“The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.”

Henry Jaglom says Orson Welles told him this over lunch one day. He explained that creativity comes from having to figure out how to do something, with an example being that you don’t have a million dollars to blow up a bridge (for a film) so you have to find another way to get the effect you want.

My friend Martha wrote about limits, and a rediscovered old friend Margie quoted her brother about limits in her book “More Than Meets the Eye: Exploring Nature and Loss on the Coast of Maine”. Her brother had ALS and was about to start using a ventilator. He compared it to SCUBA diving: “You need a lot of cumbersome equipment to dive, but it’s worth the view you get from deep in the ocean. I feel the same way about a ventilator – it will be cumbersome but worth the view.”

As a (former) diver, I could relate. I didn’t like the limitation of holding my breath to snorkel when I was in water where all the action was 30 feet down. The limit of being able to breathe for only 45 minutes was freedom, not a limit. While I felt weighted down on land (the lead weights on my belt had something to do with that), I was weightless in the water. It was pretty hard to walk in fins, but they sure came in handy down there.

Likewise, we often speak of someone “confined to a wheelchair”. The alternative is often “confined to a bed”, but we tend not to see it that way. In this case, “confined” refers to a past that is no longer here. The wheelchair provides freedom (from the bed) and mobility. It also grounds us in the here and now, not an inaccessible past. While it may be a relative limit (compared to walking, which is not an option when paralyzed), it is an actual freedom. We could say that our inability to fly is a limitation, but since we never could fly we tend not to see it that way. When the day comes that I can no longer ride a bike, will I remember and experience this truth, or only experience the loss?

A limit also gives you the freedom to explore within that limit. Is it a limit, or a framework? We live with gravity and friction every day. That limits us from the ability to fly or to travel at infinite speed. Then again, would we have any of our current sports without those two “limits”?

“Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.”- “Squire Bill” Widener 1840-1920

Or as Si Kahn sang:

Also see previous post re: Django Reinhardt. Django had no use of the ring finger and small finger of his left hand. You wouldn’t know it to hear him play the guitar.

What would SCUBA do?

Bicycle is to car as SCUBA is to snorkel.

In a car I can see the world through a windshield, as though watching it on TV as I zoom through it. On a bike I can be in and of that world.

I will never forget my first snorkeling experience. I was on the island of San Andrés (a Colombian territory off the coast of Nicaragua) at a place called “La Piscina Natural” (The Natural Swimming Pool). The bottom was about 30 feet below, and that’s where the action was. Floating on the surface, looking down through my mask, was watching another world. For the brief moments I could stay that deep on a breath of air, it was being in another world. I spent an afternoon going up and down. I knew I had to find a way into that world.

Jacques Cousteau (the co-inventor of the AquaLung, the means of getting into that world) said “the best way to observe a fish is to become a fish” (National Geographic, 1952). I knew I had to become a fish.

Several years later I was preparing for a trip to Australia to visit an old friend – the friend with whom I had gone to Colombia, though he hadn’t joined me for the underwater portion of the journey. Another friend said “You’re going to dive the Great Barrier Reef, right?” I said I didn’t know how to dive. She reminded me I had plenty of time to learn, so I found a PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) 5 star diving school and got certified. As part of our introductions, the instructor asked each of us why we were learning to dive. His response to me was “I hate you.” Twenty years of diving and he had never seen the Great Barrier Reef. It was going to be my first dive destination. He reminded me of my awesome responsibility. It was in that reef that I was introduced to my favorite life form – the nudibranch.

coralrealm.com

nhm.ac.uk

istockphoto.com

wikipedia

underwaterclicks.com

A tiny sample of the infinite variety of nudibranch

Now I knew I was in another world. After diving in a different part of the reef every day for a week, I went on to see a few more places in Australia before a stopover in Fiji on the way home. In Australia, we were on a dive boat with a divemaster who told us what to expect at each spot. In Fiji we were in a tiny aluminum fishing boat whose driver just asked, “How deep do you want to dive?” When we reached our spot, he merely tossed the anchor over the side and looked at us. We were on our own. We were parked at a wall which started about 8 feet below us and dropped to a sandy bottom 60 feet down.

