top of page

The Gypsyhermit's Journal

PAINTING BY CHRISTINA PRICE

THE EXPEDITION Chapter 3: Beginning (section 2)

In which almost all people are very kind 

Date: April 21 2019

Partway to Strathmore to between Strathmore and Gleichen ~27 km

In the morning, I made tea and packed as the sun rose, in one of those tiny collapsible stoves that boils water in about a minute flat with just a few twigs. Dousing it afterwards I thought about how terribly dry and windy it was, how much we’ve taken from the land to satisfy shallow wants, and how little I really needed a cup of tea. It was the only fire of the whole trip.

I stuck it out a little better the second day, and by midday we passed through the town I’d meant to reach the night before. A wheel came off the trailer crossing the road there. I didn’t have enough arms to keep everything from rolling into the road, and started freaking out and flapping at traffic and pedestrians to catch someone’s attention. Sure enough, someone stopped and got us across and helped put us back together. Then it took too long to catch up on messages on the free wifi at A&W, and then the scooter had tire trouble, and more bemused locals stopped to get things right. In the midst of that, another reporter was trying to catch up and interview me. We got going, and the reporter found us and did a great roadside interview, which of course got shortened almost beyond recognition, but reporters are subject to the constraints of time and ratings, and the story did make it into the news, so I’m glad for their effort that day. After that, people recognizing Mr Myrtle (mostly) and I from newscasts and articles started becoming a regular occurrence, and often led to pretty amazing things happening.


It was Sunday, and I meant to continue being part of the HopeHolding gatherings. It meant stopping at one o’clock, for an hour, but I couldn’t find a good spot, and when I did, my body thought that sitting and not moving meant that it was okay to sleep. That didn’t seem like a good idea on the side of the highway, so I went back to walking while I meditated.

Holding hope while walking felt more appropriate now and considering things anyways. Really, the whole walk was an extended HopeHolding, wasn’t it? I felt the ground through my feet while I walked, and imagined my steps like stones in water, with ripples spreading out… overlapping… joining other ripples… each step felt like another piece of connection with the Earth herself, and with all the others out there devoting their energy to her. I was walking because I believe in hope, and I believe that nets are stronger than strings or holes. In a way, each person I crossed paths with was another knot, going on to cross other paths and make more knots. The HopeHolding group was weaving a virtual net of hope around the planet; I was just doing mine a little more literally these days.

I stowed the little painted HopeHolding globe in a safe handy corner of Mr Myrtle’s trailer, and began collecting seeds in it. Each time I gathered some, I asked permission, and explained the reason. I took sparingly when seeds were granted, and thanked the plants. I’d given an offering to the Earth before leaving Calgary, and gave others along the way, though not nearly as often or as properly as I meant to… time kept getting eaten by distances and immediate things, and I wish I’d gotten less frazzled by those and stuck more to the odd little things I believe in which make so much difference. Maybe the Earth knew that, though, because this trip was blessed from even before the beginning and was full of constant instances and reminders of that, so there was constant opportunity for thanks, and for sharing that.

Late Sunday afternoon we rolled down a long slope watching a quad putter out from the lengthening shadows. As it came close, a happy-looking young woman with her two children invited us to follow them. They’d been watching us from her mother’s window on the hill and decided to invite us in for the night, and to share their Easter dinner… I’d been so wrapped up with beginning this mission for life that I’d completely forgotten the day that, in a few belief systems, symbolizes life and new beginnings.

It was such a kind thing to do, and they were all so very nice… more people I’ll always know. Sharon, the young woman’s mother, is a retired health care professional; she runs a beautiful quiet home for a few elderly folks who love being able to still be somewhere green and peaceful while being well cared for. We talked about the climate crisis, and Sharon’s granddaughter gave me a seashell to give to the prime minister. She asked me to tell him to please learn how to care about the people and the animals and the water and everything that really matters, instead of just money and being important.

Date: April 22, 2019

From between Strathmore and Gleichen, to between Gleichen and Cluny ~35 km

In the morning, I repacked everything again, abandoning about half the baggage again. A lot of the weight I left behind was food, because honestly, it’s a highway: not going to starve to death when there’s barely enough distance to clear your head between ‘civilized’ parts. I’d been carrying a lot of simple (and packable) foods because of my health problems (ideally, I eat pretty limited, but good and healthy organic gluten free vegan food, mostly raw and leaning towards alkaline). Food as well as life is full of compromises, though, and now it’d just be more of a balancing act than usual. It would also be an act of trusting more personally in what I believe about the goodness of human beings.

That evening, dinner was a gift.

As the afternoon wore on and we both wore out, I started looking for a good place to either surreptitiously (and relatively safely) pitch a tent, or borrow a camping spot with permission from someone with space to spare. On the third try, a slightly baffled man let us camp in the hedged front yard of the original old farmhouse which his smaller new home stood behind. A little while after Mr Myrtle and I were nestled into our tiny tent under the wing of the long-retired blue house, he knocked on our door (as much as that’s possible).

