British Columbia

Have you ever experienced something that made it so that every time you thought about it, you could feel a wave of complete peace surge over your entire body? It is the type of experience that cannot truly be summed up with words or description of any kind. The feeling of being alive at that time and place of the world can never be matched. Every once in a while a moment like this comes along, and changes you forever. What started out as a simple riding trip to British Columbia, Canada ended up being one of the most influential experiences of my life. I went to Canada as a boy, and I came back a man.

I used to be such a close minded ignorant little kid. I was very intolerant of anything that wasn’t familiar to me. I had always been one of those people who would never try anything new because I assumed I wouldn’t like it. My mom would say, “Try this.” And hand me a kind of food that I had never seen and I would always say no. I would be asked to do something and I would always complain about it. To say the least, I was a complete jerk to people because I did not understand so many things about life. I was completely unappreciative about every aspect of life. I didn’t have any interest in the common beauty of everyday life. Constant entertainment was a must. Never did I think to stop and enjoy anything at all. I was surrounded by life and didn’t take the time to notice it at all. Everything was just passing by. The experience of Canada opened my eyes to this world that I had always lived in, but never experienced.

There is a kind of power that nature has to instill thoughts into the minds of men. Nature doesn’t have plans or thoughts; it is just a continuous force that works as it pleases. Here in the suburbs and cities of Long Island, nature is not nearly as prevalent. We have been cut off from the experience of the real world outside of the boundaries of man. Since the power of nature is not integrated into the lives of people around here, most never learn the lessons that it has to give. One look at the enormous glacier covered mountains of British Columbia can teach you more than any words from someone’s mouth. The first day that we were on our trip there were 895 wild fires in the area. While driving down the highway we could see all the mountains in giant balls of flames with huge plumes of smoke as if they were erupting volcanoes. This was a magnificent sight that had to be taken in so we stopped. While sitting on a parking barrier on the side of the road with my video camera it all hit me. I turned off my camera, realizing that this was a moment that video would only degrade. I sat and stared and smelled the thick smoke in the air. I could see the tiny little helicopters fly into the flames that had to be at least 100 feet tall as if they were tiny flies. The sight of the blaze climbing to the top of the mountains while the best of mans creations could do nothing about it was very humbling. For those few minutes, I could feel every emotion all at once, and I knew right then and there that I was truly alive.

A few days later in the trip we met up with some locals from a small town called Williams Lake. These were simple people in style, but had such a complex and thorough understanding of life. They too had been enlightened by their natural surroundings. They lived in small houses without electricity on a gorgeous lake with very few possessions. At first sight you would think they were just bums, but they were actually very wealthy. Two of them who were the most memorable were Collin and Shreddy. They lived in log cabins with no electricity or heat and were very much outdoorsmen. They just had their priorities of lifestyle. The smell and taste of the mist off of the lake in the morning was far more important than a television or dishwasher. In any direction you looked there were towering mountains as far as the eye could see that were so big that the tree line stopped half way up and the tops were a beautiful blue gravel rock. It was mid summer and you could take a ten minute drive and be sitting on a glacier that is bigger than the town we live in. This was the everyday view of these small town people. Everyone that I talked to was not only kind and respectful, but I always got the vibe that they had everything figured out. I kept trying to understand them, but I just couldn’t, until the last day. Everything hit me all at once like a small child trying to stand up to an ocean wave.

I had done it. It all came together. Every intricate weaving of life seemed to be staring me in the eyes. After everything that had happened over the trip came together in my mind, there was a surge of peaceful energy that came over me. It was a feeling of being completely content. It was like there had always been a mental block and now it had been broken. Everything that I had cut myself off from before was now so real to me. All of a sudden I started to think about the majestic powers of nature. I realized that the world is governed by nature, but we fight that everyday. People who do not accept and appreciate nature can not accept and appreciate life. These realizations changed me completely.

I was completely enlightened, a changed man. The old ignorant Joey was now gone. I had learned to appreciate every aspect of life. I see beauty everywhere and I absorb it all. Everything is filled with its own significance, even the most simple of things. I take every minute of every day to notice and take in everything that is around me. This new acceptance and appreciation of everything has given me a new outlook on life, as if I too, just like the Canadian locals, had life figured out. Everything was clear for the first time. When I was assaulted and had significant damage to my skull and face everyone would ask me, “Oh my god are you ok? You must be so sad. You must want to kill those kids.” I had one simple response to all this, “It doesn’t matter, life is good.” Even though it was a horrible event, I managed to find the silver lining. I was so intrigued by the emotion and the rush of the whole incident, that it actually seemed worth it just to have the experience. Since everything was beautiful in its own way, life was good. I received joy from minor things, which made the whole day interesting and filled the gaps of life. In eight days I think I figured out everything that I need to know about life at this time.