The Carabao and the Storm

...or "Steven Channels His Inner Aesop"... I wrote the following poem March 29, 1995 as part of an assignment in a high school English class. This part of the assignment was to write a poetic fable. 

A carabao, also known as a water buffalo, is a bovine that is used in several Southeast Asian cultures to assist in planting rice and other farming tasks, similar to an ox in other cultures. It is pronounced "care a bow" and rhymes with cow. They are are a common sight in the Philippines, and I remember going to sleep at times to the dulcet tones of local carabao and cats having spirited conversations. ("Moooooo!" "MEOW!" "Mooooo!" "MEOW!!" They were clearly conversations, as they alternated, and I never heard them speaking at the same time.)

Philippine Carabao

Photo by Cabajar

CC BY-SA 3.0 license

Off in the distance...
Ru-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-mbl-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-e!
Thunder!
Everybody ran
Away from the flooded rice paddies
Except for one carabao
Who said, "Silly carabaos!
What chickens!
I’m staying here!
There’s work to do!
My master will be proud of me!
But who will reward those cowardly carabao?
Not me, I’m brave!
Why, I’m the bravest carabao of the lot!
Aren’t I grea----"
ZAP!
RU-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-MBL-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-E!
Next morning, all of the carabaos returned
To find a dead carabao
Lying in the slop.

Moral:
"Pride goes before destruction,
     a haughty spirit before a fall." (Proverbs 16:18)

The Queen of 44th

She was known as the Queen of 44th. She had lived near the corner of 44th and 212th, on the border of Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace, Washington, for years. I don't know a lot about her. I don't even recall her name. But what I do know is simple and profound.

Every morning, she sat in her wheelchair in front of her house, waving to passersby on the busy 44th Avenue West with a smile. When I walked by on her side of the street, she talked to me and always brightened my day. Sometimes even when I was walking on the other side, she would call to me and wave. Articles in the local newspaper reported that firefighters and other workers in stressful occupations looked forward to passing her house, because she was always there with a smile and a wave. She had a way of making tensions melt away in the simplest of ways!

Photo by De Visu/Adobe Stock
(I don't have a picture of the Queen of 44th,
so a stock photo it is!)

As the community continued to grow, developers wanted to buy her property to make way for retail space. But she refused. So while the houses around her disappeared to make way for Albertson's, Blockbuster, Little Caesar's, and other stores and restaurants, her house stayed there and she continued to wave to everyone around. As her mobility was declining, the community came together to replace the steps leading up to her door with a wheelchair ramp.

She was one of the most beloved people in the community.

Over the years, there has been a lot of change. Albertson's is now Safeway. Blockbuster is now O'Reilly Auto Parts. Her house is now an empty lot. But that stretch of sidewalk and that lot where a house once stood with a kind old woman in a wheelchair remains, a memory of a time gone by and someone who taught me the deep, profound value of a simple smile and wave. Kind deeds can be complicated, but they don't need to be. Sometimes all a person needs to brighten their day is a kind smile, a wave, a friendly greeting.

Considering how much time has passed since then, I'm sure she has passed on by now. I'm not sure what happened to her when she no longer sat along 44th and brightened everyone's day. But she left a profound legacy, even to a teenager who hardly knew her, and now thinks back more than 20 years later to remember. 

I Should Go Back to the Sea

The beaches and coral reefs in the Philippines are breathtaking. With so many islands, if we reached a beach that had anyone on it, we could just take our bangka (rowboat with pontoons) to the next island, where the beach may be deserted. Snorkeling is amazing. They also have glass-bottom boats where you can look through the glass floor of the boats to see the beauty below. The coral, fish, and other sea life present a spectacular kaleidoscope of color. The country has around 7100 islands. As some of them are tiny, the number varies depending on the tide. (I'm not sure where exactly the below picture was taken, but it's similar to what you can see snorkeling in the Philippines.)

I wrote the following poem for an assignment in 6th grade, in 1989 or 1990. I put it on a big sheet of paper and drew sea life around it.

