Dearest Dee,
Your package with the sheepskin rug arrived safely on Tuesday, or that’s when I went into town to fetch it, and in the nick of time. The past two nights have been cold and the fur kept me toasty. It is also the best, non-electrical heating pad for my sore, over-worked muscles after a day of hauling and constructing.
The past few days have been happy in the morning and active in the day then, in late afternoon, my anxiety rises in an array of topics, the foremost being survival fear of bears and big animals, of fire, of strange strangers. I notice I haven’t yet moved the two axes from indoors to under the cabin, though they would be useless against a hungry bear. I feel alone. I have never had to protect myself in this primary way. I’ve dealt with the threat of city muggers in the past, which came mostly to avoiding bad situations. How do I do that here? How does a human being feel safe? A gun? If you are a good shot. There have always been predators and the cabin asks me to look not at identity theft or computer viruses, but at my body, at my life.
In the evenings, I read or watch a bit of movie by way of DVD on my computer, neither of which distract me from my anxiety. (Perhaps crime thrillers, which are fun in NYC, aren’t the right genre for solitude on the mesa—I have to change my Netflix queue.) I turn off the lantern earlier and earlier each night, and watch the sky through the cabin’s ring of windows. My anxiety eases. I listen. I hear. It is quiet and the wind sighs gently, or gives its full-throated aria. I breathe. I feel my body. Sometimes I sit up and chant internally. I am so grateful to my practices which soothe me. The night passes. I alternately sleep or look out, watching the beautiful, luminous sky, and as the moon now waxes, the inky tree shadows lie long on the pale ground.
This is big land out here. It will take some getting used to, and it is big land inside me. I’ve been roving a specific corner of myself the past few years. Now I journey a new frontier.
Love,
D
I read your first entry yesterday before going to work and I thought of you on the mesa on my urban trail across vast expanses of stones glued together and particularly when a mysterious rythymic warbling, like the love intoxicated Jamaican night creatures make, melted my late night subway wait to bliss. After a scan of the grimy darkness, I located the very tired and soot laiden air conditioner whose bearings, though way past round, still rolled elliptically, to cool a person in the cement brick box with a rather grey view, and to fill my heart with the physical… Read more »
Dearest Dunya,
Your writing leaves me without words, only emotions. Feeling as though I am there doing as you are doing, although I am very sure it is different for each individual that chooses to experience such a journey 🙂 Much love, Carly
So many thoughts come to mind as I read this, strange to be in NYC now with you there. The world seems somehow bigger.
Yes, you are in a survival at its most basic level situation. Go to the great unknown and see if you’re moved toward learning to aim and shoot a gun. I think I might learn, but I haven’t the depth you have. It just seems practical to me…..
Hi Dianne,
First of all, we miss you! Saw Ric the other day…but knowing you are so far away feels weird, I’m so used to seeing you two as a couple. Secondly, I admire your bravery for facing the elements so personally and independently, WOW; Brooklyn will continue to be my frontier.
Stay warm, and let each night’s experience bring you closer to a new, safe, comfortable normal.
Love, Teresa
I know just what you mean because I have backpacked on the Applacian Trail and everything was beautiful and envigorating during the day, but my anxietes and fears would surface at night. I was never alone though and I can imagine the magnification. Fears are born during dark and isolated times. I never did it long enough to know if you get used to it, but I imagine that would happen. Keep writing, I love it. Be brave, or shall I say, be braver, because you are brave! love, Claudia
Dunya… I am finally able to catch up with your postings. It’s so delicious to read your words. I can almost feel your thoughts in my head. I wish I could be there with you, to swing in the hammock and let our conversation take its own road. I am in Prague at the moment, having some interesting thoughts of my own, and leaving for DC in the morning for another work gig there. I am missing Bruce, feeling lonely in the middle of a huge city, and so ready to be back on the farm with him. So many… Read more »