Ruminations on Summer

With Summer here on the calendar if not in spirit, a single evening from a past Summer remains salient an clear in my memory, reminding me why I love Seattle in the high season. That evening, immediately on leaving work, I biked to the International District - to Uwajimaya - to buy a backpack full of Japanese food.

I turned around and biked home across mostly empty downtown streets, watching the Olympics become silhouettes as the air went gold around them. It was ethereal. At home, from my window, I watched Mt. Rainier change form a ghostly white to a deep pink against an ever darker sky.

It was a full day of work followed by an evening of breathing in the summer air, and all that time spent churning the pedals. I felt like Lance Armstrong's ugly, bastard second cousin, with my overused calf muscles burning hot on my late return home. Resting on the sofa, it was a sort of masochistic, even-tempered ecstasy.

This is why I love life in our Seattle Shangri-la, tucked as it is into the frayed folds at the northwest corner of the map. The blackberries are in season in late summer, and as I bike home from work on the Burke-Gilman trail, I can stop momentarily and help myself to the ripest berries. Clusters of walkers and bikers are always scattered alongside the trail, evoking a pre-agricultural human society as they happily forage, truly forage, for berries - a public resource of pure, purple fructose available on my evening commute. The rest of the world gets only road rage on their varied commutes. And, as the rest of the country swelters, we exist in our own micro-climate, boxed against the coast by mountain ranges to the south and east, allowing only north Pacific currents to bring us our mild weather, like early morning deliveries of milk in glass bottles.

I don’t think I’ll ever leave. Even when Rainier rebels against our ever growing numbers, and spits molten rock and lava at us. I’ll stand and face southeast, calmly gnawing on blackberries, waiting for the pyroclastic flow to convert me to ash.

I've published nothing new in some time, so I've decided to post thoughts excerpted from writing on my 2005 trip to Vietnam:

The troubles of home seem utterly distant. I would like to stay longer. The trip has been a feast for the senses and psyche since the moment I departed the San Francisco airport. The flight from SFO to Hong Kong was the longest I’ve done - 14 hours on the same plane! Longer than the LA-Sydney flight. Any flight that shows 4 - count 'em - 4 movies is a long flight. I can't sleep on planes, so I was exhausted by the time I finally arrived in Ho Chi Minh City. Apparently, they were auditioning a new reality show in Hong Kong called "World's worst Asian Baby" - 3 of the prospective contestants sat behind me and screamed their way across the entirety of the Pacific ocean. I couldn't sleep on arrival, though, because of the anticipation.

There are no road rules in Saigon, only vague culturally-established guidelines. I never imagined there were so many motorbikes and mopeds on earth. The urban flow of motorbikes through the street is like a high speed, exhaust soaked lava lamp. Crossing the street is a game of roving eye contact, trust in the keen sense of the Vietnamese person at the stick, and faith in what is essentially a chaos theory sub-proof rendered live and in real time. Getting across an intersection is very much like the old video game "Frogger" of which, fortunately, I was an aficionado. Two steps forward, one step back - look out for the minibus!

I think the best approach is to just close one's eyes and step into the boulevard, since the motorbike speed demons seem to flow around you like the foreign blood clot that you are.
I've seen mopeds with whole families of 6 riding on them, motorbikes towing carts with water buffalo in them, motorbikes with 10 foot high stacks of plywood strapped to the back of the seat.

I’ve done a tour of the cu chi tunnel networks, where the viet cong guerillas held off the Americans for the whole of the war. This is a communist country, so the video we watched beforehand in the museum was of course tinged with triumphant propaganda, narrating on the best "American Killer Heroes" of the cu chi province. The Americans in the audience sort of fussed in their seats uncomfortably with repeated mention of celebrated "American killer heroes." Y’know…. those heroes who killed their quota of Americans.













It was nevertheless educational to see the history of the Vietnam war from the viewpoint of the winners. The War Remembrance Museum in central Saigon is likewise eye-opening. 2 million dead Vietnamese, American produced pesticides creating all sorts of birth defects, land mines permanently dismembering so many citizens here. My sense for pacifism is forever renewed.

