1 August 2001 -- A separate and empty place
"Meteorological summer" has turned the corner to enter its third month,
with bright sun and a fair quantity of blue in the sky beyond the immediate
haze. I've decided to douse myself with repellent and come out to
the chaise lounge next to the fire ring, where I plop myself down and lay
my boonie hat across my face. This is my classic style of relaxation
when I'm on vacation in real life, and it feels good up here in the hollow
as well. I hear a certain presence of insects in the nearby thicket,
only the greater effect upon my senses comes from the wonderful solar radiance,
something whose time now seems critically limited. If I were walking
the city streets in such conditions, I'd be sure to work up a sweat before
long, only I "get to" wear my nylon shorts and un-tucked polyester shirt
up here, which leaves plenty of exposed skin for the breezes that are blowing
today.
Yes, it is a day where I simply want to let go and feel the earth support
me from below. I am well aware of the amount of time I "could be"
doing this in real life, since I don't have one of those ridiculous work-weeks
like the professional "capitalists" do. The problem with such an
approach, however, is that there's always something in front of
me to pick up and do. After awhile, it no longer looks like "leisure".
Turning slightly on the cushion out here, I sigh deeply, thinking over
how it is that I have sequestered myself up here in this clearing, on a
day clearly "meant" to be spent outside. It bothers me a little that
I do not have one of those spontaneous "flows" of thought, now that I've
availed myself of this carefully-crafted opportunity. I suppose that
if I really wanted that, I would have to reconnect to those
same "sources" of occupation that have instead become more like "sinks",
to use the terminology of flow design.
I begin to think of the rich, expansive "grounds" that are provided
in this hideaway, and I have to wonder at times why I'm not more interested
in getting out on foot to know more of its various and nuanced localities.
Instead of "embracing" these lands, I seem to wear them as some sort of
"body armor". It is as if I can't walk freely and at my own, unguarded
pace until everything is swept clear. All I really want is
to feel "right" in who I am and what I'm doing in the limited time left
for me. At present, I still cling to the notion of plopping myself
down outdoors, in the midst of the sun and the "elements", for this means
that I do not need to "deal with" those many examples of my having fallen
short in real life. This, then, is a problem of "attitude" and "outlook",
for the better-aligned among the general population must be sufficiently
"happy" with what they have, or else they, too, would be in a state of
visible revolt.
But then, maybe I'm not really that "visible" when I've headed
off on one of my "mini-vacations" up the 4.1 miles of dirt road.
Since the others do not have my personal irritation assigned to
them as a guiding vocation, I am not expressly "missed" when I'm not there
for them. Holing up and quietly contemplating a place like this does
not produce a very prominent "signature" of visible expression, so my contact
is generally overlooked. Still, I am available to them, so
my escape is only partially complete. My task is always one
of permitting as much association as I can with my private woodlands, but
while also minimizing the aggravation caused by my interface with real
life. I frequently find myself noting what natural fixtures I can
on those urban rounds that are shared with a true wilderness, in
an attempt to create effective suggestions of the more "refined" version
I hold inside.
I sigh again, a little more deeply. No, the others won't make
it through my buffer; it is impregnable. Herein lies a central core
and a perfected quarantine; the distillation of the solace I receive when
I think to take a "step back" in city living and consider myself.
Within this dusty, "weed"-choked patch of rocks and thin soil, I can do
no wrong. It is as if I have "poured myself" into a hidden vessel
within, with only a skeleton crew standing guard on the outside defenses.
I do attempt to use what I gain here when I'm back there, only the
applicability is partial and limited. It is therefore hard to tell
sometimes whether I'm opening my eyes or closing them when I arrive at
the Cabin. Usually, it is not my preference to "see" and be made
"aware" in ways of strong existential significance. Thus I lay, out
in the sun, with a hat covering my face, on the tranquilized approach to
sleep itself. Perhaps, like it was for Rip van Winkel, things will
be "different" when I'm next called to task in the city below.
