(on being)
The shadows from the needles of the pine tree above cast starbursts - or are they more like the ice crystals which form around the edges of a puddle in winter? - across the page of my book whose written words are interrupted as I look up to see my now-teenage daughter glide past on a floating loveseat pulled behind a pontoon boat, a thumbs-up of encouragement from the teenager born 13 years and 90 minutes ago. Shade reduces the temperature in the red Muskoka chair upon which I sit, itself likely cooler than the near-record high water temperatures in the Pool before me. The capitalization is required as it is the formal name given to this body of water just east of Georgian Bay, just east of Lake Huron.
I joined my daughter on the tube earlier, its now stern its then bow when the float made the shape of a Roman chariot. While not on fire, the ride was nevertheless heated, as I grew increasingly uncomfortable as the wake-induced nausea touched my stomach. While my daughter again provided the thumbs-up sign to go faster - something her 12-year old version would never have thought to do last year - I pat my head to have us come to a stop. Thirty years separate us but in this moment she advances past me in courage.
A brief aside about courage. This morning she and my wife joked about how brave the other must be to where their respective outfits out in public. It's an inside joke between the two of them, a daughter now fully a teen in age and immaturity and a mother a teen not in age but in immaturity.
We're with my wife's mum and her partner at the lake for the week. Our feet touched dock after a 15-minute pontoon boat ride from the boat launch after we left from my wife’s grandfather's a day earlier than planned after a small celebration for both our daughter and my wife's cousin who turned 39 the day before. We departed with a touch too many Italian sandwiches and a touch too much Diary Queen ice cream cake, though a touch too many or much of either thing never seems possible until it’s too late. Her grandfather, the patriarch of the family, broke his hip in January whose spirits were stoked by the generations present, though too proud to accept the offers of help from those who love him. My grandfather was the same way; so is my dad; I'm sure I will be, too.
I saw my dad and mom the day before to celebrate my mom's 73rd birthday in Buffalo with my brother, his wife, and her family. We had just seen my parents the week before as they drove my daughter and her cousin back from North Carolina, the visit with them a touch better than the previously unresolved visit in March. Things remain so, but better.
As my fingers touch the keyboard as I type, drops from the earlier rains land upon both them and the keys as my youngest daughter now does laps in front of me in the Pool beneath the overcast sky, within the breeze-stirred ripples, before the wooden dock. The rain is coming back, the smell of geosmin1 touching our nostrils, our ability to detect its scent 200,000 times more powerful than the shark's ability to smell blood.
There's something about a breeze in summer, made transcendent by a spot seated in the shade with a book across one's lap. The wind touches the hair on my arms as I read, the sounds of motorboaters and jetskiers glide across Pool interspersed with the trill of thrilled voices and laughter both out upon the water and at my feet. Our girls have caught two baitfish in a trap off the dock, which they've allowed to touch dockland within the bucket they temporarily sublet. Another burst of summer sounds emanates from the pontoon boat 11 o'clock to my seated position, my feet touching down on the matching red plastic footrest.
While the Tredecennial and Septdecennial2 broods awaken together in other parts of the continent, the annual symphony of the cicadas touches my middle ear, the location of its drum, breaking my reading concentration as I look up and affix my eyes on a large unmasted ship making its way down the Trent-Severn Waterway headed south. It's possible it was coming from a few miles up river past the Marine Railway, a conveyance for ships to avoid rapids no longer there - they’ve been funneled through a power station instead - and a lock never built - the change in elevation over too short a distance to support a lock - so long as you touch your boat to the line before the last trip down around 5pm local. We took the trip last year to grab lunch up river - fish and chips, mushy peas and a Provincial-in-a-literal-sense mock Moscow Mule touching my taste buds with World Class flavor - and were the penultimate boat on the ultimate train ride down, avoiding a fated night left in place for the six boats behind us.
My wife has taken a recent affection to, or some may say affliction with, gardening. This pairs well with her fondness for finding frogs among the lilies in the back of the island by the boat shed. She finds a large one this year, her hands tucked in under its front legs, touching the belly as I take its picture with an analog instant camera. I hold the picture by the unimaged white boarder at the bottom, allowing the photo to come into being. The colors fade in, the distinct borders of each color becoming apparent through what looks like a blue-grey transparency placed over it like a filter from an overhead classroom projector from the last century. The green of the great amphibian contrasts against the flesh of my wife's hands. Handing the photo of the frog to my wife is the closest I will get to touching it. She places it - the photo - in her book as a page marker only to lose it into the water with a gust of wind.
