SCARS OF SUMMER – The Perfect Beauty of Decay

We’re so accustomed, aren’t we, to equating beauty with symmetry, with youth…with perfection. I’m as guilty as anyone, I guess. But isn’t autumn the most persuasive invitation to revisit that bias?

Couldn’t we learn to see the fallen petals, the droops, curls, crimps and ragged seed heads not as flaws, but words in a poem about the patina of character?  

I want to see those blemishes as emblems of the joy each bloom has lent the eye, the food and nectar they’ve served up, the progeny borne, the artists inspired.

And, after all, as a lesson offered us older, equally-imperfect human beings on the meaning, the true value, of a life well lived?

"Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light." ~ THEODORE ROETHKE

A GUEST IN NATURE'S HOUSE

It’s my first day this still-young spring/summer out in my canoe on the lovely
St. Croix River.

I love hitting the water on weekdays like this when fewer people are out here. Today, I’ve seen fewer than a dozen, most in quiet canoes and kayaks. Much of the time, there’s no one in sight—in fact, no sign this couldn’t be a mid-May day a century or two ago.

How liberating it is, how celebratory of life’s sweet privilege, flipping my trusty old Mansfield down to the water, stepping in and paddling away. I think I feel more comfortable, more competent, handling this little wooden canoe in the water than
I do walking on dry land. That’s how much at home I feel here.
 

Clumps of grass and other flotsam drape like Spanish moss from trees overhanging the bank. The highest of them bring to mind the image of waters, perhaps just a month ago, swirling six feet over my head. But today’s water level is perfect—low enough to expose a few small sand beaches and bars; high enough to afford access to shallow backwaters.

Today’s cast of characters out here is pretty much the same as when I plied these waters as a boy: great blue herons, bald eagles, beavers, muskrats, turtles, clams and scores of other critters seen and unseen. I wonder how many are direct descendants, perhaps eight or more generations removed, of the very beings I communed with back then.

PIKE SURGERY
All afternoon I’m buffeted by gusty southerly winds. Even against the current they nudge me upstream with ease. (Heading back again will be a different story.) The wind makes fishing a challenge; I’m barely able to get in one cast at some targets before being blown out of range. At this rate, I could probably just let my line out and troll without paddling a stroke.

Just the second cast of my Mepps buck-tail spinner fools a forearm-sized northern pike.
A nuisance really, but I can’t just horse it in on my ultralight spinning gear. If smallmouth bass are the grab-and-run foxes of the game- fish world, pike are the ravenous wolves. This one, like most, has engulfed my lure, which sits deep in its mouth, past rows of needle-
sharp teeth.
I’ve developed something like a surgical protocol for this clash point between my love of this sport and my empathy for the fish. Jaw clamp, mouth spreader and forceps working in tandem, I reach in and jiggle free the hooks. If that takes more than a minute or so, I perform the closest thing I know to pike CPR, moving the fish back and forth in the water to force water through its gills. I hold it till it swims away—the more angrily, the better.

               It both pleases and concerns me
               that the beaver’s not alarmed.

APPROACH / AVOIDANCE
Heading into my favorite meandering slough, I escape much of the wind. As I coax my canoe around the first bend I’m aware of a presence. Twenty yards to my left, a young beaver lumbers unbothered down the bank and into its element. I anticipate the instinctual tail slap and dive.

Instead, the wet, furry lump swims toward me and then weaves side to side among felled branches, eyeing, at what seems little more than arms' length, what he must take as one strange vertical creature astride some kind of huge green turtle. It both pleases and concerns me that he’s not alarmed.

Muskrats, too, glide along the shore, some with mouthfuls of soft green grass to feather their nests. They take little interest in me. Mosquitoes, however, do. Even in broad daylight, even with a decent breeze, they’re out. I can handle a few, but this doesn’t bode well for my tender skin come dusk.

THE CANARY LIVES
Working the rocky shoreline with well-placed casts, I hook up with several more voracious pike. I’m beginning to see this as another in a string of signs I’ve noticed over the past few years that the cold streams and springs feeding this river may no longer be up to the task of keeping it a cool-water habitat.

