transitions

I just finished my first full-time work week in two years, and am taking advantage of a quiet, overcast Bellingham afternoon to make my first blog post. I'm not really a tech-savvy guy, but enough people have told me that these are a better way to stay in touch than occasional mass emails that I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm also prone to lengthy pontification, for which I apologize in advance--at least I won't be cluttering your inbox!

On Sunday, June 15, I sat with several good friends in Stanford Stadium, surrounded by family and well-wishers, and watched Oprah Winfrey deliver our commencement address. An hour or so later I attended my departmental awards ceremony, feeling the satisfaction of a strong finish and of having established great relationships with my profs and peers. Though it was an awesome time of celebration, the groundswell of emotion that I expected never came. I remembered how quickly my time at Western had also passed, and thought about how much faster my time at Oxford will also zip by. Life, at least during this season, is in constant flux. I can't cling too tightly to the way things are at any given time, but I can take with me the lessons, good memories, and strong relationships that I develop along the way. What's more, God's constant presence and the sense that He is coordinating the different phases of this journey reassure me at all times and places.

It was with this frame of mind that I stepped onto the gangplank at Dock 5, Squalicum Harbor, less than 24 hours later to meet my skipper, Jim Glenovich. "I'll bullshit ya in just a moment, son. For now why don't you go give Timmy a hand up in the tophouse?" Thus began a week of washing windows, scrubbing decks, loading hundreds of pounds of food, water, and beer, and other prep work. After two years of jeans, t-shirts, and the occasional suit and tie, there is something reassuring about wearing my grimy carhartt double-knees and XtraTuf fishing boots again. This world is so much less complicated, and is filled with simple pleasures that I miss in the academic environment, such as the joy of eating a meal you feel you earned, working side by side with other guys as a team, and seeing the fruits of your labor as a tangible, physical outcome, rather than the vague sense of having written yet another decent paper or having somehow contributed to making the world a better place. I also love the atmosphere of adventure in the air. The fishermen on the docks are always talking about how the salmon runs are looking, where there's money to be made, and when they're thinking of heading north (we'll probably leave on Tuesday). It's as if we're miners during the time of the Klondike gold rush, seized by the possibility of striking it rich in the Alaskan wild.

The change in my human environment has also been quite abrupt. I am the youngest guy on my boat by over 20 years, and the only college graduate. At this point I'm tempted to invoke all kinds of blue collar stereotypes, yet after one week I've already been reminded of the fact that people, if you allow them to, will always defy the labels you place on them. Tim learned to speed read in the fourth grade, and has since read more books than I will probably get through in my entire lifetime. The shelf in his bunk includes selections from Sherman Alexie, Toni Morrison, and Upton Sinclair. When we dropped him off at his place last Friday I noticed the phrase 'no pasar' (don't enter) written on his driveway: apparently he has kids who are adopted from Mexico. Harold wears the hat of a hard-drinking jack of all trades a little more easily, but a bit of digging reveals a noble-spirited man who's been burned bad by love, broken by his failures, and cares deeply for his family. In his mid/late 50's he's also as jacked as the average Stanford football player, something I plan to ask him about once we get to know each other a little better.

Jim, my skipper, grew up in a fishing family, and spent several years of his boyhood living in Chile, fishing for herring with his father. Later on he went to college, fell in love, and then was drafted to serve in Vietnam. He and his wife got married five days before he went and fought in the bush for a year. He made it back alive to be reunited with his young bride before immediately being shipped off to Germany at the height of the Cold War. He said that when he came back, all he wanted to do was fish, and that's what he's been doing ever since. Even that took it's toll, as he would lose both his brother and his best friend to the ocean. His resilient spirit amazes me. When he mentioned his time in Vietnam I was taken back--he doesn't have the air of several Vietnam vets that I've met. "You fought in Vietnam?" I asked, looking as deep into his eyes as I could. "Yeah," he said, and in that brief moment I saw a cold, deep scar, and realized that the war had taken a piece of him that he would never recover. But you would never guess it. Jim is always cracking jokes, has taken a genuine interest in my studies and future plans, and motivates his crew without being overbearing or abusive. Since he returned to Bellingham to be the skipper of the Yankee Boy at age 26 he has raised four daughters, become a proud grandfather, built a thriving business, and recently invested in over 300 acres of real estate with three other partners. I realize that there is absolutely no room for self-pity with this man, or with Harold and Tim for that matter, and am anxious to learn as much as I can from them in the months ahead. My Stanford education has been awesome, as I anticipate my masters studies at Oxford will be as well, yet in my crew, my captain, the docks, and the Alaskan wildness, I find that there are deep wells of knowledge for me to draw from. This is why I am in this place right now: to rest and work with my hands, but also to learn and solidify lessons that will shape the person I become in the years ahead.

In spite of all that is good about this new season, I know that this will probably be the last time in my life that I'll do anything like this. In the past I've felt conflicted by my desire to work with my hands and my eagerness to use my mind to its fullest potential. I have a lot more clarity on this point now, with my experiences over the past year affirming a direction that leads me away from the docks. I'll always remember these times, however. These men make me simpler, humbler, and stronger.

Once we get our skiff repaired we'll be good to go, so Tuesday is looking like a pretty sure departure date. I hope to have photos of my crew soon enough, along with nature pictures, and details about what this job actually looks like. I'm shooting to have this updated about once a week, but we'll see how realistic that is as the season progresses. I may also start uploading shots to Picassa, if I can find the bandwidth up north. In any case, the next time I post to this blog will be from the Petersburg Public Library!