LIVING ON MAIL

It’s not only hope,
it’s the letters have kept me alive
all these years.
My mailbox
like a big black belly,
always hungry,
always dying of thirst.
Rumbling and grumbling for
only the best of food.

Sometimes, during periods of draught,
there is not enough ink in the world
to go around.
My mailbox shrinks.
My body weakens.
And a time of darkness comes.

But bad times,
like my old friend says,
are the same as good times.
Neither lasts;.

So I pick up thick books.
Take long walks.
And swim all day in the river nearby —
Until the groans from my middle
and my mailbox cease.
And there is mail.
And a lover’s unchained laugh
echoing wildly through the woods!

(Editor’s note: This is the second of a monthly installment of a book by Tuckasegee writer Thomas Crowe. Each month we will publish a new chapter from Crowe’s nature memoir Zoro’s Field, about a man living alone in the woods.)

Chapter 1: Solitude

“To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read or write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone let him look at the stars! In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as a snake his skin, and at what period soever of life is always a child. In the woods is perpetual youth.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his Essay on Nature

It all began with this quote from Emerson’s essay on Nature, that is echoed by Thoreau in Walden where he writes: “I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”

From an early age, these words of Thoreau and Emerson were as much a mantra as a dare. A challenge to take my self-motivating sense of self-confidence and self-sufficiency and put it to the test. Now, almost 20 years later, I am calling their bluff. Living alone here in the woods, retired from chamber and society, from time and technology, staring at the stars.

How have I done it, and what have I done? Let me begin by saying that to live in solitude and to do what I am doing/have done, a man must, first of all, be at peace with himself. To like and enjoy his own company. To be comfortable with the lack of clatter of so-called “civilization” or the chatter of the human voice. He must be able to live with himself as a solitary — embracing silence and defying boredom, restlessness, and constant stimulation coming from anywhere but from within himself. Therefore, solitude is not for everyone. As I have met very few who I expect could (or would) live as I do with silence as my counterpart and counterpoint to conversation that only sometimes reaches the lips in a singular and solitary debate with the self.

Among the hurdles for those who would wish themselves into the wild for a self-sufficient sojourn such as mine, is, foremost, overcoming one’s fear of darkness. During the day, when we can see our potential adversaries, and in seeing, minimize the unknown, we are fairly confident of our competence and ability, if nothing else, to retreat. But at night, when a black veil is lowered over sight and world, confidence falls away, and even the smallest sounds seem expanded, are exaggerated to our ears, causing mind and imagination to run wild with hallucinations of conspiracy and ill will. Small rodents suddenly become flesh-hungry bears, moths become rabid bats, and foraging skunks become predatory wolves! To live alone in the wild, one must come to grips with darkness, and, in fact, must learn to see at night.

In order to adjust the eyes, one must begin by getting out and walking at night — first with full-moon light and then gradually making forays in the dark of the moon out into the woods, as do my neighbors on a nightly basis: the screech owl, opossum, skunk and raccoon. With time and practice, eyes will adapt, retinal patterns change, fears subside, and one is well on his way to overcoming the insecurities about the world of shade and shadow comprising that half of our life that is naturally without light.

Perhaps even more important than being inwardly strong and independent, to live the solitary life one must be a good listener. Must be curious, have insatiable hunger for knowledge, be inherently unenamored of the sound of his own voice.

“To be a good writer, you have to be a good reader,” my “Emerson” and patron of my stay in the woods, Dr. Gelolo McHugh, once said to me years ago, perceiving my lack of discipline and my short attention span. In the same and parallel sense, if a man aspires to solitude, self-sufficiency, or to be someone who may have something, one day, to say, he must, first, be a good listener. This axiom is never truer than it is when one is living self-sufficiently, alone, in the woods — where every synapse, nerve-ending and sense mechanism in the body must be in a constant state of alert, as much for self-preservation as for clarity of awareness in order that the daily lessons afforded by nature and the natural world not leave him lacking in what is there for the taking if only he had been cognizant enough to receive it.

These days, when the economic lure of urban society is taking almost everyone to the cities, and few are living simply or in the wild, there has become an exaggerated and romanticized idea of going “back to the land.” For the wrong person, an attempt to live remotely and away from one’s peers and family may prove to be an exercise in futility at best and a waking nightmare at worst. This loner’s life I have embraced, while being a vehicle for the most grand education one could ever hope to receive, comes at great price, even to those who are, at once, at home with themselves and the silence, and agile whereas the literal building of a life in the wild is concerned. The wilderness is no place for the starry-eyed, the uncoordinated or uninitiated, as potential peril lurks over every hillock and every river’s bend. Let this warning be a strong one, and let me also testify that while turkey and fox, on some days, seem competent and even complete company, there are other days, even for the strong-hearted and the hard-headed, when the desire for human conversation or a lover’s arms are palpable.

