3 November 1997 -- The snow quietly falls
The snow started about mid-day today, when I was down by the river collecting
water. The sky had become well overcast, and I knew it was cold enough.
The flakes were steady and determined in their approach from the darkening
clouds when I finally poured the last bucket into the tank. This
was a kind of snow I rarely see in real life, in Northern Virginia, where
snow is instead a wet, messy affair and the accumulation does not remain
long...just long enough to cause people trouble and a few accidents.
Out here, there is that soft, muffled silence of snowfall that so many
writers have commented upon. At the office, I can occasionally experience
this quiet by walking to the very back of our paper file repository, where
I become surrounded by a vast volume of sound-deadening material like the
snowfall in the valley. But it feels so stifling and closed in there.
While the snow also restricts one's vision into the distance, it brings
with it a sort of refreshment, as though the air is being scrubbed clean
by the flakes.
It is now dark again, and there are about six inches on the ground and
piled on the rooftop. But I can just stretch out inside the Cabin
tonight and not worry about cleaning off the walkways and digging out the
truck. No one is coming by to slip and file papers of litigation
on account of their injuries. The lamp is burning brightly on its
stand and I have the proper, calculated amount of combustion in the fireplace.
No television reporters talking about what they believe to be the "Blizzard
of '97", warning me that if I do not have to go out, I shouldn't.
Fact is, I don't want to go out anyway.
Snow like this takes me back to my real life youth in Michigan.
Things have not changed a bit since then, at least as far as weather is
concerned. We kids loved it...while Dad did the shovelling.
I open the front door and look out into the darkness; into the clearing...it
is so still. Back down the hill in my real life, things are far from
this. There are great opportunities in continuous change. People
move in their careers. Corporations grow and the economy booms.
Perish the thought of such stagnation! The industrialists picture
the steady state as being a repressive condition; one of asphyxiation.
This, of course, is in their interests.
I go back in and sit on the sofa for awhile, in the yellow kerosene
glow. The best life for me will come, as I have postulated from the
outset, when I can wear the affairs of the world like a loose garment,
while still carrying them faithfully about. Nowhere in the economic
models I have seen do the pundits ever want change to be transformed into
stress. But the snow, when I think of it, is truly a tremendous agent
of change. I should like to handle such overwhelming forces in my
real working life as I do here below the Cabin roof, aware that I can sit
in the midst of it, powerless, yet capable of living it to the extent I
need.
RB
5 November 1997 -- The judicious use of technology
The sun is back out today and it has remained cold enough to keep the
snow, in its well-rounded layer, over everything. I'm glad for my
full-leather boots at this point for getting around outside, not to mention
the snowshoes for further trips. This imaginary adventure has to
be modified somewhat in the winter, I would suppose, for a meager, unplowed
road such as mine is sure to be closed to even the best of 4WD vehicles
with much more snow on the ground than this. Well, the cabinet in
the kitchen has goodly supplies laid in, so I don't have to drive down
for awhile. And my elevation and latitude are not so high that there
doesn't come the occasional thaw to make the road marginally passable.
Right now, it's enough below freezing for the snow to remain crystalline
and blowing across the surface, yet not so cold that it pierces immediately
through my down parka and high-tech poly-pro thermals. It is time
for the sunglasses, when one peers across the extent of hollow--a brilliant
white I have not yet known during the time of the Cabin. Since there
remains a good runoff below the surface up above, the stream still flows
freely, so there's no need to melt snow. But I have now seen the
value of the manner in which the walls, floor, and roof are sealed off
by suitable dead air spaces and modern batting layers from the exposed
boards and sheathing of the outside.
Even the builders of city dwellings have appreciated this layered construction
technique, I think to myself, as I recall my real-life home. Heat
is heat, whether it comes from a burning stack of oak logs or from a CFC
fluid cycle machine such as a heat pump with an auxiliary resistive unit,
hooked to a 220-volt circuit. There are fundamentals to maintaining
life that remain throughout time; it is only the methods to their end that
have varied.
One would wonder why the city needs its complexity in this regard, until
one considers the problems inherent in concentrated settlements, where
the proliferation of horse-drawn conveyance became quickly unworkable in
the early 20th century and smoke from wood heating an analogous diseconomy
of scale in later years. But it is ironic how a person in a large
urban area can still feel disinclined to venture far, in view of such matters
as traffic congestion. Life does become simpler, no matter where,
when one can postpone or avoid dealing in person with the external world.
Since the Cabin does not have the outlets of information that are in
my city home, however, I cannot deny what's "out there" as readily.
