“In a borrowed car, making scarce while the realtor showed my house, I impulsively took Bobbin Shop Road, to revisit a few memories. The steep curvature of the initial climb reminded me of a propane truck that lost its footing, one winter long ago. Regardless, I’d used the road to get to work, after dropping my children at school for so many years & I knew the barns, the slurry silos, the fields now taken by wild chervil. Passing two tracks diving upwards towards an obscure pasture, it wasn’t hard to dredge up the time on horseback when we’d entered into a whole hill of wilder horses, & my high alert system had suddenly pumped in an extraordinary amount of adrenalin. All saddled up and under restraint, our horses had merged into a motley, spirited herd of unridered mounts. That combination never seemed wise to me. But I was not the leader of this ride, nor familiar with the territory. Funny who we trust. It’s almost like a mantra, repeated so many times, that, well, who are we to question? It’s not ours to say. We don’t know, right? Someone else does. And driving out on a back road on a quiet summer’s day, you don’t expect anyone to appear out of nowhere, to direct traffic. I rolled my window down. “He’s backing up an 18 wheeler” the guy told me, somewhat apologetically. So many hot days, the farmers are playing Russian roulette with haying, the drought and thunderstorms. What a god awful mess. I stopped happily, to watch the action and support the nuances of transport, huge amounts of baled second cut heading overland, in an oversized semi. And isn’t there always a “power pickup” sniffing up your rear, just when you want to cruise and look over the land in a relaxed fashion. I pulled over, pretending to be examining a clear cut I couldn’t care less about. So he passed me, and sped on. Then I could resume my delicate examination of what the land’s been doing, since I last drove by. New ditching, new sap line, new electric fence just outside the old barbed wire. It feels strange to see things fall by the wayside, and the former kingdoms collapse. I see new driveways and massive power lines, and evidence that well heeled folks are finding their way in. It’s to be expected. I can’t really know what they’re doing beyond the next curve in the road, without venturing up and dead ending on private property. It’s awkward, without a smooth talking emissary to do the talking for me. But that was another life. That was when things were sweet and honest. Somehow we’ve gone downhill of that with the divisive beliefs of our crisis window. How much weirder it couldn’t be. Our common realities have gone missing. But wandering without a familiar or recognizable reason to live I’ve somehow stumbled upon a few, unexpected brilliant stars on the horizon. Which doesn’t fix it, but at least they can tell me that I’m not going crazy.”
