The Cliff

Sun stained hair dangles over the edge of the cliff, brushes against jagged rock and flowering grasses rooted into the sea-salted promontory. Chin on the ledge, eyes just over peering down at white foam crashing and dissolving at the base of the vertical drop. 

I hear voices to my right, “That must be at least a hundred feet. Wouldn’t want to time that jump wrong.” A nervous laugh and a shuffle of feet away from the jutting lip of earth. There are tourists here at this “Hazardous Zone.” I am one too, a visitor in this place of soft curves and sharp edges and ants crawling over it all, which includes my body prone on shifting pebbles. 

I look down. 

I feel the distance and the depth of the sea. I imagine whales nesting in kelp gardens and sea stars stretching spiny arms just below the surface. I can feel the myths of this place: tribes of sea people under the waves creating the ebb and flow with their exultant dancing and watery breath, providing shelter for the fish, tending gardens of sea snails, smiling up into the distant sky with bubbles escaping between coral teeth.

A woman lies down on the top of the cliff to my left. She scoots her face past the edge and peers over. She is not me but suddenly I am dizzy, my body tense and drifting over the stone with her motion. I close my eyes and swallow hard. I feel as though the earth will tilt, slide me off this solid rock and sift me into the sea. My body acts independently of my mind, my legs tumble over my head, I am somersaulting through space, torn by rocks as I fall, torn by waves as the plank of me collides with the surface. Rejected by the water, I float lifeless, eyes still closed.

All this movement in the mind, a waterfall of images because of another body that could possibly fall, a woman that could possibly tumble to her death, someone I could not possibly save. What is this? This responsibility for strangers (myself), the fear of others (myself) plunging off very tall things: cliffs, masts, rooftops, bows, bridges. What part of me is terrified of the uncontrolled descent? From where have I fallen? What jagged wall has torn me apart?
Who am I trying to save?

I challenge myself to jump. 

I curl back from the edge, unfold myself to standing and stare out at the vast expanse of undulating gray. Hills of motion and wind rippled valleys around evergreen islands. I breathe in salty air, watch the tour boats create arrows in their wakes pointing to shore. I breathe out the fear and rear back, winding myself up for the step-step-nothing. 

I am in the air, free from gravity for a moment before arcing towards the deep water. My arms open wide, the fluttering of my clothes my feathers, I am flight and forgetful of what earth feels like under talon and hollow wing. The moment comes when my body finds molecules different from the air I’m holding, holding me, and I shatter into a million brilliant shards of sunlight. I dissolve in the white foam and become a billion blinding stars overhead, a thousand flitting fireflies in a golden field, a bioluminescent spume of whale’s breath in the night.

I open my eyes and the woman is gone. My equilibrium restored, I am alone on the edge of this world with the dandelions and ants and pebbles. The ocean has consumed me right here on top of this cliff.
I am no longer dizzy and scared.

I am flight and I am falling,
I am shattered and I am whole,
I am dissolved and I am complete.

I stretch my arms over the cliff then curl back into the world, away from the edge, resting on rock-tattooed knees. The sunlight is glittering on the turbulent water as I stand and walk away. There is a splash. I don't turn around. The tribes below the surface dance on.

Ocean Wings

Ocean stretches salty paws to the horizon, a fur of seaweed and sunken shells deep in the hide. 
Land growls in the absence and claws at my back, drawing my thoughts to marshy fields and jagged tree trunks searching for blue sky through a tangled pelt of clouds. 

Time twists and breaks, flexes like the bow of this pummeled boat. 
I strain my dreams through the sieve of stars overhead and what falls remains to be slumbered upon. 

Here in my hands the wings of a fish tremble and push, a curve pressing into the palms behind bloody knuckles as translucent bones shift and spread. A gasp and release, a shriek and a sigh. Into the water into the night we move forward together in leaps and glides and a jauntiness I never knew I held. You teach me well. 

I wipe the sun streaks from my eyes and let the moon wash over me its secret language of reflection, illumination from source unseen. The song has just begun in the quiet of the dark and I hold the notes between waves, between screaming gusts, between fingers that can no longer grasp this place. 

We understand each other: the dive and flight, the relinquishment of time and holding of grace. Fins and feet, whale jaws and rhubarb roots. None of it makes sense until I stand (swim) in the middle of it all and let it go. You (I) tumble back into the blackness, trusting whatever is after you (me) drives us forward and calls us to the slippery descent back Home.  

