Letters from Lisa

One of my boys came in to the science room this morning to drop off some materials for me. While we were chatting, he suddenly got a twinkle in his eye and said, “Oh, and I have a dare for you.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“Which would you rather do - eat a spider, or lick the science room floor?” Satisfied smug, thinking - I’ve got her now.

I quickly glanced down at the floor, still smeared yellow and pink from Friday’s prop painting session. Then I smiled back up at him, and with a matching twinkle in my eye, said,

“Well, I’ve eaten ants before. So a spider wouldn’t be so bad.”

He grimaced and started to back away. “I was just joking…”

Lesson learned: Do not try to out-gross the science teacher. Especially if she’s been to Australia. It’s like Fear Factor out on those tours. (The ants tasted like Sprite and are said to be very high in Vitamin C.)

This link allows you to choose a spot anywhere on Earth and dig a hole straight through to the other side:

http://map.pequenopolis.com/

According to the map, digging straight down through my home will get you to a spot in the Pacific Ocean just off the coast of southwestern Australia.

Honestly, after spending 24 straight hours flying just to get to the East Coast of Australia, digging a hole through the center of the Earth to get there doesn’t sound quite so bad.

As the first week of 2007 winds down, I am pleased to report that I have been to the gym more times in the past week than I’d gone in the entire month of December. Maybe even November and December put together. What happened, I think, was that I hit a plateau in the fall. I couldn’t seem to add any more distance or speed to my running without hurting myself or coming down with a cold. Seriously - I’d go for a run, push myself just a bit, come home and wake up with a monstrously sore throat the next morning. As if my leg muscles extended all the way up to my chin. It was my body’s way of saying, “You don’t really want to go to the gym anymore, do you?” And I didn’t. But now, I might. I’m going to just keep popping the Halls Defense and hope that my throat minds its own business.

The only drawback of going to the gym, so far, is all the bad TV I’ve been subjected to. I usually wear my headphones, but people will turn up the TV so loud that you’re practically forced to watch. And unfortunately, what they’re watching usually involves Ryan Seacrest, “breaking news” about blond idiots in low cut dresses, or reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond. Sometimes I think it’d work better if they put the TVs behind the machines, so you can feel like you are RUNNING AWAY.

If only we had a DVD player down there. We could invoke what I have decided to call the Qantas Effect, in honor of my original idea to show all three Lord of the Rings Extended Editions back-to-back on very long flights, such as the 14 hour slog I endured between LA and Sydney. I’m restless. I need a reason to sit still that long (other than “We’re still over the ocean”, apparently). On my flight home from Australia, I was so desperate for entertainment that I was reduced to watching Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy five times in a row. Just hitting repeat on my seat’s controls. It wasn’t exactly the high point of the trip. By the time I make it back to Australia, Qantas, I hope you’ve gotten with the program.

The same principle could be applied to working out in the gym. Put on something really good, so people will want to stay. Again, I think Lord of the Rings would be perfect. You’d feel like you were being chased by orcs, so you’d WANT to run. I have tried just playing the soundtrack over my headphones with moderate success, but then I happen to look up at the TV and Gandalf and the Balrog have been replaced by Ryan Seacrest and Donald Trump. (I’m not going to say which one I think is the Balrog there.)

In the meantime, it’s been so unseasonably warm lately that I may not need the gym at all. Maybe the first DVD we should play is “An Inconvenient Truth”.

Today’s valuable lesson: on the Internet, nothing ever dies. Ever.

This afternoon I received an email from good ol’ Earthwatch - they periodically publish updates and promos for their volunteer projects. This month they chose to highlight several projects that I am familiar with, since I have volunteered with them at one time or another. First up, my most recent expedition in Peru, Archaeology of Peru’s Wari Empire. You may remember that one from this summer’s posts. (I never finished writing about that experience, by the way… expect an update on that shortly.)

Next up was Hawksbill Turtles of the Great Barrier Reef, which was the focus of my Australia trip in 2005. My mother was standing nearby as I excitedly shouted, “Hey, that was my project too!” only to then scroll down a bit more, and discover something even better.

“Hey! That’s ME!!”

There it was, glistening white words in a bright orange box - “Solo traveler Lisa Fischler” and a link to my article about the volunteer experience.

There’s nothing like unexpectedly finding yourself online. Good thing it was something I’m actually proud of, like saving endangered species, and not an incriminating video or photo of my hair in 7th grade. Not that such things exist, especially not photos of my nasty strung out perm (cough).

Stingray Kills “Crocodile Hunter”

I was shocked to see this - what a crazy thing to have happen. There are plenty of animals in Australia that can kill you within minutes, but I always remember being worried about jellyfish and blue-ringed octopus more than stingrays. I remember cutting short a turtle catching session because they were swirling around, about 30 of them, and then we ended up eating one for lunch. I would have had a whole different take on that if this had happened beforehand.

I guess the man died doing his job, a job that he loved, and there are worse ways to go.

My suitcases are packed - just have to do the carry-on tomorrow. Some last minute odds and ends, too - an extra bottle of bug spray, a printed itinerary for my parents. And I start taking the famous anti-malaria drugs tomorrow with breakfast.

I’ve had a migraine for the past 4 days and I have been blaming it on various things - lack of sleep, not drinking caffeine at usual hours, too many hours at the computer, even the process of sorting through old materials and papers at work, which may have stirred up dust and dirt and aggravated my (very slight) allergies. (Too bad I got my wisdom teeth out in January - otherwise I might have been able to blame that, too.) But I’m wondering if it isn’t also nerves about the trip.

