by D. J. Green | Feb 22, 2017 | Ground Work
Cathy on the trail with the inner gorge in the lower background
Sometimes I don’t hold the rock, it holds me. Some rocks don’t get stuffed into a pocket, then put on a shelf. Sometimes I nestle into a nook where I fit as well as a rock might fit in my hand, and make a memory to hold. Last October, backpacking into the inner gorge of the Grand Canyon (where the myriad rocks are oh-so-tempting, but I only take pictures and only leave footprints) was one of those times.
I went with my friend, Cathy. She yearned to experience the canyon, a place she’s described as her inner landscape, though she’d never seen it except in photographs before. To witness her eyes widening at her first look over the rim into and across the canyon, was one of the best views (and that’s saying something) of the trip for me. Then we swung our 35+ pound packs of gear and food and water on and began the descent. We shared 5 amazing days of hiking, exploring, discovering, and being. She even let me go on and on about the geology, from the scale of a bit of mica to the deposition of the formations into which the canyon is carved.
Cathy finds a bit of biotite mica
After settling into camp on the fourth day, I scrambled up a wall of Vishnu Schist and Zoroaster Granite. The rocks of the Vishnu Formation, predominantly mica schists, are the oldest in the Grand Canyon. Approximately 2 billion years ago, 25,000 feet of sediments were deposited and volcanics extruded onto the ancient sea floor. During an orogeny, a mountain-building episode, 1.7 billion years ago, those rocks were folded, faulted, and uplifted (metamorphosed), and intruded by the Zoroaster Formation, predominantly granite (also subsequently metamorphosed to form granite gneiss). The resulting mountain range is believed to have been 5-6 miles high. Over the next 500 million years, the mountains were eroded until only their roots remained, and today, the roots of those mountains form the steep walls of the inner gorge.
Geologist learn to think in terms of hundreds of millions of years, thousands of feet of sediment being deposited, and mountains being uplifted by miles pretty casually. But understanding the processes that shape the earth makes them no less awesome, perhaps even more so, and that last evening in the canyon, I mused on the rocks’ age and beauty from a big-enough-just-for-me ledge.
The next morning at dawn, Cathy and I began our hike out, 7 steep miles from the river to the rim on the South Kaibab Trail. We climbed through 2 billion years of geologic time and a place of such splendor and complexity that I will never know it all, no matter how often I explore it. And maybe that’s the point, I can never know it all. But I can always learn, wonder, and wander, and almost always find the perfect rock to hold me for a while.
.
Tell me, what sparks your wonder?
by D. J. Green | Feb 3, 2017 | Venus & Mars Go Sailing
Kagán is a bluewater cruiser, a stout and seaworthy sailboat. If we, her crew, are prepared and courageous enough, she can take us around the world. The sailing instructor who gave me the know-how and instilled me with the confidence to singlehand Kagán when I took the helm as skipper, spoke about boats like Kagán as magic carpets. And she ought to know, she sailed hers around the world twice!
.
Deb fixing the anchor light
The lure of that magic has sailed through my mind and heart for years. Not that I’ve romanticized what full-time sailing would be like, though it is tempting to do so I’ve fixed too many leaky hoses, changed too many joker valves (part of the head assembly, yuck), spent too many hours waxing and polishing, and changed the bulb in the anchor light (which happens to be at the top of the mast) too many times to do that. But the self-sufficiency an ocean crossing would require, the courage it would demand, and the awe it would inspire intrigues me. Just imagine standing watch on a clear night when the moon is new and no light pollution from horizon to horizon – only the stars in the sky and the bioluminescence in your wake. Sailors often use terms that invoke flights of fancy – we fly spinnakers in light airs and we sail wing-on-wing on downwind runs.
Kagán sailing wing-on-wing south of Dodd Narrows
But these days, the flight of fancy that crosses my mind most is steering a heading toward a destination that hasn’t lost its moral compass, and concerning myself with trade winds not trade wars. Casting off the dock lines for a faraway port would leave me too busy to follow the news on a minute-by-minute basis, even if technology could keep me connected. Instead I’d be setting sails and standing watches and fixing what breaks (because Kagán, as stout as she is, is a complex piece of equipment afloat in a corrosive medium whose motion is ceaseless and powerful).
