California Style vs. Aussie Antics (Sumatra 2014)

 Attempting to conform to the California Style Manual,.  Sumatra 2014. . .Photo: "Moppy."

This break was strictly fun-zone, a peeling wedge into a palm-lined bay, and unlike the nearby reefs, it concealed no critical sections where the difference between anguish and ecstasy depends on one's ability to dodge coral crags shallow enough to grind fins into powder. . . in other words, a break designed specifically for that brand of surfer whose predominant aesthetic perceives waves as  skateboard ramps.

The island that plays home to this break (and its more frequently photographed sibling further up the headland) has an imagistic legacy well represented in surf mags.  Yet while the tentacles of surf tourism have long groped toward it, the island retains the atmosphere of a frontier outpost, and still harbors a few secrets.

I well remember this particular session.  A handful of us--two Australians, a dilettante Swiss couple (skiers really, dabbling for a summer in the romance of surf travel) and myself--arrived via skiff from the beach camp.  A light overcast hung in the air, with enough density to spread a reflection of gray hues on the surface of the sea.  I watched the play of these hues in the wake that spun off the bow of the skiff.  The wake had a hypnotic effect, inducing in me the listless stupor that travelers to the tropics often experience.  Accordingly, the sight of a surf charter yacht anchored near the line up elicited, on my part, no more that a lackadaisical shrug.  I thought the tropical stupor which afflicted me would at some point descend on the charter yacht and similarly afflict its entourage of pampered surf rats.

As it turned out, the charter yacht posed little competition.  Its passengers, like a pack of lions sated from an earlier feast, watched our arrival with disinterest, and when they later ventured surfward, exhibited a preference for the aforementioned frequently-photographed break further up the headland.  Accordingly, the five of us from the beach camp had the skatepark arena of the inside wedge to ourselves.

The dilettante Swiss exhibited a lack of surf sense that meant they spent more time paddling than riding waves, but nevertheless exuded an enthusiasm that made me reflect fondly on my own days as a grommet, when the small details of the surfing experience--the fruity scent of fresh board wax, the silky feel of a glassy sea, the sudden acceleration of paddling into a wave--provided a delight to the senses.  The two Australians, happy for a respite from Perth's winter chill, surfed with a happy-go-lucky silliness that made me wonder if they too might be in the throes of a tropical stupor.  Arnie, riding a longboard, tried a fin-first takeoff on a prime set wave, and as the board spun into a 180-degree turn, casually attempted a switch-stance the opposite direction.  The move proved too ambitious, and as I watched Arnie succumb to an inevitable wipeout, I doubted the move's functionality.  Long a devotee of the California Style Manual, which dictates that making the wave counts for more than making the move, I directed some lighthearted criticism toward Arnie as he emerged from the froth:  "What are you?  A whirling dervish?"  In reply, Arnie flashed me a grin that told me he didn't give a damn about California surfing aesthetics and that his allegiance lay with a different dictum, one which posits that  the best approach to wave riding is the one that provides the most fun.  "Ah, no worries, mate! I reckon there's plenty more where that came from," he said.

In the end, it didn't really matter what particular surfing aesthetic we sought to uphold.  We all had fun, so much so that when afternoon brought the arrival of another charter yacht, we looked on with disinterest and returned to the skiff, like lions sated from feast.

"I reckon there's plenty more where that came from. . ."  Sumatra 2014.

Book Blurb: In Praise of THE VOLCANO TRILOGY by Quinn Haber

 

  In the manner of a dream, the prospect of living on a tropical island haunts the Western imagination.  To the cubicle-confined minions eager to trade corporate angst for balmy breezes, the idea evokes romantic escape.  We picture Paul Gauguin in Tahiti (or perhaps even Tom Hanks in Castaway) and think that with a little F-U money, we could ditch the cubicle for sunsets and mai tais.  Yet for most people, the dream of Expatica remains just that--a dream, something envisioned but never pursued.  For every hundred people that consider it, ten investigate, and of those ten, only one makes good the one-way ticket.