"Bo"
5 August 2001 -- Latching on to genuine leisure
I drive with a calm yet cautious resolve along the 4.1-mile two-track
road that ends at the Cabin compound, having just passed the culvert bridges
over the two tributaries to the main river that enter from the left.
I am approaching what might be called the "real" entrance to the hollow,
as the "back door" ridge begins to rise on the right. Of course,
these features are not so terribly "pronounced", given the amount of vegetation
that is present at this time of year. The impression is limited more
to those hillsides and riverbeds that are immediately at hand, though it
is impossible to ignore the steady upward climb of this road alongside
the run. I have the air conditioning on in the truck, remembering,
perhaps, just how hot it was, even in the village at 2000 feet elevation
when I was on my way out. When I enter the "parking area" beside
the outhouse, the return of the bright sun suggests this heat again, only
I am pleasantly surprised to note temperatures closer to 80 F than to 90
F from before.
As I climb down from the cab and let the vehicle begin its slow cool-down,
my ears are greeted by that brand of near-silence that makes up a good
part of the outdoor effect in this open area of rough thicket and scattered
boulders. I suppose it would be closer to the "real" wild if I had
tall brush growing right up to the Cabin itself, but there is something
about the run-off at this spot that has naturally scoured the organic material
from the "soil". This is what made the building site such a "good"
one when I first began work in 1997. I like to think that I have
retained a good deal of what was "overgrown" and "undeveloped" about this
clearing after 4 years of "hanging around", only the bright vermilion stain
of the clapboard siding is clearly a sign that I wanted to "make my mark",
even here. When I look about, I can also pick out the trail that
leads through the brush to the hillside ascent, yet the bulk of this setting
is still "full-service forest", as in the concept of any good "nature preserve".
As I look about for irregularities in my "man made" structures and fixtures,
I attempt to discern the underlying motivations behind my choosing to "run
away" from city life and spend this time at altitude. Certainly the
heat could "explain it" on a day like this. Why, even the sun at
this
advantageous point is enough to cause a notable quantity of sweat.
I realize that I need to go inside and exchange my city clothes for the
lightweight sportswear that I use in this place of no central air.
I step inside the front door, where things are as I left them, and implement
this provision for comfort. Oh, yes, and the bug spray, too.
I can't forget that. Slowly, I am making myself over into the man
I envision myself to be when I'm "at ease". I step back out onto
the front porch, listening to the cicadas and the tree frogs, along with
those assorted sounds from out in the woods that I cannot explain directly.
There is something I like about being outdoors and given over to the complete
atmosphere, just as it was and is provided.
I can tell that I am tired again today, so I stretch out on the
chaise lounge by the fire ring. Though it is an invigoration to be
placed in a setting that is not bristling with the prods and promotions
of other humans, the real victory comes when I let myself sink into a quiescent,
"alternate" mode of restful "being". Maybe I'll actually "get there"
today, which will be a blessing, since this is a rather difficult response
at times to elicit. I take some deep abdominal breaths, practicing
the methods taught me by assorted teachers of the contemplative and "relaxation"
arts. With each exhalation, I rid myself of some additional component
of that inward and driving "irritation" that usually has me running about.
I am entering certain precincts of the "place" of the unchanging, where
everything looks like it is "allowed" to continue. There is a wonderful
"cleansing" that comes with this removal of pretense and expectation.
I am doing what is "right", just by doing nothing on a day well-suited
to that purpose.
It is good, I conclude, that I can be out here, without needing
to watch or defend my external interfaces and now-distant "frontiers".
The "relaxed" state is clearly within reach, the one that makes redundant
the need to "do" anything more. It is as if I have been "captured"
now by something that I can tell was there all along, only superseded by
the intentionally amplified requests, calls and mandates of the others.
Perhaps with a suitable group of like-minded souls I could "flop out" like
this in public, only the mood would be spoiled at once by the least rustling
of
their contrary sovereignty and independent agendas. No, for now it
will have to be my experience, alone. Collective accord, obviously,
is a still greater challenge.
