Managing to reach Ushuaia (Ushuaians will quickly profess that theirs is the southernmost city; however, a Chilean village or two has their doubts) two days before the boat's scheduled departure to the frozen continent and looming race, I spent the majority of the downtime in a restless, spastic half-sleep trance never far from a latrine. Thoughts abound, but very few regarding the imminent days ahead. As stated before, it was but a side trip interspersed with a hike (or what was it a marathon?). And the location at that point was irrelevant. After utilizing three different GPS units and countless other ancillary hardware to catalogue and document the epic continental transversal for the past six weeks, my current proximity no longer mattered. Only that I has alone with my thoughts. And a bathroom. To decompress. To reload. To theorize and philosophize; to elongate and extrapolate. To connect the dots and plane the lines; to cause and effect. But very little mental filing ensued before that start of the next adventure.
Before my legs could stand as long as my bowels, the Russian research vessel, the admirable Vavilov, spewed southward at around seven knots across the Drake passage and beyond. And it occurred to me sometime in the lightless, listless, washing machine night of the second day at sea that I had in fact read about the Drake passage in a distant side note of one of my junior high text books. Something about the roughest seas on the planet, dire straits, rolling death. I am paraphrasing of course, but something to that effect. Regardless of the verbiage, it all came whitewater crashing home, suddenly making perfect nauseating sense as my body heaved and yawed with the mechanical efficacy of a rusted gyroscope. But what did it all matter, wasn't it just a hike on some ice (or was it a marathon)? At that point, who could be sure and the difference, if any, seemed rather negligible or at least moot given the current gastrointestinal and inertial pontifications.
The Drake passed like a difficult piece of cheddar and then the calm waters of the Antarctic peninsula quickly provided motherly harbor. Time for the hike, or rather, the run. But in addition to trying to mentally wrangle myself across the ice (physical reserves had been sufficiently drained precisely according to plan) as gracefully as a penguin in flight, the hosts of the Vavilov had additional plans for their passengers. The race was the central plot on our voyage, but the Antarctica wonderland was the stage, and the trip, much to my surprise, was not simply transport, rather transcendence. Now the Vavilov itself was originally designed as a research vessel (as as much as Peacekeeper missiles personified love), procured at the end of the cold war (how fitting) by the Russian government. Atlas, with the fall of the curtain and the rise of billowing Perestroika, funding for the Russian nuclear sub sniffer, err, the research vessel, got yanked by the preverbal capitalistic cane, and the ship and beleaguered crew needed to find new ports call to keep the 7,000 horsepower twin diesel engines a-churning and the research dollars a-pouring.
Enter Peregrine, an Australian-based company soon-to-be specializing in Antarctica adventures and thus proud contractor to the aforementioned vessel. Fast-forward to modern day when Marathon Tours, founded and run by visionary Thom Gilligan, who single-handedly removed any inherent stammer from those diehards who pined to run a marathon on every continent, cohorted and coalesced with Peregrine, who in turn rides the stoic Russian captainship of the Vavilov to get the runners to the races as they say. Runners? Oh yes, by the hundreds. From seventy year-old veterans who make adolescent leopards feel lame, to young workhorses pounding out hundreds of miles a week spiting corn like combines. Rain, snow, ice, hills, light, dark, mud, dirt, moderation. To these folk, it's only dressing. Ambrosia and yams. Bring on the pain.
Pain? But I have always been taught, at least empirically speaking, to avoid pain. Seeing the intoxicating ring of radiating red on the oven top as a young tot, my innocent hand approached with gleeful wonder as my mother's glance came seconds too late and all evasive actions stymied. And as the moment came when my bountiful curiosity meet with shearing pain as the upper epidermis of my middle digits where instantly cooked like the outside of a flank steak and the waifs of fried skin provided too much for my naive olfactory senses, I quickly realized that 1) glowing red on the stovetop definitely means do not touch and that 2) pain, at least the sick-to-your-knees feeling that I am sure running for hours falls under, should be avoided. So why then endure a marathon in the most distant of earthen lands, amongst the most formidable environmental circumstances, without any sort of training stave clutch-shift-gas, clutch-shift-gas, and surrounded by fellow competitors that eat miles of road and dirt before their morning coffee and supplemental shakes?
