My Second Up North Adventure, Day 3 of 3

I’ve only been here two and a half days but it feels like I’ve already lost myself—no, that phrasing is almost entirely wrong—perhaps I have already FOUND myself again. Me—the person who laughs as the quirky chipmunk outside cleans off his tail after stepping through some unsightly matter or another—me—that strains my ears for the haunting call of the loon. Me, who sprints from the house with my binoculars as dusk sets in hard because I see water birds of some sort far out on the bay. Me that spends hours staring intently at deer tracks wondering how old they are…me that is disgusted with myself for loving this place, this land, so much—yet only spending (at most) three weeks a year here. I feel like my soul knows this place but my mind does not—and I’m disgusted with that fact.

I have to leave today in order to be at my childhood home tomorrow for Easter—a holiday I don’t believe in but a family that I do. A family that doesn’t question me when I head to this house up north alone…a family that may silently worry about my perpetual loner status but does not say a word (well, they don’t say MANY words. There are of course the occasional hookup attempts by my mother and the mentions of future nieces and nephews by my father). They put up with me, and sure they only selectively listen when I go on spiels about the environment, but at least they listen at all.

I hate the city for all of the obvious reasons and love this place for all of the obvious reasons as well, but there’s more to it than that (as is always the case with love and hate). I have many great friends in the city, but none of them truly grasp my beliefs (and, well, the facts) about the environment and civilization. SOME will humor me and half listen as I explain my passions, but most won’t even do that.

Here in the woods with no human companionship I find many who agree and understand. Here, be it the chipmunk , the merganser, the birch or the eagle, they all not only understand, but agree. Here the wind wraps me in hugs of understanding. Here my muse is not smothered beneath concrete and light pollution.

I don’t want to go “home” when I know deep down that I am actually leaving it.

I took all of the pictures in this post and added frames using Adobe InDesign.

My Second Up North Adventure, Day 2 of 3

Second day…morning.

You’d think that small rodents in the forest (squirrels, chipmonks, etc.) would be stealthy to avoid predation, but perhaps in these times they lack predation. (Not perhaps, I guess, they DO lack predation). I can hear them jumping around in last fall’s dried leaves from quite a distance.

People always muse “why didn’t you just stay there?” when talking to a friend about a vacation they took to one paradise or another—I’ve wondered that myself—even planned (preliminarily) to move to some of those places. Well, today I got to thinking—I’m IN one of those places now—Northern Wisconsin, land of more than ten thousand lakes (take THAT Minnesota).

Why is it that people are obviously aware that the places they live in are not “paradises” but instead of trying to make them back into the beautiful places they once were they travel to other places, not yet entirely destroyed?

-----

Sound travels like magic on a northern lake. I hear a common merganser (not common at all on this lake) calling—in a lonely way from a point I can barely make out with binoculars. Perhaps he or she landed on the wrong lake, and cannot find the mate they assumed would be waiting. Perhaps it’s the right lake and they were separated and the other will not make it this year, or ever again.

This is definitely not a bad way to spend a morning—I am sitting a foot away from the lake watching wood ducks and what has now become a pair of common mergansers (no more lonely calls!) I have a water bottle, binoculars, notebook, camera, and two books (Rewild or Die By: Urban Scout and Behind the Dolphin Smile By: Richard O’Barry). The sun is shining warm on me in a tshirt in Northern Wisconsin on April 2^nd. Global warming, a myth you say?

All of the images are pictures I took myself and then added frames to using InDesign:)

Architecture's Hidden Truths

I have been struggling to think of something to write about since I got back from visiting my home town for Thanksgiving…I’ve decided to expand on a topic I brought up in a forum I’m a member of.

Architecture.

It amazes me that some of the most valuable architecture in the country (houses, office buildings, etc.) is modeled after the nature it inherently destroys. The more windows, skylights, patio doors, balconies, wood flooring, exposed trusses, the better.

It is true that having the feeling of being outside is comforting (consciously to me) apparently unconsciously to most. This civilization has so skewed the way people look at where they live that they have made the indoors as much like the outdoors as possible without it being “wild” or “uncontrollable”. In a mansion covered with windows you can successfully disconnect from nature while still watching and hearing the rain.

“Buildings, too, are children of Earth and Sun.” –Frank Lloyd Wright

Yet what is a spring shower without the drops pummeling off your face as you grin from puddle to puddle?

Folks will sit out on their balconies and patios for hours reading, writing, watching…yet they do not sit in their (often well manicured) yards, or go explore the last remaining stand of wood in their communities.

Property sells for more when located next to a city park than it does when located next to barely charted wilderness. This is a good thing for those like me that love the wilderness, but it’s strange to me at the same time. People want only concentrated and well controlled doses of nature in this society.

