I sit on the porch of a Skyland Lodge cabin, Shenandoah N.P., VA, July 2001 June 2002 Cabin Diary |
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4 June 2002 -- Illusions of expectation
There was something in the way of rain last night, only this was a decidedly more tranquil "beast" than what came through in March and April; to "wash out the gullies" as it were. The abundant plant life that grows so close to the open screen windows is reflecting back what could well be interpreted as a scent of "satisfaction", though I know I also make much of the special condition that seems to prevail when the ground becomes dusty and the heat is unbuffered by such an appreciable layer of vapor. The hazy brightness outside is now enough to cast shadows here inside the Cabin, but the moisture in that air could well lead to the stifling heaviness that removes some of the charm from a day of sun. I do not know what kind of a visit I'm looking at today. The summer season is well on its way, to the extent it isn't already here, and I don't need to "check on" anything. I am of the decided opinion that being idle here runs contrary to the sort of "mission" I'm supposed to be on as a man, only I don't want to lose track of this place and what it has meant to me in tough times that have gone before today.
I'm not sure where I got the idea that living is supposed to be such a "burden", anyway. A person who is suitably employed as a "professional" should have the leeway to restore his strength, even at his workplace, only his life is also troubled by the intrusion of that life into whatever "home" life he has managed to sequester away. The final result of most ratings periods is not so dire as to warrant the level of fear that is my daily experience. I can tell that the sun is advancing towards a position where it will have a sizable incidence on the dark asphalt roof, which means it will be certain to warm up inside. Anything in the way of true "effort" will leave me sweaty, short of breath and exasperated. What pleasure it is, then, that day-to-day living does not exact the stern and unrelenting toll of true physical labor upon my far-too-specialized body. It's really a nice, simple track, and as easy as driving a vehicle with power steering, power brakes and automatic transmission. I need only step up to the working position and let habit and gravitational spontaneity carry out the rest.
Really, I can't believe I'm that weak--it's only that the picture I have of what is expected of me is inconsistent with reality as it might possibly be known. Am I being put to tests like those, really, that would break a body made stiff and soft at the same time by sedentary indulgence? It hardly seems like I'm doing much about this when I'm here at the Cabin--the whole series of visits contains more sitting and lying down than anything else. Oh, but it is the frustration, when that small "core" of inclination and inspiration builds up inside, the one that would accomplish any number of previously-objectionable goals. I would do so much, yet my stingy internal administration is running a ship the way one would expect any "manager" to do. I feel the rising tide, though, and it would do right, yet it is counted as nothing because I am not allotted the resources to realize such good. I continue to lay here on this old sofa, with the damp air of increasing warmth rising to hold me still further fast. It is almost as if I should run outside, if the "regulators" would let me run, and get some of this sun while it lasts.
But then there will be lots of sun this summer, and a number of days not so damp, where I can move about with fewer restrictions in the bracing, breeze-laden air up here at altitude. I may continue to feel the internal anguish of desires that have no funding, but God seems to be there "right on time", to quote the standard Gospel saying. For now, it looks like I might be still and attempt to know this generally-plausible "truth", until the final discomfort dislodges me from the Cabin altogether and sends me packing to my place on the "line", ready or not. It really isn't that much to do! I've been spared the premature breaking of my flesh-bound physique, so as to be harried instead on the fronts of anxiety and emotion. Is this how a human being should live? It sure is a popular paradigm and model for the leaders and for the human resources people. They really don't know any better, for the partition that makes them "not me" is enough to permit all manner of mischief.
I will have to be getting into the truck soon and returning to my jobs in town, quiet and enclosing as this day and its atmosphere do seem.
"Bo"
9 June 2002 -- Paradise, but at a cost
There is a considerable quantity of sun outside today, and things have been drying out. I find it interesting that I can sit in some of the poses I do at the Cabin, doing essentially "nothing", yet still soaking in a mind-occupying and soul-nourishing flow of impression. There is an intermittent wind that works its way across the lush growth of the clearing floor, and the whole hollow has the power to inspire a tired man on one of his days off. I'm in my usual spot, out on the front porch in the old metal chair, which can't rust much more and still remain safe. The wooden structure of the porch-planks and vertical timbers always looks a little "out of place" amid so much plant life and so many irregularly-formed granite rocks. Indeed, it is as if something quite "foreign" has been imported to a place that would just as soon not host me. But then, as much might be said of some of the grotesque architecture that forms near American urban centers--land is no longer land, when encumbered as it is by the ones who prefer to be close in.