Turning back

Red and numb, my fingers work the blue nylon into loops and knots, rain drizzling on to the deck, the furled sails, the smile on my face. I am wet and cold and I can't feel my fingers but we are moving towards the ocean. The outgoing tide ushers us towards the openness and I can feel it tugging at my chest: the salty nests of seaweed sliding past our bow, the breaching of whales punctuating commas on the horizon, the swallows who will appear and rest on deck before reassessing their course.

The clouds cease their crying as we stow lines and fenders, as we yip and hurrah and wind our way east. I free the main halyard and clamber up the mast where the head of the sail waits for me to adorn her with means of skyward propulsion. A twist of (red, numb) fingers secures the halyard and we are ready to raise that wind brushed fabric, ready to point the bow southeast across the swells, ready to hunker down for a night full of dark clouds and strengthening breeze.

I haul and crank and spur the sail into the air. The slight tipping, the hungry belly of the main satiated with wind, the land thinning to pale sand and green gray scrub as the buoys fall behind the stern: I am reaching towards home.

Another Home, where the soil is mixed with salt and water in slippery proportions, where the growth is fluid and the roots hold fast to time worn stones, where the tending is in the form of swirling thoughts and turbulent dreams. A vast farm of wildness unearthing before me.

Then.
Slack.
Rig.

Unsupported.
Mast.

Big.
Fucking.
Problem.

We curse and swing 180 to port. Furl sails, unbury fenders, cleat off lines with bitter ends in bowlines ready to catch the dock. The hurrahs stowed away, we motor towards repairs, towards another day or week of waiting. I (begrudgingly) give gratitude for failure early in the voyage, for the chance to turn back when there is turning back, for the taste of my salty heart fluttering in the wind and swimming in the waves and working through the line in my hands.

I shove red and numb fingers into damp pockets and know this voyage will come to me when I need it. That the waiting is part of the allurement, of the work. That my heart is still unfurling even (especially) in the disappointment. Home cannot abandon me, as I will not abandon it.

Wind, waves, sea, and soil. The love and the longing. The alchemy of my soul.

We are made of Water

The ocean curved and crashed into the shore. From my perch on the cliff the surfers looked like tiny colorful bits of kelp tumbling in the froth or long winged seagulls riding the breeze into the shallows. I took another bite of my carne asada and guac burrito, breathed in the salty air between savory chews, wiped the hot sauce from my face, and sighed. 

It was good to be home.

San Diego! 

I took another bite of heaven and recounted my years spent shuffling through this sand, drinking at bonfires below these cliffs, baking my skin under these cloudless skies. 

Yet a feeling of agitation slowly rumbled to the surface.

I heard it before I saw it. A sound that made me uneasy before I could even identify the source. The sound of water hitting pavement. I looked down over the bluff.  At the base of the swirling stairs leading to the beach were two outside showers, bits of wood and metal, one of which was running full power- with no one there. A deep gouge had formed at the base of the shower. 

A delta of wasted water soaking into the sand, seeping back to the sea. 

Water water everywhere… but nearly 90% comes from somewhere else so really we each may only have a drop to drink and certainly not enough to let run into the sand. 

I wrapped up my burrito, ready to descend to shut off the faucet when a surfer approached the shower and washed off his board. 

Please please please turn it off, I telepathically willed him, then watched in fascination mingled with disgust as he walked away from the spewing showerhead. 

Really, dude? I mean, brah? Maybe he’s from the East Coast, I reasoned, where they don’t know that water is scarce in these parts. But then I thought of my family at home- running the shower for five minutes to “warm it up” or letting the kitchen sink shoot water directly into the drain while washing dishes off to the side. It kills me! 

I cannot leave a tap running and I drive my Mom crazy when I instinctively swoop in and switch off the water. 

“Jennifer! Stop being such a fanatic!” 

To which I calmly (or sarcastically, depending on the day) reply, “We live in a desert, remember?” 

Maybe I am a fanatic, I think as I stare off at the boats on the horizon, the sound of crashing waves intermingling with the hiss of water of that sticky handled shower.

Maybe because I’ve lived on a boat for so many years where water is surrounding the damn thing but you either have to make your own and hope that the expensive and finicky reverse osmosis watermaker works, or you must ration the water in your 400 (or 40) gallon tank so that it will last for weeks. And that’s not just drinking water. It’s for washing dishes and showering (or sponge bathing) too.

Maybe it is because I have actually been in situations where the ability to procure water has been life or death. On my 32 ft sailboat my (former)partner and I once went for three weeks without the ability to fill our 40 gallon tank. We had a few five gallon jugs to supplement the stock and we funneled rain into extra containers when we could, but we made that total of 60 gallons last. 

For three weeks! 

60 gallons is less than ¾ of what the typical San Diegan uses in a day. 
One. 
Day. 
88 gallons! 
On my boat, we had no choice but to conserve. We held our lives in our own hands. Or rather, in our waterbottles and sink basins. 