If I didn’t have the evidence to the contrary written down, I might be telling you that at this time last year as I was packing for Australia, I was excited and happy to be going. Of course, I was. But I was also secretly nervous. Frightfully nervous, in fact. I was recently rereading my journal from the very first day of the trip, written while I was flying over the US on my way to catch a plane from LA to Sydney. In it, I sound downright unhappy to be going. I wondered why I was going, what I was trying to prove, if it was really necessary to go for four whole weeks, if I was going to enjoy myself at all, why I hadn’t decided to just stay home and relax.

(And that was BEFORE I flew 14 and a half hours straight and broke down crying in the airplane bathroom!)

Memory is a funny thing. Once I was immersed in Australia, particularly once I had successfully done with the Earthwatch expedition and had soaked my feet back to reasonable health, I was thrilled to be there. I had such an amazing experience that I was genuinely sad to leave. It took quite a few weeks before I readjusted to being back in New York, to the point where my journal records me seriously wondering if I could continue to live here. I started telling everyone I knew to go to Australia, that it was the single most amazing place I ever visited and that I would go back in a heartbeat. The trip took on a mythical status for me - grumbling about my poor cut-up and blistered feet aside.

So maybe this pre-trip anxiety is simply part of the experience for me. I have to accept that I’m going to feel nervous, unsure, even downright reluctant in the weeks and days leading up to departure. Even twinges of regret that I’m not having a quieter, simpler summer. One does not undertake a six week solo journey expecting it to be relaxing and easy. I expect to be pushed and challenged. I already have been, just getting all the bookings and medical things settled, and I haven’t even left home yet.

I suppose that if this weren’t big and important to me, it wouldn’t be worth the fuss of going. If there were nothing at all to be nervous about, if I weren’t taking any chances or extending myself in any way, then what would be the point? I’ve certainly taken easier trips before. I would be very comfortable strolling the streets of Florence or Paris or London. I could even have done two simple weeks sailing the Galapagos (which I’ll see near the end of my trip) or a simple stay at a resort in Costa Rica (which I’m doing near the beginning). The fact is, I’ve chosen to do it all at once, perhaps in an unnecessarily complicated way. But that’s how I always do it. If I don’t schedule at least two markedly different climates into a trip, I’m not pushing myself hard enough. At the very least, I now have EXCELLENT packing skills.

I am probably focusing too hard on getting this “right” or on trying to avoid problems that I haven’t even thought of yet. Maybe I’ve been thinking too much about “what ifs” - what if I don’t react well to the altitude? what if I lose a suitcase? what if the hotel loses my reservation? etc. - and not enough on what I’ll actually be doing there. Hopefully, once I arrive, my focus will shift, and I’ll begin to appreciate the decision that I made back in the winter to do this in the first place. It seemed like an excellent idea when I booked the trip, and once I’m out of this nervous haze, I’m sure it will seem so again.

In the meantime, I am going to get to bed. The headache is mild right now, but it’s starting to return. Maybe a good night’s sleep will put an end to it.

Did some trip shopping this weekend… first and foremost, I got shoes! They are a hybrid - designed to act as sandals but with foot protection and support like sneakers or boots. They will be perfect for the Galapagos Islands, where I’ll probably be hiking over rocks and across trails but also getting my feet wet getting in and out of the boat.

This picture doesn’t exactly express how huge my feet are, so I took some better ones:

You know the equipment you’re buying is serious business when it has a “new car” smell.

Seriously, I could have really used these last year when I was living on Ingram Island. I would have gotten about 1/10 the number of nicks, cuts, burrs embedded in my feet, and stubbed toes. And I probably would not have been nearly as fearful of having a shoe fall off while walking through the water or diving after turtles. Ah well, live and learn.

Other purchases: binoculars, a swiss army knife, pair of pants, and replacement snorkel tube for the one that got sacrificed to the Reef Gods in Australia.

Don’t I look the part of a happy future traveler?

For the record, I am laughing at the way my feet look. So go on. I can take it. I’m 5′9, so yes, my feet are big. Size 10 to be exact. But that’s good. Can you imagine how clumsy I’d be if I had little teeny feet? I wouldn’t be able to stand up. I’d take a step forward and then just tip right over.

Oh, and big kudos to Ramsey Outdoor for actually having display shoes that were close to my size. I have never seen a store put out a 9 and a half shoe as the display model before. Definitely think I’ll be shopping there again.

But the article’s mine. Here’s a little something about volunteering in Australia, for the Connecting: Solo Travel Network website.

I belong to a few online knitting groups, and got this little charming tidbit from Victoria — a lady was bitten by one of Australia’s many deadly snakes while sitting and knitting. So she calmly moved to another couch and continued to knit until she could get to a hospital.

To me that is quintessentially Australian, as was her daughter’s initial reaction as quoted in the article: “Yeah mum, no worries.”

news article - warning, snake picture involved

Lisa Fischler, live, February 24th
KGB Bar on East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave)

I’ll be regaling the crowd with Australia tales. Pencil me in!

…and asked her for some happy news
She just smiled and turned away…

Quick, quick! Two points: what song is that from?
Ten bonus points: who’s he singing about?

