Coastline Pilot/LA Times

5 December 2003

 

Chasing the Muse

Catharine Cooper

 

Could the days be more beautiful?  Dawns break in violet pinks that open to warm afternoons.  Evenings slide into play with brilliant reds, yellows and deep purple.  Even the moon has taken up the act, dragging a golden shadow across the seas surface.  

 

December opens her arms as the last month of the year and I am lost to the eleven preceding. As always, I am stunned at how quickly the calendar pages turn, and wonder why the ‘to do list’ grows in greater proportion than the time I have allotted to tasks. 

 

One of the items to make an appearance this time of year, is a review of the resolutions I made on the first of January.  How have they played in my micro and macro existence?  What have I discovered or uncovered? What is left to learn? 

 

On the heels of 2002’s resolution to embrace obstacles and challenges, 2003’s call to patience and understanding had appeared at first, to be a dream assignment.  I mean, what’s so hard about patience?  Except, if you are a high energy component like me, everything.  And understanding?  Well, without patience, this is one hard nut to crack.

 

The pursuit of understanding can only occur by relinquishing preconceived ideas and judgments.  This was an expected course of action, but more difficult in implementation than in conception.  As the sum of my experiences, I am informed by my early caretakers, and driven by peer pressures and friends to formulate a life course of actions.  Much of what I hold to be true, may be in fact, simply environmental programming.  

 

Personal tastes in clothing, housing style and politics are components of my self-definition.  I have years invested in my judgments, and to suspend them, to allow myself to open my mind to another belief system, for even a moment, requires serious diligence.  But how else can I really claim to understand another person?  How really, can I say I have an open mind?  How can I be instrumental in healing wounds on the planet without embracing that which is different from myself?

 

Patience, in her own way, has required rigorous attention.  On the heels of exploring the foundation of understanding, I have been forced to seek – not the quick fix, to jump - not at my first conclusion, but to allow each moment the power and weight of its predecessor.  I have had to learn to forgo my belief in the right course of action, so that the rhythm of others may be explored.  I have had to learn to breath more slowly, and in some instances, to take smaller steps.  This attribute continues to challenge my hurry-up sense of life. 

 

A morning kayak on Newport’s Back Bay provides the perfect opportunity to slow down and reflect on both resolutions.  Brilliant sunlight shines warm on my face and not a ripple of wind marks the surface. The bay is mirror-like with a plethora of sea birds.  The stillness is unbroken except for their chatter and the occasional launch of aviation from the adjacent airport. 

 

I find myself drifting in estuarine grasses, binoculars in hand, surrounded by sandpipers, dowitchers and terns.  Lazily, I turn off the to-do list and float, mesmerized by their chirping, feeding and bathing rituals.  Time stops.  When I ‘wake up’, my fellow kayakers are halfway down the bay.  But rather than hurry after them, I stay with the Great Egret, poised in search of breakfast.  I linger until he springs from coil to the capture of a fish.  I gift myself with to match his patience.

 

Paddling once again, the resident osprey lifts from his channel perch, spreading massive wings as he scans the bay for food.  Understanding the cause and effect of agricultural poisoning, led to the DDT ban and the slow return of this gracious raptor to our shoreline.  I think, as I paddle, that maybe understanding is the key to balance in more than our ecosystem.  Maybe it is the key to balance in our world at large. 

 

As the year slips away, and my thoughts begin to turn toward the resolutions for 2004, I find that once embraced, these elements of information cannot be ignored.  They continue to expand in scope and demand attention. They challenge me to stop, look and listen.   They encourage me to learn more of the world that others know, so that I can better understand my own.

 

Catharine Cooper loves wild places. She can be reached at ccooper@cooperdesign.net.