Good Weekend

Largemouth Bass

I went fishing this weekend.  I grew up fishing and hadn’t done much since I moved to Colorado, which is a shame because we have a lot of great fishing – and not just fly fishing either.  I caught this one on spinner bait not 15 minutes from home.  I have to say I never thought I’d be bass fishing in a light snow.  Bass fishing is such a southern thing, normally done in the hot, swampy lakes from East Texas to Georgia.  I didn’t even know they could survive in lakes this far north, but apparently they can.  We also have walleye, which I’ve yet to catch.  I never saw those in Texas but they’re common in Colorado lakes, along with pike, yellow perch and other species I never saw in all my years growing up and fishing in Texas.

Front Range Wetlands

Also surprising to most people is that Colorado has wetlands.  They’re nearly unmentionable when compared to the wetlands of the south, but they’re genuine.  In some places when mountain streams finally leave the Rockies and spill out onto the plains, they slow down, spread out and create boggy areas that support cattails, reeds, rushes, huge cottonwoods, migrating shorebirds, turtles, snakes, bullfrogs, crayfish and other things you’d expect in the swamp but not in the Rockies.  Ecology is a beautiful and fascinating thing.

So overall I had a pretty good weekend.  I camped in Rocky in a light snow, prepped one of the gardens for spring and planted some seeds (spinach and chard from last year are already sprouting!), cleaned out the basement just enough to dig out my old rod, and spent the better part of a day fishing – and catching -  in a very quiet spot all by myself.  Not bad at all for a chilly, gray weekend in the weeks before the official start of spring.

Guns, Freedom, Money and Change

I’m going to ramble a bit because I’m really tired, but I have some things I want to get out.

I went into a gun shop last weekend looking for a hunting rifle.  I know these places are viper nests (ie. Conservative strongholds) but they’re they best places to get good hunting equipment, and guns are one thing conservatives do actually know something about.  They were also selling, as expected, t-shirts that said, “I’ll keep my guns, my money and my freedom.  You can keep the ‘change.’”

If only they put half as much effort into educating themselves as they did in coming up with catchy slogans to advertise their stupidity.

I did find something pretty awesome though: an 1895 lever-action Winchester 30.06. nearly all original and in excellent condition.  Parts of the stock had been rubbed smooth from over a century of use and being carried in a scabbard, probably attached to a saddle.  The price was $1,850, but they’d let it go for $1,600.

There will always be another.  Sometimes it’s really hard to save money, but I kept thinking of my little farmhouse, my own little piece of freedom, and I quietly walked away.

I don’t really understand why there has to be such an enormous gap and such polarization between conservatives and liberals.  On both sides you have nutcases who become obsessed with one or a few topics, and become completely blinded to reason or compromise.  And then they end up stigmatizing perfectly good things.  For example, guns.  The majority of conservatives practically worship them, and the majority of liberals view them as Satan incarnate.  Being in Boulder I’m surrounded by liberals and as far as I know all of my liberal friends view guns the same way: terrifying, evil, and completely unnecessary.  The conservatives I’ve known in my lifetime couldn’t imagine life without at least three or four under the bed, in the closet or in a safe in the den.  Why they’re as natural and common as the sunrise.  Why is there no happy medium here?  No I don’t think I need to have a small arsenal to fend off an impending enslavement of the people by the government.  No I’m not a bloodthirsty, violent redneck with something to prove either.  I just think it’s nice to participate in an human ritual that predates agriculture by countless millennia.  I think it’s nice to not be a hypocrite and actually kill that which I eat rather than buying it plastic-wrapped from the grocery store while pretending it wasn’t once a living animal grown expressly for some suburbanite’s TV dinner.

