I finished John Steinbeck's East of Eden today. I realize that my penchant for superlatives will cast a very 'boy who cried wolf' shade onto the next few words, but please believe me when I say that East of Eden provided me with more joy and inspiration than nearly any other single entity in my history. I beg of you to read it, if you haven't, and reread it if you have.
If anyone is able to contact Laura Henneghan, please give her my most sincere thanks for the gift. I do not know what I would be doing now without it.
Monday, 14 March 2011
Sunday, 6 March 2011
Looking Backwards Pt. 3: A Fall
Juxtaposition is the heart of nearly any emotion or tide of feeling. Dark creates light, love creates hatred, and mediocrity creates itself. The buoyant glee that marked the day previous and entered my tent with the sun was bound to meet its shade somewhere, and I think that some deep delved crevice of my brain felt the darkness even then.
I awoke sharp and aware. The violent battle against soft comfort that usually marks my mornings had been won days before when I decided to set out on this excursion, decided to outnumber comfort hopelessly with fresh scenery and the siren call of waves. Amanda and Sam had been up for some time before me, running along the ridges and greeting the sun. Our chatter (and more specifically my thunderous, sputtering laugh) drew Mat from slumber slightly less subtly than his windowtapping had drawn me the morning before. We were happy, and the swift actions that pulled down our tents and brought food to our mouths spoke to that early joy. Our little pine castle was too good to dismiss, and with the prospect of endless exploration available in the mere few miles adjacent to us along the shore we knew that we wanted to return here for our second night. I stashed my pack under cover near a brushtail possum's grisly den and hung a bright green streamstained nalgene above it for future reference.
To hike packless the day after a 7 hour, 60 pound trek is like stepping out of a punk show at the House of Blues on a barely Spring night, when the mere difference in atmospheric pressure can heal bruises and compacted ribs alike. I half-leaped down the hillsides, and only but wished that I could full-leap and reach the sands in a single bound. We knew that Boulder Beach was closed to the public for another week, but we had seen tiny surfers on the waves in evening's glow and wanted very deeply to field-test the freedom that this new country claimed to offer. We reached the fence that separated us from the ocean, and had begun to shift our caterpillar collective across the barrier when an unquestioning voice behind us asked whether we were aware of the beach's closure. I was sure as I turned that we were facing an Authority, and that these islanders did indeed have some preternatural ability to sense the spoiling of their shores as I had deeply dreamed. Instead we faced an old man, just crossing the fence into frailty, a wizened resident in a red raincoat. We mumbled softly and guiltily as we clambered back over onto the track, and you could see even through the sunglasses that his eyes softened at our chastened tail-lowering.
“Sandfly Beach is just down the track here, should you take a right at the carpark. Sea lions, penguins, it's beautiful and open as well.”
Our eyes relit and our tails took up a tentative wag as we questioned the direction and excellence of this new goal. We traded glances and nods, reassured ourselves of the path, and set off again just a half-step less pleased with ourselves. I felt a small shiver run through me, and silently cursed the old meddler for stopping us, sure that Boulder Beach had held our hearts ransom these last 13 hours for a reason. I shook my head and scolded those negative thoughts, dropping behind the group to talk with our elderly Caution Sign in penance.
I asked after his origins and his home, which he somehow managed to morph into a diatribe against the prevalence of alcohol abuse amongst Otago students. As I expressed agreeance and sympathy with his plight I saw his mouthcorners turn up, and the pace of his walking and speech increased. He had lived in Dunedin his whole life, and seemed to equate the turning of the city's tides with the arrival of new University chancellors. The most recent chancellor had encouraged Otago's reputation as a party school, even going so far as to court the local brewery into sponsoring freshman orientation. The resulting Bachannalianism drew rich private school yups to the Pride of the Southlands, assured that they would receive a degree with the smallest possible effort and the largest hangover. I was absolutely sincere in my words as I decried this trend, tricked as I had been by the reputation of the University. My school in the States had shouted forth only the quality of Otago's geography program, and the availability of outdoor adventure. Now I was finding not only these but a horde of wife-beater clad young men firmly ensconced on front porches, with a beer or twelve firmly ensconced in each hand. Many of my fellow internationals had done their research a little more thoroughly and made the informed decision to come party hard at Otago, and many had already sent home for more brewmoney. Sharing these tales with my walking companion drew him out of his well-worn lecturer's shell and I saw him for what he was, a large heart with too many loves and cares, constantly scared that the beautiful youth around him would scar itself too deeply and scar him in the process.