Since it is so much quieter, and with fewer distractions from within, I
can see the forces of the snow and wind and cold as more relevant, even
with my suitable enclosures. I am drawn more often to the outside,
no matter how cold, because it seems more a part of the total Cabin experience.
RB
10 November 1997 -- Walking the solitary road
Matters in real life have made it hard to get here for several days.
It has warmed appreciably and most of the snow has melted and run down
the river. Thus, it is a soggy mess, all about, although I am well
aware that winter for real is fast approaching. There is that November
grayness out there, which is even noticeable in the city, as it prepares
to gear fully into the Holidays.
The Holidays! There, itself, is a storm of major proportions,
looming in its annual certainty immediately over the horizon. You
know it's coming. Time to make those lists and get to the stores
early. But I guess it's too easy to bash the obvious commercial component
of this time of year. I sigh for a moment as I walk about the main
room. No electric outlet here to put up a tree...I'll just have to
settle for the live evergreens outside.
I think at times of how it is to have become so cynical and blasé
about this Holiday business. Back in real life, I'll hop on the plane
in December and be around all that "family", looking at them enjoying the
simple matter of "togetherness". It seemed a bit easier to fall into
the spirit when I was a child. Not much work there...just be a kid.
I reflect on the truth in Christ's statement that only those with hearts
such as theirs have much of a chance in the Kingdom. But the world
really would not have me remain a kid in most ways and still become as
old as I am now. According to the grand design, I was supposed to
have formed a family of my own by now, so I'd have a convenient reminder
at hand of how it is to live so joyfully.
I don't know. Maybe I'm doing well, not having that distraction,
since I address more often the real issues of what this life is and where
it should be headed. I guess we're talking Frost's "Road
Not Taken" now. But was there a good reason that so many had
avoided the road with fewer footprints? Was it sheer vanity and convenience
that made the rest follow the wider track? I would spend more time
down the hill, in the main of human society, if I knew why so many choose
the path of time-tested sociability. It always seems like such a
struggle, though.
I can enjoy sitting by myself, free of what only look like constraining
obligations, while others accept the obligations gladly because they're
onto something I've missed; the consolation that is a pearl of great price;
this being in contact with one another. I go over and sit on the
bed and ponder...and then pray. Yes, I have a friend in Jesus.
But he's also here on earth, to be known in the love of neighbor.
One day, maybe, he'll reveal himself to me there as he has to others.
I fall back on the bed and look up at the ceiling rafters.
RB
13 November 1997 -- Voices arising from the silence
It seems like another good day for remaining inside, since the cold
has returned. The silence, except for the wind and the trees overhead,
is worth enjoying for awhile. Back in real life, I had been getting
so cynically dismayed by my job and attendant way of life that I started
to want a way out of my line of work altogether. But there is such
social acceptability in continuing in the routine I know. I can pay
my bills, even if some of them are spurious because I'm forced to live
in the city. I don't pay to park my truck out here like in a parking
garage.
There it is again, the silence. It always amazes me how many pushed-aside
thoughts come back to the forefront when I free myself from the typical
barrage of distraction. This is a valuable exercise; letting long-neglected
thought return by dropping everything. In the frame of mind I have
at the Cabin, there are fewer things to drop. However the result
is achieved, when I reach the ground state of bare necessities, I see my
real problems as few and easily handled. I begin to wonder at that
point why I then need to cloud my pathway to those simple, necessary achievements
with so much pointless pursuit.
Maybe there is genuine and unlivable hurt that would return to the forefront
as well if I stayed this way long enough, and I keep at large numbers of
frivolous extra activities in a defense against something unspoken that
I'd rather not consider. I now enter into a most foreboding subject,
that of unconscious thought. Control of these key processes would
remove so many obstacles to authentic living, but they are by their nature
not subject to direct, willful control. So the best I can do is improve
my surroundings and appease the unconscious with environmental cues.
I have observed the effectiveness of this practice in real life when
travelling, and come here to the Cabin in an attempt to achieve the same
results by the power of suggestion, even though I must still live within
the world that has brought me to such an overwrought condition. Oh,
but it is hard to drop everything and just sit in the silence! The
fretting routine seems so vital. It is a case, again, of constant
vigilance, not unlike the Cold War arms race or the practice of maintaining
large standing armies.
This line of thought takes me to Orwell's 1984,
in which the State knows it retains its power best with continual war and
wartime economic practices. "War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance
is strength." But do I really need continual agitation and annoyance
simply on account of a regime of thought that seeks nothing more than to
maintain its power, even at the expense of not attending to First Things
First? It must indeed be powerful, to have put down the revolt of
common sense for so long.
