Merry Xmas

Mom and step-dad have been in town awhile now. I love them both with all my heart.

I think I have what it takes to be a lonely old mountain man. I'm such an introvert. Even the people I love I can't be around too long before I start clambering for solitude.

Don't get me wrong. I love having friends and family. They're very important to me. It's just that people seem to drain my batteries; some more quickly than others. I need down time. Regularly.

When mom and step-dad come to visit, it doesn't take long for us to run out of things to do, mainly because Colorado offers little of the kinds of things they like to do. Or maybe it's just me. They are the poster children for upper middle-class suburbia. Mom's primary interests are shopping, shopping, fantasizing about having a bigger house, and shopping. And mom, bless her, wants to buy me EVERYTHING. I can't glance at something twice - a $1,200 bicycle, $200 designer shirts, a $5,000 bronze sculpture of wild horses - without her insisting I let her buy it for me. And she can't, for the life of her, understand why I don't just buy every little thing that catches my fancy. I try to explain that it's okay to admire something without feeling the need to possess it, but she looks at me like I'm speaking Greek. And doing anything outdoors more grueling than walking the Pearl Street Mall is pretty much out of the question. Try as I might, I can only spend so many hours in a week driving around Mapleton Hill and shopping the various malls and boutiques within 50 miles of home.

And sharing a bathroom. Do you have any idea how much toilet paper women go through? How is this even possible?

I look forward to late afternoon when mom and step-dad are pooped from a long day of shopping and lay down for a nap. I slip off to read Louis L'Amour or to write in my blog or just to lay down myself, close my eyes and imagine I'm in my fantasy cabin all alone deep in the mountains. What I wouldn't give right now to be there.

Go there. Totally go there.

I've always heard that tortured writers write the best stuff. Actually what I've always heard is that tortured artists create the best art, but I've heard it applied to a variety of specific art forms, including writing.

I love to write. My blog, often, is just me ranting or dreaming, but I think there's some good stuff in here. I've got some other writings that contain really good stuff. And I'd have to say all of my best stuff came about when I was either suffering terribly (as from my deep desire to be a cowboy-mountain man instead of a cube bunny) or when I was swept up with passion on a subject near and dear to my heart.

I also have to say I tend to blog most often when I'm feeling either deeply tortured or particularly joyous about something.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how deeply I sank into my own misery over the last few years in my longing for another life. Not that my life is bad. It's quite good. It's just that often I feel like I'm in the wrong place and time, that's all. Anyway, often during those most intense moments I had (what seemed to me) the most brilliant insights, and created vivid imagery in my own head by blending fantasy with reality. What I'm trying to say is, I wish I'd put these down in writing because they'd make a damn good book. Actually some of them I did put down in writing, and fortunately the others are still burned into my memory so there may be hope yet for recalling the emotion that brought them into the world in the first place.

I've been relatively unmoved for a good many months now. I've managed to keep the cabin fantasy subdued and settle into a routine at work. This is good and bad. Good, obviously, because I'm not constantly fighting an emotional battle between what is and what I wish for. Bad, however, because it feels too routine, and a little bit like I've given up my dreams. Bad also because without the torture I have nothing pushing me to write or have those deep insights which bring me a sort of joy that I just can't put into words. Strange as it may sound, going deep enough into one's own world and having such insights or creative flurries or whatever they are is actually a kind of natural high. And when I have written as a direct result of such a high I've always gotten compliments and been told things like, "wow, you really need to be a writer."

I guess its in these moments that I can truly write from the heart, and maybe people pick up on that.

So I'm starting to actually miss being tortured, not for the tortured feeling itself which is miserable, but from the exhilaration, the creation, the self discovery it brings. Of course this makes me wonder if it's really the cabin I ever wanted in the first place, or if that was just my subconscious choosing something I could be so close to but not actually have in order to induce maximum, prolonged torture for the purest and highest high. :0) Hey, it IS possible, and if nothing else I try to be open minded and consider all angles.

So tonight I sat down and tried to put myself back in that place. I tried to recall some of my best moments and put down into words things that have been haunting me for too long. I closed my eyes and retreated within. In my mind I walked in the sand by the creek. I sat on my horse looking out over the ridge. I stood at the window peering out across the darkening meadow. My senses came alive and I was there. The scent of a moist pine forest after a summer rain. The texture of rough-hewn planks beneath my bare feet. The splash of icy snow melt on my face at the break of dawn. The sight of a moose ambling in the distance. It felt so good. The hard part is coming back.

