this is an old story, a lot has changed. I've traveled, i lost Marla forever to another man after an epic squamish adventure together, I've been sober, I've been drunk.
I still fight with the old demons, sometimes i win sometimes i lose.
to stop would be wrong, and if nothing else i want to do the right thing.
for better or for worse here i am.
First.
Marla
I met marla on my birthday, i think maybe my 30th birthday even. I like to go riding on my birthday, alone or with people it doesn't matter. hopefully allways will, this one i was with people not just people but great people. jai Balaam and Dave Turcotte to be precise we started early and covered a lot of ground before hitting the oak bay liqour store for cold beers at cheep prices (it's a secret, don't tell) our route took us past my lesbo tattoo freak friend brandi's place and she was on the porch drinking beer with some people so we stopped. Her girlfriend Jennie, Miranda, and Marla. stopped for a beer at rest instead of in the saddle...all great people in the sun on a porch. Happy birthday to me! Marla's laugh still sticks out in my mind. Loud and unafraid a lot like my niece abbygails. a wonderfull thing for sure, we laughed and had a great time and when Marla was up one time gone to the fridge for beer Brandi took me aside to whisper "i think she likes you" wink and grin. "I think i like her" i had to mock whisper back.
We didn't ride any more that day drank with brandi and company instead then got invited to a party elsewhere in fernwood drug them all with and me and Marla ended up dancing the night away at a party where no one else was dancing.
we hung out for the next couple weeks but i learned that she was leaving soon on an adventure. her and her friend chelsea wanted to ride thier mountain bikes to argentina and they planned on being gone several months. There was no sense in taking this seriously it was just a fling...but what a fling it was, every time i turned around something else. we went swimming at the sooke potholes and the jeep she picked me up in had ditch kisses up one side. i asked and she said it fell over out tree plantng but luckily there where enough peple to put it back up. i got in and noticed no carpet and the floor bungs popped out. Yes its been in some water she said. Eventually it ended and when she left south i left north moved to dawson creek again to go climbing and riding and house building.. we kept in touch for a little but then forgot. i visited the coast several times and often wondered but Brandi said "marlas with someone and happy i dont think you should try and talk to her."It hurt but it was true so i didn't
Then in the winter of 0 i was on an adventure of sorts that put me in victoria again. Walking down a street with my head in the clouds i heard "Joe? is that you?" turned and there she was...again. later she said she saw me and wasn't going to stop but then did, curiousity overcoming caution. do you want to get together and catch up? of course! maybe a ride to the beach and talk? hell yes! we set a date and went for a lovely ride to the beach and caught up on the last couple years and then said our goodbyes. after exchanging numbers.
The very next day i got a phone call. "that was lovely but im a little dissapointed i didn't get a hug from you"
i was trying to be a gentleman i said. would you like to get together again? "yes, i could show you pictures of my trip to mexico" they had run out of money and had to get jobs to pay for their tickets home. Also awsome! Sooo... we ended up spending mor time together...And again...."look this can't get serious i'm leaving for korea on a year long teaching trip." I really need a passport so i can go do cool shit like that i said. well get one and maybe we can do it together? was the reply. so obvious.
One year.
This story begins almost 1 year ago exactly. Its Friday, March 26 2010. Sometime around this time last year I was sitting in a restaraunt in Hope B.C. thinking about life. Now im sitting in my brothers living room still thinking about life. A lot has stayed the same, life is still here. I still love mountains and bikes and food and all the other things I loved before. A lot has changed, I have a licence and a jeep, and a passport and money in the bank for the future. All things i hadnt thought of having for a long time. 9 years with no licence. A lot longer with no bank account. This is the story of this year, starting then and ending now. Or as ended as a story based on a life can end assuming that life goes on. Its been an amazing year and i hope this tale does it justice.
