Chop Wood and Carry Water

Working hard, living a little like they did a long time ago (or not so long ago) and feeling afraid and peaceful at the same time.  I value this pen and the ashes on my hand.  I value how long it took to make dinner and build the fire.  I value the darkness by the woodshed and the luring quiet that wraps me up in this winter air.  I value my time at Dan and Kelly's.  I like sweeping and scrubbing and laundry.  Being alone out here I could be existing in any time, in any place.  And I notice that I could die (only because I'm alive) and that makes me sad, the way children are sad when they want their mothers.  And I see that little child in the people I love and I fear for them terribly.  And at the same time I don't feel I fear anything.  I fear, but fear is not my world.  I fear death, or my fear of it.  I fear how much I enjoy being alone; I could drift away into nothingness in exchange for peace.  But I think of the grieving faces of mom and dad and Nathan and that sends a pain running up my spine.  I value my pain.  I've become acutely aware of myself over the past few days, driven by several things but mostly anger and then sadness.  And a fear that I am not moving deeply enough into myself.  So I've spent some time alone, moving slowly and abstaining from coffee and wine and any food that's impure and I'm uncovering and aching and more anger.  And I realize that when I'm filled with an inability to forgive, I cannot forgive myself, which is a surprise to me.  I'm reminded that sadness and fear are the starting point of something magical.  The chicken that's laying won't let me at her eggs and I feel too sorry for her to take them.  All the chickens panic when I come for the eggs.  How cruel I feel.  When I'm alone here at night I find something to do so that I can listen to my boot heals scrape against the floor.  I put more wood in the fire and I catch myself smiling, which makes me smile wider.  The coals in the logs are dancing like light on a river bottom, but my favorite parts the sound.  It's a crisp string of pops and crackles, so different from my boots on the floor.  I open and close my journal and turn the pages to see what they sound like.  Then I smell them.  They remind me of story time at the library in elementary school.  When I go to get more wood it is so quiet outside.  I want to keep walking, but I can't make myself without a purpose.  This all use to be a fantasy;  now it's my life.  I feel I could never grow tired of it.