RB
17 November 1997 -- Stepping out to appreciate the
morning
It has been quite cold for a number of days now, yet the sun returned
this morning, so I decide to bundle up and head up the ridge a ways on
the trail. It is another of those crisp, still dawns when I step
out after a breakfast of oatmeal with maple syrup and walnuts. With
a cup of coffee heated so close to boiling as to alarm the entire in-house
law department at McDonald's, I stand, one mittened hand braced against
a porch timber, to see the sun appear over the crest. Looking away
from the stark brilliance that suddenly dominates the clear sky, I hurry
to attend to my cup, which is rapidly losing its heat.
In city living, I do not often get to pause for such a cup of coffee,
which I instead drink down as fast as I can, so that I can be back to my
narrowly-focused work. I set the mug back inside the door and start
out the hard-frozen path, with its layer of fallen leaves under the last,
re-frozen crust of remaining snow. It crunches under my boots, the
snow and the leaves, and I am careful for my footing, as I step among the
rocks. When I think of it, this path really isn't much of a "trail";
it's just the way a sensible person might "bushwhack" his way up the hill
with no trail at all.
I make note of my carefully placed rock-cairns; which I prefer to the
stark blue and white paint-blazes at Shenandoah
National Park. There are no mischievous ones here to scatter
them. It is a bit harder now to get lost in these woods, with the
trees having lost their foliage, but the slope of the ridge is always a
help in navigating. I pause when I'm high enough to see well over
the small ridge on the other side of the stream, with the Cabin nestled
in below. It is still morning, and quite cold, but the climb has
warmed me enough so that I have unzipped my parka.
This kind of walk makes a person keenly aware of the limitations of
the human body. There is no vehicle to hurriedly jump into in business
clothing and begin running. I must create my own heat, and not rely
upon that which is given off by the internal combustion of such a machine.
After looking about for a moment, I feel the cold return and close my hood
back up.
I think back for a moment to dawns like this in real life, looking out
the window at work. There, I have but the
briefest of opportunity even to consider the sun, preferring instead to
see what new material is on my computer and look over what has accumulated
overnight in my in-box. Rather than the vigorous hike I have had
to reach this point above the hollow, I have driven through endless traffic
and traffic signals, giving my nervous system the load instead. The
sun is the same in both settings, however, and it rises from the same compass
bearing at every given latitude on a given day. No matter what humans
might build upon the earth, its geometry is extremely hard to alter on
such a scale. There are limits, I see, as to how the city can influence
me with its surroundings.
RB
20 November 1997 -- Weakened from following the
easy road
I am thinking today, as I sit in my created world, a little more about
how material society has entrapped me. This is difficult, for I know
that the current popular trends in bucking political correctness will oppose
all notions of victimization, and I make a rather poor victim at that,
since I belong to all the wrong groups. Who are the ones who really
can "cash out" and break free to come live like this? Those enlightened
ones who have resolutely practiced to win the rat race, of course.
Not this person here, though. I drive the wheels of their profitable
industries by consuming. And thus, with means fully squandered, I
can only sit and dream of "real living". Would it be hard, back there
in real life, to simplify as I advocate here? Probably. The
goods are just in my face too often, and my will is too weak. And
the fact is, I am a rather frail being, made soft and dependent by too
many years of living within the network of specialized workers in the city
who can stave off my every threat.
I return to the couch again, with its rough muslin slipcover and generous
throw pillows, and stretch out, as the typical soft person will when given
a chance. Out the window, I see the clouds begin to build once again,
although it hasn't been as cold lately. Maybe a front is approaching
and I should prepare for some real snowfall. It is quiet, as usual,
with only the sounds from the fire and the wind outside on the Cabin frame.
Here, of course, I'm not putting in my proper effort towards earning a
cash income. Those with "financial independence" can leave their
money in their little funds and securities and let it endure what they're
able to escape. I realize I'm giving in to the demagoguery of class
warfare, thinking like that.
I contemplate for a moment that the typical person you'd find living
like this, up until recent times, was working very hard indeed, and not
living off interest, on account of having no savings. The ones who
are left today probably laugh at the ex city-dwellers who come to set up
romantic Edens within a place they see in a much harder and demanding light.
Talk like mine must smack of inherent naïvete.
So then, I am facing a need to "bloom where I am planted". I could
not truly live in a place like this without hypocrisy. Since my real-life
studies brought me to have industrial skills, the city is where I need
to be. This cannot be changed. It may just be cynical fatalism
for the moment that causes my weakness and sensitivity to surroundings
there. And the weak...well, those with direction and entrepreneurial
zeal can find them very useful stepping stones. Despite the management
gurus and their notions of "empowerment", it is still a zero sum game,
and I feel the tread of those mightier shoes.
