Benefit Of The Doubter

Wednesday, August 9

2006-09-25T19:59:00.000-05:00

I really did not feel like walking today. I’d had trouble sleeping last night; actually, most nights since I found out about Katie, so I was tired and in general feeling lazy and depressed. Plus, I’d had a few drinks last night, and I felt a little dehydrated and drained. But the weather was cool and the sun was behind the clouds so I didn’t have to worry about it beating down on me. For the past couple of weeks we’d been experiencing a heat wave, and I’d had just about all of the sun that I could take.

I had no real motivation for going out into the woods. It seemed I’d explored everything except only the farthest reaches of the Glen Park system. It seemed that anything new was miles and miles and miles away, too far away.

While I was walking Sy to work this morning, she mentioned off-handedly that Katie was a coffee-snob. I little jolt went through me as I noticed that was the first time today I’d thought of her…usually she’s in my head within minutes of waking. When we reached her work, we met one of Sy’s coworkers, who had also been a good friend of Katie, and she brought Katie’s name up too. Her name was starting to seem like a background din I needed to escape, and right then I decided to just walk and go wherever my feet took me. The only problem was that no matter where I went, I couldn’t escape the noise in my thoughts.

I walked the side streets on my way to Glen Park. On my way, I passed a rabbit who froze and stared at me as I approached. I took care to gradually slow my pace and soften my footfalls to see if I could prevent her from running off. As I got nearer to her, I noticed another, smaller bunny. The first rabbit glanced nervously at the second one; I think it might have been its mother. They both remained still as I practically tip-toed past them and around the corner.

Just before I reached the Swinging Bridge, I came upon a pigeon who was as suspicious of me as the rabbits had been. The pigeon slowly turned as I walked past him, always keeping his back to me and watching me from over his shoulder. I made my way past him without him flying off; when he judged me far enough away he casually returned to picking at the gravel in the road.

While I was crossing the Swinging Bridge into Glen Park, it came to me that I’d never fully explored the right-most path on the other side of the pole bridge; I’d run into a fisherman while taking that path and turned back rather than disturb him. Against my will, my thoughts reminded me that Katie was still walking the earth at that time, that my time might have been better spent talking to her rather than avoiding human contact in the woods. I shook my head and continued over the roaring river and through the playground until I reached the trail system.

As I walked down the steep entrance, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen the crane in quite some time. This thought also got me down; over time I’d begun to see him as a sort of mascot or guide. The sight of him was enough to lift my spirits, but lately he was nowhere to be seen. Sy had mentioned to me that she’d seen him; in fact, she’d seen more than one, and that brought out some jealousy in me, and also a sense of rejection. I wanted to see the crane just one more time before migration.

I followed the winding path down to the bottom of the lower falls, but got distracted by a path that ran east and uphill, which I took. I’d traveled this path once before, in the early spring (or was it late fall?) but turned around when I noticed all the houses through the bare trees. Now in the summer, the houses were completely obscured. I followed the trail, which went from a sand base, to rock, back to sand, and finally dirt, for around a half-mile. There was a fork in the path; one trail went straight and the other took a sharp right turn…it was a large path and I was almost certain that it led to the upper part of the trails, the part up on the hill away from but with good views of the river. I ignored the turn and continued forward. Eventually, it exited the woods into a large draining ditch behind a housing development. It was a giant paved nightmare, with a huge sewer grate that looked like an alien spacecraft perched in the middle.

At first, I had no idea where I was, but after studying the land I realized I was only about two blocks down the road from the entrance to the Glen Park trail system. So this was the source of the water that eventually led to the spillway below the lower falls…a large paved drainage ditch lined with backyards undoubtedly treated with harsh chemicals on a regular basis. My hope for the Kinnikinnic was lowered yet again.

I turned around and headed back towards the spillway. Halfway down the path I came to the fork again; this time I stopped and debated taking it. While I was contemplating my options, I noticed a very small path that went between the two paths in the fork which I’d never seen before. I felt the most welcome joy of surprise bubble up in me, and with haste I took the middle way.

This path traced the very edge of the hill, right above the little path carved out along the river just south of the spillway. Sections of split-rail fence, which seemed to have been put up ages ago, lined the edge of the path. Some sections were in need of some repair, others had entirely collapsed and begun to rot. The view of the falls was great, though a little obscured by shrubs growing along the cliff’s edge. The sound was full and deep, and you could feel the breeze the crashing waters generated. The trail itself was lined with wildflowers. There were a couple of posts that looked like little podiums along the trail. Apparently, they used to hold a plaque with information on the sights or something, but the wood where the screws used to hold this information in place had long since rotted (degraded?). It felt almost like ruins from a past culture. I stood admiring the falls and the large pool of the river below the falls for a while before I moved on.

The small trail did emerge on the upper part of the trail system as I had expected. From this main trail, through the trees, I could detect the profane vertical and horizontal forms of the houses that lined the woods. I walked along this path for a while, until I came to the place where many of the trails intersect, somewhere near the middle of the park. From the intersection, I could see one of the benches down by the river. I decided to go sit and meditate on it, since I hadn’t meditated before I left this morning.

Down by the bench, the current was noisy as it passed over large rocks in the riverbed. There were a few shrubs growing in front of the bench, but they had plenty of open space in them through which to watch the river. I sat down on the bench, appreciating how it was so tall that I felt like a child sitting on it, swinging my legs because my feet couldn’t reach the ground. I removed my shoes and socks and pulled myself, with a little difficulty, into a full lotus position.

I sat there, trying, unsuccessfully, to still my mind. Ten thousand stupid annoyances and diversions flushed into my head at once: images from television, what I had for breakfast, plans I had for the rest of my day, and brief passages from things I’ve read, among other things, buzzed inside me. Eventually, by focusing back on my breath, I came to some sort of peace. It was then that I noticed how the world was flowing around me; the leaves fluttered slow, then fast, then slow again as the trees bent slowly and gracefully in the wind, the river never paused as it flowed by, the grey clouds drifted slowly above the hills, birds flew past and sang to each other, even my breathing arose of its own resolve. My delicate peace gradually deepened.

Now that my mind was settled, I put my shoes and socks back on and began to walk down the path to the bench where I had had my strange communion with Katie. It occurred to me that I ought to come and maintain that bench; take care of it, almost like a shrine. Of course, I’d earlier in the summer (when she was alive, my brain reminded at me) I’d resolved to clean up litter I found in the woods on my travels, and I’m ashamed to say that I did not really follow through on that pledge. Maybe it was because the notion of taking on responsibility for the whole of the woods was a bit overwhelming. But maybe I could take care of this one spot, this one bench…that would benefit all the visitors to the park, and could contribute to a sort of Zen training.

About fifty feet down river, another bench sat. I left the main path and walked over to that bench. Virtually no sound came from the river as it flowed smoothly past this bench. The birds, if there were any there, were silent. It was remarkable to me how much the character and integrity of the river could change in such as short time and distance. I stood by the bench and listened to the nothing for a while before continuing down the path.

In front of my communion bench, the river was lined with wildflowers; mostly black-eyed susans. Sitting on the bench, facing south, you can watch the river bend west around the island and out of sight. It is a very serene view. It’s a little too much out in the open for my tastes; I’d prefer to be nestled in the trees for the sake of the shade and the comforting and secure embrace of the woods, but then this spot wasn’t really my choice to make.

It was then time for me to turn home…I decided to leave the area beyond the pole bridge that I’d originally planned to explore for another time. On my way back home, as I got to the narrow, cliff-face path by the spillway, I saw on old man trout fishing near the lower falls. There was such tranquility and patience in his every movement that it brought out in me such a feeling of simultaneous envy and delight.

Wednesday July 25, 2006

2006-08-02T17:03:00.000-05:00

I had tried to go to Kinnikinnic State Park this morning, but when I arrived at around 8:30, the gate was still closed. I thought it was supposed to open at 7 am, but apparently it didn’t. Or the ranger overslept or something. So I turned around and decided to go instead to the bench I was sitting on when I heard Katie communicate with me.

I wound through the streets of suburban affluence, their mammoth tenements sprawling across treeless lots until I came to the unmarked park entrance. This was the same entrance I’d used exactly two months before, on May 25. It briefly flashed in my head that Katie was alive then; in fact, she had a little less than a month to live at that point. I’ve noticed that I’ve begun to separate time periods into before and after Katie now…Which I suppose is pointlessly torturous, but that is the path my brain takes me down…

I quickly entered the woods, ignoring the suspicious stares of the suburbanites tending their lawn. I’d meant to take the main path straight down to the bench, but when I got to the path that branched off and led to the cliff overlooking the river, I was tempted off course. The foliage seemed a bit denser now, despite the two-month drought we’ve been experiencing, and the view of the valley and hills and forest was as spectacular as I remembered.

I eased my may down the steep, twisting path, careful of the loose, gravelly footing, aware that a slip could send me tumbling over the edge. It momentarily occurred to me that maybe I might not be in the right frame of mind to standing on the edge of a cliff this morning, but I packed that thought away and concentrated on my descent. Even from up near the top of the path I could hear the river babbling some fifty feet below. I scanned the edge of the path for the marijuana I thought I’d seen growing there last time I was here, but I couldn’t find it. Probably a good thing, I assured myself. That’s part of what kept me from getting closer to Katie, after all.

I got to the huge boulder at the cliff’s edge and it looked a little out of place…had it moved? I suppose it will fall, someday. Hopefully no one will be down there when it does. I leaned on it ever so lightly, testing its solidity and steadfastness; it didn’t budge.

Looking out over the picturesque valley, my mind drifted and I found myself looking back on my morning. I woke this morning from a dream; a dream about Katie. It was the first dream I’d had about her since her death, and I’d been dreading it for the past month or so. I’m not sure what was worse, dreaming about her or the odd guilt I felt for not dreaming about her for so long…

In my dream, I was out in a wide open space; it sort of reminded me of a parking lot, and there were bookshelves along one edge of the space. I was there with thousands of people. Katie was there too, and I was aware of her being there, but I didn’t have the chance to speak to her for a long time. In this dream, she had not died. She would talk with one person or group of people for a while, and then move on to the next person, and so on. Eventually, she came to me. We hugged. I looked her in her beautiful eyes and told her I knew how she felt, and that she could, in fact, should come over and visit me anytime she wanted to. That I loved her company and that it was always a treat to talk to her. We bantered back and forth playfully for awhile, and then hugged again before we walked off together, my arm over her shoulder. I really felt that I’d made a breakthrough with her; like she was on the brink of despair and I’d brought her back, and that everything was going to be all right.

Then I woke up.

I was instantly upset and depressed at the false hope my subconscious had given me. I decided then that I would grab some tissues and head for Katie’s Spot in the state park. Which, of course, turned out to be closed. Which then brought me here, standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down with tears welling in my eyes, thinking about my dead friend.

Now, I don’t mean to mislead…I never even considered the possibility of jumping. This was just a stupid exercise in fantasy. I even did a little fantasy exercise where I acted like I was going to jump; going through the motions, contracting the muscles, confident that my instincts would not allow it, because I knew deep down that jumping off a cliff to my death was certainly not what I wanted…then it occurred to me that this was, in all likelihood, a ritual that Katie herself indulged in from time to time, and I decided to back off from the cliff, and I climbed back up the steep path.

When I was up where the path leveled off on flat ground, I began to head back towards the main path, when a westbound path caught my eye. I remembered seeing it both of the other times I’d been here, but I’d decided not to explore it those times. I couldn’t pass it up a third time, and I walked it, first into a little patch of forest, then out into the open. After around a hundred feet, I saw a fire pit off to my right. A rust-colored moss was growing out of the ashes; it had obviously been quite a while since the last fire was lit there.

The trail continued down a gradual slope, but the steepness increased the further the path went. I noticed that in this big clearing, there were a whole lot of stumps. The stumps ranged from over a foot to only an inch in diameter, and they looked fresh…less than a year old for sure. I wondered why all these trees would’ve been cut down. A disease, maybe?

Before long, the path grew as steep and twisty as the one that led to the cliff I’d just been on. And as I came around a large outcropping, I noticed to my surprise that I was standing on top of another cliff. Down below, there was the river…and another fire pit.

There were so many trees and shrubs growing on and around the cliff that I couldn’t quite tell where I was. I saw the path also went over to the right; a tight little pass through some trees and I went to check it out to see if I could get some further clues as to my whereabouts. I’d just ducked under some trees and was heading down the tiny trail when I hear some voices and froze, as is my instinct. Through the trees, I was facing west, and I could see two figures walking south. I was sure they couldn’t see me, as my clothes were dull and natural colored, and I could only barely track them by their voices and their bright white clothing.

They had moved past me, and I was about to move down the path again, when they doubled back and started coming back towards me. It was then when I realized where I was. The two men were coming up the steep, wide path where I’d first discovered that I could scale a step path easily by “falling up the mountain” (cross-reference to fall/winter in beginning). Which meant that the cliff I’d originally been standing on, which I had assumed was the cliff I could see from the pole bridge that crossed the river, I’d never actually seen from below. I almost laughed out loud. Like I’ve mentioned, it’s always a surprise when we unmask our assumptions as falsehoods. I kept my laughter to myself, however, until the men were gone.

Once they had passed, I scurried down the little path and walked around the corner and headed towards then bench along side the river. I took off my shoes and socks and sat in a half-lotus position, just like last time. Then I just sat there and watched the river flow, not really feeling anything. I wanted so much to feel something, some sadness, but there was nothing. My mind wandered again, and I reflected on how often it is that I will experience something, even some mundane thing like a red-winged blackbird’s song or the long prairie grass waving in the breeze, and I’ll just be struck with how much Katie would’ve appreciated this simple thing, this one moment in time. How could she kill herself, how, when she could delight in such simplicity? It made no sense to me. It gnawed away at me.

After a few minutes of these thoughts in this quiet atmosphere, the tears did begin to flow, for the first time in days…it felt so good to have that feeling back. I wondered if that was the sign of some problem I had, or if it was just part of the grieving. I’ve heard that this is when the real grieving takes place…at a time when everyone else seems to be over it; when everyone thinks that you should be over it, too.

A jogger ran by behind me, snapping me back into the here-and-now. I put my shoes and socks back on and started back to my car. On my way back, I stopped at both cliffs again. The landscapes at the bottom of those cliffs do look pretty similar, I thought to myself, it was an easy mistake to make, and I smiled to myself. I felt a little better after my cry.

Thursday July 13, 2006

2006-07-30T11:57:00.000-05:00

Today I went to the upper falls, to a trail accessed through a hole in a chain link fence. The trail ran down a narrow grade for a very short while before coming to a cliff-top overview of the lower part of Glen Park. I’d been here once before, and then only briefly, around sunset, and I’d come back to explore the little path that run along the cliff face to the south of the overview. The last time I was here, I saw a heron sitting on the peninsula down by the river, but he wasn’t there today.

