Ballast
I was similarly struggling to hang on some 5000 miles away on a kayak off the Na Pali coast on the island of Kauai. I could see my destination, Polihale beach, in the distance about 2 miles away, but I was tired from a full day of sea kayaking after 16 miles and I was not making any headway against the wind and the waves that had picked up dramatically off the Pacific. Not only was I not progressing forwards, I was being pushed towards the steep bisected sea cliffs from the eroded flanks of an extinct volcano rising like gothic towers thousands of feet from the Pacific Ocean, that gives the Na Pali coast its name. Getting too close meant I would be dashed against the cliffs by the crashing waves, with little to no chance of rescue.
The trip was a celebration a marker of sorts, I had finally received my Canadian citizenship which meant I could renounce my Singapore citizenship and exorcise the threat and fear of deportation that had been hanging over me in the past 10 years since I arrived in North America. I had not taken a break, nor able to able to afford the time and money in that decade of struggle, so I decided it was time to take a vacation. And somehow or the other, I decided I would sea kayak the Na Pali coast on my birthday.
I had never dreamt of Hawaii, or indeed any tropical island that seemed to capture the imaginations of North Americans. When I was still doing the opera thing, my vocal coach commented on my interpretation of a song “No. No. No. You have to imagine you are somewhere exotic; think Bali or Phuket!” My response threw him off “Umm, you realize where I was from, that was a day trip.”
I wanted a break an escape to some place far away from the spiraling repetition of days and the same view from the windows, the limbo between events and commutes, the never-ending housework and drone of television. I wanted the brief fantasy of escaping from the crowd of the city, escaping the cruelty of circumstance, escape feeling trapped and suffocated like I was in Singapore. In Singapore one cannot move very far, the meaning of traveling and moving away (as depicted in novels and dramas) was an alien concept to me. It was not something I had dreamt about, it was something that happened to me. I had realized I was a stranger at home and wherever I went; there was no destination, no acceptance, no love waiting. And there is an aching pain in situ, to be myself in the World of my room, yet wishing there was somewhere else I could be free.
It had been over 10 years since I last kayaked so I booked a short river kayak trip a few days before to get reacquainted with kayak handling. I was not sure I had the stamina or strength to last a full day but felt more confident on the day of the Na Pali trip when I was paired off with the lead guide as I was the only solo signup, the other guests signed up together and were paired accordingly. I thought it would be a relaxing birthday trip and I would be able to take pictures since I was the front paddler and just had to set the direction and the paddling rhythm, whilst the back paddler (or helmsman) lead guide provided the steering and propulsion.
It was indeed relaxing for the first half hour or so, I was able to take in the view of the sea cliffs as he led our kayak ahead of the group and would stop and float and wait for the others to catch up. Along the way, the other guides had switched spots with guests that had difficulties, such as when someone got seasick (aka “feeding the fishes”) one the guides would swap spots with the other guest and become the helmsman or helmswoman in order to maintain the group’s momentum. It was on our third or fourth stop waiting for the rest to catch up when the lead guide asked if I could do him a favor. He pointed to a kayak that lagged far behind the group with two Texan teenage boys; even from the distance it was apparent they had no clue what they were doing and struggling to keep up. He said since I had kayaking experience, could I swap with one of them and become the helmsman. They were slowing the group down to the extent that we might have to turnaround, otherwise we would not make it before dark. I was the only person he could ask as his other guides had taken over from other guests.
I was not gung-ho about the idea but I eventually agreed to it; this was a once in a lifetime trip, and I wanted to experience the entire stretch of Na Pali coast and not be turned around partway. From the get go I knew we were in trouble, all his paddle did was graze the surface of the water; and he refused to listen to any feedback on how to improve his stroke, or how to work better together. As an experiment I stopped paddling and we stalled while he splish splashed merrily away. He was going to be no help setting the pace, let alone steering or propelling the kayak. “Well, Stephen … ” I gritted to myself “You said you wanted a challenge. This is going to be all you all the way.”
I hold a tremendous respect for nature but it was just a playground for the Texan twink. Since I was solo powering the kayak, I was slower than the group. And each time I caught up to the group at a rest stop, he would go for a dip in the ocean, clambering clumsily back on board with no consideration while I struggled to maintain the kayak’s stability amidst the waves. This meant I had hardly any rest because we were the last to arrive, and the group would start to set off. I had to chase farther and work harder after each rest stop because the rest of the group had already left by the time he got back on the kayak.
Once without warning, he stood up and pushed off into the water before I could stabilize the kayak. The kayak began to roll over, I knew I probably would not have the strength to right the kayak by myself if it rolled over (as he was obviously no help), so I leaned hard and braced with all my might (which involved quickly extending the paddle to one side and slapping it very hard and very rapidly against the water surface in an attempt to create an opposing force). Somehow my efforts managed to right the kayak, like those improbable Looney Tunes cartoons. Of course the twerp did not bother to apologize, and acted like it was his own right.
“You must be very experienced” one of the guides said when I paddled within earshot “I have never seen anyone manage to right a kayak like that.”
“That was desperation, not technique.” I replied.