My wife has a somewhat literal bucket list for our week here: to feed the island chipmunks peanuts (from a bucket); to catch a bullfrog (and put in a bucket); to catch a turtle (and put in that same bucket, after letting the bullfrog out). With Chippy and Stubby (his tail cropped by nature) fed; with Fergus caught, and photographed; with teenage Gerald caught feet off the dock: her partially literal bucket and its list has been filled. As an added bonus, we met Tittie Tina and her four kids, the island's raccoons, within minutes of our arrival on Sunday night, nearly eating food out of my wife and youngest daughter's hands off the back deck. We haven't seen them since, but their presence has been marked by the scraps eaten from the front deck.
The wake from a boat across the Pool will eventually touch the shores on this small island that harbors four main cottages and multiple outbuildings. No matter how small or large or slow or fast it moves, a ripple is cast off the port side for those headed south and from the starboard for those headed north - or is it the other way round, my mnemonic device of port meaning left because it also has four letters or port meaning right because it's an enemy mnemonic, its trail an intentional diversion to its opposite - which continues at its pace with smaller friends in tow before it greets me like the waves from the people on the passing boats. Those on jetskis never wave, instead adding amplified music to their amplified conveyance as a way of announcing their presence without the presence of mind to consider those also enjoying nature's pleasance. I see two approaching now - wakes, or are they waves - coming to touch down on this pine-needled sap-sticky shore. The sounds of water lapping under the deck and the eddy formed by the large boulder a welcomed echo from the boat now minutes gone up lake.
A bit of a beard has announced its place on my face, it being five days old by this time. I only notice it during two recurring moments throughout the days: on touching my face; on being in front of my reflection. A beard by this time usually starts to annoy not only my wife but also my comfort: the hairs prickly but only when touched, or grazing against the softness of my wife's cheeks during a kiss or the collar of my shirt. But I've noticed upon reflection - in both common senses of the word - that the amount of grey has increased significantly, no longer just a touch of grey, since the last time it grew a mosquito’s lifespan, that being this past Christmas when I took off a week to read and play board games with my mother-in-law and her partner at our house. But I will get by.
I made a commitment to my family to avoid touching base with work this week and as we head into Friday, I've stayed true to being present on the island. Cell service is powerful here, so it was not without the possibility of a quick tap of the touch screen and searching for sla or gma to bring up the icon for two applications equal parts helpful and distracting if the first of the parts was obscured and the second part magnified. Instead, we watch episodes of the Twilight Zone and Bewitched, and summer movies like Independence Day, Independence Day: Resurgence, Shin Godzilla, and Jurassic Park.
The week away comes to its end as we touch off from the dock at 7:14am, 16 minutes ahead of my targeted departure time. There's something about being ahead of schedule without the assistance of one's eyes rolling, sighing and yelling, which when combined with what appears to be the mostly good spirits of all of us when setting off. But those eyes - mine of course - roll, that breath - mine again - sighs 15 minutes later when we attempt to pack up the trunk of the car, though the yelling is, thankfully, for all of us absent. We somehow make it all fit and we set off now a bit less than 15 minutes ahead of schedule after a few hugs and goodbyes.
What in winter would be called frost but in summer is called fog touches the outside of our front and side windows as we head down the 401 South towards Toronto for a quick visit to my wife's grandfather to pick up a few things we left earlier this week. The defroster best prepared for a Canadian winter has difficulty being asked to adjust to a dew point that I can't seem to find. At least I think that's what dew point is for. The windshield wipers provide a suitable salve for the perspiration accumulating on the glass' upper lip.
After second goodbyes, we're off again making great time through a required Tim Horton's visit and a final food store stop for rotini that touches the tooth a bit better and Wheat Thins that are thicker and wheatier than those found on our side of the border. We head towards the crossing and have three bridges to choose from to touch American soil again: Lewiston-Queenston, whose location is self-evident, Rainbow touching Niagara Falls plural - both Canadian and American towns share the same name - and Peace between Buffalo and Fort Erie. The road signs ahead indicate Rainbow's wait will be half that of L-Q’s and Peace's 90 minutes so we opt to split the difference and take the middle route.
We'll never know if the other ways were faster as we first touch traffic a mile out from the bridge. We don't just slow to a snail's pace, we arrive at a dead stop. Forty-five minutes later - the previously posted wait time along the roads behind - and we're not yet to the first traffic light. Some quick math confirms we're officially traveling an eighth of a mile per hour. If I could make it over from the left lane to the right, I could take the roads through the town, but not being a local, and not knowing whether doing so will put me at a better entrance or not, I proceed past the last traffic light for the last cross street. There's no turning back now.
