Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road

by Neil Peart

  I’ve been making some tentative travel plans toward the end of next month (or at least imagining some tentative travel plans that I might make). I could take the Nordik Express [boat] down to Labrador, like we did, then circle around Newf for as long as seems good, then cross to Nova Scotia and hang with Lesley Choyce and the Williamses for awhile. Then there’s that ferry across to Maine, which would set me up for a stay in NYC, and that might be nice for a week or so in September. However, it would be hard to pass on a ride around the Gaspé instead, then maybe cut down through the Adirondacks to NYC. Then, I suppose, “Go west, old man.” I dunno.

  July 24, ’99

  A rainy Saturday morning, and I feel unaccountably better. Despite the effort it cost me to get through this week, it is done, and I managed to accomplish my goals — getting out for two “activities” every day (back to the long-swim-up-the-shoreline the last couple of days, plus either a bike ride or a row), and I managed not to drink and smoke too much. That will do for one week’s ambitions, humble though they be.

  Next week combines the Toronto taking-care-of-business trip at the beginning of the week with the Reunion of the Front Lounge Club [Alex, Liam, and Andrew, named for the “smoking section” on the tour bus] at the end, and there’s not likely to be much “clean living” then. However, there will certainly be some laughter, and that couldn’t hurt. (According to Reader’s Digest, it’s the best medicine, eh?)

  Then I’ve got a few days “turnaround” before Brad and Rita arrive for the second week of August. I haven’t booked any other guests after that, and don’t think I will. Having guests is a mixed experience. Diverting, but demanding. Companionable, but messy. Less solitary, but . . . well, less solitary.

  If “that woman” is going to be in Canada in August, I guess I want to be available, and considering that last year I set out travelling on August 20th, that’s probably a good target date for this year too.

  It just occurred to me that the only two notions which get me even a little bit excited right now are wooing and scootering. But still, that’s two things!

  And once again, this letter has taken us all over the emotional map. Since we’re on a relative “high note” on this rainy Saturday morning, it might be a good time to wrap this up. That way I can get it mailed before I ride off to the big city, and before all the other madness begins.

  Meanwhile, let us reflect on the following Maasai proverb:

  Meetai dikir nemesheyui.

  There is no hill that never ends.

  Or perhaps this one, from the Swahili, might be more profitably contemplated:

  Ukenda chooni na giza basi shetani atakupiga kofi.

  If you go to the lavatory in the dark, the devil will give you a box on the ears.

  Just think about that, boyo . . . NEP

  [Letter to my colleague, Geddy, on his birthday, which was also the anniversary of my joining Rush, in 1974. In years past we in the band had always tried to work “schoolteacher’s years,” recording and touring through the autumn, winter, and spring, then being home all summer.

  While always remaining the best of friends “at work,” we tended not to see each other too much in the off-time, so that my annual midsummer birthday message to Geddy was often a personal update and “catchup letter” as well. So it was that year . . . ]

  July 29, ’99 Lac St. Brutus, Que.

  Can it really be?

  Apparently so.

  Yes, according to my calendar, it’s time once again for the Annual All Singing, All Dancing, Birthday Greeting and Summer Update, coming to you live from the balmy shores of Lac St. Brutus.

  I just got back here myself late last night, after a quick one-day stay in Toronto to see to some medical matters, and two all-day Brutus-style backroads motorcycle tours there and back.

  Yesterday morning I was setting off early from the Four Seasons to my folks’ place in Severn Bridge for breakfast, but when I brought my bike up from the parking lot, I found the rear tire was flat. Nothing else to do — I got out my repair kit, located a big nail sticking out of the tire, removed it, and plugged the hole, as I’ve had to do several times before, in various exotic locations.

  And here’s where a real hotel shows its mettle: instead of “boging out” about having me there lowering the tone of their front entrance — leather-clad Scooter Trash sitting on the ground behind his dirty old motorcycle with tools spread around — the bellman ran off to get the hotel’s electric compressor to help me fill the tire, and the doorman brought me a bottle of Evian and a towel — because of course it was sweltering hot in the city yesterday, even at 7:00 a.m.

