88 mph

5/26/11

When I woke up this morning Annette was already packing. The big Crested Butte sky was poking its fingers through the window shade.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Seven o'clock," Annette responded tersely, hoping this answer would cease all questions until after breakfast.

I laid there for a few minutes, eyes closed, mind wandering no place in particular. After a few minutes, I got up to find myself sore from the last two days of rock climbing, particular my hamstrings. Those five hours of the last two days totalled more than all of my climbing over the last eight years. While out of shape, I was happy to find my gear still worked and I still enjoy climbing. I still have rock climbing shoes and a harness. My rope got sacrificed in Katrina's aftermath for lowering a juicy refrigerator down my front steps. We duct-taped the door shut, but still the smell of rooting food that would occasionally ooze out was horrendous. The rope was then put to use towing a flooded car out of the driveway, for which I had no keys nor ability to get it out of Park. Given that most rock climbing ropes are dynamic, which provides some bounce when somebody falls, it made for an awfully spring tow rope.

"Where are my jeans? I haven't seen them since Monday?"

"I don't know, Ham," Annette responded, letting me know that no further questions would be welcome until after breakfast.

Over the next hour, mostly in silence, we made tea, filled water bottles, and packed the car. I made sandwiches from the remains of the chicken we roasted Tuesday and chatted with my brother, Jay, as we geared up to continue West.

"You need anything?" he offered several times, but I couldn't think of anything we needed and didn't have.

"Got any cheap gas?" I finally offered after the third time. "No," he chuckled, "but the cheapest gas is at City Market in Gunnison. Oh, and be sure to get gas in Grand Junction because it is overpriced in Green River 'cause there are no services fro 100 miles after that."

"Thanks," I said, surprised by the usefulness of this information.

We said our goodbyes to Emily and Jay and the mountains of Crested Butte, still blanketed in a thick quilt of snow, and we headed for the desert. After a gas and breakfast burrito stop in Gunnison, we turned onto 50 west and followed it past Blue Mesa, Montrose and Delta. With the snow-capped San Juan mountains at our backs, we picked up the Interstate in Grand Junction. Annette set the iPod on some sort of soul shuffle and sank to sleep in her seat. Under the Big Sky's lone yellow eye, we drove west until the trees disappeared to sage brush and red dirt. I-70 wound through the high Utah desert like the tracks of some great oversized 4-wheeler. Shreds of tire treads from last week's 18-wheelers looked like ravens perched on the highway's yellow line, pecking at the rumble strips. The landscapes were abbreviated rainbows, except without violet. Just red and orange rock speckled with light green sage bushes against an indigo sky with the cyclopic yellow sun enjoying it all.

My mind meandered as I-70 cut straight through the rainbow. I thought about the snows of Kiliminjaro and what kind of training regimen would be required to climb it this January with my borther as the climax of our tour of Africa. I thought about how to design a life where I can be a weekend warrior in the mountains - climbing, skiing, etc. Or perhaps it is a fair-weather soldier - summers in the mountains, winters in the city. And I wondered what it would be like to live in Portland, OR, if that would fulfill what I am looking for. But then came the thought that always lurks nearby when I conjure up Portland, OR. It is not so much a thought as a color or an emotion - a gray cold and depressing rain. So, my mind turned to wonder about the sunniest places on earth. Over this next year, I should visit the places with the most sunny days out of the year and see if I want to live in any of them. Or, if no complete international list exisits, perhaps I should spend a year making such a list.

