The initial rumblings of a Colorado thunderstorm
are not unlike a herd of elk running across the meadow.
Both cause the ground to shake.
Both invoke a sense of awe and splendor.
Both give startled reason to learn if one should take shelter.
To be alone in the mountains,
sitting, walking, or running,
is to understand that I am also an animal
and cannot control the weather.
This is my three hundredth blog post. Not a tremendous number, compared to some. Not insignificant, for me.
My first entry was set to organized electrons in the summer of 2007 when I ventured to Kenya for the first time. I have since back-posted a number of entries, the first a poem written when I was but six years old. In the past nine months, I have written extensively from Palestine, Holland, Germany, Spain, Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa.
Here, now, I make time to write again from a cabin whose floors twist and creak, whose windows shake in the afternoon gusts of looming storms; humming birds land lightly on my fingers when I hold still for just a few seconds, and the invisible coyote will again sing me to sleep this night.
How could that six year old boy, playing in the sand box in Pasadena, California have known where his life would take him? I hope for three hundred more …
For the thirteen years I lived in the historic district just West of downtown Loveland, Colorado I maintained a morning and late night routine which only now, ten months after selling my house do I truly appreciate … and miss. To be clear, my sense of routine may differ from others, for the longest I went without leaving the state was a little more than four months. But for those days in which I was in Colorado, my routine was defining for me.
As one who has been self-employed for most of my working life, my routine is entirely under my control. For those of you who have “real jobs” and dream of running your own company, realize that in this place you are the only one who determines when you rise, when you eat, shop, exercise, work on the house, visit friends, and when you make time to generate income. It is a wonderfully horrible, self-inflicted condition from which you may never recover for the very thought of someone again telling you when you need to be at work causes waves of anxiety, yet, the realization you are one hundred percent responsible for every dollar you earn is enough to invoke a panic attack.
The only way to survive self-employment is routine. Hourly, daily, weekly routine.
As one who is truly not very good at routine as I am forever distracting myself with the next big thing, I do look back to my years in Colorado and realize that in the chaos I called norm, I had a wonderful daily routine which helped me define my self-employed days, both as CEO of Terra Soft and as a contract web developer before and business developer in the past few years.
If I was not sleeping outside on my sleeping deck, I usually slept on the floor of the living room, nestled between the couch at my head, matching sofa-chair at my feet, and home theater system and bay windows to the left. Two or three books, my laptop, and cup of tea stacked to my right closed the boundaries of my safety zone. On rare occasion I even set up my tent in the living room to provide the deepest sleep possible without being out of doors.
Each morning I woke to National Public Radio. No matter what time I went to sleep, 11:30 PM, midnight, or 1 AM, I always woke at 6 AM even if I remained in a slumber while listening to the morning programs. The NPR theme song was for me not unlike the sound of the radio on my grandparents farm in Iowa. No matter where you slept in the farm house, you knew Grandpa and Grandma were awake when the smell of coffee and the sound the of the local news radio filled the air.
On Saturday or Sunday mornings, the voice of Scott Simon was as welcomed as a phone call from my own father. I would prepare my breakfast of yogurt or oatmeal, Colorado honey, granola, bananas or blueberries and juice and then settle in for an hour of listening to and learning from national and global news, personal stories and story telling.
Today, from Buffalo Peak Ranch, two hours west and south of Denver Colorado, after nine months living overseas, I need something to bring me back to that norm. This will be my home for the next three to four months. The isolation is wonderful, the only way I could return to the United States after learning to live in so many cultures, after adjusting to so many norms. At the same time, the isolation is challenging, for I crave the kind of connection which is ever present in Africa, greetings, handshakes, smiles at every corner, in every shop, school, store, and home.
In this place, now, I must make routine again. In this time, now, I must finish the projects I have started. No one will wake me. No one will scold me. The reward of three finished films and at least one finished book will be mine to carry and mine to own.
Two years of transition.
Twenty four months of broken inhibition.
Ninety six weeks of exploration.
Seven hundred days of challenged motivation.
Seventeen thousand hours of relentless contemplation.
Just one hour more and I will again be making home in a new location.
For how long will you keep me this time?
Colorado.
I was sitting at the V&A waterfront of Cape Town, one evening last week, enjoying Thai take-away while trying to stay warm against the growing winter cape wind. I had again forgotten my wind breaker as it was stowed in the easy-to-forget top pocket of my backpack. The fog rolled in, broken by the strong lamps of a Coast Guard bay patrol ship, red and blue to either side, white on a spindle for search and rescue.
