Monterey's Aquarium

I was handed a free ticket to the Monterey Bay Aquarium this morning. As much as I love it, I don't go very often. Which is a shame. It's beautiful. Not simply beautiful, it's stunning. It's also just a mile away from my home. So, I took advantage of the gift and went on over to see the place again.

In the years preceding 1984 when the Aquarium was opened, Ocean View Boulevard (now renamed Cannery Row) was a boring, tired place, a remnant of a red-hot industry that had changed Monterey. Sardine factories and related businesses that had produced the odor of fish and money were in tatters or became tacky and unimaginative trinket shops. People visited out of curiosity after reading John Steinbeck's popular books, but that was it. They left without knowing anything about the deep ocean just steps away, a vast place miles deep invisible to all but the most determined members of science.

Meanwhile, Julie Packard, of Hewlett-Packard family fame, had become intensely interested in marine biology and looked around for something to do about it. She connected two simple dots:  Large empty industrial space and marine biology.  Hmmm, how about an aquarium? Indeed, the only aquariums ever maintained for visitors up to that point had been on the wharf and contained some glum and miserable-looking rock cod and other small local fish in 20-gallon tanks, displayed in shop windows for curious passers-by.

Ms. Packard, blessed with access to large sums of money and a very grand vision, put together an idea and a team. She built what instantly became an industry leader in the world of public aquariums, the first of its kind anywhere. I recall hearing rumors as they began to emerge, talk about an incredible space with huge tanks that would show thousands of fish never before seen or exhibited on a large scale. It would be world class and meant to be here for a very long time. Everyone felt a new energy and sense of possibility, that businesses had better get ready because people were going to come in large numbers. Entrepreneurs went into high gear. Restaurants, parks, hotels, museums, more hotels and more restaurants as well as related sight-seeing businesses were built and have been viable ever since the opening of the Aquarium. It has been and continues to be a very important influence on the communities all the way around Monterey Bay in innumerable ways.

More importantly, scientists of all stripes have been happily discovering new species and features of the ocean, using the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary as their main focus. It's huge and even though the Aquarium has been in existence for 28 years new species are being discovered constantly. Young interns and science geeks pray to be associated with or be hired by MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute). Youngsters who visit during open house dates see Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) and bizarre creatures that are being studied and underwater features that are being mapped.

Education efforts by the Aquarium and MBARI have reached people all over the world. Seafood Watch is the most obvious public information effort. Small cards are handed out, showing common seafood items you'll find on menus and in stores. There you can see information about what seafood, if any, you should buy. Wild-caught salmon, for instance, is preferable to farm-raised. Farm-raised species of certain shellfish are sometimes preferable, so to keep it all straight you just check the card while you shop or order from a menu.

When I visited today, the Aquarium was as beautiful as ever. The beauty of each exhibit is clearly apparent, but what I enjoy the most about the place is that the ocean out there that I see every day is not distorted or made silly. Nor are the sciences inaccessible. Simply put, the life of the ocean does its dance right before your eyes, and you use every one of your senses to appreciate it.

And guess what? I finally joined.

Looking At Things

To see differently, BE differently.  See the flower, sit on its petals, wander its satin length, sip its nectar. How else will you know what it is, how it holds the light, and what it means to you? Let your eyes caress its length, penetrate its densities, and reveals untold worlds to you. You lucky traveler.

Unspoken Messages

"Are you ready to order, or shall I come back."

I think so. Yes, I am ready to order. Myself, order myself, reorder my molecules and begin again. Ha, I laugh at the odd approach to the simple word. I imagine a game of chinese checkers with the marbles rolling around until they hit their little circles and stay put, all in order.

"I'd like a mocha, please."

There is a swirl of air currents after the young man as he leaves. He is in such a hurry, but he has nice eyes that look kind. He is not impatient. I see he is moving from table to table, looking for missing forks, unfilled glasses, and guests who need more coffee. He is attentive and quick, and his eyes are warm.

