|
|
 Mailing address: bo@bo-hemian.com |
|
|
|
4 October 1998 -- Not watching the game
It is gray again outside today, and considerably colder. I decide to stay indoors and burn a respectable fire, as might a suburbanite, while watching the NFL on television in his family room. I was never inclined to acquire a real appreciation of that sport, so I don't miss it. There are just the flames to watch, not as a subsidiary decoration but as the main attraction, and the source of my only heat. Out the back windows, I see the falling leaves, being driven along by a wind that now has the power to pierce the outerwear of those not deliberately attired. The insulation in my walls keeps in some of the heat, but this is no drum-tight dwelling, so drafts can and do occur. This would have little appeal as a get-away for those who must carry along all of their creature comforts. Realizing how cold it can get when the fire is not alive and providing as it should, I do not take the shelter of the Cabin for granted.
For a moment, I imagine the way life had to have been in those 19th century frontier homes, whose occupants must certainly have had greater cause for daily thanks. They could offer sincere praise to God, for simple things like a place to avoid exposure or frostbite. "Middle class" American life in a metropolis, in contrast, stays one's mind on the pursuit of loftier provisions. Football, after all, would not be football without the big screen and home theatre sound system. The well-appointed home of the 90's has a fireplace downstairs in the family room and a second one in the living room, with all the fine brass and crystal accessories, to create that perfect effect when guests call or when the Christmas tree is parked for its 4-week showing.
I am glad that I do not need to create an environment for the pleasure of guests, here in this pine-panelled living room and bedroom. It need only keep out the cold and allow me to feel as I want to feel, during these retreats up the long dirt track from town. Maintaining such an outpost, rather than having one of those showplace homes, is perhaps a selfish ambition, but I do not glean much satisfaction from riding the crest of commotion found at the typical social gathering. It is an ongoing curiosity to me that the others out there enjoy all that uncertain clamor as much as they do.
I sit in my cherrywood rocker, set on the rug in front of the crackling hearth, and try to account for such a difference in disposition. It must involve the well-recognized split between introversion and extroversion as a source of strength. But there are too many introverts who still pursue those hectic gatherings. I cannot explain it that easily. I find it hard to believe that they are all denying their underlying nature. No protocol of socialization can be that effective. The ordinary "normal" person, as a rule, must simply be more willing to take a beating from social interaction, since it is a fact of life. Whether it hurts or not, they have to go along with the only game there is. And so, they are able as men, to identify with and find commonality in such odd exhibitions as football. As women, they share in corresponding, common distractions. I look at myself, as I rock in the chair by the fire--yes, I am a man! I should be getting with the game. I suppose I will, at a later time. But today, I shall sit awhile longer up here, pondering my own simpler competition against those elements outside my door.
RB
8 October 1998 -- Attending to duties, while indoors
The lingering clouds are parked overhead today, and this time with a cold rain that is sure to drive even more leaves from the trees, who "know" their time has come. Thus, I have stayed indoors again since the murky dawn, having arrived last night in similar conditions. I made my way quickly inside, to find some heat that lasts longer than the running of the truck engine.
Conditions down there in my real life job were really piling up; it was time to get away to myself again. As I have said, I'm not a "people person", even though I am undeniably one of them. It takes a different form of mental discipline to sit here for long hours, with nothing in particular to do except tend the fireplace. I wish I could be like the ones who can "relax on demand". It seems to take a long time to ramp down from the built-up inertia of continual activity. I have spent some time today here and there, when I could sit no longer, straightening out and cleaning up. It can almost become the compulsion of professional work itself, maintaining my facility up here.
It is amazing, what a person notices, when the other attractions of life in the information age are removed. Dust gathers and the windows continue to need cleaning. I suspect those jobs also need doing again in my city home, but there is too much going on there; too many plans. I'm waiting for the sun to return, so that I can wash laundry in the big galvanized general-duty tub back in the corner, since it ideally hangs on the line between the back porch and the woodshed. When the weather becomes too cold and icy for that, it'll simply have to dry indoors, somewhere near the cast iron kitchen stove and the hearth, filling up the limited space I have.
