ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
At no point during the living of this year or the writing of this book have I felt alone on the journey.
Thanks first to my wife Sally Goodwin, who was there for me the whole way, and to my children Kristin and Alex Hoelting. Their encouragement, enthusiasm, and shared spirit of adventure have been a gift from start to finish.
This book might never have been written without the generous and astute counsel of my agent Lindsay Edgecombe of Levine Greenberg Literary Agency in New York, and the alwaysinsightful guidance of my editor at Da Capo Press, Rene Sedliar. The book is immeasurably better because of them both, and the experience of writing it immeasurably richer. Gratitude also to Arielle Eckstut of Levine Greenberg, and to Drew Kampion; both did much to prepare the ground for this book.
My debt to Gary Snyder as a teacher is evident throughout this book, and it would be difficult to exaggerate his influence on my life and work. I am deeply indebted to Jon Kabat-Zinn, Shodo Harada Roshi, Daichi Storandt, and Zoketsu Norman Fischer for extraordinary guidance on the path leading home.
Special thanks to those who offered lodging and hospitality during my many explorations around Puget Sound by boot, spoke, and paddle, including Brad Furlong and Eileen Butler of Fir Island; Lauren Jaye and Billie Robinson of La Conner; Howard Shapiro of Mount Vernon; Cynthia and David Trowbridge of Greenbank; Eikei-san of Tahoma Zen Monastery; Jennifer and Joe Merrick of Poulsbo; Shinjo Jyl Brewer of Vashon Island; Christian Swenson and Abigail Halperin; David Kearney, Muriel Kelly, Joe Ryan and Lee Nelson, all of Seattle; Ron and Eva Sher of Bellevue; Leon Somme and Shawna Franklin of Body, Boat, Blade on Orcas Island; Jeff Iverson of Friday Harbor; Sandi and Richard Chamberlain of Victoria, B.C.; Holly Hughes and John Pierce of Chimacum and Indianola; Diane Bunting of Gig Harbor; Andy and Nancy Willner of Enumclaw; Saul and Shelley Weisberg of Bellingham; and Daya and Shanti of Penn Cove.
Among the many remarkable friends whose support lit the way during this project were Doug Kelly, Dan Kowalski, Rick Jackson, Dave Anderson, Ross Chapin, David Gunderson, Jim Shelver, Fritz Hull, Peter Evans, Rick Ingrasci and Peggy Taylor, Larry Daloz and Sharon Parks, Charles Terry and Betsy MacGregor, Carmen Cook and Michael Hansen, Stephanie Ryan and Craig Fleck, Dorit and Vito Zingarelli, Leslie Cotter and David Whyte, Jay Thomas, Steve Scoles, Larry Rohan, Ray Williams, Gordon Peerman, Christian Swenson, Lance Loder, Robin Clark, Bruce Tickell, Marilyn Wandrey, Emi Morgan, Rick Paine, Aaron Racicot, Jim Kramer and Carol Macllroy. My brother Kim, sisters Leslie and Dana, and mother Patricia, island neighbors all, provided a welcome respite and a place at the table whenever I needed it.
And finally, I have never felt a greater sense of belonging in my local community. Expressions of support, friendship, conviviality, and shared purpose abounded during my year, giving me a thousand new reasons to stay closer to home.
PERMISSIONS
Every effort has been made to trace copyright. If any omissions or errors have been made, please let us know and we will remedy for future editions. We gratefully acknowledge the following permissions:
Book epigraph from Lew Welch, Ring of Bone: Collected Poems 1950-1971, (Grey Fox Press, Bolinas, CA, 1979). Copyright 1979 by Donald Allen, Literary Executor of the Estate of Lew Welch. Reprinted by permission of City Lights Books.
Chapter 4 epigraph by Gary Snyder, from Glacier Peak Wilderness Area, Earth House Hold, (New Directions, New York, 1969). Used by permission of New Directions Books, www.ndpublishing.com.
Chapter 7 unpublished Maritime Pacific NW version of Gary Snyders Long Hair poem, 2000. Used by permission of the author.
Chapter 10 epigraph of Han Shan poem from Gary Snyder, Riprap & Cold Mountain Poems (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004). Copyright 2009 by Gary Snyder from Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems. Reprinted by permission of Counterpoint.
Chapter 11 excerpts from Night Rain At Kuang-Kou by Yang Wan-Li, translated by Jonathan Chaves from Heaven My Blanket, Earth My Pillow: Poems from Sung Dynasty China 2004 by Jonathan Chaves. Used by permission of White Pine Press, www.whitepine.org.
Chapter 15 epigraph from The Book of Waves, by Drew Kampion, used by permission of the author.
Excerpt from Little Gidding in Four Quartets, copyright 1942 by T. S. Eliot and renewed 1970 by Esme Valerie Eliot, reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
CHAPTER 1
Footloose in the Geography of Nowhere
As long as Ive got broadband, Im perfectly at ease with the fact that my position on the planets surface is arbitrary.
BRUCE STERLING, The Last Viridian Note
It is a drab and rainy morning in early January, two weeks after the winter solstice that launched my year in circumference, as I strap on my boots, hoist my backpack, and head out my door for a hike unlike any I have ever taken before. It does not feel like an auspicious beginning. Sally has had her doubts all along, but gives me a cheerful hug, anyway, as I head out in the direction of the ferry. Its raining hard, the kind of Northwest winter rain that is just a hair shy of snow, with enough sleet mixed in to give it the worst qualities of both. In all the years Ive lived on the island, this is the first time Ive ever walked the four hilly miles from my house to the ferry landing, or thought to, for that matter. And this is just the first part of a much longer journey ahead of me on foot.
Ive traveled this route hundreds of times by car, of course. On the face of it, my trip to the ferry could not be more familiar. But any resemblance to previous trips ends at the outskirts of my immediate neighborhood, when I move outside the scope of my normal daily walks. Like most of my fellow islanders, I settled here for the open space and rural character of the islands landscape, only to find my life more tightly bound to my car than ever as I piece together the different fragments of a widely scattered lifestyle with the only piece of indispensable gear that all Americans seem to share in common. This time, though, there will be no car to bail me out. Ive just taken a public vow to go car-free for this entire year, and Im only two weeks into it. That leaves fifty weeks to go. As the sleet bites into my face, Im inclined to think that Sally is right. I really have lost my mind.
The first mile takes me along familiar trails and side roads. But as I head out toward the highway, with the added weight of a full backpack, I begin to feel like an alien in my own home. I climb the long, steep hill from Maxwelton Valley to the ridge above Cultus Bay, and soon my sweat has joined with the drenching rain that is already seeping down inside my raingear. By the time I turn the corner onto the highway itself, my boots are soaked through to the socks. I consider aborting the mission and trying again tomorrow as I plod along the newly hostile domain of the highway during morning rush hour. With no shield against the traffic and rain, I feel as if Ive entered a new kind of wilderness area, but this is no walk in the park. A steady stream of cars pummels past my shoulder on the long hill down to the ferry, drenching me with noise and fumes that linger like a sour, wet fog. Only my refusal to give up before Ive even begun keeps me from turning back as I trudge on into the gray light of morning, a solitary salmon in the wrong river, bucking a steady current of carsa current that seems to have no beginning and no end.
