To A One Blank Page
Another year passed and the time was to celebrate. It was Friday morning. I grabbed my gear, packed the car and after work, I headed west. Two hundred and fifty miles later, I arrived. Just as I did four years prior. Just as I have been doing every year ever since.
The scent of this place makes my skin shudder. Mount Garfield to the north and the great thunderbird perched on the face of the Grand Mesa to the southeast. They both face the valley; they guard it from above. As I drive into the space which holds them both, this body trembles.
To the southwest, in the distance, I see the rim. The canyons are below it. It is all part of a place colloquially known as “The Monument”. Something shifts. Any old worry ceases to exist.
I am home.
***
That Sunday evening, after a weekend of tenting and walking came to its end, we traveled through a dusty road, seeing the canyons now from the rearview mirror, we noticed a vehicle parked alongside.
“What are you hunting?” my friend stopped his truck and asked the man with the pistol at hand.
“Rabbits,” he grunted his words as he scanned the land scouting a prey. “But they’re darn fast.”
“What will you do with them?” I asked.
“A stew; a rabbit casserole.”
“Well…it sure looks like you’re going to bed hungry.” I quipped. The man didn’t seem to appreciate my bestowed humor.
“Where’re you two from?”
“We’re from here. I’m from down in the valley. From Grand Junction.”
After hearing my reply, he waved a puzzled good bye. He inspected the facial features and heard how the r’s made the tongue vibrate; the evidence spoke. I am not from where I said I was. The tires spun raising the red dust which covered the sagebrush and possibly, scooting away a man’s Sunday dinner. My friend shook his head and smiled as he heard my answer.
Then I said with sheer conviction,
“Yes, sir. I am from here. Born and bred.”
The truth is this: I was not born in this ‘here’. But my relationship with this place birthed well before a time this body came to life not far from the coast of a Caribbean island. My relationship with the place is ancient. The encounter took nearly thirty-five years. It is said some relationships are worth waiting for, and this one goes beyond that which I am not able to understand.
And that is OK. Some relationships are not meant to be understood.
***
She had a gypsy soul and a warrior spirit. She made no apologies for her wild heart. She left normal and regular to explore the outskirts of magical and extraordinary...
…And she was glorious.
M. Gilman
“I thought of you when I saw this,” read the email she sent.
By this she meant the words quoted above. She thinks my soul is that of a gypsy. That I have the spirit of a warrior. She thinks I am glorious.
I am not sure I have the soul of a gipsy. Much less the spirit of a warrior. I cannot really say am all that glorious. She also thinks I have a wild heart. That I make no apologies for it. I do agree with one thing: the wild heart part.
“You made me tear up. Especially today. I’m heading out and it never ceases to be painful to leave this place. But I can’t seem to stay put either.” That was part of my email reply to her. “I too just finished a two week stay with him. I feel I’ve ten more years of wisdom in me.”
By him I refer to a man. A man who some years ago, opened the door of his home one white and cold evening when I knocked. Since then, he has been patiently, lovingly and mysteriously pointing the way to my own way.
Hours before her email was received, I paid homage to my tough and tender blood pumping muscle. Towards the end of my email I confided what I had done. Hours before I left Grand Junction, two weeks after having returned from Japan, I made a confession. Words throbbed within my chest for months on end. They left my lungs without much air as the mountains in New Zealand did. They tingled my skin as the sun did during my bush walks in Australia. A truth that hid behind the backspace key of a keyboard during my stay in Tokyo.
With this confession, I made an arrival. But this was not a confession; it was the culmination of a rite of passage. One that led me to the path of embodying that which I have always dreamed of; longed for.
My becoming. To become the woman of my own dreams.
Ah.
***
Having hailed from Japan that Saturday morning, I dipped the toes into the waters of the Colorado River. The next morning, I ran one of the canyons of the Monument. The very same canyon I ran the day before I left the country several months ago.
“As if I’ve never left!” I shouted from the distance coming out of one of the washes as he took a rest atop of a boulder.
We were the only ones in the canyon. Yet in there we are never alone. In these canyons, I know am never alone.
I returned to the United States earlier than anticipated with thoughts of a long walk – to walk the 486 miles that span from Denver to Durango. As I started to learn about the logistics of walking the Colorado Trail (meals prepping, equipment needed and other potential expenses) and evaluating the investment of financial resources in preparing for a return (buying a vehicle, etc.), I chose not to walk the trail.
Within the day of my arrival a new companion was found. A green truck which I aptly named Tasmania. It goes by Tas. Its color reminds me of hope. The lushness I see reminds me of the rainforests in the island; forests that at times were covered by a fog so thick it clouded everything I could possibly see. On the roots of the trees I found respite during my walks. As for the fog, I thought it was going to last forever; but it eventually lifted. It always does.
The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.
John Muir
Spring water. Hoh Rain Forest. Olympic National Park, Washington.
“Are you reverting?” a friend teased after I showed him Tas’ cab - a sacred space which has become my moving sanctuary.
In there, I have a wooden platform built with love; it holds my body during the slumber hours. My drums which carry the music of my ancestors. My boots and the encrusted remnants of mud and sand from trails now far away from here. My hammock, my tent, my backpack, my sleeping bag so I can head backcountry. A real pillow. My espresso maker. My kitchen and my food to keep me nourish. My bicycle to keep me honest. My prayer flags, my sage to keep me open. A journal to record my truths. I too keep an old wooden box which contains my most sacred companions: the words of those who came before me. Books that were missed during my bicycle travels but that am now able to bring along.
The same pieces of clothing I owned before I went to Oceania, now feel different on my skin when I wear them. The sage burns cleaner. The words in my books have taken differing meanings. I now seem to understand those which I was not able to grasp before.