Why indeed. But the 'why' is not anywhere near the current point, although very flirtatious in dissection and nonobviouly being avoided by the current meandering train of thought. Transgressions aside, the race went off like dynamite in a shale-lined tunnel. Departing the now stable 120 meter Vavilov early morning and boarding inflatable, four meter, two-cycle zodiacs, the four meter swells and whipping blizzard tossed us around like used frisbees in Great Falls, Montana as we strove for solid ground donning full-bodied wet gear complete with knee-high rubber boats. The arrival to our starting line was like none other. Then again, what part of this race was (not that I would know since this was my first)? We took refuge under one of the conspiring research station buildings, having little more than three feet between frozen ground and icy roof to trade our rubber outers for more congenial material such as polypropylene, wool, and synthetically-laced running shoes. At the very least the three foot space provided the outside, uninhibited gusting winds a narrow passage in which to travel, thereby increasing the subsequent velocity and sheer force of said winds to rather perplexing degrees, producing amid the various inhabitants isolated vortices of swirling potpourris consisting of icyhot, unwashed spandex, stale rubber, anxiety, and anticipation. Quite the scientific spectacle. But no time for experiments.
Without much fanfare stave the gusting and mockingly tawdry wind, we were given a five minute warning till start. No time to fake an injury now. Oh wait, what about tripping on that exposed propane mainline? The frozen ground should provide enough force to dislodge some limb, maybe a toe. No, it would probably just trip and slide me to the front of the pack. No turning back now I humbly succumbed. With an underlayer of mid-weight capilene, an outer layer of gortex complete with pre-fogged ski goggles, footwear comprised of the latest Antarctic cross-trainers, and a chest full of scribbled on athletic tape containing various reminders of interesting topics in case the minutia of running became too much to bear (from metaphysical topics such as "Are you really here?" to fifty transcendentally elegant digits of pi to help expand my currently memorized five), I approached the starting line with all the fervor of a yet-to-be-inaugurated, cliff-dwelling lemming.
The clouds snuffed together like the sullen-faced back row ushers at a funeral; the winds howled a medieval cackle; and my legs, well, I couldn't feel my legs. A tad frosty. And yet, what I wore with more pride than the newly acquired tights adorning my inner thighs (complements of a fellow runner, the juice and joy of Guernsey, the one and only Simon), was a brazen and defiant smile that melted the ushers, sapped the wind, and made my skin-hugging tights sag (sorry Simon). And the smile was neither forged of some mystical inner strength or innate will or out of pure contempt for all my ill-training and self-imposed hardships during the aforementioned tumultuous trek to where I now stand (nor wobbled depending on who you interrogate). Yes, at every chance I had stacked the odds against me (the official Vegas line of me completing the race was definitely not in my favor), but in spite of myself, here I stood (wavered). And therein lies the point and therein lies the fulcrum and therein lies the magma of my pre-race smile, a spout of steam rising unabashed through the fickle and unrelenting storm. But before I further digress to more abstract but yet intrinsically more profound experiences, onto the race.
Listening intently for the sound of the official marathon start, a whistle, a yelp, a whip crack, the only sound I entertained amid my flurry of self-deprecating thoughts was of the relentless wind and I fear I would have stood indefinitely if it wasn't for the sudden surge of runners pushing forward that abruptly gave notice. There must have been some signal, some sign, but alas, it fell silent on my fleece-covered ears. Officially a trumpet sounded the start but its foreboding melody rang mute under my cover. In the trumpeter's defense, whose gusto surely could compete with the most gale-force of squalls, only a closely positioned howitzer would have got me bounding. But the surge was enough and before I could second guess things any longer, we were off. The more sensible runners partaking in the half-marathon had started out minutes before; therefore, the initial part of the course had been well packed and trampled before my misguided steps arrived.
The course itself started at a welcoming Russian research station, meandered for miles over the snow, ice, dirt, and mud following rolling hills reminiscent of the Drake, through a festive Uruguayan research station (whose anxious male researchers enticed many a female runner aside for photos - long, cold winters in Antarctica), quickly worked its way down to the blustery, cobbled coast splattered with bread loafed-sized rounded rocks that would have challenged the most adept four-legged grazers even without a misting of brine, and then to the foot of nothing less than a freshly dusted mammoth glacier. From the base, instead of folding gently back along the breezeway, the course proceeded directly ahead, or more aptly put, upward: a pure ascension of will, blindness, and utter pain. Running up the beast was almost impossible, although some did. Most however had a difficult enough time walking up. If the wind at sea level could be described as strong, then wind towards our zenith was none other than a gaseous, ice-laden Boreas. For the better part of a mile we trekked upward, at times taking a few steps back for each step forward. Then, like the mercy the sun shows at the dawn of each day, the course flipped back and we followed the pieces of ourselves back to the Russian base along the same trampled path.
