My stomach was hurting. It wasn't from food (since I hadn't had more than a hamburger bun in the last two days), it was from a physical issue I haven't spoken of yet--an umbilical hernia. I've had it for over ten years. When I was heavier - I used to weight close to 250 pounds--I weigh 185 now - it got really bad. However, in recent years of being more fit, the only times it bothered me were after eating a large meal, or lifting heavy things. The simple fact that it was still there though meant there was a continuing degradation (blood vessel constriction of the small intestine, etc.). I should have surgery, but I have no health insurance, and no prospect of obtaining any.
During the last journey (A Manifest Destiny) I noticed that when the situation flared up it was a little worse every time. That trip across the country had more resting involved. I was able to get motel rooms and stayed with friends more often along the way. On this journey life is much rougher. There is a lot less money--meaning, fewer options for resting. In 62 days, I have only slept in a bed three times. I have also walked more (taken fewer buses and trains). If I were a younger man, my body would recover more quickly than it does now. It is something I've simply learned to deal with. But the inevitable physical facts of aging are catching up with me.
On this day, as I usually do when the flair-up (or "out", in this case) occurs, I tried not to do too much bending over with the pack on. And, not being able to eat - besides making me weaker - should have prevented this situation from getting out of control.
This is an embarrassing problem to have. But, being no stranger to public embarrassment, I guess it doesn't matter much anymore what I describe about myself. Because it is my aim on this blog to record the reality of what happens to me out here, I think it is time to be specific about what happens with this physical issue and how it affects me...
When I lift something heavy, for example, and the abdominal pressure reaches a certain point, the tissue of my small intestine is worked outward through my belly button. For the first few years of this, it didn't hurt at all. But now that I'm in my late 40's, it can feel as though I'm being disemboweled (which, in a way, I am). The tissue is quite bruised at this point, so every time it happens, it can be almost debilitating. On this day, it was the worst it had ever been. But that was still to come.
The walk downtown was nice enough. I stopped at McDonald's and spent my last dollar on a large drink. I sucked that down, while online publishing my shorter post about the day before and writing myself directions about the route I would need to take to get to Vancouver, Washington--Burnside, to Broadway, to the Broadway Bridge, to Vancouver Avenue, then up Martin Luther King Jr. Highway (rejoining my old friend, Route 99E), to Hayden Island, and finally across the Columbia River Interstate Bridge into Vancouver. Once I was fairly confident I understood the way there, I refilled the cup and headed out...
Sculptural columns near Old Town/Chinatown.
I was loathe to use the Burnside McDonald's bathroom, because it was constantly filled with homeless guys washing up. So, before heading down Broadway, I went to the riverfront park and found the public bathroom there. As much as it stank and was otherwise disgusting in every way, at least it was private...
Near the public bathroom.
One of two stages being erected. I believe Chris Isaak was scheduled
for that night. Bummer, I was going to miss the Musicfest Northwest.
After using the restroom, it was time to really get going...
The Amtrak Cascades Portland Union Station again.
The view back, as I crossed the Broadway Bridge, in North Portland.
Nice view from the center, looking north.
Except for my first two days, I hadn't spent much time in the eastern part of the city. After turning left onto Vancouver Avenue, I certainly got a long-tour version of it. I'd seen another one of these Hondas the day before. This one was in good shape...
As I said, it was a LONG walk. I felt sand, or something, in my left shoe, then in my right shoe. I was able to bear with it for about 3 miles, but had to stop and check out the situation. The toes of my left foot were feeling quite raw. When I bent over to take off the left boot, an intense pain shot up through my abdomen. There was no place to sit (East Portland isn't quite as well appointed with benches, water fountains, or trash cans as the other side of the river). So, I twisted around and removed my back pack, placing it against the side of a building, and sat down on the sidewalk.
I was uncomfortable. It was getting hot out, and the pain mixed with the heat, started that waterfall of sweat that happens during long hikes. The hernia pain this time was unusually intense. I managed to get the boot off and discovered that my fifth (of six pairs of socks) was disintegrating. It was a similar problem as what occurred when I walked out of Salem a couple weeks earlier. This time, though, it was the area around the toes, rubbing off bits of sock and grinding them all around the front of my feet.