“I didn’t revert. I relate to things differently now.” I responded.
Many things don't matter to me anymore. Others matter more now. I never owned much and still do not. But what I do own now matters in a much different way.
I do love my Tas. I never thought to utter those words for anything that was not made out of flesh and blood. The tree hugger in me suffers every 26.4 gallon. Tas likes petrol as much as I like my espresso.
Morning coffee . North Cascades National Park, Washington.
Summer on its peak + eight weeks with no plans + blank pages in my journal + passport at hand = endless possibilities.
I may even make it to Canada.
Within two weeks after setting feet in North America, I left. Walking the trail was one of two reasons I made an earlier return.
Leaving yet again was prompted by one.
***
About three weeks into my stay in Japan, and after a few days after choosing not to cycle anymore, I moved into a Zen monastery. In there, I lived amongst a Zen Master, his wife, and two monks.
The days were early with a start of 4:15. After forty minutes of Zazen, I joined the Master and monks in chanting the sutras. I would then clean my assigned section of the temple, which was then followed by breakfast and then, the washing of the cooking utensils used to prepare the meal. I would then clean the outside area of the temple. My mornings were wrapped with ‘tea time’. During tea time, we enjoyed coffee and Japanese sweets. The rest of the day I studied, read, observed, reflected and jotted down notes on what I learned.
Each activity I engaged in during my stay at the monastery was shown to me only once. Or none.
Before I started my residency at the temple, I practiced Zazen once before. I never chanted sutras, much less in Japanese. I had to clean the temple in a particular way, order and with limited time. Breakfast was done following ōryōki. During ōryōki, we chanted as the food was served. The bowls in which I served my food and ate out of were to be held in a particular way. The food items were eaten and the chopsticks handled in a precise manner. I had to eat my food with much urgency, all of it. I washed my own bowls. There was no allowance for shortcuts or mishaps. Every move mattered.
We ate in silence. With one exception:
“Eat faster, there’s no time!” the Master firmly said to me.
“You must eat it all,” the monk pointed to the four grains of rice I was unable to pick with my chopsticks and now were stuck to my bowl, “nothing goes to waste,” he said.
I knew nothing about ōryōki until I was in the middle of it.
“Did Master tell you about breakfast?” asked a curious monk after my first day duties concluded.
“I knew I was going to eat breakfast...I just didn’t know how.”
“I’m showing you now. You must pay attention.”
Aside from the Master, this monk was one of two Japanese monks living in the monastery and the one who spoke English. His words were clear, deliberate and direct. I did as he said. Or perhaps, as I wanted to hear.
During ōryōki, my legs hurt and would eventually become numb.
“I’m not used to sit the way you do. My legs hurt during and after breakfast, is there anything I can do to avoid the pain?”
“You must endure the pain,” I gazed down as I heard his reply. “or you can ask Master.”
I chose the one I’m skilled at: “I’ll endure the pain.”
And so I did.
I practiced ōryōki the entire rest of that day until I felt ready for my second morning. The sun rose. Everyone watched. Even my food, with its tiny little eyes.
“Do you see anyone holding the bowls like you are?” the Master glared.
Chopsticks fell out of my fingers, I could not keep up with the eating pace, I did not clean my bowls properly. I did not gassho when I needed to. I failed again. Master seemed upset. As well as the monk. As well as my ego.
“I showed you yesterday. What happened? Did you forget?” the monk frowned after breakfast.
“I…I apologize. I’m so embarrassed. You did teach me. I thought I knew…I was very nervous. I’m so sorry.”
“Would you teach me again…please?”
We went over ōryōki again.
“Thank you for teaching me.”
“You must now pay attention” he remarked. “No one can’t teach you anything,”
“You must follow Master. Pay attention to Master. Do what he does. Listen to what he says. Just pay attention.”
“I understand...”
“If I have questions about anything, can I come to you?”
“If you have questions about anything that is not Zen, yes,” he briefly paused. “but if you have questions on Zen, you must ask Master. I’m just a monk, I can’t answer anything.”
He paused; he seemed to be reflecting on something. He held again his gaze at me, “You ask too many questions. Stop asking so many questions.”
“I…will. I’ll do better tomorrow.” I said and bowed before retiring to my room.
I can’t ask questions. I know nothing about what they do. How am I to learn? Why on earth did I think I could get away with coming here and pull this off?
I asked myself a hundred times as I bitched and sobbed in bed a hundred more. I was still asking questions. The same voice that asked of me this last question eventually asked another.
Don’t you see what they are pointing you towards? Don’t you get it?
The tears came to a halt. I burst into laughter. I practiced again. I too read the English version of the sutras I chanted after Zazen and during ōryōki. I practiced them too. I was excited about getting up before the sun rose. I was excited to wash the rags used to clean the floors, about cleaning every single floor plank. Every single step of the staircase.
On my knees, with my hands. One plank at a time. One step at a time.
Morning came. It was breakfast time.
For the first time in my life, I felt each grain of rice. I sensed how the soup quenched the thirst and warmed the body. As I placed a slice of pumpkin, or salmon, or seaweed in the mouth and as it touched my tongue, I could the hear the stories each piece of food spoke of; words that told the tale that because of someone else’s effort, I am able to nurture my body.
I understood why no one spoke as we ate. Why every movement I made with my hands and the rest of the body mattered. I understood why I had to eat all of my food, why I had to clean my own bowls, why I had to drink the water I used to wash my own dishes. When my bowls were clean and dry, I understood why I had to wrap up all utensils with a linen.
Everything had a reason. I eventually understood why I had to clean the temple every single day even in days when it did not appear to be dirty.
