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December 2008 in Sint Maarten, Netherlands Antilles

December 2008 in Sint Maarten, Netherlands Antilles

FFor a long time I have liked the work of travel writer Pico Iyer, who captures so well a type of travel abroad (in a “broad way”), that I often find myself viewing a new locale through his eyes. His writing is fluid, it’s easy. You are yanked out of your moment and thrust side-saddle as he canters through the most pastoral, forlorn, opulent, or depraved places on earth. I read The Lady and the Monk as a teen, my young head swooning over Iyer’s dichotomous year of Love in the time of Abstention. (Revisiting this book now, though, I am much more critical). Years later, Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World was the book I took on my first international trip (to Taipei, at 23, with no clue about anything). The idea that one could gain an insight, a kind of thermodynamic equilibrium of emotion, was very appealing to me. My temperature inside had always been twelve degrees above lonely; Iyer’s writing inspired me to travel.

This Christmas, my love and I flew to the Caribbean island of St. Maarten/St. Martin to escape New York’s winter. There was snow on the ground at Laguardia airport…and because NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE are SEEING SOMETHING/SAYING SOMETHING I had to relinquish a new bottle of perfumery that makes me smell good. When we deplaned at SXM airport, the salty air promised us happiness. It promised us Rum Jumbie, and then a nap.

Iyer writes:

Few of us ever forget the connection between “travel” and “travail,” and I know that I travel in large part in search of hardship — both my own, which I want to feel, and others’, which I need to see. Travel in that sense guides us toward a better balance of wisdom and compassion — of seeing the world clearly, and yet feeling it truly.
For seeing without feeling can obviously be uncaring; while feeling without seeing can be blind.

To what things have I been blind?

We stayed at the Princess Heights, a boutique condominium resort near Dawn Beach. We slept by the sea. Sint Maarten, the Dutch counterpart to French Saint Martin, is a pretty place with roads like ribbons laced through the hills. We ate fresh fish — do they feel pain? — and witnessed, languidly, the unfolding of our love in this Caribbean paradise. Our conversations often turned to life in St. Maarten, both the observable life (buying eggs in Phillipsburg, eating on the French side) and the actual life as best we, two Asian American tourists, could surmise it. Of course, silly me, fish do feel pain.

Sint Maarten is officially an eilandgebied (”island area”) of the Netherlands Antilles, one of five municipalities under the jurisdiction of a gezaghebber (Governor) appointed by the Dutch crown. There are an estimated fifty-thousand residents, and eighty-five percent of the labor force works in the tourism industry. This industry, nursed since the 50’s, caters to travelers from the so-called first world who want to enjoy a bit of Gainsbourg’s “sea, sex and sun”. This means me. On the tourism website www.st-maarten.com, I am told that the island is “A Little European….a Lot of Caribbean!” and that it is the “biggest small island in the world.” I’m told that the Treaty of Concordia, signed by the Dutch and the French in 1648, is the “oldest active, undisputed treaty on our planet!”

But how did this happen? Being Korean, this splitting and sharing of a small island by other countries makes my lip curl. Sint Maarten, originally called Sualouiga, or “Land of Salt”, was inhabited by the matrilineal Taíno (aka Arawak) people around 800 AD. Relatively peaceable hunters and farmers, their numbers were threatened and eventually overcome by the fierce neighboring Caribs, who gave the region their name. On November 11th, 1493 — the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours — Columbus claimed the little “salt island” for Spain. Over the next 155 years, Spain wrestled with the Dutch and French for control, each of these conquerors introducing new diseases (smallpox, measles, influenza) which proved cataclysmic to the native populations. In the 16th century, Spain enslaved the remaining Taíno and Caribs, in the 18th century the French imported African slaves for their sugar plantations, and after slavery was abolished in 1848 the British brought in Chinese and East Indian laborers. The Europeans, it seems, do not like to do their own work.