Like the growing numbers of large-mouth bass and sunfish I’ve been catching recently. These are warm-water species, ones one associates with weedy, bathwater lakes, not clear, free-flowing rivers.

But then I tie into a dapper, foot-long smallie, with those distinctive dark rays emanating back from its reddish eye…and then another…and another—this last one a real test for my four-pound-test monofilament. I’m encouraged, for I fear the disappearance of these handsome fish could signal the end of the St. Croix as I’ve always known it.

I’m spotting lots of waterfowl today: Canada geese and several strains of ducks. I try not to look threatening, but the geese posture and scold me anyway as I glide past, Then I notice the trains of little flaxen feather balls traipsing behind each pair. I hope they’ll be safe tonight as hungry coyotes prowl.

    Soon there are five voices—each distinct 
    in tone and cadence—wrapping me in their 
    haunting refrain.

A CHORUS IN THE SANCTUARY
As sure as gravity, the hours have pulled the sun down into the treetops, and I begin wending my way slowly back the way I came.

Dusk’s gradual descent has sapped the wind. I picture the air as a liquid, slowing, cooling, settling in pools throughout the woods around me. Now every sound is caught and amplified in its thick stillness.

The rhythmic anthem of a barred owl stirs that fertile air to my left. I do my best to answer, and another owl joins the chorus from my right. I continue my feeble imitation and soon there are five voices—each slightly different in tone and cadence—wrapping me in their haunting refrain.

PHOTO: OwlEnchantment.com

I have—albeit rarely—heard loons on the St. Croix, but they’re not typical of the soundscape here. These owls, though, with their characteristic eight-note lament, come pretty close in their chilling, exotic effect.

On that sublime note, I’m ready to head back up to the Franconia landing and home. Now, with the cooling air concentrating the heat and carbon dioxide I exude, the mozzies have caught a whiff and are on me in force. I’ve not seem them this thick—or this big—for years. Before running the gauntlet, I break out my new Repel lemon-eucalyptus repellent.

I’m anxious to see how this botanical formula compares with the more controversial DEET-based repellents I’ve used. Sure enough, the pleasant-smelling stuff manages to keep the little buggers off, but just barely. Still, they swarm around me, hovering barely an inch from my skin. It’s all I can do not to inhale them. I wonder how other animals, without the benefit of chemicals or hands, cope with this version of death by a thousand cuts.

As I approach that last bend before river’s main channel, there’s Mr. Beaver again, atop a log perch. This time, he barely looks up from his green-willow supper. I extend my silent thanks—and, I hope, a blessing—to him and the other gentle beings I’ve met today. After all, this is their house, and I’ve been merely their guest.

I hope it’s not presumptuous to say I’ll be back.

THE PRICE OF PARADISE

I sit in my dimly-lit hillside villa, overlooking Zihuatanejo Bay. A thin sprinkling of lights suggests the water's outline, the black void itself punctuated by just a row of swaying white anchor lights atop the masts of sailboats moored just off the beach. Beyond them, nothing but the Pacific some 8,000 miles to New Zealand.

Our living room has only three walls; the fourth, seaside, was never built, never needed in this mild-to-hot, two-season climate. Instead, a planter of pink bougainvillea spans the room, integrated with the formed-concrete structure as if it had all come out of the same mold.

So the delicious Pacific air, calmed from this afternoon's rambunctiousness, wafts in, as does the agreeable sound of live Santana covers from the beach down the hill and two blocks away. Still, every twelve or thirteen seconds the surf, like some insistent old lady, tries to hush the band.

   Occasionally, a sound makes me stop what 
   I'm doing and reminds me that this is Mexico.

CHARROS AND CHACHALACAS
Our end of Zihuatanejo—the La Ropa neighborhood—is usually pretty quiet. Its only arterial road passes the front entrance of our little cluster of rented villas, but traffic noise just kind of blends into the soundtrack of life—birds, people chatting, some construction activity down the street, and, always, the surf.