About 12,000 Americans are murdered with a gun each year, and I’d wager most of that is gang/drug violence perpetuated with illegal handguns.  About 17,000 Americans commit suicide with a gun each year.  Over 40,000 Americans are killed in car accidents each year; it’s about 116 people every day.  I’m not saying guns aren’t a problem that need to be dealt with, I’m saying I don’t think they deserve the bad rap liberals heap on them – and certainly not hunting rifles and shotguns.

So Close

I found a house, and I think I’m in love.

It’s a couple of acres, surrounded by Boulder County open space, with an abandoned but quite livable 1950′s farm house on it.  It has a four-car garage/workshop, a barn and water rights.  It’s close to Boulder, yet in the country, and has a stunning view of Long’s Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park.  It even has mature fruit trees and a dirt driveway.

I got in bed tonight but couldn’t sleep.  I was imagining the house all spiffed up with a fresh whitewash; polished original wood floors; a cool breeze off the mountains filling the house with the smell of summer grasses through open windows; homemade curtains sway gently.  Out back chickens are milling around in the yard looking for bugs.  Laundry hangs on the line.  A big draft horse nibbles at oats and hay out by the barn.  A sweet-faced Jersey is busy turning green grass into fresh milk.  Butterflies flit through the garden, lush and colorful with summer vegetables.  I’m in my favorite jeans and boots, unloading a pickup-load of Douglas-fir I’ve just cut in the mountains.  It needs to be split and cured for next winter’s firewood.  But first, I’ll have lunch and take a nap in the shade with my dogs.  The farm is alive and active, but not busy or hurried.  It’s my own little paradise.

The images keep racing through my mind.  But it isn’t real.  Not yet.  I just need a little more money in my piggy bank.  Just a little more time.

I’m in full-on saving mode now.  I mean I’m going hardcore, and this is the final push.  I have put us on a super-tight budget in order to reach the magic number in as short a time as possible.  I have canceled virtually every non-essential service.  Yesterday I canceled our cellular service, the last item I could cull from the budget.  We’ve been eating a lot of beans and rice and PB&J sandwiches.  We don’t go out for dinner with friends, we don’t drive anywhere, we don’t do anything that isn’t free because every penny is needed.  I’ve reached the point where I want nothing more than I want a homestead, however modest.

I don’t know if I’ll hit the magic number before this house sells, but I do know that now it’s only a matter of time before the intersection of a great little farm and my bank account converge to make my dream come true.

I’ve set an ultimate deadline of October 2012, about 18 months.  I’ll have a fat piggy bank long before then, but that time line will allow plenty of time to find the next “right one” if this one sells, and will also continue to fatten the piggy.  Of course if this one is still on the market by summer, it just may work out…

Wood

Glory hallelujah.  I found out today that for a very small fee one can buy a permit to cut his own firewood in the national forest.

Tonight I’ll be dreaming of Rocky Mountain Douglas-firs.

Switch Off

Ever notice when you go camping – like real camping away from city lights and all the lamps and gadgets and garbage most people haul with them when car camping – how it feels when the sun goes down?  What I mean is that keen awareness of the impending darkness as the sun starts to set.  You know that soon – hours, minutes perhaps, there won’t be any light, and no light switches to keep the darkness at bay.  I love that feeling.  I notice I sleep better and I generally get to sleep a lot earlier (and get up a lot earlier) when there aren’t a lot of artificial lights and computer screens and televisions frying my retinas.  Studies have shown that all of the exposure we get from artificial light sources at night throw our bodies out of whack (very scientific explanation here, I know) by interfering with melatonin secretion and circadian rhythms and such which is a big part of the reason so many Westerners can’t get to sleep at a decent hour and then can’t get up in the morning without an alarm clock and coffee.  (Crappy diet and a sedentary lifestyle pretty much round out the reasons.)

Well after watching a documentary on the Amish I decided to try a little experiment: no (or very judicious and scant use of) electric lights after dark.  This includes no computer use, which rule I’m breaking at this very moment but I’m making this quick.  Instead we use the light from the fireplace, and have tapped into the stockpile of beeswax candles I’ve been collecting from local honey producers.

