All good things...

"Ahh, the stench of the sea" intoned my brother gravely as we pulled into the grimy, pre-touristy part of Seaside, Oregon. We had been on the road for many hours, and the impact of reaching our destination didn't seem quite as impressive as it should have. Ben was mumbling something about being out of gas; Garrett put on a Sharky grin and made an obvious joke about *not* being out of gas; I had my head out the window like a a disillusioned dog; my brother Hunter was looking very uncomfortable under his extremely tight seat belt.

Headed down highway whatever out of Portland, we knew that it would be about another hour and a half before we made it to the coast. Bob Dylan's *Jokerman* emitted from the speakers on the mix tape (CD) I made. Twenty thousand thoughts raced through my mind, none of them relaxing--not like how this trip was supposed to be. Worried about the cost: none of us four were (are) rich, three of us are academics. Worried about the vehicle: Ben's car was newish compared to what he normally sports, but his unwillingness to run the AC on the miserably hot excursion made me wonder. Worried about school: PhD applications due next semester--enough said. Worried about family stuff: again, enough said. Worried about politics: would Significant Other be OK with me heading out on a vacation without her, would friend John be upset that he wasn't invited, would somebody else bother me about not being able to afford it, would Rodney and Kristin approve of my recent weight gain (likely) and beard gain (Rod: likely, Kristin: unlikely)? Worried about a plethora of other garbage, some legit, some not. Dylan faded into the Traveling Wilburys.

We passed a restaurant sign that I thought we had eaten at as children. "Oney's Hunter, Look!" I cried. "Remember when Auntie took us there?"

"Oney's," Hunter noted dryly. "More like...burned-Downey's."

I turned, somewhat startled, and saw the heaping pile of wooden wreckage that had once been "Oney's". Then I remembered: we *hadn't* eaten at that restaurant sign. I started laughing uncontrollably, my lungs heaving. The rest of lot weren't surprised, they have grown accustomed to my fathomless eccentricity. I really was laughing at the way Hunter said it. "Wait!" I wheezed. "That's the one! With Paul Bunyan!"

"Right."

My mind was a roller-coaster--way down from worry, but way high from a small quip. I can't even stop laughing now as I type. "Where am I going to be next year, what am I going to do--Oney's, more like...Burned Downey's". Headed down highway whatever, I was a mess.

There is something about the sea that I hold sacred. It's difficult to explain. Even though it had been nearly 17 years since Hunter and I were last at Seaside, and about seven years since we had been to an ocean, there is some strange connection we have with that place. Ben and Garrett have it too--Ben had been pushing for us to go for years, and Garrett just wanted to get out of landlocked prison. The four of us all grew up in Finley--next to where the Columbia and Snake Rivers intersect. I remember somebody once telling me that Pullman had a river. I still haven't found it.

Rivers are rivers, but the sea is the SEA. There is something about its expansiveness, its incomprehensible depth. It seems like the cradle of travel, of life, of everything about Earth that's unique. "Compared to what? You have never been away from Earth!"

I bet if Thoreau could have walked across the sea, we would have read about it. The four of us decided to try anyway. After mingling about town, eating elephant ears, playing arcade games, and ogling the brightly colored two-person boat things, Hunter demanded that we head out for the beach. "I want to go down to the fucking ocean! That's what I came here for."

So we went to the fucking ocean.

Waddling up the boardwalk, each of us were equipped with a unique super-hero towel: Spider-Man in black suit for Hunter (appropriate for his sardonic disposition), the Incredible Hulk for Garrett (very appropriate for his vocabulary-expanding Tourette's-style rants), Transformers for Ben (for his cool transforming sound effect that he does--cheeKhocChuckChochoCHUHCHEEK), and Iron Man for me (no good reason). Near the edge of the beach, I spotted a swing set. I subtly clued my companions in: "SWING SET SWING SET OH-MY-GOD A SWING SET ON THE BEACH! GO GO GO GO GO." I waddle-ran down the dune and jumped into the not-too-hot seat, tying my Iron Man towel at my neck like a cape.

Shocked, dismayed, and yet on some level delighted, my companions joined me and emulated my example. The youngest among us was 24, the eldest nearly 27, and yet nothing seemed terribly out of place. However, the irony was not lost on any of us. My brother started laughing uncontrollably.

Down again, but not as far. I can't swing as madly as I used to--the whole experience made me want to vomit. Immediately taking a swim didn't help either.

I really can't say what was happening to me out there. Some would say such euphoric reactions to ridiculous crap are simply a result of "being on vacation". It is true that I hadn't been "on vacation" in a very long time. My family only took three that I can remember. Always bloody expensive, and seem stressful, vacations are for people who can afford them. The four of us even joked about "being on vacation", like it wasn't something that was actually happening.

The thing that *really* happened was on our last night. Two friends that we hadn't seen in years, Rodney and Kristen, were coming down from Beaverton. Those two don't so much "show up" as they explode on the scene. It seemed as if they had called to let us know they were on their way, and only ten minutes later Hunter saw them pulling in. Of course, that's not how it happened--we had been expecting them for hours. As soon as they rolled in, the languor of the day died away, and Rodney was handing me a whiskey bottle.

"Uhh, d'you have a glass?"

Rodney stared at me, his feral ice-gaze piercing my inhibition. "Since when have *you* ever used a glass?" He didn't say it, but he was thinking it. His only response was to thrust the whiskey in my hand. I took it without further thought, pulled the cork, and took a long swig.

I remember the smell, the taste of Novocaine spice and piss. Memories of a time with less worry--a lie. No, not a lie, just reorganization. What we worry about now seems more dire. Quality of life seems better then. But why, then, does quality of life seem better in this whiskey moment? Maybe it's not the moment, but the place.

I can't tell you where I was; I can only give an approximation. The concept of place goes beyond geography, past coordinates. Who you are and who you are with must be taken into account. "Who are you?" That is a more complex question--perhaps as problematic as "place". I do not know.

Gus was grunting profusely he was so happy to see us--the last time I spoke to the little dog, we were playing with his 'Stinky', a rather mangled piggy-toy that was his constant companion. Hunter and Garrett went out for more drink; everyone was talking. More memories.

Our agenda for the evening was simple: nothing. Naturally, we wandered toward the beach in the lamp-lit dim--well, Hunter, Garrett, Ben and Rodney did. Kristin, Gus, and I took the car. I can't remember why I rode in the car. I remember being quite surly as I spied a child on my swing, but my disappointment abated at hearing the prospect of starting a fire. As we all fanned out, gathering whatever would burn, which consisted entirely of driftwood looted from other people's pits. Garrett and I, however, tenaciously dug at an enormous log buried under the sand. Our revelry was cut off by shards of glass.

As Garrett was bleeding, I noticed that the child had vacated our swing. Four of us jumped on, and I took a picture. Just look to the top of this page to see how it turned out.

"Man, you're crazy" quipped Hunter. "You'll never get a good picture!"

He was at least partially right. It was my favorite of the lot that I took, though.

"Let us go into the water" shouted Rodney. "And be as men of the sea."