So I think of water differently, for sure. Yet I think that San Diegans are in the same dire situation (or you could say the same boat) but the majority just don’t know it. Or won't admit it. 

Where are the mandatory water restrictions? Where are the public service announcements? Why aren’t there planes skywriting, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow!” Oh wait, carbon emissions- never mind the plane. Why aren’t we shouting from the corners of the Gaslamp, “If it’s brown, flush it down!”  Why aren’t all the lawns dead or better yet ripped out? Why doesn’t anyone seem to give a fuck? 

What is it about many San Diegans, transplants or natives, that breeds this apathy? Sure the weather is perfect year round (read: no rain), but don't you think that comes with trade-offs? Is it the laid back, live for today attitude that many bring with them to the bars and beaches that dissuades them (us) from thinking too far into the future that may include an even more severe drought and possibly even systemic collapse? Or is it the same fear of truth that forces them into denial, just like it does with the seemingly worldwide denial of fishery collapse? The forever shifting baseline changing our perception of "normal." If you can't see it or feel the crisis in this moment, does it not exist? Might as well eat all the fish you can get your hands on now before they are all gone. Keep using the water as you always have to wash down that driveway at noon and cross your fingers it will still come out of the tap tomorrow...

I stand up to take matters into my own hands. I start down the sandy stairs but then another surfer comes along, rinses off his board, dunks his head, and wiggles the handle. 

It’s off! 

Thank god, another caring soul. Or another someone with a touch of OCD. But it’s off, that’s all I care about. Until the guy after him uses it and walks away, leaving the constant stream to dig deeper rivulets into the surrounding sand. 

Jesus Christ buddy! See this crumbling red earth? Do you remember the last time it rained? Sure, I’ve been gone for four months, but I know we haven’t “caught up” on rain. Yup, according to the government, we’ve received about three inches of rain this year. San Diego’s yearly average is around 10 inches which we haven't reached since 2011. And even with an “average” rainfall, we still import almost all of our water!

My frustration mounts once more as water drains into earth until yet another surfer rinses and wiggles (the faucet, that is) and the stream is halted.

At least some people seem to care.
And my mom just gave me a dozen or so adorable succulent plants.

Maybe there is hope. 

What can we do about it? The best course of action is probably to move back where you came from.  There is most likely a hell of a lot more water there. But I know I’ve got to share my hometown with you people “from away” and I happen to love a lot of you, so, actually, I’m glad you’re here to help get the word out. Until, of course, I get fed up and move out of town to greener, lusher, wetter pastures myself- but maybe you'll join me?

In the meantime here is a list of obvious and not so obvious things we can do to save water if we’re going to stay in this desert. And notice I say WE. It has to be a community effort.  Voluntary, Mandatory, or For the Love of San Diego and Mother Earth: Let’s go!

The Basics: 

Limit your showering time.

Turn off tap when brushing your pearly whites (or coffee stained yellows).

If you want to take a bath, make it a shallow one. And scoop out the (minimally soapy) water to feed plants when you’re done. 

Don’t wash your car on the sidewalk (pick a carwash place that recycles water) if you’re that kind of car hygiene person. 

Water your veggie or native plant garden (NOT LAWN! RIP IT OUT!) in the morning (preferable) or evening.

Turn off the kitchen sink when you’re soaping up dishes. 

If you absolutely must use your dishwasher, make sure its full. 

Same goes for laundry.

Get low-flow everything: toilets, showerheads, etc

Fix leaky shit. Duh.

Even Better: 

Get a small tub for your kitchen sink. Soak and rinse dishes in the tub, using minimal soap. Or two tubs if you have the room. Remember how they used to talk about Dishpan Hands? Lets bring em back in style, hey!

Throw out the dishwater in nearby bushes or trees if you can.

Use greywater (the used water from your laundry, kitchen and shower) in your garden. Hook up a system yourself or use the amazing talent of someone like Brook Sarson at H2OME.

Install water-harvesting tanks if you have a house. We may only be getting a few inches right now, but may as well make the most of it.

When waiting for the shower water to heat up, place a bucket to catch the cold water. Use that to water plants or flush the toilet.

Speaking of toilets- “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.” For someone who drinks a lot of water like me, I can save a dozen or more gallons a day by following this rule. It’s just pee, get over it, even if it’s somebody else’s in your household. Geesh.

