Murmurs From The Ether.

Greetings From Small Town America

2009-08-09T03:57:38Z

Hey All,

I'm in the little town of Gerlach, Nevada. It's not the black rock desert, but I can see it from here. It's a beautiful, stark expanse surrounded by the jutting bones of the earth. The ghost of black rock city is out there already: hundreds of little flags in the ground, meticulously spaced. Tomorrow we finish the last of the prefabrication, packing and planning. The next day we build the boundary fence, all seven and a half miles of it, by hand. When the fence is done we'll drop one shipping container after another; each will yawn open and vomit a piece of the city. A medical station here, a supply depot there, center camp in the middle of it all. The little flags remind us where to put things so it'll all make sense when the city gets big.

It's all going to happen very, very fast.

So we're all taking it easy today. Most of the crew has rolled up in the last three days and we're getting reacquainted. Long hugs, longer conversations, cheap beer, cheaper whiskey and friendly shenanigans. These relationships are important. Eight hours a day of hard work in the killing heat will magnify them. All we really have out there is each other.

We can't wait to get out there and build that city.

Coming Out Of Hibernation

2009-03-15T03:14:58Z

The past few months have been wonderfully, deliciously mellow, filled with languid mornings and evenings spent with good friends and conversation. This is in stark contrast to my last three winters which were filled with hard work, exhilaration and terror, sometimes in equal measure.

Spring is coming in fits and starts and half-days. In a week we'll have as many hours of light as of dark, and it only gets brighter. I love spring. Festival season is starting up and long-dormant email lists are burping out the first larval ideas of just how much fun can be fit into one summer. Artists, bohemians and other assorted lunatics are emerging from their homes, blinking in the sunlight and wandering the streets in wedding gowns and shopping carts. Winter still makes itself known when the sun goes away, but its grip is loosening; this city is about to bloom.

In other news, I'm shaking out my flickr account and posting again: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scuppers/

Happy solstice, all. The almanac says every day is three minutes longer than the last. Let's celebrate.

Right Effort

2009-01-06T00:08:51Z

One of the most important lessons I learned on the boats is that the right effort will transform lethargy to energy. The buddhists have a word for it. It's a little bit of positive intention and a lot of doing small things to take care of yourself without wasting a lot of time. It's kind of a pain to make that effort when you're out of practice, but always worth it. On the boats, I worked myself into exhaustion on a daily basis and the decision to coast at the bottom or lift myself up was made regularly. Here on land things are more mellow and it can take a couple weeks of exertion to force the issue.

Which brings me to where I'm at now. Portland Center Stage is staging three plays in six weeks and thanks to Snowpocalypse 2008 the build process is a week behind. It looks like our next weekend will be in February. It will take that special effort to get through this and enjoy myself. I'm grateful now for previous experience.

White Christmas

2008-12-23T02:38:25Z

Portland is suddenly experiencing a once-in-a-generation christmas snowstorm. The whole city is shut down. It's pretty incredible. For once the hysterical news reports were right. We've had something more than a foot of snowfall over the weekend and about eight inches of it is sticking. It takes all of two inches to shut this city down. I am reminded sharply of childhood visits to lake tahoe.

Busy Month

2008-12-19T20:18:00Z

December is a hectic month in the entertainment industry. I've been putting in 40-80 hour weeks between a few different gigs and that leaves time for food and sleep and little else.

(Well there was santacon. I love bringing saturnalia back into christmas.)

Life is good. I don't know how I'll be doing this time next month but I'm doing pretty well right now. I'm saving as much money as I can and keeping an eye out for a stable job. I'm doing new things each day, like building walls of cardboard boxes twenty feet tall and installing snow chains for the first time. For the record, I hate snow chains only a little less than fishtailing.

I've also obtained a copy of How To Cook Everything. It has become my breakfast reading material. I'm cooking something new and interesting every week. I will subject my family to this process on christmas. I'm feeling pretty optimistic about it.

Speaking of christmas, we have snow on the ground in Portland and it may stick around until the 25th. This is unusual. Our news outlets have been blaring out ARCTIC BLAST '08 updates for the past week to the amusement of anyone who looks outside and sees a thin layer of melting snow on the road. Still, it would be nice to have a white christmas for once. This being Portland, there's a loose plan to get a whole bunch of people downtown in a giant bay-to-breakers style snow parade/race/party if only we can get a whole four to six inches on the ground. I hope it happens on the rare day I'm not working.

