Category: Prose

I began this story by claiming that life is an inner battle, which each of us wage; and that for me, the basis of my battle has been, and is, to seek love from the source of all love, God; and to resist seeking it in other places, along other paths, apart from Him. Consequent to this underlying battle, are manifest a myriad of more superficial, but no less important battles, waged in my heart and mind against a myriad of sins, mistakes, misdirections, vices or whatever you’d like to call them. Resulting from these battles, waged primarily in my thoughts, are all of the actions I might take, for good or for bad, in my life and in the world; as a result of the victories or the defeats I’ve won or lost within my thoughts.

I’ve described the varied paths my life has taken through childhood, youth and young adulthood as a result of living by trial and error, seeking love without direction, doing the best I can, hoping not to hurt anyone, yet acting without knowledge of the true nature of the daily battle occurring within me, and without a clear method or practice to help me learn how to fight for victory first by God’s grace, in synergy, with my own efforts.

The world is a melting pot of ideas and philosophies from which each of us pick and choose, or adhere to without awareness, consciousness or understanding. We express opinions that we learned along the way, that make us feel good, but not necessarily ones that are true; but we are sheltered from truth by the widespread and deeply held relativism of our world, that allows us to have our own truth, and thereby live free of any constraint, or obedience to anything beyond ourselves.

“I’m a good person.” We hear this all the time, by many people, nearly everywhere. But whether something is good or bad depends not on us, but on God alone; and which ideas or philosophies we adhere to, determine which direction we are going, and eventually where we will end up. One might say it is good to go to New York, and then give good reasons to support that claim; and for those who want to go to a large city with the opportunities it offers, that is good, but for others who desire peace and tranquility, this advice to take the road to New York would be bad advice. So it is in all of life; lots of advice, lots of wisdom, all pointing us in different directions; our task is to decide where we are going, where we want to go, and then listen to the advice that helps us get there, ignoring the other advice which leads us to a different end. Those who want the world can have the world, those who want God can have God.

I mentioned earlier, how, during this period of which I’ve been writing, from my teens through my early twenties, that while, in a sense, I was searching for God, in reality I was slipping further and further away, and deeper into a depravity of my own making. I could look back on this time, from my current vantage point and say, “well, these things are what make me who I am, they are learning experiences and no harm was done” and this may be true, and may be fine to say, but then, these aren’t the things to say, or the ideas and philosophies to hold, if I want to be made new in Christ. The Christian view is to hate the evil we’ve done, to repent, and to begin afresh. These compromises or excuses allow us to stay with ourselves as we are, but they don’t spur us on our path to perfection, or lead us to a better standard of love. Jesus said, “be perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect”. He calls us to be holy, to be healed, and to become whole, as we were intended from the beginning to become. It is by His grace, but also by our ongoing and committed agreement and effort that enables us to attain this goal here and now, and eventually in totality in the age to come.

I imagine myself sitting at the dinner table and I am joined by three wonderful young people, now in their twenties. They are like olive plants around my table, as the psalmist says. When I sit in my prayer nook at night, I pray for these three people, my children. They are on my mind daily as I go about my business; I am concerned for their well-being and their eternal life. So many years ago, I first knew of them, and eons before this, they were known by God. To me they are only images now, memories that barely got started; but they are with God I pray.

When I had learned that they existed, each in their own time, I was a selfish boy, thinking of myself, and also fearful of how I would be perceived by others. I had also learned to be the ‘enlightened’ boyfriend, to support the women in my life in whatever they decided was right for them. So when the decision came to stop a beating heart, I sat quietly, not in an innocent silence, but in tacit support. And when a second beating heart would be silenced, I continued in my silence. And upon the third fatal decision, I crumbled inside, and made every effort to forget, and to tell myself it hadn’t happened; that nobody died and I wasn’t accessory to murder. I was willing to believe this, and to instead understand myself as a champion of rights, a steady and dependable partner, a good man, a good person. And this is the theory I held for decades, completely forgetting the other silent parties involved; those three silent ones, within the flesh of another, which were, one by one, preparing and becoming—and then were silenced forever.

My sorrow for my three children has become complete; where at first it never existed. My tears have washed away the horror of what I did and, upon my knees, I have found peace. I look back on those years, when I sat in self-satisfied silence, and am amazed at what I was convinced was true, and how I misdirected my love and protection. I focused on the needs and rights of one while neglecting those of the other. My love was narrow and could have been larger, large enough to encompass everyone involved, but it was not. By God’s holy mercy and through His forgiveness though, I have returned to my feet again; and in gratefulness and thanksgiving to Him, I march onward.

(to be continued)

~FS

I continued to be in contact with my friend north of Tokyo as he worked on the score for my play. I sent him new scenes as I completed them, and he sent recordings as we worked out the details. I had moved out of the dorm. In fact, I had moved out of the college entirely after I returned from Taiwan, and I began attending a state college a little closer to home, and a lot less expensive than the private college I had been attending.

I was extremely fortunate to have a friend, a benefactor in many respects, who had purchased land near the university and wanted someone to care take it for her while she waited to build. I often think she made up this need as an excuse to be kind to me but I’ll never know for sure. In any case, this was the reason I moved onto her land. She even went to the amazingly generous trouble of purchasing a used camping trailer for me to live in, and a new gas generator to power it. It was a Spartan arrangement which suited me perfectly. The old trailer needed quite a bit of cleaning but once this was done and it was leveled on site, it was the perfect place to live.

We situated the trailer just under the dripline of several beautiful and enormous old Oak trees on the edge of an open grassy hillside overlooking a tranquil valley connecting Santa Rosa to Rohnert Park, California. The trailer was oriented for full enjoyment of sunsets across the valley in the evenings, and sunrises which peaked over the crest of the hills just upslope, and flooded my living space with rich golden light each morning.  I covered the floor with a variety of carpet samples I had found behind a local flooring company and slept on these in my panoramic ‘living room’.

One of the great natural wonders of Northern California is the earthy and stimulating smell of the grasses, the bay trees and the eucalyptus. My new home was immersed in the midst of this wonderful bouquet and I often reflected how truly lucky I was to be alive in such a place as that. Even the dirt and the dust smelled good here. There was no road up the hill to my new abode, just a rutted dirt path that became a driveway of sorts after many trips up and down in my indefatigable Toyota pickup. Further up the hill I never wanted to drive, rather preferring to keep the land as pristine as possible. But it was an excellent place to hike and enjoy my neighbors; deer, possum, raccoon, owl, hawks and a variety of other little critters.

One early morning before the sun had risen I walked far up the hill into a meadow beyond the oaks. There was still a light mist in the air and the distance was partially shrouded in fog. The meadow was thick with flaxen grass, waving gently in the early morning breeze. Dew glistened on each stalk of grass, and as the sun’s first light broke over the hills above, each drop of dew awoke; and in the midst of this golden flowing sea of grasses were hundreds, if not thousands of little sparkling diamond sails riding upon the waves. I stepped closer to grasp the nature of this grassland armada, and discovered in the midst of the rigging, in the very middle of each rounded, glistening, diamond speckled sail was a tiny sailor plying his boat in the breeze. They were spiders, riding upon their glistening webs, built within the framework of the surrounding grasses; and there were more than could be counted, filling this meadow, sailing into the distant fog, reflecting the sun’s light in a myriad of directions. It was a humble and a spectacular sight, and it did take my breath away for a moment. Hidden here amidst the clouds was a naval exercise like none I had ever heard of before, and one I’ve never seen again since.  I stood for a while and watched the breezes move these tiny sailors gently back and forth among the grassy waves while the sun rose in the sky and the fog melted away. In time, as the sun’s rays began to fall from a steeper angle, as the sun climbed higher into the sky, the glistening rigging of each sail faded and the sails disappeared from my view. The morning exercises came to an end and I turned and headed back down the hill to my trailer.

