The Value of Standing Properly

We have all played Jenga. It doesn’t take much to balance a structure, the same is true for collapse.  When it comes to standing, we have it all wrong.  Standing is not linear—there are necessary breaks in the plumb-line of energy of the standing human body.  No matter what level of physical activity we engage in, what we do in-between action is more important than any amount of formal ‘training;’ this is incessantly overlooked.  

I stopped massaging for an array of reasons a few years ago.  (I’m rested up, and back at it part-time).  Massage therapy requires me to be hands-on for almost the full duration of a treatment, with only a tiny amount of time to talk and teach at the end.  Sadly, much of the treatment can be prevented, the intervention can be intervened, if the client is taught how to move! Part of my leave was my need to go teach people how to move, to use my observations and my voice.  Not just the fancy moves.  Students’ eyes grow brightest when they learn to stand and walk.  All fancy movement is based on the ability to be agile and attentive.  We must learn to stand on legs before we walk, run, stand on hands. Horse. Before. Cart.

Standing: a how-to from bottom-up

40% of weight distributed throughout toes and balls of feet, 60% in heels.  Start there.  If all or too much weight is in the heels, it is far too tempting to straighten the knees, which we absolutely do not want.  I’ll get to why.  Another reason to have 40% of your weight in your toes and balls of feet is to be ready to move forward.  When moving forward, one heel plucks up off the ground so the balls of feet and toes can lead.  Horse before cart.  In stillness, ready at any moment to move.

Shins (lower leg bones), are slightly ahead of heels/ankles, at ALL times.  This comes from a tiny bend in the knee joints that is led by the shins, ie the lower leg.  LIFE IN THE LOWER LEG.  Say it with me! 

The front of our shins are largely covered by a muscle called the tibialis anterior.  “Tibialis” referring to tibia (shin bone), “anterior” referring to front.  The main action of the tibialis anterior is to pull to the top of the foot back toward the shin, a precious movement called dorsiflexion.  In standing properly, we can hack this movement.  Rather than pulling the top of the foot to the shin, we place the shin slightly forward, as discussed above as a tiny bend in the knees joints that is led by the shins. 

Having the shins forward of heels/ankles subtly tones the tibialis anterior; it will take thinking and feeling, two things I think we all need more of.  Thinking and feeling.

All muscles can do what I call “moving without moving,” the clinical term is isometric contraction: the thinking and feeling experience.  A plank is a straight and narrow example of a full body isometric contraction; you’re not going anywhere, but things are happening. 

In standing, the beautiful and invaluable thing about thinking and feeling our shins forward, is that the subtle tone in the FRONT of our lower legs will help relax and lengthen our achilles tendon which is on the back of our lower legs.  Just standing and thinking and feeling the front of our lower legs going forward, calms and benefits the achilles tendon.  It takes achilles off-guard so it can be more melty and springy when we go to take that step.  We are talking about standing, but walking should be quiet.  If your footsteps are loud, you are not heavy, something is wrong.  Something is not-happening or not-giving.  If your achilles is thick and unmoving, you’re likely smashing your heels into the ground when you take your steps and that impact is absorbed by your entire body instead of your achilles absorbing and dissolving it for you.  You probably have a sore low back, or you get sore in your low back when walking long distances.

Try it.

Before we move on, in a seated position in your chair, wiggle to the middle or end of your chair and ground your heels.  Keep your heels grounded and ‘tap’ both feet rapidly 10-20x, like you’re tapping along to a beat, or like you’re waiting impatiently.  Feel how the front of the shins or ankles warms up or tires out?  That’s your tibialis anterior!  Keep the feeling of that heat.

Now stand up.  Spread your toes, get 40% of your weight spread throughout toes and balls of feet, 60% in heels.  Keep feet strong, and go ahead…from those now-warm tibialis anteriors, move those shins ever so slightly forward, causing a tiny bend in the knees, and a nice thinking feeling in the shins.