"Bo"
9 August 2001 -- Returning to a basic existence
The sun is bright today, and it seems that it is "driving" the haze
into a form of luminance that reinforces the general condition of summer's
heat. I have already taken a walk upstream to the falls, "rejecting"
as much of this thermal excess as I could in the spring-fed river water.
I'm in the living room now, with my hair still wet, stripped to nothing
more than a pair of nylon shorts as I lay on a large beach towel thrown
over the sofa slipcover. At my side is my GI canteen, from which
I drink as much as I dare without causing havoc with my electrolytes.
It's something like 90 F outside today, and the best I can do is sit under
the shade of the Cabin roof, with the screened windows opened all around
to exploit the breezes that do manage to come along. So long
as I stay so entirely "conscious" of the metereological forces at hand,
it becomes liveable. It is like an enormous "hand" has been stretched
forth from the sun-dominated sky, holding me in place and hindering what
might be a more animated condition on a milder day.
Though the hot weather might slow me down, it does wonders in
accentuating the rustic finery of these pine panelled walls, heavy fieldstone
masonry features and old-fashioned hardware such as the stove and the lamps.
It is a day spent "in the country", like in old times, where perhaps a
visit had been paid to a relative living with many remnants of truly
"older times". Though the kid I was may have rapidly lost interest
in something so quaint and unremarkable, my simply-furnished interior now
has a useful "centering" effect for a man almost 40 years old. I
shift slightly against the damp towel, attempting to expose new, wet skin
surface area to what air there is. I am certainly not interested
in running around, looking for playtime "adventures" this mid-day.
Taking another sip from the canteen, then slowly setting it back on the
floor, my senses are at once dulled by the heat but heightened by the brilliance
into which the sun has cast all things up here in the hollow. I breathe
deeply, then close my eyes, listening to the insects outside the front
window and the river outside the back.
It seems like quite the day to be "on vacation", and I'm not talking
in the sense of those miserable 5-day extended weekends that come along
every so often in my real city life. I would do well to find a way
to drop the various nagging concerns that keep me from absolute and "complete"
rest today, only that ponderous "juggernaut" of a real life career will
give no quarter. Those images I can dredge from childhood are of
unfettered
leisure.
It was such a wondrous phase of life, and indeed, the "natural" state that
I seem to have "trained" myself to deny. Away from the air conditioning,
I am necessarily pushed to a state of reduced preoccupation, only I'm
truly dreaming of getting back a piece of that old style of "going
into the woods". We would be carried along with the responsible adults
to some form of guest quarters, and they would certainly look like
they're getting their fill of the abundant aesthetics. If only we,
the kids, had a way of appreciating the unequalled glory that our openness
and unjaded innocence might have allowed us to perceive and know.
Perhaps it all looked so "boring" in those primeval days of my ontology
because I had no alternative but to "be there". The power
of retrospective appreciation may well have been one of those products
of my joining the "productive" life. I am most likely an example
of irretrievably "spoiled goods"; a walking testament to entropy's relentless
campaign in the world. I am never able to "let go" in the style that
would truly satisfy, for there are too many "safety nets" in my
superstructure. Thus it is that I cherish the time when environmental
and physiological factors hold me firm and dictate my course. Enterprise
is certainly worthy, but its pursuit is wholly enveloped in that "derivative"
landscape that so often annoys me in its unwieldiness. What I enjoy
today in this grippingly-warm living room is a slice of time that requires
no apology. It almost makes me cry, when I think of what that kid-version
of me was so willing to discard. Time at length, just to "goof off",
has now evaporated from the ever-thickening mixture of my spiritually-valued
possessions.
Yes, a large hand has encompassed me, now as I lay in these restricted
conditions. Yet the feeling is one of youthful "freedom", the one
where I was relieved of the now extensive "ordinary" aspects of duty.
I am face to face with one of those "ironic paradoxes", and indeed one
that can lead to "cynicism" in someone so suitably-grown--the resplendent
joy and satisfying fulfillment of having "nothing on my plate". I
lay here, continuing my search for this wondrous and complete relief, a
man far from empty.
