our new ocean

to my unborn daughter

i remember, as a young boy, standing on a wild oregon coastline. bewildered, staring out at the crashing salty surf, the curling swirling misty grey, the soft chirping of seabirds calling, the light rain spackling the day and dripping down my wavy brown locks and feeling squished under that massive nameless sad longing that possessed me even then, that nomadic and detached need for something else, somewhere else. the need to keep moving.

28 years later, sitting here in this sterile clinic chair, tensed out and frazzled like a scared and skittish cat, holding her hand and staring up at a screen as i watch the first undeniable outlines of your developing body jump out from the black void. the rapid and underwater sound of your brand new heartbeat, barreling out, proclaiming your foothold in the universe, as sudden and inexplicable as the big bang itself. i never wanted kids. catatonic in my chair, i feel my own trajectory accelerating out of control, my obsessive fingers pried away one at a time by sub-atomic forces, by the massive, gas-giant gravity of biology.

"you're having a little girl," the ultrasound tech tells us. i curl my toes to grip at the loss of balance, struggling to comprehend this new reality. instead of being the solitary old man at the end of the road in the mountains, steadily surrendering to the inexorable march towards curmudgeon-hood, it seems my destiny is to have a home filled with that disarming squeal-gurgling stream-dripping honeycomb sweetness of female laughter. that secret musical code of happiness.

it’s time for my dissertation, to see what’s been learned (if anything).

******

i am lucky enough to be picked to go to toulouse and bring home a brand new bird. arcing northeast across the pond, this old familiar transatlantic passenger flight that i've taken so many times while living and working all those years in europe and africa. we curve over the north sea into the approaching dawn. touching down in a country that i feel such fond regard for. the memories come rushing back: my year spent in france; the amazing people who’ve inspired and challenged and helped me in many ways.

i meet the airbus team- sharp, friendly, helpful; lovers of equality and freedom and liberty and wine- the best of humanity. i see my pretty new a320 neo sitting at the delivery gate and walk over to say hello, taking our time to get to know one another on our first walk-around together.

we get a private tour of the assembly line and factory, seeing all that goes into these jets. it’s staggering: i try to imagine all the engineering, design, logistics, transport, testing, and innumerable parts that fit perfectly and seamlessly together- an absolute triumph of engineering and ideas. it's a glimpse of what we are capable of as a species, if only we could settle definitively and give our all to collaboration.

******

i want to pour myself into your life with this same depth.

i will teach you to canoe the glassy early morning waters of our reservoir, and how to be patient while fishing. i will teach you how to fly an airplane, drive a stick and work on cars, and navigate by starlight through the woods. i will teach you how to run a chainsaw and do anything that a man can do, except better. we will travel and learn languages and gain a real perspective from the developing world. view our blue planet through the lens of mathematics and astronomy and the love of the written word. i have oh so many books for you to read, and i hope they will make you laugh and cry; their richness of experience avalanching over you, burying and buoying and blessing you with lessons to draw on later...good friends couched on the shelf; ever ready for you in your time of need.

i will take you to the stunningly beautiful lonely landscapes that pull at my heart, and i hope they will pull at yours too.

your mom will teach you art and dancing and yoga and happiness, that eternal inexplicable happiness of hers...

together we will teach you kindness, gratitude, and mindfulness. living fully the moment, diving like a deep sea-diver into the joys and sorrows both, juicing them for what they offer up to you, never backing away, wringing the essence out and embracing what lies inside, bitter or sweet.

******

leaving toulouse is bittersweet- it represents so much of the kind of life i had for so long and thought i’d have forever… i'm excited and scared for this new adventure that i know must be taken and there is no other way forward now but to fully commit and swan dive in and hope providence moves, too. i buckle into my seat and methodically ready this new bird for her delivery flight home.

north, towards that perennial polar compass. checking in with bordeaux, then paris, then london, then scottish control. high over those same swirling mists of my youth, hidden away below lies the isle of skye. she is mysterious and wild and beautiful.

the icelandic coast slips by under the right wing in the falling light, with traces of that billowy green curtain of northern lights flickering in and out of the arctic dusk. just ahead, great frozen peaks of greenland boldly shoot up through the clouds. that timeless rock and ice, still holding nightwatch over the eons. narsarsuaq, where i ran my first marathon. i was never a runner until others pushed me ever onwards. 

you are capable of far more than you imagine.

the resultant eternal sunset from racing retrograde into the earth’s rotation; keeping that oblique angle between our local star and this wisp of ethereal atmosphere.

i think back on my nomadic bush years: my time in the war zones of congo and chad and afghanistan, trying to forge peace within the wet briny tangle of human relations: alchemy at best. the entrenched small minds, the lives held hostage by clueless consumerism and traditional ignorance and powerful financial interests. it's all so small and remote and utterly ridiculous, and i’m deeply nostalgic for these formative years as i peer out the windows in the gathering dusk, high over these glacial oceans.

still trying to change the world. humbled by the prospects of raising a thoughtful and considerate wild independent mountain woman who might do her part. no ideas in my thick skull except to try my best to find a line through it all...

perched here in my lonely straps, hanging high above the quiet icy north atlantic. polar stars and dancing northern lights, suspended in the blackness but for the steady reassuring pulse of the flashing beacon, silently asserting our foothold in the cosmos. my skye and i will carry each other to the other side of the dark waters.

******

now I sit here with an unfiltered hoppy pint in the dark on the couch with your mom, staring into the mystery of the dancing flames inside a woodstove, watching the transubstantiation of matter play out before my eyes. another delivery is imminent.

one hand on her belly. your already-powerful foot kicking against her. already probing and examining the natural limits of your environment; plotting a way out. don’t ever lose this desire to explore and test boundaries. don’t settle for the traditional and safe path. don’t listen to people who pretend to know the things that are not knowable. don’t get bogged down by those who can’t flex and evolve, who fearfully cling to old traditions and reassuring myths rather than embrace the startling beauty and dark mystery of it all.

i stand on the edge of our new ocean, and wonder:

what will you see?