Taken Alone

Bundled against the chill, sitting on my foam pad on the back stoop. Very dark night, but after a while I can just discern a deep gray where the moon is above thick overcast. I feel a bit fragile and I've never felt that way before, intimidated by what I need to do and uncertain in my resolve. The good news is I've burned all the bridges. It's the ridge or oblivion. I can't imagine what else I'd do. Stopped down at B's, on my way back home, and we talked about books. He'd read the Tuchman and we talked about the 14th century as if were yesterday. The Mid-Term elections. Listen, I retreat to an island in the stream. The stupidity of the electorate, I mean... really. I try not to get sexual or political, our relationship seems to preclude that. I didn't want to damage my body, and as the forecast was for another nice day tomorrow before the outrider of the Alaskan storm arrives, I only split wood for a couple of hours. The oak is lovely, straight grained and sweet smelling. Splitting wood in this new fashion, on my knees with a hatchet and mallet, is very precise and I can split everything, kindling, starter sticks, overnight logs, from a single round. It's interesting and enjoyable work. There's a disconnect that happens when you focus on the task at hand; and there's something about spending a few hours out in the natural world, where the woodpeckers are screeching and the dry top leaves blow in concert, that allows me to give up aspiration. This is fine, I think. The uncertainty of outcome. It's not any political conviction that motivates my action, I'd just rather spend my time alone. Another product of being a military brat, my answer was sitting off in the corner and reading a book. Or finding a brook or pond where I could catch pan-fish. Later, in Colorado, I took to catching trout and cooking them over a twig fire. I enjoy good conversation, but there's something about camping alone, above 10,000 feet, where the only sound is snowflakes melting on the outside of the tent, that seems to me to be absolutely essential. Not that you have to suffer, just that you have to experience. Basho hiking the last few miles to an unheated hut.

The leaves are all dead,
color a thing of the past,
and still the green briar.

This is not me, I mean it's very close to being me, but memory is fickle. I was reminded, recently, that most of what I remembered was fictitious. Over a long life. I had to laugh, what's the alternative?