Green Briar

A long slow walk today. Started over at B's old cabin, along a path he had carved for firewood transport, down to a lovely hollow where two springs merge to form a creek. It's one of my favorite spots and I stayed there for a couple of hours, lunching on sardines, cheese, and crackers; then looking closely at how a very protected spot affects plant life. I hiked out going west, away from my house, because I wanted to check a watercress patch I'd established in another stream. I came back on the main ridge that is continuous for a great many miles, connecting all the minor side-ridges that define the hollows, which got me to me to my cemetery, from which I can see my house. Being lost is relative. I had some protein bars and water, a Bic lighter, and an extra-heavy-duty 55 gallon garbage bag with a hole cut out for my head, so I wasn't in any actual danger. Discomfort would be the worst of it. Rain down the back of your neck. Being uncomfortable can be instructive, the codes of behavior are mysterious, and they wary, from tribe to tribe. Levi-Strauss talks about that flip, where the meaning of something turns 180 degrees, where the frog was fucking the princess becomes the princess fucking the frog. I go back and take out a comma, I hadn't thought about what I was saying. I was merely trying to keep up to speed. I do appreciate myself sometimes, when I get it right, and things fall into place, not that it happens that often, just often enough to keep me awake. That can't possibly be a bear on the back porch, more likely a rabid coon. Whatever, I'm not going to open the door. Fucking can of worms. I see a way out, but it involves cutting my way through a thicket of green briar. No one said it would be easy. After a dinner of baked beans on toast, I was physically shot, my legs especially, from a day in the woods, so I took a nap, awoke to the sizzle of sleet on the roof. Around midnight it turns deathly silent, snow for sure, and I roll back over in the dark, smiling at what it might look like tomorrow. I'm set, I think, in terms of survival, a pork fried rice in my future. I really need to wash my hair and clip my nails, so that I look a little less like a werewolf, not that I care what I look like. A banker goes into a bar, it's a joke, of course, add a pink elephant and you have a jazz quartet. What I mean, buried in the rambling, is that everything is distorted. Our simplest memory is a fiction. A rabbi, a priest, and a UPS driver go into a bar. No, wait, a bat, a marmot, and three crows go into a bar. I love the look on their face when they realize I'm an idiot desperate to claim my spot under the interchange of the interstate. I like waiting until the last minute to decide, which identity I assume. One who, whatever. "Black birds singing in the dead of night." Later, the wind kicks up, and I wonder if thinking about the sixth cello suite might be viewed as a terrorist act. More likely Boz Skaggs, Duane Allman on lead guitar, buddy can you spare a dime?