On the Road Again 2014 The Gathering #1

Every Gathering of the Rainbow Family is different. Some of those differences are related to how well the scouts have done their job. The people who go out to look for places to gather sometimes months before the Gathering need to ensure that the site is easy (but not too easy) to access, that there is good water to both drink and ideally to play in, that the site is large enough, that there is enough fire wood and perhaps most importantly that it is a safe place to camp.

But Gatherings also differ depending upon who turns up. The ratio of young and old(er) participants, or the ratios between genders or having a really good cook turn up all will affect  how a Gathering evolves. But Gatherings are also different because no two people ever have the same experience while at the same Gatherings. It may be one of the Family's greatest paradoxes - that while the Family is in large part about community living, the sharing of resources, and the collective celebration of love and harmony - people remain intensely individualistic and discuss their Gathering experiences in terms of themselves. I sometimes wonder if the reason why the Family does not resolve some of the larger issues they face is because we all see our experience as especially specific to us individuals.

Having said all of the above, the BC Island Family's (or whatever we call ourselves) Gathering this year was suburb. It would be hard to imagine a better Gathering for me - with the one exception that I wish there had been a few more people somewhere close to my age.

The Gathering was held west of Gold River, down some logging road. While I had been assured that the walk from the trailhead to the main circle area was very short and easy to hike, the real problem was going to be getting to the trail head. There are no buses that go in that direction. The last forty kilometers of the trip while it is the road to Tahis, was unpaved and I suspected, not very busy. I knew that there was no way that I could put myself in a position of having to walk any of that distance. So I reached out and made contact with someone who lives a on one of the smaller island to drive me to the Gathering. The answer wqs yes as long as I could meet him at the ferry terminal at 9:00 in the morning.Unfortunately the only Greyhound bus of the day got there at 3:30 PM. It would have been a long wait.

The Island Link bus service because of its more frequent bus runs got me to Buckley Bay at 8:30 at night. Getting there at that time was absolutely perfect. It gave me lots of timeto eat and to get set up for the night. I had originlly planned on cooking some soup on my little stove but the Subway shop at a nearby gas station was still open so I bought a "Veggie Lite" sub for supper. Perhaps it was a little bit lazy not too cook, but it was just so much easier.

I was in my sleeping bag by 9:30. The sky was clear and I was hopeful that there would be no rain or mosquitoes. I had not bothered to set up my tent. While it was a little bit weird sleeping on the grassy verge of a parking lot, it was reasonably quiet and quite dark. The moon which was nearly full was still low in the sky and so by the early hours of the morning millions of stars were visible. I spent an hour or so just laying there - staring at them and the occasional meteorite flashing across the sky.  For a parking lot, it was a delightful place to sleep. (The cars that were parked there were owned by people who lived one of the smaller islands but had chosen to leave the car on the "big' island and bike or walk on the ferry to save money.)

I was up by daybreak, in part because I couldn't sleep but also because I didn't want to have to get dressed/brush my teeth as people were coming off of a ferry and getting into their cars.

I was excited and could hardly wait for the first Ferry to arrive.

On the Road Again 2014 #12

I suspect I am not the only one who is getting tired of hearing me whine about not being able to hitchhike this year. So I am going to stop doing it. There were in fact some positives about not travelling my usual way. For example one of the advantages of not using my thumb to get around was that I learnt about another way of getting up-island. I also got more comfortable in negotiating rides from people, something I don't usually do.  
I had always thought that there was only one way to get up-island other than in a car and that was the Grayhound bus that leaves Duncan just after 9:00 AM seven days a week. It is a slow journey in that the bus takes the Coastal Island route which means it stops at every  town along the way. There are also major layovers of over a hour at both Nanaimo and Campbell River bus stations. I have used Greyhound in the past in part because there was no other way and because with my hostel card I can get a 15% discount. However after doing a bit more research I found that there is a smaller bus line that basically operates as a "dial-a-bus" service. It makes four runs up-island a day and only stops when some one has made a reservation.I suppose because relatively few people in Duncan use the service I had never seen the 12 passenger van in town. The one time I used it there were only three passengers. Which is a shame as it is a great service. It is about the same cost as Greyhound and a lot faster.  The fact that one has a choice as to time is great. I don't mind paying $5.00 more for a service that caters to my needs.