Eclipse and Stuff

Tonight is the big eclipse - a very special full lunar eclipse occurring on the winter solstice. I read it'll be about 100 years before this happens again. We were going to go down to the observatory at CU to watch it but the sky is obscured by clouds. It happens.

People. Why do I continue to let them disappoint me? No one's perfect, I get it. I just wish people could a.) have a little more respect for one another, b.) get at least a few facts before jumping to conclusions, and c.) stop being so childish. Is that really too much to ask of a sentient race in a supposedly enlightened age?

I need a wilderness cabin. And some eggnog. Fortunately I do have the latter.

Back from the Dead

So I guess my blog isn't actually dead, because here I am.

I just sat down and read through some of my old entries. Wow. I can be pretty intense.

So what's new? I got the horse but she turned out to be way more work than I wanted, but as much as I feared. I had my heart set on a Morgan or a Quarter Horse, but this Thoroughbred sorta fell into my lap. She definitely lived up to her breed's description as a hot blood and wasn't suited for the kinds of things I wanted a horse for. I actually wouldn't have minded putting in the time, but I do have a full time career. Weekends weren't enough, especially considering I couldn't even spend every weekend out there with her. So now she's living the life of a cow pony somewhere in cattle country.

We took a trip to Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, which was really great. We saw and photographed a lynx which was just awesome.

Work has been going well. I've managed to take my obsession for self-sufficiency and a cabin in the woods down a few notches, which I think explains why I haven't been posting anymore diatribes about society and office jobs. It's still something I fantasize about regularly, I just haven't been obsessing over it.

We've decided to start trying to meet new couples in the Boulder/Denver area and that's been fun. Feels good to be social again, especially since I don't have to go to the bars to do it.

And I guess that's all I feel like writing about today.

The End

It's been real.

Stardust

There's a horse I've been thinking about buying. I've spent the last few weeks riding some but mostly just hanging out in the pasture with her. I've also been studying natural horsemanship and Equus, the language of horses.

Last night I went out to the ranch and we had a nice chat. I did all the talking. :0) I told her that this morning I'd be back and we'd try a Join-Up. It would be her opportunity to choose me, rather than the other way around, and that would be the final decision.

So this morning I arrived at the ranch bright and early. I went out into the pasture and we said our good mornings. I took her into the round pen, and the ritual began.

I set her to running, which she began with an exuberant kick. Her breathing quickened, her ears perked up, her eyes were wide. I adopted a dominant posture, and kept strict eye contact as she circled me. After a few rounds, I made her change directions. This went on for some time. I was calm and in control, she was excited. And then I saw the first sign: her left ear turned like a radar dish and locked on me. I kept her running, and looked right into her eyes. Then her head turned slightly toward me, and her circle tightened around me - the second sign. Then a slight head bob, and then a deeper one. Still I kept her running, changing directions every 5 or 6 rounds, and kept my eyes locked on hers. Then her lips quivered and she started licking and chewing at the air, and dipped her head all the way to the ground in a sign of submission and acceptance. She was saying, "Okay, I think you might be worthy of being my leader. I'm ready to make my decision."

This was my cue to stop. I immediately dropped my rope, turned my back to her, slumped my shoulders and looked at the ground. I was saying in Equus, "Okay, I'm ready for you to make your decision. Will you choose me as your leader?"

Immediately she stopped dead in her tracks. This was the moment everything was leading up to, the moment that would make or break this budding relationship. There was total silence, except for the wind rustling in the cottonwood trees. I couldn't see her behind me. What was she doing? Was she just standing there? Was she even looking at me? Will she choose me or leave me standing here all alone? It felt like an eternity.

And then I felt it: a puff of warm air on my neck and the little hairs on her nose tickling my ear. My heart skipped a beat. She chose me. She chose me. Her head came over my shoulder and I reached up and rubbed her forehead. I turned toward her and she pressed her face into my chest. I was careful not to look her in the eye, but whispered my thoughts to her as I rubbed her face. After that she followed me around the pen, no leads, no commands. I took her back to the pasture and whispered a few more thoughts to her, smiled, and removed the harness. She ambled over for a drink, turned and gave me a long look, then quick as lightning the dust around her erupted with another exuberant kick and she bolted out across the field kicking and joyous, as playful as a kid on Friday after school.

"Let's do this."

