Putting pen to Pennsylvania

(Condition/Place): I’m sitting in a house that I do not belong in. I try to remind myself to be thankful for the shelter because what are houses but glorified shelters, ones we soak with all sorts of symbolism?)

(Summary/Time): So what has happened in my long absence? I have holed myself away in the dense woods of the Allegheny National Forest writing letters, digging, pondering my future, my patience, my presence. Most times I just shoot the breeze with the boys. I sleep atop three sleeping pads, one, my personal deflated pad which acts mostly as a moisture absorber, and two foam pads. The three pad system keeps me barely comfortable. I live alone, which is nice, since I have a very small tolerance for ruckus of any kind until I am sound asleep. My tent is simple and perfectly sized for me. I keep things neat, one has to, especially when the nomadic life is your specialty. The clan will not wait for the slow, rather they’ll leave you to the bears. Ah, but in reality (and facing the obvious lawsuit) they do wait, with the occasional grunts and puffs (blame it on fatigue we say, which is, in a way, true; we’re all tired of one another). And so everything has its place should a sudden wind of restlessness brush my face, my feet moving toward the distant hills before my head has had a chance to swallow the notion let alone process exactly what to “pack”. The layout of my tent is entirely functional, which is to say, I pay absolutely no attention to feng shui, that’s the privilege of the stationary soul. No, my humble abode reflects the practical to the highest degree. It’s glory and a majority of the space is dedicated to a warm slumber nest. An all-down, burnt orange sleeping bag lay in heat giving significance atop my three sleeping pads. I then cover the sleeping bag with another, lighter weight bag that I have on loan. A small fleece that I procured from the Goodwill, is balled up by my feet. Next to my shrine of sleepdom is my pack, resting on its back, head off, my clothes pulled out and stuffed back in like some twisted disemboweling, emboweling ritual. Above the pack and close to my head (and heart) is a small library, a lovely collection of books I brought from home, some that have been sent to me while here and of course, as any addict is expected to do, the ones I bought while in Pennsylvania. (I have no self control). I have even improvised a clothes line (if you can call it that, it’s more like a small slip of string) in my tent to dry out my ever soggy clothes. Outside my tent door, resting beaten and muddy are two boots well past their prime (But don’t we have fun guys? Don’t we have fun?). Inside the right boot, a bottle of Yellow Tail Cabernet wine stands tall and chilled. It’s a small little home, not glorified with indoor plumbing or electricity or heat, but it’s mine, and this fact is perhaps its greatest feature and the most symbolic.

Allegheny is a place of Faulkner skies, on the verge of something dramatic, always, unexpected always, blue, blue skies exaggerated by yellow beech tree eyeliner, or grey to darker grey storm clouds with rain so thick the whole world looks blurry. This is how I’ve come to know Pennsylvania, rolling hills and unpredictable weather. Perhaps that’s just winter slide tackling fall. Regardless, we receive about as many rainy days as sunny ones which, to anyone who lives and works outside, translates to, we have more rainy days than our drowning morals know what to do with. We are camped off a forest service road on what used to be an old farm. However, it takes a whole lot of squinting and even more imagination to see this place as a farm. Beech trees have all but completely taken over and the hemlock forests on either side of the narrow strip of high grasses clench tightly and possessively at the edges. Sometimes I feel should the wind blow hard enough, the dark pines will topple right over this small open space, engulfing me entirely in wilderness.