Weird, and perhaps not necessarily local, but stay with me:

Eat grass fed beef if you’re a meat eater (perhaps with the exception of the ocassional  kickass La Posta carne asada burrito?). Growing grains, which aren’t good for cows anyway, uses up a shit ton of water. One pound of beef requires thousands of gallons of water (mostly going to mono-crop production). Grass fed tastes better, is better for you, and you can get it from local farms. Have you ever been up The 5 freeway and seen all those unhappy, smelly, CAFO cows? They eat grain instead of grass and seem very sad. Stop the Sadness. 

Use a refillable water bottle. It takes water to make plastic bottles. But you already know plastic is wasteful anyway, right?

Turn off those lights, turn off the air conditioning. Electricity production requires water to cool those huge power plants. Capeesh? 

Ok, enough from me. Google “water conservation” if you want more ideas. Or go to this site for more desert friendly water conservation tips.

And if you have more tips, ideas, rants, use the Comment section to your hearts delight.

Down the Shadowy Hatch

“Adjustable wrench. And ¾ socket. Fuck those guys.”

I hand Captain L. the tools and nod in agreement. “Those guys” from the boatyard are now 700 miles south of our stern and are the reason we are tossing about the ocean without the ability to steer. They repaired the rudder this winter but weren’t necessarily the most fastidious of workers. Fuck em. But cursing them doesn’t help our situation now. So L. is crammed in the stern compartment of the boat where the rudder post and steering cables do their magic. Or in this instant, don’t, because something slipped out of place and now has to be jacked up and tightened. But even with loosening and tightening, hammering and shivving, something’s still wrong and the steering quadrant is hitting a bolt and preventing the rudder from going to port so here we are doing circles to starboard 100 miles off the coast of Jersey. 

Our autopilot quit working on the second stormy night and the navigation instruments keep shutting off at crucial moments. Half of the navigation lights shorted out. We lost the dinghy that was being towed behind. I lost my favorite hat overboard. L. continually tells stories about the last delivery where the engine crapped out. What else can go wrong? He wonders if the rudder has slipped down (if it slips all the way down and out of the boat it means we start sinking) but quickly abandons that thought at closer inspection. 

My first thought is: I am so glad this didn’t happen last night when the wind was blowing 35 knots and the seas were choppy 10 footers and the squalls dumped rain on us for hours straight and if we had been spun around in circles it would have been a Very Bad Scene. 

My second thought is: SeaTow! If we can’t get this fixed then we can get towed into port. I’m pretty sure they come out this far.

“Crow bar. Hammer. This better fucking work.”

I am looking down into the compartment full of sturdy metal plates and tubes and cables. The aluminum hull of the boat curves to meet the deck where I sit, a pile of tools next to me glinting in the sun. The breeze is light rendering our sails useless, the swells are gentle but still cause the boat to sway with every glassy crest, the smell of the briny water of the North Atlantic teases us about how close to port we have come. We are just below the shipping channels of New York Harbor and the chatter of cargo ships and fishing boats dominates the radio. 

And here we float. 

I want to help somehow so I hand down tools and give words of encouragement. I don’t talk of sinking or SeaTow. I ask questions about the mechanisms in the shadows and try to absorb as much as I can about fixing quadrants. I want this to be fixed quickly but I know that these things take time. The old “hit it with a hammer” or “just caulk it” or “just wait and see if it fixes itself” solutions aren’t usually actual solutions. They are ways to put off the inevitable repair or replacement or abandonment of something that isn’t working. 

In my own personal life I often avoid the real work of sitting down with the parts and pieces, taking the time to tune into the true damage at hand. Like my experience with a broken transmission whose insides were decimated by vibration: it wasn’t because of a faulty transmission but due to the engine mounts not being secured properly to the boat. It was a foundational problem, not a defect in mechanics. No matter how many times the transmission is replaced, if you don’t get to the core problem, the health of the whole system is compromised. 

“It’s not perfect, but hopefully it will get us in.” 

L. climbs out through the hatch and wipes sweat from his sunburned forehead. He’s grumbling but I can tell he’s proud of his repair. I carry the tools over the deck and down below to the canvas bag where they will wait patiently for another breakdown. This being a boat, that won’t be long. 

I step out on deck, look out to the blue sky empty horizon, and decide that I don’t want to jury rig my life anymore. I don’t want to immediately call for someone to come and save me when there is really no danger, no need to be saved. I am ready to break out the tool box and sit with the problem until I can truly see what is broken. I am ready to tinker and try different angles, different tools and call in the experts for help if need be. Storming away from my problems hasn’t worked so far, so I’m ready to turn around, lower myself into that shadowy hatch, and get to work. I am ready to roll up my sleeves and get greasy in this life.

I take the helm and steer us north. Back towards land, back towards “real life” where I will get a chance to pull out my tools one by one and tinker and try.  

