The thinly-veiled sun hangs white out
the driver's side window, the steadiest of companions. Lake Erie
stretches blue-gray to the right, vast and indifferent. Winter has
arrived early in the northern states. Dark bare trees striped with
snow, narrow strips of forest outlasting the billboards. I travel
west as so many before me, seeking answers I will never find.
I am going to a place where people grow
their beards out, relish the smell of woodsmoke, and own large,
healthy dogs. Where people exercise not to look good but to feel
good, where fresh air and physical challenge are daily requirements.
I am going to be amongst the still-raw
remnants of the Precambrian and the Cretaceous, to harness for a
moment the wild and mighty children of a shallow subduction. Despite
the years of erosion, I am still young like they are. I will bask in
their untouchable power and fill my tank with life-lust.
I am going to spend a winter with the
ski industry, filled with the promise of a new approach to
stewardship, a new pathway into the ever-changing mystery.
I am as yet a person of many homes. I
am setting out for one where the ratio of human to nonhuman remains a
bit healthier, where wildness still captures the imaginations of
many.
“What are you doing with your life,
Will?” asks Art in Ed Abbey's Black Sun.
“Staring at the sun,” responds the fire lookout. “Stand on this
tower and stare at the sun until the sun goes … black.”
Perspective
is everything. The world can always be viewed from varying heights,
from towers and trenches. I sip my coffee, check the road ahead,
consider the expanse of the lake and the ambivalent woods.
The white sun hovers bluntly. I afford
myself a brief stare.
