A Table by the Sea

Two years in Cape Town

[bcgulla]

Be a part

We are all ordinary. The parents and teachers that told us we were “special” were saying this so that we could grow up with an understanding that our needs, desires and dreams mattered. They wanted us to believe that our voices mattered and were unique. This is true, they do matter. We do have the capacity to speak and create in original ways although it seems to me that any individual creation is soon consumed by the collective mass of society. We exist in a world with 8 billion others of our particular species and because we share so much both genetically and socially, it is hard to feel that our contributions or thoughts are any more than a drop in the bucket of homosapien history.

We as individuals don’t exist apart from our collective society. I think of the men who died building the world’s railroad and bridges, or the women who threw their reputations and livelihoods on the line to earn basic human rights. We rarely know the individuals unless we pay particular attention, or have some special interest in the matter. What we remember is the collective accomplishment of the eventual attainment. Our society is what remains. Each generation has the power to exert a brush stroke on the canvas of human existence, but as individuals we are but a hair on that same brush. We can’t imprint unless we are part of a combined effort. Individuals can inspire this change, and indeed we have seen throughout history the power of charismatic, alluring presences that provoke united movements. But without the tide of society and a collective energy behind them, they would be only a single narrative lost at sea, a meteor that shines brightly but soon afterwards disappears in the darkness of night.

What I am trying to say is that we must, and it is inevitable that we dissolve ourselves into our common interests. We as single, distinct soul will not last. Maybe on the familial level we’ll be remembered, but only for a few generations. What will last will be our joint effort, only what we leave as a combined legacy will have the power to resist the eroding forces of time. I don’t know my great, great, great grandfather. I don’t know my great, great grandfather. I don’t know my great grandfather. This is but two generations removed. What I know is what his generation did collectively, I know the force of industrialization mobilized by him and his temporal peers. To me, this suggests what Durkheim calls Représentations Collectives, or the collective consciousness. Our society is an independent entity. It exists apart from the individuals that make it up. It is a thing which moves and grows, albeit slowly, but carries with it the individual aims, goals, aspirations and dreams of the individuals grains. The waves of the collective wash over the sand. Some are carried with it; some are pushed further up shore. The society itself is what determines the length and breadth of the beach, of the world. Our society has choices, choices which are more important that individual choices, choices which have a far greater impact than individual choices. One person can’t decide to move our society to renewable energy. Only the whole can do such a thing. The collective must demand that it happen and in this way society is its own unique, discrete being. It determines the future. It moves the world. Individuals can only hope and work to push this being in a certain direction, but it must be the society which does the actual movement.

[bcgulla]

I Study Faces

The club. Arriving in a taxi, the heat of alcohol is still in my mouth. I see the line of partygoers waiting to enter some dilapidated warehouse-looking building with big thick cement walls and no windows. I can hear the dulled thud of a bass line seeping out into the nighttime air. I study the faces around me, all the time I study faces. I seek out beauty, of course, but in my nocturnal examination I always look for a return, someone else who keeps their gaze fixed on mine. This moment of visual contact sparks infinite, but transient possibility. A girl passes me lightly without slowing. Our eyes meet and I think she might actually see me but a second later her gaze flees mine and fixes on another. I do the same. 

The bars are stacked with people. Their necks are craned upwards trying to catch the gaze of the bartender. The thirsty club-goers slowly push forward and occupy space closer to the bar. All of a sudden they remind me of penguins huddling together in the freezing wind and snow. Bartenders pour liquor; they turn the bottles upside down as the liquid flows steadily from curved spouts and fills tiny shot glasses. Three, four, five in a row. A friend passes the drinks backwards; I watch as they kick their heads back in unison. I study faces. I close my eyes and try to shut it all out. I don’t want to be here, but I don’t want to be alone either. I open my wallet and leaf through what bills I have and I buy drinks. The money is given away but I don’t think of the money as real. I’m paying to to make it better, to make me better, but I know the money won’t be enough. I follow the lights and the sound. I move and I dance to seem part of it all. I dance to be noticed, I dance because it feels good to let my body take control instead of my mind. Dancing isn’t complicated. Thinking is. I lean in towards a friend and remark on the music, or the crowd, or whatever ordinary observation I can think of. I don’t want to talk really. It’s hard to say something worth saying on a loud dance floor. I just want to remind them that I’m there. I study the faces and linger on some. I think about what I would say so that she might think I’m interesting without seeming too interested. I rehearse lines as I bob my knees. I know I won’t say anything. I want her, but not enough to fake it, not enough to try. I justify my inaction by convincing myself that there will be another, later on. So I close my eyes again and try to get lost in the music. I open my eyes and see the DJ, backlit by neon green and strobe, turning his knobs and flipping his switches. “What is he going to do after this?” I think to myself. These nights have become old and tired, but I still keep coming back so that I might, in these dark, loud places find something that changes my life.