I twiddle my iPhone and look at yesterday's images, taken when I was sitting in a different diner, sitting across from red leather and gleaming chrome, polished steel, a room without life but colorful nonetheless. I look around this room and listen to it.  There are voices nearby, but I cannot hear words. I look at the walls, the pictures hanging askew on the wall, and hear the distant bustle and clang of the kitchen workers.

The flowers in the vase on my table are bright and cheerful, dying to get my attention. Ah, dying. Yes, unfortunately dying little bit by little bit, small degrees of loss of their vitality. I look at them very carefully. It used to be that the colors of flowers and the blossoms themselves spoke messages from a person who gave them to the one who received them. Red always represented love and passion. Roses, daisies, irises and chrysanthemums all had their implicit meaning, conveying something far beyond mere words.

I lean in and wonder what this bouquet of bright life means, what message I would have known if I had lived a hundred years ago.  I fiddle with the flowers, touching their soft petals and delicate coolness. I pull out a few withered and spent pieces. Ah, they are dying to tell me something? A small feeling of their desperate signaling overcomes me. I lean in and detect - fragrance? No. Just beauty, simply beauty standing silently in a vase, quietly perfect.

The young man brings the cup of mocha and sets it before me. His eyes again. I see the warm life in his eyes and the room around him, hear the murmuring people who are eating their food and sipping their coffee. I am glad that it's not quiet.

Swimming On (v.1.p.1.)

When it's dark outside early in the morning and the air is very cool, not many of us are more than a few minutes out of dreaming unconsciousness. We recognize each other, one by one, as we arrive, shuffle in and set to work uncovering the pool, pulling back the heavy blue plastic tarps that cover it.

"Look at that moon," says one. No one sees the moon. We don't look; our eyes are still filled with dreams and drifting thoughts of yesterday and perhaps music lines repeating in our minds, leftover from sleep a few minutes before. We figure the moon is up there somewhere; its existence is acknowledged by some memory cell in a deep recess of our brains.

"What temperature's the water?" says another. This is a more relevant thing to us, but since we're dry and not yet ready to approach the pool, we abstract the thought for now. It's a fact that can be dealt with easily, we hope.

"It looks warm," says the the third. We grow silent and mull over the idea of water looking warm or cold and seem to reach the conclusion that we have seen a wisp of steam rising off the pool's surface. There is a steady soft rubbing sound as the pool tarp brushes the pool deck edge as it is being removed. The pool looks impassive and noncommittal today. The lights are coming up to full brightness very slowly. We are grey-on-black figures shuffling about our work uncovering the pool.

"It's 81.5 degrees," says the first. The air itself is 48 degrees, and we are all still in street clothes. Again silence. 81.5 degrees is bearable, even preferable to a warmer temperature when we are working hard in the water, but the initial leap into the new medium which will cover every square inch of skin immediately must be reckoned with in advance. One gets to know every half degree of warmth or coolness when it has been submerged and must maintain homeostasis. A body becomes calibrated to gauge exactly what temperature the water is. We know we will be comfortable in 81.5 degrees but will feel an invigorating coolness at first and will need to keep moving without too much rest between sets of work. When the water is warmer, we will need to stand up out of the water to keep our core temperature down. Overheating becomes a problem when a hard set is undertaken in too-warm water. 84 degrees or hotter is just too uncomfortable, too relaxing, to be able to get a workout done properly.

"Did anyone see that guy on TV who fell through the ice in that river?"

"No. What? Someone fell in? Where?"

"In Minnesota. Some guy. He fell in. What was he doing out there in the dark early in the morning? Was he crazy?"

The irony of our voices ringing out in the cool darkness raises a laugh, and the banter begins. The poor soul in Minnesota is forgotten for a moment. There is laughter and kidding, more exclamations about cold water and people who live in frozen northern places far away, the way the air feels. The tarps are done, rolled up on their spools, and the rack pushed to the side of the pool house on squealing wheels. Quiet again, we shuffle off to the locker rooms to change into our swim gear, reappearing one by one at the pool's edge where we stand and stare down at the water. Then each of us, compelled by an inner sense of inevitability, encounters 81.5 degrees of wetness. By slow agonizing leveraging of the body into the water or by a quick leap far out over it, we join up with the water and begin to swim.

