4 April 2001 -- The plot begins to emerge
Knowing how important "slowing down" can be in a life so driven by misplaced
fears of "failure", I decide to take some time out in the relative silence
of my dwelling in the hollow, to the extent that I can visualize it today.
Concerns of that urban life are so hard to dismiss that the finger of blame
appears attached to an anatomy that is orders of magnitude above my own
in grandeur. The woods, on the other hand, do not have this "personality"
of accusation--the one seemingly dedicated to my critical and destructive
review. It is an "ordinary" and unremarkable sort of day for the
springtime season, without any impending environmental consequences hanging
over me. As I see it, this is the substance of an ideal haven and
resort; I shouldn't have to put explicit work into sustaining myself here.
I continue, then, to allow myself to enter the near-"trance" that comprises
a successful escape to the Cabin. I have seen that it helps to assign
the natural features of the clearing and the ravine their plausibly appropriate
values, for this brings into being a "place" that can be embraced and embodied
as an authentic part of "who I am". Using my mind's eye, I can discern
the still-wet growth at the edge of the dooryard as I look out the wooden-framed
front window panes, which are cool (but not cold) to the touch. My
breath causes fogging when I get too close, and fog is not useful in seeing
all there is to see. There is a hazy overcast that is nevertheless
bright with the promise of a sun that may appear, only for now it's just
an average portrayal of gray, and hardly anything to accentuate the green
that is admittedly "there".
Yes, I could conjure up a tale of exploration, adventure and encounters
with woodland splendor, were I the type to produce truly marketable "fiction".
This might be enough, too, to sweep me into the scene up here with irrevocable
completeness, where it is now all too easy to "drop out" onto the hard
concrete reality of life on the city streets. But then, I'd be entering
a "structure" every bit as injust in its imposition of personal constraint,
since to be a "player", I'd have to study and perform according to a "role".
Sitting idly here on the soft slipcover of the sofa as I have so many times
before, I feel the vestigial proddings from my place in the collective,
the ones that require me to be "productive" and "accountable". I
just don't know--I seem to be pressured to build a diversion in the form
of a real "story" in this hollow, but that would run counter to the ideal
of the unconditional "rest" whose possession I dare to contemplate and
pursue.
I can see that the real prescription here is to "lighten up".
I should just take what comes along, even if it's nothing at all.
If my mind "naturally" sees a picture of this habitation that is sketchy
and low on vivid detail, then it should be acceptable over difficult-to-sustain
contrivances and story-lines. I spend enough time as it is, reconciling
the many and diverse parts of such constructs in being a "worker" at my
assigned post. With gratitude at last, I begin to feel myself "settle
in" to that enviable state that does not require an expenditure for upkeep
but which still holds my attention and allows a certain stability of contentment.
Though this may be directly insubordinate to the expectations of the co-inhabitants
back there in town, since they need "meaningful" output to sustain their
commerce, I go ahead anyway, in a twisted form of "civil disobedience".
With the pressure somewhat relieved, I continue my "descent" towards
the entrance of mellowed-out and obliviously-retained status quo.
Since a lesser "load" is placed on me in terms of stress when this happens,
I cannot assume out-of-hand that I am entertaining a less-than-authentic
use of my finite allotment of earthly time. It is really something,
when this "charge" develops within, for I am left with an inclination to
action that does not "hurt" or inflict injurious strain. I take a
deep breath of this air of an ordinary day, in simple gratitude for my
permission to be uplifted in this low-cost way. It is an invigoration
that causes me to see the sun behind the clouds as indeed there, and fully
prepared to set forth the conditions of a restful "vacation home".
My developing mood is best characterized as an expectation of a future
so bright and appropriate that the passage of present moments just "happens"
spontaneously. One step follows another, and sometimes I even produce
tangible results to "feed" to the voracious mechanism that underlies my
real life. In the words of the old hymn, "This is my story, this
is my song". Blessed, indeed, is such assurance.
