WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11th, 2012

Have you ever built a stone cabin whilst dopesick?  (For the uninitiated, people who have never been drug addicts or policemen or emergency room staff or criminal lawyers, dopesick = suffering from the effects of heroin withdrawal.  They include fatigue, nausea, fever, chills, headache, organ ache, muscle ache, everything ache, and rather a nagging urge to do heroin.  Or fucking die.)  Well neither have I.  But I’ve done some masonry, and I’ve been dopesick, so I know this is going to fucking suck.  But the last three nights fighting hypothermia in the pouring rain have convinced me that the standard half A-frame shelter I’d originally planned ain’t gonna cut it.  I consider death by hypothermia an ignominious end.  And I will not suffer an ignominious end.  And that, Gentle Reader, is exactly the sort of ego-driven bullshit I’m here to conquer.  My addictions to nicotine and heroin are sorta the undercard.

 

 

God rewards us.  Moving camp over the Bridge of Death today, one weary load at a time, I ran into a mama mountain lion and two cubs.  I won’t call her a cougar; the animal I saw deserves the name of lion.  She was HUGE!  All grace and power and confidence; you shoulda seen her swagger.  She was sexy; I had this flash of wishing I was a mountain lion so I could pin her down by the nape of the neck and fuck her till she purred.  But I didn’t think it’d end like that if I tried it in my present incarnation.  “Man attempts to violate puma: eyelid recovered, to be interred this Sunday.”

Anyways, I saw them before they saw me; they were checking out the stuff I’d dropped on the bridge to dry out in the emergent sun.  The bigger cub saw me from twenty yards away and his eyes went wide, all four paws flashed out into kitty ready stance and he stared in shock:  “What the fuck is THAT?”  Then mama saw me and everyone darted off the bridge on my side and bailed into the bush.

Thrilled, misery forgotten, I scampered back to base camp to find my camera in the hopes that they’d be curious enough to give me another glimpse.  I discovered the camera was in the cache on the bridge. I soft-stepped up the path a little, craning my neck, and saw the back end of mama and all of the smaller cub moving off the path, unhurried into the trees.

If mama hadn’t wanted me to see them, I wouldn’t have.  The inference I took (and I know cats) was: “Thanks for ceding the bridge and on-ramp.  I appreciate the gesture.  Now I’m taking my babies this way.  You just keep doing your thing over there, dangerous monkey, and you and I will be cool.”

Awesome.  But now it’s me and my stuff and my demons again.  Back to work.

 

 

I forgot joint pain and stiffness, and diarrhea.

It’s the fatigue that’s the worst.  I can barely move:  I walk in a staggering, shuffling, hunched-up lurch like a zombie.  I’d hoped to have my primary shelter built before this hit, or I’d just live in my tent, but for the first three days I was here it pissed rain and there was nothing to do but cower in my tent and smoke off my stash; I didn’t bring any rigs.  So here we are.

Oh yeah, and my tent is gone.  I left it on the bridge to dry.  I thought, “I gotta put a spike in there to hold it in case a wind blows up.  Maybe I should take it off the bridge while I fetch a nail.  Naw, there’s not a breath of wind out here.”  And I left it on the bridge, and I fetched a nail, and when I returned, it was gone.  That tent served me faithfully for over 20 years; it was an awesome tent and never let me down.  I let it down with a stupid rookie mistake, and it’s gone.  Oh well.

What would be really cool is if it has blown away on the wind and somewhere will land in the hands of someone who needs it more than me.

But anyways, I’m in a wee pickle, now, dopesick alone in the high mountains just below a glacier with no shelter, ha!  And there’s no way I’m gonna have a shelter up by tonight in this condition… it’s cool.  God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.  I’ve got tarps.

 

 

I’ve moved everything by stages across the bridge spanning the river and down to the bank of the creek that joins the river.  Everything except the foam mattress my beautiful, wonderful mother sacrificed to this caper and the barrister’s bag stuffed with yoga books that houses this journal.  Now it’s 20 or 30 wades across the creek to arrive at my new home.  So far, I’ve only cried once.

I’d give much to go home and go to a detox or go on methadone like a sensible drug addict.

Let’s do this, then.

 

 

Toehold on sandbar established.  Mattress is under tarp on framework, so I probably won’t die of hypothermia tonight unless the water rises like crazy and floods me.  I don’t think it will.  No reason it should.

Some kayakers came through.  They parked their 4×4 by my old base camp, walked up the skidtrail to reccy[1] the Tatlow Creek falls, and they’ve fucked off to it.  They could be my way out when they come back.  My way to warmth, dryness, love, food, heroin, cigarettes.  I want out so bad.  Everything hurts.  And I know that it hasn’t even really started yet.  The worst by far is yet to come.

 

 

I dreamed last night.  I was with Jessy and Mark, and we were checking in to a meditation retreat.  Nice hippy folk all around.  A short, very strong and very gay Hispanic dude took a liking to me.  He was barrel-chested, one of these guys who’s the same measurement in every dimension, in his case about 5’4”, and he was a bit touched, because he wasn’t picking up my “fuck off I’m not interested” signals.  He kinda bumped and ground up to me, cooing at me.  When I turned away, he came right up to me, grabbed the back of my head, and started pulling my face towards his crotch.

I snapped.  Not bad, but I’d had enough and felt a physical response was called for, so I stood up, pushed him off me, and clipped him a little shot.  Nothing nasty, just a brachial stun, a circular blow with the inside of my right wrist to the left side of his neck, just to make him wobbly for a second and make him want to dryhump someone else’s face.

It caused a sensation.  He played it up, crying out, falling, grabbing the side of his neck.  People were upset, these were hippy folk and violence is never okay with them, the darlings.  People ran to attend to him, and I felt the energy in the room turn strongly against me.  Jessy turned and hissed a remonstrance at me.  I was duly chastened.

Then I realized I didn’t have this orange form that was required to check in.  I knew I’d filled one out, but I didn’t have it and didn’t know where it was.  I wanted to call my mom to ask if she knew, but I knew she was working.  I felt panic.

And that’s all I can remember.  D’you reckon I’m feeling like I’ve bitten off more than I can chew?

 

 

The kayakers are gone.  I pulled myself together enough to wade the creek and cross the bridge to approach them as they were winding down and loading up.  I spoke to the alpha.  He was a magnificent specimen: tall, lean, muscular, with a shaved head revealing a sloping cro-magnon dome very like my own.  He radiated toughness and physical courage, but when I asked him to call my mom and tell her he’d seen me and I was fine, it was all decency and compassion in his eyes, and he agreed cheerfully.  He was like me at his age, only better.

Who hasn’t lied to Mom to save her some worry?

Tomorrow the sickness will be on me full.  I think under this tarp on this sandbar is where I’ll be weathering the storm.  Wish me luck.

---

[1] reconnoiter

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13TH

1:42 A.M.

Is it just me, or have I been catching little snatches of sleep tonight?  10 minutes here, 20 there.  Awesome.

The river sings to me.  I hear music in the flow of the water.  Different genres, always good, always haunting.  Anyone else ever get that?  It’s weird.

3:44 A.M.

This is temporary.  All of it, temporary.  All I gotta do is endure it.  Simple, right?

4:37 A.M.

Makin hot chocolate.  Why not, right?  Dawn in 2 hours.  Sunlight on sandbar in three and a half.

6:10 A.M.

Incipient dawn.  Yay.

I don’t think I’m gonna do much heavy work today.  If anything, I’m gonna clean up this camp.  It’s a disgrace.  It looks like a fucking heroin addict lives here.

6:20 A.M.

Back from my morning constitutional (read: shit.  no diarrhea.  I’m detoxing.  In record time.  I credit yogic breathing.)

Have you ever awaited the dawn with desperation?  It’s really good to do that once in a while.  I’ve always said that it’s good for people to spend some time cold, wet, tired, hungry and scared on occasion.  Thank you, God, for this awesome fucking experience.

Maybe I will work a bit today.  I’d really like to have a fully enclosed shelter.  Last night was warmer, but it got cold by the end.  It’d be great to be able to run a little stove or fire.  Fuck, you can even do that in a spider shelter debris hut for pete’s sake.  Not that I want to go that way, having the bed up off the ground trumps fire I reckon.  Fuck, what am I talking about?  Fire of what?  This forest is sodden, it’s dripping it is wringing wet and nothing will burn for shit ARGH!

7:00 A.M.

We appear to be running with the drystone riverrock cabin concept, cuz I’ve been hauling rocks to the building site whilst waiting for the sun to bust over the mountain ridge.  Glancing up after every pick-up, every drop-off.  I shouldn’t be doing this, I should be accepting the wan, indirect light I’ve got with perfect equanimity.  But I’m not.  C’mon, baby.  Bring me the warm.  Bring me the dry.  Tarps are stretched, bedding is hung.  Bring me the warm, baby.  I’m gonna get more rocks.

7:15 A.M.

Li’l break.  I’m not as wretched as I was yesterday.  But I’m still pretty wretched.

One of my most consistent and egregious failures in life is the failure to give myself props, but looking at the mass of rock I moved yesterday, man, I gotta.  Feeling the way I was feeling?  Fuck am I tough.

8:10 A.M.

You cannot believe how slowly time passes when you’re dopesick until you’ve been dopesick.

Direct sun hit the sandbar at just before 8.  I was saying mantra with Jessy’s beads when it did.  I wept.  I wept and wept.