Now squarely in Utah, I chewed a chicked sandwich and turned my mind to more immediate concerns. Should we stop in Bryce or Zion en route to Nevada this afternoon? What time can we expect to make it there? Will the Visitors Center still be open? I wonder if we will be able to get a backcountry permit for next week. I wonder if the Narrows will be open or if the river will be too high. As I-70 ended and yielded to I-15 South, I let out a "Whoa!" that was loud enough to wake up Annette for a moment. I showed her the 8- mph speed limip sign, proclaiming proudly, "I have never seen a speed limit that high!" I remembered a "speed limit experiment ahead" sign from a few miles back. I pondered the parameters of the experiment. Are they seeing if people still go 5-7 mph above the increased 80 mph speed limit? Or are they tracking to see an increase in car accidents or fatalities? As I pondered these things, I didn't notice the Utah State Trooper perched in the turnaround in the median. By the time I saw him, he was pulling out after me. He approached on the passenger side, told me I was going 88 mph and asked for my driver's license. When I handed it to him, he asked for my registration. He was a young guy, maybe 28. He had great manners. When he finally asked for my insurance card, it sounded like, "Pardon me, please pass the salt." So, I politely obliged. I wonder why he asks for these things one at a time. Is he new enough at his job that a traffic stop isn't routine yet? After five minutes on the shoulder of I-15 South, a $90 ticket, a "thank you for wearing your seatbelts," and a short soliliquy about why we need to keep the roads safe over Memorial Day weekend, I find myself uttering a "thanks for all you do, sir," before rolling up the windows and accelerating to a Memorial Day-safe 65 mph.

Parenthood

One of our purposes for this trip is to figure out how we want to live the next phase of our lives (after this trip). I think it is healthy to periodically throw out the answers we have found to life's big questions and start again. The great Zen master D.T. Suzuki wrote a book maybe sixty years ago about the jewel of maintaining a "beginner's mind." The beginner's mind knows nothing for sure and explores everything as if for the first time. The questions are of much greater value than the answers, which often end the exploration. These last few days we have gotten to hang out with some of the greatest Zen masters of our time, young children. We are interested in living a balanced and happy life. For me, this includes room to travel, the outdoors, family and friends, healthy diet and exercise, as we look to the next phase of our lives. We have already told (and been told by) many that we expect the next phase upon completion of our trip to include some little Zen masters of our own. We also want meaningful and fulfilling work that contributes to a more just and humane society without sacrifing our own health or happiness in the process.

As we meet people along our journey, we will undoubtedly find countless expressions of similar commitments in the world in very different lifestyles and places. This past week has been immersed in family in Columbia, Missouri and then Colorado. We spent the better part of the week with the Johnson family. Ebony is a high school friend of Annette's. Her fourth child is expected to arrive any day now. Her husband, Alfred, is fortunately on the first week of a two-week vacation as he nears the completion of his fourth year of residency focused on pediatrics and internal medicine. Their children (and Annette's godchildren - now mine as well!) are Zachi, 6, Malachi, 4, McKenzie, almost 2, and soon to be Alex, any day now. They are beautiful and well-behaved children. Spending time with Ebony and Alfred inevitably becomes a lesson in parenthood. They are well-informed on healthy child development and you can tell. Their day is all-family, all-the-time. And it is one of routine and structure for the children, in which they seem to thrive. Annette has always held up Ebony and Alfred as a model for our relationship and family (in much the same way I have held up my parents as an example).

Our general game plan is to have children of our own some time after we return from our trip. (I hesitate to say soon as who knows what this year will bring). Ebony and Alfred have very much built their lives around faith and family. And they don't seem to miss much what seems to me to have been sacrificed - social life, travel, adventure -- well, perhaps raising children is one of the greatest adventures any of us embark upon. But I have a feeling there is actually very little sacrifice. After only a few days with them, it is clear they are living lives committed to God's work - decreasing suffering on the planet and standing up for the little guy. It just takes place in parent meetings, in their church community, with their suburban neighbors and in the hospital, not the picket lines or some non-profit organization with a mighty mission.

We left Missouri to climb 5,000 feet over 12 hours to reach Longmont, Colorado. There we stayed with my good friend, Jake Shank's mom, Rose. And we got to spend some time with his two sisters, Marie and Casey. And it gave us a view of motherhood when the children grow up. And Rose is undoubtedly one of the best of them. She is enjoying her grown children phase of life in her new home, volunteering with several organizations, and traveling a bit of her own. She takes such pride in all of her children and reflects humbly on how she did raising them. "Children are the biggest source of both joy and heartache you will ever have," she says simply.