I study faces, I brush shoulders. Do they look as wanting as me? Why don’t they seem as if they are searching for someone too? Maybe I get studied too, but whenever that happens I let it slip away. I hate the chase; I hate the transparency of it. Get to know you in a club? Give me a break. But maybe I want to know you, and you think I just want to fuck you. I’m not even sure which one it is myself. In the club it seems like everyone’s motives are out in the open, and we wear them like I wear my trendy jeans or my new shirt. It’s too dark to see my clothing anyway and I realize I bought it for no reason. My shoes stick to the ground. I see the crushed cans and cigarette butts on the ground. They don’t matter. They are dead and useless but the promise of the night is alive and beating. I eye the bartender, trying to seem gracious for the attention he’s giving me and I think it ironic how it feels as if I owe the bartender more than he owes me. I take my drink and I leave a tip. I’m losing, I realize. I squint to see the time and I know it’s slipping away and I’m losing. So I study more faces and try to snare their eyes. I catch one set but I look away, or look down into my drink. It’s lost, but I try to smile. I close my eyes and give in to the music. I dance and maybe she is looking, but even if she isn’t she doesn’t matter because when my mind is off she doesn’t exist. I have to piss. In the bathroom I study guys faces. Why do they care so much? Why do I care so much? It’s over tomorrow anyway, so who gives a shit? I kick down the toilet seat with my foot and walk past the sinks without washing my hands.  It’s too late and the music is too loud. The music gets louder as the night gets later and they both push me out towards the door, I’m being bounced by time and sound. The cab driver has been sitting, slumped down in his seat waiting for someone like me to come tap on his window. “Yah, yah get in.” Meter starts and begins to add up as we roll through the quiet, rain soaked remains of the night. There was a world outside the club. I forgot about that for a little while but as I look out the window, I remember. The orange street lights catch the rain drops on the window. I look in, I look at my own face. It’s the only one left.

[bcgulla]

Red Rocks

12.15.15

I returned to Cape Town last evening from three days in the Cederberg Mountains. The wilderness reserve area is about three hours north of the city. We drove up the N7 through Malmesbury and past a couple of other nameless small towns until we reached an area called Algeria. Turning off from the highway onto the gravel road, we entered a large valley, which I found out later to be the doorway to the Cederberg Mountains. The landscape of the Cederberg is arid and beautiful, majestic and desolate. These vast, rock covered mountains stretch out in long arms across the horizon, some flattening out at their summit, some rising more to a bulky peak. The mountains are mostly red, as is the soil of the Cederberg. As we drove into the valley, the mountains rose up around us, and it seemed as if we were getting smaller and smaller as the world got larger and larger. My little Hyndai seemed like a pathetic match for the winding hilly road carved out along the contours of the mountains. The car shook along as we drove deeper into the valley. Bob Dylan was playing on the radio, and although in society the times might be changing, they certainly were not here. Hawks swooped from above signaling either welcome or distrust at the foreign intrusion. Other, heavier cars drove in the opposite direction kicking up dust that eventually settled to re-reveal the staggering landscape which we continued to penetrate.

About 40 km on the dirt road, after having arrived at the wrong place and being redirected back down the road, we arrived at the house in which we would be staying during our few nights in the area. The house belongs to the parents of Rebekah, a student of mine, a sharp, gracious young girl with a long ponytail and round, metal-framed glasses. The family kindly offered the home for a weekend and I knew it was an offer I shouldn’t pass on. The home was simple and rustic, old couches crowded the living area and the beds were topped with patterned quilts and threadbare pillows. The house possessed only the essentials, and we were fine with that. Surprisingly, out back through one of those classic two-piece doors, was a lush green lawn. The lawn laid in stark contrast to the parched red earth that surrounded the house. That first night we settled in and grilled steaks in a frying pan for dinner. We tried roasting some potatoes as well, coating them with a healthy amount of cheddar cheese and butter. The day’s trip has worn us down and it only took one beer to send us limping, dreary-eyed to our beds.  