"RWARAWRARWAR" replied Hunter.

"GROWGGERFOWD" shouted Garrett.

"Uh, no" stated Ben.

"Don't kill yourselves", warned Kristin.

Gus grunted.

"I don't have any swimming trunks" said I.

"No matter!" roared Rodney. "Come on!"

So the four mad idiots slammed into the sea, shouting obscenities, saluting dead soldiers, salt-water toasting everything we hold dear and getting the crap kicked out of us by Nature. We pushed further and further out, ensconced in the Pacific, riding the waves up, up, up and then crashing down again. A part of the tide, apart from the tide, kicking crabs and getting pinched back, loudly apologizing. I saw my brother far out, and called out to him, but he couldn't hear--the din of the waves and the others' shouts drowned me. I saw his arms and torso jutting out of the water, flying upwards. The wave smashed into the side of my head, knocking me completely over. I tumbled under, churned in with the silt and sand and debitage. It felt right.

I learned later that we hadn't advanced as far as we thought we had. In fact, we were pretty close to the shore, all things considered. Even better, we had a fan club. Initially confused and startled onlookers stopped to see the crazy half-naked fools shouting challenges to the sea, and apparently began cheering us on. Stupidity is contagious like that.

The next day we rode home with partial hangovers, 105 degree humidity, and bellies full of salt water. I couldn't have felt better. Despite how inane it all was, how pointlessly expensive, how ridiculously tourist-trappish, my wounds were better. Not healed completely, but better still. There on the borderlands of colonized terra, we pushed out as far as we could manage and not kill ourselves, though there was something entirely liberating about the potentiality of our deaths. The trip wasn't all fun and games mind you--I was a perfect git for part of it; randomly snappish and uncharacteristically emotional. My brother asked me if anything was wrong, and I simply answered "yes". For a significant part, I shrouded myself in administrative miscellanea--gas prices, hotel costs, food money, etc. My old boss from CBC, a very good friend of mine, happened upon us on the street, and asked if I was okay (I was not amazed to see him--every time I go to Seaside I meet someone close at random). Derek always seems to show up when I am going through some sort of internal crisis. The strange thing about it all was that every *one* was a healing component:people from my childhood--past present and future--were there to help me plug up the leaks. That trip, though last summer, seems like it happened 10 years ago.

Being a rather noted introvert, I find it strange that I was getting energy from others. Normally I need solitude, a place to hide and rest. My place at Seaside was as much defined by the geography as it was the people with me--it would not have been a refuge without them, just another tourist trap. Williams seems to define her refuge in similar ways--by the people around her. I wish I had been thinking about that when I was reading *Refuge*.

I wonder also why I have the impulse to leave out details--nothing scandalous, just things that I want to keep for myself and those there. Alex said something in his blog about being "greedy". I feel greedy, but wonder if that's just guilt at not sharing. There are some things that cannot be shared, like a joke that one "has to be there" to understand. Perhaps the experience is somehow cheapened in the retelling when others don't laugh. Maybe that's why there are so many big fish stories--they are actually attempts at being honest about one's reaction to the situation, rather than the cold recounting of simple details. In any case, it is your imaginations that now must bedeck our stories, for when the tellers are all dead, there won't be anything left *but* those embellishments.

Well, maybe those stories are better left told than written anyway.

This has been,

AWESOME THOUGHTS
Romantic Ecology, Fall 2008
Instructor: Debbie Lee



===
Jacob

Apocalypse Now

Rachel Carson says in Silent Spring:

“The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster” (277).

That was in '62. Undoubtedly, a lot has changed since then. As a result of Carson's efforts, DDT was banned domestically. The American public--those who chose to read or heard through word of mouth Carson's message--gained an improved insight on how we poison ourselves. I can't swing a dead poet without hitting some sort of "save the environment stuff" on campus, or even in the quasi-conservative Pullman community. I hear farmers talking about salinity, mass wasting, and the depletion of loess. Even back in Finley, my own personal wasteland, I once heard my father screaming at a (hopefully) mentally challenged maintenance worker named "Earl", who was dumping volumes of old chemicals out onto the ground.

Perhaps these little islands of awareness are just that--islands. I spoke with a friend this past week who happens to work for Orkin. We discussed the types of chemicals he uses and the past impacts of DDT. Mind you, this fellow is not an academic--sharp to be sure, but not ensconced in our world by any means. Even he was familiar, to some vague degree, with Carson's work. My brother initiated the conversation, figuring that both sides would learn something new. However, there are no "sides" in this issue. Not in any meaningful sense--pollution of the environment can (will?) lead to the destruction of humans. The only argument is to what degree we can get away with our waste.

My Orkin friend and I share such an understanding. He is troubled by the use of pesticides such as DDT, and even is dubious about the crap that his current employer foists as safe.

"What's in it?" I ask.

"Probably nothing good," he responds.

How could it be good? He is an exterminator. Remove the "ex" from the word, and we are left with "Terminator", hearkening unto Arnold's cybernetic villain/hero of the '80s and '90s. Has our trust in pesticides been restored since Carson, just how we put our faith in a cybernetic organism in Terminator 2? Didn't he blow away a ton of people in the first film? No, this cyborg is different--he has been reprogrammed to help people. In fact, he is ordered not to kill them. Just like our pesticides, the Model 101 T-800 can do no harm.

I wonder if this is just the same old shit, just reprogrammed. I know virtually nothing of current pesticides, despite having spent nearly four years of my life on a farm. An ex fighter pilot, my father occasionally flew dusters up on the ranch--and this fellow is hyper sensitive about what people put in the ground. I remember something from long ago: My brother, an older relative who shall remain nameless to protect his identity from Dad, and myself were charged with cleaning up a shed riddled with decades-old pesticides, gasoline, oil, and a number of unidentified ghoulish liquids. Dad gave us specific instructions--we were to very cautiously move each type of liquid into separate, stable containers, and then take a few trips transporting them to a treatment facility of some kind. Dad left to go do something else, and the three of us collectively groaned. It would take hours to transplant the liquids, and even more time to make the trips back and forth. We had all been working for 12+ hours of hard labor, and were ready to be done with it--Dad is a taskmaster if there ever was one.

"Alright boys--don't tell your dad this, but we are going to dump it out," said older relative.

My biology-inclined brother was reticent: "Didn't he say that this stuff could get in the water table?"

"Yeah, but do you want to spend another six hours taking care of this stuff?"

None of us did. We were exhausted--physically and emotionally (Hugheses have a dark joke about family reunions: "See you at the next funeral!") You can infer what followed.

What we did was not just a sin against nature--it was a sin against ourselves. I drive by that place every so once in awhile, and just now green grass is beginning to return, well over a decade later. My family lives within a mile of that spot. Finley has a poor history of pollution--our family's primary complaint with potential dam removal had to do with the massive exposure of toxic heavy metals (and the bodies) that will result from the river falling. One used to be able to fish in the Columbia and Snake rivers and actually expect to catch something edible (or catch anything at all). I hear that the Yakima is even worse.

