My Grandpa’s funeral was my first. The pamphlet my Auntie Sherri handed out at the door showed him standing in front of the wood cabin at Glen Lake with his barrel chest filling out a red plaid work shirt and a green baseball cap covering his white hair.  We sang his two favourite songs, “Peace in the Valley” and “The Little Brown Church in the Vale.”  My father sat in the pew ahead of us next to Uncle Fred.  Uncle Fred reminded me of Grandpa the most.  He was the oldest of six and the tallest, the type of man who got up early and was among the trees before the rest of the world stirs.  But Fred was a quiet man.

My Grandpa had been big, in stature and personality.  He had an air about him, so when he walked into a room, he filled the space.  His funeral brought people from as far as Florida and nearer than next door.  The unfamiliar faces in the pews made me realize he had a whole other life before mine that I knew little about.  What I did know was that Grandpa had phenomenal eyebrows, curly and wild, fuzzy white caterpillars straining to escape his wrinkled forehead.  I knew he loved ketchup and put it on everything-soup, turkey and even ice cream.  I knew he grew vegetables in long wooden boxes before it was “hip” to grow your own.  I knew he hid booze in his toolbox and mounted the heads of deer in his garage above his grey Cadillac.  I knew I never saw him cry.

I had never heard a eulogy before.  At the pulpit were six people: two uncles, three aunts and my father. I stared at Fred.  He looked uncomfortable in his suit. The sleeves of the navy jacket seemed too tight for his beefy arms.  I could tell he wanted to tear it off and put on his blue work shirt, the one with the rip in the left pocket.  I could tell he wanted to run from the stuffy church, sit on the high seat of his tractor, and think about which variety of apple would sell best this year or what needed to be done before the snowfall.  To wrap his hands around his pruning shears, feel his nose numb in the cold and think about repairing the fence on the Millar property.  Like me, he wanted to think about anything besides his father’s death.  My aunts and uncles were expected to say a few words: what they remembered; what they wanted us to remember about their father.  We waited in a prickly silence while Uncle Fred was motionless, dress shoes scuffed with dirt.

When he did step up to the microphone, I traced his grief. It began in his knees, tiny wobbles like a newborn calf attempting to walk, then travelled up his legs to his chest, where he gripped his tie until his knuckles went white, from there to his jaw, the clench of his teeth visible through dry lips. The crack of his voice was the hardest; listening to his deep baritone disintegrate into a mountain of sobs was to witness a dove drowning.

One of the ways Oliver and I are not similar is that he is not always a happy person, so much so that at times he could rarely find a reason to leave his room. Few people knew that Oliver was as depressed as he was, since in the company of friends he never ran out of interesting, outrageous or absurd declarations. Hearing Grace, his mother, break into sobbing when she called to invite me for supper at their place was really the first hint I got of how bad things actually were. Grace had noticed how happy Oliver seemed around school buddies, so she called whatever friends of his she knew. He wouldn’t give her any names, because there was nothing he wanted less than to have to face anyone. I felt compelled to accept  the offer, despite being keenly aware of how uncomfortable the encounter would probably be.

 The squabbles I have with my brother are the biggest rift I have within my family, and that’s actually kind of a good thing. I’m not thankful for that time long ago when he called the cops after I chased him with a fork over a sandwich dispute (my fault entirely), but I’m happy that this hasn’t wrecked our ability to get along. I just can’t imagine what a family like this has to do to get along, when confronted with such an crisis. Bubbly and motherly Grace let me into the house with a warm but uncomfortable greeting. She was constantly apologizing, and seemed sort of pained, obviously feeling guilty for having dragged me into whatever was going to happen. Oliver’s two younger brothers jointly poked their heads into the room. They seemed as dissimilar as the warring facets of Oliver’s personality. One, a rambunctious little toddler whom I’d met previously, bragged about having once punched me in the butt. The other, a miserable looking pre-teen, just mumbled “hi”.

 After a introductions and a few sideways glances, Grace left me to become a little more acquainted with her husband, Paul. I hadn’t yet seen Oliver, but then again I didn’t expect to for at least a while. Paul and I talked about their comfortable house and its cool design; the living room, entrance hall, play area, dining room and kitchen were all spread in a conterminous semi-circle. From the welcome mat I could see almost everything I would end up seeing that evening. My ears caught a gentle rapping and a soft voice, and soon afterwards Grace joined us again. Startlingly, she cautioned me that  “Oliver might not even come out of his room at all. Do you still want to stay and have dinner, or should we just take you home?” I asked if I could visit him in his room, but she insisted that Oliver be given his space. “He’s a bit mad at me, because I brought you over.” They obviously had no idea whether or not I agreed to stay just to be polite, but they didn’t need to; I would have felt ridiculous leaving so soon after arriving.

