Emotions swell my chest as the mountains engulf me in the car going north in dusk air over lakes to Lilloett, an historic gold rush settlement promising a “Guaranteed Rugged” experience. Initially I mistakenly read the road sign as “Quarantined”. I had arrived to a place of isolation where a local gal in a cafe exclaimed aloud, “How is today goin’ to go?”
Feelings and emotions inundate my body, often stirring paradoxes and stillness. These seem far from superfluous and trivial, for we breathe hiccup pulse sneeze digest laugh yawn cry dance type navigate forgive collect and come alive with organisms. We relate.
Today my youthful hands are unravelling Lilloett soil, a progenitor passing aeons before I arrived. I am traveling to the Wells Gray Discovery Park north of Clearwater. Though I am ‘solo’, I am life-supported. I am never alone. I contribute to and impact the natural world the same way we interact with sun rain oxygen rapids and a constellation of stars
Driving into the mouth of the mountains north of Whistler (‘Whistlah’ in Aussie-tongue) compelled my mouth to come undone, open again with wonder and surprise. I was not surprised these black glacial lakes exist in the ice laden mountains, but I am struck with a burgeoning insight: the full range of feelings sneezing and sensations we experience are not “emotional problems”, “diseases”, nor “superfluous” symptoms of ill mental health. Our feelings and emotions connect us in our humanity and are experiential tools that empower us to make authentic, gut-guided choices.
The schism between human-nature and nature is a root cause of the indifference humans may carry to nature as beast, obscene, and a warehouse for resources. What is the root cause of the schism? We are subjects who experience life subjectively but we pretend to view it objectively. Our relationships with life forms across scales create co-ordinate co-create and co-evolve. Speaking for myself instead of all people, I want to be attune to the splendid, uncertain, and sometimes self-flagellating emotions as they come
I feel the most joy without the appurtenances of luxury travel. This way I put attention to riverbeds rather than fine hotel beds. My phone is inept. I dropped it on a low-tide river bed where I was writing and later submerged myself into the river to retrieve it.
Last night’s drive into the Lilloett valley introduced me to Duffey Lake, a glacial beauty with ineffably stunning peaks carving its wake. I laughed passing isolated campsites – weird people are my only concern as a single woman on the roadside overnight, yet I ironically elected to travel into a dark rugged town of loggers with flashing red lights illuminating two front doors. Multiple long driveways labeled “sheltered B&B” were lined with trucks so I drove and drove and turned around. Reaching 10p, I pulled over.
I turned the ignition and lights off. Wow! Stars excite me so to dream. Our minds are comprised of chemical interactions and “star-stuff”, as Carl Sagan wrote. I had pulled over where I could only make out a distant mountain silhouette under the studded sky.
After a silent minute, my heart pounded with fear. Ferocious feet were approaching fast. Was someone going to dismiss me? Was some weirdo arriving to find entertainment?
Then rocks dropped and my eyes made out the body of two horses whose hoooves dug. They came to the fence line adjacent in an obscured forested pasture. Sleeping overnight brought natural chills but I am accustomed to cold Wyoming winds. I value the scenery!
Sleeping somewhat upright in the driver’s seat allowed me to peer into the stars shifting Two un-manicured ragged and infected looking horses appeared right on the road at 6a when I reawakened. Their tails were disheveled and uncombed. I had felt safe overnight next to the horses, hoping its ‘caregivers’ resided nearby if I needed assistance. My impression of their owners changed when a blue truck pulled from a driveway and turned around after seeing me parked. Its driver may have left something in his home. Rather than encounter a sourdough bread of a guy, I shifted from the sleeping bag and departed. Then the blue truck slowly followed me to a side road, I turned around and identified the Rugged Bean Coffee. His tracking seemed unnecessary, but understandably so, he may have been concerned by the coincidence of a strange car parked near the horse fields when the stray horses were over the fence and wandering.
A Scottish woman and the Rugged Bean cafe owner, Ann, calls everyone love.
Overnight I had feelings of unprecedented joy and primal fear. I don’t want to have good sensations alone. I want to be alive and human. Emotions underpin our evolutionary biology. I am grateful for the rush and range of experiences co-ordinating ‘internally’ and ‘externally’. Why suppress feelings of anger, shame, guilt, hurt when I can see them with curiosity. I don’t want to deny a part of my evolving being. After all, feelings allow us to feel awe and bewilderment for life such as red cedar that also aspires to fully bloom
Corinne Gardner 