While reading, perhaps you stay standing, or stand intermittently to test out these theories. 

Keep:

-60% of weight in heels

-40% in balls of feet and toes

-add that new feeling of shins shifting forward to give you a slight bend in the knees

Moving up the chain, let your hamstrings, the big muscles on the backs of the upper leg bones “catch” you.  Feel your new sensation of the shins moving forward, then counter it, with the tiniest feeling of your hamstrings pulling back…like they are fighting you from falling forever forward.

To find your hamstrings, seated or standing, truly pretend you’re scuffing gum off the bottom of your foot.  As you pull and scuff one or both feet on the ground, feel the drag happening in the back of your leg.  Those are your hamstrings!

There is more to say about the pelvis, but if you’ve got shins forward, hamstrings pulling back without straightening the knees, your legs are well set!  Next, integrate the arms with the legs finding giant torso muscles called your lats!  Lats are felt most and cued most at the armpits; the muscle, on each side, goes from upper arm bone to hip.  Maybe you’ve heard of a lat-pull-down?  Lats pull arms to your sides.  To find your lats, while standing, float your arms just lightly off your body, at a slack ‘A’ off of your body’s frame.  Picture rolled newspapers under each armpit, newspapers you want to carry around with you.  Now pull your arms into your body as if to clutch those newspapers.  The squeeze you feel in your sides or armpits is your lats.

Standing is, altogether:

-60% of weight in heels

-40% in balls of feet and toes

-shins (tibialis anteriors) nudging forward

-hamstrings pulling backward

-arms (lats) pulling down

There are multiple in-betweens in the above list, but doing just these will honestly “fix” the other stuff.  I’ve witnessed it.  If you get the above stuff, the rest will “happen.”

One final quick mention, much like the knees are not straight…the middle back is not straight.  It is a common over-correction in attempting better posture to straighten the spine.  Don’t do it.  It’s a lie.  Your spine is not straight, don’t force it straight.  A straight spine is an immobile spine.  In the middle back especially. 

If you can squeeze one more bit of effort out of standing, as you pull arms down as if to clutch those newspapers under your arms, spread the back ribs, and YES, stick your middle back a little but OUT.  It is subtle, tricky, but wholesome and good.

I hope you enjoy conscious standing and use it as often as possible to heighten your awareness and eliminate bad habits and future injuries.  Watch this video for a review of the fine points:

https://youtu.be/x__HS3gBtCc

Heaven is a cup of black tea in a wood-paneled hall

Mouth wide-open, I chomp with both rows of teeth.  Nearly choke on cold, crushed dates, pulled haphazardly from my jersey’s back pocket.   I huff and smack like a hypoglycemic kindergartener, consuming recess snacks after a morning of enduring the frigging alphabet.  I heave my chin towards rockfaces, hands fiercely gripping, no time for water; I pray for safe passage of simple sugars through esophagus.  Pec major suffocating sternum, squeezes and contracts just as hard as my pedalling legs.  Against raw autumn wind, my skin taut, tears automatic, nose running.  The mountains, laughing. 

At the start line, our breath steams the morning.  Our fingers, bony icicles dripping slowly over handle bars.  Straight-legged straddling saddles, ears perked for roll call, we endure race-banter.  The guy who just signed-up, a half-banana hanging from his mouth. Over megaphone feedback, steps from a sleepy four-way stop, the pack leans into the sun.  Out from the shadows cast by tall, morphing oaks.  We strangely yearn for heat, although the Elgin 120 begins in moments, and with one humid climb. 

It’s October in Elgin and every maple has turned yellow.  The Elgin 120 is three unique 40-kilometer loops that flower petal out from the central four-way stop.  We bike into and out of loose bowls of grey gravel. Drop what feels like below sea level.  We look up to nautical skies, the glowing clouds, false glaciers.  In barren stretches, this landscape, a possible desert.  We become red pins dropped in Google Earth broccoli forests, blood prioritized to legs making the mind more interesting. 

