Phone Conversation Overheard on a Hot Friday Afternoon

Warning: Explicit Lyrics! Read on at your own risk.

- Yeah. Hey. Hey man. What you been doing? Where you at?
- …
- What do you mean you’re at home? If you was at home already why didn’t you come pick my ass up instead of making me take the damn ferry across? It’s hot as a mothafucka out here. Shit, man.
- …
- Man you are a lazy piece of shit. It’s like 100 degrees out here and you’re laying your ass on the couch. You better be there when I get there cause I’m gonna slap the shit out of you. It’s hot as a mothafucka out here.
(Random man not on the phone, but with a bottle of hooch) -  Yeah you right.

Changes

Lately, it seems like everything that is worth saving is in dire need of salvation. Luckily, I've always been a sucker for a good cause, but I have to wonder why  humans seem predisposed to destroy that which we hold most dear?

I heard a statistic recently that a new generation is born every 5 years. Not because we've redefined what constitutes a generation, but because over the last 15 years or so life and technology began to change so rapidly that people born even 5 years apart see the world in completely different ways. And the pace of change continues to accelerate. Change in and of itself isn't a bad thing. If we don't change, we die. What worries me is that we seem to be careening into an ever-narrowing tunnel with no sense or understanding of what came before or what lies ahead. I worry that change for change's sake is a cancerous madness (I think that's Mr. Ed Abbey I'm quoting).

The landscape in which we build our lives is constantly changing, too. Yesterday a wetland, today a Burger King. The land has changed so much between my grandfather's lifetime and my own that my very sense of what "normal" or "functioning" is skewed. A channelized river with concrete banks seemed perfectly normal and natural to me growing up, because that was all I knew. For god's sake, I am a professional environmentalist and I didn't realize the river I grew up swimming in was an artificial millrace connected to the much smaller, natural river channel (which I had never swum in) until I was nearly 30 years old. My very concept of what constitutes a natural environment is permanently altered by being born when I was. What does this mean for people born 50 years from now? What are we losing that we haven't yet fathomed?

What are we changing into? And once changed, can we ever return?

Fortunately, there is a remedy for the growing sense of loss I feel when I think about how quickly we use and discard what we deem valueless. There are people who look to and learn from the past to inform their lives, their sense of personhood and connectedness in the world. They are the people who hang photos of ancestors along those of their children. They are ones who turn up at a public meeting to save a stand of old growth forest. And they are the ones who take the time to craft pelicans out of old bricks from a building one's great great grandfather used to live in.

By honoring the past and by understanding that mindless change for the sake of growth or profit or simply because one feels empty is not enough to feed our souls, these people give rise to a vision of  a future that rightly holds tight to what matters most.

Happy, you are part of the cure for what ails this weary world. Thank you.

Question

How, pray tell, does one ride one's bicycle with one's breeches around one's knees?

An alligator!

What I see

I captured this gentleman a couple of weeks ago on a beautiful spring day. The only glimpse I caught of him was his reflection in the mirror. Here is his (completely imagined, wholly fabricated) story told on the 5 minute ferry ride.

"My name is Frank. Toots down there at the bar on Frenchman's may have told you it's Frances, but if you like your teeth, it's Frank. Only one ever got to call me Frances is my dear mother, and she's ten years in the ground now. Well, and Coraline. But that's another story for another beer.

Yeah, this bike is a real beauty, isn't she? Got her 3 years ago when I retired from offshore work for good. Good money in being a roughneck but after a certain age, it's hard on a man. 28 days of straight hard labor with no rest is hard on a man's body, hard on his woman, too. By the time I figured out it was a young man's game I'd grown out of, I'd lost a finger, my daughter's graduating high school and the right key to open my own damn front door. Cora coulda waited til I got home for a stretch, but I guess the waiting got to her, too.  At least now I can grow my beard as long as I damn well please.

Oh, I travel just about anywhere I can get to. Heading down to Venice for some fishing this weekend. Working part time doing trim work, saving up for my trips and taking off when I have enough dough to get me someplace grand makes for easy street. I've seen a hell of a lot of the Gulf of Mexico in my life, but it's all been underwater, you know? Now I'm taking my time and seeing it all one road at a time."

