2 April 1999 -- Looking for the right answer
I'm sacked out again on my bunk under the alcove, looking up at the
ceiling timbers. I need to let some of the city's hustle work its
way out of me, into the expanse of trees, rocks, and flowing streams that
enfolds me for miles about. I have the rear window of the living
room opened, though it is a bit cold today, so that I might listen to the
increasingly-active outdoors. The birds' combined complexity is superimposed
upon the steady, unwavering sound of the river in the ravine below.
As usual, I have no one to "answer to" but myself. I often complain
that the human-built social and business worlds operate in seemingly inhuman
ways, but I never have a ready proposal for replacement procedures that
would be human. Maybe I don't really need an answer for that.
I can probably just drift along compliantly and be all right, with no great
effort. It always amazes me, how the Kingdom of Heaven ends up being
served best when I don't work specifically towards my notion of what it
requires.
The admonition that I should "be myself" has always seemed a strange
one, for my typical behavior is far from palatable. It must not really
be "me" very much of the time, then. The ones who would accept "me"
are probably wondering at this very moment why I've run off again. "Well,"
I would explain, "I usually mess things up pretty badly with my poorly-developed
tact and social graces, and that doesn't do any of us much good.
You all have every reason to resent me, so I'll just quit while I have
at least some of my dignity left." With such words, I will
climb into the truck and make my way up the long dirt road. I'll
go walk as I might among the renewal of greenery that marks the opening
of the 1999 growing season in "my" hollow.
It occurs to me that I have no choice but to follow along with whatever
the woods are deciding to do at the moment. I don't even have the vanishingly
small say in affairs that I do when I'm manning my real life post.
Still, I can't just let myself be blown in all directions; that road leads
to complete chaos. I am torn between accepting the whims of a world I do
not fully understand and trying to take a stand without the proper information.
I need, in short, a conviction as to truth. I need to see
the immensity of virtue in the hidden infrastructure of good will that
permates the "normal" population. Maybe this undergirdment is so
hard to perceive because it was never meant to be seen in the first place.
Its incorporation must require a broader form of recognition, one outside
of rational processes and imagery formed within the mind. The confections
proprietor, when asked about the natural way of "The Candy Man" in Willy
Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, explains: "My dear boy, do you ask
a fish how it swims...or a bird how it flies? No, sir, you don't.
They do it because they were born to do it."
Just as a given species of tree is born to sprout forth in a predetermined
way each April, I was born with the basic faculties to present myself as
an acceptable living sacrifice, as Paul advises the Romans who must discern
between things of the flesh and of the spirit. The key word that
hits me in that verse is "living". Such a sacrifice need not be
without blemish, for it can live and improve upon its merit as an offering
as it goes along. Yes, all I have to do is "be myself", and my place
will be waiting for me when I return.
RB
6 April 1999 -- Limiting the scope of my efforts
Today at the Cabin is another of those days where I know I should be
staying stretched out and keeping still. Though the weather is improving
steadily as the season advances, my main goal is just slowing myself down
from the frenzy that city living has been in recent times. It gets
hard to come here sometimes, because of my compulsion to finish all of
the tasks I've started back there, but it is a vicious cycle that must
be broken. There really isn't that much that matters, except according
to my own standards, which are not all that realistic.
So I'm stretched out on the sofa again today, and the relative quiet
has returned. I have made this visit a conscious exercise in reducing
the volume of my internal dialogue. It so often happens that when
I am pre-occupied and absorbed in something unrelated to the present scene,
I miss the beauty of which it is composed. I have the front windows
cracked a small amount, and I hear the various bird songs. I have
yet to reach the state of contemplative ability where I can hold my attention
long on such an input. My mind wants to head off to some other source
of greater and more "stimulating" content. It cries out for its connectivity
to the great depth of electronic telecommunications. But no, I need
to keep stayed upon just this one "program", the goings-on in the
clearing outside, which have value precisely because they are so
unchanging.