  So that was pretty nice, for a bummer situation.

  Plugged and refilled, I set out northward, but when I arrived at my folks’ place, I found the tire was still going flat. Not knowing what else to do, I put in a larger plug, and set out for Huntsville. I had planned on taking the Algonquin Park route across Ontario and home, as every time I’ve had to ride to Toronto this summer I’ve taken a different route, and that was the one remaining. Plus it was a beautiful day for it.

  When I got to Huntsville the tire was still going flat pretty rapidly, so before I headed off into the hinterland of Ontario (next stop, um, Barry’s Bay), I stopped at Thompson Tire on Highway 11, which had been recommended to me at the last gas station. Right away I could see they dealt more in truck and tractor tires, and when I asked the guy (“Bob,” of course), he told me he didn’t know anything about motorcycle tires. But instead of sending me on my way, he agreed that if I would take the wheel off, he would have a go at it. But he soon determined that the nail had dug right through the sidewall of the tire as well, and it was unrepairable.

  For a few hours already I had been a little tense, riding around with a tire I knew was losing air, but now I got really concerned, for I was pretty sure my tire was an unusual size. Sure enough, as Bob called around to all the cycle shops and suppliers, as far away as Barrie, he came up empty.

  Meanwhile, I was trying to decide whether I should truck the bike to Toronto, or have them send a new tire up by bus, and trying to contemplate the reality of being stuck there for another day, and probably staying the night at my parents’ place. I’ve been pretty restless lately, and didn’t think I was up for that.

  Then the receptionist suggested a place her bike-riding brother bought used parts and such. Incredibly, the proprietor (“Johnne Smith”), came through — apparently he’d once ordered a tire and misplaced a digit, and had ended up with this “oddball” — the size I needed. Bob told me to take his car and go have a look at it, and if it suited me, he’d install it for me.

  As he handed me the keys, he pointed out the window to a dusty black Bonneville, and said, “Just be warned that it’s a mess inside, ‘cause I don’t clean it — and don’t roll down the driver’s-side window or it will fall off the track.”

  So off I went. It seemed like Johnne Smith was as glad to get rid of that tire as I was to have it — it was a cheap Pacific Rim brand, but it would certainly get me home again. And it did. Although it was after 4:00 before I had everything back together, and I had a long journey ahead of me yet, it was still a beautiful day, and a beautiful ride, with lakes and cottages and pines and hills and farms.

  Through the Ottawa Valley I enjoyed the world’s longest sunset, sinking so slowly down a clear sky and silhouetting the moving shadow of me and my bike on the roadside embankment. Twilight didn’t dwindle into darkness until I was over the river into Quebec, and back on familiar roads, so I didn’t have to ride in the dark for more than a half hour.

  When the bike was parked in my garage, I was enjoying my well-earned glass of Macallan at the kitchen counter, and started to smile about it, thinking, “You know, that was a real adventure today.”

  And so it had been — both the good and the bad. For of course it could have been much worse, in many ways, and those ways had been avoided in large part by the “kindness of strangers.” At the end of the day I was left feeling a
little better about the world, and about life — for I also had to smile at a thought that sometimes crosses my mind at the end of a long, perilous day. “I have cheated death again.”

  (Though always knowing that I’ll never even that score . . .)

  Today I drove my Audi to the post office and for groceries at Vaillancourt’s, and that was adventure enough.

  In general, lately I’ve been pretty up-and-down. The “yo-yo” comparison occurred to me yesterday, for while I’m going up and down, I’m not really going anywhere. And sometimes I do feel like I’m holding on by my fingertips, to something. Life, I suppose.

  Back in London, when I was reading all those grief books, I was struck by one quote: “the second year is worse.” Ach. At the time that seemed impossible to imagine, and I simply rejected it. But now here I am, in the middle of two second years, as it were (sentences served concurrently . . .), and it is tough. It seems like the abject sorrow and emotional outpouring starts to dissipate a little, but it leaves behind such an emptiness.

