Seeing Things

The Borneo Mustang-1

Great Nature has another thing to do

Great Nature has another thing to doTo you and me, so take the lively air,

To you and me, so take the lively air,And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.-Theodore Roethke

My first summer home from college, I worked in an ice cream factory. In a gymnasium-sized freezer, I stacked sleeves of ice cream novelties on pallets and then moved those pallets into reefer rigs backed up to the airtight doors on the loading dock. The factory laid off the college kids in mid-August, so I traveled to the Boundary Waters for a canoe trip. I had never journeyed by canoe, but I cheerfully spent my savings from the factory job on a backpack, compass, topological maps, sleeping bag, tent, freeze-dried food, tiny butane stove, poncho, harmonica, and deet. I was nineteen and eager to rough it in the land of lakes, where voyagers can paddle from Minnesota to Hudson Bay.

My canoe companion was Jimmy Johansson. We met when we were five years old and remained friends through a mutual interest in art, music, literature, nature, fishing, and booze. Our debarkation point was Ely, a town full of canoe-trip outfitters. We rode the Greyhound north through Iowa and Minnesota—a long, mind-numbing day. When we arrived in Ely, we arranged first thing to rent a canoe. We ate steaks and potatoes at a local restaurant, and then in the dark of night we walked out of town to find a place to sleep. With so much camping equipment, we saw no reason to pay for a motel room.

About two miles out of town we saw, off to the side of the road in the dim starlight, a clearing in the trees. Jimmy and I crawled through a barbed wire fence and laid out our sleeping bags. We built a small fire. From my pack I pulled a bota of brandy. The brandy was cheap, and the bota’s latex lining had dissolved in it. The latex and the bota’s cured leather made the brandy taste utterly wretched. We drank it, and soon we passed out, oblivious to the owls, coyotes, wolves, and whip-poor-wills.

In the minutes of false dawn, I came awake to find that a cricket had crawled into my mouth. Shuddering, I spat it out. I lay on the ground, my head resounding, stomach churning, world spinning. I heard then, not far off, a stick snap. I heard a grumble and mumble from deep in some bestial throat. I heard very heavy footsteps drawing nearer and nearer.

I lay still as I could, my pulse drumming in my ears. I felt a new sensation—a tingling terror, electrical and pulsing. I was zipped immobile into my bag. I could smell the approaching bear. I felt his warm breath on my face. I felt then his wet nose push on my neck just below my right ear. Against the lids of my closed eyes, red light flashed like strobes. I imagined this bear tearing my head free of my body and batting it around between the jack pines. I felt as though I had no arms or legs, like a trout reeled from the lake and tossed onto the dock to twitch and flop.

As you can guess, I survived. Inexplicably, the bear did not attack me. He walked on. Just two yards away, Jimmy slept obliviously. The bear’s visit murdered sleep for me, and I waited for full-dawn, miserable, exhausted, and relieved. Later, as we walked from our campsite, we saw we had pitched camp on the edge of the city dump. No wonder the bear came close in the night.

Never before had I felt such fear, but I would again, and we all have felt it by our fourth decade, for survival is not without close calls. These confrontations with the heart in terror create, perhaps, a commonality and bridge between people, a shared territory in extremis.

extremis* * *

Three days later I was an old hand in the stern of a canoe. As though born to it, I C-stroked and J-stroked across lake after lake. I learned to agree with my canoe partner on a point of land and paddle toward it, thus making our efforts cooperative rather than exhausting. We skimmed through the beautiful lakes, heard loons in the morning and wolves at night, saw moose in the brush, watched ospreys and eagles ride the thermals above the Iron Range. We portaged between lakes and paddled north across the boundary into Canada.

On the fourth day we negotiated a narrow, shallow isthmus. The water was no more than three feet deep. Ahead and off to the right side, Jimmy spotted a little creature swimming away from us. It appeared to be a muskrat or small beaver, maybe ten inches long. We could make out more of its wake than its body. We decided to take a closer look. We glided closer until the little swimmer was just beside our canoe and to our right, midway between me in the stern and Jimmy in the prow. We saw, then, that we had observed not a small rodent swimming, but rather just the nose of a bear walking though the water. The bear stood up and towered over us, dripping on us, and gazing back and forth at Jimmy and me. Jimmy held his paddle in both hands. “God, Jimmy, don’t hit him,” I stage-whispered. Again, I felt the electricity of terror. I saw my limbs tremble. The bear placed his paws on the gunwale of the canoe. He lifted his muzzle to the sky and opened his jaws wide. I could see his fangs and his tongue and the cavern of his maw. I heard his huge claws click and rasp the edge of the canoe. He uttered a sound very much like a yawn. I was impaled by fear. After several centuries-long moments, the bear released our canoe and swam around behind me. I felt, for the first time in my life, my scalp tighten and constrict. I knew my hair was standing up. The bear came into sight on the left. It waded to shore and sat down on a sandy spot. Around him, monarch butterflies rolled lazily in the air. Small waves washed gently on the rocks. I heard the hum of mosquitoes as they flew to us from the trees, and I heard the soft call of mourning doves across the lake.