We take-in and dwell-on pavement moments of witnessing humans.  Volunteers at driveway ends, abreast country mailboxes.  Bearded and broad-shouldered, arms crossed thickly over camouflaged chests, ready to hand water, clap, nod.  Behind them, the next shy mountain.   

Under tree cover, we traverse light and shadow.  Climb calculated switchbacks, tire-width severs.  Neck and navel corner hairpin turns, the front fork barely missing the frame in this bike-bending trick.  The threat of spinning out is constant, too much weight on the front tire and the climb is over.  The summit reward: a brake-testing wet-leaf descent, dimly-lit, like a 90s bungalow.  Devouring turns and hallways of brown, yellow, and orange, I avoid blinking and mutter wheeeeeee.

Surfacing from tree-lines, in the second lap, a sunny blueberry field.  A high-altitude habitat of mosaic mauve accented with cottony wisps of wild wheat.  Golden warmth lifts the chin, somewhere, angel harps playing.  Legs acclimatized, mind wary but still rational, now is the time to look out and savour second-lap-sanity.  To admire the arcing sun, wild flowers and rocks.  Cutting and pasting time, the second lap drags us toward sounds of a waterfall we will never see.  Crosses covered bridges, weaves through a tree nursery, ends in farmland.  White houses, rolling hills, all reassurance that the four-way stop could be down there.  Still, no people.  Cow poop in the wind.

Refueling at town center, clumsy hands fumble for water.  We crawl to the cruelty tour: lap three.  Pulled in a direction less congruent, more isolated than the first two, there is no mercy in the immediate and looser climb.  Baseball-sized rocks fling from beneath while leaning into a hill that seemingly leans back.  Tire ruts are tales of faster riders passed.  Like cold graves, they suggest routes to circumnavigate the pond-sized puddles. 

Following a series of fire roads intended for ATVs, and after the final water stop, the mind and all measurement are left behind.  Clear cuts are indistinguishable, do not come with landmarks.  My monkey mind, however, boasts accuracy.  Scans blurry memories of montages from this same race two years ago.  Ah yes, the hermit camp with the broken window out in the open, its just a little more single track, a quick wiggle down by the graveyard, then you’re rolling back into Elgin on the road to the four-way-stop.  It remains beautiful. Grids of new growth, pine needles brushing forearms, orange evening sun spot-lighting empty roads.  Ah yes, the handmade sign and the remote park bench, its just a little more single track, a quick wiggle down by the graveyard, then you’re rolling back into Elgin on the road to the four-way-stop.  Intermittently, the forest is full grown and loamy. At this hour, leafy shadows especially dark and deceiving.  Are there multiple clear cuts?  Holy fuck, is that the coast?  Alma? Where’s Elgin? What county am I in? Do I have to back track? Back into another clump of forest, apparently more single track.  Ah, the ‘Green Mile’ trail, clever, that must mean its just a little more single track, a quick wiggle down by the graveyard, then you’re rolling back into Elgin on the road to the four-way-stop.  Then a piece of trail literally called ‘Short Cut.’  Who designed this? Where is the graveyard?  And then, I am there.  I bump down the last descent like a pony clip-clopping cobblestone.  I see light.  The graveyard. The road.  Cars.  A person.  A person on a stoop!  Then, for the fourth time, I roll through the four-way stop. 

Music is playing, helmets are off, beers are cracked, the sun is still out.  Although it’s been over 8 hours it feels like morning again, the day compressed.  High fives, hugs, horror stories of missed turns and bike parts that finally gave out, or didn’t.

In the church hall, the windows are steamy, a plethora of plaid flung over chairs.  Maple syrup glows amber in glass jars, labels hand-written.  Our cheeks are salty, but we look surprisingly good.  There is no wifi signal, no cell service.  We fill our plates and sit in whatever seat is open, long tables, cold salads, hot stews. Somehow, we are still able to articulate and converse after a day of survival.  Familiar faces, volunteers now in indoor lighting, superimposed from their previous stations far out in the unmarked wilderness. 