I haven't a whole lot to do up here today, so I suspect my commentary will be brief. The chores of that city life look more than capable of consuming my time in its entirety. I just like the thought that I don't have to put in my appearances up here at altitude, so much as I have civic and professional responsibilities that urge me on in real life. I suppose I wouldn't be entirely "true to mine own self", though, if I just jumped into one ill-fated, spur-of-the-moment fantasy/daydream after another, without maintaining continuity over any sizable timeframe. It is nice and warm out here on the porch, and I can sit comfortably in my nylon shorts and cotton T-shirt. There will be no real effort in putting on my flip flops and walking across the "yard" to the outhouse, when such need arises. I am attempting to cultivate the ability to say "everything is well enough", though I am well aware that I am inviting a life of complacency.
Look at me, running these dreadful words through my head, as is my unfortunate habit during most of my waking hours. I should be experiencing directly, only I do not have that degree of imagination any more. Oh, but if I could only enter this space "for real", and appreciate that it is a couple hundred yards across that clearing to the trailhead leading to the Summit! I would be so absorbed, I'm sure, that I would not feel as if I'm pushing on a rather rigid limit of what a 40-year-old mind can conjure up. I suppose I'm looking for that typical experience of the 1960's counterculture, where folks were convinced of such things as the loss of individual partitioning and travel to astral destinations. I doubt I could handle such a grant if it were ever given me, only I think I'd get quite a ways on what "normal" and "sober" people tend to experience as their daily involvement. Just lowering myself down, in a conscious readiness, into the "true" landscape that is ordinary life is something I know could hold my attention.
Oh, but I am made to build my abstractions and fund my overbuilt artifices, for that is how a man pays out his maximum dues to the urban collective. Anyone can "just sit", to collect his share of impressions. This would have to be the stuff of Huck Finn, out on his raft, soaking up the simple joys of life on the river. I need to keep working the big machine down there, the one I'm part of, and the Cabin just doesn't connect well to its terminals, shafts and piping. The enlightened ones at this point would say that I need to find more of this enchanting scenery in what I've been given, even if those surroundings are themselves a contrivance. At least I can claim 100% "ownership" of the second-rate vistas that appear in that vaunted "reality". It is hard to know, whether a person should accept a tenuous hold on what is undeniably grand, such as the Cabin and the hollow, or improve his grip on the mediocre surroundings that do not require the construction of an internal set of eyes.
I will eventually need to be up and out of here. Oh, but that I should find the method, whereby I'd transfer the excitement-at-a-distance that a Cabin visit entails to the immediate and tangible makings that are just lying around idle in my urban setting! A 'burb in the hand is worth Xanadu in the bush, I should think.
"Bo"
14 June 2002 -- Evening's gradual approach
I'm just sitting here, out on "the land", in the sweet realization that I have set myself up to dwell in a very large area. It has been warm today, only my activity level has been restrained, so I'm not truly "hot". The day is starting to wind down here, with the sun approaching the tops of the trees on the ridge behind the ravine, that "far wall" of the hollow that I am only acquainted with by means of the river. I suppose I should really be out there more, hiking on fanciful trips to the far ridge and beyond, over into the next hollow, though I'm not entirely sure if anyone actually lives there. I don't like to violate property rights. I've been sitting in this particular hollow for 5 years now and no one has claimed a title, so at least I know where I am "safe".
I am out on the porch again, watching the lowering rays of the sun behind the far side of the backyard ridge, wherein I might observe the simple passage of the sun with respect to the inertia of this immense planet. It really is something, to think of night and day as nothing more that 10 to the 24th power kilograms at a radius of 6 times 10 to the 6th meters, just chugging along. I cannot separate this place from the single astronomy that links all men on earth. I ride where they ride, only at different particular phases in the spherical realm. I know that I'm in the northern temperate zone here, and most likely in America, given my descriptions of the Village down by the intersection of State highways 735 and 753. I guess this all "plugs me in" to some aspect of an approximated reality, of the kind that a man can conjure when he is given the time.
I don't think it will truly grow cold overnight, so I plan to leave the window screens open. Eventually, the cricket noise will arrive, and what a wonderful source of restful occupation that gives a mind, when laid to rest on the soft down comforter of its bunk. I may well try to find something to eat in the Cabin; my strategies in supplies has assured me that if I wish to do enough work, then I shall indeed eat. For now, though, I just fill my eyes with the essential "chaos" of the many plants and trees that fill my view. The more romantic commentator would know just what those species are, but for me, the whole point is to be overwhelmed by a botanical enfoldment that lives very well in anonymity. It is a fine evening, and so close to summer and the solstice. These are the times that are made to celebrate, with such long days. I am not so far north as to experience midnight sun, only I get a definite "feel" for what it's like in truly "Nordic" cultures in the months of June and July.
