Waves Roll

Water, Water Every where, nor any drop to drink...so laments the albatross-haunted voice of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Sitting on the bank of the Schelde the other day, I noticed an interesting phenomenon while trying to focus on the rolling waves of the river. I have noticed this often while at the ocean, most notably when I was at Kanniyakumari where three different major bodies of water come convene, causing the most amazing currents I have ever seen, but it was very apparent with the river’s coursings as well.

Try to focus on a point in a body of moving water. It is not easy. The natural tendency of our eyes is to follow the water, not remain locked in on the point of interest, especially if there is a piece of flotsam, jetsam, or sundry detritus bobbing along, much less a lazy seagull. The gaze follows the motion.

There was a cautionary buoy of sorts some fifty yards or into the middle of the river. That was a completely different experience then, to focus on a non-moving object surrounded by total movement. Both were hypnotizing to say the least, and I became engrossed and entranced by each over Time, losing myself indefinitely in the inertia and the inertia.

Being abroad, I sometimes wonder, what makes it “abroad,” and for me, the answer is simply, water. I am abroad because I am across the Atlantic Ocean from my native land. I was abroad abroad in India because I was across the Arabian Sea across the Atlantic Ocean or across the Indian Ocean across the Pacific Ocean. Six or one half dozen. I was exactly halfway around the globe in either case.

Yet, I have never made one of these trips per boat, oddly enough. I have always flown, as we live in the jet-age, so why should I? I have many times heard the story of how my mother, when she was eight and her brothers merely 2 and under traveled across the Atlantic in the dead of the deadest of deadliest winters to come join their father, traveling with my grandmother who had like many on the trip, fallen ill. My mom has described this trip, and it made me realize how impressionable that must have been. Huge, dark, ominous, unforgiving waves rolling and smashing against the hull of a transport ship lurching across a nearly frozen ocean, as the English Channel itself did freeze that winter!

That was a journey. That was a passage.

Now, we jump on an airplane and are magically transposed from point A to point B, with no real liminal space in between. Sitting by the river on Sunday, it was hard for me to imagine that just a week and a half before I was sitting in a boat, contemplating the ephemeral nature of life on the Ganges , watching bodies burn in a chain-smoking row of bonfires, and now, here I was, alone along the banks of the Schelde, contemplating...what?

I am content to be back in Antwerp, yet the disjunct between Belgium and India is so great at times, jolting, and the journey back was so sudden. I am confident that the next time I make such a journey, I will find a way to go by boat, or at least by a slower medium than the 747 that carried me from Mumbai’s Chatrapi Shivaji to London’s Heathrow.

I recently read online a list of ways to travel “differently” from the Lonely Planet publications. One of them was to “return slowly.” I believe that that is merely one half of the equation. I would like to next take a journey that I “go slowly” and where the journey itself is the destination. To roll along the waves, surrounded by water, water everywhere, desiring no-thing but the passage itself.

Dog Poop Detail

Since back in the the US for two weeks now, I have been having many interesting conversations with people about the "differences in the details" of things between Europe and America, hence my impetus to initiate these blogs in the first place.

Today, while sitting outside at a coffeehouse having coffee with a friend from Santa Fe, one of those details came to light, albeit one that makes Americans more uncomfortable than many Europeans I have spoken with.

There were two policeman walking down Ft. Marcy street who happened upon a dog that was leased to one of the poles supports of the Santa Fean adobe portici that shelter the sidewalks from the elements, much like in Bologna, which is actually famous for its endless portici, but that is another story and another blog... Regardless, there was a dog tied up to the post. The policemen were asking everyone whose dog it was. Everyone assured them that the owner had literally just popped into the restroom and would be back soon.

The policemen were rather unmoved by such appeals, and waited it out for a couple of minutes, mildly scolding the woman who had left the dog tied up unattended. She seemed slightly put out, but went on her way.

My friend remarked that it is funny how laid back the Santa Fe police are for the most part, but often will choose a detail such as this to "make a statement" of sorts.

I then related a serious problem that had plagued northern Europe, and particularly Belgium, during vacation time in years past, namely, the abandonment of family pets by the side of the highway, chained up to literally die while the family heads south to escape to the sun in France or Spain for a couple of weeks of getting lobster-toned to insure a "good" vacation.

This practice escalated to such a level that a national campaign and hefty fines were levied on offenders, and apparently, it worked. I have not heard about this for a few years, but I also noticed something else, less people have dogs now in Belgium. I don't know if there is a connection, but I specifically remember many, many more dogs in the 1990's in Belgium, and specifically Antwerp, mainly because of the dog poop on the sidewalk. Cheech and Chong did a skit about dog poop on the sidewalks of Amsterdam many years ago, but it could have easily been "still smokin'" in Antwerp as well.

But, again, a major clean-up campaign, and fines and, well, less dogs. I have wondered if the fines and campaigns are directly responsible. What I find interesting about that though, is that it seems to be more effective to fine people than to appeal to a sense of ethics, but hopefully I am wrong about that, though, I wonder.