The Big Thing

I almost didn’t make it. I nearly abandoned this ridiculous sprint to the Atlantic to complete my cross Canada adventure. In the dark of night, alone with my fatigue, and the scattershot pattern of black fly bites–my souvenir from one rest stop near Pembroke, the matronly, pinch-faced part of my psyche was explaining to the whorish, curious part, why all of this was a bad idea and that I should get back to Uxbridge–hide behind my locked door with the pennies that I had left. I figured that, yes, in the morning, I would check out of the overpriced hotel in Quebec, and skitter back home. I didn’t though. When I woke up, my Oh-for-Christ’s-sake, part of my psyche suggested that the matronly part go take a flying leap. 




It’s scary doing things on your own at times. In my case, there come the familiar waves of second-guessing, churned and goaded by stiff-breezes of over-thinking on top. It’s like sunbathing on Overwhelm Beach.  I can’t ignore these feelings, but I’ve learned to wrangle them into perspective so they can’t create the perfect storm and wreck everything. In this case, opposed to the magnificent scroll of reasons to bail, I began to picture the giant clot of regret that I would carry for my remaining days if I chickened-out. I mean, this clot was going to be huge, ugly, and relentless:

 “You were almost to the coast when you got all responsible and dull. Good timing, idiot.” 

I don’t want to get all precious, but it was a line from Rumi that made the difference:


 “The joy of being human is in uncovering the core we already are, the treasure buried in the ruin.”


Rumi makes no mention of clots of regret anywhere, plus it's ruins, not apartments. Hiding is no way to discover anything, so with this, I figured that turning back was not an option. It's helpful to have a thirteenth century mystic along with you on the ride.



I felt better–all puffed up with a regained sense of self, and vowed to maintain this sunny sensibility for the rest of the journey to the shore. I started by leaving a tip for the hotel housekeeping. I didn’t have bills, so had to leave a bunch of change. I composed an apology for it on a piece of hotel paper and left it beside my little towers of money in an attempt to not be a dick.  “Excusez-moi pour les coins,” I wrote. An hour later, heading east at 110 k, I realized that what my note meant in English was, “Sorry for the corners.”  Atta girl Suzanne! 


I got back on the highway, had gas in my tank, a song in my heart–even my hemorrhoid seemed happy. I stopped to make coffee at a rest stop, and instead of feeling irritated by all of the other travellers taking a break from the road, I felt a camaraderie. I watched one man walking through the area with a beautiful Bernese Mountain dog. I guess, in French, it would be a Bernaise. The man was calm. The dog was calm. I was calm. Coo-coo cachoo. My journey continued. 



I watched my odometer tick up as I drove along the St. Lawrence River, and the lush farm fields of eastern Quebec. The road arched up and around the edge of Maine, and then dipped into New Brunswick. The landcsape reminded me of any Flintstones cartoon where the scenery repeated itself; it was beautiful, but there was a lot of it! The exposed metamorphic side-cuts displayed bending lines of rock that peaked out, and then hid under never ending forests–hours, and hours of forests. There were signs warning of moose all the way along. The danger of moose collision is riskier at night when the great beasts amble out onto the highway in the dark with their disproportionate legs, and heads so bizarre–like God had a go at photo shop. As much as I would have loved to see a moose on this trip, I had no desire to risk having one fly through my windshield, so I decided to be off the road before nightfall. 




I arrived in Fredericton and tried to check into a hotel. When the clerk gave me the price, I wondered if there was some mistake. “No, it’s just me. I don’t need housing for my string of polo ponies,” I said.  I asked why the price was so high, and the clerk explained that, “it was because the hotel was so fully booked and that this was last minute.” “Last minute is a problem? Was the room not ready?” I wondered. Were there carpenters that were having to quickly build the room? Had the other occupants not paid enough, so I was having to cover the shortfall? Or, were the hotel owners simply taking advantage of me and being economically parasitic. Whatever the reason, I left and found another hotel with a less insulting rate.




The town of Fredericton was beautiful. I drove through it early the next morning, before most businesses were open, and it was at this time that I realized, 

“Once I reach Prince Edward Island, I will have driven across Canada!” 