    The Volcano Trilogy, re-published by Phantasea Books in 2019 as an updated edition with additional photographs and postscript material, recounts how love for an island girl and steadfast commitment to a surf lifestyle enabled the author, Quinn Haber, to transform dream into reality.  Notably, Haber pursues his island dream while maintaining a full recognition of the downside to having a third-world address, as described in this excerpt from a chapter titled "A Fresh Coat of Paint:"

       Exotic, primeval, unsettling--no word can accurately describe the drive from the main highway to the beach.  In pasta-shaped convolutions, the badly deteriorating thoroughfare weaves through an impoverished village deeply ingrained in the surrounding hillside.  It's a hidden barrio of impossibly gnarled trees, houses made of scraps of anything, skinny people who seem to hide in their own shadows, and emaciated cattle standing in empty plots of dry dirt.  Here along the Philippines back roads, whole generations pass in utter poverty without the rest of the world ever seeing them or knowing they exist.  It's this very invisibility I find the most disturbing.  I know intellectually that ninety percent of the world's population make less that one U.S. dollar a day, and that poverty is relative by degrees of severity--after all, this is not widespread famine in the horn of Africa, and we do have a fair amount of poverty in the USA--but still, this shockingly visceral drive through the daily plight of the unknown Filipino is an experience I'll never forget.  There's absolutely no social welfare here, as far as I can see.

     To be aware of another's sufferings is to shade what might otherwise be a rosy backdrop in our lives.  Shall we simply cover the disturbing images with a fresh coat of paint, letting go of what we have seen, and move on?  Driving this road to Sabang reveals the hard struggle of developing nations, a reality most traveling surfers come into contact with at some point, or at many points, along their journeys.  As I watch the forlorn hinterlands disappear through the rear window, then turn to see a surfer's bounty of pristine beaches and waves, I feel humbled by the experience.

     Of course, confrontations with "otherness" comprise a key motif of travel literature, and few settings highlight otherness more than the poverty-stricken third world village.  For Haber, the confrontation evokes a sensitivity that establishes his credentials as a thoughtful commentator.  In the above passage, as throughout the book, Haber takes care to place descriptive detail within its social, historical, economic, and cultural context.

     As a surf travel memoir, the book places landscape and seascape front and center, but some scenes involve readers in Haber's mental landscape as well.  On occasion, the book recalls moments of personal challenge to which the author, in poetic fashion, attributes a metaphorical significance.  Haber's recollection of a cliff-dive, and the lesson it presents for his romantic aspirations, stands out as an example:

     Fraser takes me on a short but steep climb to the top of the promontory.  We walk out over the rocky cranium and look down at the water, some sixty feet below.

     "Jump" he says--or was that an order?

     "Really?  From here?"

     "Yeah mate.  I do it all the time."

     "It looks pretty far."

     "Only fifty feet or so , mate, depending on the tide."

     "Well, what's the tide now?"

     "I think it's coming up, mate."

     "How deep is it?"

     "Plenty deep, mate.  No worries.  No worries at all.  Just keep ye arms and legs together so they don't get torqued on impact, and cover ye pearls with ye hands."

     "My pearls?"

     "That's right, mate.  Ye jewels."

     "Are you going to jump?"

     "Nah, ya should jump mate!  I do it all the time.  It's really not as high as it looks."

     "I'll go if you go first."

     "That won't work, mate.  Who'll carry our shirts, hats, and sunglasses back?  Not to mention my wallet?"

     "You brought your wallet?"

    "Mate, in the Philippines, ya never know when ya'll need to prove yourself with some identification or a bribe.  So are ya going to jump or not, mate?  I haven't got all day."

     I look over the ledge and see a collage of blues delineating various patches of reef at differing water depths.

     "Are you sure I won't hit bottom?"

     "Ah, no dramas, mate!  It's at least eight meters deep."

     I hesitate, then slowly pull off my shirt and sunglasses and give them to the man that resembles Clint Eastwood now more than ever.  It's as if I'm handing the last of my personal belongings to my executioner.

     "Okay, Fraser," I mumble, "I guess I'm going."

     "Only if ya want to, mate.  I don't want to pressure ya."

