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 Mailing address: bo@bo-hemian.com |
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4 June 1998 -- Looking myself over
It is such an act of deliberate effort, when I make myself settle down from the non-stop action of my real life and assume one of the places of rest up here at the Cabin. As I slow from looking only at the next job and the ones in the immediate offing, I have a chance to look at myself, asking "what sort of life is this, anyway?" The enlightened, self-respecting "normal" ones out there do not ask this, for they seek a good life first, before chasing after some of the things I do. They take it as a platitude that no one on the death bed would have spent more time at the office, but I might see this as regretful, since there is always so much left undone there. Some of the things they would have done have been kept from relevance in my life, since I have had no family and do not seem to fare as well with friends.
It is late day, and the sun is heading towards the lower hilltops. There is no grand and gala social gathering here...just a tired man, building enough fire in the stove to heat an evening's meal. It is easy, when society seems such a challenge, to beat up on my own humanity as well. It appears a burden at times; a strange load I was given to drag around the earth for 70 years, or 80 if I'm strong. But if I were truly satisfied being alone, then I would not have such regrets, watching the ones who gain strength from society and thus enjoy the privileges that come from solid membership.
I make my attempts at "getting out there," yes. But they just seem like so much more work, and generally end up feeling fruitless. I put myself into society and say "this isn't working...time to cut my losses". I realize the strength and chance for reorganization I can get from being alone. It is just the low quality of internal dialogue at those times that must leave me so ill-prepared to face the masses once again.
I put the cast iron pot of canned goods on to simmer. Just enough in there for one. I try to comprehend what a blessing it is to be walking around on these floor planks, with no great pain or affliction of body. I can still come back to respectable living, and in dignity, without much trouble. I am only 36; I am not too far gone. People can and do begin whole new lives at this age. Why, some of them even do things like go back to school, which has no place in my life since it's hard enough just getting my job and household chores done.
I find myself beginning to live a little closer to the moment, as I sense the amount of life I have left. I attempt to distance myself from such riveting concern over the various distractions in my real life that keep me from appreciating the simple and wondrous beauty of life itself. I pour the grub into my earthenware bowl and have a seat on the table bench. "Yes, Lord, you do give me enough to stay alive, day by day," goes the Grace, "and I am thankful that I need not know the approaches of death today, for I have seen what I might be, another day."
RB
8 June 1998 -- Watching the growth
The scenery outside the Cabin has progressed into a variety of distinctive hues, saturations, and values of green, in the trees and brush that continue to grow at various rates in the warmth of the impending summer season. I get a certain satisfaction, just walking out to one of the boundaries where the canopy begins and studying how the tree branches develop. First is the new-growth tip, the very definition of growth itself, suspended and ultimately held aloft by the branch-wood that had its own turn, seasons ago, at being the extremity.
The green leaves would not have the opportunity to occupy their space without the cooperation of the ever-more laboring branches, which almost appear to have understanding of what it is they are working to support. It is understood that given the chance to be leaf one year means twig the next and branch after that. This, of course, could bear the almost-trite analogy to human society members and family trees, were it not a single organism, whose assorted components advance in this way. The immediate and exclusive dependency of one leaf on just one branch defies direct comparison to human groupings, where responsibility is shared among so many for those just starting out. The network of human dependency is far more complex than this simple, hierarchical structure.
I spend some time looking at the advancing branch, where still more leaves are emerging. Perhaps I am, instead, to see in this a model for just myself. Like any person, I will not maintain strength and vitality for long without continuing to grow further outward. Immediately to mind comes the Parable of the Vine and the Branches. I think of the distance I have come in life; how far grown-out from that first moment of sprouting forth, with the master Vine ever behind me. But I also think of how begrudgingly I have put the majority of this growth into place; how perceived cruelty and inhospitable conditions have made me wish to stop so often.
I think for a moment of those gnarled, barely-alive trees I saw when I went to the summit on the ridge last month. I imagine the tenacity they must have to live up there, compared to here below, in the shelter of the hollow. Having had an admittedly "soft" life in the US, perhaps I am too accustomed to the finery of surroundings that those in other lands would have, if they could. Yes, I take it all for granted; my "problems" are not problems at all. Or so might think the provisioners of splendor who continue to sell to me, comforting themselves (while building their net worth) in the thought that my standard of living is going ever upwards. But man does not live by bread alone, I remind myself.