I went through the dense foliage and made my way down the path along the cliff. It was necessary to use hands to grab tree trunks and vines and roots that protruded from the cliff face to keep balance. As was the case with most of these narrow paths, the footing was loose and treacherous and required focus. But that is what I love so much about these paths…they allow you to slip into a zone and let your instincts and intuitions carry you; something that most people never ordinarily find the time to do. As a result, they start to lose touch with whom and what they are, and then start to feel ambivalent, uncomfortable, or even rigorously opposed to the situation when it does come up in their lives.

The narrow path traced down the cliff face, and then switched back where it came to a street water runoff. The runoff area of the cliff was not nearly as steep as the rest of the cliff…it had probably been erodes for some time by the water. The area also had a bunch of concrete poured down its face, cementing all the rocks and trees in place; to prevent further erosion, I suspect. I switched back with the path, which required me to lower myself down off of a huge limestone slab down to a small grouping of small pieces of limestone jutting out of the cliff some two or three feet below. The vines growing on the cliff face were a big help. I tested the stability of the limestone below gently with my foot. Luckily, they were solid; otherwise, I’d have been left hanging with quite a struggle on my hands to get back up to the big slab.

The switchback part of the path was just as treacherous as the first part, maybe even a little more so, but it was also farther down the face of the cliff, so the possibility of a slip and fall didn’t seem quite so harrowing. Finally, I made it to the path’s end: a little cove in the cliff was cut out by the waterfall, and above that peaceful little pool, a cave was carved out of the limestone, big enough for maybe two people to crouch in somewhat uncomfortably.

I sat down on a rock that faced the cave. The discovery of this neat little area would have brought me a lot of joy in the past, but now, it failed to move me. I began to wonder if maybe Katie had ruined the woods for me. The silence and solitude I once found so comforting and liberating is now where I am most tormented. She is everywhere…I can’t look at the Swinging Bridge, or the river, or hear the crickets and toads at night without thinking of her. Everything momentary simple pleasure I experience is crushed under the weight her memory brings. I suppose that’s the trouble with being friends with someone with whom you have so much in common...they haunt you everywhere when they are gone. She isn’t just always in my thoughts; she’s become a prism through which I view the world.

I sat facing the back of that cave for a while, emulating Dogen, the Zen master, but I found no peace despite the tranquil setting, and eventually I got up and left. I climbed down to the river bank and crossed the river on a series of rocks sticking out of a shallow part. I walked a cross the island in the river and crossed over rocks at another shallow point, and jumped up onto the west bank of the river, where I was faced with another near sheer cliff face. This cliff also had some paths that traced their way across it, and I climbed one that brought me underneath the Swinging Bridge.

This was a place where teenagers would come at night, and the place was littered with bottles and cans, candy wrappers and empty cigarette packs. It is so hard to see things like this, to see our greatest natural resource treated so callously, and it saps the hope in me.

I sat down and watched the river flow. Under the bridge, the river narrows and encounters many rocks, and gets a little noisy, but in a very calming way. My mind wandered and, as usual, found its way to my dead friend.

Before she died, life to me was like a daytime sky, with clouds, the sun, the moon, and birds; everything easily identifiable and sure. Now it was like the sky at night, with too many stars to count and an overwhelming infinity to it. The last time I saw her alive we talked about the stars…

Tears began to well up again. That is one thing I am certainly grateful to Katie for; she taught me how to cry. Before she died, I hadn’t cried in about 25 years. I wanted to, but something in my psyche wouldn’t let me. Pride, I guess, or machismo…maybe shame or fear. Lately, however, I cried all the time, and it really did help me.

I smiled a little at that. I began thinking now of the good times we’d had, about how funny she was.

“What do you call a black guy who flies a plane?” she asked one day.

“Umm,” I replied, racking my brain for an answer. I knew the correct answer would be funny, but certainly not racist, as she was far too intelligent and sweet a person to be base or mean. What could it be? I thought. I wanted to show her how clever I was.

“A pilot, you racist!” she interrupted, smiling devilishly. I laughed. She was a great person and a great friend.

I thought about the papers and pictures she’d left behind, that Sy had rescued from being deleted. I’d read all of her papers save one, a paper entitled “Aesthetics”. I would very much like to know her thoughts on the subject, as she was so intelligent and also a great artist, but I cannot bring myself to read that paper. I don’t think I ever will. As long as I have that paper, I still have one last new interaction with her. I feel as though once I read it, that will be the true end of my communication with her, and that causes me a great deal of mental anguish.

Footsteps on the bridge, followed immediately by the noon whistle, brought me back to the present. With a sigh, I gathered up my thoughts and stood. I retraced my route, finding the climbing of the steep cliff paths a bit easier than the descent. One of the rocks I stepped on to cross the river was a little wobbly, and I ended up having to leave the stone and stamp my foot clumsily in the river to avoid completely falling in. I took off my shoe, wrung out my sock, and continued on my way.

Up on top of the cliff by the hole in the fence where I had first entered, I looked down. A tall, thin tree grew up over the cliff top; it was hard to believe it was the same tree that looked not so very impressive from down by the cove.

Monday, July 3

2006-07-29T12:39:00.000-05:00

This morning I decided to explore Mound Park, which is a well-hidden system of trails just off of Hoffman Park. I walked up the lattice-work, paver block entrance, past the gate, and up the shallow grade of the path. I had traveled this path once before, as I walked west past the cemetery on the trails behind Hoffman Park. Before I got too far, a north-bound trail broke off from the main east-west path, and I chose to explore the unknown rather than continue towards the paths behind Hoffman that I already knew.

It wasn’t long before the path broke back towards the west, but up higher on the hill, about thirty feet above the entrance trail. As I walked, I noticed that it appeared to trace a path around the mountain, which I suppose is more of a very big hill (or mound, if you will) than a mountain. Walking along, I saw another path break north, this one straight up the steepest part of the hill, up towards some exposed sandstone on a ridge near the hilltop. I was tempted to head right up, but figured that I’d just explore it on my way back from wherever this path was taking me.

Soon, I heard the roar of machinery, and through the dense summer growth, I could see the industrial park, which I did not realize was so close. Almost as soon as I realized where I was, the smell of the garbage dump blew in with a strong gust of wind and nearly made me vomit, out of disgust at both the smell itself and at the notion that a major part of this trail system was rendered useless as a result of poor planning. How can one enjoy nature with the constant assault on the senses and sensibilities?

I jogged to set out of the stench, but soon realized that this only made matters worse because I had to gulp down the foul air I was trying to avoid. To make matters worse, I had to run up a steep hill, my lungs requiring even more oxygen than normal running would demand. Eventually, I pulled my shirt up over my nose and mouth to act as a filter, which actually worked pretty well.

The wind had begun to whip pretty furiously now, with trees bending mightily, to the point that I began to worry about them snapping and falling on me. Katie popped into my head again, as she did on at least an hourly basis, and I thought about how much easier it would have been to accept her death as the result of an accident, as opposed to suicide…news of her dying as a result of having a tree fall on her would have been much easier to swallow, I think.

Just this morning, before I came out for my walk, I heard a story on public radio, one that mentioned the suicide of a photojournalist. Apparently, he had seen such horrors in the course of his work; wars, starvation, disease, and the like; and it all weighed on him so much that his work didn’t seem to be making the world any better off. At least that was the Cliff’s Notes version of his story…as the commenter had said, “suicide is always complicated.”

It was the first time since I heard news of Katie that I’d heard suicide discussed in a public forum, and it stung just to hear the word. “Suicide”…far too small a word to contain the swirling tempest of emotions it conjures up. I was now finally to the point where I could get through the day with little to no crying…well, never no crying, but the decreasing amount of crying engendered a sort of guilt; like I was letting her memory go. What would it mean if, a few scant weeks afterwards, we were all well on our way to moving past all this? It seemed like turning my back on her, like I was belittling her profound significance. If we all just got on fine without her, how are we to argue that what she did was really so wrong?

As I continued uphill, more questions swarmed in my head. Upon examining them, I realized they had been buzzing around, not yet intelligibly formed, inside of me for some time now: Why is it that news that was so devastating just a week ago now seemed almost matter of fact? Does time heal all wounds? Do we accept what we cannot change and adjust? Or do we just go numb?

As I crested the steep path, I was faced with the choice of continuing to the left or to the right; I chose right. About fifty feet down the path, I saw a little lean-to constructed of plywood, some sort of meager shelter for when the weather got too much. Standing by the lean-to, I looked to the west and saw a huge round concrete building. There were many pipes sticking out of the top of the structure, painted sky-blue, and it was surrounded by a tall chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Little worn trails ran along the fence, but I decided not to explore those just yet, and instead headed east, wondering if maybe these trails connected with the trails about Hoffman Park.

As it turns out, they did. It occurred to me that the trail system that I had always assumed to be a part of Hoffman was, in fact, actually Mound Park, and that Hoffman was actually just the lower, open part with the playgrounds and ball fields and ice rinks. Names don’t matter much, I suppose, but it’s always a little weird when you find out that your labels are wrong.

Seeing as the wind was still very strong and it looked like rain clouds might be moving in, I decided to head back. My jog past the garbage dump was a little easier this time, as it was all downhill. The garbage smell was offensive, but upon reflection, it occurred to me that maybe it’s not such a very bad thing…I thought that maybe if we could all smell the garbage that produce, we wouldn’t make so much of it.

Soon I was back at the little path that broke off of the main trail and went up to the exposed sandstone. The path was steep and thin and littered with loose rocks, and I attacked it, trying to get up quickly, to let my momentum carry me up. Up on the ridge, I could still smell the garbage. It pissed me off no small amount to see this beautiful site ruined by the stench of our society. I was ready to go home now, feeling disgusted and helpless.

Then I noticed that a very small trail wound its way around a small gap in the sandstone, and, following it, I saw that the hill went up even higher. Now that I was really up on top of the hill, I noticed with relief that I couldn’t smell the garbage anymore, and I saw a lone wild rose growing out of the prairie grass.

Smiling, I turned and headed home.

June 28

2006-07-08T01:23:00.000-05:00

Wed. June 28, 2006

This morning I woke up with Sy and walked her to her work. I don’t think I had ever walked with her to work before, because she is usually running late and I have to drive her in to get her to work on time. I walked with my head down most of the way, sinking more into my depression, still thinking about the day before at Katie’s Spot. Sy tried to cheer me up with kisses on the cheek and hand holding, which worked, but only fleetingly. As soon as her lips left my face, the murkiness, temporarily displaced, returned.

After I had dropped my dear wife off, I planned to return home, but found myself walking over the swinging bridge leading to Glen Park. The bridge was still wet with the morning's condensation. The remnants of a few foot prints and bicycle tire tracks were traced in the water on the bridge. I walked about halfway out over the river before I felt the old familiar bounce of the bridge. I stopped and leaned over the railing at the rushing water below, thinking all the while that this, right here, was where Katie had tried to kill herself before, where she dangled precariously until she chickened out or got interrupted or just thought better of it.

With a deep sigh, I dragged myself from the bridge and down to the lower falls, where I traversed the narrow path by the river as fast as I could. Once past that, I began jogging. I figured I would jog until I was out of the woods and into the clearing. I had hoped that the exercise in the woods would take my mind off of her, however briefly, but it didn’t…I just recalled how she would go jogging in Glen Park every day and how she could scamper up a tree like a squirrel, with so little effort.

Through all these memories, I kept running, maybe hoping to put them behind me in some subconscious way. Just as I was beginning to run out of steam, I came out of the woods into the clearing by the river. I came to a stop with one last solid footfall, and with that, the heron burst into the sky from the river bank where he was standing. All tiredness I had felt left my body for those moments as it lifted into the sky and away replaced with awe for its grandeur and remorse for having disturbed the beautiful bird with my loutishness.

Once the heron was out of view, I walked over to the bench next to the river, removing my sweatshirt on the way. Upon arriving there, I realized I had had it in my mind to sit here all along, but I’d not really consciously thought about it. After scanning the bench, I determined that the only thing filthy on the bench was what had been primitively etched into it by stoned teenagers, and it would be fine to sit there for a while.

I sat down on the bench, then removed my shoes, pulled my legs up and sat half lotus style. I sat there for a few moments, thinking about how unkind I had been to Katie. There are so few people in this world I feel a real connection with…beyond my wife and Katie, I’d have trouble naming any. And yet I regarded her so casually, dismissing, almost belittling, her frequent suicide attempts. Had my wife tried anything like that even once I would have forcefully intervened. But with Katie, I did the least that I could do.

I continued to sit in a meditative posture, watching the water flow around the rocks in the river. The water was so beautiful; it seemed to embrace the rocks as it slipped by. Tears began to well up in my eyes, and I removed my glasses, setting them next to me on the bench. “I’m sorry, Katie” I gushed under my now heaving breath, quietly as I could because even all alone in the middle of the woods I’m still self-conscious. “I’m so sorry.” I started to reach for the Kleenex that I had been carrying around with me ever since her memorial service, and then stopped.

“I know,” I heard her say in my head.

I didn’t, of course, hear her per se, as this was all taking place within my skull, and her voice, for lack of a better word, didn’t sound like Katie really. It seemed deeper than hers, and it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. They had a resonance was so slight I could only perceive it because I was sitting so still in such a peaceful place. It was almost like a voice that you experience when you are imagining a conversation with someone, but this voice had feeling to it, more three- than two-dimensional. I felt it in my whole body.

I was about to tell her that I wished more than anything that I had done more to help her, but she cut me off, reassuringly saying, “You’re a good person.”

My tears kept flowing, but now they felt more like ones of relief and gratitude than of sorrow. Those six words lifted the weight of the world off of me…Katie forgave me. Or maybe it’s seven…I don’t know if contractions count as two words or one.

I sat there is silence for a while, too emotional to do anything else. “Thank you,” I finally managed to get out, “Thank you Katie.” There was no response. I sat for a time, waiting, hoping, for more communication, but I heard no more.

I had sat in Katie’s spot for over an hour and a half yesterday, pouring my heart out and longing desperately for some sort of answer, but got nothing. I was despondent. I was inconsolable. Now I could breathe again.

Now, I am skeptical, even full of doubt, and as I got up from the bench and started walking home, I tried to deconstruct this event in my mind. I tried to reproduce the voice in my head I had experienced. I tried to find a way to explain it away. But so ethereally keen was the experience that the closest I could come to a dismissal was that Katie, to me, and not a few others, seemed a kindred spirit. We had so much in common from our world views to our passions to our senses of humor. In fact, the more I find out about her, the more I’m sure we were destined to be two peas in a pod…but I guess that destiny only accounts for so much in this life. But maybe through this kinship of this kindred spirit, I know, deep down, that Katie would forgive me.

