I sit for a spell on the rocks at Donner Summit, CA, Tahoe National Forest, August 2002 November 2002 Cabin Diary |
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4 November 2002 -- It must get better than this
There is no question that the cold months are finally here. This is when I move closer to the fire, where possible, and keep it well tended. I'm a little on the whacked out side this evening, but the basic lighting with kerosene in lamps that hold real fire establishes an atmosphere conducive to rest. When a man crashes out like this, I guess he isn't "worth much" to the many "customers" that have hold of him nonetheless. I suppose that I should limit the number of these exercises, as deep as they can be, for my constitution is hardly defended when things are so disproportionate. They want a character of minimal surface area but maximum capability, only I know that such "workers" are practically equivalent to the capitalists anyway, for theirs is a vision of a lasting future, and not of a clock that reads 5:00 PM.
It must really be something, I think to myself, when a person can live and make a living in a gilded heaven on earth, where he is an honest champion of economic utilization and output. These folks have developed such a refined "spiritual view" that works out dilemmas by a simple return to one's knees. They are out there in the world of liberal arts manifestations; those all-out hang-outs where they are with it and they know it. What hope is there then, for the man whose skills are distributed to lifeless technology? A person only has a certain capacity for such embodiment, and it does run out, but I need to get some serious updates from the assorted texts and speeches having that "human interest", for this is the plasticizer that will finally make the cold alloy of my heart and soul into something that can be worked.
Thus I have the problem of making some sort of "central plan" for the redistribution of the quantity of working wealth that has remained within my control, despite my having grown weary. I cannot be cold and unyielding, for that places me in the camp of the machines. But then the actual task of being so open to the beatings of the almighty forge is a crisis that makes me cringe. Expediency for the authority-mongers always has its price. I wonder, as I'm being placed into their situations, if I have what it takes to be molded into another man. This current deal, well, it has its problems. I should like to reformat the operations of my cranium the way a person might have large volume liposuction. Of course, we are talking about a metaphor here, and none of those fancy MRI scans can identify the trouble spots.
What a thing it is, to be an ongoing and faithful representation of a complete human brain! I guess I'm wandering into areas of fanciful fiction, when I think that eventually my woes will be medically licked, as if I could take an injection of nano-repair devices, hoping that I do not wind up losing anything I need. Oh, but the glory, to be finally healed, with my thorn-marks properly dressed and getting a chance at restoration at last. It is not wise, I've found, to cherish the evil trick of elation, for it always presumes possession of what is not there. It is the great fantasy that few ever use to advantage. Possessions and things; the holding of title deeds--these are the mere inanimates that have the breath of life in their media versions. Mighty is the draw, for those pitched goods "as seen on TV". If in fact the pleasure is actually being realized, it shouldn't in general principle be disparaged, for it is an indwelling of the burgeoning "kingdom" of aspiring saints.
The mainstream, indeed, has an intense current, like the times I've been down near the village, watching the run-off of thousands of acres move along on their way. In this visit to the Cabin, I have sacrificed the bold interface for interpersonal access that is so commonplace among the ones whose way is already made, but I have gained the gift that the sensitive ones call punishment--precious time, safely alone. I must have some sort of "cell mate" during these times, for I have endless conversations with someone, and I do not think such instruction and discussion to be offensive. I guess I'm simply an autophile; or a loner. This, too, is a part of the assets I need to untangle, once I'm in the counting room and control center. I suppose it will be a sad day, when I've finally improved my aspect ratio of human skills to fit the dirty tools of my trade.
The material does not yield, however. It has been heat treated and case hardened over years of habit. It is all a heavy set of equipment to carry around.
"Bo"
18 November 2002 -- The defiant search within
It has been quite some time, since I've been able to "lower myself" to the kind of state where the settings of the Cabin and the hollow come into view. The trees are essentially bare now, and I suspect the season's first snow to come at any time. The air has that characteristically "raw" feeling, the one that readily transforms into the biting inhospitability of winter. I guess the city is doing its best to enter that wondrous, festive and profitable "holiday" season, though I believe I'm on record as stating that most annual American celebrations are grotesque and vulgar caricatures; a giving of what is holy to the capitalist dogs. Having burned a significant quantity of wood from the box near the hearth since my arrival, there is enough heat indoors to present a nominally "civilized" face to the wooden interior. The sun is out today, only it looks perfectly ready to accept that this is not "its" time, with the Solstice approaching in a month. There is the "dark season" and there is the "bright" one--thus it is bequeathed, to the man who lives to the north.