I was just cleaning the last of the noodles from the inside of the waxed cardboard box with my split wood chopsticks when a young man, likely in his early twenties, walked up to the end of the bench adjacent to the one I occupied.
He spoke quietly, as though an apology were in order, hesitant with his words “Excuse me. Sir. Would you happen to have–”
While I could not hear the individual words against the blasts of wind, I knew the intent. He would be asking for money. I didn’t mind, as I wanted to hear his story, “I am sorry, but I can’t hear you.” I finished another bite of the last remnants of my food.
He started again, “Excuse me sir. I have a baby girl. She needs food. Could you spare some change for milk and cereal?”
There was something about him that felt quite genuine. He was well dressed for a homeless guy, relatively new shoes, each of which had laces. They were apparently the correct size too. Jeans with a belt, clean, and his inner shirt tucked in. He wore a baseball cap with the brim set high, his entire forehead visible from where I was sitting.
He was black African, speaking English with the subtle accent of Afrikaans, double beats given to otherwise forgotten vowels, melodic in their intonation.
I motioned for him to sit next to me, and asked if he wanted some food, “I will be pleased to buy food for you, if you are hungry.”
“Thank you sir. But it is my girl, she needs food, not me.” He remained standing, now by my side.
“Sit with me. It’s ok.” He looked quite uncomfortable at my request and declined. Not for disdain but for simple lack of having someone ask this of him. His body moved in the direction of sitting but his brain held him back, uncertain what would come next.
“Where do you live?”
“At the shelter,” he motioned behind me to what I assumed as beyond the water front shopping center, “we stay there.”
“Is it safe? For you and your girl?”
“Yes sir, it is safe.”
“Where is your daughter now?”
“She is there.”
“At the shelter? Alone? Who is caring for her?”
“At the shelter sir, she is there.”
“Yes, I understand. But who is watching her?”
“They are … the …” he struggled with the words and so I filled in a few for him, “Child care?”
“Yes. Child care. They take care of her while I am away.”
It seemed unlikely that a single man would be raising a young girl at a shelter or that a shelter would offer child care, but I do not know the South African system. I liked him. He was not too bold, in fact he was humble in his approach. Given my extensive interaction with the homeless population, he seemed authentic to me.
Inside, however, I found that familiar pressure against the inside of my ribcage, the one that says, “This guy is just taking me for a ride. He’s making a quick buck. I don’t need to support his bad habits. Why can’t he just get a job!?” It is natural for this to rise in us. We are open to a certain degree, yes, but also protective of our resources and ourselves. If experience has provided a correlation between one who asks for something of us only to find that the person asking was not authentic, it is a kind of stove-top burn not to be repeated.
What’s more, we can use a certain self-righteous mode of communication which appears to be supportive when in fact it is little more than a wall around ourselves, justification for why we could not provide what is requested by a total stranger. We keep ourselves safely hid from authentic engagement for a lifetime, believing we are not responsible in any way for their situation. These people, the ones at the bottom, should simply try harder.
“Where is there a grocery?” I asked.
“A what sir?”
“Sorry. A supermarket. Where is there a supermarket?”
He pointed over my shoulder to the Pick-n-Save I had not noticed, less than one hundred meters distance.
“Ok. Let’s go shopping and get what you need.”
“Oh!? Thank you sir. Thank you. Just milk and cereal is all.”
“What is your name?”
“William. My name is William.” Again, his Afrikaans foundation came through, the ‘w’ in William given a breathy ‘v’ and ‘h’ at the same time.
I extended my hand and shook his as I introduced myself, “I am Kai.”
“Where are you from?”
“From the United States. Colorado.”
“I hear it is beautiful there.”
“Indeed. It is. Stunning.”
We arrived to the front of the store. He hesitated as though he was to wait outside. I placed my hand on his shoulder as a subtle insistence that he continue inside with me. I got the impression he had not been in a supermarket often, or perhaps the last time he exited he had not paid for all that he carried. He was uncomfortable.
“Tell me again what you need?”
“Just milk and cereal, sir.”
My decision to spend this time with William was reinforced as he had ample opportunity to take advantage of my generosity but each time refused. If this was a scam, at any level, he was not much of a scam artist.
“You need food too. Bread? Cheese? Meat?”
“You don’t have to do that,” he responded.
“I don’t have to purchase milk and cereal for your daughter either, but I have already chosen to do this for you. So what will it be?”
