A 3D 1:48,000 scale model of the Cybercabin Land, Built of 1/8" foam core board and rubber cement, April 2003 April 2004 Cabin Diary |
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6 April 2004 -- An appearance of mud
It has occurred to me that I should not be so burdened by anything--like taking these notes--as to be deterred, for then the burden stops looking like the yoke I'm supposed to assume when I learn from that certain one. It is certainly wet now, and it's April. That much I can set forth without breaking any internal sources of fortitude. I can also reasonably report that the workplace in real life, along with its co-consipirator, the private life, is threatening to drag me under, should I show the slightest sign of asserting that I am, in fact, an agent of my own destiny. Oh, they don't like that, for while it is easy to feel cold one day and wet the next up here in the woods, their model chooses far more advanced psychological subterfuge.
So, that being said, I have not a whole lot going on, at least in my Cabin world, to report upon. The days grow longer, but then we could have expected as much. I know I once went on, about all the twists and turns in the hollow, but I was younger then, too. With the quantity of sunlight that is arriving through the front windows today, things are actually getting a bit on the warm side in here, only it is not hard to reassure one's self that months have not in fact passed without one's knowing it. That, of course, is the entire goal of the employment game. Days become weeks, months and years, and finally, life itself.
The trees are not really far along yet in showing signs of a return to life. I suppose that could be something to look forward to, were I not so unimpressed by the appearance of spring flowers in my own reality state of Virginia. I feel something of a weight from within my cranial extent, as I try to chase off some of this woefulness. "Come on, now," I have to remind myself, "you have, after all, 'made it', by many conventional definitions." It is funny, though, that once a man has "made it", it becomes hard at times to tell just what he has actually "made". I really have been a bunch of times around the months of the seasons now, and you'd think I'd know better.
It is sad, when reality sinks in; that there is no entitlement to release of any kind. Much as the moralists would have you believe that there are "God-given rights", the world has a long record of success in staying ahead of such law. I'm supposed to come up here, even when the mud abounds in amounts that would make a historian of the Eastern Front proud, and see through it all a shining new "explanation", one that finally "frees" me. But then this is just the talk of those Friends of John T. It is hard enough to believe that a human mind works at all, much less that it can be made perfect.
So, then, why don't I just go take a hop into the nearest pile of mud out there, since I'm obviously in the wallowing mood? I guess the existence of the mud is fairly easy to dismiss, when one has a nice, dry shelter, and also one with a fireplace. But there is a difference between formulating a reality in which the mud does not exist and one in which one is grateful that one does not have to sit in it at present. So even a firm knowledge of the underlyings of a situation is not enough, when it becomes impossible to avoid being bothered by it, anyway. It is something, how truth diverges from quality in this way. Yes, I know what is real, don't remind me. It is the act of forming the impression itself, and not its fanciful core subject matter, that seems the greater offense.
"Bo"
19 April 2004 -- Awhile in the watershed
Oh, but it is good to have alternatives, and in particular, a place where you feel at home. Goodness, but these woods are the sincere deal, when city living pounds you through so many strictures. It's growing dark now, though later, of course, on a rather brisk day that still promises the lusher times ahead. That will be when the DEET spray comes out, and all gets into that grubby sweatiness of the long-occupied camp. I'm thinking it's growing time to don my full-leather boots and take another hike, up the ridge. It's just such a horrendous mess out there right now, however. The Cabin is halfway tidy at present, because I've explicitly limited how much clutter I'd bring along in the truck.
I passed over the culverts today, down lower by the river-confluences, and they're riding pretty high. Lots of that liquid was snow, not too long ago, though the recent rains have also added their share. I stop for a moment, as I build a small fire on a chill evening, to give thanks for fresh water that comes without expenditures in energy to "make", as on an oceangoing vessel. It makes a lot of muck, as in getting down to the river's edge behind the back porch, but the willows grow, and above them the aspen and the pine. The rocks lay in their heaps, but even they hold up the soil that can be so precious at altitude. Before long I'll be able to spend time again in the clearing, amid the lichenous rocks. Drainage did not favor that little 20-acre patch, but it gave me a "yard".
I'm feeling a few of those imported "jitters" on this visit, as if the artifact of my earth-bound body is some clunking old contraption that I cannot shed. "Precious temple of my wondrous sentience you are," I say to my 42-year-old physical plant. As humanity rides the one earth throughout emptiness, so does the soul take its precarious seat on its one and only vessel. There should be some sort of billion dollar contest out there, to successfully prosthetize a human brain. That's how to live forever. You'd scoff at the meat-brainers walking around out there, destined for the grave. Of course, you'd still be left wondering how to create more souls; ah, there is the dominion of Mother Nature alone.
That's a bunch of kookiness. I cannot just drop down a chute and really be out here. It takes substantial neurophysiological reserves, to support any of these wayard fantasies. Their lack of direction is an immense dispersion. But I do love the hollow, granted as it has been from the greater public land of the purely imaginary. There is a world down there, of course, of creatures that must carry the same factor of imagination, or the scheme would never work. Where would I get my rations, if not from the general store down on Route 735? I am in no shape to cut a woodshed-ful every year; I'll leave that to the man-jack in the adjoining tract, who looks as if he stepped right out of a Cabela's catalog. I can't be alone in this stunt.
It is definitely growing dark, only in the newness of this annual incarnation-in-part, there are few sounds outside besides the river. I sit in a watershed, and must tread lightly. There must be some Freudian or Jungian symbolism in my dwelling upon water. "Oh, but I don't have to take their words to mean anything", I remind myself. Just look at what "analysis" did to Diane Keaton in all of those Woody Allen movies. The problem, it would seem, is clearly one of substance, and the extensions of form that it will support. There is a moral undercurrent (maybe one of...say...water?) that should be steering me. But the point of these woods is to toss the harsh badges of superior husbandry, and to roam free. I must go get some chow. Even a cyber-camper must stoke his prime mover, from time to time.
"Bo"
Ahead to May 2004
