In the Eye of the Storm

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By Francis Marion / The Burning Platform

“The seasons of time offer no guarantees. For modern societies, no less than for all forms of life, transformative change is discontinuous. For what seems an eternity, history goes nowhere – and then it suddenly flings us forward across some vast chaos that defies any mortal effort to plan our way there. The Fourth Turning will try our souls – and the saecular rhythm tells us that much will depend on how we face up to that trial. The saeculum does not reveal whether the story will have a happy ending, but it does tell us how and when our choices will make a difference.”  – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

“Trust the plan.” – Q

Trust the plan they say. That’s what I tell my kids.

“So here’s the plan: We’re going to hit the spine up above the bowl where you shot your first buck and then we’re going to hunt the east and south facing slopes for the morning. When we’re done we’ll cross back over and make our way to the shack at the top of the world. Sound like a plan?”

“Ok,” they tell me. The kids trust me. I make them feel safe I suppose, because no matter what we’re doing their well being is always first and foremost in my mind. They know it and that’s my intent. But the truth is life is uncertain.

The best I can do is expose them to the elements, prepare for the worst and enjoy the best of it.

As we sat and glassed for mule deer I could see a storm brewing on the north facing slope over Coquihalla peak. It lingered for a while then it moved over the top of the old giant like a mob of feral horses breaking over a hill.

It’s the sort of thing you can’t control.

When we hit the hill at daybreak I could see it was already wet. It had been storming the night before but wasn’t when we arrived on the mountain. As I sat and watched the clouds roll to the southwest it occurred to me we were in the eye of something.

While you’re lingering in the eye of a storm things can seem sort of peaceful and transcendent. What’s stranger is how the other side of it can still take you by surprise even when you think you’re ready for it.

“We got time,” I told myself. But I could feel the wind in my face and the old bastard across the valley was already gone behind a rolling blanket of grey and black.

“Grab your sh-t and let’s move,” I told them both.

They could probably sense the urgency in my voice so they moved quickly, shouldered their packs and rifles and began following me back over the spine of the hill and up towards the top of the mountain.

We hit the cabin in the sky just as the storm overtook us. It howled like a banshee outside, the rain and sleet moving almost completely sideways across the top of the mountain and down into the bowls on either side of us.

I wondered how long it would last.

The kids ate some food from their packs and I pulled out the ten-liter water bladder from my pack and started filling their bottles.

My thigh hurt. I’d pulled a muscle when I stood up with my pack on after we decided to break for the cabin. There was no reason for it. My legs were in good shape, I wasn’t doing anything stupid and I was well hydrated. I wondered how I was going to fair, three hours and a couple of thousand feet up from the SUV in the middle of a high-country late fall/early winter storm with forty pounds of pack on my back.

Interesting times, I thought to myself.

I didn’t say too much to the kids. I didn’t want them to worry. So we sat and ate and drank and watched the storm rage around us.

“What’s the plan dad,” my son asked me?

“We’re going to wait for a break in the weather then we’re going to make a beeline for the Jeep. I don’t think crawling around up here in the rain and sleet is the best thing to do. The game will be bedded down anyways. Nothing moves in this crap. Are you guys OK with that?”

“For sure,” they both responded.

I like to give the illusion of democracy so the kids feel like I value and want their input. It puts them at ease but the truth is when we’re on the mountain I make the decisions. And we were getting the f–k out. Eventually.

Two hours later we got a break and I told them to grab their packs and suit up. We blew out the door of the cabin and hit the trail down. We weren’t more than two hundred yards from shelter when another system rolled over the hill from the south like a tsunami over a small manmade breakwater.

Back to the cabin we went.

Another half an hour later and we got another opening.

“Ok guys it’s breaking to the east and the snow and rain are letting up but the ground is going to be super wet and some of those slopes are going to be like walking on snot with the sleet and mud. Slow and steady is the pace. I’m in front. We move at dad speed. Nobody falls, kapeesh?”

“Kapeesh!” they responded. And away we went.

As we skirted the bowl beneath the top of the mountain and headed for the subalpine we crossed the path of a good-sized black bear headed the same direction. The four of us paused for a minute and looked each other over then proceeded on the same path down the mountain towards calmer, greener pastures.

A few hours later, back at the Jeep I sat and rubbed my leg to get my thigh muscle to settle.

“Are you ok dad,” my son asked?

“Yeah. I pulled a muscle back before we hit the cabin for lunch. It sucks getting old.”

“You gonna be ok though,” he asked again?

“Of course,” I responded.

A dad’s job is to teach his kids how to live in the world and to protect them as best he can from the storm – not to bitch and moan about how much his leg hurts.

I guess the lesson is it’s good to have a plan but it’s better to trust your instincts and do what needs to be done. Especially when a plan goes sideways.

And in my world, they frequently do.

https://www.theburningplatform.com/2019/03/19/in-the-eye-of-the-storm/#more-193527

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