The next day we got an early start. We cut up a whole melon for breakfast and as we took pieces with our fingers, we also geared up for the first day’s hike. We filled water bottles, applied lots sunscreen to our arms and the back of our necks, and tied our shoes on tight. We had hefty bags of trail mix for the day and we made a little assembly line to churn out three ham and cheese sandwiches. The trailhead was about 8km from the house so we took the car. It was only at the end of the day, after 5 hours of hiking that would we realize we had took a wrong turn right from the start, taking a trail that led along the mountain instead of the one that ran up it. As we hiked without gaining much elevation, it slowly became clear we had gone wrong somewhere, but it didn’t really matter. We were in the midst of a strange and possessing land and we had time to be possessed by it. Tomorrow we would make the right turn, and it would be okay. We walked along the trail, sometimes talking sometimes silent. Beni asked me what my mood is like when I’m hiking, and I told him it fluctuates. At times I can feel the endorphins brought about by the physical exertion and I’m exuberant. Other times, I’m very solitary often distancing myself physically from the people around me so I can play with my own thoughts. Maybe that’s what makes hiking so absorbing, in a short span of time it rouses a whole spectrum of mood and thought. Walking in the middle of splendor the act of hiking may create space for larger, more abiding thoughts to take form. We hiked along the valley, flanked on both sides by red, craggy mountains. In front of us the sky was grey and the distant peaks were swallowed up by rain. Occasionally, our faces would be swept by light moisture, as if we were just crossing into the imperceptible edge of rain. As our trail turned back to the road, we walked along the farmlands, jumping over irrigation ditches and trying to fill our shoes with sand. The man who redirected us to our house the first night saw us walking along the road and gave us a lift to our car. He must have thought we were such a sorry set.

That ride got us back to the house a couple of hours ahead of schedule. Arriving, we unlaced our shoes, pulled off our socks and let the grass massage the bottoms of our feet. Tim and I cracked open a couple of tallboy Windhoeks and we sat under the shade. We were going to grill more steaks we decided, but this time it would be over the open flame. The sun wasn’t setting until around 8pm so we had plenty of time to prepare the vegetables. Our conversations in the Cederberg were large; topics seems to gravitate towards sweeping ideas, the kind that can really only be spoken of in the hypothetical. Stuff like, as the world’s human population continues to rise, how will we learn to balance out the inequality of resources and wealth that currently dissects our global community, or as a man in his twenties what state of mind is most conducive to finding a partner. I thought to myself, after having such discussions, that this immense space opened up our minds in ways that is far more difficult to achieve when living in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It was as if cobwebs were being shaken off, or as if the air we breathed cleansed the minor, tedious topics that confront us back in the thick of things. That night, we lay in the grass and looked at the stars. There was a telescope in one of the rooms, covered by a light shawl but we could figure out how to adjust the sights, so we just used our eyes in stead. Occasionally, a spark from the fire would lift up, carried by the wind and cross into our vision of the sky. For a second, the spark would be indistinguishable from the stars and I imagined it rising forever.

The next day we awoke and had planned on eating a hearty breakfast. Melon would simply not cut it for an eight-hour hike. We scrambled eggs with cheese and fried strips of bacon. Beni cut us nice small pieces of peach and we popped them in our mouths as we cooked. After eating rather ravenously, we geared up and headed towards the same departure spot as the day before, only this time we would take the right path. We hiked up the side of the mountain quietly; the steep altitude gain took away the air we would have used for conversation. When I hike, I find myself pondering how remarkable the human body is. This is made apparent to me for two reasons. First, I think what a powerful machine the body is. The fuel we consumed an hour earlier was being turned to energy and that energy was propelling me up the side of an 1,000 meter mountain. No grinding of gears or plumes of black smoke are emitted from my machine. The movements of my legs are fluid. I can feel the muscles in my thighs and calves tighten as I take large steps upwards. Mobility, I think, is the root of freedom. Also, I’m impressed with the coordination that occurs between the eyes and the feet. This is most obvious when going downhill, but going uphill this harmony is as equally skillful. As I hike, my eyes quickly pick out a fixed spot on which to put my foot, a flat rock or an even surface. I look at it and, somehow, my foot goes there. As quickly as I see it, the foot is moved. Often times when I am moving quickly, all I need to do is glance at the spot and my mind will expertly place my leg on that very spot with such precise accuracy. Of course, the same is done with the other foot and, at times, this is done in such rapid succession that I’m quite surprised I don’t fall over or lose my balance more often. I figure, as I witness this balance between mind and body, that all I need to do is pick a spot, metaphorically speaking, and my legs will take me there.