Saturday, November 21, 2009 thats when i wrote this story about that day in march. I wrote it on a little computer that i had with me on that trip, bought it just before an atttempted mugging by some local youths that left me and my brother pretty badly beat up. I got a broken hand out of the deal that was no good for carpentering with so i went travelling to kill the time while i healed. actually thats how i ended up in victoria and meeting Marla....again.
i was hitchhiking north this winter from victoria, stopped in hope after dark. hungry, decided on a chinese place by the bus station/ laundromat/dinner. it was decent, had a couple beers lots on my mind. Marlas leaving on the first of april two weeks away try and get this trip to ymir over fast and come back? see her again for maybe a day at most. or move east after kelowna then the koots, heading north from there through the park see friend in banff? always good for a party and lottsa inkwork.go home through edmonton, see dad. anyway you get the drift. high plains drifter at heart resigned to not seeing this beautiful creature for at least another year...again? or give one more run at romance and hope.well the cheque and a fortune cookie showed up as i finished my bottle of lucky. life is either an exciting adventure, or nothing. thought on that for a bit and used it for a bookmark in a mark jenkins book i really enjoyed. it made it home with me and every time i saw it it made me smile. really suits me how did they know?when i sent marla her package (a painting, some pictures of me in the mountains happy, a feather from the first grouse i got with my bow and a book on solo climbing adventures) that fortune was in the book and it makes me happy to know its on an exciting adventure
So i carried on to Ymir B.C. by way of Kelowna Tattooing the whole way and hitchhiking. Then returned to the coast to meet with this girl Marla. We met in van one day at the korean consulate where she had to finalize some paperwork had lunch and hung out then tried to get together another time but got our timing messed up and blew it. The last time i saw here was the day before she left. i bussed out to tswassen and wandered all over the place and had just about given up when i reached her at her parents. We met and hung out and had a good visit despite my being half in a bottle of fireball that id bought for the bus ride. When i got on the bus back into vancouver i was sauced and emotional, 12 hours later i was at rock bottom, camping under an overpass high as fuck on freebase cocaine. Spent every cent in my pockets and had no luck selling my computer for more so i decided to spend my last minutes in that day writing. The truth and nothing but same as what i still write today. i wrote Marla a letter to tell her what she was dealing with and what i was thinking. i couldnèt find the letter i sent her but it boils down to an admission of guilt. I was guilty of being a cocaine adict from the time i was eighteen on. Of being incapable of telling the truth about that and therefore so many other things in my life. Of the hurt that so many other girls who had gotten close to me had suffered.
I wrote it and in the morning i hitchhiked home. it took 2 days and i was penniless and hungry by the time i got home. But i got home to work and a home and life went on. I wrestled with that letter in my computer for the whole trip home and when i got there i sent it. I went to work and checked my mail and within the week i got a reply. The gist of it was that she knew allready but to hear it like that hurt. A lot. That she wasnt going to talk to me until she could read that letter without crying. Other things as well lost now in cyberlimbo.
Still she wrote me though. And I wrote back, we talked of me getting my passport and coming to visit her in korea. She sent my letter to a friend who warned her as well of the dangers of falling for an addict, but she told me all of it and sent the letter from her friend to me. She was my friend and cared. A lot.
Marla told me about a program called skype, free videocalls world wide. We talked, face to face, about all sorts of things and we stopped thinking as friends, or just friends anyways. We had been lovers before and the attraction was undeniable.
I began saving money and spending on things i had long neglected that i would need to get a passport. B.C.I.D. My birth certificate. Also things i personally wanted and needed, my licence back first. We fell in love. Again
chapter 2.
During this time i also had many fine adventures. The year before my cousin Jarrett and i had spent a week in the mountains south of tumbler ridge trying to summit the highest peak in the area! Bulley glacier peak, 8800 feet, we were skunked after completing a circuit of the neighboring peak Bulleye Mt. peak. On the way out we spottted a pancake of rock sticking out of a mountain side above where the road ended and our truck was parked. it turned out to be about a kilometer long and maybe up to 500 metres tall in spots. Prime untouched solid rock to climb and develop. The idea of a cabin out there was tossed around then tabled over the winter.
When i got home the first test of whether i was healed enough for work was a snowmobile ride out to that range. I took pictures and sent them to Marla, told her of our plans. Then when the road was clear to drive in we went back and climbed and cut a trail into the climbing and explored. More pictures and stories for Marla.
Next thing i knew, Jarrett had a pile of materials and we were dragging them out into the woods by hand. Clearing and building and living the lives that stories are made of. We built our cabin and climbed and always i sent pictures and wrote storys for my lover in another land. We spoke often and it seemed perfect. People noticed a change in me, i wasnt running around drunk all the time with random floozies and i had to explain. I met a girl, I met her before and fucked it up once, I have a second chance and dont want to fuck it up.
