Happy endings don’t often happen within real journey stories because, in a sense, the journey never ends, or at least most of us don’t get to write the ending to our own. This is one time that I do.
I started this chapter of my journey with a desire and intention to see bison. I’m happy to report that since leaving the Willamette valley, I have seen hundreds of bison. They showed up first in stores and on the sides of buildings or carved and standing in tulip beds. And then they showed up with their calves in fields. They ran through Aspen groves and out into the sunshine. They meandered beside the Old Faithful the geyser in Yellowstone. With their two layers of coat they faced into the mountain air, and let the remnants of last year’s shaggy life wave in the wind. I did that too. Last year is some of what I am exfoliating on this trip. I could, and sometimes did watch the bison for hours. They pushed through the sage brush, nodded horns at each other, peed, pooped, chewed and screwed (or tried). They cast huge shadows when they stood in the middle of the road.
In the picture-perfect Lamar Valley their calves rolled together in dust baths without parental interference. They gave me so much to enjoy, I thought in some moments I would pop out of my skin. And in some moments I actually was doing that. The passage of time strips more from my skin and me every day, just as the seasons molt the hair from the bison and turn dun-colored calves into massive horned, bearded adults, or the yellow stones into canyons. The inevitability of change awakens so much curiosity when I have awareness to it. I wonder what Yellowstone National Park looks like in the winter when the little purple flowers are covered in snow.
I wonder what that calf will grow up to be. Or weather it will be eaten by a wolf. I haven’t seen a wolf yet, but I’m not greedy. My life list is already full to bursting. If I don’t see another large, new mammal in the rest of my life, I know I will still die happy because I have enjoyed seeing so many creatures on this journey.
That brings me to death. The end of life, whether being eaten by a wolf or consumed by a disease, is something that still stirs my curiosity. It’s on my kick-the-bucket list. It is not something I have experienced yet, though I have come close. I think about what I would still like to know: what will my sensations, thoughts and feelings be during the process of death? I don’t think about where I’ll go or what I’ll be. On some level, I know what I will be.
I’ll pop out of this old skin and something new will gain life and form from my available molecules. I’ll be a mighty, cuddly bison for sure.