I sit in the armchair before the fireplace, watching the ongoing saga of the flames. Fire is remarkably obedient and docile, given what it can do if it is let loose. I feel I must "plug myself in" to something as disciplined as burning logs, whenever my life gets going as fast as it has in recent weeks. True, this usually involves a "waste of time", but then so does inefficient effort. I keep wondering when some interruption or another will drop in, if from nowhere else than inside my own head, as I attempt to solidify my state from its history of fluid and chaotic excursions. Constant "exposure" in urban settings has done this to me, for better or worse, and I should seek instead to appreciate the wondrous millieu that would so graciously invite me to its membership and upkeep. It is as if the social structure has a "multiplier effect", whereby proper resonance occurs when the right things are said or done, so that all grows predictably, and at once.
Up here, squared away in the woods, I might have something similar to paradise, were it not for the problem of its imaginary status. How great, indeed, would be the chance to chuck the whole rotten carcass that is my worldly life, stripping away all to live without dire expectation. It would no doubt be enough to compensate for the lack of television and media. Just to look forward and not see the impending terror of further requirements would allow complete rest, the commodity that has a magical allure to tempt the best of the alchemical trade. We are talking of nothing less than a totally "liberated" mind, such as the kind a child might have when he cannot picture the hard realities that will be his to inherit in a future role. In prescribing such a state, I do not think myself necessarily hypocritical, for my discretionary indulgences in real life are the best I have for offsetting the grim labors that will not be forgiven.
Yes, I do want that "steady state", or at least I think I want it. The task-masters could not be so cruel as to prohibit fulfillment during my leisure time, but then they are not me, and they will never achieve a full recognition of what it is to be pinioned, even during attempts to escape. Maybe my talk here is of the "anarchy" that the counter-culture has for so long embraced. It is indeed an embodiment of considerable pride, to think that I know best how to keep my system from the worst of its modes of failure. The outside observer knows the man in far more objective terms. They would look at me and wonder what keeps this strange dream alive, even as I work at projects that undermine its realization. I sigh deeply, as the flames continue on within their orderly-yet-unpredictable pattern. It could be that natural constraints underly real life social obligations as solidly as they command the mighty, lurching, onward progress of the collaborative life.
I can see that I am still yearning for external control, if by nothing more than the setting and scenes of Cabin living. Conditions will always prevail, and the parameter that has no value also has no meaningful existence. It is good, in a certain sense, that I do not see the underlying quantum-mechanical fabric, from which all of this is built. The reasoning behind the appeals of the capitalists is endemic and structurally integrated with the larger "flow". With their humanity so well-defined in my own eyes, they should be given a chance first, to display their better sides. Oh, but I am tired now, and it just looks like a lot to "join the jubilee". The kids do have it best, though without full citizenship and enfranchisement. Their years in mendicant status may well justify them when they are finally old enough to take on orders of their own. People need to be led, I should think, but far too many are simply "dragged" along because of the security wielded and promised by the better-situated.
The skies have a few clouds now, but nothing really drastic.
"Bo"
25 November 2002 -- Opting to lay low for now
The trees both near and far are now barren; the tons of their leaves adding to the legacy that transforms what "once was", as they lay on the square miles of forest floor. Much is obscured when this cover first arrives each year, only the more prominent features of the hollow and the ravine invariably return, once winter has had its chance at sorting things out. It is a grey sort of day today, the kind that calls the mind of the "civilized" inward, towards the hearth and the television full of football and season's greetings. Though the river still runs freely behind the back door of the Cabin, the frigid water is now part of the harshness to be found outdoors, and not a welcome source of relief on a summer's day. The likes of these times are essentially past, given the absence of foliage, and it is a different version of the world that confronts me in the surrounding forest. It has become something to be endured, and in the truest sense of that word, as I maintain my foothold and my camp-site. Any outpost of permanence must last out the rough months as well as the clement ones, only I choose the 4-season alternative in my scheduling of time in residence.