As I write these words, I am smiling as I remember, after only having been here for a short time, walking up a thin path in the woods at night to the little mountain home of an old bachelor man who lived alone and whom I had lately befriended. As I approached, I heard a voice coming from inside the shack. Thinking that the old man must have visitors, and since I was coming uninvited and unannounced, I almost turned back. But since I had already walked such a long way to see my old friend, and since I harbored a healthy dose of curiosity, I walked ahead until I reached the near corner of the house. The voice inside grew louder as, like the “peeping tom” I was undoubtedly named for, I peered into the window. There, in the bright light of a single 100-watt bulb that hung from the ceiling by a thin wire, was the old fellow holding forth and in fine voice. While I listened to what was more the measure of a sermon than simple social banter, I raised-up, peering through the window to get a better look at who he was preaching to. It didn’t take long to realize that there was no one else in the small, lighted room other than his aging bloodhound. After eavesdropping on one of the most entertaining, if not bizarre, Southern Baptist-inspired sermons ever delivered to a canine audience of one, and not wanting to interrupt his diatribe or embarrass him in any way, I turned around in the moon-lit night and headed back out the same little boot-worn path in the direction I had come.

While I was, at first, a little taken aback, even shocked, in having encountered my old friend, in essence, talking to himself there alone in the deep woods, I had learned a valuable lesson: that even those who live alone and self-sufficiently for a lifetime can eventually fall victim to the siren’s song of their own soliloquy — as an occasional reprise from the ineffable silence of a life lived at more than arm’s length from their own kind.

In truth, one of the things that I cherish most about this life I lead, living in solitude, and despite my earlier and more monkish and naive aspirations regarding silence, is the unselfconscious freedom to talk to myself. In cities, amongst throngs of people and their over-socialized notions and patterns of accepted behavior, one is made to feel more than guilty should he be caught talking to himself. There, the looks on the faces of those nearby question the very sanity of one caught talking to any less an audience than another soul. But in the country, or in the wild, one constantly talks to oneself! Talks to the trees, to the birds, to the wind and sky, to the earth and dirt that he digs to plant seeds or uncover fruit. And he talks in many languages — soliloquy, conversation and song — as he walks along the water’s edge, singing in trills and hums as he mimics the tunes of birds, the cry of fox and mating skunk. In all manner of ways does the human voice get a workout and opportunity to express itself. And all done without so much as a thought of self-consciousness or being ill-at-ease with what might be thought of in other circumstances as abhorrent behavior. In fact, he feels invigorated, satisfied, in having done so.

My major source of conversation, however, during these past years, has come by way of an almost obsessive correspondence. The rural route mailman being both mythic Messenger as well as simply the bringer of mail. In that sense, he is a silence-breaker, a link to the outside world, as well as a revered and trusted friend.

It would not be overstating the fact to say that all the time I have been holed up here in my mountain shack I have been “living on mail.” As it has become a necessary nourishment and tonic in much the same way my evening meal has allowed me to get through the night in preparation for work the next day. My correspondence, this act of writing, and my mail, is nothing less than sustenance for body and soul.

No matter what one’s resolve, the human heart (and body) yearns for human companionship, and mine is no different from that of anyone else in that respect, no matter how much I may romanticize the fact of my own self-sufficiency. Behind all my posturing machismo and bravura, there is a million years of DNA coding that has, in our species, necessitated human touch. And even if, during long periods of “draft,” I am only being touched with the long, thin fingers of typewriter keys or smudged from the lipstick-like residue of ribbon ink from an old Smith Corona, the caress of my faraway friends is, on those days when I am gifted with mail, like a passionate embrace, an anisette for untouched skin.

Again, today, there has been no mail. All this is but a reminder of the fact that, in the end, we are truly alone. Even amongst our families, friends and crowded cities, we essentially wander the inner and outer worlds of this existence as solitaries. Our progression and progress through this life is done on a thinly-worn path through the woods of our experience (our karma and dharma) alone, where no other man or mammal has trod, from birth till death. And no illusion of romantic or unconditional love, nor all the familial affection on Earth can alter the fact of our aloneness. Yet, paradoxically, it seems that it is as a result of our social instincts that we are able to traverse, albeit roughly, this solitary and continuing initiation that is our life. On this thin path of paradox we are sometimes able to make physical and mental ends meet as we work to grow consciously or merely to survive, even though this relative solitude may not be of the quiet kind.

Yet, with all the inherent aloneness of a life lived in solitude, we are not quite literally alone, as I have a great deal of company — in both house and field. In winter I have the mythic and generational battle between old black snake and young squirrel going on in the ceiling above my bed. The rolling around of walnuts and acorns at night, to the accompanying patter of racing, chasing feet. And then the slither and slide of the old snake as it moves into position to tangle with the young and unsuspecting squirrel — until the battle is on and there is, for the rest of the winter, a squirrely silence of nut-noise or the sleep-stopping patter of little feet. The mice, too, have, as they do each year, come inside to weather the winter. And an occasional mole will show up following the avenues of entrance from the outside created by the mice.

The house spiders take over in winter and put up their hard-to-see hammocks in every corner and cranny of the cabin as if these right-angle paradigms of geometric perfection were designed with them in mind. Even the space between rocker leg and the nearest wall is not safe from their loom-like instincts, as in a night’s work they reweave their webs that I have destroyed in my rocking the previous evening as I read myself into the mood for sleep.