     But by now, having removed my personal effects, I feel irrevocably committed.  I inch towards the ledge and peek over again.  There's nothing between me and the water but a great distance of air.  I begin to hesitate, but before I let my mind take over, I leap over the edge and feel the wind rushing up all around me.  I reach for my 'pearls' and soon am engulfed by the liquid blue.  I don't penetrate very deep and the whole thing is over quickly.  Fraser was right, it's an easy jump and drama isn't necessary.

     Going for things should be like this--once you decide to commit, you shouldn't hesitate and psyche yourself out, but just do it and jump!  I think that proposing to Janice, if that is ultimately what I decide, will require this same sort of leap.

    As revealed in the book's postscript material, the author did end up making the lifestyle leap, though it involved a path more circuitous and fraught with unexpected complications than anyone could have realized.  No spoilers here, other than this: the postscript material alone, with its overview of events that take place in years subsequent to those depicted in the narrative, makes the purchase price worthwhile.

     As a veteran of four trips to the Philippines, one completed as recently as 2019, I can attest to the accuracy of the book's back-cover synopsis, which touts Haber as a keen-eyed witness, whose "observations of the Philippines far north present a compelling view of Southeast Asian life, encompassing everything from local traditions, to courtship mores, to exquisite country surf and tourist sites."  The surf traveler, understandably interested in depictions of the "exquisite country surf," will find the following excerpt a representative sample of the play-by-play accounts:

     I pick up the binoculars and study the break again.  Star Tubes, a right-hander peeling off the  

It's a fast and hollow wave. . .Star Tubes, December 2001.  Photo: S. Jacques Stratton

tip of a reef shelf, is not known to handle too much size.  It's a fast and hollow wave, and quite shallow.  Today it is clearly off the Richter scale, with frequent, big sets thrusting over the shelf, their open faces reflecting the gleam of sunrise one second, then turning dark the next as they hollow out and detonate into the shallows.  After each bomb, the sound of the explosion resounds off the lodge walls seconds later, like an eerie aftershock evincing a mere afterthought of the wave's  true power.  Even from here, a half mile away, Star Tubes looks scary enough.  Moments later, I see Fraser walking out across the causeway, heading towards the bay with surfboard in hand.  I ponder what the hell to do. . .

 No pondering here.  Haber drops in to "Starries," December 2001.  Photo:  S Jacques Stratton

Accompanied by a cornucopia of photographs, such passages give the reader a front row seat to the action.

     As a "genre" the surf travel memoir remains obscure, a curiosity within the broader tradition of travel literature.  In part the obscurity stems from social attitudes, prevalent until recently, toward surf culture.  For decades dismissed by the mainstream as vagabonds unworthy of serious attention, surfers more frequently supplied stereotypes for film and T.V. (think Jeff Spiccoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High) than interesting protagonists.  For its part, surf culture often encouraged its marginality, maintaining through slang and hatred of outsiders a tribal insularity enigmatic to the mainstream.  Knowing this dynamic, publishers regarded book-length surf travel narratives with skepticism, recognizing their extremely limited audience appeal.  In recent years this has begun to change.  Advertisements for products ranging from cars to beer now promote surfing as an desirable component in an adventure lifestyle, and the conflation of surfing with popular lifestyle fads (witness the profusion of Yoga/Surf retreats) brings surf culture into the mainstream.  In tandem with this trend, the surf travel memoir has begun to gain traction as a literary form, with prominent works such as Allan Weisbecker's In Search of Captain Zero setting the bar.  For its comprehensive exploration of a region still regarded as a surf frontier, Quinn Haber's Volcano Trilogy deserves honorable mention alongside such works, and I think fans of surf travel memoirs will find it a worthy addition to their bookshelves.

Adventures in the Pacific's Backwater Bars: Akane

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a bachelor ex-pat with spare time and money must be in search of romance.

     Though Jane Austen fans will no doubt cringe at my crass adaptation of one of literature's classic opening lines, I find it an apt (if generalized) characterization of the single-and-searching mehnwei men that, on the eve of the millennium, frequented Pohnpei's drinking establishments hoping for a fling.  (Lest readers interpret this characterization as a critique, let me state for the record that I include myself among the ranks of those hapless souls, and probably indulged in more embarrassing foolishness than most.  You won't get any holier-than-thou moral missives from me.)