There was shock, disbelief and belief, relief and many other reactions to this statement. My brother laughed and said ya until you lose interest and move on. many others supported the move, friends and ex-lovers pleased that someone had finally gotten to me.
The cabin at the end of the road. Thats what we called it and it stuck, we brought the first load of materials out on a trailer behind Jarretts one ton truck that we nicknamed the death star. White like a storm trooper and shiny new then, it was piled high with house parts and the trailer was heaped as well. In fact it was so overloaded that it took us close to 4 hours to get it into the end of the road. from dawson creek its about 100 km. to tumbler ridge or a one hour drive, from tumbler to the end of the bulley creek forest service road is only 70 km. even unloaded it takes 2 hours to drive in the rest of the way, and this time we had close to 3000 pounds of material on board. Jarrett and Dion and samurai ( dions boxer) and me packed all the beams for the roof system, the floor joists, the sheeting and nails and tools in the first day. By mid afternoon my leg and the titanium pins holding it together where screaming fire and hurt so i had to stop packing and began clearing the site and building a floor system. We decided on a spot about 300 yards from the road at the top of a rock bluff. the creek runs about 40 yards away and on previous trips we had cleared a camp site and dug a firepit down to mineral soil and lined it with river rocks. we slept that night around our fire next to our dreams all piled in the woods and it felt so good.
We woke to reinforcements Tyler Purnell (T bone or bonezy) and his jack russel named wizard. ate up the day packing more and building got the floor system built and leveled and went climbing!
chapter 3
June. My birthday came and went, Marla sent me socks and pens and some funny stationary and we talked lots. My brother and i built a plywood ramp next to the ditch in front of his houseand my riding buddies dion and morgan jean came out all the time to ride the ditch on the little bikes. Not just bmx either a honda 50 and child sized quads all got ridden in that ditch and some good bruises and raspberrys showed up as well from falls. Marla would laugh and call us fools when i told her of our shenanigans.
Then something imperfect happened. An event know as bushstock, outdoor music and swimming and camping by the river. i was riding into town and ran into my friend alex the groomer operator from powder king sleeping in his truck on the side of the road. He said im here for bushstock man gonna meet morgan jean and party! so we did, for 2 days living by the river on hotdogs and beer. woke the first day by the side of the river with a sixpack for a pillow,the second day i woke in a strange womans van to the sound of my boss whispering joeeeeey. his kids had seen my boots and i had forgotten my climbing date for sunday.
up like a flash gone climbing was my first words. and out of the van i went. Jarrett laughed i blushed and we went out to the cabin with the kids. they loved the tyrolean traverse we put up to cross the creek and it was so hot we all stuck our heads in the water on our way back from the rock even though that water is as glacier cold as the ice pack it flows out of 20 km. away.
when i got home though i wasnt so happy, i had fucked up and was dreading talking to Marla. it wasnt long before she popped up in cyberland and said the phrase that all relationships dread for some reason
We Need To Talk. then she proceeded to tell me how she had gotten drunk and made out with some random dude at a party. Oh my god! i was never quite so relieved, i told her i did the same thing but the dude i made out with was a woman. she asked me what this meant, and i asked her if she still wanted me. Of course was the reply and my heart damm near popped out of my chest. Shes smart and beautiful and all these things......and human! ohmygod!
we wrote such beautifull mush back and forth it was almost surreal and at one point i remember her say something to the effect off if i asked she would say yes. I knew what that meant and almost did ask her right then and there to marry me. but being a true blue romantic fool i really wanted to do it the old fashioned way. in person. for real.
