by D. J. Green | Aug 6, 2019 | Venus & Mars Go Sailing
A workboat motors east along the base of Estero Peak, a 5,500-foot high mountain with a spectacular rockfall on its upper face that rises from the north shore of Cordero Channel. With AIS (shipborne “automatic identification system”), an electronic system that all commercial vessels must have and pleasure craft can have (and we do), I see it on Kagán’s chartplotter and recognize its name as a fuel barge that supplies the residents, marinas, and elite fishing lodges in these remote and beautiful waters. It’s darn big, at least compared to our 36-foot, 10-inch long sailboat, but looking at it, even through binoculars, it appears to be quite small. Without binoculars, it’s barely a speck in the distance.
The scale of the mountains that preside over the channels and inlets we are making our way in is imposing. I feel humbled, and very small.
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Kagán, the magic carpet we ride to these places, must appear as a mere mote to those who might spy us in their binoculars. Yet she’s a mote with all we need – a complete home, a home that could take us around the world. It’s all a matter of scale.
Scale is a concept I relate to as a geologist as well – there are geologic processes that create analogous forms from the microscopic to the majestic, like travertine terraces, if only we take the time to look. That is one of the benefits of summering on a sailboat, we go slow enough to take that time.
I am feeling small here, on the lone boat in a large anchorage. I ponder and write, sitting in Kagán’s cockpit with the late afternoon sun lighting the distant mountains and clouds. Then a tug and tow drifts into view, heading south in Nodales Channel. It’s another big one, but not to my eyes from here, nor can my ears catch the thrum of its engine. So big and so loud, but so small and so quiet.
by D. J. Green | May 3, 2019 | Ground Work
My life as a professional geologist began the week before I turned 24, since then I’ve spent a significant portion of the last 35 years in the air, traveling for work and play. Whether in a two-seat tail-dragger or a 747, I always choose a window seat (yes, I know it’s not a choice in a two-seater, but you get my drift). On a recent outing, a Jahns Lecture visit to the University of Alaska’s Anchorage and Fairbanks campuses, I was thrilled by the truly breathtaking views of Denali (the High One in Athabaskan) while flying north. On the way home, another clear day provided equally amazing views of the mountains of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, and the glaciers that carve them. To see the peaks and valleys, glaciers, and meandering and braided streams of Alaska’s dramatic landscape from an eagle-eye vantage point brings to mind things I’ve learned from the time my dad identified the rocks I picked up as a kid to my Geo 101 class as a college freshman to the lessons I’m still learning in the field today.
Perhaps the only thing better would be piloting the plane myself during those moments, choosing where to dip my wings and ride the winds. That is what engineering geologist, Will Ross, Inundation’s main character, relishes most. Read on to get a taste of what Will savors in those moments.
Turbulence jounced the plane and jolted Will’s attention back to the cockpit. He gripped the yoke and rode through the bumps. Leaving the wide floodplain of the Delaware River, he steered toward the peaks of the Poconos, the landscape rising beneath him. When he got to the Susquehanna River, he followed its green ribbon west-southwest. At the confluence of the North and West Branches of the Susquehanna, he left the river behind and headed for the heart of the Valley and Ridge.
Ridges of resistant rocks, sandstones, conglomerates, and limestones yielded to valleys underlain by soft shales, then climbed again on the harder rocks of the next ridge. The rock units spanned the land surface in parallel bands. Except where anticlines and synclines, geologic structures like the crests and troughs of ocean waves, angled into or out of the subsurface, there the units formed striking chevron patterns. To the right reader’s eye, those patterns told the story of Earth’s processes through the ages.
In Turkey, Will would read the story in the rocks. And in that story, he would find the answers they needed to make Kayakale Dam work.
Will looped among the lofty cumulus clouds. He leaned into turns and rolls, feeling the physics of flying in his muscles. His internal gyroscope engaged. Then he pulled into a stall. The stomach-dropping sensation of losing lift tested him. He stayed with it, fighting any hints of fear that rose in his throat. Satisfied he was under control, he pushed her nose down, gave her more throttle, and resumed his private air show by plummeting through another cloud break.
His neck relaxed and his jaw unclenched as he moved with the forces acting on the plane. Never against them. That’s what you do, he decided. Move with the forces acting on you.
Peering out the window to see the sights, yes, but it’s much more than that. Reading the landscape, and the story it has to tell, can change my whole outlook. It’s about perspective. Preparing the Jahns Lectures and gazing out the many airplane windows on my way to them, made me contemplate the work I’ve done over the decades as a professional geologist. It also helps me in moving ahead – reflecting on the horizon of my Jahns Lectureship, then looking forward to my second career as a writer (the Geologist Writer, of course) for which I’ve been laying a foundation for years as a student of the Earth, of the craft of writing, and of life.
In search of perspective? My answer is to book a window seat. Indeed, not doing so would be moving against the forces acting on me.
Window or Aisle? Literal or metaphorical? What’s your view? Why?
by D. J. Green | Mar 2, 2019 | Ground Work
Don’t Forget the Earplugs:
The man seated in 19F must be lonely. Hard to believe with the six kids he just told the passenger next to him (19E, it’s a full flight) he has. If he’s not lonely, how could he be so desperate to talk? And talk and talk and talk (and this comes from a bit of a talker, mind you).