"Bo"
13 August 2001 -- The necessity of the lesser
It is a humid, overcast day up here in the hollow, though not the "oppressive"
one it could well be at lower altitudes in the city. Condensation
throughout the clearing and the Cabin compound has left most outdoor surfaces
ready to drip water without much provocation. This kind of dampness
is as close as it comes to the aftermath of actual rainfall. At least
the ground isn't muddy for getting around, as I make a trip across the
"yard" to use the outhouse. With the wood-plank door banged shut
behind me, I notice the extensive evidence of spiders in the rafters below
the corrugated fiberglass roof. After I've completed my "business",
I step back into what daylight there is, in the near-"gloom" of the immediate
clearing, and walk slowly towards the campfire ring. There is a certain
"hushed" feeling out here from all the moisture, rather like when it's
snowing, only the relative warmth leaves the air with the sense that it
is "charged" for some unknown future action.
Realizing that there's not a whole lot I can comfortably "do" out here
today, I return to the living room, where I light the kerosene lamp near
the sofa. That particular glow is always a reassuring sight when
the sun is not "cooperating". It removes some of the notion that
I have chosen a "wrong" day to camp out, with a sky so obviously dismal
and not fully representative of "leisure-quality" summer weather.
Really, I shouldn't be so preoccupied with atmospheric conditions,
though I'd certainly prefer some of that crisp, bright and dry mountain
sunniness, so as to spend some quality "barefoot time" outdoors.
I turn to prop my feet up on one end of the sofa and my head on the pillow
beneath the lamp. I have been issued another stretch of time
in this life, and I'm doing what I can to be "significantly" occupied.
Though the others would write off my efforts on trivial grounds because
I am alone, I still cling to this bit of rustic fabrication as the best
chance I'll get.
I close my eyes and let time pass, knowing that if I could take the
damp, stifling conditions outside, I could engage in any number of activities
that "require room". I am not "press-fit" into that all-too-common
container that carries me through real life, the one with its rationed
comforts and privilege that make me wonder just "what I did" to be so emplaced.
Is there, in fact, an actual pathology afoot, perhaps driven by
those mass-marketing types, that is proliferating on the basis of my containment?
Maybe I just have too many stray images and voices "inside my head", from
all those hours of television and web-browsing. I doubt that a free-market
economy would allow anyone to make an explicit and coordinated "plan" to
this end--what I am more likely reacting to is the incessant-yet-random
"noise", as each desperate pitchman-entrepreneur tries to become my one
and only obsession and pursuit.
To say that I am being "overwhelmed" in life as I know it implies that
there is some optimal loading that will cause me to thrive,
rather than the creators of the commotion. Since my first reaction
is to close off and shut down when I think I've taken too much buffeting
from the hype-mongers, I must acknowledge the unqualified concessions I've
made towards the "simple" and the "minimal". These are my grand and
glorious ideals, perhaps like the utopian yearnings that drive forward
your typical backyard "revolutionary". If, and apparently only if,
I could get myself down to the utmost minimum, I'd have nothing more than
what I need, and I would rise from my slumber to walk as a "whole man".
I'd hate to think that this has been some grand and misplaced delusion
I've adopted in the last 5 calendar years, a time during which my efforts
have only found a small and partial success. Still, the conviction
that there is "something" that will "do it" will not go away. It
is too "real" to ignore.
I'm thinking now of the extensive reaches of forest and mountain that
stand between me and that other, vilified urban life. The "channel"
is still there for me, and my place has been saved. But then I tend
to fall into "patterns" up here as well, wandering through territories
of thought I've paced in the same "caged-creature" repetition as those
cycles of modern life. I continue with what strength I have in my
search for pure gratification and joy that will not fade so dismally
every time it comes to visit. Since I am not privileged to see the
benevolent under-structure that is fully implicit in the social realm,
I have to sustain a more personal relationship with those higher-order
agents and entities. I am so tired of "making do" with a life having
this degree of "impurity", only this is my calling; and I have been given
my assignment of beatitude-recognized current woe. It is indeed a
hushed and foggy day, and I'd better get used to it for the forseeable
future.
