Grief

This post is for mature audiences.

Everyone else tripped off to a little patch of woods somewhere, bow drill kit in hand, to find a place they want to be in for a solo overnight under a tarp shelter. Grey, after our feedback last week, has decided that he needs to create the need for us to learn bow drill. This skill was introduced early on, but only one student has repeated the magic trick more than once and gone from coal to fire. I myself have trouble making smoke, let alone a coal. Hence, a solo day and a night where we tend a fire through that 24 hour period. And not eat, apparently.

"I'll encourage you to fast." - Grey

"Can we start this shindig Tuesday night instead of Wednesday morning?" - Me

But the prospect of a solo overnight (or two), however thrilling, does not push aside a sudden and overwhelming sense of grief that crashes over me as the men disappear into the forest. I am surprised by the intensity of my own emotions and decide to take a minute for them. I have been through this roller coaster before--there was a time in my life where I spent many days at work curled up in the fetal position in the handicapped stall of the women's restroom, sobbing my eyes out.

I am no longer that woman, though. I started today off at 5:15 AM, running around the block with my neighbor. Before this week, I hadn't been running in 18 months. I finish my showers with an icy blast of cold water. I jump in ponds in January. I sleep in the rain in shelters made of scotch broom and alder. The first thing I announced to a fellow student this morning was, "I AM A GORRAM VIKING!" I am joyful, enthusiastic, alive.

So I sit by the cold fire pit (no bow drill coal, so no fire) and I tell Grey that I need to talk and that I might cry and that it's not his fault. This isn't his first rodeo. Grey might not have healed all his trauma-from-a-rapacious-culture out here among the trees that reach the sky, but he knows where his wounds are. He can recognize them in others. He is at home with grief, with death, where the root of grief lives.

We talk. I cry. It's okay.

We talk about the group, about my place in it, about trust. He wants to know if I want to bring up my challenges to the others--I am feeling, in this moment, like a burden. The one who is carried by others. I am terrified of this person--this woman I once was, a toxic story I told to myself about myself, a waste of space, a child who needed constant minding lest she ruin herself or someone else's life. A person who could not communicate--who could not and would not listen to people who, in their own ways, cared about her. Who felt so trapped, who was so sunk in her own misery, that a friend of hers brought her food in Tupperware containers so that she would eat something other than Amy's microwave dinners and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Who slept on a bare mattress on the floor without sheets for two months out of apathy and exhaustion.

I consider his offer. I tell him no. In the space between Grey's question and my answer lies months of hiking through the forest, the dunes, the snow. Of weeks spent imbuing iron with my soul, of meticulous work with a draw knife, of crafting a bevy of useful tools and weapons. Of days spent talking about trees, slithering through the grass, harvesting berries and nuts, or just lying in my tent, by myself, getting lost--and finding myself--in the universe, in a grain of sand.

I trust the men with the harshness of my own grief--they are not ignorant of my past. They might read this post, after all. They would reassure me of my value, of my contributions to the group, of my worth as a person even when I'm enthusiastically over-sharing and spending an entire day giggling like a twelve-year-old boy at every possible sexual innuendo. (Oh, it's going to be one of THOSE days. - Grey)

But the truth is...I don't need them to. A year ago, I would have craved that reassurance and yet, paradoxically, it would not have helped me at all. I was too sick to believe it, would not have felt I deserved it. Now...

No, I say. I have done enough work that I know my grief is an illusion, a trap of the mind. And more than that, I know this moment is important. I could be out in the woods, finding a solo camping spot, but the most important work I'll do today is right here, sitting on a stump by a cold fire pit, working through my grief.

I know I am valued, I know how I contribute. I can evaluate my interactions with this group of men--and other people outside of class--in a clear and honest way. I see, too, where my rough spots are, the places that still need attention. But I don't push on those bruises, or allow others to push on them, and react back with anger, fear, or self-loathing. I can explore that pain, as I am doing right now. I can share it with you, in a way that honors my journey. I can look at the edges where the yellow fades to a deep purple, and I know that my bruises can heal. Some of them already have. Others are still fading. I know, too, that in some ways I might always carry some scars. Perfection takes many lifetimes. I can be gentle with myself and--when I'm bringing my A game--with others, whose eyes sometimes reflect the trauma of the world in ways both similar to, and different from, my own. 

This life-changing conversation lasts twenty minutes. I am up and wandering the woods after the men soon enough, thinking not of my grief but of the excitement I feel for this upcoming solo experience, of the pressing need to improve my bow drill skills.

I find a spot in the Cathedral forest at the base of a huge cedar tree. I have a relationship with this forest, a mix of Douglas fir and cedar. It speaks to me. My solo must be here--I even chose another spot in this forest initially, then went looking for wood and almost stumbled into this cedar without even realizing it was a cedar. When I noticed, chills went up my spine. I must be here. I draw a map so I can find this exact spot again.

I try to start a fire. I have gathered materials along the way, a handful of dry leaves from a staff member's old wikiup shelter. Small twigs and larger pieces of wood--some of it might even be called "damp" instead of "soaked through." I am confident that I can start a fire with a lighter.

I proceed to spend the next three hours trying, and failing, to start a fire. I start with the leaves. I then burn through my entire jar of tinder. I peel off some of the cedar bark that's already falling off and scrape it for more. At the last, I pull a bunch of tissues out of my pocket and try with that. I blow so hard that I ignore the snot and tears running down my face from how long I've pressed into the green wood smoke. I'm drooling through the smoke. A children's class walks by, stops, starts and finishes a sit spot near me. They leave. I make about 15 fire attempts before I roll over onto my back in the leaf mulch, stare at the sky, and let the rain drops fall on my face while the smoke slips away into nothing. I skip lunch. I don't come back to the group when I'm supposed to. Instead, I talk to the sky, to the wood, to the rain, to the trees.

When I get up off the mulch, I pack wood into pockets around the cedar tree and in a few trees nearby, hoping to have drier wood for our solo overnight. I walk back to the group picking up green moss from the ground with plans to dry it for my tinder jar. I am content, happy. I feel no disappointment, no shame, no guilt, no fear at my evident lack of skill after so much practice. My efforts were not wasted--I got better at making fire.

Later that evening, I practice bow drill. My form is much improved, even since this morning. I still do not get any smoke. I break the bow part of my kit while grinding it to remove excess weight. 

I'll have to find a better stick. I am a gorram Viking, after all.

Photo taken by Morgan Spalding on a personal snowboarding trip to Mt Hood.