An that brings me to today. I've got the whole day off to relax and clean and prepare for christmas. It's a good month.

An example of my strange and wonderful life.

2008-09-08T16:05:08Z

I wrote this four nights ago.

"So how was your evening?"

"Well. First I went out to the site where we burned the man. The chain of logic went like this: We've got a large office trailer that's way past its prime and needs getting rid of. So we strip it out, haul it to to man site and fill it with sawdust and gasoline. We've also got a twenty foot cubed wooden truss we're not using anymore, so that goes on top of the trailer. Then we've got a chopped up cadillac that has given us years of service and won't start anymore, so we decide to give it a viking burial by fitting it with gallons of fuel, strapping a voodoo test dummy in the front seat, and hoisting it by a crane one hundred feet above the trailer. A forklift picks up a pallet of burning barrels and places it on top of the trailer. We all stand back and someone pulls the quick release on the cadillac, dropping it straight through the truss, the barrels and into the trailer.
All the fuel goes up in a great FOOOM and the place gets really hot. As we stand around the bonfire, hands shielding our eyebrows from the searing heat, we realize the pyro team left fireworks and propane bottles scattered throughout the trailer; they go off at random intervals. Good times.
Awhile later, when the fire is dying down a bit, someone decides to revitalize it by pointing another broken down cadillac at the flames and stuffing a brick on the pedal. The car coughs and whines as the engine tries valiantly to burn and run at the same time. Cadillacs burn real pretty, but the giant black smoke plume lets us know we're being naughty.
At this point a couple of jackasses decide to throw a couch in. For some reason I decide to stop them, partially because we collectively decided to stop burning couches a few years back and partially because I'm feeling ornery. My crewmates indignantly tear off the cushions and throw those in and a few of us settle in the remains to watch the burn.
After the fire dies down and the dilapidated couch completely buckles on us, we bounce around what's left of the city, looking for another fire and some company. Along the way I discover one of my crewmates is a fellow sailor and chantyman.
We find what we're looking for at the heavy equipment yard and join several crewmates gathered on couches around a burn platform. It's a very chill scene under the cranes and lifts with an accordion band tooling away in the background. Within minutes, we've started a full-on chanty sing that lasts a full hour in spite of only three of us knowing any songs. As we sing the party slowly peters off and we turn in around 1:30am. I walk home full of human warmth and light."

I love this place.

Short Cuts

2008-09-07T02:40:30Z

The party is over, we're all shaking off our collective hangover and cleanup is moving apace. Today we all move off the playa and into Gerlach. The big stuff will be off site in a week. The playa will be clean down to the granular level in three weeks.

I'm shaking off the tunnel vision and trying to pick specific memories out of the past month. It's hard; I'm still pretty tired. I keep a haphazard journal out here, so I'll give you some of the highlights:

8/10 (Two weeks prior to the event): We're moving out to the playa from town. I'm wiring the commissary today and they feed us out there tomorrow. Everybody is really happy.

8/14 (Ten days prior to the event): Right in the thick of it right now. Infrastructure is going live left and right. Every project is moving forward on greased rails and it's easy to get tunnel vision, to keep working and moving and partying and pushing forward until two weeks go by in a great compressed blur.
As always, the playa hosts a string of heightened moments that teach me and provide leverage for productive growth.
The day star shines through my mylar-coated window. It's another brilliant day.

--And then two weeks went by in a great blur. The rest of setup went extremely smoothly. The event started and I began writing again. The first half of the event was difficult for me; I was still working, a massive dust storm discombobulated everyone, and most everything I'd planned didn't work out. I spent a lot of time feeling out of step with everything. Until Friday.--

8/28 (Saturday of the event): 5:38 am. I finally let myself go to Burning Man. Psychadelic lectures, burn perimeter, shit-hot fireworks, whiskey, bacon, hallucinogens, sex, rock & roll, really bad techno, running around 'till O'dark:30 with a bunch of giddy off-duty rangers, good friends, food, and now sleep. Yes.

