Section I
2022
Dreaming of a Canadian Jam Knot: Thoughts on Work, Thoreau, and Living Deliberately c h r i s t i n e o ’c o n n o r
“I want to tie a Canadian jam knot.” That’s what the voice said when I first woke that morning. If properly constructed, jam knots can secure almost anything. The basic premise of a knot is the strain that pulls against it is the same force that draws it together and makes it strong. It may have been a strange thought to take from the dream world, but we were in the strangest of times. It was day seventy-two of lockdown. The world was at the mercy of a virus. Some scientists assessed that it was born of a bat and then introduced to humans at an overcrowded market of caged animals, cruelty, and commerce: what looks like another abuse collectively inflicted on the natural world and those who share it. But this time the consequences were immediate and severe. Like droplets of Covid, new, uninspiring, unnatural words soaked into our everyday vocabulary: respirators, ventilators, and PPEs. Stories of devastation, body bags, and mass graves looped through news stations and our subconscious. Maybe, in this world of uncertainty, that dreamy jam knot was a symbol of security, of the collective drawing together? Maybe it was a message from my subconscious that the adversities of these times would make us stronger. But might it have arisen from the other end of the spectrum: the dark end, where the noose tightens, and horror closes in? How do we untie the truth behind our dreams, and what lies in that space between the conscious and unconscious as the first light of day creeps beneath the shade? “It’s Not What You Look At, It’s What You See” The voice telling me to tie a jam knot was immediately recognizable, it was my own; and the message wasn’t surprising. Jam knots are a staple in the art of bushcraft, the study and practice of certain woodland skills. Over the years I had become a devoted armchair follower. YouTube is replete with a number of practitioners. Video after video has taken me along the inlets, lakes, and woodlands of North America; I’ve traversed the frozen tundra of Baffin Island, reached the Height of Land, and crossed the width of Newfoundland. Working in a city environment, I’ve found these vicarious trips to the Northwoods a release, a tonic to the demands of daily life. As a lawyer for Lowell, a mid-sized municipality in Massachusetts, I was part of a The Lowell Review
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