The layout of those hills that rise to the rock summits of the ridge
cannot be made different by the navigation of a browser or the operation
of a remote-control tuner. They are for real. This must have
been the experience of the fabled life-before-radio-and-television that
is often alluded to as a "simpler" time. The people of the frontier,
upon reaching a settlement, had little more to do than specialize with
great depth on the small world that confronted them. They certainly
must have gained proficiency in it after a few years, learning each and
every advantage and drawback through repetitive drilling and discipline.
In contrast, I see a wide variety of changes in scene throughout the typical
year, and my real life world has become much different, even in the 1-1/2
years I've maintained this virtual dwelling.
But has much really changed in what I need to know? I am
given a certain innate composition of personality and capability, one that
is most rigid and resistant to my attempts at molding it. I should
accept my limits as readily I accept the finite size of this hollow, the
sameness of the terrain and the well-known seasons. Placed within
a world of directly visible boundaries, I am able to resist the temptation
to seek an easy way around things that just have to be taken as
they are. Living within a mass media culture creates an illusion
of being able to thwart inherent containment. It seems so
tangible; that final escape to satisfaction without end or condition. Maybe
there are some who can participate so overwhelmingly in the fantasy of
the presentation that, having acquired and consumed the dream, they can
actually live it for awhile. It must be nice to have a mind that
can so easily be filled with the sense of well-being. The members
of this population probably don't have the same pain when it comes time
to make good on the delayed costs of their gratification. I, on the
other hand, find myself reduced to an excessively grim state of exhaustion
when I participate in that chase. It just isn't worth it for now.
In the pine-panelled living room, I am enjoying the experience of letting
my attention stray no farther than my own eyes can see out the front window.
It is complete, the scene before me. I see no work undone; no avenues
of ever-broadening consideration. As my tired physical body sinks
back into the overstuffed sofa, my mind is also given a place to rest its
various extensible appendages of concentration. The exertion of their
outreach in the pursuit of happiness, a most tiresome endeavor, must nevertheless
resume before long.
RB
10 April 1999 -- Standing in the stillness for now
The sun makes its entrance this morning into a sky of predominant blue,
with traces of cloud remaining from the rain that passed through last night.
As I get myself slowly under way from the oblivion of a night's stay in
my bunk, I realize that though it is going to be a "bright, bright, sun-shiny
day", it is still April and the distinct chill of that month will be with
me. I build a small, crackling fire in the hearth and sit in my cherrywood
rocker, absorbing the fact of needing to be who I am and living down the
legacy of what I've done. I pour out a cup of the coffee I had left
from last night in the pot on the stove, setting it before the flames in
an aluminum cup until it is warmed enough not to hit my stomach in a way
it shouldn't be hit.
After I've taken enough heat upon my body, I go to open the back door
and let in some of the sound of the river flowing past. I also let
in the fine sound of the abundance of birds in those trees back there,
trees that extend across the bottom of the stream and back up 700 feet
to the lower southwestern ridgetop, a half mile away. I'm losing
sight now of that side of the ridge from the back porch, since the trees
are coming forth so fully with their new leaves and individual processes
of annual bloom. I walk back inside, stand to take a bit more of
the heat from the fire, and step out the other door, to the front porch.
It is rather wet out there still, though the mud of the dooryard looks
firm enough to support me in my boots without that terrible sucking action
of getting about in March. I walk out to the edge of the porch, still
in my nylon shorts and lightweight hiking sandals, and step onto the last
step of the stairs, to feel the sun. The chill of being away from
the fire was starting to get to me. The wind has yet to assert itself
today, so the full dampness of the air is apparent. Out across the
tops of the ever-increasing green of the clearing's scrub, there is enough
dew and leftover rain to cause that wonderful glittering effect in the
light. This envelopment in moisture appears to have its purpose in
getting the growth started out there, but it leaves me only with the kind
of unsettling internal chill that I know would soon take over, given my
unprepared state of attire.
