Rock Castle Gorge, West Trail

soon as I see bear sign — words

on dirty white metal — I fear

meeting a black bear, me hiking

bravely forward, no, weeping at first

for half a mile I’m quaking inside

bear on the trail, paws tearing bark

from trees, snatching up pine cones

no, I’d scarcely be its chosen meal

a bear would be scared as I am

but a bear would be larger, stronger

& if the bear were it, my death

I would meet it, completely alive

 

elsewhere

 from Eddie Glaube's Begin Again:

Elsewhere is that physical or metaphorical place that affords the space to breathe, to refuse adjustment and accommodation to the demands of society, and to live apart, if just for a time, from the deadly assumptions that threathen to smother.

not metaphoric but metamorphic

 

Snowbound

Saturday I drove from Meadows of Dan VA to Damascus VA where I shopped for groceries, thank heavens, & then drove on to my second rental, some twenty miles east of Damascus &, as it turns out, @ 3500 ft elevation. About halfway from Meadows of Dan snow began falling heavily. The two hour drive took three & a half hours. By the time I reached the rental’s private gravel road 6" had accumulated, & my car bogged down on the steep hill leading up to the cabin. I hadn't known it was a steep hill. Indeed, I had asked the owner whether access was easy. She assured me it was never a problem. Fortunately the road is wide enough that my car only blocked half its width.

My phone said no service, although that turned out later not to be true. With the car stuck on the hill I walked to the nearest house, where a shy & nearly speechless Vietnamese woman invited me to come in & use her phone. I called the owner, who said I'm not local, & I can't help you. I called the property manager who said yeah, I've had my car stuck in a ditch twice this week, I can’t help you. At that point, as the woman swept up snow falling from my boots, she said, "My husband is driving back from Bristol, he will help you."

So I went back to the car & transferred Bea from the crate to a fabric cat carrier & was preparing to walk up the hill to find the still unseen cabin when the husband arrived & agreed to offload my gear into his 4wd truck & drive it up to the cabin. While he warmed up the truck, I walked up the hill with Bea. A cabin was indeed there, at the top of a long hill that made me huff & puff. I managed to get the combination padlock open & pulled out the keys, unlocked the door, & shoved Bea inside where it was warm. It took two trips in the ancient truck (“I hope the brakes will work,” he said) to haul all my gear up & into the cabin. I offered but he wouldn't take any money. He not uncheerfully surmised that I wouldn't be able to get my car out until the snow melted. Turns out he's right, because the road is now packed ice from 4wd vehicles going back & forth, his included.

Tuesday morning one of my friends asked me if I had Triple A. Sure enough I do, although I’ve never used it. Brother John called them for me, & I discovered my phone worked when the tow truck driver called to say he was on the way. He arrived an hour later driving a truck cab pulling a flatbed large enough to hold a car. He turned onto the private road, looked at the plank & trestle bridge crossing the icy stream, & said he would not take his truck across it. He & his buddy "Bro" walked up with me to check out my car. Together with friendly neighbor we rocked & pushed it out of the drift, & the tow truck driver backed it a short distance down the hill & into a flat spot beside the road. Once the road melts, I can drive out.

The rental advertised that it included wifi, but the password didn’t work. I called the property manager, who suggested other passwords that didn’t work. Later the owner’s father called to offer more passwords that didn’t work. He agreed to call CenturyLink for help. An hour or so later I sat reading the printed label on the modem/router. It listed the device’s factory-installed password. What the hell, I tried it, it worked. About as fast as dialup, but it worked. I called the owner’s father, still on hold with Century Link, to give him the good news.

Sunday morning even though it was high 20s & still snowing I walked from the cabin about a mile to the closest point on the Virginia Creeper Trail, which is where I had planned to hike while here. The highlight of the walk was four dogs at once running toward me & me shouting insults at them & seeing a sheep, a cow, & a woman in overalls, clearly their owner, & asking her if the dogs were going to bite me. She looked at me without expression & said, "They're not used to people." MAGA lives. In any case, she called the dogs & shut them on to the porch, & I continued to the trail, where I walked a few hundred yards in both directions. The only tracks were skis. I haven't tried to go back. Attack dogs are not among my favorites.

Monday & Tuesday I walked down & up the hill & through the woods some. Down & up four times a day or more. Must be at least a quarter mile each way. I can walk up at a good pace now without breathing hard, although I pull my gloves off because my hands get too warm. The rest of my waking hours I talk to Bea & write & read & try not to be grumpy, this is an adventure after all. The forecast suggests the road might melt by Saturday or Sunday. If so, I will walk some of the Creeper Trail & drive to town for more groceries.

I'm supposed to be here until the 30th, doubt I will stay that long. More snow forecast for the 26th or 27th. The cabin is about a C- compared to the A+ yurt. The mattress died long ago.

jottings

I want to live, I want to travel,

I do not want to become a fountain pen.

                                                                — Jean Cocteau

like a mole struck from a tunnel, like an onion

dragged from a root cellar, tentacles of hope

lifting green limbs into light

                                                                — George Kalamaras

thoughts are only one aspect of conscious life

                                                                — Adrie Kusserow

Travel makes you no one

and if you are no one already, travel takes you home

                                                                — Terese Svoboda

no word in Greek for privacy

Only secrecy, or loneliness

                                                                — Diane Thiel

Ah! Que le monde est grande a la chatte des lampes

Aux yeux du souvenir, que le monde est petit

                                                                — Charles Baudelaire

why take what’s offered, why not walk toward

the green & flickering sea that comes to meet us

                                                                — Diane di Prima

it’s not really camping when you don’t have a house

                                                                — Neal Stephenson

sleep is the shadow of the earth as it seeps into our skin and 

spreads throughout our limbs, dissolving our individual will into 

the thousand and one selves that compose it — cells, tissues, 

and organs taking their prime directives now from gravity and 

the wind

                                                                — David Abram

Imagine that you are always wrong.

                                                                — Y. Madrone

When property = freedom

choose itineracy or vagabondage over the happy home.

                                                                — Zoe Tuck

I write with a longing that a wire has for electricity.

                                                                — Amir Rabiyah

Write a sentence that is a drone.

                                                                — E. C. Crandall

It used to be that even talking on the phone meant your voice

had to be somewhere

                                                                — Jaron Lanier

it is something strictly American to conceive a space that is filled

with moving, a space of time that is filled always filled with

moving

                                                                — Gertrude Stein

and the little breezes of her speeches smell like parsley

                                                               — Alice Oswald