The last day of May, for some reason, has always stuck out in my mind as an important day for me. It is usually considered Memorial Day but, in addition to that, in 1970 it was the day I was initiated into Transcendental Meditation—an event that changed my life drastically for the next six years, and forever, really. When I began this journal, long ago last November, I began with the life-changing events which circled around that time in my life when I’d just returned from Vietnam and was lost to the world. It’s no co-incidence that we Vietnam Vets called our country "The World" mostly because Vietnam really was so "other worldly!" My experience of Vietnam as a war is best portrayed by Francis Ford Coppola’s movie "Apocalypse Now." The crazy scene where Robert Duval, with a battle raging right on top of him, roars: "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!" –that image goes a long way toward describing my personal experience of Nam. This may have something to do with the power of the marijuana they grew "in country!"
I first heard about TM one night while the Captain of the anchovy boat I lived on at the time, together with his under-aged runaway girlfriend and I, were smoking some vastly inferior American pot in the pilot house of the boat when in walked the elderly Dutch gentleman, Hans Sebbelov, who changed my life. He sat down, and after shaming the Captain of the boat for still smoking pot after he’d been taught to meditate, he excitedly described the experiences he was having in his meditations. Hans, I learned later that evening during our long, slow walk around the harbor, had gone to see Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh, India as a last chance, as someone who might have a cure for his incurable disease. (To this day, I’m not sure I ever heard what his disease was—at least I can’t remember!)
It was late that evening, after we’d smoked endless Winston Cigarettes (Han’s one vice) in a dockside coffee shop, and Hans was giving me his simple rules that I should live by, that his face completely transformed itself into Maharishi’s! I’ve never fully understood this—although I accept it completely—but it was Maharishi giving me those instructions: the main one was to learn TM. So it was, on May 31, that I had my first experience transcending—going beyond, or beneath, the normal visible material world.
Another thing I’ll never forget is how incredible I felt after learning to meditate. The procedure took only a half-hour or so and though my experience in meditation was not memorable, the way I felt afterwards was. I walked down the street in Westwood Village to the first pizza place I saw—it was one of those thin, crispy crust places new in California at the time. The pizza place glowed with a sort of inner sunshine that was unmistakable! Everything my eyes fell on seemed crystal clear, almost transparent. For the first time I experienced first hand, the power of not just any meditation, but Transcendental Meditation. It was wonderful and it truly changed my life.
This happened on the last day of May 1970. Now, thirty-three years later, the meaning of life has grown larger—and far more difficult. God has given me so many rich experiences, marriage for twenty two years, having children, journeys to many of the far corners of the globe, the death of my father, the love of friends, the loss of friends and what could be called "God’s Program of Continuing Education."
I realize that I am rambling here—but this is my blog and the reason for it, as I’ve said before, is really for me to talk to myself so I can learn everything there is to know. In that vein, I began today, with the thought of simply honoring our young soldiers. Having just returned from Baghdad—and with the killing of soldiers still very much in the news—I want to offer a heart felt thanks.
I’ll see if I can phrase this thought succinctly: For me, being a soldier really was very much a defining role of my life. Going to war somehow stripped me of all pretensions and pre-conceived notions of what life was. Being in Iraq just a few days ago, served to re-confirm that. Just seeing the innocent faces of our young troops confirmed that war changed me. My wife would say it screwed me up, probably irreparably. I choose to look at what it did in a positive light—it stripped me so completely, so naked, that there was only one thing that could begin to heal me—and that was where my seeking for God began which lead me to Transcendental Meditation. The vacuum that had been created and had left me so empty, was the place God rushed into.
I don’t confuse Hans Sebbelov or Maharishi as Gods. They were just two wonderful men who somehow showed up in order to guide me towards the light of life. And, in the spirit of passing on something I have learned, I want to offer hope to soldiers: What you are doing, is by far the highest calling a human can have. It is that simple. You are offering your very existence—your ability to breathe the air on this planet—in order to protect the freedom of others.
What you are doing goes beyond politics. War boils down to being a completely personal thing. Time and again, when asked, you will hear soldiers say that they fight for their buddies. That is about as far beyond politics as you can get! Whether anyone wants to believe it or not, it is the highest spiritual act. Spiritual. War offers the ultimate spiritual lesson.
I remember reading a book—the name escapes me—where a spiritual seeker passes all the lessons his guide gives him right up until the point the seeker is about to become enlightened. They are—figuratively—at the final step right before reaching the top of the mountain, which remains just out of reach. The seeker thinks, I can’t make it myself—it is just a little too far to reach...but what I can do is help someone to climb up by giving them a boost. And then, of course, the seeker becomes enlightened.
This is one of the lessons I keep being taught: to spread the knowledge of what I have learned. So, to the young soldiers, I say—realize that you are already doing what the spiritual seeker is doing. By your selfless action, you are already doing what it may take others lifetimes to learn.
My hope is that you will take all the pain and suffering—the confusion—you are experiencing, and out of it find that there is a deeper meaning to life which lies just beneath the surface of all the craziness. There are many ways to find the sublime bliss which lies beneath everything. Meditation is one. It is possible to visit the place where God lives. I know it is there, and may you find it.
I am bothered when I start living too much in the material world. The "small voice" within has been calling to me for the last few days to come back to my center—to stop flying. "Get Real, asshole!"
Sending the wrong email to Catherine St. Louis at the New York Times, should’ve been a clue that I was getting off track. It helped when I shared at a 12 Step meeting the other day—about right-sizing myself. But, I’m still feeling not enough of "who I am" and too much of "what I dream of being."
My wife sees this unbalanced side of me. She recognizes it instantly and points it out. She usually says that it overwhelms her and doesn’t give her enough room for herself—that Tony takes up too much space in our family.