Heaven is a cup of black tea in a wood-paneled hall. It is an idea we repeat.   A ritual of over-doing.  A combination of riders and spectators, finally sitting.  Every year, hands laced on tablecloths, we make plans for the next one.  Bellies full, drive home in various directions.  Minds boggled into peace. 

Internal Rotation

her right glutes tremble periodically

it’s alarming, pitiful

in her quivering 

there is no remorse—she is fire 

wears black eyeliner 

a gold muscle suit

a thin scar on her right forearm 

parts her fur

a taut clothesline

a tumor removed

like her disposition, benign   

her claws splay

in various directions

both ears

shriveled like cauliflower

from rubbing her skull through grass

with vigor

her tissues could not withstand

no one is so moved by the smell of grass

that they would sacrifice their ears

to soak in the world’s surface

she is more alive in filth

more serene in chaos

one adjustment

she steps hind-legs 

                      behind-hips

thigh bones assume 

a magnificent slant

her belly 

drawn-out, exposed

her psoas providing 

momentary opening

a sudden wolf  

she leans into the world

with the wild we conditioned out

immovable

her howls—an opera without language 

she is the protest we should have supported

the tree we cut down

she’s every law worth breaking

off-leash

Juno, Mike and I 

run by Devon Lumber

she barely applies herself, bored  

at this elementary pace

by the time we reach the hydro lines 

near Canada Street, I’m ready to modify

she stays with me 

Mike runs ahead

last night I shifted in my sheets

unlocking spirits from my right knee

my tibial plateau—bony ledge 

just below knee cap

it smashed pavement  

where King and Queen merge

ten years ago, clipped into road pedals

feet stationed, my hinged knee

absorbing wallop  

I obsess over unraveling

the barber stripes 

that make a human leg

fibrous diagonals overlapping

hip and knee in various sheaths

thin strips of leather  

thick patches of gauze

freedom is rotation

directional potential

curvaceous infinity

the possibility of a circle

rotation requires leaning

into the darkest parts of the hip

summoning struggle

rolling in the sphere

the femoral head

investigated in slivers

it’s petting the coat against the grain 

I slow my gait

rediscover sensation

my right big toe-mound

striking precisely

a Sci-fi experience

a counter rotation

shin-in-thigh-out

ghost-footing

resurrecting electricity

Juno

on paved trail

bored 

we both look for him, we always do

he laps back—in the same moment

Juno notices a single track

narrow portal to the river

trellised by fern

she engages, moves in 

from the Nashwaak banks

her lion chest points to water

her neck muscles spiral

a brilliant carousel

she looks over her shoulder

accuses us

we stand on pavement

sneakers laced

wrong again 

to her, everything is ceremony

the gentle landing

of her front claws

on our painted hardwood 

hind-legs dwelling 

high on our bed

downstairs, Mike and I 

smiling silently

at one another 

over sounds

of the mattress shifting

evidence of her waking  

she performs  

her signature ear-flap-

percussion-of-fur

several high-pitched yawns

flows between up and down dog

it’s an eight-minute procession 

to descend the stairs

demanding instant fun and wonder

her sprints are epic

muscles wringing 

tightly around femurs

blood pumping marrow-deep

yet she is most amazing

when immovable

we deny her, insist on the straight way home

she yearns for the river

digs in

waits 

for us to come to our senses

doesn’t know what’s on sale at Costco

hasn’t checked the weather  

stays fascinated by landslides

moving water

frogs

is consistently enchanted

by mosses, the micro world

dead-fall, dried pine needles

the smell of decomposition

her stare is bony, grounded

saying “no”

