north
So writes the prophet, "the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." This truth pained the Lord....
I think North is the best direction. South is too cosy, simple, warm.... and festering. Too much has been said about the east, it’s been overdone, however, I’d exempt the northeast, which is quite different than the east. The west is too violent, too futuristic; the souls of those who have died in a state of confusion recycle themselves in the western lands.
North is it for me. I’ve always been fond of the cold and desolation of the north... its vacancy and emptiness. It’s certainly not that I’ve any pioneering spirit, I’ve no ambitions of taming any wilderness. In fact the beautiful thing about the north is that it cannot be tamed but this won’t stop human beings from trying.
I had a friend once who liked the North too, but not like me, he wanted to claim it as his own. Nine years ago he moved to Northern Alberta and I have not heard from him since.
One January, ten or eleven years ago, he told me he was never coming back to high school and was going to live in a cabin in the woods. He asked me if I’d help him set things up. At the time his proposition seemed to me like as sane a decision as anyone could make. I mean what the hell was I doing spending my time lining up at the bus stop at 7:30 every morning to suffer but another day of pain and ridicule...
So I helped him fix up an old hunting camp, stuffed the holes and dried some wood. Every other day I’d walk the few kilometers through the brush to bring him some food and cigarettes. I did this for about a couple of weeks until one afternoon I went back only to find him gone. I don’t think I had ever seen him since... About a month later another guy I knew was miles back in the woods following deer tracks and came upon another cabin. Inside was this friend of mine and some girl just hanging out, drinking vodka and frying fish.
He was a strange man... it wasn’t even that he was a hunter, or a fisherman, or a gear head, you know the kind, I mean I knew many of those folks too, and he fit in with them less than I did. He was way beyond all of that. For him Tom Sawyer was his contemporary, a real live boy, just living in another county, and the entire world itself was a simple reproduction of our town.
He belongs in the north, but for different reasons than me. I've no objections to this, I simply want to make the difference clear, for instance, I've no pionnering mentality, I'd rather let nature be. But, I guess in the end nature always wins anyway, no matter whether it's accepted or fought. The north reminds me of that truth and so does Jeremiah.
I think North is the best direction. South is too cosy, simple, warm.... and festering. Too much has been said about the east, it’s been overdone, however, I’d exempt the northeast, which is quite different than the east. The west is too violent, too futuristic; the souls of those who have died in a state of confusion recycle themselves in the western lands.
North is it for me. I’ve always been fond of the cold and desolation of the north... its vacancy and emptiness. It’s certainly not that I’ve any pioneering spirit, I’ve no ambitions of taming any wilderness. In fact the beautiful thing about the north is that it cannot be tamed but this won’t stop human beings from trying.
I had a friend once who liked the North too, but not like me, he wanted to claim it as his own. Nine years ago he moved to Northern Alberta and I have not heard from him since.
One January, ten or eleven years ago, he told me he was never coming back to high school and was going to live in a cabin in the woods. He asked me if I’d help him set things up. At the time his proposition seemed to me like as sane a decision as anyone could make. I mean what the hell was I doing spending my time lining up at the bus stop at 7:30 every morning to suffer but another day of pain and ridicule...
So I helped him fix up an old hunting camp, stuffed the holes and dried some wood. Every other day I’d walk the few kilometers through the brush to bring him some food and cigarettes. I did this for about a couple of weeks until one afternoon I went back only to find him gone. I don’t think I had ever seen him since... About a month later another guy I knew was miles back in the woods following deer tracks and came upon another cabin. Inside was this friend of mine and some girl just hanging out, drinking vodka and frying fish.
He was a strange man... it wasn’t even that he was a hunter, or a fisherman, or a gear head, you know the kind, I mean I knew many of those folks too, and he fit in with them less than I did. He was way beyond all of that. For him Tom Sawyer was his contemporary, a real live boy, just living in another county, and the entire world itself was a simple reproduction of our town.
He belongs in the north, but for different reasons than me. I've no objections to this, I simply want to make the difference clear, for instance, I've no pionnering mentality, I'd rather let nature be. But, I guess in the end nature always wins anyway, no matter whether it's accepted or fought. The north reminds me of that truth and so does Jeremiah.
posted by j/r at 9:23 p.m.
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