I don’t argue with that!
This sort of inner reflection makes me want to run away—give up my possessions—and become a simple monk perhaps. Like Peter Hill does in "Beneath Buddha’s Eyes." That was always the most important part of the story for me; Peter’s surrender in the Buddhist temple. I could feel the cold marble floor he was sitting on, could smell the phosphorous of the match as it burst into flame when he was about to burn the contents of his wallet. I can visualize this as a movie!
But for me, in my real life right at the moment, I am feeling a similar kind of need to surrender. I had a waking dream a few weeks ago—before I even went to Iraq—where I smelled the soft salt breeze of Hawaii. I had asked myself the question, "now that I’m being a writer, since I can live anywhere I want, where would I want to live?" Hawaii is the place that came to mind. I’ve never been there, not in this lifetime anyway, but I had the very real sensation of the feeling of the place, the smell of the flowers and all that. I’m not sure Hawaii is the direction I’ll go—it’s just that contained in the thought of the place is maybe a hint of the answer of what I need to do.
I think that what my trip to Iraq is trying to teach me—for the ten-thousandth time in this life—is to look beneath the surface of all the craziness in this world, for that’s where (not hidden too deeply at all) all the answers lie. It is as if my trip to Iraq was a movie—a powerful one at that. But now the movie has ended, the lights have come up, and I’m stuck in my seat wondering, "what’s next?"
We, John Connell, Randy Weiss, Dr. Badri and I, had just begun our day on the town in Baghdad. We’d crossed the Tigris on the much-photographed bridge with the arches across the road which holds a diamond-shaped picture of Saddam. It is amazing, but you can’t go anywhere for more than a minute without seeing a picture of Saddam. At least, you couldn’t (past tense) because most of the pictures have been destroyed, or at least defaced, now.
We were just across the river and made a right turn, which took us into a mostly residential neighborhood. Baghdad is like Los Angeles in that business and residential neighborhoods are mixed in with one another like ingredients in a salad or something.
Anyway, we were in what was once a fairly nice neighborhood except for the skeletons of wrecked vehicles we see every so few seconds along the sides of the streets and the black smoke stained office buildings strategically placed in middle class family neighborhoods.
And there it was. We passed it by at first—it was just another burned out hulk. But when we were well down the road, I asked our driver to stop, to please go back. "Uday’s car," he smiled. He already knew what I wanted to shoot. The way he said it, made it seem like it had become an icon—a definite, planned stop on the tour route.
"Uday" was the magic word that caused John and Randy to follow me over. Obviously, all three of us wanted our picture with the car. But why? What was it all about? A long hidden childhood memory came to me. I was maybe ten or eleven years old, visiting Cape Cod with my parents and my younger sister. There on the side of the main street in Provincetown was Hitler’s car. A long black Mercedes convertible with a black leather top. It scored 100% with me on the "Fascinating Evil Objects" list! I talked my father into spending $5.00 (which seemed to him to be an outrageous amount of money) to let me proceed inside the fenced off area so I could touch the car, and even sit in it—sit in the seat where Hitler once sat.
Uday’s car brought up the same exact emotions proving to me that I’m still a little boy at heart. But it also brought something else up—the question which comes to me at some point during every one of my adventures—what is the meaning of all this, for me. Why "me" again? Why was I standing in Baghdad Iraq asking someone to take my picture with Uday’s car? What is the real story?
It feels like such a lonely place. I’m not sure why; maybe it is because Saddam Hussein is gone. Gone, but I can’t help thinking about him. I somehow feel he is hiding beneath us. Wherever we go, Saddam is sitting at a long conference table—as he was usually pictured on TV—smoking one of his Habana cigars, speaking in his artificially calm and muted voice about something (we never heard his words). But it is reported that he was badly wounded when they bombed the restaurant he was supposedly in. But it is his absence that contributes to the loneliness of Baghdad. At least if he were about, there’d be his Republican Guards making their presence known, picking up political dissidents and torturing people.
After delivering the medical supplies to hospitals—I’ll get to this at a later date—we took a day to tour the city, much like anyone would want to, having a free day in Baghdad. We hit the hot spots—one of Saddam’s palaces where the U.S. soldiers were glad to show us around—and stopped in front of countless bombed out buildings the use of which the driver would explain, through our translator, Dr. Badri. "Uday’s offices, telephone company, Saddam’s parliament, etc."
Either the driver or Dr. Badri—I forget who—was eager to show us Saddam’s secret police Headquarters, a compound where "someone who enters never leaves—alive."
It was a long, low tan cement affair—all Saddam’s buildings seemed to be tan cement—well hidden from the road by a twelve-foot tan cement wall. We entered through an unmanned guard post and then continued along a long straight driveway into an open courtyard in the center of which was a huge statue of a world globe.
All the windows in the buildings had been blown out and there were black smoke stains around and above them. A couple of looters were busy removing the aluminum window frames which remained. Dr. Badri, who had grown up in Baghdad, was incensed and began to yell at the looters. It didn’t seem like a terrifically wise idea as they were most-likely armed and we were not. One of them rushed over to our car to engage Badri. The yelling went on for a heated few minutes, culminating in the man suddenly lifting his shirt to show the scars he said he had received when he’d been tortured by Saddam’s men.
In an instant reaction—one of those that completely bypasses the rational mind—I lifted my shirt, puffed out my chest and showed off the long scar from my heart operation. This, I knew almost instantly, was a totally irrational act. About all it did was to have the man lower his voice a few decibels. I felt like almost a total idiot. Why had I showed the man my scar? What was I trying to prove? Mine was bigger—longer—than his? I felt childish, dumb.
