11/8

I have a drug addiction — perhaps it does not seem like it on the outside to those unknowing onlookers, but what I desire most is an end to the seizures (the spells, the episodes, the visions).

Drugs make that happen, at least for awhile — hard drugs, not by traditional standards, but enough of them to be measured in grams per day, intense enough to keep me in a perpetual, paradoxical high, a great slowdown of the mind.

My waking, striking eyes are always in struggle against the tremendous forces of the anti-epileptics; yet, I feel when my body revolts, when it speaks to me and says for me to rest. I do not lest, for as the busy world goes, each day closer to strangling itself in the global chains and wires of its norms and infrastructure, about to keel into cardiac arrest, so too do I follow and drift in a drug-laden stupor, hallucinating dim images of future success and liberating peace among this catastrophe.

Sleep is never enough to shake off the effects, no matter six, ten, or twelve hours — it is a waking coma that I am in, unable to fight the burden from my consciousness.

10/19

Watching my ticking pocket-watch.

It’s going too slow, I’m going mad. Not quite eight yet, can’t take my drugs and bask in their effects. Drinking Captain Eli’s, reading Jane Eyre, wishing I had a real beer, that I knew what the French ladies were saying — that’d be true gorgeousness.

Impossibilities, I’m crippled under hundreds of pages of text — for what reason? What’s the expectation anyway? My hands are trembling, my jaw is jerking, I want to scream confessions into the open air and onto deaf ears. I pretend play that I’m in a cafe snapping my fingers to the heartbeat of expression — no more apprehension, depression, or falling behind the imaginary pack.

Cliff Bar, too much sweet in my mouth. Just swallow the pills.

Smoking, 17 Years Old

The darkness molested by the
pollution of city lights and
street lamps blazing through the
summer night hung low over
the pond — we called it the
puddle — and there we sat,
near the edge of the murk, in such
stark contrast to the relative
order around us, illuminated in
sharp blacks and whites like in
those old movies.
Cigarettes hung loosely from our
lips, smoke poured and streamed
into a poisonous plume,
in a smooth and sophisticated way –
as we fancied ourselves to be –
silently pondering the existential and poetical,
smoking cigarettes at seventeen.

Living on an Island — Coyote, Moose, & Angry Beavers

This past weekend my August was kicked-off with a wild biking, canoing and camping trip to Marshall Pond, probably 15 miles from home. Rather than using a motor vehicle, my friend Rob towed our full-sized canoe, loaded up with some camera equipment, a boom-like camera jib arm, sleeping bags, and the like, on a bicycle trailer bolted to his seat. I carried our water supply, my gear, an underwater camera, and a few other things a day pack that, once packed, was bulging and full. The point of our voyage was to catch get some great shots in of different animals, interesting things that live in ponds, and of whatever else we could find.

We got a few strange looks on the journey there. Those were surely merited; two young, shirtless guys on bikes carrying several hundred pounds of gear and an 11+ foot, blaze-orange canoe (we named it Moxie) biking down the road is an unusual, if not insane sight. They were all well and good, though; people chuckling, giving us thumbs-ups, cheering. At about mile 10 of our grueling trek, we stopped at a farm stand and explained to the farmers what the hell we were doing with a canoe on our bike.

Finally, after three to four hours of biking, taking short rests for water and granola bars, we reached Marshall Pond. Initially, we were quite unsure of ourselves. There was an island in the center of the pond, no more than 50-60 feet in diameter, that would be our base camp for the weekend when we weren’t in the water filming. Our issue, here, was that we brought everything but the canoe paddles; somehow, those had slipped our mind. We were able to borrow two paddles of sorts from a generous neighbor who had a camp on the lake. Within the course of an hour to an hour and a half, we made two trips out to the island, first to drop off our gear, then to drop off our bicycles so that they wouldn’t be stolen.

Living on an island is an interesting feeling. We had probably eight to ten trees around us, most of them quite old and venerable, as well as masses of blueberry and other bushes. Luckily, for us, there were ripe berries just ready for the picking. In the center of the island was a shale firepit that we used for cooking our dinner of creamed corn, a can of tuna, a cucumber, and triscuts between the two of us. Even though we had already caught and documented a very large garter snake and a painted turtle, it was after dinner that the real action started.

We decided to go canoing at sunset. Marshall Pond is made up of three different pond and bog segments that are connected by passageways. By the time we were nearing the exit of the first, and out of view of our island-home, twilight had almost completely taken effect. There was perfect stillness and silence on the water, sans the sound and wake of our canoe and our gentle strokes. Suddenly, an object flew by my face. Then, for the next ten minutes or so, we were surrounded by little brown bats out for a dinner of insects. Some of them came within only a few feet of our heads, others inches from our paddles or the canoe. Unfortunately, we did not have the bat detector with us, but even so we could hear their social calls later on — a loud, incredibly high pitched screeching vocalization.

Unafraid of bats, we kept on canoing. When we entered the second pond, a horrific call sounded from the bog — that of a great blue heron. Shortly after this, there was an explosion in the water near to us, startling both of us. Rob reassured me that it was just a beaver doing a tail slap to fend us off, but nevertheless the volume and intensity of the sound is frightening. At one point during the night, we were surrounded by three beavers all doing tail slaps. In the morning we discovered that there is a beaver lodge in that area.