The thought of such an achievement put me into a bit of a fog. I began missing turnoffs. I got lost in Moncton. Have you ever been to Moncton?  I stopped to get my bearings and walked, like a zombie, into a fast food restaurant, as if I was going to order something, but then turned and left, overwhelmed by the lights and the smell. Nothing seemed real. Everything seemed absurd, with a side of chips.  I got back in the van, kept on, and then, around the middle of the day, crossed Confederation Bridge into Prince Edward Island. I had done it.

I’m still on the island as I write this. I have swam in the ocean, eaten lobster, oysters, and had the best chowder I have ever had.  Thank goodness for the Oh-for-Christ’s-sake, part of my psyche. Canada is a wonderful country–my favourite, and I have no regrets at all.

The Prowler

My latest stay at Agawa Bay, other than offering great rhyming potential, was a turning point, I think. The campground, on the eastern shore of Lake Superior, is my favourite in Ontario, and though I will remain loyal, this visit was more of a challenge. I booked my campsite late, and as punishment for my tardiness, was relegated to a site with no clear view of the water.  Part of the reason for me believing that this might a turning point is that I pitched my tent on the edge of what I believe used to be a set of outhouse pits. The clearing was odd, and, though there was grass growing on it, the topography of my site betrayed its’ earlier use. Things can’t get worse can they?  Yes, there was another area where I could have pitched, but it was low and bowl-ish. Since I knew that rain was coming, I opted, in a somewhat conflicted reasoning process, for the higher level, even with its’ shitty history.

On my way driving into the campground, I had noticed a man sunbathing on the beach, in a speedo, socks, and sandals. I rolled my eyes a little. Later on, I met the same man walking, staring at an empty site. I greeted him and he explained, in full speedo, that he was examining this particular site because it was bigger. “I have a 27-foot camper at home,” he said. I felt he was compensating for something. Imagine how delighted I was to find that this fella, let’s call him, Gunther, was set up directly across from my site, in a camper with Prowler, written across the front of it. 

“Fine,” I thought. “He’s probably really nice.” 

Sometimes I try to lie to myself to experience a different story. I kept coming back from hikes or swims, to find, Gunther, sitting in his lawn chair, avec speedo, drinking beer. Even at 10 in the morning, he was hoisting his ale, and raising his numbers on the creep scale I had set up in the judgemental part of my brain. 

“Lighten up Suzanne!” I tried to tell myself. “We’re all on vacation here, right?”  


What made me hate Gunther with my all-of-me, was when he fired up his generator every single evening, and kept it running deep into the night. Even with my earplugs, I could hear the damn thing. I considered getting up and pulling the sides of his speedo up onto his shoulders, you know, to snug things up a bit. Gunther was a creep. There. 





Imagine my delight when I returned from a hike to find the Prowler, and creepy Gunther, gone!  Later in the day, the site was taken by an older man in a wheelchair. He was on his own, driving a van clearly updated to his ability. He spent the entire time facing away from me, the lake, everyone. I was coming and going, and batting around a great ball of guilt for whatever trauma had put him in that chair. I kept finding myself doing things that involved my healthy legs and I felt terrible. I kept trying to catch his eye, and at least wave, you know, to acknowledge him, but he stayed turned. He spent the evening listening to Johnny Cash, and drinking beer. I thought about walking over and greeting him, but then was afraid that, a) he may have had some facial disfigurement that I would not be prepared for and he was doing me the service of keeping it hidden. Or, b) he just wanted some privacy. Staying turned away could have been the Occam’s Razor of signs. 

             “Leave me alone, madam.” 

So, I did. I left him alone, and he was gone before I woke up the next morning. I kept wrestling with that scenario. Frankly, just because someone’s in a wheelchair does not make them an angel. He could have been a complete asshole, but I feel compelled to make an effort in those cases. 


                                 Life.

Lake Superior is beautiful, but cold. This time, I had come prepared with my wetsuit. I had bought new booties, fins, mask and snorkel, but while standing in the dive shop, on my healthy legs, paying for my new gear, I kept scratching my head about the snorkel I was buying. It had a mechanism on the non-mouth end, that kept water from entering the tube when the user was diving down below the surface. I used it several times, during my stay at Agawa. The snorkel worked wonderfully, but finally I realized what was so odd, about it while down snatching a pair of sunglasses off of the bottom along the shore. I came up spluttering. This fancy mechanism looks like an uncircumcised penis! And I thought Gunther was weird!