Ferry Style

This awesome guy was totally stylin' in his craft paper tophat, acid washed jean jacket and cool skull pin (which I coveted, and which you can buy when the Blue Nile nightclub has an art show).

What it means to live

For the first couple of months I was here, I felt grimy and overwhelmed pretty much all of the time. Everything about NOLA is pungent, overripe. I'd ride my bike from here to there, constantly assaulted by the smell of diesel fumes, urine, decaying garbage, and the evidence of one two many hurricanes (both the drinking kind and the weather kind). I'd wait at the ferry terminal in the evening and sit on the yellow wall to watch a rat or two scurry around in pursuit of dinner or love or the meaning of life and wonder how I could ever let my guard down in a place so overstimulating.

But now it's been almost six months of getting to know this place, and though my neighborhood garbage truck still smells like vanilla-scented decaying flesh, I'm starting to feel more comfortable in the swirl that is New Orleans.

This place is alive. This place knows what it is to be alive. I was thinking about this earlier today on the ferry ride to the Quarter. There are other cities in the South with good music, good food and good people, but there is just something different about New Orleans. I think the city's extreme joie de vivre has to do with several things, two of which I'd like to explore today:

1. The Mighty Mississippi. This river brings new ideas and products and people and diseases through New Orleans at an alarmingly fast rate. Cholera, the blues, bananas, travelers, artists, grifters, oil, and on and on. I imagine that living next to such a fast-moving body of water has to affect people, too. There is a constant flushing that has to be cleansing on a subconscious level, leaving one feeling inspired and open to new ideas. At least it feels that way for me.

2. New Orleans and her people are always on the brink of destruction. For every wonderful thing the river brings, she brings hard things, too. Disease in earlier times and  too too much water on occasion. Swirling storms threaten the city from the South for half the year, every year, sometimes working in concert with our hubris to wreak havoc that one can't rightly comprehend unless one was unlucky enough to live through it. And those are just a couple of the natural forces working against the people of New Orleans. There seem to be plenty of human-instigated challenges to go around, too.

And yet the city goes on, embracing people down on their luck and those whose star is rising with equal love and abandon. It's almost as if this place knows that life is only a temporary respite between the darkness from whence we came and the darkness to which we must all return. With the knowledge that the end could come at any time,  the city, and the people, live with a throbbing vibrancy that colors everything about this place and makes it overwhelmingly beautiful despite it all.

Elements of a good morning

Sunshine, coffee, river, peach danish (still warm from the oven) and a ferry ride.

Our Global Hope

Look, the "Global Hope" bulk oil carrier is in town. I'm sure that's an absolutely accurate name for the ship.



Ship's details here (one of my favorite new sites to visit!):

http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/shipdetails.aspx?MMSI=351673000

What do you see?

I know it's supposed to be someone lifting a man overboard, but to me it looks like a lady in a ball gown on a boat! Strapless, cause that is tres chic!

What freedom wears

I remember my dad telling me once that there is no shame in an honest day's work for an honest day's pay, only pride. At the time I was working as a laborer at a large plant nursery for 8 hours a day in the blazing heat of summer with a father and son from Mexico, Esteban (father) and Jose (son). We watered plants, cut them back, made small repairs around the greenhouses, moved plants from one place to another, transplanted established plants to bigger pots, and every once in a while propagated plants, taking cuttings from healthy plants that would then grow into new baby plants. It was exhausting, hard labor. I'd drink 2 gallons of water a day and come home at 5pm only to take a shower, eat a sandwich and collapse into bed, exhausted. I did this 5 days a week for 8 hours a day in the summer. Jose and Esteban did it 6 days a week for years on end.

One evening I talked to my dad about how hard they worked, how they could work circles around me. Some days, the only way I made it through the day with its sweat and dirt and sun, always the sun, was to remind myself that I was going to college, that one day this wouldn't have to be my life if I didn't choose it. But for Jose and Esteban, this was as good as it could get. No retirement, no health insurance, just back breaking labor until they couldn't work any longer. And yet, they came to work every day happy to be there, working hard everyday and clearly taking a lot of pride in what they did. Pride in one's work, no matter what it is, was an important lesson that I am grateful to have learned early on.