Meanwhile, the Taíno of the Caribbean disappeared. Nearly four-million of them at the time of Columbus’s arrival were, by 1502, decimated to a remarkable sixty-thousand(!) by disease, Carib aggression, and Spanish brutality. Mass suicides and forced abortions among the Taíno were common, as they sought to spare themselves the harsh reality of their subjugation. Today, Taíno mtDNA can be found among Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and the Garinagu of Central America, mixed –quite literally — with Carib and African blood.

As we vacationed in St. Maarten, I looked for bits of this history in the faces around me: the large woman selling mangos street-side, American tourists dining at the Westin, our snorkeling guide named Peter. Admittedly, the people we encountered seemed comfortable and happy. Is it even possible for us to see them, through the thick veil of the service industries? Through the sticky, stained veil of our collective past? and WHY are the mangos imported? Pico Iyer observes:

We travel, then, in part just to shake up our complacencies by seeing all the moral and political urgencies, the life-and-death dilemmas, that we seldom have to face at home. And we travel to fill in the gaps left by tomorrow’s headlines: When you drive down the streets of Port-au-Prince, for example, where there is almost no paving and women relieve themselves next to mountains of trash, your notions of the Internet and a “one world order” grow usefully revised. Travel is the best way we have of rescuing the humanity of places, and saving them from abstraction and ideology.

To what things have I been blind? In what ways have I been complacent?
It makes me angry.

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from the steps of the Sacré-Cœur, Paris

from the steps of the Sacré-Cœur, Paris

HHaving seen the deceptively simple movie “Happy-Go-Lucky”, in which a thirty-year-old Londoner’s effervescence makes you feel giddy (or shitty, as you please), you might be struck by any one of its gems: the realistic depiction of adult female friendship (a gift of the director, Mike Leigh), the delicate portrayal of indefatigable courage bordering on stupidity, or perhaps the simple telling of a story in which women are not tangential. These things are thin in the air of a movie theater, or they exist in so-called “chick flicks” (pet-peeve term alert!) which do not garner much attention.

As for me, I can’t stop thinking about the characterisation of Scott, an eccentric driving instructor with bad teeth who teaches Poppy, the protagonist, how to drive. (I have been to London; driving in that city is No Joke.) If, like some people, you are annoyed by Poppy’s buoyant attitude, Scott is your spokesman –until you realise that things are not quite “okay” in the “head” of this quirky fellow. Reportedly, Leigh studied the jargon of driving instructors, phrases like “peep and creep” and “if there’s a van, there’s a man”…these useful aphorisms take on an eerie mantra-like effect when intoned by Scott, who adds the flourish “EN-RA-HA” to remind Poppy about the “ever-seeing eye” at the top of the windshield. It’s hilarious and sad.

How does the ego, that deeply-lodged menace inside each of us, present for one man a small matter of keeping the lawn cut, and for another the slippery-slope descent into crazyland? My connection to mental illness is very personal: bipolar disorder, manic depression, paranoid schizophrenia and schizoid personality disorder have afflicted various people in my life… but there is a story that haunts me the most.

She was strong, tall, of Teutonic stock, shorn hair, long lashes. Her thick voice said to me, “den Himmel so Fern” when I asked what she was doing in Thailand. Though I had no German then, I understood. In the way that we glorify our lovers and overlook the presaging signs of weakness in them (a peculiar odor, a facial tick), I did not pay attention to her rants against the Catholic Church. Who doesn’t have a mild grudge against the Catholic Church? To hear her voice, the sensual sound that emanated from her throat and intermixed w’s with v’s, comfortable with consonants and very long words, I fell under her spell. “The number for the Catholic Church is six-six-six,” she would say, “and the number for Satan is five-five-five. The number for mankind is seven-seven-seven. If you look at all religious texts, the total sum of their pages is…” and so on. I didn’t hear the words, so transfixed by her was I, so helpless at the sound of her voice! Had I any sense then, or any sense of mercy, things might have turned out differently.