The hiking was glorious. It might have been nuts to do the routes I did on my own, but I was careful.  I had tried to buy some bear spray before arriving but couldn’t find any. Bears usually aren’t a problem this time of year, but they are around, and I felt I should have some just in case. At one store, I was offered, bear bells.  I declined and afterward wondered if they were anything like wind chimes! 


I sang during my hikes. I’m a terrible singer, so I was confident that my notes were a deterrent unless the beasts wanted to come closer to see what poor animal was wounded and making the most tragic noises! I realized, during those hikes, that I know very few songs all the way through. I did make up a few new songs though, and ran through others, improvising new lyrics– none of which I can tell you about here. Maybe later. 

Unlike my last stay at Agawa, I didn’t get to know any fellow campers this time. The vibe was strange, plus there was lots of rain that kept us all to our own sites, me and my pits. There was a fire ban, so people weren’t hanging around campfires at night which left anyone keen to sit out, fodder for the blackflies and mosquitoes with no smoke to keep them away. There were some hard-core campers here though. They had signs set out at the entry to their sites. Signs like, “Hi, we’re the Coles!” Or, “Happy Campers!” Some were carved out of wood, others displayed on flags. This delightful effort was offset by a front license plate on a truck just south of my site. Instead of numbers, or letters, there was an almost holographic, colour photograph of two red shotgun shells, and a shotgun. Every time I passed, I stared at it, trying to figure out if I had imagined it. I hadn’t. To me, instead of anything inviting, like, Namaste, or even goofy like, Life’s a Beach, the message I got from this was,

           “What are you going to do about it?” 

To be clear, I don’t have a problem with hunting. I think hunting something for food, actually gives you an opportunity to have some kind of ceremony, and be thankful about your catch. But, to just love guns, for the gun part, I find troubling. I immediately judged the adults in the campsite to be assholes. Not the kids. I liked the kids. But really, who am I to judge anyone. I’m splashing around the lake with an uncircumcised penis in my mouth!

I’m heading east now, through Thunder Bay, then  into Quebec. I noticed a road sign warning, “Blasting near here. Do not use radio transmitters.” Two minutes later, I noticed another sign advertising a monument company. Looks like they’re at least planning things out up here!


Safe travels, unless you’re wearing a speedo. Then, I hope you get a rash. 

Root Beer Float

My bike is in the shop. While out on a sunset ride two nights ago, my rear shifter cable decided to pack it in, quitting with a snap, leaving my rear shifter mechanism flaccid and useless. I pulled the hood back on the unit to see what was up, and there, in that low sun caught the sparkle of frayed cable ends, too deep in for me to fix there on the side of the road. I called a friend to pick me up. My bike won’t be ready until later next week. 

                             What to do?

Frankly, I hadn’t been cycling near as much, for the first time in my life, I think. I was trying to replace it with yoga, and yes, there’s a part of that discipline that is helpful. I have mats down on my floor next to my desk so that any time of the day, I can pull off a chatteranga or two, sun salutes, or do some stretching. I never want to do yoga, but I always feel better when I do, so I do it.  I can’t pull my legs over my shoulders. I can’t sit like a yogi, because my hips are not made of jello. They never will be. My body prefers to be on my bike. I’ve always known this and was ready to re-commit to daily rides, but then this cable issue threw a wrench into the spokes. 



Cycling calms me, and gets me out of this goddam building into nature where I can breathe, and ease up on what’s in my head. My recent foray into yoga, however, did inspire me to explore several sturdy iconic pieces of early mystical literature in an attempt to find a more profound spiritual shelf where I might find relief. What was it that I was missing?  Frankly, I think I was already there: 



                 We’re all connected baby! 



But there’s more! Yes, all of those reckless gods, and the good ones, are inside of you. Yes, you are my brother, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make jokes about the stupid shorts you’re wearing, does it? 

                               Does it?


We don’t have to be so precious, do we? Can’t I make fun of your hair? Did you have it styled in a blender? –I'm joking, my friend. You can laugh. You're allowed. Jesus.


 What drove me nuts about much of what I watched about the various beliefs, was this kind of need to tip-toe around in it. Before you get all offended, I’m including my Quaker upbringing in this as well. We never had a How to Write a Proper Joke seminar in Sunday School:

         Lighten Up with your Inner Light.  


That's goofy, I know. My point is that I never, as a kid, came away from Quaker Meeting, thinking, “Wow, that was really fun. Life is great! I can’t wait for next week!” (It certainly didn’t help our family at all, but that’s tired news. )The whole thing, as kind, and as globally conscientious as it is, and it very much is, made me feel guilty.