"Bo"
17 August 2001 -- An exercise of privilege
On this non-descript late summer's day, I have no great conviction as
to "what to do". My morning has consisted of what some might call
"pacing"--time spent indoors until it looked better to fool around outdoors
and vice versa, with neither holding my attention in a single stable state.
Finally, though, the overcast skies have given way to rain, which has moved
the advantage solidly to staying indoors. In a landscape that can
be so completely wet, the dry slipcover on the sofa and comforter
on my bunk are a small piece of indulgent comfort that I can appreciate
at length amid the sound of raindrops hitting the roof and running off
through the "side yards". This "sheltering" effect might resemble
the way it will be full time in the winter months ahead, though I doubt
I'm really longing for the cold and the snow. Rather, it is
"cozy enclosure" that appeals to me in this concise bit of living space,
set within an outdoors world that would not permit real "enjoyment" in
the open.
I have a certain desire to "close off" those assorted and foreboding
messages from the host of affiliated parties and persons in my real life;
those ones who have made "my business" "their business". So long
as I stay out of sight and quietly crashed out on my rough-hewn bed, I
can picture them in the more agreeable "abstract", deriving a "sanitized"
image of the world as I knew it when I last left. Who, indeed, from
that number is likely to show up at the door to the Cabin, especially in
this
weather? I listen to the raindrops on the foliage out back, behind
the window near the dresser. This setting has just the "innocuous"
quality I seek as a backdrop to my second-hand studies of "what the modern
world is coming to". 39 years of observations have certainly established
a rich "introduction" to what may or may not happen in the time that's
left for me to see. From this base of experience, I can usually prompt
widely-variant "modes" for handling the present, though the actual choice
of these is largely left to the chaos of my neurochemical meanderings.
It has been my repeated experience that enough time spent under the
dictates of a given scenario will allow my limited powers of adaptation
to "see" a way that was not there when the original assignment of misery
was made. Thus, initial impressions are usually untrustworthy, compared
to the deeper insights that come later in the game. Have I grown
too "sensitive" to the first, illusory implications that each new scene
in this grotesque drama carries with it? Listening to the rain on
the roof, I reach for those provisions in memory that reinforce the less
"severe" view of the whole mess back there in real life. What is
the "barrier" to being finally satisfied with what's going on, anyway?
I have spent far too long ensuring that each new day opens with its standing
guard of anxious misgiving, to tell me how I should--and especially should
not--feel
as a result of its "inescapable" and systemic "woe".
Since I have succeeded for now in separating myself from that onward-lurching
grind that will eventually drag me down in worldly order, I sense that
I have the luxury "not to care" about how I'm "supposed to" react.
I can drift "closer to the surface" of the present moment, putting the
various irritating urgencies from real life into some unseen background.
My belief in this practice has to come from being convinced that my vigilance
has historically been far "too great" for the actual facts at hand.
A "free", living man should not be so utterly bound by habit and expectation.
Oh, if I could but know the "mind's true liberation"; to become a "true
nature's child"--to be "wild" and unbroken, even though I was hardly "born
free". I am borrowing, I can see, from the pop-cultural lexicon of
the 1960's, when so much more seemed possible. It is
ironic that so much more is now in fact permitted.
As the gentle yet persistent rain continues to define this rough, wooden
space as my capsule of comfort in a wet, rugged and overgrown stretch of
highland forest, I reach for the more "liberal" and "forgiving" view of
"who I am" and "what I 'can' do". While the spaces that surround
me in real life can be stringent and demanding, I've built a shelter there
that looks to be highly sustainable, at least for a few more years--or
even decades. There is no need to "beat upon myself" because of its
ultimate
vulnerability. I have as my current privilege, if not my birthright,
the option to sit tight as I let loose and think to the "better points"
of all that goes on in that unwieldy city life. It is the frequent
pleasure, even of created man, to be benevolent where it is no great privation.