     At first, love-lorn expats did not apply much selectivity when choosing a target for a passionate plot.  Some called it the "rainforest effect"--influenced by the primal nature of our surroundings, we gave in more easily to the primal nature of our libidos.  With time, however, even the most wide-ranging libertine succumbed to the gravitational pull of the women affiliated with the JOCV (Japanese Overseas Cooperation Volunteers).   To cast these women as Oriental playthings in a Western fantasy overstates their innocence.  They knew full well the power of their allure, and for socio-cultural reasons of their own, often made targets of us.

     A dozen or so of these ladies made the dim booths of Club Flamingo the center of their weekend nightlife.  Located just off the waterfront road, Club Flamingo commanded a view of the harbor and boasted an electric sign, status markers that added to its panache as the largest bar in the FSM.  Weekend crowds might overwhelm the parking area, spilling the overflow vehicles onto the road and contributing to the sense that Club Flamingo offered Pohnpei's closest approximation of a cosmopolitan experience.

     The following excerpt from Islands on the Fringe recollects an evening that began at Club Flamingo and shows that when pursuing romantic flings with the ladies of the JOCV, the scammer sometimes got scammed:

     

     In line for the bar at Club Flamingo, I meet her, the Japanese girl with the jasmine perfume.  She wears stiletto heels and a jade pendant that invites a glance toward her neckline.  Apart from her nose, of an aquiline variety slightly too large for her face, she exudes a refined beauty, a blend of Western style and Eastern mystique, and from the way a table of elder ex-pats eyes her, I can tell her effect extends through the room.  Seeing the empty glass in her hand, I offer to buy her a drink.

     "Oh, you genterman!" she says, her accent transforming l to r.  "From time I first see you, I know you genterman."

     "Well, I try," I say.  "What's your poison?"

     "Po-san?"

     "What would you like to drink?"

     "Oh.  I rike Bruddy Mary!"

     Together, we sidle up to the bar, and wait for the bartender to finish his prior orders.  As we wait, we exchange names.  She leans toward my ear.  "You my kind of man," she whispers.

     Eventually, I place the order, but get bad news:  no Bloody Mary mix.  The bartender advises us to visit the Village Hotel, purveyors of the best Bloody Marys on the island, all from fresh ingredients.  The recommendation excites Akane, who coyly transforms my drink offer into a dinner date.

     Though beyond my budget and a bit of a drive, the Village Hotel promises a romantic setting, and I acquiesce, lured by Akane's petite figure and flattering comments.

     Once at the hotel, I feel more like a charlatan than a gentleman.  Our table in the dining area places us alongside the upper-echelons of island visitors:  retirees on round-the-world trips, businessmen seeking deals with island moguls, and perhaps a few diplomatic types mingling with representatives from the FSM legislature--in short, people who spend in a day what I earn in a month. Then, remembering the credit card in my wallet, I settle more easily in my chair, order two Bloody Marys, and pretend not to notice when Akane orders the most expensive dish on the menu.

     "You my kind of man," Akane tells me again, when the waiter departs.  "You treat girl right."  Her smile, engineered for flattery, could make even the most committed cheapskate abandon his budget.

     But later, when the dinner arrives, I find Akane strangely changed.  Instead of flattery, I now only hear the clink of silverware.  The glances that she once reserved for me she now directs only to her plate.  And, later that night, after I pay the bill and drive her back to town--a drive which she seems to endure in awkward discomfort--my goodbye kiss meets only a grudgingly presented cheek.

     A week later, during a gathering at the Australian embassy, I see her by the pool, an empty cocktail glass in hand.  She pretends not to recognize me, instead reserving her attention for a dapper young member of the embassy staff.  Seeing her empty glass, he offers to get her a drink.

     "Oh, you genterman!" I hear her tell him.  "You my kind of man."

