Friday, October 08, 2010

The Wilderness waved

Of late, I have been working in the Poconos. Everything about the Poconos is a misnomer. They are called mountains, THE Mountains, by most Philthadelphians and New Joykers. But they are at best, foothills. The only reason they probably sidestepped that label was the lack of any genuine articles over their shoulders for people to skip over them to goggle at. It doesn't end with geography though. Every clump of cabins, shacks and hovels are called Estates. Every hotel with a putt-putt and waterslide is a Resort. Actually the Resorts might be the only names around here that possess a kernel of truth. If one accepts the alternate meaning of the action of turning to and adopting a strategy or course of action, especially a disagreeable or unpleasant one, so as to resolve a difficult situation, that is. The whole place just has the look of a run-down movie set for a white trash zombie flick that may or may not have ever gotten made.

Sure the work has been lonely, nasty and unrewarding; spending long days in a dank, dark crawlspace in dirt, filth and rotting fiberglass that are probably agitating my chest cold. Sure, I’m trying to fix up a pre-fab house that appears to have been assembled by the three stooges, maintained by someone who firmly believed in the Bugblatter Beast Philosophy of: if you can’t see it, it isn’t real and is ten years beyond it’s shelf-life. Sure, it’s rained most of the time I’ve been here and today, the first time I had a moment, pilfered really, to sit in the sun and write, I was immediately discovered by a swarm of gnatskitos and a pack of puginese yap-hounds. Sure, there’s no running water, no shower, no way to wash hands, face or dishes. Sure I spend two or three nights a week here now away from hearth, home and holly, sleeping on either the floor or my woodpile.

But the two hour drive up here, framed on either side by rolling foothills packed solid with autumn leafy things all the colors of the MnM's in the faithful jar at my side and WHUT slingin' its eccentric mix on the crackily ol’ jukebox reminds me that in my humble, pointless opinion, journeys are a heck of a lot better than destinations. Just hope now that I live long enough and strong enough to retire to that motorbike and tent someday and prove it.

2 comments:

  1. That all sounds kind of gloomy, but hopeful in a faith-filled kind of way. I pray you come out of the desert soon.

    (The optimist in me thinks that, being fond of writing, you could make a story/essay/something out of the experience. That's one blessing that comes from having a desire to write. I used to write a lot from a similar sort of mindset, but these days its all pretty boring and stale and happy. Nothing like struggle to bring out the artist in a writer.)

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  2. Well, hey there stranger. You lost? ;) If you went out looking for positivity, you wandered into the wrong reading room, that's fer sure. You're not the first to notice a gloomy bent to my scribblin's. Faith is the only vessel i find that holds hope without leaking. i used to try and write funny and thoughtful posts but the longer i live, the dingier this world looks to me. Might be one of the reasons i like the plastic bricks, they're always shiny and happy looking.

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