But what’s a girl to do? We were in love. We wanted to have cats together. Three years later, she accused me of selling transcripts of our phone calls to the German Deutsche Welle airwaves. Because, Schatz, I can see in the faces of people on the street, they are knowing my private business. How much have they paid you?

I pleaded with her to seek help, I tried reasoning. I tried coercion. I even appealed to her superstitions and “saw signs” that she should get help. These attempts only made me suspect. We broke off contact and for years I wondered about my beautiful friend. Did she ever find her heaven? Was it so far away?

To this day, I get the heebies whenever someone starts to talk about the intrinsic meaning behind numbers, or the sneaky presence of Satan vibrating within certain colors. I’ve all I can do to keep the zombies at bay…so please, Scott, keep your EN-RA-HA to yourself.

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Oregon or the Grave!

Oregon or the Grave!

FFeet up, windows down, the sky above us stretched out in blues and pinks –is it possible to see into the future? It seems possible with a sky like that. Due east, Devendra Banhart! Take me there with your trilling voice, my Lord.

The Columbia river starts in British Columbia and rushes southward to the Pacific, delineating Washington from Oregon along the way. For eighty miles between The Dalles and Boardman, OR, it runs along I-84, a smooth stretch of road that rocked me gently to sleep. This interstate is also known as the Old Oregon Trail Highway 6, and on it we moved directly against the flow of history as we headed east. I imagined passing by remnants of The Peoria Party, with their flag proclaiming “Oregon or the Grave!”, followed by weary Elm Grove families in covered wagons. In 1848, someone found gold in California. Hundreds of thousands joined the westward migration, borne along by the mighty Columbia.

In the 1840’s there flourished an energetic certainty that the US was destined –even preordained –to expand across the continent. This concept of “Manifest Destiny” was used to advocate for or justify our acquisition of new territories. In the famous 1872 painting by John Gast, a goddess-like Columbia, representing America, leads settlers westward; she is stringing telegraph wire and carrying school books. A closer look reveals that the bison and Native Americans flee before her seemingly angelic visage.

In today’s world, the idea of a God-granted duty to change or displace other people seems childish; in my world it’s an outright farce. But I do confess an attraction to the idea of Destiny. I suppose this makes me religious in the sense that “destiny” implies a natural order to the universe. So much of our religious feeling, it seems, comes from the dueling emotions of fear (of chaos) and yearning (for order). Old religions always have a method of divination, don’t they, a way for us to peer into the order of things: bones thrown, arrows tossed, tea leaves spread onto a wooden tray. Out of this random chaos comes order, or at least that’s what the numerologist says before taking your money.

I often wonder what my destiny is. Is it a “sealed fate”, or do I get to participate? Is there a cover charge at the door? I don’t want so much, really. To eat just enough, to hear quiet music nearby, to have good friends and see them healthy and loved by others…

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At the Bagby Hot Springs

TThe Bagby Hot Springs are located in the Mount Hood National Forest, approximately sixty-seven miles southeast of Portland. Long used by native americans, they were named after Bob Bagby, a hunter and prospector who stumbled upon them in 1880. A bathhouse was built in 1920, but it was destroyed by an unattended candle in ‘79. Today, The US Forest Service maintains three bathhouses with the help of volunteers who live on-site.

Despite what the internet says about the Springs being “easy to locate,” we found ourselves winding up and down about twenty forest roads, some with paper plate signs (one of them saying, simply, “Mother”), until stumbling –like Bagby himself –onto the trailhead. It’s a 1.5 mile hike to the Springs. With our tent, food and clothes on our backs, we searched for the fabled Bagby campsite, about a quarter-mile past the baths. The topo map we had was useless, and after an hour of hiking we decided to make camp in a level clearing by a stream. Kate made an excellent fire, I roasted broccoli on a stick. Have you seen this movie? It captures the Babgy Springs perfectly:

