one beach a few miles down the coast to another beach, haul the rafts up and bbq there. Of course there were beer rafts. I chose to express my independence by selecting a raft resembling a pirate ship. A kid’s toy, though as big as any single person pool raft. Most other people had opted for actual boats. A pool toy, in the ocean? Was this wise? Probably not. But I did it to be interesting. I fight off boredom with myself almost every day. I rebel against laxity and this trip was all about getting away from “me” for a few days too. By launch time, I was getting pretty nervous - not just because of my seemingly inadequate raft, but also because I harbor a deep fear of the ocean. I hadn’t been in the ocean in 25 years, even though I’m a perfectly competent swimmer and don’t fear swimming or water in any way.
What I fear is murky water, water I can’t see the bottom of. I fear the suffocating dark. I fear being dragged under or swept away and no one ever hearing from me again. I fear being forgotten, forever. The ocean is the perfect embodiment of those fears. Who knows what lurks in the murk… In that deep, black water, what monsters under the bed await? Is the water the monster itself?
A few of the fellow rafters - I only knew a couple participants - decided to lash (duct tape) my raft to others for added stability and safety. They didn’t trust the ship either, I guess. We headed out into the swell, into the breakers, heading for open, flat water to relax and drift away on. Once that water was up to my chest, the panic - oh, god, the panic - set in. I broke into a sweat. I started looking around for an out. Could I still bail and swim back? Where was everyone? Is everything floating? Am I floating? Oh god, I can’t touch the bottom anymore…that’s when it really set in. But I faced it. I stared it down. I shoved the panic deep inside me and told it I’d deal with it later. I just kept moving - I had to…if I stopped, I’d have surely broken for shore. I just kept going. Panicking all the while, wishing I’d never done this, wishing I wasn’t alone on my raft, wishing I’d had someone to go with me so I’d have bought a real 2 person raft. Not a pool toy. But that was not what happened - that’s not where I was. That wasn’t reality. I was ultimately stuck in this and I wasn’t going to quit, since I’d never have forgiven myself.
Why is that the swell looks so benign from shore, but when you’re in it, suddenly it looks like a mountain, 20 or 30 feet high, looming overhead? How is it that it makes you think you’re suddenly swimming uphill? We paddled, and kicked, and paddled. My raft’s configuration - lashed to others - was not real convenient for paddling. The beer rafts were too heavy to tow. Our lashed rafts too clunky to get out past the breakers. Paddles snapped. Rafts drifted back to shore. Other people, with better paddles and no towing responsibilities made it out onto flat water and drifted down the coast. The rest of us…we headed back to land, only a few hundred yards from our starting point. My raft would have made it, I’m convinced, but that was not my fate.
We sat, drinking our dead weight and enjoying the sun, waiting for rescue. I shivered. The sun was hot, the wind was cold, but really I was shivering away the panic and fear. Now I knew no one. They had no clue who I was. My friends had succeeded in reaching the main phase of the voyage. I relaxed on my pirate raft, now detached from the fleet and I tried to join in the fun as best I could. Who knows if they’ll remember me, or if I have since been drawn beneath the waves of their memories. I may not have made it down the coast, but I faced a deep, personal fear and beat it back as best I could. For that, I’m a little more independent. Until next time.
And that’s how I celebrated Independence Day. I relived it all, driving home on that slash of humanity, straddling the black rocks on the left and the liquid obsidian reflecting the moon on the right. I took a deep breath and remembered. I headed home, back to my everyday problems, my current worries and unpleasantries - but now with one less phobia. One less reason to panic in life. One more reason to believe I can win, once in a while. One more reason to smile.
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