Reality

Though I have been involved with Japanese culture for decades, my Japanese language skills are sorely deficient. I admit that I have never put the effort in to learn the language of the culture that I love. One of the side effects is that I am constantly learning the obvious. It also means that the simplest of revelations is exciting.

I have been to Japan three times: travelled from Nikko in the north to Nagasaki in the south. In these travels, I have never felt looked down upon because of my lack of the language. In fact, the Japanese people have been welcoming and on numerous occasions gone out of their way to rescue me, usually because I cannot read the simplest of signs.

And this has me thinking about Japanese prints, Ukiyo-e. What could be more mysterious than the various seals, stamps, text, and calligraphy that accompany the subject of most prints. The figures or the places depicted are framed in, at least for me, an incomprehensible array of kanji and bright red hallmarks.

Once, years ago a friend who was born in Japan but has lived in the USA for most of their adult life came to visit. They had only two requests, they wanted to see the Art Institute’s Japanese print gallery, and then have dinner at the Italian Village. As we walked through the gallery, which was displaying a grouping of classic prints by the like of Hiroshige, Masanobu, and Hokusai, he casually looked at each print and simply read the text.

This was a revelation for me. As obvious as it was, it had never occurred to me that these prints were formatted with a particular array of identifying and regulatory markers, and that on many were poems and descriptions of the depicted scene. What was a mystery for me was, in most cases, the set series of elements that make up a print's bona fide.

So, after that faithful afternoon I determined to understand the prints on a more practical level. To this end, I began to acquire scholarly books about the prints. At one point, I even make a spreadsheet of the various “families” of print makers to try to understand their lineage.

Of course, as might be imagined, it was a complex task. In the process, I learned that the production of the prints had a definitive timespan, and that the printing technology evolved, as did the availability of inks from outside of Japan. And those are clues to when the prints were made.

I also realized that the artists listed on the prints were the designers, and an entire industry existed to make the artist vision a reality. Woodcarvers, printers, publishers, and a sales staff, not to mention the clients that ordered the prints and the public that bought them. For printmaking was a commercial enterprise.

In the years that I sought out these prints, I had put my uninformed interpretation on them, an idealized image of a perfect world without mercantilism. After all, I was thinking Zen, and not the reality of courtesans, Kabuki actors, and travel brochures.

But let me not sound disappointed by my discoveries. In fact, it only heightened my enjoyment of the medium. Knowledge is a grand thing and with the more gained, the increased frustration that more is lacking. Knowledge, like the proverbial iceberg, is mostly hidden.

Does this mean I will sign up for the next Japanese language class, probably not. I will use the brainpower still left to me to study the culture knowing the deficit I am operating under. And that is the reality; to continue to rejoice in each small discovery I stumble on.

October 2018

Sound

Neuroscience has caught up with common sense. Since the scientific method was discovered it was thought that past a certain age, it was downhill for an aging brain. That once neurons matured the only option was deterioration. Our neuronal architecture was fixed and there was nothing to do about it.

Of course, life long learners knew differently and kept the knowledge to themselves. They quietly painted, wrote, read, built, and played despite the grim prognosis provided by the scientific community.

This has changed. Our neurons are now free to grow and interact as they please. And this brings me to the title of this article, sound. I spent most of my life listening to all kinds of sounds from the most esoteric Japanese to ubiquitous pop, and just below the surface longed to play, to participate.

I had (have) a busy life. With the other study I involved myself in there was no place for music making. In my early twenties, I bought a shakuhachi and managed to learn how to read the music but that is about as far as I got. Once a decade I would pick up the flute but to no avail, other mental activities had sucked up the brainpower needed to progress, and the flute would be confined to its drawer.

This was true until four years ago when I quit working. It took me a couple of years to say retired. I think it was a combination of guilt and self denial, but I am over that now. And then with no excuse and plenty of time, I picked up the shakuhachi once more. Of course, making notes other than the basic pentatonic scale of D, F, G, A, C was troublesome.

I purchased a tuner/metronome and went to work. An uncompromising friend who is an amateur oboe player stressed that I practice at least one hour per day, otherwise forget about it. I agreed. It seemed like I was making a pledge, signing a contract with dire consequences if I did not comply.

