today was my leisturely day. i calle dmyself sleeping in…but with all my healthy living i woke up at 8:15…or rather i finally got out of bed at 8:15…i’d been awake longer than that.
my plan was to just do beach or pool time…be a solar panel until late afternoon when i had one activity planned. instead i met up with some friends around breakfast and we walked down to cape tribulation.
walking…just because. why the hell not it was another gorgeous day here.
so after strolling along the beach and looking for corcs in one of the nearby creeks we came back to the hostel, said goodbye to one of us and just sat by the pool for a while.
over lunch i met up with one of the guides from the jungle surfing (i’ll post photos when i get home) and we got into a wonderful discussion about trying to save the world (he’s doing forestry) and where cynicism about change meets passion for it.
my only scheduled event today was an exotic fruit tasting. ever had a black sapote (or is it sopate)? I LOVE THEM. they aren’t quite on the level of mangosteens but they are wonderful…so dark brown they look black with a thin edible skin. but the inside is the texture of mouse. airy and velvty with a subtle flavor that begs for more.
of course i also had dorians – called stinky fruit, or something like that, in sri lanka. the lingering taste in your mouth is a cross between roasted onions and sweaty feet. and it does linger.
overall it was amazing though…at home we pretty much eat the same fruits every day. mangos are about as exotic as things get…and on the other side of the world there are all these other fruits that are the equivilant of apples or bananans to us…common everyday fruits that someone eats and takes for granted.
flip the world over and all the differences make us almost the same.
yesterday was almost cloudless…a few random fluffs gave the illusion of modesty to the sun burning brightly overhead as our boat made its way to the reef. even with the sun showing us her spleandor the wind still sent a chill through me – compounded by the water breaking over the front of the boat and spraying us.
but once we hit the reef who cares really. for miles and miles in either direction are you see are light and dark blue and green spots. the occasional sand island ilke the maldives.
we suited up in wet suits (the water is about 23 degrees C but after a few hours can chill you) and plunged in. a brisk swim to the beginning of the reefs and the wildlife emerges out of nowhere. random fish…some bigger than my head…swimming about. coral swaying and shimmering in the water. gazing down i realized just how alive the place is.
i’ve been snorkeling before in zanzibar…and mexico…and a few other places…but what the reef gives you that other places never seemed to is perspective. the crew members explained that the reef is 10,000 years old. that some of the coral are hundreds and hundreds of years old…the very notion that this bizarre creature that is both animal and plant simultaneously has found a place for itself and is creating a lasting home is amazing.
then there were the little things…like cleaning stations…little animals/fish that clean other fish by crawling into their mouths and out their gills and picking things from wherever they can find. aparently there are rules to be obeyed and even if the fish in front of you would normally be dinner for the fish behind it…they won’t attack at a feeding station. instead they wait patiently as if it is a carwash.
this morning was another early day…off to do sea kyaking along cape tribulation. i hoped to see turtles but mostly i had a beautiful view of the ocean as it lapped over me and i paddled from one beach to another. we looked for a croc (this place is riddled with them) to no avail and then headed back to sea.
in a few hours i’m heading to a jungle canapoy. they suspend you over trees tied to a line and you kind of sail/glide over the oldest rainforest in the world…the daintree…i’ll let you know how that goes.
the water is so blue.
driving out of cairns with brushy hills and farmland playing tag, the ocean emerged, seemingly from nowhere. all of a sudden the blue – slightly darker than the sky – cut a line across the horizon and a strip of gold – sexily curved like the latest she-star – hugged the perimiter.
and the australian coastline took shape. i haven’t been in the water yet…though i got to feel the warmth of 80 degree sun. may not sound like much, but winter so close to antarctica (as zed is) makes for cold times. i’m just thrilled let my legs see sun.
so tomorrow i tack on a few more ours to my now 15 1/2 hour trek across oceania. i’m in a cute town called port douglas and tomorrow i head north to cape tribulation. i hope the weather stays this beautiful and the reef showcases her beauty for my visit.
more when i have mor to give.
I’m at 500 words of a 1500 word essay…with only a few hours between now and when it must be handed over to S so he can turn it in for me. Why? Because my shuttle to the airport is picking me up at around 3 am…yeah you read that right!
So, my paper is actually due before the end of Friday but will be done much closer to the beginning of Friday because I forgot to consider the due date when booking my flight. Gotta love my attention to detail don’t you.
No matter…everyone seems to be most occupied with weather I packed or not. I’m headed to the beach…how much packing is necessary. I have two bathing suits a few pairs of shorts, a pair of long pants, a few shirts and a sweater. Really…what else do I need.