I could not give up the opportunity to search for pearls while the shell was open, and immediately pressed in for information on my surroundings. He chuckled a little as he admitted his ignorance, pointing out the ubiquitous roadside flax as his only point of reference and knowledge. Just before we reached his stop, however, he straightened and remembered that the flat-topped evergreens dotting the countryside in little clusters were a western American breed, brought across by gold seekers in one of the great rushes of the 19th century. Look closely, he said, and you are guaranteed to find an old chimney, foundation, or fence post under these windblown markers. My head spun with treasure hunts and mapping plans, whirligigged around by this invaluable nugget of information. I walked quickly in excitement, and did not notice for too long that the old man had stopped behind me, out of breath and staring up at the close southern sun. That sun and his conversational exertion had taken their toll on my new friend, and he sat down in the flax to wait for his wife and chariot. I thanked him for his willingness to share and his deep love of the world, held his hand firmly in my own, and left the panting grandfather to recover his strength in the breeze. My companions were far ahead and almost to the beachroad's entrance, and I took long strides to catch up.
Sandlfy beach is not named after an insect. The great sweeping dunes funneled inward by two cliff faces nearly perpendicular to the water attested to the etymology of the place, as did the stinging bite of airborne beach. The winds here were strong, polydirectional, and constant. We took off our boots after the three hour morning hike and let wrinkled feet sink into something even softer than Smartwool. Every time I looked back at my friends a new piece of clothing had been removed, a wider smile graced their faces. We reached the water and were blown to the southern edge of the beach, away from the small clumps of tourists wandering along the calmer northern sands. I began to remove everything but my synthetic longjohns, unsure as to the acceptability of skin on public beaches here. Amanda and Matt showed no such reservation as they stripped naked and dove right in to the southern Pacific surf. I followed on my own time, ignoring their rather high-pitched warnings that sounded something like “oh my holy crap it's colder than a yeti's junk out here!” The waves were indeed cold, but in such a way as to bring a new awareness of life and living into me. My breath was shocked out of me, and I knew my lungs intimately. The muscles in my arms and legs contracted violently, and I knew my force and strength. My groin burned with cold and I knew what my body would do to protect its potential for life-making. The waves struck me and I knew what was real in me, what was vital.
I left the water after a spell, when my inner legs began telling me that I would never have children. I was staring ahead at the cliffs and thinking when one of the rocks began to move, and rolled over its flabby mass. I smiled at the sleepy sea lion, and watched him shuffle into a new sunlit spot with all the apparent haste of a glacier. His cliffs seemed sunny and beckoning, and I decided to find such a bed as my friend had found to dry off. Slowly and with the utmost caution I began to scale the rocks, pumice-like dark stone slowly etched by sandblast winds. The thousands of little pockmarks provided a perfect purchase, and I found a half-foot wide ledge a few metres up. The shelf continued to my left, towards the sea, for what seemed a long time.
I have always had trouble ignoring the vectors of nature, the beckoning lines and arrows. So much of the world begs to be followed and explored; so much of the world has evolved randomly, through so much uncaring natural process, to form tailored human highways. That thousands of years of wind, wave, and rock would carve a ledge so well fit to my feet negated debate, and I followed. Twenty, thirty feet I crept out across over the surf, fingers and toes intimately connected with the nuanced stone beneath. My little road reached its culdesac and I followed the order to retreat, tempted though I was to scale higher. I inched back along the ledge, feeling the sun and wind dry my skin and bake Sandfly Beach into my bones. I had reached my starting point, was looking for an easy path down, and then my right foot was gone from the wall.
For a long instant my weight lay on my hands, pinning me crosslike to the cliff on splayed arms as my feet swung out above the sand. Then my soft schoolwork digits lost the wall, and I slid down twisting and straining for purchase. I was so aware of my every square inch of surface in that time, aware of my side and back against the cheesegrater rocks, aware of my right heel's brutal touchdown on some outthrust point and the weightlessness of free air as I pinwheeled away from the face. Every moment was a snapshot, a series of crystal clear feeling-photographs held out at a distance for me to view even as my head and shoulders struck the wet sand and I rolled backwards onto my feet. I staggered up and questioned reality to its core, until a distant “Holy S*&%!!” rebuilt my crumbling faith in the moment.