Oh, and should I ever celebrate, this opening up of the land! While the subsistence farmers in the northern zones struggled to raise their precious, single crop, I simply have an opportunity for leisure like I dreamed it could be as a kid. What would it take, anyway, to develop true "ecstasy" in this place? I'm talking about unconditional joy, where the masters of the fleshly universe are not standing there watching for my fall. To get launched into a full experience of a full day would be the ultimate solstice celebration, even this far south. Oh, how I'd like to prance about the clearing, in some sort of elevated condition, the one that would carry on until a pleasant conclusion! Maybe I'm asking too much of this tired old hulk of a man. While I know there are many who exemplify the assertion that "life begins at 40", I still wonder if I have what it would take.
Well, I'm here, and I know that. The truck sits over there on the now-dry dirt track that leads back to the Village, and then towns and cities. Real life, of course, could have its own revelations of joy, only I'm dealing with much greater opposition there. I have the ethereal acres of this hollow set forth, and I romp their various perimeters unchecked. Still, it is a "watered down" and "impoverished" reality, if it even qualifies as that. I need to go back soon to real life, to live a fine piece of the immense and unfolding story that is enough to occupy any man. I am not sure, what yield of good times this whole place up the river will produce. I look back on the years of my occupation and say, "now there is a man who thought to keep things going". But is that the reason I should rely upon, in deciding to send my mind to a place that is, after all, only a property of that same mind? I do not know enough to tell just where I should place the partition between my "real" and "imaginary" lives; complex number consequences as this suggests.
The sun is taking its time tonight. Maybe I'll build a campfire, though I know it won't be all that cold. The extent of forest and all that lives in it will host my asserted presence; I've not done that much to disrupt it, by building a Cabin and a couple of outbuildings. The enfoldment in the woods is an important image that I've developed, as is the matter of just idly walking about the dried mud that was once a drainage path for spring run-off. I want to be "held" by all of this, as if it had arms and a loving bosom. I just have had my share of worry, and now I want the solace of an enfolding glory.
"Bo"
19 June 2002 -- Activity in the worlds within
Yes, this is what "summer" is typically all about. Even at all this altitude, there was no mistaking the kind of heat that enveloped the hollow today. It's been rather humid, too, only it's a little early for anything close to "muggy" conditions. I've been idly walking about the property, where the beaten-down area is under constant scrutiny by the tall grasses of the clearing. They'll have their way, given a chance. The land up here at the Cabin is a fine layout for a tired soul, just as in the dream in 1997, in which the grass almost looked like some kind of "bedding"; a soft backstop that restrains only as it absolutely must. The insects, of course, are here, only the mosquitoes don't pick up to a serious extent until after dark. Wandering through that brush I tend to worry more about the more troublesome wood ticks.
But then this visit is supposed to be "idyllic", and not full of thoughts of arthropods. I am not much in favor of a lot of physical activity when it's like this outside, so my lesser physique will not be to my chagrin. I am looking instead to build some sort of internal "charge" from the notable excitement that comes with having all of this around me, free-standing and serving full-time duty as my outpost. I work all the time to cultivate the notion that the Cabin is free, and it has its special "privilege" by its situation in this untold wealth of undevelopment. I am not sure what "does it" best when it comes to working up the euphoria I know is possible. It is something fragile with me, once it comes to life, so I can only get a handle on it when I'm in a "sanitized" environment like this.
I have to wonder how much of the "soft and the safe" I could endure in real terms. I always run to the assorted hide-outs that afford such liberation, while the problems that were on my tail cannot reach me because they are so big. One would think, according to that metaphor, that troubles could establish a veritable "kingdom" in this open land, and their very success in that initiative probably explains why I can't become spirited away completely when I come to consider what is planted in these woods and along these hills. I cannot say a whole lot about my prospects before my adversaries, those nameless entities of extreme effect that pummel me senseless whenever I pop my head out to look. Are they really just like a stranger's well-trained "working dog", ready to roll over on their backs for a belly rub, once they get to know me?