Suddenly I felt lonelier than before. We left the place and continued on our tour of bombed out palaces, the two huge unfinished Mother of All Mosques that Saddam had recently begun construction on evidently to appease the Gods. We toured the rich neighborhood where Saddam’s faithful lived in perhaps the most architecturally bizarre houses on the planet—houses which in their form, displayed a kind of insanity.
The heat finally forced us to stop at a roadside shop which, thanks to a generator, was serving delicious cups of Baghdad ice cream which was eaten with tiny spoons, the size of the testing spoons at Baskin Robbins.
But even the ice cream couldn’t make the loneliness disappear. The emptiness of Baghdad was in the air. It was as if the city had no soul.
I have to back up in my story six hours or so. I found an entry I had written something in my small moleskin notebook—one more thing—about the Ilyushin 76 being a home to the five Ukrainian crew.
Somehow, probably the incredibly loud high-pitched scream of the engines, changed pitch—a decibel lower or something. I checked my wristwatch; it was almost exactly 24:00 UTC, Universal Time Code, what used to be called GMT, Greenwich Mean Time; otherwise known as "the middle of the night."
My back feels fine now. I haven’t spoken about this but I took this trip with a fairly excruciating pain in my lower back—it’s something I’ve dealt with before but it is aggravated each time I lift my heavy camera pack. So the couple of hours of lying perfectly flat on the foam mattress feels like pure heaven. It only hurts when I get up to check things out up in Sergei’s house. We’re over Greece—about to land at the airport in Athens. As I wrote earlier, I experienced my first landing in the bombardier’s window—the airport lights whizzing by just below my perch—very cool!
But now I climb sleepily, so very carefully down the small ladder into the soft midnight air of Greece. It’s a brand new shiny airport with all new trucks and equipment. Anatoly immediately must make a decision whether or not to unpack the huge tow bar, which is kept in the cargo hold, or rent one from the airport. After a quick negotiation he chooses to rent.
Meanwhile Fyodor has hooked up fuel hose to a pump in the belly of the aircraft. In order to pump, he must start up the plane’s own generator which operates a compressor which pumps the fuel. It’s that Russian-built oddity again—but the noise, like the noise of the engines, is twice as loud as any normal generator and compressor. Fyodor, however, obviously used to it—it occurs to me now that he might be mostly deaf—sets up a folding nylon lawn chair under the plane, an arm’s length from the fuel gauges.
After breathing in as much of the smell of Jet Fuel as I want to, I climb back up the ladder where I find Anatoly heating up a cup of tea in the microwave just across from the doorway. He makes one for me as well—which is interesting, as many things seem to be on this trip, because from the heat of the tea, the cup begins to expand in the middle. It instantly reminds me of a pregnant woman only the cup becomes pregnant at an alarmingly fast rate. Of course it makes me wonder if it is going to stop at some point. And, magically, it does—the liquid cooling off just enough, I suppose, just in the nick of time! Anatoly offers me a cookie from an open box on the counter.
The last paragraph I wrote that night was this: "It’s funny, I think, how when you’re on a trip like this, hot tea, even with no milk or sugar, drunk out of a melting cup, tastes better, feels better, than a perfectly brewed cup of Fortum and Mason served on a silver tray in a fancy tea parlor. I am happiest, by far, in these sorts of situations. With men who are real, who have real, useful skills and work at real jobs. I am tired of meeting people with sissy jobs, who work at desks, staring into computer screens, who have lost touch with reality. So many of the people around me at home are chasing the almighty dollar. They are living the lives of cliches obsessed only by greed."
When I get up on my soapbox, it’s usually when I’m tired. But every thought, on some level, deserves to be recorded—at least that’s MY theory—not that, in the light of day, some of them amount to a hill of beans.
It didn’t remind me, at all, of landing in Vietnam in 1968. This time, it was pure fun! It was just after sun up and I was seated for my second landing, in the bombardier’s window, at Sergei’s feet. Ever since I’d moved into position, we’d been crossing the burnt-umber colored desert. There had been no delineation of the border painted on the sand as I’d half expected. As used as we are to seeing maps of Iraq on television, you think someone at CNN might’ve painted a white line.
I did have a sighting of bomb craters—I was used to seeing those from helicopters in Vietnam so I recognized them immediately. They look very much like the craters on the moon. Craters are craters, when you think about it, no matter what the object which creates them—just bowl shaped indentations. Meanwhile the heavy Ilyushin 76 slid along over the desert in the morning light. As we moved, as if on a smooth pane of glass above the sand, I looked for signs of life but found none.
Sergei, the navigator, was busy with his charts. It occurred to me at some point that he was actually rather frantic. Unbeknownst to me, at that time, Anatoly the Captain was unable to reach American authorities on the ground. He had descended into the cargo bay to find John Connell to see what contacts John had in Iraq. As it turns out John had the phone number for CENTCOM Headquarters in Kuwait which, turned out to be of little help. It ended up being an old pre-war Iraq radio frequency that eventually found the voice that gave us the co-ordinates for the airport and permission to land.
Sergei became quite elated as soon as we had a visual sighting of Baghdad airport. He leaned forward and pointed several times to landmarks that I could understand even in his thick Ukrainian accent. "Tigris! Euphrates!"
The names brought me right back to school, to the study of geography—one of my favorite subjects. Perhaps it was my burning desire to see the places I saw on maps and in those well-worn schoolbooks, which has allowed me to travel to so many parts of the world. And now, here I am, a camera in my lap, feeling as excited as a schoolboy flying over Baghdad, and across the Euphrates River, for the first time.
Immediately, my elation is brought into check. The plane banks around to the left and we quickly descend down to the runway and there immediately on our right is one of Saddam Hussein’s gigantic palaces—as ostentatious and out of place as a building can be! It looks like a giant mega-hotel complete with a man-made lake—a conglomeration you might expect in Orlando but not Iraq.