 Probably one of the most stunning lines that I found in my examination, came from Joseph Campbell in his interview with Bill Moyers, when they’re discussing romantic love in the west, and “libido over credo.” Campbell explains credo– 

“You believe, and then you go to confession, and you run down the list of sins and you count yourself against those, and instead of going into the priest and saying, ‘Bless me father, for I have been great this week,’ you meditate on the sins, and in meditating on the sins, then you really become a sinner in your life. It’s a condemnation, actually, of the will to live.” 

Can you imagine what a difference that would have made? 

“Father, I cleaned my room every day, and while I may not have helped clean up after dinner, I did make my aunt laugh so hard that her root beer float came out her nose.” 

“High five, my dear one! Rock-on until next week!"


Personally, I feel like being a human is a sentence, right now. I’m not enjoying it–anxious as hell with no cunning solution. This life should be more fun, more hopeful; a time dovetailing towards the blooming of previously sewn concepts of compassion, and the acknowledgement of both the fragility, and power of the human spirit. That's where we were headed, I thought. I honestly did, but now, considering the juvenile behaviour of the world leaders–the complicity of many, I am panicking. I am. So, I’m going up to Lake Superior again to try to reset. This isn’t running away, although maybe it is a little, but more as a chance to plug in deeper to nature to find balance. I would like to make fun of your hair, and find peace in the world at the same time. I think there’s a way. There has to be a way, doesn't there? 

Tsunami





In the shadow of the building lunacy of the world, The Great Orange Toad, and now, Ontario’s own Neanderthalic, let’s-go-back-to-sticks-and-rocks, Doug Ford, I found myself resorting to further efforts to sort out God. I hurled myself deep down into the rabbit hole of early eastern mysticism. I read The Tao Te Ching, and The Upanishads, twice. I watched Joseph Campbell’s, The Power of Myth, again, and also reread the book. I was now waiting, like a trooper, for a book written by Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, to arrive at my local bookstore. My plan was to take the book with me to Agawa Bay, on Lake Superior, and spend a few days with it, reading, underlining, grokking. I pictured myself in the morning mist, standing, contemplating a passage and easing myself further and further down this most puzzling warren. 



This was not to happen. The Book of Hours did not arrive at my bookstore. I stood at the counter while the clerk gave me the news, doing her fresh-faced best to assure me that it would be in early the following week. I needed her to reach across the counter, grab my shoulders and suggest ways that I could cope. I needed her to offer to suffer with me. I needed to be back in tuberculin England during some time of gravitas, wearing, perhaps a dark cape, a suffocating corset, and bloodshot, sunken eyes. 


Bit much huh? 


I sat in the van for a few moments, trying to rejig my plan. My idea of God was solidifying along the lines of universal energy connecting us all; humans, goats, staplers–you name it. This is the kind of energy you can feel in your gut. At that moment, sitting in my van, I experienced a non-voluntary double-clutch up and out of this most Dickensian, dolorous mood. Yes, I felt a decisive inner redirect towards lightening-the-fuck-up. So, I made the very conscious decision to go with it. If this is what I believe, then tuck in, right?



I drove to the grocery store to pick up a few things–went completely hog-wild and picked up a small tub of raspberry-lime ice cream! 

“Oh, if the neighbours hear about this!” thought the dessert harlot. 


I left and, in a last ditch, odd attempt to find Rilke’s book, I visited another nearby bookstore to see if they had it. I didn’t expect them to, but if I had not checked, I would have spent the rest of the weekend wondering. Of course they didn’t have it, and I was going to leave, but on the way out, saw a new David Sedaris book, Calypso, on one of the display shelves. I mean, it was all that I saw. The rest of the books ceased to exist. I have read everything of his up to this. If you don’t like him we can’t be friends, because I think he’s brilliant. 