Mat stood 20 metres away, semi-smile of disbelief and tentative hope glued onto his tightly drawn cheeks. I could tell, even from that distance, that he was stuck somewhere between the joy of my still-breathing state and the fear that must still have its roots thrust into his heart from the seconds previous. I walked towards him as steadily as I could, convinced in my mind that I needed to assuage his fears and convince him of my health. At the moment of his prophetic exclamation I had become convinced that my role was that of the capable explorer, the unshakeable leader. I was hurt, I knew that. Or did I? Perhaps I am alright, unharmed by the dictate of some foreign grace? I must be, I must...
I looked down at my hands, and saw the blood pooling in little moon-craters. There was sand and seaweed in the wounds, maybe the only thing keeping the blood from overflowing onto the beach. My right hip was devoid of flesh, and every step revealed some subcutaneous movement that I neither recognized nor cared for. My chest was splashed with small scratches and large bloodsand patches. And my back reeeeaaally hurt.
All of this in the few steps to Mat's expectant pose, all of this just in time to raise my hand palm-up to my friend and say,
“I'm sorry”
Mat laughed hesitantly,
“That was, uh, quite the fall there bud. Scared me a little.”
“Y-yeah, pretty stupid I guess. I think I am alright though? Is my back...?”
“Yeah, no, I mean, you got it pretty good.”
“Bleeding?”
“Not too mu- yeah, I mean, it's not BLEEDING bleeding.”
There was one wound here that I had never felt before in my life, could not place. Somewhere in the fall I had severed the tendon that linked my thoughts to my speech. I wanted so badly to tell him that it wasn't that bad, that I was okay, that Wow, the sun is fantastically bright right now and that seems to be making me a little dizzy but it's okay because I am a strong young lad and this shouldn't affect our trip at all and I believe that the proper course of action would be to go clean my wounds in the sea (saltwater, quite good for this type of thing you know, read it in all types of books as a child) and though I am perhaps a little worried by these wounds in my hands that oh my, look, they are starting to overflow their little basins and bubble off across my arm, how beautifully that red juxtaposes with the joyful green of the seaweed, wait, what was I saying about the sea, oh yes!
“Uuuuuh... gonna go wash off now.”
My foolishness seemed immaculate, impossible, perfect in its destruction of my plans and intentions. I cursed myself hardily for the first few steps towards the water until I forgot what I was cursing about and realized that the contrast was slowly seeping away from the sundrenched colors of my world. The sand was becoming the cliff was becoming the sky, and the only entity that retained its individuality in this bleeding storm was the diamondbright sea, sparkling hard and sharp and filling my horizon. I began to fear the flint waves, began to feel the cold mineral sheets razor through my hand and hip and back with a terrifying lack of care. For a moment I almost stopped, almost sat down in the sand to cry and hold my knees. But something in me reflected the hardness of that glass pool, and held my movement rigid as it told me that unshakeable leaders braved silly salt stings.
I waded into the surf and for a moment didn't even remember that I was supposed to be cold. The water was less hard in person, and even as I lay back into the waves its little razors seemed dull and distant. I realized that nowhere did my body hurt sharply; it instead merely ached dully all over, a winter's apathy rather than a breakup's rage. I picked myself up out of the sea and turned back towards Mat's distant form, lost slightly in the dying outlines of this strange world. I walked towards him, and every step brought me deeper into the fade. I realized that without the sea to guide me I could not distinguish anything in this sparkling, off-tan world. The contrast continued to equalize, the borders continued to dissolve, and suddenly the different shades of brown began to dance with one another, crossing outlines to mingle with their neighbors. The sand and sky amalgamating, I grew afraid that I would lose track of their position and fall into one or the other, so I decided to sit down. The comforting earth warmed my back as I lay, but not enough to tie my body back into physical reality. Indeed, at this moment the broken lines that used to separate things, and now frolicked through the muddy background, decided to reassemble. They drew great columns and fluted spires, vague peopleforms and roaring beasts. I saw faces I could have known forever or perhaps just met, and they leaned in close to disappear just before the secrets came. Brown turned to black in the world around me, and the lines inverted into a blinding light, new forms wreathed in flame. These angels or demons filled my vision, tested my will, drove home their great swo-
“SAM! SAM!!!! SAAAAAMMM!!!!”