Welcome to Baghdad!
The airport is nearly empty except for a line of dust-covered Iraq Airlines passenger jets parked uselessly in a neat row. We taxi up to a huge hanger where a lone U.S. Soldier waves us in with his red paddles. He's our greeting committee--he and a lone photographer behind him snapping a picture.
Iraq--it seems like such a lonely place.
While the Flightline crew were loading the 80 skids of medical supplies aboard our ride, one of the major topics of conversation amongst the passengers, John Connell and Randy Weiss of AmeriCares and myself, was the news story, only a few days old about the Ilyushian 76 whose rear cargo doors had opened, sucking out 120 passengers. Here’s the story as reported by Reuters:
OVER 120 KILLED IN FREAK CARGO PLANE ACCIDENT.
Passengers were sucked out of a Russian-made plane over the Democratic Republic of Congo late on Thursday after a door opened accidentally during the flight, a military official said on Friday.
'The doors opened including the ramp as the pressure system broke down. Everybody was sucked out and is presumed dead,' the official in the capital Kinshasa said.
It was not immediately clear how many passengers were on board. A Russian aviation official in Kinshasa, who declined to be named, said he believed there were 129 people on board.
He said the pilot had managed to turn the plane around and land in Kinshasa after the accident.
Congo's Minister for Peace Vital Kamerhe confirmed that a cargo door had opened mid-flight and that there was some damage.
The Russian official said the plane was an Ilyushin 76 and had been chartered by the Congolese army to fly from Kinshasa to Lubumbashi, Congo's second biggest city in the southeast and home to a big military base.
He said he believed the passengers were a mixture of military officials and civilians.
The four-engined Ilyushin 76 is a versatile transport aircraft widely used in Africa, the Middle East, India and China, and remains in service despite its age because of the shortage of cargo aircraft worldwide.
So even before we would land in Baghdad and worry about a sniper picking off a prized target of an American humanitarian aid worker, we could, if we really wanted to, worry about being sucked out of the back door of our plane, somewhere over the Mediterranean maybe. We could’ve, but the three of us left the worrying to our wives. Our pilot Anatoly said he had heard other instances of the doors opening—sometime in the 1980’s—but didn’t seem at all worried. Of course he was strapped into his seat which was up a ladder and through a door. He’d have a long way to go before he was sucked out of a back door!
The other thing was, 80 heavy skids sat between us and the opening.
None of we three passengers had any problem sleeping. In fact, I’ve never slept so soundly on a plane.
"ON BEING A JERK—AN APOLOGY TO CATHERINE ST. LOUIS"
Yesterday, late in the afternoon, I had a meeting with my agent and friend Tom Connor to help him with a book he’s pitching. Before he arrived, I’d been perusing photos of Baghdad—and had just made a print of me taken in one of Saddam’s weekend palaces sitting on his bed. Since returning from this trip, I’ve been full of myself to the point of bursting! It’s a very uncomfortable feeling for me, so I’ve been dealing with it by attending extra 12-Step meetings and "telling on myself" as they say there.
Yesterday at a lunch meeting, I identified myself as "an egomaniac with low self esteem," which really is the perfect handle for me these days. But, obviously, even telling on myself wasn’t enough of a cure for me.
When Tom arrived and I showed him the photo, he immediately said, send it to the New York Times for "What They Were thinking." So I did. I sent it to Catherine St. Louis, an editor for the Sunday Magazine, who had I met briefly when I submitted my photos of the World Trade Center disaster shortly after 9/11. She was a very nice person and receptive to new ideas so I saved her email address in my online address book.
While Tom sat beside my desk, I sent off a jpeg of the photo of me. Then, after we concluded our business and he left, I checked my email. There was a reply fm Catherine: who is on the bed? i.e. what's the story? what would we get that guy talking about? Csl
Needless to say, I was excited. Thrilled is more like it. So I rifled a reply off to Tom for him to read upon his return home: Tom--Okay--so HOW THE FUCK do I respond to THIS?!!! Tell me, Coach! Tony
It was only seconds before I realized that I hadn’t bothered to type in Tom’s email address. Oh my God—I realized that I’d hit "Reply" and sent the message to Catherine. It takes years to create a relationship, but only seconds, when acting like a jerk, to screw one up. I am very good at this. Not only was the message sent to an editor at the New York Times, but to a nice person, as well. I really try—I really do—to be kind and respectful to people (at least when I’m conscious).
So I quickly sent her an apology—even before I got the following message back: I can pretty much guarantee that you didn't mean to send this to me - considering I'm not TOM and I don't take kindly to swearing. csl
That’s the whole of it. What I said in my apology to Catherine is not important. Whatever it was, it felt hollow. She had seen the real Tony Anthony for who he was—an egomaniac with low self-esteem. My message to Tom was a portrait of me flying high. And, as perfect as it always is, God shot me down—right out of the sky!
To make a fun of it—perhaps I landed where this whole incident began—right on Saddam’s bed!
So Catherine—I’m sorry for the language I used. You experienced me at my worst. As to "what would we get that guy talking about?" Well, he just said it.
It quickly becomes obvious to me that the Ukranian crew of the Ilyushin II-76 are masters of non-verbal communication. I am offered a seat behind the three main flight crew as we take off from Maastricht airfield. What I notice, immediately, are the subtle ways in which the pilot, the co-pilot, the flight engineer and the two electricians who sit behind them, communicate with one another. There is no question of authority—these are old school Russians, ex-military, and there’s a definite chain of command. Anatoly the Captain is clearly in charge. As we taxi down the runway I can tell that his touch on the wheel is gentle yet decisive. I marvel at the subtle motions he makes with his leather-gloved hands, coaxing the heavy bird into the sky.