Since I'd lost my hat on the first night in Portland, when I slept on the beach during the rising tide, I'd had to deal with sweat that was usually soaked into the hat. That meant that the sweat simply poured down my neck, mostly being channeled down my back. But now, since I had to crouch forward it got in my eyes as I worked on the boots. Wiping it away as best I could, I ran my fingers along the inside edges of the boots, there was also sand, mixed with bits of sock there.
Knowing I had no money to get new socks, I spent about 15 minutes, pulling pills off the socks I had, smoothing them out and trying to readjust the seams around the toe areas. Unfortunately, these cheaper boots had a thin lining around the insides and a layer of weak fabric over the insoles that were both now ripping apart. I had to laugh--but I wasn't happy. I wasn't yet willing to put on my last pair of new socks, because I needed both the ones I was wearing and the new ones to last as long as they possibly could.
I ripped off the larger pieces of tearing fabric in the boots, making them as smooth as possible and made a mental note to buy gel insoles as soon as I could afford them, and more socks. When I'd done my best with my foot issues, I put the boots back on. They didn't feel very good, but they did feel better. I continued on, knowing that things were only going to get worse.
I tried my best to ignore the pain as I hiked along Vancouver...
Pave paradise...
The day got hotter, and the sweating grew more profuse. In a different situation I would have really enjoyed this trip. But, as things were, all I wanted to do was find a place to rest my feet, let them heal up, and start again the next day. That wasn't an option, and there was still another ten miles or so to go. I wasn't quite sure were Vancouver Avenue ended and 99E began. I kept looking for the Martin Luther King Jr sign. But, as street after street went by, it just wasn't showing. Having already covered about four miles, this long walk was really getting to me.
I finally reached an intersection where Vancouver merged with a busy freeway. I assumed that it was 99E, and simply took it. It was the right decision. I crossed over the Columbia Slough, a small branch of the Columbia River that, with its mother further on, created a strip of land between Oregon and Washington, called Hayden Island.
Remembering that there was a McDonald's there, off the road, I shuffled to it to take a break. When I got there, I ordered an ice water (smalls were free) and went online to check my bearings. I was right on target, but I noticed that - since I hadn't been in a place to charge the laptop, that its power was down to 20%. This left me with a dilemma I'd faced many times before: Do I try to post about my status, or do I save power for a real emergency and just continue on? Ironically, this was a refurbished restaurant, with seating for computer users and outlets at each table. But, as bad luck would have it, all the outlets had been covered with blank plates, disallowing use. I chose to move on.
The boots were getting bad again. The baby toe of my left foot was so raw, it felt like it was on fire. Thinking it might be a blister that I could pierce, I took off the boot again and checked out the situation. While I sat on a boulder, bent over the boot, another very sharp pain shot throughout my abdomen, and I had to sit up quickly to relieve it. I felt like I'd swallowed broken glass, at the same time that the soles of my feet seemed covered in metal filings. I must have looked distressed, because a kindhearted older woman knelt down in front of me and asked if there was anything she could do. I smiled and said I was alright, and thanked her for her concern. She looked unconvinced but gave a sweet smile and walked into McDonald's to buy her lunch.
This time, I removed both socks and took a look and the damage. The bottoms of both feet were white, bloodless, with the edges being yellowed with dead skin. The blisters I'd dealt with after Salem were healed over and calluses had replaced them. That was good, but now it was forming other areas to begin blistering. I didn't want to spend too much time, since the afternoon was wearing on, and I had a long way to go still.
I removed both insoles, cleaned them, rubbed my fingers around the edges of the insides of the boot and found that indeed there was also sand there. This could mean a few things. In the past it would be due to bits that were flung up over the edges and settled in the boots, or were working their way up through holes in the treads. I checked the treads and although they were beginning to wear through, there were no apparent holes yet. Scraping and dumping out the boots over and over again (probably more than I needed to), I eventually reached a point where I felt that I could put the socks and boots back on. I did, and still felt bits of something under my feet--especially the left foot.
I sighed a long sigh, feeling a bit sick about the pain in my stomach, which was not going away, and pulled the backpack on over my shoulders. I was completely drenched in sweat. I felt around to the back of my shirt and shorts, crinkling the shirt to squeeze it out. On this beautiful day, with people going by on their lunch breaks, laughing and planning what they would do that night for entertainment, I stepped forward gingerly, accelerating my pace until the endorphins took over...
