Linda Collison's Blog, page 2
July 21, 2024
Amazon River Cruise 1999; continued
Monday; February 22, 1999
Good morning Amazonia!
Up at six to go bird watching in the skiff on a tributary. It is a good day; we spot many birds and other wildlife as our eyes become accustomed to what we want them to look for. Bob spies a sloth. The biker dude spots an iguana, up in a tree with a vulture, next to a tree full of weaver nests.
We land and walk through a village. Children, rather serious, return my smile, a bit reluctantly. No begging in this village and no bartering — except for one woman who furtively offers to sell me a blow gun. She pantomimes the action of blowing through the gun. (I regretted not buying it — but I would soon have another chance…)
The people seem well nourished. Healthy. The children have good teeth but some of the mothers and fathers do not. I don’t see any old people, none at all.
The houses have no furniture, not even beds. A man uses an ax to cut wood to make a giant roasting pan for the farina cereal.
Man making a roasting pan
We watch another man roasting farina over a low, smokeless fire. He stirs it continually with a paddle.
Nearby, a woman washes dishes in the river; another washes clothes.
Bony dogs wander around, biting the fleas and sores on their hides. Pigs root, chickens scratch, goats sleep in the shade beneath the shacks. Burned posts are the remainders of a hut that burned down when children tipped over the kerosene lantern one night.
The stamens of purple flowers litter the ground, a lilac dust. Two children wrap their arms around one another and walk the path with us.
There are no televisions, no electricity in this particular village. There is a school house but none of the children are in school.
Someone has killed an anaconda. The group passes it around and poses for pictures. The snake looks slimy in death and drools spittle from its mouth.
A woman asks for aspirin and I give her ten tablets. Tell her in English and sign language “2 every 4 hours”. Wondering if I have contributed to someone’s comfort or taken away something. It is fatuous of me to suppose either way. Someone asked for modern pain relief, I gave it. Don’t fancy yourself Florence Nightingale or Satan, either way. Still, the old days of nursing makes me want to give written discharge instructions, properly translated.
We come back to the boat and have breakfast, then siesta. In the afternoon Bob and I go swimming in the black waters of this Amazon tributary where gray and pink dolphins roam. (Few piranhas in this part of the river, this time of year we are told, and dive in trustingly) The water is cool and clean, very refreshing. The current is amazingly strong.
Bob diving off the Arca
The river is everywhere, it is endless, it is for some people the world’s highway, it has become ours for the week. It is everywhere, it leads wherever you might want to go. Exciting, abundant, ever-changing…
A night excursion in the skiff to Caballo Cabocha (Horse Lake) which maybe should be called Dolphin Lake, they are swimming all around us as the sun sets and the light plays on the clouds and on the dark water.
We go across the large lake and up a tributary, passing the last of the dwellings and canoes of families paddling to town. The air now is cool, the moon is sliced in half and Bob points out Venus and Jupiter, close to convergence.
The sound of frogs grows, a pleasant clacking sound. (Are they the poison-dart frogs, I wonder?) The tributary narrows, becomes tighter, choked with weeds, water plants, overhanging trees. It is a Heart of Darkness setting and still we go further, deeper. Suddenly bats, everywhere bats, diving, darting, squeaking. On we go.
We shine the lights for caiman, going deeper and deeper. I am enjoying the ride like a kid in the car at night with the windows down.
Lightning bugs! Fireflies! Not so many as back East, but there they are. We are now making our way back and I’m amazed the “boat driver” doesn’t get lost.
Then Roger spies a caiman! Victor and Secundo try to catch it but it is very big and they let it slip away. Roger spies another one and this one the guys catch — a small Black, perhaps 3 feet long. The Black caiman is more rare and more fierce, we’re told, than other species. We pass it around and I take a picture of Bob holding it, I can see it breathing, or swallowing, its throat goes in and out. After we nearly blind it with flash bulbs popping, we release it and go on — and catch another one — a different species, a Spectacled caiman, smaller and more common.
Bob holding the little Black Caiman
After a satisfying dinner we have a stimulating discussion which becomes a bit heated. It revolves around genetics. People get emotional. People are fearful and subjective and want to simplify complex issues. Some of the nicest people have the weirdest ideas!