We arrive close to the top of the mountain where the large rocks at the summit begin to “crack”. Hence the name the Wolfsberg Cracks. These long slabs of red rock part, leaving space in between for vegetation to grow, paths to be carved and hikers to walk and witness. As we walk, the rising towers of rock surge above us. It feels like we are inside the mountain in a way, that we are no longer treading its exposed surface but rather have crawled inside its belly and are seeing its insides, its bowels. That world felt different, sacred even, sacred definitely. It was as if, knowingly or not, the mountain had granted us permission to walk within a vulnerable, sacrosanct space. It was a space where we had access to the mountain’s truer identity. One that wasn’t so ruthlessly or indifferent, but gentler, more gracious. As we emerged from the cracks we found ourselves on a rocky plateau. The flat mountaintop extended all around us and it was as if instead of being on a sharp summit, we had reached a new echelon, a new level of terra firma. It felt like walking on the ground, only up in the sky. I could tell I was 1,000 meters above the earth but walking up there was like walking on a raised platform covered in untouched forms. I was, at the time, incredibly happy to be so close to the sky.

[bcgulla]

Wolfsberg Cracks, Cederberg Mountains, December 2015

[bcgulla]

Bulungula

[bcgulla]

Snapshots

When one has the most fortunate opportunity to travel to a new, distant place there are a few distinct realizations that are often brought about by the experience. For one, by spending the time physically moving to our eventual destination we are able to get a sense of the scale of our planet both in beauty and size. We can witness the immense variety of stunning landscape and habitat (even if it is from 30,000 feet in the air), and we can appreciate the distances, sometimes extreme, that we must cover in order to reach these previously unknown locations. We are small, the earth is big, the universe is biggest but I’m not buying a Virgin space shuttle ride anytime soon. Secondly, when we put ourselves in direct contact with the people who inhabit these places we may find that their routines, customs, and speech are very different from that of own and of our home. There are obvious clashes of culture when one comes into contact with a foreign people, but for many this confrontation allows for comparison and reflection into how, at the core of human activity, we are very much the same, at least that’s what it does for me. For me, more striking than cultural difference contained within the people of a nonnative land is the similarity, the sameness even, between their hopes, dreams and values and our own. We all want to be happy, we want to love and be loved, and we want to achieve a degree of autonomy over our lives. The core of human desire and emotion, in my experience, crosses beyond all cultural divides. Lastly, when we travel there is valuable personal introspection that takes place, it is a new kind of time awarded to us by the new space. By physically removing ourselves from the norm, from the orthodox, we allow our minds to work in new ways and consider different perspectives. Travel can offer an individual the time and space, both physical and mental, to reflect on what is happening in our lives, and more importantly, what choices we are making that are leading to those conditions.

But we’ve heard this stuff before, just read any travel blog (like mine), and for many who simply do not have the luxury or ability to travel to exotic places, it can seem rather demeaning for others to talk about these grandiose trips with such inflated reverence. For this reason, I want to try to avoid these tired topics and instead capture single moments within which there may be lessons and stories which can guide us far more effectively than the travel blog standards. These moments occurred in my most recent trip to the Wild Coast of South Africa, a region known as the Transkei that was once its own independent nation. It was the birthplace of Nelson Mandela, a fact which is important for me to note because, in addition to the beauty of the land, equally as magnificent are the people that call this region home. So here goes:

#1 On the second day of hiking we walked close the coast. The green cliffs dropped steeply off into the ocean, and at low tide we walked along the black rocks that had been smoothed over by the continual pounding of waves. I usually hung towards the back of the hiking group because I’d rather not talk to people when I hike. Around a bend in the path, students started to bunch up and then stopped walking altogether. When I evetually turned the corner, there was a dead cow laying on the rocks. The cow was a cinnamon brown and its eyes were wide open. It hadn’t been there for long as its body still looked as if it could hold life. But the flies circling around the body told me otherwise. Our guide said it had probably fallen off the cliff while it was grazing. There was a huge gash in its head right under one of its horns. “That cow be tripping,” joked one of the students. “It happens all the time,” our guide stated, “I’m just going to go tell one of the mamas”.

#2 One night I went to sleep outside. There was a bed on the hostel’s veranda and it was sheltered enough that zipped up in my sleeping bag I couldn’t feel the whipping wind coming off the water. Right before I fell asleep I saw a shooting star that faded just as quickly as it appeared. I woke up several times that night. Once, when I opened my eyes I saw the moon and the reflection it cast on the ocean below me. It was bright and I squinted at it just as I would the sun when I woke up that morning. The other time I woke up I saw little rows of light in the distance. They were ocean tankers way off in the distance, because the night was so heavy with dark, and I couldn’t see the horizon, the ships looked like they were floating in the sky, I smiled and felt my eyes close again.

#3 There was one student on the trip with the spirit of a true explorer. The first morning he was up at dawn and from my window I saw him climbing a hill. He was barefoot and he had three dogs following him. From my bed I watched him stop for a moment and look out to the sea, and as he did the dogs did the same. Then he tussled the ears of one dog and kept climbing up the hill, beyond the frame of my window.

