THE EXPEDITION Chapter 3: Beginning (section 1)

Date: April 20, 2019

From Chestermere to Halfway to Strathmore, Alberta

Distance ~17 km

In which the first day is tough but auspicious 

Technically, and on average, it’s downhill to Ottawa from Calgary, but there’s a lot of hills along the way, especially in some places. The first big chunk was full of hills, and the first steps were uphill. I hadn’t been through here for years, and never in such a slow and physical way. I’d practiced with the scooter and had been taking walks, but so slowly and painfully that I wasn’t in any better shape. I was probably just tireder. I fought with myself not to stop as I walked towards the highway, because my friends – and that reporter – were watching. I asked myself what the heck I thought I was doing at least twenty times during those few hundred yards. Louise had whispered, as she hugged me goodbye, that it was okay to change my mind, and I will always love her for that, but that wasn’t an option for me. I knew when this idea came to me that accepting it was a full commitment. Moreover, I wanted to do it. I loved this idea. It was a way to make my weird be useful, and it was a promise to the earth, my small steps symbolic of the steps we all have to take, even though it’s an uphill battle. After all, hilltops have the best perspectives, and views…and after the work of climbing, any direction is possible and all the paths are easier.

That first hill was almost flat but it almost flattened me. I’d barely gotten onto the highway when I stopped to rest and ask myself what the heck I thought I was doing. As I did, a car pulled over and a man hopped out to ask what I was doing and talk about it. He knew a fair amount and took it seriously, more so now that he’d actually seen someone taking up such a commitment. He gave encouragement and cautions, and gave us a bit of money to help on the road. I hope he knows he gave me so much more. He made it real; a total stranger out of the blue within the first hour of the journey, noticing, caring, helping, and taking another step of his own in awareness and waking up to how much we need to change. I took it as a blessing and a positive sign.

The grey hawk following us felt like a blessing too. She circled and wandered and came back, over and over, the light patch on her chest like a marker so we’d know her. I think she might have followed us from Louise’s home, or maybe earlier… she followed us through the whole walk, and I saw her during the Camp months, circling quietly, just near enough to recognize. I still see her sometimes now. Every time, I stop what I’m doing and thank her for protecting us.

We had all sorts of human protectors, too. That first day, we befriended a cyclist gearing up for a long trip. He did longer loops every day, and Mr Myrtle and I were so slow that we crossed paths twice a day for something like a week or so, stopping to have a break and a chat each time. He mentioned us to cycling friends of his, and highway patrol folks he knew from his previous bicycle forays in that neck of the woods, and he kept in touch a little while to help make sure we had a safe start to this expedition. I’ve changed phone numbers at least three times since Calgary, which means I’ve lost some people, which makes me sad, but maybe they’ll see this.

The scooter made it possible to bring the trailer and everything, and made it possible to do the journey. Kickbikes are considered more a form of walking than cycling, as they’re only propelled by kicking or stepping, but I mostly walked beside it anyways. That was usually the easiest way to keep the trailer going under it’s own momentum. Going down hills was a treat, though – hop on and zoom, and get a head start on the next piece of ‘up’! The winds also made a difference. Shoving that caravan through a strong headwind was bloody miserable, and heavy sidewinds next to a busy highway are scary. Tailwinds were a gift from the weather gods. Sometimes I wished we had a sail!

At the beginning, though, I couldn’t walk twenty minutes without stopping to rest and hurt and breathe and apologize to my body and give it some water and maybe a bite of something healthy, and talk myself into continuing. The first days, I spent almost as much time sitting on the ground leaning on the trailer as walking. Everything hurt. I always do anyways, because whatever helps half my problems makes the other half worse, and vice versa. It wasn’t so much about hurting more as it was just hurting differently. Also, I had to keep readjusting the load in and on the trailer. It really was too much, but what with weather, puppy, and all my various problems, I thought I’d need it all, but I was frustrated about that. I kept having to either drink or pee and I didn’t really want to do a whole lot of the latter till there were more trees around, or at least some accomodatingly-sized shubbery. The highway was loud and smelly. The phone was clearly not impressed with either me as an owner or this trip as its future. Internet and camera were both wonky and downright frustrating. I was tired, and I’d only just started. We spent more time stopping than walking.

We didn’t get very far the first day – about halfway to Strathmore, the shadows were getting longer and my steps were getting shorter. We headed down a small side road to find a spot for the tent. A very nice young father in a pickup truck gave us permission to camp in the yard of the small farm he and his wife and young son had just bought that very day. They were there for the afternoon, to start cleaning up and making lists and whatnot, but they made time for a lovely visit and some serious talk.

Their son and I talked quite a lot about how important saving the world is. It’s so beautiful to me how children so often innately understand how everything in the web of life is connected and balanced. To them, it just is that way, and everything matters. A bug is just as important as a rhinoceros or a human or a tree, and we all need air and water more than money. It may sound overly simplistic, but it’s entirely true and that really is all it comes down to. It’s us who’ve made everything unnecessarily convoluted, and we need to drop that or we’ll just plain drop dead. Children are brilliant, they haven’t yet gotten bogged down by all our invented grey areas.

This sweet, optimistic, little family knew what was happening in the world, and wanted a simpler life. They were were touched by what I was going to try to do, and said it was an auspicious way for their home to begin its new life. I thought it was decidedly auspicious for me, too, and for the expedition itself.

Mr Myrtle and I fell asleep before the sun even went down.

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