At the first Russian base reentry, the course had plowed and pounded us just over seven miles out and back. At this juncture the remains of the once tightly wound, adrenaline-buzzed pack started start to rapidly fade, replaced by a more molasses trickle of participants strung along like viscous saliva exiting a giant mouth. And what the next part of the course lacked in ascension and descension, it more than made up for in deviant aerodynamics. Even now with the course taking directions from all abbreviations of the compass, the wind remained jubilantly amused, willfully choosing to always travel a vector parallel to the direction of movement and of course, opposing the motion. To accomplish such a feat and still satisfy the immutable laws of physics, the wind twisted around each runner independently like a python around a calf, dancing and prancing and at times spitting out a most condescending melody. My feather-weight gortex outers, providing their prescribed water-repelling and vapor-exchanging capabilities without issue, did little however to streamline my footprint, and at times inflated to dimensions that would make an Oregonian box kite embarrassed.
At the endpoint of this second loop we passed through a Chinese research station with big, blue, boisterous buildings and two giddy researchers handing out water served from the same reused plastic cups. Intoxicated either by my surroundings, their playful glances, or my own lactic acid, I exchanged congenial nods and slurped up a glass or two. Delicious in spite of the fact that most of the liquid spilled down my front as frozen lips accepted the liquid much the same way they do when returning from a root canal. Besides the instant continental crossing into the east (or is it the west?) and the flirtatious wind, this second loop provided moments of almost sheer isolation. Was it Antarctica or some lonely mafia-managed meat locker? Many times it was hard to tell due to the diminished visibility and the absence of runners. There was a rather bitter seal and maybe a few penguins cackling in disbelief along the way, but then again, they could have been distraught and afflicted comrades but I was much too cold to investigate.
After finishing that out and back rollercoaster, the Russian base beaconed like a storm-ravaged lighthouse. We were done. Back where we had started. What a relief. Well, halfway done to be exact. Time to rinse and repeat. Now I must interject that very soon after start of the second loop the first time around, en route to the Chinese waterboys and their clairvoyant concoction, as I passed mile marker eight my running partner turned to me and reminded me that I had just ran more miles at once than I had in my thirty-one years prior. And it was true. A few times I ran Bloomsday back in high-school (the largest timed road race in the world and one of Spokane's claim to fame second only to Hoopfest), and that topped my total consecutive mileage out at 7.46 miles give or take. And since I might have ran a collective five since (my carefully laid out training plan remained only a coaster on my tip southward). But mile eight was a milestone, and all things considered, from what I could feel of my body, the check engine light still seemed dark, or at least burnt out (again, I didn't bother checking). And eight miles, that rounds up to ten in most books. And ten, that is just a two digit number like twenty stave a factor of two. But really, what is two? One plus one? Candy. And then at twenty, isn't it all just downhill? I felt as fuzzy as the frozen toes clinging to my pegged legs.
At this point I would be much remiss to not formerly introduce my running companion as eluded to earlier, for his presence was not merely coincidence, not mere chance, and definitely not one engaged purely as a peer. For you see, Dan, the aforementioned compatriot, agreed to run this race with me over two years prior. Yet agreed might be a slightly contrived word. Initially it was pure acceptance (but very quickly his fervor and dedication engulfed mine like a duck with breadcrumbs). It was November 2nd, 2004, around four in the afternoon pacific standard time. Remember it, the last presidential election day? I remember it like it was tomorrow. A few friends and a Ballard bar full of locals filled the stools with heavy eyes, collectively painting the two painfully aligned televisions with attendant glare. As the middle of the United States turned red and the penumbra turned blue, the patrons ordered additional rounds and quickly switched to other topics. One of which was struck up by an engrossing scientist studying global warming via analysis of extracted ice cores from one Antarctica.