We were the last to arrive at our lunch spot on a beach, the only rest stop on land. I staggered up the beach to pick up my lunch ration. The guides anointed me the MVP and me a toast for saving the trip. The dinkus made a big show about how hard he worked (Really? From doing nothing?) and took a nap. As I was eating my lunch, another guest enquired how I was holding up. I said that I was exhausted. “Yes I wondered. It did not look like he was doing anything at all” the guest responded.
The final stretch to Polihale beach came after the late lunch break. As I fought to hang on as the wind and waves picked up towards the evening, the entitled idiot grew snippy; why was I not paddling harder, why was I not steering better. I resisted the urge to smack his head with my paddle. Although I tried my best to work with him, observing what he did and doing my best to compensate for it, his fickle thrashing foiled my attempts. Then it hit me, I was wasting my strength and energy trying to work with him. He is never going to listen or work with me. I should treat him as ballast, a dead weight, not to be counted on to do anything. I should give everything I got to take us to our destination and get the hell away from him, which I did after a lengthy struggle. Half asleep on the van ride back to my accommodations in Poipu from Polihale beach, I realized that Bob was also ballast; a useless burden I was unable to discard.
Living with Bob was very trying, especially with my condition. A self-absorbed narcissist who talked incessantly about himself and made everything about himself. Getting gay bashed by the police was probably the best thing that happened to him, because acquaintances and strangers who would not otherwise have given him the time of day now lent a sympathetic ear as he prattled on.
He never lifted a finger; I bought the groceries, I cooked, I cleaned, I looked after the bunnies, I maintained the yards, I paid the mortgage and the interest on the Line of Credit. He would invite groups of people over for dinner or BBQ and I would have to do all the prep, the cooking, the cleaning while he “entertained”, showed off what we did on the house, and boasted about his limited abilities and accomplishments ad nauseum. I never understood the penchant for showing off one’s home and objects – did they not graduate from Show and tell? Was their connection as superficial as shared consumerism? Truth to be told, I did not mind the prep and clean up during those Bob circuses. At least I was away from people and did not have to listen to the same stories and rehashed opinions which I have heard hundreds of times.
Bob did not work other than a few gigs here and there. Instead of helping with household expenses, he would spend the money on a top of the line computer, professional DSLR setup, professional audio and video recording equipment. Everything had to be the best, but he lacked the skills and follow through to match. It was more things to show off to more people, a means to elevate himself. Bob would put on the Line of Credit whatever he did not have sufficient funds for, such as his car; I found myself shouldering a debt burden of 6 figures and struggled to pay the interest on top of the mortgage and expenses. He would make flagrant promises about paying me back, or giving me his DSLR or something to cover the expenses in exchange, but he never did. When pressed when the time came, he would claim ignorance and that I was mistaken or I had made it all up.
Bob showed me off and called me his boyfriend in front of people, but he would go out at night to cruise for sex. I was furious when one of the tricks he brought home stole my camera, but he made it my fault for having a camera lying around when he brought a trick home without my knowledge. I hung around from exhaustion and because I did not have the means nor wherewithal to do better. I hung around because I was used to unhappy relationships, my parents were also unhappy; I returned home from school one day to find my mother had ripped up all her wedding pictures, melancholy objects that formed the theme of my first photo series.
I hung around as atonement; for lingering attachment to Eric, Erik and Robert, for how I had treated Tommy, Darcy and Pavel, as pay forward for the things Erik, John and Jeff had done that helped me get through. I hung around because I gave up the fantasy of finding someone who would make me come alive. Being unhappy and sexless was easier; less complicated, less emotional baggage. It freed me from my past spiral of manic hypersexuality and self-loathing where I sought out different partners to feel the fleeting validation that I was not completely broken nor undesirable. I never came nor felt pleasure and it became a compulsive destructive craving for what I can never achieve. I accepted my anhedonia and my lot in life; pleasure is fleeting, pain leaves a memory.
Instead of seeking random partners, I turned the angry hypersexual energies during manic phases towards collecting pornography. I built up collections, reorganized collections, thrashed collections, rebuilt collections and everything in between. My reactions became a litmus test for myself to gauge where I was in my manic phase, from one extreme of numbly viewing them in rotation to the other extreme of obsessive masturbation trying to find release.
I channeled the obsessive compulsive manic energies into expanding my collection of rock and mineral specimens, and raising different varieties of plants. Inside the house, I ended up with over 200 unique varieties of orchids, they filled every window, every sill, every skylight, and took almost 2 hours to water each weekend. Outside the house, I ran out of space for more plants in the front and backyards (after planting about 200 different varieties) so I built a 50 foot long retaining wall planter along the fence line. When I returned from work in the evenings, I would be weeding and watering until it got dark. By all accounts I was coping successfully, but coping via distraction of another obsessive activity is merely the suppression of undesirable behavior, it does not change the isolation or loneliness. There were times when it still got too much and I tried to mask the pain with some combo of copious alcohol, binge eating, and impulsive spending sprees. Jeff visited me when he was in Toronto for a business trip, and he saw my rabbits, my mineral displays, my orchids and my landscaped yards. He sent me a message after he left “You look happy. I won’t bother you anymore”. I was unsure of his intentions but I was surely not happy despite appearances; it was my unhappiness that cultivated the orchids and the yards, I was just hanging on. It was my first inkling that my salvation in rabbits, rocks and orchids also trapped me in situ, trapped me in the house I furnished, trapped me with Bob. I desperately looked for ways to escape, and fell into a deep depression. I could give up everything except the bunnies who depended on me, so I stayed for the sake of my children.