Nothing quite like a gorgeous and warm sunny day to lift your spirits. Took a while for the positive energy to seep in. Remind me, please, not to read the newspaper… it’s just depressing. I’m simultaneously infuriated at the folks in charge of our government, horrified on behalf of suffering innocents, or discouraged by some new scientific finding (did you know that for every 16 point increase in a woman’s IQ, there is a 40% drop in her likelihood of getting married?) and let’s not even TALK about what happens if I turn on the television. Oh yes, it’s incredibly tempting to switch on the information networks to find out what everybody thinks about everything, and what they think about what everyone’s thinking, and what so-and-so thinks it MEANS that everyone’s thinking what they’re thinking, and before you know it the whole thing’s spiralled way out of reality. Want to know what I think? I think we should fire about 90% of the TV pundits and put on something else, anything else, Backstreet Boys videos for all I care, because at least they’re not telling people what to think. Why are we watching people argue and comment and give their $0.02 worth, when this is not actual information? It’s the equivalent of your Aunt Ginnie and your Grandma Mary spouting off about property taxes and those darned Japanese at the dinner table, except on cable news Aunt Ginnie wears a bow tie.

I want to go back to Ingram Island. There, I’ve said it. It was awesome to be that disconnected from all media - to actually focus on what was going on directly in front of me, rather than worry about something out of my control like a societal trend or statistic. Plus, there was lots of sunshine. (Even some liquid sunshine.) I didn’t sleep all that well, but I didn’t need an alarm clock to wake up, either. My body rhythms adjusted to the rising and setting of the sun. I’m not doing as well living indoors and waking up hours before it gets light out.

And don’t get me started on this daylight savings nonsense. It’s just as silly as having half hour time zones (I’m looking at you, Australia! You too, India!)

OK, yeah, I’m still cranky. You don’t get over a bout of media malaria so fast.

Oh, and:
2 points: American Pie
10 points: Janis Joplin

The Typical American Doesn’t Exist

Yes, I think national stereotypes are often wrong. I don’t think there is a single stereotype that could describe a typical American, although I think there is a vague collection of “types” that might be found here. Even those are probably far off the mark. You simply can’t come up with effective descriptors for such a wide, diverse group of people.

Let’s take New Yorkers as an example. If I said someone was a “New York” type, I’m sure most people would come up with a collection of traits that describe New Yorkers, depending on whether their experience of New York was from Sex and the City, getting jostled in Times Square, being a Red Sox fan at Yankee Stadium, or whatever. Perhaps there are personality traits attached to it — “New Yorkers are rude” or “New Yorkers are liberal”.

But whenever you look at a group, you start seeing layers of complexity. In order to make the stereotype true, you must confine it to a smaller subset of the population — and once you look at just them, you again start to notice subtle (or not subtle) differences and variations.

In order to make a generalization you have to filter out a certain level of complexity and information — and that would be fine, except people often forget that they’ve filtered, and think that their generalization is always true or accurate. It isn’t.

As an American in Australia, I got to hear a lot of perceptions about “Yanks” and what we are like. A number of people qualified those perceptions by saying, “But we wouldn’t assume you’re like that.”

Actually, I think Australians are probably the most accurate about what their national character is, since it’s their cultural imperative to be blunt and honest. I wonder if they were included in the study.

tags: Stereotypes

This is a map of the Great Barrier Reef featuring the Howick Group. If you really squint, Ingram Island is in there somewhere!

The next images are courtesy of Heather. Some are just plain scenic — others made me cackle hysterically when I first saw them!

a captured loggerhead turtle

Emily with a very important piece of equipment

Sam with one of our many gourmet meal offerings in the al fresco dining area

More to follow!
(Thanks for the pictures, Heather, hope you don’t mind me posting them)

The skin of my right hand bears a swollen red lump. So does my left foot, which ballooned up between the slats of my shoes. I also have two welts on my chest, a few scattered faded bumps on my legs, and a vague irritating notion of itchiness that has afflicted my entire body. I did not receive these particular blotches from trudging through the Outback or digging up turtle nests in the dead of night out on a Caribbean beach. No, I was attacked by mosquitoes yesterday… in a pottery studio.

So much for my new super-adventurous image. (“But it was really adventurous pottery! Potentially lethal!”)

My body’s swift overreaction to innocuous nips from insects is well-known. As a counselor for four-year old girls at day camp, for example, I once developed a splotch on my leg approximately the size and shape of my hand, warm to the touch and tomato red. I popped sleep-inducing Benadryl and, lacking transportation home, lay slumped on the floor of the kids’ bunk while my girls crawled over me with impunity and made white footprints on the swollen skin with their Barbies’ feet.

I managed to acquire a previously unparalleled array of fevered blotches and bumps during my stint as an Earthwatch volunteer in St. Croix, where we patrolled the wildlife refuge from dusk until dawn in search of leatherbacks and their hatchlings. Sandflies and mosquitoes feasted upon me like the Last Supper and left behind what looked like an exotic flesh-eating disease. I was so desperate and strung out on Benadryl that I was willing to try anything, including Victoria the maid’s folk remedy of rubbing lime juice on my legs and then washing it off with ocean water (word to the wise, this does NOT eliminate bug bites, but does exfoliate your legs!) I wore long pants on the flight out of St. Croix to avoid possible interrogation and quarantine.

(There is a picture of my bug bites at their height, but in the interest of not giving you nightmares, I am not posting it!)