As we walked through the store, grabbing various items which eventually, with some prodding, included fresh fruit and a bar of dark chocolate (which he had never enjoyed before), I made a point of making physical contact as often as possible, the way I would with an old friend or family member. I would hold the upper portion of his arm as we spoke or make certain that when we chose food I gave it to him to add to the basket in order that it was his act of shopping, not my own.
I wanted to know more about William, to receive his story.
“How many years of school did you attend?”
“I completed the sixth grade.”
“Ah. Good. What were your favorite subjects?”
“Mmmm, the one with numbers, what is it called?”
“Mathematics?”
“Yes, mathematics.”
“Are you good with numbers?”
“Yes, I like numbers.”
We walked down a few more isles, eventually finding the original two items he had requested.
“Do you know how to write?”
“Yes. I can write.”
“Do you enjoy writing?”
“Yes, very much.” He lit up a bit, making eye contact with me again.
An idea jumped into my head in full form. I moved on it immediately.
“Do you write poems?”
“No, but I write songs.”
“Songs?”
“Yes sir.”
“Are they original?”
“Yes, original songs.”
We had just walked past the office products isle. I stopped abruptly, grabbing William by the arm. “I have an idea. I am going to help you start a business.”
He was intrigued, but didn’t respond.
I grabbed two bound notebooks, the kind whose pages can be removed; two ball point pens (blue at William’s request) and two packs of twenty envelopes.
I handed the collection to William and then explained my concept. “When you approach someone asking for money, you are a beggar. No matter how well you dress, no matter how good you smell, even if your story is completely legitimate, you are still asking for something without giving anything in return. As you likely well know, this usually doesn’t go over so well.”
He agreed, knowing all too well the challenges of this affair, “Yes, that is right.”
I continued, “If you sell something, magazines or books or fruit, people assume you stole it.”
He nodded his head again. His eyes widened as he caught on.
“But if you can sell something that could not possibly be stolen, an authentic, originally part of you, well, then you are no longer begging. You are a proper business man.”
I waited. He looked at me, his hands, and back to me again, smiling. “You mean I sell songs?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
He appeared perplexed, “I never thought of that.”
“You said you like math, so let’s run the numbers, ok?”
We quickly added the total cost of the books, pens, and envelopes which offered more than enough pages for him to scribble, write draft songs, and practice his penmanship and signature. In summary I concluded, “You sell each song, handwritten, signed with a title and date, placed neatly inside an envelope. Don’t seal the envelope as your potential customers may desire to inspect the goods, or even pick their favorite song from your portfolio.”
He nodded, listening with intent.
“We have a total cost of forty rand for the whole package. If you sell each song for just ten rand, and there are forty envelopes, that is four hundred rand. Forty from four hundred leaves you with a profit of thee hundred and sixty.”
William looked at the goods in his hands again, and then back to me. These basic things were no longer just paper and pen, but a source of income for him. He had a huge smile on his face and that look of having discovered something totally new.
He shook his head and said, “I never thought of that. I just never thought about this before.”
“If you sell just one or two a day, at least it is some cash flow. As you get better at writing and presenting yourself, your sales will grow.”
We turned toward the cashier and he asked, “How did you think of this?”
“It’s what I do. I help people build their business.”
“Then I am so lucky to have met you.”
We added diapers to the shopping list, which was a bit of a chore as he did not know which size was the correct one for his daughter. Again, doubt returned to my mind as I wondered if he really did have a daughter back at the shelter. But if it was his goal to sell or trade the diapers, even some of the food, then at least he would be building upon his entrepreneurial experience and learning how to barter. I encouraged him to keep the receipt in case he had to return anything. Clearly, he was not aware of this process, and so I explained it to him.
We sat outside the supermarket for another ten minutes. On the inside cover of one of the two notebooks we built a simple amortization schedule to determine the real cost of each song sold. The profit per song was of course far better than my rough estimate which assumed the total volume of both notebooks and the ballpoint pens would be consumed with the sale of just forty songs. William’s math was rusty. I encouraged him to practice his basic tables using one of the notebooks in order that he could easily present change to his customers. He seemed eager to do this, soon.
We parted ways, shaking hands. He offered a Christian blessing and I reciprocated in good form, having learned that even if this is not something I usually do, it means a lot to those who offer.
I walked only a block from the water front when my emotions caught up with me, rising in my chest like expanding air. I sobbed.
Having been in this situation many times before, I knew what had happened. I had disabled that the part of me that would otherwise keep William on the outside, a safe box for me and another in which I define this homeless man. Instead, I chose to recognize him as an old friend with whom I was simply catching up, and in so doing, I automatically recognized how similar he is to me. All barriers were down. I saw him as a complete human being, no different than me or any other. His chemistry, his needs and desires identical to my own.