Addendum: Yesterday evening, before this morning's Join-Up, but after I had told her about it, I lay down in the tall grass near this horse and watched her and the rest of the herd graze. The sun had set behind the Rockies and the sky was a dark, liquid blue during those long twilight moments. Cricket chirps replaced those of song birds. Field mice stirred. Toads emerged from their burrows to gulp down grasshoppers, and bats took flight. The prairie dogs had retired to their burrows, and I saw the silhouette of a distant coyote trotted along a ridge on the horizon. The meadow took on a new life, the life of night things. The chill of Autumn was settling on the plains, and the stars were spectacular; just spectacular! They looked like white diamonds tossed across deep blue velvet, and I felt like I was looking into eternity. I thought of the cowboys, the pioneers before them, and the Native Americans before them who must've spent countless nights looking up and dreaming. I thought of all the people who have ever gazed at the heavens and been overtaken with wonderment and awe. Ah, to be so tiny and yet so special as to have a metaphorical milisecond to peer up and into an unfettered sky and gaze deep into the cosmos, and to have the wits to appreciate it is just, well, miraculous. It was a splendid moment, precious and fleeting, and all the world felt right and good.

It was in those moments that I decided, should this horse choose me, I will name her Stardust.

And so it is.

You Can't Hide Your Lyin' Eyes

So the Fourmile Canyon Fire, which has been burning the mountains west of Boulder since Monday, is now officially the worst wildfire in Colorado history - not for its size but for the nearly 200 homes it has so far burned. They're still fighting it but it looks like Boulder is safe. A rain shower last night even cleared the air of the choking smoke.

I'm suffering from a severe lack of purpose. Big news, I know.

A couple of weeks ago I had another one of those moments where I decided reluctantly that my life is great, my job is great and I just need to settle in and enjoy it. And I did, mostly. For two weeks. Ish. But I knew it was fleeting. One can have everything in the world, but if one doesn't feel fulfilled then it doesn't matter much.

This much I do know: it isn't just the desk job aspect that I don't like. It's also the core of my job function that turns me off. I'm almost as sick of GIS analysis as I am of staff meetings and TPS reports. Surprisingly, however, I have found some spark of interest in web mapping; that is, making interactive , functional mapping applications for use over the internet. That's what's been keeping me moderately entertained at work lately. As long as I'm in the GIS field I definitely want to take my career in that direction for as long as it can hold my attention. Though still I know it's just a smokescreen; a distraction from the things I truly long for.

Anyway I decided to really try and get my mind off cabins and mountains and horses, but I'm like a mountain man junkie: I can stay clean for a little while but inevitably my thoughts start turning back to the things that consume me. It's a constant battle. That's why I'm blogging at 9AM on a Thursday morning instead of working. The blog is my attempt to help me organize my thoughts and get back to work, instead of heading out to the ranch or "running down to Boulder Horse and Rider - just for a few minutes to see what's new." Yeah right.

Gerard spent several weeks in Western Colorado and Montana this summer for an internship. He and some fellow student researchers were camping in remote parts of the Rockies studying pikas. At first, he said, it was beautiful. That gave way to pain and misery after the first day, because he wasn't accustomed to the rigors of "roughing it" and of spending so much time physically working and hiking. But after a couple of days he physically and mentally adapted and sort of fell into it. From that point on, he said, it was just awesome. I know the feeling. Every time I've been on an extended wilderness excursion or even in a physical working environment I've had the exact same experience. Gerard described Montana as the best. "It's very wild," he would say with a dreamy look in his eye. They saw bear, bald eagles, and heard wolves howling at night. The photos are stunning. Gerard lost 15 pounds during his time in the wilderness and didn't even notice. Mind you that was 15 pounds of "cushioning" he'd put on in the last few years since he pretty much gave up the gym. He looks good. He says at home he eats when he's bored. He exercises little and isn't really motivated to hang out at the gym and go mindlessly through some contrived routine. I very much know the feeling. This is a huge problem in modern Western society. Our lives are too soft and entirely too contrived. I despise the clock and the calendar like you can't imagine.

I once had a professor in college who was an archaeologist. He described a project he worked on where he lived in very primitive, stone age conditions for a month, and he described the same kinds of experiences that Gerard had. Even years ago when I was sitting in his class I was dreaming of how awesome that must've been.