8/29 (Sunday of the event): It all works out in the end. Yesterday was a lot of hard work in whiteout conditions. The DPW parade crawled along almost unable to see from one car to the next. This did not stop the drunken fun or the car tag. I skipped out midway through to change colors and work the man burn perimeter. That was a good time. The man was loaded with pyro, a perimeter had been se, the dust was blowing so thick that it was all could do to see the guy next to me, and we had no idea how long we were going to be there. The higher-ups were talking about delaying the burn for a day and we were dreading the thought of sitting there all damn night. Then the weather cleared and things got really hectic. We scrambled to restart the machine of volunteers, workers and performers who make the burn happen. It happened. We got lucky - the weather stayed good, the crowd was cooperative and the man burned real good. Afterward I stumbled home tired and happy and got my best night of sleep in a long time while the party rampaged on all around me.

--That's where I'll end it for now. After the event ended I had a streak of really good days and mildly lunatic nights that continues even now. I've got a lucid transcription of at least one of them kicking around somewhere. As always, I'm leaving out a bunch of stuff I don't want to broadcast across the interbunny.--

As I've mentioned before, I've been uploading pictures of all this nonsense at http://flickr.com/photos/scuppers/

Day After

2008-09-01T18:26:40Z

...And it's done. The man burned, the temple burned, and a whole lot of other things besides. It was a great week, a hard week, a week of revelation and connection and loneliness and engagement and excitement and more than a little dust in strong doses. I may post more if I can write about it coherently.

We get better at this every year.

Into The Dust

2008-08-12T04:06:55Z

It's that time again. The prefabrication is done, the perimeter line is pounded in, and we're all leaving the tiny little town of Gerlach and rolling out to the playa. I'm only here to type this because a particularly inconsiderate neighbor blocked me in with his truck - I'll be driving into that temporary reality tomorrow morning. I can taste the open horizon, the gritty sweat in my eyes, fire in my hands and a whole mess of alkaline dust sweeping past me like someone pulled the plug in the sky.

It's time to build us a city and burn that man down.

I'll be back in a month with a wild look in my eye and a story on my tongue.

Incommunicato.

2008-07-31T17:50:25Z

I'm leaving for Burning Man today. W00t! If you want to get in touch with me, I'll have intermittent email access out there (but don't count on it). If you need to get a hold of me in an emergency, call the office at 775-557-2200. If you're going to the event and want to track me down (please do!), go to Playa Info on the center camp circle. Punch my name into the computer and it'll give you my camp location.

Anticipation

2008-07-26T06:20:02Z

This time next week I will be in the desert.

This is a funny time of year for me. Long lazy nights and an itch to run out into that late warm twilight.

The Oregon Country Faire was pretty amazing. I have a lot of photos up on my flickr site.

"July 14th, 2008 6:26pm
Yesterday was long. Spent the morning working the recycling collection and sort. The kiosks were overfull and the crew was understaffed by half; seven hours of full-bore effort and we didn't even finish. Lunch, conversation with strangers on the survey crew, and sleep. Woken soon by neighbors.
Dinner.
Sunset.
Visit with new-minted friends. Fire show at the Far Side campgrounds. Wander, looking for familiar faces in the crowd. Fail. Back to camp where a party has struck up in full swing. Drink. Return to fire show. Find Palmer, Rivka, Blue, Dave. Exist for a tijme in that place of good friends and extraordinary surroundings.
2:00am. Wander back to camp, intending sleep. Get dragged into the company of more new friends and strong liquor. (I vaguely remember saying "I'll show you jackass, hippie!" before chuggging a double kamikazi.) Singing and stories. Sleep.
Wakeups three hours later. Sunrise. Work. It's the last day of faire and everyone's dumping their detritus as they leave. The kiosks are an awful mess. Slinging barrels, rooting through trash, fighting exhaustion. See friends off, lunch, and more work. Succumb to exhaustion, reconsider. Spend an hour at a kiosk teaching people how to sort their trash. Exhilarating.
People matter more than anything else. The bright and beautiful place we create for ourselves amounts to a really good excuse for more genuine interaction than we normally allow ourselves.
It all comes down to people."

It took me a week to recombobulate from that.

And no sooner have I settled in at home than I find myself packing to go again. My life is a little crazy. This year's burn is going to be weird and wonderful. I'm looking forward to stepping on that pie crust, to smelling that clean dry air, to running with my eyes closed and watching something big and burning fly from a trebuchet.

I'm looking forward to building that magical, evanescent city.

Settling In

2008-06-05T21:44:53Z

Rain falls softly on my roof. Spring is late this year - the sun is seen only in flashes between breaks in the cloud layer. The sky is blindingly grey in more hues than that austere color ought to contain. Last night I saw the stars for the first time in two weeks. Beautiful.