On Ingram Island I was known as the “medicine cabinet” due to my stockpile of four boxes of Benadryl and various other over the counter medicines. In Australia Benadryl is a cough medicine, not an allergy medication, so no one knew what I was talking about when I offered the anti-histamines to sufferers of ant bites. Fortunately there weren’t many insects on the island at all, except for black ants, which bit you occasionally, and green ants, which had to be careful about biting you because you might bite them back. (Green ants are an excellent source of nutrients and have a lemony taste.)

Green Ant Tea

The green ant nest used to make the “tea”

(I swear, Australia was designed by ten year old boys.)

So what I am going to do right now is take Benadryl and head right to bed. I am tired of my extremities looking like overgrown pincushions. Goodnight!

Finally, something else about Australia that is decently written enough to post. You may have noticed there hasn’t been much travel writing going on here lately. That is actually because I am trying to pull the work together into a single unit, eventually to become a book, and it is difficult to post things while I’m still working on them because then it gives the impression that they’re “done”. Which they aren’t.

This is all basically a very long-winded apology for not posting this sooner. But whatever. Did you all forget I went to Australia already? Sheesh!

And now, Letters from Lisa proudly presents… The Al Fresco Dining Area!

Communal life on Ingram Island centered around an open-air marquee tent, a marvelously engineered mess of ropes and two moldy blue tarps and adjustable metal tent poles that kept sneaking out of their assigned holes, causing various sections of the ceiling to flap in the wind and droop down on our heads. Extra poles, coils of rope, scratchy tarps and heavy tent pegs reminiscent of medieval weaponry lay scattered around on the ground on blankets of dead pine needles and spongy beach rocks. This “storage system” was highly useful, as one never knew when a random piece of camping equipment would be called for — such as when the two Aboriginal boys grabbed some extra poles, headed to the shallow reef flat behind the island and speared a stingray for lunch.

For equipment too delicate or perishable to be left out in the elements — such as the entire month’s supply of food — Queensland Parks and Wildlife supplied perky primary colored “nelly bins” (Australian for “plastic containers”) stenciled with the yellow silhouette of a sea turtle. Bins were stacked along the back edge of the tent in twos and threes, with “canned Asian” next to “long life milk” and “Vegemite and Cheese Spread”, jumbled in with the enigmatically labeled “Heavy — Two People” which turned out to contain packets of jasmine rice and Thai egg noodles. Eventually two of the volunteers, tired of prying open rain-splattered lids marked “Coffee and Tea” from previous projects only to find seventeen cans of canneloni beans, orchestrated a mass reorganization of the food supply. From this point on, the bins were lined up so that one proceeded naturally from breakfast to lunch to dinner, with crackers and spreads (the dreaded tar-like Vegemite and, oddly, several jars of Nutella) inserted at random intervals for our convenience.

One of my first tasks on the island was to clean out the fridge, a heavy faux wood paneled contraption stocked with enough grime and bacterial growth to launch biological warfare on our neighbors, if we had had any. Feeling unqualified to drive tent stakes into the grainy coral sand or rig up the oily-black oven range to the canisters of gas for cooking, I dove into my domestic role with gusto, squealing girlishly and calling for bleach and steel wool from the plastic bins clustered under the folding tables, which were designated for cleaning supplies. Plates and silverware lay piled on the tables in white dish racks, along with the all-important black ceramic mugs that prevented anyone having to work in dangerously undercaffeinated conditions. A gradual parade of garbage bags were tethered to the tent ropes and fluttered in the breeze next to the single heaviest item on the island — the monstrous blue barrel from which we pumped all of our drinking and cooking water. This barrel, and its two replacements, required at least three people to sacrifice their arms, shoulders, hips and backs to the task of budging the precious water one square inch at a time until at least the high water mark, so it wouldn’t be swept back out onto the reef during the next high tide.

For our dining comfort, olive-colored plastic backyard tables and chairs were arranged over a crinkly Astroturf-colored tarp, which shielded our feet from the pebbles and burrs and vines that exacted small sacrifices from heels and toes when we went walking around the island (particularly for late night bathroom visits). We attempted to keep the tarp clean with small handheld brushes, which generally succeeded in dispersing millions of grains of sand, tracked in from our wetsuit booties, into less conspicuous piles. Heather, who had recently returned from a Peace Corps stint in Africa, was reminded of the women there who spent hours stooped in the sun, swiping with wiry brooms at their front porches. My technique was to get onto my knees and whisk furiously, chasing the sand until it fell off the edge of the tarp into the patches of leaves peeking out from underneath. Then I would stand up, triumphant, the skin of my knees dented with the imprints of the tarp-lines.

We spent hours upon hours gathered underneath the marquee in various configurations — all ten of us crowded around the two tables, dabbing ourselves with iodine like tribespeople adorning themselves with ceremonial paint; the two Aboriginal boys tugging at my journal while I sketched coral specimens from wildlife books and diving reference cards and eventually taking over the drawing themselves; one very wild game of Charades in which the opening depiction was “Debbie Does Dallas”; and the ten of us sleepily sipping ground coffee and pouring dried fruit into our cereal bowls to liven up our soggy-cardboard Weetbix cereal while trying to block out the shrill squeals of two juvenile seagulls pestering their mother for their own breakfast…

Travis was the first to call our humble tent set-up the “al fresco dining area”, pronouncing the word “doining” with his impenetrably thick Southern Australian drawl. It might behoove the Australian government, in the interest of future tourism, to add a symbol for “al fresco dining” to the official Ingram Island National Park sign on the shoreline — that is, if camping were not prohibited for all except those lucky enough to be conducting research on the Great Barrier Reef.