I understood it all. First with the mind. These days, I am finally understanding it all with my heart.
There are so many other things I wish were understood first with the heart instead of the mind.
Every single morning, we followed ōryōki over breakfast. It was ōryōki that which almost send me back to the place I came from. It was ōryōki that which kept there.
With practice and dedication, I did better. There were days where I thought I knew what I was doing. If it looks real to me then it must be. Right? Right?
I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.
Mark Twain
But the Master and the monk quickly reminded I knew nothing at all.
The monk taught me how to eat. How to breathe, how to sit, how to sweep the steps, how to clean the floor, how to wash rags, how to wash dishes, how to dust, how to sweep the fallen leaves of the sakuras, how to chant. I, of course, never did any of that as skillfully and as beautifully as he did. I have never seen someone do something with such great passion and understanding. He was intimate with everything he did.
“When you Zazen, your breathing must come from here,” he said the first time I met him as he pointed to a location on his body I’m sure is where love is born.
“It must come from your heart; from your soul.”
While he taught me all of that, I offered him an opportunity to practice patience and compassion because the woman who hailed from a foreign far away having no idea what she had gotten herself into probably drove him mad.
A few days into my stay, I partook in the spring celebration held at the temple. That day, I met a woman who have been studying for some years with the Master.
“You came to the best place to practice; the Master is a wise man” she said. It sounded more like a warning than a mere observation. “The monk is too. Watch what they do, how they move, how they sit. Listen to what they say, how they say it.”
“Pay attention,” she too reminded me.
I asked why she practice and if she had guidance for a novice. Meanwhile, the Master kept busy entertaining his guests. People were eating, drinking, chatting, laughing.
He was a rigid Zen Master. He too was a man of good humor. Every morning during tea time, he made jokes, shared his Facebook feed, and at times, he would even sing a tune or two. He also insisted I try every wagashi or any other Japanese sweet delicacy.
And he was elegant. A man who knew when and how to walk, when and how to speak. His words were curated; he chose his words as he chose his wine and cars. A sought after man skilled at entertaining his family and his community.
Two days after the festival, over coffee, the Master advised,
“The other day,” he paused, “I noticed you were asking questions again,”
I gulped. How is that possible? How does he know? He wasn’t even looking at me, he wasn’t anywhere around me.
“During the festival...I noticed you were asking her questions. You asked her too much,”
“And that is a big problem” - he assured - “big big problem!” - I listened on as he continued - “The problem with asking her questions is that you received her answers,”
“Now, you must abandon them all,” - he cautioned as he shook his head - “no more questions.”
I never asked another one. I too finally understood why I should not ask questions, why I had to abandon all answers.
Several days later, the Master asked me to join his family for dinner. Nervous at the request, I said yes with hesitation.
Will dinner follow another tradition I know nothing about? I don’t have proper clothes. Or shoes. Or an excuse to say no.
Dinner was held at a sushi restaurant. The monk sat to my left and the Master across. The Master ordered dinner, the finest sake on the menu and his favorite beer. When the second course arrived, Master paused dinner and addressed me,
“I want you to know I made an exception so you can be in my temple,” - he continued - “I did that for one reason.”
My first interaction with him was in person when I attended a Zazen evening session which was opened to the public. After the session was over, I introduced myself and asked if I could be a resident. He immediately denied my request. A day later, I sent him a ‘longer than the U.S Constitution’ email asking him to reconsider my request and detailing the reasons why. Although curious, I never asked him why he changed his mind. I figured he thought if I could write that much, I had nothing to do with my time and pitied me.
“I saw something, that’s why I accepted you.” He went on. “You don’t an ego.”
This ego was certainly happy to hear that. His answer did cause surprise. I immediately thought of the words the woman I met at the festival said, “The Master is a wise man…listen to what he says.”
I choked and bowed to him as I recovered. I was overwhelmed and glad I took a liking for sake. My cup was never empty even though I kept drinking.
“Kampai,” he cheered with a smile. “Welcome to my temple!”
“Kampai,” the rest of us said.
I lowered my cup. I stared at my plate. The Master and the monk noticed my uneasiness,
“I’ve never eaten this,” I said to the monk as I pointed to the creature whose eyes were staring back as it laid dead on my plate. The monk held its head. The Master reached across the table and grabbed the creature by the tail. All hands on my plate. A brown gooey substance trickled out of its body.
Nothing goes to waste.
I remembered the words of the monk. I must have looked horrified. The monk broke his silence and said,
“You don’t have to eat that.” I sighed with relief. He smiled.
***
A week after I moved into the monastery, I received a note from a cyclist who was traveling through Japan following the same route I intended to.
“How are you, where are you, have you had good weather, are you enjoying Japan?”
“What!?! You gave up cycling for prayer beads!?!” was his response after reading I chose a monastery stay instead of cycling around the country.
What my cyclist friend did not know was that I too ‘gave up’ much more for this ‘cycling thing’ which started in New Zealand almost one year ago.
What my cyclist friend did not know was that this thing that started in New Zealand a year ago this coming October was not even about cycling to begin with. What he did not know was that as much as I did know that this thing was not about cycling, I did not know what it was all about.
When I set off last October, I did not know why I was prompted to ‘give up’ a much comfortable lifestyle that afforded me many of the things I cannot today. Why did I leave then? If I did not know, who knew? If I myself did not know, what knew?
It was the one question what prompted an answer and it came from my youngest niece. She, who is attending university and pursuing a Communications major specializing in personal stories said,
“I want to interview you and learn about Project 38,” she announced.
Oh shit…yeah. What is this all about?