The dim lighting and warm air started to take the edge off the cold air outside, and I started feeling a little more comfortable.  As I made my way down the small flight of stairs, I looked to my right and spotted the little toddler playing with toy robots. At the bottom of the last step opened by far the largest room in the house. Although it continued from the hallway I had emerged from, this room expanded beyond it in every direction. Swirling ceiling fans, shiny hardwood floor and smooth and olive green wallpaper gave the room a more modern feel than the hallway. Grace let me help prepare dinner, and we talked as I chopped vegetables. She gave her advice on some of the school choices I was facing, and offered to help with my brother’s plan to get a group of friends to apply to the model UN conference. The conversation was consistent, and there was never an awkward moment; she seemed to be eager for a normal conversation. We spoke about Oliver once in a while, and it was obvious that both Grace and Paul were a little fed up with the way their son had been behaving. Despite their appreciation for was he was going through, they felt that Oliver hadn’t been making enough of an effort to try and pull himself together. When her voice started to quaver, I decided to ease off on to lighter topics.

 It was only when the family was called to eat that Oliver’s absence really become striking. Conversations were occasionally struck up, but they seemed pointless, and failed. Every silent moment spoke volumes about what was really on everybody’s mind. The only bit of actual talking I remember doing was the joke I made about Edmonton, where my dad had been posted. Someone asked me what he was doing in the Army, and I answered, “He plays the Oboe in bands, being deployed to areas critically low on culture. Like Alberta.” Paul laughed uproariously, and even though I knew it wasn’t a terribly good joke I felt pretty proud. There was also mention of a board game they would show me. I heard occasional footsteps and noises from Oliver’s room, but the sheer strangeness of my situation at the moment made it hard to focus on them much. I didn’t see him at all that night, and I can’t imagine how frighteningly awkward it would have been for us both had he joined the table. Grace went one last time to rap on his door, but nothing would come of it. We didn’t speak a word about him.

 When all the food was gone, we figured we should give Oliver a bit more time to make an appearance. They suggested I play a few rounds of their favourite board game with them, and this time I did agree only out of politeness. Not because I didn’t like the family, but because I always lose at board games. I was soundly beaten by  everyone except the toddler, who would run away between turns and find Transformers to show me. The game provided a reliable conversation piece, and there weren’t nearly as awkward gaps as there might otherwise have been. After the miserable defeat, I offered once more to visit Oliver in his room. No one (not even me) thought it was a good idea, so Paul agreed that he would drive me home. Grace apologized again for having involved me in this, but I told her not to worry, that I had enjoyed myself. Whatever happiness my visit brought anyone was probably outpaced by the misery and guilt I caused Oliver, but I nonetheless felt as though I had done something good.

 Paul didn’t really dominate the dining room discussions, so I was glad to have a better talk with him in the car. He had lots of great stories about all the travel he’s done, places like Turkey and Communist Yugoslavia. He seemed to know his history pretty thoroughly, something I’ve noticed of Oliver as well. Later I learned that Oliver spent entire days reading in Helsinki’s national library, at the University where his dad used to work. Paul told me about the profitable business he’s developed selling high-tech curtains he designs. He had few words to say about Oliver, and understandably so; I had a feeling that lots of parents wouldn’t open up about all their family grievances to a teenager they’ve only known for a couple of hours. Paul did mention he felt that Oliver needed to stop feeling sorry for himself and re-build his self-confidence by finding people to talk to.

 Last spring, Oliver came back from a month-long stay in Finland feeling much, much better. I saw him this summer, and found it hard to believe that this guy had locked himself in his room for the better part of a year. He told me of how he intended to move to Finland as soon as he felt ready, joking that “Finland is one of the most depressed countries in the world, I’ll fit right in.” And while he made other, similarly passing remarks about his problems, he didn’t let them consume our discussion. We talked about Finland, took a walk, threw logs into the ocean, and looked up whether or not Genghis Khan was such a prolific lover that 0.5% of the global population can claim direct descendance from him (I was right, it’s true). I suppose that there was only one thing we didn’t talk about, and that was my evening at his house. I’m sure that in the end he appreciates what I did, but neither of us evidently felt the need to address the topic. It was such an old one, one that no good could have come from should I have brought it up. We also chose not to mention the ex, either. That would just have been weird.