You know what?  It’s pretty freaking awesome.  The first 15 minutes or so it feels weird, like you’ve lost power or something.  But then very quickly your eyes adjust and you can see quite well – just like when you’re camping in the woods.  Already lacking television, the whole place takes on a new dimension of peace and relaxation.  It’s completely quiet except for the crackling of the fire, and walking from a room with no candles to a room with three of them burning FEELS like walking into bright light.  I can even read by the candles.  After an hour, if someone forgets and flips on a light switch, it’s shocking, menacing, it feels uncomfortably bright and intrusive and makes you want to leave the room or shut it off fast.  This is especially so by day two or three.

I also like it because it’s one more way in which I can feel connected to the natural world.  Without dependence on electric lights, one has a much more acute sense of the cycle of day and night, of sleep and wake.

When I’m ready to build my farmhouse/cabin I’m going to be even less likely now to have electricity.  Maybe a solar panel or small wind turbine to run my computer or some emergency light.

Blood On My Hands

Sometimes it feels like a nightmare living in an apartment.  Sometimes it feels like a prison sentence, with the generic walls and no garage or workshop or barn or land of my own.  Sometimes I need a jailbreak.

My hands are bleeding.  They’re crusted with dirt.  They’re burned.  They’re frozen.

They feel awesome.

There’s a hidden place near here where an enormous, century-old cotton wood tree lies dead.  For over one hundred years the old man stood as sentinel over the creek, looking out across rolling hills and up into the rocky recesses of the mountains.  He offered shade and shelter to countless generations of people and squirrels, of countless birds and raccoons and foxes and deer, and certainly the odd bear or lion or bobcat as well.  But fierce winds from the canyon finally took him, and now he lies upside down on a steep hillside – gnarled, dry fingers clawing at the edge of the creek it once towered above.  It’s a fitting spot for the old giant.  It’s beautiful and quiet.

I went to this place today.  I went with purpose.  I went to offer the old giant one last chance to be useful before time and the elements returned him to the soil.  I went, hoping that in death he could provide warmth in my home, some feeling in my hands, and a little joy in my heart.  I readied my axe.  I heaved.  She ripped.

Have you ever split wood with an axe next to a mountain stream in a light snowfall?  For me, especially after being pent up in an apartment downtown for so long, it was borderline orgasmic.  Let me tell you about my axe.  It’s a Snow and Nealley double bit felling axe, the classic woodsman axe.  The 3 1/2 pound head is hand-ground and affixed to 36 inches of polished hickory.  She’s got leather blade guards and is hand made in the USA.  When I pulled her out of storage and gripped that hickory my breath quickened.  My blood started pumping.  A grin of sheer pleasure came across my face as I slipped off the leather guards and inspected the steel head.  Slowly raising the axe, extending my arms, lengthening my torso, firmly squaring my hips and planting my feet, I inhaled deeply and let ‘er fly.  Every muscle in my core contracted in unison, my glutes engaged and my lats helped drive the axe with such force that the head plunged deep into the old wood which split with a thunderous crack.  Fuck yes.

Over and over I swung, abs contracting, shoulders lifting, hands and feet and eyes and back working together in a seamless, steady rhythm.  Swing after swing, the pile grew.  Hands were bloodied and blistered from the tossing and smashing and heaving of heavy things.  And when I was satisfied that I had taken enough, I stopped to admire the neat stack of cut firewood, the fresh clean grain being dusted with Rocky Mountain snow.  I did that.  This time I didn’t have to settle for a $7 plastic wrapped bundle of five sticks of pine from the supermarket.  It isn’t about the money, understand.  It’s like the difference between letting a lion hunt wild game on the prairie, and tossing him a steak in a cage.