drops the confetti of being alive

that is her moving eyebrows

sounds the bell, ends recess  

back inside you go

where the edges are sanded

that day I saw the stars of her psoas dim

psoas: muscular sling connecting

            trunk and thigh

            upper and lower

            head and heart  

her shaking leg, a maraca of disbelief

the hip is a black sky

matter compressed 

each time we tame

anything

this is not witchcraft

grounded legs 

pragmatically open the heart

allow air to rise  

psoas: cosmic light of intelligence

            drags us into complacency

            or exposes us

teaches us to hide or hunt

a bodily space-maker

two-paw-prints

away   

domesticated

we limp home

Hell is the final lap of the Elgin 120

I can see that lone white pine slouched in resignation in the clear-cut with my eyes opened or closed.  I love the burgundy underbelly of a cut, the dark damp mulch and the murder of severed roots. Twice in the 120kms, we paid visit to gnarly switchbacks through this cut.  If you had the guts to shift your gaze, you looked out on a fall oil painting of leaves in every pigment of burnt orange; in hell, the sky is sapphire.  The unobstructed view of the hills is the best kind of alone.

On the final lap, I spoke to Wilson, the volleyball.  I whipped my head like a golden retriever spotting a squirrel when I thought I heard cars. “Cars? Cars. Cars? Cars! Cars! Cars!” Cars meant road, road meant I might be almost out of the woods, but- not out of the woods yet. My own craving, romance and protest for more single track was a backhand to the face when all I wanted to see was the sun again and get off-the-fucking- single-track!

“Get me out of here.  Get me out of here. Get me out of here. Get me out of here,” I repeated aloud to no one.

For a long time on the final lap, it worked to repeat to myself “keep-rolling, keep-moving; keep-rolling, keep-moving; keep-rolling, keep-moving!” For a short time on the final lap, it worked to talk to myself the way I talk to my dog Juno: “You’re so pretty.  You’re sooo strong.”

There is no finer way to spend a day. 

The hours lapsed- by early evening, the morning felt like a dream.  A montage of fields crossed, the hill I fell down promptly after saying in bold ink in my mind “I feel so in control,” the climb that led to a rural white church, to a climb with a climb within it, all captured in high definition. 

You know when you wake up knowing you had a really cool dream, but you already forget why it was really cool but you know it was cool and you went somewhere cool- you wrinkle your forehead and don’t talk to anyone or think of your schedule so you can harvest, a quick flash of where you were in your dream? That’s the first lap of Elgin.  That’s the first time you get off the charming dirt road where you were passed by a couple of polite pickup trucks and you enter the first make-shift single track that looks like a lawn mower ripped through a wall of raspberry bushes to build you a tunnel.  A tunnel sweet with the smell of decomposition of recently fallen leaves; a warm trellis of trees not-yet claustrophobic. 

I say it too often but I still mean it and I’ll say it in different ways forever: mountain biking cures my curiosity and simultaneously breeds more.  I bet you don’t even know where Elgin is- I wasn’t perfectly sure, but now I’ve been in its bowels.  

If you want to organize it, you could see 120 damn near secret kilometres in the right vehicle, but you wouldn’t remember them the way you will if you bike them. 

“On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit.  And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think ‘Okay, this is the limit.’  As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a bit further.  With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.”

-Ayrton Senna

Although it was hell, there is no finer way to spend a day. 

Packing my backpack to go out for a ride can alone be tiring, but now, already, in a world post-Elgin120, nothing is a big deal.  Rides farther and faster than my ability are fine, no cause for worry. 

My optimistic memory will shrink some segments and expand others.  Although the final lap started with one of the loosest climbs, and the falling rocks laughed at me, I’m counting down the months until the next one.  Finishers- you’ve got grit.

We're just looking for white blazes

Should you find yourself rationalizing something, that something is likely wrong.

I don’t need to be blown away; I would do it all over again just to admire the wildflowers.

By the time we left the parking lot at Point Wolf in Fundy National Park, weighted-down but eager, my line,  “what backpack?” had already stuck!

I was blown away each time we completed a dodgy descent, built ideally for goats; each time the trees parted to reveal heart-breaking river valley to ocean, after heart-breaking river valley to ocean.