Oddly enough, I have an essay of his, pinned up on my wall, over my left shoulder as I write this. The essay, Why Aren’t You Laughing, was published in The New Yorker magazine June 19, 2017. It’s a thoughtful run at how the Sedaris family dealt with, and didn’t deal with, the mother’s alcoholism. The essay is largely funny, but coloured with the complete failure of the family to take control and find a solution. I envied the Sedaris family when I read this, because the kids, six of them, at least had each other, and they did essentially adore their mother. In the years when my own mother was medicating with gin, I felt that our family did not exist. We were just people who sometimes ate together; my siblings, two, were older and almost launched at the time. When mom tipped over backwards in her lawn chair at one of dad’s corporate picnics at the farm, I was the only blood relation to witness. There's about a decade worth of stories, but the point here is that the Sedaris essay(and a whole whack of therapy), brought me up above ground, and was instrumental in harnessing my tsunami-scaled disappointment towards something less dark, less paralyzing. Humour, and the delicate reframing of the tragic into the absurd, can be tremendously freeing. 

I took the Sedaris book to the cash register and bought it without even leafing through it. I came back here, put my groceries away, and read late into the night, relieved to be having some fun. It felt good to come up out of that rabbit hole and truly laugh, not worrying about the terrible men fomenting all of this global dickishness, or the very point of it all. I had even forgotten about the Orange Toad and his recent, graceless mangling of his visit with the Queen, so something was happening. Perhaps Sedaris is my key to navigating this most troubling time.



I do believe in my being guided by some universal energy. While I still am curious about Rilke’s book, reading Sedaris was like hanging out with someone who got it. I felt like he had reached through the veil and offered a hug and then a welcomed punch in the shoulder. Why? Because, to my surprise and delight, one of the chapters in the book, the one I left to read last, was, Why Aren’t You Laughing? I had no idea it was included until I was nearing the end of the book.



I read it, then ate some goddam ice cream. 

Napoleon Should Have Done Yoga

A friend and I were discussing the delicate dance of introduction and getting to know people, and I mentioned that, “I could hardly bear small talk.” I arrived with that as part of my, what you need to know if we’re going to connect leaflet that I was imagining delivered around the world, by drone. At three in the morning, I woke up and realized what a dumb thing that was to say. What the hell was I thinking? 

We need small talk. It’s the way in!

Small talk usually has to do with the weather, taxes, or how the Leafs are doing. It allows us, in unnatural environments, to express our desire to get along–that we are not a threat. If I’m in the grocery checkout line ahead of you, and I take the little divider wand and put it behind my loot that I’ve unloaded onto the magic belt, and I look at you but say nothing, your brain might begin to derive myriad assumptions about me: 

I’m on the run from the law. 

I have a terrible yeast infection. 

I hate puppies and everyone else too.


Conversely, if I turn to you and say something like, “Napoleon should have done yoga,” you might take your booty and move to another checkout chute. Napoleon should have done yoga, is too intense, of course. The statement demands that you have an idea of, not only history, but the benefits of  a good hour of Kundalini postures. But, if I turn to you and say, “I sure do delight in finally being able to buy booze at the grocery store now,” then, I’ve offered you a comfortable, non-confrontational spot right next to my personal space. You know that I’m not a threat because my comment is nothing more than a zeitgeist nod to being human. The day is ours; your bag of chips tipping over the wand to nudge my bottle of Syrah.


Small talk, properly launched, has the potential to grow into a really great conversation. Every single person that I met on my voyage out west, I met by simply throwing out a pebble of it in an attempt to shatter what keeps us apart. Something as simple as, “It’s a lovely evening for a walk,” lead to a good forty-minute conversation about one man’s younger days in the Rocky Mountains. “It’s a beautiful part of the world,” mentioned to a woman tending a municipal flower bed in Campbell River, lead to the establishment of the theory that most people on the west coast fled from somewhere else, some terrible, soul-sucking job. “How was your trip? Are you glad to be back?” launched by another, lead to me crumpling on the ground in a moaning heap and yes, I’m still in therapy.


Okay, so not all small talk works. 


The discipline like anything else, has its’ extremes. I once listened to a person at the gym go on a kind of verbal sleigh ride, for almost ten minutes, through the day’s events, from making a sandwich to losing a purse–none of which were remarkable, or, frankly, the least bit interesting. Don’t be hasty to judge, though. Turns out that this woman was going through a mind-boggling divorce. Some people drink to ease their pain. Others talk. 



On the opposite end of the scale, I’ve made the effort with those who have no modicum of skill in this area at all. Some are painfully shy, and would rather be away from the crowd and hiding under the closest picnic table. Others, dare I say it, are tremendously full of themselves and nobody told them that a little attention thrown outside of their own ego, you know, like a bean bag toss, can bring wonderful results:  

“Hey, that shirt! I like it! Had one just like it!”

“Thank you very much! I got it in Montreal!”

