In the Pacific Northwest, the rains tapping upon my windows tonight portend the effectual end to summer. And what a summer it was. The summer of 2010 will have the indelible distinction of the summer of one: me. In response to a breakup last January and my subsequent struggle to avoid complete emotional destruction, I sought to connect with myself in an attempt to rediscover love -- that which lies within. The summer of 2010 became the conscious process to celebrate myself irrespective of another’s critique or request. Lonely, perhaps; selfish, perhaps; but necessary, indeed. For the love that wilted nearly 10 months ago today was likely more a result of two people’s lack of love for themselves rather than a lack of love for each other. Hackneyed through the prose of many poets past, I profess no prophetic novelty to this enlightenment other than the novelty by which it is now personal. How can one find love in someone else if they can’t first find it in themselves? It is the burden of the search by which value is prescribed. This was the koan that defined the summer of 2010: to truly value love isn't simply to have true love, but to lose it and then find it again.
As the winter so rudely invites itself in, I recall a moment when windows were not rattling with rain, but with sunlight. These were the windows bracing my tilted head against the side of a train pacing north, magnifying the warm promise of the San Juan Islands. Once there, I found magic; or rather, magic found me. This, I believe, is because I decided to step out of the invisible cloak I so often wear and let the environment embrace me instead of myself embracing the environment. It was a humble surrender. The result was happiness -- the truest happiness I’ve felt as an adult. It was the happiness of unadulterated, unapologetic self actualization that flourished from the organic process before me. I invented campsites to allow for the best full moon rises I’ve ever witnessed, I traced constellations of roads and trails in every direction on my bicycle, I met a spectrum of people from all over the world, each with a unique gift of story, I labored the local land to provide myself and others food, shelter, and nourishment, and in this process I found love. Again.
While my San Juan sojourn was certainly the most voluminous chapter of my summer, there were a handful of other, shorter chapters that had no less importance in my process. I celebrated nearly every activity that defines me, from bicycling through the bucolic valleys of the Willamette, to burning the 2:00 AM oil with a new song, to escaping for party-of-one dinner and movie dates. My conviction to rediscover myself oddly, even uncomfortably, took on the nuance of dating myself. And like any dating charade, there is a time when the effortlessness of fantasy ends and the moil of reality begins. These moments were most raw during my solo camping trips, particularly the last camp in the Goat Rocks Wilderness of Washington state.
Coincidently (or subconsciously un-coincidently), the summer of 2010 culminated in a place etched with memories of the very girl that brought about my introspective orchestration in the first place. Her and I discovered the Goat Rocks Wilderness together the previous summer, and that time together remains a cherished memory. Returning there on the eve of my “Summer of One” now seems a bit contrived. That said, I remember scouting future campsites the year before that I vowed to explore and, being a person of my word, I simply followed through, albeit without her. But I did so alone in a wilderness haunted by ghosts of her memories, not just because of the location, but also because I knew it was the finale of my summer. And with no one around for miles to distract and defer the introspection, my insecurities were as exposed as my fragile fire. This was the invitation for a haunt.
In retrospection, I now smirk at the irony. I set out upon the summer’s dawn to discover a love within myself by which I can learn to better share love with someone else; by the summer’s eve, after months of blissful personal actualization, I find myself completely alone, jettisoned above a barren timberline, and cold from darkening weather, all the while immersed in memories of past love. The yin to this summer’s yang had become obvious: the love within will always be countered by the demons within. I woke up the next morning in the season’s first snow. The summer sun that had rattled warmth through that train window months ago had set.
Alas, there is no island, no campsite, no song, no bike ride -- no person -- that will obviate the moil required within for sustained happiness. Happiness, I’ve learned, is a constant struggle. The ghosts will always show up, for they are a part of me as much as my happiness is a part of me. However, as I learned after lying awake in the Goat Rocks, feeling my tent rattle to autumn’s approaching wind, the ghosts are only as scary as one invents them to be. The challenge is to find the humility to prepare for the ghosts and then to embrace them rather than (attempt to) evade them. I had a good tent, plenty of reserve food and warm clothing, and a keen sense of how to find my way back to my car, even if blinded by a storm. Alone as I was atop that wind-scoured precipice, I was in the calm company of a newly found strength: confidence.
Perhaps last summer’s finale upon a snowy mountaintop was precisely apposite. Endless metaphors aside, I had been celebrating myself last summer almost to the nausea of gluttony, but these experiences hadn’t yet been valued before my final camp. As an economist may agree, value is arbitrary and is prescribed only in terms of its ability to manipulate behavior. For example, $8.40 is “worth” $8.40 because people in Oregon will do at least one hour of motivated behavior -- i.e. “work” -- to receive $8.40. My behavior traversing miles into the wilderness alone with a vague idea of a plan but a clear idea of danger is what valued my summer’s experiences; yet, my summer’s experiences are also what valued my final excursion to discover myself. Yes, to love oneself is also to love someone else; and to love someone else is to love oneself. There is no doubt that I loved, and will likely always love, the girl that I lost last January. But the value of what we had is now clear to me as losing that relationship motivated my entire being to work to be the best person I can so that I can find love again. Next time I don't expect to lose it.
Tonight it’s the rain that’s rattling my windows, but perhaps those are just the demons I’ve created. To someone dying of thirst in the desert, the sun is certainly the demon while the rain is the happiness. Both, however, can elicit worthy behaviors. The process by which I embarked upon months ago is now complete. I have established the confidence in myself to be myself such that I can motivate my behavior to value the love within and the love I hope to share with someone else again. Until then, I think a graceful walk through the dark rain is just the “demon” I’m looking to embrace for the rest of the evening. Who knows, perhaps I’ll find happiness and love in the shadows...
