Catching up: In 2013 I drove cross the USA to visit an old friend and lover. We'd known each other since the 80s and lived together once before but could never make our relationship work. We had kept in touch and Bev had come to Oregon recently for an extended visit. We'd spoken about getting back together and I saw my trip back to New England as another step in that process. I had a wonderful drive across the country and enjoyed my first visit to Glacier National Park. After arriving at Bev's home in Connecticut and getting properly reacquainted she asked me if I wanted to get married. It was an unexpected request that warmed and delighted my heart.
We drove down the coast and explored the Baja together.
We sailed the San Juan and Gulf Islands between Washington state and Vancouver Island aboard a friend's sailboat.
Along the way, besides sharing many adventures together, Bev saw me through two surgeries (knee & hip replacements) and a life threatening blood clot in my brain. For that and many more things I will be eternally grateful to her.
In 2015 we rode the White Rim Trail, a 90 mile loop around the Island in the Sky mesa of Canyonlands National Park in southern Utah. It was something we had both wanted to do ever since we first mountain biked in Utah ten years earlier.
We had great fun traveling together but home life was not always smooth. After living her entire life in the same town and even on the same street in Connecticut she had difficulty making friends in Oregon. Bev tried hard, perhaps too hard but ultimately felt frustrated and isolated. She also missed family and life long friends on the east coast.
Bev was restless and wanted to try something different. She asked if we could buy a boat and go sailing someplace warm. I had already "been there & done that before", so I suggested that we look for a property down on the coast of Oregon to enjoy when we wanted some ocean time. Bev was not to be deterred and it doesn't take much to convince me to go sailing. I warned her that sailboats are never a good investment and almost guarantied to lose money. I've owned four houses and four large sail boats. The worst I've ever done on a house investment is to break even but I've never made any money on a sailboat.
After searching for about six months and looking at many boats we found Malo in San Fransisco bay. We was a 26 year old, 40' racer/cruiser that needed boat loads of TLC but had great bones and a fast, solid hull shape. We bought her and sailed her back to Oregon where we spent a year fixing her out for long distance cruising.
Then we headed south to the Sea of Cortez. We had a long and trying trip down but there were so many many wonderful moments that more than balanced things out.
From the redwood forest of Northern California...
...to the amazing beauty of the Channel Islands.
And the thousand mile trip down the Baja's west coast was a truly unique and amazing experience.
We explored the Sea of Cortez, one of the most amazing bodies of water that I've ever sailed. It is a vast, remote, raw and untamed place that boggles the mind with its juxtaposition of a thriving aquatic ecosystem bounded by a very arid desert.
After sailing for 10 months, the hurricane season was upon us so we put the boat in dry storage. We then headed home with the intention of returning next season to continue our explorations of the Sea. That never happened. Bev divorced me and headed back to Connecticut and the boat was put on the market. I was left devastated, confused but with one small shred of hope; that Bev's leaving would turn out to be a good thing.
While I love sailing and everything about the ocean, there were some big parts of my life I was missing. I missed my shop and building things, something that's hard to do on a sailboat and I missed my community of friends back home. Just before I started the sailing trip, the community had won an important victory. The city to the north of our rural farming community, Springfield Oregon, had sought to annex us with their stated intent to rezone it from "rural & residential", to "industrial" in order to increase their industrial capacity. It was a crazy idea that was driven by greed and lack of respect for the environment. Astonishingly and against all odds we prevailed. We had fought hard for our place employing a variety of tactics such as, allying with local and national conservations groups, canvasing, a petition and we marched through the city with bikes, horses, tractors and pickup trucks. We conducted sit-in & fast on the steps of the city hall and we engaged the best land use lawyer in the region. It was a tough fight against long odds. Fortunately for us it brought us closer together as a community, united in the fight to save itself.
While I was away for 10 months seeing all these amazing places I was also missing my friends and neighbors back home. So that was one good thing right off; I was back home, among good friends, an amazing place in itself. One earmark of a good trip is returning to ones own home and seeing that same place with a new and deeper sense of appreciation. So I had one good thing to hold on to but I was still broken inside and recovering from knee surgery. I wasn't thinking too clearly back then but I did have sense enough to know that I needed to heal myself in order to go forward and that's what I set out to do.
In coming home again, I sought to explore and develop a deeper presence. I envisioned this as bringing into alignment my physical body, mind, sprit and place in such a way that encourages and supports inner peace and joy. To that end I've been taking early morning walks in nature, practicing yoga and meditation most days. As a part of my yoga practice, I’ve been working on recovering my squat. When I was young I use to squat on the ground with friends as we waited, rested or just hung out chatting. It’s beauty lay in its spartan simplicity. One didn’t need any furniture or special place for such gatherings and it imparted a certain unity amongst us.
Healing and restoring my body, the return to my physical self has naturally lead to the urge to return to my original self. Meditation has helped with that return, but now I seek more, to go further back, back to who or what I was before I was Dan. What I am now seeking is the dissolution of self, or ego death, as a significant return home. To go that place before or beyond “I” beckons my inner explorer, to return to an earlier state. To that end the universe has gifted me with a means; Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. My yoga practice gives another, slower means to that end also. Both venues seem comparable and co-reinforcing.
Six tiny blots of impeccable pedigree that I hope will help to deepen my awareness and connection with the universe. With acceptance and gratitude in my heart, I proceed.
While working with unhoused folks in Eugene I had the privilege to meet Ibrahim Mubarak an unhoused, black, muslim activist from Portland. He repeated that old saying; "home is where the heart is" and added that "while he does not have a home, he does have a heart". That is were I shall go, home to the heart.
"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." Stewart Brand, from The Last Whole Earth Catalog