I’ve been playing aroundon 43 Places asking questions about different travel destinations. I know it’s a bit early to be thinking about next summer already, but I want to be able to save up enough money, get any required visas, and book any important arrangements far enough in advance that I actually have options.

The thing is, the Australia trip completely spoiled me. I didn’t have to deal with being in any big tour groups, ever. I have done those. You get on the bus at 6 am, get off the bus at pretty waterfall to take pictures, wait until everyone else gets back ON the bus so you don’t have their head in your photo, get back on the bus, drive some more, get off the bus and tour the glass factory, get on the bus, pile into a restaurant for pre-ordered meals, get on the bus and drive around the city watching monuments and attractions whizzing by, get off the bus and pile into a (formerly) quiet church, have 10 minutes to go get a coffee, get BACK on the bus…

In Cairns there was an entire industry built around booking day or half-day tours out to the reef, rather than doing an entire tour itinerary with the same group, but even then some of those groups could be over 100 people. I don’t think anyone travels thousands of miles to get crammed into a boat with 99+ strangers, but people just accept this as part of the “travel experience” and don’t realize that there’s another way.

Then my tour of the Northern Territory consisted of the tour guide, myself, and a nice Australian couple. And that’s it! That tour was fairly expensive — air conditioned vehicles and nice hotels and so forth — so it’s not the kind of thing I could do everywhere I go. When I travel again I’m going to look for that kind of option, but with more budget-style accomodations.

The trick is knowing whether you’re going to a place where you need to have an expert tour to show you around properly, or whether you can just wing it and still end up with a good experience. I admire people who randomly set off to meander around a country or region for a year, figuring they’ll find accomodations and guides as they go along. I would be nervous about doing that (but more so, it would freak my family out if they didn’t know where exactly I would be every single day!) but for the type of trip I now want to take, I may have to start planning in a more flexible way.

For right now I’ve been trying to look for tour packages and options that take care of airfare and basic transportation, and provide guides for places where they are needed, but allow for a lot of freedom and “alone time”. I haven’t really even decided on a destination yet — I’m trying to figure out if I want to do just a week or two (in which case I might go to Iceland or the Galapagos) or if I want to commit to a Big Trip (the Himalayas!)

Choices, choices.

I haven’t shown the kids many pictures from my Australia trip yet — I’m saving them up for a big assembly, with a PowerPoint, so that I can get to everyone at once, and also field everyone’s questions at once.

But just for kicks, I popped in the Ingram Island Photo CD at work to do a market test — asking kids which photos they thought were the most interesting, what topics they wanted to hear more about.

The reaction was hysterical — first everyone said that the photos of the beach reminded them of that one summer they went to Miami, or their country house — until I showed them the drum of water and said, “That was the ’sink.’” That got them! Then we flipped over to some of the video clips, which are more instructive about what it looked and felt like than I could possibly explain, and one of the boys said, “Weren’t you SCARED?”

“Well…” I began.

“You’re wearing a wetsuit!” a girl pointed out. “Why were you afraid of wearing a bathingsuit?”

(What did she think I was wearing under there?)

Then the questions ran together:
How did you know it was a turtle and not a shark?
What’s the difference between a male and female turtle? (When I said that the females had a place to have eggs and the males made sperm, one little boy piped up, “I have sperm too!”)
Who’s that driving the boat with his foot?
How did you not tip over?
etc.

And then the boy scrunched his face up and asked, “How do you even know these people? What were you even DOING there?”

Well, kid, you’ve got a crazy lady for a teacher. Next question?

This assembly is going to be something. A room full of kids that know me, some unflattering photography, and of course once one kid asks a question, they’re all off like a frog in a sock.

Edited to add: Several parents have now approached me wondering if they can look at the photos, too. I didn’t do a parent assembly last time, but if the school isn’t totally 0pposed to it, I’d be happy to babble on about the experience to anyone who is even half-listening.

The cat greets me at the door, plaintively mewing and circling my legs with its silky grey tail. I know what it wants. I proceed to the bottom right hand drawer of the pantry, precisely following the flowery handwritten directions on personalized stationary featuring my best friend’s mother in cheery cartoon form, playing golf. I have not pet-sat this cat before, but I know him well — his name is Tyler, but I have affectionately christened him Klepto after his charming habit of swiping any morsel of food from every conceivable location, including carelessly abandoned lunch bags on the kitchen counter, the microwave, and the dog’s food bowl. He is a soft, furry vacuum cleaner with whiskers, and it has not taken him long to figure out that I am the Food Lady. I scoop out a cup of dry pellets into his bowl, and sit back on the couch as he eagerly pounces on his evening meal.

But as I am pulling out my book, Tyler bounds up to the couch and inserts his head between my eyes and Chapter 14, purring fanatically and rubbing his head against the pages before sticking his nose in my face. I put the book down and pet his head, his back, his pudgy stomach, as he soaks in high pitched compliments about how he is a good cat, and a pretty cat, and a VERY pretty cat, and so on. After several luxurious minutes of star treatment, Tyler leaps off the sofa and attacks his dinner in the corridor. I chuckle and return to my chapter, but not before marveling that even a basically solitary cat who clearly thinks with his stomach chose to seek affection and touch before satiating his hunger.