I had to pass under a small tunnel in order to get back onto 99E, and over the Columbia Bridge, taking pictures to distract myself, as if it were a normal day...
The view approaching Vancouver.
Standing on the exact point where the border is, down the middle of the Columbia River,
facing north, with my left foot in Oregon and my right foot in Washington.
Goodbye, Portland and Oregon.
Hello Washington.
Risking the further loss of laptop power, I checked the screen shot of the map. It was a bit unclear exactly how to go from the highway to Fourth Plain Boulevard, where I should be able to get to the large park on the other side of the city. I couldn't determine much because the map scale was not close enough to see the names of the smaller streets. It was time to just go by instinct. I followed the only path available, and ended up in historic Fort Vancouver...
My feet were approaching the unbearable point and the pain in my stomach was moving out into the surround muscles. I absolutely HAD to rest or I might disable myself for days. I took a seat, removed my boots again, and followed the same routine I'd just done on Hayden Island.
I was very frustrated, angry with myself for not just capitulating and giving up like any "rational" person would do, trying to push my hernia back in without success, feeling sick, weak, and steadily slipping into a depression I couldn't fight off any longer. I heard a million voices from the tough-lovers in my past and present, telling me that this was all the result of wanting to be different; that I should stop feeling sorry for my stupid self, and rejoin the human race. I was very close to giving in to their screaming, laughing, and jesting.
But, I knew that I had given up everything to do what I was doing--my home, all of my stuff (except what I carried on my foolish back in my sagging, dirty old pack), my pride, my prospects for other creative work (music was a distant echo that I was almost convinced was never a part of my life anyway), my dignity... There was nothing left but this hot and endless road. If I gave up, where would I go? There was no place left for me in the human world. I had no residency in any state except for Maine, and even that ID was now expired. It was one of the lowest points to which I have ever sunk--and I have had some pretty deep lows.
The azure blue of the sky glowed down, enhancing the green of the leaves on the trees and whatever grass was still living. For just a single moment, I was lifted out of my sorry state and I perceived a golden light around the edges of my vision. Was I seeing through the Spark? The moment quickly passed and I slipped back into by broken body and pathetic life.
I put my socks and boots back on, gently tapping them flat-down onto the dusty ground. The sweat had dried a bit, leaving me strangely cool, to the point of shivering a bit and sneezing from the temperature difference. Looking around me at the old fort grounds I saw that the path ran through an apple orchard. It was a tiny ray of positivity. I imagined myself chomping on an apple and stuffing a few into my pack. I told the mocking voices to fuck themselves, and got up, walking toward those trees of life...
I went from tree to tree, but the low-hanging apples had either fallen or had been picked. And, as every kid visiting an orchard might lament over, the best and biggest were out of my short reach. I searched the ground and found quite a few large specimens that were still in good shape. Biting and spitting out the bruised parts, I then eagerly devoured two of them in quick succession, storing two more in the large pocket of my pack. A woman jogger shuffled by, smiling at this. I wanted to smile back, but I just couldn't.
The sweet juice in my mouth was fantastic. I felt the energy level rise and I started walking again. Eventually I found a map of the fort, which I seemed to be imprisoned within, but found the path on the diagram which led out onto the street. I walked a little faster now, making my way to a busy intersection, and passing a bunch of other interesting historical buildings...
I wasn't on the street I'd planned to be. But I knew from the memory of the screen shot, which direction I should be headed in. On and on I went, until I found a recognizable street: Grand Avenue. Turning and following it northward, I came upon another recognizable name: St. John's. That was what I'd been planning to follow to Arnold Park--the day's final destination. When I'd reached that park, I looked for a sign, but found none. So, I just took the first little road I saw and ventured in.
I passed a small house on the right, trying to determine whether it was a residence or some kind of park maintenance building. Later I found out that it was indeed a residence. The true park area was still ahead, and intermixed with the other residences of an abutting neighborhood. Dozens of paths jutted off to my left, and many low lying grassy areas lined the right side of the path. It was time to explore some of the paths, in search of a place to dump myself down...
One of the paths I explored.
The path in the photo above led to a steep hill, with the large broken pieces of an old cement wall embedded into it. I struggled to climb it, knowing full-well that many people had likely done the same thing. I was half-expecting someone to be occupying its peek, but when I reached the top of the hill all I found was trash. An electrical cord hung down, tied to a tree as if somebody had planned to install an incandescent light bulb.