"Bo"
8 April 2001 -- All is well, under the sun
Since it is fairly warm outside today, I have taken the opportunity
to sit for awhile in the old metal chair against the cedar siding on the
front porch. It is somewhere near mid-day and the sun is in sufficient
evidence to give the entire hollow and clearing a wet yet "luminous" feeling;
the conditions called for in any proper attempt at "incubation".
The birds are now fully-situated in the trees of the ravine and "side yard",
trees that now contain their full share of bright green as they begin another
season. Though I know the brush out there to be damp and the ground
still somewhat soft, I feel the growing invitation to "come on out" and
put an end to my days of staying "cooped up" on the sofa, in the armchair
near the fire, or under the covers in bed. My "lair" inside the Cabin,
as I might have predicted in my more optimistic moments over the winter,
is no longer "all there is".
From 50 yards back and 50 feet down, I can hear the river in motion,
and I can imagine the water to be at a fairly high level. The combination
of melting snow and spring rains have done their job in perfusing the life-bearing
surface that occupies the spaces between the larger rocks. It is
hard to dismiss the popular theories of a large-scale living entity in
this well-vascularized structure, but today, at least, it appears to me
as having a single "personality". I shift position somewhat in the
chair, which creaks from its advanced state of rust. "I should really
get a better outdoor chair", I remind myself--the days of wandering around
"out there", sitting on the ground itself, have not yet arrived.
I still need these "fixtures" to support my ongoing life in these woods,
even if it is warm enough to be outside now without some form of outer
jacket.
I know, of course, that the mainstream of life up here at altitude has
never really had "me" as a properly-connected and -contributing "member".
I am only capable of such integrated "union" within the large-scale organics
of the urban collective, the one I don't tend to speak well of when I'm
here. It is not that I am entirely impervious to the substance of
the greater social whole; I do recognize the flavor of its invigoration
at various low levels when I maintain contact long enough and leave open
enough of my stomatic apertures. Rarely, however, is this flow sufficiently
coherent to put my mind at ease, as if I were meeting with a single being.
This bespeaks the central difference between the forest, whose many members
are easy to accept as conjoined, and the random sequence of diverse and
differentiated humans that come within range in real life.
I listen to the flow of the river some more, as I gaze up to the ridge-tops,
with my meditative focus upon the single and majestic whole that makes
up this hollow. I begin to question how justified I might be in using
such a metaphor to characterize "society". I begin to chastise myself
for placing such constraining oversimplification upon what is, arguably,
the very Kingdom of God itself. It is well and good to appreciate
the cooperative tendencies that make large-scale organization possible,
but these are nothing more than tangible artifacts of the true and "higher"
majesty that has made them so. Up here at the Cabin, while I have
every opportunity to take in the view I now have of the emergent wilderness,
my life will go on when I finally step inside and conclude the "show".
There is ample capacity in the human spirit to conduct operations without
regard to surroundings, though the typical participant has too many real
life, flesh-bound obligations to stay long in that upper realm.
I can see that I have revived a duality that I've witnessed before,
the one containing the two branches of affairs that are "in the world"
and ones that are not. Given my reluctance to dwell too long in either
place, I seem to be called to exert a conscious control over a "mixture
of" or "partition between" the two "dissimilar" ingredients that really
call out and specify one another. Since the two categories include
"all that is, seen and unseen", I cannot trivialize anything I see--or
intuitively feel--as being entirely out of place. Still, I am gravely
afraid of establishing a system for assigning relative "merit" to what
I witness in others, for any standard of such measurement is trivially
baseless. My true growth will come when I simply appreciate something
because "it is". Proper placement within an ultimately-benevolent
framework is an unspoken "given". Just "sitting still" as I am today
and revelling in the fine glow of creation is, for me, a privileged state.
I need to work on those powers of faith and imagination that will help
me find praise when things are not so evident in their membership within
the overall schema and "plan".