Of my classes this year, two were of note for the ways in which they informed my understanding of the inner man, and the human spiritual dimension; Jungian Psychology and Critical Thinking. Carl Jung was noteworthy in his development of the concepts of the collective unconscious, and archetypes, or shared collective myths held by all of humanity, which inform the way each of us act and live out our lives. Additionally he developed the theory of individuation, the idea that our primary goal and purpose as humans is to become truly ourselves, uniquely developed over a lifetime, made up of elements from the collective unconscious and elements of our particular personalities. In this I found a working theory that could give some meaning to my life, and purpose to my existence. Critical Thinking on the other hand, gave me tools to decode my thought processes, to allow me to lay bare the way I think, why I think the way I do, and how to change the way I think if I desire that. My professor liked to say that critical thinking was, “thinking about our thinking in order to improve our thinking”. I saw in this process, the building blocks for mental freedom, which could lead to emotional freedom as well. By bringing our thought processes into the light and analyzing them, rather than just taking our thoughts for granted, we can discover our underlying assumptions and the chain of inferences that we make as we reason, and we can discover faulty reasoning, erroneous conclusions, and thereby give ourselves hope of change, and freedom from the bad thinking which leads us to make bad choices which yield bad results in our lives.

I continued to take advanced classes in critical thinking from this professor and began working at The Center for Critical Thinking, which he founded as an international think-tank for the advancement of the field. We hosted visiting scholars from around the world for our annual conference discussing critical thinking and how to better teach the principles of good, sound reasoning to students through the development of better critical thinking curriculum from elementary grades, through middle school and on up into college. I also became one of his teacher’s assistants, and taught the introductory course for him when he was away at various speaking engagements around the country.

My final year of undergraduate studies, I finally settled on a major through the interdisciplinary studies department. This program enabled students to create their own major if they were able to convince the board of its validity, and if they could present a successful case for its acceptance. Most of my credits to this point were in philosophy, of which critical thinking courses were a subset, and in theater arts, excluding the mandatory general education requirements which I had completed years ago. I presented a case to the board to create a special major that I called, Hermeneutic Studies, which was basically a blending of philosophy and theater, and would include, as my senior project, the production of the play I had begun writing while in Taiwan. The board approved my petition, so the trajectory for completing my degree was finally determined. In the end however, my college transcripts just stated that my major was Critical Thinking, which I found a little amusing, given all of the work and effort involved in applying and gaining acceptance for my special major.

Against the backdrop of my coursework and theater productions I was offered a generous opportunity to go through the Montessori teacher training program. The friend who had let me stay in the trailer on her land was a Montessori teacher, owned a local Montessori school and also ran a program for training new teachers in the Montessori method. She had befriended Dr. Elizabeth Caspari, who had worked with Maria Montessori for many years, helped develop the music curriculum for the Montessori method, and was a lifelong proponent and master teacher in this method.  Madame Caspari had bought a home in town and over the course of time I had met and helped her with various tasks around her house; putting up shelves, moving furniture and things of that sort since she was in her mid-nineties and unable to do many of these things herself. Madame Caspari and my friend offered a full scholarship so I could attend the training program and eventually become a Montessori teacher if I wanted. It was a rigorous program, but it only met on Saturdays for fourteen weeks, so it was possible to include this on top of my other responsibilities. There was a lot of reading and many papers to write, but it was a pleasure to learn about Maria Montessori, her keen observation of children and her insights into the natural stages of child development, and the scientific process she employed in developing her methods of teaching based on her detailed observations of how children play, and learn most naturally and effortlessly through their play. Madame Caspari was very encouraging and often commented that the reason she felt I would be a good teacher was because I was willing to get on the floor and meet the children on their level. She was a radiant personality and filled the room with her love, but she was also very tough and wouldn’t accept anything but discipline and hard work. She had very high standards but enforced them with love. Having been born and raised in Switzerland and then spending many years in India, where she met and began working with Montessori, Madame Caspari had a thick accent. Prior to moving to Santa Rosa she had lived at a Unity Village in Missouri. In her lectures she would often comment on her time in Missouri, but with her accent it sounded like ‘Misery’. I didn’t know at the time she had lived in Missouri, so when she would talk about her time in ‘Misery’ I thought it was metaphorical and I felt an up-surging of empathy for her past. I wondered to myself for many weeks what the source of her misery was and why she had lived in it for so long. At long last I came to understand it wasn’t a state of being she had occupied but rather a state of the union.

(to be continued)

~FS

After leaving Taiwan, and spending a couple days touring Seoul, I flew into Tokyo and was picked up at the airport by a friend who was living about an hour north of town. We knew each other from college, he had lived in China for an extensive period and was fairly fluent in Mandarin, and was now here learning Japanese. He was also a musician and composer. We discussed the play I had started writing while in Taiwan and I explained my idea for a soundtrack. I wanted musical accompaniment for most if not all of the play, with musical settings for particular scenes, an overall theme, and musical signatures for the characters personifiying the inner aspects of the life of the main character; something to help identify the characters ‘Spirit’ and ‘Chaos’, as well as Chaos’s sidekicks ‘Pollution’ and ‘Noise’.

For the next week we worked together on the score for my play, while taking multiple trips with his friends into Tokyo to enjoy its nightlife. My second week in Japan I bought an unlimited pass on the Shinkansen, or bullet train, with the intent to see some of the main island, particularly the beautiful Shinto shrines in Kyoto, and the Peace Park in Hiroshima. To me, both of these exemplified the victory and resiliency of the human spirit; the shrines embodied beauty in symmetry and order, while the iconic image of the twisted metal dome atop the building that survived the atomic blast in Hiroshima symbolized perseverance, fortitude and indomitability.

The train let me off in Kyoto and I spent my first day walking to various famous shrines throughout town; spending quiet time within their contemplation gardens and admiring the order laid out in the building floorplans and the organization of the shrines columns and beams. This order is carried out on multiple scales and replicated in miniature in the patterning of the railings, privacy screens and the layout of the tatami mats which cover the floors of the temples. I found comfort and peace in the intelligently designed and crafted format of the temples, a theme and variation which showed itself in the smallest elements, the structural elements and in the layout of the entire shrine site and gardens. One could almost see the whole of the shrine in the smallest element, and certainly could formulate the underlying concept of it from these details.

At the end of the day I had no place to sleep, and hotels in Kyoto are expensive, so I waited until dark and climbed a fire escape ladder that was close to the ground on one of the high rise buildings downtown. I pulled myself up, threw my backpack onto the first landing and climbed aboard. To get away from the crowds and the noise of the city I climbed up to the seventh or eighth floor landing of the fire escape and set up my ground-pad and sleeping bag. It was windy on the side of this building but I was warm nestled in my bag. I looked out across the city, at the lights, and fell to sleep.

The next morning I had a surprise and a treat. In the dark of the previous night I hadn’t noticed the small home and enclosed garden directly next door to the building I had climbed. It was the only home in the area, surrounded by tall buildings. From my vantage point, sixty odd feet overhead, I had a complete bird’s eye view of the home and garden. It was old, a traditional Japanese home, with an encircling wooden fence that walled off a secret garden complete with a koi pond, small groves of bamboo, wooden walkways and gravel paths. The garden was being tended now by an old man. He swept the wooden walkways and trimmed some of the plants. He went about his business slowly and with purpose. From the fire escape high above, he looked small and his home also looked like a toy; I felt like a giant looking down on him, and I felt a little embarrassed peering down without his awareness. In the midst of the hustle and bustle of this large city he worked quietly and peacefully. I lay in my sleeping bag watching him for quite a while, admiring his work and the life he appeared to be living. I suspected he had had quite a fight though, in order to keep his home, when all of these buildings were being built around him, and the land was being gobbled up by builders and investors. I imagined him to be a warrior gardener, able to wield a sword, the law, as well as pruning shears. The morning light was beginning to break, though it was still early, and the sun hadn’t come over the horizon. I felt I should leave quickly before more residents awoke. I didn’t want to be caught up here on the side of the building so I gathered my things together, descended the fire-escape, dropped to the sidewalk below and went on my way to the train station.

