I hardly know where to start writing. There’s no telling where this will go. I’m just gonna peel back the top of my noggin’ and let it rip. I’ve been under a tremendous amount of stress lately. I’ve put it on myself. Here comes the raw, honest scoop regarding what’s been swirling in my head these past few months. Not many people know the true nature of my living situation. Let’s start with the water in the cabin. The water comes out of the mountainside and is collected by a series of pipes running into a spring box. The spring box has a crack in it. Luckily this crack is near the top of the box so it still holds a good deal of water. When I first arrived on the farm last Spring the water was not running into the cabin. The spring box was empty and surrounded by briars and lots of other unfriendly brush. With a chainsaw, weed eater and branch loppers I cleared a wide swath around the spring box as well as a trail leading to it. I found the pipe that feeds into the box buried beneath the crushing weight of fallen tree branches. I sawed up the branches and moved them out of the way. I repositioned the pipe and staked it into place. Water began flowing into the box. After it had filled water flowed down the mountainside and began filling the pipes in the cabin. But when I turned the faucets on only a slow steady stream of water came out. I lived with this meager water supply from last summer until just a few weeks ago. The non-existent water pressure made taking a shower impossible and filling the toilet tank frustratingly slow. The toilet tank wasn’t a big deal since the septic tank was clogged and not draining water off. Long story short, I have not had a usable toilet for most of the time I’ve been living up here. I went outside and dug holes to crap in. I bathed in the river. This wasn’t a really big deal when the weather was warm. Once it got cold it became a problem. I cut a siphon pipe from an old garden hose and used my shop-vac to start the siphon. I began siphoning the water out of the septic tank regularly. Miraculously this must have loosened something in the tank or field lines because sometime around the beginning of winter the tank began draining itself. I was then able to flush the toilet! However due to the lack of water pressure filling the tank was still a problem. I filled the tank and flushed the toilet once a day. Twice the bowl was so full it overflowed onto the bathroom floor. This was really disgusting and discouraging. Still I figured out a way to work around it. (Instead of flushing the toilet paper I burned it in the wood stove. Washing dishes with a just a slow steady stream of water coming out of the faucet has also been a pain in the ass. I began boiling water on top of my wood stove for washing dishes and taking baths. This was a laborious process. Getting the water temperature right is tricky. I would pour the boiling water into the tub and let it sit for 30 minutes to an hour to let it cool down enough to get into. I lived like this all winter. Towards the end of winter something must have broken free because one day I turned on the kitchen faucet and water came flowing out under pressure. At first it was muddy but it soon cleared up and ran clear and strong! Hooray!!!! This victory was short-lived however. Days later the pressure went away again and I noticed water bubbling up on the ground where the water line enters the cabin. It flooded beneath the cabin and collected around the foundation. I hand dug ditches to drain the water over a hillside. This helped but it soon became apparent that most of the water coming down the hillside from the spring box was not staying in the pipes. I decided to turn off the valve allowing the water down the hill. It’s been off for over a week now. I’m trying to let the ground dry up somewhat so I can start digging out the water line and finding the problem. So I went from a slow steady stream of water to gushing water to no water. Now I take my atv up the hill to the spring box with empty gallon jugs and fill them manually by dipping them into the spring box. This is the water Rudy and I use for drinking. Bathing outside hasn’t been feasible due to the cold weather. It’s been raining and snowing a lot still so the ground isn’t exactly drying up. The other night I stood on the front porch naked in the pouring rain and took a shower. It was the first time I had bathed my entire body in months.
Winter is a very slow season business-wise so I haven’t earned much money since around November. My landline phone has been cut off, as well as my satellite tv. The power is still on and miraculously the internet is still working. I’m driving completely illegally. I have no car insurance, registration or valid driver’s license. This has all been very discouraging but I have no one to blame but myself. All these things are what they are. It has begun to get overwhelming though. I have big dreams for my life here and I will make them come true. But I’m ready for something to break in my favor. The solution to the water/septic problem is either a) spending thousands of dollars I don’t have to have someone bring machinery in and dig everything up and replace it all or b) dig it all up myself by hand and get my neighbor and friend Curt to help me fix everything. I wear my clothes over and over again due to not having a washing machine or dryer much less water to wash with. Curt’s wife has taken pity on me and done my laundry for me several times. Other times I load everything up into my truck and spend half a day at the Laundromat getting my clothes clean. Cooking at home isn’t feasible without water for cooking and cleaning up afterwards so I’ve been buying tv dinners that I can just microwave. The packaging and tray then go into the wood stove. It’s really hard to know where to begin getting all this stuff straightened out.