We went over the side. As I descended the wall, I was Alice going down the rabbit hole.

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled “ORANGE MARMALADE”, but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.

From Chapter 1, “Down the Rabbit Hole” in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

I made my way slowly down the wall, noting little plants and animals in niches on the way, noting the changes in flora and fauna as I went deeper. We checked out the world at the bottom, then slowly made our way back up another section of wall.

For our second dive we were taken to a canyon. Imagine that, instead of standing at the top of a canyon, or climbing to the bottom, you could fly through it, going up or down at will. That is the experience of an underwater canyon and SCUBA – the gift of flight.

In SCUBA you seek a state of neutral buoyancy – neither heavier nor lighter than the atmosphere that surrounds you. Take a deep breath and you rise subtly. Exhale and you descend. You are floating, weightless. You are in another world. As Cousteau said, you have “become a fish.”

And that is why I rode a bike across the country. And why I continue to ride. After seeing another world, I became more appreciative of this one. I ride to be in and of the world, not just passing through it. (10)

Jekyll and Hyde

It was another Jekyll and Hyde day. Fast and easy in the morning, a slog in the afternoon.

We spent the night at the Rapid City Fairgrounds (camped outside the Fine Arts Building). They turn their dead trees into sculptures. Here are two of them and a candidate for future work.

There was a Rotary Club picnic nestled between the two halves of our campsite. I chatted with some Rotarians – the first group were fascinated and amazed by us – then I found the storytellers.

I talked with two divers – one headed for Palau, and another who may not still be diving but was full of stories. He has lived all over the country and in Australia (Navy) and told of his near-death experience diving at the wrong time of year in Haunama Bay on Oahu.

This gives me a handy excuse to link to Jake Shimabukuro:

Since the ukulele is currently popular, you owe it to yourself to hear someone really play it. Jake will be on the West Coast this month, then the East Coast. On September 24 he’ll be at the Overture Center in Madison, WI (per the Overture Center) or at the Capitol Theatre in Davenport, Iowa (per his website).

We left Rapid City on an expressway with fast commuter (?) traffic. I wasted no time getting out of town, riding at a steady 24 mph until I was past the airport, then backed off a bit.

We rode through the Buffalo Gap National Grassland (the name appears ironic, as it was mostly barren) and skirted the Badlands. We’ll see more of the Badlands tomorrow.

The first photo is sort of a “mini-badland”. That flat-topped area in the foreground is less than 10 feet tall. The second photo is up close and personal with a wall next to the highway.

It was a fast morning, cool and cloudy, with favorable winds. After our picnic (they don’t like to call it lunch – today it was at 9:30 AM) stop in Scenic, SD, everything changed.

We faced a 20 mph headwind and blazing sun for the next 30 miles into Interior, SD. We’re now ensconced in a campground at the edge of town – with a population of 67, pretty much everything is the “edge of town”.

The campground has a store, so I had a bottled (Dunkin’ Donuts) latte on arrival and a “Knuckle Head Red” (from the Knuckle Brewing Company in Sturgis) after setting up camp and taking a shower. (Truth be told, I’m drinking it now.)

It rained overnight in Rapid City, so I had to dry stuff out before setting up camp – being windy has its benefits.

This last photo will probably be appreciated only by plumbers. It is the urinal in the campground. In the space of a few inches it includes iron pipe, copper tubing, and a brass fitting. The flush valve is a valve from a bubbler (drinking fountain to you foreigners). It is not particularly straight. I chose not to replumb it;)

The sky is slowly filling with clouds. More rain may be on the way.

I take it back – rain isn’t “on the way”. While proofreading this, rain appeared suddenly. I ran to put the rainfly on the tent and stash everything that was out to dry inside before it got wetter. I took my laundry down and then realized that the tin-roofed shelter I’m under is full of holes.

Just as suddenly, the rain has stopped. I’ll rehang the laundry, but I think everything else will stay in the tent.