We talked about everything and anything, the topic of substance abuse came up more than once and she was right to be concerned. i didnt hold back with the truth and it seemed true that there was a cycle that recurred.
july chapter 4
riding and climbing and marla and bbqs at our new homestead. Casa Del Christopher! a perfect life and chris and jaqui to be married on august first, drinking heavily was still running rampant through my life though and the night before the wedding we tied one on real good like. i came too some time in the wee hours in a buddies truck smoking on a crack pipe. not perfect. came thru the door with a couple hours to spare first thing turn on the computer boom marla. saying something wonderfull. it would have been easy to ignore that conversation pretend i didnt see say nothing back. but no, i said i fucked up, im fucked up i am freaking out.
there was no sympathy, she was pissed said something to the effect of i thought you were broke? and what the fuck? and i cant talk to you im so mad. your brother is counting on you now get your shit together and stop fucking this up we will talk but it wont be for i while im so mad at you.
morgan jean came and got me that morning. i told him what had happened on our way to wally world for fresh duds for the wedding. told him i thought i may have lost her cause i couldnt lie or not smoke crack.
MJ is a fountain of wisdom with very few words attached. He said don't smoke crack joey and you wont lose her or have to lie. We did the wedding thing and it was beautiful mom and dad both made it i saw very little of either and they sat as far from each other as possible. the reception i drank water from a flower vase almost all night. my cousin drove people home in his new barracuda that we picked up in squamish the month before and expressed disbelief at my not drinking. somewhere in there i lost some strenght dannys date was shamelessly hitting on me i was still reeling from the night before, a drink. some wine.then dancing, more wine. jarrett says he saw the switch flip. good joe to bad. coming back in with dirty knees and sweat flowing tina hanging back, then leaving with a couple bridesmaids and other people. we went to mcqueens slough and watched a lightning storm roll over the country side stripped naked and ran through the fields in the rain. a return to a more primal time. somehow a hottub and more debauchery. fuck it im allready down the tube might as well go all in.
The next day i left for prrince rupert with jarrett and his family on a fishing trip. 4 days on a boat. a small boat ohmygod.
chapter 5
Fishing with the Bergs and Rod Tram the owner of the local sporting goods store. We laid a bunch of hardwood and tile in his house and instead of giving him a bill Jarrettt put it towards a charter trip on rods boat. We spent 3 nights and 4 days on the boat and i got to show my nieces so many fishboat tricks like crabtraps and knots and the shiny cartilage bouncy ball inside a sharks eye. We went for walks on the beach and found shells and murdered crab every night, Rod turned out to be an exellent cook as well and between him me and jarrett brandi never had to cook once.
I still fight with the old demons, sometimes i win sometimes i lose.
to stop would be wrong, and if nothing else i want to do the right thing.
for better or for worse here i am.
First.
Marla
I met marla on my birthday, i think maybe my 30th birthday even. I like to go riding on my birthday, alone or with people it doesn't matter. hopefully allways will, this one i was with people not just people but great people. jai Balaam and Dave Turcotte to be precise we started early and covered a lot of ground before hitting the oak bay liqour store for cold beers at cheep prices (it's a secret, don't tell) our route took us past my lesbo tattoo freak friend brandi's place and she was on the porch drinking beer with some people so we stopped. Her girlfriend Jennie, Miranda, and Marla. stopped for a beer at rest instead of in the saddle...all great people in the sun on a porch. Happy birthday to me! Marla's laugh still sticks out in my mind. Loud and unafraid a lot like my niece abbygails. a wonderfull thing for sure, we laughed and had a great time and when Marla was up one time gone to the fridge for beer Brandi took me aside to whisper "i think she likes you" wink and grin. "I think i like her" i had to mock whisper back.
We didn't ride any more that day drank with brandi and company instead then got invited to a party elsewhere in fernwood drug them all with and me and Marla ended up dancing the night away at a party where no one else was dancing.
we hung out for the next couple weeks but i learned that she was leaving soon on an adventure. her and her friend chelsea wanted to ride thier mountain bikes to argentina and they planned on being gone several months. There was no sense in taking this seriously it was just a fling...but what a fling it was, every time i turned around something else. we went swimming at the sooke potholes and the jeep she picked me up in had ditch kisses up one side. i asked and she said it fell over out tree plantng but luckily there where enough peple to put it back up. i got in and noticed no carpet and the floor bungs popped out. Yes its been in some water she said. Eventually it ended and when she left south i left north moved to dawson creek again to go climbing and riding and house building.. we kept in touch for a little but then forgot. i visited the coast several times and often wondered but Brandi said "marlas with someone and happy i dont think you should try and talk to her."It hurt but it was true so i didn't
Then in the winter of 0 i was on an adventure of sorts that put me in victoria again. Walking down a street with my head in the clouds i heard "Joe? is that you?" turned and there she was...again. later she said she saw me and wasn't going to stop but then did, curiousity overcoming caution. do you want to get together and catch up? of course! maybe a ride to the beach and talk? hell yes! we set a date and went for a lovely ride to the beach and caught up on the last couple years and then said our goodbyes. after exchanging numbers.