Standing in the presence of the A-Bomb Dome, or originally the Hiroshima Prefecture Industrial Promotion Hall, provides a visceral window into that horrible moment in history, when the equivalent of fifteen kilotons of TNT exploded overhead and killed nearly 150,000 people. It is chilling, heartbreaking and immediately makes one sober and introspective. I spent several hours walking the perimeter of this concrete and steel memorial to man’s power of destruction. In the end, it was hard for me to believe, and hard to digest the power of that bomb, and the far reaching effects it had on the people of Hiroshima and beyond.

As I walked across the Peace Park, thinking about these things; I felt weary from my travels but mostly from the things that man does to one another. I needed something to raise my spirits and suddenly she was there in front of me. I don’t know why she was there, but she was smiling and happy and looked like a lot of fun. She was a Japanese girl about my age and dressed unlike anyone else in the area; she had an eclectic style with mismatching colors and patterns, funky jewelry and scarves, a leather jacket, and hair the color of cherries. She was the perfect antidote to my current mood and I smiled back. Her command of English wasn’t great but it wasn’t bad either, and we were able to talk together fairly well. We walked around the park and eventually made our way to a little café where she introduced me to her friends as her boyfriend. I found this surprising but also amusing and I was happy to play the part.

We spent the rest of the day together, and the night, and the next day she took me to her uncle’s house to meet her family. Her uncle took one look at me, realized I was American, and forbade me to enter his house. I sat on the front porch while she gathered her things together and tried to convince her uncle to let me inside. I understood though, and she apologized and explained what I had already inferred; Americans had caused him untold pain and the loss of most of his family members, I was an American, he couldn’t forgive Americans for the pain they had caused, and therefore I was not welcome in his home. I felt ashamed and wanted to apologize but he didn’t give me the chance since he didn’t come outside again while I was on the front porch.

After a while she came back outside with a small bag and we set out on our adventure. We decided to travel together for my remaining time in Japan; she purchased a ticket on the train to join me, and she wanted to show me some beautiful places. I was touched by how quickly she had attached herself to me. I was also a little nervous about this, slightly uncomfortable, bemused and flattered. She was very gregarious and uninhibited, singing on the train, and laughing with abandon at things which struck her funny. Occasionally she would draw attention from others looking askance at her flamboyance but she didn’t appear to care in the least. She was a lot of fun and she made my time in Japan very memorable.

When we returned to Hiroshima at the end of our short vacation I sensed she didn’t want to part, and I considered what it might be like to bring her home with me. It seemed crazy and impossible but I fancied us to be a new John and Yoko. There was never a dull moment with her, but how long could that last, and really we hardly knew each other. Still it was a tempting thought and as we rode the bus back to her home, and she nestled close beside me, it seemed possible and maybe not entirely crazy. I wrestled with this idea, and considered asking her to come with me, but I couldn’t. It was too much; I was still in college and didn’t even know what I was going to do with my life, and she was so wild, how would she like America, how would she make it there, and I couldn’t take care of her.  Sadly, we parted, and I returned to the US, and I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t return her calls. Several times she called my mom asking for me to call her back and I never did. I was a selfish young man and had moved on with my life. She deserved more kindness from me and I regret not having been able to give it.

(to be continued)

~FS

Small gray monkeys were a favorite pet of the Taiwanese people, although many of the little creatures passed their days in cages, mostly neglected, and some in misery. One such unfortunate monkey was owned by my neighbors in Luku. They kept him in a cage in the open lot that separated our property and theirs. Occasionally, he was let out and tied to a tether which allowed him more room to move about; but it was difficult to see his loneliness and sorrow spending most days sitting alone in his cage.

It was especially sad to see him out there in bad weather and at night; so one day, I couldn’t take it anymore and I asked the neighbors if I could take care of him for them. They were surprised but agreed to let me look after him. They stressed to me that they weren’t giving him to me, and they expected him to be there when they wanted him, but I could interact with him and care for him as well. The first thing I noticed was that he was incredibly dirty and needed a good washing. Having never washed a monkey before, I decided the easiest thing to do was bring him with me into the shower. I had no idea how difficult this project would be and how much little gray monkeys hate the shower. In my host family’s home the shower was a concrete stall at the end of an outside walkway, nestled against a corner of the house. It had a door and was fully self-contained, which turned out to be a good, because things became very lively for the two of us behind that closed door.

All was well as I carried my little friend into the stall with me and shut the door but once the water was turned on, it was as if I had been lowered into a blender. He exploded and went berserk, flying round and round the little stall, up and down my body, and finally perching himself atop my head. His little hands and feet clutched savagely at my hair and scalp and he refused to let go or be coaxed down from his lofty promontory. As I attempted to pry him off my head he sunk his teeth into my finger; sharp little teeth which drew blood, and I immediately began to imagine what new, strange and unknown disease I might have just contracted. Hadn’t AIDS come from a monkey? Well, nothing to be done now but clean my finger, which I did, while he remained nervously attached to my scalp like an exotic, living, fascinator. While he was up there I was able to bring him into the shower stream several times and at least give him a quick rubdown before finally giving up the venture.

We dried off and then I brought him into my room, which he loved. I closed the bedroom door and let him down onto the floor and he was elated to be free to roam and jump, without a tether, and free of the tiny confines of his cage. If he could have spoken to me I wouldn’t have understood his joy as clearly as he communicated it by his running and jumping and playing. He leaped up onto my bed and used the mattress as a springboard to launch himself up onto the wall above my pillow where he immediately pushed off and then did a somersault in the air before landing on the mattress again. This became his favorite thing, which he repeated over and over again as I watched with a smile. Occasionally he stopped and looked over at me to make sure I was watching him and I voiced approval which was his cue to begin his acrobatics again.  Eventually he tired himself out and we both laid down for the night. I climbed under the sheets, and he lay down on my chest, with his little arms extended across my shoulders, his tiny head nestled against my neck, and went to sleep. For the remaining few weeks of my stay in Luku I brought my little friend in for the night; and we both enjoyed the warmth and shelter of my room, and also the warmth of our newfound friendship; but I never again tried to give him another shower.

At the conclusion of the semester in Taiwan, our group spent the last few days together debriefing at a rustic site in the mountains within Taroko National Park.  There, we discussed what we had learned and how the trip had changed us. Among other things, I found that this trip exposed and called into question some deeply held assumptions I had about the superiority of individualism. I come from a culture that places great value on the individual: the self-made man, the person who climbs up out of obscurity and makes a name for him or herself, one who overcomes and wins and does all of this in the face of the mediocre crowds, rising above mediocrity, finding victory in personal accomplishment. I came to Taiwan with all of this deeply ingrained in me and was certain of its veracity, but it wasn’t long before I realized that I was looked on with pity by the Taiwanese for these very traits. They saw in my individualism something sad and to be avoided. Instead, they believe that how one fits into the larger society, the group, is the important thing, and one’s value is found as a part of the whole, with the others, not apart or alone. Of course this is a generalization, and in the twenty five years that have elapsed since my time on the island I suspect they are now much more like the west, but at the time I was there, and of those I met, this was the belief and the philosophy that guided their lives.

St Paul admonished the church to be of one mind and one spirit, to flee from a competition of ideas, to find resolution to differences, and to foster harmony within the whole. St Paul went on to tell us that, though we may have diverse and individual gifts, they are for the benefit of the entire body, and we, as parts of the body, should find our value in how we benefit and enhance the other members of the body. In so many ways the beliefs of my culture are at odds with Christian ones, and have been at odds with them for many centuries.

