The Heartbeat of the Pacific

Monterey BeachI’m hugely distracted this morning.

Our hotel in Monterey is an older one. There’s nothing fancy about it. The room is clean and small, but comfortable in a way that covers all your needs as long as you keep them simple. I am thrilled to be staying here. Because it’s old, it was built before California outlawed building right on the beach. It’s a windy morning, and the waves are high. It looks like they’re rolling in directly under my room, along with the talented surfer or two.

I fell asleep last night listening to the rumble of the ocean, so loud and rhythmic it seemed to be an extra heartbeat in the room. When I woke up this morning, it was still there, making me smile before I even opened my eyes.

This morning, my companion is off for a visit at the Monterey Herald newsroom. Royal Calkins, the editor, kindly gave him a ride so that I could have the rental car to drive downtown to visit the aquarium or scoot down the coast to Carmel. But I just can’t tear myself away from my little room. I’ve been given a late checkout. I’ve promised myself I’ll work at the table in front of the window, enjoying the sight of the Pacific waves and the squeals of children running down the beach. I’ve left the door ajar, just enough to let the salt breeze in, while keeping the seagulls out. That should be enough, right? I should be able to crank out the many words in this luscious, deep blue setting.

But the lure is just too much. A dozen times now I’ve left my chair to go stand on the deck to just watch and listen. I’ve tried so many times to shoot pictures and videos, but each time I’m disappointed with the result. My little iPhone is inadaquate and my timing is bad. The waves are never as big as the one that rolled in just before my finger hit the shutter. The surfer I’ve watched ride wave after wave falls before he gets to the beach when my lens is on him. Even if I was a better photographer, it’s a fools errand. There’s no capturing this. However much I want to take it with me when I go, the ocean is not a domesticated thing. It won’t be taken to a little landlocked condo 3,000 miles away, no matter how many times I click away.

So the writing isn’t getting done. I have a project to work on for one son, some words to get down before I speak at my goddaughter’s wedding. There are blog posts to write and a manuscript to proof, The characters in my new novel are nagging for attention. It all sits neglected on a laptop that has gone to sleep.

The lure of the Pacific is just too strong. Early this afternoon, my companion will return and we’ll head inland, out of its sight and out of its sound. So right now I have to have it while I can.

Everything else has to wait.

Worth The Trouble

My companion and the giant.

This trip to California has been a bit of a forced march. My companion has jammed 11 newsroom visits into 10 days. Except for the last two nights, we will won’t be in the same hotel twice. Before we return to San Francisco and our flight East, our rental car will have covered roughly 1,500 miles. It has been a marathon of check ins and check outs, while trying (with varying degrees of success) to keep track of our belongings.

We are both hardy travelers, but by the time we hit the weekend, I was ready to ease up a bit. I was tempted to suggest we take just one day to make the drive a short one and veg out by some pool. Better yet, maybe we could find a nice winery in which to pass a Saturday afternoon.

But those of you who know my companion, know he can be single-minded. He’d never seen the giant redwoods and I knew he wouldn’t give them up without a fight. Besides, I’d never seen them either. If we got up early enough on Saturday, we could get to Redwood National Park and spend some time before starting the 400+ mile drive down the coast to our next stop. When I climbed into the car, it was more with an attitude of resignation than anticipation. The phrase “good solider,” came to mind. Let’s take in those big-assed trees and be on our way!

But when my companion is right, he certainly is right. I had no idea of the treasure I’d find in that forest. It is acres upon acres of stunning life, so rich and full and strong it takes your breath away. Looking up at the tree tops gives you the dizzy feeling you are falling through space. Circle around the massive trunks, and you are overwhelmed with their grandeur. The whole forest seems to sigh with natural sound from the flittering birds to the gentle sweep of a breeze that can be heard, but cannot reach you. Elk, bears and even some mountain lions make the park their home, and although we didn’t see any that morning, there is no doubt they are there. Their life cycles, as ours, are borne witness to by those stately, giant sentinels, Those trees have seen hundreds of years of life pass beneath them, and they will live to see hundreds more.

Even with life vibrating all around us, there was a remarkable peacefulness in the redwoods. It’s like they were created to refresh the spirit. No matter how weary, when you stand among the giants time stops and everything that weighs you down is dwarfed to insignificance. You will be renewed. It is a place where you will rediscover your cornerstones and reconnect to your deepest feelings. It’s a place where your companion of so many years takes your face between his hands and whispers, “I want you with me, always.” And when he kisses you, it’s like it was the first time.