Life continues apace. The past two weeks have been full.
-Reuniting with friends,
-Cleaning house,
-Tallship sailing (the Hawaiian Chieftain and Lady Washington are in town),
-Seeing plays,
-Job hunting,
-Cooking (notable for someone who doesn't cook for half the year),
-Dirty work for the Oregon Country Faire,
-Ramping up for Burning Man,
-Planning out the next year.

Yes.

Professionally, I've got a handshake agreement to be a staff carpenter at one of the more established theaters in town. This makes me very, very happy. Also, I worked my first Union call a few days ago - setting up and breaking down the Kanye West show that came through town. It went well. Kanye West has the biggest ego I've ever witnessed in person. Very entertaining.

Life continues to be rich and surprising.

Safe And Sound At Home Again

2008-05-26T19:10:28Z

...Let The Waters Roar, Jack.

I'm back home in Portland. It always amazes me that so much color and life can be fit into a place that sees the sun so rarely.

The past few weeks have been good to me. I spent some needed time with family in the bay. Then there was a week of hedonism and kittens in Santa Cruz.

I have the best friends ever.

I got home five days ago. They have been filled with reunions and cleaning. My priorities have shifted recently. Sharpened. I'm going through my belongings and tossing a bunch of stuff I've been holding onto because I thought I should have it.

Kibble, someone once called it.

I'm putting in an application to the stagehands union, local 28. (Noah, you can lord it over me when I've actually collected a paycheck from them.)

We had a rare sunny day on Saturday. It was glorious, like a Michelangelo painting in light and time. I spent an enjoyable few hours painting a giant sunflower onto a neighborhood intersection. (See first statement)

I'm feeling about as well balanced as I've ever been. Credit the intersection of hardship, philosophy and love, in that order.

Back In The World

2008-05-07T16:24:31Z

I jumped off the Lynx on Monday. I'm in the bay area right now resting and regaining my equilibrium. The last four months have been pretty hard on my psyche, so this will take a few days.

I haven't written a lot here this year because I don't like to spread bad feelings around, nor do I like to complain about things I can't fix. I'll say for the sake of summary that this last boat tour gave me some of the things I needed, but not all, and demanded things of me that I was not prepared nor comfortable with giving. For twelve hours a day, every day. I learned a lot about rigging and sailing a boat that I never never got in tune with and never fully trusted and I got to work with a great bunch of people who had been placed in the wrong configuration and consequentially spent a lot of grief failing to reinvent a series of wheels.

Being as I have an aggressively constructive mindset, I'd like to share those things I've learned over the past four months. This isn't all of it, but it is the bits that communicate well.

-In real life it doesn't say at the top of the page what the test is about.

-Consistency is the basis of strong leadership.

-Slow steady change is good lasting change.

-The most important thing in any situation is to treat people well.

-Self confidence and good communication are the foundation of a healthy group dynamic.

-When there is an argument between the idea of a thing and the reality of it, reality will win every time. When the argument becomes a discussion the idea may prevail.

-No matter how unhappy you may be, never forget that you live in an amazing, beautiful world.

-Self righteous indignation is the enemy of empathy and a barrier to problem solving.

-Never underestimate the ability of people to surprise you in pleasant ways.

-Be ready at all times to adapt to unexpected positive change.

That's it for now.

New Photos

2008-03-24T04:18:11Z

I've got the best of my last two rolls of photos up: http://flickr.com/photos/scuppers/

I think I've hit the bounds of what can be done with a plastic camera.

Rise And Shine

2008-03-21T22:51:34Z

Due to the life choices I've made and the things I commit to in the name of living fully, I sometimes wake up stunned and surprised to still be alive. These moments fill me with a deep happiness beyond simple relief - I look around and realize that I've become a little better at understanding the beautiful, twisted world I live in, that I have discovered harmony where I saw only noise and fury, that I have widened the spectrum of human experience I can assimilate.

This morning was one of those mornings. We spent 48 hours transiting from Oxnard, CA to Morro Bay. Right in the middle of the transit lies Point Conceptiont, just north of Santa Barbara; the worst place in California for weather. We sailed around it. No motor, just 4,000 square feet of canvas driving us upwind as we tacked our way through the weather wrapping around the point. I was sick as a dog. For most of the transit I stood at the helm or on lookout trying to keep down sips of water before collapsing into my bunk between watches. The boat sailed beautifully, heeled over until seawater sloshed through the gunports, going eight knots with the nose pointed 40 degrees from the eye of the wind. 1812 technology all the way.

