Chapter 44

The next weekend he drove to the Coromandel, a lovely area a couple of hours south of Auckland with rolling hills against the backdrop of crystal blue ocean water. He wanted a place to think with a clear mind away from the distractions of the city, and he had decided to take a rigorous hike to the top of The Pinnacles, a mountain peak where you could see for miles in each direction.

He checked into a modest hotel in the city of Thames, which was a gateway city to the Coromandel and close to the start of the trailhead where he would begin tomorrow’s trek. He saw a sign advertising a band playing at the hotel that evening, and he made a note to check it out.

He was the first one in the bar that evening and saw the band setting up. He noticed the singer wearing a Nirvana shirt underneath a red flannel button down, and he found himself traveling back in time to Seattle in the 90’s, when he had lived through the Nirvana era first hand. It was the 2^nd time in recent memory he had blasted by an image from his past, and he reminded himself to look for signs and be attuned to and aware of the synchronicity of things.

The set was everything he had hoped it would be, with classic jams from Pearl Jam, Nirvana, The Foo Fighters, and other such tunes from his misspent youth. He found himself in a generous mood, and soon began purchasing drinks and making new friends quickly. He was a sucker for a good sing-a-long.

Towards the end of the evening, the band switched gears and played an old Grateful Dead song that completely froze him at an intersection between his past and his present. It was called “Box of Rain,” and it was a song written by Phil Lesh about his dying father, celebrating the fleeting nature of time. He listened to the words and sang along,

“It's just a box of rain
I don't know who put it there
Believe it if you need it
or leave it if you dare
But it's just a box of rain
or a ribbon for your hair
Such a long long time to be gone
and a short time to be there.”

He found himself crying as he reflected on the last line of the

 song. “Such a long long time to be gone and a short time you were there.” All of a sudden the joy and pain and beauty and randomness of life overwhelmed him, and he thought about the significance of how short life really was. Just yesterday he was a little boy climbing onto his roof in his little hometown dreaming about travel and adventure. Now he was a middle-aged man 10,000 miles away from home, singing and crying and laughing to a Grateful Dead song.

It was a true catharsis.