Gettin’ Back Into the Saddle

When Gene Autry sang his famous tune, “Back in the Saddle Again,” he was already comfortably atop his trusty steed. Me, well, I decided it was time to get my foot into the stirrup and start hoisting my ass back to where I need to be.

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings,” wrote John Muir. Unfortunately, mountains are in short supply here on the New England coastline. But there IS wilderness to be found hereabouts. And one such wilderness spot is a place has been special to me since I was a kid.

The Parker River National Wildlife Refuge occupies three-quarters of my home turf of Plum Island, Massachusetts. It’s a haven for waterfowl and other critters, and this animal craves the same peace and solitude that makes those animals love the refuge.

I used to wander around the refuge when I was kid: walking the trails, exploring the tidepools at low tide, picking beach plums right off the bush. I even got to know one of the employees when I was 8 or 9 and he took me to band ducks with him a couple of times (I later found the guy working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service up in Alaska…small freakin’ world).

A lot of the stuff we used to do is no longer allowed, but the refuge still offers up tranquility and bonafide wild nature — even among the hordes of birdwatchers for whom Parker River is a major destination. And it was in search of that tranquility and nature that I made the short drive onto the refuge this afternoon.

I sought that wildness because it occurred to me that I needed to get back to ME. In my life, I’ve been able to do that best when I’ve been able to focus — and that focus has always been sharpest when I’ve been out on adventure or driven by a (usually job-created) goal.

I like to believe I had that focus in spades last summer aboard Polar Bear; the evidence for that is contained in this blog. And I had that focus back when I was part of the team building Citysearch way back in the 1990s, and again when we were trying to improve the content side of Active a few years ago.

But it’s been two years since I punched the clock in San Diego, and just about eight months since Polar Bear returned to Newcastle. And I’ve been missing having that focus in my life. The fault is mine, I realize, but my point is just that when order is imposed on you externally, focus is easier to find. I’ve been working on some fiction lately, and that’s helped create focus in my life, but I’ve longed for some of that adventure- and job-created focus over the past two years.

So today I went for a small taste of the adventure-driven focus. I haven’t shot many photos since the Polar Bear journey ended so I thought that going for a photo safari would be a good kick in the ass. Rather than take several lens and go for a bunch of targets — scenics, wildlife, emotional scenes — I opted for one simple and likely goal: critters. So I grabbed my camera and my 300-millimeter lens and hit a couple of the refuge’s trails.

What resulted won’t win any awards but it did jump-start my psyche. Not surprisingly, I saw a ton of birds: herons, robins, jays, ducks, geese, crows…and a lot of red-winged blackbirds — including this one belting out a tune.

No mega-fauna, but then this is the East Coast; there isn’t much in the way of mega-fauna around here anymore. On the refuge, there are some deer, some red fox…and this muskrat, who stayed well hidden behind the reeds he and his mate were using to build a lodge in the marsh. But I got a critter eyeball in the shot so I’m puttin’ it here in this post.

It was mid-afternoon so I didn’t expect much, but just being out in the refuge was enough. To wander over trails and through ecosystems that go back to my earliest memories, well, that was adventure enough for this first day. Muir sought mountains for good tidings. I went for a barrier-beach island and it delivered good tidings…and a good dose of focus.

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Further Ruminations on Art

Full disclosure: I had zero interest in going to the Louvre while I was in Paris. Being swarmed by 50,000 tourists all clamoring to get a Chevy Chase-like glimpse of the Mona Lisa was not my idea of a good time.

But I did catch the Musee d’Orsay and the Musee Rodin. And in both places I took up an internal discussion I’ve had going for some time. It’s nothing new; in fact, the discussion is one that billions of people have been having since time immemorial. It’s a question of art: what is it? What constitutes quality in art? And why does it matter?

As I looked at various pieces of art in the two museums, some of them really moved me and others didn’t. Some that were especially powerful had me contemplating time and the meaning of life and death, and what the subjects of the painting (or sculpture) must have thought they felt the artist was capturing.

For instance: the prevalence of classic themes such as angels and morality made me wonder about whether such themes even matter. I mean: if we’re really all about biology (remember Snowden’s secret in “Catch-22”), does striving to lead a good but simple life as a farmer in ancient times really matter? Why should it matter that that two lovers embracing are married to other people given the all-consuming passion they’re obviously feeling? And what does the subject of that statue feel when he realizes that those viewing this monument to his all-too-short life won’t really be able to tell who it is without being told by the artist?

But not all great art deals with the big questions. Or does it and I am just too simple to make the leap? The various still lifes done by great artists aren’t really about anything but a moment in time, right? But maybe they’re really about that moment and its relation to the continuum of time?

ARGH! I don’t know and it makes my head hurt to consider such things…but in a good way. Art makes you think and feel, and if it doesn’t, check your pulse because you may already be dead.

But then there’s the question of quality: what makes one piece better than an other? I know nothing of technique, nothing of the methods artists use to create emotion in a piece of work. But does that even matter? If a piece evokes strong emotion does it matter that it’s not technically “good?” Do Monet’s brush strokes make his paintings better than Gauguin’s or is it the subject matter that’s most important?

When I first came to jazz I asked a buddy of mine who had seen Miles Davis and John Coltrane play live what made certain pieces of jazz good (I’m looking at you here, Five-O Jay). As was his style, my friend evaded the question, but he did turn me on to some of the greats and for that I’m grateful.

I don’t know what makes Miles so great but I do know that when I hear “Kind of Blue” I feel better — about me, about people in general, about the world, if only for a little while. Similarly, I don’t know why seeing certain paintings makes me ponder and analyze and contemplate, but they do — before I run back to the comfort of a non-analytical life.

This debate about the nature and meaning of art is a good thing. It makes me feel more alive, makes my brain (and heart and soul) feel more engaged and vibrant, then I do when I’m not so prompted. That might be what I like most about Paris: the constant evocation of such feelings the emphasis on art provokes.

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Migration

Quarter past eight in the morning here in Akureyri, and we’ll be throwing off the lines in about an hour or so, heading for the Shetland Islands. With that in mind, gonna fire one off the cuff here…

Appropriately enough for Sept. 1, the climb up the hill to the pool complex this morning was filled with signs of the imminent seasonal change as flocks and flocks of geese poured across the sky. All V’ed up and honking merrily along, the flocks continued in a steady stream overhead while I took a final swim/hot tub (the slide was closed…dammit!).

Yesterday, the local youth nordic ski team was doing dryland training on the long stairway leading up the hill to the church overlooking town. And the woman in the tourist office at the harbor said that her shop would be closing after the visit of the final cruise ship of the season on Friday.

And now, sitting in the town square just off the harbor, the high overcast obscures the sun in a way that portends snow. It won’t, of course (not today anyway; after all, I’m sitting outside in the town square and am quite comfortable.

But like the geese this morning, Polar Bear and its crew will be headed south very shortly, the short northern summer having come to a close…the very definition of bittersweet.

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