The very next day i got a phone call. "that was lovely but im a little dissapointed i didn't get a hug from you"
i was trying to be a gentleman i said. would you like to get together again? "yes, i could show you pictures of my trip to mexico" they had run out of money and had to get jobs to pay for their tickets home. Also awsome! Sooo... we ended up spending mor time together...And again...."look this can't get serious i'm leaving for korea on a year long teaching trip." I really need a passport so i can go do cool shit like that i said. well get one and maybe we can do it together? was the reply. so obvious.
One year.
This story begins almost 1 year ago exactly. Its Friday, March 26 2010. Sometime around this time last year I was sitting in a restaraunt in Hope B.C. thinking about life. Now im sitting in my brothers living room still thinking about life. A lot has stayed the same, life is still here. I still love mountains and bikes and food and all the other things I loved before. A lot has changed, I have a licence and a jeep, and a passport and money in the bank for the future. All things i hadnt thought of having for a long time. 9 years with no licence. A lot longer with no bank account. This is the story of this year, starting then and ending now. Or as ended as a story based on a life can end assuming that life goes on. Its been an amazing year and i hope this tale does it justice.
Saturday, November 21, 2009 thats when i wrote this story about that day in march. I wrote it on a little computer that i had with me on that trip, bought it just before an atttempted mugging by some local youths that left me and my brother pretty badly beat up. I got a broken hand out of the deal that was no good for carpentering with so i went travelling to kill the time while i healed. actually thats how i ended up in victoria and meeting Marla....again.
i was hitchhiking north this winter from victoria, stopped in hope after dark. hungry, decided on a chinese place by the bus station/ laundromat/dinner. it was decent, had a couple beers lots on my mind. Marlas leaving on the first of april two weeks away try and get this trip to ymir over fast and come back? see her again for maybe a day at most. or move east after kelowna then the koots, heading north from there through the park see friend in banff? always good for a party and lottsa inkwork.go home through edmonton, see dad. anyway you get the drift. high plains drifter at heart resigned to not seeing this beautiful creature for at least another year...again? or give one more run at romance and hope.well the cheque and a fortune cookie showed up as i finished my bottle of lucky. life is either an exciting adventure, or nothing. thought on that for a bit and used it for a bookmark in a mark jenkins book i really enjoyed. it made it home with me and every time i saw it it made me smile. really suits me how did they know?when i sent marla her package (a painting, some pictures of me in the mountains happy, a feather from the first grouse i got with my bow and a book on solo climbing adventures) that fortune was in the book and it makes me happy to know its on an exciting adventure
So i carried on to Ymir B.C. by way of Kelowna Tattooing the whole way and hitchhiking. Then returned to the coast to meet with this girl Marla. We met in van one day at the korean consulate where she had to finalize some paperwork had lunch and hung out then tried to get together another time but got our timing messed up and blew it. The last time i saw here was the day before she left. i bussed out to tswassen and wandered all over the place and had just about given up when i reached her at her parents. We met and hung out and had a good visit despite my being half in a bottle of fireball that id bought for the bus ride. When i got on the bus back into vancouver i was sauced and emotional, 12 hours later i was at rock bottom, camping under an overpass high as fuck on freebase cocaine. Spent every cent in my pockets and had no luck selling my computer for more so i decided to spend my last minutes in that day writing. The truth and nothing but same as what i still write today. i wrote Marla a letter to tell her what she was dealing with and what i was thinking. i couldnèt find the letter i sent her but it boils down to an admission of guilt. I was guilty of being a cocaine adict from the time i was eighteen on. Of being incapable of telling the truth about that and therefore so many other things in my life. Of the hurt that so many other girls who had gotten close to me had suffered.
