October is for Oceans
Recognizing October is for Oceans month, with pieces from Passager’s Pandemic Diaries series from Mark Tochen, Johan Fremling, Isabel Learza, and Suzanne Iuppa.
TRANSCRIPT
Recently, I was reading through my big book of days and saw that October is “October is for Oceans” month, apparently a time to raise awareness about the importance of protecting our oceans and the life they support.
Coincidentally, Passager intern Jack Eagan has just put together a podcast using pieces from Passager’s Pandemic Diaries series. You may or may not remember that during the Covid Pandemic, Passager solicited pieces about how people were dealing with the isolation and anxiety and all the other pieces of life during that time. For “October is for Oceans,” Jack found some Pandemic Diaries entries about oceans—places of rebirth, white noise, nature, and grace.
AND each of these pieces is accompanied by images that the writer sent us. You can see those images on the podcast page on our website www.passagerbooks.com.
Mark Tochen’s entry was from October 16, 2021.
I am not a connoisseur of walks, our main activity during pandemic times. Our basic walk is a two-miler with courteous neighbors crossing the street to let us seniors pass, and many sidewalk chats—“Jim, garden’s beautiful,” “Christine, glad real estate gave you a break.”
We walked white Pacific Ocean sands at Seaside; kids hung their sandals on a driftwood snag. We walked a lakeside path with runners, families, bikers, and moms pushing strollers passing politely, almost apologetic—“on your left; sorry!” One guy broke the tranquility, pumping hard on a mountain bike in mid-path, shouting “hoy” at every curve. I shook my head in concert with another pair of seniors, who said, “He’s sure in a hurry.”
Walking along the Columbia River, we saw barges and sailboats mingling in mid-river and a stern-wheeler churning upstream. Another couple took our picture, framed between beachgrass swaying above our heads and abandoned pilings now claimed by osprey nests.
Glorious walks—metaphors of delight, defiance, and defeating this pandemic!
That is from Washington state resident Mark Tochen.
Johan Fremling sent us this from Uppsala, Sweden. It’s titled “Ship of Fools.”
In Sweden we all have to be aware and keep distance from our fellow citizens. A crazy world. A lost ship. A ship without control. A ship with no captain. A ship crowded with the fools in charge of the world for the moment: Trump, Putin, Orban… A ship without contact with the ground, the water. A ship with no engine or sail, no steering wheel, no direction, A leaky ship that not yet has reached open water, so we still have time to change the direction. Yes we can!
That from Johan Fremling in Uppsala, Sweden.
Isabel Learza’s entry was labeled “Sheltering at home since March 13.”
When Terrylynn invited me to Asa’s art show in their backyard, I was tickled to hear about her five-year-old art spirit daughter living across the street. Saturday afternoon, their yard filled with masked neighbors, even Janet, who rolled her walker up the hill to be there, a week after her hip replacement.
Asa’s paintings and drawings were mounted on black cloth that covered the fence. She made her first painting at the beginning of the shut-down, when the family had to cancel their annual visit with her Nana in Bermuda. She looked forward to the visit all year. But no flying out over the ocean this year. Her first painting, “The Big Deep Sea: Waterfall,” came from her sadness and fear of deadly Corona that kept her from her grandmother. It’s a big, dark abstract painting, overwhelming, like drowning.
And once she understood her imagination could take her places, she made colorful drawings of the playground she couldn’t visit and the July 4th fireworks she wouldn’t get to see. And rainbows started appearing — a Rainbow Castle Gate, a Rainbow Waterfall. And a beautiful Rainbow Palmtree to bring her close to Nana in Bermuda. It seemed that Asa had found her way through the fear and strangeness of Covid times into joy.
“Sheltering at home since March 13,” Isabel Learza.
This next piece is from Suzanne Iuppa, Aberdyfi, Snowdonia National Park, North Wales
Alone since March 23rd, I had not seen any family since December 25th.
The sand is very fine, a light creamy yellow, cool and a perfect dampness a few inches underneath, for building sandcastles. He brings his spade up, full of angel-fines, and puts it into his bright orange bucket. I am digging a hold with my hands big enough for him to stand in.
I show him how to level the top when it is full, with his spade. He shows me how to tip the bucket over— tap tap tap. It’s delightful to see the castle turrets, real in the air. And to knock them right over! To stand in a tunnel and let Grandma cover your feet, shins and knees; then to break the mold.
We decide it’s best for him not to wear his nappy into the ocean. It’s the warmest seawater temperature of the year. He shows a good respect, wanting to hold our hands to run into the waves. He watches the wet sand accept his feet and close over his ankles, with the real power to petrify. Then he runs across the breakers, shrieking. He knows to fling himself down in the magic strip where the surf is just coming in and feel his whole body halfway between two elements. Above us, clear blue sky, and it feels like the last day of summer, but everyone is so aware of it. We are stealing it back for one day.
On a wide, wild Cadigan Bay beach, usually littered with a host of stranded jellyfish—not a single one.
That from Suzanne Iuppa.
We’ve been listening to pieces from Passager’s Pandemic Diaries, pieces that people from around the world sent us during the pandemic. And these particular pieces were all accompanied by drawings or photographs that you can see by going to Passager’s Burning Bright web page.
Thanks to intern Jack Eagan for his help researching and writing this episode.
To subscribe to, donate to, or learn more about Passager and its commitment to older writers, visit passagerbooks.com.
Passager offers a 25% discount on the books and journal issues featured here on Burning Bright. Visit our website to see what’s on sale this week.
For Christine, Rosanne, Mary, Asher, and the rest of the Passager staff, I’m Jon Shorr.
