7:13 A.M.
Oh God, oh God, you answered my prayers! I slept and slept, 10 or 11 hours. I dreamed about Ruth! I adore Ruth, I haven’t seen her in years. She’s a big kindly rugged denim type, and Vancouver’s undisputed master of vintage British car parts. You can hand her a nameless lump of aluminum and she’ll say something like “Hmm. Sludgepump impeller counterweight for a ’61 Healy Sprite. Hold on, dear.” and go rummaging in a big dirty cardboard box full of such things and come up with its match. She’s amazing. I wonder how she is? Well, I hope.
7:30 A.M.
Had to pause cuz the water was boiling. Had my morning fat’n’carb party. Now it’s just you, me and tea, waiting for the sun to poke itself over the mountaincrest to our east.
That night of sleep was great, and puts me back in the game, but it doesn’t fill the tank by any means. I’m still fatigued. I’m gonna ask God for more after suncrest. There’s an old Sanskrit saying: “Without him, not even an atom would move.”
Now, I think I’ll don my shiverpants (If you’ve never done this, I cannot tell you how gross the feeling is. I laugh every time I’ve done it) and get a few branches off the slashpile and onto Hanuman Manor before suncrest. Cya soon!
9:00 A.M.
Suncrest sit was for the greatest pranic powerhouse I know: the mighty Pandora. How’s it goin, girlfriend? You awe me.
Suncrest sit was also darned near my last. And it was a death that would have been not merely ignominious, but downright hilarious. My right lower leg kinda fell asleep while I was sitting, and as I stood up afterwards, I got my feet all tangled up in each other, and I stumbled, and I executed this spastic little Jim Carey pirouette, and I pitched headlong over the rail of the bridge.
I didn’t hit the water or anything; I caught myself with my right arm around the big log that is the rail. I had one arm and one leg swaying in the void, then no arms but two legs, then one leg, then I was lying on my back on the deck of the bridge and giggling for a long time.
It probably wouldn’t have actually killed me unless I’d manifested the union of sahasrara chakra and a boulder and knocked my oaf ass out. If I hadn’t done that, I probably just would have wound up squelching back to camp soggy, shivering and sheepish. But it was nervy enough that I’ll rise from meditation more mindfully next time. Hahahaha!
Bad yogi: there’s things that I want. I want a trio of drying racks on the sandy area. I want a proper rock firepit with a cooking crane in front of Hanuman Manor. I want sawhorses. And I want the rest of that slashpile on the Manor roof.
Slashpile is just lift, carry and place. As for the construction, logic dictates that I do the sawhorses first. So I’m gonna go ahead and do the drying racks. I’ll let you know how it goes.
11:45-ish A.M
What has gone, has gone swimmingly. There are three drying racks where there once was one, there is a firepit with a flat rock in it and a cooking crane over it, there are leftover johnnycakes in my tummy. I can’t tell you what a difference a night’s sleep has made, Gentle Reader.
Mom says that ever since I was a baby, if something scared me, I had to get up in its face. I’d go after it like a pitbull. Heroin scared me. I saw what it was doing to those people, how it drained the life force out of them and turned them into something not quite human. They move like zombies. I’ve moved like that, now.
I’m so glad I did that. Man, I don’t wanna do it again, but I’m so glad I did that. I sure can say that about a lot of things.
We’re getting into the not working part of the day, here. Time to change to shorts soon. But I think first I’ll sit. This one, with great enthusiasm, is for Victoria, whom I worship. Victoria puts her formidable power to work bringing some succor to those people. She’s a nurse for Insight, the safe injection facility. She does outreach. She goes right into the SROs, all day, every day, helping those people. Namaste, Vee. Hey, didja know about me? I kinda thought maybe you knew, that those last couple teas were checkups. Anyways, this meditation is for you, and Adam too. Love to you both.
3:40 P.M.
Heya Gentle Reader! Hadta come check in. I get to missing you, y’know?
What an awesome day. Day 13 is the first day here I haven’t been fighting fatigue, and much has got done.
Like every other thing I touch in life, the firepit is overdone. I’m gonna redo it tomorrow, make it a little smaller.
Tomorrow is Saturday, so there could be some monkey movement (other than me) around here. Some of those monkeys might be associated to me. Deb vowed to check up at two weeks (over my weary, spite-weighted objections) at the latest. I actually hope she does now. I desperately want word.
But what would I do if she asked me to come out? Blargh. Come out, of course. And you know, it wouldn’t be the end of the darned world. This isn’t the last trip of its kind available to me, I can do it again anytime I want. And I’ve accomplished a lot. Yeah, there’s a lot left to do, but there always will be, and if I’m needed back down in the rat race, then I can do it later. But boy, I sure hope I won’t be asked to come out.
I’m still scared. There’s something waiting for me out here, or more accurately, inside me. Another demon. I don’t know if I fight him this trip. I want to fight him, I want it over with. He’s a big one.
I should sit. Talk soon. xo.
Oh! Dedication! One I’ve been thinking of a lot. One who’s never far from my thoughts, ever. Mel. The one I couldn’t save. I love you, girl.
7:05 P.M.
My dear friend, I am stuffed.
I’m gonna call dinner tonight “Bush Jambalaya”, cuz who’s gonna stop me? It was:
1 tin cup rice
2 tin cups water
1 can Aylmer’s Italian Accent stewed tomatoes
4 crushed and diced cloves of garlic
2 heaping teaspoons chili flakes
simmered in a cast iron dutch oven for 20 minutes and garnished with a can of tuna. Bravissimo. I took pictures, cuz it was the first use of the new cooking crane.
I know I should be vegan. I hate subsidizing pain, death and suffering with my eating habits. I was vegan for about 3 weeks. Friends and family suggested (with a note of pleading in their voices) that I go back to meat; I was short tempered, absent-minded, and looked like I had cancer. I was assisted by a few experiences that taught me that people can in fact be vegetarians or even vegans and complete douchebags at the same time. None of those experiences involved Reno or S.J..
So I’m easing into more compassionate eating habits. I’m mostly piscatarian now. I came up here with the intention of taking fish and small game; I busted my fly rod on the first cast of the trip (and busted that silly repair attempt on the first cast, too). I got this strong feeling that God didn’t want me to kill anybody, and you know, I found myself not really wanting to kill anybody either, I just want to learn to meditate. So I haven’t. The fish in cans that I’ve got I’ve been eating, I can’t help them, they’re already dead.
I sure do like this firepit. Maybe I’ll leave it be. Maybe a big man needs a big firepit. /nuzzle.
Dopesick Yoga 