By Johna Till Johnson
Photo by Vladimir Brezina
Squirrel clings… with an expectant look!
Vlad and I have always been fascinated by squirrels: The acrobatic way they catapault through the leaves. How quickly they can scamper up trees. The brazen way they beg for food (at least in Central Park). And most of all, the way they’re able to cling like Velcro to the trees….
In response to the daily prompt, “Cling”.
Posted in Culture, Life, Nature, New York City, Photography
Tagged Central Park, New York City, Squirrel
By Johna Till Johnson
Photo by Vladimir Brezina
The city is always magical at night…
Midtown Illuminations
A contribution to today’s daily post word: Festive.
Posted in Architecture, Art, Kayaking, New York City, Photography
Tagged city lights, Manhattan skyline
By Johna Till Johnson
Three Birds Enjoy a Windfall on a Summer’s Day
Every so often, something wonderful comes into your life unexpectedly. You didn’t wish for it, or ask for it–it just appeared, providing you with great and wholly unanticipated joy.
For these three birds, the sudden appearance of breadcrumbs (perhaps a loaf from the grocery store across the street) must have represented the purest sort of windfall. Who knows who left the bounty, and why? But there was no mistaking their happiness as the birds pecked away with great animation.
It’s a happiness I felt, too, when my greatest windfall appeared. Knowing Vlad was so unexpected, so out of the ordinary run of my life, that I couldn’t have conceived of it before it happened. Now that he is gone, there is indeed a “before” and “after” in my life–but not the usual kind. For most who have suffered a loss, the boundary between “before” and “after” is the loss.
My “before” and “after” is marked by meeting Vlad, not by losing him.
Before I met him, I looked at life in a prosaic and utilitarian way. Yes, twinklings and inklings of beauty crept in–sometimes I would pause on a summer’s morning, overtaken by feel of the balmy air and the rustling of bright leaves.
But I harbored the sneaking suspicion that appreciating beauty was something you grew out of. Proper adults didn’t forget their responsibilities and concerns just to gasp in wonder at the V of migrating geese across a brilliant blue sky. And they certainly didn’t go off for days or weeks in a kayak just to lose themselves in the briny air and expanse of ocean. Kayaking was something you fit into your days, not something you built your days (let alone life) around.
Vlad changed all that. Although his passion was science, his life was poetry. He sought–and found–the beauty in all things. And he was happiest spending days and nights in that marathon pursuit. Whether it was hunting down an elusive signal in the lab, or following a waterway to see where it led, his life was a full-throated, unabashed pursuit of beauty.
His legacy to me, and to all who knew him, was showing by example how to upend the usual conventions. Instead of fitting science, art, and poetry into neat boxes in your life, you spent your life exploring them, and following where they led. (And yes, love as well. He loved as he did all things: wholeheartedly and with great generosity.)
That legacy–of love, beauty, poetry, and the willingness to lose oneself in them–that legacy is my windfall. The lines from Tosca recurred to me in the hours and days after his death:
Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore,
non feci mai male ad anima viva!
I lived for art, I lived for love
I never harmed a living soul!
Before I met Vlad, those lines made no sense to me. Afterwards…ah, afterwards was entirely different. Meeting Vlad was my windfall.
Posted in Art, Culture, Kayaking, Life, Nature, New York City, Philosophy, Uncategorized
By Johna Till Johnson
Photo by Vladimir Brezina
Paddling at Dawn
In response to today’s prompt by Krista, Calm. May we all feel this way at some point in our lives.
By Johna Till Johnson
I’m terribly sorry to have to report that my best friend, paddle partner, husband, and love, Vladimir Brezina, died Tuesday, December 13, at 7:20 PM, after surviving for 2.5 years with cancer.
My heart breaks, and a light has gone out in the world. But I have vowed to embody Vlad’s spirit of generosity, love of adventure and exploration, and appreciation of beauty in all forms. It will never be the same without him, but what he gave to the world will live on.
I plan to post a proper obituary in the days (maybe weeks) to come. And I plan to continue WindAgainstCurrent, but alas the quality of the photography will never be the same, as I don’t have Vlad’s brilliant eye and editing patience.
Vladimir Brezina 6/1/58-12/13/16
Posted in Uncategorized
By Johna Till Johnson
This year I became, officially, a citizen of New York City.
How’s that, you ask, given that I’ve lived in New York City for over 20 years?
Well yes, but living somewhere doesn’t automatically mean you’re a citizen of the place. Citizenship connotes something larger: a mix of rights and responsibilities. You’re not just passing through, you’ve put down roots. You take personal responsibility for how things are run, and feel that you’ve earned the right to enjoy (or criticize) the results.
And as of last year, New York City actually has a formal rite of passage for becoming a city citizen (in a sense): getting your New York City ID card.
