Paulo - Fully Alive

So, one of my friends also has a blog..... you should go look at it too.

So, I get asked from time to time about my death, being in such a remote place with no connection really.  People are genuinely concerned that if I died no one would have no way of knowing about it.  

There is some truth to this concern, I mean really when you’re in a bush, and there is no connection to the outside world, it takes a day to get anywhere from the camp.  Most days you just sort of spend the day wrestling off cougars for a scrap of squirrel, or trying to fend of some frost bite to your butt cheeks because you are suffering from constipation. It’s easy to think that you could very well be forgotten.

What concerns me more about my situation is not my death, that’s already happened to me, so I’m pretty ready to contend with what it will be like when it happens again.  The concern I have is that maybe one day the people that know where I am and that offer me the crucial services that I need disappear on me.  See, I’m not worried about my disappearance because I’ve already sort of gone away and though there are people that know where to meet me one a semi-monthly basis.  The fear I have is; what do I do if one day they suddenly don’t show up, ever again?  What if they’re gone forever.  So, I try very hard to ensure that the people supporting me know how important they are to me, and how crucial they are to my wellbeing.  No different than the people that support you through your daily life that help you.  It’s easy to take them for granted. 

So, I’m sure you didn’t even read that full paragraph because you were caught up in the “Me dying part” of it.  Yes, it happened, had a funeral and everything.  So, not everyone gets the opportunity to die, and have people attend their funeral, and read a copy of the eulogy after but, i’m one of the lucky few.  

A few years back, I was off on an adventure, I like to go on adventures and seclude myself from society.  Back then I didn’t have a blog, I didn’t have a plan, or really a support network.  I did most things solo.  I mean, there were people that always had a general idea of where I was, but when I did my initial prep for my journey and camp zones, I messed up on the GPS coordinates for my routes through the wilderness.  Anyone that knows anything about GPS knows that it can locate you fairly accurately on the globe (provided you can see the sky typically.)  Well I went out and did my research for where I wanted to be, and what areas I wanted to visit.  I plotted the GPS for 3 of the 4 camps and wrote them down.  I didn’t notice, no one noticed.  I also revised my camp zones on the way home and didn’t update the coordinates.  So, essentially what I did was created a Geo Cache for myself, but the coordinates were wrong, so anyone that needed to come find me would be led to a tree in a clearing where my camp should be, but instead they were led to a waypoint on the way to where I actually wanted to camp.  

Needless to say, because I wasn’t blogging regularly, after about two weeks gone, something went wrong at home, and the people at home decided they wanted to come find me to bring me some supplies and get a list of other things I needed in the wilderness.  So they set off to my first camp point on the GPS plot, and I wasn’t there, there was no sign of me.  Remember, the first plot was a waypoint so all I really did was walked through that area, so I wouldn’t have left much of a trace that I had passed through.  Now, none of this is a very big deal to me, because I was aware that I was not lost, but the people who cared about me, had no clue where I was and they sometimes suffer from anxiety (we’ve medicated them since to ensure they don’t panic again)  So, my support system had a meltdown when they couldn’t find me, and it was all hands for an emergency meeting to find out what to do next.  I had left explicit instructions that no matter what, I would always leave information at my camp sites that I had moved on.  We used hobo symbols to communicate the information as it wasn’t exactly obvious to anyone what the intended message was. Again, they thought they found a camp, and there were no symbols.  They were prepared to call in the rangers and helicopters to search the area.  I was oblivious.  So, we met every two weeks at a camp location and there was no one at any of the camps, no sign whatsoever.  Because I was going to be gone for 6 months into the wild with not a lot of supply I just kept on trucking.  I had contingency plans in place that allowed for about 2 months of no supply delivery with the rations I stocked.  So I was sure I was safe and sound and that one missed rendezvous would not be the end of the journey.

I’ll be honest when the second rendezvous was missed I grew a bit more concerned.  I felt like maybe something could be wrong. Now I’m a good week hike into the wild, I wasn’t going to hike out a week just to check on things.  I began to think about what to do if I didn’t get supplies soon, and how to spread out the rations.  I wanted to achieve my 6 month goal of being out there.  It was possible, but I had to calculate every part.  If some calculation seemed off, I would easily digress out at one of the pass points that I had plotted for the adventure and seek support from whatever was nearby.  (Read: I’d call my mommy like a lil’ bitch and make her come get me)

So there I was blissfully ignorant to the chaos that was happening at home with search parties and posse’s going up and out onto my trail to find me.  My cousin took out his dirt bike and chased along the trail they thought I was on.  No luck.  After a bit of a rudimentary search, my family gathered both of my friends together (yes, I only have two.) and discussed the situation, and said that they had reason to believe that I had either disappeared intentionally, or had been eaten by a bear.  They were searching for my gear, as confirmation of my demise.  