#4 One night our guide brought a friend and I to the village shabeen which is the town market where one can buy rice, corn, flour, toilet paper or alcohol. This last product can often transforms the shabeen into the village pub. One night, as our guide brought us to the shabeen we spent some time drinking the local beer, a fermented corn based beer that is grainy and tastes a lot like yeast. We sat at a table amidst the town locals drinking from a bucket of the corn beer. The locals would raise the bucket to their lips and take long gulps and wipe their lips with the back of their arms. “Hambisa, hambisa!” the others would shout and laugh. My guide leaned toward me and whispered into my ear that it means “pass it along”. After we left, we walked backed to the hostel in the dark. I looked out into the village around me and there were little lights, the government had recently given each house solar panels with which to power their homes.

#5 A big part of why our school does a visit to this remote village is to deliver new school supplies and spend a day with the local students. This year, the students were on holiday and were not in class. As our group walked up the hill towards the school many children emerged from their houses, poking their heads out from behind pink wooden doors, and some began following us. We waved our arms signaling others to follow us and many more did. As we walked up to the empty schoolhouse on top of the hill, without prompting one child took my hand in his, looked up at me and smiled.

#6 After one day of hiking we arrived at a small village called Lubanzi which means “wide space” in Xhosa. We had just slung our bags off our shoulders when in the water a little ways off we spotted a pod of dolphins. We had seen them swimming off the coast periodically over the course of our hike and the guide said they were the bottle nosed type. Sometimes we even occasionally spotted the blowhole spray of Humpback or Southern Right whales and some tail slapping, but they were much further out and disguised by the while caps of the wind blown water. They call this region "The Wild Coast", I learned, not because of the wild life you often see there but because of the numerous shipwrecks that have occurred there. One famous one, it was called the Oceanos, was a Greek cruise liner. All passengers survived but the captain was in the first dozen to be evacuated, and was subsequently sent to jail. As we rubbed our sore legs and necks and heaped ourselves down on the ground we spotted the many fins of this particular dolphin pod. The waves coming into shore at this moment were big and they were coming in in nice even sets. The dolphins, upon reaching the place where the waves curled and barreled up, would swim into the momentum of the wave ride it for short time, and then launch themselves out of the water. I watched in silence as the dolphins with fluent and elegant motion, surfed the waves. The water was so clear that we could recognize what they were doing. A dolphin would choose a wave, push itself into the rising water and use the force to gain speed. If they got going fast enough, they jumped out of the water and into the air. After the pod had passed I kept staring out at the ocean stunned by what I had just seen. The waves kept coming into shore and the sun began to set.

#7 The roads to the villages of Lubanzi and Bulungula are made of dirt. They are drivable, for the most part, but heavy rain can make is quite difficult. 4x4 cars usually have little problem. Two vans came to pick us up at the end of our trip to drive us to Mthatha, the closest major city to the coast, where we would catch a 20-hour bus back to Cape Town. We left early in the morning; the roosters hadn’t even begun their morning greetings as we stuffed our bags into the trunks and trailers. The day was hot already and the roads were dry. As we drove out of Bulungula the vans kicked up the dirt of the road creating a dusty cloud that trailed the vehicles. We traveled on the dirt road for about an hour, and as we did we passed nearby villages. I looked out the window as people began their days. I remember seeing school girls in matching blue uniforms walking to school, their sharp, pressed jackets clashing with the austere landscape which enveloped them. I remember seeing a herd of about twenty large bulls and at the rear was a small boy, no more than seven years old, holding a stick. The boy alone kept the heard in-line and moving. But most of all I remember seeing the faces of the people we passed. Our van kicked up the reddish brown earth, and as we sped past I watched as their eyes and mouths squeeze shut to keep out the dirt. The speeding vans carpeted dust upon women balancing large baskets on their heads, and young men laughing while rolling overburdened wheelbarrows, but they kept walking. I looked out the window of the van as these people bore the cloud of dirt that covered them, but without turning around they all kept walking towards the rising sun as the dust eventually settled in our wake.

[bcgulla]

Coffee Bay & the hike to Lubanzi, Wild Coast

[bcgulla]

Kraalbai & Postberg Flower Reserve, Western Coast, South Africa

[bcgulla]

Homo Naledi, New Human Species, Is Found in South African Cave

A cave in South Africa yielded the discovery of a previously unidentified member of the early human lineage — Homo naledi, a hominin species who seem to have buried their dead.

We began here

[bcgulla]

Oliver Sacks on Learning He Has Terminal Cancer

I am now face to face with dying. But I am not finished with living.

