by D. J. Green | Feb 5, 2018 | Finding the Words
I stole glances at the sunset over my left shoulder as I drove north, from work toward home. Clouds swept the western horizon, spreading the orange glow of the sinking sun. Broad brushstrokes of color painted the sky.
Turning onto the rural lane I live on, I pulled over, the tableau now laid out before me. I had to stop. I climbed out of the car, zipping my jacket against the early evening chill, and gazed to the west.
“Wow,” I whispered.
I reached back into the car for my iPhone. Snapping photos, I missed precious moments of the shifting sunset’s fire. Then I remembered to simply witness – to let the beauty of those moments paint a picture in my memory.
The long, low profile of Mt. Taylor volcano, more than sixty miles distant, was silhouetted against the bands of dusky rose on the horizon. I shivered as the pinks deepened to purples then indigo, as much from the sight as the cold. After watching the lights of Bernalillo and Corrales flicker on below and the stars begin to twinkle above, I got into my car and drove the remaining minutes home, to the warm welcome of my partner and pups.
That night, and in the days that followed, the idea of painting a picture with words, rather than submitting to the impulse to grab for my phone, percolated.
It’s what I hope I’ve accomplished in my novel – that I’ve created a world with words – a landscape vibrant with sunrises and sunsets, along with cinder-block houses, a bustling office, rattling cars, and a sky-blue Cessna. Have my brushstrokes made that world vivid enough for you to want to explore it? Have I populated that world with characters you’ll see and hear and feel? Characters you’ll want to know, though they only “live” on the pages you’re turning?
That’s one of the challenges of writing – to create with mere words, black and white on the page, the picture of your brilliant or battered childhood red wagon, the spicy scent of your grandfather’s aftershave, the icy sweetness of a wintergreen Lifesaver, the burbling of a mountain creek in winter, or the silky softness of your puppy’s ears – to pique your senses, to evoke your emotions, to paint a picture with words.
.
I stepped away from posting here for a while, to finish what I hope will be the last major revision of my first novel, which I did just days ago.
by D. J. Green | Dec 13, 2017 | Venus & Mars Go Sailing
In my last post, I reflected on moments in nature that felt transcendent to me. I listed many of them, but one, though very much in my mind and heart, I did not, could not, write about. Until now. It’s been a long time coming.
Decades ago, for not-quite three years, I was married to a man who, among his many talents, was a pilot. He owned a much-loved ’53 Cessna 180 and in it we flew to our small weekend getaway, to see his mother in Arizona several times each year from our home in east-central Texas, to geology field trips, down to the Gulf coast where we plane-camped and he fished, and to the New Mexico mountains on the occasional ski weekend.
One late summer day in 1997, flying east, back home from Arizona, while just south of the Guadalupe Mountains of west Texas, in the distance we saw two thunderstorms building. I assumed we would divert around them. But, no, he said, we’d hold our course and scoot right between them. As we approached the darkening storms, the sun and the rain converged in such a way that rainbows formed – one arching above and one swooping below – from the thunderheads on either side. Flying into the heart of the perfect circle made by those rainbows was a deeply transcendent moment in nature.
I have no picture. But in my mind, I hold the picture of those moments – flying into the ring – moments that have come to define my time with the brilliant and adventurous man who was my husband. I can see his blue eyes sparkling, his mischievous smile as turbulence began to jounce us along. And despite the fact that my hands, sweaty with fear, gripped the edge of my seat, and I fought waves of airsickness, I will never forget the gift of flying into that ring, both that particular moment and every moment, even the painful ones, of our marriage.
You might think that I’ve come to idealize this man that I adored, and it’s tempting to do so. But I believe I honor him, and our love, much more by remembering the whole of him. He wasn’t perfect, and in fact, he struggled mightily, particularly with alcoholism. Though he wasn’t in denial of that struggle, privately, he never revealed it publicly. And I feel sure, if he was here now, he would be less than pleased that I’m writing these words and putting them out in the world, perhaps for his friends and colleagues to see. But being with him made me more courageous than I was before, and it’s important to say these words, because alcoholic was not the only person he was. He was an engineering geologist who had worked all over the world, a leader in his profession, a mentor to many young geologists, a professor at Texas A&M University, an avid student of science and history, a lover of music, a photographer, a sailor, a pilot, a son, a father, a grandfather, a friend – and my husband.