On the Road Again

Last week in New Orleans, I began to get restless to leave. Jazz Fest was over. Several of my good friends – Felix, Jake and Richie – all were leaving for their own next chapters. Those periods between chapters have always been challenging. I have always looked to make the goodbyes short and get on to the next chapter as quickly as possible. As we caravanned out of New Orleans yesterday (in separate cars so we can leave onewith Annette’s parents), I made a silent promise to myself that I would figure out how to leave New Orleans for a few months every summer. I have lived in New Orleans since 1997. It wasn’t until 2008 that I spent a complete summer there. After three years of working with only a few weeks vacation, I am ready to return to that model. With heavy rains and ample snowmelt further North, the Mississippi River has hit a record high. It has been flooding communities all across the MidWest and the “crest” has been winding its way slowly to New Orleans. In anticipation, several of the spillways in Louisiana have been opened. These are overflow valves of sort to help keep the river from overflowing its banks in places where they don’t want it to (i.e. heavily populated areas like New Orleans). There are now four spillways open in Louisiana, including the Bonnet Carre spillway. This spillway is just west of the city and primarily swampland with a raised Interstate 10 cutting through it. As we crossed the spillway, I watched with amazement. This swamp of shallow still water was flowing like a stream in the Rockies as the snow melts out to Lake Ponchartrain. There was white water! And for a moment, I regretted not taking a canoe out to explore this phenomenon before I left the area.

After about three hours, I had earned myself a nice driver’s tan (when your left arm gets sun from hanging it out the window). By the sixth hour, we were comfortably drinking beer and talking about plans for the North Mississippi Hill Country Blues Picnic with Annette’s parents at Foxfire Ranch. It has been nine months since we had been there. We had a full weekend of blues with Duwayne Burnside, Jimbo Mathus and some other great folks from that area. We ate well, even got to help host a wedding on Saturday. And I was more useful helping out around the Ranch than usual, given that usually I spend my weekends there sleeping and getting ready for work again on Monday. We also hatched up a bit of a destination weekend. We are inviting all of our friends to come join us for the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic June 24th-26th at Foxfire Ranch (http://northmississippihillcountrypicnic.blogspot.com/).

                                                             Jimbo Mathus at Foxfire

On Tuesday morning, we followed the river north through Memphis to Missouri. After a brief pit stop to visit Annette's (recently graduated!) brother Sammie, we followed the river north to Missouri. The flooding was incredible. When we crossed from Memphis to Arkansas, the river, normally about a half mile wide, was close to four miles wide. Several of the exits were blocked off due to the flooding. One stretch of I-55 near Cape Girardeau had a foot of water on the shoulder contained by sand bags.

                                              Sandbags and flooded fields along I-55.

Relationship Chronicles

While this journey is in many ways an outward one, there is no question that one of the greatest results of this year will be the strength of mine and Annette’s relationship. As one friend put it, it will be more joint decision-making than ever before. We will decide together on almost every step of our day, every day of our trip. It will also be an incredible and unique shared experience. We will rely solely on each other often, especially as we travel through countries where we don’t speak the language. The fact that we are an inter-racial couple may make for some interesting traveling. If nothing else, it will be an interesting lens to look through to explore race relations in the world. And we have added a camera and a laptop to our packing list to chronicle some of this. Carol Bebelle, one of our mentors in New Orleans, and founder of the Ashe Cultural Arts Center (http://www.ashecac.org/) asked us to use our blog to chronicle our relationship as it develops, not just the places we go, things we do, and our reflections about them. So, with some humility here is a first effort.