I gripped the hickory just below the head and brought it close to my face.  The shiny steel glinted between smears of frozen mud.  Crusts of slushy snow dribbled down the head and the hickory and trickled through my fingers.  I was taken aback at the sight of hot crimson blood smeared on my skin, mixing with the dribbling slush in a cool pink liquid.  I hadn’t even felt it, but I could see (and then felt) where something, probably the bark on one of the bigger pieces, had taken the hide off the side of my hand.  The muscles of my torso and back and legs and arms were tight, but not exhausted – like they were juiced up after a good play fight and were now twitching with excitement for the real thing.  But it was time to quit.  I didn’t want to take too much, not knowing how the landowner, whoever he was, would feel about my trespass.  I had supposed he wouldn’t mind giving me this small thrill, if not a small portion of this enormous dead tree.

So into the Super Duty I loaded my axe and then stacked the by-product of my forbidden foray.  I wasn’t even there an hour, yet I looked down at the place where I had done the deed with longing and affection.  I didn’t want to leave.  I wasn’t done.  I needed more – not more wood, more chopping, more blood, more tightness in my muscles, more sounds of the creek in my ears and more tickles of snowflakes on my face.  Chopping wood is about as simple and gritty and manly as a thing can be, and here I almost felt like I was sneaking off behind closed doors to do it.  But God it was worth it.

What a fucked up culture suburbia is.

So now here I sit, back in my comfortable, sterile, robotic role as a cube dweller making good money which I’m supposed to go spend at Pottery Barn on decorative plastic accents, starting at just $19! But of course I won’t.  Instead I’ll save my money.  I’ll look out the window and watch the snow.  I’ll listen to the crackling and popping of freshly split wood in the fireplace.   I’ll think about how much I love splitting wood, shoeing horses, bucking hay, hoeing the garden, grooming horses, feeding chickens, mending fences, raising barns and a million other things that don’t involve paying other people to supply everything in my life.  I’ll think about the land I’m going to buy with all the money I save from this desk job and the little house I’m going to build on it.  I’ll look at the now crusted blood on my hands and I’ll smile.  Fuck yes.

Tales of the Mountain Men

I’m reading Tales of the Mountain Men, a collection of excerpts edited by Lamar Underwood.

I’ve been off work for eleven straight days. I’ve spent most of that time celebrating with friends and family, cooking, reading and snowshoeing (and shopping with mom, as previously noted.) Tomorrow I have to go back to the office. I’d rather pack up a string of horses and mules and ride for days deep into the mountains. There I would find my cozy little cabin nestled at the foot of the mountains on the edge of a wide meadow. I’d like to wade into an icy creek and set a beaver trap. I’d like to trap a few beaver, skin them out, tan the hides and sew them into a coat. I’d like to chop firewood for the stove. I’d like to eat fried beaver tail and winter pemmican. I’d like to hear the old wood planks creak gently beneath my feet as I gaze out the window across the snow-blanketed valley. I’d like to stretch out on the buffalo robe in front of the fire with my dogs and sleep away the long winter nights.

But that’s only a dream. I live in cube land. I am a mountain man spirit trapped in the life of a cube bunny. Nobody ever said life was fair.

The Breed

The mountain men were a tough race, as many selective breeds of Americans have had to be; their courage, skill and mastery of the conditions of their chosen life were absolute or they would not have been here. Nor would they have been here if they had not responded to the loveliness of the country and found in their way of life something precious beyond safety, gain, comfort and family life.

–Bernard DeVoto
Across the Wide Missouri

Tell of Woe

Well it seems I’m in full-on blogger mode again, which means I’ve reverted to my Great Obsession.

It makes me want to laugh. Or cry.

It’s finally snowing in Boulder. The wind is howling and we could get as much as a foot by tomorrow morning, along with sub-zero temperatures. Counting today I have four more days before I have to go back into the office. I plan to spend the majority of that time fireside knocking out a few books, doing a little blogging, and working on my novel.