Now retired and having numerous hours free how hard could it be to find one hour to practice, as it turns out, very. Mornings and evenings are productive times for me, afternoons not so much, unless I manage to sneak in a shot of espresso around 2:30.

As retirement progressed, I noticed the morning rituals did also. During my working life I was able to wake, shower, make tea, and a breakfast and lunch sandwich, and be out of the house crawling down Lake Shore Drive in twenty minutes, now the task (minus one sandwich and the commute) was taking hours.

This severely cut into my attempts to practice first thing in the morning. I thought there is always the afternoon, no problem. In this, I did not take into account that I do not live by myself. My wife Charlotte and I are a good team and it turns out afternoons are for teamwork: groceries, maintenance of the house and garden, haircuts, and financial advisors, accountants, doctors . . . well you get the idea. These duties often interfered with the above commitment.

Then there are the intangible reasons (read excuses) for not practicing. Self doubt even loathing is a prominent one. To sit quietly and listen to someone else make music/noise is one thing but to make your own noise is entirely different. Why do I think that I have or will ever develop the talent that could justify making the constant stream of mistake ridden sounds needed to become proficient?

Where in the confines of a 1200 sq. ft. bungalow with neighbors feet away to either side can I practice without disturbing the good will of folks we have lived peaceably next to for decades. And what about my spouse? She has graciously supported me in pastimes from chanoyu to welding steel sculptures to basement boat building to sacrificing home improvement in favor of boat upgrades. Can I push my luck one more time?

To this end, I decided to set up shop in the dining room, and then in deference to the close proximity of the southern neighbor’s bedroom I moved into the front room. I can close two doors to slightly isolate the sound from the TV room in the back of the house where Charlotte resides most evenings.

If there is one common thread in my diurnal existence, it had been night owl-ism. When sent to bed as a kid I would lay awake for hours conjuring up fantasy worlds. This would have been a good time to read under the covers with a contraband flashlight but I did not figure out how to read until late in my high school career.

So, it ends up that when the sun goes down my energy level goes up. Since cable has been ousted in favor of an antenna, and attempting to keep up with the providers of the ever-changing Internet stream has proven beyond my skill or interest level, there are not many distractions after dinner. Other than the fact that the rest of the world is quiet, it is my perfect time to blow.

The shakuhachi is not a forgiving instrument. There is no guarantee that the notes played the night before will again be present on the next night. This ancient pentatonic flute lives in a chromatic world, and the changes in embouchure, air speed and direction, unique fingering, and the variegation of each tube of bamboo make each session an adventure.

Not to sound defeatist, I have made progress. I have even garnered the occasional compliment from long suffering Charlotte. The sound has improved and I have learned to play softer and slower. There is less tension in the notes, and less sharp and flatness.

I can feel neurons remodeling. It happens in the guise of muscle memory, in the four or five songs I have been able to memorize, and above all, in the eighty year old flute’s response to my entreaties. It has finally recognized my existence, the sound of my newly minted neuronal architecture.

September, 2018

Phenomena

At first light, the lobstermen wake Carrie Rose as they transit to their boats. And not long after sunrise, other lobster boats wake Carrie Rose as they stream in to check their traps. I am usually up with the former, go back to bed and have the latter wake me up for good. Fishing is just one of the phenomena that occurs here on mooring ball #14 in Herrick Bay, Maine.

When the moon disappeared this month of August, the tide was particularly low. Where I usually have 8 to ten feet under me at low tide, there was less that five. It rendered my outboard useless at the floating dock where the water was less than three feet.

All the obstructions to navigation around the dock became visible. New smatterings of rocks appeared throughout and the bay’s boat traffic halted for several hour pre and post low tide.

Then there is the fog. Locals have told me that this year has been particularly bad. It rolls in and it rolls out. It hugs the water only to rise and hug the shore. At times the water particles that make up the fog are visible, each one its own entity. And with the fog comes the cold. One moment there is the sun’s warmth, and the next the fog’s chill. It makes choosing the day’s wardrobe a lesson in compromise.

One morning I awoke to a fog so dense that I could not see the boats around me. A steady breeze was blowing from the southeast and there was a hint of blue sky above me. I was tinkering in the pilothouse when I noticed that the fog had cleared around me and had coalesced into a parabola shape streaming off Carrie Rose’s bow and stern. It was rainbow-ish: more shades of browns and purples than the usual Technicolor.