What a fool I’d been, to think it was too much trouble to add the giant redwoods to our trip. And how privileged I was to see them. They are a gift, a special moment, a true treasure that fills your heart and makes it easier to keep moving when it’s time to get back on the road.

The Pacific and the redwoods: I felt tiny

The Pacific Ocean from a turnout along the Shoreline Highway

I spent the weekend feeling small. And it felt great.

In the song, “I Hope You Dance,” Lee Ann Womack sings, “I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean.” Well, Saturday, I stood beside the ocean. And then beside giant redwoods. And then drove down roads darkened by so many redwoods they blocked the sun at midday. Then I drove through mountains. Finally I looked down on the Pacific from atop cliffs. Sunday I was back beside the ocean. As I write this, waves thunder on the beach outside our hotel room.

I felt tiny and insignificant all weekend. And grateful.

Work brought me to Northern California last week, visiting Digital First Media newsrooms in seven different communities, ending Friday in Eureka on California’s northern coast. I resume the newsroom tour today in Monterey, nearly 400 miles south of Eureka. But we had the weekend to make our way down the Golden State’s shore. Continue reading

The bike ride: John’s version

This is a guest post by John Johnson, Mimi’s brother. At our invitation, he and his wife, Kim, are sharing a “2 Roads Diverged” view of their recent trip:

Kim had suggested a bike ride a couple times in recent weeks.  I love that she wants to do these things together, but I also know this is one of the angles she’s working to encourage me to get out and exercise more – a lot more.

A couple weeks ago we were staying in the city for our anniversary and walked north along the bike trail from Scioto Audubon Metro Park to Scioto Mile, a revitalized area of Columbus along the Scioto River with a great riverfront park and restaurant we’ve become fond of. That’s when she first wondered aloud if there was a trail we could ride from the north suburbs all the way to downtown.  We often talk about spending more time in the city. I’m continually surprised by how vibrant Columbus is, and equally surprised we don’t spend more time enjoying the city now that the kids are gone.  A bike ride to downtown sounded like a great idea.

Olentangy – Scioto Bike Trail Information (warning – video is 8 minutes):

Starting at the trail head in Westerville, a suburb north of the I-270 beltway, makes about a 15-mile ride to the city, most of it right along the river and passing through several parks along the way.  It’s a perfect early summer Saturday.  As I’m putting the bikes in the truck I’m thinking it wasn’t that long ago I was biking a lot, and a 30-mile round trip is nothing.  Then I realize it’s been almost a year since I’ve ridden and 2003 since I really cycled regularly.  Is that possible?  Where did the time go? Continue reading

The bike ride: Kim’s version

This is a guest post by Kim Johnson, our sister-in-law. At our invitation, she and her husband, John, Mimi’s brother, are sharing a “2 Roads Diverged” view of their recent trip:

I recently discovered that a nearby bike path leads to one of our favorite downtown restaurants. My husband, John, without batting an eye, replied yes when I asked if he’d be up for the ride. Despite that the route is 15 miles one-way, and given that John’s idea of exercise is smoking a cigar on a neighborhood stroll while walking our dog, Marley, I thought this either naive, or adventuresome … probably the latter as that’s just the kind of up-for-anything guy he is.

So, flash forward a week and we load up our bikes. We let the nav lead as we don’t know exactly where the trail starts. We are instructed to “turn right” and arrive at the parking lot of a plastic surgery center. I wonder if this is some kind of divine intervention and as we drive through the lot looking for a trailhead, I ponder all kinds of procedures I could have done. It’s Saturday, though, and they are closed, but still, a girl can dream.

After no luck finding the trail, I turn to my iPhone nav, which directs us down the road a ways telling us to again “turn right” — this time into the parking lot of a specialty grocery store. Thinking we will never find the bike route, I eye the sign for the day’s cookout – soft-shell crabs – and imagine John and me sitting at a sidewalk picnic table drinking crisp white wine and picking flecks of shell from our butter-soaked fingers. But, at the very moment my mouth starts to water we see a car with a bike rack in tow and follow it to the back of the shopping center. Lo and behold, there — next to the dumpster — is the unmarked trail.

Regardless of its meager beginning, it’s a beautiful bike path. Continue reading

Embracing (sort of) the legend of my travel jinx

I started my last blog post saying that I believe in facts, not jinxes. That bears repeating after this tweet from my traveling companion:

Here are the facts:

  • I tweet a lot.
  • I travel a lot.
  • Travel often sucks, but not always.
  • One tweet is sufficient to say that you arrived on time.
  • A travel delay prompts more tweets.

