The Grateful Ed

The roof of the tent was glowing red. Not a good thing in dry conditions in a forest, what with the wildfires and all. I shucked my sleeping bag, unzipped the tent door, and staggered outside to take a look. It took a moment to get my bearings, but then it became clear: The sky was indeed red, but it was nothing more dangerous than a heart-stopping wilderness sunrise. Phew. I turned to survey the rest of our lakeside campsite, and noticed the water was blood-red too. Time for a picture. No one is going to believe this. That is when I saw it; opposite the rising sun, a huge full moon settling into the trees above our canoe. Stunning. I looked one way, then the other, again and again, trying to take it all in. A few miles away some wolves howled and I nearly fell over. It wasn’t fear – I could tell they were far enough away – but the stunning beauty of the moment.

Just back from another stint in the woods. No shortage of things to be grateful for. Some spectacular, and some pretty simple. I can’t say enough about the spectacular wilderness stuff, but with the simple stuff I was also feeling pretty grateful. To myself. My former self.

This is not about past lives or re-incarnation, just a profound sense of gratitude for the things my self of 3 years ago – and 30 years ago – did to improve my life at the cottage this summer.

When teaching our stuff we often make reference to the idea of, ‘being kind to your future self’, in how you handle your personal and professional workflow. That goes for everything from the amount of information you capture in a note to yourself, through the depth of thinking you give to something you have in front of you, to where you put things when you organize them. Our experience is that a few seconds, or minutes, invested upfront will often pay tremendous dividends in a few days, or weeks, or years. 

Why so grateful to my former self? 

I first noticed it once I’d carried my canoe down to the lake shore, and returned to pick up my paddles. There was no need to look for them, they were where the paddles live, and had been sanded, smoothed and varnished to boot. Nice surprise. I had no memory of doing that bit of maintenance as I went to get them, but then remembered that Ed of a few years back had a project to do precisely that.

Something similar happened when I decided to chop some wood. An axe that had not seen the light of day for three years was found where the axes live, with a well-oiled handle and a knife-sharp edge. I’m not going to say it was crazy-sharp, but some of the birch logs I set down on the chopping block split spontaneously rather than wait for me to start swinging with intent. Another thoughtful contribution from my past self to my here and now.

After that second bit of ‘serendipity’, I realized there’d already been a host of other things that I’d already had grounds to be grateful for:

• Dinner got saved by my self of 10 years ago. Midway through meal-prep I realized a kitchen appliance wasn’t working. The manual for it was found behind the ‘Kitchen’ tab in the binder for the cottage ‘Owners Manual’. The appliance got fixed, and dinner got served

• Knowing I could travel light. I needed to bring no clothes with me, apart from what I wore on the plane, because I’d updated the ‘cottage clothes’ list in 2019 before leaving. Some of the clothes no longer fit and none of them are stylish, but I knew in advance there was plenty to keep me warm and protect my decency for a few weeks

• Fresh sheets and towels. Two bags of sheets and towels got dropped off at a local laundry pre-departure as I left last time, and were picked up and replaced where they needed to be for my arrival

• Knowing how to open up without blowing up, thanks to my self of 15 years ago. There is a sequence on the ‘opening up the cottage’ list for getting the cottage open in a way that doesn’t have the boiler go ‘boom!’ (pump needs turned on so water is actually in the boiler before it gets switched on)

• Zipping through the woods at speed on my bicycle. The pump for the bike tyres and the oil for the chain were where the bicycle stuff lives, and has done for the past 18 years

This isn’t about paddles, axes, bicycles or cottages of course. It’s a way of thinking about life. A gentle discipline that has one eye on enjoying the moment here and now, and the other eye on a similar degree of enjoyment – or at least a reduction in irritation – for your future self. They are often at odds. It would have been nice to lay for another hour or two in the hammock back in 2019 rather than varnish the paddles or sharpen the axe, but that would have come at some cost to Ed, vintage 2022. 

Near the end of my visit, I even experienced a sense of gratitude while sitting looking out towards an outhouse I can no longer see. Getting the distance between the back door of a cottage and the front door of an outhouse is a bit of a fine art. I think my grandfather did a pretty good job of balancing the length of a barefoot early morning walk against olfactory sensitivity. But a back porch extension in the nineties made the distance tighter than I liked, so my self of 30 years ago planted three tiny fir trees between the back porch and the biffy. Cue invisible outhouse in 2022.

Just before leaving I noticed a few young birch trees encroaching on the space those fir trees were filling so beautifully, and beginning to steal sunshine from their lower branches. I didn’t have time to take care of the birch saplings on this trip. But as I oiled the axe handle, sharpened the edge and put it in its leather cover, I knew they’d be down in no time once I was back.

Particularly as my current self was already taking care of my future self, by making a note to do so on my next visit.