With this as a guiding principle, a person is fully entitled to take "time
out" for the purpose of fuller experience. Thus does justice prevail
in the world.
"Bo"
21 August 2001 -- Working within limitations
While it is fairly bright out today, the clearing is filled with the
kind of sun that seems to suggest that it is paying its last respects to
the summer of 2001. Beyond the stone fire ring, where I am stretched
out on the chaise lounge, the insect population is now fully developed.
This "maturity" gives the impression that whatever the season had been
"building up to" should be "happening" by now. Implicit in so many
months of warmth now passed is the idea that the various parties gathered
in these woods should be saying "farewell" and packing up for their "off-season"
lives. Of course, I have not had actual "company" up here, so perhaps
I am "borrowing" this poignancy from some situation I once knew as a kid
or a younger adult. Since it is "just me" at the Cabin, I will not
have to make a special effort to continue the channels of communication
when "civilization's" big machine turns again and everyone must move along.
I'm looking out into the tall grass and wildflowers, which wave gently
with a wind that is not quite ready to blow everything away in favor
of autumn. That's still a month off. It has been fairly dry
lately, and I suspect I'm dealing with "ragweed" pollen. Really,
it's what a person would rightly call hot out here today, and my
mind must be tied too closely to the calendar if I'm thinking of cold weather
already. Maybe this just isn't "my day" for deep and contented
experience of the empty acres I've set forth in this hollow. I would
certainly have a harder time living the city life if it didn't appeal to
me at least on occasion. I am thus left in a strange sort of "lurch",
one having its set of expectations and predictions but also one where I'm
not quite sure "what I'm supposed to be doing". The splendid and
central season is winding down, and I don't have "everything done" yet.
I could just be mourning the loss of another chance to make this
a "summer that counts", as if other years actually qualified in that regard.
The expectation of the September curriculum is that the student have something
to say about the "things I did last summer". The life "better"-lived
always turns in a glowing report of its accomplishments, progress and ongoing
vitality. But what do I have? Notches carved on the
figurative "stick" of my days, I suppose, and knots tied daily while obsessed
with achieving a real "mastery" of just how my days are finally spent.
True, it is all indexed and accounted for, day by day; this is
"my thing". Indeed, it is an unsettling feeling to lose track of
the passage of time and precise control over the allocation of this "scarce
resource". I am clearly not one of the "normal", the central
67% of the population who perform their various family vacations and other
forms of togetherness when the "weather is fine" and the "living
is easy". Their long-lasting "memories" appear built of the human
aggregate, a material of proven strength but also immense weight.
I don't think that involvement with the others is really at the
heart of what I'm trying to "capture" up here, though, when I witness the
substance of this summer tangibly escaping through hands that cannot fully
grasp what is left undone. Even the jolly folks at their summer homes
are there because the main routines they see in city life have the power
to send even them "off the tracks". The wooded outdoors, with
its air full of insect song and botanical fragrance, carries with it the
wide-open release that everyone is after, and this is an individual
experience. I rise from the lounge and walk around on the sharp gravel,
reacting to each step as my bare feet hit the "unimproved" surface. This
is the land that is mine to know, and my series of experiences developed
over the last 5 summers should be enough to keep me company.
I get the feeling that I am contributing to some monstrously cavernous
storehouse during the years I continue to live, one that will be a source
of untold joy past some point of inflection that is still to come.
To the man who looks inward, his developed interior is his most vivid
sight. This must explain why my "artistry in living" has to appeal
almost exclusively to my own aesthetic sensibilities. It is,
to be sure, a richly-furnished interior space that I've established.
Still, there is little to compare to the immediate impressions that appear
directly at my sensory portals, such as the ones that suggest that this
summer is living on borrowed time. I have a wistful sort of appreciation
for those external gifts of nature, for they are the foundation of my fullness
as made complete by leisure. It is humbling, I see, to have such
limits placed upon myself. Perhaps I've lived too long with the "selfish"
attitude that I can really "complete" the overall "body" that is my identity
and my expression. I head indoors, walking slowly on the uniformly
sharp stones that tell me I'm "someplace else". I'm still here, for
now.