All of this happens post-Rachel Carson. No rational person harbors complete faith in technology any longer. We have seen too many bombs go off, too many things die from our war against nature. Carson decries the propaganda war against fire ants, against any perceived pest. I was a participant in such a war, even in the '80s and '90s. However, we had to be eco-friendly murderers. Boiling water for ant infestations (surprisingly effective), and other crude non-chemical means for other troublesome flora and fauna.

The primary problem with participating in a war of propaganda stems from when you actually start to buy into its bullshit. From a very young age, all of us were taught to shoot--perhaps a common reality in a rural community, but our father put a special point on it. His rules were intensely strict, even compared with the draconian hunter safety instructors in the area. One old fellow had the temerity to claim that "guns are only tools" in the presence of my father, a Vietnam Veteran, who snarled in retort: "the only purpose of a gun is to destroy--don't you dare tell them otherwise." Thus, my weapons education was undertaken with more than a modicum of ambivalence--a necessary evil as my father saw it. We weren't even allowed to point toy weapons at one another; even "Nerf" was forbidden for a time. Even with all of this stern training, my part in the war against the environment got the better of me. My brother was generally a more successful slayer of starlings than I; he was more persistent. Flustered by my lack of contribution, I one day trooped outside with the communal BB gun, determined to end some poor bird's life. I didn't have to wait long to acquire a target--a mass of starlings swarmed onto the tops of the cottonwoods bordering the east side of our property. As soon as I pumped the action, the mass swirled away, a black blot against tufts of blue and white. However, I spied a straggler, perhaps a sick youngling, or one unfamiliar with our murderous intent. It was in the adjacent tree, perhaps accounting for its separation from the group. No matter--it was an impossible shot anyhow. The BB gun was pathetically weak; one could spot the shot as soon as it left the barrel. Not one to give up so easily, I took aim, and squeezed the trigger. A soft "thump" resounded as the BB lazily sailed out of gun and into the cottonwood leaves. I was sure I had missed. How could I have made such a shot?

The robin tumbled down, down, down through the leaves. I turned, hearing a gentle crash and an almost imperceptible "thud". There it lie, gasping, clawing out with its legs, grasping for branches that it would never feel again. Moments later, it was still, like my heart. "This has to be a coincidence," I thought. "There is no way I could have made that shot in a million years--a heart attack for certain, terrified by the sound of the shot and the flight of the starlings."

I didn't believe that, and neither did anybody else. My parents made certain that I paid terribly. My brother was sympathetic, but held firm at my fault. My sister saw me as a monster. Robins, amongst all but three kinds of "pest" creatures, were friends. I killed a friend in hopes of killing an enemy. The want to kill the enemy was apparently stronger than my will to see a friend. I wasn't a part of the mass bombing raids or the genocide that the government attempted to undertake in regards to some of the same pests I was set against--but I was still a part of the propaganda machine, the bullshit logic. Like them, I couldn't tell friend from enemy. Unlike them, I could never bear to take a shot at another living thing again.

Maybe that's where we can be redeemed--as groups, we really suck at learning from our mistakes, but as individuals I think we are right to hope. Many would scoff at my story--a mistake that anyone could have made--and pass me off as an over-melodramatic blogger. I didn't eat the creature, so I can't claim that I didn't slaughter it without cause. However, I didn't slaughter it without meaning--I watched it die, and will never forget that crime. What right do I, or anybody else for that matter, have to demolish anything that we please? If nothing else, what if somebody loved that particular Robin--a pet, a bird-watcher's regular, a potential companion to a lonely homeless person, a mother to a nest? When we kill, we do not kill in a vacuum. We can do nothing in an ecological vacuum. Humans are just as susceptible to ecology as any other thing on this planet. We are a part of this world.

All of this from killing a Robin and talking to an Orkin guy?

Yeah.

What would Rachel Carson say, had she lived? She barely survived 18 months after her work was published. Though Domestic DDT is illegal, we still export the crap out of it. Doesn't that defeat the purpose? Isn't everything in this world interconnected? Maybe that's the rub, maybe that's where Carson can still say something to us.

"Though many Americans have an improved understanding of local ecology, the matter of global ecosystems is something that they have yet to fully appreciate."

Global ecological understanding rejects nationalism. That's where I see our apocalypse--not in sudden change, but stagnation. Humans define themselves based on others, on what they are not. As a species, we do not understand ourselves. For the span of our evolution, humans have yet to systematically turn their self-awareness outward, to an understanding of our place in the world. Our most powerful adaptation, the ability to spontaneously acquire language, may be our downfall--we have communicated shared knowledge and developed technologies whose impacts are beyond the ken of our foresight, and we have yet to linguistically situate ourselves as an integrated part of the environment, speceistically, instead espousing to a "man against nature" outlook.

We shouldn't be worried about a post-apocalyptic reality. We should be worried about the absence of one.

A Walk About the Rocks

Part I

You are here.

Why, he has a bit of a funny face, doesn't he? Don't forget your hat or coat; it's a bit chilly at 4:09. Go get your cane-turned-walking stick, as the path can be rough going.

Sirens blare at the front of your consciousness until they are overtaken by the white-noise of other vehicles, the parted breeze, and the onset of dead-time. Grand Avenue is everywhere and nowhere. You are not even really on Irving or State.

Turn right and shamble up the steps, spy the dirt-mount at the foot of Silver Taurus, and stare into the path ahead. Take a moment to smell the dying sunlight.
Can you see those rocks, just to the right of the tree? Look closely, as they can easily get away from you--take it from me. If the fire in the center draws you near, go there for a time, but tread lightly. You will pass this way again, but not before taking others. Try to remember a day when you decided not to go there. Now you have a friend, so the going will be easier than before.

Your shamble shuffles the earth about, crunching October cheat-grass beneath your feet. It is unavoidable. The thud of your staff balances the whirring breeze against your ear-hair. Spy your friend's grumble as he contemplates the oblivion-ground.

Go left, toward the fire. See how it has gone out. See how your friend stands at the precipice? It reminds me of a place he stood once, not long ago and long ago. You can't see the drop, but can't you see it? Your friend, enveloped in the trick-flame, sees it, and contemplates.

Don't be fooled by the waves; let them crash between your ears and up your nostrils. Pull away, slowly, and let remain a dried, salty husk. The earth is there, but you can't smell it really. Go to the precipice. That's where we are.


There's the blood-red bush we could have easily mistaken for such a mighty glow earlier. It has receded, assailed on all ends by the lichen-covered rocks. Like the sun, it fades for a time. Before you can continue, you must shrink yourself. That is a massive wood, those rocks are mountains. Can't you see yourself, and your friend, at the base? Are you climbing, or heading back down? You are climbing.


Go back into the shade, the sun is coming down anyway. The clustered formations remind me of a time, long ago, when my father took my brother and I back into nameless places. We bounced in the back of his pickup, grasping for whatever we could just to stay in. None of us were afraid. Do you see that cleft at the right? We are speeding along the edge of it--long ago--but moving still. Jed is no help though. Damn dog.

Your friend grumbles and rustles about.