“Yeah it should. We’ll have plenty of time to get their car boosted and warmed up.” He glanced down at the clock-radio. “We have a good two hours before they land.”

I looked forward again. Just on the horizon I could see the steady glow, that hazy light that fights back the darkness around any sprawling cityscape. Set inside the snow blurred glow of the city I could make out, at least I thought I could, the faint green and red lights of a landing plane.

Growing up, and even during the last few days before he died, my Grandpa and I never had all that much to say to one another. I like to think that we both enjoyed the silences. To me they were the kind of silence you can only have when you enjoy the very presence of a person. We could have talked about how our days were, how the weather was, or how this or that was going, but it didn’t matter to either of us. We could sit, he in his large blue recliner and I sprawled out on the floor, watching an episode of M*A*S*H. We were together and that was all that mattered. He wasn’t a quiet man though, far from it. When there was something to say, he said it.

The attendant at the Park n’ Jet opened her frost covered kiosk window as we pulled up, and as my Grandpa rolled down his window to talk, I shivered at feeling the bitter cold of the December night. I rubbed my hands together and stuck them right against the heat vents. “We’re here to boost my daughter’s car for her. She’s about to land.”

“Do you know what lane it’s in?”

“Yeah, she told me the number.”

“All right. Go ahead.” She raised the yellow painted barrier up and out of the way.

“Thank you.” We crept slowly towards the endless rows of ice and snow covered cars.

The role of the navigator is an important one my Grandpa would tell me: “You have to be able to follow the map, see where we are, and let me know where to go.” He and I had gone on quite a few road-trips, and on each one he would hand me the map and leave it up to me to get us there; while he would do the driving. With each passing trip his well trimmed beard would be a little less black and a little more grey, and his eyes a little more tired. As I got older I didn’t have time to sit around watching TV shows, let alone go on road trips. We went places together less and less. I should have done more, but that’s too easy to say now, and too hard to notice when you are young and naive.

“Okay Brendan, try to line up this duct with the oil pan.” He handed me the long galvanized piping. “I’ll get the torch going.”

“Right,” I said.

I struggled to get the pipe, as long as me, to line up under the car as I fought through the deep piles of snow under the engine. Eventually I had the curve at the far end pointing up at the bottom of the oil-pan. My Grandpa came over with the lit butane torch and pointed the flame into the ducting. “Well, . . . let’s see if that works. It shouldn’t take too long for the oil to get warm enough for the engine to turn over,” he said, smiling at me. We climbed back into the van and put the heat on full blast. We had packed a few snacks so we dug into those too. I watched out the window at the torch while trying to coax the straw through the foil hole in my box of apple juice. “Uh oh, the pipe’s melting!”

“Shit!” My Grandpa said and ran out and around to the torch and ducting. He pulled the flame away from the pipe a little bit and it seemed to help right away. He turned and smiled at me through the window with his big toothy grin and raised bushy eyebrows, and went back around to his door.

My Grandpa passed more knowledge to me than I can list, and probably more than I realise. As I think about him those years before he died I can’t help wondering about what I missed, what I ignored, and what I scorned. If only I’d been older, I would have been able to appreciate him more, but wishing, as much as we’d like, doesn’t change the past. What I can do is appreciate him now. I can look and smile at him in his picture amongst the hardcovers on my bookshelf, and see his big grin, kind and sincere eyes, and endless honesty smiling right back at me.

“Should we give it a try?” He asked me as he looked out the window at the frosty car. “It’s been twenty minutes.”

“Sure!”

He got out and walked around and got into the other car. I saw the headlights slowly brighten and then dim quickly as the engine groaned to turn over. My Grandpa came back into the van. “The oil is warm, but we are going to have to boost it.” He looked at me and then the clock, “But we have time, let’s stay warm a while longer.” He smiled and started on his own apple juice box.

And the danger of rattlesnakes

As redwings take flight

There is no sign, just a turn-off. The weedy car track bumps down, down; a line of fat eucalyptus trunks with peeling plates of bark pulls my nose along. Their sweet fragrance pushes away the sweaty highway that now hangs outside and somewhere above, and raucous thoughts of my new romance back home dissipate. Like totems, the row gives a gentle greeting. Welcome to this planet of strange plants and rituals. Welcome to beginner’s mind. Welcome to Green Gulch Zen Center.