After our group debriefing we all went our separate ways. I had booked a flight through Seoul, with a layover for a couple days to see that city, and then on to Tokyo to visit a friend, and travel for two weeks in Japan before heading back home again. My flight didn’t leave Taiwan for another day or two so I spent some time hiking in the area. It appears there have been many slides, renovations and changes to the trails since I was there in 1990, but at that time, the trailhead I took was at a cave entrance on the side of the highway, and one began by walking for a very long way through the mountain.

There is something strange and claustrophobia inducing about walking alone straight through a mountain by way of a small tunnel. In this particular case the light at the other end of the tunnel appeared very far away and looked as if someone was holding a single LED bulb very far in the distance. I began walking through the tunnel towards the light but it never seemed to get any closer. After a while of walking I turned and looked behind me and the entrance now looked just about as far as my destination; I calculated that I must be about mid-way through the mountain. The air was cool and damp and deathly silent. I could see nothing except these pin-lights at my two poles. I imagined the mass of earth and rock above me and thought how impossible it would be to reach me in a slide or collapse. Besides, nobody knew I had climbed into this tunnel, so they wouldn’t even know to look for me. But it was peaceful and so very silent and exciting too. I continued walking through the mountain and after a while the light on the other side did begin to look larger. My imaginations about a collapse provoked me to begin a faster pace and this stimulated my anxiety which in turn prompted me to break into a trot, and then a run in hopes of getting out of the mountain before something calamitous might happen.

The tunnel opened out onto a beautiful gorge and stream, and the trail continued up alongside the waterway and into the mountains. I had heard there were many more caves and tunnels up ahead, although most were short; and up to twenty-eight waterfalls on the trail, with some cascading down onto the trail inside the caves. I had brought an umbrella and light raincoat with me for the day, and a banana or two and a water bottle. I encountered a few other hikers at the beginning and again near the end but other than this the trail was mine. The solitude gave me time to reflect as I hiked alongside the stream, crossed the gorge on several footbridges, and walked through shallow streams, in the darkness of the caves, while water rained down upon me.

Opening an umbrella underground is an incongruous activity and leaves one feeling odd; finding oneself in a torrential downpour while walking through a cave strains our ideas of normalcy. I enjoyed this immensely. I felt alive and free again, as the stream poured down over me through the myriad fissures in the rock overhead; the Year of the female was behind me, and I felt I could breathe once more. I liked nearly all of the women I had travelled to Taiwan with, and all of those I had called my family the past six months, but at the same time I was glad to be alone now, without anyone to answer to, and immersed in beauty.

I emerged from the cave and back into the sunlight, wet and happy. My shoes and socks were soaked through, as were my shorts, but I didn’t mind. All I could see ahead was a wide open freedom calling to me, coaxing me through the next tunnel, across the next foot-bridge, further up into the clouds; and no petty annoyance could keep me grounded here and now. My body was wet and worn, but my spirit was taking flight; I could see beyond this trail into a bright, though unknown future. I had South Korea to visit, then Japan and then the rest of my life to unfold.

(to be continued)

~FS

That same year a small group of my friends and I produced a play which one of my friends had written. It was well-received, and this inspired us to work together on additional new productions. Over the next few years we wrote and produced five or six new works, and I came to conclude that there were few things in life that I enjoyed as much as being a part of a team, a small group with a common creative purpose. The exchange of new ideas between us was invigorating, and the process of translating these ideas into a cohesive story that was entertaining and edifying was challenging and purposeful.

One of our productions, I began writing while living oversees in Taiwan. My semester abroad had been organized to take place in Shanghai, China however, several months earlier the Tiananmen Square protests took place, and out of concern for our safety the school administration changed plans and directed us to a language institute in Taichung, Taiwan instead. Each of us were placed with a host family in Taichung for three months while we studied language and culture, and then we moved to the mountains and spent the next three months placed with a different host family in a small village named Luku, which was located in one of the premier green-tea growing regions on the island. My play was loosely autobiographical about my time on the island, within the challenges of living in a new culture and facing conflicting values; but it was primarily about the inner life of the main character and his battle to achieve balance and harmony amidst conflicting forces operating within his soul. These forces were personified predominantly in characters I named ‘Chaos’ and ‘Spirit’ who each fought for preeminence and authority within him and wanted sovereign control and the destruction of the other, but the main character’s struggle was to determine the place each of these forces should play in his life, and create a state of balanced inner peace. I took many of the ideas I was learning that year from Taoism and integrated these concepts into the storyline and the arc of the main character.

This was also the year of the female. This isn’t one of the Chinese zodiac, but it was the overarching, and overwhelming principle of my life in Taiwan. I was the only male in the group that traveled to Taiwan. Our group consisted of six other classmates and our program director, all women, and me. In addition to this I was placed in a host family in Taichung, with three daughters, and all of my professors at the language institute were women.  There were certainly many advantages and enjoyable aspects to this situation but when things got tense and stressful, as they invariably can when traveling for an extended period with others, I was nearly always the odd man out. I was a foreigner in a strange land and a stranger amongst my own people. Being the only male in the group meant that I was unique confidante to my peers one moment, and estranged outcast the next. By the end of the six months in Taiwan, I think I went a little batty.

While living in Taichung I attended a Tai-chi class on the rooftop of a high-rise building downtown. I had bought a scooter from a classmate and braved the streets of this large city, driving it between classes and my host-family’s home near the eastern city limits.  The rides through town were never without some excitement and anxiety since drivers in that city viewed road signs and traffic lights as optional recommendations, and considered sidewalks as an extra lane for traffic. Somehow I managed to survive the months on these city streets without incident, though there were several close misses and narrow escapes. By the time I arrived to my Tai-Chi class, I was in need of the soothing and relaxing effects of this ancient martial art.

One of the touted benefits of Tai-Chi is longevity and youthfulness. Our instructor was the embodiment of these effects since he looked as though he was about eight years old. This comes across as hyperbole, but when I first saw him I thought someone had brought their child along with them to the class. When he walked to the front of the group and began instructing I was completely amazed; by the moonlight I examined him intently, and giving him the benefit of the doubt, I decided he could maybe be as old as twelve. For no other reason than his apparent youthfulness, I was hooked on this class; because I was mesmerized by this man-child and was fascinated to watch him because he defied everything I understood about aging. I didn’t understand him very well since my Mandarin was very basic, but I did learn from others in the class that not only was he an instructor, but he was a master practitioner and an instructor of instructors. So he clearly was an adult, and apparently fully into middle-age, but he was the youngest looking adult I have ever seen. His class was exceptional and the setting was quintessentially exotic. Standing on a rooftop filled with Taiwanese Tai-Chi students, in the middle of their large city, at night, under the silver moonlight was a transcendent and magical experience. Doing so with this age-defying human as our instructor gave it all an air of mystery and fantasy as well.

Luku Township was about an hour scooter ride to the southeast from Taichung. This little village was set amidst deep green mountains and immediately surrounded by verdant terraces lined with rows of Camellia sinensis, from which green tea-leaves are cultivated. We arrived during the harvesting season and the entire town and countryside smelled of green tea. In my new host-family’s home, my bedroom was adjacent to the tea-drying room, in which was a long tumbler with a heater-blower attached, into which leaves were poured and dried. I marinated in the smell of green tea many days and nights, falling asleep to the sound of the tumbler as it rotated, drying the tea leaves; it was a natural and healthy intoxication that I felt throughout the harvest season.

In Luku, laundry was done in the streams which meandered along roadsides. In the center of the town there was an area where most people did their laundry. Laundry was only done by women and by me. In keeping with the Year of the Female, I discovered that I was the only man that did laundry in this stream, and as a by-product of my effort, I also provided the townswomen with new entertainment and cause for hilarity. Seeing me scraping and banging my clothes against the rocks, knee deep in the stream, brought joy to women and children alike, and the fact that I was the only white male in the area, I think added to the peculiarity of it.

