A Living Magazine - Day 184 - Homecoming - Where The Rain Pools

I woke, relatively dry for having spent the night under a constant downpour. I'd found a little blue waterproof hiking tarp (4'x4') at someone's old abandoned campsite the night before. Bringing it back, I intended to use it over the worst area on the tent for leaks if necessary--the head end. I'd also duct taped all the tent tarp seams and used waterproofing spray the day before, applying two coats to the outside. 

It hadn't taken long for the rain to saturate the tarp again after only a few hours and the same old drips traced their way onto my head. The frustration was tempered by knowing I had the little backup tarp, which I then placed over the head end of the tent tarp. That very effectively stopped the leaks there. Though the waterproofing was mostly ineffective it provided just enough extra repelling power to keep the larger drips running down the inside of the tarp instead of onto the tent screen and thus into the tent. I still needed to stuff napkins into the corners of the tent floor, but overall this situation was better than the last rainy night.

I read my ebook until I got sleepy that night before and turned off the tablet, forgetting to click the keyboard back onto it. So, when I woke on this morning, the keyboard had drops on it, and that turned out to be a mini disaster.

Packing up, but leaving the tent where it stood and removing the blue tarp off of the top to lessen its appearance in the woods, I walked for the eleventh day to Starbucks. It took about two seconds to realize the keyboard was - apparently - ruined. Each letter typed a letter next to it and some would stick on making an infinite series begin to roll forward. Not having a working computer was not an option. The rain had let up, and checking intellicast.com, I saw a window of about three hours. I took that opportunity to walk to WalMart to buy a stand alone keyboard.

It was a three mile walk. I found a $24.00 "Black Web" keyboard with a track pad. It was pretty long, and I knew that packing it, with all the other stuff I had, would be a challenge. But the smaller keyboards were more expensive and didn't have trackpads. While there, I intended to buy AA batteries for the camera (and now the keyboard too), and to look for a bigger tarp for the tent. I did the former, but unbelievably, forgot to do the latter.

I bought a Subway sandwich at the in-store restaurant and made sure the keyboard would work. It did. So, I then walked back to Starbucks just as the rain began again. Sitting at my accustomed table, with the large clunky keyboard, I worked on the last post of the previous Journey, publishing it in the late afternoon.

I was feeling very depressed. Things always seem to fall apart at the same time. I make a plan of traveling and the rain laughs in my face. I do everything humanly possible to prepare for problems, and they still find ways to sneak in the door when I'm not looking. I know I am personifying difficulties that can't be helped, but that is how I felt. Knowing something is random and impersonal does not in the least keep it from feeling intentional and personal.

My family continues to be a constant and worrisome aspect in my life. Naturally, they are not amused by my airing of our dirty laundry. I don't blame them. But, as I've said recently, my loyalty is not to them anymore. I know how that sounds, and I fully understand how cold and dismissive it seems. Perhaps it really is. Some things ARE more important than one's family members, IF those members have shown a consistent pattern of the betrayal of trust; and especially where ample opportunities to restore that trust have been continuously avoided, spurned, unacknowledged and taken too lightly.

Therefore, I DO intend to tell the whole story eventually anyway. These bits and pieces are the tenderizer, the movie trailer, if you will. I would never be able to just suddenly blatt it out when I'm an old man.

Time does NOT heal all wounds. And, advanced age should never be used as an excuse for escaping the harvest of bad seeds one sowed when one was younger. IF that person were to face the demons he loosed up another person, with courage, sincere and contrite intention, then yes, the negative energy could be transferred out and away from the various characters involved on the receiving end.

Unfortunately, stubborn pride and cowardice can build walls around the offender, even to the last moments of his life. They don't allow the truth in, and they don't allow a more objective view out at the still very-fresh consequences. THEN, it really is too late.

The need to leave an accurate historical account of as much as I can about myself is an overriding goal. To those just starting to read these narratives, that sounds egotistic. The more seasoned readers will understand (even if they don't agree) that, if I am going to "wear my soul on the outside", it might be covered in the stained placenta of its wounded womb. Nothing of eternal worth is born without "blood", of one kind or another. Even baby humans go through the messy process of birth. The trick is to see any of these births as beautiful, which they truly are. Intense words, for an intense process.

My loyalty is to my friends now, and for the rest of my life. I intend to Live by Service--to literally practice what I preach. And, I am genuinely regretful that some members of my family have to pay a cost that was long overdue anyway; that they themselves owe, independent of however I feel about it. Maybe this is a simple lesson about Karma. Negative behavior is a form of energy. And, as our good uncles and aunts in physics have proven, energy is always conserved. It is never created nor destroyed. This applies to ALL energy, everywhere, and all the time.

I say all of this, knowing that it is uncomfortable to read. It certainly is uncomfortable to write. And, it really should have nothing to do with my Homecoming Journey. However, it just does. What home is it to which I am returning? The broken one? No. It can never be again.

I won't harp on any of this again (at least for a while). I bring it up, because on this day of accounting, these troubles permeated my mind, became more significant with each drop of rain that fell upon me.

So strange, how - for me - rain has become both a literal and figurative oppressor.

Fifteen years ago I wrote a series of what have come to be very prophetic songs in my life. And, one of them was on my mind constantly as I walked back to the sleep spot, praying the tent was still there and not sitting in a pool of water.

The song was "Noah". It's so uncannily appropriate to all that I face right now, including the backlog of painful memories from my past that are cycling through my head; kicking me while I'm already down.

Yes, I'm trying to do something immensely difficult. It probably should not have worked at all, never mind for the last six months. If I were superstitious I would be looking up continuously, waiting for that other shoe to drop.

If anything, I have proven to myself that I can accomplish goals, given the bare minimum of resources necessary, and the unstoppable will to always continue on. Still, as I stood in the wet woods of disappointment, depression and stagnation, I sang the words of my own song, and seemed to enjoy just how poignant and sad they were, before climbing into the tent for an even stormier night.

Yes, storm is gonna come...

[Click on the title to play the song. Right click on the player to download the MP3.]

NOAH 

Words and Music by Alex Wall
© Copyright 2000 Omega Art and Music 

I was born on the rocky coast
Baptized by Crystal Waters in a place with the most
The Lion's sign in the land of pine
I know the parts, I know these hearts 

Woman in the crowd, what are you looking for?
I can be found where it all comes crashing down
And, I just want to say, I hope I helped you find the way
Remember this time
Remember these days
Remember... 

Late at night I hear the highway cry
It helped me to sleep when I was a child
The icicles and the earth below
And, when I wake up, I'm gonna play in the snow 

People in the crowd, what are you listening to?
The words of a fool in the Age of Blue
And, I just want to say, I hope I wasn't in the way
Remember this time
Remember these days
Remember... 

Oh, Noah, look for the sign
Yes, it's gonna rain for a year this time 

Now I see what has to be
Or, you could take this cup away from me
These broken songs are all I have
The future's come, don't forget the past 

People in the crowd, what are you fighting for?
You're about to find a Love like you've never seen before
And, I just want to say, before I go, go away
Remember this time
Remember these days
Remember... 

Oh, Noah, look for the sign
Yes, it's gonna rain for a year this time
And, you will believe
Yes, you will believe 

(Storm is gonna come.........)

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