So what brought my obsessive feelings back? Partly I wanted them to come back. I missed them, if that makes sense. I guess it’s how I’ve come to define myself. It makes me wonder how I’d feel if I ever were to achieve my fantasy. I mean imagine you spent your whole life fantasizing of, say, going to Greece. Then you finally get to go. Upon returning home, what then? What comes next? Would you be satisfied thereafter? Or would you find that it was the obsession with Greece, rather than Greece itself, that you actually needed?

Partly my obsession was brought back by just not being at work. I haven’t been in the office since last Wednesday. It’s now Thursday of the following week. In the past week I’ve been to the Leanin’ Tree Museum of Western Art twice, and that always catapults me back into hardcore Western fantasizing. It’s one of the best little museums I’ve ever been to and the only art museum I’ve ever loved. It’s in Boulder, it’s free and open to the public, and it’s usually very quiet so it’s a good place to meditate on the things near and dear to my heart. And the art collection is amazing. Even my parents loved it. Often I’ll go alone during some off-time when I’m sure to be the only one there and I’ll spend an hour or two gazing into an intangible world that captivates me. Every sculpture, every painting is a moment frozen in time – yet they all tell a story, however brief, and give one a glimpse of what was and what would be, even if the stories are only based loosely on historical events.

The deep lines painted on an old Apache woman’s face as she stares off into the desert at something only she can see; the cowboy about to be crushed by his sun fishing horse; the war party in the pale moonlight; the haunting spirit horse mourning the death of his warrior; the epic struggle between hunter and mountain lion; the tenderness of two cowboys at Thanksgiving in a rugged and unforgiving world; the packers after a successful hunt; breathtaking western landscapes with all their minute detail and a thousand things more. These images move me and haunt me; they fill my soul with something I can’t get from the daily grind of “normal” life.

And finally, my obsessive feelings were brought back by getting out into the mountains. Rocky Mountain National Park is what keeps me sane, and it’s not even the most perfect slice of the American West. That title belongs to Yellowstone, the only in-tact ecosystem in the lower 48 that still looks and functions more or less like it did before the arrival of the white man and all of his destructive ways. I think that when the day comes that I visit Yellowstone I won’t want to leave. Wolves, grizzlies, wolverines, bison, untrammeled forests and meadows, snow-capped peaks and untamed rivers – Yellowstone is the last refuge of Wild America outside of Alaska.

For lunch today I sat down with a warm bowl of leftover homemade chicken soup: potatoes, carrots and dried oregano from the garden and chicken from a local farm. I served it with a leftover buttermilk biscuit I made from scratch for breakfast yesterday. In the glow of the Christmas tree I watched the snow falling outside, warmed by my soup and my thoughts. This is heaven for me, this moment.

I’m a philosopher. That’s what I really am, no bones about it. I probably wouldn’t make for an exceptional cowboy; I’m not reckless enough. I probably wouldn’t make for an exceptional mountain man; I may not be tough enough. I don’t make an exceptional analyst or businessman; I don’t care enough. What drives me is a desire to become enlightened and to be inspired. What thrills me is to enlighten and inspire others. What comforts me is nature. What satisfies me is purpose.

I don’t want to be a scientist; they care only for what makes a thing tick. I don’t want to be a businessman; they care only for making money. I don’t want to be an adventurer; they care only for the thrill of the moment. I don’t want to be a politician; they care only for winning the game.

I think my calling in life is to be a teacher, a writer, a naturalist, a philosopher, and a non-academic historian. These things I am now, as much as I can be. I do want to know about science, I do want to have business sense, and I do want to understand the game. We need professionals in all areas I suppose. Thing is, I don’t want to specialize in the activities. I want a bird’s eye view of all of them, to understand how they form our world. I want to know who we are, where we came from, where we are going, why we do what we do, or don’t. I want to inspire people to think beyond what makes a thing tick, to care for more than just money, and to realize that the game has no value but that which we assign to it. I despise the concept of money and accumulating wealth in monetary form. I despise the corporate ladder and the Western concept of “progress.” Alas, this is the world in which I live, so I struggle to find a way to “earn a living” from the things I love, rather than from the unsatisfying activities that I know will work but leave me feeling empty. My body is clothed and nourished by my career success, but my soul is left destitute.