It was unadvisable to hike in the countryside here too extensively due to the number of dangerous snakes. Venomous snakes had been bred on the island during WWII and after the war they were released into the wild and they propagated. While I was living in Luku one of the farmers unfortunately encountered one of these snakes while harvesting leaves and he didn’t survive. In addition to venomous snakes you might also encounter a large constrictor which is what happened to me one evening as I was riding my scooter to the town swimming pool. I was riding on a narrow road, flanked on both sides by tall reeds, when I rounded a curve and there, up ahead of me, appeared to be a fallen log across the entire road. As I approached it, a sudden chill went up my spine and I stopped abruptly, as the ‘log’ continued to slither into the reeds. It was a very large snake, perhaps six or seven inches in diameter; I couldn’t see its head, which was somewhere in the reeds to my right, nor could I see its tail which was someplace still back in the reeds to my left. The road had to be at least fourteen feet across, perhaps wider, since two small cars could pass each other on it. This snake continued to slither for quite a while, slowly but steadily before the tail finally came into view. I was completely repulsed, but nevertheless something in me wanted to go up and touch it. I pondered this idea for a moment as I continued to watch it slide off the road to my right, and then I determined it was better to leave this snake alone.

(to be continued…)

~FS

My summer Alaska trip had been a complete success, I had made enough money to pay for books the coming year, in addition to some tuition and spending money. Equally important I had a better sense of myself, my strengths and weaknesses in the face of difficulties, and a deeper understanding and compassion for others who find themselves in tough circumstances and need a helping hand, or friendship, or simple kindness.

I had fallen away from organized religion over the past few years, though I still had an inner appreciation and love for my idealized version of it, but I still carried within me many aspects of a social gospel that I had learned while in church; love for the downtrodden, empathy for those that are hurting, willingness to help others where I could. The golden rule had been inculcated within me and though I was by far an imperfect practitioner of it, at least I kept it as a standard to strive towards and measure myself.

I also continued to learn what I could about my inner spiritual life, to notice my inner motivations and my true feelings, and to make sense of the jumble of ideas and thoughts that ran constantly through my head. Meditation and theater rehearsals still provided me with tools and opportunities to practice inner awareness but I was still several years removed from engaging in something approaching spiritual warfare, or an active and consciously applied effort to fight and win against spiritual things detrimental to myself and others; and the time of applying myself to this fight systematically and with ongoing determination would be something I wouldn’t be initiated in, or begin to practice, for quite some time.

To this very point, I recall a conversation I had with my step-mother at the time. She was bringing up some failings of mine, and observing that I was out of control in some significant ways in my life. I couldn’t disagree with her because she was correct, but I explained why I felt this was the case; I offered a comparison of my inner being to a complicated M1 tank. In my view, I had been dropped into myself without an owner’s manual and suddenly I had to learn what all these levers and buttons and controls and screens meant, in order to operate myself properly, and frankly, I hadn’t a clue how to operate myself properly. I was just going through life guessing, and making things up as I went along; doing a little trial and error here, a little self-correcting there, experimenting with this and with that, and hoping I wouldn’t mess up too badly. Admittedly, it was an imperfect practice, and I yearned for something better, but I made the best with what I knew.

Soon after returning to California from Alaska I began my next school year. I started studying Mandarin Chinese in preparation for a semester abroad the following year. I lived on campus, which was situated in the hills south of Petaluma; a bucolic and serene setting perfect for contemplation and immersing oneself in nature. On a daily basis I could watch deer walking by my first floor dorm window and often resident raccoons could be seen congregating around the front door, eating from our dorm-kitty’s food dish. Having grown used to sleeping on the ground in Alaska, and indeed much of my life, I gave my mattress to the facilities manager for safe keeping and spread a colorful Mexican blanket over the plywood bedframe in my dorm room and used this as my bed for the year.

Chinese language and culture appealed to me because of the mystery involved; the written language was so different from my own, and the cultural history, from the various dynasties up through the Long March and the Cultural Revolution was strange and different and captured my imagination. As part of this exploration I began to read the Tao Te Ching, the basic philosophical and religious text of Taoism written by Lao Tzu. It didn’t enthrall me in the same way as the Bhagavad-Gita but I was impressed by the value it placed on things counter-cultural to my way of thinking; things like passivity and weakness which my culture disdains, and the harmony and balance one can achieve when one embraces these alternatives, along with their opposites, in a unified whole.

As a complement to this study I began taking Aikido at a local Dojo in town. While this martial art is from Japan, not China, and Taoism and Aikido don’t share a common lineage, for me Aikido seemed to embody concepts I was learning in Taoism. For instance, in Taoism there is a famous image about the strength of water in relation to rock, and how over time the water is stronger and wears down the rock; while in Aikido, one meets one’s opponent or aggressor in a way similar to water, allowing the force and violence of one’s attacker to flow past one, and to redirect their violent energy into a more constructive energy that harms no one. I enjoyed applying the theory of the Tao in a practical and active method through Aikido.

Against the backdrop of studying Mandarin and my other classes I was also involved in several theatrical productions. As I’ve mentioned earlier, theater was more important to me for what I could learn about myself and about other people and less about the production or the finished product. In our theater community that year, we had a visiting director from Poland who had worked with the renowned Polish director Jerzy Grotowski, so we were excited to learn what he brought with him from his experience. We were working together on a scene from Martin Buber’s play, Elijah and discussing how best to translate Buber’s interpretation of the Biblical account into modern terms to reach a modern audience. In the course of this discussion the director began to speak about Buber’s own philosophy and his method of Biblical interpretation, or hermeneutics. He went on to explain that as actors, writers, producers we are also engaged in hermeneutics in how we approach the text of the play, and how we translate that into action and perform it for an audience. The question was how to make the Biblical story understood to the audience in the deepest, most visceral and dramatic way, simply and without artifice but with sincerity and honesty and power.

This discussion reoriented me and gave my life new purpose. I had never heard the term, hermeneutics before and I was so excited by the prospect of interpreting sacred scripture and joining that to theater for the purpose of making spiritual truths known and understood by an audience. This idea was a seed of a new life’s purpose; I wanted to write plays which would somehow interpret sacred truths in an accessible way, presenting them to an audience so as to make the unknowable knowable, and to inspire and instruct in these truths to open people to hidden realms so they could know that there is more to life than just what we see and touch.

I wanted to bring the mystery down to earth in some way, to battle the cold rationalism, and the narrowness of the literal, data influenced culture of my society where things are only true and only matter if you can prove them beyond a shadow of a doubt, with lots of facts and charts and graphs to prove your point. I knew in the depths of my heart that God wouldn’t be known this way, that He couldn’t be known this way, and my peers were losing faith in droves because they were trying to find Him in the wrong ways and with the wrong means and because of this they were giving up and dismissing faith as a fairy tale. I wanted to reverse that trend.

(to be continued)

~FS

All was not lost, although most of it was; I had lost all my clothing except what I had on, my wallet, money, identification, sleeping bag and mat, tent, and my souvenir rocks, which I didn’t really miss and was happy to be rid of the extra weight. I still had a small shoulder pack in which I kept my journal and pen and my remaining food: several slices of bread, what remained of my jar of peanut butter and my ever-present container of garlic salt.

I didn’t take much time to mourn my losses but noticed a bridge not too far from me that spanned the river, so I crossed into what I imagined and hoped must be Portland. I found a visitor’s center which confirmed my hopes but I couldn’t find a good place to catch a ride south. I was tired and had lost patience for waiting on the side of roads so I just started walking south through the streets of Portland. I didn’t have a plan and wasn’t sure how I’d make it the remaining six hundred odd miles home so I just walked.