We’ve been in the air an hour and 20 minutes, and 19F hasn’t stopped for breath. I’m annoyed, as the chatter is way too loud to fade to background noise, but also awed at this man’s seeming lack of need for oxygen.
Thankfully, there’s a tailwind, and we’ll be off this plane 30 minutes earlier than anticipated.
Note to self – Don’t leave home without earplugs ever again.
Always Book a Window Seat:
That’s the title of one of my Jahns Lectures, and what I always do. But this year, instead of simply enjoying the views of the landscape below, I find myself trying to take pictures too (something I do not always do). It’s not possible, at least for this very amateur photographer, to get great photos from an airplane window (though it must be amusing for my fellow passengers to watch the gyrations I’ll go through trying). I should, as they say, just “sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight,” and the views.
Reprise of the Recovering Perfectionist:
I woke up at 3:20 a.m. a few nights ago. Then I spent an hour thinking about ways to revise the PowerPoints for my Jahns Lectures. Cool ideas, that would take me hours (I’m not great at working in PowerPoint). Hours over the many I’ve already put into composing and tweaking the talks.
Would these changes make the talks better? Yes, I think they would. Enough to invest the time? No, I think not.
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Besides, would it be for the students I’m speaking with, or to satisfy this perfectionist who still, apparently, has not quite recovered. Perhaps focusing on authentic communication with and genuine caring for my listeners is the best way to spend my time and energy. Hmmm, food for thought.
And speaking of food…
Step Away from the Cookie:
I love cookies. Especially chewy chocolate chip cookies. You know, the kind you can really taste the butter in. With dark chocolate chips, of course.
Unfortunately, each of those cookies contains as many calories as I can consume in a whole day without having to purchase a new, larger-sized wardrobe.
Seems like every Jahns Lecture visit is accompanied by a platter of these delights. Or hot, melty pizza. Sigh.
I admit the occasional vegetable tray and fruit plate have been offered, but they’re somehow rendered invisible when placed next to the aforementioned sweet and savory temptations.
So, I must step away from the cookie. Well, most of them…after all, nobody’s perfect.
Thanks to all who are helping to make my year as the Richard H. Jahns Lecturer in Applied Geology a fulfilling experience and great adventure. Coming soon to a college or university near you!
by D. J. Green | Dec 14, 2018 | Ground Work
This post is related to the last one I wrote, more than two months ago now. It was about procrastination. Sure, I’ve been busy. Who isn’t? It went something like this: Finding the Words? I’ll Look for Them Later…. And that was about it.
If I go looking for the perfect words, then I might as well put it off. Indefinitely. I’ll never find them. I will also never be in perfect shape. Kagán is not a perfectly shiny boat. I do not have a tidily perfect library to write in. Most days, I don’t even come close to crossing everything off my list of things to do, which in a perfect world I would. Every day.
Perfection is unattainable. Pursuing it, I’ll fail every time. Procrastination is a reasonable response to seeking it; why push for ultimate failure? The problem is that not only do things not get done perfectly, they don’t get done at all. I know all this intellectually. But clearing the hurdle I set up for myself, in order to pursue excellence rather than perfection, well, that’s another matter.
I’ve been this way as long as I can remember being any way at all. I was the goodie-two-shoes of my family from the time I stepped into my first pair of shoes. And I wore out pair after pair chasing perfection; as a kid, to please my parents, which I did (so I was amply rewarded for the chase). And as an adult, to please myself. Except I’m never pleased enough. And this chase is awfully tiring.
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When I reflect on this in a deep way, I must admit that the perfectionist part of me thinks completely unreasonable things. Like I could have kept my sweet old dog, Sandy, from dying last month if I’d been a better dog mom. Even though Sandy lived well over 15 years, overcoming laryngeal paralysis, thriving because of how well cared for and loved he was. He was happily, if wobbily, walking in the desert with me just days before his system shut down and he passed peacefully at home. Can I really think that wasn’t good enough? Can I not simply be grateful for how long and healthy and happy his life was?
Here’s one that’s even harder to admit, front and center in my heart, mind, and memory these days. Twenty-one years ago yesterday, my late husband’s plane, with his body beside it, was found in the Texas hill country after a month-long search. For years, I struggled, not only with the depth of my loss, but with a belief that if I’d somehow been a better wife that he would not have died in that accident.
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Not only do those thoughts not make sense (the convoluted logic being if I was perfect, I’d be completely in control, not only of myself, but of others and every situation), frankly, they’re absurd, and incredibly egotistical.
So, I continue to steer myself away from the dead-end path of perfectionism. My step for today – to post this essay, though it is far from perfect (for one thing, there are way too many adverbs in it). But maybe, just maybe, letting go of trying to be in control of it all, whether it’s the right word choice or comma placement, or letting those I love live, and die, as they must, will be exactly what I need to live into and learn from today. And every day.
What are your hardest lessons?
by D. J. Green | Oct 2, 2018 | Finding the Words
I was going to write a post about procrastination today, but I decided to put it off.
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