“Things pop into your head. Sitting alone on a rainy Sunday afternoon, on the construction site that will eventually be my home, the silence echoes “raise high the roof beams” uttered, I suppose, for more or better or changed forever. To bring the landscape in thru windows, allowing what is trapped, to connect with what is free - this may be my only goal. Time will tell the story, especially after I’m gone, and others have taken my place. Which brings to mind yesterday’s perfection, and an adventure that did not involve being shot for trespassing, though just by a hair’s breadth. Locally known as “Eagle’s Nest” according to hand crafted signage, now decades old, found past the last gate on the Natural Turnpike going out of town, and then some. This is Forest Service Territory. Or is it. Who the predominant species is around here, remains a bit ambiguous. Tall tale tellers, some of them my friends, refer to an alleged underground military facility, that i will surely be on the lookout for. What comes to mind is that if you allowed yourself to dismiss such nefarious incursions, it’s just a matter of time before your complacency is blown out of the water. Luckily, it won’t affect our joyride into less charted regions, undertaken with a grain of salt thrown enthusiastically towards all offending parties. The bowl of green, a wide valley of hay & semi-cultivated farm land, is pleasingly absent of traffic, most years. A wild river, snaking the perimeter, unsure of who owns it. And the road leads on, and up, into land marked as “wilderness” tho I’m unsure what that actually means anymore. Riding shotgun my cohort Suz settles into the passenger side of the Chevy, listening as I whine & blather on about not having a gun rack. I’ll always love her for that. I’m not just someone intent upon trespassing, but a connoisseur of gates & warning signs. Shifting into low gear, I lean into the 4WD scramble up a chase of loose gravel, not feeling overly confident. Yet, I’ve wanted to be here, for decades. Wanted to push past the arrogant messaging, that tells me I’m not welcome. There is a time, for refusing to be excluded. Parking by the 2nd gate, I’m definitely ignoring additional “No Trespassing” signage. How can you block off the land? In some countries, it’s illegal to do so. The less traveled by-way has grass growing down the middle. We pass a weathered farm house, with trucks in the drive, & and neatly formed piles of fallen apples, organized beneath old trees. You don’t want us here? The duck pond has decoys, and something that looks like a coffin sticking up from the muck. I don’t really understand how the other half lives. I guess I don’t need to know. I’m just a curious foot traveler, half lame by all accounts, dead set to find where the road ends. It starts to pitch up again, and what I’d thought was flat on Google Earth, is completely not. This is bear country and some old sacred high spot. Because we make it to the top, before the gatekeeper is able to arrest us. We make it to the clearing, and wade through shin high grass, to a place of immeasurable vantage, from no man’s land to one glimmering slice of Lake Champlain. The Adirondacks, gleaming in a pure, brotherly & sisterly light, to illuminate all of what Vermont is, between the two states. Yet, on the way down, we were stalked, and just happened to be hidden behind a makeshift camp. That one guy felt the need to prowl us, & call us out, for transgressing his metal gate. In his big truck, trolling for us, while we hunkered down in field grass, nervously wedged between trees, out of sight. What was once a town road, now a cloistered enclave for the insular. I get it, but I recoil from it. I’m part of it, but I can’t really respect the hatred of others you don’t know. We all need to examine where we have decided to declare arbitrary fault lines. Lines that didn’t exist before, until we were taught to fear. Once back to the truck, I hardly noticed anything amiss, until about to drive out. There under the windshield wiper, a makeshift communication. Scrawled onto cardboard from a box of peanut butter crackers, in packs of 20. “Why did you park here?” it said. Signed “Landowner Lyle Webb”. It was fine that he asked. I didn’t mean to cause him any stress. I’d call the number he left, but really, I’d rather meet him in person, for pizza, ask him how he’s doing. Now that there’s nothing left of him, but to write me cryptic notes.”