Last Friday I encountered two delightful souls on the morning ferry ride. One was an older gentleman who clearly had spent most of his life in the sun. He stood beside me on the rail, taking pictures of the city with a small digital camera. I don't think he noticed himself doing it, but when he took a picture of something he (apparently) liked, he gave a little grunt of happiness. What I loved most about this man was his outfit. He wore a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off and a pair of cut-off jeans. The jeans were wrangler-type work jeans, and they still bore the evidence from years of starch and ironing in a crease in the front. Perfectly starched and creased cut-off shorts. I imagined this man a recent retiree enjoying his freedom after decades of hard work. I pictured him heading home after his last day on the job, walking into the kitchen to get a cold beer, then rummaging through the junk drawer to find a pair of scissors. With the blades in hand he walks to his closet and systematically removes all of the legs from his pants and the sleeves from his shirts. FREEDOM!

The other man was on his way to work. We remarked politely about the beautiful weather. (Here is where I have to tell you that I don't actually use people's real named on this blog, for obvious reasons. This man gave me what I am sure is a nickname, but it is so apt to him that clearly I can't use it, either. So I regret to inform you that I will have to use a different animal than the one he told me).

This man had a thick thatch of chest hair, a somewhat long head of hair (and chops) and eyes that were very alive. He looked just like a panther, I thought. Then he stuck out his hand and introduced himself as  Panther. It was my turn to grunt in happiness! Panther asked me what I did for a living, I told him and then reciprocated. He told me, shamefacedly, that he worked in construction, that he was in "limbo". My heart twisted for him because he was so clearly embarrassed that he didn't say, I don't know, "doctor" or "lawyer". Immediately I felt myself wanting to tell him that there is no shame in making a living, only pride. But I stayed silent and we both went on to make our way in the world on a warm spring morning.

Excuse me, but...

there's a cucumber in your bike basket!




(I don't know why, but this just made me laugh for some reason!)

Big boat, bird

The Maxerrelaxer

I’d like to take a moment to extol the virtues of a rare breed of human—the one who can relax anywhere, anytime. Some of us, while we are waiting in line at the post office or stuck at a red light in our car, find ourselves becoming agitated at having to wait. We see this interlude as wasted time, and we spend it sighing in exasperation, texting on our phones or shifting uncomfortably from one foot to another, our bags growing heavier and heavier with each passing second until we are absolutely positive that a lead brick somehow made it into our purse or bag. Often, if there is more than one line, we convince ourselves that all of the other lines are moving faster than ours, but we know in our heart that if we move, our luck will then run out and the new line will stop altogether. And so we sit there in a kind of fuming stasis, waiting until we are released from the purgatory between one important something ending and the next beginning.

But some people have the uncanny ability to just take a load off regardless of where the opportunity presents itself. Let’s call them the “maxerrelaxers”. Sometimes you see them sprawled on the floor—dirty, clean, it doesn’t matter to the maxerrelaxer—in a long line at the DMV or waiting for the mall to open. They don’t let little things like a dearth of chairs prevent them from chilling out! I strive to be a maxxerrelaxer, but the truth is, I don’t like to sit on the filthy floor. That’s why I was so excited to see a man today who represents my ideal. He didn’t need the floor to take a load off—where I saw only a chain railing, he saw a hammock. Brilliant. Notice he even has one foot kicked up in a classic maxerrelaxer stance. I salute you! I will endeavor to take a load off and enjoy the wait just like you!

Where we goin' now, Shrek?

Sweet!

Motorcycle Maintenance and the Art of Conversation

Yesterday I met a lovely middle-aged man—we’ll call him MM—who was on a grand adventure with his middle-aged motorcycle buddies from Oklahoma down south to the ocean. I was a little peeved at MM when they first roared onto the ferry on account of him parking his bike WAY too close to me, thus invading my personal space. I decided to ignore them but then MM chose to strike up a conversation about the headlight on my bicycle. He ended up being funny and charming and was one of the rare conversationalists who asks you a question after answering yours.

One thing I’ve discovered talking to random strangers on the boat is that most anyone is overjoyed to tell you their story: what they’re up to on any given day, where they’re from, what body parts ache when it rains, etc. but very very rarely do I come across a person who seems genuinely interested in anything other than talking about themselves. And don’t get me started on people who glance at their phones every twenty seconds waiting for someone more interesting than you to communicate with them (sometimes I’m guilty, too). But MM wasn’t one of these one-sided talkers, and over the course of our 10 minute ride he asked about my work, and I told him where to camp on the Florida Gulf Coast and how to get to the Florabama (I hope he made it!).

