An ordinary Moment

My first thought as I awake is, “sunglasses”. I try to open my eyes without them and find I can’t. It’s 7:30, but I’ve been sunbathing in my sleep for at least 2 hours, covers long ago kicked to the floor, face turned instinctively to the window.

It rains here, a lot. But when the sun comes out, it does so -not meekly- but with intention and ferocity.

With my eyes finally adjusted to the light, I stretch, sit up, watch the baby sparrows’ morning rituals. Their world has existed of 4 square inches for too long now, and they are beginning to get antsy. Between nibbles that Mom brings by, one daring sibling hops onto the side of the nest and consciously employs his wing muscles for the first time, flapping clumsily, then stumbles back into the nest before Mom gets home.

I soon realize I’m on the wrong side of the window, how silly to still be inside. I sneak downstairs and out the back door, sunglasses in hand, and breath in the beauty of the morning. And the morning seems to breath with me. Glistening dew drops gracefully crown gently swaying grass stalks, dancing a slow waltz to the rhythm of a distant waterfall, punctuated only by busy birds, seeking breakfast. The confident peaks sit high and proud, maternally guarding the life and breath in their precious valleys.

I launch the canoe and silently row up the lazily wandering river, away from the last outpost on the edge of two million undisturbed acres of wonder. I glide soundlessly along the shore, gradually shedding the artificial barrier held stubbornly between human and nature.

Above the ever present song of surging waterfalls I hear a snap, a tree branch inadvertently destroyed underfoot, and another. I pause, hold my oars still, and wait. Snap, crack. A mother grizzly leads her two yearlings into a grassy patch by the water’s edge to munch on some sedge. Our eyes meet, and hold. I can almost perceive her thought process as she assesses the potential danger, and concludes I am nonthreatening enough for her to continue munching, but with her cubs in tow, she will not break her gaze.

The cubs sniff and snack, pounce and roll. Mama chomps away on sedge, watching me watch her. I dissolve into my surroundings, losing all perception of being separate from this complete scene. I am part of a painting, perfectly peaceful, forever idyllic, where there are no faults, no imbalances, no wrongs.

But of course, there is. And this life-depicted painting is proof. Mama Bear would certainly rather be eating protein-rich salmon roe right now, but the runs have not returned, and there are no fish to eat. This must be concerning to a mother, responsible for providing food to fill three hungry bellies, and finding only grass to do the job.

The minutes drift by. Mama is indifferent to my presence as they munch along, romp and play, sniff the air and observe the world. Finally, with a tired-sounding sigh and a quick grunt that seems to signal, “I’m done here, c’mon kids”, Mama leads her babies through the lightly dancing grass and they depart as gracefully as they appeared.

My sigh is not one of exhaustion but of contentment. I had just been permitted to witness a truly ordinary event in the world. The thought makes me smile, and I close my eyes to breath in the moment deeply before taking up my oars and rowing my way home. 

What do you Do?

If someone asks you, “what do you do?”, they mean what is your job, how do you make money, how do you contribute to society.

If you answer, “I am a an accountant”, that is usually the end of that line of questions.

If you answer, “I am a fireworks engineer”, there are some exclamations of awesomeness, and maybe a question about how they too might become a fireworks engineer.

If you answer, “I am an expedition coordinator for a dude that walks alot”, there are endless more questions. Always in the first four, though, is “and so--- what do you Do?”

This time they are not asking what is your job, how do you make money, how do you contribute to society. They mean – literally- what do you Do?. How do you spend the hours between breakfast and lunch, between lunch and dinner.

This is not an easy question to answer. The tasks that fill my day vary so vastly they rarely fit in the listener’s attention span. And in a few weeks, that list will be done and a new chapter of the project will commence, altering my answers even as I speak them.

And yet here I am. What can I say, I like to appease my readers. Here is “a day in the life”, based (very) loosely on the last week or so out at the remote cabin, as we prepare for the expedition.

It is light enough to read a book at 3:15am. Luckily that doesn’t stop anyone around here from sleeping in. When I wake up, I watch the baby sparrows in the nest just outside the window, cheep and duck and tussle, as Mom Sparrow swiftly darts here and there, pausing only long enough to lovingly feed her chirping babies before dashing off to find more food.

In the morning we answer emails, order airplane parts, camera equipment, tools, and electronics, research and brainstorm solutions to pressing issues like how to keep the camera dry in the rain, which tablet to buy, who manufactures the most dependable camera card, how to increase the battery power in the plane and still be within regulations.

I usually spend some time with the budget and expenditures, organizing receipts, restructuring the ‘to do’ list, providing Mike with spending reports (hey Mike- we’re definitely not spending enough money.)

During and after this, we work on the plane refit. Strategically placing the mounts on the wing struts, measuring, bolting down the aluminum plates, measuring again, constructing waterproof containers for the cameras out of pelican cases, PVC pipe, and 4200, grinding bolts down.

Then we go flying. One person flies with Mike, practicing shooting out of the window, getting accustomed to the experience, sorting out where the equipment will go, enjoying the scenery. The other people film the take off, the fly-by’s, the landing, and swat at mosquitos.

Once the plane is tied up and put away, we hop in the jet boat with crab traps, fishing poles, cameras, and rain coats, and tool around in the river and bay, always hoping to bring home dinner. (If this doesn’t sound like work, you go manully haul in a crab pot 200’ down over the side of a tippy jet boat with your bare hands….No, wait, that doesn’t feel like work either…)

The evenings are for brainstorming- designing the layout of the support van, devising a way to securely attach a gopro to the tail of the plane- and for uploading. In any given day, we take 20-80 GB of images and video. It doesn’t take long for the backlog to become overwhelming, so it’s a daily requirement. We upload all the data to lots of 1 TB harddrives, organized by day, camera, location, event, and file type. Then we sort through each one and pull out the selects from the day.

Try as we might, we can’t seem to sit down to dinner before 9:30pm, there’s just too much usable light. At 11:30 there is still blue in the sky, and it’s hard to start thinking about bed. We read, write, drink tea, get sucked into facebook.

I know, it sounds like hard work. And sometimes it is. This is not a 9-5. We’re at work when we wake up, and we’re at work as we’re brainstorming before sleep takes over. But we also find time to wrestle with Chaco, do yoga, take naps in the sun (when it’s out), take long walks through shoulder-high grass, read a novel, hold lengthy debates over the best brand of pocket knife, go for canoe rides. 

So, what do you Do?