Hawaii, in retrospect

Targeted advertisements radiate outward these days from the state of Hawaii, begging tourists not to come. I'm reminded of the place, one that hasn't strayed far from my mind now comfortably in the rear view mirror. It was a wonderful foray, right on the cusp of the pandemic, just before you wouldn't take a such a trip. The ecological paradise, an island covered in flowers and green, peppered with a constant drizzling rain, was a reminder of the power of the sun on your skin, of daily sweats, and of a fresh breeze that whisks up thousands of miles of open ocean kissing softly your skin.

I'm struck by the story of Hawaii, one of the planet's great treasures. In its isolation, humans have only known it for a fraction of the time we've been here, and boarding a plane tells you why. Four and a half hours after noting San Francisco Bay below at 500mph and 30,000 feet, you finally see the heights of Mauna Kea out your window, realizing nothing but open ocean lies below. In the other direction, it's even farther to any real form of mainland. How does one begin to conceptualize that much water in every direction, and how far down it goes?

I think it is life's hard journey, its resiliency, that is most moving. It invites in me all kinds of questions. How long must seeds travel on open ocean, battered by waves, caught in currents, to eventually wash up on shore. What keeps them potent, still allows them to sprout? How far must birds fly to finally land exhausted on Hawaii's hardened lava flows? This is to say nothing of humans, cumbersome and awkward, out of our element on the open sea. Who were these men and women that set off from an island like Tahiti in small wooden outrigger canoes, not knowing where they were going, not knowing what they would find, and after more than a month at sea guided only by stars, unknowingly becoming the first inhabitants of these islands active and alive. It's another one of history's small mile-markers, spawned by those brave, foolish, desperate in exile, or a mixture of the three.

The place has evolved with time, of course. It exists now in the 21st century, joining the infinite ranks of places like Niagara Falls and the festivals of San Fermin. Popular, beautiful locations are just ruined by people, far too many of us desiring far too much. Waikiki, with its mixture of tourists from east and west, is unbearable, flanked by shopping malls and resorts and an aloha culture I'm not sure ever actually existed. The military footprint is ever-present, cargo planes taking off and F-16s breaking sound barriers high above. Virtually every light on the island is powered by sweet crude oil emitting somewhere their noxious gasses. To the north sits the great pacific garbage patch, absorbing and expanding by the day.

All that's true. But driving far out down some of the roads that hug the water, maybe with the convertible top down, you still cannot help but be moved by its beauty in isolation. Old waves crash against volcanic rock, watched over by lush cloud covered peaks. Coral reefs grow and die off. Islands millions of years in the making rise and sink. If you look hard, you'll see that connection with the passages of time, the countless difficult journeys, the few that succeeded and the many that did not. You'll appreciate the geological accident in the middle of the pacific that gave us the tallest volcano on earth. You'll appreciate the inclination of life to survive. The Michener dedication written decades ago by a now dead man I expect will always ring out true: to all the peoples who came to Hawaii.

A note on the pandemic

The world continues to shut its doors, its great cities grinding to a halt as a virus barrels its way from country to country in a way no wall or travel ban can stop. This is the globalized world we have stumbled into in 2020, where the same grand power that allows London to New York in five hours paves the way for the exponential spread of a microscopic threat. Uncertainty leads to fear and onward to distrust. If you've read one novel about a pandemic-infused apocalypse, you have read them all. It's the humans you have to worry about when the world falls apart.

Perhaps what I find most peculiar is the reaction of millions now forced to stay inside. These reactions are public now thanks to countless bits and bytes buzzing through the ether and displayed across our phone screens every time we will them on. Deprived of the world's most photogenic sites, its suitors must compromise. Photos of places they once went but now cannot. Photos of expensive meals they once had but now cannot. Photos of fun they once enjoyed but now cannot. Anything possible to ensure their self image, whatever that is, does not grow tarnished in the public's eye by a simple lack of content. "You're not stuck at home, you're safe at home," a new well-meaning thread states, as if being stuck at home is an unconscionable chore requiring a Herculean act of sacrifice. "Bored" and "stir-crazy" are words I'd be happy to never hear again in my life. In the background, thousands battle for their lives in emergency rooms around the world.