    

Book Blurb: In Praise of Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire

I first read Desert Solitaire as a college student.  Bored with my term paper on the thematic concerns of the Victorian poets (memo to Matthew Arnold: it couldn't hurt to do some partying every now and then!), I longed for spring break and the possibility of libertine landscapes.  The front cover of Desert Solitaire, with its wild canyonland panorama, caught my eye.  Turning the pages, I found myself engrossed in a narrative that appealed to my incipient literary ambitions. Because of course English majors fancy themselves as writers, I thought that I could begin my own career in a fashion similar to Abbey--work for the BLM, live in a cabin, and write about adventures with my off-the-grid acquaintances.  Like a heat mirage shimmering on a desert road, the idea dissipated when subjected to close scrutiny.  Did I really want to uproot my L.A. life for the dust and loneliness of desert mesas?  I had a band, I had a girlfriend, I had the beach with its delicious prospect of summertime south swells.  The strings on our hearts. . .

Now, over two decades later, I find myself once again enchanted by the scenes, sentiments, and descriptions which Abbey brands with poetic fire upon the page.  A Whitman of the desert, Abbey presents a narrative that calls to the soul like a barbaric yop echoing through the canyon of the Colorado.  Consider the following imagistic indulgence:

 "We shove our boats once again into the water, climb aboard and paddle slowly out of the Escalante's womb, back to the greater world of Glen canyon. . .Keeping to the shady side, we drift down the splendid river, deeper and deeper in to the fantastic.  The sandstone walls rise higher than ever before, a thousand, two thousand feet above the water, rounding off on top as half domes and capitols, golden and glowing in the sunlight, a deep radiant red in the shade. . .beyond these mighty forms we catch occasional glimpses of eroded remnant--tapering spires, balanced rocks on pillars, mushroom rocks,, rocks like piles of melted pies. . .arches, grottoes, all the infinite variety of hill and hole and hollow to which sandstone lends itself. . ."

Abbey Country, July 2016.  Photo:  S. Jacques Stratton

A compelling element of Desert Solitaire is the way the landscape serves a dual role, providing both springboard for Abbey's philosophical musings and emerging as one of the book's principal characters.  Since the idea of nature as both setting and character helped guide the crafting of my own travel memoir, I readily recognize the motif in the work of others--though I admit Abbey takes it to a more polished and poetic level than I accomplish in Islands on the Fringe.

If desert splendor provides Abbey's primary muse, the BLM policy (in particular its plan to usher in a new era of industrial tourism) provides the primary antagonist, threatening to bring roads, dams, and the internal combustion (to Abbey, the "infernal combustion") engine into the sublime wonder of the canyonlands.  Sadly, Abbey's vision of doom proved prescient; the Glen Canyon grottoes Abbey once marveled at now lie underwater, buried by Lake Powell and its attendant houseboat flotillas.  Much like Abbey's poetic prose, Abbey's lamentations for lost nature resonate with me, and pique my nostalgia for once-empty waves now trammeled by commercial surf tourism.  Of course, two decades into the 21st century, an uncritical sentimentalism for "the way it was" ranks among the most cliched forms of nostalgia.  But consider that as recently as the eve of the millennium, one could spend a season surfing a wave now regarded as the world's best right and share it with only one or two others (I know because I lived it).  Or consider that as recently as ten years ago, the perfect reefs of Blue Lagoon in Norther Luzon spun their typhoon swell magic for only a handful of seekers.  It took only the dollar dreams of a Filipino and his government connection to bring, in just a few short years, a post-apocalyptic vision of tourist hell to the once-sleepy coves.

One Filipino's vision of "development." Blue Lagoon, Northern Luzon in 2019. Photo: S. Jacques Stratton

Thankfully, I know a few places that, like the more isolated corners of Abbey's canyonlands, still offer the consolation of nature.  It's still a big ocean for the surf traveler. . .for now.

Sumatra Solitaire, July 2014.  To the money-minded, that's some prime beachfront real estate. . .Photo : S. Jacques Stratton

A Plug for My Children's Book!

Inspector Clyde, Chief of Detectives, had just begun his daily stroll. . .when the shadow trap caught him!

So begins my children's book, The Popsicle Moon (Waxing Editions, 2019). 

I have read the story to classrooms of second and third graders and found them attentive listeners.

