Ken McAlpine - Islands Apart: A Year on the Edge of Civilization

McAlpine celebrates and struggles with the gifts of silence and solitude. The results are careful, poetic, and often funny observations.

Virtuoso Life

ABOUT THE BOOK

Author Ken McAlpine stands in his front yard one night in Ventura, California, trying to see the stars. His view is diminished by light pollution, making it hard to see much of anything in the sky. Our fast-paced, technologically advanced society, he concludes, is not conducive to stargazing or soul-searching. Taking a page from Thoreaus Walden, he decides to get away from the clamor of everyday life, journeying alone through Californias Channel Islands National Park. There, he imagines, he might be able to breathe slowly and think clearly, to examine how we live and what we live for.

In between his week-long solo trips through these pristine islands, McAlpine reaches out to try to better understand his fellow man: he eats lunch with the homeless in Beverly Hills, sits in the desert with a ninety-eight-year-old Benedictine monk, and befriends a sidewalk celebrity impersonator in Hollywood. What he discovers about himself and the world we live in will inspire anyone who wishes they had the time to slow down and notice the wonders of nature and humanity.

To learn more about the author, visit his website at www.kenmcalpine.com.

KEN MCALPINE is an award-winning travel writer whose work has appeared in Sports Illustrated, Outside, Readers Digest, and the Los Angeles Times. He is the author of Off-Season: Discovering America on Winters Shore. He lives with his family in Ventura, California.

Sign up to learn more about our books and receive special offers from Shambhala Publications.

Or visit us online to sign up at shambhala.com/eshambhala.

ISLANDS APART

A Year on the Edge of Civilization

Ken McAlpine

TRUMPETER

Boston & London

2013

To Kathy, Cullen, and Graham

And to everyone who strives to make this world a better place

Trumpeter Books

An imprint of Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

2009 by Ken McAlpine

Cover design by Jim Zaccaria

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McAlpine, Ken, 1959

Islands apart: a year on the edge of civilization / Ken McAlpine.

p. cm.

eISBN 978-0-8348-2452-2

ISBN 978-1-59030-530-0 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Channel Islands (Calif.)Description and travel. 2. McAlpine, Ken, 1959 TravelCaliforniaChannel Islands. 3. Natural historyCaliforniaChannel Islands. 4. Outdoor lifeCaliforniaChannel Islands. I. Title.

F868.S232M35 2009

917.94910454DC22

2008051930

Contents

IT IS A FINE THING to sit and watch seas, shadows, and stars shift, but it is no longer easily accomplished.

We live in wondrous times, astoundingly fast times, Blackberry and instant-message times, humankind accomplishing a swelling tidal wave of feats that would have scared Leonardo Da Vinci witless. With a fingers touch, palm-size devices play music, provide news as it unfolds, and even tell us where we should go, a feat formerly accomplished only by spouses and the Oracle at Delphi. Another touch and we see, from space, our homes precise location on Earth, right down to our car in the driveway. When such things become routine, it is astonishing.

Of late, I often step out into our front yard at night just to breathe. Standing in the dark, dandelions underfoot (for I am a chronic ignorer of chores), I look up at the stars. I never miss their beauty, but I also notice they are dim. Nowadays two-thirds of the population of the United States and about half the population of Europe cant see the Milky Way. Mans ongoing rush to illuminate everything now dims the stars themselves.

Still the muted stars feel good, and the darkness and the stillness too, though the stillness is underlain by the steady rush of passing cars on a nearby freeway. I pretend the sound is wind blowing through a canyon. It is a trick, but why not? Todays world is filled with magicians sleights, why not a simple one of my own?

As I stand there in the darkness, I sense that I am missing something.

I doubt I am alone. Almost every day I encounter people who, like me, do not feel empowered by these abundant times. Some are mildly unsettled; others near to drowning.

A woman says, Theres so much change in this world. I feel so insecure, her words nearly a bleat.

A friend says, I thought chips were something you ate.

Someone else says, The more they talk about being connected, the more isolated I feel.

On the Web a teenager I will never knowfor now we are accustomed to hearing the innermost thoughts of strangersblogs, Im scared. Some days it feels that the world is moving much faster than I am.

Author Maggie Jackson claims information overload is crippling our ability to think deeply; like the stars, what matters is now veiled. We are entering a new dark age, she says. I think, perhaps this will make it easier to see the stars.

People do what they can to keep up. To do two things at once is to do neither, proclaimed Publilius Syrus, a Roman slave who lived in the first century B.C.E. But to do six things at once, ah, that is seizing the day. On the road, I look at other drivers talking on the phone, jotting down notes, eating lunch, and checking (and changing) their look in the mirror, a combination of activities my high school drivers-ed instructor never considered. I read about an actress who says she likes to read and talk on the phone while engaging in intercourse, forever attaching a new, and sad, meaning to the term phone sex. One of our sons friends crashed on his bike while text messaging.

This is the communication age, but it seems to me that when people talk with each other, often no one really listens; even as we stand there, we are mentally lighting on some future task. And so a conversation might go something like this.

Say, have you noticed that your pant leg is on fire?

I might be able to find time on Thursday.

I am an optimist at heart. Humankind, after all, has produced the poetry of Alfred, Lord Tennyson and the Sistine Chapel. But increasingly my optimism is sorely tested. Often I am certain we have lost something essential; at times I am certain we have lost our minds. A celebritys half-eaten egg salad sandwich (plus a companions partly gnawed corn dog!) sells on eBay for $520. On Wikipedia more people chime in regarding Michael Jackson than they do Islam or Christianity. The entire staff of Congress is banned from making Wikipedia entries after some staffers were caught sabotaging profiles (Representative Joseph Pendergrast, D-Iowa, likes to play with naked dolls).