An hour elapses followed slowly by its brother. We can see the bridge entrance ahead around the corner. We nearly touch the bumper of the car ahead of us to prevent the sidlers from getting into our lane, the only lane, heading for the bridge entrance. I prevent multiple Ontario plates from getting ahead - they're not as friendly as assumed - a Florida, multiple New Jersey - those check - and New York plates. Other than a few expletives, a few cries of disbelief, a few rails against the ridiculousness, my wife is impressed with my calm state of being. I've nearly touched the anger and rage typically associated with situations like this but I've kept it at arm's length. I've been burned by the stove before. I've learned my lesson.
While our path remains the same, our game plan as we near the customs agent adjusts. We've been in line for nearly four hours and any further delay will make me lose it. Instead of saying we have wine from a Cranberry bog we visited, we state we only have gifts that our 13-year old received for her birthday, and some thrift store purchases, books and Tuperware mostly. Thirty-four seconds later and what appears to be a just-as-frustrated border guard wishes us safe home through gritted teeth.
What was a middling rain increases as we head East across Interstate 90. We're a touch low on gas, fewer than 40 miles until empty - what is it about my need to empty the tank as much as possible before refilling it fully again (there's a metaphor in there I think) - so we follow the signs from the highway to the gas station, its location a bit farther from the highway than a services sign should be allowed to indicate. I fill the gas tank while realizing that I need to unfill my own and signal my uncomfortable state of being to my family inside waiting in line to use the restroom. Nozzle returned to the pump, I rush inside telling my wife and youngest that I need to go and go next, and they oblige. Expelling with relief, I note that it was a touch too close for comfort.
Back on the highway a bit after 4pm after a circuitous route through a neighborhood with homemade 25 mph signs on every citizens' lawns showing a touch of community unity, we set a goal to get past Syracuse before stopping to eat. With the rain over and roads drying with the heat of the setting sun and the friction from the tires, we make it almost to Binghamton without stopping. This being the last day of vacation and all, after as American a meal as it gets at McDonald's, we increase that pride, topping it off with some Ice Cream - soft-serve for the girls - and a Milkshake - mocha Oreo chip, and a large no less (for the caffeine) for me - from local upstate dairy producer and gas station purveyor, Byrne Dairy, before proceeding through New York's Southern Tier, a region filled with valleys along the border with Pennsylvania.
Current Interstate Route 86 becomes Future Route 86 as what is Current Route 17 winds its way along the West Branch of the Delaware River. We're listening to a set of Daphne du Maurier short stories, the perfect author as the scene around us unfolds into low hanging clouds that carpet the floors of the valleys to our left and right. They're not quite grey, more brown - I'd even accept taupe - as they appear to nearly touch down, like the dry ice enveloping the floor in a haunted house.
Before a formal fog fields the forest and before the sun sets softly we see the sky above in rainbows - two of them - to our South as we head East. With a light that can only be described as sepia-toned, the river at its widest takes on the appearance of a moon shaped pool as the sun disappears behind us. As an evening sky provides the glow against a forest of what look like fake plastic trees, we head up the hill around a bend reducing our risk of being left both high and dry as the rain fails to make up its mind. The Subaru Outback equipped with an airbag for both the driver and the front passenger combined with the reasonable speed I maintain provide the elements necessary for no surprises should an accident occur.
With it now fully dark and us being on the road for 13 hours already, my wife asks if I'm still ok to drive. The rain and clouds above and windy roads behind have kept my attention. The caffeine from the milkshake has done its trick, and the size of the milkshake has upset my stomach just this side of enough to take my focus away from how tired I've become.
But I am tired. And though that is the state of being I maintain up a 7% grade, I decline the offer to find a hotel to rest for the evening. In current conditions, both weather and traffic, we should be home in under two hours. To spend a night in a hotel now - should one even be possible to procure at this hour in this rural county - would not only delay our arrival home, but it would cut into our Sunday removing the full day home after a vacation that somehow is always required after an extended time away. I want to sleep in my own bed, touch my head to my own pillow, and wake to the birds and sunlight, softly and loudly (but) respectively, tomorrow morning.
We slip past the exit for the camp our youngest attended for three and a half weeks last summer without me commenting about where we are. Realizing my neglect as we descend the next hill, I ask if she missed going to camp this year. Answering in the affirmative, she says she wants to go back next year, but only for two weeks this time, the half summer session a touch too long for her.
