I am very tired. Not really anything new, but I thought I would cry on your collective shoulders. We work typically just under 14 hrs each day and we get a what they are calling a "day off". This so called "day off" is actually just 24 hrs when we reverse out our schedule from days to nights or vice-versa. The end result is you are more tired after your day off and just when you are getting over the shift change, its time to change again. ugh.
I feel like a zombie looks. I wander around in a fog with the buzz of a redbull fighting the dull weight of my eyes. My iPod beeps me awake after too few hours. I navigate the gravel to the shower trailer just before the sun goes down. The cold nighttime becomes a companion of mine. It wraps me in annonemity as the other zombies can't recognize me in the dark and engage me in small talk about the Oakland Raiders. I listen to Garrison Keillor's monologues in my headphones and imagine that its maybe Clarence Bunson or Pastor Inkvist passing by me in the darkness. The night is so dark without the moon that I navigate by the feel of the gravel. There is a swath of larger rocks that leads away from my CHU. To the right is my company, to the left is the showers and latrines. When my footsteps find some smaller rocks and dirt I correct my heading back into the large gravel. I suppose that is how blind people feel walking around everywhere.
I have only flown once in the past month but I am scheduled to fly day for three weeks consecutively. Flying makes the time go by in a hurry. Every day that I fly is so busy that its over before I know it. I hate it and I love and couldn't care less about it all at the same time.
There is no purpose here. There isn't even a good rhythm to follow. There is no striving, no motivation. This is a place where spirits fade like all the cloth and paint until everything is just sand.
63 Years of Memories....
63 Years of Memories....
that's what I have now. The photo below shows the chair on the point which for so many years was my father's favorite after-supper place to contemplate and cast for walleye. As much as I feel guilty about what's happened, I know he would understand and even say there's nothing to forgive. He lived life fully and moved on many times. I'm the one with the unique experience of being attached to a beautiful place for my whole life. And despite all my best efforts, yesterday the 'cabin' was sold. I signed the papers and, truth be told, a weight was lifted. A new life lies ahead without the obligations, but with all of the wonderful memories. My unrelentingly positive attitude says this is truly how it is, but my heart is still sad.
There are some things in life for which the balance between the obligation and the joy of ownership often cannot be sustained forever. It became clear that I was no longer up to the task of taking care of the place quite a while back. However, knowing what needs to be done and doing it are often far apart. Finally, no choice was left. It had to be sold.
Now it's gone. No more worrying about how long the grass or how deep the snow is up there. No more sublimely pleasurable early morning cups of coffee sitting on the dock when the color of the lake is like pale blue glass and the air is completely still. No more endless repairs, high taxes, and utility bills. No more late nights around the fire pit with friends and family - warm from both fire and friendship. No more frozen pipes or emergency calls to the furnace guys. No more saunas and midnight skinny dipping that make you feel like you'll live forever while your connection with nature is confirmed by the gazillion stars of the milky way and the loons calling out in the dark. No more concerns with low well water levels or water so hard and full of iron the clothes turn yellow and your newly washed hair feels like brillo. No more finding the way home by boat in the dark after a long day on the lake feeling like this is the only place you really, really belong. No more praying that the boathouse will make it another year without collapsing. And ultimately, no more making new memories with friends, family and loved ones. No new memories, that is, at Half Bay, Lake Vermilion, Tower, MN. New life... here we come!
How do you thank a place for memories?
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