Wild Spot

As I climbed up the hill to the mineshaft, I came across an old, white, dirty golf ball. This past summer, I went on a mushrom hunt with the Western Pennsylvania Mushroom Society and they warned me not to get too excited when I think I see an amazing mushroom ahead, because it will most likely be a flourescent golf ball. It was very appropriate today, though, that I found this golfball instead of some psychadelic shroom.

My grandpap passed away Friday night at 10:30, about four hours after I visted him as his last visitor. He squirmed in his hospital bed like a tiny bird, unable to breathe. I stroked his feathery hair and guided his hands to restful positions.

My pap loved golf. He ventured onto the green hills well into his eighties. His partner of thirty-one years, Cindy, told me that if I have something to put in his coffin, I should do so. I had no idea what to put in there.

Until now.

If I think about it, my pap is more connected to this place I'm sitting at now than anyone else. The dark places I have explored in my childhood and now adulthood are pretty much his backyard. I am close to the Allegheny River right now. In front, I hear the barges and their heavy metallic noises on the water. My pap lived right near the river where he used to send thousands of golf balls arching into its current. He used to work at the old glass factory near here that has been shut down and now mounds of glass blocks and shards accumulate. He lost his eye at that job. It was ironically replaced with a glass eye. And I don't think that I am forcing a connection as I sit with this old golfball at my feet, next to a hole in the ground. A hole I had entered not too long ago, alive, breathing, in awe.

But at the same time, it feels like I haven't been here in a while. The ground is now covered with leaves and the foliage down below, where the deer sleep, is less dense. The temperature has definitely dropped these past two weeks and frost has settled. Snow has accumulated not even 150 miles east of here. Dew droplets dot the scraggily spider webs above my head, weighing them down. They look more like a scene after a celebration when all the ribbons are loose and balloons are deflated. There's definitely a lot of lowering and dying going on.

I'm going to take home some leaves and press them, maybe make a boquet of them to hang on my bedroom wall. I am still in the long process of moving back home and I have a forest of things, but no place to put them. Hundreds and hundreds of books. I sleep on the floor and it makes me feel like I am here for some reason, at my wild spot, taking in my surroundings.

I feel like I am going through a "wildening" of my own. I've been withdrawing into the outside. Even in the most public of places like the book store I work at, the school I go to, or the grocery store. I feel that everything is asking me to hold my breath and crawl into it as an observer. I feel I don't belong in any of these places. At my pap's viewing, I took solace in the flowers and a curl of hair on a baby's head. I'm taking all these steps back all of a sudden and I have not yet ran into a wall.

I like it.

The entrace of the mine shaft still smells like peanut butter. Leaves are still falling their propelling fall and the birds I wish I could identify are still calling their call. I was prompted to buy two magazines about birding when I went to buy my new 2010 Farmer's Almanac. Hopefully I'll learn something. The lichen, to the touch, is not crumbly since it is now wet. It is more like makeup and it sticks to my finger like foundation. I never wear makeup, but I just smeared an arc of the calcium green foundation across my forehead.

I hear two men walking the path together. I don't think that they can see me up here.

He makes enough mother-fuckin' money...

It's amusing that such thoughts and conversations exist in a place like this. And why wouldn't they? Anything normal can happen out here. I can read a book and drink tea here. I can serve freshly baked cookies here. I can call the bank here. I can worry about my school loans here. I can have my final thesis board meeting here. That last part was a joke....although I'm sure that quite a few professors would enjoy it.

I'm glad to be here right now. I'm not saying that because I see this place as an escape from the loss of my pap, either. I can cope with the inevitable, even though it is hard. I don't like using nature as an escape. When I venture into it, it's not to lessen anything or leave anything behind. If anything, it's to gain. To think more. Be engaged. Have an adventure.

I'm glad I'm here.

And I'm glad that I didn't find a mushroom.