"Bo"
12 April 2001 -- A call to share in life
With overcast skies and persistent rain on this damp morning of spring's
unfolding, there can be no doubt that the vegetation throughout the clearing
and the hillsides is doing well. Already the green foliage has assumed
a substantial presence wherever it typically grows during the warmer season.
I have little difficulty picturing the lush undergrowth that will shortly
fill in the remaining open spaces beneath the trees and between the lichen-covered
granite rocks. I do enjoy seeing this part of spring's emergence,
and it seems to affect me more in this way with each year that passes.
I'd suppose this is correlated to the solid prescription of decay that
was handed me, whenever it was that I passed over the top of "the hill".
Anything that actually does start anew is a contrasting source of ever-greater
joy from this viewpoint.
I realize, on this visit, that I am being terribly "self-centered" again,
the charge brought against me by the more enlightened of those mainstream
commentators. I still wonder how they can escape their own "centers"
so efficiently, to meander in the space of "being" at will and lament the
unfortunate others they see that have not become so adept. While
I give token recognition to the kind of liberating and "supernatural" processes
that I suspect are involved, these faculties do not appear "available"
to me. From the chorus of the "free spirits" I then hear the reply,
"but you aren't really trying--if only you'd seek, you'd most assuredly
find". Since this sounds like the talk of elementary-level street-corner
ministry, I shrug off the invitation as trite and uninformed. "No,
it just isn't that simple", I tell the ones I hear, as they stand in good-mannered
counsel.
Of course, since I'm in fact alone today, sitting under an asphalt roof
upon which I hear a steady arrival of lightweight raindrops, those nagging
voices I "hear" are just the resonant remnants of my last contact with
real society. Life becomes more to my "liking" when those oversimplified
observations finally exhaust themselves as viable entities within my internal
threads of self-conversation. Though it may be true that what I'm
describing is nothing more than the procedure for situating myself at my
own center, the very habit that will drag me down along with my increasingly
unreliable flesh-bound hulk, there is such comfort at hand when I finally
do reach that "center". I begin to quarrel with the parties encouraging
me to "get out there", arguing that I should be able to stay in this kind
of a spiritually-defined "home" for all time.
The truly new undergrowth is bursting forth "out there", however, and
that is where the "real" action is when it comes to the world and all that
is in it. "I", as a concept, am passing with unerring consistency
into the backdrop, sitting as I am in my crumbling and idolatrous shrine
of false grandeur whose relevance has done nothing but fade. It is
such a comfortable mediocrity, though, and I refuse to reject my current
habits simply because they do not embrace the fullness of "current" glory.
I cannot avoid thinking that there still could be a "place" for a sustained
legacy and tradition built around my own personal convictions and preferences,
even if I am the only one who really "shares" in it. Other, joint
modes of association inevitably require me to swallow a good bit that corrodes
the precious reserve of self-appreciation that I have left. Sitting
on the sofa with the rain-streaked front windows behind me, I ponder my
choices--indulgent comfort or authentic participation, but not both.
Sighing and closing my eyes, I realize at last that I will suffer the
least "injury" in my ongoing conduct of life if I "let" my defensive processes
stand down, in favor of the much-vaunted practice of non-violent "acceptance"
of whatever may come my way. This is an oddly-appealing alternative
to a man whose life so often becomes "lazy" and "inactive". The undergirding
principle is one of rounding off the "sharp corners" of my behavior and
"gliding along" on a course low in agitation. The strictures of expectation
only really "hurt" when I put up one of my struggles of reactive resistance
as I pass through. "I'll just float along, yes, on the main and ongoing
stream," I say to myself with resolve. It is no difficult feat,
just to "be". When in the presence of true "friends", it is enough simply
to be there. Why, they might even let me recount and embody some
of the joy I've kept to myself during my times in hiding, for I see no
valid argument against sharing that which I have consistently called "good".
In the wondrously-fluid and fresh world of the "living", some matters really
are that "simple".