But even with the time I can sink into chores like this, it does not compare to the ongoing distractions and unexpected new crises of city living and working. The momentum of activity there is such that one job seems to blend into the next. I arrive in the morning and do what seems like one enormous task until it is time to go home, nine hours later.
I take a look outside this afternoon, where the steady autumn rain continues. This is not the rain of spring, that encourages new growth. Across the clearing I see the varied orange, red, and yellow, extending up to the ridge. Here is a scene that people go out of their way just to see on their East Coast tours. These colors, of course, are highly dulled for the moment by the dense cloud cover. The "business" of this year's growing season is coming to a close, here and elsewhere. It is time to make final preparations for the restrictions of winter, when outdoor activity is not lightly undertaken.
Back in that Office-life down there, the nearly-seamless heating from one place to the next suppresses the effects of this time and the changes in activity that they once required. In the tropics and sub-tropics, of course, people have year-round warmth, but then their way of life is more relaxed and sensible in many ways than the ceaseless activity of those of us in the Industrial North. But as I like to say, "it isn't that simple"--so many of those lands are also marked by poverty, hunger, and substandard living conditions. There is no easy discernment and classification of what is good and what is not. The pursuit of such wisdom, after all, caused Man's fall within the lushness of the Garden. With a sigh, I conclude that there is a place for all things, and for all conditions.
RB
13 October 1998 -- Stopping at last to listen
The once-green foliage of the woods continues to fade into the memory of Summer 1998, as the leaves pile deeper into the undergrowth. The vermilion-stained clapboard siding of the Cabin now returns to its position of front-line prominence. No longer is it a mere formality, to have the roof over my head at night, as it was when I could have slept under the stars if I had wanted to.
I step inside the front door this afternoon with the last load of firewood for the bin between the stove and the hearth and drop it on the pile. It is starting to grow dark already, so I light up the living room kerosene lamp and place it on its stand. It has been non-stop excitement, agitation and over-activity down there in the city, where I live my other life. I know it is time to be in this quiet place again, for a chance at uninterrupted rest. It is sometimes a difficult and anti-climactic experience to put a damper on a long period of fever-pitch commotion, but experience tells me that I cannot keep it up for long without suffering a less controlled, more precipitous halt, and right in the middle of action.
I go over the chores list again: I have hauled up enough water from the river today to top off the 55-gallon lined steel cistern drum and I have just now filled the firewood bin. Grocery stocks are sufficient. I should be free of the need to be looking for more to do. But that is not how I tend to see things. Inactivity always looks like a wasteful time, when something--anything--should be happening. What is this odd drive; this "internal voice", telling me to worry without ceasing about jobs for tomorrow that look like they need doing today? Maybe it is a form of escape from an imagined enemy, this pursuit of activity. I picture a mind full of terrible inner demons that simply can't be allowed to surface, as with the "Monsters from the Id" in the 1956 film classic Forbidden Planet.
I finally get myself to drop onto the sofa and stretch out, after kicking off my heavy leather outdoor boots. It took a long time to break those in, and it still feels good to remove them. I look up at the rafter beams rising to the ridge-peak in the center of the room--fine, stout timbers they are. I used to look up at the ceiling in this way when I was taken to church services as a young boy, before I could latch on to what the priest was saying. I suppose something was registering at a deeper level, but my conscious attention was on those broad laminated structural elements, with the lamps hanging down.
I realize that there is a world of goodness and human dignity all about me, if only I would redirect my concentration and know what to hear. I should ideally heed the Psalmist's advice: "Oh, that today you would hear his voice: / Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day of Massah in the desert." It amazes me that I can grow so entirely bitter and misanthropic at times, despite the endless demonstrations of human decency and compassion that I have seen. My neck really is stiff, I suppose. I have spent far too long finding fault with my immediate surroundings, and not seeing the acclaimed larger picture. Every small failure; every endeavor of little lasting consequence that blows up in my face is still enough to keep me blinded for some time. These, of course, are "the small stuff", which should not be sweated, to borrow the Richard Carlson slogan. That is intuitive enough to believe.