As the boat swung, it undulated but stayed attached. I went to the bow and took pictures and a three minute video, and then I thought that I should just watch it. And so, I did until it slowly widened and disappeared deep into the bay. I know you are going to ask if I checked the boat for a pot of gold, I did not, figuring that boats are more generators of debit than revenue.

The night before my personal rainbow I was sitting below in the salon. It was dark and foggy. There were only a few dim lights visible on the shoreline and the ghostly yellow hue of my solar garden light illuminated the stern. The lights in the pilothouse were off as I walked up the stairs where I confronted a brilliant 7/8ths blood orange moon about 30 degrees off the horizon. Its reflection was streaming towards me and the entire bay was ablaze.

It took me by surprise. I was expecting a void and instead I saw an otherworldly landscape of water, islands, and boats silhouetted by the moon’s bronze glow. I almost fell back into the salon. Of course, I went for my camera in an attempt to capture the few photons streaming around the boat’s wobbling platform, impossible. Again, as with the rainbow, I gave in to the image and watched.

Some days later, after a day of rain and fog and threatening thunderstorms the skies began to clear. It was close to sunset, so I kept watch on the western horizon. The skies were chaotic enough to offer a chance for a stunning sunset, always welcome after days of low clouds.

A thunderstorm passed in the distance. It’s lightening was audible as it headed to the northeast. The girth of the storm seemed to draw in other substantial clouds, which began to organize on the horizon. I have seen clouds like these before. They are roll clouds that form, if I am correct in my analogy, like the vapor seen on the front of jets wings. Pressure causes the humid air to condense and become visible.

Though these clouds look formidable, they usually do not presage a violent occurrence. Nonetheless, I do not ignore them. My eyes were drawn into their pure symmetry and relentless movement. I prepare for the worst but am most times relieved by their inconsequential passing. They seem to signal an end to the chaotic weather, but on occasion portent a worsening. So, I stay beware and count my blessings if they pass silently.

There are other stories but my computer’s battery is getting low and the two fingertips that I am using to type this are sore, so I will stop. Phenomena are one thing, despite the challenges, that keep folk like me on the water. May they all be benign!

August, 2018

Aviary

Chamcook Harbor is a small inlet off Passamaquoddy Bay. Passamaquoddy Bay is a larger inlet off the Bay of Fundy, and the Bay of Fundy is an even larger inlet connected to the Atlantic Ocean.

The tide here is seventeen feet, so when anchored in 21 feet at low tide enough anchor chain had to be put out for in six hours it would be 38 feet. 120 feet (all I have) of 3/8 inch chain was lowered connecting Carrie Rose to a hopefully well buried 45 pound anchor.

Chamcook has a pair of loons. Loons keep their distance unless they are trying to dissuade you from approaching their youngsters. The Chamcook loons did not get much closer than a football field. I was to begin my daily shakuhachi practice (Charlotte is a saint) when the loons started calling to each other. As much as they are the butt of jokes, their call penetrates the soul.

It was a cool night after a 94 degree day. The 100% humidity made it seem warmer than it was. I had a vivid dream about trying to find my apartment at the hospital, and got wrapped up in the sheet and blanket, quite frustrating.

The cloud shrouded sun rose at 4:50 AM. I managed to ignore it until six. I boiled water, made tea and toast, and sat down to eat when I noticed five black dots about 200 yards outside the port salon window. At first, I thought they were the eider ducks that flew by low to the water the day before. I grabbed my camera and took a few pictures before using the binoculars.

What I discovered was the loon family out for a swim. There were the parents and three young football sized youngsters. My experience with loons is that the kids are kept near the shore hidden from danger. The parents will be fishing but aware and will intervene if anything threatens their babies.

Carrie Rose has been stopped in her tracks by a couple of determined loons. So, to see the five of them together in the middle of the bay was a surprise and a treat. I went back to breakfast and when I looked up again there was only the parents. They had stashed the kids near the shore.

There was some commotion and suddenly the parents were airborne. One flew direct at me. I grabbed the camera again but it would not focus on the grey underside silhouetted by the sky’s homogeneous gray background.

