Plankton Every Day is a blog by Kate Zidar about citizen science and untethered living. These are my micro and macro observations about the daily practice of staying afloat!
April 13th, 2020 § 0 comments § permalink
Not all plankton wander for life. Some of us grow up, get sessile or rove a home cove. Right now the quarantine feels like a tight hug. So far I have been able to relax somewhat into the reduced circumstance, as there’s no where I’d rather be. There are many, many stressors right now, but I feel grateful to at least not be straining against the travel restriction.
January 8th, 2020 § 0 comments § permalink
“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”
Leonard Cohen
Two posts ago, I had just left the boat and had just arrived home. Home was Pittsburgh, New York and Georgia, which is to say that arriving home was no simple feat, and is still, in a way, happening.
In an attempt to think things through and hear some type of inner voice (and also, quite frankly, to absorb a portion of the sudden homelessness I was experiencing), I did a work-stay at a retreat center in upstate NY. The first snow of the winter came the day after I arrived, and I spent my time there shoveling snow as an “active meditation”. Between shoveling shifts, us workers could attend the meditation and mealtime activities, and co-mingle with the visitors, staff and full-time devotees. I was an interloper, just blending in, and I sat my cafeteria tray down in the rustic dining hall to a new group of stranger-comrades every day.
If there is one thing I can do, it is strike up a conversation with a stranger. It’s really just as easy as asking a question and then letting the other person answer for awhile. One evening I asked a dinner companion about his jacket – it was a heavily embroidered denim coat, tidy but also heavily worked, practically rendered. My hands drifted to my knees, feeling the satin patches on my jeans, stitched and re-stiched over the years with golden thread.
He appreciated my noticing the coat – “It’s visible repair!”, we said in unison. I showed him my jeans.
Visible repair is what you do when you are too stingy or nostalgic to let your belongings die of natural causes. On the boat, we were both. In Japan, sashiko embroidery in the style of high-contrast “little stabs” is used for boro, the patching up of tattered but valued material. On the Indian subcontinent, saris are recycled into blankets and cushions through kantha. Closer to home, industrious folx convert favorite scraps into quilts. His jacket was a calico denim blazer, in the sashiko-boro style. I remember the texture, as I ran my hand down the sleeve.
Your favorite soup bowl, accidentally dropped, may be repaired with gold powder, the walls around you with mosaic, colorful plastic blocks, or a lovely hunk of nature within reach. Accidents and erosion become the opportunity for artful care-taking.
So much of me right now is under repair. Sometimes I don’t know if there is enough textile for the stitches to bite. How much of me is me vs. the repair? Will I come out rough or smooth? In the groggy meanwhile I float above the operating table, hoping for this extended surgical procedure to take. If there is any lesson from my time under fiberglass, it is that everything is fixable.
December 6th, 2018 § 2 comments § permalink
I started this blog in the summer of 2013, when I was making the transition from land to water, coming undone and floating away. It has been awhile because these past months have been consumed by thoughts of return, rooting and rebuilding. On land. Not so planktonic.
I left the boat in October, left Panama, started a new plan. Since then I have been in Florida, Georgia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York. I spent a week in a Buddhist temple, I participated in a 5-week writing workshop, raked leaves, and shoveled snow. I am seeking out friends and family for conversations, meeting the whole entire children that have been created since the last time we met. Catching up but also remembering who I am in their reflection.
Temple offerings, Kadampa.
Something happened out there on the boat where I lost myself, somehow ran out of me. It is hard to nail down what thats like with a tidy anecdote, I know it is still unfolding.
Neighborhood Print Shop, Braddock PA.
Right now I am in New York City, walking around, researching, writing, archiving, and working. In the next season, I will start on some new path which is still emerging. From the outside looking in, I should probably be freaking out, worried, stressed. But I am somehow feeling very calm, moving slowly but moving forward. I am held and cared for by friends and family – even getting a bit fat.
Wonton Soup.
One thought, a radical outcome from my time on the boat, my one message to you, dear reader, is to consider needing much LESS. When your needs are simple, they can be more simply met. Having your needs met offers freedom from fear. Imagine a version of your life with no fear.
Shell collection, NYC.
Like anyone, I have moments of late night rumination, I go on social media and immediately feel sick with envy. But for some reason – I wish I could see it more clearly, and maybe in time I will – for today, the sense of nourishment and gratitude is just MORE.
Documenting art collection, NYC.
Right now F is out on the boat alone with Beta the cat. I am watching his dot, and getting to know the experience my parents have had, waiting for news, watching the weather. Shore team.
I am taking a beat and looking back on my time as a planktoneer. I have savored these posts, working on them, sharing them, and returning every once and awhile to remember. But after five years adrift, I am taking root…or becoming sessile? Like a barnacle?