I opened my eyes, and there was no hint of smile left on Mat's face.
“You passed out, dude. I thought you were just resting your eyes or something, but then you wouldn't wake up when I called you name. I yelled for help... you want some water dude?”
I nodded. Vigorously.
I took the water bottle and gulped furiously. I felt my back sting mightily, and realized that I had lain backwards in the sand, filling my 'not BLEEDING bleeding' back with a million little pieces of our none-too-benevolent microscopic earth. Damn.
Amanda walked over, and Mat explained the situation.
“I thought you were joking when you called for help. Jesus.”
“Can you walk me to the water, please? I need to clean off some more. Also, Mat, if you could go grab Sam and ask him to call his Kiwihost, I think I should get out of here. I am so sorry, guys.”
Amanda walked me to the sea, and held my hand as I dipped backwards into the water. This time it hurt. She asked for warning if I intended to faint again, since she wouldn't be able to catch all six and a third feet of me should I fall. I told her that wouldn't be necessary, and it wasn't.
We gathered our things, and the others waited as I gingerly tied my boots with my aching hands. Sand covered my whole body and drove stinging into my cuts as we climbed high and far to the carpark, and begged an old Australian couple for a ride. They dropped us off at Buskin Road, and we waited a long time in wailing winds for Derek and his girlfriend to arrive. Mat and Amanda went to fish out the stashed gear, and Sam rode with me back into town.
The nurse was gentle as she could be with the brushes as she scoured my wounds, and nicer than I deserved. We chatted about Minnesota, Dunedin, the Peninsula, and ice hockey. She gave me her email and phone number, inviting to her home for dinner. She also told me that her husband was a vet on the Peninsula, and that he would surely take me out on a cruise to meet the penguins and sea lions we had missed in my tumble. I hugged her before I left, and she forgot the wounds she had just tended in order to squeeze me as hard as she could. I believe she thought the tears that came to eyes were from some deep personal connection and not the phenomenal pain of a bearhug on my broken skin, and I truly hope that she thinks so to this day. Derek drove me home, dropped me off with a few encouraging words.
I sat down at my computer and began to write.
I awoke sharp and aware. The violent battle against soft comfort that usually marks my mornings had been won days before when I decided to set out on this excursion, decided to outnumber comfort hopelessly with fresh scenery and the siren call of waves. Amanda and Sam had been up for some time before me, running along the ridges and greeting the sun. Our chatter (and more specifically my thunderous, sputtering laugh) drew Mat from slumber slightly less subtly than his windowtapping had drawn me the morning before. We were happy, and the swift actions that pulled down our tents and brought food to our mouths spoke to that early joy. Our little pine castle was too good to dismiss, and with the prospect of endless exploration available in the mere few miles adjacent to us along the shore we knew that we wanted to return here for our second night. I stashed my pack under cover near a brushtail possum's grisly den and hung a bright green streamstained nalgene above it for future reference.
To hike packless the day after a 7 hour, 60 pound trek is like stepping out of a punk show at the House of Blues on a barely Spring night, when the mere difference in atmospheric pressure can heal bruises and compacted ribs alike. I half-leaped down the hillsides, and only but wished that I could full-leap and reach the sands in a single bound. We knew that Boulder Beach was closed to the public for another week, but we had seen tiny surfers on the waves in evening's glow and wanted very deeply to field-test the freedom that this new country claimed to offer. We reached the fence that separated us from the ocean, and had begun to shift our caterpillar collective across the barrier when an unquestioning voice behind us asked whether we were aware of the beach's closure. I was sure as I turned that we were facing an Authority, and that these islanders did indeed have some preternatural ability to sense the spoiling of their shores as I had deeply dreamed. Instead we faced an old man, just crossing the fence into frailty, a wizened resident in a red raincoat. We mumbled softly and guiltily as we clambered back over onto the track, and you could see even through the sunglasses that his eyes softened at our chastened tail-lowering.
