Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road

by Neil Peart

  It doesn’t really matter what, but just so you can say that you changed something in the course of your day: a neglected friend is no longer neglected; an errand that ought to be dealt with has been dealt with.

  3. ALLOW OTHERS THE PLEASURE OF HELPING YOU. Good for them; good for you. I have certainly learned to “lean” during these times, and I have found many people eminently worth leaning upon; yourself chief among them. However, I know that you don’t have such people around you, in your “exile,” and I am also aware that there is more sympathy and help offered to me, as the “chief victim,” or “central bereaved.”But, take advantage of whatever you can, as I have been doing lately, for example, with Keith. Pushing ever more of the “chores” of life in his direction, and I must say that he’s been doing a great job for me. And not only in the sense of “doing the job,” but he is doing everything he can to make life easier for me. Refreshingly discreet, and careful not to “intrude,” but following up on the smallest hint of something he could take care of. I hope it continues.

  4. THE “REPLAY” SYNDROME. Oh man, that is torture. From the very beginning, that August night when Chief Ernie pulled up here with the terrible news, I have been tormented by an endless loop of Selena’s accident, different “imaginings” of it, all horrible. That’s bad enough, and it continues, and it’s neither worse nor better than the real memories of Jackie at the end.Lately, when I feel one of those “replays” starting up, I try to stop it: get up, move around, literally tell myself “fuck off,” “stop it right now.” (Yes, I talk to myself a lot lately, but I think I give myself good advice!)

  Again, motion: move your thoughts elsewhere, physically if necessary.

  5. MAKE PEACE WITH OTHERS WHERE YOU CAN. And where it’s worth it. You and I have been through the direst extremes of human experience, perhaps comparable only to soldiers at war. It was tense and intense. We all did everything we could, all focused on Jackie. Feelings ran high, and any friction or tension was a direct result of the situation, and ended with it.

  I hope that is true between you and me. We may have been alienated temporarily by our ways of handling such horror: you isolating yourself, which has the effect of alienating others. Nothing permanent, nothing important. Put it behind us. No discussion necessary, no “forgiveness.” No wrong done, nobody hurt. Just how we individually handled “the heat of battle.” Surprised to find myself more open to others through that time, probably because of experience with Selena’s death and looking after Jackie. Had to depend on others, and had plenty of others I could depend on.

  Back in February of ’98 when we came back from England with Jackie’s “death sentence,” it was only because you were there that I could (or felt I could) let go of myself, after six months of holding Jackie up, of trying so hard to be strong and “good” in the face of what I must have known was a losing cause, one way or another. At that point, it all became too much, and I just wanted to be numb for awhile. I had known its value before, in Britain, but knew it wasn’t good for Jackie, and that I couldn’t get “out of it” and still look after Jackie, keep her alive.

  It was a heavy weight, and for a very long time, so when we came back to Toronto and you came riding to our rescue (or at least relief), I was glad to turn it over to you for awhile. Being “out of it” was a very desirable place for me (still is) and to anyone who dared criticize me, I would have said, “Sure I’m fucked up — how should I be?”

  No argument there. I’m not proud of all that, but I “pulled myself together” when the time came, and I know that Jackie never really blamed me for choosing “out of it” for awhile. In fact, I think she was reassured to know that I took it that hard, and I was glad to notice that when anyone dared criticize me, she came out on my side.

  (Somebody stop me! This machine is out of control! Use what you can, and “recycle” the rest.)

  NEP

  [Letter to Lesley Choyce]

  Feb. 5, ’99 Lac St. Brutus, Que.

  Dear Lesley,

  Here I am again, just back from the dreaded trip to Toronto I mentioned “looking forward to” in my previous letter. Cramming all the unpleasantness into two days kept me busy there, and got all the crap taken care of, while I also had a couple of more enjoyable engagements, like dinners with my erstwhile partners.