"Bo"
25 August 2001 -- Not sure of what's next
There is a hazy sort of overcast above the hollow this morning, along
with noticeably cooler temperatures. It feels like it could "choose
to" rain, but if the responsible "powers" decided otherwise, the sun could
come out, to restore that fine brightness to the vegetation in the clearing
and the lichen on the rocks. I don't have a whole lot I'm inspired
"to do" on this visit, and I get the sense that this could be something
of a problem. I look in retrospect upon these times of lesser motivation
with respect-filled appreciation, for they show the kind of person I can
be. I guess I like it better, though, when the prevailing sentiment
of my mind is "driven" as a matter of course towards some activity and
its implicit goal. I'm "just" sitting inside today on the sofa, with
my bare feet up on the coffee table, noting that the living room is dim
again from the clouds. I'm beginning to think more and more that
rain will indeed come.
I suppose, eventually, that I'll need to go to the kitchen and feed
myself, though my appetite is rarely that strong on days without heavy
workloads. That's one of those jobs I "make myself" do, whether it
is prompted or not by those capricious innate desires. City life
seems to have a lot of work like that, too, and some of it looks so "silly"
at a distance that it gets hard to defend on a day-by-day, year-by-year
basis. "Why, I should 'just be free'," goes the complaint, "for I
am being untrue to mine own self if I push myself into places I don't really
want to go." Thus it is that I continue to sit heavily on this sofa,
for to busy myself just to satisfy the socially-instilled notion that it
is "good" to be that way looks like a concession to ordinary mediocrity.
"This is a human life," I remind myself, "and something that should
have the capability for greatness in how it is spent."
I lean back against the sofa, closing my eyes. The insects and
the birds are in full force, as I can hear through the open screens behind
me. I have been left with something of a "fog" across my conscious
state, which I suspect is the result of a week of performing in my bizarre
role as a worker. I can see that it will do me some good just to
"wait out" a few hours today, even if the initial comfort is not that promising.
I suppose I could just drift off to sleep here, since I am "free"
for the weekend and no one is stopping me. I let the bulk of the
tension leave my neck muscles and upper back as I uncross my legs.
The air inside the Cabin has a somewhat vacant yet "expectant" feeling,
perhaps carried over from the indeterminate condition of cloud cover and
haze that I saw when I was last outside. It is certainly "different",
not to have the constant companions of television programming and workstation
interaction to "drag" me along.
I'm thinking about the outdoors again, and how peaceful and "settled"
it is, given the current meteorological conditions. I am nearly moved
to get up and go to my alternative resting place out on the chaise lounge,
only I doubt it would suit my grasping emotional "need" for spontaneously-satisfying
occupation any better than being here. Maybe it's my allergies, or
maybe I have something of the "summer bug" I heard tell of at the physician's
office. I should be drinking a goodly amount of water, if
this is the case. The canteen is in its usual spot near the coffee
table; I'll have to take a good swig when I'm next "up". I suppose
"illness" is a satisfying explanation for times that feel like this:
the mortal man is by his nature subject to such compromise. What
I'm still "yearning" for, though, is that rock-solid, beyond-question conviction
of why things are this way and what I can therefore do.
I finally decide that I will get up and spend some time outdoors
by the stone fire ring. I pick up the canteen, taking that long drink
of the barely-cool water from the cistern, and head out in my flip flop
slippers. Entering the open space beyond the front porch, I must
initially squint my eyes against the sun, which leaves no question of its
existence and influence despite the cloud cover. The feeling is one
that is familiar from my days of real life camping--a day "in between"
real rainfall and blue-sky sunshine. Taking my spot on the chaise
lounge, I return to the strange, dulled state "in between" that I occupied
inside. I cough slightly, suggesting allergy again. I find
myself wanting to call out to that benevolent "presence", the one that
bestows solidarity of purpose and method. I begin to go over my physical
parameters, neglected as they were in the week's work. Maybe there
is
"something
I can do".
