Rota

I went for a run along the ocean this morning. The beach in Rota has fine sand and I took my shoes off to run barefoot in the surf.  It was dark when I began but the sun was rising when I finished, reflecting pink and quicksilver off the water. I waded deep into the ocean then, hiking my shorts up to the underwear-line to keep them dry, but a large wave pummeled me and drenched nearly everything. Already wet, I thought about going in: swimming out to sea. It would be relaxing, I thought. But it is still too tempting for me to swim out and not return.  Even today, the idea tugs at the corners of my mind.
 

I asked god about you. I am not a holy person and my prayers have more than their fair share of profanity. But I calculate that god is more offended by personal dishonesty and hypocrisy and cruelty than my prolific fucks and damns.  It will come as no surprise to you that there were quite a few fucks and damns in my prayer for and about you!

Years ago, in my first time in St. Peter’s in Rome, I found myself in a chapel with obscenely ornate gold seraphim flanking an elaborate altar. I knelt with the penitents and tried to be respectful of their silence. Suddenly, without meaning to, I found myself saying words I had not intended to pray: “I give you the fire of my mind.” The prayer was so fierce and unexpected that I jumped up right away, embarrassed, and walked briskly from the room so that people would not stare. As I think about my passion, my insatiable intellectual curiosity, my drive for truth, and need for justice and compassion in equal measure, I wonder whether god took seriously my words and has stoked this fire even though we’ve never talked about it since and I have so little faith or belief in deity. The thought gives me comfort, though, and makes me feel that my actions and drive could, at some point, have some sort of purpose and resolution. It is important to feel a sense of purpose when all hope for personal happiness has fled. People tell me that I’m a workaholic but I do not attach a negative connotation to this concept. At the very least, it was the fire of my mind that kept me alive when my sorrow would have drowned me in the ocean of Cape Verde that day in August last year and every day since when I feel the hole in my soul and I wish to be finished.

“What is the purpose of this pain?” I asked god. The pain is a constant thing with me, and becomes stronger in the afterglow of a particularly notable professional accomplishment because I cannot share my victory with the man who loved me, and who would be happy for me. Because I have the knowledge that this professional win is the only type of joy I will ever know and it seems so inadequate compared to what I had when I was with you. Then, I felt your soul; I felt truly happy; I thought I would have a lifetime to learn you; I thought we would share our days and nights and help one another become our highest and best selves; I taught myself Dutch so I could talk to your kids and I thought that we would raise children together. “Is there a reason why I haven’t been able to excise this pain from body and soul?” I asked god. “Is the purpose of pain to smooth off the sharp edges?” But then I laughed because that seemed wrong. “I think you like my edges,” I shouted to god and the ocean. “I think you like my sharp edges!”

 Somehow, I felt that this was true. The tougher I become, the more capable and angular and able to fight bullshit and lies, I have the sense that the god I was raised to believe in, the weak and shaming god who wanted blind followers, was the lie all along. When I sense there might be a god, I feel more kinship with the Jesus who kicked down the money-changers stalls in the temple days before his crucifixion.

During this last week, I met with fourteen naval officers from all over the world for ten hours each day. I taught them critical thinking. I taught them research methods. I gave them data; showed them how to conduct qualitative and quantitative analysis. They each conducted a research project and I struggled to make sure that they each understood and could do it on their own: question; hypothesis; study design; data collection; analysis; conclusion; assessment.  I have never been a good instructor but I need them to know how to do this. I’m convinced it’s the only way anything will ever change in Africa. People have to be able to self-examine and check where they are.  This program is my program. My idea. The Command supports it and now I’m executing it. Sent to Spain on my own to execute my own program. In retrospect it was a pretty neat deal. And exciting to have my program underway.

I had the weekend free. I had work to do but I saved it for Sunday and I left Rota on Saturday. I set the GPS and drove to Seville. Sjors, it was wonderful! What a tremendously beautiful city! I can’t honestly tell you all the reasons I was charmed, but it made me ache inside with how wonderful it is. I didn’t have time to see everything – so I picked the Cathedral and saw Columbus’ tomb and the art on the gothic walls. There is an orange grove in the church courtyard, and clever brickwork pavement designed to channel rainwater to the trees. A stone well burbled fresh water and I washed my dusty feet and hands in it.

Afterwards, I went to the bullfighting stadium and learned that the sport had originally been developed to train soldiers to fight unpredictable and dangerous enemies. They fought the bulls on horseback. The matadors were the “assistants” on the ground, much like the modern rodeo clowns (If you haven’t seen a rodeo, I recommend it. It’s quite the cultural experience). When they make the death strike, it is with a sword through the spinal column and cleanly into the heart.  I learned that bullfighters feel that the only noble death is a reciprocal death in the ring. So many fighters are gored and trampled by the bulls. Men will continue bullfighting well into their seventies rather than risk dying in their beds. In a strange way, I feel I understand this. It is not the worst death I can think of.
 

In my wanderings, I met up with some French and British tourists. We had tapas and drinks together and then found a club with authentic Spanish guitar and Flamenco dancing. The dancer was so intense, her face full of passion and pain. I know it was theatrics and not real, but I wonder if every woman has some sense of what it is to feel like this.