A beautiful mind of a man who really saw the mind. A great inspiration for how to live knowing there’s an end.

[bcgulla]

Sutherland, Land of the Telescopes and Big Birds

[bcgulla]

Sutherland, with some Devil’s Peak mixed in there

[bcgulla]

Omo pt. 2

“Hello”, it said.

And FLUMP, Omo’s body filled and swelled almost instantly. It ballooned outwards and the small barbs that covered his body flashed into long spikes. It happened so fast (it always did) that Omo didn’t have time to think. He saw one spike shoot into the eye of the creature and another into the side of its “face”. The other spikes lodged themselves into the kelp he was hiding behind. Omo was stuck, half of his body attached to the plant and the other half jammed into the strange creature. Omo readied himself for the end, centuries of evolutionary development and my only defense is to turn into a thorny blimp, he thought to himself as he shut his eyes tightly.

Then the thing spoke, “Ow” it said, “That hurt”. The creature slowly pulled away from Omo. As it moved backwards, dislodging itself from the spikes, Omo could see the place where his barbs had been. A jelly substance quickly filled the holes, plugging up the space left by Omo’s futile defense.

“That’s some introduction you got there”, spoke the creature. “Are you always that jumpy?”

“No, it’s just…” Omo mumbled, he was still unsure of the intentions of this pink mass swimming in front of him. “It’s just I didn’t know if you were going to eat me or not”.

“Eat you?” the creature chuckled. “Just look at you. My mouth can fit a plankton, maybe two on a good day, but not an aquatic Zeppelin.”

“Oh,” signed Omo, he felt a tremendous wave of relief spill over him. He was lonely, and at times felt lost, but he didn’t want to let go of his life just yet. “Wh-what are you?” asked Omo.

“I’m a jellyfish”, it said rather matter-of-factly. “The name’s George.”

“Hello George”, Omo reached out his fin wanting to be polite to this creature who would hopefully spare his life, but George said hastily, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. You see these long tentacles I have hanging down beneath me? They might seem like fun from afar but they pack enough venom to paralyze an adult tuna”.

“Ok…well nice to meet you George then”. Omo tried to adjust himself but he realized he was still stuck on the kelp. His spikes were lodged in the thick plants binding his body to them. As the weeds swayed back and forth with the current, so did he. To make matters worse, his body was still inflated and Omo didn’t have nearly the level of agility and strength as he did when his body was sleek and slender.

“It seems like you’re in a bind there”. George observed with a unconcerned air. “You would certainly be easy pickings for any predator fish that came through here. Like a ripe fruit from a low hanging branch.”

“Gee, thanks for pointing that out. I have actually never seen any fish swimming in here, that’s why I got such a shock seeing you drop in on me like that.” Omo thought about the last time he had a conversation with another ocean dweller that went beyond a few sentences, and he couldn’t. As disturbing as his situation was, it also felt kind of nice to speak to someone.

“I don’t suppose you can help me free myself seeing that your touch is poisonous and all.” Omo asked expecting to be disappointed. Omo didn’t immediately see any good way out of this and the anxiety this realization produced caused his body to inflate slightly more.

“Well, let’s see.” George, curled a tentacle up to his face and rubbed the spot where a chin would have been. “You have two options as I see it. First option, I could pull you loose stinging you terribly in the process, maybe even kill you but you also may survive and then you would be free to swim off. That is, assuming that you can swim with your body all bloated like that.”

Omo pondered this option for a few moments. The thought of being stung to death was not something he wished to experience. More practically, dying would totally defeat the process of freeing himself from the kelp in the first place. “What’s option two?” Omo asked hoping that George might offer something better.

“Simple,” George replied. “You relax and let your guard down thereby shrinking your body and retracting your spikes,” George sighed a slightly exasperated breath, “so that your body naturally frees itself from this ironic, yet dangerous situation you find yourself in”.

George had said it so simply and plainly that it made Omo slightly embarrassed for not even thinking of this course of action in the first place. His only defense, to balloon up so big that fish couldn’t actually fit him in their mouth, seemed silly to him now. Now that he thought about it, Omo realized that his inflationary self-fortification was more or less effective at keeping others away, but no one ever cared to approach him in the first place. The other creatures in the ocean were oblivious to Omo, they swam here and there seemingly unaware of his presence and as a consequence his laughable defense went largely unused.