“Oh how nice. Were you on vacation?”

“Yes. Yes, I was. We had stopped to do laundry at a laundromat. We brought along a bottle of wine, which we finished right before I emptied the wrong dryer into my suitcase and left. I now own several of these wonderful paisley men’s shirts, plus six pairs of boxer shorts. Boxer shorts are really comfortable!”

“I know. I actually do, because that was my laundry that you stole, which reminds me, I have a few items that might belong to you.” 


–So there’s a fun story that came out of not very much effort. In the movie, they get married and live happily ever after.  



Every once in a while, I find myself in a situation where the smallest effort on my part, appears to have an exponential effect in another. There’s an elevator I ride, once a week–well, twice, because I ride it up, and then later, down. It’s a slow beast, enough to be worthy of note. One day, I summoned the unit in order to descend from the fourth floor. The doors opened, and I stepped in just ahead of another woman. The doors closed, glacially, giving me plenty of time to grok that this woman was exhausted. She had one of those trolley bags with her, a light coat over her free arm, and a hairdo that, even in the early part of the afternoon, was in need of a little attention. 

“Man, this elevator is slow, isn’t it?” I said.

“Oh. Yeah,” she replied, eyes fixed on the floor in front of her.

“It’s almost as if there were two, very aged men down deep in the basement, relegated to pulling on ropes to raise or lower us, and today, it seems, that they are really tired!”

The woman started laughing. She bent over her trolley and let fly a rather startling belly guffaw.  I was miming the fella’s hauling on the lines, actually surprised that she thought it was that funny. The voyage ended with a slight jostle. The doors opened, and I motioned for her to exit ahead of me. 

“Boy, I really needed that laugh,” she said. I unintentionally followed her out to the parking lot, several paces behind as I headed for my van, and listened to her still laughing. I felt I had made a connection, small though it was, and that it had made a difference in someone’s day. I love that. Makes me feel like I've tapped into that elusive thread that joins us. Sacred, I feel.

“So? Hot out there, huh?”

Klaus

News of the success of the Thai-soccer team rescue this morning, buoyed my spirits. Buoyed them enough that I figured I could handle a day tending to the field that we still owned, that rectangular chunk hanging on the north end of the whole farm; like an odd piece of chocolate separated from the rest of the bar. I got in the van and began the drive, listening to the music of Rosemary Clooney on the way. I listened to her a great deal when I was driving around on Vancouver Island, to the point where, when I hear her voice now, it takes me right back to the Cowichan Valley, or Tofino; nowhere near Southern Ontario. So, there was Rosemary, and of course, Klaus! 

Klaus was my German-made, plastic, bobble-headed pal. He and I nodded at each other, glad for the company, and the illusion that we keep time to the music for each other. I’m SURE that he believes that I’m real! Isn’t that a scream? 


We drove through the urban sprawl around Newmarket, the ground heaved up and tossed aside like piles of teenager laundry. “Ah, it was only prime agricultural land, Klaus. Don’t get your bananas in a knot;” my sarcastic lob meant to cheer him up. He was clearly pissed. We tried to move on but got stuck in a clot of construction traffic for longer than we should have.  I tried to convince Klaus that the reason we were moving so very slowly was because the orange and yellow men were excavating with spoons. Klaus nodded. 



We arrived at the field towards the sensible beginning of evening shade. We parked the–hang on. “I” parked the van in the shade of the great spruce trees on the western edge of the field. I suited up, with my hunting knife on my belt, in case the forest folk wanted to put on a rendition of West Side Story. I certainly couldn’t defend myself with it, should a bear, or a cougar show up, but if some problem decided to drive in and see who the dame was in the old Laitin field, I could take the knife out and pick my teeth with it, denying any knowledge of who owned the field, and even, what planet this was.

I had my secateurs, for cutting vines. (Secateur: It sounds like it could be referring to some ancient beast from Greek Mythology. The story; Lorna, now mother of Eavestrough, the child, the result of a night spent with Posto, the Great God of Mailboxes. Wife of Costco, the Prince of Bulk, and daughter of King Pleather and Queen Velour, who are not who they seem. Lorna’s brother, Bustamove, jealous of all of the attention that his little sister was getting, cursed her with toenails that grew like vines. Queen Velour held up her orange juice and vodka, and pleaded with the Zeus to help her with Lorna’s feet. Zeus never did like Velour and Pleather, but saw that the child, Lorna, showed promise as an urban planner, so he crossed a flock of scissors with a flock of seagulls, and, voila! The resulting flying beasts, the secateurs, flew daily to Lorna’s crib and nibbled on her terrible toenails with their, ridiculous, pruning beaks.) 