  But I was sure glad to get away from there. Too many memories, for one thing, and a lot of them come out of nowhere: a mental “flinch” as I drive along and glance at the Gap on the corner of Bay and Bloor where I once met Selena to take her shopping; or the restaurant where Jackie and I once had dinner with Louie Bellson and some other “drum guys”; even just the streets Jackie and Selena once used to walk and drive on.

  It’s all too much, really.

  And not only was I glad to get away from there, I was glad to get back here. In these past weeks it has become clear to me that I love this house, and in a different way, I also love my land, “The 100 Aker Wood.” It’s good to have something to love, after all (reminds me of the movie of The Grapes of Wrath: “It’s not much. Just dirt. But it’s my dirt”). And this house full of all the art and treasures that Jackie and I collected, and all the memories of Selena and our three lives together, has begun to evolve into a good thing. Protective and private, soothing and beautiful. I always said I wanted to live in a “comfortable museum,” and that’s what I’m building here.

  With the Toronto house up for sale (lo, these many months), I’ve gradually been moving all the “art-stuff ” from there and “folding” it into this house, so now I have an environment that Jackie surely would have described as “cluttered,” but it suits my cluttered soul, and provides diversion for the eyes.

  “Bachelor with a vengeance,” that’s me. A decorative Ducati in the living room, canoe hanging artfully from the ceiling, car models displayed here and there, and a painting to decorate every expanse of wall. Now that I have all my books installed in the “Selena Memorial Library,” it is once again a “living” room, and to me it kind of represents the “heart” of the house. With mementos of Jackie and Selena on display there, that notion is somehow . . . apt.

  I still get blind-sided sometimes by a sudden stab of painful memory, triggered by a photo or an object, but that’s not surprising. Perhaps I’ll get over those things, one by one, so that the only memories that cross my mind are good ones. In any case, escape is at hand, no farther away than across the road, and it’s so therapeutic to head into the woods on my snowshoes or cross-country skis, losing myself in the motion, the dance of forgetfulness. For you, “the coastline of forgetting,” for me, the Forest of Lethe!

  One good thing that emerged from my trip to Toronto was the opportunity to read your latest, World Enough, and what a fine piece of work it is. The highest tribute is the way it “hooked” me, and here’s a perfect illustration: On my way back from dinner with my friends one night, I was thinking, “good, now I can get back to my book.” That’s the greatest spell a writer can cast, of course, and I can tell you that I was well and truly rapt.

  Well done sir. Another masterpiece, in my opinion, right up there with The Republic of Nothing. Great characters, truly “living landscapes” (you are perhaps the first writer ever to wax lyrical over an industrial park), vivid weather (loved the King and the Lords and Ladies, for they added both your “trademark” magic, and poignant metaphors), and the narrative is so skillfully woven.

  In the reading of it, some of those old storytelling metaphors occurred to me, like to “spin a yarn,” or to “weave a tale,” and I was also thinking that maybe there are two basic approaches to telling a story: to spin it out, thread by thread, in the classic narrative way, or to unravel it, like a curtain, to reveal the action on the stage behind. Like Faulkner, say, or Patrick White. I guess you have used both of these techniques in World Enough, making the reader wait, for example, as Karen’s fate is gradually revealed. Of course, it is also important that the technique is invisible, so that I only noticed these things when I thought
back, “How did he do that?”

  Same with the politics, so astute, so compassionate, so germane to the story, and yet always in the “show, don’t tell” mode. Either the action reveals the injustice, or the characters voice it, but the “omniscient author” is never called upon to preach. (Let that be a lesson to me!)

  I don’t know if the title was drawn from the text, or woven into it so deftly, but either way, it works beautifully, especially to include the whole phrase, “world enough and time.” (Where’s that from? Wordsworth maybe?) I also loved the juxtaposition of Whitman and Eliot, “Leaves of Grass” and “Prufrock.” This applies very deeply to me these days, for I certainly feel as if I’ve moved from Whitman’s existential and physical ecstasies to Eliot’s “thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.” (That’s “Gerontion,” but it will serve.) It may have been prophetic that a few years ago I had to come up with a corporate name, and chose “Prufrock Interests.” Though at the time I intended quite a different sort of irony!