“I’m guessing from what you’re doing, you’re probably vegetarian, but the rice’ll be good for you and your dog might like the chicken…?” It was an enormous helping, and yummy, and we both loved it. MMS and I were both so tired, and I was trying so hard not to be overwhelmed by the road ahead and my dubious ability to handle it, that that meal had at least as much spiritual value as nutritional.

Date: April 23 2019

From between Gleichen and Cluny, to Bassano ~43 km (walked ~30km, rode ~13km)

He was gone before we were up, so I left the dish and a note by his door, and wrote him into this story. I thanked him for his kindness then, and still thank him for his part in my learning to trust the universe – and trust in the goodness of human beings.

I carried my journal the whole way and still have it – it was meant for keeping track of all the stories along the way, but I never did have time to write in it. Most days I barely managed to keep up some sort of posting so the people following on facebook wouldn’t worry… can’t post while walking, then it’s time to eat and pitch the tent before it gets dark, then fall asleep. Mornings were all about getting the tent down, repack, and get back on the road as early as possible, maybe with a bit of breakfast if there was a diner around where I could ask about the road and weather and whatnot. Sometimes it took till ten to get going, some days we were already walking as the sun came up. Now, I’m sitting with the online stuff and notes and my mapbook and photos as prompts to write this – not that I could ever forget this journey, just to remind of pieces of stories and to keep things in order as I write.

Sometimes people remind me of pieces, too… Lisa Bee, who’s been following this expedition from the beginning, from somewhere in Alberta, sent a message recently when I was losing hope. She’d just rescued a bee, and remembered the facebook post about the first bee I’d helped while walking. He’d been dying by the side of the road and I moved him into what little green there was, near a few early dandelions. Mr Myrtle watched quietly as I cleaned an abandoned tin and made a dish to leave water in. I said a prayer for the bee, and told him how beautiful he was and how much he mattered, and that I loved him, and I apologized for whatever hurt him. I hope he lived. That story had inspired her then, and now, months later, she gave me back hope I’d loaned her then by caring about a lonely bee.

We rescued everything we could as we walked, and said prayers for the others. “I’m sorry.. Please forgive me, please forgive us all… I love you… You’re beautiful….” And then I wished them peace, however that works when one is no longer alive, usually while crying. Mr Myrtle would quietly bow his head and wait. Folks driving by must have thought I was the world’s saddest hitchhiker or something. I don’t care, and yes, I hug trees, too.

We didn’t see many bees, though, or other bugs either. Not like there used to be. When I was little, we roadtripped across the country more times than I’ve kept track of, between the crazy camping trips. Scraping all the dead bugs off the windshield every few hours was part of roadtripping. Now, though, the windshields passing were all disturbingly clean.

The insect population is already decimated. If you want to learn more, look up about the insect apocalypse, because that’s what it is. Bugs are part of the foundation level of the global food chain – the tiny things that feed the bigger things, and pollinate the planet. They’re nearly gone. Bird populations are now dwindling as a result, the next step, and that was eerily noticeable too. The wild choirs are smaller. But the bugs were the most noticeable. Mr Myrtle and I used seriously effective natural bug oil on ourselves the whole way (and still do) but even considering that, there was unnerving fewer annoying things biting us than expected or remembered. They just weren’t around.

That became my ‘in’ with talking to truck drivers pretty quickly.

Needless to say, a lot of them weren’t impressed with my mission. They’re good human beings who work hard to take care of themselves and their families. They’re even more tangled up in the causes and effects of the climate crisis than many of us, and even a lot of the ones who don’t want to talk are afraid. Maybe sometimes that’s why they don’t want to talk.

Some are just angry and don’t want anything to change. Several Alberta big rig drivers had organized a convoy to Ottawa a few weeks before I set out on the same highway. Farting tons of carbon, they demanded that the oil and gas industry be allowed to do whatever the heck they want, with government approvals and funding. We had some discouraging run-ins with some of them.

But when you ask someone whose been driving for twenty, thirty, forty years “When’s the last time you cleaned your windshield?”, an entire process of revelation takes place on their face in about ten seconds flat. Suddenly they see how immediately connected everything is – our everyday life, and the world around us…. and her death.

Suddenly, get it. And they talk.

When Mr Myrtle and I left, they’d be talking amongst themselves.

Later, some of them would wave as they passed us. Some offered us meals or shower tickets, or kept an eye on our tent through the night when we camped at truck stops, which we did a lot. They helped with practical troubles, tools, and advice about the roads or the weather. Many signed my letter to our government. Several passed on messages, most involving well-selected four letter words and sentiments so many of us frustratingly echo with varying degrees of politeness.