In honor of MM and his motorcycle gang, I dare you to have a real conversation with at least 3 people today…it doesn’t have to be a long conversation, just an authentic one. Report the results of your experiment in the comments below, if you are so inclined.

Contact

Friday proved to be a day of windy rides. On the bike ride to the ferry, some dust blew in my contact and I had the bright idea to take it out to try to wipe it off once I got on the boat. Of course the wind blew it out of my hand and onto the ferry deck, which I'm sure was washed at least once in 1973. Blind, befuddled and wind-whipped, I proceeded to squat down and sweep my hand along the deck, my contact-less eye squinted shut so I could see well enough to actually find the contact, being careful not to move my feet lest I hear the tell-tale crunch of a hard contact shattering beneath my feet (a sound I know all too well, alas!). At some point I realized that to the passengers, I was now the weird lady on the ferry. Finally, behind me and to the left, I saw my contact glinting on the deck. I picked it up and held it in one hand, which forced me to weeble wobble my bike with the other off the ferry and into the street. I decided I couldn't make it to the office like this, so I detoured across the street to the casino to find a bathroom to wash my errant lens. I walked in through the doors to the guard, one eye still squinted shut (I really can't see anything with only one contact in because of my astigmatism). I'm sure I looked like just another customer come to play the slots at 730 in the morning and he waved me through without batting an eyelash.

I'm happy to report that I am typing this now with my vision fully restored.

The best part of the day was the ride back to Algiers after a long day at a conference. I decided to eat dinner in the quarter and dark was rapidly approaching when I got on the boat. The air was cool and the clouds scurried fast across the sky, tired after a long day, I imagine. As we approached the Algiers dock, I looked back and saw the lights of the street car moving down the road. It's a terrible picture, but do you see the line of beautiful, warm glowing yellow in the middle of the picture? That's the streetcar. For some reason it just struck me as so pretty and I got really happy.

So the day ended happily after all. Yay!

Yelp! It's a ferry!

Today I found out that the Algier/Canal St. Ferry has been reviewed on Yelp. For your entertainment, here are a few of my favorite snippets. Read all the reviews here

From Sunil: I wonder about the passengers though. There were couple of folks with beers in hand and this was in the middle of the day.

From Mo: Lets face it, the Mississippi aint looking its prettiest when it meets up with New Orleans. It just looks kinda industrial and dirty.

From Russel: I like taking visitors here after they've had a day running around the FQ like kids on speed, as the relaxing change of pace can usually do them some good by that point.

From Vicky: I heart you. You are the best way to cross the river. I love that I can drive on, park my car and watch New Orleans come closer or zoom away. It's also a great way to see the bridge closer, and from a different point of view.

No, Vicky. I heart you.

From Danielle: Nice views, ride the Mississippi and get your Tom Sawyer on!

Indeed.

From John: If you're bored, go across & come back. It's a kick.

Spring stream of consciousness

Spring is springing and there is no escape! The air is heavy despite a rising breeze and I should know better than to forget a jacket when a very temperamental March is only a few days away. But I have my Friday coffee and peach danish, so life isn't too terrible as I sit here and wait for the ferry.

The sky is darkening rapidly-- clouds are approaching the West Bank from the bridge and the French Quarter. Every time a gust blows across the river I am caressed with a wet washcloth of wind--it's both invigorating and clammy, like holding a boy's sweaty hand for the first time. 

A man beside me is wearing scrubs-- I think because they are comfortable and not because he works  in the medical field.  I really want to eat the peach danish in my bag but I'm saving it for when I can move away from Mr. Scrubs' cigarette so I can enjoy the peaches and cream aroma properly. I smelled freshly cut grass on the ride in this morning and it made me want to dig in the dirt so badly my heart constricted. This time of year makes my blood ache to grow flowers and strawberries and fling the windows wide so I can smell and hear the world coming to life again after the forced quiet of winter.

At the coffee shop this morning they were already preparing for the Lunch rush-- the special today is a Lenten dish and when the lady told me I was immediately transported back to my Catholic school days. Though I no longer practice, this hearkening back to the rituals of my childhood is somehow comforting. Family has been on my mind lately. Last night I dreamed I paid Rodney Dangerfield $200 to be my dad for the day. I have no idea where this came from and wonder what other strange B list celebrities live in my subconscious unbeknownst to me.