  One question you raised in your letter that’s been rattling around in my (dry) brain is about the mysterious “thing” that has kept me going these past months. The answer is, I don’t know. Not yet, anyway. I’ve been so busy figuring out how to survive that I’ve given no thought to the why, and right now I don’t have the brain-power, or perhaps the need, to go there. No doubt one day it will “crystallize,” as such knowledge seems to do.

  My guess is that the prime mover is instinctive, biological. The trouble with thinking about why I chose to live, is that I can’t avoid thinking about why Jackie chose to die. (For there’s no doubt it was a matter of choice, and will.) Though thinking of pure Darwinism, and the cellular drives to survive and reproduce, the answer to both questions might be as simple as that. Either way, I hate it. And it’s not fair. Though as I wrote to my friend Mendelson Joe, “Ain’t no ‘why;’ ain’t no ‘fair.’”

  Buen viaje, amigo

  Why are we here?

  Because we’re here —

  Roll the bones

  Why does it happen?

  Because it happens —

  Roll the bones

  ROLL THE BONES, 1993

  Chapter 10

  SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER

  Scars of pleasure

  Scars of pain

  Atmospheric changes

  Make them sensitive again

  SCARS, 1990

  [Letter to Brutus]

  roi-de-neige des Laurentides

  Feb. 8-9, ’99 Lac St. Brutus, Que.

  Hey there Mangeur-de-Merde!

  A brand-new Monday morning for me here, and the pattern continues. A little “desk-piloting” in the morning, then out in the woods for the afternoon. Over in the “100 Aker Wood” on my snowshoes yesterday, I made it around the perimeter (the first circumambulation since you and I did it, I think), and used up the last of my orange trail-ribbon marking the boundary lines and potential trail routes.

  The day before, I made it all the way through the Crown land and the old logging roads up to the Aerobic Corridor. After the days of trail-clearing and sumac-snipping I was telling you about, finally I could just walk there, and it makes a nice “march.”

  For the first time I noticed the hunters back there have set up feeding troughs opposite their tree stands, and no doubt they feed the deer there for weeks before hunting season, then just set up and wait to knock ’em down. Man, just like I saw in Alaska, that ain’t huntin’ — that’s just shootin’!

  The animal tracks in the snow have become a real source of fascination too, checking them out and learning to read them. Of course I’ve got a couple of field guides for that, but there are some I’ve been seeing a lot that have me wondering, for they sure look like wolves. Bigger than fox tracks, often travelling in twos and threes, and keeping a relatively straight line, as foxes, coyotes, and wolves do, and domestic dogs don’t; rambling around and sniffing everything. Besides, there aren’t any dogs around here, that I know of.

  Yesterday, when I was out in the woods I was pretty sure a pack of those hungry wolves was on my trail, watching me from behind the rocks and trees, and just waiting for their chance to creep up silently and tear me to pieces. But I got away.

  In all these ways, my woods have become so important to me lately — so therapeutic — and I want more trails! The important note about the trail thing is that it involves the future, and thus has me thinking ahead, even “looking forward” to something. Most days I don’t have much of that feeling. As I told you, I usually wake up and almost immediately utter an ancient Anglo-Saxon word. So I’m diggin’ the woods.

  Last week, I had to spend a couple of days in (cue thunder and lightning) Toronto. Didn’t like it. Too many memories smacking me from every side, and too many goddamn people. Into two busy days I crammed all the necessary business: dental, medical, financial, and funereal (a most enjoyable visit and “delivery” to Mount Pleasant Cemetery — ach!), and had dinner one night with Ray [Rush’s manager], and the next with Geddy, Alex, and Liam. It was great to be around those guys once again, for they always get me laughing, and their friendship is all about support, and no pressure about anything professional.

