Chapter 116
For most, everything is different. For some, much is unchanged. Life continues as unpredictable as ever. Now our best behaviour is to cross the road away from our friends, not toward them. Many times over the past decade people asked me how I could live constantly on the road, out of a bag, without the certainty of a home base and regular routine, yet none of us have certainty, only the illusion thereof. My life on the road morphed daily through ever-changing demands, shifting from global to local, now it morphs again to a slightly narrower diameter.
One day, waking to low, heavy cloud I feel my spirit quashed beneath the barometer’s weight. Then a bizarre email, pregnant in my inbox… spewing spite from a stranger, lashing out at the unknown. I have no control over another’s thoughts and feelings, I have no relevance to this message, yet here it is for my eyes, ready to burn its spittle through fragile sympathies. I aspire to the duck-backed conviction of others possessed of surety in their own selves, of those who can shed the thoughtless trivia of strangers mired by aggression, striking from a fearful corner.
I take my morning walk, forcing my body into familiar patterns to push against the weight of this cloud. Yesterday a blue, pristine ceiling above – the weightless, limitless expanse that lifts spirits, words and hopes. Today requires concerted effort to attain that elevation in my body. I walk across white crunching land, enjoying the sensation of my legs swinging freely, power in my muscles, enjoying the sensation of cold air against my face, enjoying the liberation that this always brings, when I… finally… make the leap from interior to exterior. I walk longer, on trails that are not pounded by others’ feet, pushing to keep up my pace, enjoying the sensation of working harder for the same effect, making my body keep pace with the slippage of time. This is good for me. I stand motionless to exchange doe-eyed stares with the mule deer. I choose an alternative route to defer to their ownership of the land. I walk past another eyes averted, almost close enough to breathe on each other, she watches unblinking, unmoving, committed to her place on the land. It is hers.
Another day, another walk. The river is a silent slumbering snake. White, solid, secret. An open space reveals crystal waters sparking sunlight, highlighting glacial blue of upended ice shelves. Mere hours later, the snow plateaus dip, riddled with wrinkles and gaping holes. Far-off ice giants play gargantuan ‘Pooh sticks’ snapping off ice floes and sending them whirling down the now muddy river, thickened by debris all the way from the mountains’ hearts. Yet another day later; juncos, flickers, nuthatch, chickadees, young variegated robins in confused adolescent attire, all vie for seeds and nuts before the forecast snow smothering they know is coming. The air is still and heavy with promise.
Indoors, I exchange un-news with my parents. I rustle my uncommunicative brother onto the same call and we are all together again for the first time in eight years. That’s an interesting moment. I planned to be with my parents right now, but that changed. There is a note of safe haven in my diary. Reading it makes me feel mournful, but I tear that away like sharply pulling plaster from skin. I turn and look at the beauty that has sustained me in my isolation for the past two years. Now it seems the whole globe has joined me. It has been more than two dozen days since I spent time in the presence of a friend.
There are innumerable connections online. People are creative, inventive, humorous. It’s fascinating to see the way adaptations occur. Necessity being Invention’s Mother in action. The earth has taken a deep cleansing breath, able to breathe for the first time in many decades. Will this spill over into the post-calamitous period? Will people explore the value of the community around them, of our own country’s pure resources? Will we explore alternatives to find new ways of living, or blindly, perhaps reluctantly but inevitably, return to old habits as addicts do? Will we be able to?
I recede into habits and ease as fast as anyone. I continue to look for clarity, generosity, community within and without. I aspire to do better. I hope for everyone.
Kat Dancer
bodymudra@gmail.com
www.kat-dancer.com
415.525.2630, ph/txt/wtsp