To be continued…
copyright Linda Collison 1999, 2024
July 20, 2024
Amazon River Cruise 1999
M/V Arca on the Amazon River
Notes from the Amazon River Cruisewith Explorations, Inc.From my logbook as written on Saturday, February 20, 1999:Miami to Iquitos, Peru, in just 4 1/2 hours. From the Fontainbleu to the upper Amazon, just like that. The adventure begins
Roger Harris – English speaking guide
Victor – Peruvian guide
Secundo – Peruvian guide
The first thing I noticed deboarding the plane was the smell of smoke in the thick, moist air. The smoke from fires far away, a primitive smell, the smell of human life at a simpler level.
Driving through Iquitos on our way to the boat (a river boat named Arco) and I am remembering the time 12 years ago we went to Brazil; the dark streets filled with people, dim, yellow lights, the cantinas, the blue lights of televisions in rude homes where half the neighborhood has gathered to watch, women sitting on chairs outside in the dark, talking maybe, or just listening… People everywhere, not like wealthy American neighborhoods where you never see anyone. It’s mysterious, yet familiar somehow. It’s exciting, basic, simple, human. And thick in the air, the smell of smoke.
SundayFirst morning – Bird watching before breakfast
Secundo hears the birds, identifies them from the symphony of sounds around us. Yellow-rumped cacique white earred jacamar, cormorant, blue and gray tanager, herons, parrots, a three-toed male sloth in a cecropia tree — I have to give up writing them all down – the birds – so many I can’t keep up, they blue in my ears.
“Macaws and parrots always fly in pairs…”
Visited a village next to Pebas, a village of Bora peoples. So very very different — almost like visiting another planet.
Children choose their protectors, their “amigos, amigas,” grasp your hand and and give you a shy, yet open smile. Later, my amigo Edward, asks me for a dollar for taking his picture, the little capitalist…
(Where are you now, Edward, 25 years later?)
This is real, this is what it is, this is the Amazon. Not a set, not a re-creation. We watch a tribal dance, several of them, complete with bare breasted women and men pounding sticks on the hard packed clay floor.
Bora
Bob, invited to dance
A good lunch of catfish in a sort of spicy cream sauce over rice. The food is good and I hope I’ll lose a few pounds because it is not very fattening and there are no snacks or desserts. After siesta we take a rain forest walk and see many of the things we’ve been reading about. Leaf cutter ants, most wondrous, and the belligerent bullet ants, an inch long.
Sunset on the river, we’re underway on a cool evening breeze. The air is filled with the sound of parakeets, quite a racket; they fly about in great swarms, preparing to roost for the night.
Continued…
copyright Linda Collison 1999, 2024
April 27, 2024
Paradise; On the Edge and Slipping…
Our good friend Brendan McHugh took this photo of Bob and I standing on Topaz’s bow at Honolulu’s Ala Wai Boat Harbor, some years ago. You can see the mooring lines holding us to the pier — 800-row — out by the lava rock breakwater. This is easily one of the most stunning views any harbor can offer. And its not only the view — sailors’ pubs, yacht clubs, swim beaches, shopping malls and restaurants are close at hand. By the looks of our smiling faces we’re in heaven!
But harbors are more than parking lots for boats. They’re diverse neighborhoods. The people who live and work there aren’t all rich yacht owners — in fact, many are living hand-to-mouth and doing all they can to keep their home afloat. Hawaii’s harbors may be Fiddler’s Green for some lucky sailors, but they can be an elusive paradise.
In writing the Topaz Chronicles, a sailing memoir to be published later this year, I came across a short story I wrote in 2009. Set in Honolulu’s Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor; it concerns a man, a former sailor and surfer, who is down on his luck — until he is fortunate to be in the right place at the right time.
“Paradise; On the Edge and Slipping” was inspired by real people we knew during our Ala Wai years, and real incidents. You might call it a fleeting fictional memoir…
Honolulu Magazine gave “Paradise; On the Edge and Slipping“ a “Runner-Up” award (one of five) in its 22nd Annual Fiction Contest (March; 2010). The story was not published at that time.
“Paradise; On the Edge and Slipping…” is now available on Amazon Kindle as a single short story. From Yours, truly.
March 11, 2024
Is Annabel Jane Austen’s Sister?
Readers in the U.S. can follow the progress on Kindle-Vella
Episode#1 is up! The first 10 episodes will be free to read on your computer, tablet, or smart phone.
Follow this episodic story in progress…
(Will the Janeites be furious?)