Underwater World
Photo by Fascinating Universe
CC BY-SA 3.0 license

I should go back to the sea, the empty, rippling sea
I should go swimming in it, the mighty wet sea
Where all the seahorses reign, the urchins and squid and octopi
All the cute little fishes and the not-so-cute sharks.

I should go back to the sea, the world of plants in the sea
I should go swimming in it, the wonderful "land" of the sea
Where the seaweed sways, the sponges and algae and anemones
All the tiny diatoms and the not-so-tiny kelp.

I should go back to the sea, the full wavy sea
I should go swimming in it, the wonderful "land" of the sea
Where the seahorses reign, the sponges and squid and anemones
All the tiny diatoms and the not-so-tiny sharks
I should go back to the sea.

Fighting Racism

My job that I have had for the past 5+ years has taught me a lot. I feel I grew professionally, but I also learned lessons that I hadn't expected. One of those involves racism in America. Prior to that, I looked at all the laws in place and the way minorities are a much more integral and important part of our society, and I thought that meant Dr. King's dream had been fulfilled. I had no idea how far we are from realizing it.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Steven Sauke, 2013
Adobe Illustrator

Growing up as a racial minority in the Philippines, I experienced racism as a child. The most dramatic that I remember was in periods of unrest when we had to stay indoors because it was too dangerous to go out due to the color of our skin. There were reports of white people being shot when they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. We even found a bullet hole in our roof once, when the rainy season started and the ceiling above my bed sprang a leak. There were also more innocuous experiences, such as strangers coming up to me and pinching my white cheeks, saying, "Cuuuute!" That made me very uncomfortable. They associated Americans (anyone with white skin) with GI Joe, and people would often call, "Hi, Joe!" as we passed on the street. I just took that as them trying to be friendly. People would also stare at us, and sometimes point and say to each other, "Amerikano!" So coming back to the US, I thought I understood racism, and was thankful to be in a country that (I thought) had gotten past that. At times I even thought people had overcompensated and started discriminating against white people here. While that does happen sometimes, I have learned it isn't nearly the problem I thought it was, and I was looking through the lens of white privilege, which I didn't even think was a thing at the time. I heard of riots and protests related to racism, and was disgusted at the destruction and what my white privilege perceived as overreactions and entitlement. While I do not condone destruction and violence (and neither did Dr. King), I have learned that a lot of their anger is justified. As Dr. King once said when pressed to condemn riots, "A riot is the language of the unheard." To put that in context, this is an excerpt from his speech The Other America (1967):

But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation's summers of riots are caused by our nation's winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.

One thing I have believed for years, and now believe more than ever, is that we need to listen to people from other backgrounds and other perspectives. We need to heed what they say. We need to extend respect that we have far too often withheld. I don't pretend to have reached the pinnacle of anti-racism, and I still struggle with racist thoughts at times, which I have to fight.

Working with an amazing and racially-diverse team has taught me a lot. But one thing in particular has come from watching my incredible manager, one of the kindest and most professional people I have met, go through blow after blow after blow. She has lost multiple relatives and friends just in the years I've known her, to shootings. She has endured unimaginable pain and loss, and managed to maintain her positivity and dignity through all of it. I can't express enough how much I admire her. Other coworkers have gone through similar pain and loss. This has opened my eyes to the fact that we have a long way to go in fighting racism in this country. 

Having experienced racism in the Philippines has taught me a lot, and I feel helps me to identify more with minorities here, but it is nothing compared to the horrifying tribulations they have experienced. Nobody deserves that. A year or two ago, I had a white person, a friend of a friend, try to convince me that the term "white privilege" is itself a racist slur (something I once believed myself), and she refused to truly listen as several people tried to explain that it is a statement of fact, not a slam against white people. We don't generally experience what people of other races have gone through in this country, even in recent years. We aren't usually targeted due to the color of our skin here. To say that a group of people has privilege is, in itself, neither a slam nor a compliment. It's just a statement of fact. It's what we do with that privilege that can become a problem. It's when we decide to apply a different standard to someone with a different color of skin, or start thinking of them as less.