The research was of course compelling but between theory and application, a random anecdote fell off his tongue like a Vavilovian anchor into stillwater. He recounted a story, encountered on one of his various southern surveys, about a group of runners who fly for thousands of miles, sail for hundreds more, simply to throw caution into the wind and run a marathon in Antarctica. We all laughed at such absurdities, reveling in the levity of the story as another four states turned red, one blue. The conversation drifted aimlessly much like the proceedings, but the thought stuck with me like a virus logged in my sinus. The days following, I incubated said pathogen with the thoroughness of a virologist, and finally turned my fingers to the web to dislodge.
Without much effort I found the site of the conspirators who brought this curiosity to fruition: Marathon Tours. As I read and was subsequently abhorred yet enthralled, I looked at the calendar, sensing the few days left before the birthday of one previously mentioned conspirator. What to get someone who is much more gracious than I but still enshrouded with the scrutiny of an entomologist when it comes to ownership? Think, think. How about a jog on the ice? That sounds original. Granted, neither one of us are runners, but two years? Our generation redefines ourselves every two months. We can become runners or at the very least be two spirited youth enjoying the ride. Right? With that exhaustive search and introspective survey, I booked two moorages on the Russian Vavilov and promptly delivered one confirmation to Dan for said birthday with the same gleeful look as a Siamese cat clenching a mouse.
Upon opening the rather airy gift compared to years past, Dan looked at me with all the bewilderment of an embalming intern and promptly stated, "…but we aren't runners." With this I quickly launched into the classic Adams foray of 'this' and 'that' and time and space. A bit dazed, Dan graciously accepted the gift, mainly to stop my tirade, and we moved on to other topics (women of course). Neither one of us gave it much thought after that, except when a bill would come from Marathon Tours (always very timely). Usually the exchange would be Dan asking me if we were stilling doing this, and me instantly replying, "Of course! What was that again?" The months and bills passed and Dan realized that the time for procrastination was over. Time to start training. He consulted other runners, web sites, books, street vagrants, and a wealth of other resources. And unselfishly as a Tibetan Monk, he shared everything with me. I always calmly smiled, thanked him profusely for any wisdom and dittos transmitted, and filed the information at the top of my "to-do's" (or was it the bottom?). He trained like a first chair Violinist about to be bumped, and I, lock and step, always asked him how it was going. It was a great relationship and a great routine. After all his long training runs, and the short ones for that matter, I always tried to sound as empathic as if I had run with him. And because of that, I felt like part of me had. Maybe it didn't prepare my body, but in my mind, I had run hundreds of miles. Maybe thousands. How long was a marathon?
Since that moment two years ago when the trip was booked as a hasty, but heart-felt (give me some credit) birthday gift, the meaning and purpose and even the concept of the marathon in Antarctica took many different shapes and forms on my side. And due to a constant internal pressure and a few external forces that helped clarify the scope, the marathon got bumped as the marquee, and the journey, not the destination, took the main stage. Antarctica thus became the backdrop, streaking from greatness into nothingness like a shooting star. But that was all about to change. But first more about the run.
Dan held fast with me the entire first part of the race. In my credit, I didn't give him much room to leave me, but in his, he no doubt could have. At the turn, the half-way point, Dan felt it was a good idea to trade our marshy socks for the dry variety. My ice cube toes had been sloshing around in my tightly laced lakes for a couple of miles so I concurred that the idea of fresh fabric on frozen skin sounded fabulous. And thus we once again huddled under the stilled research station prying at fabric and fighting the funneled wind. The transition took less than six minutes with few words exchanged. I myself was simply surprised I was still able to move at this point in the race and Dan was probably thinking much the same thing about my performance but more focused on when I would simply give out completely and how he was going to drag to a medic. With fresh socks underfoot, we set out with renewed vigor.
However, upon standing, my underused and undertrained tendons, stretched to a point of unknown length by the previous thirteen miles, failed to return to retracted dimensions, and thus throbbed like a flock of hummingbird hearts. The pain was so great in fact that I feared that my race, all intensely joyous thirteen miles of it, was over. I couldn't bend a knee let alone run another thirteen steps. I protested to Dan to go on alone, to let me stammer in self-pity. But he would have nothing of the sort. For me, running the half-marathon was enough of a victory, with victory being a very fluid concept at this point. For me just the fact that I made the ship was enough. More than enough. I didn't need to run another mile. And not that I could. But Dan, in his subtle yet definitive way, would have nothing of the sort. I knew it was a battle I was not going to win; thus, I hobbled alongside for the next mile, all the while asking him to go on and let me crystallize next to the flapping penguins. But he held steadfast like a firing pin on a grenade. And it was a combination of that unrelenting belief, in what construct only he could say, and my tendons unthawing just past the point of tearing, that turned my walk into a jog and back into a run. But I knew that once my train got moving, that I couldn't stop it. And in fact, the train didn't stop for the rest of the race nor did anyone pass us the entire second half of the marathon.
