One With Nature, Naturally

So many years ago I decided that what I needed to do was to hop on a bus and move to Point Reyes. Alright, for full disclosure I thought it would be a real cool thing to embrace nature and stay at a hostel for a few days, and respect my inner naturalist. Unfortunately my inner naturalist is precisely the size of a pea and my brain capacity is apparently not much larger.

It is always a good idea to 1. plan with no plan 2. head to the wilderness at night 3.not have a map, compass or flashlight 4. purchase rations of ice cream bars, soda, and cigarettes: ice cream because I wanted it, soda, because I wanted it and cigarettes, as defense if crazy people jumped out of the bushes at night. So who is really crazy? A complete idiot. Let's not stop here.

To the hostel from the bus stop at Point Reyes Station is 9 miles. Take the 3rd right trail after leaving town. An uneventful, pretty bus ride, stop at the town store to get my rations, and after being pointed in the correct direction ("you're going to walk there, at night?"), I begin.
I failed to consider that not every road in this country is illuminated. I failed to consider that these roads might be completely dark. I failed to find the third right and took what turned out to be the fourth right.
More backstory: tough year (PM:PreMaria), getting bonked on the head (strangers) heartache(non strangers), wandering (career)- city life (closing in). Somehow what was happening all seemed appropriate, if a bit scary.

Alternately beautiful and eerie, the sounds of the night, unbridled with machinery and vehicles can be soothing and unsettling moment to moment. I knew that I was close to water; sounds of a a creek, steams of water washing over pebbles and rocks and sometimes I could hear leaves or light branches being moved or rustled as little critters moved nearby. The sound of owls, occasional birds and initially could see a car headlight in the distance. Once I made that fourth turn, it was a lonely walk without lights or cars. Nervously I began smoking- I was not a smoker but smoke embracing my face provided an illusion of warmth, company. I may have tried to walk back but back was a road that I could not seem to find. Soon, however I came across a great big open grassy field. With the sky overhead, I needed only to hop a wood fence where I could make a bed of sorts, and sleep until morning. Then the rains came. Hard, pounding. (the next day when I passed this area, it was full of grazing cows).

I found shelter outside two abandoned cabins, which were locked. I considered breaking a window but also considered how lame this would be to explain, so I sat outside shivering but out of the rain. I had a cassette player and headphones and played two cassettes non stop; one was an album by an LA band, Thelonious Monster. The other, Tony Williams "Civilization". The best 2 inch x 3inch friends a man could have. Over and over, again.

At some point in the middle of the night I had to keep walking to find the hostell the thought of a warm bed- had to be close. A great thrashing of bushes near me, my head full of needle pricks of alarm, and a rabbit jumps out over my head and bounces away, hopping as they do in cartoons.
Suffice to say it was a long night of wandering, cigarette smoking, but realizing that I was not going to keep anyone awake, loud singing too.

The rains continued through the night and eventually I settled under an old wood structure. Protected from the rain, I could not sleep however- too cold and nervous, probably. The next morning a ranger making his rounds came across a young shivering smoker and asked him, "what are you doing?"

My metaphysical response may well have been this:
None of us willingly took a number to come into this world and because of this, I think, we exist, constantly moving, seeking for answers, knowledge, happiness, something. As we do this we are surrounded, nearly drowned in the expectations of the society we participate in. Sometimes misery can bring you to the point of transition, to living, not just existing.

My actual response was more like this: "I don't know. I'm cold". He smiled. Invited me to join him as he would go next to the visitors center, and light a fire. He passed on my offer of my last cigarette (which by the way, was my last cigarette).

Inside the visitors center it was much warmer and dryer. The ranger never did get to lighting a fire but refreshed and redirected, I headed to town, for I was hungry. Along the way i did manage to get lost again, veering 2 miles the wrong way, then back 2 miles to get on the correct path. I saw a family of deer below me as I stood about 10 feet above. They watched warily at first but I sat and we shared a space for 30 or so minutes.

I have been fortunate to never been wanting of true hunger; if as breathing, I have oxygen at all times except this one day, when food was lacking and needed. The breakfast I had at Point Reyes Station House was the best meal in my life for its consumption was an answer to life, and joyously i indulged. "More?" yes! "More?" yes! Yes, to it all!

Days later after some peaceful, warm days at the hostel and one peculiar meeting, I took the bus back home. My first stop was the cafe where I worked just down the street from where I live.
My co-worker and friend, Kelli stopped what she was doing, charged me (did I forget to scrape down the ice cream? or clean the espresso machine?) and provided a hug of ages, saying that she thought she had lost me. Did I really seem that depressed?

I consider how being lost could generate as much feeling as it did; the miles I wandered, calculating 26, taking me to roads of examination and discovery. Decisions made and actions taken impact those close to us, and walking that road, there will always be those close to us.
Can't really explain it. Don't know why I went. Don't know where I went. I only know that then, I had moved from existing to living.