Touch is powerful, not only for its ability to foster and cement relationships, but also in its transformative abilities in producing physical-emotional states. Touch can be welcoming, rebuffing, exciting (in various ways), and, frequently, calming. The most effective way to calm a crying infant is to cradle it, regardless of why it is crying. For those of us too big for cradling (at least physically) we might appreciate a firm handshake, a pat on the shoulder, a gentle hand on the back, or a hug, depending on our culture and experiences with touch, as well as our ability to handle the sensory input of physical closeness.

Not being able to handle touch can have dramatic consequences. Babies who arch their backs and stiffen when held by their parents miss out on opportunities to feel mutual closeness and love, prerequisites for learning and functioning in society. Kids who react over-dramatically to being bumped into or poked, however innocently, tend to have difficulty interpreting social cues accurately and making friends. I’ve worked with autistic children who screamed when clothing or fingertips lightly brushed their skin, but who offered their arms so that I could forcefully squeeze and compress the flesh around their elbow and wrist joints (a technique I learned from the occupational therapist). Many of them disliked the squirmy, hot hugs they received from their parents and teachers, but happily wore weighted vests that provided the same sense of deep pressure. They enjoyed the feeling, but missed out on the communicative nature of touch, the aliveness of it. I was always searching for ways to connect with these children who were so sequestered in their own private sensory worlds, and if I could just find the touch they would tolerate, it would often become the bridge.

So perhaps it was not surprising when my Ingram Island identity emerged to revolve around touch — in this case, the way I handled the turtles. By the end of Day 3, the other volunteers had begun to call me the Turtle Whisperer.

For several days into our sojourn on the island (people always picture Survivor when I say “on the island”) I was still reeling from the many new and anxiety-provoking aspects of daily life and work with the turtles. To this point, I’d successfully survived a rocky and seasickness-inducing boat ride, several hours of unloading heavy cargo without dropping it into the ocean or on vulnerably exposed extremities, and using the Coral Sea as my own private (I hoped) bathroom without falling into the ocean, which I can safely say is the largest toilet I will ever use. I’d constructed my sarcophagus-with-a-convenient-side-zipper of a tent and planted it, more or less, in a suitable location. I’d even cajoled, massaged, pushed and eventually jammed my body into the confines of a borrowed wetsuit that would protect my legs from errant turtle flippers and beaks, as well as provide a buffer against coldness and salt spray, both of which I managed to enjoy copious amounts anyway.

As we zipped around the reefs on hardy metal catch-boats, I perched rigidly on the bench in the back, gripping the sides as we careened between outcroppings of coral and beach rock, and sideswiped waves. I told myself, rather unconvincingly, that Ian was the more careful of the drivers (or as Sam would put it — Turtle 2 was the slower and wimpier boat!) and therefore I did not need to worry. I was too disoriented to recognize the few stray landmarks surrounding us — lumpy Coombe Island and its outstretched reef flat, skinny, furry-looking Beanley Island (the fur, upon closer examination, turned out to be a dense forest of mangroves) and rocky, stubbly Ingram Island itself, framed by the hazy distant mountains of the Australian coast. The view was better standing up front, feet firmly dug into the seat cushion as I squinted aimlessly through the churning blue-green water for turtles, but I was unpracticed in the art of telling turtles and rocks apart (turtles move, rocks don’t) and my attention was rather absorbed by clinging on for dear life, besides.

My ability to function helpfully was little better on solid ground. During the unpacking process, I lifted and heaved and carried plastic bins and nudged water drums ineffectually with my shoulders, then wandered abashedly on the outskirts of the marquee tent as people who knew what they were doing fiddled with tent poles and ropes and stakes. Then I tackled a far more domestic project — cleaning the refridgerator. I delved into my role with gusto, girlishly exclaiming at the filth and calling for a better scrubber and bleach. (Vicious mutated flesh-eating cold storage microbes: 0, Lisa: Billions!) I washed dishes and cups, too, relieved to be doing something that probably wouldn’t kill anyone if I got it wrong somehow (at least not right away). Still, I was desperate to excel at a task that did not involve cleaning or especially cooking, as I was barely domestic enough to boil water and heat something in the microwave at the same time.

So when our day’s catches lay flopped on their backs on the sand, ready for processing, I was eager to get started. I had volunteered on a turtle project two years prior, and knew my way around a tape measure and clipboard. I even correctly anticipated what occurred as soon as we approached the animals — sheets of delicate coral sand flying into our faces and clothes, churned up by the powerful flippers of turtles trying unsuccessfully to turn themselves over. I had weathered many turtle-generated sandstorms on St. Croix, mostly while trying to cling to the back flippers of 800 pound leatherbacks long enough to read their rusty metal tags by faint red flashlight. These turtles, a mixture of hawksbills and greens, were much smaller, and were more likely to give you a nasty scratch with their flipper than to break your bone with it. Still, scratches were highly unwelcome, considering that the group had already used up its entire injury quota on Ian’s toes, and it was quite difficult for skin to heal with continuous exposure to salt water.