  So that part was nice enough, though on the drive back here I couldn’t help thinking “bummer thoughts.” Like what a drag it is for other people to have to hang around with me. Throughout this long nightmare, all of my friends have come through for me in such a righteous and big-time way, but after all, at this point it can’t be much fun to be around me: thinking of what to say, worried about a flagging conversation, a tactless remark, feeling awkward and sad and helpless to do anything for “poor old me.” I don’t know. All I can say is, I wouldn’t want to be my friend. (“And I’m not either.” “Shut up.” “No you shut up.” “You’re the one who’s sick you know.” “Just shut up!”)

  One of my Toronto meetings was with my broker, and I asked him for an estimate of what my “fixed income” might be, if I considered myself retired and living on my investments. Then I asked Sheila for an overview of my annual expenses. And guess what? Sheila’s number was more than twice the broker’s number. I’m no mathemagician, that’s for sure, but I know that’s not good.

  So I agonized over that for a few days (something else to worry about — great!), then decided just to live the way I do, and when my money’s all gone, I’ll die! Poof! Simple, no? I don’t know why no one else ever thought of that. Maybe I’ll pick up some extra income on the side working as a financial planner for other people. “Well, Mr. and Mrs. Gluck, weighing your assets and liabilities, I think you should sell everything, spend all your money, then die.”

  Enough grumping — something good to talk about, something good to talk about . . .

  Well, the Selena Memorial Library is now a complete A/V center. Deb picked me up a good slide projector and a wall-mount screen, so I’ve been spending some time going through all my “Ghost Rider” slides and arranging them in carousels. Now I’ve got those done, I’ll start going back through the Scooter Trash stuff too.

  And now I can give slide-shows! Just think, next time you visit me you’ll be able to sit, spellbound, and look at all my slides, for hours.

  Or maybe you’d rather stay where you are . . .

  Today I’m going for a ski, probably just a nice, easy glide along the Aerobic Corridor. When David Mills was up here [another long-time friend who, with his wife Karen, had been very supportive through “everything”] we did the Triangle, a 10-kilometre loop (marked “difficult” on the maps) which offers a lot of ups-and-downs, some of them steep and narrow. I fell at least 12 times (though often just “bailing out” when careening downhill, out-of-control), while that suave son-of-a-gun didn’t fall once.

  Not even a token tumble, just to make a clumsy friend feel a little better. You believe that?

  Why, once I even drew blood, planting my face in the snow and slicing my nose on the icy crust. I said a lot of bad words that day. However, as I said to David on t
he way back, I wouldn’t have chosen to do anything else, and I’ll certainly do it again, another day. (Useless to protest about the difficult conditions, for my so-called friend had no apparent trouble.)

  But I’m still finding that getting out on the ’shoes or the “skinny sticks” diverts and calms the mind — the soul — so well. Good thing too, for this little baby soul has been doing a lot of mewling lately. Probably got colic or something. Teething, maybe. Yeah, that’s it — my little baby soul is starting to grow teeth!

  I like that.

  Anyway, today the trails will be clear of the weekend riff-raff, so I’m looking forward to a bit of inner peace-and-quiet. Rock that little baby to sleep . . .

  I like that too.

  Anyway (yet another “anyway”), while I’m out I’ll check the post-office box and see if it doesn’t contain some kind of scribbling from you, then continue with this later.

  Feb. 9, ’99

  So . . . I had a great ski yesterday afternoon. A cold, sunny day, a scrawl of green wax, and perfect snow conditions. Parking by the mail boxes at the top of Chemin des Blageurs, I started off on the Corridor, then wandered off on a side-trail above Lac Cochon, breaking away from the easy-peasy and into the woods for some more natural terrain, with some challenging ups and downs, and — without falling once — grooved my way over to the junction with the Viking Ski Club trails.