Although I cannot really know what it was I experienced by the river today, now I am more sure than ever that there is Something Going On.

June 27

2006-07-05T16:10:00.000-05:00

I pulled into Kinnikinnic State Park, and as I pulled up to the ranger station, the park ranger stuck his head out and gave an enthusiastic “Good Morning!” He seemed to be genuinely delighted to see me, which gave me some comfort on a day I was beginning to face with more and more trepidation.

I had decided the day before to visit a spot at the park that was Katie’s favorite in the world. Figuring if her spirit were still in this realm, that would be one of the more likely spaces to interact with it, I intended to sit down and have a good long talk with her, letting out in audible speech all the thoughts and feelings that had been swirling around in my head for the past few days. My depression and guilt had been worsening, and I thought that this would help. It had certainly gotten me through yesterday, as I was able to tell all the awful feelings in my brain to wait until tomorrow, wait until tomorrow.

I piloted my car down the serpentine park road, feeling like a ghost, shutting out all conscious thought, wanting my words to flow out as naturally and organically as possible when the time was right; no premeditated speeches. I kept telling all the nagging thoughts that kept bubbling up to sit down again; that I was going to trust myself in this exercise. As I drove out of the rolling plains and under the canopy of the forest, I ignored the darkening somberness building in my gut, placing myself in a near out-of-body state. Finally arriving at the parking area where the road dead ends, I parked, grabbed my water bottle and a pack of tissues, and set out for Katie’s Spot.

On my way to the path, I noticed that a large white tent was set up among the tall oaks in the picnic area. Several circular tables sat underneath the tent, each with four to six folding chairs placed around them. Beside the tent sat four shiny aluminum garbage cans and a long folding table. The folding table was empty, save for a big roll of the same white material that the tent was made out of. There’s something eerie about seeing such emptiness in a large area set up for a party.

Her spot was at the bottom of a twisty path on a steep, wooded hill. Large and small chunks of well-weathered sandstone stuck out along the path, which were helpful footholds, but you had to be careful as some of them were loose and setting your weight on them would lead to a long, painful tumble down the jagged slope. It was definitely a challenge requiring attention and effort, and knowing that Katie must’ve gotten the same thrill out of it that I did made me smile through my welling tears as I made my way down to the base of the hill.

The path down ended at a small clearing, one that was occasionally covered by the river when it overflowed with excessive rain or the spring melt, but now was dry and home to many scampering chipmunks. I sat down on a large boulder, right above the level of the water line marked on the trees that were growing in the flat basin. The shallow Kinnikinnic River flowed by me, just past the clearing about 30 feet away. All of the sounds that emanated from the surrounding forest were animal in origin; I was the only human there. I sat for a couple of minutes, taking in the surroundings, then all at once all the emotion I’d been repressing for the past few hours sprang forth.

“Katie…Katie, I…Katie,” I sobbingly sputtered, “I miss you so much!”

I reached into my pocket for the tissues, knocking my water bottle off of the rock where I had set it beside me. It bounced down a few feet, clunking off of the rocks with a solid yet distorted sound. The chipmunks that had gathered curiously around me scattered. I left the bottle to lay there.

I couldn’t go on for about a minute or so; every attempt at speech resulted in another emotional breakdown. I went through three tissues before I was able to haltingly continue.

I told her that she was beautiful, in every sense of the word. I told her that she was an inspiration to me, and that there was so much that I had admired about her. I told her that it was difficult and painful to speak about her in the past tense. I wished I had had more time with her, and that I felt robbed because we were just beginning to really become friends, and that I felt a little stupid to be so deep in my sorrow, as there were many people to whom she was much closer. Of course, I said, someone doesn’t have to know you long to become attached to and fond of you, Katie.

Then I talked to her about her memorial service that had been this past Saturday. Just walking into the funeral home and seeing her name up in all capital white letters pressed onto the black felt board…it felt like a sharp jab to the gut and brought tears to my eyes. Seeing your beloved violin resting in its open case next to your ashes was like another punch; not one to the gut but deeper, right to the heart. I told Katie that I noticed her ashes were in two vases, presumably to be split between her divorced parents, and I told her that I thought it deeply, darkly, ironic, even almost funny that even in death they are still pulling her in separate directions.

One of her former professors shared a story, saying that when he heard you had died, he hadn’t felt that way since 9/11. “Remember when the next few days there were no planes in the sky at all?” he asked us. He said that was the same eerie feeling he had as after he’d heard about your death. I told Katie that I could just see her rolling her big bright eyes at the mention of 9/11 at your funeral, and that it also occurred to me that, like me, you probably found the empty skies wonderful and serene rather than eerie.

And I told Katie that her former boyfriend had shared the most touching story of the service. He had walked meekly up to the microphone and spoke in a hushed whisper; everyone had to strain and even hold their breath to hear him, but we were hanging on his every word. He told the story of the night that you and he were camping and saw a couple of loons out on the lake. You shared one life vest between you, and you switched back and forth, one treading water while the other rested on the vest, and you swam out towards the loons, and you got so very close to them. Out there in the still clear night, under the stars, floating in the water, he whispered, is when he fell in love with nature, but everyone knew what he really meant to say is that is when he fell in love with you.

I told Katie that Sylvana had found some of her old schoolwork on the computer at the library, and that some well-meaning but misguided friends of hers had tried to delete them. Luckily, they were saved. One of the items was a portrait of herself, in a white lacy gown, sitting on the floor, slumped against the wall, with a peaceful countenance on her face. Blood was pooled on her gown and splattered and smeared on the wall. Her relaxed, opened hand was on the floor beside her, and resting in it was a gun, on the verge of softly, finally slipping out and coming to rest. Given the horrible fact of her suicide it was disturbing to look at for sure, but you could see the obvious artistic genius that went into it. It was so haunting, beautiful and sad.

I told her that I’d read a couple of her papers, and that her personality sparkled throughout one in particular. It was obvious she had most likely written it in a hurry, probably the night before it was due. I told her she was so funny.

Then I told her about my suicide attempt. It had been several years earlier, long before I had met Katie. I had taken Tylenol PM, around 16 of them, before I had decided it was a mistake and that I didn’t want to die after all. I went to the bathroom and threw up a green goop which I assumed was bile. It was obvious that quite a bit of the medication had already entered my system, and I spent the rest of the night dragging my heavy feet through the house, pacing, trying to stay awake. I kept saying, “I don’t want to die,” over and over to myself. And keeping me company during that night, with me every step of the way, were my angels. At this point in my story I stopped and watched a deer walk across the small island in front of me, and once it disappeared, I continued.

They did not look like traditional angels you might see in pictures in a church, I told her, they were more like form constants, the kind of shapes you might see after taking mushrooms or acid. I was aware that they were most likely a manifestation of my brain due to the medication and stress, but still they comforted me. I knew that they would be there to take care of me and see me through my time of need. And I told Katie that I hoped that she had met these angels to help her as her life ended, and that they were much comfort to her.

At this point an entire family of deer walked in front of me on the small island, traveling in the opposite direction of the single deer I had seen earlier. Again, I paused and was silent until they were out of sight.

Finally, then, once again bursting out sobbing, I told Katie that I was sorry. I was so sorry…so sorry I didn’t talk to her and help her more, so sorry I ignored her problems, hoping you were getting better. I told her I was worried that I wouldn’t get past this grief and this guilt, and that I was sorry. I was so, so sorry. Katie, I’m so sorry.

I sat on the boulder a while, just listening and waiting. I don’t know what it was I expected all of this to accomplish. Maybe some closure, maybe some relief, maybe some answer from Katie, but noting was forthcoming. After I had finished crying on last time, I picked up my water bottle and all of my used tissues and trudged back up hill and to my car, exhausted and empty-feeling.

June 19

2006-06-30T13:22:00.000-05:00

June 19
I woke up feeling surprisingly well, considering how much I had had to drink the previous night. Word had gotten to us yesterday that a good friend, Katie, had killed herself in a particularly gruesome manner on Friday night. She was such a unique and great person. She struggled with finding the point to life; like so many she fell to one of the two extremes with regards to what, exactly, life means. She rightly perceived that there is, in the end, no real point to life. I’m sure one could rightly argue that there is a point, and it is to pass on your genes, but such a non-cerebral pursuit is hardly satisfying to those seeking something profound.

But on the other hand, any life is extremely meaningful, and in fact, has whatever meaning and significance you choose to bring to it. The cold fact of Katie’s passing this mortal coil has brought such suffering to so many people shows that on some level her life held so much more meaning than she ever conceived it could.

Katie’s death shook some of my confidence in my convictions, and caused me, in the early stages of grief, to revisit the thoughts and ideas (and the feelings that those thoughts and ideas generate) I have regarding life and death, and that kept me up for a good deal of the previous night. I struggled with duality, what I had thought of as a sort of dynamic tension between a deeply ingrained human (or perhaps animal) will to survive and our other deeply ingrained instinct to relieve suffering. It occurred to me that I, too, was falling into the mistaken notion that this duality was two things. But the desire to survive and the desire to end suffering are really two human differentiations of the same thing. You survive because of what you fear or suffer, and you suffer because you live with the fear of losing life (impermanence), and because of the human tendency to transpose our being upon our possessions, we can actually see losing certain parts or aspects or impermanent features as threats to our actual being.

All of this was racing through my mind last night, and into this morning, so I thought that a walk through the woods might do some good for me. The weather was cool and mild, with a layer of clouds to prevent the sun from beating down and sending the summer insects into a frenzy. I chose to go to the woods above Hoffman Park, probably because it bordered a cemetery, and of course death and morbidity was much on my mind at the moment.

As I pulled into the parking lot, it started to sprinkle. I looked at the sky again to see if I had maybe misjudged the contents and intentions of the clouds, but they looked fairly thin and light, and I felt fairly certain that a sprinkle was the worst the weather would get; worse, of course, being a relative term, presuming there is something wrong with getting wet—a concept which I learned back at the stumps was bullshit.

By the time I had reached the entrance to the woods the precipitation had stopped and the sun broke out from behind the cloud cover, shining with noticeable heat and intensity, but within the woods it was still cool. As I was entering the woods, a woman and her dog were leaving. Both were very friendly and wished me a good morning, which I returned wholeheartedly.
As I entered the woods, I heard ominous-sounding cries of crows and blue jays rather than the calls of red-winged blackbirds and robins that encompassed me down by the river. I wasn’t but a few steps into the woods when I noticed that the vegetation along the edges of the path was chewed to shreds. I noticed one small tree at first, and examined it closely…I couldn’t think of any animal that would chew up a tree quite in that fashion. Then I saw that all the trees along the path showed similar damage and figured that the park department must have come through to groom the paths to keep them from being overgrown.

I walked on down the path, wondering if, when I got to the fork in the path, if I would turn right and go up the hill deeper into the woods or if I’d take a left and wonder around down by the cemetery. The mere thought of the cemetery got me thinking of Katie again, of course. I hoped that she would be laid to rest in that particular one, so that I might visit her on some of my walks, and then immediately thought myself selfish. In fact, it occurred to me, gravestones and cemeteries really are, in the end, for the living. Anything that was Katie is long gone now…gravestones give our brains something to deal with besides abstract concepts such as impermanence.

At the fork, I turned left and went uphill as the idea struck me to construct a makeshift monument to her by stacking some rocks. I’d never talked to her about rock stacking, although I’d been meaning to, and now never will, but I have a feeling she would have thought it was cool. The specifics of the plan had not gelled in my mind, and rather than overthink it, I thought I’d just let the whole experience unfold as organically as possible, being sure that’s how Katie’d want it.

I walked uphill for a while, past the crumbling sandstone of the natural retaining wall that was carved out of the hillside. Near the top of the hill, there is an outer ring which, I believe, goes around he hilltop, and within that outer ring, an inner ring that traces around the hilltop a little farther up. When I got to the outer ring, I was faced with the prospect of going left or right, and I chose right. Only about ten paces down this path, I spied a small trail going up a steep incline off the main path. I went straight up it without delay.

The short, steep path went nearly straight up about eight to ten feet, then crested and dipped down a foot or two. Then it lead a very short way to a small fire pit. It did not appear to have been used recently; there were no ashes in it, and three small paths radiated off of it, each about 120 degrees from each other. The area was very small, and seemed to have a sort of mystical aura about it.

Standing in this confined room in the middle of the woods, I wondered if Katie had ever been to this spot. In all likelihood, she had. The spot was secluded and very quiet, as it sat so far above the main path, and I was struck with the idea that I should stack some rocks here, as a sort of monument in her honor, some thing that I could return to, focus on, and even maintain as a memorial.

I went to build the stack on the westward path radiating off of the fire pit, and soon saw that it was less of a path and more of a small room. It was an ideal location for the stack, sort of out of the way (the stack location was difficult to see even from the pit a few feet away as it was obstructed by vegetation), and with a nice little space to sit and reflect.

I hurriedly gathered up a few loose rocks and set them up. Looking at them, something seemed wrong, and I decided it was the haste and lack of attention to detail that went into it’s construction. I unstacked the stones and left the fire pit, getting back down on the main path, determined to walk around thinking about the stack and its meaning, and to find appropriate stones for its construction.

While walking, I decided that the large stone I had used as a base for the original stack was good and proper…it was big and had a nice growth of moss that I was sure Katie would have liked. Along the path, I came upon a small upheaval of dirt, and in the dirt was a piece of sandstone with a v-shaped notch out of it; it sort of looked like the walking man or a ‘k’, and I deemed it appropriate for my project and picked it up, carrying it along as I continued down the path.

Later I came to part of the path where, on the left side, the hill rose sharply, and had been eroded away a little, exposing a substrate of sandstone rocks that resembled a crumbling retention wall. I noticed one of the rocks, small and thin, had the impression of a leaf on it. I picked it up and went on up the trail.
Soon I was at the top of the hill, on the inner circle path, and walked westward past all the deciduous trees until I came into a grouping of pines. Here, a small path darted off the main one, headed into the center of the inner circle path.

The small path lead to a campground with a fire pit which was surrounded by rocks and logs for sitting. There was a cushion of dry pine needles on the ground. A few paces away was a nice stack of firewood. This fire pit didn’t seem to have been used lately either. I was pretty sure that Katie had been here in the past, and I stepped with reverence around the site. Then, I thought, it was time to go and finish my work. (include other sites w/ birch cross and lean-to?)

I followed the main trail back to the site I had chosen earlier, where I started stacking. First, I put down the base rock, the big one with the moss and a rounded top, on top of which I placed a thin, flat rock that I’d gotten from the fire pit. Next I laid down the rock with the leaf imprint. I set the rock I’d taken from the upheaval and put it on the leaf imprint rock, but a little off center, and on that I balanced an awkwardly shaped but nonetheless beautiful stone, standing on its edge.

