On the Edge of a Continent
Somewhere else is noise. Somewhere else is fury. Somewhere else is overstimulation.
AN ISLAND, Southwestern Washington State, June, 2011 — Near a point in the distance, oystermen slowly ease their boat toward the bay, but not without trying to stretch their harvest just a little further, not without scouring that last tip of the shore. The scene comes and goes, just this, here, no rush of cars, no clanging and clatter, no looming deadlines.
This is gray and green and brown forever. It is my gray and green and brown. A thousand browns. A million grays. A billion greens. This is what we have.
My breath is still. Not self-controlled. Still.
Among contemplative people — like those sharing the arrival of summer with me — there comes a moment meant for vanishing, for finding one's own peace. A moment that tends to arrive without announcing itself. When it's time, you just feel it, the way you feel the water returning from the sea, caught in the moon's grasp. I watch the tide as some of my companions inspect rocks half a beach away. My back against a downed log, I turn my attention from the bay, observe them for a moment, then return my gaze to a distant shoreline.
Adrift in someone else's world, I settle into the quiet, into the drizzle, into the screech of the seagulls and into the wind, constant and near. All motion stops, except the tips of the narrow-leaved plantains quivering in the wind's caress.
Sometimes, I realize, I don't recognize the water's return and get caught off guard by quiet moments. Rather, sometimes I don't let go into such moments, even when I see them coming. Instead, in search of something that never really leaves, I seek connection, a distraction from the moments I perceive, at first, as empty.
But then I eventually recognize the water's approach. This world is mine. In it, the wind stretches from the water's surface, damp but warm. It coats me.
I breathe one gust in
The next I exhale.
A mid-day mix of coffee and chocolate brandy takes hold. I begin to absorb the weekend's pattern A slight ease descends. I wonder why this isn't more, why this isn't something, why I am just drizzling words aimlessly onto this sheet of paper.
I am not cataloging what I see. I am not naming each feature. I am not encapsulating the scenery. I am not boxing it up into little images that I'll furrow away on my computer, never to be shared. I am not capturing it.
I am simply watching.
I watch the estuary reach and grab. I watch it bring the ocean back to us. I watch it conceal the wet, wide expanse across which we'd scrambled a few hours earlier.1
This, just this, and only this, is the world.
I listen.
I hear only bugs and birds and the breeze.
Somewhere else is noise. Somewhere else is fury. Somewhere else is overstimulation.
Somewhere else is fear and lust and art and politics and business.
This, for now, just is. This is just the late of the spring and the early of the summer. This is just the slight squeak of a bird. This is just the sigh and the whisper of the wind.
Again.
This is just the wind.
Again and again.
The oystermen leave. Slowly.
One man lags behind, thorough in his attempt to grab each last bivalve. The water has risen so far that his companions are already aboard their boat while he wades, deliberately, attentively, harvesting his way toward them.
Whatever I've set aside doesn't rush, and I don't search for it.
I just look at my feet and the bay beyond.
This Week’s Souvenir
In late 1935, the LAPD, its allies in local media, and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce collaborated to declare an emergency in Los Angeles caused by the presence of “indigent alien transients.” This declaration would enable the launch of the LAPD’s armed shutdown of California’s state lines in February, 1936. Meanwhile, laws authorizing an early New Deal Program called the Federal Transient Service sunsetted and the FTS shut down soon thereafter. The shutdown prompted both the regressive response in Los Angeles and the launch by the California State Relief Administration of a months-long study of the conditions transients faced in the Golden State following the FTS closure.
This week’s souvenir comes from the report the CSRA released the following summer, which its author introduced by noting that “conditions affecting transients in California were found to be so deplorable that it was felt the Commission and Administrator should immediately be cognizant of them” and implored state officials to recognize that transients, migrants, and relief seekers in California faced emergency conditions only worsened by the aggressive police tactics ramping up at the beginning of 1936.
This Week’s Detours
Side roads I expect to take over the coming week include:
Reading They’re Going to Love You by Meg Howrey. This novel by a friend of mine came out in November. I started reading it during the holidays, whereupon my wife snatched it out from me and devoured it. I’m looking forward to finally digging in myself this week.
Playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the Nintendo Switch in “Master Mode.” If you’ve followed video games at all in the last five years you probably at least know about this Nintendo blockbuster. I recently started replaying it in its more challenging and have been surprised by how much of the sense of awe and discovery remains despite the embarrassing number of hours I pulled into my first playthrough. This time around I’m taking particular note of the sense of quiet and solitude that pervades the game despite the richness of its world.
Laying out Brio tracks. My kid’s recent entrance into that toddler phase of train fascination has bled into a love of this company’s (and competitors’) classic wooden train sets. It’s also, perhaps not so coincidentally, reignited my own fasicination (read obsession) with them. Here’s just a section of a layout I made while at my childhood home in December.
Finishing Season 3 of Babylon Berlin: This German drama, set in late 1920s and early 1930s Berlin, recently aired its 4th season finale (except here in the U.S., where viewers can on Netflix can only watch its first three seasons). I first discovered it because of my college-era love of Tom Tykwer’s Winter Sleepers, Run Lola Run and The Princess and the Warrior. We’re slowly making our way through what’s available. Despite some flaws that distract from the storytelling I’m still hooked. Also, I’m rarely one for musical interludes especially in works that aren’t explicitly musicals, but the climactic dance scene in the show’s second episode was one of the most transporting, riveting sequences I’ve watched in a long time.
What journeys — literal or figurative — are you taking this week? Let me know in the comments?
Thanks for reading! I look forward to seeing you along the scenic route.
-Bill
P.S. Expect some bumps and a twist or two for the first few weeks as I find my way, but I have some fun things planned for this publication.