The Narrative Image

I helped Mr. and Mrs. P move some furniture to a beach house in Lincoln City .  On the morning we were to load the truck, menacing rain clouds demonstrated their ability to saturate the earth at will with intimidating bursts of precipitation. Not to be nonplussed, Mr. P, who seemingly has the right tool for the right job (no matter how obscure) demonstrated his determination to beat the clouds by pulling a tarp out of his shed that, in its folded state, was just a little bit bigger and heavier than all the furniture we had to move, and unfolded, well... let's just say that standing on opposite ends, we couldn't hear each other over the vast distance unless we used walkie-talkies (and even then we had to gesticulate wildly like near-sighted monkeys).  Once the huge tarp was deployed, the rain clouds moved on to easier prey. In fact, it wouldn't rain again for the duration of the task. A picture of the coast just South of Lincoln City which doesn't really illus...

When I compare myself to Monkey-cam, the most striking difference I notice is that I seldom leave the house without pants. But the second most striking difference is a relative absence of bodily monkey-fur. One line of thought suggests that in evolutionary terms, when we moved from sheltered forests to exposed African savannahs, we may have lost our fur as an adaptation to aid in heat regulation But another line of thought entertains the notion that we very nearly returned to the sea like our mammal brethren – whales and dolphins – during some kind of aquatic ape stage. This would explain also why we cry salty tears and have a mostly dormant diving reflex – and also why I resemble Shamu when I try on wetsuits. Maybe it also explains why the ocean is such a big vacation destination. Maybe in a way, going to the ocean is like going home. Perhaps ancestral memories stir in the corridors of our subconscious and whisper of fantastic seafood smorgasbords... ... a magical place where we c...