Though, in years, he was quite a bit older, in spirit, he moved through, and over, the world with a youthful wonder, curiosity, and boldness that changed the way I have moved through the world myself ever since.
Just a few short months after flying home that day, he perished on a November night, beside his plane, in the Texas hill country. He flew that night, despite the potential for icing conditions, because his students were waiting for him for a weekend field trip. They could have waited. But he did not. I doubt he even considered it.
And so began the most difficult journey of my life – a month-long search for him, and then a years-long passage through grief.
Now, decades past, I hold the joy of being with him closer than the pain of his loss. I look at the sky this clear New Mexico morning, see the startling blue of his eyes, and feel him with me. I know, in my cells, that love does not die, though the beloved does. And I am most grateful for flying into the ring.
On this day, twenty years ago, Norman Ross Tilford’s body and his plane, were found by a hunter deep in the Texas hill country.
To the family, friends, colleagues, and Civil Air Patrol pilots who searched for him with me – you will always have my heartfelt thanks.
by D. J. Green | Nov 28, 2017 | Ground Work
Totality – it’s the word used to describe the one minute and fifty-four seconds during which I witnessed the moon completely covering the sun on August 21, 2017, as a total solar eclipse swept across North America.
I would also call it transcendence.
I hope those 114 seconds, and the many minutes before and after as the moon moved across the sun and then moved on, will live in my memory as long as I do.
Totality – a time like sunrise or sunset, but on the entire 360 degrees of horizon, not just in the east or west. A time when the birds went silent. A brief, hushed, stunning interval to behold the sun’s corona high in the sky. And then when those seconds ticked away, and the sun flashed its ‘diamond ring’ as the moon continued on its path, the birds burst into wild song, a chorus that went on and on as if they too were celebrating the transcendence of the moment.
I find most of my moments of transcendence in nature – the eclipse, for one. But so many more – like dark starry nights in the wide open west, finding 300 million year old marine fossils on a mountaintop while hiking, being awash in the icy rapids of the Colorado River deep in the Grand Canyon, thunder rumbling down the canyon while a distant storm puts on a light show like no other, placing the palms of my hands on each side of a slot canyon carved in tuff deposited by a volcanic eruption more than a million years ago, moving with the wind on the fair Kagán, watching bear cubs shake apples from a tree to their mama on a nearby shore, bioluminescence sparkling off my oars as I row the dinghy at night, and always when I see dolphins or porpoises or whales, or even hear their breathy blows in the distance.
I’ve been lucky to attend transcendent moments in nature both on my own and in the company of those I love. On my own, I savor the feeling of my smallness, both in space and time, in the passing scene of this magnificent planet. And with others, I delight in the shared experience, and the shared appreciation of that experience.
Those moments outside make me strong inside. And then I go inside….
These days, when I go back inside – I pick up my phone and call my congresswoman and senators, I sign petition after petition, and I volunteer time with and write checks to organizations that will help keep our wild places wild and accessible, not only to me, but to those who may not have had transcendent moments in nature yet. And in doing so, I hope I will help others have precious moments to carry in their hearts and memories.
In this season, when we pause to reflect on what we’re thankful for, I hope you will go outside – gaze upon the waxing moon as it rises, hold the splendor of an autumn-crimson maple leaf, or pick up a rock and feel the Earth’s long history in the palm of your hand – and embrace the transcendence, the totality.
by D. J. Green | Nov 6, 2017 | Ground Work
Two granodiorite cobbles sit on my desk. This shouldn’t surprise you, seems my desk has almost as many rocks as papers on it. These cobbles are similar in size and shape and rock type. Each is spheroidal, shaped on the shores of British Columbia in an area where granodiorite is a common rock type in the coastal mountain ranges.
Rebecca Spit, Quadra Island, British Columbia with the coastal mountains on the horizon.