“Sandfly Beach is just down the track here, should you take a right at the carpark. Sea lions, penguins, it's beautiful and open as well.”
Our eyes relit and our tails took up a tentative wag as we questioned the direction and excellence of this new goal. We traded glances and nods, reassured ourselves of the path, and set off again just a half-step less pleased with ourselves. I felt a small shiver run through me, and silently cursed the old meddler for stopping us, sure that Boulder Beach had held our hearts ransom these last 13 hours for a reason. I shook my head and scolded those negative thoughts, dropping behind the group to talk with our elderly Caution Sign in penance.
I asked after his origins and his home, which he somehow managed to morph into a diatribe against the prevalence of alcohol abuse amongst Otago students. As I expressed agreeance and sympathy with his plight I saw his mouthcorners turn up, and the pace of his walking and speech increased. He had lived in Dunedin his whole life, and seemed to equate the turning of the city's tides with the arrival of new University chancellors. The most recent chancellor had encouraged Otago's reputation as a party school, even going so far as to court the local brewery into sponsoring freshman orientation. The resulting Bachannalianism drew rich private school yups to the Pride of the Southlands, assured that they would receive a degree with the smallest possible effort and the largest hangover. I was absolutely sincere in my words as I decried this trend, tricked as I had been by the reputation of the University. My school in the States had shouted forth only the quality of Otago's geography program, and the availability of outdoor adventure. Now I was finding not only these but a horde of wife-beater clad young men firmly ensconced on front porches, with a beer or twelve firmly ensconced in each hand. Many of my fellow internationals had done their research a little more thoroughly and made the informed decision to come party hard at Otago, and many had already sent home for more brewmoney. Sharing these tales with my walking companion drew him out of his well-worn lecturer's shell and I saw him for what he was, a large heart with too many loves and cares, constantly scared that the beautiful youth around him would scar itself too deeply and scar him in the process.
I could not give up the opportunity to search for pearls while the shell was open, and immediately pressed in for information on my surroundings. He chuckled a little as he admitted his ignorance, pointing out the ubiquitous roadside flax as his only point of reference and knowledge. Just before we reached his stop, however, he straightened and remembered that the flat-topped evergreens dotting the countryside in little clusters were a western American breed, brought across by gold seekers in one of the great rushes of the 19th century. Look closely, he said, and you are guaranteed to find an old chimney, foundation, or fence post under these windblown markers. My head spun with treasure hunts and mapping plans, whirligigged around by this invaluable nugget of information. I walked quickly in excitement, and did not notice for too long that the old man had stopped behind me, out of breath and staring up at the close southern sun. That sun and his conversational exertion had taken their toll on my new friend, and he sat down in the flax to wait for his wife and chariot. I thanked him for his willingness to share and his deep love of the world, held his hand firmly in my own, and left the panting grandfather to recover his strength in the breeze. My companions were far ahead and almost to the beachroad's entrance, and I took long strides to catch up.
Sandlfy beach is not named after an insect. The great sweeping dunes funneled inward by two cliff faces nearly perpendicular to the water attested to the etymology of the place, as did the stinging bite of airborne beach. The winds here were strong, polydirectional, and constant. We took off our boots after the three hour morning hike and let wrinkled feet sink into something even softer than Smartwool. Every time I looked back at my friends a new piece of clothing had been removed, a wider smile graced their faces. We reached the water and were blown to the southern edge of the beach, away from the small clumps of tourists wandering along the calmer northern sands. I began to remove everything but my synthetic longjohns, unsure as to the acceptability of skin on public beaches here. Amanda and Matt showed no such reservation as they stripped naked and dove right in to the southern Pacific surf. I followed on my own time, ignoring their rather high-pitched warnings that sounded something like “oh my holy crap it's colder than a yeti's junk out here!” The waves were indeed cold, but in such a way as to bring a new awareness of life and living into me. My breath was shocked out of me, and I knew my lungs intimately. The muscles in my arms and legs contracted violently, and I knew my force and strength. My groin burned with cold and I knew what my body would do to protect its potential for life-making. The waves struck me and I knew what was real in me, what was vital.