  Here’s what I wrote to [a former employee who had long battled heroin addiction, and after six “clean” years, had suffered a relapse during the Test For Echo tour] last week, when I was trying to tell him that he needn’t feel guilt and shame about what he went through on the last tour, writing that my responses to his plight had been, first, “poor fuckin’ guy,” and second, “that could be me.”

  If the first is the year of sorrow, then the second is the year of emptiness. Somehow it’s even harder to deal with, to work around, and to kick your ass out of, and no doubt I’m already pretty worn out from trying to keep myself ‘together’ this long. As you know too well, any kind of day-to-day existence that demands too much will — either to do something or not to do something — can wear you down, and ‘get’ you when you’re weak.

  Though I’m certainly still fighting. A month or so ago, I came back from San Francisco confused and bewildered by the Great Mystery of Woman, but I responded to that bewilderment in a healthy fashion, by going and beating up my drums.

  [Recap of drumming experience.]

  Along the way other questions were answered too. I realized that while I might be ready to play again, I was not ready to work again. Not yet, anyway. So I put the drums away for awhile, but knowing that the power was still there, and that I could do it if I chose.

  That was good to know, but somehow it was clear to me that I was not ready for commitment, for collaboration, for taking on a serious “project.” This is the same boundary I’ve reached with prose-writing — nearly every day I sit down and write to somebody, often my erstwhile riding partner at his House of Incarceration, or to someone I’ve fallen out of touch with but feel I still want in my life. I’ve written hundreds of pages like that over the past months, and they often function like a diary and confessional for me. (Last week I had a phone message from Mark Riebling, commenting that the letter he’d just received was “awfully close to literature, my friend.”) Yet the same limits apply — I’m ready to “play” with words, but not to “work” with them.

  Fair enough, of course. Progress is being made, but it ain’t going to be fast, and it ain’t going to be easy. Time, time, time . . .

  On this occasion, which also marks our 25th anniversary, I just wanted to let you know “where I’m at” in those departments.

  The rest of this summer is still a bit vague for me. For awhile now I’ve been itchy to go “Ghost Riding” again, for that has definitely proven to be the best therapy, but I’m trying to hold off leaving until later in August, like I did last year. Avoid the crowds, and the heat, of summer. I’m thinking of going eastward at first, to virtually repeat my first-ever motorcycle tour, with Brutus, which took us to the “end of the road” on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, by boat to Labrador, then around Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. I’ve got a couple of friends in the Halifax area, so I’d probably hang around there for a few days or a week.

  There’s a ferry from Nova Scotia to Maine that would make a nice boat trip, and set me up to spend some time in NYC, which would be pleasant in September.

  Then, I suppose, I’d carry on west, and see any parts of Canada and the U.S. I missed last time, and revisit a few fave spots — the national parks, the great small towns like Moab, Utah, St. Helena, California, and maybe back to Baja and the rest of Mexico. We’ll see.

  And that’s basically my story. (Art may be “the telling of stories,” but of course that doesn’t mean that the telling of stories is necessarily art!) I’m hanging in there, despite all, and my basic philosophy of life these days resides in a phrase I learned from our old Berlitz School buddy [Geddy, Alex, and I had taken French lessons before our shows during a couple of tours, from teachers sent out in the various cities by Berlitz], Jean Gallia, “Ça vaut la peine” — “It’s worth the trouble.”

  Interesting that peine also translates as “sorrow,” and some days I can almost get my mind around the notion that it was worth the sorrow of losing Selena and Jackie for the joy of having known them.

  Almost . . .

  My other favorite motto lately comes from the Swahili:

  “Hyena says, ‘I am not lucky, but I am always on the move.’”

  Hyena, c’est moi.

  I hope things are good with you and yours, and that you’ll have a fine day today. (And other days too.) Drop me a line if you feel like it, and chances are I’ll have to make another trip to Tarawnna one of these days, and we’ll get together then.