I don't like asking for rides (yes I am aware that sticking my thumb out is sort of like asking for a ride but the drivers as they zip by at a 110 are not being directly confronted by me). I don't take their decision to ignore me personally. It is not a direct rejection of me as a person. But when you ask someone eyeball to eyeball then if they say no, I feel bad and I suspect (hope?) that they might too. Many of my hitchhiking friends from the smaller islands are quite comfortable asking folks on the ferry for a ride but I think they almost always get rides from neighbours or folks who at least recognize them as being islanders. I don't have that advantage .

I, however, this year did arrange/ask for more rides than I ever have before both from people who work at the house where I stay on Salt Springs and from a friend who I knew was going to the Rainbow Gathering ( it is interesting, at least to me, to note that I have never had a problem asking for rides home from a Gathering). Of course the one problem in asking friends for a ride is that one is obliged to follow their schedule which sometimes means a longer wait. As well one doesn't hear any new stories or learn something completely new.

For example I was hitchin' from from the ferry terminal at Crofton ( having spent six or so days on Salt Spring) to Duncan. I knew there was a bus in an hour or so but I really didn't want to wait that long, it was hot and I wanted to get home. So I stuck out my thumb. The young man who picked me up talked about what it was like to be a teenager in Duncan. Quite simply for him and his friends, it was boring. There was nothing to do but to hang out and smoke pot. What few jobs there are in the summer are boring and low pay.

It is a short ride from Crofton to Duncan. There was not the time to get into an in depth exploration of all of the issues. Even without the ride I could have guessed that for many young adults life is boring in a small town, but it was good to hear it from a person who was living that life.

I know I said I wouldn't complain - but I do miss that interaction from the folks who pick me up.

On the Road Again 2014 #11

On occasion one of my students asks me what they can do to improve their writing. My standard answer is to write, and then write some more. I suggest to them that they should try to write 500 words a day. They don't have to be the best words or even the right words - editing comes later. But they need to get use to getting thoughts out of their heads and on to the paper. This suggestion is not something that I just made up. Other writers far more skilled than I can ever aspire to be have said it as well.

This summer I have not even come close to that daily goal. I am not too sure if there is a single reason for my lack of enthusiasm. Certainly not hitchhiking reduced the number of stories I could tell; it is hard to write when there are no grist for the mill. Many of the political stories I read in my daily ritual of scanning the news seemed repetitive and generally just boring.There was nothing that inspired me to write on a daily or even a weekly basis. Some of my lack of excitement is due to my sore back. I just did not travel as much as I have done in other years, I spent far more time this year sitting on a really nice lazy boy chair by the window in my son's living room and read. And I read more than I ever have before because i had access to an almost inexhaustible supply of books from my local library via the internet. In other years I have bought paperbacks from the local Sally Ann just down the street or from the Sassy Lion ( a charity thrift shop) that sells their books for three for a dollar. But in both stores the selection is limited and so I would ration my reading time. Having access to as many books to download and read as I wanted was like offering heroin to an addict. I consumed, I gorged, I luxuriated in the possibility of reading a book a day for weeks on end.

But as I sit here on the train just a few miles outside of Vancouver heading east (it left on time) I feel as if I spent part of the summer just a bit bored. I am not too sure if I accomplished very much. I did not do anything remarkable, I did not work hard at anything, in fact I invariably took the easiest possible route to anything/anywhere. And that just feels wrong.

It is not that I did absolutely nothing. I spent two days in Victoria, made two separate week long trips to Salt Spring Island, went camping for eleven days forty kilometers west of Gold River (in fact only a few miles from the Pacific Ocean) with my chosen family (Rainbow Family of Living Light) read a pile of books to my grandsons (actually the same few books read over and over and over again), went to the park numerous times to watch the same grandsons clamber over various pieces of playground equipment and started to carve what will be, when it is finished, my most complex walking stick. And all of that was wonderful

So perhaps it is the child in me, that part of my inner being who refuses to grow up, who still expects that every Christmas morning will be the most magical ever; that little boy who still dreams deep in the subconscious of being the hero who saves the day, and who still wants in spite of a sore back and a occasional activity limiting heart condition to be the center of every adventure story ever told - perhaps it is that person who feels disappointed or somehow cheated. Because this year it felt as I was, at best, only on the outer edges of the stories being shaped and told around the campfires of our souls.

P.S. for what it is worth that is 664 words