The Elements Await You

I’m sharing with you—in good faith that it might weasel it’s way toward relevance—the note that I just sent to a group of fathers and sons who my father will be guiding next week in the wilderness. I, alas, will not be with them. Not in the flesh. But I’ll be tracing their path each day, recalling my own encounters with the elements that they will meet.

Today at sunrise as I motored to the mainland from an island in Maine, feeling the rollicking waves slapping at the bow of my boat, I recalled an encounter I had near another body of waves—a lake that was large enough to see to the horizon—many years back...

He was nearly 4 feet tall, built like a young Spartan, with a commanding voice to match his physique. We were both a few miles east of inner city Toronto, drawn to the same spot by the lake. The sun was setting through the skyline.

He was playing with his friend, but it was obvious that, should the need arise, the boy could handle solitude. I’m not saying that his friend was disposable to him, just that this boy clearly chose to be in relation independent of simple need.

Small as his pack was, he was an alpha cub.

The boy had the top of a pizza box in one hand. He scooped sand with it (moving the earth). He shielded himself from the wind with it (fending off imposing spirits). He held fast to it with an air of lightness (portraying to all who might look on his splendor that he would not be overcome). He also had a tennis ball.

And watching him as he stood on the rocks calling to the seagulls and waves in his own native tongue (indecipherable to we mortals) I was convinced that—with not but a strip of cardboard and a weather beaten ball—this boy could rule the world.

Sitting there watching him revel in his reign as dusk settled in, it was a pleasant thought to have that perhaps such childlike imagination and ingenuity could, indeed, take over the world.

And if not the world outright, then perhaps, at least, my own life.

———————

Soon your lives will be drastically simplified. There will be less to distract your hearts and less to clutter your minds. You will have a sort of space and a style of companionship that most people go without during their day-to-day.

What better time than this—your own five-day wide crucible—to initiate yourselves from manhood back into childhood.

Get ready to play boys. The elements await you.

Godspeed (which, incidentally, is more of a saunter than a sprint),

Aram, son of Laurence