I moved up here because this is where I’ve always thought of as home. I know it’s not constructive to compare myself to other people but it’s hard not to. Almost all of my friends from high school have wives, children, homes they own, etc. I’ve lived a reckless, albeit exciting life since I graduated high school. I made lots of mistakes. I have no money. The only thing I own of any value is my truck. Last year my father died and with him went my biggest fan and supporter. No matter what happened to me I knew my dad was there to help out, both financially and emotionally. He’s gone. I’m all alone. My mother has had the worst year of her life and (as she puts it) I’m the only one of her children that has been giving her emotional support. It’s the very least I can do as far as I am concerned. We talk once or twice a week. Sometimes she sounds okay. Other times she breaks down into hysterical sobbing. I listen to her. I let her cry. I try to sooth her. All the while I’m also thinking of my own life, my own circumstances. I moved up here because I want a HOME, a place to call my own. I’ve been pouring what little money I have been making into this cabin but when my mother dies it is to be split equally between my sisters and me. This gives me an uneasy feeling. I don’t exactly feel like my investment in this place is on solid footing. One of my sisters will probably be cool with me about the farm but my other sister is a total wild card. I could see her pulling some fucked up shit down the road and it worries me. There is an opportunity to buy another home nearby. This is what I’m planning on doing. The cost is low but the place will need a lot of work. But I’ll still be here and as long as I make my payments and get it paid off I will have a home for the rest of my days, regardless of what else happens.
Work is starting to pick up again and I am in negotiations with my boss for my future here. This is another issue entirely and for discretion’s sake I won’t go into it here.
I knew there would be challenges in moving up here. None of this comes as a surprise at all. When my father died, in addition to feeling the emptiness and sadness of losing him, I felt (and feel) a looming sense of my own mortality, the finite nature of my own days. That’s why I moved up here. This is where I’ve always wanted to be. This is the stage where I want the rest of my life to be played out. And behind all the anxiety, uncertainty and fear, among all the infrastructure issues and all the rest of it, beneath everything, believe it or not, I am truly happy. Crazy isn’t it? I am trying my best to live life one day at a time and not get too wrapped up in what will or will not be. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And I always find the answer to any dilemma I face is gratitude. So many people on this planet have things so infinitely worse than me. I’m lucky. I’m blessed! So what if I don’t have running water or a working toilet right now? Fuck it dude. Fuck it right in its tight little puckered asshole, man.
Because there are moments in the sun, quiet, gentle, timeless moments of reverie on the forested mountainside with my dog and the breeze blowing. No sound except the wind through the trees, the Bluestone River rushing over ancient rocks. Cornbread ridge shining in the afterglow of another day passed. I focus on my breath. I focus on this second, this moment. I try my best to distance myself from my desires and dreams. I try to achieve a calm, emotionless detachment from the world, from myself, from the worries of the world.
That’s another thing that I haven’t gotten around to discussing: the state of the world right now. I don’t know if this is the end of the world. It may be the end of the old world and the beginning of a new one. There can be little doubt that the world is in flux and that these are historic times. What will the endgame be? Will Jesus return? I mean will he physically manifest himself again here in the mortal realm? All I know is that my soul is at peace even while I worry myself over my own petty human concerns. Modern humanity is (and has been) living a life out of balance. Perhaps nature is correcting things. My hearts weeps for all the people truly suffering on the planet right now. It breaks my heart. One feels helpless and immobile. How much longer can we continue our steady diet of distraction with pop culture and celebrities? Will politicians solve our problems? Ha! What is the answer? The answer for me is to stay right with God and to work on myself, my own consciousness, my own shit. Kindness. Gratitude. Detachment. I have to constantly remind myself that this world is a shadow, a reflection, a wisp of air, a puff of smoke. Poof! It’s gone. Just like that. So whether my dreams come true is really of no consequence in the scheme of things. That won’t stop me though. I told myself when I moved up here that I would be willing to go to any lengths to make this life on the farm in WV work. That’s even truer today than it was almost a year ago.
I hope this hasn’t sounded whiny or complaining. That isn’t my intent. Clearly I just needed to get some stuff off my chest. Peace and love to you and yours, MG