In that place, he could have easy been me and I could have been him.
Therein lies the true source of fear, the reason we choose to not engage. It is not because homeless people and beggars are poorly dressed or speak with a limited vocabulary. Outside of those who do present a danger, it is not truly for our own safety. No. We maintain our boundaries because to truly engage someone less fortunate than ourselves is to see ourselves in their place.
And that is something we are not readily willing to do.
I am in my room at the Jacaranda Guest House, on the South African Astronomical Observatory campus, at the base of Table Mountain, Cape Town. Outside my bedroom, the storm is intensifying again as it has come and gone all day. The window panes of this more than one hundred year old house rattle with the buffeting of the wind. The winter rains have come to Cape Town and it is time for me to depart.
I have found here an unexpected sense of community, a place where scientists from around the world come together to study the universe, to gain an understanding of where we came from and where we are going to. At the same time, these scientists make time to give back to their local community through an active outreach program, sharing their passion for astronomy with school-age children throughout the country.
Therein lies the magic of astronomy, the oldest of sciences which continues to engage the imagination. When we look to the night sky overhead, we see not just points of light but distant worlds which may be vastly different from our own or similar in their capacity to harbor life on both sea and land.
We see not just a handful, but hundreds of billions of galaxies each of which contains hundreds of millions of stars, the majority of which we believe have planets. Our dreams of what may be are overwhelmed for the numbers are greater than anything we use in our daily life.
If I were to attempt to count the impact of precipitation on the tin roof in the midst of this storm, and then the number of molecules in each drop of rain and the number of atoms, protons, and quarks of which they are composed, I may run the risk of losing enjoyment of the winter storm.
Yet this is what astronomy enables: a study of the inner workings of stars which takes us directly to the fundamental building blocks of matter and the formation of life itself while invoking a view of the immense scale of all that we see, both with the naked eye and through the increasingly capable instruments we employ.
Astronomy invokes astronomical numbers which challenge the best of mathematicians, and yet the theories have a means of reaching non-mathematicians with intrigue for the smallest of scales and majesty of distant, unreachable places.
I prepare myself to leave this place and know it will be missed. No where else do daily conversations range from the recovery of a country mired in a terribly complex socio-economic disparity to the theories which enable life to exist on the vast number of exo-planets, more of which are discovered each year.
No where else is my passion for telling the stories of the human condition interwoven with my craving for knowledge about the underpinnings of the rapidly expanding universe.
Produced for the South African Astronomical Observatory as an experiment in how a short, documentary style film may be effective in presenting the very real intrigue and enthusiasm for science as enjoyed by scientists themselves. Astronomy in particular is a field of research which engages the public in a direct, life-long interest in what we see in the dark night skies.
When we look to a rich, dark night sky we are moved to wonder. When we peer through the eyepiece of a telescope we are changed in some significant way. When we are granted answers to questions which the night sky raises, we realize how very small we truly are.
I believe the greatest challenge we do engage in our short time in this universe, both as individuals and as a species, is to recognize our humble place while at the same time our potential for great endeavors. Somewhere, between these two ends of the spectrum is the balance we seek.
On the 40th anniversary of the famous ‘Blue Marble’ photograph taken of Earth from space, Planetary Collective presents a short film documenting astronauts’ life-changing stories of seeing the Earth from the outside – a perspective-altering experience often described as the Overview Effect.
The Overview Effect, first described by author Frank White in 1987, is an experience that transforms astronauts’ perspective of the planet and mankind’s place upon it. Common features of the experience are a feeling of awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment.
‘Overview’ is a short film that explores this phenomenon through interviews with five astronauts who have experienced the Overview Effect. The film also features insights from commentators and thinkers on the wider implications and importance of this understanding for society, and our relationship to the environment.
My father requested that I write a poem as his birthday gift this year.
Seventy three is but one more than seventy two.
We count the years as many, but for some they are few.If you were a Red Wood tree, tall and lean,
you would be but a child, only beginning.If you were a stone whose edges were made smooth,
your age would not be measured in years, but millennia.If you were a galaxy, long arms gradually closing in,
the embrace of your center would require eternity.But as a human, you are my father,
and I care not for these things.
Wisdom cannot be calculated nor can love be attributed to a clock, calendar, or the stars overhead. What I see when you turn from seventy two to three is one year more in which I have been blessed with a caring family.