Into the Wild

I have these dreams of the open road, of frozen tundra and white-bearded trees. I dream of wandering from town to town and place to place, no ties to anybody or anything, just my whim and my wanderlust, the same itch that's bothered me since we got here three years ago. I dream of northern lights and the oppressive silence, of the familiar yet distant forests and the song of the wind.

I want cold, the sharp, bone-cutting cold I used to know. I want the wind to knife through me again and herald the snow, want to shiver under the diamond points of stars in a sky the color of ink. I want to know the wild abandoned freedom of being untethered, if only for a month or two. I want quiet, just me and my thoughts. I want to find life in the tradition of Thoreau, in the bare essentials and in human wandering. Deserts, plains, rolling hills, mountains, tundra, forests, rivers, waterfalls, canyons, I want to know what our country has to offer. I want to quit being a tourist and become a traveler instead. I want to live.

I'll turn off my phone and dream instead, painting pictures on a canvas I could never even hope to fill. And in the quiet hush of midnight, I'll feel like it's right here, my dream. It's close.

I dream of freedom. The closest I can know here on earth.

Home

It was winter nights and starry skies and the smell of smoke and snow angels and forts and the gap underneath the porch, fleeting whiskers and a stripey tail, so many strays I lost count. It was the song of full-throated bullfrogs and tiny peepers, deafening in the curtain of summer air, hidden in our red rest fenced defunct pool that I never even swam in. It was that little hole and tiny creek (or I fancied it one) where, regular, always, water would gurgle forth from I knew not where--the well?--to drain, like clockwork, even in winter. It was an icy pond we skated on in our boots, slipping and laughing and falling with rosy cheeks and bright button eyes, gasping when my foot went through into chilly swamp and then limping home, laughing, laughing.

It was Butterscotch, the ragdoll cat I loved, I loved. She had beautiful blue eyes and a smart gaze, loved to be carried around and petted and crooned over. Her bottle-brush hot chocolate tail, cream and butter patched coat, dark ears, fur so soft I buried my face in it, warm and musky and alive. I loved her. I watched her leave. I won't forget.

It was the quiet solitude of the winter forest, snow hissing into the ground around me, my arms outstretched, my face to God, the trees reaching up with me, spinning, spinning it felt like. The air was so cold it stung your nose, cold and clear and clean, like nothing else I've found yet. It was those smiles because this was home, this was where I belonged, this was me. Pewter cottonball sky, innumerable flakes, the crunching of new snow.

It was the seaport, crushed shells instead of gravel crunching underfoot, the tang of salt in the air, tall, creaking ships,

oh lord,

the people. Everywhere, always. Ones who watched me grow and smiled at me, ones who gave and gave and gave and never asked anything in return. Ones who cared like I was one of their own. I loved,
I loved,
I loved,
I loved.
Always, everything, everyone, from my big blue house with the cherry tree out front to the forest tall and brooding and hidden and free to the faces the friends the laughs the games the school the teachers the strays the roads the snow the bus the fields the crooked lamp post the rutted driveway the fruit trees the berries the sky the things I loved the things I lost the things I learned the dreams I made the friends I held the years I treasure.


I love, I love, I love, I love.


Preston.

Nicky

He had big dark eyes and a shy, fleeting smile, and he loved me from the moment he saw me. He was tiny, his arms and legs skinny and awkward, like a colt’s. If you ran your hands over his sides, you could have counted his ribs, and his spine was visible when he bent over, the bumps outlined against his grubby red sleeveless T-shirt. When we were introduced, he murmured his name so quietly I had to bend down and ask for it again, even though I could see it on the wooden nametag he wore around a dirty neck. “Nicky,” he said. “My name is Nicky.”

We went everywhere together—to the state park, where we tossed a football and did a nature scavenger hunt, to the grassy lawn of our “base” church. Always, he held my hand and sometimes rode on my back, my own little shadow. It didn’t matter to him that other boys climbed all over me and yelled my name and asked to play games with me; he stayed by my side.

