On pain and sobriety

I am the kind of person who is apt to appreciate the most base parts of life. Often, the only things needed to make my day are a nice cup of tea, some beautiful flowers, and some quality time alone or with my loved ones in the sunshine. Other times, however, I can get into a funk where I look at the world around me and think, "is that all there is?" (is that all there is? If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing...)

I now understand that those thoughts come from a well of sensory overload and material indulgence. It's hard to be grateful for things you've never been denied access to. I think of prisoners in solitary confinement who spend years without shampoo or a magazine to read, and try to imagine what it would be like -- to look at such a colorful collage of words and images after looking at nothing but gray cell walls and your own hands and feet for far too long.

So in order to keep appreciating the smaller pleasures in life, I must practice restraint. Chasity. I do this almost automatically through my work as a forester. I come to the woods to harness my animus in my animal state. I eat plain meals and defecate in dirt holes. I banish my cell phone to the front pocket of my backpack to read and write and meditate and hike. Sometimes I stare at my tent wall and (try) to think of nothing.

Inevitably, the cravings come. For food, beer, white wine and rum. Good company. The sweet scent of a cherry clove cigarette. A hug and a kiss from the one I love. On day four [of work], a hot shower. A warm bed. Menial electronic entertainment (Instagram, The Kardashians, and the like...)

Other times, the cravings don't come at all, because I feel energized and totally immersed in my work. I find my flow, and like the great, white river it thrashes and roars with powerful, creative energy. On these hitches, I almost feel disappointed when the weekend comes. Can't I stay in the woods, drinking in the clean, sweet air, and the crisp, cold mountain water? Must I face jaded people in crowded grocery stores, stand under harsh fluorescent lighting, and be nauseated by the putrid scent of chemical perfumes? (yes, yes I do...)

As a teenager, I would hurt myself in order to feel something. I think I also did so in order to prove to myself that I was alive. The very act of self-harming was an overindulgence into the wild, hungry animal creature that lives in the pit of my stomach -- a toxic version of my starved animus, who was the shadow of who he was, before I honored him and made the necessary sacrifices to set him free.

But although I haven't cut myself in years, the inner urge to carry out masochistic practices has not evaded me. I channel it now through the pain of ten mile uphill hikes, rock climbing, and hours upon hours of strength training. And eating spicy foods, and getting Brazilian waxes, tattoos and piercings.

I know a boy who harvested stinging nettle until his bare hands were shaking. And as he told me how he did so, he smiled up until he leaned in to kiss me.

Fissure

It’s easy to find cock in West Virginia, Reno thought. In the summer, at least—when the telephone poles dressed themselves in kudzu, and the smell of chicken shit permeated the air. Now it was winter and he and Cindy were stripping the last of their farmed flock of their feathers and skin.

This winter they had resorted to hunting geese, for the quality and quantity of the meat as well as the rewards it reaped far surpassed anything he and Cindy had ever eaten, slept on, or had been able to buy. The bounty of this year’s harvest had been reaped of its reward, and was going towards Reno’s missing metal legs.

As of now, he stood on two, perpendicular metal chopsticks that were as elegant and useless as a pair of stilettos, and which sunk into the earth with the thawing of the spring snow.

1.

The lake that surrounded Reno and Cindy’s farm was of much curiosity to the couple and to their surrounding neighbors. It was only a few minutes walk from the most outwardly placed geese coop from their home, and the trail that led to it was surrounded by old barbed wire fences that were leftover from a naval base that had previously occupied the land. During the summers, the lake emanated a placid green, and in the harshest winters, it froze over and transformed into an ice-skating rink.

Reno liked to tell the story of a wild man who had claimed the rink for his own on a heavy, black motorcycle and two handles of gin. It was the kind of story that had been passed down through at least two generations and that kept tourists coming through these dying, American towns. No one knew if the story was true or not, or if the wild man was real. If the story was true, and the wild man really had existed as a fleshly being, he had lost his way in a drunken stupor and had blinded himself to the truth of his frigid circumstances. If the story was false, well then that, Reno thought, was a damn sorry shame.