27 December 1796
Dearest Jane,
Please understand (and forgive) and understand my need to write on this page of your notebook, but it was most urgent. Mother has just now, without warning, sent me packing, back to the village to live with the Littleworths. No doubt she has her justifications, but rest assured I did nothing to deserve this treatment. I do not intend to remain in Deane, there is nothing in that cheerless clutter of hovels for me. I will write you from Portsmouth once I have acquired a position. Perhaps you can use this in your story, it would be comforting to know my misfortune might be of literary value.
Yours very affectionately,
AA
Follow along on Amazon’s Kindle-Vella: Lost Letters of Annabel Austen by Linda Collison
January 21, 2024
Independent booksellers and Librarians
November 11, 2023
There There, a novel by Tommy Orange
In his novel, There There, Tommy Orange pieces together patchwork narratives of twelve Native Americans as they prepare to attend the Oakland Powwow. Oakland is important as a setting, signifying the aftermath of the Urban Relocation Program of mid-twentieth century, a federal program encouraging Native Americans to move off the reservations and into cities to assimilate and reinvent themselves. The twelve contemporary, “urban Indians” in the novel are all struggling with various personal issues, but they are all trying to discover who they are and where they came from. They are searching not only for their individuality, but for their collective identity. They are looking for their greater family, their tribe.
Some of the characters are dealing with drug and alcohol dependency — not only their own, but their mothers’. Some are trying to prove their manhood, or just survive on the streets. Some of them are searching for their father. Orphaned from their past, their culture, their original land, they are trying to discover what it means to be Indian, in 21st century Oakland. Here, now.
“There is no there there,” wrote Gertrude Stein, speaking of her childhood home in Oakland. The quotation itself expresses a disenfranchisement of Place, a nowhere, an erased past.Author Tommy Orange pays ironic homage to Stein and other American writers throughout the story. For example, the quote from African American writer, James Baldwin, introducing part III. “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them” (pg. 157). Including these quotes helps non-Indian readers relate to the disconnection of time, place, and tribe his characters have experienced and are continuing to experience.
Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield is the oldest of the characters. She is a grandmother in the Indian way — that is, she raised her sister’s biological grandchildren. Opal herself, grew up on the edge of poverty with here Indian mother and half-sister Jacquie Redfeather, in East Oakland. She knew her Indian past. “Our mom told us she was a medicine woman and renowned singer of spiritual songs, so I was supposed to carry that big old name around with honor (46). Opal’s mother told her that they should never not tell their stories, and that no one is too young to hear. “We’re all here because of a lie. They’ve been lying to us since they came. They’re lying to us now” (57). Opal, like her mother, is a strong force, loyal to her family. Opal knows her grandsons are afraid of her, as she was always afraid of her mom. “It’s to prepare them for a world made for Native people not to live but to die in, shrink, disappear.” Opal pushes them because “it will take more for them to succeed than someone who is not Native” (165).
Opal doesn’t indulge herself in expressing her inner “Indian.” She is embittered from memories of her own past, and too busy supporting her extended family, keeping them alive and provided for. Ironically, she works for the U.S. government, delivering the mail. Having lived through the Alcatraz occupation, she seems to have given up hope for a real Indian revival. She has not lost her tribal roots but she isn’t doing much to pass them on. Whay she does pass on, perhaps, is her strength and tenacity.
Like the author himself, Edwin (Ed) Black is a writer and a scholar. He earned a master’s degree in comparative literature with a focus on Native American literature, “all without knowing my tribe” (72). With a wry sense of depreciation, he describes himself as a fat, out-of-shape, constipated, unemployed loser, addicted to the internet, where he admits to trying, unsuccessfully, to recreate himself. Despite his education, Ed is unemployed and lives with his mother. Although he has studied Native American literature and culture, Edwin still feels disconnected to his people because he doesn’t know who his father is, or what tribe he belongs to. His mother is not Indian, but she is supportive. On a social media site, Ed pretends to be his mother in order to find his biological father. He finds Harvey, a Southern Cheyenne, who is coming to Oakland for the powwow.
Edwin’s mother urges him to apply for a paid internship at the Oakland powwow. He does, lands the job, and meets Blue, one of the organizers. They seem to have a connection. He tells Blue about a story he’s writing — it sounds very much like a parable of what the Indians experienced, after contact with the Europeans. But Blue is dismissive; she doesn’t seem to make the connection (244-245). Still, Edwin now has a job, a possible relationship with Blue, and to his great satisfaction, he meet his father in person.