The other day I took my bike out and rushed down barren streets at 30mph, past a blooming tidal basin walled off by police and national guard troops. It was a perfect spring day, the new sunshine warming my skin, the gentle breeze rustling past my ears, the ducks swimming away in the Potomac. Awaiting me at home were the ingredients for a new recipe, one where if you put the right things together in a pot and add in a little heat, a miracle manifests, food, the essence of life. Later, I looked to the books on my wall - more than 700 volumes I counted recently - much of it the best stuff there is. Da Vinci, Hemingway, Melville, Dostoevsky, all begging to be opened and read, its ideas pondered over and conversed with until you come out more thoughtful, something better. Never in my life will I understand how people can walk the earth so unable to be with themselves without distraction, unable to be moved by curiosity and the possibility of everyday life. There is just so little time in the big scheme of things to consume it all. By no means did it start here, but a pandemic puts it out in the open, stress testing the extent of our own collective vanity, our discomfort with ourselves in the quiet spaces.

There has never been a pandemic that has not come to an end, and this one too will run its course. I fear our inherent short-term memories will leave us much like we were before. An impossible number of planes will return to the sky turning jet fuel to greenhouse gases. Politicians will return to their relentless election cycles. And the world will step back into its daily commute, having lost a glorious opportunity to breathe, to connect, to catch up with themselves, ask hard questions, and discover the joy that can come when no one is watching, all in spite of, not because of, what's going on outside. 

The Acela Express

One place I consistently find a fascinating microcosm of humanity is the Acela Express from Union Station in Washington to Penn Station in New York on any given day of the week. The journey lasts about 3.5 hours, stops at major cities along the way, and otherwise just flashes across the northeast corridor with old America passing by outside. More than what's outside those windows is what's within. Smart, well-dressed people of all ages all doing interesting things, some de-stressed, taking a nap or reading a book, others taking a call or typing away on a computer. It's a superficial assessment for sure, one that doesn't amount to much in the grand scheme of things, but when I get on that train I always feel like I'm where I need to be, in good company. I never am really ready for the trip to be over, but when it is, I love getting off that train in the buzz of Manhattan, or arriving back home in a grand city that has become mine. My earliest memories are filled with a love for trains, hours upon hours spent building elaborate tracks and stations across the floors of my first house. Easy then to follow the thread of life and find a man, now thirty, sitting in his seat, gazing out the window, lulled into a sense of belonging by the steady vibrations of wheels against track, accentuated by an occasional horn let off into the approaching night. 

Back on the bike

The things that remain most clear in my mind about riding are the roads, and I remember in particular an amazing stretch called Fitzhugh, extending from Highway 290 almost thirty miles out to Johnson City. Two gas stations bounded miles of rural ranches and scorched hills LBJ would have known well. In the middle of Texas summer, we would often drive down and park at one end, load up on liquids, and ride to the other. After refueling, we would ride back. Once, when I was in the best shape of my life and wanted to prove my worth and readiness, I went out and back twice, upwards of 120 miles, and it was probably the most difficult day I've ever had in my life.

I trained and raced long distance triathlons for years, and when asked questions around why, I usually drift back to this ride, and countless others like it that defined this period of my life. I find so much about being a man integrally tied to physical exertion, and the fact is you learn something about yourself when that kind of exhaustion sets in. It's the internal conversations as you pedal along alone across a hundred miles of road, the places your depleted mind wanders. It's the confidence that comes when you feel strong and powerful in your body, an insurance policy against the stagnation of office monotony. Ultimately, I find it's how excuses just melt away when you realize all the many things that are possible, what the human body and spirit can actually achieve. That's contagious. It infects every aspect of your life, this resiliency, this vision, and I often wish the whole damn world knew what that feeling was like.