The fire is, of course, burning in its designated place, and the rest of the Cabin building looks excessively dark, from the absence of direct sun. It is rather like I've passed into a season that is not "entitled to" the full dose of that cheerful source, one in which daylight almost appears an accident. Night, indeed, is the time of true majesty, this late into the calendar year. The true and biting cold will arrive, though not as intensely with the clouds, when the sun is finally dislodged from its short and lackluster persistence, and I wouldn't be surprised to see some snow, at last, at such time as that. Usually the snow arrives earlier in the season, closer to the start of November, only the altitude is such that what actually does fall is well-preserved and forms a base for the next installment. The snow will have its own transforming presence, of course, and with the amounts typically seen in these woods, the idea of deep leaves on the ground will not be as significant. Things placed out of sight certainly make the mind work harder, when it still seeks to be aware of all that is.
Rising in all determination, yet little net effect, from my heavy encampment on the floor before the fire, I wander back into the kitchen, where the stove is also nominally lit and contributing to the fleeting quantity of indoor heat. I look outside the window into the side yard, where I can see the dim outlines of the woodshed and outhouse, with the truck just out of sight to the right. I look again and can confirm: the snow, for whatever it will be worth, has started. This is indeed a substantial cloud cover, I note, and I can readily imagine waking tomorrow morning to that frost-dominated landscape that does not even offer the mammalian interloper the insulative presence of autumn's fallen leaves. The snow falls simply, and with no great fanfare; there is no world premiere or celebrity opening night. The days have just passed, is all, and this is part of the furnishing. Thinking of what it will be like to return to contention with water's lowest state, I decide to return to the fireplace and watch some more flames, though I still have on my field jacket and heavy socks. It is not so entirely different between inside and out that I can begin to pretend that I can disrepect and ignore the overall context into which I am now placed.
I guess I'm tired this afternoon, which will soon be "tonight", and I do not move with much restlessness in my spot on the living room floor. This could well be a part of the building for spending the night, were it not for the heavy bedding and years of practice that go with using the bed in its lean-to alcove. I feel as if I could be walking around with a touch of cold or sinus symptoms, from all of that "exposure", only this kind of sensation is notorious for being subjective and dependent upon such factors as the quantity of food eaten and caffeine consumed. I suppose I let myself get carried away with moods like this, when the truth is that I am more solidly planted than the assorted ephemeral manifestations that have their time and fade. The totality of even a 70-year-life cannot but contain its share of admirable and edifying detail, much as the ever-advancing mind can characterize it in fewer and fewer elementary identities. I have been tossed here, this stubborn lump, and it is only temporary concessions to vanity and weakness that give those external influences the chance they get to change me for good. It is growing dark, at last, and the view outside the living room picture window reveals that the snow has picked up. Well, then, it's snowing. That has happened before.
Maybe there really would be solace in entering a hideaway so complete in its isolation, embedded as it is on the breast of a very large piece of wilderness. The mood I chase, on and on, is often little more than an absence of strong and driving passion. That nicely "settled" state, in which all is taken care of, is by definition a commodity limited by the hours present in the life of a "professional", but there could be worse sensations to crave, such as the ones that demand excitement and compulsive activity instead. I suppose the case can be made that I'm "letting myself be consumed" by this out-and-out "laziness", were it not for the inherent stability to be found in laying low and conserving strength. One day, such rest might well look--and indeed be--properly justified. Heavily, indeed, do I lay, upon this platform of little height above the accumulated grit of the Cabin compound.