While Edwin is disparaging of himself throughout, and even though he is one of the victims of the robbery, he expresses optimism. He uses the word hope “He had hope” (63). “I feel something not unlike hope” (78), “all that I once hoped I’d be” (75), “This is a new life” (243).
Orville, Lony, and Loother were born “heroin babies”. Their mother, an addict, killed herself. Their biological grandmother, Opal’s sister Jacquie, the boys’ biological grandmother, was in no shape herself to raise them, so Opal adopted them. She has been the rock in their lives but it is not enough to complete them. The boys lack a father in their lives.
Each boy has his own personality and his own quest, but fourteen-year-old Orville is drawn to discover his cultural heritage. Orville finds the instruction he needs on YouTube, where he learns how to dance in the Cheyenne way. He thinks his grandmother Opal is not supportive. “Opal had been openly against any of them doing anything Indian. She treated it all like it was something they could decide for themselves when they were old enough. Like drinking or driving or smoke or voting. Indianing” (118).
Orville doesn’t find this supportive. He asks Opal why she didn’t teach them anything about being an Indian. She answers, “Cheyenne way, we let you learn for yourself, then teach you when you’re ready” (119). Orville does learn for himself, through the internet. He manages to find authenticity and connection in the dancing and in donning the regalia. “In that moment, in front of the TV, he knew. He was part of something” (121). Young Orville Redfeather persists and succeeds in finding a way to be authentically Indian before he is shot at the powwow during a robbery staged by other Indians.
There There shows the result of attempts at assimilation and erasure of indigenous culture, of a forced disconnection to one’s people, heritage, and sense of place.As the characters come together and their narratives unfold, we see how they are related to one another, how they are connected. Although the powwow ends tragically — a symptom itself of the fragmentation and disruption of values within the displaced Native American communities — some of the novel’s characters fight back to reclaim their tribal identity. Although they are victims of the shooting, the lives of Edwin Black and Orville Redfeather reflect the hope that American Indians can reclaim their identity and direct their own future. – Linda Collison, 2020
***
In my novel Looking for Redfeather (copyright 2013) the young characters also search for identity — their own and that of the authentic American Indian Ramie believes is his father. Both novels are available from most bookstores. There There was one of the New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year, and Looking for Redfeather was a Foreword Reviews finalist for Indie YA Book of the Year, 2013.
November 1, 2023
Shepherd’s Book Roundup for 2023
Lost in a sea of words, looking for a good book?
How many times have I bought or borrowed a book I thought was going to be really good, but a few pages in, I find myself disappointed. Not worth the hype. Did not live up to its title and premise. I gave up on bestseller lists and publishers’ advertisements.
Each year the Big Publishers choose a handful to to push down our throats. They pick the titles they think will appeal to a large set of buyers, and then they promote them heavily. Authors in the same Big Houses pimp each others books while other titles remain undiscovered, buried in the back list.
How do I even hear about these other titles? Books from independent publishers and University presses. Gems buried in the graveyard of not-best-sellers but worthy reads. Or the “also ran” titles of the big publishers that I might have missed because they didn’t come across my social media feed.
I go into an indie brick-and-mortar bookstore and I am hit with these same touted chosen titles the Big Publishers are selling. Show me something you have read and recommend for me.
One resource I like is Foreword Reviews, a publication devoted to books published by independent and University presses. They’ve been around for 25 years and are a great, if underused, resource for librarians and booksellers.
Lately, I’m excited about the Book Shepherd. Ben Shepherd’s website gives access to a large number of books recommended by writers and book lovers and cross-referenced by subject, author, and title. It keeps growing all the time. Browsing the unique, independent website is like browsing a bookstore with subjective recommendations from authors and super-readers.
Recently, authors writing in a wide variety of genres submitted their three favorite books they read this year (2023). To be sure, many of their 2023 favorites are published by Big Pubs not small presses. Yet these are personal recommendations by people who love to read and write. People like me.
We aren’t paid to share our recommendations. What we gain by sharing our favorite books is an increased awareness of our own published titles. And book recommendations from other writers and book lovers!
Here is the link to the list of our favorite books we read in 2023. I invite you to go down the rabbit hole and explore:
Shepherd – Browse the best books of 2023
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October 19, 2023
…and we’re rolling! Production Assistant Workshop in Steamboat Springs
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/intro-to-pa-production-assistant-tickets-714370751147
See you in Steamboat Springs!
