Peter Jack Rainbird
On Friday, August 10th, I'd woken with the sun in Nanaimo. Rob, who had picked me up in Duncan and let me sleep in his backyard, dropped me on the highway. I made a pb & banana sandwich, ate it while watching the sun climb. Walked 3 km on a trail that runs along the highway. Read a map which informed that it would be another 8 km before I was truly out of Nanaimo, which has a terrible reputation for hitchhikers getting fined by the police. Though normally my rule is not to hitch within city limits, I was tired and wanted to get to Denman that day.
An ex-Iranian Baha'i fellow dropped me off at a junction. One way lead into Parksville, the other continued north toward the ferry to Denman. I chose the latter and waited 10 minutes at a hopeless junction before walking the road. I might have taken a shit in the woods. If I did, it was a pretty terrific shit that could have been left by a bear.
Some 5 km down the highway I was out of water. No one was ever going to stop- speed limit of 110 km/hr and meager shoulder ---> bleak prospects. I looked through the salal & spruce and saw a dwelling. I marched into the bushes and learned why people make and use trails. My legs were shredded but I'd made it to... an abandoned home? It was surrounded by others. I seemed to be in cottage country. I found a hose and tried to turn it on, imagining myself in some ghost town were lawns were mysteriously manicured (probably by ghosts). The hose wasn't connected to water. The scene was dream-like. I rang the doorbell and a 13-year old boy answered, baffled. He fetched me water and I asked him where I was.
Parksville. Even though I'd walked away from the turn off for Parksville, I was here. To get back to the highway I'd been on would require going back through the bushes, but there was an Old Highway. He pointed me down through this neighbourhood and I got picked up by the letter carrier. Here I was, downtown Parksville, one of the oldest beach communities on Vancouver Island, the most beautiful (according to the Baha'i fellow).
In my vision, I waited until Denman Island to plunge into the ocean. I couldn't hold out, now that it was in front of me. Got on my pseudo swim suit and slowly, savouring the acclimation, walked in & dove under.
I was whole,
I was clean,
I wept. I bled gratitude into her. Reveled in the weightlessness, the sound and taste of surf, of being buoyant.
"Ambient guitar" was on the board by the small amphitheatre. Parksville's sandcastle festival was on. Sit on a log, wrapped in a sarong, listen. Shared food with a gull and fell completely in love with this white jacketed, barefoot blond being playing with his eyes closed. He had a serene smile and he was, or his music was, the ocean & the sky. Every note was carefully chosen and reverberated through my being. This person, Peter Jack Rainbird, turned my aural faculties kaleidoscopic. As the music progressed the lights behind my eyelids changed colour, and it had to be a dream.
We were the same person, but I got lost in trying to figure out how to not come off as overly idolatrous. We were the same person, it wasn't a dream, I'd made it to the ocean. As he wrapped cables I asked him what kind of pedals he used.
"Let's start with hello, shall we?"
"Okay. Yes. Hi. Hi. I'm Emese."
His smile knocked me backwards. I struggled to maintain my composure. I was shivering and had no a towel. He had never had any training, so might not be helpful to me regarding guitar advice. He explained that the fellow in the shop would try to sell me a pedal that did everything, made me breakfast and called my mother. Start with the basics. Get the simplest thing and-
"Yeah, it seems like you would make a sound and respond to it, try to find another to follow it and approached it intuitively."
Do I play? No, well, I've been trying since January.
The important thing, he said, is not to listen to those I love and admire.
"I love Kate Bush."
"Without Kate Bush we wouldn't have Bjork, or Florence and the Machine. But Kate Bush might say, without Wuthering Heights we wouldn't have Kate Bush. Love and admire Kate Bush. But don't listen to her. Get to a point where Kate Bush listens to you."
I asked him about the Old vs New highways, and he thought I'd do better on the Old one. The Original highway, as he called it, would be much more traversable for me. But what I was really asking was for a ride out of Dodge, wasn't it? I nodded, embarassed that I'd lost my ability to speak directly in the presence of the vessel of the divine. He offered to carry a bag, I refused, we got into the van.
"Do you like mulberries?"
"MULBERRIES? Live for 'em!" I gave him what I had left and he told me he'd picked up a young man named Oliver who had also been hoping to get to Denman. His father owned the chocolate factory there, and PJR had experienced the hitchhiker as a cross between Oliver Twist and Willy Wonka. Chocolate is the holy grail in England. I asked if that was related to the rumour about bad teeth. Asked if they also have dental hygenists going to children's classrooms twice a year, telling them to brush. Twice a year? Twice a day they came! He enjoys brushing his teeth for long stretches while driving, absent mindedly, no toothpaste. He lives on Quadra Island and explained:
"If Salt Spring Island has embraced progress and technology, while Lasqueti is firmly resistant, Quadra is in the middle. Lasqueti doesn't want any of that, they want to stay rustic and tucked away, while Salt Spring's gone very commercial. We've got one foot planted in chicken shit and one in technology, the future. We still want our free range eggs and awesome gardens, and we want whatever's next."
We passed through Qualicum Beach, apparently occupied by an 'older demographic' with 'a high concentration of golf courses'. We agreed that I would do well by a small blue bridge over a creek. I thanked him and he said he'd see me on my next adventure.