When I was a kid, one my my earliest heroes was Grizzly Adams, from the TV show. He had left civilisation for the wilderness (something about being wanted for a murder he didn’t commit) and enjoyed a nigh-telepathic bond with animals.  His demeanor was always gentle, thoughtful, and he looked vaguely like Kenny Rogers, another icon of my childhood. I had fantasies of running away into the woods, subsisting on plants and fungi, and, like ‘ol Grizzly himself, communing with the creatures. The television series lasted two seasons, just enough time for the transformation to take place: on the outside, I still looked like a little girl, but on the inside…I was…JUNIOR GRIZZLY! Of course, the real James “Grizzly” Adams was a deadbeat dad who trapped wild animals and sold them to PT Barnum’s Traveling Show. In the seventies, that would have made an unpopular show.

Kate and I woke early the next morning to break camp and make it to the baths before anyone else. It was a chilly monday morning; the likelihood of people visiting the Springs at this hour was low, and we hadn’t seen any other campers. Of course, being women, we constantly have to make concessions to our sex and consider the risks in any given situation. We know where our codiac mace is at all times. But Junior Grizzly does not like having to make concessions. She would rather take a few (calculated and juicy) risks and lose from time to time, than live a caged life. Whose world is this, anyhow?

Laying in a hollowed-out cedar log, steam rising into the cold morning air, I tilted my head to hear the chirp-chirp of Oregon birds. “This forest is a cathedral,” I thought. I looked at Kate, who had fallen back into her log so that only her bent knees showed. Even her knees are beautiful. Kate says that she is an ugly woman, but I know in my heart that’s not true. Her words, her thoughts, her smile, her shoulders in the sun. It is simply not true.

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Petersburg, Alaska

Petersburg, Alaska

AAlaska, that wild state of affairs up north, has occupied a place in my mind like the corner that gathers cobwebs in an attic. To its inside passage my love fled ten years ago, and to its mossy, creosote-soaked pillars I have been tied since. In a manner of speaking. He worked at the fishery, slept in the woods like an animal, and sent me postcards to let me know he was alive. He read Notes from the Underground as I waited, but he stayed too long in this place where my voice, my hands, couldn’t reach him.

This story occurred so long ago that its telling is positively maudlin; we were children then, we’re good friends now. However, when I picture Alaska it always takes on this tint, this bruised color beneath the snow. I am sure that my visit to Petersburg was a bit bluer, a bit truer for the memory. In the strange way people can be, I felt better having seen the patch of trees where he slept, the coffee shop where he sat. I felt as though these places were telling me a story. The story of–I don’t know–the story of a young man running away from love? A youth gone wet-faced into the wild? or just a story of boredom?

“Lots of people moved here to escape the law,” Kira explained to us, kicking a rock with her foot. Our ferry arrived early and quietly, slipping into town and without much fanfare slipping away. Tom and Kira know everyone in Petersburg: waving at passers-by, it seems like they all have a story to tell. This guy lives in a filthy trailer and builds wood furniture so beautiful it’d make you weep, that one drinks his own urine–for the health benefits, he swears! Most everyone here is here only seasonally; they subsist on the fish.

I asked Tom, who has worked at the Petersburg fishery for over a decade, if the Alaskan salmon are being depleted beyond conscionable levels. Of course, the next question is, “whose conscience?” That of the owners of the canneries? Or of the fishermen whose lives depend on each season’s yield? The consumers’? As it turns out, it does seem that the yearly cull of Alaskan salmon is highly regulated and that the fish have a swimming chance. This was not always so. Overfishing in the region prompted President Ike to declare Alaska a “federal disaster area” in 1953, meaning that his government (which was responsible for funding the management and research necessary to prevent a, umm, disaster) had failed. Upon statehood in ‘59, this responsibility transferred to Alaska, and the situation improved, then dipped, then improved again, till the Happy Now: thirty-three state hatcheries releasing 1.2 to 1.4 billion juvenile salmon per decade, and a limited entry permit system controlling the volume of fishing allowed.