On the way from Polihale beach when I realized Bob was also ballast, I was remotivated to figure out how to escape my situation and this person. Right then was impossible, so I looked farther ahead for an opportunity when I could free myself from him in the future. That was what triggered my search for a place to retire far away from Bob. There was also the practical aspect, I had no family no friends no one to count on, I had to be self-sufficient as always; if I did nothing, I would end up trapped in a retirement home in this town I despised. However my grand plans of buying some land away from everyone and building a custom home for me and the bunnies were rudely dashed. Since my name was on the title, to shield Bob and the house from any collection agencies, I was not eligible for First time homeowner incentives. Since my name was on the title, it was on the mortgage which affected my debt burden and credit score; all of which meant I had no choice but settle for something much less than I had envisioned.
After exploring different places in Canada, I decided to look for a place around Vancouver Island. For some reason I kept returning to BC as a place to settle but not Vancouver, it was too expensive and held too many painful memories. After connecting with a real estate agent in Nanaimo, I spent the next few weekends looking for a place within my reduced budget and not close to too many people. It was tiring; I would fly to BC on Saturday, spend the entire weekend checking out places that the real estate agent put together, and fly back to ON on Sunday. Bob came along ostensibly to help me gauge the condition of the properties (since he used to be a contractor) and help with negotiations, and of course I paid for him. As the weeks progressed, the search moved from Galliano island, then Gabriola island, then different communities on Vancouver island. Then on the last weekend (before I exhausted my funds from all that traveling back and forth), I found a little property in a small community within my budget and checked the boxes of having few neighbors and had a view of something other than someone else’s backyard. It was not in the best shape but I figured I had some 30 years to gradually fix it up.
I took ownership of the house a few months later and discovered that Bob’s “inspection” had missed that the roof was in need of replacement, the wiring was not up to code, the plumbing had to replaced, the basement leaked, the sewer backed up, the deck was rotting, and the small backyard was collapsing into the ravine. The house needed urgent attention so I paid for a separate trip for Bob to find and supervise contractors to take on some of the pressing repairs. Bob boasted to everyone that it was our home on Vancouver Island and he had supervised the work. When I visited later in the year, I found the job not done up to par. The house was still not livable, the sewer was still backing up and leaking into basement, I had to find an emergency plumber late at night to do a temporary patch.
Some issues were still not properly addressed despite multiple tries over multiple trips. Not only was I out of funds, I was running out of credit. Once again I found myself trapped by what was supposed to save me. I was barely keeping afloat with the interest payments. After a few years of this, I just gave up. My money was gone anyway. Just let it collapse. I did not want anything to do with it and sank into a long depressive phase.
The bunnies kept me going and functioning, or some semblance of it. They needed me, they made me genuinely smile (something I had never experienced), yet they tied me to the house and to Bob; it would be impossible to find a place that allowed me to take care of so many rabbits (8-9 at any point in time, each room of the house had at least a free roaming pair), especially those with special needs. Bob knew that and he kept “rescuing” rabbits; it made him look good, as if he was caring and selfless. But I was the one who took care of them, administered medications, syringe fed them, and gave the injections. I paid for vet visits and procedures averaging a few grand a pop. I did not always do right with them but I did not begrudge the bunnies despite getting deeper into debt and exhaustion. Still I am not superhuman, there were times (which I still regret) when things overwhelmed my ability to cope and I snapped at the bunnies who were being uncooperative.
Since I was young I heard the voices of my stuffed animals in Singapore, I would have conversations with them mainly in my head but sometimes out loud. As I took on caring for more bunnies and talked to them, the voices of the stuffed animals became less frequent, and those conversations gradually faded. I had never trusted people nor believed their compliments because I was always portraying a person I thought they want me to be. I have always hidden myself, my broken ugly destructive self by society standards yet the bunnies loved me for myself – something I still had yet to learn. As I gradually opened myself to the unpretentious connection between myself and my bunnies, the detached third party voice in my head that commented on or criticized everything I did or said gradually faded as well. For the first time in my life, I was no longer in the periphery. I was in the center of someone’s world, not just my own fantasy world. Because of that I had to find some way to keep on living, for them.
As I navigated taking care of different special needs, I learnt that love is regret, and I had many; and I refuse to rationalize it away with platitudes or excuses. I worried about the bunnies, about not giving them enough love and time because there was always some bunny that got sick or turned for the worse which consumed my resources and attention. As rabbits are good at hiding their symptoms (only subtle cues that something is not quite right), it was typically a sudden turn for the worse, another mad scramble. I was gutted when they moved on, I had never felt nor cried for anyone before; the bunnies made me human. I was never able to make it right or make it up to them. Like them, I was also adept at concealing my pain. Except no one was looking out for me.
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