I go back inside and sit in the protected space near the fire, trying
to figure out what I should reasonably be doing up here today. I
suffer from such indecision when I am given free, unstructured time, yet
I also complain when someone does force a schedule upon it. It gets
hard to know what is "best" sometimes. I am certain that there is
a "best thing to be doing" at any given time, since when the time is squandered
in the wrong way, it always seems an obvious shame. The finite character
of this life of mine at age 37 is becoming more of the issue these days,
but no one has given me rightful criteria for its use. I have to wonder
how much gets "wasted" when my mind is off in this isolation--or solitude,
depending upon my prevailing viewpoint. They'd love me to come in
and do some overtime at the office, yes indeed. Or I could be involved
in real-life commitments with my real-life friends.
But none of it seems "right", except possibly to just stand where I
am and listen to the birds and the stream. "Be still, and know that
I am God", goes the familiar psalmist's verse, in the invitation to see
the new creation that is being made of the earth. So I shall be still,
for want of a better choice. It all ends up looking right, when I
allow higher propriety to take the forefront.
RB
14 April 1999 -- Comfortably enclosed, out in the
open
As the days grow warmer, the prospect of finding passably dry trails
and solid ground increases in the hills surrounding the Cabin. At
about this time of year, the boundary imposed by the Cabin walls becomes
more apparent and seems less vital. A crucial component in the original
dream was a large outdoor space that was as comforting
as the limited enclosures that form my year-round "holding pens" in real
life--house, vehicle, office and stores. It is a refreshing thought
to imagine feeling secure in the wide open, since this is usually a place
full of cars I must avoid hitting and people in my way I must avoid aggravating.
I have come to know that the extent of real threat in the highly-populated
public spaces is far less than that for which I brace myself. But
I continue to err on the side of caution in urban life, since I have little
in the way of "friend-or-foe" identification in place.
Since it looks warm enough today, I decide to go out into the sun and
practice letting down my defenses. I find enough medium-weight outerwear
and head out the back, closing the lock-free wood plank door to keep in
heat, and not to keep out intruders. I try to accept my surroundings
without condition or suspicion, as I begin walking through the brush behind
the Cabin. I proceed along the perimeter of the clearing, with the
hushed roar of the river below me on my right, following the gradual uphill
grade that defines the last section of dirt road from the village.
I must watch my step in this kind of bushwhacking, since there are a great
many fallen branches and thorn-vines to negotiate under the trees.
Soon, I begin climbing away from the river, to enter the main portion
of the clearing, which is about 15 acres in size. This open space,
and not the Cabin set on its edge, is the real focal point of the
hollow. It is difficult to lose my conditioned response of looking
about in all directions for others on a collision course in the distance.
The best place to keep one's eyes in the backcountry, I've observed, is
on the portion of immediate surroundings directly ahead. I finally
reach a spot that I need to note carefully for later this year; one where
the ground is free enough of embedded granite boulders to set up my tent,
yet with a pair of "sitting" and "table" rocks immediately nearby for use
of my cooking equipment. I do not know why I would want to pitch
a tent out here when I already have the primitive shelter of the Cabin
itself as my getaway. What kind of getaway is it, anyway, if I need
to find one even more removed?
I take a seat on the lower of the adjacent boulders and try to expand
the perimeter in which I feel "safe". I think back to the enlightened
ones I see living contentedly in the city, who can feel the same freedom
from boundaries in the middle of raging crowds or gridlocked traffic.
Their defenses have such intelligence as to oppose the true opponents
they meet yet stay open with their minds and hearts to the far larger community
of the well-meaning. They live in much larger zones of mobility than
the area of "my" clearing, or even the whole space below the ridge within
this hollow.
The human world seems an unbroken continuum to the best of them, when
the call to nationalistic isolation can be temporarily dismissed.
Their lives must have involved a great many unknowing and unpleasant encounters
with foes, but many more kind embraces from friends. I still do not
see it in me to take the basic training they had as children and teens;
not at this age. Though the body armor of my spirit is a heavy
burden, I see no other choice at present. Thus it is that I come
to this sterile realm of one man, the only place of such size where I dare
take it off.