How it is that I yearn for a life in which I could really just stand in awe of a simple, outward-thrusting tree branch! But no. I shall grow old. The stock market's growth should be on my mind instead. My household, too, requires a constant influx of things, to replace the ones that no longer function. We therefore see two decidedly different forms of "enterprise"; the first, which becomes edified by its accomplishment and builds upon it, and the second, which is merely a process where new becomes old; useful becomes useless.
RB
12 June 1998 -- Appreciating "nothing to do"
Escaping the maddening rush down there in the city and sitting still out here, I practice again what is difficult for me: doing nothing. My tendency to work more than I should at things, in the world of the office, must arise because of this underlying unrest; a dissatisfaction when I'm not moving along on something. Yes, I'm a workaholic, or perhaps just an activity-addict, for I would be in better economic conditions still, if everything I did out of restlessness were real, paying work. What I seem to be after is that activity that will absorb my mind completely and not let it wander into places I don't like it to.
For many, the chance to be out in these mountains, walking along the path or carrying wood, might truly absorb them that way. Their sensations are readily tuned in that direction, while mine are aligned in the ways of mind-activity. Maybe it's time to trot out the old "left brain / right brain" model. Maybe I'm admitting to being a "Type 'A'", or one of the other fad explanations I have seen in my years. I try my hardest these days to get absorption of thought in activity that does not belong to one of the classical stress factors. The completest victory would be if I ever got the "high" out of physical exertion that all the exercise advocates speak of. There is certainly my share of physical exertion here at the Cabin, in going through chores that are replaced by industrial, paid-for processes back in the city. But to sit down on the front porch, this warm, hazy day near Summer Solstice, occupying my mind with the stimuli of pure environment and nothing else--that is indeed difficult.
In the days before electronic media distractions, people must have had a lot more practice at finding such contentment. Their scene, all about, like the rocks in the clearing and the green tree-carpet extending up the sides of the ridge, did not change from day to day, and barely from season to season. They did not clamor for the new and more exciting, for they could not imagine it. They knew what there was and had a sense of completion, harboring few resentments about their place within their world.
It is truly hard in 1998 to imagine that life; where the conditions in which one died barely differed from those in which one was born. To think of the change that has come my way since 1962! And not even half way through the typical lifespan. Back down the hill, I live in a condition where many facts of life, such as data processing power, maintain exponential growth, and with very short doubling times, in human terms. Who can possibly participate in work related to such industries and have any chance of sitting still, looking at the sides of a mountain? But that is just how I must be, out here at the Cabin.
I listen to the choruses of the crickets and cicadas out in the clearing, and faintly hear the river continue to flow behind the building. It will be some time before these things can occupy me well. So much more powerful as a stimulant can be the track of a television program or the data download sequence of a newsgroup read, chat transcript, or web traversal. One day, yes, I will be able to direct the inner workings of my own mind without it being attached all the time to an external source such as that. It will then be fully at rest in settings of so little commotion as up here in the hollow.
RB
16 June 1998 -- Keeping step to the beat
The routine of my real city life rolls along, almost with the strident tempo of martial music; like one of Sousa's proud compositions. Society at large has inducted me, yes, even though the US Selective Service sent me a very nice letter at the age of 26, telling me I was too old to continue deterring aggression by my listing. This is hardly a campaign of valor, though I have my very life at indirect risk on account of stress. Thoreau might tell me I hear a "different drummer" out here at the Cabin, even if there is nothing closer to regularity in sound than the continuing flow of the river in the distance.
I spend some time today, sitting cross-legged in the matted grass of the clearing, attempting relaxation. But the cadence of the city leaves a long-standing memory in my mind, and even if my career is one of indistinction, I cannot think long of walking far from it. Even with no clearly-stated mission, I am well-indoctrinated and know where my position is.
With the summer breeze blowing past, I fight the urge to head back down the dirt road and join the fray once again. There are many who would hear in such words a man seeking to be a "victim", and that is the lowliest of coward in the New Order of self-sufficiency. No matter what true disability might be more than I can change, they will simply accuse me of moral failing and tell me to get back up to the Line, wherever that is. Oh, the distaste I have, for those who force personal oversimplifications upon others whose contexts in life may not support the same neat answers to everything! One size does not fit all in most of these attempts at cheap and dirty fixes to practical problems. Maybe there are sublime and removed realms in which single truths indeed prevail and there is no avoiding the consequences. But these are not the places where I suffer.