Yeah, it's time to get over to those rocks. Turn right after you ascend--don't forget to become normal sized again. The light is stabbing them.

The sound of your slide explodes the quasi-silence, the industrial din characteristic of machine places. You can hear the flame and the phosphorus rustle in disagreement over who is more beautiful.

Can you sense that there is more to this than meets the screen? Break out of that, and compose yourself. I highly recommend A minor.

Hear what I mean?


A door slams in the distance. Are you an invader to this place? You passed through no gate, and bear no intention of arms, though you have them. Your mind hears a dog barking, but its only a memory.

I remember riding my bike up a slope like this one. I was far more athletic in my youth. A good thing too, for the Rottweiler ran very fast. Hopefully so are as well--do you want to get bitten?


Thirty, forty, two-hundred paces to the west. Hug the rock wall so that you do not fall. Around the corner, to your right, you will see this path. The shards of broken glass hide from you. The beer can scurries back into a crevasse, where you will later poke it with your cane. Something should catch your nose. Turn left.







Friend: Think about what would happen if these rocks came down.

You hear yourself respond. I wonder what you say.

Friend: I don't know where that road goes. Looks like its just behind people's yards.

Don't go down there. That place is not yet for you. Look behind you instead.


Aloof, the conical stone seems to stand apart from its other rocky brethren. It's tip seems to jut desperately away from the earth, bathing what it can in sunlight.

Let me away. Erosion will take me anyway. Let me away.

What would you say to this thorn, this rogue, this potentate? Bow down before it, for it doesn't speak to you. Crawl under its feet. The dust you kick up rockets into your nose-tubes, and creates a burbia half-way down. Do get up, I feel as if I should not send you to these places.

Friend: Do not.
Do.









Go from here, West! Stand on the brink of the rock's ending. There is nothing left--only everything after it. You see houses stretch for miles along, and that road you spotted below before runs up now, but alone. There are no trees, no fire, no phosphorus, no rocks.

Friend: This is where the good rocks end.

Look down. Go back, go up, and then look down.



The dirt-river comes this way, it seems. Bits of grass with patchy hair creep up, but only with reticence. You have been below, and you are above, still expecting to hear the door slam and the dog bark, your cover has been blown. No cover is needed, but you should go down there anyway. Have you been there before? Is being there from below the same as being there from above, even though you stand in the same place. Go. You saw that beer can scurry away. Find it.

Turn left, and look east. Stare at the focal point of the light; look closely as you possibly can. See nothing, but everything else.


Did you focus on the small center, or the rather large and obtrusive luminescent triangle in the upper right? The beer can is behind you, cowering in a cave. You already poked it. Blue and white pollution mark the territory of other border steppers, those who are march-rievers. They did not come from the fens. If you make yourself small again, be wary. The portal at the end of that tunnel leads to places where you have already been.

Friend: Come on up here.

Me: Naw, I am going to check out that road again.

You: [well, say something].

Friend: I agree. Let's go check out that road.

I can't tarry at the road for too long, it doesn't lead to anywhere I can go. Maybe since I have been up that hill many times, I do not want to go. However, not all roads lead to the same spots, even though they head the same direction. I look for expanses, for planes beyond boundaries. I can see homes on either side of where that road goes. What possibly could be interesting in between? Yet these places today step between; they are assailed by the asphalt miles around, but somehow remain. But those beer cans, paint, and glass...

I can't bear it anymore. Look down, and remember my memory.



I have to admit, things get a bit fuzzy from here. That short expanse of yard and those three teeth remind me of home, though shrunk. Cotton-wood and Poplar towers garrison the east and north marches, while Russian olives and willows are on the west. Magpies, starlings, robins, peacocks, dogs, killdeer, quail, and others perform in a concophony of background checks. I can feel the snail-plant and its cream-of-wheat innards disintegrating between my forefinger and thumb. It smells sickly sweet.

Those teeth are blunted now, the towers chopped off. I remember pulling some of them down--they were falling on us. At least the pines out back will last quite a bit longer.

Back to here--these won't fall for a while, but they will fall. Yellow, green, and orange bursts flow through. Can you see the fire burning in the corner?

We are near the end of the road, but not quite there yet. Something wells. Borrow the tendrils of my brain-monster to graps those memories, then eat them. It's renewable consumption, until it rots.

That's the spirit! Look, here!






We found this gate at 4:39. Somebody made it.



I would say go through, but it's only a picture after all.




Part II

"Nature is the vehicle of thought", so says Emerson. Essentially, the arch transcendentalist distills this sentiment by insisting that "we are assisted by natural objects in the expression of particular meanings." What Emerson successfully argues is the contextual nature of language, how it is both arbitrary and yet concrete in that our speech is shaped by physiological processes while meanings are derived from comparisons with other things. Any dictionary can illustrate this solipsistic understanding of language--meanings are based in other meanings, and Emerson assumes that those initial meanings are somehow rooted in natural objects.

Cardiff riffs on Emerson's postulation, pointing out that "voice is language of its own." For both authors, context is everything. In Cardiff's walks, we hear a voice that conveys intimacy and quietude--she speaks as if she is very close to us, even within our heads she suggests. She is creating an environment that we assume in her art, and context molds her speech--Language based on natural objects and speech that inspires the cognitive environment while it is inspired by nature. Cardiff maintains that aspects of voice make up the landscape.

The most difficult aspect of Emerson's argument to reconcile with Cardiff's notions of sound is his privilaging of visuals:

The eye is the best of artists. By the mutual action of its structure and of the laws of light, perspective is produced, which integrates every mass of objects, of what character soever, into a well-colored and shaped globe, so that where the particular objects are mean and unaffecting, the landscape which they compose is round and symmentrical. And as the eye is the best composer, so light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make beautiful.
(Nature 13)

However, Cardiff rightly points out that sound-effects "carry their source of time and place with them", therefore affecting the overall perspective. Wheras Emerson maintains that perspective is created through light, Cardiff emphasizes that sense which cannot perceive light. My own walk privilages light, almost to the point that it obscures perspective. Additionally, Emerson does not seem to allow much for smell in tandem with sound; he even goes to far as to suggest that "Even the corpse has its own beauty." Corpses are not so beautiful when smell is considered--an essential aspect of perspective. Moreover, soundscapes often paint vivid pictures: the mind's eye compensates for the lack of visual. This is not to say that Emerson ignores the imagination. He maintains that beauty is intergrally linked with intellect. However, his argument is still bathed in light, as he maintains that light is beauty, and beauty is virtue, even priviliging visuals in the scope of imaginative powers.

Initial Adventures At the Mountains of Madness

Here is my initial research attempt, unabridged and unedited (it sounds so cool when movie ads say it). Forgive my splotchy quotations, captilized madness, and incomplete sentences--often I find myself going back and forth, finishing my thoughts after I start new ones. To give you a better idea as to the trajectory of this thing, I would like to eventually incorporate Frankenstein and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket to assist in explaining the the idea of the Antarctic's sense of place, especially in regards to the horrific. Hillary Roberts has kindly provided helpful commentary below my madness. Many thanks!