On the ferry now and all of a sudden the wind went from playful and wet to cold and fierce. The rain is starting to fall and I will be a drowned cat by the time I get to work. Blowing so hard now that the ferry can't dock. I love it.

We're stuck!

I think I'm about to get rained on. I thought I could beat it but the wind came up so fast the ferry can't dock. Happy Friday!

Happy Mardi Gras!

The Algiers Ferry fairy!





Cycling revelers

A Valentine

Despite the commercial cheesiness of the holiday, I enjoy Valentine's Day. Not because I want to get flowers or chocolate, but because I like thinking about what it means to love. We tend to think about love in the context of our relationship with people or other living things-- I love this man, I love my dog...and we also like to exaggerate our enjoyment of inanimate objects that can't love us back-- I love cheese danishes, I love these jeans cause they make my butt look great. But that sells love short, don't you think? 

On the surface, V Day is just a superficial excuse to make couples feel smug and single people feel gipped, but it can be more, too. Just the simple act of thinking about what love means to us as humans has to have some merit, right? V Day is a sort of touchstone for me when it comes to love-- I can look back to Valentines Days past and evaluate how I have given and received love. Over time I hope to see a positive trend of loving deeply and without reserve, of looking to see the beauty in everyone I meet, of loving others--and myself for that matter--  despite knowing that we are all imperfect and flawed, yet still deserving of love and compassion. 

I want to see the beauty in every person I meet. I am a long long way from that ideal, but in the meantime I can practice by seeing the beauty in the people I love and by celebrating and honoring them. I can also look for the beauty and love that abounds in the whole wide world (this blog is an exercise in that effort) so, to that end, here is my VDay Ferry Commute Valentine to you. May you find beauty and joy everywhere you look. 

In Mardi Gras gnomes

In resting butterflies

In banana flowers!

In knowing that weeds are plants whose virtues have been forgotten (that's Emerson, I think)

In finding cozy nooks 

In ferns that spring from walls

And flowers that spring from streets!

You can figure this one out!

To me...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Water bed

What's a Z Drive got to do with it?

There is a new ferryboat captain among us. Over the past week and a half, I surmise that his hard landings have loosened the teeth of just about everyone who rides the ferry on a regular basis.

I first noticed something different last week when we inched across the river and then slowed down even more as we approached the dock. To say we came in slowly was an understatement. Paint dried as we crossed the last 30 feet of river to the dock. Grass grew. I sprouted three new gray hairs and read Ulysses cover to cover. That afternoon I spotted my buddy Mr. A and asked him why the slow ferry movement had taken Algiers by storm.

Mr. A confirmed that there was, in fact, a ferryboat captain-in-training and that it would take a while for him to get used to piloting the boat because it had a Z drive, which most pilots aren’t used to.

What’s a Z drive, you ask? Well. According to Wikipedia and Mr. A, Z drive propulsion is the s*#t. It allows a boat to move every which way, which is important for ferryboats (so we don’t get run over by an oil tanker or can dodge Paul the Pelican, for instance).
From Wikipedia:

“A Z-drive is a type of marine propulsion unit. Specifically, it is an azimuth thruster. The pod can rotate 360 degrees allowing for rapid changes in thrust direction and thus vessel direction. This eliminates the need for a conventional rudder.

The Z-drive is so named because of the appearance (in cross section) of the mechanical driveshaft or transmission configuration used to connect the mechanically-supplied driving energy to the Z-Drive azimuth thruster device. This form of power transmission is called a Z-drive because the rotary motion has to make two right angle turns, thus resembling the letter "Z".”

So apparently there are a lot of different levers to manipulate in a Z drive ferry and it takes a lot of time to learn to finesse them and work them all at one time. I bet a 10 year old video game aficionado could learn pretty fast, though.