Though I know not what I'll be doing for the remainder of this strange
day, I have to trust past fortune in predicting what could come
next. It is strikingly bright outside, given the extent of the cloud
cover.
"Bo"
29 August 2001 -- Time spent in motion
It's another grubby sort of overcast day, with warm enough temperatures
because summer is still "on the schedule", but also with that decided foretaste
of autumn in the general illumination and "flavor" of the air. Were
I a student, I doubt such a scene would be much "fun", even in the event
that the start of the school year were postponed or repealed. I've
been up at the Cabin for a few hours today, thinking over the various maintenance
concerns--the imminence of the upcoming season has put such thoughts in
my mind. I've spent some time walking around the exterior, looking
at the assorted joints and caulking, which have now been in action for
a respectable period of time as far as buildings go. I know, too,
that I'll soon need to visit the fellow back in the village who has the
firewood business, since the woodshed is far from where it should be.
A time like this has a true feeling of motion, since my main
thoughts are upon what is to come and not where I currently am. I
know this to be an "unhealthy" preoccupation when it gets out of hand;
there will certainly come a time in later life where each day truly will
seem like one of those blessed provisions of "providence". Noting
the changes in the exterior of the Cabin, too, has its way of reminding
me of "my place", as a worldly creature under an analogous load.
I am doing what I can today to slow down my habitually racing thoughts,
ones that have nowhere to go and no finish line to cross. Oh, how
I'd like to come in and softly "land" for the day, soaking up the blessing
of all this "supporting" forest. I count it as personal weakness
that I have any forward velocity at all when I'm here, and I'm sure a lot
of my "load" is unnecessary and of my own making.
Sorting out and lightening my extensive "baggage", however, would just
be more of a burden. I find it simpler to keep pushing ahead with
the same old cargo, leaving the adjustments to another day. I can't
tell for sure if I've been building a larger and larger "collection" of
this "dead weight", though it wouldn't surprise me if I were. I take
a deep, sighing breath as I plop down on the front porch chair, my feet
somewhat tired from all the walking about. The cicada noise is still
there, only it will soon enough seem out of place when September finally
arrives. There's no time to lose in ushering in and dealing with
the next, upcoming set of conditions. This is an essentially "industrial"
attitude, when I think about it long enough. I'm reacting to "efficiency"
prompts with as much trepidation as if F.
W. Taylor were standing directly behind me with his stopwatch.
I hear myself launching into the kind of rant that tends to be followed
by, "but of course, none of that is real". This is where the englightened
ones step in and say "just don't 'let yourself' be that way". These
are the ones who can turn on a dime (or less), as though they were one
of those "massless" components from the dynamics portion of freshman-level
physics. Maybe I'll have such ethereal aplomb in the next
world, when I've left all of this behind. But for now, I continue
along between the shafts of my cartload of heaped accumulation, in a refugee-style
fashion one would expect of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.
The others would look at me again and see a man who could be "free"
any day he so choosed. Choice, yes, is implicit in the gifts they
witness within my mobile rubbish heap. Who knows? Maybe there's
some in there, after all.
All I know is that I have an undisputed need for time away from
those coercive, driving powers that so populate the typical urban place
of being. There is nothing like no longer needing to apologize for
inadvertencies created by a mind driven to distraction, though I highly
doubt that this "never having to say I'm sorry" is the result of "love",
as in the Story by that name from the 1960's. It is so convincingly
grey
out there in the clearing today, even with full vegetation in the trees
and low scrub. I so yearn for an end to the fearful cowering that
new times present to me. It is a general platitude that I "have everything
I need" already, buried beneath all the "overburden" that I don't
need. How I do enjoy time that is not already "spoken for"!
I'm not sure what I'll do about my self-inflicted overloading, though.
I am unable to discern, at present, a clear demarcation between what is
truly
"me" and what I've built myself, thinking it's "me".
"Bo"
Ahead to September 2001