I thought long on her question coming empty of an answer. When I stopped thinking, the answer to my niece's question appeared and when it did, it certainly did not come from the grey matter.
“Frances, you could ease more into your practice if you were to use less of your muscles and let your practice come out of your heart,” said one of my yoga teachers one early morning some years ago.
Love at the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, Vancouver Island.
***
As being snatched out of the womb of my mother – that is how much it hurts to leave home. The pain penetrates my bones; making me physically ill. It lasts for days. Sometimes weeks. The physicality of it eventually weans but the longing continues to pulsate within.
Then when I leave, I get on roads that tend to be dusty and dirty. Those are the places where Tas is taking me these days. Although at times it gets a tad bumpy, I never have questioned whether taking one turn over the other was the right choice.
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Lao Tzu
Nature does not hurry, but nature never stops. It is because it does not stop that everything gets accomplished.
So I travel slow, and remote and I get a chance to see sights, the wild flowers and animals that paved and fast routes will not allow me to see.
A much warm and personalized Canadian greeting as this turtle crossed the border.
My first encounter with a bear took place on a back road in Montana as I was heading to a trail head. It was not six in the morning yet. We were the only two around. We crossed paths and observed each other. My stomach knotted. I smiled. The bear went its way. I did so as well.
On those sinuous roads, I too have been surprised by anger. But the anger I sense in my body these days is one that is no longer misplaced. It is not the cheap kind; on sale, readily available to everyone who dares to cross my way. This one is not. This anger tends to make itself known at supper. When the tailgate of the truck is lowered, when the fire is lit and the pot filled with rice and tuna sits on the burner as I stir. The anger comes with the realization of how necessary these constant departures are. Because I need to depart in order to arrive.
The rough road that takes me to Point Sublime, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.
It has never been my desire to pack up and leave. It has been my obligation to do so.
So I stir and I eat. It gets quiet and sometimes lonely. Soon after, I hear a lecture on the background; my homework reads I still ought to grasp lessons from these roads I travel on. The roads are kind and generous; they offer me the time and the space to reflect, and as of late, just to be. The monk was right: no one can't teach me a thing. I leave so I can (un) learn. I leave so I can come back.
I do not leave the place I yearn and the people I love so I can marvel at snowy peaks in New Zealand or Patagonia, walk ancient trails in Peru or Italy, see Mount Fuji from a saddle or a grizzly bear grazing on berries as it strolls over a meadow in Montana. I do not find it alluring to wander in the New Mexican desert when the mercury goes over the triple digits, or fast for days in the canyons of Utah because is how I want to spend my hard earned holidays and cash.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He leads me in paths of righteousness..."
Psalm 23
Monsoon, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.
I go to these places because I trust much; I trust hard that these I am called to; those are the landscapes and the earths which will carve incisions so wide open in me that I can see what I cannot when entrapped in an office, chained to a desk, distracted by the noise of the city and its lights or seduced by the touch of his hands on the skin of my lower back.
Grizzly bear at Glacier National Park, Montana.
I left because I needed to learn how to pay attention to what was going on inside of and around me. I left so this self could be exposed to everything it knew nothing of: places, people, situations, herself.
I left because I needed to learn that everything I do matters, and everything I do not do, too matters. To watch the minute hand on the dial so to know when the exact time to sweep the steps was – not a minute before, not a minute after, or to choose to clean the bike chain after days of riding as opposed to crawling into my tent, eat chocolate and read a book instead.
To not being able to hold the man I love when needed because I simply was not there.
I left because I needed to learn to talk less and listen more. And I still do. I left because had I stayed in that job, my bank account would have been credited every two weeks and my cynicism on a daily basis.
I left because I needed to learn that I am not my travels and that my travels are not about me.
I left, and still leave, the warmth and comfort of a bed or a sleeping bag while is still cold and dark outside not because is more appealing than the alternative, but because I need to linger in the darkness before it turns into light.
I left because I needed to become aware of my inadequacies in a monastery in Japan. I left because I needed to encounter that bogeyman on an isolated dirt road in New Zealand so I could heal that which I for long chose to purposely ignore because it hurt just too much.
Yet when we hurt, we hurt those around us. But when we love, we do the same too.
“You know you’re going to get your ass kicked. You know that right?” he warned weeks before I left last autumn. I assured him my intentions were not those. When I came home this past July, I had to retract my answer.
I left even though I had no apparent reason to do so. I left even though I had plenty of reasons to stay.
I did leave. And I got my bony ass kicked.
***
Time has passed. That one evening comes to mind. Under the streetlight post sitting in a car across a motel parking lot she waited for hours. He arrived. He entered his room and closed the door. She knocked.
“Please come home,” she uttered through tears when the door was opened. “I’ll be good. I won’t question anything you do. I’ll trust everything you say.”
“Look at you...you’re almost bones. Look at yourself…look how low you’ve come. You’re begging me now,” he scoffed.
She sat on his lap, holding him tight. He looked at her with disgust. “Please come home,” she pled.
“C’mon…get up! Go to the house. I’m ordering you pizza.”
I think of them often; two kindred beings. She, a beggar; starved and pleading for that which she did not have. He, a man with an arched back; perhaps from the weight he had carried for so long. “Stick with me, I’ll take you places,” he swayed her. He did take her places. As for the affairs he had, she stopped counting; with only ten fingers to her hands, she could not tally them all. As soon as she could, she burst through the flaming gates of one of the places he took her to; a place where one single winter lasted well over forty thousand hours. At twilight, she ran. She ran towards her own spring. And she never look back.
Birth, Hoh Rain Forest, Olympic National Park, Washington.
I think of her often. She still tugs at my heart. Time has passed indeed and things have changed.