This tour has been pretty difficult for me. I feel like I've climbed the steepest rise, the single most difficult bit. It won't get easier from here, but I'll be better equipped to meet the challenges.

At the moment I get to spend ten days in Morro Bay, fixing up the boat and taking people sailing. It's really pretty here and the people are friendly.

Incomunicado

2008-03-08T06:19:02Z

Hey all,

The boat is in Oxnard, CA. We still haven't found winter.
My cell phone took a swim a little awhile ago, and internet access is scarce here. I am thus hard to contact right now. This will hopefully change soon.

The Grind

2008-02-17T05:18:07Z

We're back in Oceanside, CA. It's pretty here. Miles of beach, clear days, and temperate heat. They know not of your winter here.

Things are pretty difficult on the boat. The Lynx is a boat that demands a well-tuned, aggressive crew. The current crew is not. This vexes the captain and bosun, and the whole crew is going through a phase of hard work and character building, with a daily reminder from the chain of command that we aren't up to par. It's frustrating and necessary. It also makes everything else I do in life feel easy and relaxing.

So that's where I am right now. Working really hard, learning a lot, expanding my capabilities.

Ramping Up

2008-01-27T05:18:51Z

It's been a really lopsided week. Most of it has been pretty relaxed. On wednesday, however, we took a film crew out into some moderately heavy offshore weather. It started at 15 knots of wind, clear skies and 2 foot swells. Over the course of ten hours, it built into 35 knot winds, 6 foot swells and pounding rain. We sailed the whole time, heeling until the rails were almost under water. The Lynx is a fine, weatherly boat, capable of blazing along at 10 knots while pointing 30 degrees from the eye of the wind. It was the hardest I've ever sailed a boat. The captain, mate and bosun were having a great time. I was terrified. It was a benchmark day - I hadn't realized just how much my seamanship had atrophied after seven months on land. It's days like that one that steel my resolve to push my own boundaries, to open myself to the full range of human experience.

The rest of the week was easy. Fair winds, low seas, enjoyable duty. San Diego is a pretty port with a skyscraper park near the waterfront that sounds some really nice echoes when we shoot the guns at it. I'm spending my spare time practicing knots, studying the finer points of our curriculum and working my way through an excellent book called Seamanship In The Age Of Sail. I may someday get tired of subsuming myself into my work. That won't be for awhile.

Oh, and a couple nights ago, the captain treated us all to a night at the San Diego symphony. The San Diego philharmonic and the London philharmonic played Beethoven's fifth symphony to a sold out audience. It was strange and beautiful.

(I've put some new photos on my Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scuppers/)

cloveralmighty @ 2008-01-05T20:19:00

2008-01-08T17:22:49Z

It's my fifth day on the Lynx and I'm settling in well. The first couple days were shaky - jet lag + long days + transit = metabolic suckerpunch. A twelve hour night of sleep cured that. Now I find myself deep in the business of learning a new boat. It's grand. There are a lot of challenges, usual and unusual. Spending months ashore between tours means rebuilding muscle every time, while working a new boat (and a schooner at at that) means having to constantly reevaluate the way I look at rigging, sailing, and seamanship.
My world is rapidly shrinking to the dimensions of the boat, plus whatever port we happen to be in. My attention focuses accordingly. In life on shore there is a great deal of wasted time and space. Driving, television, shopping, untended gardens, attics, basements. A lot is ignored. Not so on a boat. Every bit of space has a use, every moment of the working day is used. It makes for a fine environment in which to push oneself to learn rapidly, to put forth a great deal of useful effort and to overcome one's own foibles, shortcomings and blind spots. I'm not a terribly disciplined person in my daily life so I enjoy this opportunity to grow and improve myself in ways that I am not normally inclined.
I had missed the rhythm of the boats, the steady supporting schedule of day sails and maintenance and mealtimes that the crew comes to rest on like a well-laid keel. I had missed also the feeling of camaraderie, of coordination and mutual understanding that develops amongst a crew.
The trials and discoveries come fresh every day.

I will write more as I observe more.

Where I'm At and Where I'll Be

2007-12-26T23:58:53Z

[A lot has happened since I last wrote here. All the things in my last post have transpired and then some. I'm not given to broadcasting the minutae of my life, which is one reason I tell people I'm a terrible correspondant. For the past six months my life has not chrystalized in a way that allows me to say "this is where I am". A friend recently asked me what I was up to. My response formed the germ of this post.]

