This morning I awoke in a nice, warm bed, for the first time in three days. It felt amazing, the dawn of a good day. But then I discovered that my camel pack on the floor hadn't had the water properly drained from the tube and it had leaked onto and soaked into the carpet. I felt terrible, and frantically spent a good chunk of time trying to soak it up. When I finally went downstairs and told my host about it, she responded, "Well, it's just water. Don't worry about it." And I realized, here I was feeling crazily guilty about spilt water. Just water. I had been working myself up over nothing.
It stirred something in me as I set upon my long hours of introspective bicycling time. The first thirty miles today were inland and generally uninteresting, so amongst my whistling of random tunes (from In the Hall of the Mountain King to the Mario Bros theme song) and other tactics to pass time, I had a lot of opportunity to think, about myself, and my sense of guilt. As a bike vagabond, I try to keep my possessions few, my burdens light. And yet, I've been dragging a needless weight around with me wherever I go, a weight of guilt. I'm someone who doesn't let go, doesn't forgive myself easily, for things legitimate, things ludicrous, and things long gone. And it's time, past time, that I stopped.
This in mind, I decided I needed to do something symbolic to represent this decision, and had some sense of what it would be, yet not where I would do it. The latter half of my day was filled with all kinds of gorgeous coastal scenery. Battlerock at Port Orford was the first of many such sights. As recommended by my host of last night, I stopped in at the visitor center there and asked the nice older gentlemen running it if they knew about camping available around Gold Beach. They had lots of suggestions. I ended up taking none of them as it turned out, but have no regrets about spending the time talking to them.
Humbug Mountain, where I had considered camping before (but would have made for a long day to Crescent City tomorrow) made me wish I had an eye camera, so I could take pictures as I rode. It was beautiful, the mountain jutting out into the coast side, the mossy trees, the fast moving brook that ran parallel to the road for a long ways, but there was no good place to stop for photos. Down from the mountain was some tourist trap with lifesized dinosaur statues I had no interest in paying for, but did enjoy posing in front of the t-rex in the parking lot.
Then not too far on from there I reached the all significant Three Sisters Rock. I had no idea that's where I was at first, having just parked to rest. Then as I wandered away from my bike, along the poorly marked road that did little to let you know you were at a state park, and nothing of what a wonder it held, I made up my mind that this was the place. I found a big rock, and using another rock I inscribed onto it my "guilt". It was silly and sentimental and I knew it, but I'd determined to toss that rock off a cliff into the ocean, dropping my guilt with it.
...It didn't quite go as planned. On my way down the rocky, sometimes steep and risky slope toward the three sister rocks and the sea, I met a fellow also on his way down, by the name of Chad Childers. Feeling rather absurd and hoping it went unnoticed, I pocketed my rock as Chad and I chatted while headed down, after his friend John who was already far ahead. He's a cool guy, a Southerner who moved out here a short time back. His friend John is a champion bull rider. He showed me a picture of John saddling a rock like a bull at the last area they'd stopped at, Otter Point, about ten miles down the road. Somehow seeing that picture it just clicked. That was where I needed throw my rock. We made our way down into a large opening in the rock through which the ocean current surged up like a frothing cauldron and we took turns taking pictures of one another standing inside. I could have thrown the rock down into the sea right there and been done with it. But it wasn't right, was too personal to do in their presence, too much, too silly, to explain.
On our way back up, Chad said he'd be remiss in his Southern hospitality if he didn't offer me a beer, pulling three as if materializing them from nothingness out of his jacket. I won't admit to any illegal drinking in a state park, you can decide for yourself whether I took the proffered beverage, toasted with them, and was part of beer clinking selfie or not. They were cool, colorful characters. John asked very sincerely if I sought out whores on the road, and I answered I wasn't that adventurous I guessed. Chad offered I could stay with them in Port Orford for the night, but I said I wasn't interested in turning backward. When I mentioned that my host of last night had said there might be camping at the fairground in Gold Beach, he told me he was an announcer there and to just drop his name to the event coordinator and say I was a personal friend. Amazing the happenstances of life. I couldn't be happier for the whim that brought me to meet Chad and John.
I left there with the rock still in my pocket, and ten miles to go to where I intended to throw it into the sea. It hurt my leg biking with the heavy, jagged thing scraping me. I could have easily just lost it and wrote on a different rock once I got there, but no, I had already inscribed my guilt on this rock, and the pain of carrying the damn thing had become part of the ritual. That ten miles seemed to take forever, let me tell you. And the weight of the rock could be felt with each stride, scraping at my leg. Then it was a wild ride down a winding gravel road, a walk through a muddy stretch, and then I was out on the cliffs. I found my spot and I threw the rock into the sea. Just like that, it was gone
The inane task of carrying an ordinary rock with an illegible scrawling on it to a specific place to be hurled into the ocean was turned into a grand quest, completed with a sense of resounding triumph and the feeling that my burdens were lightened. My phone battery dying, the hour growing late, the winds I had been fighting all day now raging stronger than ever, I set back to my bike to make my last six miles with a feeling of deep joy. On my way into Gold Beach, hawks flying by overhead, the sea sparkling, I'm the beauty of it all I had what some would call a religious or spiritual experience, feeling oneness, purpose, inherent meaning to the course of my life. ...I'd call it a brief lapse in rationality, where patternality and emotionality are set on overdrive to create an irrational feeling of self importance. But I enjoyed the emotional high and marveled in it I imagine just as much as anyone who would see it as something magic or divine as opposed to an interesting psychological/biological sensation. It's a moment of losing a part of yourself and your senses. It's like beer or like weed. It feels good, but 99.9% of the time I want and need to be sober. And sober me is who I like.
And I do, I do like me as who I am now. I've cast my guilt into the sea, and I'm forgiving myself the person I've been, the mistakes of my past, the messed up parts of my childhood. I am not the me I was 10 years ago when I first came to the Seattle area with my family, or the me of 5 years ago, or even a year ago. The me of a year ago hadn't even biked over a mountain yet. Who the hell was that guy? I am the me of this moment, and he's someone I get on with for long hours alone just fine.
At the end of the eventful day I came into the Curry County Fairgrounds and found no one at the event office. But the first lady I did find and talk to happened to be camping here herself, so I at least had confirmation that it was a thing I could do. Apparently she's part of some college class that is camping out at the fairground as part of something they're doing. Another bicyclist arrived later and is camping here as well, so I'm not worried about it being permissible. I'm set up with my sleeping bag inside a gazebo for the night, so I should stay nice and warm and dry after my meaningfully meaningless day. What I hate about camping isn't sleeping outside, it's setting up and cleaning up my tent. So this should be perfect. My time in Oregon comes to a close tomorrow, as I head into Crescent City, California!
This post brought me joy.
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