For those of you who missed it…I am finally going to the Great Barrier Reef. Excitement is playing tag with my apprehension about this paper…but overall…both trip and assignment considered…I’m eerily calm. Of course talk to me in a few hours and the story may be completely different.
Mostly I’m looking forward to sun. having left in American winter only to arrive in new Zealand winter and due to head back in American winter…I’m as pale as I’ve ever been in life. I have dreams of recovering some of my melanin…I’m sure it is cowering under this paleness somewhere…I only hope that some 80ish degree weather will perk it up and bring it back to the surface…
I like to consider myself open minded in more than theory. So yesterday when I was flipping channels and ended up on pen and teller: bullsh%t and they were bashing the idea of recycling, I suppressed the urge to dismiss them without hearing them out.
I missed the beginning of the show but caught the gist of it as I watched, they believe the whole concept of recycling is a hoax and the country is being fooled.
According to the show, the government spends $8billion of our tax money on recycling programs because they are neither profitable – or, as an aside, necessary.
One of his points revolved around recycling paper…a renewable resource. He talked about all the trucks using gas needed to transport paper, the factories used to turn it to mulch, the de-inking and bleaching process that produce more waste…and to some degree I agree. More trucks and more chemicals are probably not the best way to go. And attempting to recoup the losses of a material that is both biodegradable AND renewable may not be the best use of resources. (I’m not sure what the repercussions of ink in the soil are…especially toxic orange detergent boxes that I KNOW are not naturally occurring dyes…but I’ll leave that alone.)
He went on to explain that we are not running out of landfill space; that a landfill 35 miles x 35 miles and 200 feet deep could sustain 1000 years worth of garbage. He stressed that the solution was not to build such a landfill…only that it takes up very little space – relatively speaking.
He then sang the joys of methane gas produced by decamping organics and how that can be channelled and used for fuel, and how after a dump is filled, it is landscaped to look beautiful.
And while all of these things may be true…and recycling paper may be the least of our worries…I do believe that we are a wasteful society. We wrap plastic in plastic and more plastic, seemingly because we can. In academia I find myself using reams of paper each semester. And the proliferation of plastic is appalling.
1000 years is a long time…but it isn’t forever. And creating change – changing ingrained habits – is a long and arduous process. Why wait until we have to change…until it is emergency…until we have no choice.
I don’t know enough about the recycling processes for glass or plastic to disagree with what pen and teller had to say. I can say that the time it takes for disposable diapers and water bottles to decompose is longer than I’ll be alive…and my nieces. And I know that Styrofoam from my to-go packages and egg cartons will be here even longer…and pretty as they may make said dump…I know I wouldn’t want to live there, and anyone with money won’t HAVE to live there.
So why not make changes now…if not recycling…how about the other two Rs the fear of limited landfill space produced…REDUCE and REUSE…they take less effort and do no harm.
New zealand oysters taste like the ocean smells. Given that the beaches here don’t smell like the gulf of mexico that is just a salty fishy flavour. That’s what I had for lunch…the smell of a clean ocean.
That, with a delicate veggie quiche and some fresh bread, was the lunch I was pampered with before beginning my sailing adventure.
Today was no baby cruise around the harbour. Today was racing day. So 6 of us on a 30 foot yacht set up in wet gear and approached the start line just as the gun sounded. A shaky start (we had just changed sails from the 1 to the 2) but we trudged along. The Auckland weather gods were benevolent and suppressed their anticipated wrath and instead bathed us in intermittent sunshine. A glorious day for sailing clear green waters.
What I learned on the boat, is that my skiing bruises would soon have yachting bruises. My main job was weight. When you race, you push your boat to its breaking point, the force on the sails pushes one side of the boat deep into the water – I was counter weight. No big deal until…you come about. Coming about means the big heavy – thwack you in the head and give you a concussion if you are lucky – sail thingy (the technical term) swings from one side to the other with great force to turn you.
That forces me, sitting with my feet dangling on the high side to scramble up to the top of the boat, then lie flat to avoid getting hit, then scramble down what soon becomes an upward incline as the boats center shifts.
At one point early in the day I almost fell overboard – hanging precariously upside down with just my fingertips gripping a piece of wood. One of the crew had to grab me by the foot and hold on for dear life…because in racing the boat comes first.
All said and done…it was amazing…great weather…not too cold…I actually helped out a little…I stress little…pulling hilliards and sheets (my beginner yacht talk) and helping to clean up after all was said and done.
So finally…thanks to some very hospitable Rotarians…I have been sailing in the city of sails!