It always seems like an initiation, an onset of something imperceptible, despite the obvious and visible immersion into water. A body swimming at 5:30 a.m. experiences a duality of existence, relating to its inner fluids and overcoming fear of suffocation by drowning. Air and water become the centers of the universe. Breathe air, the mind says. Inhale and exhale, in and out, as the arms, legs, back, shoulders and hands sense currents and balance through and with water. The whole of life is gradually funneled down to one narrow realm comprised of rhythms. Heart beats, breaths in and out, arms pulling and recovering above the surface, legs kicking, and the starts and stops at the wall. We are of a mind, we swimmers, enveloped in the liquid blue medium that baffles and intrigues us. All of our effort is bent on understanding how we experience movement in water. Sixteen people wet and one dry, the coach who watches, amid the confines of the pool deck and its watery field of play, comprise a dance of sorts.

This is what I discovered when I was 10 years old.

(A beginning point for my story)

Fog vs Poppy

Fog is draping itself around our coast like a slovenly visitor, gray and humorless. This is when I dig out photos of spring poppies and vistas of wilderness backlit by a hot sun. It's also when I start to think of places to go where summer exists as a season of heat that ripens fruit on trees and dries the river water on my skin as I sit baking like a brown piece of toast.

I may go inland and up into the foothills of the Sierra. I am considering another trip to Hawaii or Canada where I have yet to visit and explore. New York is a possibility, but then a friend has asked me to see her again in Colorado and share a little time with her there. I'm thinking it over, but I haven't decided yet.

The sight of the clammy fog, in all its sullen chill, got me thinking again about travel. Where shall I go this time? I'll reach into my closet for some maps and go to the bookcase to find a few travel guides, check the internet. It all begins with twinges of longing to be away from here.

Summertime is coming, our second winter. The only way I can tell it's summer and not winter? The daylight hours are longer. I'm glad I spotted the poppies one day, bright and cheery looking, bobbing in the breeze at midday.

I guess the fog is a prompt for travel, a good pique to my consciousness to get on with planning. I don't think it will be long before a plan materializes. If nothing else, I need to go out and photograph more flowers to store up as beacons of hope in our long gray summer.

Revision of Blog Site

After looking at the "dynamic" view of my site provided by Blogger, I am reverting back to my customized setup. If you have problems, leave feedback or a comment, and I will respond. I hope this makes it easier to use the site. Thanks!

Irises on a Spring Day

Hot morning sun bathes me as I walk quietly around a wide grassy garden. Oh, my feet are sinking in the mown grass. I am stepping carefully; mud threatens them; rain has come and gone in the past week. Today the air is alive as if the passing coolness of early morning were being jostled aside by life itself. The storm is gone, and all the countryside is Ireland green.

Irises are everywhere, and I am filled with thoughts of van Gogh who saw the high stone walls of his asylum enclosing long rows of lavender, poppies and twisted pear branches. Iris leaves and buds rose in insistent, urgent clusters along paths and walks where he painted. He saw the radiant surges of color every spring and painted them over and over again. How could he not? I feel inept as I try to focus on their delicacy and subtlety. Mostly, I just stand and gaze at them.

Sparrows and red-winged blackbirds dart from tree to bush to fence post, their ebony eyes sparkling. The irises dance  when the breeze comes by, their flirting tongues lying on soft veined lips. These irises are named:  Boudoir, Scarlet Fever, Midnight Moon. I am seduced by their colors and curling shapes, ladies on stems, turned out in alluring finery.

I step closer and lean in. The hot midday sun is caressing that one's soft cheek, this one's gentle tenderness. Oh, they are lovely and fine. My camera cannot possibly do them justice. I touch their cool softness, fear the slightest touch will bruise them, but I cannot resist. Are they edible? I dare not.

Everything in an iris evokes mystery and sensual pleasure; each blossom is exquisite.

I am not thinking about their short lives, the ravenous insects that will gnaw at their leaves, or any other squalid thing that may befall these impossibly perfect creatures. They exist simply to be beautiful. It is Spring. That is enough excuse. Heaven does exist, say the ladies as they bob and sway, vividly, gloriously. Behold, it does exist.