"Bo"
15 April 2001 -- Signs of a worthwhile wait
I must admit that the Easter holiday is ideally its most "colorful"
in the midst of folks like I saw in the village on the way up today, dressed
in their finery and walking among the many garden plots full of vibrant
perennials from last autumn's planting. Still, I believe I have just
"enough" to satisfy my senses within the sparsely-adorned walls of the
Cabin; in this setting I know so well. Since temperatures are approaching
60 degrees F and there is a respectable quantity of this year's new sun
to bring out the various hues of green emerging in the woods, it has become
a good day to open the windows and let some air pass through the screens.
I am at rest on the top cover of my bed, listening to the abundance of
bird-song, superposed on the continuous background noise of the river.
The wind picks up from time to time, only it is no longer a vehicle for
the cold and the snow. Instead, it appears to be allied with the
sun and the surface moisture in continuing the process of the hollow's
rise to a greater expression of life.
I know that being at all content with these simple inputs is something
to treasure, and it almost feels like I shouldn't have it. The springtime
tableau of trees and sun might set the stage for further, more "human"
proceedings, but they can hardly justify a proper "program" of contemplative
ease on their own. "There's always a 'catch'," I remind myself.
"What will it be this time?" I realize that by looking squarely at
the process of this nominal joy, I'm certain to smother its tenuous, tentative
and elusive presence. I can understand why the others need their
substantive gatherings and interchange, for this allows the uplifting splendor
of the season to take part in something arguably "bigger" and "better".
Since my disposition at present is cooperative and pliable, I really should
be channeling it into one of those exploits of the time-and-place-constrained
schedule of my real life in the suburban expanse.
Given a choice, of course, I'd take that wonderfully-transcendent renewal
of my mind that makes the "problem" of "what to do" fade into the irrelevant
holding place of moot considerations. I'm always after the "sure
thing"--the crank that may be turned with absolute confidence as to what
will appear in the output hopper. I know that the forest out there,
at least for the next few hours, will remain largely as it is. I
picture the fine sun arriving through those tree branches as they start
out for the year, and even the mild conditions that most likely prevail
on the wind-swept upper outcrops and the Summit. This much is "known".
I then turn to consider and contemplate "myself" and the many places I've
been in 39 years of walking this earth. I am inclined to see greater
perfection in the achievements I made without help from the others, for
this somehow shines a better light on "me". In contrast, so many
of those "joint" efforts were frustrated; there was always that last non-negotiable
"edge" between where "I was" in the activity and where "they were".
Despite my suspicions regarding the proper format for joyous celebration,
the soothing sound of the river and the invigoratingly-"new" charge possessed
by the invitingly-warm fresh air are still something to hold onto.
Time passes and I continue to watch for signs that the "main event"; the
interval of self-sustaining joy, is about to install itself. The
families back in the village are in the midst of their holiday feasts,
and I suppose I could cook myself some chow here as well. I'm fairly
certain in this expectant vigil that what I'm looking for will not be where
I'd expect to find it. Since the time and place for unconditional
satisfaction do not avail themselves of my conscious control, I can see
that I must shift over to the somewhat-cynical mode of giving up and carrying
on. I observe my neurochemical engine as it sputters along, knowing
that it can and will run better. Its inaccessibility for the purpose
of control has been my principal lament, yet when "it" arrives, "it" is
all I need.
I take deep breath of that wonderful air and let out a long sigh.
My fear of the unknown and the prospect of spending the rest of this day
in a depraved struggle to "break on through" continue to cast their shadow
over my experience of the moment. I suppose I should be getting some
chow here, for that might be all the mechanism "needs". One day,
I hope to eat with the principal expectation of taste, and not "effect".
I rise from the bed and move about towards the kitchen, though nothing
is "making me" hurry along. It is good, when things "happen" on their
own, and even in spite of my best efforts that so often look like they've
failed. The promise of another of those familiar episodes of satisfaction
remains within the realm of possibility. Perhaps the cynical resolve
to offer praise "anyhow" and push on ahead through lesser times is not
so cynical after all. Much stranger things have happened.
