When I was living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, my family did a fair amount of camping. The territory was beautiful, the streams clear, and the evenings reliably cool. There were a lot of black bears around, enough that we would see one about half the time when we camped out. Be careful, give them their space, and never get between a mother bear and her cubs were common bits of advice.
Then on one camping trip, when we were two families backpacking to a cabin in the Porcupine Mountains, we encountered a puzzlement. Miles into the forest and walking on a good path we came across two small black bear cubs in a tree. Our kids were young and very excited, dancing about the tree in hope that these cute little critters might come down where they could get a good and proper petting.
The adults in the party were not as charmed by the situation. The puzzle was this. When you are looking UP at the cubs and have no idea where their mother is … which way do you go now?
We resolved the dilemma by deciding that where we were standing was the worst place of all to be, and without any more information to guide us than that, we pushed on ahead toward the cabin. We never saw the mother bear.
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I’m not quite sure what variant of ADHD I have, but I’m pretty sure I am somewhere in the spectrum. Finding out exactly which niche isn’t important at my stage of life, and so I am not pursuing it. But it does get in my way at times. Not because it has held me back in my education or profession, but … let me give a for instance or two.
Flickering images draw my attention immediately and drown out other stimuli. What’s the problem? It means that having lunch and a conversation in a sports bar is nearly impossible. Having a dozen television screens all screaming silently “LOOK AT ME” simultaneously is completely distracting. I mean completely. Robin and I avoid such places whenever possible, but even our favorite pizza emporium (The Brown Dog) in Telluride has several screens going and I wouldn’t consider it a “sports bar” at all. What I must do (to indulge myself in the pizza that I am certain is the one served in Heaven) is to turn my chair to where I can’t see any of the screens. It works but also means a lot of staring at unadorned wall coverings. A compromise.
These days the political circus is much like the sports bar. There are myriad voices shouting at the same time “Here … here … watch … listen … I’m talking to you, dammit.” Not just the “bad” voices, but the “good guys” as well. When I click on a link indicating that I will attend a virtual discussion on, let’s say, the problems posed by ICE, I immediately get an email advertising a half dozen other worthy discussions in the future that I can also sign up for right this very minute. Each of them offers six more opportunities … there is no end to it.
Some early mornings, like this one, I get drawn down one rabbit hole after another by this cacophanous din. My filters can’t keep up with the stimuli, and I have to just shut things off. The computer, the television set, my iPhone … all of them. I step outside and shiver in the night air … looking up at more stars than this Minnesota boy ever saw growing up in a big city. Nature allows me to compose myself and get a bearing. Just before hypothermia sets in I go back indoors and attempt to keep the clamor at low volume by turning one thing back on at a time.
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Our yearly war with the yellowjackets, those creatures that come straight from Hell without stopping, has become little more than a series of light skirmishes for the past two years. A change in strategy has made the difference. There is a company that makes plastic devices which you hang about the yard.
You next open the small sealed packet and take out a pod that contains a potent enough attractant that it warns you to handle it carefully and wash your hands after you are done to avoid becoming very interesting to the pests. You put the pod into the device and walk away. Hundreds of the wasps come in and can’t find their way back out.
But the change we’ve made has been in the timing. Very early in the season the queens show up looking for places to set up housekeeping. They build their nests all over the house, the backyard fence – anywhere they get a little protection from the elements. If you get the traps out and catch the queens before they get a chance to fully establish themselves and raise their families, your summer is much more serene.
Oh, you don’t have yellowjackets where you live and aren’t sure what I’m talking about? Well, o thou inquisitive one, here is what they look like. They each come with a potent offense, can sting you several times, and are exceedingly cranky. You don’t need to do anything to get stabbed except to be outdoors.
Like I said … from Hell.
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In late 1972 Neil Diamond brought out a live album called Hot August Night. At the time I was an impressionable lad of 33 years with a family, living and working in Buffalo, New York. I was really just beginning my exploration of alcohol back then, never thought of it as a problem, even though if my life was a movie and I was watching it now I would say “Of course … there it is.”
After everyone else was in bed and asleep I would take my beverage of choice to the small attic room on the third floor of our home and put this album on, cranking the volume to the point where the groundwork for the ringing in my ears I now enjoy every day was laid. I did love that album then, and even now it can stir me.
I’ve included three cuts from Hot August Night here today. I suggest playing it loud enough that you can’t think of anything else. At that point it became, at least for me, an almost transcendental experience.
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Little Home In The Valley 