Bully for you, Alaska! Oh, state of Midnight Sun, of the Northern Lights. The word “Alaska” comes from the Russian “Alyaska”, which came from the Aleut “alaxsxaq”, meaning literally, “the object toward which the motion of the sea is directed”. As game hunters have argued, an animal’s usefulness to us is what guarantees its survival (sigh…this is the sort of animal we are), a theory so neatly exemplified by the wild salmon who–for goodness’ sake!–have steps built for them in particularly steep upstream areas. If we can save these shimmery and dumb creatures from extinction, where are the government-funded elephant orphanages? The laws that curtail the use of heat-seeking weaponry, fired from aircraft, against fleeing wolves?

Now that Kate and I are back in the “lower 48″, staying with Amanda’s parents in Centennial, CO, I remember Alaska the way I saw it: spare, chilly and through a haze of drunkenness. We had arrived on the last day of fishing season; everyone taking to the streets in a great bellow of exhaustion–the kind of exhaustion you feel when, at 2 am in a bar in a strange town, the prospect of walking home seems more tiring than that of having another drink. It is a happy, smiling exhaustion. When finally we did make it back to Kira and Tom’s place, we’d tipped over into that magic zone where nothing at all was tiring, and stayed up late making pizza, taking pictures and laughing so much my throat hurt for days. Petersburg is a picturesque, quirky and altogether disquieting place. I woke early the next day to shoot pictures of the misty mountains and found myself chatting with one scruffy local after another. Nowhere is loneliness more profound than in a fishing town at six in the morning. It’s touching, really…all these renunciates, misfits and young summer workers mashed together…at once running from and striving toward women.

And what else is there?

I’ll never know why my friend went to Petersburg, Alaska. But now I have seen the town, I have felt its allure. Like a woman, like the “object toward which the motion of the sea is directed”, this wild place which called to (and claimed) Chris McCandless at twenty-three, Alaska has left me with a new sort of hunger. More of an itch, actually. It’s really no big deal. I’m sure there’s a topical cream for it.

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My Own Private Telluride

My Own Private Telluride

WWe’re in Telluride, CO, a strange little town off Hwy 145 that has the air about it of a Swiss ski lodge made of chocolate. I imagine at night the residents (all two thousand of them) issuing forth from their cottage beds deep into the mountains, to stir up more chocolate. We will not be staying long. It is an expensive place to be. Unfortunately, we’ll miss the Blues and Brews music festival this weekend, but somehow we will manage. I never did much cotton to the blues–I like Leadbelly et al. but the songs don’t touch me like they seem to others. Give me a sappy Korean pop song from the 80’s–now that’s mourning to a tune.

We came to Telluride by the invitation of a man we met on the Alaskan ferry. Of course that ferry ride was one big drunken party–I remember playing an old piano in the bar and people giving me money. If it was silly of us to hold him to plans made there, then silly is as silly does. But, you know, a gentleman means what he says and says what he means, right? We arrived and this tree-hugging, lily-livered liberal was alternately “too tired” to come out and “too busy” to accommodate us. “I kinda have to feng-shui out my apartment,” he said. “I gotta get a steam cleaner,” he said. He had promised us a tour of Telluride and fresh-baked pastries. What we got was a $150 room at the Victorian Inn.

The townsfolk here are friendly and very well dressed. Handsome college kids play instruments on the sidewalk, ruddy-cheeked; Telluride women (in their thirties through fifties) are especially beautiful–they have a shine in their eyes that softens the face, and they are always smiling. I wonder why: twice since our arrival, we’ve been told about the unreliable nature of Telluride men–by the men themselves. The streets are teeming with people this week before the festival. Everyone asks us where we are coming from. We tell them about Yellowstone, the Lewis and Clark Caverns, Redmond, and days spent driving against dusk.

But they hardly seem to care.

They want to know about Alaska

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