Mexico is warm, humid, and very tasty. I'm in a seaside town called Manzanillo where my grandma lives. I'm here for christmas, which is done differently in this part of the world. Christmas eve is the big day, with presents and fireworks and music and the midnight mass, while Christmas day is spent in a collecive hangover.
In a couple days I'll go to Guadalajara with my uncle. He's a schoolteacher there, the kind of man whose brain whirls with the effort of connecting everything he knows with everything else. He lives in a gorgeous house that may or may not be haunted.
On the 30th I fly back to Portland. The 31st will be spent unpacking, repacking, setting my affairs in order, saying goodbye to friends, and dancing until the small hours. Early on the morning of the first I'll catch a plane to San Diego and jump aboard the 1812 privateer schooner Lynx, at which point the real fun begins.
I've signed on as the education officer, which is equal parts deckhand, teacher and cat herder. I'll be on the boat as she slowly climbs the coast until until May; we'll be somewhere in the San Francisco bay by then.
I go to the boats to grow. It's a conscoius, daily process of improving every part of my thought and action as I work myself into exhaustion every single day for three to six months. What seems impossibly difficult one month becomes routine the next. Every challenge I overcome brings me to another. The brutal, exhilirating physicality of it makes the lessons solid and meaningful.
I go to the boats to teach. Most people hate my job. I introduce hundreds of schoolkids to the boat every day and I mediate their interaction with it. I work the necessary logistics, making sure every kid gets to spend time experiencing everything we're prepared to share with them. I teach the teachers, ensuring the consistent quality and richness of the educational program. I get to plant the idea in every kid's head that the world is much larger and more engaging than their classroom.
Our schools are filled with kids who can't sit still, who learn by doing, and who are highly incompatible with the office worker's metaskills that the school system is designed to impart. I don't just give them a field trip to make history class a little more relevant. I introduce them to a whole new method of learning and interacting with the outside world. Every idea I communicate has a physical analogue on the boat and they all get put in the kids' hands. You'd be surprised how many ADD kids get real sharp when abstract symbols are put away in favor of concrete reality.

And that's where I'm at right now; relaxing, memorizing the education program for the Lynx, and looking forward to four or five months of very difficult and rewarding work.

Sporadic Update

2007-07-02T19:53:15Z

For anybody out there keeping track, I got off the boat in mid-May (there's a story there, but I'm not gonna tell it now). Upon arriving home in Portland, I jumped right into a sound and light board operator gig at the Artist's Repertory Theater, one of the more well-established houses in town. The show was Orson's Shadow, a historical piece about the time Orson Wells and Laurence Olivier collaborated on a production of Ianesco's Rhinocerous. They hated the play and each other. Hilarity ensued. Also in the play is Vivian Leigh, Olivier's manic depressive nymphomaniac of a wife who played Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the wind. She comes in at the end of each act, filps out and chews up scenery. Really, the whole thing is like a good episode of Frasier crossed with Inside The Actor's Studio with a side of Jerry Springer. It was a hoot.
That ended yesterday. Right now, I'm waiting for my ride to the fourth of July festivities on the playa. I'm going out there for ten days to party my ass off and do prefab for burning man. Then I'm heading out to central Oregon to work the Oregon Country Fair. Then it's back home to catch my breath for a couple of days before working SOAK, the Oregon burner regional. Then back home again for ten days and right back out to the desert on August 3rd to help build Black Rock City.
It's going to be an interesting month.

Sick, Tired and Strangely Happy

2007-03-04T06:14:36Z

We rolled into San Francisco a couple days ago. It's been a really tiring week, and we've all got the plague. I knew there's be days like this when I signed on. Somehow, every day brings moments that defy my expectations and make this really worthwhile. Mostly it's the people. I'm surrounded by amazing, giving, goofy people and not even the blackest mood can survive half an hour with them.

So, all complaints about the rough nature of my work aside, I'm really happy here. I try to convey this in words, but pictures help. Here's the first roll.

First, a couple shots of the boat. Here's the Hawaiian Chieftain at dock:

And under full sail: (Given for context. This is the only picture I didn't take)

And here's the view of the deck from out on the headrig during transit:

In the next two, you can see my crewmates furling the square sails. For reference, the lowest square sail hangs about 45 feet up the mast.

