Epilogue

Image: Bassetshirt Lyric: Robert Hunter “Truckin’” Grateful Dead

While writing Maverick, I realized that while I had dived headlong into my many ventures and adventures, some critics thought I was foolish and predicted I would fail. Sometimes they were right. But I learned from those setbacks, grew, and became better able to expect nothing; be ready for anything.

Others called me rebel, rogue, radical. I didn’t accept those labels. I thought of myself as a maverick: a lone dissenter who takes an independent stand apart from his associates. I worked hard at staying true to that self-definition.

Since I had first heard Ken Low describe Ronin ‘Free Lance’ Samurais, I’d set my sights on becoming a Free Lance educator, coach, and writer. I walked a crooked Thoreauvian path. Retracing that path as I wrote, I realized how hard I’d tried, failed, tried again … and learned lessons I could call upon in my next ventures. I saw the ways I put my hard-earned ‘freedom to…’ to use, doing what I wanted and helping others.

I struggled for the heights. Tackled existential mountains. Wandered down different paths in search of my own. Now, I think I understand poet Antonio Machado’s line “Traveller, there is no path / The path is made by walking.” My path led me to writing. There’s challenge enough there to fill many lives.

But, not everyone I know understands or approves of the life I’ve created.

“If you’d stuck with consulting, you could have made big money, lived in a real house, travelled, enjoyed the whole deal,” a friend said to me a few years ago. “You could have a retirement home on a golf course in Mexico or Arizona.”

I laughed.

“Since learning about ecology, I realized how simplifying my life could lower my footprint; let me live lighter on the Earth. It may not be much, but I feel as if I’m doing my bit for the planet’s future. And our human future on it.”

He shook his head. “That sounds so hippyish; so unrealistic!”

Regardless of his and other’s skepticism, I’m happy where I am, with what I have. Besides family and friends, my deepest source of joy and contentment is nature. Time spent in the natural world allows my mind to slow and clear, my thoughts to sharpen, and my emotions to calm.

Walking in the park across the street or along the pathway above the beach — taking in the always stupendous panorama of ocean and mountains — is one of the deepest and most joy-filled pleasures I have experienced. Sun, rain, fog, wind … almost every time I walk, I’m overwhelmed by wonder. I’m no longer able to scale physical mountains. But the joy I find exploring the complexity and beauty of the natural world out my front door fills most of the holes in my life.

My only regret is, perhaps, by focusing so fiercely on helping others create what mattered — and moving in search of new challenges — I failed to create a lasting romantic relationship and, to a lesser extent, close friendships. No love of my life. Most of my friends are spread across several cities, provinces, and countries.

Maybe I never fully rid myself of the “prickliness” that had haunted me since grade school. Or nutty beliefs. (Damn those “shoulds!”) Perhaps, I acted too ‘teacherish.’ I’m sure old partners would happily share flaws and faults I don’t see.

But such a life is not bereft of delight. Local friends and family, wonderful neighbours, supportive siblings, and warm, long-distant relationships and meet-ups with old Hector, LTS, Earthways, Pooh House, and YMS friends, and a few special ex-clients, provide a deep source of pleasure and satisfaction.

When I look back at peaks and valleys I traversed — and results I created — I can say to Camus, “You can imagine me happy.”

*

One sunny spring afternoon in 2023, Celine called to see if I’d like a visit with her and her husband Al, and maybe take my grandchildren — River and Sky — to the kids’ park a couple of blocks up my street and have a picnic. 

Heat flooded my chest. My heart drummed. I felt I weighed nothing.

“Of course,” I said. “When?”

After I hung up, a bright smile bloomed on my face. I flipped through photos in the electronic frame Celine had given me so I could view River’s and Sky’s adventures during the Covid pandemic.

Such amazing little creatures, each with a bit of me in them.

Filled with the warmth of love, I fingered a rough, 6- x 18-inch slab of weathered Bow River driftwood that sat beside Celine’s photo frame. 

Four decades earlier, Duncan Dow, my Earthways partner, had pasted on the slab a 3- by 5-inch, colour snapshot of the moon rising over an Earthways viewing party.

Beside it, he’d burned into the wood a Henry David Thoreau quote:

I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now. 

*

So, what’s next?