10:00 A.M.

I just made and devoured most of the biggest, greasiest, awesomest flapjack ever.  It shoulda gone in the Guinness Book of Records.  But it went in my belly.

It was the same recipe I always make, I know it by heart.  I make it for me and whatever girl spent the night.  Kind of a tradition.  Used to rile some of them sometimes when they came over and saw leftover pancakes.  Caitlyn bawled me out for it once:  “I was doing xyz while you were making pancakes!”  Haha!  God, we drove each other bonkers as a couple.

I was a womanizer.  I used to deny it when the allegation was leveled (generally by some woman who was trying not to break down and have sex with me, or some woman who was frustrated with my insistence on having sex with women other than her), and in a sense, I was entitled to deny it; people think of a womanizer as a man who uses women for sex without attachment, and as Giles observed, I got attached to every fucking one of them.  But there were many.  Deb and I counted, I fucked 22 women in that last apartment.  Too many.  Jessy said that wasn’t too bad given the 5 year time frame, but I think maybe she was just being supportive.  Or maybe she’s an even bigger slut than me.  Haha!  You know I’m just kidding, Jessybunny.   Your sexual history for the last few years would fit on a matchbook.  Printed in caps.

Anyways, I don’t want that anymore.  I enjoyed my polyamorist life, but it was utterly consuming, and too many hearts got broken.  I would be very happy if I made it through the rest of this life without ever breaking another heart.  That would work fine for me.

And so its felt, for many months, like something in me has shut down. I’ve become almost asexual; there was a time when it wasn’t that uncommon for me to be with three women in a day, two was probably more common than one, but now I can go many days without touching a woman at all, and if I feel in any way ambivalent about fucking a given woman, I’m just not into it, and the sex I do have lacks the power it once had.  The technical skills are still there, but I don’t blast energy into a woman like the Emperor shooting lightning bolts out of his hands anymore, and it scares me.  I wonder if that power is gone and in my past, I don’t want it to be in my past, I don’t want to let go of that, I want a woman, I want to make a woman very happy who makes me very happy.  I know that a lot of it is about my own energy, an energy in me that’s flagging bad that I need to restore, but there’s something more, too:  my gut tells me I’m waiting for someone.  Someone very fucking specific.  Someone who exists.  Maybe I even know her.  I just don’t know it’s her.  You know?

Still sick, tired obviously, kidneys ache.  But it feels like the worst is over.  It’s incredible.  This is only day 3.  And if you walked up and handed me a paper[1] right now, I’d chuck it in the river.  That’s yoga, kids.  That’s the power.

11:20 A.M.

Something magical just happened:  asana practice.  Four minutes headstand (including child’s pose wind-down), five minutes of shoulder stand (including plow), three minutes each side two-knee twist and five minutes shivasana.  And I am exhausted.

11:45 A.M.

Dunking in icy water registered the same restorative efficacy as yesterday, although I bellowed like a branded bull again.  I’m gonna do that every sunny day until I’m prepared to not be a little bitch about it.  I’m also going to trudge back to base camp to flagging tape my trail here as I promised Deb I would.   She might show up tomorrow, but I hope she doesn’t.  She’d bring smokes, just you watch.  God I want one so bad.  Two more days of that, I reckon.

The veins on my feet are back.  It’d be impossible to miss them now.  That’s where I did most of my injecting.  So Mom wouldn’t see the tracks.

12:30 P.M.

God, thank you for this gorgeous day.  It’s a day for Wreck Beach.  And indeed I’ve spent much of it running around naked, but fearing sunburn and savaged by bugs, I’ve donned my trusty “Kim Jong is Illin’” t-shirt and least favorite board shorts and brought Giles’s camping chair to a shady spot by the creek to write.

A nagging worry is whether Giles n Deb got out okay.  It was a treacherous track in and it was starting to rain when they left.  Every time I hear an aircraft, a little part of me hopes it’s not looking for a missing Giles and Deb.  It’s a silly worry, because if they were looking for them they’d find and talk to me, and I’m easy to find, splayed out across a sandbar on the river.  They’re okay.  My loved ones are okay.

Injuries so far (proffered for comic relief):  gashed open left palm absent-mindedly wiping mud off machete blade, 1^st or 2^nd day.  Sealed up with Krazy Glue, healing nicely.  Nasty little blood blister on right thumb, not a clue how I got it.  Burn on left thumb, vaguely remember the pain but not the circumstances.  Hot spots on both heels, moleskin applied.  And about a zillion bugbites, cuz I don’t always have the will to smack them away.  I don’t react much to bugbites, unless a lot of blackflies get my eyelids, in which case they swell shut.  I’m doing really good injury-wise.  Touch wood.

2-Something P.M.

Oh God I needed a day off.  A day to practice, a day to sunbathe.  A day to sit in the shade and sharpen knives and praise God and drink water and piss till my kidneys don’t hurt.  I haven’t been drinking enough water.  I am detoxing from heroin for God’s sake, what have I been doing?  Christ, it’s like I want to suffer sometimes.

A day to sit and write to you, Gentle Reader, to give you what unsolicited advice I can: throw down.  Whatever it is in your life you need to throw down over, do it.  Be brave and throw down and take what comes, God won’t give you more than you can handle, just remember to breathe.  It feels so good to be fighting demons and winning.  It’s our fucking birthright.

Tried to hike barefoot up to the falls.  Aborted.  Feet aren’t tough enough yet.  But if the weather stays good they will be, I’ll just go barefoot lots and soon I’ll be like Cody Lundin or Ajia.

4:38 P.M.

The sun has left the sandbar.  When it does, chill descends immediately.  You want to get inside and snuggle up in blankets.

This will be my warmest night yet.  And folks: I will sleep.  It’s on.  I’m gonna sleep like a baby.  For hours and hours and hours.  The nightmare is almost over.

Thanks for sticking with me.  Thanks for listening to me whine.  It helped.  A lot.

6:20 P.M.

I might be wrong.  I might not sleep.  I am so tired.  I’ve never been this tired.  I can’t sleep.  Can’t write more.  Tired.

6:55 P.M.

What difference a few hours.  It’s all I can do not to start walking.  I wanna sleep so bad.

7:40 P.M.

Start walking in the morning.

---

[1] Street jargon for a package of drugs

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14TH

Dawn

I slept.  I slept and slept.  Probably 8 or 9 hours altogether, and I am back in this thing.  I’m still dopesick.  My kidneys ache, I’m fatigued and my joints are stiff.  But I slept, and if I hadn’t, I think I’d be packing what I could in my small backpack right now.  God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.  But he’ll surely take us right to the fucking edge sometimes.

7 A.M.?

My clock quit for a couple hours last night.  I reckon it’s not long for this world. I guess it wasn’t really made to operate under a tarp on a sandbar.

Speaking of which, I’ve gotta make some decisions about shelter today.  If the weather turns for say a week, in my current housing circumstances I could potentially die of hypothermia, and as I believe I mentioned ab initio, homey don’t play that shit.  That’s not going on my gravestone.  I don’t know why I have this thing about dying of hypothermia, lots of people lots tougher than me have checked out that way.  I just feel like people would take the piss, okay?

Anyhoo.  I want something fully enclosed.  Do I continue with the drystone cabin, or go to a full A-frame?  Do I have enough trees of the right diameter for the latter?  Enough rocks for the former without denuding the riverbank and risking flood?  Can I get a drystone cabin made of these rounded river rocks to stand?  The drystone structures I saw in Ireland were made of nice cubic rocks.  These dopesick-built foundations here don’t look too sturdy to me.

I’m gonna poke around the ‘hood when I’ve finished my tea.  Resource inventory.

8:45 A.M.

This particular sandbar is the best place to be in the hood.  And I think I’m gonna run with the A-frame ball.  The boulders I’ve collected will be useful (at least some of them), but they’re all gonna have to be moved out of the way.  Ha!

There’s precious little straight wood around here that isn’t monster 130 year old spruce trees.  Thank God I’ve got tarps.

I’m gonna do some more logging.

? A.M.  10:30 maybe?

The rocks are moved, and what that has taught me, Gentle Reader, is that I need to stop being such a relentless bastard to myself.

I have had a morning of respect bordering on awe of the me of 2 days ago.  How in the name of Shiva did I move those feeling like that?  It was hard work today, and granted I’m still detoxing and fatigued from labour, but nothing like the desperate condition I was in when I placed those boulders.

If nothing else, Gentle Reader, I am a god-damned tiger when I’m fighting from the corner.

11-ish.

Steady and slow.  Frequent breaks to talk to you.  Thanks for being here.  I hope this story is of some value to you.  It’s not easy living it.

God has given me exactly what I needed again: a dry but slightly cooler day.  Good for workin’.  I’m logging.  Soon I’ll start building.  Bed first, then A-frame.  Then filling in – no, then hearth, then filling-in poles.

Machete is awol.  Workin with bowsaw, hatchet and k-bar.  Doin fine.  Definitely still detoxing though.  This is day 4.  They say it takes 7.

12?  1?

Okay, all bed pieces are cut, trimmed, and ready to assemble.  I even nailed the cross members to the logs, 3 sets of 2.  I think there’s enough trees felled to put up an A-frame; if not, I’ll fall more, or just go with a half A-frame for tonight.

I want a break.  I’m gonna take Jessy’s prayer beads and my camera up to the falls.  You gotta see this spot.

