Beginning Again

So much has happened since the start of our first walk and its finish…
Murphy being diagnosed with nasal adenocarcinoma within weeks of our final mile and dying a damn hard death less than a year afterwards broke my heart beyond repair.  
And then I tried my best to live a normal life but I have a mission that beckons me back on the road.    
Come this May 11th, I’m walking again and if you’ve been reading this blog, you know the route: Canada to Mexico via the West Coast Seaboard.  
And as we begin making final preparations and training for it, I’ve realized that this is the way to portray the first walk.  
I’ll begin again.  

Yawnp

I got a call this morning from a good friend.  Just jawing about theoretical physics and Gillian Anderson in The Fall, and why reds just don’t do it for me.  But as a blonde, well, she’s some kinda special.  

My friend is an architect and after the man to man cheese-mo speak about babes and blondes and blondes and babes, he said he couldn’t find his way around how to incorporate a state mandated inclusion in his design project he was working on. 
So I said, ‘If you can’t plan around it, make it your plan.’  
Two hours later, we completely redesigned the plan that it’s now educational, eco-friendly, inspirational, motivational, market driven, the focal point of the structure and to boot, it’s never been done before.  
It’s too early in the morning to pound my chest and yawp so I’ll yawnp.  

A + B = C

Syllogism

Logic. an argument the conclusion of which is supported by two premises, of which one (major premise)  contains the term (major term)  that is the predicate of the conclusion, and the other (minor premise)  contains the term (minor term)  that is the subject of the conclusion; common to both premises is a term (middle term)  that is excluded from the conclusion. A typical form is “All A is C; all B is A; therefore all B is C.” 

A:  Dogs don’t know quit.
B:  Yer Big Dog was born the Year of the Dog
C:  Therefore YBD never quits.

——–

I posted a few weeks back about a good friend of mine that gave me a couple of bucks.  Today I took them and the fuzzybutts to Coffee’s Country Market to pay for a stranger’s meal like the employees there did when we walked through Lyme CT.

On the day of Malcolm’s anniversary, it was a great honor to re-connect with Jennifer who subsequently lost her dog, Dooley, to cancer last month.

The stipulation was, if they asked who it was from.  It was from Malcolm

Midnight With Malcolm

I’m not MOT but I may as well be an honorary member.  
It’s been eight years since I lost Malcolm and not a second not an hour not a day nor a year has past since I lost my first son that I have forgotten.  
The Yahrzeit candle burns for 24 hours and I lite it now to burn til the morrow when he was given rest.
——–
You were the rock that became the ripple.  
You are the circle not round that I followed and found two ends ever bound.  
My candle is an eternal flame, lit by you and I’ll carry it for as long and as far as I can.  
——–

Form Follows Function

Not known to many, that phrase was coined by Louis Sullivan, the father of modern American architecture and the mentor of Frank Lloyd Wright not Wright himself.  

I’ve spent the past few days mapping out, to the best of my present abilities, our path from Canada to Mexico.  

Things tend to change on the road but everything begins with a start and a finish and I have that now.  

The walk will start at the Peace Arch Park that straddles the Washington state border.    

From there it continues through the following cities: Everett, Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, San Francisco, Monterey, LA and down to San Diego.  

And it will end at the Border Field State Park.  Border to border.  Brother to brother. 

Based on Google calculations, the sum total mileage is roughly 1600 miles.  

Sullivan’s full quote was, “It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.”  

The Turn

Tomorrow begins training day.   
The immediate moment that Hudson was diagnosed with a mast cell tumor, I knew my plans for walking cross Japan would be delayed or discontinued indefinitely at best.  The red cranes of Hokkaido have to wait another day.  
Still, it is time for me to return to the road.  
Come this May the fuzzybutts and I will walk from Seattle to San Diego (which, yeah, pains me especially since they sneaked into the playoffs), the California corridor from Canada to Mexico. 
Over the past few days I have chewed this thru with my trusted compadres, that’s Spanish for knuckleheads, and made my decision.  Hudson and Indiana are def on board.  
Most certainly Ginger will say the idea came from her.  Hey, I just go where I’m told to go.  
——–
2 Dogs 2000 Miles 2.0  
Haven’t slept much since the inspiration and there’s a bit of planning and preparation between now and May.  But I have made a few important decisions.  I’ll embark with the same amount of money in my pocket as in 2008 which was $200. 
I have most of the gear and won’t require anymore save a few pairs of socks and liners.  My right strap on my Osprey pack is still bound only by a crimp and a carabiner which tore apart in North Attleboro just weeks before the final mile.  
I might get that fixed but it kinda reminds me of me.  
Osprey declined to sponsor my first walk for which I cannot fault them but they were a big big help when the frame snapped on the Great Allegheny Passage. 
Speaking of sponsorships, I’m not really keen on the idea on seeking very many though the ultimate determination probably won’t be mine.  First I spent a lot of my time chasing pairs of socks and hiking shoes and the lot.  Second, we don’t need much to get from Canada to Mexico.  What we will be looking at are strategic long-term partnerships with companies committed to work together to end cancer in our lifetime.

This is our second last and there will be a third and a fourth, maybe more and I’m a patient man to wait and find those partners.   