But that was later. Now, we were on the shoulder beside more traffic than I’d dealt with in the past six years put together.

When I was little, we’d go for miles without seeing another vehicle. These days quite literally never stops. The only time I couldn’t see vehicles was on the hilly roads in Ontario where they’re sometimes invisible till they were nearly on top of us. Most of it is commercial – the transport of a bewildering amount of stuff we don’t need. Most of the private vehicles have only one person in them. Thank goodness the shoulders in Alberta, and Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, were wide enough to be safe.

Thank goodness they were that wide when one of those angry truckers buzzed us just close enough for the wind of his passing to knock us over, scooter, trailer, puppy, and all. It must have taken some very careful maneuvering to not actually harm us (because there’d’ve been far too many witnesses to let himself do that). The scooter lost its back wheel, and the rear fender was twisted and bent. We were both shaken, but not hurt except for a bruise on my leg, and a sore knee.

I had just come back onto the highway after thoroughly confusing the Chinese (I think?) gentleman at the counter of the Cluny gas station store by being overly excited about finding a Clif bar (pretty much the only thing in gas stations I can eat, and only half the places even have them). I turned around to check traffic, and everything coming from behind was in the far lane. All of them. Including the big rig that – as soon as I turned forward again – veered across the near lane and almost five feet over onto the shoulder to buzz us so closely the wind of his passing knocked us over. He couldn’t possibly have managed that so precisely without being quite aware of what he was doing, and he immediately swerved back into traffic in the far lane and zoomed off. I think we met him again later, but maybe it was a friend of his or something, who knows. Doesn’t matter. Right now, we just sat till we both stopped shaking, assuring the few folks who stopped that we were alright.

I didn’t realize the back wheel was wonky till we got going again. The brake wasn’t working right, either. I got them as better as I could, which wasn’t much. Figuring we were done scooting till I found somewhere helpful, I resigned myself to walking down some perfectly scootable hills, while trying not to give up because of one angry person.

After a lot less of that than I expected, though, a young man with bicycle tools pulled over to help. Before he even got our whole story, he had the scooter up and running and had given me some awfully useful tools and gadgets and looked up the facebook page and signed the petition. He made sure I’d be careful, and had me promise to get proper repairs in Medicine Hat (the nearest bike shop). Serendipitous people and stories like that are why I believe in the goodness of human beings; my life is full of them and this expedition was already full of them. Every single one is why I believe we are worth changing the future, and why I believe we will… they’re why I walked, then, and why I’m writing now.

I kept going as far as possible that day, to focus on things like that young man, and to let the wind blow the anger and discouragement out of me. The wind was behind us and the road mostly rolled along comfortably. I took advantage of that, even standing with both feet on the scooter as the gusts carried us UP long gradual hills – some awfully puzzled faces passed us by that afternoon!.

Instead of thinking, because that would lead to stewing, I let my mental lifetime mix tape go on autoplay. Every song I’ve ever heard with even a mention of walking or the road or anything vaguely related went though my head on this trip, some good and others maybe not so much, and I invented a lot of rewrites, which pretty much all belong in the latter category. Today was a platinum day. Earworm alert – it’s not such a long way to go… to make it to the truck stop at Bassano!

I was a lot angrier and even more discouraged than I realized. It took so long to feel better that suddenly the sun was setting and I realized I was exhausted, hungry, and hadn’t found a place to sleep. There didn’t seem to be approachable homes, and as I already knew, the few campgrounds around weren’t open. It didn’t help that googlemaps, never my friend, spent over two hours telling me the next town was just around the bend and fourteen minutes away. There wasn’t even a viable ditch or hedge to occupy, and soon I couldn’t see well enough even with my flashlight to pitch the tent anyways, especially what with still being shaky from the big rig incident. It was pitch dark now but the road was but the road was as busy as rush hour, I couldn’t figure out where we were, I was kicking myself for not being more mindful, Mr Myrtle was worried, and I could feel the edges of a panic attack reaching through the swirling headlights and night.

I flagged someone down. A kind young man piled everything into his pickup truck and took us to the truck stop at the edge of the town I’d thought I could reach. By now, it actually was closer, but not close enough for walking in the dark on the edge of a busy highway to get there.

He offered to take us all the way to Medicine Hat, where he was heading, but I couldn’t accept such a large ride. A short lift in extenuating circumstances in one thing, but not long ones just for the sake of comfort. Before leaving us, though, he gave me his family’s home telephone number so we’d have a place to stay when we got that far.

The Expedition’s progress so far…..Camp locations are approximate


コメント


choosing to sungaze - irregular perspecive lizard
blog - author date reading time.jpg

Junk mail does not make the world a better place. Respect matters. I shan't share your information.

ANN COGNITO

© 2023 by Ann Cognito. Proudly created with Wix.com

  • Facebook - Grey Circle
Art and written work herein © Copyright Ann Cognito
bottom of page