2:30-ish

Well, THAT was an adventure, of course.  I took the wrong skidtrail first, the one going up the mountain, and followed it a long, long way.  I kept thinking it only seemed so long because I was so fatigued, silly dope-addled twat.  I didn’t know for sure I was on the wrong one till I found a canola oil bottle that had been chewed by a bear and left a long time ago.  Adorable.

I’m disappointed that there’s no bears around, because I love them.  You know, they’re very cute.  That’s why a lot of people get mauled, because they approach too close because they’re disarmed by the cuteness of them.

But another part of me is okay with it, because four summers of treeplanting taught me that bears are also dirty lunch-stealin’ rascals.

I remember the girl sitting across from me in the interview room in the cells at the courthouse, in on breach number whatever, never made an out-of-custody appearance on the file, telling me desperately how important it was that she get out, that I HAD to get her out, that I had to talk to the judge and get her out.  I get it now.  I understand what she was trying to avoid.  I understand the agony she saw coming.

I remember driving her to detox, to treatment centers, I remember the heartbreak when she would bail on the first day.  God, I didn’t want that broken little child to die.  I wonder where she is right now?

8:40 P.M.

I’m sitting in front of the first really good fire of the trip, and this is day 7.  I was warned it had been a wet summer.  It’s also day – what – 4 of detox?  And it’s pretty much over.  I mean, minor stuff, but the agony seems over.  I can’t believe it.  Yogic breathing, kids.  Shit works.  I’m past the worst, except for whatever nature might throw at me, touch wood.

I went back and cleaned up base camp.  I found four empty heroin flaps and one empty spit (the two ways of packaging on the street are: 1. folded up in a little piece of paper; and 2. tied up in a little ball with garbage bag plastic.  The latter are referred to colloquially as “spits” because some dealers will keep them in their mouths so they can swallow them if and when the police rock up unexpectedly), and two empty Nicorette bottles.  All went into the fire.  My yajnam.  Things of the past now.

I hated being a lawyer.  I never wanted to be a lawyer.  I became a lawyer because it made Dad happy.  Then Dad died.

10:00 P.M.

No sleep yet.  There’s a few factors at play I reckon:

–       Dopesick endgame;

–       I didn’t put enough poles on this bed.  It’s quite uncomfortable.  I’ll add more in the morning;

–       I am so damned excited about what I’ll build next!  What shall it be?  Enclose shelter?  Fire pits?  Washup area in woods out back?  God I’d love a hot shower, and I can make it happen…so much to build!  I love to build!

On another topic, have I told you, Dear Reader, how much I appreciate you?  It’s kinda weird, isn’t it?  You don’t even exist yet, according to our linear sense of time.  But I know you will, because I’m gonna disseminate this diary when I get back.  I knew before I left that I’d have to, as hard as it might be to put this shit out there, because: 1. It feels like I gotta do that to be walking in my truth (a characteristically compelling phrase Reno uses from time to time); and 2.  This might help somebody who’s trying to kick down.  And I gotta do that if I can do that.  It’s kind of the point of this part of the exercise, after all.  So it’s all going on the net or something, sniveling and all.

But getting back to my point, writing this therefore feels like I’m talking to someone.  And talking to someone has been huge.  It’s been so important to me.  You’ve been a huge support to me in a very challenging time.  So anyone who walks up to me and says they’ve read this is going to be met with love and gratitude.

It’s kind of a demonstration of the yogic idea of all space and time being effectively a singularity.  There’s words on it from the Gita.  I’ll look them up for you tomorrow.  /love.

11:15 P.M.

Chapter 2, Sloka 16:  “What is not, has never been, and what is, always is.  This truth about the real and the unreal has been realized by the seers.”  I think there’s something later on, too.

I want to check in with a couple words for everyone I lied to while I was using heroin.  Starting with I’m sorry.  If you know me well, you know I don’t lie easily or well.  I hate that I lied to people.  I never want to lie again.  Except, you know, little white lies to women that love me so they won’t worry when I’m off to do something rad.

Fuck, it’s no good unless I’m specific.  Okay:

1.  Ajia:  remember the money you gave me to pay for Daisy’s vet checkups?  The vet never charged me for the checkups, not one of them.  I bought heroin with it.  I know you didn’t give a shit about the money and told me to keep any surplus, but still.  I’m sorry.

2.  Bex:  I told you I was withdrawing from prescription opiates, and it went fine.  I was withdrawing from heroin, and it didn’t.  I’m sorry.

3.  Mom:  with you, just not telling you was a lie.  I’m sorry.  For what it’s worth, you don’t have to worry about any repeats on this one.  Fuuuuuuuck no.

That’s who I can think of right now.  I’m sure there’ll be more later.  I feel like a complete piece of shit.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15TH

3:45 A.M.

It’s funny, you know, I expected to sleep tonight.  Oh well.

6:40 A.M.

Woke an hour ago to a bed collapse (man, I did a poor job on this!  Guess what excuse I’m giving?).  So, managed maybe two hours of sleep, but rose in good spirits.  Day 5 of the detox, 8 of the trip.

I’m feeling like I’m behind in the whole yoga/meditation aspect, or rather raison fucking d’etre, of this trip.  But I suppose I have been under some survival pressure since the loss of my tent.  And I guess I’ve done some productive work in other areas, heya?  Fuck yeah I’m off down.  Whew.  That was awesome.  Brutal and awesome.

Mustn’t get lax.  I’ve been feeling like the survival pressure is coming off the last day or two, but that’ll change with the weather.  It’s another beautiful day coming.  But it’s fall in the temperate rain forest, y’know?

It’s gonna be a challenge to scrape up the [easily accessible] wood to finish Hanuman Manor, and to process it feeling like I am, underslept, still a little dopesick.  I guess I’m feeling a little overwhelmed.  Okay then.  List priorities:

1. Fix bed;
2. Build front porch firepit with cooking crane – I’m almost out of butane; then
3. find and trim logs.

7:15 A.M.

I am so damned tired.  I don’t know if I can do this kind of shit today.

8:35 A.M.

See, the thing of it is, I’m a cat who really needs his sleep.  That’s why I quit the armed forces and went to university instead of becoming a career soldier.  Well, that and my pathological resentment of authority.

Point being, I don’t function well without sleep, lots of sleep, like nine hours a night is optimal for me, eight barely adequate, at 7 I’m impaired and 6 a helpless wreck.  So two is not enough at all.  I haven’t gotten enough sleep. I need more sleep.  Please, God.  Send more sleep.  I want to turn in the best showing I can for you, here.  I need more sleep to do it.

10:15 A.M.

Gentle Reader, I feel like I’m neglecting you.  I don’t have the energy to write.  But I am flushed with a success:  I got a pulley tied to a pole, and a line in the pulley, and pole up in the branches of two birch trees.  The shower bucket can now be raised.  When a firepit is built and water heated there will be a much, much needed warm shower.  Fuckin yay.

I’m sitting cross legged on the sand beneath my A-frame eating breakfast:  peanut butter spooned out of the jar.  Hope you’re well.

1:45 P.M.

Gentle Reader, there is much to tell.  First and most exciting:  I am CLEAN! The shower bucket didn’t really work that well, I actually think I’ll just burn it and poke holes in the lid of one of my big green jugs.  Or just go to the river, I’m getting used to it.  But being clean is huge.

The ultimate revision of my camp shower. Awesomesauce.

2^nd, it’s grand central station here today.  The “silent” part of this caper is gone by the wayside.  I’ve needed to vocalize, to moan and laugh and cry and sing, and I’m having too good a time chatting with the other outdoorsmen who come by (and there’s been two sets of two today), plus I figure they’ll be more likely to call my mom for me if they know me.

So with the second group I left a message to send someone for me if Drew’s mom passes and Deb needs me.

I’m starting to feel guilty that I’m here.  I mean, when I was doing enough smack a day to put Charlie Sheen in a coma, I had a good reason.  But now that the worst of the withdrawal is past and I’m not going back to the shit… well, it’s Deb, for God’s sake.  What don’t I owe that woman?

Wind’s blowing up.  Cumulus clouds.  Harbingers of change, possibly.  But the last two days have been brilliant.  Like I dreamed the trip would be.

Also – every single person I’ve asked to call Mom has agreed with alacrity.  It’s nice to be confronted with the awesomeness of people.

3:25 P.M.

I’ve got this overpowering sense that she needs me.  Yogi intuition is a thing to respect.

3:30 P.M.

Creepy, kids.  Another group went by just as I finished writing that.  I gave them a note, too.

Please let this be nothing.  Please don’t let that woman be down there desperate for my help while I’m up here doing my best Henry David Thoreau.

4:05 P.M.

Tried to take my mind off Deb by repairing the fly rod I busted on the first cast of the trip.  Whittled and sanded down a willow branch to a dowel, smeared it with glue, spliced the broken rod parts together.  Should be good to go tomorrow.

But it didn’t take my mind off Deb.  Not one fucking bit it didn’t, I’m sure Drew’s mom has passed, I’m sure she needs me.

4:33 P.M.

Lying in bed, staring at trees and worrying.  Stupid.  I really haven’t got where I wanted to get as a yogi this trip, it would be nice to stay and practice and play.  But God, please, I beg (and I know I ask you for so much), either send me word I’ve dreamed this up and she doesn’t need me or send me Giles and get me to her.

5:40 P.M.