I left the water after a spell, when my inner legs began telling me that I would never have children. I was staring ahead at the cliffs and thinking when one of the rocks began to move, and rolled over its flabby mass. I smiled at the sleepy sea lion, and watched him shuffle into a new sunlit spot with all the apparent haste of a glacier. His cliffs seemed sunny and beckoning, and I decided to find such a bed as my friend had found to dry off. Slowly and with the utmost caution I began to scale the rocks, pumice-like dark stone slowly etched by sandblast winds. The thousands of little pockmarks provided a perfect purchase, and I found a half-foot wide ledge a few metres up. The shelf continued to my left, towards the sea, for what seemed a long time.
I have always had trouble ignoring the vectors of nature, the beckoning lines and arrows. So much of the world begs to be followed and explored; so much of the world has evolved randomly, through so much uncaring natural process, to form tailored human highways. That thousands of years of wind, wave, and rock would carve a ledge so well fit to my feet negated debate, and I followed. Twenty, thirty feet I crept out across over the surf, fingers and toes intimately connected with the nuanced stone beneath. My little road reached its culdesac and I followed the order to retreat, tempted though I was to scale higher. I inched back along the ledge, feeling the sun and wind dry my skin and bake Sandfly Beach into my bones. I had reached my starting point, was looking for an easy path down, and then my right foot was gone from the wall.
For a long instant my weight lay on my hands, pinning me crosslike to the cliff on splayed arms as my feet swung out above the sand. Then my soft schoolwork digits lost the wall, and I slid down twisting and straining for purchase. I was so aware of my every square inch of surface in that time, aware of my side and back against the cheesegrater rocks, aware of my right heel's brutal touchdown on some outthrust point and the weightlessness of free air as I pinwheeled away from the face. Every moment was a snapshot, a series of crystal clear feeling-photographs held out at a distance for me to view even as my head and shoulders struck the wet sand and I rolled backwards onto my feet. I staggered up and questioned reality to its core, until a distant “Holy S*&%!!” rebuilt my crumbling faith in the moment.
Mat stood 20 metres away, semi-smile of disbelief and tentative hope glued onto his tightly drawn cheeks. I could tell, even from that distance, that he was stuck somewhere between the joy of my still-breathing state and the fear that must still have its roots thrust into his heart from the seconds previous. I walked towards him as steadily as I could, convinced in my mind that I needed to assuage his fears and convince him of my health. At the moment of his prophetic exclamation I had become convinced that my role was that of the capable explorer, the unshakeable leader. I was hurt, I knew that. Or did I? Perhaps I am alright, unharmed by the dictate of some foreign grace? I must be, I must...
I looked down at my hands, and saw the blood pooling in little moon-craters. There was sand and seaweed in the wounds, maybe the only thing keeping the blood from overflowing onto the beach. My right hip was devoid of flesh, and every step revealed some subcutaneous movement that I neither recognized nor cared for. My chest was splashed with small scratches and large bloodsand patches. And my back reeeeaaally hurt.
All of this in the few steps to Mat's expectant pose, all of this just in time to raise my hand palm-up to my friend and say,
“I'm sorry”
Mat laughed hesitantly,
“That was, uh, quite the fall there bud. Scared me a little.”
“Y-yeah, pretty stupid I guess. I think I am alright though? Is my back...?”
“Yeah, no, I mean, you got it pretty good.”
“Bleeding?”
“Not too mu- yeah, I mean, it's not BLEEDING bleeding.”
There was one wound here that I had never felt before in my life, could not place. Somewhere in the fall I had severed the tendon that linked my thoughts to my speech. I wanted so badly to tell him that it wasn't that bad, that I was okay, that Wow, the sun is fantastically bright right now and that seems to be making me a little dizzy but it's okay because I am a strong young lad and this shouldn't affect our trip at all and I believe that the proper course of action would be to go clean my wounds in the sea (saltwater, quite good for this type of thing you know, read it in all types of books as a child) and though I am perhaps a little worried by these wounds in my hands that oh my, look, they are starting to overflow their little basins and bubble off across my arm, how beautifully that red juxtaposes with the joyful green of the seaweed, wait, what was I saying about the sea, oh yes!
“Uuuuuh... gonna go wash off now.”