A potted plant, a skylight. Mention a large expanse of unfenced wood or a day out in rain gear splashing through mud and these same people who paid top dollar to feel close to nature will cringe in fear.

“God is the great mysterious motivator of what we call nature, and it has often been said by philosophers, that nature is the will of God. And I prefer to say that nature is the only body of God that we shall ever see.” –Frank Lloyd Wright

This applies on a large scale as well. Let’s take central park for instance. Humans need greenery, nature, life, and so we put it in the middle of our zones of destruction and death (cities). The apartments/condos overlooking the park sell for more money than I and ten of my friends will likely make in a lifetime.

The Smothered Scream of a Wage Slave

I’ve been thinking today about passions, dreams, goals (all of the things our society sugar coats into meaning success, money, and promotions). What really and truly makes me happy? Well, writing of course. Not the manual writing I do for my job or the editing I do for extra money….ACTUAL writing. Soul bending, heart tearing writing. Writing that stops me dead in my tracks as the muse takes over and I stare, dumbfounded, at the page.

If I were to break it down in a more scientific sense I would say that the higher the percentage of concrete is when compared to the percentage of trees is in an area the lower my productivity falls. Basically, cities suck the soul right out of me. It’s hard to write when I look around and no longer hold any hope for humanity and limited hope for the earth as a whole.

“Poetry has been able to function quite directly as human interpretation of the raw, loose universe. It is a mixture, if you will, of journalism and metaphysics, or of science and religion.” –Annie Dillard

It’s in and surrounded by nature that I feel at peace. Not so at peace, mind you, that I would only write sappy love sonnets and the like, but at peace enough that my heart isn’t racing in such fear that putting pen to paper is inconceivable. Sunlight helps, as do stars that aren’t diluted by city lights. Crickets (not of the sound machine variety) calm me like no lullaby ever could.

So, I suppose the problem isn’t knowing what I need to be happy and to write—it’s getting what I need. I won’t get it working my 9-5 job (now complete with overtime) in a building with one window surrounded by the most “city like” parts of my city (pavement, too much traffic, and industry everywhere). Yet how do I go live closer to nature and still make enough money to survive in this society?

I really don’t know the answer to that.

“Yes, there is a Nirvana; it is in leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.” –Kahlil Gibran

My daily schedule is enough to drive anyone insane. I wake up at 5:20am (and it’s dark) get to work by 6am and don’t leave until 5:30pm (when it is also dark). If I want to see daylight at all I need to leave at lunch, where I can get a 30 minute dose of daylight. I get home and all I do is sit, or lay, since I’m so exhausted from staring at a screen all day. Sometimes I try to read, but typically I just fall asleep.

Am I happy with this job? Of course not. How could I be? Yet I sell my life away…

The only semi-agreeable option I know of right now is to go to grad school for my MFA in creative writing. The problem is the school itself is in a city. Yet, at least I won’t be working an office job anymore…

“You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.”
-Desiderata

Birch and Fern

I miss the stars of the north. The way that they were everywhere I looked at night, bright and shining as if they could still remember their purpose when not disturbed by city lights.

I’ve always loved northern Wisconsin. I’ve longed to go there from time to time since my life got so busy that it never seemed to happen more than once or twice a year. Until a month ago I hadn’t spent more than three days in a row up there since I was 14. I think the three day limit was keeping me safe from the constant longing I’m now struggling with. Three days was okay, it was enough to continue my affair with the birch and fern, but not enough to lead to true love. The north was a mistress and nothing more. But the nine days I spent up there in September led to love—and love leads to irrationality.

"In the woods we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life--no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Last week Tuesday I took a sick day and actually considered driving four hours north at 6am, spending the day at my parent’s place up there, and driving back at around 8pm. After quite the struggle I talked myself out of this gas and money-guzzling adventure. The fact that I even considered something as irresponsible as this, however, shows how much I miss it there.

I wonder sometimes how it is that I ended up living in the city. I love the culture of this town and the accepting nature of most people here…but all I want is to live in the country these days. Although I’m sure as soon as I got there I’d miss everything being so close. I remember when I was around twelve I wrote a poem called Country and City Girl showing my conflicting viewpoints on where I’d like to live. Those conflicts haven’t really been resolved.

I want to go to grad school next year but I’m not sure the idea of living in an even bigger city than the one I’m in now is a good one. I will be further north, but a north filled with sound barricades and traffic isn’t one I particularly look forward to. I guess I have some more thinking to do.

“The richness I achieve comes from Nature, the source of my inspiration.”

-Claude Monet