I told him all the time how awesome he was, showering him with praise for anything and everything, no matter how trivial. “You can throw a football better than anybody I know, bud,” I’d say. “You’re the best. Woah, did you draw that picture all by yourself? I would have sworn a professional did that. That’s great.” And every time, he’d receive my compliments with a fleeting, hidden smile, the depths of his dark eyes unfathomable.

For a week we played together. We sang songs together and danced, chased after butterflies and colored pictures on park benches, made more warm fuzzies than I could ever count. Each warm fuzzy—a simple piece of colored yarn worn in bunches on a nametag—was given away to others for good deeds and for encouragement, and I think Nicky gave me the most out of any of the kids in our group. For a week, Nicky was my best friend, and I his.

I would never have met Nicky and the other amazing little kids I did if it wasn’t for Mountain T.O.P., short for Tennessee Outreach Program. Mountain T.O.P. is a faith-based camp held each summer in the Cumberland Mountains. Campers have two options there: they can do simple home repairs for houses in Grundy County, one of the poorest in the nation, or they can do day camp for a week with younger kids from the county. I had done service projects for two years prior to the summer of 2009, but on a whim, I had decided to do day camp that year. It was a decision I will forever be grateful for.

Impacting the world is a tall order. To take it on all at once seems daunting and impossible, so perhaps it is best to start one piece at a time. Mountain T.O.P. and its day camp program is the best step I have taken thus far toward making things better for others. The children I met there could (and did) melt hearts—not only with their sincere honesty and easy love, but with their scruffy, second-hand clothing, dirty faces, and the often-decrepit houses we picked them up from each morning. They would tell stories of the many siblings they lived with, aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents thrown in with the usual mishmash of brothers and sisters. To us, their poverty seemed a heavy burden, but they never noticed.

It was in helping these young boys and girls that I realized how badly America’s own poor need help. Comfortable, middle- and upper-class Americans often speak of needing to help other, less fortunate countries through donations and charities, but there are multitudes of the destitute right here, on our own soil. There are people who can’t afford to buy new clothes for themselves or their children and who live off of food stamps. People whose number one shopping destination is Dollar General, followed by Goodwill. People who may not even finish high school because the need for extra income is too great. Other countries need American aid, certainly, but care should be shown at home as well.

Mountain T.O.P. taught me that it’s the little things that make a difference in the world around you. At the graduation ceremony for the groups of day campers, each was given a backpack filled with school supplies and a few small toys. When Nicky got his, he came up to me and said, “I get to keep this? All of it?” I told him that it was a gift to him from us, and the smile that lit up his face was huge. “This is awesome,” he said. “It’s like my birthday.” And all of the sudden, he gave me a huge hug, whispering, “I’ll miss you most.”

I started small, but the changes I saw feel huge.

Raw

You don't look back, not for anything, not for me or her or the family you left behind, you don't look back.

Hold the steering wheel tight to stop the shaking, turning knuckles white, jaw muscles kneading, eyes fixes not sad, focused not wandering, can't think can't worry, can't look back. Can't remember.

And who were we? Were we the ones who held your hand? Were we the ones who watched you cry? Were we the jokers? Were we those who comforted you? Or did we turn on you, cut wound smear you, laugh cruelly and not stop? Did we hate or love?

Did you hate or love? The girl with the innocent eyes, the mother father sister brother the tall trees the summer grass the cloudy sky the brick buildings clapboard houses smiling faces friendly familiarity did you hate? Did you love?

Do you run away or toward?

Do you forget or remember too much?

Accelerate, grin or grimace try to laugh but it could be a sob stop thinking.

Pound the wheel once or twice, just to let it go.

Drown the thoughts with music.

Feel the eyes watching from the trees.

Wander away but go back in your head.

Forget me, forget us, forget what was there before. (the smiles the laughs the summer the winter the leaves the birthdays the christmases the trials the successes the failure the redemption the end)

Drive a little faster until the edges blur and you're flying you're finally flying but where to fall?




Where to fall?