I ate blackberries and felt, for the first time in months, like I wasn't alone in the universe. I had thought so highly of him, and he had done the same, been kind and curious and respectful. It had taken the tramping through bushes, the resultant bleeding, it had taken every unpleasant step to get to this state of consciousness.
Thank you, Peter Jack Rainbird.
An ex-Iranian Baha'i fellow dropped me off at a junction. One way lead into Parksville, the other continued north toward the ferry to Denman. I chose the latter and waited 10 minutes at a hopeless junction before walking the road. I might have taken a shit in the woods. If I did, it was a pretty terrific shit that could have been left by a bear.
Some 5 km down the highway I was out of water. No one was ever going to stop- speed limit of 110 km/hr and meager shoulder ---> bleak prospects. I looked through the salal & spruce and saw a dwelling. I marched into the bushes and learned why people make and use trails. My legs were shredded but I'd made it to... an abandoned home? It was surrounded by others. I seemed to be in cottage country. I found a hose and tried to turn it on, imagining myself in some ghost town were lawns were mysteriously manicured (probably by ghosts). The hose wasn't connected to water. The scene was dream-like. I rang the doorbell and a 13-year old boy answered, baffled. He fetched me water and I asked him where I was.
Parksville. Even though I'd walked away from the turn off for Parksville, I was here. To get back to the highway I'd been on would require going back through the bushes, but there was an Old Highway. He pointed me down through this neighbourhood and I got picked up by the letter carrier. Here I was, downtown Parksville, one of the oldest beach communities on Vancouver Island, the most beautiful (according to the Baha'i fellow).
In my vision, I waited until Denman Island to plunge into the ocean. I couldn't hold out, now that it was in front of me. Got on my pseudo swim suit and slowly, savouring the acclimation, walked in & dove under.
I was whole,
I was clean,
I wept. I bled gratitude into her. Reveled in the weightlessness, the sound and taste of surf, of being buoyant.
"Ambient guitar" was on the board by the small amphitheatre. Parksville's sandcastle festival was on. Sit on a log, wrapped in a sarong, listen. Shared food with a gull and fell completely in love with this white jacketed, barefoot blond being playing with his eyes closed. He had a serene smile and he was, or his music was, the ocean & the sky. Every note was carefully chosen and reverberated through my being. This person, Peter Jack Rainbird, turned my aural faculties kaleidoscopic. As the music progressed the lights behind my eyelids changed colour, and it had to be a dream.
We were the same person, but I got lost in trying to figure out how to not come off as overly idolatrous. We were the same person, it wasn't a dream, I'd made it to the ocean. As he wrapped cables I asked him what kind of pedals he used.
"Let's start with hello, shall we?"
"Okay. Yes. Hi. Hi. I'm Emese."
His smile knocked me backwards. I struggled to maintain my composure. I was shivering and had no a towel. He had never had any training, so might not be helpful to me regarding guitar advice. He explained that the fellow in the shop would try to sell me a pedal that did everything, made me breakfast and called my mother. Start with the basics. Get the simplest thing and-
"Yeah, it seems like you would make a sound and respond to it, try to find another to follow it and approached it intuitively."
Do I play? No, well, I've been trying since January.
The important thing, he said, is not to listen to those I love and admire.
"I love Kate Bush."
"Without Kate Bush we wouldn't have Bjork, or Florence and the Machine. But Kate Bush might say, without Wuthering Heights we wouldn't have Kate Bush. Love and admire Kate Bush. But don't listen to her. Get to a point where Kate Bush listens to you."
I asked him about the Old vs New highways, and he thought I'd do better on the Old one. The Original highway, as he called it, would be much more traversable for me. But what I was really asking was for a ride out of Dodge, wasn't it? I nodded, embarassed that I'd lost my ability to speak directly in the presence of the vessel of the divine. He offered to carry a bag, I refused, we got into the van.
"Do you like mulberries?"
"MULBERRIES? Live for 'em!" I gave him what I had left and he told me he'd picked up a young man named Oliver who had also been hoping to get to Denman. His father owned the chocolate factory there, and PJR had experienced the hitchhiker as a cross between Oliver Twist and Willy Wonka. Chocolate is the holy grail in England. I asked if that was related to the rumour about bad teeth. Asked if they also have dental hygenists going to children's classrooms twice a year, telling them to brush. Twice a year? Twice a day they came! He enjoys brushing his teeth for long stretches while driving, absent mindedly, no toothpaste. He lives on Quadra Island and explained:
"If Salt Spring Island has embraced progress and technology, while Lasqueti is firmly resistant, Quadra is in the middle. Lasqueti doesn't want any of that, they want to stay rustic and tucked away, while Salt Spring's gone very commercial. We've got one foot planted in chicken shit and one in technology, the future. We still want our free range eggs and awesome gardens, and we want whatever's next."
We passed through Qualicum Beach, apparently occupied by an 'older demographic' with 'a high concentration of golf courses'. We agreed that I would do well by a small blue bridge over a creek. I thanked him and he said he'd see me on my next adventure.
I ate blackberries and felt, for the first time in months, like I wasn't alone in the universe. I had thought so highly of him, and he had done the same, been kind and curious and respectful. It had taken the tramping through bushes, the resultant bleeding, it had taken every unpleasant step to get to this state of consciousness.
Thank you, Peter Jack Rainbird.