I wrote it and in the morning i hitchhiked home. it took 2 days and i was penniless and hungry by the time i got home. But i got home to work and a home and life went on. I wrestled with that letter in my computer for the whole trip home and when i got there i sent it. I went to work and checked my mail and within the week i got a reply. The gist of it was that she knew allready but to hear it like that hurt. A lot. That she wasnt going to talk to me until she could read that letter without crying. Other things as well lost now in cyberlimbo.
Still she wrote me though. And I wrote back, we talked of me getting my passport and coming to visit her in korea. She sent my letter to a friend who warned her as well of the dangers of falling for an addict, but she told me all of it and sent the letter from her friend to me. She was my friend and cared. A lot.
Marla told me about a program called skype, free videocalls world wide. We talked, face to face, about all sorts of things and we stopped thinking as friends, or just friends anyways. We had been lovers before and the attraction was undeniable.
I began saving money and spending on things i had long neglected that i would need to get a passport. B.C.I.D. My birth certificate. Also things i personally wanted and needed, my licence back first. We fell in love. Again
chapter 2.
During this time i also had many fine adventures. The year before my cousin Jarrett and i had spent a week in the mountains south of tumbler ridge trying to summit the highest peak in the area! Bulley glacier peak, 8800 feet, we were skunked after completing a circuit of the neighboring peak Bulleye Mt. peak. On the way out we spottted a pancake of rock sticking out of a mountain side above where the road ended and our truck was parked. it turned out to be about a kilometer long and maybe up to 500 metres tall in spots. Prime untouched solid rock to climb and develop. The idea of a cabin out there was tossed around then tabled over the winter.
When i got home the first test of whether i was healed enough for work was a snowmobile ride out to that range. I took pictures and sent them to Marla, told her of our plans. Then when the road was clear to drive in we went back and climbed and cut a trail into the climbing and explored. More pictures and stories for Marla.
Next thing i knew, Jarrett had a pile of materials and we were dragging them out into the woods by hand. Clearing and building and living the lives that stories are made of. We built our cabin and climbed and always i sent pictures and wrote storys for my lover in another land. We spoke often and it seemed perfect. People noticed a change in me, i wasnt running around drunk all the time with random floozies and i had to explain. I met a girl, I met her before and fucked it up once, I have a second chance and dont want to fuck it up.
There was shock, disbelief and belief, relief and many other reactions to this statement. My brother laughed and said ya until you lose interest and move on. many others supported the move, friends and ex-lovers pleased that someone had finally gotten to me.
The cabin at the end of the road. Thats what we called it and it stuck, we brought the first load of materials out on a trailer behind Jarretts one ton truck that we nicknamed the death star. White like a storm trooper and shiny new then, it was piled high with house parts and the trailer was heaped as well. In fact it was so overloaded that it took us close to 4 hours to get it into the end of the road. from dawson creek its about 100 km. to tumbler ridge or a one hour drive, from tumbler to the end of the bulley creek forest service road is only 70 km. even unloaded it takes 2 hours to drive in the rest of the way, and this time we had close to 3000 pounds of material on board. Jarrett and Dion and samurai ( dions boxer) and me packed all the beams for the roof system, the floor joists, the sheeting and nails and tools in the first day. By mid afternoon my leg and the titanium pins holding it together where screaming fire and hurt so i had to stop packing and began clearing the site and building a floor system. We decided on a spot about 300 yards from the road at the top of a rock bluff. the creek runs about 40 yards away and on previous trips we had cleared a camp site and dug a firepit down to mineral soil and lined it with river rocks. we slept that night around our fire next to our dreams all piled in the woods and it felt so good.
We woke to reinforcements Tyler Purnell (T bone or bonezy) and his jack russel named wizard. ate up the day packing more and building got the floor system built and leveled and went climbing!
chapter 3
June. My birthday came and went, Marla sent me socks and pens and some funny stationary and we talked lots. My brother and i built a plywood ramp next to the ditch in front of his houseand my riding buddies dion and morgan jean came out all the time to ride the ditch on the little bikes. Not just bmx either a honda 50 and child sized quads all got ridden in that ditch and some good bruises and raspberrys showed up as well from falls. Marla would laugh and call us fools when i told her of our shenanigans.