Occasionally, though, a sound makes me stop what I'm doing and reminds me that this is Mexico: ranchero music blaring out of some guy's truck; the hypnotically simple flute melody advertising the itinerant knife-sharpener with his foot-powered grinding wheel; and, just this morning, the commanding squawk of a few onomatopoeically-named chachalacas, a nearly pheasant-sized bird we're hearing in our part of town for the first time this year.

Sometimes, it's smells: the haze of wood smoke from brush fires in the surrounding countryside; the fresh, clean scent of the cleaning solution they mop our floors with every day; the floury, flowery aroma of fresh tortillas.

As I write, no fewer than five geckos cling to my white stucco ceiling, waiting for the unsuspecting bug to fly in. (Last year, we witnessed the epic stalk, strike and swallow when one took down a moth nearly half its size.) Now four of them are exchanging words in the corner of the kitchen. They sound like birds—raspy-voiced ones like grackles.

SHADES OF SERENITY
I'm tired. Sally and I walk the couple of miles into town every day—and back. There are a few long ups and downs along the way, as well as a couple where a similar ascent is concentrated into a much shorter run. Sometimes, we do the walk twice.

And the sun is powerful and pervasive. Even if you're not standing in its full, straight-down blast—the kind Richard Dreyfus experienced at that railroad crossing in Close Encounters—you feel it circumventing the shade of your visor, radiating up off the ground and every other surface all around you. We know now why many Mexicans still honor the tradition of the siesta.

While those who know better nap, we walk. We've learned the fine art of pacing ourselves, taking just a few blocks at a time and then resting a few minutes. We've discovered the choicest spots of shade along the route—several of them doubly blessed with not just shade but zephyrs of bay breeze captured and concentrated by favorably-oriented building walls.

It's not just this soft, moist air; this whole place is delicious. I've written many times about the colors, comparing them with rich, savory, spicy food. The pace of life is unhurried, not just for the locals, who know there's no point in stressing out over things generally beyond their control, but for us visitors, who relish their example.

I dream of gabbing away with a Mexican family in a real, unmitigated conversation over dinner or a game of Conquian or dominó.

TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT
There's always a sense of adventure here in "Zihua," at least for those of us for whom the locals' everyday experiences seem exotic. The constant presence of the sea. Taking a local bus and pasajero down the coast to La Barra de Potosí or Petatlan. The drama of everyone—from workers to street dogs to huge, prehistoric-looking iguanas—plying always-evolving strategies to compete for scant resources.

There's also the sheer presence of creatures that, simply because we're not used to them, can scare the living bejesus out of you. Last night as I turned back the covers from my side of the bed, I spotted something dark and leggy between the corner of the mattress and formed-concrete bed platform. On closer inspection, it turned out to be one of the biggest spiders I've ever seen—though not a tarantula, it was nearly three inches across.

I'm ashamed that I didn't figure out a way to accommodate the poor thing—like I have so many times, like with bats at home, a scorpion felt inside my pants leg in Texas and cigar-sized cockroaches in Costa Rica. I just couldn't abide the thought of this thing—whose intentions I had no way of knowing—having to scurry just twelve inches to explore my face.

TALKING THE TALK
Part of the adventure, for me, is finding situations in which it's sink or swim with my Spanish. For nearly a decade I've made this beautiful, melodic tongue my second language (actually, third, if you count German, whose hard, guttural sounds have never resonated with my romantic soul). I'm getting pretty good at it, and jump on every chance I get to practice my craft.

The other day, I attended a traditional lamb barbacoa with some fellow guests and friends and family of our host here in Zihuatanejo. I hope I wasn't rude to the non-Spanish-speakers, but I was just irresistibly drawn to the end of the table where all the Spanish speakers were sitting.

When I started learning Spanish about a decade ago, my very first objective was simply to be able to chat amiably with a cab driver about his life, his family and the fortunes of the local futbol or beisbol club. Now that goal has been far surpassed, and I dream of gabbing away with a Mexican family in a real, unmitigated conversation over dinner or a game of Conquian or dominó.