The next two were taken at sunset on different days. There's nothing quite like sailing on open ocean.

Look, a shiny binnacle! We polish that thing to a mirror finish every morning.

Finally, here's me at the helm during transit. I'm wearing my foul weather gear - you can see my tool rig and climbing harness poking out from under my windbreaker. I'm also wearing a hat given to me by a crewmate. It's warm, fluffy, sparkly, blue, woolen, and handmade. Everyone agrees it's a ridiculous hat. I'm going to wear it on every transit until it gets blown off my head.

That's all for now. I'll post more when the next roll is finished.

Back In The Swing

2007-02-23T05:02:10Z

It's February 22nd and I'm in Morro Bay, sitting in the aft cabin and listening to the soft rain hit the weather deck above me. It's going to be a quiet day.
We pulled into this port yesterday after a 22 hour transit from Ventura. It was one of the smoothest ocean transits I've ever experienced. I was on the 4-8 watch (i.e. the sunrise-sunset watch), my favorite.
...
The rain just picked up to great gusting gouts that smack the rig and make us heel over a couple of degrees. Crewmembers of both boats have jumped into fowlies and are running on deck, laughing and shouting. We haven't been rained on in several weeks and it was starting to feel weird. Today will be a slow day spent belowdecks, patching clothes, mending gear, doing paperwork.
(Note: this was written this morning. Since then, it cleared up for a few hours - just long enough to do the grand arrival and public tours. The weather likes us here.)
...

Here are some things that have crossed my mind in the last three weeks:

I'd forgotten how paralyzing seasickness is. It's not just a general uneasy feeling. It's acute, like getting food poisoning. The lizard part of my brain is telling the rest of me to stop everything and go to sleep -right now-. I'm better at coping than I was last year, but it's still no fun and it impedes my ability to work. Luckily, Admiral Nelson's cure works as well now as it did two hundred years ago - just sit under a tree for a few minutes.

I really like teaching. A lot of people don't because it amounts to saying the same damn thing several times a day. I can deal with that. The way I look at is that I live in a rich, amazing world full of wonder and excitement and real depth, and I get to share that sensibility with the kids I teach. I teach sail handling and a lot of good, accurate history, but the idea I convey above all else is that the world we live in is bursting with incredible things to do and discover. All you have to do is look for them. There's something magical about listening to a ten year old complain that everything on the boat looks to big and heavy for him, handing him a line to set a sail that's several times his size, watching him haul it, and seeing the growing realization in his eyes that he is capable of much more than he thought he was as he hauls the sail taut and the wind catches it and it moves the 100 ton boat that he's standing on.
Wow. Got a little ahead of myself there.

A few old crewmates came to visit a couple nights ago. It was like a family reunion. Shouting and laughing and hugs all around and phone calls to the friends who couldn't make it. I realized that I am part of the family here. There's something wonderful about knowing you can just show up somewhere and be recognized and welcomed and invited to stay for as long as you'd like. When I set foot on the boat three weeks ago, it was like I'd never left. I have a place here, a role I enjoy filling that allows me to better the lives of my crewmates.

I still talk in my sleep. My crewmates give me shit about it most mornings. Some things never change.

I'll write more and post pictures when I can. If anybody reading this wants to know where I physically am, go to http://www.historicalseaport.org/calendar/calendar.htm - I'm on the Hawaiian Chieftain.

Leaving On A Jet Plane

2007-01-31T20:13:52Z

I'm sitting in the Portland International Airport, waiting for an airplane that will take me back to the boat I left six and a half months ago. I feel like I'm going home.
When I did this a year ago, it was a long shot into the unknown. I was going to work on the boat at the request of a friend, lured with the promise of adventure, if not riches. I had no idea how it was going to turn out. When the captain asked me how long I was staying, I said "as long as you need me." He laughed. I thought it would be a month or so. It turned into five and a half.
Those were some of the best, hardest and most significant months of my life.
So here I am again, flying south to the land of no winter and calmer seas. It's different this time - I know what I'm getting into, I've signed on for five months and not a day longer, and I'll be walking on the boat as an officer instead of a deckhand. I've come a long way in the last year, but I left the boat knowing that I still had a lot to learn. The challenges will be different this time, but they will be just as constant. I'm in a better position to learn from them now.
It feels really good to be going to where I'm expected, wanted, and needed. I have a place on the Hawaiian Chieftain. A home. I'm leaving home and going home at the same time. That makes me really happy.