About 3 months after I left, my family was quite at a loss for my disappearance, and there was a small memorial celebration for me held with family and the two friends, people took turns sharing stories about me, and crying together.  Meanwhile, I was taking one of the duress trails out of my location, and quite pissed that my support system had abandoned me in the bush with no support. I was making my way home on my own.  Being the stubborn ass that I am, I didn’t bother calling mommy like a lil’ bitch.  Instead, I hitched a ride once I made it to the main road and started the journey towards the family home about 2 hours away.   I hitched a ride with a stranger, they shared about the book they were writing.  It was something about cliches in life, and gods little miracles.  I so didn’t have enough fucks left for this broad who was nattering on about nonsense.  I was angry about my situation to some extend, and it was exacerbated by this woman’s voice and her tales of her book.  Referring to it as a book about “God’s little miracles” made me not want to probe into anything with her.  I had been in the bush for 3 months, I would have humped a papaya by this point, so she was pretty obnoxious to have this effect on me. Also, I was sure she was a fond believer in our lord and saviour, which I didn’t have the stomach for at this point either.  So, I avoided conversation at all cost, and that was easy enough to do because I’m great at pretending to be asleep.  SUCCESS!!!!

Lucky for me, this lady was going right past my house (well within a few blocks, because I really didn’t want her to know where I actually lived.)  I was home before I knew it.  Still oblivious to what was going on in the front of the house, I went into the kitchen through the back door.  I’m a fan of using the back door, my mom is super anal about people coming in through the front door when they’re dirty.  I had left my gear out in the yard, and came in to the house, there was sandwich trays all over the kitchen, with cold cuts, and cheese.  CHEESE…. I hadn’t had cheese since I left.  I ate about 65 cubes of cheese, well I don’t think what I did was called eating, it was more like what a snake does with a mouse.  As I was choking down the cubes of cheese, I heard my mom telling the most embarrassing wedding story she could possibly think of in the other room, and it was about me.  I was mortified that she was telling the story about when I was a teenager and trying to learn about my sexual being.  (Read: Masturbation)  Now, all I heard through the door was, “Paulo was standing there with it in his hand, and asked me why he saw the people on TV shaking it like they were trying to wake it up…… and then he began to shake it…. and his face went red, and he said, Ohhhhhh…. nevermind mom, I think I understand….” Then, what I heard next was a few too many people laughing at once…. I don’t know who the fuck she was telling this story to, but I was going to get in there and defend my reputation.  I shovelled a handful of cheese into my mouth and burst through the swinging doors that joined the Kitchen and the Living room.  

In the living room were some of those super uncomfortable chairs, that family bring out when relatives that you don’t really like get invited for holiday dinners and they sit at the folding table that you’re certain will collapse at any moment. In those chairs were aunts, uncles, cousins, my first date, my two friends, and my family.  I muttered through the cheese that was still in my mouth; “you make it sound like I was whacking off in front of you…..”  There was a simultaneous gasp from everyone in the room.  Remember, I’m still oblivious to whats going on, I stink like a mixture of coconut car freshener from the crazy girls car, pine needles, and dirt, mostly dirt.  I’m standing there pissed at my mom for telling all these people this story, and she begins to cry.  I thought, was I too mean in the way I said that? Nope, pretty sure I wasn’t.  Then the next thing I knew I was being hugged, but everyone.  I tried to shake them off, and told them to get the fuck off of me.  I stunk, and didn’t want to be mauled.  After telling my family to get the fuck off of me, my dad back handed me across the face, and said; “Don’t you dare talk to your family with those words at a funeral…”  I looked him in the eye, and said, “why didn’t you come get me if someone died?”  I still hadn’t gotten it.  He looked at me and then at my mom, then I looked at them, “Oh fuck!” I said as I realized that these drama queens were having a funeral for me.  My family is screwed up, I thought.  I had to think quickly and carefully about what I was about to say next.  These people were grieving for my sorry ass, and here I was walking into the middle of a memorial for myself and bitching at them.  I couldn’t think of anything, so I just said, “I smell like a Parisienne Whore House…. I’m going to go shower!”  I darted up the stairs, ripped my clothes off and got into the shower.  

After the shower, I came down and apologized to everyone for the interruption.  They told me that they had come looking for me and couldn’t find me or any trace of me, and because I wasn’t legally dead, and some bullshit, they had a small memorial for me.  In my typical dumb luck with timing, I walked in on the middle of it.  If I would have grabbed a motel room with my hitch hiking lady friend, I would have missed it all.  

My friends gave me copies of the nice things, and not so nice things, they had said about me.  I smiled, and cried a little bit.  I loved all of these crazy dramatic asses.  They were my support system.  A few months later as I went through my GPS tracks I realized where I had made the error in my coordinates, and together my support system and I came up with a new system for me, which is why I write these insane blog posts from time to time. 

—-Paulo, fully alive.