I examined the trash carefully to gather evidence about how long it might have been since the spot was used for camping/living. It was strew about the ground; a strange mix of children's school workbooks, a church brochure, the printout from a doctor's oxycodone prescription, two high heeled shoes, an unused tampon still in its wrapper, a Wal-Mart reusable bag, a yellow t-shirt, a pink former container for colored pencils and crumpled-up napkins. As I debated whether to stay there, I scraped the stuff into a pile with my feet...
From the items around, I put together a mental image of a single homeless mother with a young child who must have stayed there for a few nights. A bag of wire caps, stripped wire insulation and bits of twisted copper wire littered the edges of the area. Had they tried to have a generator up there? We will never know. There was no place to sit. The ground had the talcum dust characteristic of a region thirsty for rain. To sit down on it, I would have been covered with the dust. It would have caked on to my sweaty clothes. I turned to climb back down. This wasn't the spot for me.
Glancing toward the edge of the hill, a glint of silver caught my attention. It was a spoon twisted and jammed into the knotted hole of a tree. Was it art? Or, was it a backup spoon to cook up or freebase heroin? Or...was it just a spoon...in a tree?
I climbed down, trying not let the edges of the cement chunks jam too heavily into my feet and returned to the main trail. Having had no luck on the left side of that trail, I moved into the grassy areas on the right side. There, I found a small, quickly moving stream. I wanted to drink from it so badly, but I knew that could be a huge mistake. I did taste the water and spit it out. It tasted fine...
Some way down the stream bank, there was a log that had fallen across the running water. I clumsily traversed it and stepped out onto the other side. The area looked good. Searching the darker places, I saw a nice bike, propped up against small tree. I looked for awhile at it, and heard a man's voice in the shadows say, "Hello?"
I replied, "Hello..." back to him and made up my mind that this wasn't the place for me. "I'm just passing through."
"No worries," he said back.
This was becoming a very distressing day. The feet, the boots, the stomach--which, with apple passing through it, reignited the hernia pain, the sweat and the inability to find a private place in this rather large park was making me uncomfortably numb.
The sun was way past its zenith, casting shadows that seemed to grow longer with each passing moment. What a strange condition I was in; so FAR from where I'd grown up, from my friends in person or online, from my former life as a cubicle worker and phone center supervisor, from my crushed dreams as a musician, from the girlfriends who had gone on to better lives, from my cat, from my family, from comfort, from security, from all that humanity had spent so many thousands of years building up and delivering as a world to live in...
I felt foolish. Yet, I knew that I was in the only place I had ever been destined to be. As I climbed back across the fallen log to the original trail, I turned back toward the entrance and a field where large power poles buzzed above me. I tried one last time to examine the park image on my laptop, but the battery was dead and it wouldn't turn on.
After languishing in Redding waiting for boots, then languishing in Salem waiting for mail, now I would be forced to languish in Vancouver, in pain, and waiting for the rest of my life--be it long or short. The power pole area was wide open, like the fields I'd grown accustomed to sleeping in, in California and Oregon. I could go no further. There were no signs warning me to keep away, I was limping badly now. I thought that the Tucson experience from the last journey had been bad, but this was worse.
When I'd found a relatively good spot--despite the smell of manure mulching piles upwind from me, I peeled off the backpack, slowly dropped it to the ground, opened the big pocket and hauled out the tarp. Unfolding it was difficult, because my stomach was fighting back with each movement. Then I took out the sleeping bag and spread it out on the tarp.
It was only about 8:15 pm. The sun's last golden rays gilded the treetops with a glow, that, at that moment, seemed like maybe that is what trees might look like in heaven. A large crane flew down right in front of me, as I stretched out. The pain was lessened when I lied on my back. The crane cocked his head and stared straight at me.
I knew I had to attend to my feet, but my energy was gone. I simply ran out of thoughts at that point. It was almost a relief to feel nothing at all--to have no inner dialogue, no constant analysis, no expectations and no disappointment at not realizing them. Maybe this was what it meant to be "immune to disappointment"? Somehow my consciousness faded like an old worn out pop song, left too long by a sleeping radio DJ, on the outdated record player of reality. Then, there was darkness...
Vancouver Sleeping Place 1
Welcome to Canada!
ReplyDeleteHa, ha! I wish. :-D
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