Hi Dan, an excellent moving piece. I know that "alone but not lonely" feeling of clarity too, and in fact often go to places to seek it out - just as easily crowded places - music bars - as isolated mountain tops.
Regards Ian On 2/3/07, Dan Glover <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello everyone > > I've been away spending time in the mountains. Winter caught me a bit off > guard forcing me to stay longer than was my plan. I brought enough food for > a week so the snow and ice storm I found myself caught up in didn't much > concern me. > > I holed up by a frozen rocky creek in between a pair of rather large > boulders that offered some little shelter from the wintery blasts of wind > coming down over the mountain tops. Kindling a small fire to cook dehydrated > vegetable stew provided me with a bit of warmth. My poncho protected me from > the freezing rain. I feel confined in tents so I don't carry one. I > stretched a tarp between the boulders with clothesline to get out of the > weather as best I could. > > Snow began falling around the time darkness came. Those mountains are > normally so quiet that I can hear my own heart beating and with the snow now > covering everything the quiet became enormous. Almost unbearable. There was > time to think as I sat there deep in the mountains feeding small twigs into > the fire every few minutes and watching the snow fall hissing into the tiny > flames. Ah, solitude. > > I've never been lucky enough to have many friends. Perhaps it would be > better to say any. I remember standing in a corner of the school yard > watching all the other kids play, unable to join in. It's not that I dislike > people. I'm just not much good at small talk and the social graces that seem > to come to others so easily. I find myself time and again sitting alone in > the middle of crowded rooms. When I move to sit with others they seem to get > up and leave one by one until I find myself sitting alone once more. After a > while I just give up. It doesn't matter. > > Alcohol and drugs seemed to help, ages ago. They loosened my inhibitions but > also loosened my anger so gradually all that dropped away. When I began my > zazen some years ago the drinking got in the way so it stopped one day, I > don't remember when. Nothing intentional, mind you. It just stopped and I > could see no reason to begin again. Drugs too. I didn't need them so I put > them down. The price was clarity. And aloneness. Yet I am never lonely. Just > alone. > > I seem to see things others do not. There is very little to connect me with > the world of people. Words, maybe. One day I feel I will fade away all > together and that's okay. There's very little here anyway. Very little that > is actually me. I am a cloud passing on a summer day. When one looks I am > gone and one wonders if I was ever here at all. > > It is cold there in the mountains. Bone chilling cold. So cold one wonders > if the warmth of summer will ever come again. My food began running low > while the storm still raged. Wave after wave of freezing rain covered the > trees until they began giving way under the weight. I could hear the > branches breaking during the night with loud cracks that startled me from > fitful sleep. > > One night I dreamed my dad was there shaking me by the shoulder trying to > wake me so I could go to work picking asparagus before school. I've always > had trouble sleeping and rising early and he grew angry with me, shouting my > name and shaking me ever harder. I woke with a start but only the mountains > were there. I felt so alone. So alone. The dream had been so vivid I > couldn't reach sleep again that night so I sat and watched the light grow > slowly to reveal an ice-covered world. > > Another night I dreamed I was with a woman. Soft. Tender. It'd been so long. > I didn't know her yet she was familiar. I knew all her lines and just how to > touch her and where to put my mouth so she responded under my carress. When > I woke I wished she was really there. But, of course... she wasn't. And I > wondered who she was, if indeed she was at all. I remember how her eyes > shined and how good she felt. I went to sleep the next night hoping to see > her again but she failed to return. I woke cold and hungry. > > The food was gone by now so I decided that I should begin my trek out of > those mountains despite the storm. I knew the way. I'd been there so many > times that the maze like-paths are my only friends. The snow and ice made > for treacherous traveling and in those mountains a turned ankle can mean > death. So the going was slow. It didn't matter. I didn't care. I had time > and I had clarity. And there was no one waiting for me. No one to care. No > one to worry. > > I tightened my belt all I could yet my pants still wouldn't stay up so I > took the time to make a new hole in the belt with my pocket knife and a > couple days later another and yet another. I felt lighter and lighter. I'd > been out of food for days. I made tea from boiled snow and crushed pine > needles. It was bitter but good. Hunger gnawed at me at first but as the > days passed it gradually grew quiet as my mind grew ever sharper. I felt > good. Yet I felt bad. > > We are in such danger. Civilization is so precarious. How did all this get > started. Technology will not save us but it just might destroy us. Perhaps > it would be better to turn back if only we could. But we can't. Not without > being fanatics and no one likes a fanatic. I don't worry for myself, mind > you. I worry for you. I worry for my family. For my loved ones, all. If only > I could save myself I could save the whole world. But I cannot. We are in > such danger. Terrible danger. > > No one seems to see it. They go about their lives as if. As if everything > will be okay. They don't see. I envy them. I want to live paycheck to > paycheck and go home after work to plop in front of the tv and eat garbage > and have a soft warm woman to sleep with. But I can't hold a job and I don't > know how to talk to women. So I drift and dream. And I stay hungry. Always > hungry. > > I don't understand any of it. I haven't worked a real job in thirty years. > And fast food makes me sick. I can't keep it down. The tv is so stupid that > I want to be ignorant enough to watch. I want it more than anything. But > clarity gets in the way. I hate it. Yet I crave it. What does that say about > me? I don't understand. > > Even with clarity I find that I don't know much for certain. In fact on > examination I find I know nothing at all for certain. I believe that I know > yet when I stare into the darkness of those mountains I realize how it is, > even though the words to convey what I realize will not come. Maybe there > are no words. I fill my mind with words but they mean nothing at all. > Nothing. > > It is all a waste, I suspect. Such a magnificent waste. There's nothing to > believe in. An imaginary God perhaps if it suits one's fancy. Not mine, > thank you Jesus anyway. And when we return to the crumbled dust from which > we all sprang perhaps that realization will come to us all. I just don't > know for certain. That's all I can say. And there's no one to ask. No one > with answers. It all seems so exaggerated. So absurd. > > On the sixth day of walking I saw something red flitting through the icy > trees. I wondered at it and then I realized I had come to my truck. For a > moment I considered turning back and returning the way I'd come. It was just > a passing moment. Like life. Like this wonderful world. A cloud passing by > on a sweet summer day never to return. > > Then I got in my truck, drove to a grocery for some fresh fruit, and then to > a motel for a long hot shower and a night in bed. The mountains wait. They > know I'll be back. Until I am no more. And we will be together again. > Forever. If there is such a thing. > > Thanks for reading, > > Dan > > > moq_discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