"Wholly absurd and mesmerizing at the same time"--The Children's Book Review

 Apart from the entertaining quality of the story's imaginative and whimsical plot, The Popsicle Moon also thrills as a picture book, with 26 color illustrations from acclaimed artist Kathryn Jacobi.

If you have children ages 5-9--or if you just like imaginative adventure--consider adding The Popsicle Moon to your bookshelf!

Reader Q&A: Memoir and Writing Process

Q:  Can you elaborate on your writing process?  In what way was it influenced by writing a travel memoir?

A:  Well, let me preface my reply by stating that, as a writer, I tend to exhibit "perfectionist" tendencies, with all the trouble perfectionism entails.  I have great difficulty silencing the voice of my internal critic, who more often than not mocks my efforts at sentence craft with great disparagement.  Imagine the most unsympathetic teacher from your school years staring over your shoulder as you struggle with a homework problem.  This dynamic describes my relationship with my internal critic.  The act of completing a page of handwritten scrawl represents for me the end stage of a great mental struggle, in which I question everything from diction and syntax to thematic purpose.  The exercises that creative writers often employ to unshackle the creative process--free association, brainstorming, writing without pause--typically don't work for me.  The ability to throw words on a page like paint on a canvas, out of a playful curiosity to see what finally sticks or what patterns emerge, seems to me a great enigma.  I envy the playfulness, the faith in the subconscious, yet doubt the effectiveness of the approach.  Of course writers who employ such methods would point to James Joyce's Ulysses,  with its long sections of stream-of-consciousness narrative, as an example of the great literature that can arise from unshackled creativity.  As a counterpoint, I would simply mention that Joyce had already achieved success via traditional narrative before attempting experimental forms.

     I don't wish to portray my entire process as labor intensive.  The stereotype of the writer surrounded by a roomful of wadded-up paper, the detritus of failed drafts thrown out in frustration, doesn't apply to me.  About  50%-75% of what I write as a first draft survives in second and third draft form.  Moreover, I find the revision process an enjoyable undertaking.  The antagonism that prevails between me and my internal critic transforms, during revision, into a symbiotic and uplifting team effort.  It's as if the critic, finally invited to the party, wants to pour a drink and join the conversation, rather than reject the idea of conversations with nihilistic contempt.

     Interestingly, until I undertook a book length work, I lacked full appreciation for the dominant role that revision plays in what emerges as a finished product.  Prior to Islands on the Fringe, my longest completed work was my graduate thesis, which weighs in at about 120 double-spaced pages.  Though carefully edited, the document didn't undergo significant revision.  The unyielding deadlines of the academic calendar meant I had about five months to complete the project, a time frame too limited for the creative re-seeing that true revision entails.  Moreover, the need to adhere to academic conventions of tone, style, and format meant I had to restrain my creativity within narrow parameters.  No such constraints limited the writing of Islands on the Fringe, and over the years the project developed, I experienced a shift in perception that influenced not only my narrative aesthetic but also my understanding of the experience I sought to recollect.  Specifically, I began to see the story not as the recollection of a traveler who made a journey, but rather vignettes in the life of a traveler to whom a journey happened.  The distinction my seem subtle, but over the course of eleven chapters it had a significant thematic influence.

     In his intriguing memoir of the writer's life, The Summing Up, W. Somerset Maugham contends that "every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul. . .he does well only to work to liberate his spirit of a subject that he has so long meditated that it burdens him."  Though I hesitate to apply the word "art" to my work, Islands on the Fringe brought some closure to a chapter in my life that long haunted me.  The notes, letters, diary entries, and photographs on which I scaffolded the book had for years sounded a nostalgic echo in my mind.  Writing the book helped me place that nostalgia in context and channel it to productive purpose.  Every time I sat down to write, that channeling guided my pen.  I knew that until I finished the project, the nostalgic echo of my scrapbook would continue to distract me.  Happily, the process of writing Islands on the Fringe brought me some measure of peace and gave me the inspiration to pursue travel writing as an active literary endeavor.