Anywhoo, this morning Captain Novice was so slow that he didn’t manage to dock the ferry until 5 minutes after we were supposed to leave. And he came in at a really weird angle (in addition to failing Z drive class, I think he failed geometry, too). First he hit one side of the boat against the dock so hard that it almost made a light pole fall over, and caused 2 people to lose their footing. Then he inched the other side ever so slowly to the dock. After 5 minutes of excruciating maneuvers, you’d think he’d only caress the dock. But no, he SLAMMED into it a second time. By this point everyone waiting to board was either cracking up or rolling their eyes and I actually started to feel sorry for the guy.

Yes, it’s kind of hilarious, but it also made me think about how scary it is to be completely new to something. You just have to have faith and muddle along until you get the hang of it. Whether it’s yoga, cooking, working on an assembly line, or driving a ferry, cultivating your sense of humor along with new skills is important. And so I could learn to be a little more patient with Captain Novice. But I’m sending him a bill if I chip a tooth.

Some say this world of trouble is the only one we need

This afternoon I sat on the ramp of the ferry launch waiting for the boat that would come carry me home when two fiercely tattooed gentlemen rode up behind me. Both had heavy beards and wore T-Shirts with the sleeves cut off. One of the T-Shirts was supporting what I can only assume is some sort of death metal band called Goatwhore (advertised on front) with this slogan on the back of the shirt: "Who needs a god when you've got Satan".

(Google tells me that Goatwhore is indeed a band, and I've just listened to their song entitled, "Apocalyptic Havoc".)

Given their fashion choices and seeming predilection for scary tattoos of devil-looking beasts, spider webs and skull and crossbones, one could assume that their conversation would lean towards animal sacrifice, or at least heavy liquor.

But no, these men were deep in conversation about their jobs (at some restaurant or bar) and how the shifts they were given for the month of February only amounted to about 6 days of work. Not even enough to make rent.

***

This evening I stayed home, nursing a headache that's plagued me for the last few days, reading and generally waiting for a respectably late hour so I could justify going to bed. With my dog snoring contentedly at my feet, I settled in on the couch and picked up a book of short stories I've been reading and rereading lately, "The Shell Collector" by Anthony Doerr. No sooner had I read the first two pages when the sound of music began to punctuate the air. I set the book down and listened more closely. Trumpets, trombone and drum, growing louder, moving closer step by step. I put Moby on his leash and walked out into a breezy beautiful evening. The music was coming from my right and I turned the corner to see a second line procession making its way through the neighborhood. All around me porch lights blinked on and people tumbled out of their homes. Old folks and teenagers. People with dogs and people with babies--the crowd grew with every count of the music and I fell in line as the parade passed.

We wound through two more blocks, picking up people along the way. No one said much but they danced in the cool evening and you could feel an energy moving through the crowd. I had a hunch what the second line was for--who the second line was for--and my hunch was confirmed when we turned onto the street where a good samaritan was shot dead last week while assisting a neighbor who was being carjacked.

His two young children watched it happen from a bus stop two blocks away and I've been troubled by the senseless tragedy of it all week even though I didn't know him. As we approached the house the widow and her two children heard the music and came to stand on the front lawn. The band halted in the street in front of her house and played three songs. The crowd clapped and swayed and the light cast by the street lamps was reflected back to me in the tears on many people's cheeks. I can't imagine most of the people knew the man, but it was clear they all grieved for him. I was moved by the beautiful joyous sadness of the music and of the people around me paying tribute. When the band finished, the wife said a few words of thanks and the crowd turned to walk back they way they had come, peeling off at each corner to go back to a regular Thursday night, accompanied by the fading strains of "When the Saints Go Marching In".

Whether we are death metal freaks, or regular dads, or trombone players or invincible teenagers,  it's impossible not to get caught up in the mundane details of life on earth. But it doesn't hurt to be reminded every now and then, even when that reminder is born of sorrow that we can't fathom, that there are so many beautiful moments in between the mundane, the sad or the plain bad;  we should treasure these moments before this life is not ours to live any longer.

When I got back to the house and picked up the book, I read the following lines:

"Ignorance was, in the end, and in so many ways, a privilege: to find a shell, to feel it, to understand only on some unspeakable level why it bothered to be so lovely. What joy he found in that, what utter mystery."

Yes. And yes.

Today's proverb

The grass is always greener on the other side...

More clouds and light on the ride home

Storm clouds ahead

Today I met a biker.

Some people just thrum with life. You know what I mean? There are people in the world who seem to enjoy every moment, to take pleasure in the simple act of being alive. It doesn't mean they are always happy go lucky, just that they have somehow gotten the memo that this is our one shot on earth.