RB
24 November 1997 -- Commitment to a single place
and way
Yesterday, the 23rd, it finally finished snowing, and it was a hard,
steady snow in just the conditions for buildup and considerable drifting.
Now that cold is here to stay, so will be the groundcover. After
the sun returned this morning, I had to clear once again the doorstep and
the various vital areas outside. The drifts kept piling back against
the wooden front door panel, and footsteps from mere hours earlier would
steadily erode until it almost appeared I was not there, save for the lamp's
glow through the windows, these having their own little buildups of snow
in their corners. And in such a routine, shall I "winter" at the
Cabin.
I remember this from tales of the American frontier, where parties would
have to decide, with great care, how they would live out this time.
Since they knew that they would once again have greater mobility when more
"favorable" weather returned, they did not pass into a frenzy of fatalism.
If these souls were to say "woe is me," then it would certainly be the
truth!
I am seeking something of the stoic heroism that the various people
of those times knew when they faced the adversity of winter. They
would not have immediate rescue as I do here, where I can simply close
the book and stop thinking this way. They were committed to
the environment they had entered. I hear that so many modern Americans
fear commitment, yet this was the way of holding one's own and moving on
to new places throughout the early years. It is noble indeed when
a person can take a situation for every last thing it has to offer, and
not shrink back.
Maybe it is the way I have become conditioned by this Information Age,
I think to myself, as I start wondering where that spirit has gone in me.
Don't like the show? Change the channel. I sit by the table
near the kitchen, on the long bench, looking at the single space that is
enclosed here. This is it. No more scenes to view than the
one before me now. Of course, that is not really the case, for I
can dismiss this experience until the next update and forget all about
it. But since my goal is to carry continuity with me after I take
my mind from this singular setting today, I try my best to accept that
there is a single pathway in which my best serenity flows.
It is quiet here, especially with the new snow. I try to smooth
the tendencies to impulsive action; reflexive avoidance, that seem so much
my way lately down there in the real world. There is a longer, more
permanent settlement that is my home, despite my continual earthly laments
as one who left boyhood surroundings to come work in a city that could
do no more than give him a job and a nominal start on a secondary settlement.
RB
27 November 1997 -- Yearning to give
real thanks
I'm propped up on my bed in the back alcove, again within that glow
of the kerosene lamp hanging overhead, and the fire is built to just the
size that will heat the Cabin. This is my first winter here, so I
would hope the woodshed is well enough stocked to avoid emergency trips
with the back of the truck loaded with more fuel from the town below.
Back there in town, they now declare the Christmas season to be open
without question, since the feast of Thanksgiving is now over. I
think back to this strange holiday from when I was young...usually driving
somewhere like my Grandma's house, and sitting wherever possible to eat
dinner. I would wonder if the original Puritan settlers would approve
of some of our modern-day gluttony in their name. But since I still
love the Lord, I cannot immediately discount those who would offer thanks,
even if the opportunity also arises to satisfy many earthly desires from
the table.
Here today, I simply prepared my ordinary fare, from the more limited
supply base of non-perishables in the kitchen pantry. People in real
life wonder why it is that I cannot simply step into their millieu and
enjoy the alleged good life, one in which the Holidays are embraced in
the fullness of their Tradition and sentimentality is allowed to reign,
for its own sake. This makes me think that I must have severely disabled
free will, if others can think their way free of the imprisonment of isolation.
When the day comes (if ever) that I do walk in such a light, I am sure
I will think very dimly upon these times when I thought it proper to run
off into seclusion and shun the unquestioned acceptance of standard human
procedure.
I realize now that this becomes a matter of viewpoint and perspective.
From my current vantage point, I must question the matter-of-course frivolity
that is so readily consumed by the general public. But I would think
that it must be very enjoyable frivolity, once the viewpoint changes to
the culturally-accepted one. I can identify, then, the central problem.
The behavior they enjoy is not a hard matter to accomplish. In that
regard, those having concern are correct. But changing my attitude
to find it enjoyable and practice it routinely and without great conscious
effort is another process altogether.
I roll over and sink into the comforter cover, realizing it's time to
go to bed. This is the time I seem to have greatest contact with
God, who becomes so real to me that I know I must continue at trying to
appreciate, and one day embrace, the more prevalent dispositions of those
others who are indeed my brothers and sisters through him. There
is the substance of my thanks--that I am similar in creation and potential
to others who know true joy while living as part of the setting
with others that I find so often distasteful and distressing.
RB
Ahead to December 1997