"Bo"
19 April 2001 -- Imagination and its limits
I have found a few idle moments to devote to this wide-open space, whose
vegetation continues to build towards the steady-state that should be in
place by June. It is so "unusual", given my real life as a city dweller,
that the halfway-level ground of the clearing should contain nothing more
than its many acres of scrub and rocks. I begin to "expect" that
any land that can find use in supporting some soul's business or residential
ambitions should be devoted to such utility. I have walked out this
morning in my sneakers, to the area near the stone fire ring. The
ground remains fairly wet, and I know my feet will get soaked if I wade
off into the higher brush beyond my own, nominal "development". There
is good sun today, though there is also a certain chill to remind me that
this is "still spring".
Perhaps I don't spend enough actual time in remote woodland and high
meadow areas, since the layout of this terrain can't be that remarkable.
Were I so fortunate as to "get to" live in a truly rural setting, I'm sure
that I'd simply "expect" it to be open, with lots of trees that are not
placed by landscapers and wild grasses and shrubs that do not get the designation
"lawn". The champions of personal initiative might accuse me of being
a "weakling"; one who is not really "dedicated" to bringing such good things
to his life, since I make no "real" efforts. They would cite me for
defaulting to the readily-obtained minimum, a "victim of convenience",
though that kind does not typically allow for the existence of "victims".
Any analysis of this 4-year transcript by one of these "can do" achievers
would toss out my aspirations as hollow and without actionable merit.
Still, I keep thinking about this place, even though its land is only
implicitly claimed as "mine" by the fiat declaration that there are no
other habitations for several miles in each direction. Every so often
I do manage to conjure into being a strong view of the hollow and its "furnishings",
as when I have been pushed to the limit by folks impinging upon every direction
I might want to move in my attempts at "mobility". I would hardly
think I'm alone in seeing a valuable life's experience in this isolation;
the title-holders to the "best" properties embedded within the metropolitan
sprawl have generally parceled out sizable tracts of their own. I
am only being "human" in expressing a preference for "space". I am
weak, however, in staying cooped up in ineffective quarters where I have
done little more than erect walls to keep from view that which reminds
me of just "where I am".
Since there is nowhere I can really sit down outside today, I wander
about the dampened fire ring, noting the burn-marks and sterilized ground
that shows the "impact" inflicted during the last season. "It's getting
time again for campfires," I remind myself, as I kick at the various sharp
rock fragments that compose a large portion of the "soil" in the clearing.
It is not the best of days for a full embodiment of my presence in this
"poor man's reserve". I just don't know sometimes why I keep at it,
except for the moments when my imagination is properly configured and the
components carefully arranged in relative blindness assume "life", though
perhaps only in the same sense as the monster created by the hand of man
in the mad scientist's chambers.
At times like these, I tend to emphasize my many failed and unattempted
efforts at building for my own enrichment, as if I were squandering something
I had possessed all along in the way of time, talent or treasure.
As I head back through the gravel-and-mud dooryard to the front porch,
and without the breath of life inspired into this scene, I can only wonder
what I might have been able to do, given "proper" orientation and subsequent
occupation. It could well be that my "deal" in life was never so
sweet as the well-wishers believe; that I was not the kind of man they
had in mind when it comes to realizing one's dream. This conclusion,
I can see, is part of the explanation for my taking the easy way out.
Accessible mediocrity, accepted for what it does have is better than a
grandeur that is lamented for being out of reach.
Thus, I will "settle for" this picture of a refuge that is but a dim
approximation of what I would have it be, even with the bright sun that
is out today. The land is here, and it has been described with what
ability I have. There are certain to be the makings of future satisfaction
in anything so consuming of my emotional and intellectual faculties as
this set of inscriptions that has become as overgrown as the hollow itself.
No work is a total waste; this should form a partial answer to the critics
that may have wandered this way over the years.