With the selfless encouragement of Dan and the sheer inspiration of my surroundings, we ended up finishing the race 29th and 30th out of 145 odd runners (40 additional runners did the half-marathon), hand-in-hand, each of us pushing each in one way or another to the end. Our official time was just over five hours (5:06:20), and without our numerous photo stops and the unfortunate sock-changing debacle, a time well under five hours was reachable. But minimizing the time was never the goal, only maximizing the experience. I had no expectations for my first marathon, but my kinship with Dan proved that it spanned continents, my tenuous route to the starting line couldn't have been any more scenic or enlightening, and my body preformed a minor medical miracle. But those dramatic outcomes, as overriding and engulfing as cosmic singularities, simply twined the thread and erected the easel. The canvas itself was already stretched; the paint, pre-applied and perpetually wet; the image, infinitely detailed; the message, committed and faithful.
The marathon, rewarding and anecdotal as any life experience prior, was but an outtake to a much larger, much more grandiose, much more engulfing theme. The Russian crew was heroic, the Peregrine staff memorable, the Marathon Tours clan both flexible and steadfast, my fellow runners eclectic, articulate, and heart-warming, and Dan a pillar of trusted resolve. Yet the mood that Antarctica sprayed across the inner workings of my mind, feeling its effortless brush connect modernism with impressionism made everything else seem like subplots and background.
And the foreground? The foreground danced like a parade, sang like a choir, and taught like an apostle.
Scene One
A gray-soaked sky draped casually low gently greets the silent, space-black antarctic waters at a muted event horizon, each exchanging speckled reflections and introspective dialogue that even the sun cannot refute. Looking down into the unadulterated antarctic waters harkens to Homer's abyss, with sight limited only by thought not by depth as the frigid medium captures sunrays like a magnet collects iron fillings. Countless chunks of ice, some titanium white and others nearing cobalt, democratically representing all shapes and sizes and angles and curves, kiss the ocean surface as gently as a mother's lips to a child's cheek. And even with everything set against the inspired whites of surrounding snowcapped spires dotted with the cerulean blue of the glacial ice, the palate of colors looks as superficially bland as cornmeal and milkweed. Yet the shear simplicity of the amorphous nomenclature produces in union more shades, more hues, more saturations, more vibrancies than even Mr. Crayola himself could reproduce given a lifetime reaching an epoch.
The mood reaches pensive. The ambivalent light daring. For a moment time stops, matching the timelessness of the scene. Suddenly, the clock resumes ticking as an enormous flash of white streaks through the charcoal water's depths, approaching, rising, and charging directly under the inflatable craft keeping the ten stunned passengers afloat. Disappearing under the boat, the balance of the inflatable quickly shifts as anxious passengers either scurry for a different view or sink down in panic. A moment later that lasts an hour, the white apparition reappears on the other side, surging every faster towards the surface. And although faint, other traces of color start to form an outline that teasingly indicates approximate dimensions, of which the most conservative estimates places the size at three times the size of the speechless boat. Right before the eminent breach, giant bubbles form that agitate the surface and quickly explode into a fine mist that coats the onlookers floating only feet away with a combination of water, brine, and breath.
Every moment thereafter presents a cover page still-frame of a surfacing adult humpback whale graced with a soundtrack provided first by the heaving water and the reverberating exhale, then by the hover-sucking inhale and the play of water streaming off the polished skin sparkling in the light, and then by the rush of water refilling the gap once occupied by one of nature's most inspired and graceful sights. As the water once again becomes steady and only blackness radiates from the depths, the onlookers slowly begin to wipe whale spittle from their faces and lenses, wearing astonished looks and exchanging unabashed wonder.