When it was completed, I took a step back and looked at it. I still wasn’t sure if I liked it, but it was made out of rocks I was sure Katie would have liked. It was also unstable, like her. I think her instability contributed to her beauty. Her instability, her fragileness, her frailty…all these things that some might consider imperfections or flaws, these are what made her a truly beautiful person.

I knelt there, on the soft forest floor, contemplating these things about her, when I noticed a low whine of machinery in the distance, one that kept getting closer and louder. I tried to ignore it and concentrate on Katie, but soon the noise was so much I couldn’t hear myself think. A chipmunk suddenly darted out of its hiding place, not more than three feet away from where I was kneeling down. I only saw it as a blur; it was gone so fast. It must have been hunkered down, anxiously waiting for me to finish my rock stacking, so it could get on with its life. I smiled to myself, realizing that I, too, am going to have to get on with my life at some point. But for now, I think I’ll have to try to be patient with my grief.

After the path-clearing thrasher had gone by, I got up and left the small secluded site.

I was walking down the path, thinking I’d leave the way I entered, when I heard a series of sharp, quick buzzes. At first I assumed that the noise came from the machinery that had just been by, but then I caught sight of a moth fluttering frantically on the path. I’d never heard a moth buzz before, so I knelt down for a closer look.

Once I got down to the moth’s level, I saw that it was so frantic because it was being attacked by a bee. In all my walks through the woods, I can recall countless butterflies and moths jittering by me and thousands of bees buzzing furiously past me, sometimes hitting me at full speed, angrily intimidating this creature about a millions times their size, but I hadn’t seen this hunting, this death, that I came across on this day when I was most able to witness it with such gut-wrenching empathy. The moth was obviously in its death throes, staggering, already dumb under the spell of the venom. I sat and watched for a few minutes, rooting for the moth to find some reserve strength and escape, but I knew better, of course. I tried to take a couple of pictures, out of some sense of need to document morbidity in the physical realm, but soon the bee knew the moth was done for and focused on me as his most pressing threat, stabbing at me in a series of unnerving aerial maneuvers. I backed off more a good couple minutes before racing past the now motionless moth.

I arrived at the fork in the path at the base of the hill, but instead of turning left and exiting the woods the way I had entered them, I proceeded down towards the cemetery. When I got to where the path exited the woods by the cemetery, I stopped short upon seeing a small gathering in the graveyard. It didn’t seem to be a funeral, as the grouping of people seemed casual and informal, and there was no hearse or coffin. Some of the people gathered were obviously somber, however, as they hugged and shook hands reassuringly.

Off on the edge of the cemetery, obscured from view from the group of people there, but visible to me, was a large pile of dirt, dark as if it was a little wet. This, I surmised, was where they put your dirt when they dug your grave. I fantasized that this was Katie’s family checking out a plot for their daughter, that this was her dirt, but I had never met anyone in her family, and I had no real clue whom these people were. Inside I knew that this was a stupid, self-serving fantasy; after all, other people do die.

zen garden diary 6/5/06

2006-06-05T21:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I cleared out the garden space and got the layout down.

I still have to remove a lot of dirt, as the current dirt level is where I want the pebble level to be when it's finished. Plus, I have to fine tune the grading and everything. These pictures are to help me map everything back out.

A painted fern goes in the back left corner, cascading out over the limestone, and a cedar gets palnted where the bunching plant is, back by the crack in the foundation.

June 2

2006-06-02T08:40:00.000-05:00

6/2/06

This morning I dropped of my car at the local garage, and seeing as my walk home brought me past the northern section of the woods I've been exploring, I decided to wander around in there before I went home. I had dressed accordingly, wearing fairly grange clothes, so that I could explore what lay beyond the big storm sewer outlet. The wind was hot and dry, and filled with cottonwoods seeds. Along the sidewalk, the cottonwoods clung to the grass like little snow drifts, and I was already getting a little headache from my allergies.

I walked down the access road, and went to enter the woods...only, I couldn't find the entrance. In the week or so since I'd last been here, the rhubarb had grown so fast and thick that the pathway was utterly obscured. I paced along the edge of the woods, peering in as far as I could to try and see if I could locate the path deeper in the woods and trace it back to the hidden entrance. Finally, I gave up and took an educated guess where the path might be and trounced in, on the path, remarkably.

I had brought my camera with me, and I fiddled with it, starting it up and everything, as I walked along the now familiar main path in these woods. Just as it completed its' booting process, it announced that it was out of battery power, so I dug fresh batteries out of my pockets and fed them into the machine, barely paying attention as I continued along the path, down towards the stumps. This morning before I'd left the house, some subconscious part of my brain had assured me that I'd be able to take at least a few pictures, and not to bother looking for replacement batteries to take with me. I'd grabbed them anyway, though, but it was still frustrating to deal with the false expectation I'd had about the batteries.

I was growing impatient with the whole camera situation, muttering to myself about how long the odds were that I wouldn't be able to take even one picture before changing the batteries, when I stumbled like an oaf into the clearing and startled the heron, who took off with much splashing and effort. The camera had not finished rebooting, and so I was unable to get a picture of it, and this was by far the closest I'd ever been to him. He was no more than ten feet away. I could see every detail, the ruffles of his feathers and the features of his face. He and I locked eyes for what seemed a good long time but was likely only a fleeting moment, and then he was gone again. Damn it!

I stood there at the stumps for a long time, contemplating just turning around and heading back for bed, upset at how my day was starting. After a while, though, the sound of the rushing river took my thoughts away with it, and I zoned out there, standing on one of the stumps. I was lazily surveying the river, trying to figure a way across the stumps, sizing up whether I had the legspan to reach one from another, like I'd puzzled over many times before, when it struck me. Rather than jumping from stump to stump, I could maybe use a walking stick to help vault me, as it were, to each stump. That would surely help me maintain my balance and make the whole enterprise much easier.

Feeling a little inspired, I left the stumps to cross the chasm and maybe search for a vaulting stick. I walked slowly and kept my footfalls soft, thinking that I might run into the heron again. I had the camera set to go, not wanting to miss another opportunity. As I was walking, I was dwelling on the fact that more often than not I catch sight of the heron when I'm out on my hikes. Was there more than one? How else could I explain seeing a heron so often? But why do I never see more than one at a time?

I made my way along the inclined path, trying to keep quiet, but the leaves were crunchy underfoot and would've alerted any herons long before I was near. Before long I was at the chasm. I hung my camera by its strap from a small branch of a dead tree before I eased my way down. The chasm was about fifteen fet across, ten feet down, and was lined with rough jagged sandstone. A large tree was growing at the base, and it's roots, some up to nearly a foot thick, were intertwined in the rocks. There was nearly no place to set a foot comfortably, and any misstep could end up quite painfully.

I managed to transverse the tricky terrain, but was able to proceed only about ten feet before the vegetation grew too thick to penetrate. I could make out little animal paths going underneath the brush, but they were inaccesible to anyone more than a foot tall. I scanned the terrian for some time, traversing each possible path mentally, before eventually deciding that continuing the journey would be painful, if not impossible.

I reversed my course and made my way back to the stumps. Along the way, I found a fairly straight stick on the ground, about four feet long, around an inch thick, and slightly tapered. It was strong, not rotten, and seemed to suit the purpose I had in mind. I practiced my vaulting on the path on the way to the stumps.

Arriving at the riverside, I went straight for the stumps. I stepped on the first one and then the second one, just like always, and then stood there for a while. This second stump is where I had always stopped in the past. But now with my stick, I was more confident that I couls make it to the third set of stumps. I went over the routinr in my mind, psyching myself up with several false starts. The current of the river was strong, I noticed, so strong that it tried to pull my stick downstream with it. My confidence started to fade with every mental run through I did. Visions of slipping on the damp stumps, splashing into the river, maybe even hurting myself, damced through my skull. More and more, the whole enterprise looked like it would end with me getting wet, and then the thought struck me...

What would be so bad about me getting wet? I saw that I'd gotten it stuck in my head that I needed to stay dry while trying to see if I could get ti the other side. I giggled to myself and got myself back to the shore, where I immediately hung my camera ona tree branch and took off my shoes and socks.

I stepped onto the first stump with my bare foot, enjoying the feel of the old worn wood on the skin of my sole. The water was around a foot deep, and rather than jump in I decided to lower myself to a squatting position, place my hand on one of the stumps, and ease my foot in. It was fortunate on my part that I did it this way, because the current was so strong that if I hadn't been holdong on to something, it likely would have carried me away.

Once both my feet were in, I let go of the stump. Trying to walk straight across the river was almost impossible, so I moved with the water, going a little downstream with each step across. The river bottom was covered in small jagged rocks, which were, of course, slippery with river slime, so I had to walk carefuly and slowly. As I got to the middle of the stream, near the small island, the jagged rocks became covered with silt. The silt cushioned my steps a little. Eventually, the silt grew so thick that I could no longer tell that there were rocks beneath it, and the muddy goo gushed over my feet and between my toes.

I was nearly halfway out before it dawned on me that it might be a good idea to take the camera out with me. I was a little worried about the camera getting wet, but I thought the pictures I could take would be worth the risk.

I sloshed back to shore and went to the tree where I had hung the camera by its strap. The tree was a little off the beaten path, and had a good deal of grass and other vegetation surrounding it, which I gingerly trundled through, and noticed at some point that among the plants growing there were stinging nettles. My legs didn't begin to itch until after I'd fetched the canera and was on my way back to the river, and I jumped back in as fast as I could without splashing warter on it.

I stood in the cool water, letting the soothing current take the stinging chemicals away downstream.

As I got closer to the other shore, it became clear that there would be no easy path on that other side. I was really not disappointed, though, because it was such a revelation I had about just stepping into the river, it was almost as though I had solved a koan, so deeply satisfying was my contentment.

I stood a good long time in the river, just letting it flow past me. I snapped a couple of pictures, thinking it would be a neat perspective, then I reluctantly walked back to the near shore, shook my legs dry as best I could, and atarted on my way home.

As I walked the path back to wherre I entered the woods, off to my left I heard a sort of rustling. The niose was sort of slow and deliberate, like something was carefully planning its steps, ans the landing pf the footfalls sounded heavy. I froze, then crouched down slightly, silently listening for another sound. The sound eventually came, but not for almost a minute, and it was difficult to tell exactly where it was coming from, but it seemed to be originating from near the riverbank. It had to be a deer, I thought, and I pursued it as carefully as my excitement allowed.

I slowly made a large circle around wherre I thought the animal might be, then doubled back along the shore line, following nearly imperceptible animal trails as quietly as I could. I spent quite a while stalking my prey, but I heard nothing more. I crept along slowly, pausing after each step. Suddenly, something scampered out of the rhubarb patch I was walking past. It certainly wasn't a deer, I noted disappointedly, but could be a woodchuck or raccoon, I thought.

I went after this now what I knew to be smaller animal for a while, but it seemed to stay put wherever it had scampered off to and gave me no more clues as to its whereabouts. Just as I was about to give up, I heard it again, very close, and I hid behind a tree to make sure I was out of sight. I could hear the animal, it had to be less than ten or twenty feet away. I carefully peeked around the tree, moving as slowly as I could, but I saw nothing. I kept peering into the dense foliage, sure that at any moment the beast would move and reveal its' position, and eventually it did. Unfortunately, the acousatics of the woods had tricked me earlier, as it was not a deer or even a woodchuck, but a mere squirrel. I tried to tske its picture, but even that eluded me...it was somewhere on the ground in the sunny patch of this picture.

Of course disappointed with the last part of my time in the woods, I exited quickly and headed home. On my wasy back, I encountered two squirrels chasing each other around the trunk of a large maple tree, jumping from the ground onto the tree itself and then off again. I noticed that the quirrel being chased was carrying something in its mouth, something the other squirrel apparently wanted very badlly. When they paused for a brief moments rest, I saw it was a helicopter, and I laughed to myself at the mental image of these two squirrels fighting over who was going to drop the thing from the treetop, like two kids fighting over a toy.

May 25th

2006-05-30T00:24:00.000-05:00

5/25/06

This morning business brought me to the south side of town, and so I took the opportunity to explore one of the southern entrances to the park and trail system. I had only ben to this particular entrance once before, and then only breifly, so I was really looking forward to this time in the woods.

It was humid but cool, moisture was so thick you could see it in the air, and the skies threatened to rain soon. I entered under the canopy of trees to an eerie chorus of frog, singing in alternating pitches, high then low, high then low. I kept an eye on my feet as I walked, trying to avois needlessly stepping on any anthills built on the path. As I moved down the path, the anthills gradually changed shades of color, first black, then black with tan specks, later mostly tan. Ants, I thought, were smart to build with local materials at hand, but thier choice of building location was often not as wise. But that is the insect's lot in life, I suppose, to constantly have the big crushing foot from the sky hanging over your head.

I stayed on the main beaten path, resisting the many tempting and less well beaten offshoots. I followed my course down a steep hill until I came to a little plateau, where the trail split in two, each path breaking off from the main trail at a 90 degree angle and each heading in an opposite direction. And at this path intersection, I noticed a wooden bench situated as though in front of a scenic overview. At first I couldn't see the over view due to the foliage, but as I walked up to the bench I recognized the sight below as the Kinnikinnic River, and I realized I had been at this very spot last winter, though I had arrived here by route of the trail that runs by the lower falls.

Seeing that no further exploration was warranted, I climbed back up the trail, making my way to the minor paths I had passed earlier. On my way uphill, I recalled the events of the past couple days. I had found a tiny bit of pot that I had stashed away a while ago...I'm not sure why I had the notion to squirrel away weed, but I suppose that's something addicts do. I tried to put off smoking it, to save it as some sort of reward, but within 20 minutes it was gone. I did have a couple revelations when I was high, chief among them that any idea that I had any control over my addiction was pure illusion. I also realized how hard it was to be kind, but that I really ought to make every effort to be so, otherwise my life could be rightly described as a waste. Weed offers you a sort of filter or lens, a differrent way of looking at things, which is part of the lure it has over me, I suppose. But my addiction makes me far too weak and undisciplined to make much use of these insights, so then and there I decided not to get high again until I can achieve Enlightenment, a likely unattainable, but certainly not impossible goal. I thought that the only way I could handle weed responsibly would be from an Enlightened mindset, and it also occured to me that upon attaining Enlightenment, with its einherent shedding of desire and attraction, weed would lose all allure for me, and so in this way I could compartmentalize weed out of my life forever. But by putting it in my head that I could possibly have weed again if I struggled through to true Enlightenment, I was hoping to make my weakness a driving force towards my struggle, a sort of mental jujitsu.