My foolishness seemed immaculate, impossible, perfect in its destruction of my plans and intentions. I cursed myself hardily for the first few steps towards the water until I forgot what I was cursing about and realized that the contrast was slowly seeping away from the sundrenched colors of my world. The sand was becoming the cliff was becoming the sky, and the only entity that retained its individuality in this bleeding storm was the diamondbright sea, sparkling hard and sharp and filling my horizon. I began to fear the flint waves, began to feel the cold mineral sheets razor through my hand and hip and back with a terrifying lack of care. For a moment I almost stopped, almost sat down in the sand to cry and hold my knees. But something in me reflected the hardness of that glass pool, and held my movement rigid as it told me that unshakeable leaders braved silly salt stings.
I waded into the surf and for a moment didn't even remember that I was supposed to be cold. The water was less hard in person, and even as I lay back into the waves its little razors seemed dull and distant. I realized that nowhere did my body hurt sharply; it instead merely ached dully all over, a winter's apathy rather than a breakup's rage. I picked myself up out of the sea and turned back towards Mat's distant form, lost slightly in the dying outlines of this strange world. I walked towards him, and every step brought me deeper into the fade. I realized that without the sea to guide me I could not distinguish anything in this sparkling, off-tan world. The contrast continued to equalize, the borders continued to dissolve, and suddenly the different shades of brown began to dance with one another, crossing outlines to mingle with their neighbors. The sand and sky amalgamating, I grew afraid that I would lose track of their position and fall into one or the other, so I decided to sit down. The comforting earth warmed my back as I lay, but not enough to tie my body back into physical reality. Indeed, at this moment the broken lines that used to separate things, and now frolicked through the muddy background, decided to reassemble. They drew great columns and fluted spires, vague peopleforms and roaring beasts. I saw faces I could have known forever or perhaps just met, and they leaned in close to disappear just before the secrets came. Brown turned to black in the world around me, and the lines inverted into a blinding light, new forms wreathed in flame. These angels or demons filled my vision, tested my will, drove home their great swo-
“SAM! SAM!!!! SAAAAAMMM!!!!”
I opened my eyes, and there was no hint of smile left on Mat's face.
“You passed out, dude. I thought you were just resting your eyes or something, but then you wouldn't wake up when I called you name. I yelled for help... you want some water dude?”
I nodded. Vigorously.
I took the water bottle and gulped furiously. I felt my back sting mightily, and realized that I had lain backwards in the sand, filling my 'not BLEEDING bleeding' back with a million little pieces of our none-too-benevolent microscopic earth. Damn.
Amanda walked over, and Mat explained the situation.
“I thought you were joking when you called for help. Jesus.”
“Can you walk me to the water, please? I need to clean off some more. Also, Mat, if you could go grab Sam and ask him to call his Kiwihost, I think I should get out of here. I am so sorry, guys.”
Amanda walked me to the sea, and held my hand as I dipped backwards into the water. This time it hurt. She asked for warning if I intended to faint again, since she wouldn't be able to catch all six and a third feet of me should I fall. I told her that wouldn't be necessary, and it wasn't.
We gathered our things, and the others waited as I gingerly tied my boots with my aching hands. Sand covered my whole body and drove stinging into my cuts as we climbed high and far to the carpark, and begged an old Australian couple for a ride. They dropped us off at Buskin Road, and we waited a long time in wailing winds for Derek and his girlfriend to arrive. Mat and Amanda went to fish out the stashed gear, and Sam rode with me back into town.
The nurse was gentle as she could be with the brushes as she scoured my wounds, and nicer than I deserved. We chatted about Minnesota, Dunedin, the Peninsula, and ice hockey. She gave me her email and phone number, inviting to her home for dinner. She also told me that her husband was a vet on the Peninsula, and that he would surely take me out on a cruise to meet the penguins and sea lions we had missed in my tumble. I hugged her before I left, and she forgot the wounds she had just tended in order to squeeze me as hard as she could. I believe she thought the tears that came to eyes were from some deep personal connection and not the phenomenal pain of a bearhug on my broken skin, and I truly hope that she thinks so to this day. Derek drove me home, dropped me off with a few encouraging words.
I sat down at my computer and began to write.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)