1968 — SOFT LANDING

In early March, I set up housekeeping on the back end of Kay and Paul’s property.

I had pitched my army surplus tent on the far corner of the land. It was quite a lovely setting. I was backed up to the redwood forest, that also contained, small smatterings of bay laurels and scrub pines. The heady sharp scent of the bay trees, brought the fragrance of natures incense, into my tent, my clothes and covered, my often naked body, with its peppery and pervasive scent.

The four months in my army green shelter, were the first time I had actually been able to settle down and plant my tender, tenuous roots. I had temporarily escaped, the shifting sands, that had defined my recent living situations.

I was finally in a quiet place. I had not understood how badly I needed the solidity, serenity and certainty, that comes from staying in one locality. In time my mind and thoughts became slow and easy to see. I felt settled, and real.

When I purchased my tent, I also picked up a few other things at the surplus store. A small, but very workable, two burner, kerosene cook stove. I purchased, three olive green blankets, that were almost new. I also acquired, two kerosene lanterns and some very cute, but practical cooking accouterments.

I went to the Goodwill and found some sheets, bath towels and dinner ware. I also found a small snow globe that had a little figure of Santa in it. When I shook it, that drizzly, drazzly snow, would fly around inside the globe and would, in time, slowly filter down, to layer the scene inside.

Sometimes in the yellow kerosene light of my tent, I would gently, shake and roll that ball, just to watch the snowy, plastic flakes, create their own little, localized, blizzard.

The nights there, were enveloped by the sounds of crickets, owls and bugs. Leaves and branches, would rub against each other, creating a night time concert,in which I had front row, stage center seating, there in mother natures, Grand Old Opera House.

It took about a week to get set up. I built a small altar with two boxes and a board, which I covered with slippery red and teal, silk scarves. I had my little snow globe, a candle in a old sugar bowl, a flower arrangement, which I freshened daily, with the local flora. I also placed, a small Buddha statue, an incense burner, and a fresh black and white tube of chapstick, which sat in a small, curved, wooden bowl.

That little altar represented something that was truly mine. Whenever someone would come to visit, they would sit on my futon bed, and gaze at the candlelit altar, and its kind of funny, they never touched, its small sacred space.

To this day, I continue the tradition of having, a small altar to create that same spiritual zone in my bedroom. In fact I am seeing that little altar, from the side of my eye, its small glowing lotus lamp that sits among, my many Buddhas and small deity pictures. It’s sits there, as it always has, bringing its lightness and peace, into the room where I sleep.

I am writing this story, on a Spring evening, in the Appalachians, far away from those warm primavera nights in California.

But in this moment, I am there, hearing the night bugs sing, and the bodies of branches, making their sweet, slow love to each other, somewhere, out there, in the darkness.

Paul had very kindly dug me, a small fire ring, which I surrounded with rocks and old red bricks. Every evening I would build a diminutive squaw fire, which I would poke and fiddle with, using, a special a tree branch I had selected, for that very purpose. I would sit on a tree stump, and poke the fire, watching the slow moving, brilliant flickers of the bright ashes, that would flare and float, and finally disappear, into the dark arms embrace, of the velvety night.

I drank in the peace, of that short time, there in my little dot of serenity; as the world outside, went raging on.

April was coming, and my fragile peace would be shattered and scattered in the winds, of the months, that were to come.

More to follow…