I roll over on the grass and stretch out, back to the sky, after I notice my left foot starting to go to sleep. I hear the great, continued performance of the band, off in the distance. My unit is getting too far ahead of me, since I've been here today! One man, alone, I will not be party to their support, and the elements will soon consume me. I am trained to perform in that one particular role. There is no stepping away. I am bound by duty and honor to stay with them. But how bound am I, really? This is such a land of freedom, I would think that I could "drop out and turn on" whenever I wanted. But somehow I don't think that would work.
The same deficits that keep me from the fullness of life while I work within the camp of orthodoxy would be with me if I attempted "liberation" and ran off to some life I thought was "better". Before long, I'd be standing in complete squalor, lamenting--"my God, what have I done?" Perhaps I am guilty of forcing an oversimplification upon myself by blaming urban society and the fast-lane life for my lackluster spirit. It cannot be so simple. Those rousing measures of the march, in 2 - 4 time, are indeed played to the beat of "my drummer". And the corps? It will be there, when I'm ready to return, for it is formed of men like me.
RB
20 June 1998 -- An oppressive environment
It has finally become certifiably hot out here, and every spot where water or mud had stood in anything less than a sizable puddle is now but a dusty depression in the ground. Tomorrow is Summer Solstice, at 2:03 PM UTC, and at the height of local noon today, the sun bears down upon me, as I move from one refuge of shade to another. Every so often, I must pour water over myself and try to catch the breeze. This is easier, down by the willows and the river bottom.
Just upstream of the Cabin, there happens to be a series of falls. Not immense, crowd-gathering Falls, which would make people park their cars and walk out a long trail, but enough to raise a good bit of cooling mist and afford a place to perch on the nearby rocks. I have taken that short hike up the river a time or two already today, but find it sufficiently bearable at the moment just to move the porch chair inside of the short shadow of the Cabin, next to the fieldstone chimney. The brightness of this sun reminds me of when all was snowed over in the winter, but its more severe angle of attack and the ambient heat create an entirely different overall effect. These conditions just make a man want to sit in place and slow himself down.
In my city life, where such is not possible, there is of course universally-available air conditioning. I'm looking over to where I've parked the truck, partially in the shade of the great conifer stand near the outhouse and woodshed. I could always idle the engine and run the A/C in there. But that would soon get frustrating; worse than being shut inside the Cabin when the cold and snow were present. I spend enough time in city traffic, pent up that way in that little cab, crawling through the gridlock. These surroundings, in contrast, are an outdoor setting which does not seem like a no-person's-land of common space in which many others contend and need to get past.
I just like to be in an outside environment that is as comfortable as my highly-maintained indoor settings in real life. Now when it's this hot, that is not always easy, but at least there is space, all about, where the others are not there to tender their reactions to my mere presence. Maybe I just need to "get out there", among the crowd, and learn not to be bothered by them. This seems how people generally get along. They learn to shrug off the affrontery of others. These are the ones that succeed, but I wonder for the life of me how they also seem to have, at the same time, such close interpersonal relationships with others. How is it possible for them to walk about, immune to the effect of so many others in their midst, yet turn off the defense, at will, when they need to? Is that kind of selective callousness a skill I really want to learn?
For now, I like it here in an exterior environment where I don't have to look behind me at every moment and walk in heightened apprehension, fearing that I shall be under unexpected personal assault. I lean back in the creaking chair, my head lightly rested upon the stained clapboard wall behind me, as the sun bears down. Though it is hot today, the sun is in no frantic hurry to chart an unintended crash course in my direction. The shadow has inched towards the building in the time I have been seated. It is time to move the chair back to the porch now, or maybe take another trip to the falls.
RB
24 June 1998 -- The rules of freedom
The final evidence of the sun, having set at its late hour, has gone from the sky and the relief of the evening's cool has come upon the clearing, which rings forth with its background of cricket sound. One has to listen closely at this time of day to hear the river flowing as well. As I sit on the porch, I hear the owls, off in the trees up the ridge.
When the cool has finally found its way indoors, I step inside, to the kerosene lamp's glow, and drop myself onto the sofa. A soft breeze passes through the Cabin; in the front window and out the back. With my eyes adjusted to the lamp, the scene looks dark and featureless outside the screens. Yes, this takes me back, a lot of years, such life. I recall camping expeditions as a kid, or visiting relatives on my father's side, who lived in the country and did not have as many TVs per resident as I do in the city. Issues were plain and ever before me. Hard truths of survival in a society and an economy were not mine to be understood or wrestled with, though they were certainly just as hard then as today.