Loons are big birds and powerful fliers once they manage to get off the water’s surface. Their large black feet stream behind the tail feathers. They joined in formation with one leader and a tail gunner, and flew out the opening of the harbor into darkening clouds and fog.

Sometime later, I thought I saw them again but there were only four. These were eider. A male I think and three young brown birds. They paddled to shore and simultaneously disappeared beneath the water only to pop up and start to preen. Carrie Rose makes a good perch to observe the local waterfowl.

Later that morning, mother loon and two beautifully marked siblings spent a few hours fishing to the north of us. The wind steadily increased from the west. We received some strong gusts but the bulk of the wind was pushed over us by the low slung hills.

All morning we had loons to the starboard and eiders to the port. The loons were more active but then they were older, already decked out in their adult plumage, whereas the eider mom had four small rust colored children to contend with.

She would fish ahead of them as they floated downwind. Each time she came up, she looked back to see them farther away until judging the situation untenable, she swam back to corral them and moved forward. They stayed in a neat little buddle, while the loons roamed freely.

The wind sped up and with one particularly strong gust, a large black bird flew over the western hills. It clawed high in the sky, hovered, blew downwind, and repeated the same maneuver until it was out of sight. It was big. I thought B-52, but then a B-52 would not have finger like feathers pointing horizontally in line with its long slender wings.

I captured a fuzzy picture of it hovering directly in front of me and noticed whitish feathers under the wings close to its body. It was an immature bald eagle fishing in the harbor, off the bays, attached to the Atlantic where Carrie Rose spent an eventful morning spying on the bird life.

July, 2018

Fluffy

Early to rise one recent June morning, I decided to take a walk around Montrose Harbor, a place dear to my heart. The place where I learned to sail and where, in many ways, I grew up. It is also where Carrie Rose, our 32’ Nordic Tug, was moored for over a decade.

This June will be the ninth year since Carrie Rose, and us, left Lake Michigan and our mooring at Montrose. We have traveled thousands of miles through Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, the canals of Canada, Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence River to Lake Champlain and the Hudson River, out into the North Atlantic along the coast of New Jersey to Chesapeake Bay and last year north to Maine where she sits awaiting our return.

A few highlights have been the canals of Canada, the wind and waves and weather especially on the Great Lakes, the sincere and earnest people of Vermont, and then NYC. How exciting to motor on the Hudson under the Tappen Zee bridge, pass the Palisades and into downtown Manhattan with as much hustle bustle on the water as on the streets.

There was the trepidation of leaving, passing through the Verrazano Narrows and around Sandy Hook for the first time into the North Atlantic and south on the New Jersey coast. The New Jersey folk were as gregarious, as their coast was treacherous.

Then to Chesapeake Bay, which at first seemed an isolated cruising ground, but turned out to be surrounded by millions of people, with a McMansion around every bend. The year spent there was one of the hottest ever, 100 degree plus everyday. But we were in the perfect spot, and though we did, we rarely needed to travel more then twenty miles for another perfect anchorage. There were so many eagles that at first I mistook them for flocks of crows.

Last year (2017) it was north to Maine. Throughout the cruise, we interacted with multiple diverse communities and cultures. Though not historically true, America seemed to get older the farther north we went. I think because much of the “oldness” is still present. It is in the buildings, in the speech, in the food and drink, and in the attitude of the people.

When we finally crossed the border into Maine the isolation was palpable. The coastline is more on the edge and the lobster culture predominates. Carrie Rose negotiated dense forests of lobster buoys, which predominate the landscape at about one per square foot. It is hard to imagine how the cages sort themselves out on the bottom, as it is to believe there are enough crawly lobsters to fill them.

This summer Maine’s coast will be explored. The water is deep and cold; the tides are eleven feet or more. I am thinking of this as I sit on the Montrose Harbor promontory. I can see the center city with cranes building taller skyscrapers into the perfectly blue sky. There is just a fringe of clouds, lacelike in the distance outlining the blue green water.

There are only a couple of boats out on the lake. The cribs sit stoically three or four miles offshore. A slight breeze disturbs the surface just enough to obscure the reflections of the buildings on Lake Shore Drive and in the distance the sun’s rays are sparkling off the wavelets.

Along the abutment, it is obvious that it was a drunken melee over Memorial Day, cans and bottles, smashed and broken, litter the pale concrete along with trash. I am depressed to think that the revelers can be so clueless to make such a mess for someone else (hopefully) to clean. But I choose not to dwell on the negative this glorious spring day.

