OLD CAMP
Racquet lake
Adirondacks
7:30 am
There is a well beaten path of pine needles between the "old camp" and this timeless summer dock.The path is so steep and worn that it shows the 100 yr old root systems,polished yellow and smooth by the toughen bare feet of summers children, whose whoops and hollers have echoed across this blue mountain lake for generations.
Racquet lake
Adirondacks
7:30 am
There is a well beaten path of pine needles between the "old camp" and this timeless summer dock.The path is so steep and worn that it shows the 100 yr old root systems,polished yellow and smooth by the toughen bare feet of summers children, whose whoops and hollers have echoed across this blue mountain lake for generations.
It's early morning, and as I stand at the edge of this dock,
I feel as though I am standing on the edge of the world .
Waiting for courage, and perhaps
little more sun to loosen my toes of fear and..... just let go.
Let go …and let in …and so sooth the beast within.
I tell myself that I'm not ready. I got this and that...
and besides, what if ?
Uncertainty grips me, who will I be if I let go?
…..yet I know who I will be if I don’t.
It's a hasty plan all right built of necessity and not without great risk,
for soon I will join all the finned creatures of this
Plankton rich universe before me in icy cold stillness
and be saved….or die trying.
You see, I've been up all of the night and what’s left of my brain
is caught between a rock and a hard place
in a synap splitting headache of my own doing,
Demon Rum, a Cane 10 no less, is beating on my door
with seven Swedes waltzing with pick axes chopping down
all last scraps of my sanity leaving town rioting with heads on poles
of doubt and depression
There is no longer any decency of reason within me
no answers to intelligent questions, no assuredness of where to go,or
who to confide in.
Nothing but the deep cobalt blue mirror of this unknown.
The minutes pass out here. There's no time to think things through.
My pain is awful and my skin is purple in goose bumps
with a tongue that feels there’s a large toad nesting on it.
Say yes...and I'm only one scream away from it all being over.
Say yes and they will most likely find me face down
in this black velvet hole of eternity smiling.
Perhaps I will be found wearing the old blue swim trunks
I swore I would never be caught dead in …
never say never.
The philosophers say death is a transition,
The mystics say transformation.
At the moment, I am clueless and have no say so in the matter.
For soon, I will cast pearls before swine
In a desperate gamble
to kick start blood back into the brain,
or die trying.
The odds aren't good. Sink or swim ….
and make life's plunge.
Last night was treacherous. I was kissing mules playing 7 card
by a roaring fire out under a canopy of twinkling stars with a Milky way
so close you could almost step out into it.
The rum went down smooth as the hours passed,
but my cards were as cold as the moonless lake we made our camp by.
Four bells and all is swell. I lost a days wages and all respect for myself
by staying in.
And now with toes tight to the edge and gripped with fear,
I make my confessions and prepare for a passing of no return.
Not long to wait.
I must pay the piper then knock on death's door to get there.
We came in here three days ago by work boat to restore
an 1840 chimney of a classic Adirondack lodge of the log cabin design.
Hand hewn of white fir and water washed boulder,
the lodge lays rustic and gnarledwith its bark still intact,
well camouflaged in the lea of the hill.
is caught between a rock and a hard place
in a synap splitting headache of my own doing,
Demon Rum, a Cane 10 no less, is beating on my door
with seven Swedes waltzing with pick axes chopping down
all last scraps of my sanity leaving town rioting with heads on poles
of doubt and depression
There is no longer any decency of reason within me
no answers to intelligent questions, no assuredness of where to go,or
who to confide in.
Nothing but the deep cobalt blue mirror of this unknown.
The minutes pass out here. There's no time to think things through.
My pain is awful and my skin is purple in goose bumps
with a tongue that feels there’s a large toad nesting on it.
Say yes...and I'm only one scream away from it all being over.
Say yes and they will most likely find me face down
in this black velvet hole of eternity smiling.
Perhaps I will be found wearing the old blue swim trunks
I swore I would never be caught dead in …
never say never.
The philosophers say death is a transition,
The mystics say transformation.
At the moment, I am clueless and have no say so in the matter.
For soon, I will cast pearls before swine
In a desperate gamble
to kick start blood back into the brain,
or die trying.
The odds aren't good. Sink or swim ….
and make life's plunge.
Last night was treacherous. I was kissing mules playing 7 card
by a roaring fire out under a canopy of twinkling stars with a Milky way
so close you could almost step out into it.
The rum went down smooth as the hours passed,
but my cards were as cold as the moonless lake we made our camp by.
Four bells and all is swell. I lost a days wages and all respect for myself
by staying in.