The Question(s):
1. How is the Antarctic both a physical space and a conceptual framework that amplifies and symbolizes forbidden knowledge?
2. What literary debt does Lovecraft owe to Gothic Romanticism via Poe and Shelley in addressing issues of forbidden knowledge and the arrogance of science?


The Text:

H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness is a 20^th century Gothic tale set in the Antarctic, and employs its environmental setting not only as an “aeon dead world” (487) that amplifies the horror of protagonist William Dryer’s tale, but also operates as a character and point of agency that responds to invasion and colonization, reflecting anxiety not only over the confidence of science, but also that of vast, unexplored reaches uninhabitable by humans. Lovecraft’s horror and his sense of place are inextricably linked: the arctic is both a physical space and a conceptual framework from which the author mounts his “deliberative argument” via his narrator, as Oakes puts it (21), against a subsequent invasion of the Antarctic by a fictional team of scientists, the “Starkweather-Moore Expedition” (MM 514). [MAY NOT BE A BAD IDEA TO INCORPORATE EVIDENCE OF ANTARCTIC EXPEDITIONS MOUNTED IN LOVECRAFT’S TIME, IN ADDITION TO THOSE ACCOUNTS OF HEARNE AND COOK FOR THE ROMANTICS].

At the outset of the narrative, Lovecraft describes the projected Antarctic undertaking by the narrator Dryer as an invasion: “I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my will that I tell my reason for opposing this contemplated invasion of the antarctic…” (481). The narrator’s reluctance to fully explain his own experiences in the deep south is significant—not only should the Antarctic be left alone, but even explaining why it should be left alone is a taboo topic. Immediately, Lovecraft expresses that some things are better left unknown for the good of human understanding. He augments this sentiment by appealing to higher scientific authorities and pontificating on a sanity plea: “

In the end I must rely on the judgment and standing of the few scientific leaders who have, on the one hand, sufficient independence of thought to weight my data on its own hideously convincing merits or in the light of certain primordial and highly baffling myth-cycles; and on the other hand, sufficient influence to deter the exploring world in general from any rash and overambitious programme in the region of those mountains of madness. It is an unfortunate fact that relatively obscure men like myself and my associates

(MM 481)

Lovecraft’s conceptions of intellectual independence and professional influence emphasize humility: as is the case with Dryer’s own team who are

Hillary's Commentary:

I really love the idea of examining how the arctic landscape operates in 19^th century literature- particularly in the gothic. It is such a perfect setting- otherworldly as it seemed then and still seems to us today- and rich with symbolic potential. I spent a lot of time writing about the arctic last year- both as it appeared in 19^th century literature and in travel books and scientific periodicals. I have some great books you can use as you explore how it works (as you say) as a conceptual and physical space. One in particular, The Arctic in the British Imagination, focuses both on how the arctic was presented in the 19^th century and how it was received and understood among popular audiences. I think it could be useful to you.

I also like the idea you mention in parenthesis to incorporate evidence from actual travel logs. There is no end to how you could do this! William Peary was a very popular Arctic explorer, and I believe some critics have speculated about the influence of his work on Mary Shelley. You may consider bringing some of his work in. Also, a lot of the travel logs, and other publications (like those in newspapers and periodicals) that dealt with the arctic included some fantastic engravings and other artistic representations. The book I mentioned suggests that these sorts of images had a great influence on the way people envisioned the polar landscape. You might consider taking a look at some of these images as you research- they could be useful. Good start!!!!!

On terror...or...SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS

My silly Montaigne tribute serves a specific purpose--to call attention to the "essay" as a form, essais as attempts. Also, I hope to exonerate myself from a potentially troubling title-robbery, while in tandem saving my soul from failing utterly my attempt. Well, that's the hope anyway. There are plenty of other academic heresies that will get me thrown into the pit of fire before this will.

I have been terrified before in my life; multiple times, actually. When I say "terror", I mean the sensation where all parts freeze, the blood turns to ice-water, and your consciousness explodes--an explosion that can be contiguous rather than momentary--dismantling all sense of reason save basic physiological responses. This happens to me whenever I fly--an embarrassing trait, considering that I hail from a family of fighter pilots. I also remember experiencing the sensation upon perceiving what I thought was a ghost as a child.

Terror occurs when something demolishes your orientation of reality, your sense of what is right in the universe. My first plane trip was only a few years ago. Maybe I am too old; my sense of perspective may be off kilter. My brother had never flown, though, and he loves it. There's something cathartic about it for him. For me, I can never define a level plane (no pun intended), nor internally orient myself to what is normally "forward"--only "up" and "down" are applicable.

This is not to say that I have never been on a precipice, or have been in other kinds of truer danger. When I was younger, I used to do all manner of climbing on rocks and hills and trees, ascending to dangerous heights with no fear whatsoever (well, maybe a little fear). I have been on the brink of thousand foot drops and have spotted areas where if I were to fall my body would be irrecoverable. Still, I was not terrified then.

I think that being terrified of the ghost makes sense in terms of being terrified of flying. Both experiences shattered my sense of normalcy to such extremes that my consciousness had no basis for comparison. Sure, I have seen aerial photographs and heard many ghost stories--experiencing those things are another matter altogether.

Anna Barbauld argues that there is pleasure in these amazingly novel experiences, despite the pain that terror causes. I can say, with all manner of certainty, that I do not derive any pleasure whatsoever from flying except to be able to say that "I faced my fear." Ditto for the ghost. However, I have deliberately failed to make a distinction between my experiences and that of Gothic terror; one is temporal, corporeal, and subject to the senses, while the latter plays upon the imagination, inciting it to eventually run wild on itself if not kept in check. Sir Bertrand, in Barbauld's own example, nearly loses control as he approaches the delapidated house, even though all that he must contend with at the moment are some freaky noises and the darkness.
Barbauld is careful to distinguish between cathartic responses and that pleasurable feeling from experiencing something novel, astounding, and horrific. The term "horror" is key in understanding the difference between Gothic terror and terror. I cannot for the life of me remember who said this (or something very akin to it), but "Terror is what you experience when the bomb goes off; Horror is what you contend with after." Thus, horror lingers, a violation of harmony and order. Horror is not so much escapist, as Michael Delahoyde puts it, but "an entry into real psychocultural issues."

Barbauld does not mean to tangle etymology as perversely as I do, though she understands the difference between utter terror and the creeping sensation that allows the imagination to stretch itself, to run wild in vast and unexplored crypts of the conscious mind. The entry into psychocultural issues via horror allows the mind to tread otherwise forbidden ground. What is the significance of Sir Bertrand kissing the lady in the coffin, who reaches with outstreched arms? Necrophilia? Maybe, but that desire seems too alien. I am compelled by the collapsing house; something sexual has transpired between the coffin lady and Bertrand, a violation chivalric codes, the conception of the household, and decorum--Sir knight is an uninvited guest, as is evidenced by the sabres clashing and Jeeves attempting to run him off. Worse, the house itself, symbolic not only of order but also of duty and societal roles, crumbles after the forbidden kiss occurs. Like in The Eve of St. Agnes, the structure of the house is violated--both figuratively and literally.

