It was pouring rain, rain hitting the plastic storage box outside the window of the little cottage where the family elders stay, washing the hemlock needles off the propane tank. I wasn’t outside, but I saw this happening in my mind, so it was as good as done. It was simultaneous with the sound in my ears, which was not really sound, but all sorts of complicated discussions with the inner ear, the eye, and the mind. If I followed all these mechanisms in detail, I’d disappear, so I’ll continue to float on the surface, saying words like storage box, and propane tank.
There’s practical value in the mind thinking all is stable. Thinking trees and rain. If you were walking through the woods, you’d want solid dirt under your feet, not a marsh. You wouldn’t want to let abstraction sink you into the pit. You wouldn’t want to think of molecules or neutrinos.
The water is gradually getting colder. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to swim. Yesterday we had my sister and brother-in-law over, built a fire in the fireplace. It feels so good to sit in front of a real fire, a fire of necessity, not just decoration. I was thinking of my at-the-moment favorite Netflix show, “Alone.” Ten people are dropped somewhere in the north wilderness, this time in Labrador, each one separate, alone, surviving as long as possible with only ten items they’re allowed to bring. No gun. Bow and arrow okay. The one who stays the longest gets half a million dollars.
This show reminds me of my childhood favorite book, The Boxcar Children. I love reading/ watching people find ingenious ways to survive. This may seem like a game at present, but it’s becoming a grim reality.
My youngest sister lives in Houston, where the temperatures have been well over 100 for days. Air conditioning is as crucial as a fire in the north. Europe is split between extremely cold in the central Mediterranean and record heat in the East, 102 in Moldova and Ukraine. No need to go on about the catastrophes. Exclaiming doesn’t help.
When you’re in the woods in Northern Michigan, you feel privileged, protected. You’re not burning up. You’re enjoying the cool, you’re hoping to have a few more swims. Loons cry overhead, chickadees, titmice, and an occasional flicker come to your feeder. Early morning is full of crows. The hemlocks are not yet sick with woolly adelgid. Fishing is great, for those who fish.
You know nothing is stable. You know you’ll die, the earth will die. Every day, every minute, is an adventure in survival. You go at it as successfully as possible. The need to survive makes time sparkle. Makes life sparkle. The knowledge of time’s end—in fact, of the artificiality of time—sharpens the senses. It’s all wonderful, this excursion into being human, being a temporarily conscious critter on the earth.
Writing : another attempt at stability, or at least temporary survival of a moment’s thought. An attempt to keep it for now. Hope it lasts in the world a while. Hope those who read it keep it in their hearts for a while.
Sunshine today, hooray for that! It’s going to be chilly all day. We’ve lived in the north now for sixteen years. My body’s adjusted. I no longer feel cheated by the lack of heat, although I follow the sun with my lawn chair as much as I can. I think knowing how miserably hot it is elsewhere makes me even more tolerant of a little cold.
Again, this is all I got. Let me not call this a “dry spell.” Let me call it an adventure into the unknown, where I am called to use my ingenuity to survive.