xenogere

Losing the city boy

Posted on Jan 2, 2007 by jason

I can’t possibly explain why, let alone identify precisely when it started, but I’ve grown terribly disenchanted with city life.  It could be that I’m just burned out with Dallas and the surrounding area, what with its overflowing infestation of selfish chumps, the mindless troglodytes who appear to vastly outnumber the decent folk, the city’s constant meddling and screwing up and inescapable asinine activities, and the overall flavor of life driven by greed, want, greed, want, and more greed and want.  Add to that the general Texas conservatism replete with fanatical religious boobs on every street corner and yelling from every open window.  The air rests heavily each day with the pungent stench of Dallitude, that personality disorder that besets nearly everyone in the metroplex with a sense of deserving, a sense of entitlement, and a sense of superiority, none of which apply.  It’s disheartening at best.

Yet Dallas’ shortcomings could only explain a portion of my disillusionment with urban and suburban living.  It goes well beyond that, I’m afraid.  Something more—something much larger—rests nearby lapping at the puddles of existence and finding itself still thirsty.

Could it be my growing desire to commune more with nature, to reach out and grasp the world as it was meant to be, to hold it close, to embrace it with my all?  Within me lies a deep, penetrating, all-encompassing passion for Earth.  Not the messy disaster humanity has made of it, but the wondrous beauty nature itself offers in trembling hands fearful of what man will do with it should our kind fully see her gift.  It is a want to experience that which is damaged by our presence.  I long to wake my sleepy eyes with visions of the world as it was before we came along, with footpaths worn with love stretching through forests green and ripe with life.  My heart aches for a home surrounded by landscapes created by time and weather and worldly forces uncontrolled and uninhibited by the hands of humans.  My essence calls out for a place surrounded by wildlife coming and going without fear of our metal beasts marching in trained lines, their loud voices bellowing like horns at every upset and their bright eyes disturbing dark’s peace, and to live and let live with the creatures slithering and crawling and flying and walking in great unyielding worlds from times long before we invaded.

Perhaps you remember when I spoke of the grand weekend I spent with Rick and a few other friends in a cabin nestled deep in the East Oklahoma forest abutting the Red River.  The tick infestation notwithstanding, being there in the middle of nowhere rocked me gently like a baby held lovingly in a mother’s arms.  The river washing by just outside the front door, the building comforted on all sides by foliage and branches, no horns sounding short distances away or planes flying overhead as they struggle into the air or trains chugging their way through an urban jungle . . . it all meant peace and quiet the likes of which too few know.  During that excursion, I heard a tale of the cabin’s owner when she was much younger and living there instead of renting the facility to others, of how she lay in the climb-in sleeping area above the main room during a major snowstorm, and she nestled under warm covers, fires burning in the fireplace and the wood-burning stove.  She described that moment in such magical terms, of how she watched the snow through the small upstairs window as it fell and fell, so silent as to be deafening, yet she had not a single worry in her bones.  With food and literature galore, and plenty of wood, the storm came and went and left its near-indelible mark upon the land with feet of snow lasting more than a week, something that essentially left her stranded and cutoff from the outside world.  And I envied her that moment, that peace, that breathtaking day-by-day love of words in silent seclusion.

While developing “Darkness Comes to Kingswell” and expanding it into Dreamdarkers, I have found myself progressively enamored of Dave Lloyd’s world following the death of his wife.  I do not envy him the pain and sorrow of that loss, and I certainly find no comfort in such things.  But his move to Carr Beholden with its lakeside vista wrapped in rolling hills carpeted by lush woodlands, a tiny spot on a large globe resting serenely off the beaten path and away from too much activity . . .  Ah, it holds such promise, does it not?  Such beauty and tranquility.  To sit in that sunroom or on one of the porches with a warm cup of coffee, a friendly book, one or more of the cats, and all that splendor to behold . . . indeed, that would be the life.  And I would take it from him with nary a second thought were it possible to do such a thing, to translate from the written word to the real world that which the author controls, that still place in the universe created to comfort one with such a wounded heart but that eventually found via the writer’s hands similar need within the writer’s heart.

In my zeal to convey his financial well-being, I rendered with clumsy language a home for dearest Mr. Lloyd that stands palatial, a behemoth monstrosity in terms of the common man.  I need no such mansion, although I would be a lying fool to say I would not want such a thing were it possible.  My requirements are humble: room enough such that the cats can run freely and get plenty of exercise, space to accommodate my desire for openness, enough home to allow for the occasional guests, and the pedestrian requirements of civility.  And unlike Dave’s refurbished Carr Beholden, being on the edge of a lake would not be required—although it would be welcome if available.

A large part of me yearns for the simplicity of it all, to enjoy the privacy of aloneness offered only by rural life, to rise and fall with the sun blocked only by earth and tree, to bathe in air washed upon rocks and ground and leaves and water, and to fall victim to spells cast only by the world gracious enough to offer us shelter.  My inner city boy is dying, and that assumes the lad has not already fallen prey to this vexation.  For the sake of joy, I fear I cannot remain where I have been for so many decades.  Life is changing, morphing, evolving, and I am going with it.

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