People We Used to Be, Part 1
A page from my composition notebook turned into a hitchhiking sign.
“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.” –Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem
When I returned to Iowa City in April 1977 after six months of traveling, I slowly eased back in. I was tending my co-op house’s back garden and occasionally helping out at the bakery – which had split off from Stone Soup and opened its own place a floor up in Center East as Morning Glory Bakery. But mostly I was chilling, digging the mellow summer vibe of Iowa City. Most of the students would vacate the premises, and cool, interesting folks just came out of the woodwork, or the woods. The day usually ended or started with drinks at The Deadwood or Gabe & Walker’s. A surprising number of good young jazz musicians were playing around town in various combos, before eventually splitting to the West Coast.
New Pioneer Co-op was preparing to move from its cozy second floor location on the corner of South Gilbert and Prentiss streets to a larger storefront beside Ralston Creek on South Van Buren. I was hired to help with the expansion, joining a staff that included my friends John, Sheila, Pam, Sue, and Bob. I learned a lot from those folks. We worked as a collective, sharing store decisions and duties, but as the junior member of the group, my usual role was supervising the volunteers, stocking the bins, running the cash register. I enjoyed the work, and the quality interactions with the co-op community.
I finally returned for my second year at the university in the fall of 1978. I had decided to work toward a General Studies degree, a liberal arts path that was actually an array of intersecting paths. My coursework was spread across a range of disciplines, an approach that felt natural. English Lit and Creative Writing, Film Study and Production, Languages (Spanish, French, Italian), Anthropology, Geography, Art History, Botany, Jazz Dance – I was omnivorous, helping myself to the buffet of knowledge.
By spring break, I was antsy. Iowa in March was barely thawing to a grey slush; one would need to head south to experience spring. I ignored that pull, deciding to visit my baking buddy Nancy, who had moved to a commune in Magog, Québec. As was often the case, I failed to clearly communicate the specifics of my visit. When I arrived on a frigid snowy night and called Nancy, she apologized that the community was in a spiritual retreat of sorts and couldn’t accept visitors right then. She did give me an address in Montréal. With few sleeping options that night, I went to La Régie de Police in Magog and asked to spend the night in a jail cell. They were cool with that request, but did lock the cell door.
The address from Nancy led me to a three-story brownstone in Old Montreal, a “spirituality centre” run by a Buddhist Jesuit (or a Jesuit Buddhist). I meditated with him, sitting zazen, quietly walking up and down stairs in my stocking feet, settling into my silence. I slipped out to see the city once or twice, but it was bitterly cold and I had little money. That's how I spent my spring break.
In July, after taking a Poetry Workshop class with the gracious Marvin Bell, I returned to Canada. Similar to Mexico, it was an inexpensive destination that offered a chance to cross boundaries and see new places. For some reason, Cape Breton in Nova Scotia had become a goal. Perhaps I was thinking of Herman Melville’s comment: “Nothing will content [humankind] but the extremest limit of the land.”
I headed northwest on US 151 toward Wisconsin, stopping along the way at New Melleray Abbey, near Peosta, Iowa. Passing through the oak doors of the Trappist monastery, I explained to a young monk, “I had a need for shelter.” Without a word, he pulled from the folds of his robe a small black copy of the New Testament and Psalms and placed it in my speechless hands. I stayed in a private cell (kept unlocked), joining the two dozen monks in the chapel as they chanted the prayers of lauds at dawn and vespers at sunset. They shared their vegetarian meals with me, made with produce from their gardens - excellent bread and sparse conversation. After two days of peace, I thanked them for their goodwill and continued on my way.
I stopped in Madison to see what was happening, because something always was. I hooked up with a couple other vagabonds, and a spontaneous party ensued alfresco. When we had exhausted every prospect, we started to think about a place to crash – we laid out our sleeping bags in a wooded thicket beside Lake Mendota, not far from the student union. Campus cops rousted us a few hours later, telling us we couldn’t sleep there and checking our IDs. For some reason, they could not confirm my identity in their database, which pleased me to no end.
I continued northeast through Wisconsin and into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was quiet, uneventful traveling, a time for contemplation. While waiting for a ride, I wrote in my notebook:
Beside the road i’m following:
ferns, buttercups, queen anne’s lace,
ace of clubs with one corner torn off,
indian paintbrushes, black-eyed susans,
curls of birch bark, grocery lists,
scraps of maps, a lake, water
lilies, merganser diving.
Coming down through the Lower Peninsula, I stopped in Ann Arbor to get an energy charge from my old traveling companion Prch, and then on to Detroit to cross the Ambassador Bridge into Windsor, Ontario. I got a ride from a young Black guy going to visit his father in a Windsor hospital. But the border official, noticing my rucksack, asked me about my plans. I told him I was thinking of going to Nova Scotia and would probably be in Canada a couple weeks. I was directed to the Office of Immigration, where I filled out a form and was then told I’d need to have $25 per day and a bus or train ticket to my destination. That amount of money would usually last me a week. After being sent back across the bridge, I walked downtown to the Detroit-Windsor tunnel, where I caught a shuttle bus to Canada, telling a completely different story that time.
I followed King’s Highway 401 through Ontario and into Quebec, along the north shore of Lakes Erie and Ontario, and then the Saint Lawrence Seaway to Montréal. I did some urban camping in Mount Royal Park, big enough that one could keep a low profile and not be hassled. From that same “sojournal”:
The corner of Rue Saint-Urbain
and Avenue Duluth Ouest
Café Santropol
in Montréal
a bay window
large pot of mint tea
old blues and jazz in the air
I make a sandwich
cheese tomato bread
and partake
Leaving Montréal, I picked up the Trans-Canada Highway going northeast along the seaway. I got a ride from Johanne, a young Québécois woman. She soon picked up two more hitchhikers, who proved to be borderline assholes, to the extent that I was becoming concerned for Johanne’s well-being, but they soon reached their destination. She was on her way to visit her friend Marc, who lived near Mont-Joli, a fortuitous 500-kilometer ride. To pass the time, I asked her to teach me some French. As we talked, I became charmed by her smile and laid-back style. Yes, I wanted to travel with her and wanted to travel blind. Later on my trip, with her in mind, I wrote:
Your eyes are bluebirds
Flying from the forest of your lashes.
Your hair is chestnut straw
Where white daisies make their home.
Your skin’s a creamy yoghurt with honey freckles.
The Saint-Laurent wraps you in its blue blouse.
Your breasts are river-worn stones,
A truth humbling Rubens and the masters.
We talk as we follow the river,
Your hands rippling and fluttering in rhyme.
I learn from you: je suis, tu es, nous sommes,
New ways of saying the world.
It was dark when we got to Mont-Joli. Johanne invited me to spend the night at her friend’s house. Marc was a burly bearded Québécois brother living in the backwoods and subsisting on a large garden and a small herd of goats. He lived in a one-room cabin, but gregarious and generous, he heartily welcomed me. It was a cozy scene. Marc and Johanne shared the bed and I rolled out my sleeping bag on the floor nearby. Early next morning, they quietly made love, thinking I was still asleep. When Marc got up to milk and feed his goats, Johanne beckoned to me to join her in bed. During my travels, I met people like her who were, by their nature, able to carry others’ weight, lightening their loads.
Later that morning the three of us hiked to a nearby lake for a swim. As Johanne ran ahead, Marc turned to me, grinned, and said, “She is an extraordinary woman.” I smiled and nodded in agreement.