Who doesn’t love a campfire?  I love the act of putting something no longer needed into it and watching it be consumed.  The yajnam.  Shoulda brought my barrister’s robes.  Thought about it.  Did burn my left toe bandage just now.  Felt good.  Healed.  Another wound healed.  Mostly, anyways.

I wonder if Deb is really struggling, or if it’s something cooked up by my imagination.  I do have this feeling that with the detox hard part over, my work here is done and I’m good to come out.  But that’s bullshit, I’ve barely got my toe in the water on meditation.  And dammit, I’ve had fun for the last couple of days, even today on two hours sleep.  I sowed hard fucking rows for this reaping.  Just like me to want to bail when it goes from awful to awesome.  Need another scrap, there, tiger?

This trip is hard on my girls, on Mom and Deb and my cats especially, and I would like to hug them.  But I know damned well my work here isn’t done.

Fortunately, I don’t have to decide.  I’ll just give it to God (another awesome Reno aphorism).  See what happens.  But one thing’s for sure:  wherever I am in the world and whatever I’m doing, if one of my girls needs me, that’s where I’m fucking headed.

7:45 P.M.

I’ve read back over this.  What an experience that’s been.

You must be wondering, Beloved Reader, something along the lines of the following: “Okay.  What now?  Has the stupid shit learned his lesson?  Has he found what he was looking for?  What lessons gleaned by our hero, here?”

I’m so glad I did this, all of this, exactly the way I did it, every detail, I wouldn’t change a thing.  I can’t say “I’d do it all again”, cuz I wouldn’t, cuz it hurt like fuck.  But… argh, I’m scared to try this in case it pukes, but I think I love myself.

There.  I wrote it.  Maybe it’s easy to write it.  See, Ajia tried to make me say “I love you” in the mirror once and I couldn’t do it, I just turned away in disgust.  Hold on, I’ve got a mirror over under the bush where I keep toiletries, I stepped on it back at base camp but I can still see myself  in the shards, I’m gonna try it, brb…

I did it.  I love myself.  Holy shit.

This is big for me, this is new for me.  I mean, I’ve come a long way in the last year and three quarters, from the depths of self-loathing to kind of liking myself, but loving myself, man, I didn’t expect that out of this.  But I just put myself through some very nasty pain and fairly substantial personal risk to expand my capacity to give.  That’s cool, right?  I mean maybe there was some ego in there, I’ll admit I liked the dare of it, but it was for a purpose and the purpose wasn’t about me winding up with the fruits of my actions.

This means it’s a different world for me.  Everything’s different now.  I love myself.  I love myself.  Fuck me.  I love myself.  I’m awesome.  I’m a fucking maniac and a work in progress, but I love myself.  Under a tarp on a sandbar on the Ashlu River.

I’m going to bed, Gentle Reader.  Sweet dreams to you.  God bless you.  I love myself.

TUESDAY, September 17th

1:55 A.M.

I love reading Iyengar.  No-one writes like Iyengar.  He don’t play, our B.K.S..  Not an ounce of fat in his prose.

I sent word home to come and get me if she needs me, and she has lots of resources to do that:  Scott, Paul, Dave, Giles.  I know she could use my help right now.  I wish I was there.  But I need to be here.

5:15 A.M.

Got up, took a piss.  Said “Hi” to Orion on my way.  He’s my fav.  But it makes no sense to me that he’s a hunter.  That’s a club on his belt?  Bullshit.  Hunters carry spears or bows, maybe a small knife on the belt for skinning game.  Orion is obviously a warrior, and that’s a sword on his belt.

I guess maybe if the constellations really were defined by shepherds, it makes sense.  I reckon a hunter would be cooler to them than a warrior.  Warriors are the bastards that take your sheep and rape your sister.

The propensity of our species to aggrandize warriors is highly fucking problematic.  Most of us do a damn sight more harm than good.  Imagine a world in which there are no warriors because warriors just aren’t needed.  Rather a nicer world, yeah?  But I digress.

I brushed my teeth.  I fetched water for breakfast, when it comes.  Dunno if I’m up. I got 2 or 3 hours in two bits last night, that’s something.

Whatever’s going on Deb can handle for a week.  That’s the max time it would take to get someone here to pick me up.  She’ll make it happen if she needs me.  Argh, it sounds so bloody-minded.  But I gotta be here.  I’m not done.  I gotta sit.

Besides, I’m good on heroin (thanks ever so much), but I still catch myself craving a smoke from time to time.  Hoogenboom told me we store grief in our lungs.  Dad died of lung cancer.  He smoked heavily for 50 years and tried to quit many times.  His death, the whole process, the diagnosis, taking care of him at home, then sitting with him in palliative care until the end, was my life-long worst nightmare come real, and it was worse than the nightmare.  How the fuck I held it together I’ll never know… naw I know.  Mom is how I held it together.  But getting back to my point, after all that, now I can’t quit smoking.  Wut up with that, hey?  Grief in the lungs.  Why can’t I let him go?

6:39 A.M .

Oatmeal and tea again.  So good.  Reckon that’ll be my thing.  I feel like reading while I process that.  Technique or scripture?  Scripture.  Ttyiab.

8:22 A.M.

Those two cups of tea this morning were so darned good I’m boiling more water.  I’m being profligate with my dwindling butane supply.  Live in the moment.

Just did my sun-over-the-mountain-crest bridge sit.  Twice around the beads, then I prayed.  I thanked God for this place, for the people who love me and helped get me here, and I named names:  Mom, Deb, Jessy and Giles, and I thanked God for never leaving me, even when I left him.  And I wept in gratitude.  I’ve done a lot of weeping this trip.  I sense I got a lot more to do.

I’m a huge crybaby.  Didja know that about me?  I’ll cry at the drop of a hat; when I’m touched by something is most common.  I’ve cried at long distance commercials.  I bawl at “Little Miss Sunshine”, sniffle my way through “Fifty First Dates”, cry twice during “Finding Nemo” every damn time.  I took Ajia and her daughter to see “Tangled” and experienced a five year old girl suppressing a snort and nudging her mom to look as I blubbered at the ending.

I hope I never change in that regard.  I hope my waterworks survive Samadhi.

9:30 A.M.

Break time.  Just felled a nice big willow, prolly 40 feet tall.[1]  Time for a spot of tea and to talk to you, my treasured friend.  Thank you for being here.  Thank you for listening.

So this is day 7 of the detox.  The last official day.  And as you know, I didn’t sleep much last night, and as you also know, I’m sensitive to that.  Upshot being, I’m dragging my ass.

I think maybe I put my body through something pretty big, here.  I feel like getting rid of that awful substance has taxed my body heavily.  I think it’s not gonna feel 100% right away.

I think the location and the labour helped, and even more so the meditation and pranayama.  But I haven’t put this ol’ machine through a little, here; I’ve put it through a lot.  As I do.  Sorry, body.  I won’t do THAT to you again.

But all in all – yay for day 7.  Now I’ve been there.  Dread start through excruciating middle to blessed end.  w00t!

10:10 A.M.

Holy shit kids I just dropped a 25 foot willow right onto Hanuman Manor!  Fortunately it wasn’t big and didn’t bust anything, but it rocked ‘er!  I think maybe this is a good time to go sit for a bit.  This one’s for the greatest human being I’ve ever known or ever will, my beautiful, long-suffering mother, Diana.  I love you so much Mom.  Thank you.

12:05 P.M.

I am a relentless, remorseless eating machine today.  My body wants to be strong again.

I’m trying to re-create the deep-fried Johnnycake they serve at the Reef in Vancouver.  A cast iron cauldron of oil is heating before a crackling fire.  I’ll letcha know.

1:20 P.M.

They were brilliant.  As was the cool shower and icy dip I had afterward.  Here’s what I did:

½ cup white flour

½ cup cornmeal

Heaping teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon of salt

¼ cup white sugar

All mixed together, then poured into:

1 beaten egg

Some water

Then a couple fistfuls of whole wheat flour added as a concession to yogic eating principles when the batter was too wet.  Formed into balls on a floured plate, deepfried golden brown, and consumed in the same manner as yesterday.

They were hurt only a little by the inclusion of whole wheat flour, I think.

2:05 P.M.

Laid in bed.  Dozed a little.  Wanked.  (Sorry I keep sharing that detail, but I’m excited that it’s happening.  Not feeling like a powerful sexual creature the last couple of years has really scared the shit out of me.  Now I can feel the energy coming back to me.  It’s like being blind for a couple of years and getting your sight back.)

I had a long think about what I read about prana in Jessy’s book on pranayama yesterday, and how it’s applying to me (I had none when I got here, and it’s coming back).  Now it’s time to go sit on the Bridge of Death.  I call it that for two reasons:  1. it looks like death is what you’ll find if you try to cross it with any vehicle heavier than a carried skateboard; and 2.  Because I died when I crossed it, and was reborn here.  Maybe I’ll take the camera along to illustrate the first point for you.  Okay.  Twice around, then.  This one’s for Giles.  I love you, fuckface.

6:20 P.M.

Spent the afternoon cleaning, organizing, tidying.  For the first time since I zombie lurched across that bridge 7 days ago, this camp looks like it’s inhabited by someone who knows what he’s doing in the bush.

And I won’t have to hunt through six huge Tupperware crates every time I want a handful of raisins anymore.  The girls were rushed packing me for this (because I hadn’t done shit for myself and they had to parachute in at the last minute and rescue me, as per s.o.p.[2]) and stuff got tossed in crates willy-nilly.  Now they’re all cogently organized.  I know what I got and where it is.