I also had a hatchet, but no bow-saw or chain saw, so I was relegated to dealing with small-girthed woodland problems. What I ended up needing was my bow-saw and my chain saw because while checking the stream, I found this damn-of-nonsense. 

I cursed. The dandy man who bought the lions’ share of our farm, was not pulling his fair share of work down in this forest, so I laid into him in absentia, with his gentleman farmer airs. He was letting this lovely wood, that I used to play in as a child, become overgrown and rotten. His job was to take care of everything south of the stream, but was he? Vines everywhere on his side, plus this. I have never once, arrived to the forest and been delighted at evidence of him helping to manage things.



I walked into the water and began tearing this hemorrhoid-of-neglect apart. I had been in such a great mood earlier. Now it all began crumbling. Sweat was dripping in my eyes. I was standing mid-thigh deep in water, and I was sure that some giant tick was burrowing directly into my spine in a place where I could not reach. I maneuvered one waterlogged piece of maple up the left bank, and then another up the opposing bank. I chopped down sucker trees to clear room, then wrestled with the biggest bastard of them all. I propped it up out of the stream on one end with rocks. I talked to it. I reasoned with it. Then I set my feet there in the water and, using all of the frustration of the-rest-of-the-world-sucking-and-something-had-to-be-done-about-it, pitched the end of it up and out of the way. 

I stood there in the stream, soaked, covered in mud and sweat, trying to recover my breath. “And another thing. Why am I not meeting people?”


 I headed back to the van, back to Klaus. Klaus would know. 

"Ms. Crone, The Mist Will See You Now"

Eons ago, at a gathering, a man handed me a glass of water and said, “Here. This will make you smart.” I paused, took the water and sipped it, shocked. I had no idea how to respond, so I didn’t.
Back then, I had no confidence, no spine, and no idea of how to interact with people, let alone stand up for myself. I’ve learned a lot about people since then, and more about myself.


Although I am curious about how people work, what they think, I find the general population perplexing. I am fond of some, and connect deeply with very, very few. This all became clear while driving to the Pacific and back recently.  The journey was almost religious, spiritual, and I came to understand that it was the landscape; the very dirt, rock, and water I was plugging into and feeling the goodly vibes.  I cannot remember ever feeling as whole as I did during that trip, rounding off the love with a most unexpected day of pure bliss on the shore of Lake Superior. 


This is a problem because I live in a world full of people. Why the dissonance? 


For starters, the natural world is nonjudgmental; it’s not out to make you feel small. This is not to say that nature is not humbling. It absolutely can be, but its’ mission isn’t to belittle you–it offers you water because you're thirsty, not as a prop to launch a stinger. It has no mission; it just is, and when you’re near it, and open, it draws forth your truest essence. You can try to be something other than true, but eventually, the natural world will see your ruse and deliver a bear to eat you. 


While I sat on the Lake Superior shore, there was not one single wave, of all of the waves of the day, that I found disappointing. Each one, gave all of its’ time to me, and I was grateful. The great boulders lining the way up the Sand River, weren’t otherwise occupied. I didn’t have to make a goddam appointment to stand, feel them under my feet as I stood watching the rapids run between them. The mist coming in through the trees didn’t skip it’s slow, languorous embrace of my campsite because I wasn’t important enough, and while I was driving on the area roads, the views weren’t sitting off on a bench waiting to blossom only for those worthy-by-ego. Nope. I was good enough. The views were spectacular. 



Things are far from perfect. Yes, I am in a bit of a trough, but it’s a different trough; a much nicer one than all of the rest (this one has cup holders!), so I’m ahead, right? I am bonkers keen to find my tribe. Keen, keener than most, to find that spiritual other. And very much looking forward to having more neato people in my life. So, the hunt begins.


Funny, how it took a couple weeks travelling in the most beautiful parts of the country to grok this.


Oh, and as far as that, here-this-will-make-you-smart-glass-of-water scenario? Now, I would have finished the water, looked at him and replied, “Hey! It must have worked because now I see what an enormous jerk you are! Thanks!” 


Then, I'm sure that a bear would have eaten him.