"Bo"
23 April 2001 -- Struggling in the silence
Temperatures are near 70 degrees F today, and a truly "encouraging"
sun has placed the new foliage emerging throughout the clearing and hillsides
in one of its most favorable lights. Perhaps this effect is nothing
more than the novelty of such a setting, after all of the cold, snow and
muddy-damp that fill my recent memory. It felt a little on the "confining"
side to be in the Cabin building today, even with the window screens open,
so I have come out with the metal porch chair to have a seat near the dirt
road, at such place as there might be a mailbox if this were a typical
rural home. I am at the lower entrance to the clearing, where enough
moisture has drained into the nearby ravine to allow the mud-and-gravel
track to have an actual, dry surface, though it has nothing of the blistering
dustiness that will come with summer.
After some time spent looking around, I soon note the location of a
proper-height granite rock a few yards up the hill in the wild grass, and
with some adjustment of the chair leg positions, I manage to achieve a
stable seat from which I can prop up my somewhat tired legs. I take
care not to lean too far back in the chair, as my weight settles me into
this one particular and precarious perch. I gaze off and upwards
along the tree-line, realizing that it is only the steep slope that keeps
the woods above from being as impenetrable in appearance as those directly
behind me. Before long, I have allowed myself to close my eyes, while
still retaining a reminder of the day's brilliance from the sun upon my
eyelids. Perhaps I'll see some of that pure satisfaction in being
just "who I am".
While I listen to the birdsong and the river flowing past to my right,
however, I enter that more familiar "other" mode of contemplation where
I am asked to "account" for myself and my presence here today. "Is
it not enough that I can acknowledge a life that is, from time to time,
'good'?" I ask. As if in reply, I hear the "other side" of "myself":
"If you were more connected with the others, you would not have to ask
such a question." So long as these messages continue, I suppose I'll
be plagued by the irksome sense of "inadequacy" that never lets me settle
quite all the way. As the "conversation" proceeds, I decide that
"I" am as strong as that other side, and I'll just take the chance of being
caught with my head off "elsewhere" as I take this time out.
An occasional breeze, this time of the warm variety, comes past to remind
me that I am outside, and I am called to brush away the infrequent early-season
insects that decide to investigate this living-though-sedate hulk.
"No," I tell the agents of my enforcement, "I'm simply going to 'be here'".
I can almost feel "myself" stiffen against this bold rebuke. Knowing
I'm still unduly tense, I take long, deliberate, abdominal breaths, feeling
the warmth of the sun on my reclining mass. Maybe I'm just too introspective
today for the purposes of "proper" contemplation--with vigilance like I'm
seeing before me, the only "pondering" that will get done is of my own
"laziness". I feel a certain visceral unsteadiness, as if I were
building a charge of adrenaline. No, it's not "happening", I am forced
to admit.
I get up from the chair and walk around some, in the hope that nominal
occupation of my visual faculties will settle me as I would want.
"The settled state is preferable," I add, as if I needed to reassure myself
against the protests of my higher "conscience". I am at once amazed
and annoyed that a mind can know and sustain such dogged division.
In the short exercise known as a human life, there really shouldn't be
any time for such games. Where is that simple joy that is sometimes
my welcome guest when I step into the fine, warm sun of a late April day
like today? It all gets taken for granted, with the passage of enough
time. "No," I concede, "I guess I don't know what's 'good' for me".
Still, there are times when a glorious, nostalgic, poignant and glowing
"completeness" will arrive on a day outdoors such as this, and I'm not
one to want to miss out. It is so incredibly preferable, this feeling,
that it has become close to an obsession of mine to chase it down and have
it for whatever time I'm given. Even when conditions are optimal,
though, I often get stuck with that same, old, chiding voice of oversight,
the one that tells me to "get back to work". It is a delicate study,
this chase, and one for which I may not even have enough time.
