Greetings from Ville Platte, LA...
Where it's 76 degrees and feels hotter. I've been backpacking the last three days - alone! - and just got out of the woods this morning. I smell like I've been backpacking for three days, so me thinks I'll get a hotel room tonight (somewhere on the coast) shower, eat a pizza, and write until little pieces of bone are sticking through my fingertips. The muse is singing a big, loud song in me, and I'll do my best to dictate what she is saying.
I spent Friday night in a motel room in Canton, Mississippi (just north of Jackson) and Sunday night in a rental cabin in St. Landry, Louisiana (five bonus points if you can find that on a map). To say the cabin was rustic is the understatement of the year. To say the people who own it are hill folk is also a great understatement. But, though the cabin was dilapidated, it was clean, and I wrote a LOT and slept almost ten hours, and the folks who owned it were very kind and absolutely fascinated my me.
Then I headed into the backcountry of Chicot State Park and camped alone...I thought I would be terrified, but I was not. It was so silent, so lovely...I felt very protected and at ease. Anyone who doubts the existence of a higher power should have been with me these last two nights. I could feel energy everywhere, and it seems the trees bent over me like sheltering parents. I was mere feet from a cypress filled lake that throbbed with stillness. For two and a half days I did nothing other than read (I finished two novels), hike, sleep, and think my way into and talk my way out of about a hundred brown fugues, all while at least three miles from the nearest human. (An owl did scare the bejeesus out of me Sunday night, but that was only temporary.)
I feel great right now. I was apprehensive about being alone, so I headed right into the dark, warm heart of solitude and feel reborn by it. I now crave solitude again. My friends are also incredible - I feel less alone now than I have in awhile. You guys have been with me on this trip, through every bending mile of it.
Beck's new album is out today, so I think I'll pick that up and crank the hell out of it.
This is just the beginning...there will be a much longer, much more introspective account of these proceedings in the days ahead.
Love from the road,
Dan
Where it's 76 degrees and feels hotter. I've been backpacking the last three days - alone! - and just got out of the woods this morning. I smell like I've been backpacking for three days, so me thinks I'll get a hotel room tonight (somewhere on the coast) shower, eat a pizza, and write until little pieces of bone are sticking through my fingertips. The muse is singing a big, loud song in me, and I'll do my best to dictate what she is saying.
I spent Friday night in a motel room in Canton, Mississippi (just north of Jackson) and Sunday night in a rental cabin in St. Landry, Louisiana (five bonus points if you can find that on a map). To say the cabin was rustic is the understatement of the year. To say the people who own it are hill folk is also a great understatement. But, though the cabin was dilapidated, it was clean, and I wrote a LOT and slept almost ten hours, and the folks who owned it were very kind and absolutely fascinated my me.
Then I headed into the backcountry of Chicot State Park and camped alone...I thought I would be terrified, but I was not. It was so silent, so lovely...I felt very protected and at ease. Anyone who doubts the existence of a higher power should have been with me these last two nights. I could feel energy everywhere, and it seems the trees bent over me like sheltering parents. I was mere feet from a cypress filled lake that throbbed with stillness. For two and a half days I did nothing other than read (I finished two novels), hike, sleep, and think my way into and talk my way out of about a hundred brown fugues, all while at least three miles from the nearest human. (An owl did scare the bejeesus out of me Sunday night, but that was only temporary.)
I feel great right now. I was apprehensive about being alone, so I headed right into the dark, warm heart of solitude and feel reborn by it. I now crave solitude again. My friends are also incredible - I feel less alone now than I have in awhile. You guys have been with me on this trip, through every bending mile of it.
Beck's new album is out today, so I think I'll pick that up and crank the hell out of it.
This is just the beginning...there will be a much longer, much more introspective account of these proceedings in the days ahead.
Love from the road,
Dan
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