I love these dogs as if they were my own children. I love them more than fire cider, the glowing green smoothie, Skinny Bitch book, seaweed salad, banana-mango-strawberry-kiwi fruit salad, and Thai green coconut curry with tofu combined.
The locals are saying Sunmount will close in 2016, and we're going to have a lot of criminally insane and mentally retarded people let out to fend for themselves. I heard a girl in the grocery store yesterday saying she is afraid. She's taking her four kids and basic necessities and "getting the hell out of here."
I, on the other hand, will probably spend the rest of my life in Tupper Lake. I'm comfortable here. I wouldn't mind caring for a couple adults with special needs myself. Lots of nurses live in Tupper Lake. We'll come together and find a way to take care of our community, even if it means building a large humane facility for residents to live in. The bible even speaks of having a plot of land set aside for people who are shunned from their community for doing something morally wrong. We can figure this out. Some of the convicted criminal residents would make excellent guards, and could keep order for themselves if we move them all out to a barren 20 acre plot of land somewhere and bring them supplies to build their own housing. They would probably like the responsibility and freedom.
That said, I will be purchasing a gun before Sunmount closes.
I feel bonded to the natural landscape here, the seasons, and the people. I don't really care if I never find a job. I was born with a special gift called denial. It's great. I rarely consider the consequences of my actions, and am mostly hopelessly lost in the moment-to-moment of everyday, seldom worrying or wondering what tomorrow may bring. Not ironically, I also have a poor memory. People have been offended at my forgetfulness numerous times. One time I introduced my great-aunt as my great-grandmother, forgetting my great-grandmother had died a year earlier. To boot, my great-aunt was my great grandmother's daughter, so I should have noticed the age difference. Sometimes everyone over the age of 78 looks the same. Who knows if they are 85 or 100. Really.
Anyways. I think my poor memory and inability to foresee future consequences may be related to an accident in my childhood. I was five years old and my uncle pushed me so hard on the swing that my swing went over the bar and I fell on my head from about 10 feet up. In the few years after, I was never quite right. My teachers noticed something was wrong with me but my parents ignored it.
I love my parents. I'm happy to imagine spending the next 40 years helping care for them. I don't need a lot out of this life. Just some personal growth and social interaction from time to time. And a good meal every few days. I don't have a desire to travel and see the world. I can look at pictures on the Internet and read entire books about countries, on the off-chance that I find myself remotely interested in that kind of boring literature anyhow. I'm a tourist in my own town. I won't belong to this world forever. I'm just visiting for a short time. The Adirondacks have plenty to explore. In a hundred years I will feel blessed to have experienced just a fraction of this mountain country.
I don't worry about what I haven't accomplished professionally or personally. I have very little energy invested in this materialistic world. I invest my time and money into fleeting thoughts and songs, road trips, yoga, food, and good conversation. And phone bill, college loans, and gasoline.
I don't know how some people do it all. How can a person function when she misses out on the beauty of nothingness. A quiet, boring, solitary day is a great gift! Play an instrument. Go on a walk. Write a story. Play with your dogs. Watch a movie. Bake cookies. Do a puzzle. Learn to knit. Drink tea. Say a prayer. Read a book.
Keeping up a home, taking care of kids, and working a full time job is too much. I can't fathom the stress and mindlessness with which overachievers function. People are turning into robots.
I spent the night at my sister's house last night, and this morning, as she got ready for a new job training workshop, Bethany said "I'd rather live as a starving artist than work for some asshole." I agreed. We talked about inviting our handy-man friend Fred up to live at her house. The three of us could grow a vegetable garden, and Fred could fix Bethany's kitchen floor which is sinking. We could hike Azure Mountain which is nearby, walk along the campsites in the summer and cross the St. Regis Falls bridge, overlooking fast moving rapids and waterfalls. The water around here is loud and alive. The Amish people come out in their horses and carriages every weekend and set up tables full of zucchini bread and apple butter. The population of my sister's town, just an hour from Tupper Lake, is about 1300. But if you drove through the main intersection of town, you'd think the population was barely 50. Lots of the others live far down dirt roads. Some of these long dirt roads don't have names. The people get their mail at the post office. I imagine these people to be unrecognized artists, nature-lovers, recluses, and druggies. These people live in a different universe, a different time era altogether. I have yet to meet these people hiding in the woods. But I find the mystery of their lives enchanting.
