[Naval gazing is directly ahead. Consider yourself warned.]
I
I was back riding on the Dome trails today, slogging my way up the roughly paved Dome rd. with my helmet attached to my backpack so as to keep the sweatiness down. Soon though I was helmeted, booting down the dry, rocky south-face singletrack and, unlike my ride down the west slope, this time able to pick up some speed on the more reasonable downward grade. The first time I rode these trails I had written about wishing my cycling friends could ride them with me. I also wrote that I didn’t miss their cycling companionship and was happy to share the loose, rocky descents with no one. Trail riding is a singular act even when in a group. Focus is key and it is the points in between that are social. So while a post-ride beer or americano is small treasure, the act itself remains suspended and insulated.
Also though these physical pursuits have become my means of allowing the world to lessen its volume, of gaining control through the physical act of controlling the ground moving under my wheels
Since arriving my world has turned on its ear. My working practice is moving along swimmingly and the people I meet are, almost without exception, genuine and welcoming but it’s gotten to the point where I am counting down the days until I fly.
I have been productive, prodigious and a diligent worker but have also asked myself some tough questions about the middle distance. All these qualities are welcomed. My practice as an artist often involves questioning the idea of knowledge gained through tribulation so I’d be hypocritical to not see some positives in my situation. Still, given the option of casually sauntering through my days I might say “Yes please”. As it stands, it is my running and riding, the roots, regulated breathing, drop-offs and burning thighs that allow me to garner my focus and lift myself up.
II
During the many years that Patrick Lane was lost to the wilderness of addictions he found himself (in retrospect) cutting off those who were attempting to become close. Travelling BC’s back-country he met many loners, some lost like he, others at peace with their chosen place, some bitter and raging, others placid and beatific. Recalling one such meeting, Lane talks about Thoreau and one possible outcome of seclusion. He writes,
“He was a solitary man, but there was nothing about him that spoke to me of loneliness, anger or despair. Like Thoreau, he had three chairs in his house, “one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.” From what I saw that day and on the subsequent days I visited him over those years, the old man’s third chair was never occupied.”
This is my dream. This is my nightmare.
When I write about the Columbia River passing through Trail BC I’m also writing about the years that altered me from an average, if awkwardly shy, and friendly kid into the adult I am today. An adult I would describe as friendly but not overtly social. In between, strange machines were devised to defend from possible repeats of the constant harassment, bullying and beatings of those that took place in mountains around Trail. Those machines have long since been dismantled but (and here comes a heavy-handed metaphor again) there is still something left in the dirt.
If I am honest and someone asks why I joined the infantry, one aspect of that murky Q&A (an aspect that I’m reluctant to bring to light because I sound like the self-absorbed teenager that I was) is I didn’t ever want to be the victim again. I know now, however, that if you assemble such machines as I did to keep others out you’ll seldom have the joy that comes from allowing others into the vulnerable parts of one’s self.
The Columbia and The Yukon Rivers are important because they stand in for the points in my life when I turned inward. The rivers’ waters deliberate and quiet movement past these towns is a heavy-handed metaphor that could be used by a kid who out of choice and necessity decides that community is too hard to be part of because at his young age he hasn’t had the experience of being separated from it.