And steer this life of mine. I cannot rely on Autopilot anymore.  

Before I go...

My stomach tightens and churns.
I am going to sea.
I pull my hood over tangled hair, wrap my neck and feet with wool, pull on rubber deck boots and worn purple gloves.

My heart tingles and leaps.
I am going to sea.
I am in love with the idea, the action, the motion, the creatures, the deep dark mystery. I am elated and terrified. This happens each time I pack my sea bags and stumble down the dock. I imagine all those things you don’t want to imagine: the ship sinking in a storm; falling overboard on a night watch; knocked in the head by the boom; appendicitis 1000 miles out; fingers, arm, leg yanked off wrestling a line. These are things I should not think on, should not say or write lest they come true (knock on wood, spit over your shoulder, turn around three times).

Death follows me as flying fish skimming over the waves and swallows fluttering above the boom. That is why I sail. Not because I want to die, but because I want to live more fully, experience each breath with gratitude, savor each step on land or boat. I feel death’s whispers mingling with salty air and I respond with a quiet reevaluation of my life. What are my deepest longings? Who would I want to talk to as the ship was going down? What dreams have I neglected? What haven’t I done that I would like to do? Who are my people?

I have time out here to think and process and dream. Sometimes it hurts as scenes are played and replayed and no matter how much I try I can’t change the script. Sometimes I come up with ideas that make perfect sense 500 miles off shore but seem ludicrous back on land. Sometimes on dark nights I create strings of words and the stars help me garland the heavens with my stories.

I am a mere inch of fiberglass away from the dark and murky depths of the sea. I can feel her breath casting the boat over her back. I want to explore the depths of my own dark and murky soul, to meet her at the edge of dreams and tumble through the world together.

I don’t want to conquer mother ocean, or the wind, or death: it is not possible. I want to explore the things that frighten me down in my core because I know it will cause me to love them, the world, myself, more deeply than the deepest grains of sand at the bottom of the most remote canyons in the sea.

We motor into the river and the fear drops away. We raise the sails and I whoop in joy. I catch myself smiling and laughing and dancing across the deck. The wild dark waters swim across the hull and welcome us in a frothing confluence of salt and fresh. My belly is calm. My heart is light. With this movement forward, with this action of raising cloth to the wind, I find a piece of my wild self raised to the sky.


We have not left the river, we are not in danger yet, these waters are swirling but calm. On the ocean we will face bigger waves, bigger winds, bigger challenges, but we will be held by the seas that shake us. We will be exactly where we all need to be, reaching or close hauled or running on the perfect course, as crooked as our wind-dictated path may seem. Death will holler through the rigging during squalls and tuck us into our bunks, our eyes red and fluttering after four hours on watch.

Death and life, night and day will dance with the dolphins and whales off the bow. They will sing with us to the stars. They will steer us to the islands through our salty hands.

We will be wild, we will be peace, we will be alive as we are cradled in all that is and was and will be.

A universal schoolyard

I am tethered.

I am the scuffed white ball at the end of the string. The faster I spin, an attempt to flee, to forget, smacked by hardened palms and youthful grunts, the faster I wrap myself around the pole lodged in the earth. I hit the weather worn metal with a hollow thud. I am suspended for a second kissing the gray, thankfully still… then I fall away, unravel myself from my destiny, wait for the next throw and punch.

I expect it. So far that is the only way I’ve known to stop the spinning, the constant motion circling that pseudo silence within every continuously acrobatic atom.  I think that if enough beings push me I can attain my goal. Instead, what if I withdrew, stopped begging for the nudges and slams? What if I just lay still? A memory flits past fibers, remembering how stillness feels every so often between the back forth back.  

I am (will be) still tethered (to the ocean, farming, my writing) but I am not tangled up in it, always trying to be simultaneously free and closer. I am not (will not be) twisted and pulled and smashed into the gray (of gloriously squally sunset-less evenings, no land in sight. Of the rocks and slug underbellies and spider eggs in gossamer sacs. Of black words and white paper fusing into one). 

If I resign myself to stillness, to the quiet of disengagement, then I simply lay against my desires, my string straight and unstrained, my body able to re-inflate those bruised spots and enjoy the emanating warmth of earthly minerals nestled up next to me, whispering, “Isn’t this better?”

The kids will still want to play, prove their strength, I know this too.
But the intervals can shift, I can be less attractive to battle. Like the ships the Native Americans didn’t see, I will be out of context to tangles and strikes. I will melt into the gray with my scuff marks and dirt and age and the string won’t even be necessary anymore.

Naturally tethered, the struggle dissolved, the hard fists no where to be seen, felt, imagined.