“Frances, the love you seek is equal to the love you give. It's a lonely journey to the point of finally realizing and desiring to be the love that you seek.”
It is how he renders it. There is efficiency in his words; it is his unwavering guidance one that I follow and never question.
A week into my arrival to the United States two months ago, we sat amongst the bluest of the spruces. Tantalized by the cool air, warmed up by the fire and under the skies of a summer night, my now conflicted self opened up,
“But I have all of this in my heart yet he isn’t willing to receive it,”
“Who cares if he’s not open. Who cares he has nothing to give back. Give it to him anyways.”
“But how…?” I pressed for cues, “how can I give something to someone when the person isn’t open to it, how does that work?”
“You just give yourself out. That’s how,” he said as he sipped on his wine.
“If you give waiting and wanting something in return, that’s not giving.” he urged. “Oh, you’re limiting yourself Frances! Open your heart; give it anyways.”
***
White on 'end of the summer bronze' skin balanced by a pair of stilettos which made the already yard length legs seem to go on forever.
He looked; it was as much as he did.
“I’ve never seen that,” he recounted weeks later. "I watched as you crossed the street. Then you came in. Everyone, I mean everyone in the restaurant, men and women, they all stopped eating just to watch you walk in,” he added, “As I watched, I couldn’t believe it was you. I kept telling myself: It isn’t fair; it can’t be...but it was you.”
It was that evening when we met. I shook his hand as we were introduced. In that instance, I could have recited the first line of that stanza: your eyes, they tie me down so hard, I’ll never learn to put up a guard.
When we were together, he used to look at me as if I was blurry. He would squint his eyes as if he was trying to sharpen his vision. Using two cobalt loupes, he seemed to investigate the image posed in front.
"I sometimes wonder what goes on inside of you," he once said.
Then the hour ticked. The bicycle was in its lowest gear as the waves of the Tasman Sea under the blinding afternoon sun crashed ashore. I pressed the brakes. I got off. The bike fell. I plopped by the side of the hot road. I stuck my head in between my two knees as I sat. And I yelled,
"Fuck me! Fuck this!"
I heard it; I felt it. Something slammed, a pang in my chest. It was the moment when he wondered no more.
I am tempted to say that his eyes were blinded. Or that he finally admitted not knowing what to do with a human who upon waking, straps her shoes to the feet and sprints out of bed to catch the day break from anywhere outside four walls. Or that he could not figure out what to do with the woman who carries the roaring force of the Colorado River in her veins and the ardent rhythms of the Caribbean Sea in her soul. She who learned that the best cup of coffee is brewed by no one else other than herself. She who refuses to be pampered by having him bring her coffee to bed and she who prefers to sip on it on the way to a trail.
But perhaps it was not any of that why I felt the pang.
“Hmmm…” her reply read when I wrote her I have made a confession before I left paying tribute to my so called wild heart.
“Can I tell you that I have always thought you had more feelings towards him than you spoke out loud? Your face, your body language, your tone of voice and words you used completely exposed your heart. I’m glad you let him know before you left,”
“Now, did you give him a chance to share his heart with you or had that already happened long before?”
The most accurate answer to this question may be offered by John Prine. While he looked for the mandolin, he sang the story of a man who wore a seat belt around his heart.
Rocks on Wednesday morning at Ruby Beach, Olympic National Park, Washington.
Several hours before I headed north of Colorado with intentions of making it to Canada, I spoke to this man. Now with the Pacific Ocean out of our way, I spoke of the love woven in me for him. There I was, doing what I never done before: speaking of the longing to bare to and share my soul with a man whose heart I suspected months ago was now shut.
My words were fraught and frail. It does not come as a surprise - after all, love is not a four letter word; love is not even an action. And if so, I was too fucking far away to do a thing about it. Nevertheless, the love in me was never mine to keep. Away I gave it to him, to the person it belongs to; whether he was opened to receive it or not.
Him at Wild Pacific Trail, Ucluelet, Vancouver Island.
It is then when an urgent need to roam through my past arises. It was not long ago when I intentionally chose to live out of a closed heart, starving myself from that thing, an act which prevented me to see the evolving truth of everything that was all around me. It was then when the desert did what a desert does: it dried me up.
Ooh! It was much what I needed to burn. I was then a sack of flesh and bones only too drenched in gasoline and soaked in anger, more than willing to engulf in flames anyone coming too close or anything that reminded me of the things and people of a ransacked past. As if playing with mud for over three decades was not going to get me dirty.
But instead of setting - almost - no one or no thing on fire, I lit it up instead. I let an enraged heart roast. It burned like a wildfire.
I watched it all. I ran it all off. Burn, baby, burn.
Even the forest needs to burn. The cone of a pine tree endures the heat; it senses it is that heat the thing which will eventually crack it open. After the fire ceases, the healing continues, and the forest becomes what it needs to become: a forest.
It was white; the white of that dress my not so soften heart carried with much intention that summer night in the desert when I met him. And it was blue; the blue from his eyes. As if I had just plunged into the bluest of the oceans even though I never learned how to swim. With great haste, I hand dipped this charred heart of mine into it. That dirt, that mud on my skin with his hands he scrubbed off; the burns on my heart he dowsed.
***
I arrived in Vancouver Island a month into my North American road trip. I headed to Victoria as soon as I exited the ferry. The lighted buildings at night and their manicured gardens, the sea planes landing on the harbor. The colorful homes floating on the water. The fish and chips from the wharf. But it is none of that why I keep returning. It is something else. I like to call it ‘magic’.
Mount Baker, Washington. Shot from Tsawwassen to Vancouver Island ferry.
Love at floating homes, Victoria, Vancouver Island.