Alas, I think these people are few and far between, but when you come across them you feel the vibration they give off and it reminds you that life is here to savor.

Anywho, today I met a biker. Well, I didn't really meet him. Mostly I listened to him chat with a lovely gentleman who wore a big vest and a blue scarf with a Saints flag on his bicycle. Then I listened to him exclaim his pleasure at seeing an old friend who rode onto the ferry right before we took off for Algiers. The biker's bike was laden with gear bags and he was dark from the sun with sinewy muscles that told the story of many many miles.

He took a picture of the man with the Saints flag and then asked to take my picture as I perched at my usual spot on the rail. I said yes and afterwards he came over to chat.

I didn't get his name but I know that he has adventured on his bicycle from California, up to Seattle, across to Washington DC, then to New Orleans to stay with a friend. 8,500 miles. He had bright blue eyes and enthusiasm radiated from him.

8,500 miles of crossing paths with complete strangers, engaging in a thousand points of connection with fellow human beings you know you will never see again, but enjoy getting to know for the briefest of moments all the same. Now that is adventure.

In praise of bowties

I don't think there are many people who would call me fashionable. More than one person, in fact, has called my style "lazy chic" and I don't know that they meant it as a compliment.

I like comfortable clothes. I like plaid flannel. Quilted plaid flannel. There are people in the world who count this fact among the reasons they love me, but just because they love me for it doesn't mean I don't look like the Michelin Man most of the winter.

What's strange is that I like clothes. I do. I like knee high boots and chunky sweaters and all manner of scarves. But I like to mix them in weird combinations, and I only like them if they are super comfortable, which in this day and age of sequins and bedazzled jean pockets means that I usually end up looking frumpy and like I got dressed in the dark.

It's even more important for me to choose comfort and utility over fashion now that I am a bicycle commuter. But I can't look like a slob at work, so what's a person to do?

There is a man who rides the ferry with me who wears a jacket and a bow tie every day. He rides in on his bicycle looking dapper and cool as a cucumber even as I lumber on, hair already mussed beyond repair, sweating and panting. At the end of the day he still looks completely put together. Bow ties are very underrated. If you are a professor, you should wear them. If you are young and ironic, you should wear them. If you want to delight me, you should wear them.

I can't take a picture of the wonderful bow-tied gent and his neckwear without getting in his face, and so instead I leave you with an example of my best guess at "fashionable, work-appropriate, breezy, stretching bicycle commuting" fashion: flat boot, stretch jeans, flowy shirt for aeration. Voila!

What's your favorite bicycle attire? Any fashion tips for me?

Look Up

I’d like to ask you: who owns the sky? The sky cannot answer for itself tonight, for it is very very busy. Looking up from my perch at the ferry rail, I see a flock of starlings weaving themselves into and out of tangled knots of wing and beak in perfect accord, not one feather out of sync. A little above them hovers a blimp, here to spy on the BCS National Championship. A little to the south of this bright blue behemoth and blip of birdies a helicopter skitters past my line of vision, slicing and dicing the air on its way to somewhere important. And even higher above this fray three planes leave white wisps in their wake. Finally, Paul the pelican swoops in front of me. I hope there is some sort of treaty agreement among those who use the sky tonight. What must the birds think of all of these flying hunks of metal hanging in their territory?

In the desert, you can look up and see nothing but blue. Try it sometime. Lay on the ground and roll your eyes to either side, all the way up, then back down again and you will see only a blank blue palette for the clouds to paint. Take a deep breath and you will smell the earth.

Do the same in a city and you will likely see a building or three, a plane, a billboard.. Breathe deeply and you will most likely get a lung-full of exhaust fumes. It’s overwhelming

Nowadays we have to run far away from a city to even get a glimpse of nature, to not have our entire line of sight filled with advertisements for laundry detergent or candy bars. And god forbid you ask for a little peace and quiet in a city. Sirens, car stereos, horns and on and on until the very concept of silence is foreign to most of us, and makes us nervous to even think about.

