Tapping the top of the heater didn't work to somehow kick it back into action. I unzipped the tent door to expose the tank and knew already what I would find there, even before I lifted it up.
Yup, totally empty... My brief season of happy satisfaction was ending...
I went to bed that night with the sinking feeling that now I'd need to figure out the whole propane refilling process--along with getting the tank out to the road and bringing it back--filled.
I'd planned on using the heat only 3 hours a day, but it just felt so damn good... I switched my expectation over to seeing just how long the tank would last if I used it for comfort whenever I wanted heat, rather than sticking to my austere program of only using it when necessary.
Can you blame me?
Where I had budgeted a 20 day life for the tank, my "excessive" use cut the final usable time in half.
With typical IWALLK irony, nature brought 8 inches of snow on the very night I'd run out of gas. I heard the snowflakes hitting the roof of the canopy and set my watch to wake me up every four hours or so to clean the roof.
The sound of millions of snowflakes was like the hiss coming from a speaker connected to an old tape recorder without Dolby B engaged in between the songs. In the pre-digital audio world, this was called "noise," as opposed to "signal." My signal was a long way away...
The next morning--I saw the results of the first true snowfall of the year. It wasn't even officially winter yet. It was however quite beautiful. I set about shoveling while I contemplated what would be necessary to keep ahead of having a storm like this once a week for the next four months...
Still made some coffee.
After working outside for most of the day to replenish the fire pit wood reserves, I retired to the tent for a rest.
It was pretty cold (about 20 F). Immediately, I missed my heater. Though every one of you (likely) takes heat for granted, the ten days I'd enjoyed my propane heat struck me now as being more than I somehow deserved and this cold world. My coming frigidity was much more appropriate. I know how crazy that sounds.
My mind often swims around in the lukewarm water of childhood misinformation about what life is supposed to be like. Teach your children well...indeed...
I will eventually get into greater detail about all this childhood mind-fucking, but for now? Let's just say that no moment of rest and happiness ever passes me by without the angry, swearing, hurtful voice of my father echoing forward through the years, telling me that I'm just a disappointment; that work should never be enjoyable; that if I am resting I am actually just wasting time. I have never psychically been able to simply relax. Any moment that goes by without constant and sustained effort toward some kind work (even if it is just useless toil) is impregnated with now-ancient threats that I am merely a failure flapping around, and will never be able to live up to his standards.
So, as I sat there before my subfreezing desk, I instinctually and involuntarily kept working. Foremost in my mind was a project I'd been tossing around to make my pathways around the property more permanent. At first, I'd cleared them of leaves and underlying roots, but soon discovered - during the very heavy rains of late summer - that that action only created mud. It occured to me late in the fall that ultimately I really just wanted the opposite of lawn-obsessed land owners. I wanted a forest-centered landscaping, where the only grass in the yard was that which ran along the pathways. Usually, a large grassy lawn will have secondary dirt-based paths. I wanted the opposite.
My cousin's wife (a landscaping professional), who you might remember from this post, is who I will be consulting when I am finally able to do such things. My idea is to buy sod (pre-grown grass) and lay it down over my paths. My question to her will be: Can I simply lay the sod down, or must I rough up the underlying ground in order to have it take? With this all in mind I drew up a diagram to help express this idea, in the context of my forest floor situation...
The layers are, from surface to underground: (1) leaf litter--about 3 inches deep, (2) a root mat
(an incredibly dense system of tree roots, such that it can't even be chopped with a
machete)--about 8 inches deep, (3) loamy sand and mid-sized rocks--about 10 inches deep,
(4) sand--about 8 inches deep, and finally (5) the rock ledge of the mountain,
consisting of a solid mixture of slate, granite and other rock.
Pathetically perhaps, feeling that I had now satisfied my dad's expectations for how I spent that ten minutes, I took a breath, hoping his spectre wouldn't see such obvious slacking off as breathing for a moment, I headed back outside to simply walk around and think about how all of this winter's life was going to go...
It was time to eat something. As I dug into my cooler (which ironically was now more of a refrigerator--disallowing the freezing of my food for as long as possible) I had only a couple of pork chops left. Perfect! ...
It was a nice afternoon, though with a strange feeling of foreboding... It wasn't like my life was at risk. But, maybe, my plans were indeed being thrown up as a jump ball between my desire to do anything possible to achieve independence versus the constant temptation pulling my attention toward comfort.
Inevitably, I retired to the tent once the sun had hidden itself behind the edge of the mountain. As I have explained before about so many other nights leading up to this one, I sat there in the tent thinking and planning (things that would be barely acceptable to my dad's standards--because I wasn't hitting something with a hammer or grinding away at it) until the lamp dimmed due to my battery running low.
After climbing into bed with my phone in hand, trying to conjure up ASMR videos, via my 1G connection, that I could then stream and use to bring on some peaceful sleep, I received an email from some neighbors asking me if I would cat-sit for them while they were away.
Appreciating the ability to obtain a bit of extra income to supplement my blog donations, and because these people were very friendly and even loving folks, I had to only think for about 3 seconds before accepting the job. It would start the next day (December 16th).
The next morning I awoke to another message--this time from my Uncle Rick, letting me know that he was driving over from New Hampshire to Kingsfield, Maine, to do some recording (he is an incredible drummer--I mean one of a kind, like you have never heard before!), and asked me if he could help by dropping off a full propane tank. What an incredibly generous offer!
I practically jumped out of bed and texted him back that we could meet just before I would head to my neighbors' land to begin my cat-sitting job.
At around 2:00 pm I walked out to the main road, dragging a makeshift sled to pull the tank back to my property, and met my uncle...
A good sled for pulling stuff around.
Besides the wonderful blessing of my uncle's delivery, it was just great to see him. I'd followed his musical jobs throughout the last few years, recently playing drums on a riverboat that made its way down the Mississippi while he always advertised his other major talent--tuning pianos.
On this day, after dropping off my treasured propane tank, then recording drums, he had already set up piano tuning jobs in the area. And, don't take this piano tuning as some kind of fluffy work! It is a seriously accredited profession--one which he has persistently pursued and achieved the highest degree possible in order to work.
I dragged the little sled to the head of my road and met him there...
I am on the left. Interesting to note that even though Rick (my mother's younger brother, on the right) is 13 years older than I am, he looks younger than I do!
Thanking him, and with joyful effort, I dragged the tank back to my property, thinking that I would be returning there after cat-sitting. I wouldn't, but I had no idea about that yet.
Then, after securing the tank and shoring up my little piece of the Universe, I set back out to spend what I thought would be ten days in a cabin on the land of these neighbors, whom I would be helping out. They asked that one cat stay with me in the cabin. I love cats and looked forward to caring for these.
It was truly nice to be settling into this cabin--as the temperature plummeted to -10 F, with the cabin's monitor heater, washer and dryer, kitchen and cute little kitty, named Gato.
As you will soon see, this new paradigm totally changed all that I had planned for the winter.
Ten days before Christmas, I was set up in a warm cabin with a cute kitty cat who I would grow to really love.
* * *
Out on the windswept edge of the mountaintop I had called my own for the last 5 months, soon to be pummeled by subzero F snow and ice, sat my unmanned canopy, with a tent inside it, and a smaller tent inside that tent. I thought, as I settled into the soft bed of the cabin, that (due to my dad's psychological blasting) I was about to "abandon" and "neglect." I was never able to escape how inferior I was. Never...
All the while, I enjoyed these moments of comfort and joy that preceded the Christmas week. And then I slipped into unconsciousness, not knowing just how chaotic things were about to become.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.