The moontree lassos itself : 3

5.17.2008

Hiked up north side of Sykes Creek Valley early this morning. Lighting on the oak leaves perfect—green and weightless—felt like I was in Tolkien’s Old Forest (minus menacing sentient trees), or the realm of the Forest Spirit in Princess Mononoke. Life imitates art, apparently.

I ask it all, “why?” And in the river turning stones, grumbling with great unknowable age below the redwoods, I hear (imagine?) a great, whiskery “Yes.” It is impossible to live without affirmation.

If, as the Internet has suggested, the crowning achievement of hiking alone in wilderness areas is a heightened, ultimately humbling awareness of your vulnerability, then the redwood next to my tent that starts to creak vociferously every time a stray wind comes through the glade is doing wonders for my self-actualization.

Thought (am having a decidedly metaphysical day): the creaking pine is the hinge upon which time’s door remains closed.

3:00 PM. Can’t think straight—head’s a muddle, aching since 2:30 this afternoon after brewing a cup of instant coffee on the Whisperlite. Too much reading (all of The Things They Carried today). Head is overstuffed w/ words—grey moldy cushioning erupting from the seams. Have the drinking and smoking blackened the depths of my brains? No more effulgent, bright glow, just ember-red afterburners, barely visible at work beneath layers of physiological grime.


Strange. Thinking of Mom’s doodlings (kind of like helixes) whenever she’s on the phone. My doodles (when I do draw, which isn’t often, except when bored in class) are angular and linear, like ricks of hay or yucca spines. Sometimes they look like a rain-ruffled crow seen from far away.

Sudsed myself down nekkid in Redwood Creek. Got soap in my right eye (hurts like a mother) , in addition to my lower back being assaulted while bathing by mosquitoes, biting flies, and tiny enchanted forest ghosts angered by my intrusion into their grotto of giant sacrosanct trees. Both my shoulders already have been bit raw—something I noticed after waking up from a mid-afternoon nap earlier today. I look like a plague victim.

Have smushed TWO freak-ass, mutant-growth, Nevada-radioactive, gigantic brown spiders IN MY TENT NEXT TO MY HEAD DISCOVERED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AFTER FUMBLING FOR A FLASHLIGHT TO GO OUTSIDE AND PEE. Suspect they were trying to lay eggs in my ear canal. Makes me think about the fact that I sleep next to the furnace room in the house back in Reno, where there’s probably whole nest of the things getting ready to burst and swarm while I’m asleep, currently hidden in some rotted out rafted.

Tonight, the wind arrives from down valley, harried & staying only a few seconds. From above, it sounds like distant Interstate traffic.

No progress yet re: women.

Sharpness and clarity of vision out here, feeling like invisible flames spurting from tree branches I pass underneath are licking away the strata of corrosive decay, moral uncertainty, and solipsism that have characterized recent months. Sharpness and clarity. So clear & sharp that it cuts.

“You’ve gotta hope that there’s someone for you
as strange as you are.
Who can cope with the things that you do
Without trying too hard.”
-Jon Brion

I probably need someone completely new. Someone a little crazy, overbearing, and obsessive. Who paints cat-shaped color fields and smokes pot and rides her bike and knows how to piss off Congress, who’s slender and frizzy-haired and can backpack Mongolia and brood attractively and likes terrible science fiction. But most of all who knows who to care, sacrifice, and who’s mature enough to recognize the overriding importance of balance, temperance, and judgment. Most of the time. In short, I guess I’m looking for the girl I’ve dreamt about since I was 15, and then give myself over to her completely, tail tucked between my legs.

The sound fro a distant rise comes into the tent. I should be frightened—why is there music playing ten miles from civilization—but instead I’m captivated. It’s 1:04 AM. I’ve just woken up and my eyes feel heavy. It’s the sound of a girl singing, fragile and quiet and cradled by the breeze. I must be imagining things.

Now the wind from downvalley finally comes into the redwood grove with a kind of nervous energy that reminds me of someone arriving late to a party and promptly guzzling a half-bottle of champagne to catch up.