Scene Two
Atop a crystal-blue glacier capped with a frosting of fresh snow, a lanky leopard seal, previously catching some grays, begins to inch towards the edge wearing dubious intentions among flared nostrils. With the slithered movement of a serpent, the seal elegantly slips into the depths like an olive into a dry martini. A few seconds later, the seal swims inquisitively close to an onlookers' boat, pauses briefly for a portrait, and then continues with the business at hand. The business takes both the seal and the curious boat trailing indiscreetly behind to a floating city of an iceberg set against heavy clouds with a sizable number of gentoo penguins undergoing midday activities - standing, flapping, and standing. Apparently not interested in a surprise visit, the seal's approaching spotted head floating ominously above the darkened surface gives early signal to the staring penguins, most of which quickly decide to enter the water en masse.
And what at first appears to be the making of a very friendly play date quickly turns sour as the seal's appetite overrides its need for penguin affection. It must be restated that safely in numbers only applies to those not singled out: without much hesitation, the seal turns all focus on one darting and zipping penguin and a chase scene that rivals any great western climax quickly ensues. With concrete attention, the boat's passengers watch the proceedings with puzzled faces and raw looks of amazement. The outgunned penguin darts left, then right, then torpedoes out of the water, then slips back in heading right. What agility. What speed. The much larger seal effortless matches the movements like a mimed shadow, slowly gaining ground and flashing a look of contempt as his prey insists on making a production. What persistence. What confidence. And even given the undersized penguin's predicament, its expression bears no fear, no hatred, no anger, only determination mixed with hints of inevitability. The spectators however wear the misplaced looks of disgust, pity, and thrill, trying to decide who to route for like it was a Sunday afternoon football game, vacillating positions more than most politicians. The underdog or the defending champion? Always a tough decision, but always pitted into a game with winners and losers.
The seal soon overtakes the penguin with one last lumbering thrust, plunging both parties deep into the water and then reappears carrying lunch a few moments later locked securely in its jaws. Finding a comfortable iceberg-side dining area, the seal proceeds to demonstrate the proper technique regarding the removal of a penguin's skin without the advantage of opposable thumbs and forged silverware (the 'shake' method for the lack of a more thorough description) and begins to feed unfettered. Without question and without request, Antarctica gave an up-front, up-close, and uncut display revealing a slice of an iconic life-cycle with the life of one yielding and perpetuating the life of another. All without boasting. All without pride. All without hate and without anger. And all without fanfare stave the shock and awe of the curiously construed expressions worn by the onlookers.
Scene Three
During the course of tracking various pairs of surfacing and blowing humpback whales, groups of racing penguins, prowling seals, and drifting icebergs, the zodiac's course makes scattered and random tracks throughout the antarctic bay, across both stillwater and ice flows, as the driver navigates to find the antarctic action. But the action has an unusual way of finding the boat. Following a particular pair of minke whales, the craft remains curiously close to shore as the giant whales disappear into the depths. But shore does not adequately describe the edge preventing the water from spilling out. Rather, the interface consists of mammoth 300 foot sheer cliffs of infinitely fissured frosted-blue glacial ice, slowly flowing, in fact slowly falling, into the sea.
And as silence once again rings out with the now absent whales, a sudden motion on shore (cliff) causes necks to crane just in time to catch a semi-truck of ice calving off its perch and storming towards the sea. During the two second descent, the huge mass of ice begins to breakup like a meteoroid entering the upper atmosphere and also starts a chain reaction with other impressionable pieces of ice just waiting for a reason to jump. The roar of the action rips through the boat like thunder through a bedroom window, rattling eardrums like antique panes of glass. As the ice picks up both mass and speed at a gravitational rate, the water suddenly breaks the fall with the softness of newly-finished concrete. This second explosion splits the air into fragments and chunks of ice and spray rocket in all directions. The sudden displacement of water causes an enormous tidal-wave centered at impact zone, surging out like the spokes of a wheel; however, the waves quickly attenuate and as spectators to an ice-inspired, sunlit thunderstorm, the only worry is preventing fellow passengers from seeing the frozen remains of drool.
Scene Four
Once again the mudroom of the mighty Vavilov bustles with activity, filled with the synthetic swooshing of overcoats and trousers as runners turned biologists excitedly don waterproof slickers, knee-high rubber boots, and coastguard-approved lifejackets in preparation for the next excursion slated to take the participants to a thriving gentoo penguin colony on the antarctic mainland. As the zodiacs shuttle passengers between the floating Vavilovian fortress and the rocky beach, the ambient light steadily increases as the sun makes continued progress with the hanging clouds and the indifferent penguins continue their leisurely operations: dozens of adult penguins exit and enter the massive colony in great waves, some going out to feed, others returning with stomachs full of krill, while hundreds more bask lethargically in the daylight.
