Journals. No. 2
Late August, September 2014
Late August
I went for a walk tonight, hearing that the aurora borealis would be visible from Nebraska. As I stepped out of the house, I found it was cold out, about 45, and I was blind in the sudden darkness beneath the trees. I walked slowly forward, my hands in front, staring down at the ground as it slowly became visible. The stars shone brightly in the sky of an unrisen moon. My vision finally adjusted as I walked out into the fields. I stood and stared north for a minute, then I walked further west and looked again. Nothing. There was a pale glow, but it came from the city. I wait for a while longer, and then turned to go just as a large meteor ran in a bright line across the sky, and I realized how huge the sky is, and how small the ceiling is that would soon be over my head.
24.September
I can see my breath in the tent this morning. I light a little olive oil lamp to add a bit of warmth. The light outside comes diffused through the tent walls, and I watch the fabric above me grow lighter as the shadows fade away. I walk outside and wait until the sun gets up in the sky, then I pull the tent down and pack it away. It fits into a cylinder that’s only 4 inches wide by 18 long, but it will be a home to me for the next few months.
On the week that I plan to go, leaves begin to fall off the trees and collect on the ground. I go for a walk down an old railroad grade that runs over a slow stream. I sit there and toss bits of rocks down into the water, thirty feet below. The water turns into thin ripples, like a fingerprint. I aim for a large rock below, but every single stone I throw misses it.
I lay back and look up at the sky. The wind slows down, and the maple next to my dangling legs stops moving. My mind has gone through hundreds of internal landscapes over the past few days: from anxiety to despair. Today the mood has been replaced by a not-caringness, a strange lack of enthusiasm. I sit up again and throw one last rock, without aiming at anything. Somehow, it strikes a thin red twig lodged against a rock by the current, and it bounces rapidly. When I finally stopped trying, I ended up hitting something impossible to hit.