Also, (1) There won’t be a follow vehicle like our first walk. (2) We’ll have a vet clear Hudson’s health at every leg of the journey.  (3) We won’t be staying with host families (even though we’ve had the greatest of experiences doing so – this walk is all about time and efficiency).  (4) Nor will we be doing media or press events throughout other than start and finish perhaps.    
While I’m still mapping out the route, it seems 1,500 or so miles from border to border.  East CA is out of the question so I’m trying to determine a coastal route given Google maps.

Today is TSO

To explain the significance and importance of Trans Siberian Orchestra in my life, in this our story is pretty near impossible.  But I gotta try.  
It was the winter.  That winter.  A couple of fine folks in Colorado got me tickets to see them since I was there while Murphy was receiving care at CSU.  And it was my birthday.  
Being the music lover I am, I was sure I heard of them.  But even if I did, nothing could’ve prepared me for it…
An Angel Came Down was the first piece they performed and I was blown away. To put it into context, I’ve seen Pavarotti live, the three tenors, and Yo Yo Ma and even Kitaro… There was a hot, hot girl in a red sequined dress playing the electric violin that I still think about from time to time… 
Anyway, I was in rapture.  Pop culture has ruined the word ‘awesome’ but it was.  I was a kid witnessing the spirit of Christmas for the first time.  
And yet I hated it.  Because somewhere in a distant parking lot, alone and cold was Murphy.  He never left my side and the TSO concert was as far as I went from him.  We didn’t stay for the second set because I couldn’t. Even though thoroughly bundled up in the SUV.
And then after Murphy died, I was up in Bowling Green KY (heh, that’s my TX roots showing – everything is ‘up’), for two reasons.  To meet Indy for the first time and attend a fundraiser for their animal shelter.  It was the coolest of its kind – it was in a cave that Jesse James and his gang hung out in if my memory serves me well. 
Even amidst all the beauty, glamour, and glitz that I was graciously invited to be a part of, I didn’t stay long, 30 minutes maybe, because I couldn’t.  I left there and drove to a church parking lot and put my TSO CD in, listening to it for hours.  It must’ve been hours because someone called the police.  
The officer politely asked me why I was there.  I didn’t know if he meant why I was in The City of White Squirrels, the parking lot of a church in the middle of the night, or asking a more theological question.  But I only had one answer.  
“I miss my son.”  
He nodded and said goodnight.  I never asked his name.  
This is my Christmas story

Leaving Loudoun County

I failed Art History which, if ya know me, it’s kinda ironic.  But I didn’t get an ‘F’ for lack of trying.  Quite the opposite actually.  I loved it but the course design was graded on writing not exams.  And I never turned a paper in.  I couldn’t.  

Caravaggio was one of the topics and I became fascinated with him and I spent weeks researching his life and works.  And a five page essay became ten then twenty and then it was too late. 


Walking on the rails trails from Pittsburgh to DC was one of the most special times during the walk and I spent a few days in the Blue Ridge Mountains and along the Potomac this weekend.  Its beauty indescribable just like that famous painting of Byblis. 


There’s so much I haven’t written about and I have hundreds of drafts on my blog and dozens of notebooks and journals still unpublished because, truthfully, I don’t like most of what I write.  And so I throw things out there in pieces and parts most of which ends of confusing the hell outta people, even the ones that know me. 


But my weekend taught me one thing.  We’re all busy, inundated, I hope, pursuing our passions and dreams and just trying to keep a sense of self throughout it all.  And my blog has sort of been one long continuous thread of stream of consciousness.  

I tried to separate and maintain several blogs but that became untenable and unbearable, especially since the adventure continues, so I’ve pared it down to just two now here and Chef Big Dog.

I have a lot to do and say but I realize now, I only have mere moments of your time to share this story with you and I’ll try my damnest to respect them more. 

This weekend is already a long time ago.  Sail.

Day 35: 2nd Path Lab Results

Like I talked about on Day 16, I’ve been awaiting on the results of the additional prognostic and proliferation tests and today I finally got the path report.  
I took a pic of it with the ole trusty I-Phone and if you can’t read the image, basically it’s damn good news 
My decision is no chemo as I feel the potential downside exceeds any preventative or prophylactic benefit.  
Delivered on the eve of my planned departure, I can leave tomorrow to head back up to New England in good conscience and positive spirits.  

Zero At the Bone

A narrow fellow in the grass

Occasionally rides;

You may have met him,–did you not,

His notice sudden is.


The grass divides as with a comb,

A spotted shaft is seen;

And then it closes at your feet

And opens further on.


He likes a boggy acre,

A floor too cool for corn.

Yet when a child, and barefoot,

I more than once, at morn,


Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash

Unbraiding in the sun,–

When, stooping to secure it,

It wrinkled, and was gone.


Several of nature’s people

I know, and they know me;

I feel for them a transport

Of cordiality;


But never met this fellow,

Attended or alone,

Without a tighter breathing,

And zero at the bone.



Truthfully, I’ve never been a fan of Emily Dickinson. 

I came down to Memphis to say goodbye to Murphy something I haven’t been able to do.  But it’s time.  

Murphy was Menschkeit.  Maybe he was the thing that made Malcolm so much of me.  And maybe that’s why I miss him so.  

I’ve been reading Victor Frankl’s ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ and in it he writes, 

“But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.” 

I wonder if that’s what Emily meant.  There is no more absolute than zero. 


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