Reflections in a Rice Paddy (Philippines 2019)

Seasoned surf travelers know the motif:  the jungle road to the coast; the isolated village mired in poverty; the headland girdled by peeling surf.  Eager to wash away the grime of travel and put our surfcraft to its intended use, we forget, in our adrenaline ambition, the way our arrival provokes uncomfortable dichotomies.  The pursuit of frivolous pleasure, on a piece of foam and fiberglass worth perhaps half the yearly income of a 3rd world villager, stands in stark contrast to the locals' daily subsistence lifestyle.  In the somber, disparaging expression of a woman tending to a rice paddy, I perceived exactly this dynamic. It haunted me as I approached the headland for a closer look at the waves.

I knew the feeling from my prior travels.  In 2004, on a trip to Siargao, while surfing a reef not far from Cloud 9 (which we derisively labelled "Crowd 99"), my friend Q and I watched a pump boat approach us at full power and then swerve at the last moment, its crew of fishermen shouting obscenities and contorting their bodies in mock imitation of a surfer's stance.  Five years earlier, conducting a dockside errand on Pohnpei (my home for a year), I received a similar rebuke from a crew of Chinese sailors, an incident I included as a diary excerpt in Islands on the Fringe:

 a maritime montage rolls past my driver's side window.  Aboard a Chinese fishing junk, which smells of bilge water and diesel, a crew clad in stained khakis dangle cigarettes from their mouths and regard me with a curious mixture of envy and hate, as though the sight of me and my rattletrap sedan represents a fantasy life they envision with jealousy.

As a remedy to the feelings of guilt that arise from such incidents, surf travelers typically bequeath gifts of T-shirts, sandals, hats, or other token trinkets (modern versions of the European explorers' glass beads perhaps?) intended to help the locals, or at least bring a smile to the face of a kid.  Somehow, though, I doubted the rice paddy woman would let a token trinket smooth our disparity in life circumstance.  I had no pretensions she would ever see me as anything other than a rich American (and perhaps an ugly one at that).

And so to the surf.  Off the tip of the headland, a smooth, clean, perfectly tapered righthander rose repeatedly and took a bow, appreciated by no one but me.  I noted only one flaw in the performance:  the waves, chest high at best, seemed a bit sluggish. . .

Off the headland, a perfectly tapered righthander. . .

But then the tide started to drop, and the waves, rewarding my interest, spun with added enthusiasm.  The sets I initially judged as chest high proved overhead, and for an afternoon of solitary perfection, I found myself momentarily detached from the sorrows of the world, immersed in the blissful state that occurs when instinct and adrenaline channel perception.  Later, back on the beach, I made a halting effort at the local Ilocano dialect to exchange greetings with a kid who had ventured out to the headland to watch me ride a final wave to the shore.

     He smiled at me and I gave him a t-shirt from my pack.

Somewhere in Northern Luzon, 2019

Reader Q&A: Discussing Islands on the Fringe (Personal Life)

Readers of my travel memoir, Islands on the Fringe, have wondered how the experience depicted in the book fits into the broader context of my personal life.  Here follows some Q & A:

What events led to your ex-pat life in Micronesia, and how did you transition back to the mainland?

To simplify greatly, the proximal cause of my ex-pat life was the break-up, in April 1999, of my engagement to my then fiancée.  Had I entered married life, as planned, in June of that year, I most likely would never have signed a teaching contract with COM-FSM.  Looking back with the wisdom of hindsight, the breakup provided a blessing--albeit a blessing wrapped in pain--for it opened the door to priceless experiences.  To the extent that I wrote IOTF as a travel memoir about Micronesia, and mindful of the low tolerance readers have for sappy sentimentality, I avoided writing seriously about the emotional and psychological legacy of my broken engagement.  Consequently, the reader may infer from IOTF that I began my ex-pat life as a lighthearted adventurer.  At times I did fit that profile, but a complete biography of that time would properly depict me as a refugee wandering the rubble of emotional ruin.  When asked to place IOTF into the broader context of my personal life, I have to emphasize this dynamic.  And, so long as making this confession, I'd like to apologize to my former COM-FSM colleagues for the wonton and unprofessional decisions that at times resulted from this emotional state.