But as we are taking off, there is a problem with a couple of the gauges. Anatoly turns his head to gain the attention of the electrician, sitting behind him and to my left, and points to the suspect dials. In an instant, the electrician produces a thin metal box from somewhere—beneath his seat I think—with perhaps ten rows of tiny light bulbs neatly arranged in order of size. There must be at least a hundred different categories. Between himself and the captain, they end up trying three before getting the right ones for the job. And again, what is the most interesting part of this interchange is how it all operated without words. Although the crew in the front seats speak on headsets, the two electricians behind them do not. So what is communicated between pilot and electricians is all done by eye, by expression hand signs, and by mental transference. The last of this list is by no means the least important. I am sure it is no co-incidence that the Russians (I’m including the Ukraine and all the other former states of the Soviet Union in the word "Russia") are so interested in extra-sensory perception—they are so good at it!
As we head towards our first refueling stop in Athens, I start to formulate a theory about all this. I’m thinking that their skill at non-verbal communication comes from their propensity for quiet. I picture Russians spending long, cold Siberian winters sitting silent in front of the fire sipping Vodka. I have more than twenty years practicing non-verbal communication with my wife who embodies the Swedish version of knowing how to be quiet. Swedes are pretty good at it—but not in the same league as Russians.
To give you some idea of what I’m talking about, Americans are at the exact opposite end of the chart. We are the most open so therefore the least likely to know how to communicate by mental telepathy. Although, having said this, I know some Americans who are actually pretty tuned in to it.
Does any of this make any sense to you? Do you know what I mean?
I’ve learned that in Europe one of the most popular pastimes is plane spotting. I was a skeptic until I witnessed a definite strong showing at different points around the Maastricht airfield. People had come—one young man we met was from Belgium—to gawk at and to photograph our "ride." When we are driven around to the opposite side of the ariport runway, we pass a fellow perched high atop a stepladder awaiting the arrival of the Russian aircraft. I learn that because of the loudness of the engines the plane is normally now allowed to land at most European airports. Even at Maastricht, which is situated in the middle of artichoke fields, it can land only with special permission.
For the plane spotters, this is a rare treat to capture our aircraft for their photo albums. There is a crowd of about ten people trapped behind a chain link fence when we arrive at the other side of the runway. When the plane lands we hear the high-pitched scream of the engines, which grow louder when it taxis toward us along the apron, it’s huge floppy wings hanging down like arms almost too heavy to hold up.
The crew door opens high up on the side of the plane. Then a ladder is lowered to the ground by the loadmaster, a man named Fyodor, who looks remarkably like Robin Williams. The huge rear cargo doors swing open to the sides.
The interior color scheme in the Ilyushin II-76 is dark gray punctuated on the instrument panels with 1950s turquoise green. The Russian instruments are oversized, like many things Russian—like the aircraft itself, for instance. There is a preponderance of long handled toggle switches—mostly on the walls behind the flight crew who are crowded into the cockpit, pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer in three front seats with two electricians sitting directly behind them who flip the toggles every few minutes. None of them speaks a single word of English so my communication with them is all by hand signs, eye movement and shrugs of the shoulders—much the same way, I notice, they communicate among themselves.
The aircraft seems to be more of a family affair than anything. I get the feeling that all of the crew, like Sergei, makes the Ilyushin home. By the way, this particular aircraft is, among plane spotters, a rather famous one. It is one of two fitted out with a padded cargo bay where the Russian cosmonauts practiced weightlessness—you know, where the pilot puts the plane into a steep dive and the passengers in the rear experience a few minutes of floating. Kind of cool, I think, but not possible for us to try it what with the 80 skids of cargo we’re carrying.
Fyodor offers we three passengers, mattresses which John and Randy place in strategic areas on top of the cargo. Fyodor, himself, has his spot at the front of the cargo bay above a stack of huge new tires for the plane. He shows me a place between the cargo and a wall where I stuff my mattress in a "U" shape. From there I can jump up to photograph from the bombardier’s window and the flight deck. Following a short stay on the flight deck, I climb back down the ladder to the cargo bay. The others are already asleep and it takes only a few minutes airborne before I am lulled to sleep as well—the most comfortable ride I’ve ever had on a plane. None of that trying to get as prone as possible in even a business class seat; this is flying flat on a bed—strictly first class!
It is several hours before I am awakened by the sound of Fyodor heating a cup of tea in the microwave a few feet above my head. I join him for a cup as well before heading up to Sergei’s for a middle-of-the-night landing at the Athens airport. It is a beautiful, surreal experience, seeing the shadow of the Acropolis framed against the lights of the sleeping city. Then the colored runway lights coming closer and blurring past just a few feet beneath me.
I couldn’t pay for a ride this wonderful, I think to myself. Some things on God’s good earth are so fantastic, that they blur the line between the material and the spiritual worlds—this short moment, beyond time, is one of them for me.
I’m sitting in the bombardier’s window of a Russian built Ilyushin II-76 hanging under the belly of the nose of the plane—the view of a lifetime.
My feet are planted on strong metal frames on either side of the rectangular pane of thick glass, the center of the window looking for telltale signs of war as we glide 30,000 feet above a rusty tan sea of sand. So far I see only a few trails snaking calmly amidst the endless dunes which resemble, almost identically, waves on the ocean. Behind me is a handmade shelf made constructed of cheap Masonite stuffed with Jeppeson Guides to airports around the world. To my left and above in a swivel chair sits Sergei, a Ukranian about 50, the navigator, busy with his 100 or so dials and radios, sweating in his sleeveless undershirt, navigating the huge plane through Iraqi airspace.