In the mornings, I am always wakened not only by the light of the sun, but by the songbirds and the crows who perch themselves in limbs overhanging the roof of my cabin and make fun of my lethargy and my slow ascent into another day. Another reminder of how, in my aloneness, I am never quite by myself. Yet, at the same time, am in solitude. When the birds are singing and the turkeys cackling, I am in solitude. When the snake slithers and the squirrel scurries, I am in solitude. When the fox yelps and the skunk whines, I am in solitude. When the raccoon crashes and the opossum clumps, I am in solitude. When the rain beats down on the tin roof like a million of the tiniest drums and the north wind blows through the rainspout like a flute, I am in solitude. When the river roars over rocks and the spring-branch trickles through twigs and leaves, I am in solitude. When the engine of the mailman’s small blue car struggles, unseen, up the hill with the sound of balding tires etching out new ruts in the slick, dirt road, and as the sound of the door to my mailbox banging shut echoes through the woods, I am in solitude.

Alone, yet, like Thoreau, no more lonely than a dandelion in the pasture or a bean-leaf in the garden row, the snowflake in a drift of snow, or the honey bee in the hive, I have been here in this little house now for three years, and not one day have I felt sorry for myself or even entertained the idea of wandering away from here and back to the world of machines and men. Here in this solitude, I am granted indulgences rarely, if ever, offered those in the outside world: lying out in the grass on the south side of the garden field like a sleepy old dog, soaking up the afternoon rays of the sun, daydreaming; clothes-less dashes through the woods to the outhouse in the morning — soles flying over top of the frost to keep feet from getting cold; sitting for long periods of time (maybe even hours) in the middle of a work day watching an anthill or a hive of wild bees; and, of course, the talking to oneself. Distanced from time and human social strictures, one feels truly free, and in this sense experiences a kind of pure anarchy. A return to childhood. Yet, consciously, becoming one with the wild.

Day by day, I am increasingly aware of the gift that I have been given: to live in this way. Even with all the invitations and the possibilities for travel and a life in other places — which I must say are, on some days, pleasant source for daydream — there could be no better life for me, now, than the life I have carved out for myself here in these woods. Here, with the seasons and the solitude, I have the best of this World. I relish this, knowing that this may be my only chance in this lifetime to live in this way. I’ve always said and believed, “timing is everything,” as, during these years of relative youth, I have chosen to be here as much as this place seems to have chosen me. In many ways, now, I have two of the things that I have wanted all my life: a place (without the psychic and fiscal encumbrances of ownership) and meaningful work. The third, and more illusive variable in my ideal equation, a companion, is not an option now, as I still have much to learn from living here as an apprentice to the natural world. Another body in this small cabin would not only tip the scales of “carrying capacity,” but would be a grave distraction from the kind of focus I have achieved the past few years, thanks to the utter simplicity of my daily pace and the freedom I have gleaned from being in one place for all this time.

As the sun, each day, rises and sets, Zoro’s wise words keep coming back to me, echoing Emerson’s — that everything a man needs and would want to know is right here and available to him in the world of nature. Every association and skill can be learned from watching and taking part in the dance of diversity and in the inherently natural cycles of the wild world. Subsequently, I have come to realize that there is no need for formal schooling other than to learn, maybe, a little practical math and to read and write. (And there are even times when I question the ultimate wisdom of these so-called “civilized” skills and the path they have mapped out for human kind since their inception.) For the most part, I value the perception I share with the rural mountain people that everything we need to know is right here in this natural classroom if we are curious enough and patient enough to wait, watch and listen in order to take it all in. There is no need, like the 6th century Chinese monk Hsuan Tsang did, to walk across Asia searching for Truth. Truth can just as easily be found right where we are. If one stays in one place, quietly, for long enough, what he doesn’t know will find him, when he is ready. I believe this, and have experienced this dynamic many times in the past few years here in these woods. Zoro’s platitudes of common sense remind me of the lines of the ghazal (poem) of the 14th century Persian poet Hafiz, who writes:

Now that I have raised the glass of pure wine to my lips,

The nightingale starts to sing!

Go to the librarian and ask for the book of this bird’s songs,

And then go out into the desert. Do you really need college to read this book?

Break all your ties with people who profess to teach, and

Learn from the Pure Bird. From pole to pole the news of those sitting in quiet solitude is spreading....

The great poets and contemplative minds have been thinking about this thing — solitude — for a long time. The monks and yogis, the solitaries and sages have gone out into the various wildernesses of the world to seek out the needed and necessary quiet in order to let their minds and bodies focus on the natural rhythms, the universal harmonies which set everything silently swinging in this great life of ours. Having experienced a healthy dose of this kind of living and its indigenous knowledge, dreaming of being anywhere else than where I am right now serves no constructive purpose. And, frankly, I don’t long to be elsewhere, or with others, as I am quite happy being here, in just one — this one — place, at the edge of Zoro’s field.