"Bo"
27 April 2001 -- Towards the optimal objective
The sun continues its work upon the rapidly-expanding foliage, picking
up where earlier spring rains had left off. The shrubs, wild grasses,
vines and other intermingled components of the clearing are "performing"
on schedule, sending out the new shoots for which I am at least symbolically
grateful as a mortal being. At times I can get a good, intuitive
feel for just how big this all is; the several hundred acres that define
the hollow. I suppose there are different "ways" of knowing the grandeur
involved, ones not so quantitative and "analytical" as my own processes
of perception and cognition, but it is a vain act of "comparison" to envy
the ones who think--and feel--in that way. I will never know quite
what it is to be "them", so there is little point in making any preparations.
I do have a sensation beyond the crass and calculating, though, when I
see the new year's foliage reach outward in its bright green addendum,
so here I am.
All of this I'm observing from inside the front window screens, which
may partially explain my less-than-esoteric "command" of the woodland assembly
that is here to host this visit. I notice how much I still tend to
seek settled, quiet, "empty" time when I'm at the Cabin, rather than a
full-time schedule of sport and exertion. It is true that I just
had to haul up 30 gallons of water from the river to the back door so as
to fill the cistern in the kitchen, so maybe I've "earned" this stretch
on the sofa. I finally turn from the window and drop my head onto
the arm of the overstuffed upholstery, where I begin to let the "machine"
start gearing down. I am determined to get in the kind of visit today
that I think of as "ideal"; the one where I am using this site for its
specially-designated characteristics of open space, quiet, and only well-defined,
"simple" labors for subsistence.
I realize from my previous successful attempts at knowing such peace
that I first need to have some form of "thought" going on in my head, since
the wonders of this dwelling are never usually approached directly.
I decide for now to go over the parameters of this landscape--I am resting
at 3765 feet elevation inside an area approximately a mile across.
The vertical climb from here to the top is 1300 feet, as in the approximate
height of the Empire State Building. The whole area that could be
considered part of the Cabin compound "proper" is less than 2 acres in
size. I can and will amble about to endless small corners of plant
and mineral detail in this region, and when I decide to plop down outside
in the warmer weather, I will do so without regard to whether I'm in someone
else's "space". Here, other issues prevail.
If I think further outward, of course, I am made to admit that the whole
of the "civilized" framework is still "back there" where I left it.
More "objective" reasoning on this point tells me that I'm in fact "surrounded"
by the others; that there is no true "escape". Thus I see a concurrent
and emergent need to conduct a form of exclusion in my thought process,
since the whole truth is not something I generally care to know.
Eventually, the powers of plain old-fashioned inertia will bring everything
to a fine, nulled-out condition where "effort" is no longer a meaningful
prescription or issue. Oh, what a feeling it is, when I finally start
sliding into that final approach. It is stability, yes, but achieved
with a reasonable guarantee of being well-buffered from disruption and
coercion.
Since I have established as a constraint for today's exercise that I
will come at last to sink evenly into that approximation of emotional and
physical "paradise", I continue in this pose, only turning the thought
process about 180 degrees, so that I am considering what's going on right
here. This, of course, is a "vulnerable" pose to take; the exterior
influences need to be significantly attenuated before it feels "safe".
But look, I am "way out here", in this fine, evenly-placed support, far
above and beyond the influential reach of immediate discord. I begin
to recognize the warm and "friendly" outer precincts of the "place" where
I finally achieve "center", and I know it will not be the struggle it was
at the outset to join in the celebration of time on my terms.
I am here and I am myself. "Here" and "myself", however, are clearly
showing themselves to be subjectively defined descriptions of place and
person. While it is always true that I am "someone" and "somewhere",
these defy precise statements of position and momentum, to borrow loosely
from the imagery of Heisenberg. The ongoing path followed by the
values of this often-"chaotic" set of variables is, perhaps, at the very
core of what I appreciate in the new "life" that extends for miles about.
It is always on the move.
"Bo"
Ahead to May 2001
