Greetings from the wild side! Just some quick thoughts to keep y’all posted on how goes it in project “Livin’ Wild, Livin’ Free.”
In a word: busy busy busy. You’d think it’d be just the opposite going from a civilized life to a relatively “primitive” one but despite its incessant demand for increased labor, market-based civilization affords one a degree of luxurious indulgence in laziness (a skill with which I have attained unparalleled expertise.) Not so much when you’re planning to live off the land, however. This was actually the first glaring realization of the project: Living in the wilds, striving to live off the land, one can’t afford to go by one’s own whims nor schedule. Nature has her own clock with no regard whatsoever for the trivial plans of mice nor men. It’s easy, for example, to put off food acquisition for a more convenient time when the Safeway’s open 24/7. Not so much when you have to get your veggies planted by such-and-such a date if you want to eat this summer.
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Nature: 4, Rostenko: Big Fat 0.
Well, one batch of snow melted, the ground dried, and then the rain started. So I put things off another day or two and then decided “Screw it, rain or shine, this project starts tomorrow.” Tomorrow was yet another day in a trend of moisture that just doesn’t happen up here… at least not until the gods read my blog and decided that this monkey needs a nice wrench shoved straight up his skinny white ass.
But I said “rain or shine” and so, having sniffed out the one flat 12-foot circle on my entire fifty acres, hauled the tipi a quarter mile uphill over a boulder field and commenced to settin’ ‘er up. And that’s when the rain/snow/sleet/thunder began. And the temperature took a nose dive. Not particularly in the mood to haul any more junk up there just to camp out in a field of mud I deferred once again to the almighty tomorrow. And wouldn’t you just know it? This tomorrow greeted me with yet another fresh, wet, heavy snow fall. So I tried the tomorrow thing one more time.
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Hey remember me? I’m the guy who was gonna’ start up that big “living outside” project on the first of May. I’ve neglected the blog for the past month due in large part to a near fatal flare-up of procrastinitis as well as half-hearted efforts to tie up loose ends, get prepared, etc. Turns out getting away from civilization and simplifying one’s life is far more complicated than y’all might think. On top of that, today brings plunging temperatures and a blizzard. So I’m gonna’ postpone things a few days – not because I’m a girly-man but because I’d really like a more auspicious and pleasant beginning for this thing. The prospect of starting it off sitting in a canvas tipi dripping with melting snow while feeding logs into the fire all day long is just not blowing my skirt up.
Shall we talk about what this project might actually entail? That might serve to make all my blathering a smidge more meaningful, so let’s get started. Short story: A six month experiment in outdoor living, striving to get my needs met in nature with as little access to modern technology, civilization and its products as practically possible.
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I’m not ready to lay out the details of this mysterious “project” I keep alluding to, primarily because I haven’t worked them out yet. But here’s the basic core of it so that we have a context for understanding what the heck I’m prattling on about: I’m gonna’ be living outside, livin’ wild, livin’ dirty, deep in the heart of nature for six months or so… we’ll see how it goes from there. My contact with civilization will be limited primarily to meeting the needs that can’t be met in nature. In this post I want to briefly lay out the basic premises of this experiment and handle some of the confusion.
Before we get started, allow me to clarify: this has always been and will remain primarily a “pro-nature” blog. Contrary to the impression recent posts may have created, this is NOT turning into an “anti-civilization” blog. It’s not my intention to harp on and on about what’s wrong with humanity; I simply need to lay down the basic foundations for my motivations.
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i wonder if trees delight of the wind’s caress…
their limbs, their flesh liberated for moments in the breeze,
dreams of locomotion fulfilled.
do they thrill of dance, arms stretched, trunks swaying forth and back?
vigilant stillness, now gifted by the wind: a moment to connect,
to touch a brother near.
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So… about my getting away from civilization… let’s clarify a few points and define some terms as, judging from comments and inquiries I’ve heard since, my last post generated some dubious assumptions and presumptions. What say we generate a few more, shall we?