There is something highly charged about this forest. It took me over a week to settle into the uneasy feeling that the “farm” gave me at night. It wasn’t bears or killer hawks I was afraid of, though, of course, these spooky creatures did linger menacingly in the back of my consciousness. What really gets to me, what really sends me into hallucinatory, catatonic still framed Dali inscribed fits, are my dreams. I don’t always remember my dreams, in fact, most mornings, it’s as if I had only been staring at dark all night long, nothing interesting to report, make my coffee, eat my cereal, press on with my day. But here, things are different. I awake every morning remembering what I dreamt and furthermore, I believe for a moment (and sometimes for entire days) that what was happening in my sleeping life was actually a part of my waking life. of course, I run this by my crew mates, asking if we discussed this or did that, and always they look at me with a blank stare, like I’m, well, crazy. Sure enough, these things have happened and these people in my subconscious are, in fact, real. (Perhaps that is why I’ve been so numb to my waking existence because my subconscious life seems more plausible, nay, more enticing and exciting. Perhaps this world, of money making, food eating and shelter having is only to support my sleeping habit which, this place has convinced me, might just be my awakening to my true life…). I tried to shrug off these strangely vivid and life-like dreams, but now that I’m well into four weeks, I have a sneaking suspicion that this place vibrates with an energy that is not exactly malicious, but is slightly dangerous. The other night I dreamt I re-injured my knee. There was a bloody hair tie to signify my wound. I was laughed at and left to seek treatment on my own. All my crew mates were there, but they seemed occupied by other things, meanwhile, I could barely walk. I tried to work anyway. I awoke shortly after, inspected my knee and found nothing besides the usual puffiness. I babied it for the rest of the day. I know, deep down, that one of these days, my luck on the trail will run out. I will slip and fall and it’s very likely that I will rip or tear or break something. I proceed cautiously, each downhill step, I focus on my quadriceps and hamstrings and IT band, “cradle that knee”, I say, “like the three wise men would cradle the baby Jesus”. And so I go about my days here in the forest, intensely focused on everything besides the work in front of me. Slogging through mud, I hone in on my muscles, calculate the days and live in the shards of dreams remembered from the previous night.

Work is work. That’s what I tell people who ask me how it’s going on the trail. It’s a job. I’m thankful I have one. It’s not very exciting, but that’s how it goes. I have been jabbing a pick into the rib cage of a forested slope for the last twenty five days. It’s monotonous and back breaking work, not to mention the trail that has been lined out for us, is, in my humble opinion, poorly designed. But what do I know? I just swings my pick and pull out dirt good mastah’, gets me some money, try to make a livin’. But my fantasy prone mind has perhaps gone too far. I’m no sharecropper, though, on the rainy days when it’s too cold and too wet to take breaks, when my pick is slipping under my soil soaked gloves and I’m drenched to the bone, I feel a sense of pseudo-slave labor. Of course, I smile at this thought, myself in tattered clothes, or even better, in black and white stripes chained to the guy next to me. If it’s not my life entirely, that’s okay, I just want to get close enough to feel it, just once, feel sodden existence, for a moment and know, most powerfully, that I can free myself at any moment. My mind is a keeper of many worlds, I go anywhere at anytime. Of course, this is dependent upon comfort. The pick slips again and gets lodged in the mud. It’s tough to extract, cold water drips down the back of my neck carving around the serpentine glaciers of my spine. Suddenly I’m me, again, cold, miserable, focusing on my muscles, one task only, remove the pick, then dig your way out of this dreaded crew.

Then the sun shines. How beautiful that radiant star! Ah, praise the woods I say! Praise the simple life! How fickle I am; an ant has more conviction. And so I oscillate between happiness and depression, my moods following the lumpy rise and fall of the Pennsylvania topography, at night I dream of scarily real situations, in the mornings I wake, completely asleep.

Standing on the horizon of the conclusion of this trip, I try not to reprimand myself for my gloomy outlook, I try to blame my disenchantment on the weather, on the work, on physical fatigue. But as I lay on my back, fighting spasms kicking like little demons in my lower lumbar, I think, what does it take to make me happy? Would I have rather not have done this crew? I can answer immediately, no, I am glad I stayed on with the crew. What then of the darkness, of the frustration, of the muddied metallic taste that lives in my mouth, that plates my face and provokes a false reflection of events? How has this come to be? I look at my hands, fat with muscle, but tired, lines creased deeply. Perhaps that’s just it. Perhaps, I’m starting to take on the weathered look of my body, my heart feeling like my boots. Sometimes I feel my sole wearing thin. I just want to rest, sit a while, maybe even stay…

haikus

two birch trees are one,
strangling or embracing,
what difference is one?

two birch trees are one,
twins, born of their mother tall,
scabbling siblings

two birch trees are one,
alone i sing solemn song
all's one, i am none