And dinner was leftover Jamaican Johnnycakes and a tin of sardines anointed with sambal olek:  another triomphe de cuisine par moi.

 I’m so happy.  So at peace.  I’ve sat 5 times today so far.  I’m getting stronger every time.  This is what I came here for.

I was right to stay.  Thanks, Jessybunny.  You know, two types of people creep me right the fuck out with their prescient/clairvoyant shit:  yoga teachers and fuckin chicks.  And Jessy, of course, is both.  I am so lucky to have her.  Thanks for taking me under your wing, baby sister.  I can’t wait to see you and Mark.

I swear too much, don’t I?  It’s awful.  I got it from Dad, I guess, he was the same.  I’ve been talking about improving it for ages.  I know we’re not supposed to swear cuz it fucks up our chakras or something.  Okay, Gentle Reader.  I’m gonna throw down, here:  I’m not gonna swear again in this journal unless I really feel I need to in order to make my point.  You can take that to the bank.

Gita tonight I think.  I seem to go to it when things are really good or really tough.  /love.

---

[1] I paced it out after.  It was 48.  This footnote brought to you by Desmond’s Raging Ego.

[2] Standard Operating Procedure

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18TH

5:35 A.M.

I probably slept 5 or 6 hours!  Not my usual required 8-9, but a damned sight better than average up here so far.  And it was deep REM.  I dreamed an entire Kevin James movie, starring Kevin James.  There was a cute scene where he crashed his family’s camper bus then hid in the wreckage towards the back and pretended to be asleep, trying to make his wife think that he was taking a nap and someone else stole the bus and crashed it.  Didn’t work.

I came into the movie midway through as the friendly competent commando who helps the bumbling hero foil the terrorist plot.  In one scene I had this massive .50 caliber sniper rifle, then found out in a crucial moment that it wouldn’t fire.  I wonder what the good doctor of Vienna would have to say about THAT.   I swear, I’d’a made it way too easy for him.

I put a big dollop of butter into my porridge this morning; I’m crazy, baby, you just don’t know what I’ll do next.  White sugar in my tea, too.  I know:  teetering on the brink of Roman degeneracy (I nicked that from Donald Jack).  Now I’m snuggled back into blankets with a tin mug of tea and you.  Hi.

I love that my body has adjusted to temperature fluctuations.  I hate the softness we incur existing in finely and automatically temperature-controlled environments.  That’s one of the reasons I used to leave the top off my Jeep for so much of the year: it kept my body from getting temperature sensitive.  I loathe, detest, despise, and revile physical softness in myself.

That being said, I am a bit fretful about the dropping temperature.  One of the locals told me that I’m risking getting snowed in if I stay till mid-October.  That would put anyone who came to get me out in grave danger.  The track in is pretty rad.  Ask Giles and Deb.  Maybe I should send word that I should come out earlier.  I’ll sleep on it.

7:05 A.M.

Snuggled, dozed and daydreamed.  And thought.  Hanuman Manor will be enclosed today, if I can get myself moving.  I’m helplessly gooned on happiness.  You should see this place.  You should hear the river and smell the air and feel the crisp.  Oo, speaking of which, I gotta put on icy, dewdamp pants and socks now.  Blargh, haha!  Chat later.  /love.

8:20 A.M.

The suncrest meditation has become the most important one of the day.  I went three times around the beads, unexpectedly.   Maybe because it was for Dave and the kids.

I pray after.  Today I thanked God for everything he’s given me, meaning my wealth of personal attributes.  I apologized for not having accomplished more with them.  I told him I was working.  I told him I was giving it to him.

I hope Debbie and Drew are okay.  I do want to go back and help them.  What I’m doing here is important.  I feel ah zark it, just zark it, I’m sick to my guts of listening to myself try to excuse myself, I’m sure you’re as sick of hearing it as I am.  Enough.  I’m gonna do some work.

10:35 A.M.

Well hey there, Gentle Reader.  My patient friend.  Best listener in the world.

All the poles are cut for the roof (and some firewood gathered, and the shitbucket emptied into a hole in a sandy spot in the woods, and relocated to a congenial copse of birches).  Now the plan is, we lash the poles to the ridgepole in pairs. There’s two pairs up now (which each get moved a little to make room for a li’l awning out front), plus five more, so there’ll be seven big poles on each slope of the roof.  Then we’ll weave willow wands into the poles, quantity unknown, but that’ll result in kind of a bower effect.  Over that go the three plastic dropsheets I got at a dollar store just cuz they looked like they might come in handy for something.  Over that, an assload of branches, twigs and leaves.  A survival type would think of it as a debris hut writ large.  It’ll be fairly dry when the weather turns.  We hope.

As for the sides, I dunno.  A combination of poles and tarps, maybe.  That probably won’t happen today, cuz right now, I’m gonna start another mission.  I’m sick of feeling behind on firewood.  I’m using a lot, cooking two meals a day and heating shower water with the campfire, and keeping it burning from late morning till bedtime to keep the bugs away.  So it’s into the forest with a big ol’ duffel bag with me.

I’m tired.  Moving slow still.  Don’t do heroin, kids.

2:10 P.M.

Lunch today is a celebration of root vegetables from the essential outdoor art of foil cookery.  We have:

½ large yam

1 medium potato

2 medium carrots

1 medium/small onion

3 large cloves of garlic

diced coarsely, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled liberally with seasoning, wrapped in foil and chucked with cheerful insouciance onto the fire.  We eat in 30 minutes or so.  I’m in the shade by the river.

I didn’t enjoy my childhood.  I was a weird kid, too smart for my own good, and felt alienated at school.  And there was this stepfather.

He was probably the great love of my mom’s life; he was a lot of guy, very strong, very tough, very capable.  He was also emotionally scarred and domineering, and not well equipped to deal with a headstrong little boy with more native intelligence than him.  I got knocked around physically a little (I remember bouncing off the ceiling during one beating – it all happened in slow motion, I remember turning in the air and being surprised by the number of dead bugs in the lightshade before I started to descend.  Things you can laugh about later, y’know?) and verbally a lot.  Verbally way, way too much.  It fucked me up.  I came to hate myself.  That lasted until last year.  If I ever catch myself riding down a child, so help me God I will take my tongue out with blacksmith’s pincers.  Anyways.

Mom left him to get me away from that, but he charmed his way back into our lives, then became abusive again.  I tried to stay out of the house as much as possible during my teen years.  It came to a head when I was 18 and I walked into the house to hear him yelling at Mom because I’d tracked snow on the carpet earlier that day.  I went downstairs, grabbed my rifle, chambered a round and headed back upstairs to blow his head off.  Mom met me on the stairs (chick intuition saves the day again) and talked me down.  I went and stayed at my buddy’s house that night.

The next evening, standing in the kitchen with Mom, explaining to her why I had to move out, I said “I’m not gonna live with that son of a bitch anymore.”  He heard me, came roaring into the kitchen and threw a shot.  I beat him down.  Broke some ribs, detached a retina, put the stamp on him pretty good.

I made amends to my identity that night, only in some measures yeah, but they were measures that really mattered, at least at the time.  The whole thing doesn’t look too yogic, the way we think about yoga.  But God help me, I feel like it was.  That beating was yoga for me (is that completely messed up?  Be honest).  Maybe for him too.  It wasn’t ahimsa if ahimsa means “no violence.”  But if ahimsa means “the least amount of violence you can use to effect your purpose”, as I heard someone say once, I wish I could remember who, well, yeah.  That test, it met.

I’m not really sure what to make of it all.  But it’s been on my mind today.  I needed to talk about it.  Thanks for listening.

I’ve got time to sit before lunch.  This one’s for my teachers, all of them, as a group.  I love them.  Do you hear that out there?  If I’ve been to your class more than once, I love you.  If I’m there with any regularity at all, you have a shrine in my heart that is yours until the end of eons, when it all merges and starts over again.  Thank you.  Maybe you understand and maybe you don’t how much thank you.

1:15 P.M.

If you’re wondering how lunch was, then I’m surprised!  It should all be taken as read by now!  It was brilliant, and I am stuffed.  And while lunch cooked, water heated.  One more stoke of the fire will bring it to boiling, it will mix with two thirds of a jug cold water from the creek, and then you know what time it is, right?  It’s the best time of day:  shower time YAY!  I’m hoping it will give me some energy to re-attack Hanuman Manor with a bit of purpose.  I’m so tired.  I need my sleep back.

3:50 P.M.

We’re in the wand-weaving stage.  Green leaves are hanging down into the shelter.  The effect is very pretty.  I took a picture to show you.

I think maybe I’m done working for the day.  Just weaving those wands into the poles has become grueling, I’m so tired.  I think I want to sit in front of this fire and read.  Burn off this awesome heap of firewood.  Make spaghetti.

Most of my exes like me; I’m in contact with many.  A couple don’t.  I hadn’t heard from Erin for ages, so I emailed her.  She told me that she didn’t want to hear from me, that she felt our relationship was an abusive one, and contact with me would be bad for her.

I was crushed.  I still am.  Giles told me to take it with a grain of salt, and I guess there’s good reasons for that.  But I hate leaving bad energy behind me.

I’m gonna pull the big tarp over Hanuman Manor for the night, and grab a book.  I’ll check in again before bed.  I hope you’re well.

6:45 P.M.

“You should at least have bear spray.  Do you have bear spray?”