Recently, I clipped into a new bike and rode out on new roads, from Washington DC crossing the border into Maryland, down McArthur Blvd along the Potomac River. From there, a climb up to the city of Potomac, then left onto River Road and up a beautiful rural farm road called Berryville, one you'd never go down unless you live in one of its magnificent country houses. From Darnestown, you turn and head back home, down Turkey Foot, Travilah, and Glen, before shooting back out onto McArthur into Georgetown. The treasured stops at rugged gas stations, the internal fever that builds and stays well into the night, the getting to know your city in new ways, the hunger, the soreness, the sunburns, the exhaustion. I lost something in my life when I stopped spending hours on a bike - but I knew I'd be back. One hot day and 60 miles in June represent my long awaited return to the stage. 

In Patagonia

It really was a stunning landscape, with all the elements you'd expect of the bottom of the world. Fierce winds blew in off nearby glaciers, and when the clouds weren't out, the sun kept the temperature somewhere confusing between hot and cold. It was dry and rocky in parts, and green and lush in others, peppered with llamas and condors and an occasional cougar. Every lake lit up with a different shade of blue, and one morning absent all wind, at a lake they said was always choppy, it was clear as glass, mirrored, a mountain rising up above and descending below.

Chatwin's In Patagonia accompanied me and gave context to the otherworldly terrain of Torres del Paine, and I'm reminded of the great value in returning to human life as it evolved to be. Stay away from the cell towers long enough, and the brain rewires to its natural state, where you sit comfortably gazing at nothing, or talking to the stranger on your left, rather than reaching for a phone screen and falling into the abyss that comes with being better connected. Here there was so much to see and absorb, an aching to be present, and I found myself later, well on the other side, longing nostalgically for the period of time in which my devices did not work.

There's also a blur of faces from a whirlwind week, some that months later still come to mind. There were the Chilean tour guides running on seasonal rotations that extend outward forever - they either have life figured out, or not figured out at all. There was that wonderful couple embodying happiness and love telling me, the first person ever outside the doctor, on a bus ride across nowhere, that she's pregnant, only later, in an email, to heartbreakingly tell me she miscarried for the second time. There was the beautiful, misplaced, and very taken British girl on my last time warp of an evening in Santiago, looking me in the eyes knowingly, saying so much without words, then saying that fateful final line - "I hope to see you in another version of life" - that then leaves you speechless all the way home. And of course, everything is buoyed, always buoyed, by that one particular friend who knows me on a level perhaps no one else does scattered into memories around the world. Life is injected with excitement and chaos, always, when we manage to link. She will always be integrally associated with lofty thoughts of Patagonia, laughing, laughing without end, laughing until you cannot breathe, laughing until the moment you say goodbye.

When the story of me is written, when I one day look to assign meaning to the swirl of atoms and star dust and energetic currents, it will be these kinds of things that form the substance of the argument I tell the withering version of myself. It's the formation of these bonds in bubbles across the world I want etched into the annals of me. 

Home

A glance around my room illuminates a whole panoply of things I've come to love. I love the way the trees outside my window rustle in the wind and change color on the onset of fall. I love the occasional bark of a dog in the small field that sits just within my view. I love the way my books sit on my shelves, ordered just the way I like, accompanied by a whole world of trinkets and treasures I picked up somewhere far away. I love my bar cart, and the nice booze that sits on it, which of course includes a bottle of single malt, perfect for pouring into a glass on a cold night while I watch the snow. I love the yellow chair I sit in with the scotch. I love the quotes pinned to my cork board. I love the magnates and photos on my fridge. Mostly, I love the feeling of peace and confidence that comes waking up in the morning and slowly looking around at a place that exists on my terms, and embodies my 30 years, everything finally together in one place.

