Five-Mile Radius

4.02.24

Today, I think, marks the most distinctive change in season for the words. What follows is an introduction to my hopes for the writing during the growing season.

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5:15 AM

     Rainy and forty degrees. I’ve never minded whatever weather I’ve had to walk through to get to my shed. In the pitch black I open the door and my hand reaches for the light switch and now there is everything as I left it my papers piled the books stacked the notebooks waiting the pens resting. And it’s cold enough for a fire this morning and it will be for many mornings more. It’s cold enough for an early morning fire well into May and this surprises some. Some. And who is this some? Who are these surprised people with whom I discuss the early morning burning of wood? My wife… as if there were anyone else devoted with me out here in the country to this sojourn (we are all so very temporary even in our permanence). And as spring grows into itself I too feel it is time for growth. I’ve been naked in introspection for so long. Now I’d like to devote myself more to the sojourn I speak of. The act of living. I often return to the following quote from Thoreau:

     I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome: if I was not afraid; and the like…*

     And he goes on like this… I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience.*

     Though here I the Thoreauvian disciple must differ from my master: there is nothing unfortunate to me about such “confinement”. And I’d postulate that here Thoreau may have chosen a drop of sarcasm.

     So at the dawn of the growing season it feels correct to provide a simple and sincere account of [my] own life.* There’s more than self-loathing about me and I’m beginning to feel that if I don’t let some of that go than a permanent winter will settle. A false winter. For there has been much fulfillment in building the 8x16 chicken coop painted barn red and completing the first section of fencing and having moved the hens out of the pole barn and onto grass. And there’s been much fulfillment in building the garden beds. Hügelkultur: I’ve collected the sticks big and small from the grass fallen from winter trees encouraged by cold winds and laid them on top of a bed of cardboard (to discourage the weeds). And I covered the sticks in chicken manure collected in pine shavings left behind in the barn and I covered that in decomposing leaves that were left in the woods and I’ve covered that in compost… and when the rain subsides today I’ll plant our strawberries on the mound two rows on the top and some lettuces and herbs on the sides and over the seasons and years the leaves and pine shavings and manure and sticks will break down to nourish my plants and all the while the soil will drain well yet remain moist and that is good. And on Saturday afternoon beneath a steady drizzle I planted the beginning of our orchard: two plum and two apple and two peach. Nothing much to look at today but a few years from now they will bear fruit and I wish more people would know this term for what it is and not metaphor. And as I backed my truck out of the chicken yard and finished stapling the section of fence that I’d left open to deliver the hens, my wife and girls added to our berry patch. We’ve got blueberries and blackberries and raspberries and gooseberries and elderberries and grapes and just north thirty or so feet a mulberry tree divides my land from the neighbor’s. And it is said good fences make good neighbors though I prefer what we have here sharing the early mulberries between ourselves and with plenty also for the birds and squirrels and bees.

     And perhaps this sounds a bit boring but not to me no, no, no. I’ve got no place I’d rather be. I used to travel and I enjoy reading the musings of travelers but this is no travel log in the traditional sense. Though I travel to someplace different and mesmerizing every day watching and touching the seasons. These “travels” are the stories I’d like to tell and will. This five-mile radius where I spend my days is more diverse and interesting than the whole of the suburbs of the metropolis where I was raised and have come (not that I was raised poorly and without copious love). This radius contains the many sandy shores I visit of the Chesapeake Bay and its jagged and eroding coastlines. Within it are the rivers and ponds and streams and creeks where I fish from shore and stroll. There are the agricultural fields I crisscross. There are the water towers and shoebox post offices of hamlets. And the farmers market and many of the farms that produce my food. And just beyond this five-mile bubble is the auction house where we procured our old wooden furniture for less than $30 apiece. We like to go there once a month or so. One could call us thrifty though I prefer antiquarian—a preserver of history. And we enjoy living with these things and wonder over the stories they could tell. If they could tell their stories.

     And here are my stories. And I may do some traveling outside of my five miles and I’ll scribble about that too. But the bulk of my life takes place here because I like it to and I think I could make this place interesting to my readers and I’m up to the task and would engage in it with or without readers and that is the kind of writing I like reading those words hopelessly endeared to no one but their creator.

*Henry David Thoreau, Walden or Life in the Woods