Azore was the second beach but the first gnarly descent.  To earn this hot sandbar, tidal-river-crossing two had to prove successful.  The first was Goose River, successful with boots-on, danger minimal.  Boring. But, we got to have a sandwich there, and I’m really into that. 

Rose Brook was crossed in flip flops. One of Laura’s “slippers” (Hawaiian for flip flop- I spent some time on the Big Island), a sacred purchase from an ABC convenience store somewhere in Waikiki, was taken by the current.  Luckily I was wearing thick hideous sports sandals and I have the energy of an 8 year old- I was able to sprint for it before the Bay of Fundy held it hostage!  

On this hike, tidal crossings are grand reassurance that you’ve timed it right; water can be a devastating hold-up.  The great mother will roll her eyes at your schedule restrictions and supply scarcity.

If I raise my eyebrows hard enough to stretch the skin on my face, and exhale through my mouth, typically I can prevent myself from crying.  This strategy was exercised repeatedly in wide open spaces where I abbreviated my emotions and said “wow” over, and over. 

This was especially useful on Azore beach.  It had geology all its own; the rocks purple severed with white veins, a purple so wild, so vibrant, it looked fabricated.   The tides startled the cliffs to form an iconic “U”-shaped coastline- a watermark in the sand you can count on when you arrive at any beach on the Fundy shore.  The view of Martin Head, sometimes an island, sometimes a peninsula, was our false summit: near but far. We basked here, staring deeply into the panoramic.

The first campsite was lackluster, but redeemed by the sound of waterfalls.   After a half-bath in the freezing waterfall, a change of clothes felt amazing- camp clothes are one of my favorite parts of such trips. It felt rather primal to hand pump our water in deep squat. We only camped two nights, but the ritual of getting ready for supper, making a fire, doing the dishes in open air, tent up, tent down, quickly became our full-time job.

There is no hashtag for “Work less, buy less,  make less money, but make enough money to buy a good backpack, stop taking short cuts to make your life easier, easy is empty, we are just paying interest on debt when there is a world out there, what--- are we doing?” So we’ve settled for #getoutside.

But what does tagging #getoutside do? 

Like the cliffs, my heart crumbled, destabilized, eroded, day 2.  This was what I was hoping for.  This was my token of the trail.  It was so bleeding beautiful out there.  Surrounded by moss, Mike suggested this part of the trail very well could have been mocked off-of, copied, thieved-from, deer paths.  Some of the Fundy Footpath could be wagon route, deer route, rabbit route, all Scotch-taped together and vaguely marked but deeply treasured by volunteers. One beach in particular was littered with rusted horseshoes and wreckage of old bridges and docks.  Ghosts of Blacksmiths who pounded, horses who overcame, whispers of trades made, suffering had.  It was obvious to me that we were walking with ghosts.  And as we walked closer to Martin Head, I tried to calculate, tried to map the scattered dots I had previously bike-toured to or road-tripped in the area surrounding the trail: “Wait.  So- there’s nothing between St. Martins and Alma?”

There’s kind of nothing between St. Martins and Alma.  Mike muttered something about Mechanic Settlement; we talked about the dirt access roads and different trail heads as the hum of ATVs radiated through the pines.  

This place, for this long, alluded pavement and all things that come with it.

The Fundy Trail Parkway.  The Fundy Trail Parkway.  I understand, I embrace and acknowledge that anywhere beautiful I’ve been, I’ve arrived by road. I’ve driven to hike, I’ve flown to bike.  I get it.

Building a road where there has never been a road, only foot travel, only severe climbs and drops that you have to take an interest in, so that families can see it, so that we can make a buck, so that we can make it easy, is that right?  We (Mike, Jeff, Laura and I) kept saying “oh, well, they’ll never have access to this beach at least. Too remote.  Too challenging to get a trail or the unseasoned hiker in here. Whewf. At least this part won’t be affected.”   