Texas Ranch House

I’m obsessed with a reality tv mini series and I don’t even have a television.

So here’s the story.  Awhile back I met a lady in Boulder who said she met a guy in Denver who was on this show called Texas Ranch House which I’d never heard of.  She said the guy told her all about how it was a reality tv show where he and a bunch of strangers lived on a historically accurate average West Texas ranch for a summer as if it were 1867, and when it was all over he was so attached to his horse he bought it and brought it back to Colorado.

Being obsessed with cowboys, self-sufficiency, nature and anti-consumerism (plus having a fondness for West Texas) I eagerly investigated and rented the series from Netflix.  Wow.

Basically it’s PBS’ answer to the reality tv show: strangers coming together to do something challenging and stir up drama, but (being PBS) with a decidedly academic flavor.

There certainly was no shortage of drama, much more than would have been on such a ranch 130 years ago.  This was even confirmed by the assessment of the participants by professional ranchers and historians after the series concluded.  Nearly all the drama came from the women, all but one of whom were part of a real family taking on the role of the ranch owner’s family.  (What despicable people they turned out to be, but the cowboys were awesome!)  Nonetheless, it was a fascinating study in putting oneself in another’s shoes.  It was so much more, too.

I learned a lot, and I have to admit that being a cowboy seems to be somewhat less glamorous than most people think, even less than I thought.  However, I now find that I’m actually even MORE drawn to it.  The guys who were the cowboys were pretty young, the youngest was only 19, though the oldest was about my age.  Only one had ever done any “cowboyin” before, and he quickly rose to be their respected leader.  All seemed to have been affected by the experience.  In the end, despite the difficulties, the hardships and the extreme conditions, they didn’t want to quit.  They didn’t want to go back to their “normal” lives.  They built powerful bonds with each other.  They had a sense of purpose.  And it was absolutely amazing how quickly everyone (even the vile Cooke family) adapted to having none of the modern conveniences we all think we need.  Their lives were greatly simplified, people took on roles.  In a sense it reminded me of The Lord of the Flies because of how quickly humans organize themselves and switch to survival mode when all the luxuries we take for granted are stripped away.  It is only in these situations that our true selves come out.

When I was a kid my family spent a hard day working for a family friend (or acquaintance anyway) named Charlie who paid my parents to tear down his old garage.  At least that’s what I remember.  Anyway, what was done isn’t important.  It’s the fact that I labored hard all day in the heat, and then in the rain once the sky opened up.  I remember how it felt to be so dirty and miserable at first, and how once I resigned myself to it I actually started to enjoy it.  I loved the dirt.  I loved the feel of old wood, nails and other textures in my hands.  I loved sweating and then being drenched in rain.  I loved moving things.  I loved making something happen by the sweat of my brow.  I loved not caring anymore that my clothes were filthy, not worrying about my appearance.  And the best part, I remember, was at the end of the day when I took that long hot shower.  I was on an amazing natural high.

I had similar experiences when we would go to my grandparents’ house at Lake Livingston.  There was no television nor phone nor air conditioning.  It was just family, the summer heat, the forest, and of course that big murky lake full of fish, turtles, snakes, birds and alligators.  Going there was one of my greatest joys, and I never wanted to come back to my “normal life.”  There was always so much to do, to see, and to explore.  I didn’t mind not having toys or television or air conditioning.  In fact I didn’t even want them compared to what I had there.  I had unexplored trails through the woods, boggy backwater sloughs full of fish and gators, crickets chirping en mass through the cool humid nights, dirt roads, camp fires, an old cane pole, fresh fried fish and of course swimming.