That evening, I was walking on the sidewalk when I met a man. A few meters behind him I was when he made a sudden stop, turned and said he needed to tell me something.
We walked, he talked. Away he chiseled with words. I was growing uneasy. Sixty minutes later, he finally blurted it out:
“Let me ask you something: do you know what you want?”
He was pressing for an answer. My hands were crossed on my chest, my head was lowered, my eyes looked down to my feet. I did not want him to notice my eyes were welling up from hearing him speak. I wanted a way out. I wanted to leave but instead, I chose to stay. I responded with a yes that was meant to be a no.
“Of course I know what I want,” I argued.
“I’m not talking about what you want to do in life. I know this much about you: you know what you want, you know how to get it and no one can tell you what to do,”
Hey! I’ve heard the last one before!
“I’m talking about something else.”
“Look at me,” He grasped my chin and lifted my head. “Look at my eyes!” he commanded, “Do you really know what you want?”
“I don’t know what you’re referring to,”
“Oooh…you do!” he objected.
Please stop. This is ridiculous.
“You see…” he put his right hand around his chin. He seemed to have been sifting through words in his head to say what came next, “You do this thing…with your heart: you open it and you close it.”
“You did that not long ago…you did that with him, you did that to that man.”
Ay! I think I’ve heard this one too.
“You know what else…? You both did it to each other.” I looked away as I heard this.
“When he opened his heart, you closed yours and then…when you finally opened yours, he closed his off!”
“It’s crazy, woman!” he shouted. “You’re one wild and crazy woman!”
I kept silent. I wiped my tears with a swift move. The bumps on my skin were not from the salty air coming from the harbor we were standing in front of.
“Don’t you want to open up, don’t you want to feel the love that’s coming towards you, don’t you want to embrace it all, to receive it all?”
I looked down again. I bit my lips and wiped the eyes once more. He asked the same question. He finally got it out of me.
“I do…of course I do!”
“Then if you do, what are you waiting for?”
Hmm. What am I waiting for…?
Before we parted ways, I asked was his name was. He handed me a card with his name along with a telephone number.
He warned, “You will not call me, you will not text me,”
“If you ever want to be reminded of what I’ve said to you tonight, put your hand over your heart; everything will be in there for you.”
And after a hug, into the harbor he went.
***
As a child I sat for hours in the living room flipping through the pages of world’s atlases. It was escapism, a tool I discovered at an early age; its effectiveness helped color coat with hope the stains of a marred young existence. My curiosity of the world though was very real. I often wondered about the scents of a place, about the taste of its foods. About why the people in the pictures looked so different than me.
I daydreamed about the sounds of a language I could not understand; like the ones I later heard when I received an invitation to drink Berber tea from a nomad family in the midst of the Sahara or when I heard the wailing of the coyote at the moon in a remote camp in the outskirts of Sedona. I envisioned bodies moving in ways I’ve never seen before, whether it was the movement of an American Indian at a pow wow in southwestern Colorado or the snake which was about to strike as I trudged down a sandy trail in the coast of Australia.
The need to travel is only understood by those who have it.
“You’re living a good life,” a Swiss cyclist I met at a campground in Montana said.
(As I write these particular lines, I do so from a place called Tofino, a small village tucked in the west coast of Vancouver Island, it is as far west as I can go on the Trans Canadian highway as the road ends right outside where my feet are now planted. I sip on my espresso which was made when the skies were dark and the water was still still. I am staying at a hostel so I can shower, wash my clothes and charge electronics. Everyone else is asleep. The only thing between Clayoquot Sound and my eyes is a thick glass window in front of where I sit. The east is to my right; streaks of red I see. It warms me up. The mountains in front brim with youth; they seem to float, rising above the mist. I can see the of village of Opitsaht, in Meares Island where the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations live. Yesterday, after finishing a sunrise run, I met a 49-year-old First Nations man who made a living as a magician. He travels the waters between Tofino and Meares by kayak each day. “I brought my kid to work this morning,” he said, “he asked me if I’m staying home today. I told him that as long as my body is able to move, there isn’t a reason to stay inside.”
SUP - Tofino.
Most days I wake in time to see the rising of the sun. Other days, I pop the head out of the bag hours later. I sit, I run, I read, I write, I drink the juices of the gods. The days I do not drive long distances, I hike. Sometimes I ride my bike. Most of my hikes these days take me to places where the canopies of the trees seem to touch the skies. It is no longer important to hike to summit a peak or get to a glacier to take photographs of. Some days, I do not even bring my camera along.
There is not a vista to distract me, there is not an alpine lake to sit and have lunch by. And because there is not a summit, a lake or impressive vistas, there are hardly other humans around. It is just the trees and me.
And I just walk. Three hours some days, others seven or eight. And I just walk.)
I am not living a good life. I am just living. Living in a world that can be gracious to some and harsh and bloody to most of the others. I am living, while this body still alive.
But long term traveling is often romanticized. Just like love, there is nothing romantic about it. Real traveling, as well as real love, it is one of those things that is beautiful, hard and filled with sacrifices.
Slow travels, those that can be only accomplished by bicycle or by foot, have led me to understand that this need I had until recently which was satisfied by consuming as many countries as I could in whichever time I had available, which then prompted me to flaunt the stamps on my passport and flag patches on my backpack is no longer real. It never was.
I want to dwell. I want to wander and wonder in that dwelling.
I want to dwell in the place I go. To touch its textures, to feel it, to taste it, to listen to it. I want to dwell with the people I choose to be surrounded by; connect with the community I choose to belong to.
I want to be able to stroke the hair of the man I love; to fall asleep to his scent. To be close enough to make love to him.