The surprise probably comes greatest of all to me, watching the nature of my life change so rapidly in its day to day movements after years spent on the road - and welcoming it. That previous life was full of beautiful people and places. It was exciting and always new. Yet, as I came to recognize, it was fleeting, and built atop something more vacuous, more image than reality, masquerading itself in the exotic allure of a dozen different countries. It was something I knew I would find disappointing years down the road looking back, examining all the difficult choices I failed to make against all the things that were easy to do. I often feel inspired on my morning commute, one which takes me past the White House and old buildings with marble columns, the Washington Monument always visible in the distance. Something in that I view as evidence, usually on the harder days, that many of my observations were true. I expect they will become more true with time.

Antoine de Saint-Expurey, writing to a friend in Wind, Sand, and Stars, said that moral greatness derives more from a sense of responsibility than from courage or honesty. To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible. I think there is great power that comes with this sense of responsibility, assuming it around the small confines of your world, and not relying on anyone else to make things happen. Being a man, to be sure, requires sacrifice (I sometimes feel I've sacrificed it all in my attempt to keep true things, true). But there is beauty in that sacrifice, in that struggle, in the imperfections of striving and seeking and attempting to make it all work. Because you choose a home, it is yours, and anything wrong represents something wrong inside you. That is a powerful and enabling thought I've found, as time rolls on by. 

I'd like to think all that is what people are after when they talk of home, but I doubt that's true. Home for some is purely aspirational, what someone once told them a large mansion with nice furniture would be. For others, sadly, I don't think it exists at all, either as a choice or as an idea. But home can exist for anyone. It is simply the act of assuming responsibility for a small slice of the world on behalf of yourself and the people you love. It's a place where you can provide, welcome, and build, a rose you can take care of, a place that serves as a sturdy foundation for the rest of life to both fail and flourish when you walk outside your front door. 

Ring Road 1

I played the Icelandic band Sigur Ros, and his later solo persona, Jonsi, on repeat for a majority of the thousand miles I drove across the island. His haunting melodies form a perfect backdrop to what plays out before you, as if they sprung from the otherworldly landscapes themselves. In a way, they did. Jonsi was born in Reykjavik, and he garnered fame across Iceland before exploding onto the international stage. It’s one example of many dating back to the original Sagas, of this peculiar small isolated place punching above its weight in the arts. I wonder often about this impact, what happens when geography and climate mesh with the human condition. In Iceland, surrounded by lava flows atop lava flows everywhere from a few hundred to a few million years old, cooled by the refreshing mist of a hundred waterfalls, how can you not be inspired to create, to contemplate, to heal, to grow, to connect with something deeper in this fraction of time that is your life? All the things that make the arts, the arts.

Around midnight on my last evening, shivering in the cold, I walked down a deserted road in Snaesfellsnes National Park, flanked by the ocean on one side and a glacier on the other all under the cover of stars. Waiting, waiting, scanning the skies for the Northern Lights, hoping to catch a glimpse of this miracle of nature seen by so few. There was a long period of worry. Perhaps they would not be seen this night. A few people around me went to bed, tired and cold, not really even knowing what they were waiting for. And then clouds started to clear, green light slowly appeared near the horizon, brightening outward in long streaks dancing across the sky, compounding this profound feeling of awe and smallness. From start to finish, this was the most beautiful place I've seen in this life.

What power disbands the Northern Lights,

After their steely play?

The lonely watcher feels an awe,

Of nature’s sway.

One should remember what they thought as they stood under the auroras for the first time, and for me, it was strangely emotional, feeling deeply the many layers that have so encased my heart, beginning, finally, to unravel. That culminated in something that felt a lot like letting go, and the opening epithet in a Junot Diaz book, of course, comes to mind, that where Sandra Cisneros, calmly, from the safety of time and space, floats: there should be stars for wars like ours. I reply, under my breath, looking up with tears in my eyes, full of the bittersweet heavy fullness that comes with recognizing something can be so many true things at once: goodnight dear, goodnight.