I have inhabited this place since I was a kid on a one speed bike. Back then there was a group of German immigrants, many trained in the classical arts of stonework that chiseled and craved the limestone rocks that made up the shoreline into beautiful images. Images of mermaids and moon landings and family crest were painted with vibrant colors. They tolerated me and even gave me tools to do my own primitive memorials.

Little by little, as limestone is apt to do, the paint faded, the sharp chiseled corners rounded, and their world disappeared. I wish I had a camera for now I fear the images only exsist in my mind. The lake reclaimed the wood and stone to the point where it has been replaced with a functional but sterile series of concrete steps.

The Great Lakes are a magnificent background to live one’s life, and representative of that, is Montrose Harbor’s Magic Hedge. It provides a resting place for thousands of birds migrating north and south along the coast. The hedge, born out of neglect and saved by the local birding community, is a world famous site amidst a decidedly urban setting.

The rustic hedge is packed with birds, some exotic and some not, depending on the time of year. As I walked through it that morning, I kept waiting to be attack by one of the cranky red-winged blackbirds. Lucky, I escaped injury.

When I started to walk along the harbor, fluffy fledgling geese were laid out helter-skelter on the boat ramp. Their necks placed haphazardly as they stretched pitch-black legs readying them for another day of foraging. Compared to their alert caretakers, their lethargy was striking.

So this is my tale of a June morning spent wandering in familiar territory that I still find full of surprises. A place that keeps me here, and a place I think of when people from afar ask me how can I stay in Chicago, and I always say, “How could I leave!”

June 2018

Caution

In 1973 with Crosby, Stills & Nash reverberating in my ears, I grabbed a backpack, stuffed $700.00 in my pockets, and flew to Tel Aviv. It would be a year before I walked on Chicago’s grey fields again. Israel felt like the frontier. Its people were fresh faced and optimistic. Young people in khaki shorts with automatic rifles slung from their shoulders were commonplace, as were tanks on enormous transport vehicles. Phantom and Mirage fighter jets owned the sky.

I landed on a large kibbutz located on the western slope of the Valley of Israel. Its one thousand souls milked cows, raised beef, picked oranges and grapefruits, raised hundreds of thousands of chickens, and operated a sizable plastics factory. I would spend most of my time there at the bottom end of poultry husbandry.

Intelligent and serious young men toting Uzi’s patrolled the perimeter of the kibbutz. Israel (at least the kibbutz) was an open-air community. There were hardly any walls. The kibbutzniks were a hardy lot.

The founders had lived through pogroms, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the diaspora. Some had fought in WWI, WWII, lived through the Communist Revolution, and then the expulsion of the Palestinians and the wars that followed. In their spare time, they built a robust agricultural-industrial economy. My contemporaries had been involved in a war and endless policing actions.

The country’s population at the time matched that of Chicago and was looking to expand. There were folk from all over the western world. Intellectuals and farmers, engineers and tradesmen, politicians and every kind of military professional, but surprisingly there were no religious zealots amongst the group.

Their kids were raised in dormitories. The boys were steely eyed and the girls were fiercely independent. I realized that I was out of my league, and kept a low profile and an ear to the ground. The first month I was hardly noticed. After the third month, the place gradually warmed to me and exposed some of its raw nerves. I made it through six months and if the Yom Kipper war had not loamed, I might still be there.

In the end, I survived the non-stop parties, kicking an exposed grenade down the road, near tractor accidents, multiple encounters with large hell raising roosters, and hitch hiking from the top to the bottom of the country.

I lived with Arabs in the Old City of Jerusalem, had tea and snacks with Bedouin shepherds in their tents, walked amongst the shuckling Orthodox Jews at the Wailing Wall, rode the back of a spirited horse into the hills after ranging cattle, danced to a mean blues harmonica, and for some reason spied on an Israel Defense compound. If I keep remembering, even I will get bored with this list.

For a squirrely teenager with limited reading skills the reality of Israel was a kickstarter. It set me on the road for many future adventures. Now as I approach Social Security, I wonder if it is a cautionary tale or one of the best things that ever happened to me. I’ll take the latter.

May, 2018