“No, Mom.  I don’t need bear spray.  Bears aren’t interested in me.  I’ve had a mama grizz with two cubs walk by 50 feet away while I was eating a peanut butter and honey sandwich, and they didn’t even look at me.” [true.]

But she wouldn’t be satisfied, and went and bought bear spray, and handed it to me and made me promise that I would attach it to my work belt and leave it there for the duration of my trip, and I promised and I did it and I have kept my promise, the bear spray is still on the work belt.  Now where the work belt is, I’m not 100% on.  It should be in the big duffel of assorted tools.  Near the bottom.  Shouldn’t be too hard to get to if I’m being charged.

I won’t be charged.  Whether you get charged, fled from or ignored by a bear is, more than any other factor (barring really stupid actions like approaching or handfeeding or whatever), about the energy you put out to that bear.  Animals respond to energy.  And if you’re broadcasting fear, well naturally they’re gonna assume that they should be eating you.  If you’re not afraid of them, you’re not food.  It’s a logical inference for them to draw, doncha think?

I’m always a little nonplussed by outdoorsmen who are scared of the outdoors.  I knew a guy who once took a record-setting black bear in Saskatchewan with a black powder muzzleloader, and he couldn’t take a shit in the woods without tripping out thinking a bear was gonna get him.  I never said it to him, but I thought that was all very strange.  Crikey, why even come out here, where you can manifest your fear?  The guy who’s afraid is the guy who gets chased up a tree.  Or much worse.

Don’t be afraid.  Be respectful, certainly, but don’t be afraid, and you’ll be fine.

Here endeth the harangue.  How are you, Dear Reader, Dear Friend?  Well, I hope.  Me, I’m feeling pretty fed up with insomnia.  I want sleep.  A few consecutive nights of good, adequate sleep.  Cross your fingers for me.  Sweet dreams, you.

7:05 P.M.

Oh, hey, here’s the toolbelt!  It was right behind me at the base of the shelter pole where I lean the tools.  Good to know.  These woods are lousy with inbred hillbilly mouth-rapists.  I should know, being one.  G’night.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20TH

7:13 A.M.

Oh God, oh God, you answered my prayers!  I slept and slept, 10 or 11 hours.  I dreamed about Ruth!  I adore Ruth, I haven’t seen her in years.  She’s a big kindly rugged denim type, and Vancouver’s undisputed master of vintage British car parts.  You can hand her a nameless lump of aluminum and she’ll say something like “Hmm.  Sludgepump impeller counterweight for a ’61 Healy Sprite.  Hold on, dear.”  and go rummaging in a big dirty cardboard box full of such things and come up with its match.  She’s amazing.  I wonder how she is?  Well, I hope.

7:30 A.M.

Had to pause cuz the water was boiling.  Had my morning fat’n’carb party.  Now it’s just you, me and tea, waiting for the sun to poke itself over the mountaincrest to our east.

That night of sleep was great, and puts me back in the game, but it doesn’t fill the tank by any means.  I’m still fatigued.  I’m gonna ask God for more after suncrest.  There’s an old Sanskrit saying:  “Without him, not even an atom would move.”

Now, I think I’ll don my shiverpants (If you’ve never done this, I cannot tell you how gross the feeling is.  I laugh every time I’ve done it) and get a few branches off the slashpile and onto Hanuman Manor before suncrest.  Cya soon!

9:00 A.M.

Suncrest sit was for the greatest pranic powerhouse I know:  the mighty Pandora.  How’s it goin, girlfriend?  You awe me.

Suncrest sit was also darned near my last.  And it was a death that would have been not merely ignominious, but downright hilarious.  My right lower leg kinda fell asleep while I was sitting, and as I stood up afterwards, I got my feet all tangled up in each other, and I stumbled, and I executed this spastic little Jim Carey pirouette, and I pitched headlong over the rail of the bridge.

I didn’t hit the water or anything; I caught myself with my right arm around the big log that is the rail.  I had one arm and one leg swaying in the void, then no arms but two legs, then one leg, then I was lying on my back on the deck of the bridge and giggling for a long time.

It probably wouldn’t have actually killed me unless I’d manifested the union of sahasrara chakra and a boulder and knocked my oaf ass out.  If I hadn’t done that, I probably just would have wound up squelching back to camp soggy, shivering and sheepish.  But it was nervy enough that I’ll rise from meditation more mindfully next time.  Hahahaha!

Bad yogi:  there’s things that I want.  I want a trio of drying racks on the sandy area.  I want a proper rock firepit with a cooking crane in front of Hanuman Manor.  I want sawhorses.  And I want the rest of that slashpile on the Manor roof.

Slashpile is just lift, carry and place.  As for the construction, logic dictates that I do the sawhorses first.  So I’m gonna go ahead and do the drying racks.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

11:45-ish A.M

What has gone, has gone swimmingly.  There are three drying racks where there once was one, there is a firepit with a flat rock in it and a cooking crane over it, there are leftover johnnycakes in my tummy. I can’t tell you what a difference a night’s sleep has made, Gentle Reader.

Mom says that ever since I was a baby, if something scared me, I had to get up in its face.  I’d go after it like a pitbull.  Heroin scared me.  I saw what it was doing to those people, how it drained the life force out of them and turned them into something not quite human.  They move like zombies.  I’ve moved like that, now.

I’m so glad I did that.  Man, I don’t wanna do it again, but I’m so glad I did that.  I sure can say that about a lot of things.

We’re getting into the not working part of the day, here.  Time to change to shorts soon.  But I think first I’ll sit.  This one, with great enthusiasm, is for Victoria, whom I worship.  Victoria puts her formidable power to work bringing some succor to those people.  She’s a nurse for Insight, the safe injection facility.  She does outreach.  She goes right into the SROs, all day, every day, helping those people.  Namaste, Vee.  Hey, didja know about me?  I kinda thought maybe you knew, that those last couple teas were checkups.  Anyways, this meditation is for you, and Adam too.  Love to you both.

3:40 P.M.

Heya Gentle Reader! Hadta come check in.  I get to missing you, y’know?

What an awesome day.  Day 13 is the first day here I haven’t been fighting fatigue, and much has got done.

Like every other thing I touch in life, the firepit is overdone.  I’m gonna redo it tomorrow, make it a little smaller.

Tomorrow is Saturday, so there could be some monkey movement (other than me) around here.  Some of those monkeys might be associated to me.  Deb vowed to check up at two weeks (over my weary, spite-weighted objections) at the latest.  I actually hope she does now.  I desperately want word.

But what would I do if she asked me to come out?  Blargh.  Come out, of course.  And you know, it wouldn’t be the end of the darned world.  This isn’t the last trip of its kind available to me, I can do it again anytime I want.  And I’ve accomplished a lot.  Yeah, there’s a lot left to do, but there always will be, and if I’m needed back down in the rat race, then I can do it later.  But boy, I sure hope I won’t be asked to come out.

I’m still scared.  There’s something waiting for me out here, or more accurately, inside me.  Another demon.  I don’t know if I fight him this trip.  I want to fight him, I want it over with.  He’s a big one.

I should sit.  Talk soon.  xo.

Oh!  Dedication!  One I’ve been thinking of a lot.  One who’s never far from my thoughts, ever.  Mel.  The one I couldn’t save.  I love you, girl.

7:05 P.M.

My dear friend, I am stuffed.

I’m gonna call dinner tonight “Bush Jambalaya”, cuz who’s gonna stop me?  It was:

1 tin cup rice

2 tin cups water

1 can Aylmer’s Italian Accent stewed tomatoes

4 crushed and diced cloves of garlic

2 heaping teaspoons chili flakes

simmered in a cast iron dutch oven for 20 minutes and garnished with a can of tuna.  Bravissimo.  I took pictures, cuz it was the first use of the new cooking crane.

I know I should be vegan.  I hate subsidizing pain, death and suffering with my eating habits.  I was vegan for about 3 weeks.  Friends and family suggested (with a note of pleading in their voices) that I go back to meat; I was short tempered, absent-minded, and looked like I had cancer.  I was assisted by a few experiences that taught me that people can in fact be vegetarians or even vegans and complete douchebags at the same time.  None of those experiences involved Reno or S.J..

So I’m easing into more compassionate eating habits.  I’m mostly piscatarian now.  I came up here with the intention of taking fish and small game; I busted my fly rod on the first cast of the trip (and busted that silly repair attempt on the first cast, too).  I got this strong feeling that God didn’t want me to kill anybody, and you know, I found myself not really wanting to kill anybody either, I just want to learn to meditate.  So I haven’t.  The fish in cans that I’ve got I’ve been eating, I can’t help them, they’re already dead.

I sure do like this firepit.  Maybe I’ll leave it be.  Maybe a big man needs a big firepit.  /nuzzle.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21ST

8:52 A.M.

It’s late for my first check-in of the day, huh?  I got to sleep late and woke up late (I’ll take it), and I’ve kind of been scrambling to catch up with my day.  I’m just back from suncrest sit and firewood gather.  This one was for Alison.  Kitten, the lack of your company has been like an organ missing from my chest.  There’s a void in there that just won’t go away.  I miss you so much.  Oh – and don’t think I don’t know when you’re up to no good, young lady.  Daddies always know.

We’re running out of butane, Gentle Reader.  We like to make our morning tea n porridge over a stove, it’s easier.  So we’re gonna make charcoal and a charcoal stove today.

But let’s get the rest of that slashpile onto Hanuman Manor where it belongs.