  My best to you, my friend, and I look forward to seeing you/ talking to you soon.

  P.

  [Letter to brother-in-law Steven]

  Aug. 5-6, ’99 Lac St. Brutus, Que.

  Hey there, brother,

  Long time no hear, eh?

  No, I mean you, not me. Well, okay, it’s been awhile since you’ve heard from me too, but that’s not what I’m talking about right now. I’m talking about you, boy!

  Okay, that’s enough about you. What about me?

  Well, starting with the weather (logically enough), it’s a spectacular sort of evening here, with great reefs of gray cloud off to the east, bright blue sky above, and a purple sunset to the west. Three loons are silhouetted on the lake, which reflects pastel light from the luminous sky. Madonna’s Ray of Light plays from the library, and I sit up here tapping out a message to you.

  I know that you’ve been exposing yourself to the toxic atmosphere of the Niagara Peninsula of late, and I’m sure that’s part of the reason for your recent silence. I can only plead the same kind of “distractions.” For instance, last weekend I hosted a reunion of the “Front Lounge Club,” starring Alex, Liam, and Andrew (veteran of two tours as “personal assistant,” as well as being our long-time photographer). As you might imagine, we ate a lot of great food, laughed a lot, and overindulged ourselves in most other ways as well.

  I just walked out on the balcony for another look, and now the eastern sky is all pink and gray, the calm water is a steely mauve, and a low mist is creeping out across the lake from down by the “Porcupine Highway” [a snowshoe trail Steven and I had pioneered, following the unmistakable depression in the snow left by a porcupine]. Not bad.

  Anyway, now I’ve got a few days on my own before Brad and Rita arrive, on Sunday. They’re staying until Friday, and are my last “guaranteed reservations” for the summer. “Closed for the Season,” or something like that. No firm plans after, but various . . . possibilities.

  After my musical experiments last month, it is clear to me that I’m not strong enough (yet?) to think of taking on a project with the other guys, nor am I ready to commit to the chunk of time such an enterprise would demand of me. Internally, we all agree on that: John Ellwood wants to remain a melancholy loner; the Ghost Rider still hears the call of faraway roads; and as for Ellwood . . . well, Ellwood wants to get a house in the Hollywood Hills and be an international playboy. At least until he blows all our money . . . The Ghost Rider is definitely agitating for another
journey, the sooner the better, and good old J.E.T. will also be glad to get back to being the solitary, melancholy stranger drifting from town to town. (Gaia doesn’t mind; she can pout and sing along with “boy bands” anywhere.)

  Just today I faxed Terry Williams in Halifax to let him know I was thinking of heading that way “sometime in late August or early September.” Talking to him later on the phone, he didn’t seem to think that was specific enough, but he doesn’t understand the way we work these days.

  If I go around Newfoundland before I hit Nova Scotia, there’s a ferry from there to Maine, which would set me up for an easy run down to New York City, where I’d also like to spend a week in September — get me a culture injection. I’ve also recently sent messages to friends in that area, who also urged me to let them know exactly when. Geez, I don’t know . . . sometime!

  One way or another, I’d be heading west again while the weather’s still good, and probably more-or-less follow my pattern of last fall, drifting south and maybe catching some parts of the American West I missed last time.

  Otherwise, lately I feel kind of like a yo-yo: bouncing up and down a little bit, but not really going anywhere. And hanging on by my fingertips . . .

  Strange to think that as I look back on last winter, it seems like that was a season of relative peace and balance! It didn’t feel like that then, of course, but so it appears now. It’s been a hard summer — trying to function in the middle of a big empty ache — and it ain’t over yet. But in more than one sense, we’re “over the hump,” and although this summer wasn’t what I hoped it might be (I had some fantasy in one of my brains I’d be getting into a fabulous routine of exercise and creative work), at least I can see the end is in sight. The end, I suppose, being “the road.”