Beware the fiercely independent woman. She is likely the one most in need of care. Feminists would have my laptop right now, but in my case, it’s a fact. I’ve spent my life, since taking off at sixteen for a year in Paris, zealously declaring my independence. Ironically, I haven’t been out of a relationship for more than five minutes since then, even though, paradoxically, most of my time in all my relationships has been spent trying to get out of them. It’s caused me to consider that perhaps I do (doth?) protest too much. Why am I so afraid to depend on someone? What is so "bad" about needing someone? And why, instead of always fighting to re-program old patterns do I not instead take the path of least resistance and groove them deeper? Day after day, season after season, year after year, the same patterns occur in nature; and nature never ceases to marvel at the depths of her own beauty and complexity within those patterns.
I’ve been asked recently what I want out of life. That’s a pretty immense question, but what better place to contemplate it than here in the vastness of the Yukon. Yesterday I sat for awhile by the muddy Yukon River and watched it flow at its steady 8 or 12 nauts northward. The sun danced diamonds off the surface and once again, smoke muted the colors on the mountains, focusing the eye toward the distinguishable sharp gray outline of tall lean spruce and rough peaks.
I think the Yukon is masculine. Everything about it feels male. It doesn’t embrace like some of the feminine places I’ve been to, like Lonavla in the lush green rolling hills south of Mumbai, India, or Pai in the dense and humid Himalayan foothill jungles of Northern Thailand. Instead, the Yukon stands aloof, like the King of the Beasts, fully aware of his own magnificence, and entirely indifferent to your admiration.
It’s a place of struggle and conquering and energy expenditure. Men (and women) first came in 1896 to dig gold from the gravel—hard and heavy physical labor. (Some of the women spent time on their backs in labor digging gold from the pockets of the men who dug gold.) Some struck it rich in legendary Klondike grandeur. Others died trying. Just getting here is a battle. The landscape is rugged and cragged, like so many of the unshaven and unkempt men that inhabit it—but it’ll be your friend if you don’t underestimate its power and give it its due respect.
The Yukon doesn’t nurture like a mother; but it provides like a good father. It provides limitless resources and limitless potential—and a lot of pleasant surprises; and in that way, it offers a haven for prospectors and outcasts and adventurers and those of us needing a little time to heal.
Ron did that for me. He provided a safe haven for me when I just needed to rest and soften. He was a great provider. I didn’t worry about a thing when I lived with Ron. He took care of everything, right down to paying the vet bills for my kitty and restocking the toilet paper when it ran low. "Mr. Make-it-Happen," I affectionately called him. He is a man of action, and if something needed doing, he did it on the spot. "How do you eat an elephant?" he would tease if I got overwhelmed by writers' block on page one of an empty ninety-page screenplay in front of me. "One bite at a time." And that was the methodical way in which he would chew through his business day. He is aggressive, and in spite of always begging him to be less demanding and less controlling and less contentious, I secretly enjoyed it because it meant I didn’t have to be.
Our relationship in the last couple of years had evolved into a sort of friendship of convenience for both of us. In many ways we were great companions, but ultimately we both knew we were holding each other captive, bleeding each other for something neither one of us could provide—becoming our biggest fear.
My affection for Ron has not faded with time and distance. In fact, it’s grown. Expanded. Perhaps transformed. Maybe transcended. Certainly solidified. The magic of travel...
As I leave this vast and healing male land called Yukon and head out alone again with Henk on the twisty road south, the only answer that comes, strong and resonant, to the question 'What do I want out of life' is in the form of a question: What does life want out of me?
I’ve been asked recently what I want out of life. That’s a pretty immense question, but what better place to contemplate it than here in the vastness of the Yukon. Yesterday I sat for awhile by the muddy Yukon River and watched it flow at its steady 8 or 12 nauts northward. The sun danced diamonds off the surface and once again, smoke muted the colors on the mountains, focusing the eye toward the distinguishable sharp gray outline of tall lean spruce and rough peaks.
I think the Yukon is masculine. Everything about it feels male. It doesn’t embrace like some of the feminine places I’ve been to, like Lonavla in the lush green rolling hills south of Mumbai, India, or Pai in the dense and humid Himalayan foothill jungles of Northern Thailand. Instead, the Yukon stands aloof, like the King of the Beasts, fully aware of his own magnificence, and entirely indifferent to your admiration.
It’s a place of struggle and conquering and energy expenditure. Men (and women) first came in 1896 to dig gold from the gravel—hard and heavy physical labor. (Some of the women spent time on their backs in labor digging gold from the pockets of the men who dug gold.) Some struck it rich in legendary Klondike grandeur. Others died trying. Just getting here is a battle. The landscape is rugged and cragged, like so many of the unshaven and unkempt men that inhabit it—but it’ll be your friend if you don’t underestimate its power and give it its due respect.
The Yukon doesn’t nurture like a mother; but it provides like a good father. It provides limitless resources and limitless potential—and a lot of pleasant surprises; and in that way, it offers a haven for prospectors and outcasts and adventurers and those of us needing a little time to heal.
Ron did that for me. He provided a safe haven for me when I just needed to rest and soften. He was a great provider. I didn’t worry about a thing when I lived with Ron. He took care of everything, right down to paying the vet bills for my kitty and restocking the toilet paper when it ran low. "Mr. Make-it-Happen," I affectionately called him. He is a man of action, and if something needed doing, he did it on the spot. "How do you eat an elephant?" he would tease if I got overwhelmed by writers' block on page one of an empty ninety-page screenplay in front of me. "One bite at a time." And that was the methodical way in which he would chew through his business day. He is aggressive, and in spite of always begging him to be less demanding and less controlling and less contentious, I secretly enjoyed it because it meant I didn’t have to be.
Our relationship in the last couple of years had evolved into a sort of friendship of convenience for both of us. In many ways we were great companions, but ultimately we both knew we were holding each other captive, bleeding each other for something neither one of us could provide—becoming our biggest fear.
My affection for Ron has not faded with time and distance. In fact, it’s grown. Expanded. Perhaps transformed. Maybe transcended. Certainly solidified. The magic of travel...
As I leave this vast and healing male land called Yukon and head out alone again with Henk on the twisty road south, the only answer that comes, strong and resonant, to the question 'What do I want out of life' is in the form of a question: What does life want out of me?
posted by Moira Nordholt | 12:18 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home