Tuesday, June 28, 2011

May 29, 2011


I went for a walk at Bridgeport, alone today. I'm sitting in the late afternoon, almost summer, sun. The grass is going from green to gold and the dirt is hot and cracking. Storms in late May are under-rated. Everyone gripes about the cold and the clouds, what with the flavors of summer already in their mouths. Yet I enjoy the huge thunderheads and intermittent sunshine. Last little exaltation of spring and life. A dipper flew nearly 6 inches above my head. I was nearly sleeping on a rock in the river, when I heard it and looked up. It mustn't have noticed me on the boulder. To be quiet and still, that is the way. I'm reading the Dharma Bums again. I want to be more of a rucksack wanderer. In all this time, that longing has not gone away. I see the beauty in him fleeing to the desert and me retreating to the mountains. Nothing is more beautiful to me than the sunshine. It is the source of all life.

A Home in The Woods

I've been living and working in Truckee, Monday through Thursday, for almost a month now. I rent a room in a house with two middle aged folks, whom I rarely see. I spend approximately 5 hours a day awake and in the house. That includes time I spend preparing food, doing dishes, showering and preparing for 10 hour days in the field. I have realized that all of the things that I require while I am here, I can get for free, or close to it. The weather is warm and mild, there is a refrigerator, kitchen and a shower at the office that I am free to use. There are many thousands of acres of soft duff upon which to lay my head each night. As of July, my roommates will be the sweetly scented Jeffery Pines, the gently singing Aspens, the Mule's Ears and the Yarrow.

My alarm will be the sunrise and all the songbird cries. I've got a classic green Coleman double burner stove, and so many recipes stored in my head of single pot meals. I've got a leather bound journal that has been patiently waiting for me to transform it into more than just a journal; I will write and sketch and draw and paint and sing and find the forest flowing in my veins and out my pores onto pages patient and pure. I'd much rather live in the woods alone, than with near strangers in this contrived home. And at the end of the week, I will climb the great granite spine of the Sierra and descend the forested slopes to my home in the hills, to my lover, the garden and the orchard and the ducks and the chickens. I will harvest basil and cherries, tomatoes and eggplant and fresh food grown from the good sweet earth. I will finally be at home in the woods.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Honest Little Fox


You better be honest as a fox from here on out and I know about these things, relationships are hard with all this living we've got to do crawling out of our bones...And god dammit if we don't all make mistakes sometimes and its best not to move on but learn and carry them with you, that way if you screw up enough times well at least you'll be strong enough to dig your way out from underneath all that heavy sorrowful dirt and rock. But who am I to say, I'm the one who went on and messed it all up...I'll just keep planting melons in the melon patch, and water the corn, and watch out the backdoor remembering good old Mr. Duck, Mr. Dead Duck now after that last thunderstorm, but at least he gets to rest nestled inside all that good rich earth, dozing with the worms working away at rebuilding the soil. Good god the hot dirt the ripe earth! Walk slow through the ancient golden sands of time. Get high on the low light, backlit leaves. Early summer rain catches in the forests eaves of new leaves.