My sister and I didn't speak for over a year. We had a fight last year (it was her fault) but I ended up apologizing because I missed her, and I have a reputation for holding grudges and acting cold and heartless, so I wanted to challenge myself. And I won. We spent a few days together this past week. We went to a funeral Saturday, then visited our 93 year old grandmother who lives on Lake Flower in Saranac lake. I tried to teach my Grandmother some simple yoga stretches but she finally yelled at me when I attempted to get her in a push-up (plank) position. I yelled back, "Grandma you can do this! Don't give up so easily! Do it for me! Do it for yourself!"
Grandma sat back down in her rocking chair and rolled her eyes at me and did some kind of smacking noise with her mouth and picked up her crossword. She ignored me for the rest of my yoga demonstration and spoke with Bethany instead. Bethany took some pictures of my yoga poses and then we all took pictures together. We sat on the couch, Grandma in the middle, and we smiled.
Yesterday Bethany turned 30. There was no cake or candles or alcohol, unless you want to count a few hard apple ciders. We walked to the gas station and bought a chicken sub. On my way out, I saw a package of donut holes called "Pop-Ems!" And there was soda and candy bars and cigarettes. I got angry. This is very, very bad. All these "food" items. They're not food. They're addictive chemical concoctions. And I don't like buying the gasoline at the gas station in the first place. I am going to make friends with the Amish people in St. Regis Falls this summer. I will boldly ask them to take me to their homes and teach me everything I need to know in order to live without electricity.
And a lady from my church is taking me mushrooming this summer, too. I'm running a half marathon in May. And I've been walking on my treadmill 4-6 days/week at full incline for 20 minutes. Biggest Loser Finale is next Monday night. Woo hoo!
Anyways. The reason I brought up the Amish people after writing about the gas station, is I realized I want to ride a horse and give up my car. I will ask the Amish people to teach me how to take care of a horse and train it to be used for transportation. I'm not kidding. Maybe I'll babysit and do home school for their kids in return for use of a horse a few days a week. I hope the horse can walk 100 miles so I can visit everybody I want to see. I wonder how I'll clean up horse poop in town. Maybe the rain will wash it away. This will require some further thought.
A local woodsman named Ross Friend talked to me after church one Sunday about a friend of his who built a tee-pee. I want to meet this friend (not Ross Friend), but Ross Friend's friend, and ask him to help me build one in my parent's back yard. And my dad said he'd help me build a mini ecosystem greenhouse this Spring if I gather the information for supplies and assembly.
I babysit a boy who hunts squirrels and other small rodents very successfully. He once caught a squirrel barehanded after throwing a rock that stunted the squirrel. He said he cried after seeing the squirrel agonizing in pain for a moment between shock and death. This kid will definitely be on my team when the the world starts to end.
This winter I've realized the importance of hunkering down with one another. People need people. Conversations keeps our brains fresh with thoughts. We can give energy to one another. Or we can suck the energy out of someone if we are being negative. I wrote a facebook post today that said I declare today as "Be nice to everybody day". I think a lot of good would come if everyone was good for one day. The world would change. Nobody having a bad day? Means nobody taking out their bad day on someone else and giving that someone else a bad day. And the cycle continues.
Winter in Upstate NY is beautiful and bright. You need sunglasses just to look out on the fresh snowfall. Sometimes it snows for three days straight. I get a workout every time I brush snow and scrape ice off my car, sometimes five or more times a day. We're used to it. Nobody complains about it either. Ever. It's part of life here. Most people here have fireplaces. My parents have a small white ceramic wood-stove. Its warmth is soul-soothing.
Sharing a living area with other warm, breathing bodies, and cozied up on the couch with a blanket and a book, is pulchritudinous. Life doesn't get much more beautiful than this. We turn on Fox news occasionally. There's a smell of assorted veggies roasting in the oven. A dog or two sprawled out upon the cool hardwood floor, the scraping of ash from the fire and the forceful squeeze of one or two more big logs; the squeaky bathroom door, and the occasional stepping on a squeaky toy or tripping over someone's boot in the overcrowded entryway; just enough interjections to the potentially maddening stillness that takes some people down the bunny trail in winter here.
Winter can be hard on Adirondack people. I fall down the bunny trail sometimes, but God's grace is new every morning, just as the bible says. Everyday is a fresh start and a new full store of energy for the day. I do my best not to waste that energy on digesting big meals or being angry at someone. But sometimes the day is so screwed up I just throw in the towel. I become self-destructive. But I know tomorrow is a new day.
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