I lay still for some minutes, putting my attention on the sounds about me. It is quieter than usual tonight, in terms of the wind, and I can hear the faint rush of the river below as the fire crackles and pops. Yes, there is much for me to hear at the Cabin tonight, in small, whispering voices, now that I've laid my last burden down and turned over my attention.
RB
17 October 1998 -- Narrowing the focus of attention
The sun has returned today, to create one of those outdoor scenes of a brilliant blue sky over hills of later-season orange and red; something a commercial photographer might capture for use on a calendar page. The word that comes to mind when I step outside this late morning is "crisp". This refers to the bracing, tonic effect of the air, which has forgotten its sultry and humid condition of summer, and to the fallen leaves, strewn about under the thinning canopy and under my boots, as I go for a walk up the ridge slope.
The aroma of these newly-fallen leaves brings back my memory of October and November from childhood in the northern states, as we kids got out to play in the municipal parks and in back yards overshadowed by the few towering trees that did not fall when the developers came. Today, working as I do in an office and running to my share of further indoor obligations, this time has been mostly lost. Maybe, however, I just choose to live this cut-off life, and the bulk of those closer in the distribution to "normal" are still revelling their share, every year. Many my age have their own children, through whom such times may be re-lived. This walk in the woods above the Cabin is about the best I can do, until I start losing some of the inertia of exhaustion that keeps me from getting out more of the time.
I'm heading up the rough, steadily-rising footpath, made to a large extent of rocks, that follows its diagonal, switchback course generally along the contour lines. I don't think I really need to go to the summit today. I should spend more time off of the trail--I'm sure there are a fair number of large overhangs and outright caves in which I could recall the fun I'd have had as an 8-year-old with a "place of my own". It didn't take much to satisfy then. Back in my present-day life in the city, with a "real job" and corresponding "real income", these personal domains are now feasible, but justice has it that I can no longer enjoy them.
Well, up there ahead, to the left, is a rock face that is sufficiently hollow to create the "cave" sensation, until I find something better. I trudge through the brush and set down my daypack and walking staff, noting that the ground below is soft enough to have a seat. This position, against the lichen-encrusted stone face, is set some distance back from the steeply-pitched hillside dropoff, so I barely see the hills across the hollow when I look back towards the path.
I'm thinking again to that city home, with its stacks of postponed projects geared towards "simplification". I should be back there, I think, as I sit in these woods. Success in managing the piled-high results of years of instant gratification is elusive, however. I am too easily distracted. I seem to have a better mind's focus when I'm here on this ridge than I do with one job in front of me while a score of others loudly announce themselves each moment I turn away. This, I realize, is a goal of my travel to the Cabin Site--to practice holding my attention in a minimum of places at one time. This is difficult for a man who has become so accustomed to keeping so many matters in mind at once. But I have seen that the endless division of thought is not as effective as it intuitively seems, for some matters do not deserve the treatment they receive, while others that do go neglected. I am reminded of the gospel music phrase: "Tell me, Lord, what shall I do?" Before I head down the hill again, I listen for God's answer--"where do You want me to go today?"
RB
20 October 1998 -- Settling in for the night
With the dinner dishes and kitchen clean-up completed, I have spent most of this autumn evening by the fireplace, carefully shifting and adding the split logs to build up a reservoir of indoor heat. I alternate between sitting in the rocker and spreading myself out upon the large throw rug, as I look into the flames. When it seems long enough past sunset, I finally bank the last coals and head back into the darkness on the opposite side of the living room, where I sleep in the far alcove. I am not wearing my wristwatch, so I am not sure just how late it is.
Without television and the set schedule of the "rut" as a reminder and a regulator, time becomes a different quantity, no longer doled out in neat packets of 30 minutes each. It is, perhaps, 11:00 PM or midnight, but this is no cause for panic, since I need not be up before the crack of dawn to get to work. It will most certainly go below freezing outside tonight, if it hasn't already. I regard the body of heat that I have trapped within these walls to be a most temporary prisoner, soon to be freed by the thermodynamic laws.