As I reached the top of the hill, I saw a small path and followed it for a short while and found that it ended at another overlook. This overlook had no bench, but it did have a nice rocky outcropping that you could sit on and enjoy the view. I could hear the faint sound of flowing water in the distance.

Beyond this rocky outcropping, the trail continued, winding its way down a steep and treacherous rocky hillside for another twenty feet or so. I followed this trail which seemed like it was cut more likely by water finding its way down hill than by human or animal means, until it dead ended and the top of a cliff. Looking down below, I saw the river and the firepit I'd found on my last trip to the woods. I stood there in silence for a while, appreciating the quiet, until a wasp interrupted me, buzzing by my head.

Deciding that I was not in a good place to be dodging wasps, I turned to leave, but first noticed the heron flying out over the river. I froze, the noise of the wasp seemed to fade away as I caught view of the graceful heron moving through the sky. I wondered if there was more than one heron...I'd only ever seen one at a time and just assumed it was the same one.

Once the heron had disappeared from sight, I climbed back up the steep craggy incline. Near the top, I saw what looked like it might be wild marijuana growing between the rocks in the path. I looked at it longingly for a moment before shaking the thoughts from my head and walked back out onto the main path. Walking towards the spot where I entered this part of the woods, I followed another trail, one that looked like it ran along the edge of the woods that bordered the housing development that had sprung up recently.

The path stayed between ten and twenty feet from the edge of the woods, and the foliage was thick so that places where you could see through the trees and out into the backyards that lined the woods were few and far between. The path was lined for much of the way with beautiful purple, pink and white flowers, but I noticed with some distain that it was also lind with grass clippings. Apparently, local residents had taken to disposing of their yard waste here rather than carting it responsibly down to the compost site.

And this, as I see it, is the main problem with building these housing or retail or industrial developments near our treasured resources...human nature dictates that some, if not many, people will pollute or degredate it for their own conveinience rather than take care of it out of a sense of communal responsibility. Their lawn clippings are full of nitrogen and other fertilizing chemicals, and they are dumped back on the valley that leads down to the Kinnikinnic River, polluting what is arguably this city's greatest natural resource, all for selfish conveinience. I followed the path to it's end, at a lavish backyard with a pool, sauna and trampoline.

I retreated to the wood's exit, and left just as it started to sprinkle.

zen garden diary 5/27/06

2006-05-29T20:33:00.000-05:00

I'm planning to have a theme of threes in the garden:

3 plants (painted fern, cedars bonsai and cherry bonsai)
3 sandstone rocks (1 big, 2 small)
3 other rocks
3 "rivers" will run through...actually, one river w/ 3 branches

I plan to have some height in the back left corner, where I will dig in the big sandstone rock, and the painted fern will cascade over it.

As for the rest of the details, I currently have no set plans.

May 19th

2006-05-28T09:50:00.000-05:00

5/19/06

This morning I got it stuck in my head that I would explore the lower trail system of Glen Park, returning to the fork where I had turned back last time. This time I remembered my camera, to help me with my recollection as much as for documenting my travels. I retraced my familiar route to Glen Park, crossing the bridge over Lake George and past the first falls, then crossed the swinging bridge into Glen Park proper. While crossing the swinging bridge, I looked down to see if there were any easy paths that would allow me to walk upstream towards the college, but I couldn't see any. Nevertheless, I thought, I would one day try to make my way up that part of the river.

I got down below the second falls as quick as I could, half jogging and half sliding down the step gravelly trail. I avoided all of the side trails and soon made it to the pole bridge. During all of my previous walking I was single mindedly focused on crossing that bridge, but as I finally arrived there, a bit of curiosity gnawed at me and I instead took a path to my left, the ran upstream along the smaller eastern branch of the river. I walked along the path worn by trout fishermen, heading eastwith the river on my right and the big cliff on my left. I eyed the cliff, looking to see if I could find a relatively safe way to scale it, but it was nearly shear and, beinng made of sandstone, I wouldn't really be able to trust and footholds I maight find.

A little further down the river, as the shear cliff melted into a steep hillside, I saw a large fire pit, filled with grey ashes. I noticed with some impatience that the area around the firepit wasn't cleared, and tall prairie gasses grew up right along its border. Most likely, I reasoned, the idea of drunken teenagers. I looked past the firepit and saw what looked like it might be a small alcove cut into the face of the cliff, right at the base, but there was no path that led there, and the way was strewn with thorny vegetation. Besdies, it was difficult to tell if it was a small cave or just the result of shadows, so I decided to look at it some other time, when I had on junkier shoes and wore pants instead of shorts.

I continued down the path until it stopped. A small path that was probably used by small animals went on from there, but it was clearly not a path suitable for humans. Looking across the river, I noticed that the path continued on the other side of the river, which was easily crossable as it was less than a foot deep at that art of the river. But I did not wish to continue slogging through the woods all day in soggy shoes, so I turned back towards the pole bridge. On my walk back, I was entertained by two small white butterflies chasing each other. They started up out of the grass on my side of th river, then crossed and entered the woods, only to return out in the open a few moments later, riding and dancing along on the breeze. They then turned and chased each other back upstream and out of my sight.

I once again tested the strength of the bridge with my foot before I put my whole weight on it. I suppose I never will entirely trust that bridge. Once on the other side, I again took a small detour, taking the middle path rather than the main path on the left that led directly to the fork I sought.

The midle path lead into the trees abd then to a clearing. In the clearing there was a makeshift campsight set up, with a bench fashioned out of fallen trees and a small fire pit. I looked around the sight for any marijuana growing, as I thought that surely some kids had been there at some point, and surely they left some seeds behind which may have grown...then shook my head, trying to scatter the thought away. I continued immediately down the path, back into the woods.

The path bent through the woods, and over to my right I could hear the muffled sound of water. I ducked a little ways down an animal trail, and saw the little stream that ran by the peninsula on which I had stood a few days before. Funny, from the other side, where I stood now had appeared to be unexplored wilderness. I left the animal trail and continued down the path, traveling north now, consciusly stepping as silently as I could so I could enjoy the sound of the water.

My every movement stopped as I crested a small hill and caught glimpse of a fisherman. He stood serenely in the stream, and I kept still until he turned his head away, at which point I slowly and silently turned around and made my way back to the pole bridge. As I walked past the campsite, my eyes scanned the ground for weed but my pace never slowed...until I spied a small trail at the back of the clearing. I went over to investigate.

Only about the first five feet or so of the trail were clear, and just barely at that. It lead from the clearing into somewhat denser vegatation and then into thick woods where, if not for my experience in the woods, I might have completely lost the trail.

The animal trail would sometimes end when a tree had fallen across its path, and then pick up again several feet away. Often it was difficult to tell if I was indeed on a pth or if I was just on a random patch of forest floor that happened to have nothing growing on it. There were even times when I began to wonder where the heck I was, and began to feel a kernel of panic begin to grow inside me, but my faith in my instincts in the woods quieted the fear. I kept moving in a south easten direction, towards where the main path must be, and eventually I caught sight of it.

AS I got up onto the main path, I found some flat sandstrone and stacked them to mark the animal trail. The trail was nearly impossible to see from the main path, I had walked by it twice last time I was here and completely missed it. Finishing my stack, I walked up the incline of the path towards the fork. My eyes scanned the edge of the path for the rock stack I had made a few days ago, and I paused breifly to admire my handiwork once I spotted it. Moving on, I soon came to the fork in the path.

I took the right path, which lead down the hillside for a short ways before going back up again. This part of the woods was mostly made up of birch and ferns. Many of the ferns were truly giant, nearly as tall as me, and a fair number of the birch had fallen and lay rotting on the ground, sprouting moss and mushrooms.

A woodpeckers drilling filled the woods as I walked along. The whole atmosphere seemed almost out of a fairie tale, and then I saw this tree and smiled...

I imagine that in the right light and frame of mind this sight might scare the bejeesus out of you.

The path, which while going up and down quite a bit, remained quite straight for about a mile or so. Then it began to curve and swerve more and more as I entered a different part of the woods, with more hardwood trees, less groundcover and less sunlight getting through than the birchy part. Although the noise was more dampened down in this part of the woods, I would occassionally hear noises, like the rustling of leaves, the creaking of trees in the wind, and the scurrying of critters in my surroundings. Had I seen that old tree in this part of the woods, it might have struck me differently.

Along this part of the path, I came to a bench that seemed to be perched to look out over part of the river valley, but the view was obscured by foliage. I stood up on the bench to see if maybe that might get me a glimpse, but it was no use. Looking down, I saw "River Falls Coed Naked Club" carved into the bench.

Hopping down off the bench, I tried to land soft on my feet, but made a bit of noise anyway. I'd been trying to be quiet in this part of the woods, again more out of instinct than for any rational reason. I stood where I landed for about a minute, listening intently, hearing only the woodpeckers and the creaking of the windswept trees before I moved on.

I walkd along, admiring the large mushrooms along the path, when I heard a stick break. Again, I froze in my tracks, scanning the woods, trying to localize the sound or pick out any movement. Suddenly, I spied a deer sauntering through the trees less than twenty feet away. She was so close I could hear her every footstep with breathtaking clarity. I was amazed that I saw her before she saw me. She meandered through the trees seemingly aimlessly, stopping now and again to eat a few leaves or just to look around.

I stood still and watched her wander along what I assumed must have been an indetectible animal path until she disappeared in the trees. Then I slowly crept along, careful to remain silent, continuing along the path.

The path soon took a sharp left turn, and rounding it, I again saw the deer. This time she was standing right on the path, with her back to be, eating plants along the path's edge. Once again, I remained perfectly still as she continued down the path, around the bend and out of my sight. At that point, I decided to turn back, leaving the deer to her privacy.

On my way back, I stopped and tried to pick out the trail that the deer had followed, but there didn't seem to be one. The ground was relatively clear of lower growing vegetation, allowing her to wander where she felt like. I tried to follow the general direction she had taken, and that lead me to a great clearing. There was ahill in the middle of the clearing, with a long gradual slope and thick with barberry prickers, so I decided to stay on the path along the edge of the clearing rather than trudge up the hill to see what was on the other side. I thought I could hear the faint sound of traffic, but I couldn't tell, and seeing as it was getting late, I turned for home, leaving this clearing for later exploration.

I retraced my path briskly, jogging at times, trying to get home in time for lunch. I reached the pole bridge just after the noon whistle went off, and paused once again to test it before I crossed it and jogged along on my way. I ran all the way to the clearing before the narrow path along the cliff near the base of the lower falls.

I pulled up suddenly as I saw the heron, standing on a rock that stuck out of the river at the bottom of the falls. I slowly proceeded, readying my camera, trying to get close for a good picture, and trying not to scare him. He was very weary of me, though, and he took to the air before I was anywhere near where I wanted to be. I stabbed my camera into the air, trying deperately to get some sort of photo of him. The results were disappointing. He casually flew off, laboriously slow yet still graceful, following the river upstream and out of my view.

May 17th

2006-05-24T09:51:00.000-05:00

5/17/06

The next day rain was still threatening, so I resolved to explore the northern part of the Kinnikinnic woods behind the Moose Lodge again, where I would be closer to home should the skies open up. This time, however, instead of entering behind the Lodge, I entered by way of the old access road from which I had exited the previous time I was there. It took me a while to find the entrace path, because the path leaves the woods at an angle and unless you're looking at iy staright on, you just see a neverending wall of vegetation.

I walked the path to the spot where I had previously seen the heron. He was not there today, I observed not without disappointment. But since he wasn't there, I walked down that path he had ben occupying to see where it lead. The path, however, devolved from a worn path to an animal path and eventually brached off into several nondescript paths, overgrown and only accomodating to things walking on all fours, and so I turned back, making my way towards the stumps in the water, about half a mile away.

Making my way down the path, I heard peopledoing some home improvement work on the other side of the rive, at the top of the cliff, some twenty feet up. I could see them through the trees, working on taking down an old deck that overlooked the river. Upon seeing them, I froze. This seems to be an instinct in me that comes out when I enter the woods, and is very difficult to override when I come upon someone in the wilderness, though my social instincts can usually overpower it when I meet someone who obviously sees me.

I sttod still, watching them work for a short time, wishing I hadn't worn a bright yellow shirt that day. When their back were turned, I walked on.

Right before the stumps, there is a big bend in the river. I stopped at a secluded little stand of trees by the bend and saw a little beach, probably only one foot by two feet, which had presumably formed there due to the slow curreny there at the bend in the river, plus a large tree had fallen into the river on the downstream side of the beach, further slowing the current there. The little beach had a base of fine white sand, and on top of this base was a courser gravel, black, white and tan, along with a few small sticks and leaves, not to mention a candy wrapper and beer can. Everything on top of the base layer was no doubt washed up there during the period of heavy rains last month when the water level raised about a foot. Looking at the garbage, I resolved to start carrying a bag with me on my outings to pick up littler.

I went back out on the main path and walked to the stumps. The sight of them, I perceved with a little disappointment, did not strike me with the same intensity and awe as the last time I had seen them. But once this initial disappointment passed, I was able to enjoy to sight of them again, and I stepped reverently towards the stumps, intending to walk as far out into the river on them as I could.

Suddenly, as I got to within ten or fifteen feet of the shoreline, two ducks, in an explosion of activity, noisily splashed and flapped their way into the air from where they had been swimming on the edge of the river. They had been tucked away behind an outcrop of tall grass so I had been unable to see them as I approached. I took a half step back as their commotion ensued, crouching a little, my heart racing. Within moments they were gone down the river, and the flowing current erasd any trace of their disturbance in the water.

Before my pulse had slowed, I stepped out onto one of the stumps, silently listening to the water flow around all the obstructions jutting out of the river. Looking across the river, I saw that the stumps were father apart than I had remembered. To make my way further across the river would take a leap of such distance that it would be a little bit challenging on dry land, and given the small landing area and the threat of falling in the river, failure seemed a more certain outcome than success. Istood there a good long while contemplating if I should attempt the jump, and if so, what would be the best way, before I returned to the shore, figuring I would first practice the leap on dry land where a mistake wouldn't be as drastic.

I made my way to the bottom of the hill behind the Moose Lodge. This was where I had entered these woods when I first explored them two days previously. I continued west, upstream, to explore further. The hill on my left remained steep, and got closer and closer to the river, until eventually the path left flat land and found its way along the hillside, making the walk more difficult. This part of the path was obviously mainly used by animals, as it was narrow and less trodden. I continued on, however, making use of the trees and rocks embedded along the way for balance and leverage.