Then something imperfect happened. An event know as bushstock, outdoor music and swimming and camping by the river. i was riding into town and ran into my friend alex the groomer operator from powder king sleeping in his truck on the side of the road. He said im here for bushstock man gonna meet morgan jean and party! so we did, for 2 days living by the river on hotdogs and beer. woke the first day by the side of the river with a sixpack for a pillow,the second day i woke in a strange womans van to the sound of my boss whispering joeeeeey. his kids had seen my boots and i had forgotten my climbing date for sunday.
up like a flash gone climbing was my first words. and out of the van i went. Jarrett laughed i blushed and we went out to the cabin with the kids. they loved the tyrolean traverse we put up to cross the creek and it was so hot we all stuck our heads in the water on our way back from the rock even though that water is as glacier cold as the ice pack it flows out of 20 km. away.
when i got home though i wasnt so happy, i had fucked up and was dreading talking to Marla. it wasnt long before she popped up in cyberland and said the phrase that all relationships dread for some reason
We Need To Talk. then she proceeded to tell me how she had gotten drunk and made out with some random dude at a party. Oh my god! i was never quite so relieved, i told her i did the same thing but the dude i made out with was a woman. she asked me what this meant, and i asked her if she still wanted me. Of course was the reply and my heart damm near popped out of my chest. Shes smart and beautiful and all these things......and human! ohmygod!
we wrote such beautifull mush back and forth it was almost surreal and at one point i remember her say something to the effect off if i asked she would say yes. I knew what that meant and almost did ask her right then and there to marry me. but being a true blue romantic fool i really wanted to do it the old fashioned way. in person. for real.
We talked about everything and anything, the topic of substance abuse came up more than once and she was right to be concerned. i didnt hold back with the truth and it seemed true that there was a cycle that recurred.
july chapter 4
riding and climbing and marla and bbqs at our new homestead. Casa Del Christopher! a perfect life and chris and jaqui to be married on august first, drinking heavily was still running rampant through my life though and the night before the wedding we tied one on real good like. i came too some time in the wee hours in a buddies truck smoking on a crack pipe. not perfect. came thru the door with a couple hours to spare first thing turn on the computer boom marla. saying something wonderfull. it would have been easy to ignore that conversation pretend i didnt see say nothing back. but no, i said i fucked up, im fucked up i am freaking out.
there was no sympathy, she was pissed said something to the effect of i thought you were broke? and what the fuck? and i cant talk to you im so mad. your brother is counting on you now get your shit together and stop fucking this up we will talk but it wont be for i while im so mad at you.
morgan jean came and got me that morning. i told him what had happened on our way to wally world for fresh duds for the wedding. told him i thought i may have lost her cause i couldnt lie or not smoke crack.
MJ is a fountain of wisdom with very few words attached. He said don't smoke crack joey and you wont lose her or have to lie. We did the wedding thing and it was beautiful mom and dad both made it i saw very little of either and they sat as far from each other as possible. the reception i drank water from a flower vase almost all night. my cousin drove people home in his new barracuda that we picked up in squamish the month before and expressed disbelief at my not drinking. somewhere in there i lost some strenght dannys date was shamelessly hitting on me i was still reeling from the night before, a drink. some wine.then dancing, more wine. jarrett says he saw the switch flip. good joe to bad. coming back in with dirty knees and sweat flowing tina hanging back, then leaving with a couple bridesmaids and other people. we went to mcqueens slough and watched a lightning storm roll over the country side stripped naked and ran through the fields in the rain. a return to a more primal time. somehow a hottub and more debauchery. fuck it im allready down the tube might as well go all in.
The next day i left for prrince rupert with jarrett and his family on a fishing trip. 4 days on a boat. a small boat ohmygod.
chapter 5
Fishing with the Bergs and Rod Tram the owner of the local sporting goods store. We laid a bunch of hardwood and tile in his house and instead of giving him a bill Jarrettt put it towards a charter trip on rods boat. We spent 3 nights and 4 days on the boat and i got to show my nieces so many fishboat tricks like crabtraps and knots and the shiny cartilage bouncy ball inside a sharks eye. We went for walks on the beach and found shells and murdered crab every night, Rod turned out to be an exellent cook as well and between him me and jarrett brandi never had to cook once.