As we approach the mixmaster for the junctions of Routes 17 and 6 and the New York Thruway (I-87) I decide a normally scenic route up and over the mountain via 6 is ill-advised. While Google Maps indicates it would be just a touch longer - and when normally faced with scenic plus five to ten minutes or interstate has me choosing the first option - the night's fog, day's fatigue and hour’s lateness have me putting the blinker to the right towards the interstate (love song) South.
Yet despite the hour, the road is filled with headlights white and taillights red. My eyes have trouble adjusting to the increased lumens. I must be getting old because I don't remember car lights being this bright as a child, teen or young adult. They touch against the rods - or is it cones? - causing my pupils to narrow and my vision to blur ever so noticeably. Worth repeating because I’m getting old: I'm getting old.
We touch down in our town a little past 10pm and decide to the leave the non-perishables in the car for the evening taking with us only what eight hands could carry. We're all tired, one of us more than the others, but there's something about being home that provides an invigorating relaxation of comfort that prohibits us from heading to bed right away. When I do finally head to bed, it's with a book, and as my eyes slowly slip shut as I make my way through just a few pages, I place that book on the nightstand and somehow can't fall asleep right away, not because the reading raced my heart or stirred my thoughts but something else. The feeling isn't far from that after experience after a migraine caught soon enough by medication, a burst of energy from the placement of the book on the stand like the effects of the pill. But like a shot of adrenaline after it wears thin, I succumb to the sleep best found only in the comfort of my own bed after a week away.
I reflect back on the week when I awake the next morning. I committed to being present with my family for the week and as a result I was present with myself. That presence allowed me to describe the moments in the first half of this essay as they happened; that presence helped form the ridge-lines in my brain that traced the car ride home that I used to write these words months later. This is where I would say that we as a society are too distracted these days, that we have too many devices, that we are prone to being present without being present. But that would require data and explanations and published studies with which I do not wish to bore (both you and me), especially at this increasing word count.
Instead I will say that I am too often distracted. And yes some of it - most of it? - is from the Slacks and the emails and text messages and the Substacks and the books and the need to check my WHOOP Recovery Score3 the second I wake up and the need to track everything I do. But it's also that my mind is always thinking, always observing, always working, always guessing and guessing again. Some of this is pleasant. Pulling a thread of an idea for a piece through observation and playing with words in my head before putting them to paper brings me smiles. But some of that playing with words leads to guessing and questioning and doubting the idea, snuffing out the flame before it's given the oxygen needed to provide real warmth and light.
The magic is finding that line, to being in arm's length of touching it, without going over. Robert Bly, in his book about men, Iron John4 - the one I read at the start of this piece - discusses the parable of the Wild Man who is found by a young boy.
The aim is not to be5 the Wild Man, but to be in touch with the Wild Man. No sane man in Greece would say, "I want to be Zeus," but in American culture, past and present, we find people who want to be the Wild Man - writers as intelligent as Kerouac fail to make the distinction between being, and being in touch with. Trying to be the Wild Man ends in early death, and confusion for everyone.
The story of Iron John and the Wild Man is an old one. A king, worried about the impact of a red-haired wild man on his people sends his men to find him. After finding him in the lake, he drains it, capturing the man, whom he imprisons. The son of another king having banished himself from that other kingdom, who works for this new king, loses an object in the prison, goes and talks to the Wild Man, and eventually sets him free with the promise that whenever the boy needs him, he will make himself available. There's a bit about young love mixed in, and a happy ending like many fairy tales. Bly uses it as an allegory for boys becoming men but not fully wild men. There's symbolism in the Wild Man's red hair, about the boy's mother and the key under her pillow, about a garden where the boy picks his love some flowers, about the men on horses heading into the woods, among others.
There are moments when I wish to escape to the woods, to be wild, to be free, to live in some off-the-grid cabin. The week on the island in the Pool is about as close as I get to being the Wild Man. The beard, the lake baths, the same clothing worn every day; the separation from the notifications, the news, the normal days of summer. It's brought me closer to family, to nature, to the ebbs and flows of a tideless lake marking time instead of the watch or the tasks lists' checkmarks and X's like the falling grains of sand of my days. Men, and husbands and fathers have our responsibilities, but we all need to be in touch with the Wild Man from time to time in order to see, sense and appreciate what is in front of us most of the time.
The smell of rain on soil.
Every 13 and 17 years, respectively.
I paused my WHOOP for September and haven’t reactivated it, so I’ve eliminated one variable.
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Emphasis his.