"Bo"
30 November 2002 -- There is but one man here
With the recently-received 6 inches of snow well-retained by some truly cold weather, the scene during the visit today has been the typically "bleak" one that is my emotional reaction to winter. I must now be careful to don sufficient clothing for trips to the outhouse and woodshed, for the snow-surface is soft and shifting, and there is even a certain quantity of the crystalline upper layer that blows about as an augmentation to the wind chill. It is a time when the dynamics of survival are established by one's distance from the stove or the fireplace. There is no more of the generally-accommodating gentility that goes with the other 3 seasons. Meteorological Winter begins tomorrow, and there is certainly the meteorology in place to validate that designation.
I am not entirely sure "why" I've come to this place on this day, except, perhaps, to maintain my squatter's rights in the dream world up here in the hollow. Dreams, of course, have their basis in one's reality, though this form of daydream is more of a deliberate action that may not be what the daydreamer really needs to have. It's here, though--the Cabin stands and it is my place to hang out. I sit for the moment on the armchair before the opened hearth, with its optimal load of split oak and maple from the fellow in the village who drives up the road in his F-350 to supply me. There is the range of the radiance from the visible flame, but I have come to know that the stove is the real workhorse in this operation, with its chimney ducting and cast iron presence being the equivalent of any steam-driven radiator. I suppose I could use kerosene space heaters over by the bed. I will have to think of that, for the drafts that appear in the far corners are ruthless and persistent.
Yes, I would think the entire sportsman's challenge in this scenario is to devise enough ways to keep properly warm. A Cabin should ideally be like the ones in TV commercials and Jack London stories--full of folks ready to welcome the wayward traveller. I, on the other hand, must do these things for myself. One would have to wonder, I suppose, about the whole premise of life alone like this. It is something that does me well; these times to myself. I seem to have enough traffic within the interior of my attention and cognition to put on a show that would be hard to coax from another sovereign soul. I should think it a gift, when a man can occupy himself so completely, and on such a long-term basis. The rolling engine of the internal sympathetic nervous and endocrine outputs often gets its best charge from my own, carefully-planned diversions. They are such accomplishments of monology that the facts of isolation or immersion begin to lose significance.
Thus is the man, who stands in the huge crowd of folks whose own personal channels are unintelligible and intentionally so. I get into their advocated "assignments" on such a regular basis, only it is the talk I have with myself that finally puts a cap on the carefully-gathered expert opinion, offered by those whose obligation or whim this might be. I'm in this room, so completely "cut off", indulging in the fine activity of introspection and self-review. In this case, the critical peer has to be myself, so I must christen assorted authorities into disinterested panels, for the decisions so often needed in a discerned situation. I am of the deluded-yet-nominally useful view that I can regulate my mind by the installation of those puppets; those yes-men, those stooges. When the conviction of self-sufficiency finally arrives, we are then talking about a golden interval that can only be described as "restful". It is sweet, and it is complete.
But why is this kind of revelry of any use in terms of content? I go on talking inwards and outwards at the same time about the findings of my reverie. Oh, it is like an edict from the emperor of a higher realm, to pick up some of those sweet entries to gratifying obsession. The quantity, or property that seems essential is the level of this excitement that has had time to develop; it is a question of one's capability and presence of mind, and these require inspiration. I know that my conclusion always calls for a reunion at some point with the multitudes, and this has to be of the kind where I actually exchange traffic over the real and operational lines of communication that appear. It should of course be better to be the founder of some new thread of good intentions, one that eventually finds its way into the greater fabric that assumes its own potential, based upon the propagated and reinforced virtue that inspiration makes possible.
Yes, I do enjoy my entries to the higher planes, and I rarely have fear of heights or motion sickness in getting there. The questionable becomes the agreeable; everything shines with purpose and potential. Maybe that is not a realistic ambition, since the planes of ordinary human contact tend to have better stability and a minimum of entry requirements. The listener such as myself picks up good material in his lurkings, the stuff of future social maneuvers. All I know is that it is better to develop the delusion of good, as opposed to the fatalism of dismissing everything and everyone as "worthless". I feel the warmth upon the parts of me that are properly situated, though I sit in a full outfit of clothing, so as to beat the drafts. I think I am positing some of my expectations for the next world; that I might have such benevolent and benign recognitions and acceptances. It's just easier that way.
"Bo"
Ahead to December 2002