“I’ve lost all taste for life
I’m all complaints
Tell me why do you starve the faithful?
Why do you crucify the saints?
And you let the wicked prosper
You let their children frisk like deer
And my loves are dead or dying
Or they don’t come near”
~Joni Mitchell
It’s been a very quiet week. Marshall Lake is sparsely populated. It is such a nice break after the 4th of July weekend and the invading hordes that made life so unpleasant at Ashurst Lake. It’s been sunny every morning when Cosmo and I take our morning walk. I hoped to see people outside, but that seldom happened. I love my alone time, but I always enjoy brief encounters with neighbors as we walk. If I find fellow nomads, or even people on vacation for a week, we tend to talk about where we are from, where we are heading and what we’ve discovered on the way. I get the sense of connection that I need, and then go about my day in peaceful solitude.
Most afternoons it became dark and cloudy. We had rain one day, and although it brings the relief of cool breezes, it also brings mud. I have never experienced anything like the mud in this forest by Flagstaff. It sticks to everything like a cross between molten plastic and gorilla glue. Fortunately, it was short lived. With everything so dry, it took only hours for the water to absorb into the earth and the mud to dry up and crack into a solid surface. Aside from that one day, the other afternoons brought dark skies, high winds, lots of thunder and lightning, but very little rain. Some days it rained for several minutes; most days it only threatened.
The nights have been breezy, and I’ve slept with all the windows open. The cool mountain air is quite conducive to a good night’s sleep. I mostly wake up around 5:30 when the sunlight wakes me. A few mornings the local coyotes started singing earlier, and Cosmo feels obligated to join in. Once that happens, there is no use in pretending I’ll go back to sleep. I just get up and make coffee and start my day with the canine choir as my motivational soundtrack.
With the afternoons so dark and menacing, we’ve had a few nice sunsets.
On Saturday morning, I decided I’d have to move. I loved the spot I was in, but the weather forecast is for thunderstorms every day until next Friday. It’s monsoon season, and so the rains are expected. But so far, I can’t tell if it will rain for 2 minutes, or 2 hours each day. With rain in the forecast for the entire week, I thought the odds were great that my beautiful dirt clearing would once again become an ominous pit of muck. I walked around with Cosmo for quite a while on Friday and Saturday morning trying to find an adjacent spot. I didn’t want to have to pack everything up to move down the road, so I looked for a spot where I could move the van and then come back and carry my “stuff” to the new site. There were a lot of flat areas nearby, but flat areas are often deceptive in how level they appear. I was, after all, parked on a hillside. I moved all my “outside stuff” (plants, table, chair, solar panels and E-bike) and put everything under a nearby tree. I got in the driver’s seat, turned on my leveling app (Thank you Richard. That is probably the one thing in my van I could not do without) and started driving slowly to the spots that I thought were level. The first one was a total bust: now matter how I positioned the van, one side was always at least 8” out of level. I moved the next spot, and it was better, but not doable. Across the dirt path, I found a meadow and with lots of pulling back and forth, got to within 3” of level. I pulled out my leveling blocks and got every wheel within a half inch of perfection. I made several trips across the dirt path to retrieve my stuff, and I was set. Of course, if it rains really hard for the next seven days, I’ll have to move out of here all together or risk getting stuck as the ground beneath me sinks. Fingers crossed.
Lessons From The Road: I’ve decided that it is imperative for me to go on a “news” fast. I put that word in quotes, because much of what I consume is not “news” in the sense that Walter Cronkite used to report to us 5 evenings a week, but rather 24/7 jibber jabbering about what some nobody’s prediction is of what may or may not happen. They seem willing to say anything to get people to stay tuned in. It used to be the job of TV stations to provide information as a public service, but with so many “news” channels competing for eyeballs on the screen, a new tactic was necessary.
I watched YouTube videos on Saturday curious about who tried (and failed) to end the Donald’s campaign. I don’t have a TV, so I tend to watch clips on YouTube that can be posted minutes, hours, or even days after something happens. I realized that most “news coverage” was the B team on a Saturday, scrambling to keep talking about something they had little to no information about. One talking head on CNN actually asked the “reporter” in the field “So, has it been confirmed that the shooter had a gun?” I decided this was not a reliable source for information. Watching this on YouTube, I get an added bonus that those of you watching on TV don’t get: Comments from the peanut gallery. Below each video are dozens or hundreds of comments by people who have nothing better to do than to give their take on things. These comments made me realize that the U.S. is a nation of (mostly) uneducated, self-important, pea brains with zero logical abilities. Their comments are usually not based in any fact, they are more often than not off-the-wall right-wing talking points and they are inevitably full of typos, misspellings, and poor grammar. I’ve come to believe that Americans are by and large, quite stupid. It made me mad. Actually, it infuriated me. The number of conspiracy theories and the amount of hate spewed was very disturbing to me. I realized that the anxiety it was causing me was totally self-inflicted, and my best option for not being drawn into the hate was to simply disengage. I vowed to watch no more “news” on YouTube. I did skim the NY Times headlines on several days, but even they seem to be quite sensational and often inaccurate to me. I guess I’ll resort to getting my real news from the late-night talk show hosts. I believe Jon Stewert and Stephen Colbert way more than I believe anyone reporting on CNN or MSNBC. (And of course, there is the Fox Propaganda Network. They are not even a remote choice for actual information.) I’m happier not being caught up in the hateful, political conflict.
On a brighter note, Cosmo turned 7 this week. (He doesn’t look a day over 6, and he smiled when I told him so.)
I think back to the day the guy from the rescue handed him to me. He was a 4 lb. ball of fur with puppy breath. My heart melted immediately, and it continues to do so every time he licks my face, or turns his face up, eyes closed so I can kiss his snout. (I think he likes the way my beard and moustache feel on his face.) I remember where I was at that time—not only physically living in my warehouse in Milford, DE, but also where I was mentally and emotionally. I was planning my trip to Peru and running a busy massage studio. It was pre-covid (remember those “before days?”) Thinking of the past is always a good gauge of where I am now. Peru, my Shaman teacher, and “Plant Medicine” certainly changed my life forever. As I sit and look out my van window at Marshall Lake (which is now a meadow), the tall pine trees and the mountains in the distance, all I can think is “You’ve come a long way, baby.”