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Hanson Island Winter 3

The Death of Innocence

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I was twelve when Bush “won” in 2000 and eighteen when the economy crashed. I was twenty-three when the Affordable Care Act passed and Osama Bin Laden was killed. But here’s the thing, every morning, no matter who was in the oval office, my day’s were the same. New York was on the other side of the country, so aside from long TSA lines 9/11 was but a shudder,  a TV show, separate from my suspended teenage reality.

When the market crashed I still got up and went to class. Because Dad had a good job and my parents had saved for my college tuition. I was privileged, and because of it, I was isolated and insulated from the tremors of the nation’s unrest. And when the Affordable Care Act was passed I was still on my parent’s health care, unable or incapable of wrapping my invincible young mind around the concept of not being able to afford the care I may need should my body fail me. I have been blessed enough to, up to this point, lead a sheltered, blessed, and innocent life.

But last night that life died.

I have spent much of my life doing things that don’t matter. On paper, that’s not a bad thing. “Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted” said John Lennon.

I spent time playing computer baseball games, watching basketball, and, when I was young, flying little metal airplanes throughout the house shooting down bad guys.

This is the death of my innocence.

On this side of the election, there seems to be little time remaining for such trivial things. For last night, war was declared. Like our latest wars, it’s not a war of geography, but ideology. And this time, it’s on our own ground. An ideological civil war that will pit Caucasians versus minorities, the LGBT community, the Muslim religion, and the environment. All of which now need your help.

Complacency has led us this far, I urge all of us to make sure it takes us no further. Many of you I am sure are already involved in causes or programs that work to make the world a better place. To which I say thank you. But we’re all going to need to do more. I woke up this morning as scared as I’ve ever been. But I also awoke to a mind swirling with ideas. Ideas that I hope to share in the coming days. There’s two ways to take this. We can lie down and say they’ve won. Or we can work even harder. Today we’re mourning, we’re in shock. I get it. There’s this weird haze around my head right now. This toxic fog whose noxious fumes are gripping my heart and making it pound.

What’s done is done. We must move forward. And when we do, we will inevitably encounter those that not only don’t care, but are ecstatic over how last night ended. We’re vulnerable, we’re afraid. So let me quote Yoda.

“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

Sound familiar? It should because that’s the platform a certain someone just rode to the presidential ticket. Let’s not follow his example. Let us embrace the victors with love. Fight their intolerance with tolerance, their hatred with forgiveness. So today, smile at a stranger on the street. Walk to work. Sit in the woods, give your lunch to a homeless man, tell the people you love how much they matter, count your blessings, hug your cat.

This is not end. It is the beginning.

Bless the Harbor Seals.

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Gustavus 2016

The Birthday Post

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For the first time in a year, I got carded. Granted, some of that may have something to do with spending the last six months buying drinks from the same two people (not a lot of choices when there’s only two “bars” in town). But on the eve of my 28th birthday, it served as some sort of inverse reminder. Youth is fleeting. Now I know, my elders and betters will roll their eyes at such a proclamation.

“28? You have your whole life ahead of you.”

To which I say, of course. But we must all admit, that in a society obsessed with youth, with staying young, where waging war against wrinkles is a billion dollar industry, it’s hard not to look at your birthday as some sort of landmark. A road sign twisted and rusted on the highway of life, reminding us that this precious gift slides by far too fast.

I’ve spent the last few days in Seattle. A fine city as far as cities go. It’s big on brew pubs, grunge music, and Macklemore. Though it could do with some deer, perhaps a pack of wolves prowling along I-5. It’s my little snapshot of how normal people live. You know, the ones with satellite TV, high speed internet, and cars that don’t resemble the rusted hull of the Titantic.

I stood in a mall with glistening floors and walls. Music blared through speakers, a movie preview played on a loop from a cluster of wide screens, dozens of adds battled for my attention. But as I dutifully manned my post by the Old Navy entrance, I watched my fellow mall patrons and decided on a little sociological experiment. How many, I wondered, would be on their phones?

The answer was almost all of them. Eyeballs sucked to the screen as if Apple had designed a gravity app more powerful then the moon. What, I wondered could they all be looking at? I didn’t have the phone Brittney and I share. And I must admit there was a decent chance that if it had been in my pocket instead of her purse I may have pulled it out. And what would I have done? Jumped on the internet I guess. Refreshed espn.com even though I knew that there was nothing there I needed to see. People sat side by side on benches, heads bowed as if in prayer, not saying a word. Couples walked hand in hand, free hands holding the creations of Samsung. What are we doing on these things?

Which leads me back to my birthday road sign. If life is so precious, so fleeting and quick, why don’t we spend more time in the present? Why are we so quick to escape to an alternate reality? Later we pass by a Windows PC store. Near the door stood a man. He’s facing the big pane windows but he can’t see him. Something looking like a futuristic toaster is secured to his face. The heck?

“Alternate reality,” Uncle Chris explains to me.

No way.

Maybe it’s just the next wave of video games. Essentially that’s all it is. A really realistic game. And if they made a sports one? Heck yes I’d try that out. Again I must admit to my love of a certain baseball computer game. It’s my escape when I can’t read about Trump, climate change, or acidifying oceans anymore. My own, if you will, alternate reality where the Minnesota Twins finish above .500. So really I’m no different. And maybe that is the wakeup call.

And perhaps that’s what I’ve learned in the last year. That despite my little migratory life from the seat of my kayak, I’m not all that different from the mall patrons and commuters of the city. And that’s ok, that’s a good thing. If I’m no different then those I want to reach, then getting them to listen, to put down their phone and read what comes out of my head should be easy. Maybe one of them will load raincoastwanderings from their phone! The irony.

Because I want the mall dwellers to read what I write. I want to inspire and touch people’s lives. The mall is not a bad place just as a phone that can tell you what time the Vikings play isn’t. What I want, what I aspire to, is to remind people that there’s a big blue and green world beyond the sliding doors. A world you can enter without strapping a toaster to your head. And that, most importantly, we cannot live without it. That the natural world, like every day we are gifted, is precious.