You can rationalize it.   More facilities, more garbage cans, better maps, multi-use trails.  Rationalize, rationalize, rationalize. Are those good enough reasons to pave something that forever, was only walked by deer and the quiet curious?  It is ok to manipulate what is rare?

Should you find yourself rationalizing something, that something is likely wrong.

This was all fine, I thought, because my long-term plan is to get rich, buy and chunk of New Brunswick and protect it, guard it from harm.  Take back the province, if you will. Hoard it a little, but maybe share part for mountain biking trails.

Mountain biking, I’ve been telling Mike since we met that I’ve been avoiding mountain biking my whole life, because I don’t want to know.  I don’t want to know what I’ve been putting off, what I have been stalling, stunting.  Now that I know, not only do these thin lines we call single track take me to strange, remote slopes, they show me all of the ways I don’t- contribute, fail to contribute.  Mountain biking is brain floss for your perception of a landscape, a map, a region.

As we walked the Foot Path, we tried to stay in it, but the future swayed into the conversation.  It was Saturday.  On Monday morning, (long weekend), there was a trail day in Minto.

It wasn’t a question, Sunday we finished the Foot Path, slept in a bed in a house, and set the alarm to make it to trail day in Minto, where I immediately connected with Tanya.  In an hour or 2 I got her full timeline and she got mine, all over deciding which branch to cut.  After 3 days of not-talking a whole lot, she let me talk about what really mattered to me, listened closely as I described my solo bike tour across BC.  As we compared notes on bike touring (she biked across Canada!) and our preferences for doing it the hard way, there was a heart agreement that easy is empty.  One adventure truly catapulted her to the next; there is little dead air or stale bread in the way she’s chosen to use her time.  Build it and move on.  Like a damn trail. By hand.

By hand, by hand.  That’s how it’s done.  Deep, uninterrupted love and care for the trail.  You don’t always know why you’re in love with something until you stop and listen to all of the instruments separately and all at once.  On the Footpath, the grade looks impossible, and then there you are, doing what the trees always have.  Clinging to what’s there and making it work. In Minto, in a few hours there were stories shared within the carving of the trail that will linger in the dust and mean something different to everyone who rides it; everyone contributes to a trail's philosophy and shape.  The maintenance is the prayer.  The trail is the church. Caring for something that doesn't belong to you is the answer. 

And, to the horror of all of my creative writing friends, I’ll end on someone else’s words. My girl, Amelia Meath (Sylvan Esso):

“Never stop starting.”

I can pull her away from the road with my heart

I learn everything about my own throttling, selfishness, and blindness from my dog.

I take her where I want to go, when I want to go, and sometimes get frustrated when she doesn't understand that I have things to do. 

It's possible that the ugliest words I've ever spoken are: 

"I don't have time to play."

Time?

What the fuck is time?

There's a river down there, don't you know?

Thank you. Thank you.

When we're on and I'm clear

and my eyes are in the sky looking for eagles, there are great ropes between us.

An energetic tug you cannot see.

No leash. 

No words.

I keep her off the road. She opens my heart. 

Upwards over the Mountain on YouTube

When I lived in Hawaii I spent some time counselling my twin sister on a cordless phone with a calling card under the canopy of a large tree just outside of the Lanai. 

She was struggling with a boss that didn't trust or value her, yet felt guilt for potentially quitting on him.  I did what I would for any friend, told her she wasn't being realized, leaving was the right decision- she would survive, if not thrive, and they would get by without her.

This was largely what we discussed, it was pivotal to her at the time, so I gave her my ear.  

When I asked about the rest of the family, there were strange, convoluted accounts of our older sister, and who I will refer to as her 'ghetto-boyfriend.'

Ghetto-boyfriend borrowed my dad's 4-wheeler with permission. My dad discovered he was using the quad to illegally night hunt and promptly confronted the situation.  When he went to take back what was rightfully his, ghetto-boyfriend lost it, and pushed my dad off a truck bed (from where I assume he was trying to reclaim the machine).