And now with toes tight to the edge and gripped with fear,
I make my confessions and prepare for a passing of no return.
Not long to wait.
I must pay the piper then knock on death's door to get there.
We came in here three days ago by work boat to restore
an 1840 chimney of a classic Adirondack lodge of the log cabin design.
Hand hewn of white fir and water washed boulder,
the lodge lays rustic and gnarledwith its bark still intact,
well camouflaged in the lea of the hill.
This is a remote island paradise amid a archipelago of lakes and
pristine wilderness of Mountain park.
There is no electricity in here and no roads to get in or out of.
The only facilities are a two holer and the water only runs
if you haul it up from the lake.
Light is by kerosene lamp, candles or the wood you chop.
If you catch fish, you eat well.
If not, it's what you bring in with you.
There is a mail boat, but it's once a week in summer and
that’s only if the captain is found sober.
My team I came in with a couple of pug faced stone masons
and a happy go lucky mason tender
who wouldn’t know the word abstinence
if it ran him over in a bus.
Last night, he liberated the last of the ships rum
which started my own road to ruin.
Tormented with fits of depression and no sleep,
it has left me bushwhacked and mumbling in doubt
making threats that I now have to make good on.
Courage, I say aloud to steady myself.
My come uppence is near and I will honor it
I feel no satisfaction. My remorse and its pain
matters little to anyone but me.
My misdeeds, and there are many, won't go away unpunished,
and yet I'm the only one listening.
Half blind, in silence, I feel the business of the day is at hand.
The question is
am I man ...or mouse ?...squeak squeak
My circumstances have propelled me into a fate
where there is no coming back.
That much I know.
I'm frightened now but I know now what I must do.
I wish it were summer.
Yet the sun's rays are beginning to get more generous to my body.
The autumn sky is going from purple to baby blue,
as the sun reflects psychedelically from the lake's surface.
The affect is mesmerizing. In tiny prisms,
the light dances its way up under the foliage of trees in direct line
and illuminates a secret fairy world floating in soft jewels of aquatic light.
If ever an hour for Pan to walk the earth
then this is it.
Song birds chorus the air as ground fog spirits the rocks and soil.
The dew dazzles in diamonds,
creating an ethereal glow under boughs of golden oaks
and sentinels of paper white birch.
In merry celebration,
pixies and sprites dance for the sun's return
making magical merry-go-rounds of spirit rocks while their chants and song
buzz in child like harmony
Their music captures me,
enchanting my heart and lifting my spirits
The air too heals me.
It filters down cold off the distant peaks
from a necklace of Tibetan Blue mountains
and crosses the water in sun infused crystals.
It sparkles in purity,
and perfumes its fragrance.
My nostrils flair with their greeting,
there is an alchemical infusion I can’t describe
and I can't get enough of.
It's a curious mix of air made of mountain white fir and resinous pine
celebrated in a dank dark woody essences of lake musk and ions of sun.
The effect is dizzying and delicious.
It calms me and yet stimulates me,
and I am unable to breathe enough in.
Its peaceful air born essence is like a springtime elixir
grounding me and feeding me,
chasing the cobwebs of dark depressions, and doubts
from the corners of my mind back into the lake bound mud holes
from whence they came.
Courage calls aloud ...and I can hear its echo.
Seemingly, I've found my confidence.
My sovereign self has returned.
My letting go now is not an end ….but a beginning
The mirror is in me …
The time is now
Just then, I hear the sound of the pull cord.
The pull cord for the mortar mixer,
the maniacal gas operated mortar mixer from hell.
The one signaling the hour for work.
Five minutes of that crazed motor
and It will unhinge me.
I must be quick.
There is no time
for when they find me all that will be left
can be taken home in a shovel.
I hear the pull a second time.
I ready myself with arms up over my head.
and stand ready.
The seconds pass,
and I can’t go back to what I was.
It’s a brave new world I'm entering into,
and I'm keeping all promises.
Fearless, I will meet the challenge-- blue bathing suit and all.
It’s all in the art of letting go ...with no looking back.
With a Third pull, lucky she fires.
Already I am air born.
Flying, body in mid arc springing upward
outward bound.
The bones of the past can't keep me.
My trust is my self.
Myself is my word ……
So far so good …..
I'm good to my word
Michael on his one year of sobriety Nov 27 2011
Other blog posts by Michael: The Breath of Healing, Magus of Stone, Buried Alive
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Drummond Davidson is a historic masonry conservator whose work takes him all over the world. He lives in the deep woods of Mississippi on a 65 acre horse farm with his wife and preservation architect, Belinda . Michael considers his real work raising his 11 old daughter Mary aka “Peanut."
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