I have violated every rule of safe travel. I have had Vietnamese coffee with ice every day (they roast thebeans in butter - delicious!). I have eaten fruits with skins, and eaten from street vendors everywhere. It is too tempting, but my stomach has not yet rebelled. I had a whole frog cooked in spicy curry sauce the first day - it was tough getting the meat off the calf muscle while peering at the still-attached toes. Most of the "restaurants" I've eaten at have been little more than 2 footstools supporting a wood plank and a steaming pot on the sidewalk.

The beach at Nha Trang was beautiful, but I caught a cold there. Too much travel, not enough sleep. Fortunately, I was pounding the zinc and EmergenC concoctions, and the cold only lasted 24 hours. Now, I'm simply hungover (30 cents for 450 ml of "Saigon" beer - this truly a paradise) and happy to be well again. I went to a pharmacy where a woman offered me packets of either Cipro (the anthrax cure) or tetracycline - no instructions, no prescription – for 35 cents. I chose tetracycline. Mmmm… tasty third world antibiotics.

I commute by bicycle as often as I can, 8 miles each way to and from my office, and mostly along Lake Washington.

Many days, I do battle with the physical properties of water vapor on both near and far-off fronts. Nearby, very nearby, the Seattle mist stings my eyes and makes it tough to see. But were it not for the droplets immediately before me, I’d be essentially blind still. Much further away, low-lying, ashen clouds obscure a rocky, mountainous panorama that I know is there, invisible behind the grey curtain. I try to wipe away the moisture quickly enough to spot a nasty pothole that will ineluctably jar me awake – more awake, thankfully, than the cranky driver mainlining a caramel macchiato and poised to sideswipe his two-wheeled companions on Lk Washington Blvd.


But for all the aggravation, anxiety and damp, there are clear mornings when the Cascade mountains glow snow-capped in the East across the lake. I can see, as well, Mt. Baker to the North, hovering unassumingly over the lake like an oversized white mocha chocolate chip, replete with broken chunk bitten away. The cool, dry air of a sun-drenched day chills my whole body when I first set out, but the repeated pumping of the pedals moves my warm blood about and I soon find myself in a joyous sweat , utterly refreshed.


Headed south, on the way home, in apparent defiance of Mt. Baker’s small-scale morning performance, Mt. Rainier monstrously overwhelms the lake at its southern end, in sunset shades of pink, orange , purple and white. It seems to extend a massive volcanic arm and, in a bullying gesture, tap me in the chest, as if to say, "Who the hell do you think you are?" To which I can only reply, "Me? I'm just a humble stone cutter, on my evening commute." Heh, heh. I arrive home in breathless, blissful humility.

The faintest hint of summer was in the air during today’s afternoon run. Seattle is temperate enough that I often catch a whiff of summer in mid-January. Still, today’s scent, the feel of warm wind on my skin - it’s energizing freshness was in part internal. We have a new president. He’s eloquent and smart. He’s a true believer type, the kind of naïf at whom I would cynically sneer in years past. But I see myself in Barack Obama’s bio: His dad was a foreigner, whom he didn’t truly know. He was raised by his single mom. He was a chronic outsider with a funny name. His mom was an anthropologist. I’m an anthropologist, for godsakes!

To millions of xenophobic and even racist Americans, who visit the third world not at all or only when they can get back on the Royal Caribbean cruise ship before sundown, Obama’s name, his Indonesian upbringing, his Kenyan dad – they made him strange and exotic, an unknown quantity. All of these things helped me identify more strongly with this presidential candidate, for the first time in my life. Complexion notwithstanding, I have more in common with Barack Obama than I ever will with George W Bush, the blueblood heir who could barely hold the silver spoon out of his mouth long enough to say something stupid, and say it with grammar that sounded as though it had been waterboarded. ‘Torture memo,’ indeed. More like tortured memo.

