No, not secrets so much as just the Secret. What he knew and had not told anybody, what he knew about his mother that had caused the divorce, what he knew, what he knew – the Secret.
I wish I had a dollar for every hour I’ve spent in the library,” he always says. I have to agree- we’d probably never have to worry about money again.
Perhaps when I am grown I will not know anything. Perhaps that is the way it works, the way it is with growing. When you grow, you start to unlearn things.
Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve ‘This Side of Wild’ Excerpt.
It’s just that those things don’t seem to have the weight, the measureless beauty of countless sunsets and dawns, the simple grace and clear glory of nature.
The hatchet. The key to it all. Nothing without the hatchet. Just that would take all his thanks. And.
Simple. Keep it simple. I am Brian Robeson. I have been in a plane crash. I am going to find some food. I am going to find some berries. He.
But perhaps more than his body was the change in his mind, or in the way he was – was becoming. I am not the same, he thought. I see, I hear differently.
The answer to his problem had come to.
Tomorrow. He watched the flames and smiled. Tomorrow I’ll see. All things come tomorrow.
So. So. So here I am.” And there it is, he thought. For.
Gone. We were out in the country and everything slowed down into rolling hills covered with snow. There were trees, but no leaves, and I could not remember seeing anything so white and clean. Winter in the city was gray and the snow was dirty, but out here it was so bright it hurt my eyes and I had to turn away.
As if my whole life up to that time had somehow been safe and now I would ruin all that because, you know, catamarans flip over.
I know that my life on boats has been about this: not the sailing or the sea so much as learning about self. And almost every boat I have had has taught me something.
But life has a way of pulling the rug out from under you just when you need it least, which is what they like to call growing, I guess, but as far as I’m concerned you can have it. It seems like everything they call growing up has to jerk your guts out and just about wreck you and I’ve never been able to understand why that’s supposed to be good for you.
Of course, the sea has tried to kill me on several occasions, has timed itself to coincide with my stupidity and put an end to me. Here in this beautiful lagoon, with time to think of things, and with serenity, some of the madness comes back to me now as I attempt the death-defying feat of eating a second Oreo with my tea.
I have seen their humor and anger expressed in natural terms and learned more about them as dogs and not just extensions of human training.
It was, all in all, a grand example of interspecies lack of cooperation and the further illustration that might makes right. I stayed in the rest area, in my car, for another half an hour, until everything had settled down, and saw who emerged as the victor. The bees kept the water fountain.
The mosquitoes. Tearing at him, clouds of them, the awful, ripping, thick masses of the small monsters trying to bleed him dry.
Whoever says youth is the best time in your life has cash in hand and can’t remember being poor.