Then, all of a sudden, Omo was struck with a thought that made him shut his eyes tight in sorrowful realization. He felt so alone because other fish knew that if they did get close to him he would just blow himself up, launching his sharp exterior in their direction. Omo had kept everything out of reach physically which meant nothing could get close to him emotionally. Everyone else kept away because he, in a sense, kept them away. Omo was so scared of being hurt or eaten by other fish that he just assumed all the other creatures out there wanted to cause him harm. He didn’t consider that there might be fish, or jellyfish in this case, that don’t have any interest in gobbling him up. Like Omo, they were just making their way through the ocean, always swimming, trying to find their place.

Omo feel both awakened and relieved from a weight. He let his mind wrap around this newfound awareness. He could feel his body begin to deflate and along with it, the cloud of gloominess and apathy too seemed to shrink away, float away, dispersing itself into the dark blue water around him. The weight of the ocean above him even felt lighter.

“Well look at that”, George laughed. “It seems as if you’ve gone with option two. Good choice.”

Omo couldn’t help but smile, he was physically free but also, in a profound way, he was emotionally free. Free from the feelings of loneliness, angst, and purposelessness that had seemed to stick to him like a barnacle. The whole ocean seemed wider, larger, deeper, but this time not in a bad way. Omo was eager to see what other creatures he might meet. By letting his defenses down, the whole ocean seemed to flood into him and he puffed, not with air, but with the sense of possibility.

“Hey, do you wanna go find a shipwreck with me?” Omo turned to George and pointed with his fin out of the kelp.

[bcgulla]

Maybe it's not just about finding the perfect friend, partner, or tribe but finding the perfection in those you've already found.

The Universe

[bcgulla]

Omo pt. 1

Deep down in the ocean, amidst the red and orange coral, and sunken pirate ships, there lived a small puffer fish named Omo. Omo’s favorite thing to do in the whole wide ocean blue was to swim in between the seaweed and kelp forests that swayed back and forth in the water’s current. Omo would move slowly through the plants, letting his body touch their slippery smooth surface. Often Omo would turn his body sideways, look up and see light shining through the plants so that they took on all different shades of green and deep purple. As he pushed his way through the layers of sea jungle, he felt happy. Omo especially liked what it looked like when he moved through the tall plants. It was like they were parting for him, as if they were awaiting his arrival. His body would part the plants and they would open up and welcome him through, allowing him deeper into their interior.

Sometimes when he was deep inside the seaweed, he would simply stop swimming, something that fish almost never do. Omo wasn’t afraid of sinking because the seaweed and kelp were so thick that they would support his slim scaly body, and he could even lay on them like a bed, looking up towards the light. During these times Omo would think about the ocean and everything in it. He would imagine all the other creatures swimming and crawling in the water, going about their lives. Some creatures were big and scary and others were small and shy, but each one had it’s own role. At least, Omo thought to himself, they seemed like they did. But Omo didn’t know where he fit in. He had no family or friends so as big as the ocean actually was, it seemed even bigger to Omo. When he was feeling lonely Omo would hide himself among the seaweed and stay still. He looked up towards the light shining down in thin beams, the glittering rods slicing through the water. Omo sometimes wondered where the light was coming from. Maybe, he thought, it came from one of those really spooky fish he sometimes saw when he swam really deep down into the black water. He also wondered what was lay beyond the water’s surface. He had heard legends of fish being suddenly and violently pulled up above the water into the unknown world above, never to return. These stories scared Omo so he didn’t like to think too much about them. In any case, Omo loved spending his time in the kelp forests and seaweed jungles because it was the one place where being alone didn’t actually feel so bad. He felt calm within the silent, watery jungle. His worries would float away and he could just listen to the continual wash of the water rustling against the weeds. When Omo was here he could just think… think without having to be anyfishbody in particular. The seaweed and kelp accepted him for who he was, just as he was, and he loved them for this.

One day, when Omo was lying on a bed of kelp thinking about why crabs insist on walking sideways instead of forwards, he heard a rustling amongst the weeds. No one ever disturbed him here and he couldn’t remember a time when he actually saw any other fish in the forests at all. Omo hid his slim body behind a wide piece of kelp and listened carefully for a sound. He could tell it wasn’t another fish, it was moving too slowly and instead of hearing a fish’s fin carving through the water, a sound that Omo could certainly recognize even with his eyes closed, he instead heard a strange noise, a slow gloomp, gloomp, gloomp that was getting louder and louder, closer and closer. Omo tucked himself amongst the weeds as best he could. It was difficult to keep hidden because the white spots that covered his body were easy to see amidst the tall, dark green weeds. Omo was scared because he knew that there were hungry fish out there, he had seen other fish eaten, and he feared that other fish would think he was tasty. The sound kept getting louder, gloomp, gloomp, gloomp, but Omo couldn’t see the thing making the noise. He scrunched his eyes and tried to see any odd movement of the kelp that would reveal to him that something was approaching, but they just swayed slowly back and forth in the ocean’s current, just as they always did. Then something odd happened, the thin beams of light started to disappear overhead, the water started to get darker and Omo wasn’t able see the water and weeds around him. Omo closed his eyes and took a big bubble breath, he needed to calm himself down or else…