And so when Reno thought of the wild man, he also felt the weight of his metal legs--and his work grew sloppy. The mundanity of his work brought forth a lot of time to think and play inside of his head. With a shovel in hand and his music player set on shuffle, he was set to dig at the earth and think, and occasionally focus his gaze on a shiny, iridescent light that shimmered from across the lake at sunset.

“You ever wonder what the source of that light glint could be?” Reno threw the question at his wife while scraping the stubble off of his chin with a wet razor. Cindy was using a dry comb to brush out the kinks in her long, curly hair.

“I’m thinking it’s just a lighthouse, or maybe sunlight reflecting off a window. You know, window glint.”

“I’m thinking it’s something else, something more special than that”, said Reno. “It’s prettier than just window glint.” He tapped the dried hairs off of his razor, ran the sharp metal under the sink.

“Nah, nothin’ but window glint.” Cindy yanked the split ends from between her fingers and threw them in the trash. “Or reflections of trucks and boats and cop cars. Your pick.”

Reno shrugged and wiped off the hair with a towel that was sticky with lint. Cindy took her clothes off. Reno took off his shirt, and they both climbed into bed. Reno draped his arms over her breasts. He brushed his fingers over her nipples. They were cold and goose-pimpled. Cindy allowed for his hands to wander, but Reno chose not to make any advances. He kept quiet, and thought more about the wild man.

Cindy sighed. “Geese need feedin’ early tomorrow. I’m goin’ to sleep.” And then she turned over, wiggled out of her brassiere and slept.

But sleep didn’t come to Reno until much later. In the early hours of the morning, he dreamt of ice and blood and a pair of broken crampons. Looking into the bathroom mirror before breakfast, he saw that his eyes were nearly bloodshot.

2.

Reno got to work, shoveling goose down feathers and sorting them into their respected burlap bags. The work grew hot and heavy, so he took off his flannel shirt and scratched at his beard. On break he took the time to watch the geese, whose migrating patterns thickened their V’s as the weather droned on into winter.

A month passed like this, and then another one, as Reno and Cindy laughed and labored over their homestead. The fall season passed, and the months blended one into one. There was Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas, with the proper amount of booze and festivities alloted for each. On New Years Eve, Reno watched as his niece picked up a piece of brown sea glass on the shoreline of the frozen lake. She smiled as she held it up to her eye and looked at the light which had ensnared Reno’s imagination. She looked through it, then beyond it, and then threw it back onto the lake (“whip-smart girl”, he thought).



3.

Reno laid in bed, his arms folded under him and his ears muffled by a layer of blankets. Somewhere in the house, there was a repetitive clanging that was giving him a headache. He pushed off the covers, shivered off the cold. He felt for the empty space beside him. Cindy had gone off to Georgia -- said the winter was giving her heartache and making her feel blue.

The clanging grew louder still. It called him out of bed and gave him a calling for the task he felt moved to fulfill.

4.

Reno pushed himself against his bed frame to hoist himself up, felt the metal of the prosthetics dig into his groin. The pain only made him feel more excited, more in love with the lake and the legend of the wild man. He forgoed the fabled gin on his way out. He wanted to experience the great wide world while he was sober.

Reno pulled on his down jacket, found the source of the clanging (it was an open window) and locked it shut. He marched his way through the snow and took the trail that led to the lake -- it was still frozen over.

The air around him was near-silent and muffled, save for the quiet squawking of the geese from the farm. Reno looked at the frozen waters, and without any hesitation -- he stepped onto the ice, slowly at first, nervous that it would give way -- and then took a few more steps, when he felt that the ice was steadier than the earth -- and to his surprise, the ice neither fissured nor complained!

Ahead, there was nothing but ice to cover and the faint, crocodile tooth zig-zag of the Shenandoahs, which he could barely make out underneath the blankness of the sky and the highlight of white horizon. Step by step, he sank his way into the lake ice, looking for a hint of a glimmer.  He saw none until the sunset. And by that time, he had lost sight of the shoreline.

But that didn’t matter. The light held him -- starstruck. He basked in its warmth as the sun withdrew its own. He basked in its warmth long after the northern star outshone it.