As the tuxedoed penguins cruise from sea to shore, their harpooned bodies dive in and out of the water like giant needles stitching the sky to the surface at assembly-line pace. All grace however quickly comes to an end once the penguins stammer upright and stagger onto the land like drunken patrons leaving a bar at closing. The walk resembles a side-to-side shuffle reminiscent of over-satisfied customers at a buffet, feet spread widely apart taking short, deliberate steps, and wings stretched out for balance and braced for a fall.
The adolescent penguins, most still wearing downy fir, dot the horizon and either stand motionless trying to mentally accelerate the molting process that must complete before they can enter the water and feed themselves or hungrily chase adult penguins trying to get a free meal. When an adult penguin relents to the persistent chase and cackle of a hungry juvenile, freshly stewed krill abruptly leaves the stomach of one and enters the mouth of another in an unforgettably pure image much more heart-warming than nauseating. The scene continues with penguins abound standing, walking (waddling), jumping, laying, diving, splashing, swimming, and more standing. All sets of penguin eyes shine like galaxies; all sets of onlookers' eyes water with honesty and humility. And although the brightly colored gentoo beak prevents anything resembling a smile, the look of contentment is more than palpable on the glowing faces of both penguins and humans like.
End Scenes
The defiant smile and steamy smirk I flashed before the race, the seemingly unplaced confidence, the unnamed bubbling euphoria, all of it stemmed from the gestalt realization of where I was, based not on the coordinates of my constantly logging GPS units spitting out relative spatial positions (yes I brought them on the boat), but rather the realization that I was somewhere where I had never been. And it had little to do with numbers and coordinates and distances and times (although of course these provided the physical construct), rather it relied much more on purity and tranquility. Of serenity and of sincerity. Of stillness and sage. Of visceral springs and eternal wells. Arriving at a place that I had never been turned out to not depend on location but rather on condition, on feeling on emotion. The ephemeral yet timeless days spent in Antarctica brewed all of the aforementioned scenes together with countless others, creating an amalgam that made even the hardened intoxicated and the stiffest legs flex. And every moment, although each profoundly different than the last, contained within a common message, a common significance, a common theme. But what theme? Gliding whales, wistful penguins, preying yet posing seals, bobbing ice, crashing glaciers, philosophic albatross, colluding whites and blackest blacks and ancient blues and grays that warm rather than cool, stillness and calmness, quiet violence and echoed hope. All of it, as enormous as the sum becomes, does not come close to representing the totality of Antarctica. But what is the totality?
Like the rest of the world Antarctica is filled with inspirational life and with inevitable yet still mournful death. But unlike the rest of our planet, and herein connects the key and the heart and the spirit and the expounded point, Antarctica has what every other place, and for that matter, what every other soul, longs for: Peace. Pure, untainted, unrelinquished peace. Humanity springs life and charges for death, yet peace transcends position and exemplifies a quality that floats between the poles, transforming a birth into a life and a death to a springboard. Peace connects the midpoints giving travelers free passage and giving the passage meaning.
And for the first time in my life, I experienced a place that exuded peace at every level, wrapping the very construct of peace around life and death like the circle that inscribes the yin and the yang. With every inspired step on the ice and every floating moment on the waters the scenes changed yet the message remained constant. Peace. In every direction. Every view. Every breath. Every moment. In the bowling ball whale eyes to the narrow squints of the terns to the billowing snowflakes and lapping waters. Peace.
Yet Antarctica does not have peace in its constitution. Or in its discussions. Or in its reunions. Or in its games. Or in its summits. Or in its zeitgeist. Or in its press releases. Or in its policies. Or in its opiate. Or in its dogma. Or in its writings.
Antarctica has peace in its essence, in its existence, in its actions, in its engulfing mountains and its quantum vibrations. In its sunsets and sunrises and black waters and grey clouds and blue ice and blazing snow and mavericked creatures. Antarctica's peaceful allegory blows as surreally as its winds and acquiesces as serendipitously as its waters, but at the same time it beseeches and protests and pleads and cries out to visitors as tangibly and as lovingly as the warmth of our sun. Peace.
For the complete set of antarctic pictures, visit:
http://juclear.smugmug.com
Other Links:
Marathon Tour Site with Complete Results
Seattle Times Antarctic Marathon Article