Barbauld argues that wonderous, unusual things should accompany Gothic horror in order to maximize its effect--after all, the imagination wants stretching! I showed the two clips in class from The Mummy and Dracula to test Barbauld's assertion. In The Mummy, we are set in contemporary Egypt, though in the middle of the desert amongst ancient tombs: an alien environment to most of us probably. Archaeologists poke around with their findings until the creepy Van Helsing character (Edward Van Sloan, who incidentally plays Professor Van Helsing in the version of Dracula I had shown) decides to be a party pooper. Young scientist opens the case anyway--the veritable hand in the forbidden cookie jar--only to awaken Imhotep, who creaks over to his forbidden scroll, retrieves it, and is on his merry way. Mr. Impatience goes nuts, and we are left alone with a laughing madman--"H-h-h-h-h-he decided to go for a little walk! You should have seen the look on his face!" Why should we have seen the look on his face, when the camera won't let us? Obscurity heightens the moment of horror.

Though as alien and fantastic (and disturbing) as that Mummy bit is, the proceedings in Dracula have always bothered me more. Recently, Philip Glass and the Kronos Quartet scored the film--the only music in the original is a rendition of Swan Lake at the credit roll. I can't help but feel that Philip Glass couldn't stand the disturbing vistas of silence, and felt the need to fill space. Certainly Glass's work is creepy, and adds a sense of tension to the film, but on the other hand we don't really need it, considering that the silent spaces are even more tense without the music to latch onto (silent tension and musical tension are different beasts altogether). I am reminded of some individuals who cannot stand silent spaces in conversation--they feel as if silence is some sort of social shortcoming, and overcompensate to remedy the awkwardness. Dracula's silence creates false obscurity in the entropic castle--the Count only breaks it after he himself has broken nearly every rule of good hospitality: greetings at the door, plenty of light, a clean (or at least bearable) home-environment, and a lack of giant spiders. Essentially, Dracula is letting Renfield stew in horror, only to relieve him of his pain temporarily, "like a spider spinning his web..." We know, at least in part, what's in that house--vampire brides (Dracula is a polygamist, presumably, further messing with the ideas of household roles and established order), corpses, and Armadillos. If we were to linger on the issue of Dracula's brides, they further explode normalcy by reversing the roles of motherhood--barren, corpse-like, they feed on other human flesh (including children, we later learn). Where does this fall on Barbauld's spectrum?

Maybe The Mummy isn't alient enough anymore--are we, as academics, close enough to archaeologists and their environments that nothing seems quite as alien to us as it would to a viewer in the '30s? I wonder, however, if it is too alien, especially in comparison with Dracula. The Count and his brides are foreign, yes, but do they not violate that which is most familiar to us? Dracula is a literal anti-Christ, an unliscensed resurrectee, who reverses and corrupts nearly every aspect of Christ: crosses are bad for both, but in diometricallly opposed ways; stabbing with spears and stakes is prevalent for both; vampires, like Christ, exhibit uncanny mobility; one
sucks blood while the other proffers his blood and body (think of the Eucharist and its reversal--a cannibalistic ritual in the figurative sense); baptisms of blood and pollution versus cleansing baptisms--the list can go on. Significantly, Christ cries "Noli me tangere!" when Mary Magdalene attempts to touch him--like Imhotep (who has an awkward moment with his sweetheart when he leaves a trail of himself behind on her arm), Christ is still corporeal, and thus, still very much a zombie: if you were to hand Jesus some skittles right before he ascended, they would drop right out of the holes in his hands onto the ground. Again, the primary difference between the two, aside from intentionality, is that Dracula is an unliscensed resurrectee: he has accelerated events that should only occur during the apocalypse.

"Wait, jackass", you may say. "I am not Christian and still find Dracula creepy." Well, academically speaking, Christian doctrine has, to whatever end, impinged upon Western consciousness--most of this operates below the surface of our concerns anyway. However, other vampire variants show up all over the world: the loss of blood or the pollution of blood seems to be a universal concern.

I tend to want to think that Barbauld would be more approving of The Mummy's horrific effectiveness, though on the other hand her Sir Bertrand bit mirrors Dracula in many ways. The familiar becomes the exotic through a process of dual othering and the adoption of repressed urges--first the coffin lady is othered, heightening her other-worldly qualities, but yet she exhibits desires simultaneously repressed and embraced. We later discover that Imhotep is cursed for attemping to raise his beloved--"They broke in upon me and found me doing an unholy thing." More necrophilia!

I wish I could just show Barbauld those bloody clips and be done with it. What did you find more effective, by the way?

Talking Brains

Christabel is repressing something while Bracy is driven; the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, I suppose. Repression can be prophetic and prophecy can be repressed. If Christabel is repressing something, and we discerning readers are able to detect it, then that tells us something about her character. Of course, we can get the whole thing wrong, misreading the piece like the mammering, base-court scuts we are--then poor Christabel is misunderstood.

I have often wondered how a psychologist would perceive some of the crap my brain comes up with. Though not necessarily equipped with the same literary arsenal as us, Psychologists still have to read the significance of symbols. Prior to embarking on my first jaunt on a plane, back in the dismal '06s (maybe...dementia is setting in), the anticipation spurred a variety of odd incarnations in my sleep. I suppose I should include a disclaimer about why I am not crazy, but that effort would be fruitless even prior to reading the following, and certainly hopeless after.

I wake up to that kind of sickly orange peel-dusk/dawn of Finley, which generally only occurs in my dreams, but I have seen it before in waking realms also. The National Communications Coordinator, Mr. Eric Trumble, comes roaring down my dirt and gravel driveway wearing a large cowboy hat whilst driving a red station wagon; my friend Ben's grey Chrystler LeBaron accompanies. He jumps out of the driver's seat and shouts, clapping his hands "Get your ass out of bed! We have a plane to catch!" I am already out of bed, and somehow my brother has procured my luggage. Mom is on the deck, staring at the red-thing on the lawn, while Dad vaults into a string of obscenity-laden tips for travel: it's all in good humor. I get in Ben's car.

I am riding in the LeBaron on roads that don't exist, speeding quickly up spiralling ramps on Columbia Center Boulevard. We follow Trumble up at high speeds. As we ascend the ramp, the road gradually begins to turn into a massive sand dune--massive may even be the wrong word--"collossal" is perhaps more representative. We near the apex of the Dune and Trumble disappears over the crest, along with the rest of the delegation. Rodney screams something, though not in fear. This is normal.

Ben's car cannot quite make it, and I tell him that I will have to run the rest of the way. He wishes me luck, but doesn't say anything. I find climbing the dune is much more difficult than I originally had imagined, but I make it to the top nonetheless. I see an infinite vista of desert, and two red orbs that must be suns blot out part of the horizon, though I can see much furhter than I should. It seems as if everything flows visually to an explosively bright point a fathomless distance away--golden rays are reflected on the tops of dunes, resulting in a kleidescopic effect of galactic proportion. I think to myself, "Holy crap."