It is interesting, I should think, that I cast my cares and woes into such strong anthropomorphy. In the continuum of "good and evil", is it true that being created in God's image also means I have personal components modeled after some denizen of power from the underworld? Oh, I suppose the part of me that is noble and true is the one that looks like a heavenly model, while my coarse underside and internal disarray are the influence from hell that has assumed the flesh-based dominion that it can. Maybe it is to my credit that the agents of conscience that operate for the better in my internal constitution seem like welcome and hallowed members of a circle of hearty comrades, while those other, disparaging louts that hold the key to my corporeal disposition are outsiders, and can be ignored, once their properties are known.
How could I come to see my torments and my joy as the communion and ex-communion of these personal attendants, anyway? Am I too scared to combine the whole mess and say it is simply "me"? The whole arena in which all of this figurative "bloodsport" takes place is a closed-off place that stress has caused me to establish. Then, of course, there is the hollow, where the guys in the white hats come to join me. This is after I've done my business in the pit. That "other place" is a fearsome locale in which real life sends its shock troops, only I will not bring mercenaries into such a fight, for they would not attack their own brethren. I need to escape such a reality, and frequently, for I would cleave to the side of the forces that bring only peace.
All of this goes on inside of me. There is little wonder that the signs of ruin appear, when I do not consciously conceal them. Yes, I feel rather "weary" today.
"Bo"
24 June 2002 -- Getting what I can
I suppose I should spend more time hanging around the Cabin compound today, with the weather as nice as it is. Though it is admittedly "warm", it is still nice enough for everyday activities in the yard and out in the clearing. I know that the great collective back there in city life has its prescriptive load to deliver to me, only I choose, for the moment, to maintain a "healthy" dissociation with their bulk and numbers. Oh, and do they have the "games" going, back there in real life! The "enlightened" among them seem to have built a playground for their own members, so that a man suitably inundated and indoctrinated will be able to move along, with few impediments, towards some sort of unspoken "prize". But the "prize" is little more, in my estimation, than the half-baked "goals" of an ever-changing college student population, who have never had to be old. At twenty unfolds the heady enlightenment, at 30 the sustained dream, but at 40 the re-awakening to ordinary reality. We flower and we fade.
Well, then, let's see here. I have my assorted sources of "serenity" on these visits; indeed, I have built them with some care over the years I've been visiting this hollow. I figure I'll go stretch out in the hammock beneath the hemlock pines, protected as I am with a solid layer of 100% DEET. This environment, in its authenticity, will surely present its share of unpleasantness. I walk with some hesitation about the front dooryard, noting the presence of the sun in the mid-day sky. A trip up the trail to the Summit would certainly create its share of sweatiness at this moment. It is a fine and extensive environment, to the extent I can conjure it into being in my imagination. I have no immense debt in association with this woodland, only there are few that would lend good money on a strange sort of dream as I had.
I just want to "get along", with all the woods have to offer. I look upon the clearing, so full of low brush and struggling bushes, and I must admire what I've seen present itself at 3765 feet above sea level. That soil is a rocky, gravel-laden mess, only it is a lush place, with all that has grown upon it. Soil, it would seem, is pretty much soil. I am interested in little more than a personal immersion, to the extent this is possible, in the settling calm of my wide and open space. I don't know--I could be going about it all wrong. The ones in city life who cannot be so easily alone have it all over me, since their humanistic inclination is well met by other humans. Am I to be friend to the Lord alone? Supposedly, there is a population of saintly folks that I can meet and assist in my urban reality that will be the culmination of whatever heavenly reward has been alotted me.
And yet, I still sit alone. I have so much in the way of wordly accumulation back there in the city, though perhaps not like all of the folks with means such as my own. There is really only a single "cause" or two that is ever worthy of immediate and ongoing attention. These are the matters that absorb a man in his totality, a state I may never have reached, owing to my reticent skepticism when I hear of any kind of path to heaven. I just don't know. I am really standing "here", at the edge of the tall grass beyond the dooryard, contemplating something that really doesn't deserve the time of day, except for its majesty as a symbol in the great game of "myself" versus "them". As "social beings", we humans are supposed to derive a grand support from the others in our midst, and when all is in accordance and concert has been achieved, there is nothing to stop us.
I still like the empty spaces, though, for they give me time to think. There is nothing like a long span of time without commitment, given as a sort of incidental gift by the powers that have established the 40-hour week. Oh, but I find the things of my own self, when the things of the others are cast aside. Still, "they" have such a magnificent society that I wonder how I missed the boat. There's no making up, for 40 years of insufficiency. "They" have their wondrous gatherings, where all members, in their oratory, are at once pleasurable and pleasured; the word spoken is known as its own reward. I know, generally, if not in some ways more specifically, that "they" are the majority elite, the ones who can insure their own continued existence and exploits among humanity as a whole. Maybe my preference is for the way of the rich among them, and in not being so endowed myself, I face barriers.