I have had an ongoing complaint with Annette that she doesn’t do a good job taking care of me when I need it. I have often argued that this is fundamental to our marriage and only exacerbated with my mom’s passing last year, as the primary person that played that role in my life is now gone. And in Annette’s mind, I am a bossy and demanding patient who will never let her get it right. Appropriately, it seems that I have been a patient with some ailment or another for the last month. On April 15th, I went through a surgery to clear and drain my sinuses. I went under general anesthesia for the first time I can remember. The recovery took several days more than I expected (and still continues today) and involved lots of mucus and blood. As I began to recover from my sinuses and breathe more easily (literally), I tackled Jazz Fest with all the vigor of a recently-unemployed guy with some of his best friends from college in town. By the end of Jazz Fest I could barely get out of bed due to pain in my lower back. I went through several self-diagnoses of the cause. First, it seemed to be that I went from a desk job where I primarily sit all day to standing and walking around at the festival all day. I wasn’t completely satisfied with that it seems that a 32-year-old, otherwise healthy body should have a bit more durability than that. Then, I wondered if it was psychosomatic. Perhaps this is a way my body manifests a continued grief for my mother as Mother’s Day comes (especially now that my sinuses which seemed to be the former location of my unexpressed grief have been cleared). Through all of this, I did little more than complain about my discomfort and grunt and grumble at my wife. And she responded appropriately with an occasional grumble back and mostly by just steering clear of me. This past Monday, we finally took the opportunity to share our complaints in front of an interested third party. After some conversation, it became clear that as long as I continue to complain that Annette doesn’t take care of me right, it will continue to be the case. It will keep us in a smoldering war where anytime I am in ill-health, I am on my own and upset with her and she is a frustrated and resigned caretaker who for the most part, takes her care elsewhere. So, I gave up the complaint to leave Annette free to take care of me however she takes care of me. Shortly after that, I was able to get advice on a good chiropractor and acupuncturist and schedule appointments for both. So, this past Wednesday, the day before we left New Orleans, was a day of being pampered. Annette joined me for a 3-hour acupuncture treatment. And then I had another hour with a chiropractor that evening. I left assured that my back would feel good again in no time and wouldn’t be a limiting factor (as I had begun to fear) for our travels. The experience has also provided me an opportunity to tune back into my physical body and health and to take greater responsibility for them. I have already resumed tai chi and qi gong practice which, after about six years of study, I haven’t done since I last left India in the summer of 2006.

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Eat When You Are Hungry, Sleep When You Are Tired

“Eat when you are hungry, sleep when you are tired,” was the Buddhist teaching of Karma Rinpoche when I was in Dharamsala India in 2005. Now that I am back to traveling, I get to live closer to that mantra again. When I am working regularly, I eat when it is scheduled, whether I am hungry or not, and generally I am not. And sometimes, it has nothing to do with whether or not I am hungry. Sometimes I just eat when I am seeking comfort. I often eat as a justifiable break from working. Undoubtedly, I will drop about 10 lbs. to get to my travelers weight simply from eating when I am hungry rather than when it is scheduled. When I get travelers’ diahrrea, as I am sure to at some point over this year, I will undoubtedly drop another 10. On the sleeping front, during my working days, I sleep when I can, when I am done with what needs to be done for the day. Rarely do I get to sleep when I am tired. I look forward to living the simplicity of this teaching for the coming year.

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Birds of Prey

I saw a hawk this morning gliding on the breezes outside my bedroom window. I have always felt a connection to hawks, falcons, eagles, anything in the raptor family. I was once told that the Native American horoscrope that is equivalent to Aries (my birthday) is the red-tailed hawk. I believe that is among the Lakota Sioux. Nevertheless, I have always welcomed the sight of hawks.

Several years ago, after a hard year in New Orleans, I would roadtrip to Colorado to spend my summers there as a wilderness guide. And, without fail, I would see hawks all along the road trip. I came to interpret their presence as a sign I am heading in the right direction.

Several months after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, I started to see hawks in the sky. Of course, there were new feeding grounds for them with entire parts of the city that were once neighborhoods and now fields. Lots of good hunting, I imagine. But, again, I welcomed their presence and new I was in the right place as I was trying to rebuild.

Almost a year and a half ago, when my mom had been diagnosed with cancer out of the blue, I saw hawks. Every morning, out of the small window by our shower, I could see a family of hawks flying around and in and out of the only tree that is visible from the shower. They were letting me know that it was going to be all right. Again, regardless of how it felt, I was on the right path.

My mom died March 1st of last year. And two days after her death, I was sitting upstairs at my parents' house in Columbia County, New York. And I caught a glimpse of a huge hawk! I ran to the deck to discover it wasn't a hawk at all. It was a bald eagle. My mom's voice was never faint (except perhaps in her final days). So a bald eagle was a fitting message. It was extraordinary.

So, it is fitting that I saw a hawk this morning, two days after leaving my job, which is perhaps one of the final major steps toward making this trip a reality. I look forward to following the birds of prey on my journey over the coming year and beyond.