I smile, anticipating my rendezvous with nine other women from across the States, all approaching middle age, all wanting to practice both brush calligraphy and Zen, and all needing a retreat. But we have other reasons, too, for seeking peace. Drug troubles with a son. Respite from caring for a quadriplegic child. Time away from grief. I have come primed for a sea change. Jenny Groat, our teacher, is the strong dock we all expect to moor onto. As calm as windless water, she is a short woman with pixie hair, a Roman nose, disciplined back and avant-garde careers behind her as a dancer, choreographer and painter. Now dancing with brush hairs, she is a lay Buddhist and eloquent teacher. I want a contemplative, creative life like hers. My pulse taps. I just might find the path I want to follow here.

As a visitor, I stay in the wooden guesthouse, an octagonal treasure encircled with skylights and sliding rice-paper shoji, all capped with a slanting cedar-shake roof. Its artistry unfolds like the flavours of steeping tea. Jenny tells how it was built in Japan, without nails, each piece interlocking in perfect harmony. It was then taken apart and resurrected here by a fringe of California redwoods. I circulate around the upstairs balcony, note every corner has a subtle pattern of parallel ribs with no other purpose than to please the eye. Every window has a vista. I fall asleep to the sound of crickets and woody smell of the stove. I awaken the next day to fresh bouquets in waist-high pots and to the smell of baking bread.

A short walk away is the community’s heart, its zendo. It is a windowless box of corrugated metal, a remodeled cattle barn built over a now-underground stream, a magnet for heat.

Soon, my days are flowing with the valley’s exotic rhythms: art and Zen, bells and light, inside and out.

I begin joining the monks and nuns and abbot in their zazen, but confess I never get up for the first meditation of the day, when the temple bell resounds at 3 a.m. Instead, I come in for the session after breakfast, shyly sit on my hard, round black zafu, cup right hand in left and strain my gaze sideways. I make out an altar dressed with embroidered red satin, gold swirls and scrolls, a smiling Buddha and offerings of fruit and flowers. Incense hangs around the room like thick velvet drapery. Serious students of soto Zen are opposite me, just sitting, opening the hand of thought, eyes cast down as they follow their breath, hour after hour. They are visiting an interior land. My ankles whine, tighten and tingle from sitting for so long in the lotus position, and I stumble when the jikijitsu sounds the gong and begins a walking meditation, kinhin, around the perimeter of the room.

By full morning light, I am in a classroom with double-storey windows and a backdrop of ancient red cedars. I sit alert and mindful, holding my ink stick just as upright as Jenny’s back, circling it over the grey ink stone, the pungent musk of gums and burnt pine fill my nose and thoughts. My brush makes no sound, leaving a lush track of black letters and ensos on my paper. Nothing is to be done without purpose. What are you practicing? echoes Jenny’s voice inside my head.

In the bleaching afternoons, I go outside to roam the gulch that is a patchwork of farms and native plants that reach up to a hill on the east and step down to Muir Beach and, finally, the Pacific on the west. I suck in the landscape and walk, not with the measured steps of kinhin but the freedom of a hiker, following paths more earthbound and less serene.

In the floodplains of Redwood Creek, I discover the lands where silent monks tend the squash and lettuce and potatoes eaten for lunch. I amble among acres of brilliant garden flowers, raised for sale, that shiver with thousands of bees. I follow dusty hoof-beaten tracks pushed like trenches into the surrounding ranchlands, where chaparral and crisscrossing slopes of bunchgrass are laced with wildflowers. Each day is mindfully executed in haiku.

The last day of my retreat comes too quickly. I do my after-lunch zazen, then emerge for a final crossing of the valley. I feel the exciting tension of being in rattlesnake country, as I decide to climb the hill and sit in the shade of an abandoned teahouse set on prehistoric bones of rock. The fields below me pulse with creation. Somehow, creatures sense Green Gulch is a sanctuary, that Buddhists do not harm sentient beings. And so they gather.

I can only smile as I return. A breeze encircles me in a mist of touch. As I pass them, I hear the long-horned cattle ripping roots out of the soil, and the puny sound of their tinny bells. The land clicks with insects, and drifts of praying mantids whir around my waist. A bush rabbit starts; a dusty toad backs under hoof-toughened grazing grasses, introduced long ago by Spanish settlers. The smells of sage and the fragrant, sticky scent of coyote brush dance lightly into my nose.