Granodiorite is an intrusive igneous rock, somewhat similar to granite, though it contains more plagioclase feldspar (which is off-white) than orthoclase feldspar (which tends to pink). It’s also composed of quartz, and darker minerals like biotite (black mica) and hornblende (an amphibolite mineral with elongated black crystals). It most often looks like a speckled, salt-and-pepper rock, as its predominant minerals are black and white. It’s hard, as rocks go, and these cobbles have endured thousands of tides rolling in and out, sculpting them.
But they’re different from each other. One, like most of the cobbles along this rocky shore, is smooth, its crystal faces polished off. The other, though perfect in shape, is rough to the touch. Its crystals haven’t been planed off, and their angular faces catch the light. I found it in a sheltered tide pool, and imagine it gently rocked to and fro, shaped by the ocean, but not honed.
There’s something exquisite about its roughness, the texture intrigues. It makes me think about the time and the forces that shape us – rocks and people – and it reminds me that rough can be beautiful too.
What shaped you?
by D. J. Green | Sep 17, 2017 | Venus & Mars Go Sailing
To skipper a boat is to take on a role that’s well defined. To skipper – to command, to be in charge of, to run, and to lead. But to command or be in charge of what? Certainly not the wind and the sea.
Adjusting the sail to the wind.
It is to command the boat, and her crew. It means that the decisions to be made are the skipper’s. Decisions as small as heaving to for a lunch break during a daysail and as big as taking the boat across an ocean. Most of the decisions are somewhere in between on that sliding scale of importance – to go or not to go on any given day (given the conditions), when to replace the battery bank (assuming they haven’t simply gone dead), how much sail to put up (given the conditions and the forecast and the experience level of the crew), to go through a tide gate a little early or to wait (given a reading of the water), when to change the raw water impeller (assuming it hasn’t failed), and how much anchor rode to deploy (given the depth of the anchorage, the wind, the forecast, and how many other boats are there and how close they are).
The day is filled with one decision after another, just like all our days are, but intensified.
These decisions can mean the difference between dragging anchor or not, the engine running or not, the crew getting seasick or not, and even, in the extreme, life and death. Being in command doesn’t mean not listening to others’ input, but it does mean that the final decision is the skipper’s. Period. To skipper is to be responsible – for the safety of the ship, and more importantly, her crew.
Plumbing project below decks.
I was first mate for eight years, with a skipper who was an excellent sailor and had studied Kagán’s systems until he could fix the plumbing standing on his head (which, if you have a boat you know, is often a necessity in the small spaces the systems are crammed into, but that’s another story…). I admit that as I gained experience there were times I questioned my skipper’s judgement, sometimes silently and sometimes not. My late partner, Jerry, despite being an accomplished skipper, sometimes seemed indecisive to me. And I didn’t understand why. I had complete confidence in him and I wondered why he didn’t.
I UNDERSTAND NOW.
Most days the consequences of a skipper’s decisions aren’t big. But not all days are most days. Big things can, and do, go wrong, even on small boats. What looks like indecision may be the skipper waiting for one more piece of information that will make her feel sure about, or at least more confident, in whatever decision is at hand.
Last sailing season, I made a series of decisions, and mistakes, leaving a dock in heavy wind. It resulted in an injury to my first mate. It’s too close, the mental images too vivid, to write about (I will just say that, thankfully, my injured crew has recovered). In a way that I never did before, I now understand the consequences of my decisions. The decision to slip the dock lines that day, because there was a check-out time at the marina, despite boats having been moved into positions that made Kagán’s departure precarious, was my first mistake. I have played the scene over and over in my mind.
I’ve tried to learn that day’s lessons (which are many) and let go of blaming myself (which lingers).
In some posts, I’ve eschewed metaphorical leaps, but here I won’t. The leap from commanding Kagán to commanding my life. Decisions must be made – to not make a decision is to make a decision, because something will happen either way. I’d rather take command, make my decisions, and undoubtably my mistakes, in life, as I have on Kagán. I choose to live with those consequences, and to learn the lessons.
Living one of those lessons today, as I’m posting this while we sit out a Southeaster. We’ll head north to Desolation Sound after it blows through.
WHAT DECISIONS, OR MISTAKES, HAVE BEEN YOUR GREATEST TEACHERS?
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