So Travis stepped forward and pressed down firmly on one turtle’s neck, quieting it instantly the way Ian had told us (”Just press down on its neck like this… oh, and it works on me too, when I get agitated.”) Its flippers sank back down toward the sand, and its head drooped. The turtle had gone into a classic yoga rest pose. Travis stepped back, his mission accomplished, and wandered off to assist in setting up the other equipment. Over the course of two weeks working together, we developed a highly efficient turtle processing center on the sand, with several volunteers wielding tape measures and calipers, another two manning clipboards, one or two people strapping turtles into the harness or rope to be lifted and weighed, and finally the open-air laparoscopic unit (more on that later). With ten people fluttering around, kneeling beside turtles and shouting out complicated alphanumeric codes to the clipboard holders — CCW! CCL! Plastron to vent! 18.4! — things could become quite uncomfortable if the turtles suddenly realized that no, they were not quite IN the ocean where they belonged, and began to flap. Plus, without anthropomorphizing the creatures too much, it was certainly possible that their health could be adversely affected if they felt stress, and by getting them to calm down, we were minimizing any damage that being a research subject might cause.

Not long after Travis calmed the first turtle did another raise up its head and furiously beat its flippers against the sand. Aside from new hatchlings, who are downright acrobatic, turtles cannot flip themselves over once they are on their backs. Their flippers and tail dangle from their shell and can only flail about ineffectually, a fact taken advantage of by turtle hunters and poachers, who might leave the turtles lying on their backs for days at a time. (We only kept our turtles on the beach for a few hours, at the most.) Noticing the frenetic movements of the turtle, I stepped forward to attempt the turtle Vulcan neck press. I took the palm of my hand and pressed down on the turtle’s wide, wrinkly neck, and watched with delight as the turtle’s head dropped back and its large glassy eyes began to close. It had really worked!
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One adjustment about the school year is waking up when it’s dark outside. This summer, being outdoors so much and especially camping, I was waking up either with the sun or just as the sky was preparing for sunrise. The world and I started the day together.

The sky above Ingram Island was so clear (except for when it rained, of course) that you could see every star. I didn’t recognize any of the constellations, not having ever been below the equator before, but it was quite beautiful nonetheless. There was the entire Milky Way, and other galaxies as well. We were probably seeing stars that have long burnt out by now, whose light took that long to reach us. There were a few mornings that I was up before sunrise, having to wander down to the seaside bathing facilities, and I believe I saw the constellations of the Northern Hemisphere, just upside down.

When you do not have most trappings of civilization buffering you from the natural rhythms of things, you must adjust to whatever is there. We didn’t try to stay awake long past sunset. We were all up early, as the sun came up, even if we didn’t have anything scheduled for that morning. And we didn’t go anywhere without knowing exactly where the tide levels were and how long they would be there. I remember the frustration of the weather and tides not being quite right, on some days, but there was never any pretension that we could “fix it” or change it. We just had to adapt.

Somehow, among the comforts of modern life, we’ve forgotten that our natural place in the world is to live and adapt within it, not to fix it or change it beyond recognition. The world is perfectly capable of radically changing on its own, through volcanoes and ice ages and so forth, but we’re almost guaranteed not to like the results (not that it cares), especially if it causes devastation and destruction to human communities, as in NOLA recently. I try to have a broad perspective and realize that the impulse to conserve and freeze everything in place can be taken to an unhealthy extreme — nature doesn’t stop evolving and changing just because we’ve gotten used to the way it is now — but it’s easy to see how any natural disaster on top of gradual changes, when an environment is already stressed to the limit, can lead to full-on catastrophe.

I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know it’s not what we’re doing right now. We need people in power who aren’t fooled into thinking that the environment has nothing to do with business or other aspects of daily modern life. Because clearly, it has everything to do with it. When it is quiet and in a stable period, it allows us our illusions that we are in control and that what we are building will last.

The sun is up. That means it’s time to go start my day.

tags: nature, environment

You know, ever since I left Ingram Island, I’ve been hearing voices. Actually, it’s just one voice. It echoes in my head at odd moments, often when I least expect it. Sometimes I have to completely stop what I’m doing and just listen, incredulous, to this voice berating me about… coins, perhaps. Or fruitcake. American sports. Americans in general.

(man do we need some theme music!)

In these difficult times, when fear and despair seek to oppress the spirit of humankind, there are still those heroes among us willing to risk personal health and happiness for the greater good of all Australians everywhere. And not a moment too soon, for a new and heartless enemy has gathered its full strength to strike, and strike hard. This powerful foe invades under the cover of lies and deceit, with fast food and strip malls, with bad pop music and worse pronunciation…

Even when all hope seems to be lost, one hero stands tall against the infiltrators! Whenever the peace and harmony of the planet Earth is threatened by the fiendish race of Yanks, determined to impose their foolish ways upon innocents abroad, only one man can turn the tide of cultural combat against the forces of backwardness… Austra-Man!!

Setting: A quiet morning on a picturesque island, somewhere in Far North Queensland, where an innocent young Australian prepares for another balmy liquid-sunshiney day chasing hawkies on the GBR…

Travis: Hey Rik, how ya goin?

Evil Yank (played by Rik): Ha ha! I shall now attempt to confuse this innocent Australian with my fiendish American obsession with upside down light switches!

Travis: Loight switches?

Evil Yank: That’s right! Do you know how many innocent tourists have met their untimely end because your electricians fiendishly switched all light switches to flip backwards, thus causing hotel guests to stumble and fall and hurt themselves from lack of illumination?

Travis: You know, I never thought about it that way…

Austra-Man: Not so fast, Evil Yank!