I have another friend who was in the Peace Corps in Africa for two years, and he too described these experiences. He rarely got to call home. While talking to his mom on the phone shortly before his return to the US, she asked what he would be most happy to see upon coming back to the US. He said, "I can't wait to have a microwave again so I can easily heat up some water to take a bath." She paused. "Keith, you know we have hot water that comes out of the faucet here." He had to think about it a moment, then realized he had completely forgotten! I desperately need an experience like that.

In a scientific experiment conducted in Australia, a group (all volunteers of course) of older Aboriginal men who had lived the majority of their adult lives in the city, were asked to try living in the wild for six weeks. These men were all overweight, suffered from high cholesterol and high blood pressure and all the usual stuff. For six weeks these men lived in the Outback: no electricity or running water, no grocery stores, nothing. They had to make, catch, cook and gather everything. In six weeks all the men had returned to a normal, healthy weight and their medical problems had vanished.

I'm not saying life in the wild is all roses. It's the fact that it isn't that makes it so appealing and superior. There's a saying that there's no such thing as a free lunch. Modern society certainly offers a lot, but there is a high price to pay for all this luxury and softness, and I think I'm about tapped out.

Love

I think nothing in the world can make a spirit soar higher, or crush a spirit more thoroughly than love. It's a funny, funny thing.

I watched a movie tonight called Were the World Mine. I haven't smiled that much or felt that light of heart in quite awhile. It seems like these days I'm more serious that ever. Even my mom tells me to lighten up. I feel myself hardening, distancing myself from people ever more with the passage of time. I'm not sure what's going on. I'm not a huge movie buff, but every now and then I'll watch a movie or read a story that just melts my heart. I smile ear to ear and I feel like the world is sunshine and lollipops. It feels good. It reminds me of things, times, that once were. It reminds me that somewhere buried within all of the dark and terrible things that issue forth from humanity, there is also something lovely and precious beyond words.

“One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.”

--James Earl Jones

Sleepless in Boulder

It's shaping up to be one of those sleepless nights. It's a little warm tonight - 72 degrees at the moment - and I think that has something to do with it.

Probably a bigger part is that my brain works hard all day at work and my body gets nothing out of the deal but sitting nearly motionless. I come home mentally exhausted but physically pent-up. I'm working from home the rest of the week. I'll use the two hours a day I'm saving in commute time to get in some morning hikes. I'm also going to do some work in the kitchen "on the side." I have some pork and bison fat that needs rendering into lard and tallow.

Today was my last day in the old office building. Our new building - the LEEDS Platinum certified Research Support Facility - is all ready for us to move in Monday morning. Movers are transferring all of our computers and other stuff over the weekend. It was a tiny bit sad, though the move can be nothing but good. The new building is pretty awesome by any standard, and I'll finally be on the main campus. I also found out today that one of our best GIS programmers, his obnoxious personality not withstanding, is leaving NREL. I was shocked. Can't say I was sad about it. Was an interesting day.

I wish I was fly fishing.

War of the Worlds

I had the most awesome day fly fishing in Rocky. Between me and my buddy Keith we probably caught two dozen or so cutthroat trout, many of which were a good 14 inches or more. It's about a three mile hike up to the Loch where we fished. It's a place of stunning waterfalls and dramatic cliff faces, thick pine forests and clear icy waters. And of course a lot of trout.

The Glacier Gorge area is arguably one of the most beautiful parts of Rocky, and it's the area I spend most of my time in. The hike up to the Loch isn't what I would consider terribly strenuous, but most tourists (thankfully) disagree. It's three miles in with about 1,500 feet elevation gain. And of course it's at about 10,000 feet so the air is a might thin. While fishing, we had the occasional hiker come by and wave, but mostly it was just us fishermen with only the chipmunks and the gray jays to keep us company. For lunch we stretched out in a wildflower-carpeted meadow next to a stream, surrounded by fortress-like walls of sculpted granite, and watched the trout gulp down midges and the honey bees drink up the last of summer's nectar. It was spectacular.

I hadn't been fishing in a long time, but I can see now that this is a hobby that's way overdue. I can't describe the thrill I get from the game. Fly fishing is especially so, because trout are so finicky. One minute hundreds of fish will be feeding en masse, gulping anything on the surface that moves. The next minute, every one of them will stop, drift to the bottom and disappear. Often they'll only be interested in midges, and ignore anything else, then suddenly switch to grasshoppers or flying ants. With trout it's a constant game of trying to guess what the fish want, and then tricking them into taking a fuzzy bit with a hook that more or less looks like whatever is pleasing their palate at the time. Then of course there's the grand finale, the icing on the cake: the moment when a big one takes the fly, and you the fisherman are fast enough to set the hook in the split second before the trout figures you out. The fight is thrilling, and I can't quite explain why. I imagine it harkens back to those hunter instincts our ancestors depended on for millennia before the industrial revolution. I released all of my fish unharmed today, but the thrill of the chase was extraordinarily satisfying.