Suddenly, descending from above, a long pink tentacle dropped directly in front of Omo’s face. He quickly turned his body upwards, followed the tentacle with his eyes and saw, to his horror that it, and many like it, were attached to a gigantic pink, semi-translucent body. The body was circular in shape and so big that it was in fact blocking out the light from above. He could see the light shining through its body, lighting up its small organs, as if the thing itself was glowing from within. Omo held his breath, shut tight his gills and closed his eyes. He hoped that the thing couldn’t see him, or better yet maybe it didn’t even have eyes to see him with. Omo tried not to move, but he heard the gloomp, gloomp, gloomp getting closer still. Omo slowly opened one eye to find a pink gelatinous face right in front of him

[bcgulla]

Best Friends

The other day I was in the park with my friend Tom. We often like to go to this park, sit, snack, sometimes we play chess, but mostly we go there to watch dogs. This park, fairly large, well-kept, rests at the foot of Table Mountain and slopes downwards. Its crisscrossed with stone pathways all converging on a center fountain, slowly gurgling and spouting water into a round base in which children sit and splash each other on hot days. On a bright Sunday you will see people lying on blankets with picnics, you will see young skateboarders and roller bladers with those bulky knee and elbow pads, you will see people “slack lining” a tight-rope walking type of activity where a loose strip of nylon is bucked between two trees. But what you will also see, and this is the reason Tom and I are able to sit in one place for so long without talking, you will see the most wonderful variety of dogs gathered in one place. When we go, we find a spot, preferably in the sun, and we watch these dogs; spaniels and bulldogs, Rhodesian ridgebacks and terriers, Labradors, pointers, shepherds, pugs and whippets. They are everywhere, their owners sometimes chat with each other by the fountain, they watch their dogs with a loose gaze, a looped leash hanging from a hand. I can sit and watch the dogs from afar, I can stare in ways I can’t with people. Tom put it best when he said the best thing about watching the dogs is that their personalities are so obvious. The most recent time I was dog watching at the park, I saw a little terrier type dog, smallish with a white body and beige head, the fur scruffy on the tips of the ears. This dog went around antagonizing every other dog in the park, no matter the size. It was quick and it was fit. It’s bark wasn’t loud exactly but piercing in a way. Sharp. This terrier would dart to another dog, bark, jump and paw the other dog’s face, play-bite at its back. Understandably, this pissed some dogs off and they would overpower the terrier knocking it down and the terrier would quickly concede by rolling onto its back. However, other dogs would run away intimidated by the terrier’s aggressiveness and lack of restraint. As I watched, I couldn’t help but think that this terrier, this canine, embodied pretty much the entirety of my high school self. Going around school provoking and irritating, being hostile largely to compensate for my smaller self and fragile confidence. Like this terrier, all I really wanted was attention. But this is the magic of the dog park; the personalities are so obvious. There are shy dogs that wander around, an occasional sniff of a butt, but basically keeping to themselves. There are popular dogs, one which can go up to any other dog in the park, lick, nudge, and make friends. There are the humpers, of course. There are the dogs who chase squirrels and birds; the other day I saw one French bulldog chase a squirrel up a tree and then stop, sit and watch the squirrel cling to the trunk for about ten minutes, its its tongue lolled out of its mouth moving slightly back and forth as it panted. In that moment nothing mattered to that French bulldog besides that squirrel, time stopped, and I couldn’t help but admire the concentration, the focus of it all. What’s also made clear by sitting in the park, watching dogs, is that these animals are our companions. They are for many of us, our kin. It’s a relationship that goes way back, far enough that we’ve had time to sculpt, mold, prune and prick the species into an endless phonotypical variety. But we’ve come so close to these animals really, we bond with them quickly, and in many ways the relationships we form with dogs can go deeper than a human-human relationship. And as I sit in the park, I can see why. It’s because we can see ourselves in them, in those canine obvious personalities lies us, our personalities. They are complex, they are emotional, they feel like we do. It’s like a damn Dr. Seuss rhyme,

Some are sad. And some are glad. And some are very, very bad.

Here are some Who like to run. They run for fun In the hot, hot sun.

Some are high And some are low. Not one of them Is like another. Don’t ask us why. Go ask your mother.

[bcgulla]

How Pluto must have felt yesterday