I maintained my arduous course for about another fifty or sixty feet until I came to a storm sewer drain that emptied into the river. The hill side had been excavated to install this drain, resulting in a sheer cliff rather than a steep hillside, and a little bay had formed in the few feet between where the drain emptied and the river bank started. Paper cups, chip bags and even a shirt were among the many pieces of garbage that had gotten hung up on the rocks between the drain and the river in theat bay. The drain itself was fairly well hidden by large sandstone boulders and rocks, which I appreciated from an esthetic point of view, but it still made me sad to think of all the litter and things that get washed into this great resource.

The bay looked difficult, even treacherous to cross, an obstacle to my travels not entirely unlike the stumps I had visited earlier. It would be hard to even reach the little bay, as I would have to scale down a five foot sheer drop off onto pointy, unevenly spaced rocks. I decided against crossing it today, for much the same reasons as before, and I retraced my path and left the woods, trying to figure out in my head how I would train for the crossings.

May 16th

2006-05-24T09:18:00.000-05:00

5/16/06

The next day, I decided to return to the vast trail system that lead off from Glen Park. Passing through the park, I noticed the women with their children playing and chatting by the jungle gym. I slowed my pace a little to remain behind two old ladies, eavesdropping on their conversation, which was surprisingly racist. Having had about enough of their hate-speech, and being of the mind that they perhaps were not in possession of all of their marbles and thus didn't need any confrontation from the likes of me, I reumed by brisk stride and, making my way around them, I entered the forest.

The sounds of cars, lawn mowers and children's screams were replaced with a cacophony of bird and squirrel sounds, and the faint rush of the distant falls as I walked down the tunnel-like canopied trail. It felt several degrees warmer and much more humid here among the trees than it did out in the park, but only enough to summon the faintest traces of perspiration.

Down at the base of the falls, I saw a trout fisherman standing in the stream, twitching his pole lazily. I did not make eye contact with him, as that might elicit within each of us a compulsion to acknowledge each other, and I was sure that much like me, human interaction was not what he was here for.

I negotiated the treacherous mini-pass, and made my way down the worn path and out into the rest of the woods, pausing every so often to admire a plant or a rock or the sight and sound of the Kinnikinnic. I decided, on a whim, to take one of the minor trails down to the banks of the river, where I encountered another fisherman. We nodded to each other, but said nothing, and I quickly and silently left him to his privacy, following a few animal trails until they eventually led me back to the main path.

I followed the path and came to the small clearing out of the woods by the river, where someone had set up a bench where you could sit and relax and enjoy the water. On the path in this clearing, ants like to construct their hills, which seems to me a horrible plan doomed to ensure an ant civilization a history of footstep catastrophes, but I suppose that that is an insects lot in life. I left the dirt of the trail and walked on the grass growing off the trail, not wishing to crush any ants if I could at all help it. I decided to sit for a moment and listen to the river flow past the small island the bench overlooks, when, looking up, I saw the profile of the heron flying along the river, back towards the falls from which I had come. My eyes followed the figure until it disappeared behind the trees, and then I got up and continued walking.

I walked the main path until I came to where the river branched off east and west. At this branch, crossing the west branch, there is a makeshift bridge made of a fallen tree, which is nailed into stumps on either bank, with a few 2x4s nailed onto the tree to provide a little additional width. I had encountered this bridge before, in the early winter when I was on a hike with my son. Over my son's objections, I had deemed it too rickety for us to cross back then, worried that he might fall into the icy water, with temperatures hovering near freezing and us miles from home. Now, however, in this much warmer weather, I thought I would try it out.

I carefully eyed the bridge over, looking for potential weak spots and hazards. I tested its give with a couple of taps from my foot. I stepped up onto it, still not yet over the water, and tested it a little more, then, looking it over one more time then keeping my eyes on the opposite bank, I walked forward smoothly as possible. Halfway across, my shoe caught just a little bit on a nail head that stuck out slightly, but I did not panic, and I safely completed my journey. Three different paths lead off from the other side of the bridge, and I took the one most to the right, which ran along the westward branch of the river.

The path wound its way a long the bank of the river, but diverged from it a little when it came to a stand of trees. Following the path through the trees, I came to a small stream off of the river ran a small detour route. A little pool formed here, the bottom of which was a very fine sand. Little ripples ran across the pool, the result of the little tributary that trickled through it. I walked past the pool and continued to trace the tributary. The trail ended at a peninsula. Looking across the little stream, I scanned the other side for evidence of a trail, but it all looked pretty wild and tangled. I turned back, pausing every so often to enjoy the solitude or to explore the little animal trails.

As I got close to the bank of the big river, I froze in my tracks. I could hear someone walking, and within seconds a fisherman came into view, just on the other side of a grouping of trees. I remained motionless until he passed, and I do not think he saw me. I'm not sure why I reacted in this fashion, but I think it had something to do with the woods.

I walked back to the makeshift bridge, and noticed for the first time a great cliff that was hidden from my view when I stood on the other side of the ridge, before I crossed. It was a giant limestone slab, around forty feet tall it seemed, and it loomed over the smaller, eastern branch of the river. I stood in awed appreciation of it for a while before turning back to the three paths on the bank I was standing on. I decided, after checking my watch and reasoning I still had some time to explore, to take the leftmost path, which also happened to be the biggest and most well worn.

The trail led up a slight incline for about a quarter of a mile, with no sharp bends, thought it did turn slightly left or right every so often. At one point I ceased walking and just enjoyed the sounds of nature. There is something about the woods that brings a sense of calm and ease to me. I don't know if it's he indescribable lush beauty of teeming life in the forest, or the organic, sound dampened solitude, or if it's simply the absence of our modern conveniences that tend to nag at us like needy children. But I do know that I am at my happiest in the woods, and that my body never seems tired there.

I started walking again, and the trail got steadily steeper; nothing intimidating or anything, but enough to increase your breathing and heart rate. Before long, I encountered a fork in the path. The trail to the right led down, more into the valley, and the trail to the left continued upward. I could see through the canopy that dark clouds were blowing in from the west, and so I decided to turn back for home, but then I elected to briefly follow an animal trail to a promising overlook.

The trail faded into nothingness(?) as it reached a sharp decline into a valley, through which ran the small eastern branch of the river. I couldn't see the water, as it was obscured by trees, but I could hear it. I thought that perhaps I could blaze my own trail down the steep hillside into the valley to get a better look, but figured that that would have to wait for another day. So I slithered and slalomed down the animal path back to the main trail.

On this trail, and in fact on almost all the trails in the woods, rocks are scattered along the sides of the paths, and sometimes even in the path itself. Most are loose, but quite a few are embedded within the path itself, to large to be removed, fortunately, as they add something wonderful to the esthetics of the trails. I picked up three flat pieces of sandstone and stacked them a few feet off the main trail next to the animal trail, as a sort of sign that would show me where it was I would like to someday blaze that trail down the hillside.

I had seen something on television a few years ago about other woods-walkers who made a practice out of rock stacking. The stacks they constructed were sometimes simple, sometimes elaborate, and were generally made a few yards off of the beaten path, something made as a special treat for those observant enough to spy them.

I walked briskly down the path, relaxing my ankles so that they flexed easily on the uneven, rock covered path. Mindful of the approaching storm clouds, I focused exclusively on my footfalls, but my concentration was broken when I heard, or perhaps I should say felt, a very deep thumping, throbbing noise. I stopped and listen to the thumping noise, which would start slowly and pick up in frequency. It sounded, or felt, like someone thumping a huge sledgehammer on the ground. I listened to this sound cycle through a few times before I decided that it must be some sort of frog or something, at which point I continued on my way.

I got to the bridge as the first drops of water hit me, and I slowed to prepare myself for the crossing, again testing the give of the bridge with my foot, still not trusting it. I hurried across the bridge, staying light on my feet, and hit the other side of the river jogging, trying to beat the rain, which I didn't. Thankfully, I discovered, I have not outgrown the simple pleasure of being drenched by a spring rain.

Blazing a new trail-May 15th

2006-05-15T14:52:00.000-05:00

With the successful completion of my first semester back in school, and a brief break in the rainy weather that would have made any woodland outing a trek through muck, I found myself able today to at long last go for a walk. None to soon, as well, as I noticed my gut had begun to show this winter, most likely brought on the years of on again, off again getting high and gorging.

I walked Serena back to her work downtown and dropped of some mail and then turned back towards the west side of town, not quite sure where I would go. As I finished crossing the bridge, it popped into my mind that I'd walk down towards the Moose Lodge, where the roads running east/west dead-ended, to see what was in the woods past those dead ends.

I walked briskly but not hurriedly, enjoying the smell of the lilacs on the gusts of breeze that came up from time to time. Again, traffic cleared as I came to streets I had to cross, and I appreciated, unarrogantly, the path unfolding before me. Any potential obstacles melted away or were neatly avoided in step.

I finally came to the Moose Lodge, where I walked across its empty parking lot, towards the line of trees at the back of the property. At first, it appeared that the property ended at a cliff that went straight down to the Kinnicinnic, but as I walked north along the perimeter, I noticed where the river bend slightly, opening up a small swath of land at its bank. I took down a path, pausing momentarily only to decide whether I should take this path or the other, and made my way down towards the river.

Down at the bank, I stood a moment as two loud kingfishers chased each other down the river in front of me. Then I noticed that a path went along the riverbank, and I turned north and followed it. It lead to a network of pathways, some probably made my humans and others, barely discernible and shielded with low branches, obviously forged by animals.

I wondered the paths for a while, getting my bearings and trying to pick one that would lead in the general direction of home, as soon my son would be returning home from school, and I wanted to be there to greet him in case he forgot his housekey.

I stopped in my tracks, however, when I came to a clearing by the riverbank. Sticking out of the river were several similar stumps, all jutting out about eight inched from the surface, spaced in a regular pattern. It looked as though some beavers dragged some logs and sticks and set them against the stumps in an effort to build a dam, but the stumps were obviously cut by man, perfectly flat. Walking on top of the stumps, one could make their way about halfway across the river, and if one trusted the beavers, they might be able to cross the entire river on the logs that made up the dam.

I stood there for a good while on one of the stumps, trying to balance as I looked around up in the canopy of the woods and listened to the babbling water make its way past the gaps in the dam. Realizing that it was getting late, I reluctantly got off my stump and returned to the path.

I made my way south down the path, occasionally, switching paths according to instinct and visual prospects, but eventually they dwindled to one path, not very well worn at all, and I wondered if it might just dead end. As I was thinking this thought, a heron took to the air from the path, about twenty or thirty feet down, and annouced its displeasure with my intrusion. Rather than disturbing such a wonderful bird any further, I turned back.

About a hundred feet back I noticed an old, weather worn red shed, and had contemplated going up the ten foot incline to take a look at it and also to see if I might exit the woods there, but had decided against it. I returned to the shed and found that I could indeed exit there, right onto an old access road. I then made my way, on surface streets, back home.

My walk home went as smoothly as before, and I never once had to break stride. I kept his stride even as I a red winged blackbird flew not less that five feet in front of my face, having been chased off of a feeder by a blue jay. I could hear the air go past his wings and I could make out the details of his every feather.

As the blackbird flew past me, I thought about how many people would not just break stride, but stop and maybe even duck as the bird approached. And then I thanked god that I was unafraid of nature.

the meaning of life

2006-05-02T00:36:00.000-05:00

here's what struck me:

*given the staggering array of life forms on earth, and the tenacity and adaptability of life forms that causes them to exists in even the most harsh environs, such as polar ice and sea-floor volcanoes, it's highly probable that life exists in other forms elsewhere in the universe.

*the fact that out of all these life forms that have existed in the history of this planet, only one is sentient, leads me to believe sentient life is certainly less likely to exist elsewhere.

*if we are indeed the only sentient life forms in the universe, that would lead me to believe not that we exist on some sort of higher plane, nor that it is the logical culmination of evolution, but that our sentience is some sort of biological fluke.

*this fluke gave rise to ego, with it's never ending curiosity, which holds that we are important and thus seeks out reasons to justify our existence, to figure out why we are important.

*also in our biology is a nuturing psyche, one that makes us feel good, or important, when we help others. this stimulates a chemical reaction that rewards our brain for our nurturing behavior. this biology has helped humans survive and eventually thrive on this planet.

*it says in the bible that god is love. this is the one sentence that, above all others, should be taken literally. god is not some disembodied voice from above or some wise old man living in heaven, god is an abstract idea, or perhaps even a chemical reaction in our brains.

*this is why we can chase after money or sex or accomplishments or drugs, which offer varying levels and kinds of stimulation to our brains, but these all fall short of the experience of unconditional love in our brain.

*the more of this love you give to others, the better you feel about yourself, you truly have to give to get. this physical experience in the brain, along with all other action/reaction physics, is the stuff of karma.

*thus your life is not at all important, but it is important to realize that this revelation should come as a welcome lifting of a burden or pressure, and not seen in a nihilistic, pessimistic light. realize nothing matters, this should free you to pursue your interests and dreams, and to not let fear of failure restrain you. life has whatever meaning you choose to give it, and history has shown that those whose life's held the most meaning were those that unselfishly gave of themselves.

Breaking news...Creepy is in!

2006-02-19T21:02:00.000-06:00

Have you guys seen the new McDonald's commercials? The ones where people sit on a bench and hold meaningful conversations with a statue of Ronald McDonald?

Here he is on his way to his latest commercial shoot.

Can this trend in plastic spokesmen be traced back to this guy?

Now I hate him even more...

Oh, come on now....

2006-02-17T16:08:00.000-06:00

The lawyer that got shot by the Vice President this weekend just apologized to Cheney for all the trouble he caused...

WTF?!?!?!?!?!

you, sir, are no Regis...

2006-02-03T09:13:00.000-06:00

WTF? Why is Geraldo on with Kelly this morning instead of Rege? Kelly is totally carrying the show. I know a lot of haters like to rag on her, but Kelly is very funny. And smart, too.

Has anyone seen the bit she did a while ago on SNL? Good stuff!

Ug...they're showing baby pictures now. Must....find.....remote....

Conversation in the shower

2006-01-18T08:51:00.000-06:00

I had an interesting exchange with a spider in the shower this morning...

"Hey, what are you doing? Crawl back in the corner where you belong!"

"You better not drop on me."

"I'm serious! Get back in the corner...I'll blow on you! I swear to god I'll blow on you!"

::blowing on the spider::

"That's better."

"What are you doing now? Don't crawl down the wall, dammit! You'll just end up landing in the tub and getting washed down the drain...don't be that spider. Don't be such a stereotype."

He ended up crawling behind the multitude of shampoos, conditioners, moisturizers, lotions and various other bottles that women seem to need in copious amounts. Boy, won't Sy be in for a surprise when she reaches for the conditioner tomorrow morning...

Just what is he trying to hide???