This was the most redneck assault I had ever heard tell-of.  

I was in Hawaii volunteering to pick fallen palm frawns off the retreat landscape in exchange for food, yoga and board.  We chanted in Hawaiian before we put on our work gloves.  I did yoga most days at 4:30pm in an ocean-facing studio, and at 6pm they literally blew a conch shell, literally, to notify us that our gourmet dinner was ready to be served in the Lanai.

Who were these people, how did they let this happen?

I was very far away.  I was 21, it was an appropriate time to be far away.  

I started Massage College 2 weeks after High School. Once graduated at 19, I jumped into the career.  Once working, I saw a stable future and knew if I didn't take a hiatus then and there, I never would.

I could not have predicted that my timing would leave me so absent and removed from the violence at home.

It was bizarre. Their whole relationship was enabled, the violence taken passively. No one was standing up to this bully, this cancer on the family, and my dad is built like a grizzly bear. It didn't add up.  They were protecting.

So I mowed the lawn.  The yoga retreat 20-acre lawn.  I borrowed Lance's iPod.  Fell hard for Iron and Wine, first and foremost for their painfully real lyrics describing the southern states.  I was just getting to know my fellow Americans, wanting to understand them; my biking buddy Taylor grew up near the Blue Ridges.  My Ashtanga pal Amma was from Kentucky and talked real funny. Iron and Wine's lyrics discussed landscape, Jesus, and poverty.  Perhaps in my dealing with a shameful narrative at home, I felt comfort knowing that famous people came from real places.  The iconic communities highlighted in lyrics were full of abuse and disappointment; these places were simple and deep all at once.

"Mother remember the night that the dog had her pups in the pantry? Blood on the floor, fleas on their paws, and you cried 'til the morning."

On the nights I didn't go to yoga, I biked either direction on the 'red road,' named for the mango trees that bent to make the whole road a tunnel, and the lava rich soil that toyed with the color of the asphalt.

Before returning for dinner on those bike nights, I'd secretly stop at the point.  I'd drop my forehead in the soil and talk to the Pacific Ocean.  I would tell her everything.  From the point, the ocean was absolutely landless in all directions.

I have better bikes and stronger legs now, but I'm certain if I pedaled that road again I would shatter.

My time ran out, my finances had long run out, and it was time to leave America. 

I had no idea that my homecoming year would be one of the hardest recoveries I would ever experience.

My dad picked me up from the tiny Fredericton airport.  He didn't want to talk about what I'd seen or done, no interest in pictures.

I now know that he was too full.  He still is.  Too many bills, too many kids, too many missed opportunities, so much time spent being misunderstood.  

When I stepped through the kitchen door I don't think my mom said hi.

She punched the kitchen wall and yelped "enough!"  at my older sister.  Mom had her ugly face on, the under-bite of a bulldog, unblinking eyes.

I think my shoes were still on when my older sister came over to be shielded. She crumpled like a child.  She stood crying in fetal position.  I rubbed her back.

I missed something that I can never be caught up on.

I could never recreate the great conversations, the honest writing, and the wide-eyes Hawaii gave me.  The already far away island parted more and more each time someone's half-interest and cynicism accumulated. I maintained.

There was this thing called YouTube, fairly new concept.  Not on a phone, not on a laptop, but on my parents' desktop in the cluttered and carpeted office, I looked up "Upwards Over the Mountain."

The first hit was a live recording at Aquarius Records in San Francisco.  The song already brought salvation, I was already invested.  This live version made me insist Iron and Wine never make a studio album.  

You can't capture the hard pauses, the difficult, eclectic breath it takes to get through a long line; the static. This unkempt man was at home making jokes and tuning his guitar.  

7 years later I look up this track quarterly to be reminded.

To be reminded that we're all a bunch of rednecks, full of shame, full of brilliance we can not articulate.  When I need a blade of what I worked through with those earbuds on that ride-on mower on a rock in the Pacific, I turn to YouTube.