After standing for only a moment on the brink, I notice that Trumble's red suburban-thing is scooting down the dune mountain at rapid speeds, raising a trail of dust in his wake. The dune slopes outward gradually, becomming level again at the base, and eventually the red-thing is on a dead-ahead course for a giant sandworm, maybe a mile away. Just in case you were wondering, my brain stole those sandworms from Dune. I wave my arms frantically, but the red-burban doesn't stop.

Thankfully, a giant robot lands in between the vehicle and the worm, and its enormous foot opens to reveal a parking garage. Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) steps out, bedecked in his tan overcoat, and shouts "Come on, hurry!" The suburban and its delegation make it safely into the confines of the giant robot.

I scurry down the hill, trying to beat the oncoming sandworm. I spy movement on the horizon--it appears as if the desert is moving. Countless giant worms with spiky maws rocket toward me. My dream legs don't work so well in the sand, and I struggle to close the distance. Dr. Loomis turns and yells something inside--the robot's feet begin to emit fire. Obviously, it is getting ready to launch back into space. He turns to me and shouts "Hurry!"

Something happens--a frenzied blur of sand and wind--and I am in the giant toe. Lo! Captain Kirk, Scotty, Chekov, and Data are sitting at a full bar. Trumble, Ben, my brother, and the delegation are all there as well. Dr. Loomis bids me have a seat, and a drink. Everyone is drinking martinis; I ask for extra olives; Scotty obliges.

We then fly out into space. The process is not so stressful as I would have thought: though I feel a lifting sensation, my innards ne'er jump. This is a good thing, as Van Halen was not playing.

I take a look out one of the port holes in the giant Robot foot; debris from what apparently were other ships ominously floats about. I don't look too closely, there could be bodies. By now I understand that this is a dream, and take appropriate precautions: whenever I see bodies in dreams things take a decidedly unpleasant turn for the much, much worse. Scotty explains that we are at war. I think to myself, "Holy crap."

We are in the process of taking in a scuttled ship, and I see someone I recognize. I can't remember who it was now, but he had pizza, which is always a plus.

I can't remember anything more. At least the gloom was mitigated by pizza.

I feel compelled to add "***", centered in the middle of the page. So much time has passed since my brain authored that madness, I am disturbingly disconnected from that moment of waking. The dream itself is still vivid. Engaging it now is very different from being in that period between sleeping and waking. I actually have to work to remember. Dreams themselves are terribly slippery; maybe that is how Christabel (and everyone else for that matter) can overlook those anxieties manifested during sleep. While asleep, it is difficult to supress anything, as the mind operates subconsciously. That period between sleep and wakefulness also is telling: as the mind begins to slip, so does conscious control over the repressed. As dream Jacob would say, "Holy crap."

To Boldly Go...

We employed the now rather cliché Star Trek trope--"To boldly go where no one has gone before." Some rabid trekkies would correct me, "it should read 'where no MAN has gone before." My riposte: "We grew up in the Next Generation era. So sod off."

We did grow up in the Next Generation era, my brother; friends (like brothers); and sister (also like brother). Perhaps there was a sort of popular culture inclination in the '80s to explore. Apart from Star Trek, all sorts of adventure-travel type films were pervasive in my home--If you were alive then, you can probably think of at least ten. Tolkien's works were also required reading at an early age. Well, not required, but both my mom and dad were avid readers, and their reading interests spilled onto their film and television interests, which in turn spilled onto us, and eventually we began reading books that originally inspired those films in order to fill in the narrative blanks left by director's interpretations of the source material. In other words, the movies and T.V. weren't telling the whole story, and we wanted it. Regardless of the inspiration, Tolkien was there. Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf were my first literary heroes who undertook grand adventures, and walked a lot.

When I was supposed to be digesting the significance of Magellan, Pollo (not just a water sport you know), and all those other rather European boat dudes, I kept thinking about how much more honest walking is. That, and how it really sucked that there weren't any new places to go see because boats, planes, and automobiles greatly expedited exploratory travel. Hell, Columbus never went anywhere no one had been before--apart from having a really bad sense of direction and a bad case of conquistidor syndrome, he just claimed to have seen peoples no one had previously encountered, ignoring the fact that those peoples had discovered themselves just fine and were even on very famliar terms. The cursed rush to map the rest of the world helped to demolish any sense of mystery that we grade-schooler Star Trek/Ground Trek/high adventure afficianados had hope of harboring during the labored hours of 1st grade.

As fate, and an overdeveloped sense of adventure would have it, we land-locked "Goonies" decided that there were vast expanses of hill country to be explored in Finley, Washington. The oppressive asphalt and concrete jungles of the Tri-Cities had yet to penetrate our wind-blasted paradise. We had heard tales of lost treasure, devil worshippers, the ghost of a suicidal Indian, and drunken teenagers, all inhabiting the hills not quite north of Oregon and sort of south of Washington. I was a partial perpetrator of such tales, as I had originally lived back in that vast, untamed expanse that is almost Oregon--apart from our cousin's house, there were no other houses as far as the eye could see, save for the humongous air hangars used to store farm equipment (amongst other treasures), and our trailer. Until my brother was born, the youngest children I had regular interactions with were at least 13 years my senior. Thus, my hill-bound adventures started early.

Upon setting out, my comrades and I thought ourselves as public servants: how famous we would become once the silent springs of Jump-Off-Joe were discovered! We would be no less exalted for demolishing a coven of devil-worshipers and harassing teen-aged drunkards who were probably even smoking pot. The stories concocted by local elders only surved to fuel our wanderlust--if they had said a Dragon lived in those hills, you can be sure that we would have devised some means of defeating it.

There was only ever one rule our parents demmanded that we keep: never stay past dark. While we were invincible so long as the light hours shone on, our powers somehow weakened at the onset of night. At times, we cut it close--too close. More than once rampaging trucks filled to the brim with beer careened past us in our hooded coats and cloaks. We were clever--holes on the sides of the hill afforded us well-concealed hiding places. We knew how to erase our tracks quickly. We knew the lay of the land. We had a Ranger's handbook!

Sun-swept fields, green or beige grasses, earthen smells with sandy sod, and the looming shadow of Jump-Off-Joe pervaded. By the end of the day, our senses were assaulted and our sense of adventure excited, yet sated for the time being as hunger and thirst drew us back to home base. Certainly tomorrow would yield even greater treasures...

