That was a nice surprise! Having returned from a two month hiatus I got a score* of happy comments welcoming me back to the living. I appreciate that! Also a few coffees popped up in “buy me a coffee”. Nice!
I would have done everything I’ve done regardless, but it feels less like a solo venture. The nudge of encouragement was very welcome.
(*Also, where but my own blog would I be able to use the old definition of “score”: meaning “twenty”? So long as weirdos like me have a place to be, not every bit of the world is toned down.)
How do I describe my motivation this weekend? Our modern world is awash in Newspeak. There’s currently no easy way to say “feeling down in a manner that’s entirely reasonable due to circumstances”. Depression is incorrect. You’re supposed to feel down after a death. Sad is inadequate. Regardless, one “cure” for “depression” is exercise. Another is “getting shit done”. So I did both.
My firewood pile has been neglected in my absence. It’s inadequate for the winter. If I run out (which is a certainty so far) I’ll have to heat with fuel oil. Fuel oil is expensive (oh how nice those few years of cheap oil really were!). Also the furnace heats the house but it’s never without a chill. So it would suck but I won’t die.
I much prefer wood. It heats the house better and it “feels right”. I don’t know how to say that either. It’s “right” because it makes me happy, because nobody extracted from me a fortune in taxes for a tree, because it’s local, because it’s traditional… because it works absolutely fine even though it’s age old technology. For all those reasons I guess.
So I fired up my woodsplitter and started stacking. It’s hard work. Time and stress has taken it’s toll. I’m a little more out of shape than I’d like. I’m older than I was.
But I did some stacking on a blustery Saturday afternoon. It wasn’t much but it was some. Then I rested.
On Sunday it was light drizzle, good weather to sit inside feeling sorry for myself. Instead I stacked more wood. It was a little chilly and a little rainy but as my grandma used to say “what do you care if it rains, you won’t melt”.
Every woodsplitter generates a pile of cast off bits of wood as it’s used. These are parts and hunks that are too small to stack, bigger than sawdust, and usually half rotten or otherwise useless. It includes lots of bark and a fair amount of dirt. Wood is natural in all it’s organic messiness. I raked the pile onto a shovel, pushed it away from my woodshed, and lit it. It took forever for the wet bark to catch but it eventually did. I kept splitting and stacking while the little fire smoked and sputtered.
Then the skies opened up and all hell broke loose! I wound up sitting inside my rickety woodshed. I parked a lawnchair near the open doorway (there is no door) and sat just beyond the storm. There was enough heat coming off the fire to warm me… barely.
Outside the rain was very cold… approaching sleet. It rained hard. Every now and then I’d throw another couple shovel loads of waste wood onto the fire; getting soaked in the process.
I drank a beer and watched the world wash away. Exercise is good for you. A warm fire in a rainstorm might be all you need.
I didn’t stack a full supply for the winter. I’m only human and I use a lot of wood in a winter. I’m barely halfway there.
But I’m in better shape than when I started. I mean that in every sense of the word.
I hope your weekend was as fruitful as mine.
“It’s hard work. Time and stress has taken it’s toll. I’m a little more out of shape than I’d like. I’m older than I was.”
Ain’t that the everlovin’ truth.
Kurt
A report that fills me with happiness. Glad to hear from you friend.
I’ve been seeking about 400-450 pounds of potatoes for my root cellar. Seems the voles had way too much fun in my potato patch this year.
Oddly three local grocery stores cannot help me with bulk orders this year.
Might be seeking a ratter dog for vole duties as this isn’t the first year of troubles, just not to this degree of damage. Cats seem not up to the task.
Keep moving forward buddy, one step at a time.
Therapy, it’s good for what ails ya. Glad you’re as healthy as I thought you were. I admire your “get after it!” attitude. “It’s good to warm my bones beside the fire…” Pink Floyd.
Sad is a poor way to express grief, but I don’t really know another word for how that feels. Give it time..
Glad to have you back buddy.
certainly have missed your writing. thanks for starting your comeback. like i’ve told myself so many times, “head down and just one foot in front of the other”. il.chuck
“Also, where but my own blog would I be able to use the old definition of “score”: meaning “twenty”? So long as weirdos like me have a place to be, not every bit of the world is toned down.”
Count me in as another weirdo. My blog banner is “A Four Score Graybeard”.
The wood pile is almost the equal of the tree stand for deep philosophical cogitation.
I’ve been working on things, but this year has been a bit plodding.
A few years back, I had a freaking divine bolt of inspiration, and I grabbed it and worked on it. Two months of furious nights and weekends effort later, and I had a major creative work (that has sold all of 12 copies, but that wasn’t really the point.) I had *finished* something. It was an extremely weird experience – right from the very start, I knew what it was supposed to be, how it was supposed to work. There was a lot of discovery as I ground out all the details, but the overarching architecture was there from minute 1.
And I’ve *never been able to get that back*, and sometimes it drives me a bit crazy. I don’t usually work like that. If I could manage to work like that consistently, I’d (something something, insert childish fever dream about standing astride the world like a colossus.) I mentioned to someone that I was sounding like one of these artsy types remonstrating with his muse. So If I could get ahold of my muse … eh, maybe why it has been elusive.
I did manage to shovel till my garden. That’s something. (Trying to turn my heavy clay soil into something supportive of life other than the von Neumann weeds.)
Good luck with your grief and recovery from your loss.