One thing that has spoken volumes to me is the end of Martin Luther King's I've Been to the Mountaintop speech. I have trouble reading it aloud without tearing up. (I encourage you to read the entire speech by clicking on the link in this paragraph. It's powerful.)

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so I'm happy, tonight.

I'm not worried about anything.

I'm not fearing any man!

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!

Dr. King delivered that speech April 3, 1968. He was assassinated April 4, 1968, the following day. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of my heroes. I once thought his dream had been realized, but I now realize we have a long way to go. We need to listen to each other. We need to extend to everyone the same respect we would to anyone else, no matter the color of their skin, their religion, or anything else. Everyone needs love, care and respect. Think how many riots and other unrest we could prevent if we could just listen to voices like Dr. King and others! 

Stars and Electrons

I wrote this poem March 15, 2003. I have always been fascinated and amazed by the sheer massiveness of the stars and galaxies. I was even more amazed in the introduction to chemistry in college when we learned about atoms. I had learned about them in science class previously, and I remember learning in elementary that the atoms in one grain of sand were more numerous than all the leaves on all the trees in the world. In college, our textbook said that if you were to expand an atom to the size of a football stadium, the nucleus would be the size of the period at the end of this sentence. I forget how many tons the nucleus would weigh. The electrons that orbit the nucleus are even smaller! Stars and electrons, despite their massive distance in size, both mindbogglingly gigantic and mindbogglingly microscopic, have a lot in common.

NGC 4414, a galaxy in the constellation
Coma Berenices
Image by NASA

Titanic balls of fire
Placed by God in the heavens
Mere specks in His eyes
They glow in the sky
Far larger than I can imagine

How is it that the God who is so much larger than the stars
Can care for me -
One who is a mere speck
Compared to the stars?

The stars orbit in an endless round
In their clusters and galaxies they orbit
And the God who made these galaxies
Huge beyond my imagination
Cared enough to send His only Son
To die for me!

Tiny balls of matter
Placed by God in the atoms
So much smaller than specks in our eyes
So much tinier than we could begin to imagine

Electrons orbit in an endless round
In large numbers they orbit
Around the nucleus of the atom
The atom - like a galaxy to the electron
And how many atoms are in a single cell?
Countless millions of atoms in a single grain of sand!

How is it that the God who created the unimaginably humongous galaxies
Also created the unimaginably tiny electrons?

What a wonder
That such an amazing Creator God
Could care enough
To send His only Son
To die on a cross for me!

Night Falls on Wireless Advocates

In his novel The Last Battle, CS Lewis concludes his Chronicles of Narnia with a dark ending and a glorious new beginning. It has a chapter called "Night Falls on Narnia," in which most of the humans from England that we have met throughout the series are gathered around a door looking through it to the dying land of Narnia. The great Lion Aslan has just called to the giant Father Time, way off in the distance, who blows his massive horn. Stars come shooting out of the sky, and walk through the door as living beings. The inhabitants of Narnia and the surrounding countries come racing up to the door, and with one look at Aslan, either flee in terror or come through to marvel at the wonders around them. Waters rise, and the sun devours the moon. Father Time then squeezes the sun out, and all is blackness and water and ice on the other side of the door. Aslan tells High King Peter to shut the door and lock it, which he does. Queen Lucy and King Tirian mourn the country they have loved and ruled at different times in Narnia's history.

While I don't want to carry the analogy too far, a major part of my life over the past 5+ years has come to an end, and night is falling on Wireless Advocates. While it's nowhere near the apocalyptic end that the old Narnia had in The Last Battle, it has been very tough to watch and experience. Over 1800 employees around the country found out at the beginning of last month that their jobs had abruptly ended. We at national headquarters were given 60 days notice, per the WARN Act, and we were to be employed through February 5. Yesterday, around 65 of us (I forget the exact number, but it was in the 60s) were summoned to a meeting called by the receiver assigned to help liquidate WA's assets. They informed us that they had determined that we were not protected by the WARN Act, and they had decided to let us go. (They are double checking with the King County courts to verify this is appropriate, and they have a contingency plan in the event the courts disagree. Seattle is the county seat of King County.) It caught everyone, including management, by surprise. Wireless Advocates' executives disagreed strongly with their decision and fought it, but the receiver had the final say.