I simply enjoy sitting inside this pine-paneled room, with just the lamp, since it isn't cold enough for a fire, with the relatively-low sounds coming in from outside. It is so well-balanced, and has no hidden trajectories of sudden action to be endured or taken. I wonder, though, if I really could stand living as a dependent child once again, after having tasted such immense "freedom" as I have now. I certainly wasn't the one who ever drove to a campground or picked out a site. I never decided what summer week we might drive Up North.
I begin to realize the latitude for improvement the "freedom" inherent in my real life gives me. I let most of it go right to waste. I should have more quiet moments of contemplation where I start to plan better use of my potential. There are so few ironclad regulations in my life down the hill that really keep me in that track of pent-up futility; of "quiet desperation". No one ever makes me turn on the television and spend hours perusing online content, whereas when it was time to leave and go back downstate in the old Michigan days, there was no question. It was time to go.
I should like to become a person skilled in the Laws pertaining to the way I must live with others and make a living, so that I might prosecute my own case with the best of personal interests in mind. I reach over to pick up my Bible, knowing there are answers to my "legal troubles" there. I read Paul, addressing the Philippians, reminding them that he stands in chains to advance the gospel. There was a man who knew many constraints, yet had joy. Perhaps that is my answer. City life, though it takes its toll, is life that has direction, as I work my job and contribute; as I press towards the mark. Given responsibility, since I have grown, I must be responsible. But somewhere in there, I should be able to find the peace that transcends all understanding, just as the quiet out here transcends anything that might be on the tube this evening.
RB
28 June 1998 -- The mystery of the "normal"
The clouds began arriving 2 days ago, and now, in the middle of the day, there is something of a summer rain. It is not the fearful late-afternoon squall that follows a hot day in the sun; no violent atmospheric reaction. This appears to be rain for the purpose of rain. The known leak I have over the living room, where the kitchen wing roof joins the main roof, has not admitted any water with these slight events; it appears to require a standing head of water over the crack. But I remind myself that I need to call out the gentleman from town before such torrents reoccur.
It is almost as if I am ashamed to have another person out here; to see "how I live", even though I share considerable detail in this Diary. Yes, my dysfunction in "socialization" is immediately apparent, and I begin resenting again whatever the obstacles were that kept me from living as a fully-"normal" person. It admittedly taxes my patience at times, to spend so many hours indoors up here. But then I think to my long history of failure, down the hill in real life, trying to gain admittance to the accepted mass society. After such humiliation, I sadly must settle for the safer course of not bothering to try today.
Walking about in their numbers, even if I do not attempt a "play" of my own, can be so discouraging. They all gravitate without effort towards romance, for example, and are able to complete transactions with one another to that end. But although I am outfitted with as much emotional capability and endocrinology as any of them, I am ruled out as a clueless wannabe, almost at the start, not worth serious consideration.
It would all be well with me if I heard a grand pronouncement from reliable authority such as, maybe, the perceived will of God, telling me it is not my destiny. This would explain why I am how I am. But no. What I hear instead is that I am not trying hard enough; that I must take a few more beatings. This mismatch of personal attributes is nothing less than a curse, I finally decide, or at least an instance of "when bad things happen to good people," since so many (other than myself) have witnessed me to be "good".
I watch the rain drip slowly from the eaves. Down by the highway's culvert-crossing, where my road splits off, the "normal" families in the village must be living with all these wet conditions, too. The kids are admonished to stay indoors, since there is so much mud all about. Off on summer vacation, they could be driving their parents up the wall by now. Yes, that is the cost of "socialization". Rather severe and relentless unpleasantness accompanies the compensatingly-intense pleasure of finding a mate and settling into a dwelling not intended for one man alone.
In my years of living among the "normal" (but not fully with them), I have grown to appreciate why they do the things they do. But until I can become brave enough to learn how, a process they apparently absorb from not shying away and taking their full measure of pain, I will continue to want to split off from their company after I've had my envious fill of observing them. Thus, as distant as this Cabin dwelling is from any chance at picking up the common sense of common living, it seems at many times my preference to enduring less-than-fulfilled life among my so-called "peers".
RB