I want to be here. Because when I am there, I cannot be here. And here is that space that matters and here is where I need and want to be.
Sunrise at Mount Rainier National Park, Washington.
The sunset is something marvelous and so is the full moon,
but since you are not really there, the sunset is not for you.
Thich Nhat Hanh, True Love
Sunset + Moonrise, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.
A man I met in Montana shared he decided to retire after thirty years of practicing medicine.
“My job was about to kill me or someone else,” he reflected as his eyes gaze the vast lake in front of us. “I was falling asleep driving in the middle of the night after getting calls from the hospital.” He now writes fiction, has published several books and travels the globe as a humanitarian.
“You get to a point in your life when living is not about you anymore,”
Love at Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.
That was his response when I disclosed a truth I have yet to learn to live with – an emergent restlessness that may be asking of me to be still.
And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom…
…The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation…
The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom.
David Foster Wallace, This is Water
As my travels around the globe now come to an indefinite pause, it is time now to dwell; to be still and respond to the world with as much generosity and love as it has offered me, which may entail to stay put in some sort of way - or maybe not. I do not know how my staying still will be manifested. As for now, it is only requiring of me to trust in what the world speaks to me and act upon with precise timing.
“I just sat. That’s all I did,” recounted a beautiful German being I met in the west coast of New Zealand of the time she experienced a roadblock during her travels alone in India. “I couldn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t travel anywhere. So instead of traveling out, I traveled within.”
With the Hungarian woman who I met and shared coffee the morning after my arrival in Tokyo and who assured me fate was the thing which brought me to Japan, I spoke of my life long curiosity of Buddhism. I asked if she knew of temples or monasteries to go; I wanted to speak to a monk.
“If I were you, I’d just go to any temple and sit; just sit and watch.” - after a pause she continued - “The problem you’ll have is that you don’t speak Japanese so it’ll be very hard to find a monk who speaks English.”
Three weeks later, on a Saturday evening, I acted on her advice. After seventy-five minutes in a train, to the outskirts of Tokyo I went to an area where foreigners hardly frequent. It was that evening when I met the Zen Master. In the temple, I found what I did not know I was looking for.
“What you search is searching you Frances,” he tells me again and again.
The Hungarian woman was right though; I did not find a monk who spoke English.
I found two.
Ruby Beach, Olympic National Park, Washington.
***
My niece, who when she learned I was bound to Japan while I was still in Australia made plans to join me in Tokyo, was invited by the Zen Master to stay with me at the monastery. It had been one of her life dreams to visit Japan.
“When your niece comes to Japan, you both can stay here if you wish,” the Master said. “She doesn’t have to do anything,” he further explained when I asked if she had to perform the daily routine I followed.
“You asked to stay at my temple. Your niece is my guest. This is not about her. This is about you. I request that while you are here, you must continue your practice.”
That which began with a request to stay at his temple, it then turned into constant acts of giving. They offered me a safe space to practice how to really really see. My niece and I were showered with acts of generosity: The Master took us to places we never dreamed of going, treated us to lavish lunches and beautiful dinners. We were honored and humbled by the simplicity of their many gifts.
They gave; they expected nothing in return.
After coming back home, a friend and I used our time together to speak of trust, giving and loving others. As we conversed, he shared that on his phone, he has the following words so he can be reminded of one important truth.
Don’t cross oceans for people who wouldn’t cross a puddle for you, - No, do it. Do cross oceans for people. Love people, all people. No conditions attached, no wondering whether or not they’re worthy. Cross oceans, climb mountains. Life and love isn’t about what you gain. It’s about what you give.
Unknown
All of the strangers I met, every single one of them, including the boogey man I met that rainy afternoon in New Zealand, they all answered my niece’s question.
So she asked again,
“Titi, what’s this all about?”
***
Each morning, before ōryōki concluded, after we finished eating, we proceeded to clean the three bowls we ate out of. We poured hot water in one of the bowls. We then used our chopsticks and with a takuan, we meticulously cleaned the bowl in where we just poured the water in. We would put the chopsticks down, transferred the same water to the second bowl, and with a white linen, we dried the first bowl. The sequence was repeated with the second bowl.
Once the third bowl was cleaned with the takuan, we then drank the water which we used to clean the three bowls, leaving a small amount to be poured in a separate dish which contained the offering for the spirits. Finally, with the same white linen, we wiped the last bowl.
The water, soiled or not, it all went inside my body. The effort invested in cleaning my bowls was reflected on the clarity of the rinse water I had just put in my body.
The whiteness of the linen used to dry my three bowls was dependent on the clarity of the water I just drank. Some days my linen stayed white. Most days my linen was completely soiled. I was offered a fresh linen once a week.
It is said that how we do during ōryōki is a reflection of the state of our lives.
The white linen at the end of the week told a story. It was the story my water was thirsty to tell; one I was too eager to neglect.
Reflections at Navajo Lake, Outside Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah.
Those evenings when the tailgate of the truck is lowered and I prepare supper and sense anger in my body and weakness in my heart, I am reminded of this poem:
I hold my face between my hands
No, I am not crying
I hold my face between my hands
to keep my loneliness warm –
two hands protecting
two hands nourishing
two hands to prevent
my soul from leaving me
in anger.
Thich Nhat Hanh, For Warmth
My residency at the temple started on a Tuesday afternoon. I arrived at the doors of the monastery after cycling for hours on end under a downpour through the midst of a metropolis of 13 million people. I was drenched when I arrived.
“We were expecting you,” he said. It was the greeting a 38-year-old monk offered upon crossing the wide wooden gates of the monastery. Under the rain, he took my panniers and dried them off. “Leave your things here. Come inside. Master wants to see you.” I was invited for coffee and introduced to the family.