Bush and Barack are a study in contrasts. I’m not sure why Bush sought the white house. In Barack Obama, you see a driven man who worked his way to the top. Likely because of this, he truly does believe in America’s promise. His faith in our country is viscerally evident. Bush, the purported man of faith, came across as truly disinterested. I watched him fly away in a helicopter and thought little more than ‘good riddance.’ Ok, I thought more than that, but it’s not really printable here. And yet, from everything I’ve read and seen, there will be no revelation, no remorse. Bush is impervious and clueless to the end. I suppose if you don’t read the morning newspaper, as Bush reportedly doesn’t, it would be hard to know that 80% of the country would like to see you tarred and feathered, with a side of extra tar, please. It’s as if a modern Dickens had rewritten ‘A Christmas Carol’ such that Scrooge wakes up, rolls over, and says “screw you ghosts of past, present and future, I’m the decider!”*

Barack Obama, a man of ideas, introspection and great oration, stood and delivered a fantastic speech, and Bush sat at his side, those narrow eyes growing more vacuous by the minute. Was he thinking, “wow, this guy is so smart, how come I can’t write speeches like that?” No. How about: “ wow, where does he get his ideas and his inspiring tone? “ No. Bush is so incurious and unaware, he was likely thinking, “wow, that’s a great suit.”

America, we let a raucous frat boy house-sit our white house for 8 years. He partied, rolled in a keg, bullied and fought his way around town, alarmed and annoyed our neighbors, and, in his final act as our station wagon pulled up into the drive, busted into the safe, spent our savings and pawned off our jewelry. The house is a mess. Time to send in someone to… um… to scrub the place down. Hmm.. making the black guy clean up, I guess there’s still a bit of racism in the whole thing after all. Ah, but this housecleaning is an intellectual and administrative one.

Obama’s no Christ-like savior. I have found and still find myself disagreeing with a number of his decisions and views. But, he got my vote and still has my respect, and I’m ready, as he asks, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those who voted against him, and get to work.

*Speaking of references to those pop culture narratives of greed and poverty/good and evil, I thought it hysterical that Dick Cheney, ensconced in his wheelchair and holding on to his requisite scowl and cane, bore an appropriate resemblance to the Mr. Potter character of the film ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ Somewhere in Iraq, a Shiite version of George Bailey is sweating out a nightmare in which Haliburton has transformed his village into Pottersville. Cheney supposedly threw his back out moving boxes on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Uh-huh. Cheney hasn’t *had* to lift his own boxes since 1978. It was either divine retribution – an act of not-so-non-violent resistance on the part of King’s ghost - or I’m assuming he was forced to personally throw, into the bonfire, a box of documents so damaging that even his closest aides weren’t allowed near it.

Adventures in the Pacific States

We're just back from a Pacific states road and foot trip. The battered Matrix's 4 cylinders led us through 4 state capitals -- in WA, OR, CA and I don't how the hell to abbreviate Nevada. By the way, isn't it interesting how each of these states has a second tier city as its capital? I mean -- Salem? Sacramento? Huh?

Somehow "what happens in Carson City stays in Carson City" just ain't got that swing. Speaking of Carson City, it was fascinating how a bone dry city presented a lush, overgrown forest on a single square city block, a block upon which the state legislature is located. Wtf? I guess the NV [got it!] legislature is rolling in all types of green.

Our 4 limbs (yeah, the arms got involved) kept us moving along a piece of California's John Muir Trail, among other trails, and up and down Yosemite's enormous granite monolith, known as the 'half-dome.' More on that later, but I'm pointing at it below...

We hit 4 national areas along the way. I'm sensing a number pattern here.... 4 cylinders, 4 limbs, etc. To keep this numerical mojo going, I should mention that I cried out for my mom 4 times along the trail. Ok, enough. We hit 2 national parks, 1 national monument, and 1 national seashore. In the same day, we saw the sunrise in the high Sierras...

....and the sunset at Pt. Reyes National Seashore - a narrow peninsula that pushes out 10 miles into the Pacific and lies about an hour and a half north of San Francisco.
















We have a friend who's a National Park ranger there, and she lives adjacent to the historical lighthouse at this far western edge of the California coastline. The view from her guest bedroom was nothing short of fantastic....