Over the past day that I have had to process this shocking development, close down business affairs, sleep on it, consider where to go from here, I have gone through a lot of emotions. While I always like to remain optimistic, this was a severe blow. There have been tears. I have felt a gamut of emotions, including sadness, anger, fear, and as I continue to process, hope. I do not fault Wireless Advocates, or even Costco, for what has gone down. I appreciate how supportive our management and executive team has been through all of this, and I still could not have asked for a better employer over the past years. They have fought for us, and done everything in their power to make this as painless as possible (though, admittedly, there's only so much they can do). I continue to be amazed and eternally grateful for how helpful and supportive everyone has been, even after many of them lost their own jobs, to help.

To help dispel some rumors I have seen flying around the internet, one article I read stated that Costco was "blindsided" by Wireless Advocates when WA announced they were closing. It was actually Costco's decision not to renew their contract with us. I don't fault Costco for that, as I'm sure they had their reasons, but I definitely don't think WA deserves all the negative press they have been receiving. My theory is that individual Costcos had no warning, so were indeed just as shocked as everyone else to find the WA kiosks were closed. But this decision came from Costco, not WA. Due to declining demand due to COVID and less demand for 5G than expected, WA decided to end their relationship with military bases. There was blindsiding happening, but it was not Wireless Advocates blindsiding Costco. In the interest of remaining as positive as possible, I am not here to point the finger.

I'm not sure how many are left at the national headquarters, but there are a few people remaining who will continue to work on closing down the business.

Yesterday afternoon, I worked on closing things down on my side, filing for unemployment, and preparing for job searching in earnest. I have sent resumes over the past couple weeks, but that has been in addition to responsibilities at work and other things. Like Lucy and Tirian, I am mourning for the home I have known over the past few years.

Back to The Last Battle. The Friends of Narnia are in mourning. As Tirian eloquently puts it, "It were no virtue, but great discourtesy, if we did not mourn." But as they are joined by more friends, including the talking dogs, the Calormene Emeth (Calormen is a country south of Narnia), the eagle Farsight, the donkey Puzzle, the unicorn Jewel, and more, they are repeatedly encouraged to "Come further up and further in!" Flying high overhead, Farsight the Eagle discovers that, though they just witnessed the old Narnia's end, they are now in a much larger and grander version of Narnia. Everyone runs faster than they realized they could and marvels how they aren't tiring out, and at the wonders of the new world around them. A few years ago I painted one of my favorite scenes in the book, when they reach Caldron Pool and find themselves, much to everyone's shock, swimming up the waterfall!

Further Up and Further In!
Steven Sauke, 2012
Acrylic on canvas

They eventually find themselves in the garden where Polly and Digory flew with their friend Fledge the winged horse so many years ago (in The Magician's Nephew). There they are greeted by one of Narnia's greatest heroes, Reepicheep the Mouse. Tirian meets his late father once again, and they see everyone they once knew. Over a nearby lookout, Lucy and her old friend Tumnus the Faun see a new London on a cloud and her late parents waving to them. The final chapter is called "Farewell to Shadowlands." Though I'm not generally big on spoilers, the book ends thus:

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are–as you used to call it in the Shadowlands–dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

While I am thankfully not dead, Wireless Advocates will soon be. In many ways it already is. Now begins a new adventure. I choose to anticipate the future with wonder, looking forward to it with joy and run with all my might to discover what amazing adventure is about to start.

To all my amazing former colleagues, I say, FURTHER UP AND FURTHER IN! Let's do this thing! We haven't scratched the surface of the amazing adventure that is coming! How will Chapter One of your Great Story begin?