Well, it's time to hit the sack in that hammock. I cannot think long on what I cannot change.
"Bo"
29 June 2002 -- Faced with a familiar directive
I am feeling decidedly "complacent" on this visit, though I know it is not the way to be. I seem to be taking the forest "for granted", as though something so grand is only a part of me. No, no, no!, I tell myself. It is its own expression, and I am its part-time transplant, here to work on other matters in real life. I think to myself, of what I have, back there in city life. It is so full, and it is so complete. I need no fanciful provisions of escape to carry me on. Why, the fully-integrated city-dweller is as close to the center of human potential as a man could hope to be. He, after all, has transcended the bit of difficult territory that separates humans out on the range from the ones who have entered their own beloved homes in their own rightfully-asssumed landscapes. I just enjoy the thought that I have earned the introductory benefits to the great and sweet beyond, where men no longer have to contest one another for the basics. Supposedly, a paradise was once established on earth for the enlightened, only the failures of the utopians has since put it beyond ordinary reach.
I sigh, in something of a resolve. When it comes to individuals caught up in the ordinary strictures of the "rat race," there can't be a whole lot to be said for them. They just sink into their places of comfort, and there they live out their lives awaiting some sort of implied afterlife endorsement. Oh, but if it were only as simple as living out the grand and final outpouring! No, the ordinary life is a thing so full with ridiculous effort and pointless ambition that one wonders why such beings were created in the first place. Creation, after all, had to have occurred. These sad examples of the instantiated flesh just don't have any of what it takes to enter the higher realms, or so it seems. The mission I am now called upon is to find those lower creations and help them along to the great beyond, even if I am one of them myself. It does not matter if my own instantiating authority decided that I was worthy only of the limited properties I have. Oh, and how I sit here, thinking of my brethren in the realms of development. Why, they could have it all over me. Who said I was any kind of superior being, anyway? Comparison between men is a dangerous thing.
I am so whipped down, and I am so brought to accept the the mechanism put in place by the greater authorities. Oh, but to lay my troubles upon that excessively-broader breast, so much like the all-enabling refuge of a parent to a child, so as to have found someplace decidedly accommodating! I feel my being lowering its resistance to all of those larger structures, as if their own power were enough to carry me through. The grand scheme to be shown me, in my inadequacy, is sure to be a bustling and harmonious place. They will wonder there, how a man could have become so utterly separate. It is not enough, either, that I have heard their voice, but that anyone has ever heard their voice from such a place. They seem to sweep large numbers of "exceptional" practitioners into their ranks, but on the promise that theirs was the only outlet from doom. Mighty majesty might have inhabited their other pathways, only they have learned to adopt a more reasonable entrée to what is human.
I am so incredibly tired this evening, yet my soul wanders to that powerful building area where the new and potent means of connectivity are constructed. What is it that I really want, anyway? Do I want nothing more than "rest"? That's not a hard one to satisfy. Am I looking instead for some sort of realization of my God's Kingdom? Many times that happens, despite my concerted efforts. Maybe it is just the "mortal" in me that wants to see a "plan" for his escaping death. Why, if I studied my Christian lessons well enough, I'd have that before long. Maybe I'm being called to some sort of massive and glorious "revival", the kind in which a man is properly linked to the one he calls Savior. With such a release, of course, comes the concurrent easing of one's many connected relationships with real world reality. Here in the "spirit world", it is possible to interpret without limit. All that has happened should have happened, and indeed did.
I don't know. I'm just laying around the Cabin today, on the sofa. It is so incredibly quiet, yet I know real life will call me back soon. The emptiness of human living continues on, of course. I don't know what's going to stop that. Perhaps my method of invoking the Great Beyond is somehow limited. All of this could well have been reconciled somewhere else, only I use geographic familiarity to predict that I'll actually learn about what's going on in my impoverished study-hall of limited potential. There has to be an arena in which truly great minds continue to dwell. I could go with them, of course, to hear those mightier powers, only I continue to seek guidance amid ordinary idiocy. Brains, it would seem, are allotted in much the same style as any other arbitrary aspect of creation. I just don't know. I'm terribly beat, so I suspect I'll settle in to one of the many models that they have presented.
"Bo"
Ahead to July 2002