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Abandoned Lake Gregory in
winter. I was young - 14, maybe 15 years old. I recall hiking over to
the little east-side cove, underdressed, in the bone-clattering winter
cold. I remember wearing a hand-me-down brown coat of some sort, with a
pilled faux-fur neck lining; maybe some jeans; a pair of Off the Wall
Vans; certainly not appropriate mountain winter wear. Cold. The home
situation didn't help the temperature. Cold. I had some big, crazy
hair, so that at least kept my head's top a little warm. With salmon
eggs and nightcrawlers, I caught trout, beautiful 'bows, that have me
thinking that maybe, just maybe, those were wild fish that had somehow
-
doubtfully, I admit - been spawned in the silted-in inlet of
Houston Creek. I remember not a blemish on 'em. Vivid green backs and
bright pink stripes, they somehow seemed to parallel the greens and
blues of the conifers and lake's waters, but they opposed the solemn,
austere, lifeless brown and white of the stippled snow peppering the
ground. It gave a loud crunch, that ice-morphed snow, when you stepped
on it. And the light filtering through the bones of the alders - it
burned, it didn't warm. It hurt, it didn't soothe. It stabbed the eyes.
I killed
one of those fish,
a lovely hen about 18 inches. Didn't really know why, only that that
was what you were supposed to do. Fish as food at that age was a hard
concept to accept given the fucking fast-food diet I'd been brought up
with. Didn't take until years, years later with Tom's guiding hand
that, yeah, fish are food, and, in fact, real food - that processed
shit that somehow fueled my aimless life for more than 20 years was the
imitator. I think I probably killed that fish also for the trophy value
and for some sort of fucking recognition from the dreary home.
It didn't
work.
Another grey, somber,
colorless morning, seething of a Scottish moor ambiance, and harkening
back in my memory to Arrowhead. The stifling isolation of being a loner
in my English class, staring outside at the baleful monochrome overcast
world of my sophomore year, looking away from the fucking pasty-faced,
well-adjusted jacks and jills jockeying for pecking-order position.
That human-devoid expanse - it represented a respite from the
cloistered, dangerous, ostracizing modern society by which I felt
myself increasingly interred. The fog and conifers of Arrowhead's
winter - a moist, bog-like, dream-like, sun-less, grey and green-black
vision not unlike that experienced by my ancient memory in western and
central Europe - they could've shielded me, like in a fantasy novel,
from the violent conformity-enforcing mainstream. Clothed in the veil
of the opaque, wet atmosphere, that shitty-ass weather erased much of
the flitting busybody humanity rolling around in their cars, strolling
in the soaking grass, eliminating their presence and thus gifting a
safer world for li'l ol' me. Too, people are such pussies - that little
bit of fog and cold would pin so many in the cocoon of their houses.
And so - in that fucking lame English class, misanthropy brewing and
flowering, I felt a comfort in that milky, freezing air swooning by the
classroom window.
I
remember that fucking awful, dry, gusty, freezing morning after that
shameful fight, that broken-hearted fight, with the big open waters of
the angry sapphire lake as the backdrop, jagged waves, dirty, old snow
smothering broken-down docks and abandoned vacation homes. Austere,
cold and austere, the lake, that mountain lake, could throw some of
yourself back at you with crystal-clear vision. You don't belong here.
The main body of the lake - pliable,
reflecting
every whisper and wail of the wind, pounding violence and sinister
calm, it's very easy to relate those dynamics to gnarly society and the
loves and hates that entity unleashes. But in the coves, the quiet
inlets, that's safety and security and protection and gentleness and an
open love shielded from the rage of weather that bashes and crashes the
volatile open waters. One's extroverted, open to the influence of the
ways of the world, while one's introverted, only ruffled slightly by
the swings and swirls that flail in the lake's center.
And I, of
course, I stalked and sheltered in the inlet's shadows.
Secluded, alone, safe within
the darkness of
the mellow summer night at Arrowhead, where I slinked around docks in
placid cove water and cast the ol' buzzbait for lumbering largemouths
and stout smallies. Pines and cedars shrouded with kindness overhead,
and a perfection of climate clothed my skin and soul with complete
contentment...when alone, at least. As I snaked my way down the dirt
path to unplumbed docks, warm golden lights shone through bay windows,
illuminating elegant dinners attended by successful people, powerful
people, good-looking and well-adjusted and imperious. I longed for a
similar scene, one where I could be at the head of a grand old hardwood
table, in a genteel lakeside cottage, under a winking full moon, my
dining hall filled with effervescent, brilliant, powerful people,
shaping the future world through ideas and ideals. Fine wine and a
hearty dinner and witty conversation and philosophical progression that
would've awed Caesar's court.
But I
always looked from the
outside in, pining, dreaming, daydreaming, wanting, and never, ever
getting even a smidgen close to such a scene. Given the structure of my
life, my mind, attainment of such an ideal was - is - a total fantasy,
a fallacy. My misanthropy, my descent into dissociative ruts, my
awkward social skills, my working-class background, all, the maelstrom
of all those facets of my character, they spiraled the highfalutin
dinner beyond the stratosphere and forever out of my reach. It's taken
me a long, long time to accept that I can never be part of that
mainstream world, that mainstream world of bucks and babes and
recognition. I needed to learn to look away from that middle-class
American world, needed to turn my eyes away, my mind away.
So
I swiveled my head and gazed at the foreboding, impenetrable water
alluring under a violet sky, and I finally accepted my love.