"We are lived by powers we pretend to understand."
--W.H. Auden
Have you ever learned something new, but simultaneously had the sensation you knew it before?
I've had a couple of these experiences that are easier to explain, like coming across a piece of alternate history that resonates so deeply it seems like it aligns with a timeless memory that lives somewhere at the core of me.
And then there have been occasions that are more difficult to explain. I'm thinking of moments riding passenger with my husband, listening to a song, looking out at the forests pass by, with their angles of light striking this land that I love, and feeling something I've always known come into me, like a download, like an orb of knowing that just then inserted itself into my spine, but I could never put words around or make sense of in any linear timeline, or categorize under any specific branch of knowledge, and usually I'm moved to tears, but joyful grateful tears. These are lovely moments, but I wish I understood better what is happening right then. Despite, I welcome it.
I've returned now to my home, to this golden mountain land that holds me best, and it is a similar feeling here- I've long felt I knew this place, even when I first came upon it. I learn of a Davidson family who were one of the first settler families in Chesaw, and grin. There is Tiffany Resort a few miles north from here. I hike to the top of Tiffany Mountain, in the Tiffany Range of Okanogan County, and think, what are the odds?
I know that much of this existence is shrouded in mystery, despite us thinking we've got it figured out. And I like to brush alongside that mystery all throughout the day. What finer, more inspiring, more charming companion is there? I like to figure out, and I also like to let be, and to wonder.
Back in the mountains I know and love (and who I like to think feel the same way back), and I got to spend one lovely day with my husband before he was abruptly called back to wildfire camp.
We have spent only a handful of days together since mid-July and are at such an exhaustion with it all. Were it not for work keeping me so busy Monday through Friday, I think I'd be struggling much more so. But the loneliness and longing and missing creep up sometimes and I feel anguish, then irritated, then sad, all before managing to distract myself and get over it.
I'll not groan on any further about that, though I certainly could, instead I'll mention the lovely Sunday we did get to spend together recently, riding down the roads we know so well, in the land we love, to our favorite spots in the middle of complete nowhere together. We had breakfast at our favorite little place on Bonaparte Lake, then Eric did some fishing while I photographed rosehips and light hitting the water and all the other things. Then we hush-walked through the forest hunting grouse, and sang our favorite songs up into our Chesaw Highlands. And it felt so...good...to be with my husband again, in our life, our place, our way... and I'll hold tight to that until he finally gets back home for good.
I have learned something about myself: I don't just love big, wild places, but I require to live in one. Nothing pleases me more or connects me to What is Real so much as being in a quiet and undisturbed land, and that being my home. I spent the summer living in the most quaint spot, and I have a love for bucolic towns and even the rolling green hills of my old Kentucky home, but I can only spend so long in even these places as each day I feel a special part of my spirit slip away, bit by bit, and I don't know why it's this way. The countryside is nice anywhere you go, but I just get so much inspiration from big open landscapes where there is hardly any sign of human life for big distances. It feeds into me like the deepest nourishment imaginable. I also find that my health vastly improves in the high, dry Rocky Mountain landscape. Here in our Okanogan Highlands, we're perfectly nestled between the North Cascades and Rocky Mountain ranges, rarely dipping below 3,000 feet in elevation even in the valleys, with very low humidity, and it has done wonders for my sinus health. When I spend more than a month in lower elevation, wetter climates, I start to feel bogged down, watery inside, like my head is a fish bowl. But this is just a lot of almost-midnight digressing, isn't it?
This does make me think about something I find interesting, though. Something I truly wonder about. It's an observation that I've looked at from several different angles to test, and it seems that it is really the case. Maybe you can chime in with your thoughts. I have wondered about our affinity for development. When I say 'our' I mean primarily the European culture, and particularly Americans. I've long picked up on a sentiment from family members of a clear preference for development, and for the marketplace. I recall riding in the car with my grandmother once and her pointing out that the [undeveloped] forest felt "sad" to her. I've noticed that even a plowed field feels better to most than just a purely wild or untouched area that has simply been left alone. Better even than a plowed field though would be a new neighborhood or restaurant. Most everyone I know back home would find this land that I love and call home to be terrible, or empty.
Then, over the past few months I watched Ken Burns "The West" series. And maybe it's propaganda or one-sided not in favor of the conquerors? Certainly possible. But the stories seemed very real, many of them firsthand accounts, and I noticed there too this natural tendency and preference for development amongst "my people" (this is a long and nuanced conversation of course, as "my people" were arguably themselves conquered long ago as Rome took out the Gauls).
I'm certainly not anti-development. But I am anti-development for development's sake. If development is thoughtful, well-planned, considerate of the future, beautiful and helpful, then yes, yes! But my goodness- that is rarely ever the case, and especially here in America. And I can't help but notice how consumed we are with all of it, this development that makes us crave more, and distances us from any kind of divinity. Yet, so many think that development is "God's way" and that this is bringing order.
I find order in the architecture of a medieval cathedral, sure, but I truly find it standing in a grove of Aspens as the wind whips through and the leaves quake, dropping to the ground to cover their own root-feet for the incoming winter. I am witness to order in the gliding hawk and the rattling tail of the snake, and the doe who licks the urine from her fawn to keep predators from noticing. This order too is in the predator, the emotionless way it kills, unlike us, no hate or psychosis pulsing through its blood, just hunger- simple and innocent, and orderly.
And now that I've rattled on past my bedtime, I'd better scurry off and get myself to sleep. Tomorrow morning I lead my hiking group out into the mountains, then Sunday I go help a friend harvest and clean up a large greenhouse jungle-garden.
Wishing you lovely Fall days, as the sun falls lower and lower. I'll be back here soon.