As for making a successful transition back to the mainland:  in truth, I'm not sure I ever did!

In Chapter 2 you describe a scene where the division secretary "perceives the buffoon at your troglodytic core."  The tone comes across as humorous, but are you perhaps giving readers a hint of your then-actual psychological state?

Interesting question!  I think that particular phrase, and the tone of self-deprecation it hints at, indicates a few underlying issues.  One, the book itself employs self-deprecation as a narrative convention.  During the writing process, I found I could convey certain events, scenes, and conflicts much more easily if the first-person narrator came across as awkward and clueless.  To some extent, this narrative convention arose as a natural by-product of the setting, whose environmental and cultural components, in real life, had a very defamiliarizing effect.  For the reader to more dramatically experience the island's defamiliarizing quality, I tell the story from the point of view of someone who only has partial understanding of his environment.  At times I probably over-exaggerate this naivete, but, in general, the naivete makes sense in relation to the plot structure, which involves a journey happening to the traveler more than a traveler making a journey.

Second, and probably more significantly, the deprecating tone represents a manifestation of subconscious attitudes about ex-pat life.  In my own case, which I consider representative for an early-career professional, the decision to sign an overseas employment contract precipitated a mind- state that oscillated continuously between exhilaration and doubt.  Behind the thrill of new adventure there lurked a nagging fear, more powerful with the passage of time, of becoming a forgotten fish in an irrelevant pond.  A product of the city, I often judged my ex-pat existence according to big-city standards, which of course only created a cloud of negativity.  Those who successfully transition to the ex-pat life find a way to dispel such clouds, suppressing their mainland minds through alcohol, romantic exploits, adventure, etc.  I had surfing, and when the surf was good I was in paradise.

I had surfing, and when the surf was good I was in paradise. . .November 1999.  Photo Copyright 1999 by S. Jacques Stratton

 But on Pohnpei the surf can go flat for weeks at a time, and during those weeks the doubt clouds gathered, sometimes with greater darkness.  For those suffering such a mind state, events that might otherwise seem tolerable become overwhelming.  Such was the cholera outbreak that occurred in May 2000.  It pretty much tipped the scales, emotionally and mentally, for my return to California.

A Moment in Context: Micronesia 1999

A moment in time: Palikir Pass, February 2000

For me, Pohnpei represents a moment in time as much as a place on a map.  Devastated over the breakup with my ex-fiancée, I arrived in the throes of emotional and psychological upheaval, which I hoped the three-pronged novelty of fresh routine, exotic environment, and geographic isolation might resolve.  Instead of resolution, I found a disorientation that both primed the senses and left me vulnerable to oscillations of spirit.  A successful lesson plan might prod my sense of purpose, while the crooning of a bar jukebox might induce a tear-jerking nostalgia.  Natural splendor might produce a moment of rapture, easily shattered by the pestilential portrait of a cockroach posed on my cookware.  To reprise the sentiment evoked by Matthew Arnold in his classic poem "Dover Beach," I found myself in a "land of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new," yet often felt isolated upon "the vast edges drear/and naked shingles of the world."

The dichotomy reached its physical extreme during a twelve-hour span in February, 2000.  By day, amped on the adrenaline that comes from riding perfect reef-pass surf, I felt blissfully alive.  That night, gasping for breath, I awoke to what the medical clinic later diagnosed as a bout of acute asthma--an immune response, the doctor surmised, to a relentless assault of plant pollens and mildew. (Asthma remained a problem until my return to California.)  Unable to find the steady-state contentment necessary to dull the edge of Expatica, I remained vulnerable to tragedies that others took in stride.  In May 2000, when a cholera outbreak made a U.N. medical team consider a quarantine of the island, I returned to California, where a series of job interview invitations had coincidentally materialized.

People often find in pictures of perfect surf and lush valleys a summons to paradise.  The summons projects from internal desire as much as external reality.  Images conveniently extract moment from context.  For me, moment and context remain inextricably linked.  The perfect wave provides a prelude to asthma, and the sunlit valley a momentary respite from rain.

The view from my front yard:  A (momentarily) sunny sky, August 1999.  Photo: S. Jacques Stratton