Roads Without Cars, Lakes Without Cottages, Beautiful Ocean Inlets Without People

Farewell to Nova Scotia, the sea-bound coast,
Let your mountains dark and dreary be.
For when I am far away on the briny ocean tossed,
Will you ever heave a sigh or a wish for me?
The sun was setting in the west,
The birds were singing on every tree.
All nature seemed inclined to rest
But still there was no rest for me.




Nova Scotia
June 22, ’77


I figured finding a place to camp wouldn't be too hard since Nova
Scotia wasn't all that populated, and it was rich with forests.
Leaving Yarmouth, I encountered roads without cars, lakes without
cottages, and, next to the ocean, beautiful inlets without people.
Finding a campsite was easy. Getting my rain fly in place was not. I
planned to do whatever it took to keep my spirits up. With the
exception of that night on Walden Pond, this trip had not produced any
climaxes. Keeping my disposition from going sour had been a struggle.
I had to concentrate on the good stuff to make it all worthwhile.

On my way over to Yarmouth, I became quite pleased with myself. I was
reading Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, and I felt like I
was actually learning something important. Prisig's description of
quality was complicated, but I found myself anticipating the
progression of his thought before I actually encountered it. Knowing
what the book's author was saying before he said it usually meant that
I understood what was being said. That was a good feeling; an
especially good feeling because it didn't happen very often. I felt
vindicated in those rare moments. It meant that my thoughts were not
mere mutterings of other people's thoughts.

In the Zen book, I found Phaedrus's ideas, the protagonist of the
book, matching up well with what I took to be Heidegger's
understanding of "care." Phaedrus seemed to be identifying "caring"
with what Heidegger's "caring Dasein" was all about. Prisig's
"quality" also matched up with Lao Tsu's "Tao." He made that
comparison himself when he said, "care, quality, and Tao were
interchangeable terms." I will have to give that idea more thought.
It's a pretty exciting idea, though. Maybe when I get back to Mt.
Pleasant I will have more time to investigate it. Right now, I'm not
fully convinced.