“I found myself at a canoe portage today, without a canoe. Well, so what else is new. At the site of an older power station for the marble industry, now providing modern hydro-power ... on an ancient gathering place for native people. Well, so what else is new. You can feel things gone by the wayside, things pushed under, if you linger at the edges. I pushed into the undergrowth, half-heartedly, one eye calibrated for the inevitable appearance of poison ivy. I’m not a natural, low-land river explorer. I tend to keep to the higher altitudes. The Champlain Valley of Vermont is a foreign animal to me, and I approach it with tempered enthusiasm. I always remember what my younger brother once told me about his camping trip, to the Delaware river, arriving after dark. It wasn’t until they woke up, that they realized what they were sleeping in. I won’t ever do that. Not because I’m smarter, which I certainly am not, but because we should learn from each other’s mistakes. I’ll stick to colder, thank you, even ice cold, mountain streams, for my deeper meditations. Freezing shit out is not a bad thing. Perhaps I practice it, as a way of life. I don’t prefer the ups, and the downs. Maybe I used to like it, when it seemed all full of promise, but now I see I was deluded. Whatever it is that feeds off human struggle & suffering, is no longer going to get the better of me, no way. I stay as even as I can, and don’t give anything away for free. Except warmth. And acceptance. On that level, I will embrace what is left of the natural human race. It was not a particularly scenic canoe portage, by any standards, though perhaps I could imagine what it once might have been, surrounded by virgin wilderness. A fortress of enormous pines still standing, like king pins in some forgotten game, gave me an anchor, from which to view something so despoiled. The dam, the power station, the ugly gridwork of metal that defines all electrical generating stations, now a protected recreational space built with idealism to abut a severe “No Trespassing” zone with green. I get it. So, what else is new. Someone tried to do something good here, and it did it’s magic, drawing me in, for a gander, though my parking situation was less than ideal. Hardly enough room for a truck to turn around, so I’m glad no one else was touristing, with me. Walking up to the wood plank trestle bridge, I spotted a couple fisherman quietly casting upstream. My older brother has done a lot of river restoration in urban environments. I commend all these efforts. I don’t know why I have to come to these places, to cry. Perhaps I’m like those women hired to do professional mourning, at funerals. On a happier note, I did love the drive, overall. I’m always glad to find a new road. A winding, concocted road, that has to obey the river it shadows, and the impulses of men & women, who loved the land, as it gently transformed high altitude water into wide, brown creeks, deltas, swamps and outlets, spilling extravagantly and finally into a lake, rightly grouped with Superior, Ontario, and Huron. I may prefer the high country, & have fled there for comfort, but I respect the lowlanders. They deal with the harsher realities of civilization. They put muscle into their machinations, technologies, and big picture dreams. I, to the contrary, look behind, and try to back peddle. To take away things, and remove added elements. Until all that is left, at least in my heart, is a bowl of hidden power.”