Sergei speaks constantly to the captain who is seated, together with four other crew members, on the flight deck directly above us. As hot as it is in our cramped bomb bay, Sergei emits a brand of odor, which in my tired state of mind I expend far too much thought on. I conclude the smell is derived of potatoes in the natural state, Russian vodka in their distilled state, and I’m guessing various other vegetables including red beets and rhubarb, carrots and onions and, I’m guessing, others I am not familiar with. Also certain cuts of beef, various cheeses, including some smelly ones, apples, pears and lots of strong tea.
Undoubtedly, I’m exuding a similarly pungent odor as well—only of a more American nature, of course. But, since I am saved from smelling my own, I won’t bother to describe it. I’m sure it’s something you really don’t need to know!
Sergei is a nice guy, indeed, to put up with me intruding on his sacred space. (I must pause to say—I’m always pleased whenever I get to use that word "indeed" without it sounding too pompous. You might be able to tell that I’m writing this in quite an excited state, far from my normal place of deep calm and inner peace—joking! My wife says I’m nearly always some sort of excited state.) I am sure Sergei is the kind of guy with an enormous inner world to occupy him. He also seems to be one of those people just happy to be alive. His small navigation station takes up hardly more space than the circumference of his skinny body. Something about the way Sergei reaches for the radio dials and punches the keys on the primitive Russian keyboard to his right, makes me think how all of us eventually seem to end up in places like his. Don’t we all build material worlds around us, where everything is "just so" to make us feel safe and also more powerful? I have the feeling that this tiny little room—there is also a closer-sized space hidden in a dark corner behind the place he sits where he can sleep—is truly his home, much more so than even his small cottage in the Ukraine probably is.
I feel privileged to be welcomed to Sergei’s space for what for me is already an extraordinary journey—the first airlift of humanitarian aid to Baghdad. I could have been sitting in just another comfortable business class seat going somewhere I didn’t really care about; instead I’m travelling in "real class" without the need for any verbal communication with the man next to me, to a place rife with meaning for me and for the world at large.
The meaning will surface, in its own time, as it always seems to for me; for now I’ll continue only to describe the journey.
I’ve just returned from Iraq, a short journey (in terms of time) which has had more of an impact on me than I would’ve imagined. For however many blogs it takes, I’ll share some of the adventure and the feelings that go along with it.
JOURNEY TO BAGHDAD—DAY 1
Sometimes I think I’m the luckiest guy alive. I’ve been given so many opportunities in this lifetime similar to this one. I mean, here I am, after all, flying business class to Amsterdam where we will drive to Maastricht Airfield to meet a Russian Cargo plane—an Ilyushin II-76 to Baghdad. Just after the war has ended and I’m heading now to just exactly where I want to be, on planet Earth. Some may call my somewhat perverse desire to always be at the place "where it’s happening" strange, some may call it adventuresome. My wife and kids just accept it. For me, it feels simply like a form of innocent curiosity.
My photo pack is heavy with my two Nikon cameras, about 60 rolls of film, two Maglites and plenty of batteries for everything; we hear there’s no electricity operating in Iraq. It seems to me there’s an assured adventure awaiting.
Still, I’m in the expectation stage of my journey—A brain full of questions is traveling along with me. What about my heart? Is it too soon to be venturing this far from home? Should I have discussed this with my cardiologist, Dr. Fishman? (I can tell you the answer to that one.) What if he told me not to go—would I have gone anyway? Am I just being a crybaby or are my fears well founded?
Carrying my heavy camera bag through the airport terminal causes me some anxiety. The pressure it puts on my chest wound makes it hurt. Yesterday, as if giving myself a self-examination, I actually took the time to run my finger alone the scar where the bone had been sawn through. It shocked me how bumpy the area is where the bone has sealed. Nothing comes to mind to compare it with—it is simply a bumpy path between the two sides, which have been wired together.
These are my thoughts before fading off to sleep. With every new adventure there comes some fears. For this one it is what John Connell and Randy Weiss and I talk about most—which is the ride out of Baghdad—8 hours to the border of Jordan. People are being robbed along this route but there are no flights out of Baghdad so there is no other choice. Nobody has been killed. "Okay, but robbed" I am thinking. I don’t relish the possibility but this is a role I like; one with a light coating of danger, just enough to make it an adventure.
You want to run but you don’t. You feel a panic in your heart but you stay to face what you’ve been asked to do. You’ve fallen on the ground but slowly, with great fortitude you lift yourself up and press your face into the sunlight of the day. You learn to speak from your heart. You learn to feel the darkest things that are around you -- and yet you do not run. Like magic, you gain strength just from standing and not moving. You gain more strength from daring to speak what you feel. And then, when you hear the words you have spoken, they give you even more strength to continue. Then you notice that someone’s listening. Then you hear the applause. And though this makes you afraid, you do not run and hide. Instead you open your heart some more and you feel less afraid and you know you are brave.
Sometimes I forget you are there. Though you are the deepest and strongest part of me. I forget to contact you. I often need to be reminded to talk to you. Sometimes, even in meditation, I pass you by. But I am with you now, here in this letter to you.
Sometimes I see you when we were young together. We are standing in a field. The sun is bright and the grass is tall. You are standing there, naked, happy, unashamed at who you are. You are so happy and bright and handsome and healthy -- filled with the glow of youthfulness and courage and love. You are not afraid. You accept who you are and who you are is all good and trusting and kind. The world itself is happy to have you living here on this planet.
At other times I see you growing up -- as an adolescent. But now you are damaged in some way and this disturbs me deeply. Because I want only the best for you. I want you to know I care and that I will protect you and pick you up when you fall and clean you off when you’re dirty. Dear Spirit, I am your protector. I am your father and your mentor and I am here to teach you whatever I know. More than that, I am here to love you so you can feel good about yourself.