When flights or trains arrive on time with no problems, one tweet suffices:

My tweeps yawn, if they notice at all. But a delay needs a little explanation and, well, I have time to explain. If the delay lasts hours because of a fatality on the tracks, I livetweet the whole thing. People retweet and spread the word and a Twitter mini-legend is born. Continue reading

My companion brings a dark cloud to Yankee games

Yankee Stadium rainbow

A rainbow is a traditional symbol of promise, unless it means my companion is taking her seat at Yankee Stadium.

I don’t believe in jinxes. But I do believe in facts, and a long-established fact in our family has been that the Yankees never win when my traveling companion is in the ballpark. Ever.

So I was a little concerned about taking her with me to new Yankee Stadium this week to watch the Yankees and Rays play. But I had never been in the ballpark (I know it’s a few years old now, but it’ll always be new Yankee Stadium, won’t it?) and hadn’t seen the Yankees play live for a few years. So we got Yankees tickets because, all kidding aside, I really don’t believe in jinxes. Besides, if you believed the weather forecast, we might not see a game at all.

We have a bit of a dispute about how many times she has seen the Yankees play. When we lived in Kansas City, I had part of a season-ticket package for the Royals, and traded tickets with others to see as many Yankee games as possible when they visited. Our three sons accompanied me to some of those games, but their Mom also claimed her share of the tickets. I figure she attended a game a year, which would be seven games in all. She claims it was one or two. Whatever it was, she never saw the Yankees win. Continue reading

New York, New York

For this trip, my companion and I decided to take the Amtrak’s Acela from Washington, D.C. up to New York City. True, we do live only minutes away from the giant Dulles airport, and it’s also true that the air shuttle isn’t terribly more expensive than train tickets. And fighting weekday traffic into the city’s Union Station was a hassle. But once on board, it seemed like a pure pleasure compared to the hurly-burly of airport screening. No stripping down for the metal detectors, no loading/unloading all our electronic devices. On top of that, the seats are roomier and there’s no limit to what you can carry on.

So the trip up was great. The trip back … well, I’ll get to that later. Continue reading

Antietam: Monuments should depict the killing fields

The Dunker Church at Antietam National Battlefield

Dan Buttry

Our visits to historic sites this week made me think of family. At the Eisenhower farm, I thought of Dad, like Ike a military man and a painter. At the Gettysburg battlefield, I recalled an earlier visit with Mom. At the Antietam battlefield, I thought of my pacifist brother, Dan.

In my last post, I recounted the mixed feelings I felt in Gettysburg, recoiling at the madness of war while admiring the valor of those who fought. But somewhere in a weekend of several hundred monuments at our nation’s two bloodiest battlefields, the madness won out over the valor.

I think it was at the Dunker Church. A pacifist Baptist Church in the middle of a battlefield made me think of my pacifist Baptist brother.

I come from a family of ministers. Dad was an Air Force chaplain, then an American Baptist pastor. After Dad died in 1978, Mom went to seminary and became an American Baptist minister herself. My younger brother, Don, is a lay minister. He didn’t attend seminary but was ordained by his Southern Baptist congregation after several years as a youth leader. It was my older brother, Dan, whom I thought of as we walked around the Dunker Church, reading the casualty toll on the various unit monuments.

We grew up living on and around Air Force bases. Though Dad was peaceful, we grew up with a strong military orientation. For a stretch in the 1960s, Dan’s favorite record was Barry Sadler‘s “Ballads of the Green Berets.” But as Dan grew up and prayed and studied Scripture, he felt called to be a peacemaker. He felt war and violence were immoral. Dan told our father, who had served a career in the military, that he couldn’t join the military, even in a non-violent role such as a chaplain or medic.

Dad told Dan that he needed to follow the call of his conscience, even if he heard a different call than Dad did. So the son of an Air Force lieutenant colonel became a peace missionary. He graduated from seminary in time to make it to Dad’s death bed in 1978.

Bloody Lane.

Dan has followed the call of his conscience around the world, teaching conflict resolution and peacemaking in Burma, Nagaland, Georgia and more countries than I can count. He’s written books about peacemaking and peacemakers.

I thought of Dan again and again as we drove and walked the fields and woods of the bloodiest day in American history (yes, more died at Antietam than on 9/11; Gettysburg was deadlier than Antietam, but its carnage stretched over three days). I wished our nation had more peacemakers and fewer people eager to rush into wars, both in our lifetimes and back when our nation fought this deadly war.