My hopes were raised when I passed a Methodist Church and some of the members were out front doing some weeding. Though I hadn’t attended a Methodist Church in some time I still felt like here were my people, plus Methodists are known for social outreach and aiding those in need. I was sure to receive some help, perhaps a little money, or food, or maybe a place to sleep for the night. With new-found joy I approached the group and told them a little about my story, how I had been hitching back home and lost my backpack on the train and had nothing left, and I inquired if they could offer any assistance to aid me in my plight. Their reaction was far from what I expected and not only was it unhelpful but it was actually cold and disdainful. I felt ashamed, for myself, and for them. This isn’t what John and Charles Wesley had in mind when they began their church based upon their method; this wasn’t the good news, but instead it was turning ones back on a stranger. I tried a different line of inquiry hoping they just didn’t understand, I couldn’t conceive that these members of my church family would turn me away without even a measure of kindness. In the end however that was all I received, a small measure of kindness, as one of the older ladies in the group gave me a half-smile as she wished me good luck.

So with a half-hearted smile to fill my stomach and an insipid blessing to keep me warm, I left and looked for a place to sleep, as it was growing dark. Not far away I found a bench under a lamppost in a remote corner of a small neighborhood park. It was a safe place, protected on three sides by trees and shrubs and well-lit. It was a long, cold night but thankfully I had been able to pull my jacket off the train so I had some measure of comfort as I lay on the bench and tried to sleep.

But sleep was difficult to come by with the sounds of the city in the distance and other neighborhood activity nearby. These sounds exacerbated my feeling of loneliness somehow and I longed to see some friends again and to talk with someone that I knew and who knew me. The light and shadow cast by the lamppost upon the surrounding shrubs gave them character and depth and animated them to my mind. As I sat up and scanned the foliage I could begin to discern distinct shapes within their branches and leaves. In time I realized that I was in the company of numerous animals and fantastic creatures who were interested in making my acquaintance and sharing their stories with me. Suddenly the night was not nearly so lonely as I began to converse with my new friends, these shrub-creatures, and inquire of their habits, proclivities and adventures. There was Mr Frog who was recovering from a very difficult day, and he was joined by Rat-Man who fancied bowler hats and dainty foods, farther along was a group of squirrels and a porcupine discussing recent events over tea, and further into the trees lived a troll, not particularly handsome, but with a good nature which made up for his physical shortcomings. I shared my difficult predicament with them and they all expressed concern and offered me encouragement, telling me that tomorrow would certainly be a better day. Mr Frog could relate and was certain things would look brighter for one of us or the other; and he guessed it would probably be me that things would take a turn for the better. I consoled him as well and also wished him a better tomorrow. Eventually the night passed and the morning began to awaken, and with the gathering light my friends slowly faded back into the foliage and disappeared among the shrubs.

I continued my walk south, not sure of my plan, but I sensed that I was beginning to lose my ability to cope with my situation, and that I needed to find some help soon.  I perceived that my emotions and my mind were fraying around the edges, and this awareness gave me insight into the mental difficulties of others who live permanently on the streets. I was afraid of losing my mind and my grip on reality and this scared me and made my heart grow with concern for anyone in a similar situation. Living on the street, the loneliness, existing on the margins of society as a pariah, enduring the elements, with little food and fear of attack at night, can take a tremendous toll on a person.

I begged for some change and called my mom. I explained my situation and we worked out a way for me to get a Greyhound bus ticket home, leaving the next morning. That night I found shelter under a pickup truck canopy in a store lot where these canopies were sold. I found one laying on the asphalt, opened the back hatch and climbed inside. It was cramped and it was cold laying on the asphalt, even with a piece of cardboard underneath but I felt safe and nobody knew I was there. I passed the night, sleeping a little, but waiting with anticipation for the bus that would arrive to pick me up early the next morning and take me home.

8:00 am arrived and I was standing at the bus stop expectantly. I had the address listed on the ticket and the correct time but the bus didn’t come. A few minutes passed and I began to worry. I couldn’t conceive of another night spent on a bench or under a truck canopy, or another night without anything to eat.  As I was considering this possibility, a Greyhound bus turned the corner, but stopped on the other side of the street, heading the wrong direction. Like my error with the train, I grew confused and I determined this must be a different bus since it was on the northbound side of the street. I watched the bus unload one or two people and I grew uneasy and anxious. What if it is my bus and I’m about to miss it because I’m on the wrong side of the street? I called out and started to run towards it as it moved away from the curb. I didn’t get very close by the time the bus turned the corner and disappeared, leaving me standing alone in the street. I couldn’t believe how stupid I was and why didn’t I walk over to it and just ask where it was going? Why did I wait so long just watching it, assuming it wasn’t my bus? Oh what a sorry idiot I was, and a stranded one too.

Frantically I found some money from some frightened soul who probably thought I was out of my mind and I called my mom again. I had come unglued by now and she could hear it in my voice. She talked me back down to a place of relative calm and said she’d work it out, to stay with her, not to worry, that she needed me to keep it together. After a call to the bus company she called me back at the pay phone where I stood in a daze, and told me there would be another bus that I could take the following morning. That was good news of course, but I heard it as if through water, muffled and distant and drowned out by the sound of my own thoughts and emotions crashing down around me. It was a beautiful sunny, late August day, with just a slight crispness in the air, hinting of fall coming soon. I could appreciate as I stood digesting this news that someone was enjoying the weather but I couldn’t find any joy in it. I was stuck another day in purgatory.

I thanked my mom for all of her help, assured her I’d be okay, told her I loved her and hung up the phone. I don’t remember the rest of that day. I suppose I lived it, since I did get on the bus the next morning, but I have no recollection of anything that happened after that phone call until the next morning when I got on the bus, sank into my seat and fell asleep, finally, finally heading home.

(to be continued)

~FS

I came to Alaska for more than just a summer job and an adventure; I also hoped to find out who I was, to discover myself in an essential way, at least in part. I believed that I would find this by returning to the place of my birth. As I boarded the ferry in Skagway I was excited because I was finally on the leg of the journey that would take me literally to where I began: Ketchikan. I had great hope that returning to my geographic origin would shed some light on my true self.

The first thing I did upon disembarking the ferry was walk to the home my family had rented back in 1969. I knew the address and could recognize it from family photos. Seeing that old house in person filled me with a reverential nostalgia. For me this was a visit to a family shrine or historical landmark. It was a place of stories and of dreams come to life. I imagined my parents at the top of the long flight of stairs, looking down at me from the landing near the front door. I could picture my sisters inside at the dining room table having dinner, and my brother alone in his room drawing something; he was a good artist. We were all here, together again, a family for a moment; just like my faint memories from childhood. I stood in the waning light, staring at our home, while the rain fell lightly on my head, remembering, imagining, pretending; and then I heard music. Faint organ music lightly touched the air around me and I looked for its source.

The music was coming from an open doorway of a church just down the street. I took another quick look at our old house and then walked to the church. I stepped inside and sat down in the back to listen to the organist play several more pieces. When he finished he called out to me and asked if I liked the organ. I told him about the amazing organ from my childhood church with all of the enormous pipes, and how I loved to hear a good organist. We both shared a love of Bach and after a short conversation about this, and his revelation that I had no place to sleep, he invited me to his home for dinner and a place to set up my sleeping bag for the night. It turned out that not only was he good at the organ, he could also cook, being the head chef at a local restaurant. He made us both a simple but excellent meal, though admittedly my rations from dumpsters the past two months had lowered my expectations, and afterwards he pulled out the accordion and played a few more songs for me. It was the perfect end to a meaningful night and the next morning he invited me to stay as long as I was in town. He even allowed me to keep my things at his house and gave me a copy of the house key to come and go as I pleased. This was a kind and generous man and a trusting and loving soul.