2006-01-16T17:23:00.000-06:00

I've started a new blog dedicated to snowmen. What I didn't expect was that the people who live in the homes whose yards these snowcreatures inhabit would be almost as entertaining as the snowmen themselves.

For instance, the other day I was returning to a snowman I'd photographed a few days previously. This snowman had been tipped over, dislodging his eyes and nose, and I was returning to further document his withering away. I took a couple of steps into the yard, making sure to only step where others had left tracks. I stood over the snow-corpse. He semmed to have melted a little since my last visit, and his remains were barely recognizable, just a few scattered lumps in the yard.

So I set up the picture, trying to rememeber the various angles in which I took the original photos. I was about ready to take the first picture when I heard a noise come from the house. I looked up and saw a man opening the window.

"Excuse me...what are you doing?" he asked.

"Oh...I'm just taking a picture of your snowman."

He stared at me incredulously, like I was pissing in his yard.

"I take pictures of snowmen in the area...I kind of document their lives."

"I'm gonna have to ask you to leave now."

"Ok," I say, trying to set it up so I can get at least one good shot.

"Seriously, right now...don't even take a picture! Leave right now!" At this point I see that he has a phone. Holy shit...is he actually going to call the cops?

"Ok...have a happy new year," I call out, quickly snapping a picture, hoping it will turn out, but pretty sure it won't. And it didn't.

I'm pretty sure that he knows something about the untimely demise of that snowman...

It came to me in a dream

2006-01-10T20:39:00.000-06:00

Just before waking the other morning, a phrase popped into my head:

"Greed is the ordinance behind what we do." OR it could be "Greed is the ordnance behind what we do."

What does this mean? Is greed a weapon (ordnance) or is it rule or regulation (ordinance)? Or does it mean I need to lay off the allergy medicine?

How many bumps in a 'G'?

2006-01-04T18:32:00.000-06:00

Google in in braille today. I felt my monitor, but it's not bumpy...I guess we don't have that technology yet. Bummer...

Couldn't we have left Google as it was and just told the blind that it was in braille?

I'm just saying.

The uncomprehending stare of the hillbilly

2006-01-04T18:20:00.000-06:00

It's been two months and two days since my last day at the box factory, and I love it. Don't miss it one bit. If you've ever seen where Homer Simpson works, it was a lot like that.

I suppose one thing I sorta miss is the uncomprehending stare of the hillbilly. I miss the experience of telling someone, "you should google that," and realizing they have no clue what the hell I'm talking about.

But that's the only thing I miss.

I hereby declare war on religion...but mostly Islam.

2005-12-26T13:57:00.000-06:00

According to the polls, more Americans believe that there is a "War on Christmas" (42%-Fox News 11/29-30/05) than that there is a "War on Evolution"(33%-NBC, 3/8-10/05 and 41%-Fox News 8/25-26/99)...

And is Christianity under attack? I realize that comparing Gallup polls to Fox News polls is like comparing apples to propoganda, but nonetheless, I found this interesting:

FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. Nov. 29-30, 2005. N=900 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3.

"Which one of the following is closer to your view? Religion is under attack in America today. Religion has too much influence in America today. The current standing of religion in America is just about right."
Under Attack 49% Too Much Influence 17% About Right 22% Unsure 12%

"Do you feel like Christianity is under attack in the United States today?"
Yes 59% No 37% Unsure 4%

"Do you agree or disagree there is a war on Christmas in the United States today?"
Agree 42% Disagree 48% Unsure 10%

***

CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. Sept. 19-21, 2003. N=1,003 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.

"Please say whether you approve or disapprove of each of the following. How about [see below]?"

"The use of federal funds to support social programs like day care and drug rehabilitation run by Islamic religious organizations"
41%approve 56%disapprove 3%no opinion

"The use of federal funds to support social programs like day care and drug rehabilitation run by Christian religious organizations"
64%approve 34%disapprove 2% no opinion

"Display of a monument to the Ten Commandments in a public school or government building"
70% approve 29% disapprove 1% no opinion

"Display of a monument with a verse from the Koran, the holy book of the Islamic religion, in a public school or government building"
33% approve 64% disapprove 3% no opinion

Don't you love it when people who have every conceivable societal advantage bitch about how they're oppressed?

snowtards!

2005-12-17T13:42:00.000-06:00

Winter is finally here! And, more importantly, the snow is here! Lots of it! Good, wet snow...they call it "heart attack snow" or "widowmaker snow", due to the propensity of elderly men to collapse to their knees, clutching thier chest, wailing into the bitter wind, "This is the big one! Elizabeth, baby, here I come!"

This time of year I notice all the little miracles of nature, such as the geese instinctively flying south and the snowtard's spontaneous loss of the ability to operate a vehicle. Seriously, if you really think it's not safe to take your car over 10MPH, maybe you should just hibernate for the winter. As bad as the driving is around here in the winter, the thing that drives Sy and I nuts is Winter Parking Rules.

We first noticed the phenomenon of Winter Parking Rules several years ago. Winter Parking Rules state that if there is any visible snow on the ground anywhere, this allows you to park wherever the hell you feel like; you may straddle the lines in a parking lot no matter how little snow obscures them, park directly in front of entrances of buildings, thus blocking off any easy access for handicapped people...in fact, you can park in handicap spaces if even a flake of snow is resting on the painted wheelchair guy symbol that serves to designate a parking space as set aside for the hanicapped. We've even seen people park between the rows of parking spaces, in the lanes that are supposed to be used for transporting your vehicle between the rows of parking spaces. They got a note from us...it included the word "retard".

And then, of course, there are the people who decide to wait for a parking space near the front, thereby holding up everyone behind them just so they don't have to spend an extra 30 seconds walking outside. Seriously, if you're that adverse to cold weather, maybe you picked the wrong climate. Do everyone a favor and move to Arizona.

The interesting thing about waiting for a parking space near the front is that the people who are getting in the car, about to leave, are very reluctant to give up their awesome spot, even though it is of no use to them anymore. They become very territorial, plodding along, dragging their feet, even checking their oil, just to hold on to their coveted spot for a few moments more. Why these people aren't dragged from their precious parking spaces and beaten senseless by everyone who is waiting behind the guy waiting for that space is beyond me.

Just let me read your stupid rag already...

2005-12-13T23:33:00.000-06:00

Now for some poetry, which, for all you know, wasn't plagarized:

New York Times?
New York Times?!?
You think you're better than us?
Us?
U.S.?
U.S.A.?
No way!

Why I hate Mark McGrath...and no, it's not just because I'm jealous...

2005-12-06T13:24:00.000-06:00

The first song I ever heard from Sugar Ray was "Mean Machine", and I was very impressed. It is an observable fact that I have better musical taste that almost anyone, and so a song that impresses me is by definition a very good song. Now, about a decade later, Mark McGrath is hosting the odious, vile piece of celebrity whoremongering masquerading as entertainment tv show Extra. What the hell happened?

Obviously, McGrath is yet another victim of "No Longer Hungry" syndrome. It's happened to the likes of Tori Amos, Paul McCartney, Pearl Jam, Kurt Cobain, and countless others. It's my hypothesis that when a band gets a big hit, and then lands a huge recording contract, that somewhere buried deep in the fine print of page 36, appendix B (or thereabouts) there's a clause that actually surrenders ownership of the artist's soul.

Or maybe it's part of the tax code...the wealthiest 1% get their tax break by deducting their soul.

Or maybe he got some sort of venereal disease that affected his brain.

Yeah, it's probably that last one...

a new rendition of an old favourite: torture!

2005-12-04T22:44:00.000-06:00

Oops, we did it again!

In the words of an old war hero who has not been "swiftboated" (lately), this whole issue of extracting information via "rendition"(Newspeak for torture) shouldn't be about who they are, but about who we are. Do we value our freedoms enough to do away with due process and lock away people for no other reason than we suspect they might be up to something? Can we realize the retarded logic in that previous question?

The "war on terror" is hard enough without giving the other side such great material...If we are the good guys, we need to start behaving as such. The global terror network won't be ultimately defeated militarily, rather, it will be defeated through our persistance in sticking to our ideals of liberty and freedom. If we show the world we are willing to trade in these principles like so much used Geo Metro, then wouldn't they be fools to trust us?

The terrorist threats we face today are the result of scores of years of illadvised foreign policy, and will likely take at least that long to fix. The quicker we are to abandon what we stand for, the less secure our future will be. Or we could just keep running around fighting a near invisible enemy...ask the Redcoats how that went...

It takes a rhinoviral-nation of millions to hold me back...

2005-11-28T16:50:00.000-06:00

I think I'm getting over my nasty cold...of course, I thought that on Friday, only to be bitterly disappointed staying up all night coughing up the seemingly never ending contents of my weary lungs. Hopefully, this time it's for real.

Being sick all during the Thanksgiving break, I was on the couch watching lots and lots of football, and along with it, lots and lots of beer commercials. One that always brought a smile to my face was the one with Flavor Flav....yeah, boy! I especially appriciated the fact that, due to the fact he was in court and dressed in a classy business suit, he was wearing a more formal and refined clock than usual. Love the attention to detail. And, I didn't have to look at the unsettling Bridgette Nielson to get my Flav-fix. Happy Thanksgiving indeed!

the kids of today should still defend themselves against the seventies

2005-11-18T09:02:00.000-06:00

My simple pleasure for today was driving around town and I tuned in to the public radio station that, instead of depressing you with the antics of international control freaks, plays good music. They were playing "Against the 70's", by Mike Watt and sung by Eddie Vedder. I haven't heard that song in forever...good stuff!

(click on the title, and magically it will make sense, barring any technical error or mental deficiency)

Entry #4...The streets and paths were deserted, just like heaven...

2005-11-14T18:32:00.000-06:00

For the past couple of weeks, I've been going for walks around my town and keeping a sloppy journal about my travels. I'm still trying to cobble together most of my illegible hodge podge of notes accompanying each entry. Today I sat down and wrote out the entry for this day's walk, so, since it's ready, here it is. The rest will come later, and I'm not sure in what order...it'll be like a Quentin Tarintino film, with a little less blood...hopefully. These should probably still be regarded as rough drafts, but still...Enjoy!

Journal Entry #4

It was a little chilly this morning. I had to get my long underwear on for this morning’s walk. I made my way past where we feed the ducks. They swam demurely towards the shore, not sure if I would feed them but getting all their ducks in a row in case I was packing some old biscuits.

I walked through the little park and walking trail toward the bridge, the one that crosses where the little lake turns into a river and then unhesitatingly becomes the waterfall. The falls sounded loud today, louder than usual. Usually a low murmur is all you can hear on the White Pathway, which was what I walked along on my way to the bridge. Today, there was a definite roar about the waterfall.

Since I’ve been going on my morning walks, I can’t stress how much I prefer walking on grass to concrete. I know I go on and on about it, but I really can’t stress it enough. And it occurred to me here how there really is a spiritual aspect to it...it’s literally our bond with the earth we live on. And we are so isolated from it, especially in cities and suburbs. Not only did our feet, knees, legs, hips and spines evolve to “fit” us to the wonderful, giving ground, but our psyches evolved around that natural setting as well.

The bridge was empty of cars, so I continued my stride unbroken. My attention was caught by a bright redcapped woodpecker as I got across the big bridge. He was a big one, and he swooped in front of me and landed on an old husk of a tree that still stood beside the river, about fifteen feet before the falls dropped off. As I walked past the tree, he climbed upwards in a spiral fashion, trying to stay hidden on the other side of the tree, like squirrels do.

I then made my way to the swinging bridge. Looking over the edge, I noticed several pumpkins had suffered a long fall to the shallow rapids below, about fifty feet down. At least that looks better than the usual fare down there: shopping carts, clothing, bicycles...oh my god, the countless bicycles that have taken the plunge.

Crossing the bridge, I made my way into the bunch of tall cedars that dominate the entrance of Glen Park. I stopped suddenly, noticing a squirrel and a crow sitting about a foot away apart, staring right at each other. The crow cawed right at the squirrel, who was busily chewing on a nut he held in both little hands. He seemed untroubled by the black bird looking down on him, maybe even oblivious to him.

I heard a cawing from above, and looking up I saw another crow, up at the top of a tall, naked elm tree. I slowly backed away from the scene, not wanting to interfere. Luckily, the park was as empty as the walking trails and streets, so I wasn’t setting off anyone’s freak-radar.

The crow on the ground turned his head towards the one in the tree, cawing at him, letting him know that he had dibs on whatever it was that the squirrel had. No, I disagree, replied the crow in the tree. Seriously, it’s mine, cawed the bird on the ground, taking a couple steps toward the tree. After a moment or two of hesitation, the treed bird cawed back, prompting a return caw and another step from the one on the ground. The squirrel continued busily chewing on his nut, not really too concerned with crows and their business.

Finally, another crow was attracted by all the racket these two crows were making over the measly morsel of the squirrel. While they talked it over, the squirrel surreptitiously tucked the nut under a leaf and bounded away, startling all the crows in the process, and they all flew away.

I walked through Glen Park on my way to the trails on the other side, and I noticed the noise of the construction machinery. Apparently, they’re planning, regrettably, to pave the trail down to the part of the park down by the river. I’ve heard they’re going to “develop” that area of the park, another example of this city mucking up their greatest assets. Whether it’s the ticky-tacky relationship with the university, the ugly back sides of Main Street buildings facing the river, the walking bridge debacle or any other seemingly uncountable fiascoes, this city sure does like to pitter away it’s resources and opportunities.

I realize that we want handicapped people to have access to public lands, but in the process of paving over and landscaping nature to attain that access, you wipe away the very nature that you want to give access to. I say leave wild land wild.

I reached the other side of the park and got onto the trail down to the other, less prominent, waterfall. It, like the big waterfall, has lost a great deal of it’s natural flair on the basis of the large, unnatural-looking concrete slab that was put up to buttress the cliff that the falls fall over, an effort to prevent erosion, I suppose. I hate that look it gives the falls, but if it’s necessary, it’s necessary, I suppose. Even looking as artificial and unspontaneous as it does, a water feature is still a water feature.

Where the trail leads, just downstream from the falls, is where the city street sewer ends. Over the course of years, all the drained rainwater has coursed across this little plain of sandstone. Much of the stone, thanks to the freezing and thawing cycle, has large cracks and splits in it, and there are several distinct jagged layers of stone showing. The rocks look as though they were ruins, the different stepped levels of stone with the sharp, seemingly purposeful edges. It is such a joy to walk over this small stone plain in silence, with the big noise of the falls the only thing you hear.

