The Long Trail

For Frank Atherton

“Old age is not for wimps.”

That’s what singer-songwriter Ian Tyson wrote in his 2010 memoir titled The Long Trail. Truer words have never been spoken.

Originally, I believed I set out to write a tribute piece to Tyson. But that wasn’t the truth. I just didn’t know it at time.

I couldn’t write what I wanted, because I wasn’t being honest with myself. Or, by extension, with you, the reader.

So this narrative sat for a month. And then for a second month.

I wasn’t writing about Tyson’s death. I wasn’t ready to face the fact that I was writing as much about myself.

Last August a surgeon told me I had osteosarcoma, bone cancer. It resides in my left shoulder, and has caused me a great deal of pain, among other things.

In November, after two rounds of chemo, the same surgeon told me the cancer had spread and was incurable. He had an opinion as to how long I might live. Other doctors on my oncology and palliative teams strongly disagreed with him.

The point is, I didn’t write about it, which is what I do: Write about things. I told family, a few close friends, and then locked it away in a small, dark place.

Talking last weekend with one of my closest friends he agreed that writing about it, and by extension, a number of other ideas I had around this, would not be a bad thing.

In the meantime, the roll call of the deceased increased: David Crosby, Tom Verlaine, Jonathan Raban. Not that I place myself in their August company.

But the fact of the matter was I had begun to think hard about life, and our purpose on this planet. That’s not something I’m not naturally given to do. I’m more of a “Hey, we’re not here for a long time, but for a good time” kind of guy.

And, yes, there will be something about off-grid living at some point in this narrative, so just hold onto your boots.

What I’m going to tell you isn’t going to be terribly profound, just because you’ve likely heard it a million times before. But I’m a slow learner.

I’m coming to believe that the reason we’re here is to do the best we can, be as kind as we can, and leave the world a better place.

I also have come to believe that in our rush towards blind ambition, slowing down and savouring every moment of our lives is one of the best things we can do. They said it first in the ‘60s! (probably earlier than that): Be here now!

In that regard, the last three years (as of May) have been a blessing to me. I have had the luxury to lounge on our front verandah and observe the hawks wheel in the sky. I have been lucky enough to stand around bon fires at dusk and listen to the boom of the nighthawks.

Every day I walk the dogs up and down our lane, and every day the lane changes, minutely. In summer the trees overflow their abundance, overhanging and shading the road. In fall, the hardwoods and softwoods explode into reds, oranges and other bruised colours. Everything dies back in winter. New life rushes in, in spring.

A solar light on our property in late January.

When Tyson wrote his memoir, he was still 12 years out from his death on December 29, 2022. He was already fielding a lot of chronic pain, both physical and mental.

He ingested a steady diet of pain killers from living the life of a cowboy, from caring for animals on his ranch in Longview, Alberta, and from his life on the road as one of Canada’s most influential singer-songwriters.

“I’m a bacon freak,” he wrote, “So I fry up some bacon, boil a couple of eggs and have a grapefruit before taking my vitamin pills.”

But the pills he took for arthritis, and practicing guitar for an hour every day to keep his fingers limber did little to ease the heartache he felt from watching the land he loved and in which he grew up in gradually vanish day after day.

Old age is not for wimps.

No country for old men.

Nonetheless, it the coming weeks, months and, yes, even years, it’s territory I hope to navigate.