I venture to look outside on this night of the new moon and see little more than the flickering glow of the kerosene flame, reflected from the glass panes. Once again, I begin to feel some of that cozy excitement of camping out. This is a most vivid memory from my youth; two adults and three young boys, on the two sides of a canvas tent trailer in sleeping bags. Even in the present day, with my nylon backpacker tent, there remains the wonderful, adventuresome sense of being "out there". I carry this sense with me to my bunk, as I settle in beneath the ample coverings of flannel and down. I get that mixture of cool fabric and its softness, up against my flesh, as I work myself into a spot I shall soon make into its own heated sub-space.
I hear the coals crackle gradually down, spread as they now are to know their ultimate fate. With the lantern set up in the proper position on the nightstand near my bed, I reach to find my book for this evening's drifting-off. I've decided to continue with Michener's The Source. I've reached the chapters concerning the Crusaders, who stood behind the formidable defenses of their castles, so far from the lands of their birth. They were not driven from their familiar homes, as I am when I drive up the long road from town, but they must have known a similar isolation, living inside those walls. I try to view this Cabin and my time spent here as an arrival, and not as an escape, since my relative rootlessness in that real life makes it just as easy to adopt an imaginary locale as "home".
Although it grows very dark here at night without sufficient maintenance of flame, that city residence is a far more difficult operation to keep alive and in the steady state, since it is the fate of complex artifice and created being alike to proceed towards decay and final passing. After some minutes, I have read for long enough that it grows difficult to keep my place on the page. I reach over and blow out the lamp. It is now truly dark in this room. The coals do not cast enough light for my eyes to see anything, especially as they adjust. The stars then begin to assert themselves; those few that appear through the front and back windows. I feel sleep finally making its move upon me, as I turn over on my last turn. These moments are indeed precious to me, for the agitation of the day and its concerns are not granted the access they need to prevail in their their typical assault. They have all departed--for now. Tomorrow shall take thought for things of itself.
RB
24 October 1998 -- Slowing down and taking a closer look
I've come again to the Cabin, this bright morning prior to winter's onset, to sit some more in the silence. The sunlight is pouring in through the wooden-framed panels of the front window, delivering considerable radiant heat to the indoors. This is a day when the wind and ambient cold outside is enough to merit at least two "layers" of clothing on top of my ordinary shirt, and I begin to note the danger of chapped hands and lips that will become endemic in the colder months ahead. But here inside, sitting on the slipcovered sofa, I can only see and feel that shaft of light, bringing to full prominence the various imperfections and grain-striations of the wooden floor.
It is so difficult, in that city life, to become so entirely centered
on such simple things. I treasure those moments when my attention has slowed
sufficiently in its frenzied flight to behold just one object or
matter upon which it has landed. I should like to apply the brakes
to the entire process of my thought, right at that moment, and accomplish
complete work upon some tasks rather than insignificant installments
on many. Such capability for gratitude-filled attention to my environment,
as I have seen, can be almost as fickle and non-compliant as the Muses
to which the Classical authors appealed. Appreciation is inspiration.
I have talked often of how I feel like a kid up here, with an absolutely extravagant clubhouse, even if the "club" has only myself as a member. The time I wander about in these mind's woods is much like the time I spent as a youth, exercising my nearly-lost capacity for make-believe. At present, I am sitting on this sofa, taking in something as simple as the dust that drifts in the sunbeam and using it as the base for a far-reaching construct of contentment. I do not have the convenience of an ever-flowing supply of materiél, from which I might pick things to set upon my things. Each item, for itself, is carefully considered for need, before I let it come up the road with me. As when the Lord sent forth his disciples, I have heard a call to travel light, and even more so than when I have to share the overhead bin with 5 other passengers on a "full flight".