The post …and we’re rolling! Production Assistant Workshop in Steamboat Springs appeared first on linda collison Sea of Words.
September 18, 2023
“Let’s make a movie,” she said.
Two years ago, Bob and I partnered with Ground Rush Productions and 411 Films to produce a documentary about the evolution of sport skydiving in America. The process has been challenging and immensely rewarding on a personal level; I have met many of the sport skydiving pioneers and gotten to know them through their stories.
Skydiving changed my world. Each freefall — a little less than a minute by the clock — was like a lifetime. And oh, the people I met in that space…As the interviews are being shot and edited by Chris Johnston, assisted by Bethany Baptiste, I am writing material for a book that parallels the documentary.
Stay tuned…
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August 16, 2023
Wildfires in Paradise
Just before dinner Bob and I were paged to respond to a fire on the slopes of Mauna Kea. Several ranches were threatened, along with a small subdivision, downwind. The winds were raging northeast trades and we knew we’d likely be gone most of the night. Bob threw our gear in the jeep, I filled water bottles, grabbed the first aid kit and we headed for Mana Road, about fifteen miles away. There, we’d meet the tanker, the brush truck, and the rest of the volunteers.
In the darkness, the fire is at once beautiful and terrifying. It looks to me like the volcano is erupting along a rift zone, but the orange rivers of lava turn out to be burning grasses and shrub. The dry wind howls through the saddle between the mountains, driving the flames down toward the coast. Embers streak by us like galaxies of sparks.
Ralph Saito, our chief wearing a white hard hat, gets instructions from the Incident Commander, then relays to us and assigns us our tasks. Sometimes we’re pulling hose for the career guys, sometimes we’re on our own — putting down hot spots, holding a fire line. We’re a group of mostly middle-aged civilians — men and women — and we work hard, without a break, for as long as it takes to get the job done. (And to think when I joined this newly formed volunteer company, I assumed I’d be organizing bake sales – Ha!)
I am glad for my bunker jacket; Hawaii ain’t all beaches. It’s shivering cold tonight, at 3000 feet elevation. Bob and I work alongside Susan, Paul, and Jerry, maintaining a break, then hosing down an evacuated house with water from our tanker and our brush truck.
Around midnight, the wind takes a rest and so do we. Hot food is brought to us in the fire chief’s vehicle — complements of a local plate lunch restaurant. So good! We get orders to stand down, refill the tanks, and go home for some rest while the career firefighters keep on through the night…
That fire was under control, though it would smolder for days. At night, the cool air sunk toward the sea, carrying with it the smell of ash and smoke. We remained on call, our pagers blinking green in the night.
***
Wildfires in Hawaii are not new — especially on the dry leeward sides of mountainous islands. Lightening is seldom a cause, here. More often, fires are started from discarded cigarettes and matches, open campfires, sparks from vehicles igniting dry grasses. Lava flows have also started brush fires and trade winds fan them with terrifying speed.
Strong trade winds are no stranger to these Pacific islands; they can combine with dry conditions to form a “perfect firestorm.” Well-trained professionals are accustomed to protecting life and property, using engines, tankers, brush trucks, bulldozers, helicopters with buckets. Still, the Hawaiian Islands are some of the most remote human habitations in the world. Sometimes our technology and resources are not enough — especially on an isolated island. In the recent debacle on Maui and the Big Island some people evacuated their homes, as per Civil Defense instructions. Some stayed at home and tried to protect their property. Some went into the ocean to save themselves. Over one hundred people died.
***
For more than a decade Bob Russell and I were volunteers with Hawaii County’s North Kohala Coast Company 14-A. Together, with about two dozen other neighbors and friends, we were under the guidance of the professional firefighters of Hawaii County. I taught first aid and CPR and I learned firefighting techniques like donning SCBA, how to lift and carry an unconscious person, how NOT to enter a burning building. The experience has given me much respect and gratitude for those who responded to the recent devastating wildfires that consumed Lahaina, Maui County, and caused much damage on Hawaii County.
My sympathies to the families of those who lost loved ones in the recent fires and my deep gratitude for all those who responded — professionals, volunteers, residents, and bystanders.
We all live on an island, this island Earth. Aloha pumehana kakou
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