* * *

One of my favorite aunts, Patsy Clark, grew up in the Carolinas. Through inheritance and business acumen, she made a fortune. I often stayed with her and my Uncle Bruce when they were alive, and I was young. In their retirement years, they lived on the shores of a lake in the Canadian Rockies, and I would ride my motorcycle north from Spokane to visit. I loved listening to Aunt Patsy’s stories. She filled her narratives with colorful southern phrases. If but one piece of chicken remained on the platter in the center of the table, she would say, by way of encouraging me, “Put your paw on it and growl.”

In the winters, Aunt Patsy and Uncle Bruce would leave Canada and live in their Spokane home. On Thanksgiving and Christmas, I’d stay with them there, and they would take me to the Spokane Club for dinner. The yearly dues at the Spokane Club exceed my current annual income as an English instructor. We would line up for our turn at the club’s buffet table, cheek to jowl with members of Spokane’s oldest and wealthiest families. If Aunt Patsy saw some particularly attractive crab legs or caviar or smoked salmon, she’d shout, “Quick! Grab it all before the hoarders get here!” I have held fast to this phrase. I use it often. I love its self-mocking, double-barreled, mirror-image irony and joie de vivre. And I love the truth in it.

joie de vivre* * *

The first days of June have arrived here in the Cascades’ foothills. In my part of the world, late spring is the finest time to ride a motorcycle. The cold of early spring has passed; it no longer penetrates the leather jacket and chaps. It no longer numbs the fingers on the throttle and clutch. Nor has the heat of summer become so intense that the engine’s heat becomes intolerable as I wait for traffic lights to change. In early spring, our valley is beautiful. Most trees in these parts are ornamentals, not native, and they are blooming now, in early June. The foothills have not yet turned brown. They still look fuzzy and green.

In late spring, I like to ride out to neighboring small towns. I’ll see, as I cruise along, the rural high schools, their marquees emblazoned with the motto of the graduating class. As often as not, that motto is Carpe diem, “Seize the day.” I always laugh when I see that motto.

Carpe diemCarpe diem is, traditionally, an occasion for poetry. The term itself is telescoped. It means more than “Seize the day.” I have read many such poems, and they have one common theme: Since life is short and death is certain and old age is crippling, let us take advantage of our beautiful young bodies, and seizing the day, let us make wild love right here, right now. “Carpe diem” is simply the abbreviation for “Take this opportunity to have sex.” Don’t accept my word on this; do what I have done and spend thirty-five years reading poetry. You’ll find I’m right. Sometimes I think high school principals are unaware of the full implications of Carpe diem’s exhortation. Other times, I’m certain they know.

Carpe diemCarpe diem’s* * *

Before my sister and brother-in-law had children, they traveled. They worked on the road for Broadway productions. For several years, Chorus Line International was their life. My sister worked in wardrobe and Dan, my brother-in-law, in lighting. In the summer of 1980, their company staged the show in Portland, and I took it into my head to ride a 400cc Yamaha Special from Spokane to visit them. Driving a car, one would not wish the ride any longer. On a small motorcycle, I felt numb and wrung out by the time I reached the Columbia gorge. The wind in the gorge is strong, and I rode canted toward the river to compensate. Hour upon hour I clung to the buzzing, vibrating little motorcycle. When I stopped for gas, I found I could barely walk. Stupidly, I pushed on.

The Columbia is our region’s largest river, and it cuts directly through the Cascades. Many smaller tributaries feed it on its way to the Pacific. The smaller mountain rivers spill out of Washington and Oregon from higher elevation, and in these mountains, weather follows the valleys. I rode west on the major four-lane highway, leaning into the powerful wind, my right boot almost rubbing the pavement. Nearly comatose from exhaustion, I approached the confluence where the Deschutes gorge meets the Columbia gorge. I was going seventy. I whipped onto the bridge, and a sudden williwaw of wind from the Deschutes hit me from the left. Already leaning right, I felt the bike begin to lie down. Somehow, I tore through it before I toppled. I stood on the left foot peg, pulling the bike upright, and made it across the bridge. I drove onto the shoulder of the highway and stopped. I lowered the kickstand and dismounted. After a moment of trembling, I sat down on the ground. That night I rented a room in The Dalles. I walked to the closest theater and watched Return of the Jedi.

Return of the Jedi* * *

While I pursued my first graduate degree in Iowa City, my roommate, Mike Elgin, had more money than I had. He rented a big house, a nice one, and he let me live in it for a nominal fee. He owned a roadster. He ate prime rib and drank excellent wine. He filled the nice house with art, antiques, expensive Persian rugs, state-of-the-art stereos, and shiny treasures. He dated women who were expensive to maintain. He had a taste for the good things, and he loved the hedonistic life. I pursued a degree in rhetoric, he in ceramics.