.
But here on land, there are values and people and landscapes I hold dear. So my decision, at least for now, is to stay grounded and try to fix what feels broken here, knowing there’s a magic carpet I can climb onto and sail away someday if I choose.
by D. J. Green | Jan 16, 2017 | Ground Work
Waking before dawn with today’s to-do’s scrolling through my mind, I felt choked up just brewing a cup of tea – compile tax info, update Dad’s expenses, call the accountant, brush the dog, vacuum up the dog hair, do the laundry, work a closing shift at the bookstore, and oh yes, how’s the re-write of that novel I’ve been working on for years going….
I drank my tea, trying to swallow the anxiety spawned by the news and to-do’s along with it. Then Sandy and I headed out for our walk. He led me up the trail at sunrise, his fur ruffling in the chill breeze, his too-small-for-his-body ears bouncing with each step. A flock of Mountain Bluebirds, wintering in the junipers, took to the sky as we passed, the incredible color of their feathers flashing.
The Sandia Mountains tower 5,000 feet above our mile-high home, and we walk in their shadow. The banded uppermost layer is 300 million-year-old Madera Limestone, deposited in an ancient sea where crinoids and brachiopods and bryozoans flourished (creatures that still inhabit our oceans today, though in different forms). But the range is dominated by the Sandia Granite, a 1.4 billion-year-old formation (yes, billion!). Its reddish pink orthoclase feldspar crystals make the mountains glow, gold shading to deep pink, as the sun angle lowers late in the day, giving the range its nickname – the Watermelon Mountains.
The views – of a billion years of time and thousands of feet of displacement on the faults that form the Rio Grande Valley – remind me to lighten up; my whole lifetime is less than a snap of the fingers in the story of this landscape. My ashes will one day be scattered in the arroyo beside my house, and I will be carried to the river and beyond. My adobe house will melt back into the earth, leaving hardly a trace for whoever or whatever inhabits this space down the track of geologic time.
Politics won’t matter. Money won’t matter. The stuff by which we define success, or failure, won’t matter. I don’t have to take life, and myself, so seriously. I’m free to explore and take chances. I can stand up for what matters to me, without thinking that one way or the other it’s the end of the world. Geologic time proves to me it won’t be.
When I remember to live like that, in addition to having the courage to try, whether I succeed or fail, there’s also space to savor the finger snaps of my own lifetime – a walk with my beloved dog, making tracks in fresh snow, Sirius sparkling in a black velvet sky, Wynton Marsalis playing Where or When, a hawk soaring overhead, reading Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese, and the glint of a mountain moonrise. In those moments, my heart fills with gratitude – it feels physical, like my heart is actually swelling in my chest. Have you ever felt it?
I can’t imagine it being expressed any better than Oliver Sacks did in one of his last essays, My Own Life, “Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”
by D. J. Green | Dec 20, 2016 | Venus & Mars Go Sailing
I feel like I’m going in three directions at once these busy holiday days, all at 75 miles per hour. It got me thinking about life on the boat, where 6 knots (that’s almost 7 mph) under sail feels fun and fast.
On an early July day last summer, Eric, his son John, and I were sailing south in Plumper Sound in the Southern Gulf Islands of British Columbia. We were on a beat, sailing upwind, making slow forward progress by tacking back and forth down the channel. In about 10 knots of wind, we moved along at 3 to 4 knots of boat speed. For context, 1 knot = 1.15 miles per hour. Boat speed is also called speed over water (which means that’s how fast the boat is moving through the water, not counting the current either pushing you along toward your destination or flowing against you keeping you from getting to your destination). Speed over ground, which is a way of saying how fast you’re getting from Point A to Point B, is the boat speed plus or minus (depending on which way the current is going) the speed of the current itself. That’s an oversimplification, but I hope you get the idea.
That day we wanted to sail (not motor) even if the wind was light, so we’d planned to haul anchor at a time in the tide cycle when we’d have the current with us, helping us along. Easing down Plumper Sound our speed over ground was 1 to 2 knots faster than our speed over water. Our plan for the day’s sail from Winter Cove to Bedwell Harbour was going well.