Be happy, Little Spirit, and grow up along with me and together we’ll be just fine!
Often I find you when I awaken in the middle of the night. You grasp me at the throat with a cold and sweaty palm. You grip me with all your strength, not wanting to let me go. When I fight to pull loose, you tighten your grasp on me. It takes all my strength to fight you off. You possess me. I must be fully awake to fight you and when I win a battle with you it is only temporary. I squirm and turn and even at times find it necessary to run from you.
I feel your pain in my lower back. I feel deep insecurity in my throat. You attack my thoughts, making me think I am not good enough to earn the money I need to support my family. You deceive me in that way. Your assault is insidious and complete and you win small victories with your cunning and ruthlessness.
I have spent my life seeking your approval. Even when you were dying I sat beside your bed, holding your weak and bony hand because, in part, I wanted you to think I was your good son, that I was there for you when you needed me. I remember a few nights before you died--the night I slept on the couch and you kept calling me every five minutes to bring you something to drink or to move your legs or something, anything. I didn’t sleep even for a minute that night. I was busy being there for you.
I am sorry that it took me so many years before I realized what was going on. I held such a deep resentment for you, for so long. That’s what the anger was all about. You thought I hated you. You used to say, “I know you hate me.” It wasn’t hate, it was resentment because I never felt I lived up to what you expected of me. Now I know that isn’t necessary. I would have been better off all along had I realized that sooner. I had nobody’s expectations to live up to. Nobody’s.
You have approached me with so many faces that sometimes I don’t recognize you. But thank God I’ve found you. This life would be bleak without you. You have broken through the barriers of unfeeling and pain and found me whenever you’ve wanted to. You have never let me down. You have never imposed conditions upon me, you have just been who you are and with your being, merely through your existence have I experienced glimpses of the wonderful deepest aspects of life.
You are my prayer and the answer to it. My prayer is that I should never take you lightly or for granted. That I should do nothing less than worship you--you who has given me life and the reason for life. You remain underneath all that I am and all that I do and even my reason for doing and being. I try to understand you but don’t so I write endless words to you trying to explain my reasons for needing you. I languish in the colors you create, in the storms of excitement which you let swirl around me. I feel you not as static but constantly moving, creating, forming new worlds, new words, new explanations for things.
But it’s as if I can never keep up with you because of the ways in which you change your face. You appear here and there and always where I least expect you. Part of your endless interest is in trying to see who you are today and where you will be. I know I will always find you but I never know where or what you will look like or what your sound might be. I am in awe. You have landed me flat on my back watching you show off your powers in endless ways. Always I am breathless just to feel you in my heart. I can feel you so strong and vibrant within me that I sometimes want to rip open my chest and unleash you on the world--to let you level entire villages and towns and cities with your strength.
I will never forget the night in Switzerland when I awakened in bed and saw your golden breath that filled my room, so thick I could cut it with a knife. Then, when I questioned you, you showed me how you flowed from out of the building I was in across the long valley and disappeared behind the mountains where you were flowing out to blanket the world. What you showed me was your undeniable strength and power to heal.
As a force in the universe you are the strongest, the most beautiful, the most constant. You exist for us to know you, to use you, to feel you.
You were, you are, you will be.
I know you now that I have dared to feel.
I was so afraid, for so long. So I could not acknowledge your being. But I was feeling. What I was feeling was fear. I was afraid to feel afraid, as if this feeling would kill me. And, with the fear of feeling afraid I felt afraid to feel anything at all--even happy. Or kindness, or friendship or in love.
All the people I’ve hurt in this life were hurt because I had been afraid to feel. When a feeling came it was often one of pain--and the pain was the pain of inadequacy, that I was not enough. So rather than have that pain, I taught myself to shut down and live in the dark place where feelings couldn’t reach.
Today is day 2 of our humanitarian journey. I am here in Maastricht, Holland, at the airport with John Connell and Randy Weiss of AmeriCares awaiting our Russian-made Aleutian cargo plane. Yes, it is the same one on which the rear door opened yesterday over the Congo losing a number of passengers. Of course, the three of us are aware of the fact that this news is playing all over CNN, which our wives are probably watching. Our joke is that we will be sure to sit up front!
John called my room last night and in an excited voice told me the airspace problem had been solved. Turkey had a problem with us flying over so AmeriCares has arranged the flight to go over Syria.
So it seems tomorrow morning we will be flying in to Baghdad airport with our planeload of medical supplies.
My mission is to photograph an AmeriCares doctor who is on the ground there. And the offloading of the supplies to be used in hospitals in Iraq.
The whole idea makes me feel good because it is a positive step in helping my fellow humans. I am inspired by the zeal and dedication that John and Randy have for their job. They wake up every morning to help out their fellow humans--we should all be doing so well!
So, the computer just gave me the two minute warning. I'll just say I love you to anyone listening and to Monika, Evan, Andrew, Mom, and Dixie the dog. Love IS what makes the world go 'round!
I have been so lucky to be your friend and to have you with me beneath the endless turmoil and change which takes place on the surface of life. It has only been through God’s Grace that I’ve known you at all but the thought of having lived without you all these years is unbearable. But somehow we were introduced at the moment I needed you most and you’ve kept with me, unfailingly, ever since. I cannot imagine how life could be lived without you.
It is when I write that I feel your presence most strongly. I feel you here now without having to ask or even wish. You are with me as an unfailing brother to help me to feel not alone.
Whenever there is quiet I feel you are with me. I no longer need to hope and pray, I need only to feel.
