The Rain and it’s companions

Somewhere beyond the rain, somewhere beyond the mud, the mosquitoes, and the uncertainty, I believe there is peace. If I had to sum up this vacation week in July 2021 I would have to do it like this: Kenny Rogers gambler style. “Somewhere in the darkness, the gambler he broke even because in his final words I found an ace that I could keep.“ 

Yes, this vacation may have been about teaching me some valuable lessons. Everyone else relaxes, but not me. I needed something much deeper. Rain rain and more rain came down. I had the misguided idea that it was taking something away from me but in actuality, it was giving me something. 

51 years ago my family took a vacation in the old camp in the bus and Goshen Vermont. Dad, Mom, my uncle Brian, me, Brooke, and my infant sister Amy. While there it rained for four solid days. While individual memories are pretty static about those days one thing that really came through was the emotional whereabouts of my parents and all the adults and older kids in my family. I saw things this week I never knew, yet they came from inside me. How does that happen? As the latter part of the week progressed I felt sabotaged but on Saturday I finally decided to get out and hike. I went up the Brownsville Trail and down the Weathersfield trail and it was so fantastic! Even though I know why I hike, I forget why I hike. That cannot be allowed to happen!

So during this vacation in the rain, being close to the dirt, I figured out that everything that was happening in the adult's lives during my childhood was after a catastrophic event. And everything that was our childhood was in the wake of that. Basically, the planets shifted, a star exploded and the enterprise crashed and then all of the adults in the family had to carry on because the world does not stop no matter what. It only felt like it did. I sort of feel ashamed of what my five and six-year-old self used to feel like. Back then I used to describe it like the world felt new. But for the adults in my family must’ve felt very dark. Vietnam is droning on, families were breaking up in records, all the things that the youth of the 1960s felt that they had accomplished realized that they got onto the conveyor belt their parents did and hopefully could do so well too. But our family was struck with tragedy. So we had to get together, we did family trips and vacations. 

Somehow I learned more than ever, that the adults in my life were amazing.  They carried us through and did a great job at it.  Even the teens in my life.  I recently had the opportunity to tell an uncle who is 8 years my senior, so he is more annoying big brother-ish something.  I got to sincerely tell him that his guidance really was a value in my life and in my wisdom, REALLY appreciate all of it, despite at the time feeling that he just wanted to cause me trouble.  That is as far from the truth as it gets.  All those who guided me growing up, are the finest people you could know.  I find it absolutely amazing that all of these realizations could come to me 50 something years later while I’m sitting in the rain close to the dirt. 

As I sit here at Larch Leanto, water streaming and bubbling behind me, birds singing all around. I know in my heart that in the woods the keys to the rest of my existence lies. I want and need more. Yeah, it is coming out in convulsions of history and information, but it has to happen somehow. Otherwise, it is a life left unfed and unquenched. The desire to explore forward but because of the lack of being in the moment, all of yesterday almost did not happen. It is funny how much Morning Pages has mutated into something I needed. We are all not the same, are we, Amy Landino?

I love the Leonard Cohen song In My Secret Life. Sometimes I worry that I had put too much into that life. As a child, I could journey deep into the depths of adventure. What was I running from to create such an incredible network? That network stayed strong too.  I wrote the novel "Lost in a Strange Life". What was I doing putting all of me into that and by day I was a mere passenger. I have to wonder what happens when these worlds collide? It is one of the reasons that I want to thru-hike but the biggest reason is that thru-hiking is also my greatest fear. I think it will break down the great wall between these worlds. Part of me welcomes that, the other part fears it so much. I worry about losing that barrier in old age and not knowing what life is which. Does that happen to others? My senior English teacher criticized my Recital (an abstract artistic composition I wrote in my senior year)  for the contradictions in it. But what if it was showing those contrast between life and other life. Now there is the masterpiece! maybe I will write another. That would be awesome. After all, Leonard Cohen did it kind of.

 OK, so the 1970 camping trip was 51 years ago. The challenges my parents had,  Amy wasn’t even six months old. Brooke was in a playpen in the van,  Brian was 11 years old and I was five. We went to Danberry to pick Brian up at Diane’s. This was back while they were still building the interstate highway system. The multi-mixer in Waterberry was crazy the top deck was not finished yet it was pouring rain and every time we hit a spot where the highway was missing the practically vertical windshield on my grandfather's 1968 GMC van could be hit hard by waterfall blast. 

This was one of the periods of time in which my dad‘s license was not valid in Connecticut. I suspect one of the many drunk driving instances was responsible for this. So, my mom who did not drive standard well was trying to drive the van in Connecticut. Once we go to Massachusetts my dad could take over because they didn’t check across state lines like that back then.

 Once we got set up in the bus solid rain fell for four days I remember that my parents had to be fit to be tied. I do not know if this was the plan but after the four days, we removed the plastic bamboo white blue and green curtains from the bus and installed them into the GMC van windows. Then we went to the Franconia New Hampshire area and camped in a campground that had a heated pool. I never like swimming but Brian sure did.  Brian swims like a fish and we couldn’t get him out of the pool. There was a ninety-year-old woman who had a crush on my dad.

 The rain now is stopped I do not recall a year of this much rain. I am totally discouraged. I don’t know what to do. All it even all it ever does is rain. It never stops, it just rains on and on. I hate it. The rage I feel is real with rain. I always attribute it to the many hours in the military standing in 40 degree mud and rain for seemingly days.  Enough is enough.  My head hurts my neck hurts, I need warmth and dryness. I hate this rain.