RB
18 April 1999 -- A most permanent place
After being up here at the end of the long dirt road for much of the
weekend, I see I must soon "do some more time" down in the real world.
Though weather has been a bit cold, I was able to get out and look over
the Cabin exterior and "grounds" for maintenance work necessitated by the
winter season now ended. It is nothing like keeping up the respectability
of a city home, of course, where one always feels the judgmental stares
of the neighbors, while fearing more directly the owners' association and
local building codes. This property is the way I describe it solely
on account of my own initiative and personal satisfaction in having it
ready to receive me.
As I load the last few things into the truck
for hauling back into the heavy traffic and to that tiny compartment of
a real-life home, I find myself revisiting the theme of "sense of place".
I recall a high school term paper assignment more than 20 years ago, in
which I argued that the lack of "roots" was demoralizing America, as in
Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. The rural outskirts of large
cities like New York were supposed to give the new breed of "huddled masses
yearning to breathe free" at the downtown commuter rail stations a place
they might eventually call "home". This makes the leap-of-faith presumption
that a "home" can be established and cultivated in one place at will, then
yanked up and thrown in the moving van with the rest of one's accumulations
when the corporation beckons onward.
This, of course, is one of the principal benefits of my virtual settlement
up here next to the river and below the ridge. Since I can always
visit, no matter where I am in body, it is something in which affirmative
hope can be sustained. The land in "my" hollow only increases in
its richness of detail, becoming steadily more to cherish as time goes
by. Attempts to stake out a personal realm in a real life "community" do
not always share this ever-deepening effect of digging in, since the surroundings
begin changing, as they must, from the very minute a person moves in.
As I look at the outbuildings and note the season's corrosion on their
hardware hinges and fittings, I begin to realize how hard it is for a solitary
and reclusive person to have a sense and pride of place. Outreach
to the more established is the key to rapid appreciation of what the previously-settled
have found of value--and of danger--in the new neighborhood. I think
back for a moment to some of the places I've lived for far shorter periods
than the time I've been in the Middle Atlantic megalopolis. These
places, though mere passing stopovers on my overall journey, were
accentuated by the people I knew while I was there.
Since there are no others up here in these hills, I can only rely upon
the land and the Cabin itself to supply that reassuring sense that all
is well and is as it should be. Perhaps my high school thesis blamed
the wrong source for the increased insecurity of a nation that was more
on the move after World War II. It may have been the decline of human
efforts at outreach and ordinary decency, not changes in physical location,
that resulted in the "homeless, tempest-tost" state. When those of
"proper" socialization have plugged in to the unwavering components of
human living found in all places, they have access to the same, single
accessible realm that I do at the virtual "place" of the Cabin and its
surroundings. If I were in the business of homiletics, I would not
hesitate to conclude that this realm of decency is none other than the
Kingdom of God itself, which dwarfs any construct I might make from a finite
collection of online writings and illustrations.
RB
22 April 1999 -- Work is finished for the day
On this much warmer spring afternoon, the sun has filled the hollow
and rises to the rim of the ridge; a mile-wide bowlful of green-tinged
light. I pick up the rusted metal deck chair from the front porch
and carry it out to the almost-dry earth surrounding the stone fire ring.
The trees in the distance are now quite full in their new foliage and the
field grasses beyond the ring are making their annual sprint from winter's
browned-out holding state. As the sun moves along in a sky that is
beginning to learn the ways of haziness again for the season, my shadow
is cast longer and longer upon the heat-scarred fire pit, with its random,
weather-leached remnants of last year's embers.
I suppose this would be a good night for a campfire, but I do not want
the commitment of sitting by and tending it. So much of the real
life I left behind today seems to require a similar watchfulness. Without
active intervention, various enterprises will die out for lack of fuel,
while others get out of hand by exceeding their intended bounds.
I am seeking some time up here this evening where I do not need to be repeatedly
asking, "OK, what's next?"