I read this essay not long ago on Orion Magazine’s website about how hard it is to find even one square inch of silence in the modern world. I can’t stop thinking about the essay, not only because it is so beautifully written but because I am astounded just thinking about the lengths we go to nowadays to experience the things that are our natural birthright. As the author says, the air is owned by all of us. We all have a right to enjoy it and a responsibility to care for it. Same goes for water, by the by. All that blue sky belongs to you and me and we’ve filled it with junk. Somehow over time we’ve come to accept that the places we live and breathe will be filled with noise and billboards and concrete, and that nature is a faraway place we can escape to when we need to “get away from it all”. But at what point did, say, Alaska Airlines’ right (you gotta read the essay to get this point) to fly over a protected wilderness area automatically trump my right to enjoy a little peace and quiet?

We’ve got to stop acting like nature is someplace apart from where we live and breathe and start exercising our right to demand a patch of blue every now and again, even on the eve of the BCS football game. Take the blimps and leave me the birdies.

They've got it figured out

Here comes the oil carrier Overseas Texas City.








And this boat has a special message for you:






(in case you can't read the wording, it says "Protect the Environment")

Love letter from a discarded rope to the piling

Perhaps
to the untrained eye
the patterns we wove,
    intricate,
         delicate,
were never meant to last.
But I know.

And you know

that against your smooth sides
I discover my shape.
That with the right balance
of tension and give
we could hold fast forever.

Against wind.
And wave.
Against even time.

And when we unravel
(as everyone does!)
I’ll wait,
curling around myself
frayed but still strong,
longing to bind myself to you
when we meet again.

So this is the new year.

Happy 2012! Do you think the Mayans were on to something? What if this is our last year on Earth? Would you do anything differently? What should a New Years' resolution look like for the last year on Earth? Eat MORE fried food? Drink more good whiskey? Use the fine china to eat pizza on a Wednesday? Tell people you love that you love them?

I love the turning of the year and the unfurling of a new set of 365 days to do it all a little better. And even though I am a creature of habit and find it hard to stick to resolutions, I appreciate the effort, and every once in a while one sticks and I feel more open to the possibility that exists all around us all the time. Even on Tuesdays in the middle of March.

My 2012 resolution for this frivolous folly of a blog is the same as when I started it-- to spend my days with my eyes open, alert to small moments of joy, to little bits and pieces of color and shape and movement and humanity and laughter that make life seem to mean more on a daily basis.

And so, with that, here is my recap of the first week of 2012 on the Algiers Ferry.

1. A middle-aged couple riding back to the West Bank, drinking beer from a can wrapped in a brown paper bag warning a group of obnoxious tourist teenagers (all somewhat overweight, extra-earnest young people in matching turquoise shirts that stated their printed desire to serve God and the world) who were leaning precariously over the railing and egging each other on to jump in and go for a swim that "the Mississippi will eat you alive baby. You don't swim in that river." After their friendly admonishment, we struck up a conversation while waiting for the cars to offload when all of a sudden the woman saw a familiar face waiting to board with his bicycle. Pee-Wee was his name and apparently he and the woman were an item at one point. The man she is with now didn't seem to think much of Pee-Wee and informed me that he in fact was a much better kisser than Pee-Wee because he didn't have any teeth. (Author's note: I need someone who has kissed a toothless man to please verify that they are better kissers for me. Much obliged.)

2. A wonderful cyclist knitting an orange and white hat that contained knit images of horses with fire under their hooves. I am so so jealous of her talent--I've never progressed beyond garter stitch scarves. Her bicycle is decoupaged as well. I think I'm in love.

3. Tuesday morning was exceedingly cold. So cold that my cheeks felt numb. But I woke early enough to make myself a pot of coffee and brought it with me. So on that frosty cold morning I stood on the rail and drank my coffee and warmed my hands on the thermos and felt quite satisfied with myself and the brisk air. The Irish Cream helped a little. 
4. Mr. A was working the ferry when this behemoth sailed by. It is a huge container ship registered in Monrovia. The back of the ship looked like the theater where the muppets would all sing in their respective nooks. I was talking to Mr. A when the ship passed us and we saw the back, so I didn't pull out my camera to snap a picture, but Mr. A agreed and hummed a few bars of the muppets theme with me. 

5. I saw a steaming bowl of cloud soup. And it was delicious.

Happy Friday!

Finally, a bird in the position of poopee instead of pooper! Hope everyone is enjoying their morning as much as I am!