I get up at last and walk to the dark-stained hardwood dresser, back by the rear living room window, and go over my outerwear essentials, checking each item for signs of wear. This pair of boot socks, I note, are getting a bit thin in spots, and will need replacement this season. At least I keep a spare pair. I look next at my boots, which stand at the ready near the front door, under the coat-laden peg rack. Each scuff of the leather gets its own scrutiny and evaluation. They appear to have enough wax to outlive a number of further tromps through the inevitable snow, but that left lace is just a bit frayed.
It is so quiet in this room, and the temptation to media inundation and distraction is not here. But then I sigh, realizing to myself that if those components of my real life were truly unlivable, I could junk all the video gear and discontinue the phone line drops. It seems that with the proper frame of mind, I can apply a substantial load of many diversions at once and still enjoy myself. So unfair it is, I say to myself, that I have those other times when nothing at all will "do" and I wonder how I could have been so contented. Here at the Cabin, with the sun illuminating my few belongings, I seek to learn how to ride out those heights of interest productively, without the characteristic overindulgence. I don't think the cycle is going away any time soon--for thus is the habit of mood.
RB
28 October 1998 -- Coming in out of the cold rain
The cloud cover these days is starting to look as if it is gearing up for the snow season. The entire scene in the hollow is becoming darker, especially with most of the leaves now down from the trees. "Sunset" this evening merely advanced the sky along a sequence of gray tones, ending essentially in black, since I'm so far from city lights. I felt the first random droplets of cold rain as I was working in the dooryard, between the woodshed and the Cabin building. As this rain slowly built to a steady level, I sat on the front porch, resting in the creaking steel chair, before going inside to light the fires and have dinner.
This bleakness could certainly form the foundation of a substantial body of misery and complaint, but I sense that I've been complaining too much lately. Those who have achieved true "enlightenment" would sit there with that grin of the enlightened and find some creative cause for thanks, even in the cold and the rain. I've heard them give the prescription before, I think to myself, as I finally step inside the front door. I'm supposed to jump for joy because I have shelter, I have food, I have these clothes.
I walk over to the stove and start a small cooking-flame in the firebox, using the same match to light the kitchen kerosene lamp. Yes, survival, abundance, prosperity and even excess are there for the taking. I'm supposed to have unending joy over this. Even the hypocrites of the gospels would call me blessed and offer me a fine place at table. Let's see here--rice, along with beans, seasoned with some of that shelf-stable salt pork I've so often looked at with curiosity in the supermarket. I get out the cast iron skillet and cookpot, and obtain the needed supplies from the pantry.
It is so hard to tell if God is really "for me", for he makes it to rain on the good and evil alike, and sinners prosper while his righteous go without. Do I have joy within, anywhere within? Is there "Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy, down in my Heart", as Granny would sing on The Beverly Hillbillies? The water comes to a boil and I begin the rice. One method for gaining appreciation, which seems to engender more fear than joy, is to visualize suddenly being without. Yes, stricken and afflicted, I try to see myself as the rich man in final torment after his ungrateful life of ease, while Lazarus is having his fill across the chasm with all those angels.
It has also become hard lately to know what is "beyond my control" and thus should be accepted. This is almost a matter of political opinion at times. I have visited with conservatives who shun me when they think I'm holding back, yet I'm not sufficiently destitute and helpless for the liberals to champion my cause. So here I am, in my single-member camp, cooking up beans and rice. The rain is now loud enough to hear on the roof, although hardly like the all-out fury of a summer squall. It is just enough to remind me it's there.
It will be good to stretch out and get some rest tonight, since the city routine has been playing its usual games with my perception of strength. The society supposedly has enough decency to tell when I'm pushing too hard, politely informing me when I'm nearing my limit. It is strange how rarely that happens. I must be a lot farther from the real red-line than it seems.
Now let's see here--Joy, that's right. Because I have to ask about how the others walk around full of joy, I must not be able to understand. Maybe they're just putting on an act, I reason, using my standard cynicism. Like the notion of eternal infatuation with a lover that sells so many records and movies, Joy could also be a myth, just to sell aspiration, hard work, and more consumer goods. Well, it's time to eat. Food on my table--yes I suppose this is good.
RB