Later that day I visited the only hospital in town and explained to the receptionist and asked if this was the same hospital that existing back in the 1960s. It was, so I asked if I could visit the maternity wing and even see the delivery room where I had been born. She called to the nurses and I was given a tour. The nurses found my visit amusing and were very happy to show me around. The hospital had two delivery rooms, side by side and connected visually by large windows. The rooms were clad in light blueish-green square tiles and had a very clinical look to them, but they were attractive and clean. It was an odd feeling, standing there in the delivery room, imagining my beginnings in this very spot all those years ago, so long ago. And yet here it was, and here I was, how time hadn’t changed anything and yet changed everything. I took a few photos of the rooms and the nurses, thanked them for their time and kindness and left.

I had a few more hours before evening, when Jay would be returning home from his work at the restaurant, so I took a cab to a trailhead south of town and went on a little hike. More than any other time that summer, I had a forlorn and homesick feeling while hiking outside of Ketchikan. Here I was at the place of my birth, having seen my first family home, and the hospital and delivery room where I came into this world and I felt so alone. This wasn’t my home anymore. I missed my mom and my friends, and Santa Rosa–the town I knew like the back of my hand, and my hill, and my dad. Everything seemed to rush upon me, all the things I loved and felt so far away from up here in Alaska. Suddenly I just wanted to be back home again and done with this trip. I was tired of being wet and cold, and sleeping always in a different place, meeting someone new each day, never seeing anything I knew. I wanted to see something familiar again.

Two days later I disembarked the ferry in Seattle. I had made a cardboard sign for Portland that I planned to use to hitchhike once I made my way up to the freeway. In Seattle, the ferry terminal and the train-yard are very close to one another, maybe a mile walk, and the tracks go right past the ferry. As a joke I held my sign up to a passing freight train heading south as I left the ferry terminal and to my surprise the engineer leaned out the window (it was travelling very slow through town) and said I could hop on a boxcar when he stopped just up at the yard. I should follow him down he said, and he’d show me what car to get on and he could take me as far as Vancouver. I couldn’t believe my good fortune! So I did as I was told and he did what he said he would, and within a half-hour I had hopped my first train and was on my way, hobo-style, southward.

However, I wasn’t certain we were heading south and I began to question where the train was really going because I had never heard of a Vancouver, Washington. I only knew of Vancouver, Canada so I was confused as the train picked up speed, and I began to worry that we were going the wrong direction, and that we would somehow swing around at some point and I’d end up north in Canada again, instead of south near Portland. I convinced myself that this was probably what would happen, but since there wasn’t anything I could do about it I might as well enjoy the ride in the meantime. Riding in a boxcar is very loud and one gets tossed around quite a lot. But once you get used to the rhythm of the train it becomes easy to walk around the car and enjoy the sights from the open door. My car was completely empty; it felt cavernous, and the sound of the train on the tracks was amplified, and echoed from its cold steel walls, roof and floor. But all of this just added to my feeling of excitement and adventure and I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

Several hours later the train stopped. We were on a large embankment on the edge of an enormous river. The engineer had told me when we were in Seattle to be ready to get off the train in Vancouver before the train headed inland; I’d only have a few minutes while it stopped, before it would start again and head towards the east coast. In retrospect everything makes sense, but at the time I was confused about my location, didn’t know the area at all, should have known it was the Columbia River but didn’t, and doubted myself and the engineer. So I pulled my backpack to the door of the boxcar and left it hanging slightly over the edge as I hopped out with the intention of walking up to the front and asking the engineer for clarification. I figured if the train started I could grab my bag and pull it off if needed. I didn’t get very far when, in fact, the train did start up again. I ran back towards my car and as the train gathered speed I saw my backpack approaching me. I braced myself, focused intently on my backpack and prepared to make one sure grab and pull when the moment came upon me. As my bag passed, I grabbed and swiftly pulled it off the train; although I didn’t, and it didn’t. Instead, I only pulled my jacket off, which I had wrapped and tied over the end of my backpack. I dropped my jacket and turned just in time to watch my backpack as it rounded a curve, and then disappeared forever on its journey to who knows where.

(to be continued)

~FS

They explained how they had wanted to stop for me the day before when they had seen me in Tok, but since they were staying at the RV Park in town it didn’t make sense to pick me up. They apologized to me about that, but then, when they saw me again this morning they were happy to have another chance to give me a ride. I was grateful they had generous hearts and took a chance on picking me up. Though I smiled and I juggled while hitchhiking, to put people at ease, I was pretty rough looking, with an unkempt beard, worn clothing and long hair that was dreadlocked, and not nicely dreadlocked, but the un-manicured kind that looks like vermin might be living in there. I knew that I was a safe person and wouldn’t hurt anyone, but I couldn’t expect others to know that just by looking at me.

The three of us had a lovely time on the trip down to Skagway. They welcomed me and made me feel like family; and quickly we were sharing many details from our lives with one another. She had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and was only given a year to live so the couple was on what they expected would be their last long vacation together. She was incredibly upbeat and cheery about life and met all of it with a smile. In fact, her symbol was the round yellow smiley face; she had them everywhere in the RV, on her coffee mug, her shirt, as stickers on the RV, and on her sweatshirt. They were both so pleasant, and she was so trusting and kind, that I felt very guilty for what I put them through near the end of the day.

The drive to Skagway crosses the US-Canada border twice. The northern crossing into Canada was uneventful but as we crossed back into the US, just north of Skagway, I ran into some trouble. The border police pulled the RV to the side and asked the couple a few questions about me. When they realized I was a hitchhiker and not part of the couple’s family, they asked me gather my belongings and follow them into the building, while the couple sat and waited for me to return.

Inside the building the two officers assigned to me, had me put my backpack on the counter and proceeded to pull everything out for an inspection. Their first query was why was I carrying so many stones in my backpack? I almost said, “It’s because I’m a stoner” because I thought that would be funny and lighten the mood, but I thought better of it when I saw the ill-humor on their faces. I had found quite a few rocks in Alaska that I liked and thought were interesting so I packed them along with me to bring home as souvenirs. I had between twenty and twenty-five pounds of rocks in my backpack that I had been carrying around with me a good part of the summer. Thankfully they didn’t find any serious crime in this and they let me keep them. But when they pulled out the forgotten film canister stuffed into a side pocket, and found it half-full with white powder, their faces grew even more serious and I sensed trouble.

I quickly explained that it was only baking soda which my mom had wanted me to bring with me for the summer. They looked at me with total skepticism and unbelief. I assured them it was only baking soda and offered to try some of it right there in front of them, and they could try it too, if they didn’t believe me. They weren’t interested, but had some chemical tests instead, which they could run to determine what it was. They ran several tests on the powder, which took well over an hour, but the results were inconclusive. They couldn’t tell what it was, which struck me funny, but they weren’t going to give it back to me. I was free to leave.

I returned to the couple in the RV and apologized for keeping them so long and explained what had happened. I promised them the white powder wasn’t anything illegal and we continued into Skagway together. When we said our goodbyes I was saddened knowing that I would never see them again. I never saw the people I hitched with again so it is no surprise, but this goodbye touched on something more terminal. I knew she was dying and in the face of that realization I was lost, unprepared, and unqualified to express anything useful or satisfying. I loved her smiley faces, and her smiling face, and after they drove away; I wept.

 

~FS

The following week I began my journey home. I had parted ways with Yoni a couple weeks earlier so my return to California would be a solo trek. Fortunately one of my coworkers at the fishery in Seward was driving up to Anchorage so I rode with him. He drove one of those little Le Cars which is just a tin can on wheels. An hour or so up the road we rounded a curve and there was a moose in the road. I hadn’t seen a moose before and I was amazed; it was enormous. I thought our best bet might be to drive under it, and I still think we might have made it had we tried, but instead, the moose took a step to the right, our tiny car evaded to the left, and we just missed each other. The rest of the drive north was uneventful.