About one hour later, I was given permission to go to my room. But before I left, the monk noticed it,
“You still have coffee in your cup. You must drink it all.” Then I heard the words I now remember every day, “You must remember this: nothing goes to waste.”
Nothing goes to waste. Not the coffee left in my cup. None of the grains of rice in my bowl. Not this anger. Not these travels. Not my heartbreaks, not my loneliness, not my longingness.
So I watch myself stir dinner. I watch how anger is followed by loneliness. I sit with my heralds. I lean into them and I then see how my sorrow vanishes when I truly look; only when I truly see.
Every day before my meals, I practice reciting a part of the verse I chanted during ōryōki. The English translation reads,
We reflect on the effort that brought us this food and consider how it comes to us.
We reflect on our virtue and practice, and whether we are worthy of this offering.
And that is why I leave. I leave so I can return.
I realize that I am on this road because I needed to learn and understand this: I needed to know how to give; I needed to know how to receive.
But I needed not to understand it with the mind. I needed to understand it from that same place where the monk said my breath should come from.
May I always be open to the love I am offered.
May I always be worthy of the love am given.
May I always be worthy of the love I receive.
May I always be worthy of everything I have, of every place I set my bare toes on. Of everyone I meet, of the people I return to and of those who I love; whether they are able to love me back or not.
May I always choose love. May I always be love.
At the monastery I was told I ask too many questions; to stop asking so much.
Well, the other truth is this: I keep asking. After all, the man I met in Victoria pointed that no one can tell me what to do. But is not that I needed to stop asking questions. I just stopped wanting answers.
Earlier this month, from the north rim of the Grand Canyon I walked to the bottom of the canyon to the Colorado River. The American Indians who call these lands home instruct their youth not to go below the rim to recreate. “Below the rim is a sacred space. We only go down on special occasions,” I heard an elder said. And I relate to her words. It is not often I go below the rim but when I do is due to a special occasion.
One early morning, two women who walked from the south rim stood at a bridge about a mile out from my end point. They were curious about what I was doing in the canyon. A few hours later, in the campground area, they approached me.
“We would like to interview you and ask a two-part question,” one of them announced. “And we would like to take a video as you answer it,” I consented as my cheeks probably turned red from the attention.
“Frances,” one of them prompted, “if you reflect upon your life up until this point, what would be the one thing, the one moment, the one event that stands out as the most important one,” then she continued “and the second part of the question: when you came to the Grand Canyon this time, what came to you when you saw it?
A movie reel played in the head as I flipped through stills of moments, catalogs of events, episodes, people. Thirty-nine years of existence, like a deck of cards, I kept shuffling through all that came up.
Then it came to me. All the cards I have been dealt with, or the games I chose to play, the ones I have won, or lost, they all brought me to this,
“When I moved to the desert,” I said as sure as my name is Frances. “Yes, that’s the event. My move to the southwest, to the lands in and around the Colorado National Monument,”
“It is as if the desert gifted me with the opportunity to live a life all over again. I was asleep; as if I was in a dream before. I got lucky I got to be born again. The desert did it. At thirty-four, the desert gave me that,”
Then I answered the second part,
“This past Wednesday when I arrived, I immediately came to the rim. I looked into the canyon, I smiled and looked away. I blushed. It was as if I was courting the canyon; I had butterflies in my tummy leading up to this hike. I’m not sure why…” I paused to further reflect “but yeah, it is that sensation I experience when I’m about to see a man I like a lot. Mmm, as if I was getting ready for a date,”
They listened as I spoke. When I finished, they smiled. I giggled. But they stayed curious,
“OK. Can we ask you just one more thing?” said the woman who was commemorating her sixteenth visit to the canyon.
“In a few days, you’re turning forty. What would be the one thing you want to make sure you do, accomplish, realize, from this point on?”
I did not have to think much. I took a deep breath. I closed my eyes. As I started to share with them what was revealed to me the second I placed my feet in the canyon a few days before, I felt as if I was suspended somewhere in that space where my body was sitting. I cannot recall what I said verbatim but it was something like this,
“To live out of a heart bigger than my fears and to live life with a heart as open and as deep as the Grand Canyon,”
“All else will be realized because of those two.”
The Colorado River slicing it open, wide and deep. Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.
So. When my niece asks again, “Titi, what’s this all about?”, I will be able to address her question because the answer was revealed when I ceased wanting it.
But in case anyone now asks, “So after all, if this wasn’t about cycling, what was this all about?”
This was all because of love. It is all because of love.
It may had taken me the rest of this existence to live and realize what I had in the past eleven months.
I turn forty today. I’ll sit surrounded by the lands in and around the Colorado National Monument, as I’ll look to the Colorado River from where I’ll sit, my intentions will be carried by the wind,
May I live out of a heart bigger than my fears and may I live life with a heart as open and as deep as the Grand Canyon.
To a one blank page I am returning. I hope to be wise and brave to pencil strokes of colorful shades on it.
Love is the masterpiece of this lifetime. May this pilgrimage never come to an end.
Everyone should be born into this world happy
and loving everything.
But in truth it rarely works that way.
For myself, I have spent my life clamoring toward it.
Halleluiah, anyway that I’m not where I started!
And have you too been trudging like that, sometimes
almost forgetting how wondrous the world is
and how miraculously kind some people can be?
And have you decided that probably nothing important
is ever easy?
Not, say, for the first sixty years.
Halleluiah, I’m sixty now, and even a little more,
and some days I feel I have wings.
Mary Oliver, Halleluiah
One last sunset. Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.
Fisher Towers, Castle Valley, Moab area. One of the roads home - Utah 128.