A Living Magazine - Tap Root: Days 3 to 6 - Nights on the Apnea Train

I'm combining these days, not just because it helps me catch up, but because they were all so similar in mood and schedule.

I'm not going to sugar coat it. I was absolutely miserable. One might think that a wave of optimism and hope might wash over me with the purchase of the Farmington land on July 21. And, that really is what should have been happening.

But a series of situations were conspiring to keep me down. To name a few...

Firstly, I had not been sleeping well for the last two weeks and the days leading up to moving onto the land only saw this problem get worse. The situation started as the closing day approached. 

I'm a worrier. A thousand people have told me that worrying is a waste of time and energy. That's great to know (as if I weren't already aware). If I could adjust my mind to function only by logic the problem would be solved. Right? I have tried hundreds of times to "just let it go" and "keep your mind on positive thoughts." I'm a failure at following these prescriptions, but in all honesty, who really just lets things go? I mean really?

Secondly, the very day I closed on the land (on July 21) I waited an extra half hour for the late bus after leaving Gateway Title in Scarborough to return back to my sister's house, where I'd been staying, in South Portland. When the bus arrived I was exhausted--mostly from only getting three hours of sleep per night. 

For the first few miles, I nodded off and would catch myself, lifting my head in a panic to see if I'd missed my stop. Finally after actually falling asleep, I suddenly awoke to what looked like a house near my sister's. I pulled the cord and stepped off the bus, then realized that I was still two miles from my destination. It was 87 F degrees, humid and an uphill walk. 

I was so angry with myself that I spit and swore and stamped around like a child before resigning myself to beginning my way to Highland Avenue. Immediately the sweat began to pour out of my head, running down to soak my shirt and then my shorts. 

About 45 minutes later I reached my sister's house on Highland. Going in the back door of the garage I ascended the steep steps to the hot and dirty attic of the garage, where I had been sleeping for the last three months. Although I slept at her house, did one wash and shower there each week, my sister did not provide anything else for me, as we both agreed I should be able to feed myself, etc.

When I got online that evening I saw that one of my Facebook "friends" - an older gentleman who had donated during my national crossing Journeys; a conservative-minded guy who tended to believe that his donations should buy him influence over my plans had left a message. He stereotyped me in a text, and tried to tell me that I would not be able to handle moving onto my land at my age, and in my condition (forgetting that I walked 6-15 miles every day, seven days a week) with all the work that needed to be done. According to him, I needed a "professional woodsman" to do the work I needed. He didn't know anything about the land, had no idea what I had already planned, and ignored the fact that I had written extensively on these things for years now.

Earlier that week, my father had dismissed the idea of homesteading. This was not a big surprise. He had not supported any ideas for projects that I'd had in the last decade. But with this latest nonsupport, I had the distinct feeling that he actually hoped I would fail. I dare say that if instead of naysaying and discouragement from my own father, I had received encouragement and moral support, all of the other anxieties I faced would have been lightened. What child should ever have to walk out into the wilderness knowing that one of his parents was so invested in their own agenda, that the danger and hardship to come would only please them? Even if this wasn't or isn't the case, how the hell would I know?

Again, according to the thousand people who encourage me to "just let it go," this unfatherly behavior and latest message from the "friend" shouldn't have been a problem. Yet, after a stressful day of signing papers, waiting for a very late bus, getting off at the wrong stop, walking to my hot, dirty bed space and then reading this corrosive and discouraging comment, I was just beaten. What should have been the best day of my life was just another drag.

The following days, all the way to July 27, were a series of disjointed and chaotic attempts to plan my exit strategy from South Portland, and my emigration to the more remote Western Maine college town of Farmington--there, to begin my life over again, without the sound of cars constantly passing by, dirty sleep spaces, uncomfortable family situations and an endlessly hopeless life style.

Without having bought this land, I had no credit (not bad credit, just no credit), no traditional job history (since I'd been a strange self employed photojournalist for the last three years), no rental history, no savings, was unable to get a job--for lack of a residence...and on and on...

Owning land, despite how stressful it was to complete the process, was my only way forward. And, if it worked, would be much less expensive than re-establishing the conventional, soul-destroying and (for me) hypocritical life of apartments, cars, insurance, working full time at something I didn't want to do just to afford the inevitable debt. 

That life had almost killed me in 2006. And, because of the heart attack I suffered then (due to the stress of hating my life), the inevitable second heart attack in 2016 proved that there is no going back for me. I NEEDED a new paradigm or I was going to die, unhappy and unfulfilled. Period.

This - my settlement on a piece of completely undeveloped land - is that new paradigm. Nevertheless, there was no peace of mind in the days running up to my move.

Each night I would suffer from anxiety attacks, manifested as a kind of apnea. It was like riding a train out of control. I would involuntarily focus on each negative aspect of my life, while I lay there in the darkness. They would parade by my consciousness, highlighting themselves, as if they were competing to make me as depressed as possible. I would try repeatedly to use my greatest experience in meditation and breathing techniques to break free.

Then, as I would begin to relax, easing into sleep, I'd feel my throat close up and suddenly wake gasping for air. When this happens I feel like no breath is big enough. It passes within a few seconds. The parade of negative thoughts returned. Then my reliance on breathing and psychological training would set in again--relax and...gasp! This would happen every few minutes for six hours, every night, seven nights a week.

Am I mentally ill? I guess so! But, if so, who isn't in some form? Frankly, most people live in a self-designed illusion of rationalized insanity. I had spent the last 6 years trying to find the exit of that highway to hell. The problem with trying to get into the exit lane is that even my closest associates and family would place spike strips in my way just so I wouldn't shake their own reality scaffoldings. 

I have to look at it this way...

While playing the toxic game I had been trained since birth to participate in, I may suffer from a habitually self-destructive pattern where I psychosomatically hurt myself, without the possibility of escape--due to involuntarily being afflicted by seeing the illogical and meaningless aspects of life as they are worshipped and fetishized by a mostly unthinking populace. What do you do when you see the poisons that are destroying your family, your society and your planetary culture, but observe that no one is truly doing a damn thing to fight them? 

You find a new paradigm, or you die.

One final thing sealed my pattern of discomfiture. I was - for a specific reason I cannot yet discuss - very concerned about what life for my mother would be like after I was gone. She had lost her husband to a kind of sudden death in October of 2016 and had then moved up from Florida to be closer to my sister and me in mid April, 2017. 

My mom and I had some wonderful times in the last few months, taking the bus into Portland, shopping, going out to lunch, hanging out in my pedestrian world of not driving, and enjoying our long and intricate talks. She is a truly wonderful companion with a keen sense of humor and an honest self-evaluation that I have seen in very few others for years and years. She and I had not had a chance to be together like that for any extended period in over a decade. This was a reunion time for us, but now I had to go away again.

Eventually, when July 27 rolled around--the day before I would move to Farmington, though I had the equivalent one night's sleep for a whole week, I caught a second wind. I asked my mom if she wanted to have one last adventure with me to go up to the land and drop off my supplies. She eagerly agreed, and we set off for our final adventure. 

On the day after--which happened to be my 49th birthday, I would take a series of exhaustive bus trips - one way - to dump myself on this frontier land, permanently. With this move my sleep would improve significantly, while new frustrations and challenges would present themselves. This will all be covered in the next few posts.