It is hard to shake the conditioning of the city, which sends me on
an unending quest for the crisis of each moment, as if life only has meaning
to the extent that I am battling a belligerent force. "It is too
quiet right now...I know something is out there," I hear myself
saying, realizing that I often populate the role of "something" with unneeded
woes of my own making, just to have them there. Once again, I hear
the cynicism of George Orwell, from Nineteen Eighty-Four:
"War is peace". To succeed in the imposition of "oligarchical collectivism",
Oceania requires its Enemy, be it Eurasia or Eastasia--either will do.
"But no!" I protest, "War is hell," that's right, and "a real heart-breaker
/ friend only to the undertaker".
As I sit in the still, humid air that gives a taste of summer, I try
to implement the "standing down" technique stipulated by Isaiah: the sword
forged into a plowshare and the spear a pruning hook, though I grow no
crops and have no trees that I must prune unless they threaten to fall
on the Cabin roof. I think to the professors of peace I have seen,
who so often play the role of the naïve and aimless buffoon.
They have been mocked, subdued and assimilated by the industrial leadership,
those valiant vanguards of progress who obviously know the favor of their
"God" of abundance. Since each of these persuasions--the ones who
say "let it be" and the others who say "let it be mine"--contains
its healthy share of the wise and the foolhardy alike, it looks as though
other ethical principles determine relative propriety.
I hear now the standard opening of the fundamentalists in their evangelical
tracts: "justification by faith, not by works". I begin to
see in this the vain folly of so many of my empty "works", or as a Republican
might say, "make works programs". The need for a crisis so often
has me needing to dig a figurative hole one day, so that I might then need
to fill it in the next. Courting the favor of grace at just this
moment, however, looks like just another job to do.
How I should like to embrace the notion of free salvation and deliverance,
with no promissory notes attached and no contracts to sign. To some
the answer seems so simple, and they "just do it". They can live
with the duality that love "does not pay my bills", yet "all you need is
love". With the blackened damp pit before me, I do not wish to take
on new commitments tonight. The ones I can successfully fund with
worldly proceeds always end up as so much hollow rubbish, but my supply
of the coin of love's realm is not even enough for bus fare to the marketplace.
It has obviously become time to find some odd jobs for now that pay a subsistence
wage in the second of those two currencies.
RB
26 April 1999 -- Finally able to go outside
It is warm enough today to be outdoors for an extended period without
even my spring-weight jacket. I always treasured this time of the
year when I was "a kid", before the irreversible "change" that hit me at
age 13 the way it does all males. Those first few days when we could
"go out with no coat on" were a sure sign of liberation to be realized
in its fullest when the school year let out. In later years, during
my struggle to become degreed, I began taking summer engineering courses;
by that age I could tell my "youth" was pretty much closed behind me for
good.
Today, I try to live out a bit of that wondrous feeling of stepping
into the bright and inviting warmth, after sitting inside until enough
of the evening's chill has dissipated. It is as though I never really
lived this way up until now, especially in these last years of intensive
career involvement. Though the office complexes are well-planted
and meticulously maintained by landscape firms, there is more to be felt
in the disarray of the rapidly-growing grass and various wildflowers that
are beginning to appear, right where they got planted.
This life up here in the "unplanned" woodland clearing is similar to
my earliest years in that I have to take pretty much what I get.
When we kids found some hidden pathway through a patch of woods or a park,
it became a grand exercise of discovery, since our imaginations at that
age permitted us to forget that we were in the middle of square mile upon
square mile of homes that looked pretty much alike. Now, such a sense
of adventure is but a mental exercise. Even in the remote backcountry
of a National Park, I still have firm in my mind the long list of regulations
distributed by the ranger station on the way in. Somewhere, the sentiment
turned from "hey, I can!" to "no, I better not."
I am sitting on the weathered planks of the front porch, wanting so
much to let down my ever-cautious guard, as the sun lights up the vermilion
stain of the clapboard siding and points out the spots that will eventually
need work on the front-facing part of the Cabin exterior. The clearing
stretches off to the insulating boundary of the trees, while the dirt road
entering the river cut on the left reminds me that I dare not stay too
long. This sense of urgency in heading back down the road; of things
getting out of control because I am not there, is clearly an "adult" predisposition
I cannot easily leave behind. I'd suppose it is wrong to see blame
in having lost the full faculty of those earlier times, for I had no choice
in the matter.