What the cowboys experienced was similar in many ways.  In the beginning they were silly and immature, but that was quickly tempered by their new lifestyle and they became completely different people.  In many ways they actually became happier people with a much deeper understanding of life.  A million examples are flashing through my mind right now.  They washed their own clothes by hand.  They bathed once a week in shared water.  They ate relatively boring meals over and over.  The days were long and hard.  But then, sometimes a cool rain would come or there would be an amazing lighting storm on the distant plains beyond the mountains.  They would accomplish something as a team and then talk about it for hours.  They would tell stories and laugh.  They helped each other.  They bonded with their horses.  The hard times made the simple things in life shine like beacons.  There’s just so much.

I feel like our modern lives make us numb.  Like a drug, we end up needing ever more “things” or comforts to give us an ever diminishing sense of happiness while miracles happen around us all the time.  We don’t notice the every day wonders and simple pleasures because we’re so distracted by all the things we’ve invented that really don’t mean a thing.

The other day I wrote an email to a few friends and family.  In it I said the following (among much else:)

In our modern society we are surrounded by people yet we’re almost as alone as if we were camped in a mountain wilderness.  At least that’s my perspective.  How many hours a day do we spend working either alone or with people that we aren’t actually friends with?  (Friendly, yes, but someone you actually connect with?  That’s rare at work.)  How many hours per day do we stare at a glowing computer screen?  How many hours per week do we spend sitting in our cars or watching TV or otherwise being completely isolated in a sea of other people?  One of the things that really, really gets me about this modern life is that 99% of what I do on a daily basis would mean absolutely nothing if society as we know it ceased to exist.  Think about it.  You do “good” work, I do “good” work.  But what do we really do?  Type on a computer all day and get stressed out to play some role in a system of healthcare and a system of power consumption that isn’t even sustainable anyway?  Everything we do is meaningless if those systems collapse.  But if we were working to build a house for ourselves, or a vegetable garden for ourselves, those things really mean something.  Why?  Because no matter if healthcare or the power grid or money or any other human invention comes tumbling down, we still have to eat.   We still need shelter.  And working behind a computer 50 hours a week or more is really just using a middle man to put food in your mouth and a roof over your head, and middle men are expensive and unnecessary.  And how much money do you really need anyway to buy wholesome food and a comfortable shelter?  How much of our money goes to things like televisions, hot new fashions, fancy dining, parties, shiny new cars and a million other things that are not only unnecessary but are in fact nothing more than distractions from how miserable we are sitting behind a computer all day utterly alone?

What’s a cowboy wannabe to do?

Okay, I’ll confess I don’t actually want to be a cowboy, at least not as a lifetime career (though I’d jump at the chance to be one for a year, or even a summer.)  I like being educated.  I like reading.  I like a little more leisure time.  I’ve decided that what I really am, or really want to be anyway, is a combination cowboy, lumberjack, treehugging hippie, philosopher, family man, farmer and scientist all rolled into one.  (How’s that for complexity?)  Some of these things may seem diametrically opposed and perhaps they are traditionally.  But each has some characteristics that appeal to me tremendously.  Why can’t I ride horses and raise livestock, grow my own food, chop my own lumber and build my own house, be a good, enlightened and kind person, keep myself well read, have close community of friends who would die for each other, respect ALL life and live in harmony with my environment?  Do these things really have to be mutually exclusive?  Why can’t a cowboy be gay and love ALL people?  Why can’t a lumberjack be well educated?  Why can’t a treehugger believe in the divine and still reject religion?  Why can’t one person embody all of these things and more?

Modern society appears to give us many things, but one thing it can never give me is that rush, that glorious, orgasmic pain of knowing deep down inside that I am a luminous being walking this earth in a fleeting shell of flesh and blood.  Surely we are here to do more, to feel more, to be so much more than the creators of Wal-Mart and fast food.  SURELY.