I thought of Dan as my companion and I walked past monument after monument — statues and plaques memorializing the brave men who fell in the cornfield and the sunken road known ever since as Bloody Lane. I wondered if there’s a way to honor the courage of the troops who fight wars without glorifying war itself, as the statues and battle scenes on some monuments do. Do we similarly honor the courage of peacemakers?

The photos of bodies at Antietam are a stark contrast to the erect soldiers on the Antietam monuments. I think war memorials should honor the dead by reminding the living how war turns peaceful fields like those surrounding Antietam Creek into killing grounds too horrific to imagine.

I’d like to see a memorial with bodies stacked in a ditch, like the Matthew Brady photographs from Antietam:

Dan Buttry’s books about peacekeepers and peacemaking:

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Christian Peacemaking: From Heritage to Hope

Peace Ministry: A Handbook for Local Churches

Coming soon: Peace Warrior: A Memoir from the Front

6/3/12 The Haunting Fields Antietam

My grandmother told me once that when she learned about the Civil War in school, the teacher told her that the blood and the horror suffered was God’s punishment because the Founding Fathers allowed slavery to continue when the United States was formed. But I don’t think we can pin the wickedness of slavery and its horrific end on God. The blame rests squarely on humanity, and our infinite ability to be inhuman.

I’d been to Antietam once before. When we arrived at the visitors center, I was aware of a vague, uneasy feeling when we paid our admission and rented a tour CD to play in the car as we drove around to each battle stop. Going down the road, the feeling blossomed to a near panic with ringing ears and sweaty palms. By the time we reached Bloody Lane, I couldn’t get out of the car. Babbling, I tried to explain to my companion what was going on, repeatedly asking, “Don’t you feel that? Don’t you feel some kind of weird vibration?”

No, he didn’t feel it. He was concerned. He was sympathetic. He obviously thought I was crazy.

I’ve wondered ever since if my reaction (or over-reaction, if you prefer) was merely the power of suggestion. I knew Antietam was the single most bloody day of the Civil War. I’d seen the pictures of men’s bodies, piled up like cords of wood. And I knew the claims that ghosts walk there by night. So, when we ended up touring at Gettysburg this weekend, it was my idea that we return to Antietam. I was curious to see if it would happen again.

Gettysburg and Antietam are very different. The battlefields around Gettysburg are not far from the town. The nearby highways are busy. There are more people, more noise. There was only one, brief moment when I could feel a vague rumble of vibration reaching out from the past. (See my post on Gettysburg.)

By contrast, Antietam is quiet – so very quiet. At several of the stops, my companion and I were quite alone. Just me and him, and yes, that strange, deep vibration that raised the hair on the back of my neck and he still couldn’t feel.

There was no panic this time. I expected that I would feel odd while we were there, and this time I was able to get out of the car, read the signs at every stop, and try to understand what happened over those broad, rolling acres. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, with a strong breeze and bright blue sky. But I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t uncomfortable.

I’m not claiming that I saw any ghosts. All I saw was beautiful countryside. But I do wonder if the energy of that hideous struggle, if the thick aura of violence, still hasn’t quite dissipated after all these years. The valor, the waste, the dauntless courage and the craven depravity – surely they must have left their mark. When I stood down in Bloody Lane, looking up the ravine, knowing the Union soldiers assaulted it over and over, and how desperately the Confederate soldiers held their ground, the vibration seemed nearly to hum with the lingering power of the fight. My ears strained, I was so certain I could catch the sound of it. But no, it was perfectly quiet. There wasn’t even any sound from the birds.

Lee’s army finally withdrew from Antietam Creek, a technical victory for the North, although they actually fought to a draw that day. I tend to think those mighty generals knew that death was the only winner on those bloody fields. It rained down on them, indiscriminate of the colors of their faces or their uniforms. Each one of those men had a life. They had babies to make, or families to raise, parents to see to, or grandchildren to hold. Instead they fell down and died, painfully and horribly and by the thousands. Thousands. The word seemed to echo up the lane.

I found myself thinking of a popular song by Kevin Costner and Modern West called The Angels Came Down. In it, when Costner sings that the angels carry the soldiers’ souls away, one line is: “They left no one and they placed no blame.”

The souls of the men who died there are mercifully gone. God made those rolling hills. It was the hatefulness of man that profaned them. That’s the tragedy that throbs through that beautiful countryside. And that’s what haunts me.

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