Everyone: Austra-Man!

Austra-Man: The same! Now I’m aware of your scheming, you American, trying to convince US that WE’RE doing it wrong… You’re all alike, you Yanks! You do everything wrong! You drive on the wrong side of the road! You don’t know your donkeys from your bottoms!

Evil Yank: That isn’t true! Just because we pronounce a certain slang word for donkey the same as we pronounce a very similar slang word for bottoms…

Ian: What is this American obsession with bottoms?

Evil Yank: Curse you, Austra-Man! You have foiled my plan. But I shall return!

Later that day….

Austra-Man: (driving Turtle 4 with his foot while leaning halfway over the side of the boat to peer under the surface of Coombe Reef for a speeding turtle) Now you’re sure you want to try this, Yank?

Evil Yank: (balanced precariously on the bow of Turtle 4, clutching a rope, with a helmet jammed on his head) Of course! Just because I’m American doesn’t make me completely useless!

Austra-Man: It doesn’t?

Gresham: (pointing to a distant turtle somewhere between the boat and Mid Reef, several miles away) YEAH, THAT’S ‘IM!!

Austra-Man: (grinning slyly while maneuvering the boat around rocks and shifting waves) OK, wait… Wait… Go!!!

Evil Yank: Sam, that’s a shark!

Austra-Man: So? Jump! You can take him!

Evil Yank: No! You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?

Austra-Man: Every chance I get! (steers the boat towards a large accumulation of coral) There’s one! Get ‘im!

Evil Yank: That’s a bommie!

Austra-Man: You’re not scared of coral, are you?? You Yanks are completely soft!

Evil Yank: It’s not going to work! You can’t get rid of me that easily!

Austra-Man: (chuckling softly)

The next day, Austra-Man and his crack team of turtle catchers are scouring the shallow waters of Beanley Island for juvenile green turtles when they spot a red-helmeted, wetsuit-clad figure waving to them from several feet meters away …

Another Hapless American: (played by Lisa) Hey, that’s Rik! What’s he doing standing around in the water? Turtle 2 didn’t just leave him there, did they?

Meg: No, there they are… They must have caught two turtles at once! Seems like they’re going to be busy for a while.

Austra-Man: OK, we’re going to drive right past him without stopping. Lisa, don’t laugh!

Lisa: (laughing) Okay!

Austra-Man: Shhh!

Evil Yank: (catapulting the turtle over the side of the boat and climbing aboard) Oh no you don’t. I’m coming in! (to himself) Now to continue with my evil plans! Say… I could try driving the boat for a bit, Sam, so you can have a chance to jump!

Lisa: I could try jumping! Hey look, there’s one! Think I could get it?

Austra-Man: Well, it’s missing a flipper and floating aimlessly in about two feet of extremely calm water… so um, well… never mind that, just get up here and jump!

Lisa: Really? Are you sure? Now?

Gresham: Yes, now!

Lisa: How about now? Should I really jump?

Everyone: Yes!!

Lisa: Now? (gets pushed off the front of the boat by Gresham as the boat is driven directly towards her)

Austra-Man: Hey! I’m the only boat driver allowed to kill anyone! (jumps off the front and nudges Turtle 4 to the side)

Lisa: (emerging, totally oblivious) I got it! Meg, take my picture!

Austra-Man: Typical…

Meg: Turtle 2! I’ll be safe there! (defects)

Evil Yank: Drat! My plan to discredit Austra-Man and his Austra-Powers has been foiled again!

Austra-Man: You’ll never win, Evil Yank! I have the power of the $2 coin on my side! And I measure my degrees in Celsius like the rest of the world! I don’t wear silly looking shoes on the beach at night!

Lisa: You mean his sneakers?

Austra-Man: (pouncing) Sneeeeeeeakers? What in the world do you mean by sneeeeeeeakers?

Lisa: (jumps off the boat)

Evil Yank: Now look what you’ve done! You’ve driven her to –

Lisa: (emerges with another sad looking special needs turtle)

Evil Yank: — never mind.

Gresham: I barely even had to push her that time!

Evil Yank: It was the power of the Turtle Whisperer!

(the radio crackles on — some American lady on board a shipping vessel would like to report that she is currently passing by… an island!)

Austra-Man: An island??? On the Great Barrier Reef? I hope they’re going to be all right! We should monitor their progress and be prepared to intervene! Good thing we are in Turtle 4, the far superior of the two catch boats in every respect! Now where was I? Oh yes! You Yanks! You probably eat peanut butter and jelly together, don’t you? Disgusting! No wonder your footie players wear so much bloody padding and don’t even use the proper rules! No wonder you have to have a World Series with only Yank players in it!…

Evil Yank: That’s OK. You play cricket!

Austra-Man: That’s right! A game far too challenging to the intellect for an American to understand!

Lisa: Sorry to interrupt, but do you think our readers have the general idea now?

Austra-Man: You might want to keep it going for a bit, so any Yanks with an attention span long enough to read this can begin to get the point.

Evil Yank: They’d have gotten it already if you didn’t pronounce the English language weird! You never say the letter R!

Austra-Man: You never say the letter H!

Lisa: No really, I think they get the picture.

Austra-Man: Fine. Just know this: that whenever Australian culture and language is threatened by evil Yank fiends, Austra-Man will be there!

tags: Australia, Great Barrier Reef, superheroes