Oh – dreams.  I dreamed of being in places I didn’t really belong, a little out of my comfort zone, but staying mindful and handling it just fine.  I dreamed of trains.  I LOVE trains.

1:15 P.M.

It’s been a busy and productive day, Gentle Reader:  there are sawhorses.  I had to laugh when I looked at the completed products; I did not assemble them with the mindfulness they deserved, and they are decidedly ramshackle affairs.  But dug in they’re sturdy enough to facilitate the processing of firewood, and that’s cool.

There’s a load of freshly cleaned laundry drying on the racks.  God sent a wind to assist.  Thank you, God.

I’m gonna sit.  Only my second of the day.  It shall be followed by 3 sets of 36 breaths of fire.  It is dedicated to Ajia and Rob.  Love to the Clan of Moon.

6:00 P.M.

Could it be that that was the best split pea soup from scratch ever made?  I don’t think it’s really an appropriate matter for debate.  I think it clearly was.  I think to posit otherwise would invite mock and contumely.

My run of good weather is over.  It’s blowin in.  And fast.  I’m gonna tarp up H.M..  I’ll get back to ya.

7:30 P.M.

I’m always awed by the swiftness and drama with which the weather can change in the mountains.  Back home on the prairies, you saw things comin for a while.  Not here.

I’ve chosen to gamble with my tarping strategy.  I have the tarpage to cover either the top 85% of the roof and ¼ of the open ends of Hanuman Manor, or ¾ of the open ends and effectively not bloody much of the roof.  I’ve decided that this roofing technology should be tested.  I’ve never used it before.  So I’ve closed off the ends, and it feels kinda cozy in here!  We’ll see if it still feels cozy when the rains start.

This change of weather could bring just a little bit of survival pressure back into the equation.  I suspected a visit this weekend, which would certainly include a resupply.  If it’s pissing tomorrow that becomes unlikely (at least it darned well better).  And depending how long the weather remains socked in, any putative ride out could be a long time getting in.  This, right here, could be me on my own till I get out or spring.  I’m rather tickled by that.  I’d go for getting out, of course, in case you were wondering.

There’s also the possibility of me getting flooded out.  I’m camped on a sandbar by a whitewater river in the high mountains.  This sandbar gets flooded every year, the geographic evidence is obvious.  If it’s raining enough up top to flood the sandbar tonight while I’m sleeping, death by hypothermia could be back in play again, sad face with tear.

All in all, the trip is finally getting a little more interesting again! Thank you, God.  Whatever happens, I submit to your will and love you entirely.

I’ve been a fool.  I’ve been yearning for something:  a showdown with a demon I know is there but cannot name.  I’ve been trying to will it to happen.  Fool me.  That’s not how yoga works.  That which one chases in yoga (and in women) tends to flee one.  Don’t chase.  Just practice.  Practice and breathe.  All things come in their own time, just practice and breathe.  Yoga abhors goals; the only real goal is union with the infinite.  Practice and breathe.

It’s only five after eight, but I cannot keep my eyelids open, yawn yawn yawn.  Wanna turn in?  Okay.  Let’s.  Sweet dreams.  Pray to wake up dry tomorrow morning.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22ND

8:15 A.M.

Well, Gentle Reader, darn me if the ground didn’t get damp outside Hanuman Manor last night but stay dry within it.  To my surprise, it didn’t pour buckets, it just misted.  But we now know that the Manor can interdict mist, at least.  w00t.  Maybe I’ll try and find some spruce boughs today.  Keep improving.

It’s overcast, clouds snuggling mountainsides, visibility maybe 3 or 4km here, and it’ll be patchy through the trail.  Don’t you come up here today, Debbie.  You got no business up here today.  Today is one of those days I DON’T want to see that pretty face.  Fuck off.  I love you.

Suncrest (ha!) meditation today is for Caitlyn and Darren.  No worryin’ down there, Squid.  Monkeys belong in the trees, right?

8:45 A.M.

You’ve got me in a garrulous mood, Gentle Reader!  Poor you!

I dreamed I went to Africa last night, to use my life force to help others.  It was beautiful there.  Tom was there.  A group of dickhead bikers showed up.  I picked a fight, hurt one of them pretty bad.  I was disappointed in myself.  Not very yogic.  But I got over it.

I woke up face-down and high-centered on a painfully raging erection.  Prana.

I lounged in bed a long time.  I ate crackers and peanut butter, I went back to sleep.  A lazy Sunday morning.  It was warm; I slept in a t-shirt last night.  Partly because of the cloud cover, partly because of the ongoing hardening of my body.  I got to my shower late yesterday.  There wasn’t direct light and there was a brisk wind.  Walking wet and naked across the sandbar, I was aware of a sensation of cool, but I wasn’t cold.  My dip in the river was almost pleasant.  Funny, huh?  That which was shock and agony a week ago is almost pleasant now.  Silly bodies.  Such marvelous adaptive capacity, yet they cling so petulantly to the norm they know.

These are the onramp supports of the Bridge of Death, just on the other side of the creek from my sandbar and above the spot I’d dip in after my shower. The graffiti made me smile every time I saw it, and send silent good wishes for Matt and Niki. I hope they’re together and happy.

Alright.  I’m behind on reading.  I’m gonna brush my teeth, do a chapter of Prana and Pranayama, then poke around for a smallish spruce tree to take.  I’ll check in soon.  Hope your Sunday morning has been as pleasant as mine.

11:50 A.M.

I took two small spruce trees; their boughs now grace the roof of Hanuman Manor, and their trunks lie in my lumberyard awaiting processing into I know not what.  I’m enjoying falling less and less.  Every time one comes down, I feel like I’m punching Julia Butterfly Hill in the ovaries.  It’s awful.  But I gotta do it.  It’s not cool for me to take too many chances, my Mom needs me.  And with every bough placed, I gain confidence that Hanuman Manor will pass the test when it finally does piss again, when piss it eventually must.

Now I gotta think about lunch.  I think I’ll do that root veggies in foil thing again.  It’s easy, and I’m not bursting with energy today.

The sun’s actually trying to poke through the soup!  Brave Sol Invictus.

1:50 P.M.

I just had a great conversation!  Another old outdoorsman named Carey, and his younger partner I figured for his son, who didn’t give his name.  He came to fish off the Bridge of Death, said he’d been coming here 45 or 50 years.  He figures the bridge has been there since the late 1800s.  He said he’d bring me a couple beers the next time he came down, and said he’d call my Mom for me.  Great guy.  Kind and crazy like me.  I got the impression of a very tough guy to kill.  If that’s the only conversation I have today, it’s been a grand day for socializing.

But that’s also one more prediction for snow in October.

It’s looking more like there won’t be a Deb appearance today, at which I am both glad and disappointed.  I do kinda crave a hug.  Detoxing was hard.  I also crave news that she’s okay.

6:30 P.M.

Ah, Gentle Reader, this is living.  I’m before the fire, waiting for my lentils.  I’m half stuffed on the first course:  whole wheat bannock plucked from the pole in hot bites and swirled in olive oil.  It’s a wonder I managed to save any to accompany the lentils.

I’m so happy.  I feel selfish.  Deb’s non-appearance today suggests a harried girl.  Or maybe just afraid of the trail in and reassured by regular word out.  Thank God for Carey and the other outdoorsmen who’ve helped me out in that regard.  They’ll all be fondly remembered whenever I think of this trip.

I did mediation and pranayama today.  My practice deepens.  I feel like I’m making progress, doing what I came here for.

I think they’re ready!

7 something

I would that you were here to share my cooking.  It’s a thing to taste, oh yes it is.

And to share this fire, and these woods, and these mountains snuggled in mist.  The cold pure air, charged with a hundred times the negative ions that the air in the city has, or so Prana and Pranayama tells me.  This is a good place to be.  It’s a hard place to detox from heroin.  But the only easy place to do that is one of those clinics where they drug you up, knock you out for three days and its over when you wake up.  I recommend that.

Back into Iyengar now.  I’m taking notes, distilling all his little lists.  Getting some Sanskrit down.  I don’t know why we do that.  Why is Sanskrit necessary?  Why not just use English?  I expressed that opinion to Jessy once and she took my head off at a swipe.  I don’t remember exactly what she said, but the word “ignorant” was thematic.  It was adorable.  I laughed and laughed.

I miss my peeps.  My peeps pwn.

Okay.  Studious monkey.  Back to work.  /love

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23RD

1:20 A.M.

It appears to be an insomnia night!  I refuse to trip over it.  I’ll sleep when God deems the time right.

Can you believe that I still want a cigarette?  And you know, smoking doesn’t make me feel good.  It makes me feel like absolute shit.  With every drag I can feel the poison diffusing out through my body, weakening me, sickening me, killing me.  Pernicious little bastards, those.

And so I cycle my nicotine delivery system of choice.  Sometimes I smoke.  Sometimes I take nicotine lozenges.  Sometimes I chew tobacco (my absolute fav, it has the additional brahmacharya-boosting effect of making me disgusting to the opposite sex).  Sometimes I’m on the patch.

It’s the only drug that holds me, and it’d probably take you a couple of tries to name a drug I haven’t abused.  But boy, it holds me hard.  More than 20 years, this saga.

It ends here.  On the bank of the Ashlu River.  K.  I’m gonna try for sleep again.  Sweet dreams.  Cya in the morning.

8:25 A.M.