     I find myself unable to decide which is the 
     problem: that things are way more complex 
     than I'll ever know…or way more simple.

A HARDSCRABBLE LIFE
The people here are wonderful. Sure, we've met the occasional surly cab driver or waiter, but the vast majority of our interactions with Zihuatanejenses have been warm and engaging. In so many Spanish-speaking places we've gone, folks assume we're careless tourists who don't really give a rip about their lives and culture.

But here in Zihua., people seem quicker to take you as you are. It doesn't take them long to recognize my considerable investment in learning their language and getting to know a bit about Mexican geography and culture. They seem to really appreciate that. (Of course, I have to be sensitive to the flip side of the culture thing, which is that many Mexicans are eager and proud to show off their increasing grasp of English and of US culture.)

I don't know how Mexicans ever got the reputation, as they did in my parents' generation, of being lazy (This must have arisen in an era in which all "foreigners"—as if there were ever anyone else coming to settle in the US—were seen as challengers to every previous immigrant's slice of the pie.) The folks around here are some of the hardest-working we've ever seen—and often for the least reward.

     Most of us seasonal visitors wouldn't trade 
     places with these folks if it were the last thing 
     we did, yet, still, we envy them.

In the tourist industry, the inequities seem all the more poignant. Given the vicissitudes of seasonal demand and misconceptions about the omnipresence of narco violence, flu outbreaks and other perceived threats, the waiters and taxi drivers and maids and fishing boat captains and tour guides—I could go on—have, somehow, to fund a constant cost of living with a widely variable income.

We feel like we should somehow compensate them for this, while at the same time understanding that too much generosity can reinforce the rich-gringo stereotype and financially impact others who also have to live her year-round. This is just one of many examples of how, despite our growing sense of ownership of this place, we have to remember that we will never understand how things—the economy, politics, machismo and many others—really work around here.

I often find myself unable to decide which is the problem: that things are way more complex than I'll ever know…or way more simple.

HAVING IT BOTH WAYS
I sometimes wonder how these hard-working citizens can seem so complacent in the face of inequities, poor infrastructure and widespread governmental corruption. Still, there's a profound strength about this community. We see it in big brothers and little brothers, daughters and grandmothers walking hand in hand; the colorful waste baskets and "Save Our Bay" signs along the beachside promenade, made by school children; in the large turnout every Sunday night for cultural events at La Cancha, Zihuatanejo's version of the ubiquitous zocalo; in what seems a universal pride in being Zihuatanejenses.

Most of us seasonal visitors wouldn't trade places with these folks if it were the last thing we did, yet, still, we envy them. If only we could have both our privilege and freedoms, and their unshakable values.

I guess this is why I so treasure my connections with Mexico and Mexicans. I can pretend to be that close to the real demands of a life totally committed to family, friendship and faith, without really having to pay the price.

The only thing I have to pay is money…and, I'd like to think, attention.

PATHS OF WONDER – Can You Get There From Here?

I wonder… Could there be two words more central to human evolution? From the days of our primitive ancestors, it was this simple instinct that set man on his path toward eventual dominion—for good or for ill—over all other creatures and over many of the earth’s other, inanimate assets.

How curious that the verb “to wonder,” is so different in meaning from the noun, “wonder.” To wonder about something is nothing like experiencing wonder. If wondering feeds the mind, wonder feeds the soul. Wondering involves curiosity; wonder is, somehow, about knowing. Wondering is linear; wonder transcends any dimension.

This humility not only makes us better citizens of the world, it puts us in touch with our Creator. 

The one thing that does tie wondering to wonder is that often you can’t get to wonder without first wondering. And that investment, for me, has never failed to pay off.

In Nature’s realm, the curiosity's just the down payment on the real prize. If we're lucky enough to notice something that takes us to a state of wonder, that, in turn, inspires gratitude and reminds us what a small place we occupy in the unfathomable expanse of space and time. This humility not only makes us better citizens of the world, it puts us in touch with our Creator.

