Category: General

Finally getting a little snow.. I harvested about 15 gallon of water today; good thing because the snow is starting to melt.

I don’t talk to people often, but when I do, this weird thing keeps happening:  they start mouthing the words I’m saying.    At first, I thought it was something weird with this one person but it keeps happening to me with different people.

I’ve asked other people if this happens to them and they all say no.   This has been going on for over 10 years.

I was reading this guy’s blog. http://zerocurrency.blogspot.com/ He’s a fellow that lives without money, partly as a spiritual practice.

It’s a place I might be heading one of these days.   I’ve been attracted to the idea for a long while.

However, I don’t like being hassled.   And if you have no money and take a pizza out of the dumpster, apparently the cops bother you.   Also when I go to sleep I don’t  want someone to say to me, “Hey! Hey! you can’t sleep here.”    I hate that.

He doesn’t seem to mind people.     So much of my happiness is dependent on blissful  solitude and not being hassled by people…. but maybe someday.

If you ever have have an idea that goes against what everyone else is saying, you should know that everyone else can be wrong.   In fact they most often are.. why?  Because people in society are not meant to think.   They are meant to follow and receive  instruction.    It keeps everyone going in the same direction, making the same mistakes but all agreeing that they are right.   Whole societies are built around bad ideas.

This is vibrantly illustrated to me on the trail when on the rare occasion I hike with someone for  awhile and they want to believe they are on the right trail even though they have no proof and I’m feeling unsure.   When I question whether or not  we are on the right trail or I take out my map, they act exasperated.

“We may be lost, but we’re making good time.”

If you want to be alone, it’s important to know, you can never get far enough away;  humans and their noise producing machines are everywhere.   One thought that helps me, is to think of myself as an alien dropped off on a planet of apes.   Then I can just sit back and enjoy the show—like going to the zoo.

This morning I woke up from a bad dream;  A bear and cow had come and taken all my smoked salmon and carrots from my cooler on the porch.    They each left a huge pile of poo and there was a note attached to one of the piles.   I don’t remember what the note said, but it wasn’t friendly.

I woke up,  hurried down from my loft, pulled my cooler inside, and ate smoked salmon for breakfast.

I have a bunch of food, water, and fire wood.

I bought a tarp. I’m going to lay the tarp out and harvest the snow off it until there is a good build up of snow on the ground so I don’t scoop up dirt.

I  have a phone and dial up Internet.

I started up Netflix; they are offering 2 weeks free to new and past customers.    I think I’ll keep it going for a while because it keeps me walking, since my mailbox is 2.5 miles away.    I get 5 miles in on days I just need to pickup or send a movie but on days that I need to do both, I walk a 7 mile loop and mail the movie at a mailbox that gets later pickup.

In my quest for pain free feet, I have purchased a discounted pair of MBT shoes… They are the weirdest shoes ever.   They are rocking shoes.   For sure, my feet don’t hurt a bit in them but they kind of stress the rest of my body.  They also weigh 3lbs.…. Jury’s still out on this one.   Mine didn’t come with the instructional DVD so I might be using them wrong.

I purchased a refurbished sewing machine for 75 dollars that a reader recommended.   So far I have wound the bobbin, threaded the machine and did a bomber repair job on my pants.  I have rented Project Runway from Netflix to get inspired:   “Okay, designers, your challenge is to make something functional, comfortable, and beautiful, using only the materials you find in this primitive cabin.  You have only a limited amount of gasoline to run the generator that will power your sewing machine.  You have one spool of thread and a pair of kitchen scissors.   Make it work!”

I have a list of twenty good habits I’m instilling in me.

I have some books the library mailed me to read.

It really makes a more interesting winter without Internet, movies, or books but I think it’ll be a good winter.

A big warm wind came and blew away winter; I went to town and gathered more water and food.

I have a good variety of food this winter.   Not like my “eat super oats everyday” plan of last winter.    I kept encouraging myself to buy more oatmeal and soy protein powder but I think I may have over done it on oatmeal last year—might want to give that meal a rest.

There was a disproportionate amount of money spent on hot beverages this year.   I should switch to sliver tea.

I live alone in a cabin in the woods.    I don’t see people often and when I do it’s very cursory.   It’s just me and my thoughts.  Things get calm, so calm that it can feel like a purely spiritual existence.   One time I had the thought: what if I’m dead and I don’t know it.

It was a daylight basement; it had a whole apartment in it—kitchen, living room with a fireplace, bathroom, bedroom, everything.     I had a brother that lived there for awhile but no one ever went down there but him.   It was a mystery space.    I used to throw rocks  in the open window that was near to the ground and make wishes.   Until one time he was sitting at his desk and the rock hit him.

Once,  when I was around seven or eight,  after he had moved out, I went there to hide for awhile.   While hiding,  I hatched the idea of living in the basement.   I could come up and get food while everyone left for the day.  It would be like running away without all the logistics.    While sitting there the idea grew more and more exciting.  Why hadn’t I thought of this before.

Then, when I was grown, I would emerge from the basement, very polished and possibly even carrying a briefcase,   I would walk pass  my  family, all hunched over their oatmeal,  and I would say coolly, “Hello”  They would all turn and look at me surprised and say “Why, where have you been?”  And I would respond calmly, “I’ve been in the basement.”   Then I would say, “Goodbye,” walk out the door, and drive away.

My plan was foiled after they soon found me hiding in a kitchen cabinet but it was a good idea.

I woke up to a little snow on the ground.   It’s still snowing.

I’m betting it will melt sometime before winter really sets in.   I hope so as my truck is still up at my cabin and if  the snow doesn’t melt, that is where it will stay for the winter.   Normally that would be fine except this year I had plans to go out in January to welcome my grandchild into the world.

I don’t have much wood in but I have learned that things work out.   When I first moved here my reptilian brain was all in a snit getting ready for winter.   Now I know that some part of me is paying attention and will make sure I don’t freeze or starve during the winter.   That’s probably why I was inspired to go to town yesterday and buy a bunch of food.

Once I signed up for a paragliding class.    I only got a little ways off the ground before the instructor shut us down because it was too windy.   But all was not lost because I gleaned this little life lesson:

The instructor told us, to avoid running into stuff,  take your eyes off of where you are  afraid to go and look to where you want to go.

You go where you look.  He said he had seen it many times —people focus on what they don’t want to hit and run right into it.

Several winters ago, sitting in my dark cabin at night, I opened a room in my mind that I didn’t know was there.   Then I saw a long hallway lined with doors and  realized I could spend a lifetime opening rooms, exploring my own mind.

That’s what hermit life is like.