I should try to see myself as do the ones who so curiously offer their
positive testimony as to who I am and what I have done. For a man
so centered in himself and always looking outward from the inside, this
does not happen easily. One day, should I make it to "old age", I'll
look back on my later 30's and marvel at the relatively carefree life I
have today. I will have regrets, of course, that I did not "do more
when I could". But as I think to the hustle of my real-world life,
it seems I'm already "doing more" than I should. The optimal consumption
of youth as time passes seems to be best achieved by living within a world
of reasonable and accepted restraint, of the kind the younger ones know
all too well. The emptiness of yearning for what is not mine and
those shallow fiascoes of self-gratification should have taught me by now
the "wisdom to know the difference" between what I must tolerate and what
I might successfully change. One day, many more things will make
sense. No education in life can be called a waste of life's time.
RB
30 April 1999 -- An adequate subsistence after dark
I'm thinking back to all the times I have desired "peace and quiet"
in my city living, now that I have it up here at the Cabin this evening.
The days are indeed getting long, but night finally wins out and I need
to light up the kerosene lamps in the living room and kitchen, then build
enough of a fire to keep it livable overnight. It is almost late
enough in the season that I need no fire at all at night, but on this particular
April's end, I am left with a reminder of what it was like, full time,
from November to March. It amazes me, how little light a person really
needs to accomplish the basics. It seems I have become accustomed
to working under 150-watt table lamps, in order to have an unquestionable
grasp of what I must see in a room or on a page. Maybe I just need
that much light to wake me up in the morning and to keep me from drifting
off to sleep too soon after a day spent running about.
It is indeed most quiet again, and a solemn setting, just what I wanted.
As I sit on the sofa under the lamp on its stand, I hear only the random
crackle of the fireplace and the slightest muffled reminder of the river
behind the back door, which knows no time of day. One might call
this lighting "poor", but it's what I have, and I have learned to read
by it and see the essentials of what has to be seen. A certain closeness
with the woods and the night, actually enough, comes about with such minimal
illumination. The full moon has cleared the ridge and now shines through
the front window, having a chance against the kerosene lighting for my
attention and my use. Though I would not have the optimally-desired
sense of what is before me if I took a walk out there right now, I would
still avoid running directly into bushes or tripping over rocks.
I sit awhile longer, realizing that I have really found my way free
for the night from the hustle down in the city. It is a bit disheartening,
of course, that I can be content with my solitude in this relative darkness.
I suppose I should be written off as "dysfunctional", to use that beaten-to-death
term, for thinking to myself. It is but one step away from openly
talking to myself. If I were to begin talking out loud right now,
no one would catch me, would they? I marvel at the separation and
assignment of roles within my internal awareness, where I support at once
a speaker and a listener. It is absurd in its essence; why should
the speaker speak, since "he" is the same as the listener, who has no need
to hear what he already knows.
Perhaps I am rehearsing for a future real-life dialogue, "going over
my lines" for a real-life interrogation and grilling on the topic at hand.
I realize that these exercises in preparedness over what I know and the
extent of my convictions really betrays a latent longing to find myself
once again with the others, as irritating as they can be at times. I'd
further suppose that such vigilance in having "the right answer" is wholly
unnecessary. My typical observations of the few who have chosen to
befriend me is that my shortcomings do not always mean a complete end to
proceedings. Those others must actually be a bit annoyed when I spend
so much time defending the excusable. To them, the person, just as
he is, is worth seeing as if in the fullness of day. They have no
need to learn adaptation to a darkness that only permits the most nominal
and mediocre of operations. I am not quite so ready to be exposed
to such scrutiny, however. Though the fully-lit world is indeed one
of splendid and awe-inspiring sights, I do not feel prepared to be "seen"
in it for who I am and especially for who I am not.
RB
Ahead to May 1999