First off, let’s tackle the primary source of misunderstanding by defining the word “civilization” or what I refer to as The Beast. Most people equate civilization with society. Let me be perfectly clear: the two are NOT synonymous. Hominids, modern humans and their most recent predecessors, have been around for about two million years*; civilization appeared less than 10,000 years ago. While the archaeological record suggests that civilizations arose independently in several areas of the globe, Western civilization began in what’s referred to as the Fertile Crescent, specifically with Mesopotamia and the Sumerians about sixty centuries ago.
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No, this blog is not defunct. I’ve just been hibernating; it’s winter, you know. I’ve spent the time since my last post trying to figure out exactly what it is I want to do here. My intent has been to serve the planet, to make some meaningful contribution to the environment, help in some way to stop the horrendous onslaught of civilization while we still have a few wild places left. I haven’t gotten very far…
I thought that writing pretty words about nature might inspire people. You know, “show them the beauty and they’ll want to protect it.” But somewhere along the line I realized what a big steamy pile of horseshit that strategy really is. Far more likely, if you show them the beauty they’ll say “Wow, that’s beautiful.” And now let’s get the kids off to the indoctrination center, er, I mean, school, put in another long day of meaningless, soul-sucking work, hire some hooligans to potato-sack the mother-in-law, fix this, handle that, maybe even get a few hours of restless tossing and turning after the 10 o’clock local murder report… and the beauty is long forgotten. And nothing changes.
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Not quite autumn, not quite summer, the high-desert flows in perpetual flux. No longer a stranger here, I’ve come to know this place; I feel its pulse beneath my feet, I hear its breath at night. The subtleties are more prominent now, the unnamed and unnoticed: the spaces between the leaves, the silence between the bird calls, the stillness between the wind gusts. There are no distinct seasons I have learned, only clines, continual, cyclical series of infinitesimal gradations subtly transitioning towards something else. Like the Taoist yin & yang, the fullest expression of one bears the embryo of its opposite.
Autumn’s first seeds sprouted around mid-August, barely noticeable but for a subtle crispness to the night. The days – hot as I remember – but drifting upon the evening breeze, brisk harbingers of fall: immediately after sundown, a sharp thermal plunge when only weeks before the day’s heat dissipated gradually into the night. Leaves of the currants yellowed first, but only here and there. The shrub oaks, no longer bursting with emergent light green freshness had donned the darker, forest green cloak of leaves past their prime, gnarled, torn and chewed by wind and heat and insects, longing for winter’s long sleep.
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Lest ye think that the life of a nature writer is just a big barrel of fun & games, frolicking about with butterflies, dancing and prancing with bears and bumblebees and composing beautiful little ballads for the birds, allow me, dear reader, to peel back the veil of wilderness romance and offer a glimpse into the brutal, harsh reality.
There’s a time-honored tradition here at Rancho Rostenko which I like to call “Wait until the last minute to cut firewood AGAIN, you lazy sod,” which, oddly enough, tends to coincide almost exactly with my annual ritual of grumbling “Next summer I’m gonna’ cut a little bit each week and then by fall I’ll have laid in a full winter’s supply, easy-peazy lemon squeezy” followed by the thrice-chanted blessing “And this time I REALLY mean it. Amen.” Firewood, by the way, is rather important with winter looming here at 8500 feet elevation and a woodstove as my sole source of heat.
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I remember my first hike far into the Rockies fourteen years ago, lugging a 45-pound backpack full of mostly nothing I really needed. I’d seen the commercials, read the slick, glossy magazines, done my research: the most direct route to fulfilling outdoor adventure was from the bank to the gear shop. Subtly, even diabolically, the over-coiffed stuffed-shirt parasites that infest Madison Avenue had almost entirely leached me of the simple truth gleaned as a child exploring what little was still left of the southeastern Michigan forests: that simply being in Nature is enough… more than enough.
Nine miles into a mostly uphill slog deep into the Indian Peaks Wilderness, I unstrapped the pack and set up camp in a huge cavernous bowl, rimmed by jagged peaks well above timberline. I filtered water out of a cold, crystal clear high mountain lake because the marketers had warned me that Nature is dangerous, that Her lifeblood is full of harmful beasties and bacteria, that only expensive technology could spare me the horror and pain of engaging naturally with the environment. I downed a bowl of some unmemorable rehydrated mush and sat back to wonder “Now what? What to do? Is this all there is?”
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