Over time, significant life events simmer down to what's
inside you and go on to inform life ever after from there. Eventually, specific
memories of those events turn to vignettes.
As has happened to my October 2012 artistic residency in
the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness…
Bio portraits give me the willies. That'd be why
there're so few of them and mostly, far between.
I've used this one despite the pretense that I'm Joe Cool photographer/writer guy.
Because in this single image, taken by my dear friend Phil on
the afternoon of a much dreaded event, both my primary and secondary
jar of Heather's Magic Trail Mix stand plain.
Trust me, that's a thing.
Fifteen months. Approx. twenty-six thousand miles. A genuine
Odyssey everywhere I could reach around the Superior Basin. One or both of
those jars was always within reach.
Water. Zippo lighter. Heather's Magic Trail mix.
Check.
Remote mine sites. Collapsing farmhouses. Crumbling school basements.
Each and every time I stepped away from the car and went off alone into the wilderness,
most often with no one in the whole wide world knowing where I was.
Every mile of every day, Heather's Magic Trail Mix helped
sustain me.
*
After months of regularly scheduled endurance trials, my stay at Dan's
Cabin was ideally timed and I counted on that.
Nearly done. Two full weeks anchored to the same place. Full
on autumn. Home turf, no less.
Among friends, old and new.
That first night at Dan's Cabin I was so jacked I set the little
travel alarm for extra early the next morning. Except I neglected the time zone
change that wanders through the Porkies.
Boy that was early.
So I sat a long time on a log enveloped in pitch black, sipping
coffee while from unseen trees Barred Owls called out here and there around the small
clearing that in the deep forest allows for the residency fire pit.
What is that stupid human doing anyway?
*
The two-week working plan was always for me to decompress. Take
the opportunity of extended residency to relax and sink in. I'd counted on the inevitable
foul weather days forcing my hand.
Didn't much work out that way.
Mostly, I roamed the general parameters of the park.
Revisited places I already knew. Took a few chances that
played out.
Ambled, more or less aimlessly.
Which in all the time and
miles since hitting the road in September 2011, I rarely if ever did.
One afternoon, clouds of irritated Dark-eyed Juncos rose from
the forest floor as I walked golden woods near the cabin. Their scolding was
persistent.
Travelers value good waysides. It pays to know where those are.
Spring of 2013, I first noticed Dark-eyed Juncos using our yard for a wayside along their trip north. They've stopped by by twice a year since, to & fro.
The Dark-eyed Juncos, they know my wayside. True fact.
*
It was always the plan to set one day aside during my residency, when I'd drive out to the far reaches of the Keweenaw and work a different sort of wilderness, the Wolverine Mohawk mine.
Staying in the cabin cut nearly two hours off the typical round
trip. And I could get fresh fish & chips atop the hill in Hancock, so
wouldn't have to think about cooking when I got back.
The day that chose itself happened to be Sunday. The fish &
chips place turned out to be closed.
It was like a dagger to the heart.
On a lark, I hit the last best grocery store before
wilderness closes back in. There, yesterday's Lake Trout was on sale.
That evening I feasted on laker and wild rice. So what if I
had to cook it myself at the end of yet another long working day on the road?
Afterward I made sure no lake trout leavings drew any bear
in the night, then slept particularly well.
*
Considering how persistently miserable October can be around
Superior, the weather those two weeks ten years ago turned out to be like a
gift from the field work gods.
Except for the morning it snowed.
By then very much alive in the moment, I embraced the
prospect of an entire day spent in a cabin artisanally crafted so to invite the
quietest creative contemplation over successive generations of temporary residents.
And maybe not even get my boots wet.
Kept the camera bags packed. Fired up the stove. Hunkered
down. Did some writing. Stared at wet woods dripping just outside the great wall of glass.
Ate Heather's Magic Trail Mix as needed.
Relatively late, high quality light broke through
the woods. The wilderness fell to an absolute hush. Not even birdsong pierced
the cold air.
Like the world had that day rolled right over into winter. Except
not, exactly.
Lickety-split, back at it I went.
Time slowed.
Through those couple hours of subtle light cast over chill, damp
woods, I did perhaps the most purely representative work of the entire Odyssey.
Knowing I needn't drive anywhere after dark so to safely call
it a day made that possible.
There was just to follow the river, go a short distance up
the hill and be home.
*
Speaking of night...
Because Dan's Cabin is where it is, you're often some miles
away from the next human being and that's nothing like solitary confinement.
As the cabin is also in the midst of a wild wood, prior to moonrise nights are so black you can't see your hand in front of your face. There, it's not just another turn of a phrase.
Taken as a whole, my exceptionally artistic residency at
Dan's Cabin granted me the darkest, quietest nights of my life.
Once, I spent an indeterminate length of time siting
comfy on the porch trying to figure out what I was hearing. Turned out to be
mice, going about regular, busy mouse in the night business.
The forest is actually quite chatty. You just have
to be able to hear it.
Today it's that supreme quietude, when only wilderness spoke and I listened, that most lives on inside me.
I expect it always will.
Thank-you, Friends of the Porkies.
*
The price of residency was that I'd have to speak about
myself and my work for an entire hour. Less audience participation, if any.
I've never spoken extemporaneously for more than maybe five
minutes on any subject, before or since.
From the beginning I didn't much think on that, because just
the prospect scared the livin' bejesus out of me.
The big day came.
I spent a soft afternoon at the cabin, visited by friends. Enjoyed
a good meal, cooked out over the fire.
Then they left so I could make ready alone, in abject silence.
Like the opening image, the clip below isn't there because
I'm pretty.
Ten years ago yesterday, before an informed group
of interested locals, I held forth on a region many if not most of them knew
more intimately than I ever will.
Without my friend Phil captured the event, all I'd likely
remember about it today is that the feared ordeal went reasonably better than expected.
Probably that's because when it came right down to brass tacks, I unleashed my native
enthusiasm and trusted it to speak for me.
Afterwards, the entire year+ gig was to be pretty much home free.
Happily, the annoying verbal tic that afflicted me during the presentation proved to be a one off.
*
Later that night and again stone cold alone, standing surrounded by dark woods beside Dan's Cabin where you can just see open sky over its roof, I thanked the wilderness for my survival.
And also fully grasped that I'd soon be well &
truly done.
In the moment, I was at peace with that.