I’m heading for Baghdad tonight—going to document a shipment of AmeriCares humanitarian aid. We are flying in from an airbase in Holland aboard a Dutch Airforce Cargo plane.
Already I’m feeling a bit antsy. I get this feeling of expectation whenever I go but it’s never the same when I get there. From the moment I know I’m going anywhere, I begin to form a mental picture in my head of what it’s going to be like when I get there but it is never the same! I’ve been to a lot of far away places—the furthest away being Antartica—but Baghdad already seems to be one of the most exciting, and I haven’t even gotten on the plane!
The war is over, "sort of." AmeriCares is supplying us with bullet proof vests so I guess an American even under the label of Humanitarian Aid Person might still be a prized target for whoever is left of Saddam’s loyalists. So, the trip already has already elevated itself, in my mind anyway, to the level of an adventure.
I ran into my son’s football coach at Stop & Shop yesterday, where I was stocking up on my medications (one of the joys of being a recent heart patient). When I told him where I was off to, he instantly got a look of shock on his face—so there is still a certain cache about travel to Iraq.
For me, this trip, like all my adventures, will be a very personal experience. Whatever the reality of the place turns out to be, I know I will not be disappointed—I never am no matter where I go.
The reality of anyplace is such a cool thing to experience if I am just open to it. That’s all it takes. One of my favorite things in all the world, is to wander around a strange city with my camera in hand. Last year at this time I was doing the same thing, only in Madagascar, on an AmeriCares mission. There was so much to learn there as there will be in Baghdad.
It makes me think that someday I must write a book just about wandering through foreign places. Even though I’m focused on the world inside myself, focusing on the world outside serves to change us, especially when the place is a foreign one. We begin to see ourselves in contrast to the way other people live and that teaches us a little bit more about who we are ourselves.
There has always been a place for you in my heart. I can be very accepting of you.
I sought you out for years. I was so happy living in Switzerland taking long walks, alone, through the fields along the trails that lead up into the mountains. In the forests above Lake Lucern I would find the magic of being with you. I don’t think I have ever been bored in the forest or in the mountains--with always something new to look at, a view above the lake or up into the clouds with so much quiet to surround a soul.
I have always loved to travel alone, and in Switzerland I took the steamer from the little dock in Trieb, near where I lived, into Lucerne. I would find a seat on a bench at the boat’s stern and sip endless cups of tea feeling the world pass by. I liked not knowing the Swizzerdeusch that people babbled around me--the not knowing allowed me to stay within my sweet pool of solitude. In this place, in Switzerland, I could spend entire days in this state of mind. I often took the train into Zurich to buy art supplies. The store was in the center of the old town which was one of my favorite places in the world to wander, with it’s narrow streets all leading eventually down to the Limmatquai and the lake. Sometimes I would stand outside a cafe and watch the play of humanity filling themselves up with food and drink and talk--probably of business deals and bank quotations and industries and relationships and dreams of love.
Lost in your warm grip, Solitude, I have always managed to find hope and peace for I know it is within you that they reside.
I have never wanted you near me. To accept you would have meant letting another human close and the thought of that was unbearable. It meant sharing things I was afraid to share. It meant being vulnerable, open, giving. Who would want to be like that? That would mean no space around me, no protection from what you might think of me.
So this means I am afraid of you, Intimacy--and of being open and giving and caring of another human being. But now that I know that, I am carefully allowing you closer, hoping that I will survive trusting in you, and trusting another person.
I write almost every night in a brown leather book—one of a number I had made in Italy when I was working for a travel company—thinking they would make great gifts or items for people taking long journeys. Since they are made in Europe they are made in metric "A" sizes which means the books are taller than our eight and one-half by eleven inch letter size. I like the slightly longer page, which gives me space for four or five more lines or a couple of sentences. I feel like I get a bonus when I’m approaching the bottom of the page—I still have room for another thought or even two. The A size page fits my process. I think we all write, to a certain extent, to fit the space we’re dealing with. Even when I begin a novel, I have three or four hundred pages in mind—hey, I’m not Tolstoy!
There is something about pen scratching on paper that I like. It’s tactile. And pages that turn with the fingers, I like that also. I like the way the side of my hand moves across the page following my thoughts. In a way, the book is alive. It moves to the touch and bends under pressure. It has shape and texture and form.
I think I love the leather cover most of anything. I love the dark brown color and the smell of the leather—For whatever reason, I often pause in my writing to bring the book up against my nose just to breathe in the smell of the leather. The leather is fairly thick. It’s real—not the processed kind made of leather pulp that is used on most covers these days. The cover is cut from a single piece, which wraps around the spine where the pages are bound.
The paper is a warm, yellowish tint of white. It is not ultra smooth, nor is it a fake ultra white. When held up to the light, the pages reveal a subtle calendering—horizontal lines which I know come from the machines on which the paper pulp is dried. It is acid free which means it will retain its original color over time. In its simplicity, the paper pretends to be nothing more than it is.
I am writing on this journal now—the book propped against my right leg, as I lay back in bed. My left leg supports the book some, as well as my ankle which rests against my right knee at a 90 degree angle. And the book, rather than sitting hard and rigid, bends to fit, to accommodate this situation like it does for many others.
On the cover of this particular journal is embossed a map of Antarctica. This journal was made for a trip I took more than five years ago. A trip to the "Eighth Continent" deserves its own personal journal. But then, so do most of our own personal thoughts. A journal like this make our thoughts even more precious; longer lasting. It imbues them with quality and import.
I just stopped here—at this logical spot—now I’m a few inches, still, from the bottom of the page. I pause to smell the leather. After all, that’s what writing is all about—isn’t it? Describing the way something looks and feels and smells so someone else will understand and share in the experience.