I spent that night in my tent outside Palmer, about forty miles northeast of Anchorage. The next morning was beautiful, clear and sunny and my spirits were high. Rather than foraging for food in the dumpster behind the grocery store, I decided to splurge and go inside and buy a few supplies for my trip home. I bought a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, some garlic salt and an apple. The apple was magnificent, brilliant ruby red and as large as my outstretched hand. As much as I had grown accustom to dumpster diving for my food this summer it was still a joy to have food I didn’t have to examine first before eating. If I found a head of cauliflower or broccoli in a dumpster most of the outside had to be removed first to get at the core which was still edible; most fruit and vegetables found in the garbage had to be treated this way, cutting away what was bad and devouring what little was left.  But this big apple was special, I could see it was perfect, without a blemish or bruise, and fully intact. I knew this was going to be a great day: it was warm, I was dry, and I had my apple.

I set myself up on the side of the road just outside of town and prepared to hitchhike to Skagway, seven-hundred seventy miles east, where my plan was to take the ferry back south to Seattle. Across the road there was a pasture with several beautiful horses grazing. One large brown horse caught my eye and I walked up to the fence to say hello. He approached the barbed wire from the other side and stood quietly while I stroked his head and neck. I fed him a couple handfuls of grass from my side of the fence, which were beyond his reach, but his eye was on my apple. I had just begun to eat it as I crossed the road to visit him. He liked the grass fine but I could tell he preferred apples, and I couldn’t blame him for wanting mine; it was a wonderful crisp, juicy and sweet apple. I hadn’t had a good piece of fruit in a while and was savoring it, but he looked sad watching me bite into the large red fruit and this made me uncomfortable. I held the fruit firmly in my hand and reached it out across the fence so he could take a bite. He tried to take a larger bite than I was offering, so I pulled it back. We looked each other in the eyes and tried again. I reached out again and this time he took a smaller bite. “Good” I told him as I took another bite, which would be my last. I held out the fruit to him again but he moved deftly this time, and before I could pull back, he yanked the entire thing out of my hand, turned, and ran away. I think he was laughing at me as he trotted away, but I held no hard feelings towards him. I couldn’t blame him, it was a spectacular piece of fruit that he had taken, and I had offered it.

The highways connecting most of the towns between Anchorage and Skagway are just two-lane roads with little traffic. I was accustomed to waiting quite a while for rides on the Kenai Peninsula when Yoni and I had been travelling between Kenai and Seward looking for work. However, out this way, between Anchorage and Tok there was a lot less traffic. I learned quickly that if I didn’t get a ride from a passing opportunity, I may not get another chance the rest of the day; six hours could easily go by before I would see another vehicle and one day I didn’t see a vehicle at all. To increase my chances of getting a ride I decided to juggle rocks when a vehicle approached as I waited on the side of the road. I believed this made me look friendly and non-threatening. Who could be afraid of a juggler, I reasoned.

One late evening, I was standing at the intersection of two highways, almost exactly midway between Palmer and Tok. It had been a long day, with few opportunities, so when a guy in a pickup with a camper on the back stopped and said he’d take me all the rest of the way to Tok, I was relieved. It was about a three hour drive so I settled into the passenger seat to relax and enjoy the ride. It was a beautiful drive as we made our way through miles and miles of snowy landscape. Our headlights illuminating rows and rows of small conifers covered in snow as we rounded curves and undulated up and down across the terrain. Though it was August it felt like Christmas, with all of these little snow-covered trees lighting up as we passed.

Before he picked me up he must have been drinking. He was loose and feeling good, but he wasn’t driving very well. It was a windy road, and he was having trouble staying on it. It didn’t help things when he pulled out a handgun from under his seat and placed in between us and starting playing with it. I suggested that maybe I should drive the rest of the way but he wasn’t aware that he was drunk. Everything was normal from his perspective. From mine however, it didn’t look like we’d make it to Tok. Thankfully there weren’t any other vehicles, and most of the way the roads were flanked with heavy snowdrifts, so if we left the road there was a good chance we’d have a relatively soft landing. But then we’d be stuck in the snow in the middle of nowhere. We drove some time like this, barely staying on the asphalt until I was able to convince him to stop and check a sound I heard coming from the back of the camper. We both got out and took a look. He was getting tired from the alcohol, so after I pretended to repair the imaginary problem, I persuaded him to get in the passenger seat so he could get a little sleep. He liked this idea, so I drove uneventfully the rest of the way to his home in Tok while he slumped, passed out against the passenger window.

When we arrived at his home a few hours later, he was wide awake again and as we pulled up to the house I could see he was agitated. We drove through his front yard littered with junk and parked near the front door. I could see a couple of other guys in the living room through the window and they looked like trouble. I had a bad feeling about this so as we entered the house I left my backpack outside just around the front corner of the house. Without even taking a moment to say hello, as we entered the house, my host starting yelling at the other guys. They yelled back and it escalated rapidly. I excused myself to the restroom and walked down the hallway while they continued to argue. I continued past the bathroom to the back slider and let myself quietly into the back yard. After slowly sliding the door shut behind me I quickly ran around to my backpack and then out to the street and into town.

Tok is a small town, and it was after midnight, so I was alone as I walked under the stars. It wasn’t long before I saw a small hotel with a light on in the front office and an older woman at the desk. I asked her if there was any place I could pitch my tent behind the hotel, or if I could stay in one of the outbuildings on the property. I explained that I didn’t have money for a room but needed to find a safe place to stay for the night, preferably off the street in case my driver and his buddies came looking for me. After some thought, and some hesitation, she called to her husband to show me a room in the barn out back. It was a dark and cold storage room but it had an old bed with a mattress in one corner and they let me stay the night there for free. I had one of the better night’s sleep of my entire summer and woke to sunlight streaming in through a crack in the curtains.

I thanked the couple for helping me and walked out to the highway to begin looking for a ride to Skagway, five-hundred miles to the southeast. This was a difficult place to get a ride. I stood by the side of the road all day, smiling at cars, juggling stones, and hoping someone would stop. One couple in a long RV passed me heading south, and gave me smiles as they passed, but that was all, they didn’t stop. It was around ten that night that I finally gave up and decided to walk. Tetlin Junction was the next little town, about twelve miles away and I figured I could get there by the early morning, or find a place to pitch my tent out of town. I just wanted to make some progress after standing in one place all day.

It was another beautiful starlit night as I started my walk to Tetlin Junction, and it was cold. But not cold enough to suppress the mosquitos. Mosquitos are a big problem in Alaska and they seem to be everywhere, but in some places they are worse than others. Here, this night, the mosquitos were as numerous as the stars in the sky, or as countless as the sands of the sea. I couldn’t get away from them as I walked, and quickly I had bites all over my face. I was able to protect most of my body but I had no good protection for my face so soon I began to feel bites on top of previous bites. It was demoralizing and maddening and I had no option but to keep walking. I considered pitching my tent and seeking refuge but I was too tired to find a place to pitch it and I also didn’t want to stop walking. At least by walking the mosquitos seemed to diminish a little, but when I stopped walking they converged on me like wolves on a dead animal. If I stopped in one place for too long, they too might devour me. It was a long walk, but eventually I made it to Tetlin Junction. I barely remember where I fell asleep that night, but I did someplace, and the next morning I tried my luck again on the side of the road, hoping to find a ride to Skagway.

The couple in the RV that had passed me the day before, drove past again and this time they stopped. I hadn’t been out there for more than ten minutes when they stopped for me; it was either a miracle or a mirage. I wasn’t sure which, but when I ran up to their window, and they invited me into their RV I thanked God for my good fortune. When they told me they would take me the entire way to Skagway I decided it was a miracle.

(to be continued)

~FS