Decades later my brother and I are drunk on Tequila playing Yatzee with our mom (well, I am drunk). I am fat, bearded, and careworn in ways that I never thought possible. I am not that old, you must understand, though I have started getting gray in spots--my hair will likely prematurely lose its color. My brother is in similar condition. Only two of us are present, though our group has stayed very close over the years. Once one shot too many goes down, I come to the realization that we never found what we were looking for in those hills. Now they are inacessable, as the railroad in their draconian litigation have barred anyone from venturing too close to their property. Increasingly paranoid farmers threaten lawsuits that are serious rather than the bullets that were not in the old days. I can't even bring myself to drive out in the direction of our expeditions anymore, as the area has become a yuppie-warren. Windmills dot the landscape that we once walked on--filthy tributes to supposedly "green" power sent to California or some other place not here; murderers of birds; murderers of view; murderers of memories that I lie to myself about being able to keep unpolluted. Our last outpost into the unknown is now owned by someone else, as our friend's family were forced out due to financial hardship the year we graduated high school. Then he disappeared into Iraq--we write him still. I think about all of this; I don't know why; as the last bit of "too much tequila" streaks down my throat. Then, somehow, it becomes audible. I don't remember what I said exactly, or how my brother affirmed and expanded on what I was saying, but that doesn't matter--our reasons for those adventures came rushing out of nowhere. Despite all the hair-brained childish reasons for seeking out ghosts, pirates, and whatever other specture spurred us on, there is an ultimate truth here--we need to go.

I think that the cheesy lyrics to the Rankin/Bass animated version of The Hobbit sum up this impetus best:

The greatest adventure is what lies ahead.
Today and tomorrow are yet to be said.
The chances, the changes are all yours to make.
The mold of your life is in your hands to break.

The greatest adventure is there if you're bold.
Let go of the mold that life makes you hold.
To measure the meaning can make you delay;
It's time you stop thinkin' and wasting the day.

The man who's a dreamer and never takes leave
Who thinks of a world that is just make-believe
Will never know passion, will never know pain.
Who sits by the window will one day see rain.

There were a lot of other words that were said that night, in all probability even cheesier than these lyrics. However, my brother and I, in a manner frustrated by the limitations of language (regardless of inebriation level), were trying to explain how it is that we "work." The lyrics above do not really encompass the entire issue--being "useful" also plays a role.

Our last journey through the hills, undertaken sometime when we were all in high-school, was the most significant of the many, many quests we had undertaken over the years. Some four or five of us got a really bad feeling that day. Whatever the reason, something told us that this would be our last march together, and something else suggested that we were actually needed this time. Though all of us were in our late teens, we still found the possibility of having a reason to go out into the hills intoxicating. As children, we could not isolate the reason or even make audible the need to explore--it was a silent understanding, until that tequila night. We set out early in the day (by our standards): noon I think. Despite how savvy we should have been, none of us bothered bringing anything for food or much to say about water either. Those hills, by the way, are parched dry, unless of course there is a silent spring to be found still.

The day wore on and we came to the base of a hill called "Jump-Off-Joe", a landmark that none of us ever dared cross. It takes several hours to climb to that point--we went further than we ever had that day. Sitting upon the ground at the base, the sun began to creep west over the Rattle Snake Mountains; it was still taboo to remain after dark, even after all these years. Our throats were parched and we were all hungry, sure signs that it was indeed time to turn back. However, some of us (myself included) wanted to venture further up the hill: if we could get to the summit, then there would be little else we could hope to accomplish in Finley, save for exploring the deep ranges where I used to live. As we deliberated, someone noticed a trail of smoke up to the south behind the apex. After a few minutes, the trail transformed into ghastly plumes. As long-time residents, everyone knew what that meant--grass fire. Such fires are very common in Finley, and incidentally, very dangerous. Many skilled firefighters have been overwhelmed by the fast-spreading flames; assailed, encircelled, and trapped. For most of us, such a bad omen signalled that we should indeed retreat as quickly as possible. Though it was unlikely that the fire would reach us for a long while, the risk seemed unecessary. Yet still, something seemed very necessary about taking this risk. Something told all of us that we needed to explore past the summit, to make the journey and see what was burning.

Days later we discovered (via newspaper) that our trail of smoke was emanating from a crashed helicopter. The pilot survived, but was so injured that he was unable to move from the wreckage. Though he was found alive, he was in poor condition, and his recovery process was slower than it should have been--slower because we didn't take up the one quest in that we would have served some purpose. Our final journey was an abysmal failure, and we know it.

I know it. We were sensible, careful, prudent, and very, very grown-up. I say "grown-up" because we were more worried about worrying other people and eating than sharing in grand adventure. As children, we at least would have seriously reported the smoke, rather than our glib, taciturn contribution we provided as young adults, despite our gut feelings.

Yet none of it was ever about accomplishing anything specific--that is why our goals were so fantastical and ultimately why we caved in at the prospect of serving a true purpose: either we were too afraid of being disappointed once again, or even more afraid that we would actually be needed.

I have taken walks since then in hills unknown to me. One was on a retreat, where my brother and I were chastised for "trail-blazing" (i.e. not walking on the proscribed path, despite knowing how not to disturb flora and fauna). Thus, we decided to venture on ahead, to hide in the hills, to show those bastards that we knew where we were even though we had never been there before. Our president (this was a student government thing) convinced us that the looming thunder-storm was not so condusive to expansive travel: he had found us at the furthest edge of a plateau leanding downward, as we left signals for him that we knew the rest of those dolts would never catch. We even almost convinced him to come with us; I could see the glint in his eyes. "It will only be five hours out, and five back. Easy money." Then there was really no purpose other than to show that we had the constitution to undertake such a trip, to prove to ourselves that we could have found that pilot if we had just acted. After all, "to measure the meaning can make you delay."

Generally speaking, being sensible is a good idea. Jumping into too many things impulsively can lead to very poor outcomes--most of us have made those types of decisions. Nothing done can really be undone. On the other hand, nothing done means just that: nothing done. Nothing ventured, nothing ventured. Here I yet again struggle to put into words the significance of those journies. Looking back on it, as children we were desperate to replicate something "authentic" in terms of adventuring. Even those European boat dudes were legit in that respect, while we never gave ourselves any credit likewise. Now, it seems to me that everything we did then was in the spirit of adventure in the purest form it ever could be--we lacked the understanding that what we were doing was ludicrous, thereby affording it an authenticity unparalleled by any administrative designation we would have loved back then. In having no one's sanction, we truly were explorers in the sense that we sought to expand our understanding and sense of the world around us without a compulsory impetus. We saw roads everywhere. For whatever reason, those roads called out to us. In a way, they still do.

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.
Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.

In the film rendition, as the above song plays, Bilbo notes "There are moments which can change a person for all time...I suddenly wondered if I would ever see my snug hobbit hole again. I wondered if I actually wanted to." Though I generally am fond of the food and drink that "hobbit holes" provide, I must say that I can understand Bilbo's sentiment. During his walkabout, though more directed and focused with a clear beginning and end, Bilbo wanted that freedom to do as my friends and I did as children. The sentiment even makes sense for Tolkien biographically--he harbored many of the same gripes I do about changing landscapes and industrialization in his home. Worse still, nearly all of his childhood friends were killed in the trenches--both at least partial parallells to my own origins for similar feelings now, an eerie aside considering that I knew very little about Tolkien biography up until a few years ago. Back then we were caught up on a Tolkienesque purpose, everything had to be a quest--that desire still stands after a fashion. On the other hand, I at least partially understand now why I wake up in the middle of the night and feel like driving someplace not here. I wonder if that same impetus, at least in part, drove on the Romantics to also go there--Someplace not home.