Didja know that Iyengar is a coffee drinker?  Yeah, Ryan Leier told me that.  BKS says:  “No coffee, no prana.”  I made coffee this morning.  You better believe I did.

I got acupuncture for insomnia awhile back.  It was very effective.  Jen, the awesome chick with the needles, diagnosed an imbalance in my energies:  way too much yang, not enough yin.  I was gobsmacked.  (As was Mom.  “Well no shit,” she said, “I didn’t have to be an acupuncturist to diagnose that.  Maybe we should have been sending you for acupuncture starting when you were two.”)

Well, Jen is off in China, honing her craft (Godspeed to her!  She was a healer to reckon with when she treated me.  She’s gonna make a lot of lives a lot better.  Props to you Jen), and even if she was in town she’d be tough to summon with the methods available to me right now (smoke signals, or yelling really loud).  So there won’t be acupuncture.  But there will be alternate nostril breathing, which is said to balance the ida and pingala nadis, and therefore the masculine and feminine energy of the practitioner.  Nadi Shodhana, twice a day, starting today.  Wish me luck, Gentle Reader.

Time for suncrest sit (still just a name) and firewood gather.  Talk soon.  /love.  Oh – it’s for Tom, Soyoung and the boys.  I love you very much.  I need to talk to you more.  I like my life better when I talk to you more.

10:34 A.M.

You’re not gonna believe it, Gentle Reader.  There’s blue sky.  There’s sunshine.  God is great.

Took down three good birch snags[1] off the trail to the falls.  That’s firewood for a couple days, if and when I summon the prana to buck[2] them and split them on the quarter round.  And no guilt, yay.

Hung still-damp laundry out, filled the shower jug and stock pot.  Now I don’t know what to do next by way of chores and camp improvement.  There’s lots to do.  Gotta make that charcoal stove.  Gotta find the flat rock to put it on.  Gotta harvest the spruce boughs to give Hanuman Manor a floor.   Gotta process firewood.  Gotta do laundry, especially my now-beloved camo pants, which could presently stand up by themselves.

My drying racks, placed to catch the tracking sun. Evocative of ancient pyramids and stonehenge and such, no? No? Bridge of Death in the background, rather more impressive.

I reckon I’ll start with a chapter of Prana and Pranayama.  After I’ve lit a mosquito coil.

11:30 A.M.

Chapter read.  Laundry done.  A quantity of firewood processed.  I think it’s too early to start the fire for my shower.  C’mon, Gentle Reader.  We’re gonna see if we can find this Atco trailer with the blueberries around it everyone’s been talking about.

3:00 P.M.

Ah, Gentle Reader, I’m so glad I waited till after my shower and dip to talk to you again.  I was in a bad way there for a bit, attitude-wise.  Exhausted and frustrated and fed up.  I couldn’t find the Atco trailer though I ran out of skidtrail along the lower path and bushbashed for a couple kilometers; if I sleep tonight, I’ll try the upper trail tomorrow.

Time to sit.  16 minutes of uncontrolled breath, then a dozen rounds of Nadi Shodhana.  This one is for my adored cousins, Paul and Josh.  I am so proud of you guys.  Every moment I spend in your company is pure joy to me.  I haven’t seen you much since I quit the practice of law; I’ve been working very hard making myself something worthy of being related to you two.  And I’m getting there.  Hope you’re well, boys.  Cya soon.

4:05 P.M.

Hey, I forgot to tell you about today’s visitor!  He was an ATVer named Vance, a thirty-five year veteran of the valley.  He seemed a bit skeptical about my mission, and surprised at how long I’d been here.  When he asked how I got here and I told him my buddies dropped me off, he exclaimed “They just LEFT you here???”

I liked Vance, but I didn’t ask him to call my Mom.  I want only positive energy talking to Mom about what’s going on here.

At the conclusion of my Nadi Shodhana practices, it’s like the start of a mushroom trip.  My vision gets super sharp, I see things in minute detail.  Pretty sick.

5:28 P.M.

I kept dinner simple tonight:  I boiled half a package of whole wheat spaghetti, added half a jar of Newman’s Own spaghetti sauce, a can of tuna, a splash of olive oil, and a three-finger pull of chili flakes.  It was good, and there’s leftovers.

I feel like I should tell you a story about me and my most dangerous demon.  I don’t really want to.  I’ve been avoiding it.  But I feel like its somehow critical to who I am.  And I know I have advice to give that could be very important to someone somewhere some time.  So yeah.

About six months after Dad died, I was drinking heavily.  I’d gotten into making blended drinks, daiquiris and margheritas and such, playing with combinations, perfecting recipes.  And I got completely trashed on my creations every night for a couple of weeks, and I decided to check out.  It was an urge I’d tangled with before, an urge I knew to be the deepest stage of depression.  Not an urge anyone succumbs to at their best except maybe when facing terminal illness or imminent capture and interrogation by the enemy.  But at the bottom of a depression cycle and a long drinking binge isn’t most people’s best.  Anyways.

I had a lot of opiate medication around the house, leftovers from Dad.  And I went online and researched, and found out what a lethal dose of the stuff was.  I had six times that, and I took it.  I chased it down with a 26 ounce bottle of white rum to make sure.  It didn’t kill me.  It just made me rowdy.

Caitlyn, who I’d told of my intentions, was driving around looking for me, and she found me on a street corner in the downtown eastside with a wad of bills at my feet, bellowing that anybody who could see the soles of my feet could take the money.  She got me into her car (Dunno how.  She may be the only being in the universe that could’ve), and got me to the paramedics, then followed the ambulance to St. Paul’s Emergency, where I lied my face off to the attending physician and they let me go.  Caitlyn stayed with me that night.  I metabolized everything I’d taken, and was at work the next morning.  People laughed when they saw me.  “Have fun last night, Des?  Was it worth it?”  “Yeah.  Totally.  Wouldn’t change a thing.”

I got through that day, and the next.  The morning after that, I woke up in the black pit again (if you’ve been there, I don’t need to explain that.  If you haven’t, I can’t explain it.)  I started drinking, I had maybe four or six beers, I cancelled lunch with my Mom and told her it was over and goodbye.  I had this lunging rope I’d picked up cuz it was on sale at Princess Auto; I took down my heavybag and set the lunging rope up in its place, using the clip fastener to make it a slipknot.

I got the little step stool from the kitchen that Alison used to reach the higher cupboards, stood on it under the heavybag mount, got the noose around my neck and snug and everything tightened up and good to go, and I kicked out the stool.

Everything was going good for the first 15 or 20 seconds, and I was greying out, just about to lose consciousness, and I found myself standing on the floor and regaining my vision.  The rope had stretched.

Disgusted, I pulled it off my neck, went to the fridge, cracked another beer, and that’s when the cops walked in.  They put me in cuffs.  They were kind.  They put me in an ambulance.  The finest police officer I have ever met, Officer Jans, a beautiful soul of a dour Dutchwoman who’d dealt with me the previous night, heard the call while she was having lunch, and came to deal with me again.  My God, thank you for that friend you sent me.  Take care of her, always, please.  We need her.

This time, showing up at emerg with rope burns around my neck, there was no talking my way out of it.  I was certified under the Mental Health Act and locked up for three days.  They wanted to keep me a lot longer.  But that’s a whole other story.

I met an old man in there, the Reverend Jim.  We were thick as thieves right off the bat, the Reverend and I.  He prayed for me before I went in for the meeting with the psychiatrist that got me reluctantly sprung.  My buddy Larry came and got me; that was one of the conditions of my release.

I went back the next day, and every day for about a week, to help Jim get some paperwork filled out so he could get his insulin paid for so he didn’t wind up back in hospital.  And to help his wife (who was in another psychiatric wing of the same hospital) with a little legal problem that was causing them grief.  I’ve often reflected that the Reverend Jim had faith in God, and God took care of his own.  He sent me.

But to proceed to my conclusory observations:  what you need to know about that demon, if you ever have to deal with it in another person (or shit, in yourself), is that when it’s going on, when the urge to suicide is approaching realization, the person experiencing the urge is insane.  It’s a madness.  And there’s a war going on inside them.  The insane part may be driving the bus over the cliff, but there’s another part inside that person that isn’t insane, that doesn’t want to go, that’s screaming “No, don’t do this, don’t do this to me, don’t do this to the people I love, I want to live!”

If you want that person to live, then you’ve got to reach that second, sane part, and strengthen it.  Put love there.  Put caring and encouragement and confidence and light there.  Anything that gives the insane part power and momentum, anything that feeds the self-loathing and the absence of hope that are driving the urge to annihilation, cuts that person’s chances for survival, so you can’t use anger or criticism or judgment.  Use love.  And good luck.  And God bless you and keep you, you and them.

So there it is.  Or, as I usually say, there it hangs (har, har!).  Not my finest moment. And a much abbreviated recounting, so much happened over that few days.  But hopefully the story will be useful, somewhere, someday, to someone.  We should all of us tell our stories, whether they feed our egos or not.  We should all of us walk in our truth.

Anyways.  That was all before yoga changed everything for me.  Of course, I’m still trouble, aren’t I?

Alright.  I got Iyengar, my notebook, and the Gita.  I’m gonna stoke the fire and get to work.

Hey.  I don’t know if you’ve adjudged me a waste of space on what you’ve just heard.  But however you took it, and whatever you think of me, thanks for listening.  And don’t forget what I said.  Just in case.

---

[1] Standing dead trees

[2] Cut into given lengths