Tags: newzealand
all last semester i moaned and wailed about the length of papers. repeatedly i completed papers well under the word count provided by my profs. i attributed my brevity to my journalism background. there i was often confined to 12 or 18 inches. didn’t matter how much great stuff there was to say…if it couldn’t be summed up in thta space it just didn’t get said.
so i got good at figuring out my point, the most compelling argument for said point, and getting it said and printed before deadline.
now all of a sudden i am working in an environment that languishes in words. all of a sudden folks want me to put in every and all details about anything remotely related. and it was driving me crazy.
fast forward to one of my classes this semester.
i have been reading a very information dense book. full of all sorts of interesting concepts that butt up against existing and accepted ones. and my assignment is to do a review of sorts. not a book report, but an analytical look at what was said, not said, and how it all came together.
yeah…in 800 words.
wanna know how short 800 words is…three pages double spaced – roughly. no easy feat.
but i gotta say…between too much and not enough…i think i prefer the too short…keeps my editing skills sharp.
it’s a book i’m reading for a class. i’ve been trying to read it since last year but never could throw myself into it. around chapter 3 it kicks into high gear and begins to feel more relevant and pull itself together.
the whole idea of the book is to explain the history of the last 13,000 years. more than that…it is meant to answer why some countries/areas have and other have not. and how do you do that?
he gets into plant and animal domestication, the rise of urban areas and with it the rise of infectious disease, the inception of written language and the technology that follows. along the way he talks about human nature in varying circumstances from roaming bands that morphed into bigger tribes, still bigger chiefdoms and eventually the “states” that we all live under.
it seems all the more relevant now…as i watch the rubble and dust of lebanon…the smoldering fires where lives dwelled just a month earlier…grumbling about the price of vegetables or the nasty thing someone said to them…all the things that i grumble about here and at home…everyday ordinary grumblings…that for lebanon gave way to explodind bombs and muted voices of shock and death.
and i realize that we haven’t really come as far as we pride ourselves. we are no different than the spainards destrying the incas…the small pox infected blankets for native americans…the “civilizing” of aborginal children in australia.
we still build things up only to watch them topple at our own hand. we still create lives only to destroy those we see as competition or threat to our own…
people in bands and tribes killed each other for lack of centralized government to help reconcile disputes. chiefdoms killed to conquer and absorb other tribes. and states kill…well we kill now to move an imaginary line to a new imaginary place…we kill to “stay safe”.
all the things working against us…natural disasters and epedimic diseases and we can’t help ourselves…we must aid the destruction of ourselves. like a pack of antelopes – an animal unsuited for domestication because when frightened they run…and run…even if a fence is in the way. they will run themselves bloody…run themselves to death out of fear…
we have evolved no further…we run scared and run to death just the same.
my first love relationship didn’t happen until college. it was this slow progression from flirting to friendship to being caught up in the idea of someone holding me close, listening to me figure out my world and sharing his own.
i ran like hell after a few months…D wasn’t a jerk…didn’t cheat on me…just gave me the space to run even if he couldn’t promise me the space to return. he tried…but time and circumstance dance a complex step and sometimes it is hard to keep up. in his case, an ex-girlfriend became the mother of his child and real life – not the college facsimile – took over.
of course by then i realized what i had let slip through my 19-year-old life. but you can’t go back. and sitting where i sit now…i wouldn’t want to.
young and stupid…i thought i loved the guy i dated before D. in retrospect i realize he was never particularly appreciative of the person i was or the one that i was waiting to become…i think i just made him feel good…safe…loved. it wasn’t reciprical. his perogative…but it battered my self-esteem in a way i never really grasped until D showed me another way to be with someone, another way for someone to be with me.
even 10 years later i still think of D with a smile and a blue and fuzzy feeling. happily married the last time i heard from him, (such a painful conversation to have at the time) but thinking of him still makes me smile…smile that he was a part of my life…the part that put the finishing touches on the ideas about love that women can’t teach you… the ideas that my father sowed early. i was intelligent and interesting and could do anything…and most of all that i was deserving of everythign wonderful the world has to offer. my dad took me as far as dads can take you and D carried me the rest of the way…even if i didn’t realize it then.
i realize it now. not because i’m happily married or even engaged, but because i’ve been dating a man that has become a blue and fuzzy for me. someone who appreciates me as i am…has created a humor with me…trusts me…shares with me…loves me…loves me…loves me in a way i think D and my father would approve of.
and i have no idea what the future holds…love and life are fragile and my world could tumble down around me before daybreak. but tumbling won’t change that right this moment i have embraced the lesson D drilled into me gently when i was so young and naive…to always know what i want, to be comfortable asking for it, to be with someone who wants you to have that. a priceless gift wrapped in blue and fuzzy wrapping…
Tags: me-ness
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