Suddenly, the Dragon Bell resounds.

A flood of redwings takes flight in alarm. From their cramped bunkers and the gardens, the zazen students begin to gather. I set my pace to join them to enter the zendo, one last time for now.

My mind and body, a minute before marveling at the blue clarity of the sky, have trouble adjusting to the dark, thick air now pushing in around me. My still posture seems wooden after a day of striding. There are no sounds; the buzz of creation has been left with the shoes outside the doorway. I find my cushion. Slowly, I settle in to a place now familiar and wait for the gong. I focus to empty my mind; I count my breaths.

But instead of a void, I hear a voice – my own. Outside is where life is. This is not the path for me. My heart is clearly speaking. The inside path is not for me.

In the years since, I still find calm through meditation, although it takes the form of drawing and walking. I still can embrace without reservation the Buddhist precepts of kindness, mindfulness and useful work. Beginner’s mind with its belief in many possibilities still seems a way to wisdom. But I embed myself in nature and want to discover each day as a new lover. Looking back, I know the seekers at Green Gulch understood comfort and beauty and pleasure – they served it to us as their visitors – but they denied the guesthouse and the wild to themselves. My gaze, I decided then and believe now, is not meant to be downwards or inwards, but locked on life itself.

With steeled resolve, I approach the beast. I soon encounter a series of long climbs. Ha! I laugh to myself; this is what I am worried about? I’m not even close to resorting to my newly acquired granny gear despite the fact that I’m riding atop a hundred pounds of bike and bags. Granted, the pace is slow but it is steady. I am smiling, humming even at the thought of easily reaching the summit. I should have known better!

The sun suddenly turns traitor against me. The warm, caressing rays mutate into white hot blades scratching down my back. I remove my helmet trying to release its suffocating grip. How clever that ball of fury in the sky is, waiting until I hit the final Wall of the ascent before unleashing its wrath. I try not to think about the searing pain in my legs and the burning sun on my back as I inch upwards. Instead, I focus on methodically ticking over the granny gear one pedal stroke at a time. I can hear Monashee laughing now as it plays with my mind. Around every bend, my hopes of seeing the “summit sign” are repeatedly dashed, then, just when I think all hope is lost, something catches my eye.

At first, all I can make out is one of those red, reflective triangles like the ones you see on the backs of slow moving tractors; only this is attached to what appears to be a small box with wheels. I steadily close in on it and see that it indeed is a homemade wooden trailer overflowing with someone’s entire collection of worldly possessions. Who would leave all this on the side of the road? Perhaps the hapless traveller is just another of Monashee’s victims. Perhaps I will be next. But before I can ponder that thought, I see something incredible; the trailer is moving – uphill! This sight only further confuses me as I approach, for I cannot see the source of its locomotion.

I tell myself that someone must be riding one of those low profile recumbent bicycles, since there isn’t a bicycle or rider visible from my downhill vantage point. When I finally reach the trailer, I see that it is attached to a 20-year-old mountain bike by a giant U-bolt around the seat post. That’s when I meet him. A tiny thin man, nearly parallel with the road, pushing his bike with his arms outstretched overhead. He turns to me with a toothless grin. We both decide it’s a good time to take a break.

Without a word, he wheels the bike and trailer off the shoulder of the road, but before I say anything, he quickly clumps away in his untied army boots to grab a large rock to chock under one of the trailer wheels to prevent it from rolling back down the hill. We sit for a moment to catch our breaths. Darren removes his grimy, well-worn baseball cap to wipe the sweat off his balding head. Looking like he is about to drop dead at any moment, he then brandishes the world’s biggest, gummiest smiles on his face as he rolls a cigarette. I smile back out of pity. Obviously he is a simple man, oblivious to the mammoth monster that we are currently trying to slay. I look at him in his denim coveralls and at the wooden albatross clutching onto his archaic bike and see that he is completely ill-equipped to do any battle. Yet here he is – here we are. What makes me better than him? Conceit turns to shame which turns to respect as he casually tells me that this isn’t his first time over the Monashees. In fact, this is an annual trek he makes from Kamloops to Edmonton! I look at Darren, then at myself and finally at the mountain and understand that yes, appearances are very deceiving.