Kagán under sail
As we turned to starboard, to the southwest, into Boundary Pass, the wind eased. It was already pretty easy, then it dropped to 6 knots or less. We slowed. More. Boat speed fell to less than 2 knots. I’ve heard “under 3, turn the key” many times. The “3” meaning 3 knots and “turn the key” meaning furl your sails, turn your engine on, and motor to wherever you’re going. This applies to coastal cruising, which is what we do, not crossing oceans, which is another story altogether.
We considered motoring on to our marine park destination for an afternoon hike. But the quiet was so sweet, the sails were still full, and the current was still with us, so we kept ghosting along through the glassy water.
Then we heard it, pffft. I swung my head around. Where had the sound come from? Pffft. Again. And again. Harbour Porpoises! The smallest of the porpoises. Shy, unlike the more gregarious species that also frequent these waters, like Pacific White-Sided Dolphins who will swim right up to your boat and ride bow waves. Usually these graceful creatures don’t come this close to the boat. But usually we don’t go this slow, move this silently.
There were six of them – two off our port side, two swimming along with us in the tiny wake behind our dinghy, and two ahead.
I always thought they were deep black in color, as I’d only seen their silhouettes in the distance. But that day, I saw their skin is dappled and shaded, like the brindled coat of a dog, from brown to gray to black. Nuanced and beautiful.
And as I always seem to do when I see porpoises or dolphins or whales, near or far, I danced around the cockpit, I clapped my hands, I clasped them over my heart – delighted and reverent. I didn’t notice whether Eric and John joined in the thrill or thought I was crazy. It didn’t really matter.
Eventually, their blows grew fainter on the dying breeze, their sleek backs arched in and out of the water farther and farther from us. Becalmed, we furled our sails and motored on to the anchorage.
But what a gift we’d received – our slow passage a form of patience – an invitation to Kagán and her crew to ride the barely-there breeze escorted by a pod of porpoises. Recalling that feeling reminds me to tap into patience and go slow, even for a brief moment in a busy day.
by D. J. Green | Jun 10, 2016 | Ground Work
…to accept what is.
My old dog, Sandy, is almost thirteen. We walk together nearly every day on the trails at the base of the Sandia Mountains for which he is named. These days his walk can wobble. When a jackrabbit crosses his path, he speeds up to a teetering trot, still on the chase. In those moments, I think of his younger days when he could almost catch the racing rabbits, his strides long and fluid and so, so fast. But he doesn’t turn to me and lament the bygone days. He seems to love every minute of every walk we take. He doesn’t fret over his evermore frequent stumbles along the path. He just rights himself and goes on. And his joy makes me joyful. Such important lessons this wise, furry teacher has for me – take pleasure in every walk, savor every meal like it was the best I ever tasted, and lean into every sweet caress from someone who loves me.
Deb’s Parents
My father suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s a long, slow journey that he and our family have taken for years, with him progressively getting farther from us. My mother struggled hard against it, against the reality of losing the man she’d spent almost 60 years with, even though his body was still present. She was angry. All the time. Until she found out she was terminally ill. When that news hit her, she looked up at me from her hospital bed and said, “This won’t be so hard on Daddy, will it? He won’t really know.” And just like that, the anger that had consumed her for years, flowed away. She accepted what was, even embraced it, both his reality and hers. Weeks later, she died at peace.
I knew a couple, married long and loved each other deeply, but lived largely separate lives under the same roof. There was an unspoken, mutual agreement not to talk about the disappointments in their past, the barriers to closeness in their present. Until they found out she was terminally ill. Though it was a time of great physical pain for her and emotional pain for him, they opened their hearts to each other in a way they had not been willing to risk before. The last years of her life were a time of richness in their relationship. She died at peace, and some years later, he did too.
But do we have to wait to know our days are numbered before we accept what is? After all, our days are numbered. We just don’t know what that number is. I’m going to try to live my life more like Sandy. Not wait.
What are you waiting for?
Recent Comments