However, before that, during the final morning of our backpacking trek in Yosemite, we had our breakfast with a black bear...




Ok, no photo here...I wasn't quick enough with the camera. When a juvenile male bear sneaks up behind you while you're filtering water at the river, you're more likely to accidentally pee on the camera in your pocket than use it. Rest assured, I didn't piss myself.

Please accept the following substitute:



















The day of the early morning bear encounter - the very same day - we made our way down the last stretch of hiking trail and had our dinner in the inner national park metropolis known as Yosemite Valley, replete with multiple tourist villages, hotels, a supermarket that would rival any Seattle grocery, food courts and an elaborate and crowded public transit system. Tiff and I bizarrely stepped off a backcountry trail and ran to catch a packed bus. After several days on lonely hiking trails, camping under the stars and full moon, it felt a bit like Shinjuku station in inner Tokyo.



















Also, after burning approximately 1,234,500 calories a day, and having had only water to drink and freeze-dried food to eat, we took advantage of Yosemite Valley's amenities and gorged ourselves at a junk food cornucopia. It was the first time in my life that I actually finished a 'half-dome' cheeseburger and basket of fries, along with a Yosemite Falls quantity of fountain soda. I'm ready - supersize me!















This all began with a water filter that Tiff convinced me to buy nearly a year ago at an REI sale. Since then, we'd accumulated enough equipment for a backcountry trip in Yosemite. And it was a trip that was ethereal at times.















Not 10 yards into our backpacking adventure, the trail languished at the bottom of a snowmelt-swollen lake. Later, beneath snow fields 10,000 feet up, we lost and then found the trail several times. We saw bears, coyotes, and marmots.

The denouement in our trip, of course, came in summiting Yosemite's skyscraping icon, the 'half-dome.'

















Getting to the top first involves an arduous uphill hike through the woods. Phase II is a climb up the hump of the monolith via a seemingly endless granite staircase - utterly exposed to the hot sun all the way. For the final ascent up the sheer, smooth wall, one must don gloves and grip onto cables held up by posts drilled into the rock wall. The cables are necessary because the climb is so steep (near vertical) and the rock has worn smooth by rain and hundreds of daily footfalls. It sometimes felt impossible to get a foothold. One slip of the hand or foot and the unlucky visitor falls out of the cables to his or her death.





















Hats fell from heads, water bottles fell from backpacks, and the sight and sound of them skittering down the polished granite was unmistakable. We heard full bottles slide off the edge -- and then nothing but silence. We never heard them hit bottom. More than one person ahead of us had to turn back, and several people were weeping in fear on the way up (I plead the 5th).

This is high elevation rock-climbing for unharnessed amateurs.



















We brought carabiners and straps, but the cables were too big to hook onto, and so we went without. Tiffany Leilani was forced to give me a pep talk in line. It is the sort of thing for which words and photos are inadequate, but I blog on with words and photos nonetheless.

As we neared the top, I wondered what to expect there. Perhaps a contemporary artist had installed a coin-operated Stairmaster as a sort of ironic commentary on the American post-war sense of self, body and nature? Maybe I'd find the busiest Starbucks kiosk in the Northern Hemisphere? Saddam Hussein's missing WMDs?





















Instead, we simply saw blissed out, slightly dehydrated backpackers feeling happy to be alive. It was incredible. There was an ironic commentary of a sort...
















Mini Stonehenge! "Spinal Tap" anyone?

I should also mention that along the way we hit Crater Lake, OR...














San Francisco, CA....















Lake Tahoe and Devil's Postpile National Monument, CA...























Innumerable coffee shops, WA, OR, CA, NV....



















And, of course, we orchestrated intricate campsite fashion shoots....






















More pictures of our adventure can be found at Tiff's flickr site (www.flickr.com/tlban808)Feel free to bypass it if you like. There are now so many pictures of Tiff and I up there that the inventor of the internet (Albert Gore, you remember him) recently emailed Tiffany with a cease and desist order regarding uploading 'Karma and Tiffany' photos. The moratorium has begun.