I also love the smell of a live, squirmy fish, and the way it feels in my hand. Cutthroats are among the prettiest and most vivid of fresh water fish, and I'm always dazzled by their colors. There's something thrilling and primal about going out into nature and having a close encounter with a wild creature. I think that's especially true today with so many of us living such disconnected, ignorant urban lives. I've blogged before about the simple thrill I often get at touching the bark of a tree or of hearing the sound of a stream after being subjected to cube life for an extended period of time. To go out into nature and see something, some beautiful form of life, that lives all on its own and needs nothing from man to survive but to be left alone still amazes me and fills me with delight. Going into the mountains reminds me that I am alive. It reminds me of the real world - the world beyond the artificial urban world - the world that created us, the world in which we have lived for millions of years, and only very recently have forgotten because of the illusions we've created with our cities and our nifty techno trickery. The cities and all they contain could not exist without the green, living world they, like a tick, have imbedded themselves in. How quickly most of us have forgotten our roots.

On the hike down from the lake this evening, I noticed - I always notice - that the trail gets busier and busier the closer one gets to the trailhead and parking lot. The people get fatter. The kids get more numerous. The attitude (mine) gets worse. Just hundreds of yards from the trailhead one will see fat suburban women wearing flip-flops, smoking, and screaming at unruly children who are literally climbing over the "stay on the trail" signs. One will see teenagers with their headphones on and people of all ages pecking away at their iPhones. One will smell a thousand different perfumes, deodorants, fabric softeners, shampoos, cigarettes and other toxic aromas from "real life" in the city. One will find cigarette butts and trash on the ground, and a hundred other signs that the ignorant, uncaring masses have descended upon the "easy" parts of the park to get their snapshot on the family vacation. I push through, and I keep my mouth shut. What, after all, can be done? Why can't these people switch off the city for a day? Why can't these people come into nature with the reverence these wild places deserve? Nature is not some playground for dumping your kids in. In my mind these are sacred spaces, not just that overgrown area outside of your suburban shithole.

It's always like this. All of the prettiest places I've been are being loved to death, most especially by the people who can't come into the country without bringing the city with them. It's always a nasty shock for me after I spend time in a relatively pristine wilderness and then step back into the urban machine. Most people are like predictable, selfish little drones. If you build it, they will come. Give them their iPhones and their fast food and their artificial lives and they will flock to you by the millions. They are mesmerized by shiny things, things that whirr and beep and give offer instant gratification. They like the illusion of material wealth, and the superficial trappings of a civilization that can never have enough.

As for me, if you build it I will leave. A more perfect system cannot exist than that which nature designed. The Earth in all her complexity is a perfect system that constantly creates, destroys, and recycles so that new things may be born: mountains, oceans, rivers, life. Here in the mountains can be found all of the things I could ever need to be healthy and happy: deer, elk, rabbit, bison, pronghorn, fish and turkey for food, shelter and ornamentations. Meat is for eating. Bone is for making tools and weapons. Hide is for shelters and clothing. There are edible and medicinal plants such as service berries, wild raspberries and strawberries, currants, cottonwood, mariposa lilies, yucca, mushrooms, and hundreds more. There are plants for making string, rope and dyes. If one has good food, clean water, a warm safe place to call home and loved ones to share it all with, what more could one possibly want or need? How could an iPhone or a shopping mall really enhance these most basic of human needs and comforts? Instead of sitting alone typing my thoughts on some lifeless, glowing box, I could be sitting around a cozy fire talking with real people; perhaps telling stories or talking about what a great day I had catching fish, and perhaps sharing a good haul of roasted fish with my loved ones. But that is not our world. In our world, some of us step into reality when the weekend comes and we are granted a reprieve from the Matrix. We are allowed, for a short time, to tiptoe through the unadulterated system that truly sustains us. Then on Monday we must go back into The Machine, back into the artificial world where we are told what to eat and how to live and what's fashionable, where we live by the clock and calendar under artificial light, eat toxic "food" and sit mesmerized by television and all it's mind-numbing power.

And now I must go to bed. The Machine is expecting me at 8AM.