Past the small plain, there is a little path that runs along the cliff edge of the river valley, about a foot or so wide, although it shrinks down towards nonexistence in spots. Taking that path, using my hands on the tread worn smooth rocks for stability when necessary, I made my way through this tight passage to where the valley widened and the trail was easy again. I walked on for about five or ten minutes more, until I came to a fork. One path lead meanderingly uphill, and the other continued south. Looking at the time on my mobile, I decided it was about time to turn around and go home. I determined that I would go up the short trail to see where it lead and to check out the view. The southbound trail would wait...that would give me something to look forward to on my next walk.

I walked to the top of the trail, which was only about forty or fifty feet, and found that it branched off of another trail. Both directions on the trail looked equally promising, one leading into denser wood and the other to a grassy area full of birches. This would have to wait for another day as well, and I turned around.

On my way back down the trail, I noticed a little path, most likely one blazed by deer and raccoon, cutting off of the trail towards the river, which was about a hundred feet off the path. I decided to check it out, and made my way along, and under the tree that had broken off about six feet above the ground and fallen over the path, like a little gateway.

As I got to within about thirty feet of the river, I heard it babbling over a few rocks that were sticking up out of the riverbed. It was flowing pretty strongly. I could still hear the construction machinery, and that upset me a little at first, not to be able to hear the water undistracted. But upon reflection, it almost seemed like it’s a shared secret between me and the river, like a tempestuous or loquacious child whispering in my ear.

I noticed a small, still pool, about ten feet wide and across, behind a grove of trees and cluster of rocks. The soft, loamy soil around the pool had grown a carpet of brilliant green moss, lending an even more enchanting feature to it’s storybook appearance. Within about ten feet of the river, the tall grass and reeds are bent flat in the direction of the current, so I carefully tested each step for support as I made my way to the river’s edge. When I got there, I knelt in silence, with my hand dangling in the cold swiftness of the water.

After a while, I tuned back to the pool. I walked over to it. It was so peaceful and beautiful. The water surface was still and undisturbed, except for the smooth grey and pink rock that stuck out in such a very zen way, and a large fallen branch that was sticking out of the water, completely throwing off the chi, in my opinion. I made up my mind to remove the offensive branch and did so, pulling it out and chucking it into the woods in one smooth motion. Facing back towards the pool, I saw lively ripples on the once glass-smooth surface of the water. Then I noticed the stench. Maybe I shouldn’t have stirred up the organic matter...that really kind of ruined the moment for me. Then I went home for some hot cocoa.

and now for something not completely different...but still not the same...

2005-11-14T18:25:00.000-06:00

Autumn Walks

More Junk About Detours

2005-05-22T15:36:00.000-05:00

Reading: Nothing right now...waiting to get Walden back out from the library.

Listening to: Jane's Addiction: Nothing's Shocking I forgot how good this album is.

Simple pleasure: There's an oriole singing and building a nest in a ginormous maple tree in our yard.

I wonder how many people can enjoy following a path of random chance as I often do. I'm not talking so much about the major choices and decisions in life (although Sylvana and I once picked up stakes and moved from eastern Wisconsin to eastern Minnesota on little more than a whim), but the little day to day things. It seems like the more flexible and willing I am to "follow the current where it takes me", the more often I'm rewarded by witnessing something really cool, or finding a short cut I never knew existed, or finding a cool rock on the side of the road to put in the garden, I could go on...

The other day, as I was leaving work, I had to decide whether or not to get gas. The tank was pretty low, but I thought I might have enough to get me by another day. It's not a big deal, except for the fact that to get to the only gas station between work and home I have to cross a couple lanes of traffic that are almost always packed with commuters going in both directions, and without the benefit of a stoplight, I could conceivably be waiting there forever. So, I made the decision to make no decision, or rather, I made the decision to let the circumstances dictate my decision...If I got to the intersection and it was clear, I'd go get me some gas, and if it wasn't clear, I'd simply just take a right turn and go home.

As it turned out, the intersection was momentarily clear, so I motored right through to the gas station. After I got the gas, I left; well, actually, after I got the gas, I had to wait in line behind a co-worker buying lottery tickets who went on to tell me he had earlier this week made $56 on a $10 "investment", but then I paid for my gas and it was time to leave.

Again, I faced the choice of either turning left (and having to wait possibly forever for a break in the traffic) or taking a right and taking the long way home (like Johnny Virgil, I'd rather be going 75mph the wrong way than 15 mph the right way). I followed my earlier protocol and when I got to the exit from the gas station and saw an interminable procession of cars in the southbound lane, I took the simple right turn instead, and headed off on the long way home.

As I drove onward, I was headed down a little country road that crosses a small river. It's an area known as an excellent wildlife habitat. As I approached the bridge, a robin came flying out of the woods, carrying what looked like a french fry in it's mouth. At the same time, a pickup truck was nearing the bridge in the oncoming lane. Suddenly, the robin lost his grip on the french fry. It dropped from his beak, and he swooped back down and around to catch it, which he did, only to drop it again almost immediately as he tried to improve his grasp. So he swooped back down and around again, and almost caught it, but it bounced off is beak. All the while, the robin is getting closer to the ground and the pickup his bearing down on him. The bird contemplated going after it one more time, then decided against it, swooping out of the way of the truck that was about to smack him out of the air. I drove past, and looked in my rearview mirror to see him settle down on the now empty road and pick up his french fry.

It was, like, transcendant and junk.

Detours Onto Dead Ends

2005-05-07T19:03:00.000-05:00

Reading: still reading Walden; (I only get about 20-30 minutes a day to read, so it can take a while) not too far into it yet, but so far, the general message seems to be: work is for suckers.

Listening to: Beastie Boys: Anthology, Sounds of Science...the Beasties are awesome. And, a rarity, in that they are a great multi-genre band (rap/punk).

Simple pleasure: watching and listening to birds in the garden.

This was going to be a post about my grandpa, and how religion, instead of bringing our family together, is rather putting a wedge in between us...but some stuff happened.

The cornerstone/centerpiece of the post was going to be an email, a typical example of the kind of born-again propoganda his wife (my newest grandma) sends to us, in chainmail form, on a regular basis. It was about a person who prayed before they left their house to go on a trip, and they get a flat tire on the way to the airport, thereby preventing them from boarding one of the planes that crashed into the WTC on 9/11. So, obviously, God saved these shmucks, while condemning all the others with plane tickets to death (I almost typed in 'die to death'...redundant?).

Unfortunately, I deleted the email. But, I thought, no big deal, she sends this crap to Sylvana and our kid, so I'll see if it's in their emails. Sylvana had already deleted it (but left others which I didn't need undeleted, for some reason), and our kid, Japan Deity, hadn't checked his email in so long that his account was suspended...damn kids. Then I come up with the idea of searching google for any mentions of an chain-email or story like that...and Google was down. Damn it, I have no other ideas to post on; I need this, Google! Why do you mock me?!?

It's like life is constructing barriers to keep me away from that subject. Things like this happen from time to time in our lives, and when it happens to me, I usually find that it's wise to slow down and observe what's going on. That, of course, is usually in hindsight, and after much foul language.

Many times when I'm doing something in a hurry, I'll just be crusing along, more concerned with finishing the project than in the process of the project itself, and something will happen, like I will keep dropping a bolt when trying to screw it into the hole, and I'll finally, after several attempts, get it into the hole, and for some reason it won't turn in. I pull the bolt out and notice it's stripped, and go search for another bolt, find one, bring it back to the work I was doing, proceed to drop it, just like the previous one...so frustrating! Finally, I contemptuously get it all screwed in, contemptuously laugh at and/or mock the bolt, ask it about it's family of origin (Who's your daddy, bitch?!? You never, NEVER fuck with me!!! You got that, bitch!?!), only to look down on the floor and notice there was a washer that I was supposed to put on along with the stupid bolt.

Now, if I had only taken a moment to stop obsessing about getting that damn bolt in and stepped back and looked at what was going on, I would have noticed the washer sitting there plain as day. The problem is that I find it so hard not to become emotionally involved in my work. I try to work on this, and I've been getting better, but it's a constant stuggle full of conflict and setbacks and yelling at inanimate objects.

Ah, Google is back up now. Looks like that email was a hoax (I figured as much)(Link in title). So maybe a flat tire is trying to tell you something, but it's probably something like 'you forgot to lock your front door' or 'you forgot your tickets' or 'you should really check your tire pressure more often' or something else more mundane than God saying he's got your back. You are not special, Flat Tire People, try to get your heads around that.

p.s. I'll do the grandpa post next time, bob out!

Y Kan't Tori Not Suk?

2005-05-03T16:07:00.000-05:00

I heard the new Tori Amos song (Sleeps With Butterflies, or something like that) the other day, and just as I feared, it more or less sucks. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Tori Amos, she kicks ass (or at least she used to). In fact, my Hunnybunny and I go and see her almost every time she comes to town. It just seems like after "Boys For Pele" her songs just don't have the power and, what the French would call "that certain I don't know what it is" that they used to.

I think her big problem is she's happy now. She's married, well-off, has a kid; everything is going well...too well. She's living proof that you have to suffer to write well. By continuing to put out new material, she's becoming the next Paul McCartney. He used to be on top of the musical world, and now no one notices if he puts out a new record. That's the fate awaiting Tori, if she continues down this road. Her spark is gone now, and that's too bad.

Or is it? I've thought a lot about it (probably way too much) and I've come to this conclusion: writing music was obviously very therapeutic for her, and helped her get through some really troubling issues in her past (being raped, self-mutilation, the fact that she's turned on by the thought of being eaten by a crocodile, etc.). So now she's in a far better place, is living well and doesn't have to feel so goddamn bad all the time. And we got some truly great music out of it as well. So good for her. Just stop with the new songs, Tori...unless you get a divorce or something. Man, would I like to hear the record she would put out after that!

thanks raining down like skittles on the blogosphere

2005-04-30T17:17:00.000-05:00

reading: 'Walden' by Henry David Thoreau

Listening to: You'd Prefer An Astronaut by Hum, Transmissions From The Satellite Heart by the Flaming Lips

Simple pleasure: peeling glue off my fingers

I simply cannot go one more post without expressing my gratitude to the blogging community for helping my brain, which, up until now had been stewing in stagnant juices that life has dumped in there over the past couple of decades. A creative outlet, a chance to bond with others, a way to increase my typing wpm, a dumping ground for bitching and cursing...you have been all this and more. Seriously, every day, every f*@%!^@ day, I have to hear, "Git 'er done!"...several times. Come on...I specifically avoided living in the South for a reason, so I wouldn't have to hear that crap. I say we go down there and finish the job that Lincoln started...sorry. I go insane just thinking about it. That is where you come in, blogosphere. You deserve so much thanks.

There is a school of thought that says that it is not the one who is helped who should be doing the thanking, but the person who has been given an opportunity to help others unselfishly, and thus increased their merit. The appreciation I express today may move you up from a turtle to a Rockefeller in your next life. Unless you started blogging for the fame and money and chicks, in which case you might as well stop now...tough break, Spanky!

There is also a school of thought that by turning prayer wheels (and what is the "next blog" button but a digital equivalent of wheel spinning?), one can generate merit. I suppose that the fully conscious act of wheel spinning can help you to develop focus and concentration to some degree, but it pretty much sounds like a waste of time to me. I mean, karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos, right? Let's spend more time on merry-go-rounds and skittles and less on prayer wheels and communion wafers (aka Jeezits). While we're at it, let's burn all the religious texts and play nice...wouldn't that work out best in the long run? Maybe then we could appreciate how nice it is just to be nice. Oh, who am I trying to kid? We'd probably just scoop up all the ashes and fight wars over who got to keep them.

So, I guess what I really wanted to say, blogosphere, is, "You're welcome! Now you owe me."

Sometimes You're Nothing But Meat

2005-04-24T23:12:00.000-05:00

Reading: Just finished On The Road. On the whole, it seemed more interesting than it was due to Kerouac's ability to capture chaotic excitement, as well as the mudane, in his own articulately inarticulate style. Kind of showed the danger of living with a half-baked understanding of zen.

Listening to: E-Pro (beck) , Counting Bodies Like Sheep (A Perfect Circle) and squirrels and birds.

Simple pleasure: the ticking of my clock

I got a splinter the other day, right in my thumb, a long metal one (the splinter, not my thumb). It was very difficult to get out, being so thin and just the right color that it was nearly invisible. It took a lot of probing, digging and proding to finally extricate it. In the end I had to peel a little flap of skin back, and it tore a little. The resistance I felt while tearing was a bit like ripping off a piece of jerky.

What is there to us that makes us special? Why are each of our lives precious, but animals lives so readily expendable? Are we special because we are the only animals that can conceive of being special? Would my dog eat me if I died and he had no food? Is that enough questions in a row?

A few years ago I got my first real dog (yes, an actual real one). He's very much like the dog from the Simpsons, and I'm not just saying that due to my obsession, other people have noticed the similarity too. Up until the point in my life that I got my dog, I had believed I was a cat person. Now I realize that cat people have just never met a good dog. I can already see signs that he's aging. I know that in all likelyhood he'll be with us for many years, but I can already see how much I will miss him when he's gone. I very briefly thought about if I would like it if he were to get stuffed after he died. After thinking about it a few seconds, I realized I thought it would be a little creepy. Not Rick Santorum creepy, but still. What I enjoyed about him will be gone.

I think since so many of us now die relatively unnatural deaths (not so long ago, almost all people died at home with all the loved ones there) there's a stigma to death, but death is ultimately good, like vitamins or exercise. There's an illusion that death must be avoided at all costs, that the end (staying alive) justifies the means (living in either constant pain, or constant vegetation, or both, or worse). But death is good. That's why death is a tragedy, because it is profoundly sad but ultimately necessary.

They say that beauty is truth, and truth, beauty. That may be true, but I find the most beauty in impermenant things (of course I'm writing under the illusion that truth is eternal). The less time you spend trying to capture these beautiful things or experiences, and the more you truly let them be and just enjoy them, the happier your life will be. Things aren't very special if they are always there. My wife went to Scotland for a whole summer to study last year, and I missed her terribly while she was gone, but the reunion we had at the airport was worth all the time away. Lots of people were shocked. "Why did you let her go away for so long?" they would ask. Well, this seemed to be a pretty great opportunity for her, and it would be pretty selfish of me to keep that from her, and besides, it's not like she was leaving forever. And if something happened, and I never saw her again, then I would know that she'd died enjoying her life, and that I helped her, which is really the best gift I could ever give her. And soon she'll turn into food or flowers or dirt, and she liked all those things.

It's good sometimes to look around, and notice that everthing you see wasn't here all that long ago, and will be gone forever in a relatively short time. Soon your flesh will either be burned or consumed by insects, and the universe will spin on, neither with or without mercy, but that's life. Have a great day!

Test Post

2005-04-21T00:16:00.000-05:00

This is a test post to check the template that I want to use. If you were expecting something more, i guess it sucks to be you.