Posted in Life, New York City
Tagged El Barrio, Manhattan, New York City, New York City ID
By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina
Many benches in NYC’s Central Park bear engraved metal plaques. For a donation, one can endow a bench as part of the Park’s “Adopt-a-Bench” program.
As you might imagine, the engravings are sometimes sentimental, and often heartbreaking. Too often, they memorialize a loved one who’s clearly still missed by grieving friends and relatives: “To my beloved…”, “In memory of my dear…”
.
And then there’s this one:
It made us laugh. And agree that it’s something to be grateful for!
Posted in Humor, Life, New York City
Tagged Central Park, Endowment, Manhattan, New York City, Park bench
By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina
This trip dates from last fall, but took us this long to post in part because we wanted to include a lot of detail to guide paddlers who might want to go to these places, which are very accessible to NYC paddlers of all skill levels.
So each photo is numbered, and the third image down is a map showing where each photo was taken, so you can associate the photo with the location. The body of the post includes only a small selection of the photos; for the rest, see the slideshow at the bottom.
And don’t miss the special bonus: A link to a GoPro video from the trip, at the very end of the post!
47. Beautiful day at the Sims Scrap Metal Yard
The currents weren’t really right for any of our usual trips, ebbing most of the day, and turning back to flood around 4:30 PM. So a long trip to points south would mean returning close to midnight, which neither of us wanted to do.
But it was an effervescent fall day, with a gusty breeze, blue skies, and sunlight sparkling over the waves. We wanted to do something a little out of the ordinary, for us, at least.
“Why not visit Port Liberté, and meander down the Jersey side of the harbor?” Vlad suggested.
15. Port Liberté
What a splendid idea! Port Liberté is one of the many weird and wonderful things on the New Jersey side. Vlad calls it “the would-be Venice of New Jersey,” and it truly is: According to Wikipedia, it was designed in the 1980s as a waterfront community patterned after a similar one in Saint-Tropez, France, complete with canals lined with docks and waterfront walkways.
The idea is, to my mind at least, flawless: Imagine living right on the waterfront, with your own personal dock, just a few minutes by ferry or private boat from Manhattan! Unfortunately, though, the market crash of the late 80s ended the development plans, and what remains, though beautiful, is just a wistful indication of what might have been.
We’d last been to Port Liberté several years ago—maybe as far back as 2011. So it was time for another look. Then we’d continue down the Jersey side of the harbor, our moods and the currents permitting, until it was time to turn back. Come to think of it, despite our many years of paddling in the harbor, neither Vlad nor I had ever really properly explored all the ins and outs of the Jersey side.
Posted in Kayaking, New York City
Tagged Bayonne, Kayaking, Marine industry, New Jersey, New York City, New York Harbor, Port Liberte
By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina
April is the cruelest month, breeding
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring
dull roots with spring rain.
—T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
I’ll admit it: I used to hate Spring.
Why “admit”? Because from what I can tell, most people are thrilled by lengthening days, soft fragrant breezes, and the sight of new flowers pushing up through the fresh grass.
In New York, Springtime is especially noteworthy. Everyone takes to the parks. Lovers canoodle. Pets frolic. And we walk around with goofy smiles and say unexpected things to each other, like “Please,” and “Thank you” and “After you!”
So what’s not to love?
Tagged Alfons Mucha, Art Nouveau, Changing Seasons, New York City, Running, Spring, Weather
By Johna Till Johnson and Vladimir Brezina
It was bound to happen.
Take a scientist and an engineer, add a kit designed for children, and you’ll end up with a science project.
A few days ago (on the first day of spring, to be exact), we decided to color Easter eggs. We’re not sure whose idea it was (each of us says it originated with the other), but regardless: There we were with 14 hard-boiled eggs and the same PAAS egg-dyeing kit that Johna remembered from childhood. (In Czechoslovakia, too, a country nominally communist but where Easter traditions were hard to uproot, Vlad had something very similar.)
We set to work. The dye tablets fizzed in the vinegar, the appropriate amount of water was added, and the first six eggs were happily soaking in their colors. And then one of us noticed something:
“Hey, what are those lines?” As the dye deepened, several of the eggs were showing white lines, two per egg, circumscribing the eggs and trisecting them neatly. Why was this happening?
Posted in Life, Science and Technology
Tagged Easter, Easter Eggs, Science, Scientific Experiments, Scientific Method
... kayaked the waters around New York for more than 15 years in his red Feathercraft folding kayak. He was originally from (the former) Czechoslovakia and lived in the U.K. and California before settling down in New York. He was a neuroscientist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. He died in 2016.
... is a kayaker and technology researcher at Nemertes Research. She's an erstwhile engineer, particle physicist, and science fiction writer. She was born in California and has lived in Italy, Norway, Hawaii, and a few other places. She currently resides in New York City.
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Wind Against Current 