SOME REFUSE THE GIFT

Animals of other species are born with some degree of curiosity, but none, as far as we know, has the capacity to imagine or experience wonder. They simply learn from their parents what’s worked for previous generations; they emulate their peers; they learn from trial and error (provided they survive the error); and they follow certain hard-wired instincts. (Think of a cat’s chase response, a cephalopod’s ink cloud defense or a human mother’s letdown of milk when she hears her baby cry).

We human beings, though we still retain some instinctive responses of our own, are blessed with the singular capacity to choose how—or whether—to think about something. We alone can imagine something that doesn’t yet exist, and then create it. We can also decide whether or not to welcome wonder when we have the chance.

Spurning the gift of wonder…deprives you of something you need every bit as much as you do the rewards of more material pursuits.

Sadly, there are people with every opportunity to know wonder who choose other priorities. You know the people I’m talking about; they’re the ones who allow
themselves to be defined by the making and spending of money, power or some other currency. They're convinced there’s no truth beyond their own little spheres of interest, so focused on their concept of “the prize” that they fail to notice the beautiful landscape along the way.

I’m not saying that spurning the gift of wonder is wrong; it's just that it deprives you of something you need every bit as much as—perhaps even more than—the rewards of more material pursuits.

MY LITTLE PATH 

So I’ve made it my challenge—my life’s work, if you will—to wonder. I want to make sure my little path through this place and time is a peaceful, creative, constructive one, one of beauty, appreciation, worship and awe. I don’t know where the path leads, but I’m pretty sure that’s less important than knowing it leads somewhere I want to go.

A central theme of this journey is that, no matter how far I’ve come, many truths will continue to lead me on, always just beyond my reach.

People who are all about knowing...don’t have a clue about wondering, not to mention ever realizing the gift of wonder. 

Do you get the feeling as I do that some people see wondering as a sign of weakness? After all, it’s so inconsistent with knowing. And knowing, it seems, is to many the most highly prized possession of all. Perhaps they're confusing knowing with the truth.

Remember what I said about not being able to experience wonder without first wondering? People who are all about knowing, who always need to be right, don’t have a clue about wondering, not to mention ever realizing the gift of wonder.

WHERE ARE WE?   

What a shame that people can't even find the trailhead for such a beautiful hike! For the path from wondering to wonder leads one through a sequence of powerful capacities: wondering leads to discovery; discovery to learning; learning to imagination; imagination to creativity and, finally, in a connection that few understand and even fewer believe, it's that creativity that opens one's mind and spirit to the sense of wonder.

You'll notice that this wandering, wondering way has no tangible destination—especially if you expect that place to be some kind of easy answer. This is why the knowers of this world choose other paths.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve decided I value the wondering more than the knowing. So I’ll carry on with my perpetual quest for my own version of truth, aware that there may well be none more worthy than wonder.

 

ARE WE HAPPY YET? – Knowing How Much Is Enough

As the holidays approach, with their propensity for expectations and excess, do you sometimes yearn for a simpler life, one in which small miracles get noticed? One where your schedule leaves room for spontaneity? A life of humility and gratitude? This popular little parable about knowing happiness when you see it bears repeating:

An investment banker stood at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow-fin tuna. The banker complimented the fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The fisherman replied, “Only a little while.”

The banker asked him why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish.

The fisherman said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.

The banker then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, and stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.”

The investor scoffed, “I'm an Ivy League MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and, with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, and eventually you'd have a whole fleet of fishing boats.”

    Do you sometimes yearn for a simpler life, 
    one in which small miracles get noticed?

The investor continued, “And instead of selling your catch to a middleman you'd then sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You'd control the product, processing and distribution! You'd be able to leave this simple village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles and eventually New York City, where you'd run your expanding enterprise.”
 

The fisherman asked, “But how long will this all take?” to which the banker replied, “Perhaps 15 to 20 years.”

“But what then?” asked the fisherman.

The banker laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you'd announce an IPO, sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You'd make millions!”

“Millions. Okay, then what?” wondered the fisherman.

To which the investment banker replied, “Then you could afford to retire in style. You could move to a small coastal fishing village where you'd sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you'd sip wine and play guitar with your amigos.”