The most compelling sounds of the night came around the entrance to the third pond and the woods on the shore next to it. At first, we heard something continuously moving around. We stopped paddling, listened for awhile, and then intermittently used our flashlights to try and spot something. Eventually, we paddled the canoe ashore, but did not get out. The sounds continued. Large sticks and branches were being broken by an unseen creature. Rob and I bet that the only things large enough to make that sound were moose or black bear. He’d of a black bear in that specific area before, but there was no way we were going to get out in the middle of the night, unarmed, and try and “catch” a black bear on film. We could be shredded by an angry mother bear defending her cubs no matter how fast we could run. When nothing came in sight, we decided it was safest to get back in the water and leave that sound for later.

On our way back around the pond, before we got to that location again, we whispered about how it would be awesome to hear some coyotes — how that would basically finish off our night of amazing creature sights (mind you, much of this was filmed!). Only minutes after we said that, coyotes started howling from the mainland — luckily not our island — with their terrible yipping, screaming tones. Rob and I attempted a coyote call back to them somewhat unsuccessfully. Nevertheless, they called again a few minutes later and sent shivers up my spine.

Just after the coyotes called, we were unknowingly back near the beaver lodge again. A tremendous boom and a splash of water, as if a cannon of sorts had been shot at us, erupted less than 20 feet away. We quickly paddled out of beaver territory, adrenaline pumping us forward. When we were near the end of their area, however, we heard some more rustling in the woods that made us stop to try and film whatever was moving around in there. This, perhaps, was the most perplexing sighting of the night.

Every so often, there would be a splash of water as if something was getting in and out of the water. We were dead silent, floating about fifty or so feet away from the shore as to give us a safe distance if it was a predator, and so that it would have less of a chance of being bothered by our noise. There was a lot of twig breaking and rustling — the sound of something big moving through the woods. We turned on the camera and began filming and explaining what was going on. Then, we heard a very deep grunt of sorts, similar to something that a large horse might make. Almost immediately the two of us said “Moose”. Several more grunts followed that and the sound of things moving around. Both of us quickly turned on our lights to try and spot whatever was right there in the bog near us, but because of the density of trees, we couldn’t see anything. The evidence of moose was there, though.

We went back to the island, amazed and excited, made a small fire, logged our day on film, and then went to sleep. Somehow, after just a day, the island felt like a home. There wasn’t much to take cover under in a storm, there wasn’t much to use as fuel for a fire (we burned most of the available fuel in one day), the sharp shale around the island was mostly inhospitable and smothered in slippery algae that would send someone flying forwards, probably only to be slashed up on rocks, and the ground was filled completely with roots. There wasn’t much of anything desirable there, but it was private and in the middle of a pond with no one — most importantly, the outside, fast-paced, technological world — to bother us. There is the special feeling of making it on your own, like in those survival or adventure stories (I read Gary Paulsen non-stop when I was younger) where the hero has everything working against him but manages to make it. We weren’t crashed in the middle of the Pacific, but we didn’t have a whole lot of food with us, not nearly enough water, had only rocks and roots to sleep on, and had to use some sort of survival skills to ration what we did have and make a cook fire.

Being an islander is a unique skill — or way of life — that must take some getting used to. I can imagine nearly a thousand or so years ago Iceland first being settled, and the other islands in that area and around the British Isles. The challenges presented to settlers must have been phenomenal, more than to other pioneers because there was no way home but the open water. While we only had to canoe back to shore in order to start making way for home, it has given me a good deal of respect for islanders across the world and I’m ready to do some island hopping of my own.

-hrafn

A Little Audacity

I am sleeping lightly upon a leather loveseat covered in blankets. In my dream, I am laying awake looking at my cellphone as it vibrates and rings in its little melody. Suddenly, I irk awake and look to my phone. Nothing. Seconds later, it rings. In the passage of one afternoon, this happens three times.

It is a few days earlier. As I cross the mighty Androscoggin river, I look to my left and wonder about the fate of the old Cowlan mill building. Contracts have fallen through and that historic landmark, now gutted, silent, and looming simply exists to uphold its own history — an icon of sorts for all the memories of the textile past. I know that it will not make it. Today, an inferno raged inside of the building and within the span of two hours destroyed all that was left. Floors caved in, walls collapsed into the river, the entire place came thundering down. Over 150 years of history was enveloped in fire, each year screaming as it died, sending fireballs and cinders from the building all over downtown Lewiston.

I pick up my pen, put it to the page, and then it falls over, leaving a sploch of black ink on the page. I am drugged with hopes of my condition improving, yet I have vomited almost everyday, and even water makes my stomach churn. I sit back, weakened by persistent fatigue, and imagine off into another place while my muscles lose their tone, while my body softens and my strength is undermined. I sit with a patch over one eye, too dizzy even to stand.

It is audacity that gets me through this. Boldness shielding an inner determination that strengthens my core, enlivens my willpower, envokes a sort of rage against all that is holding me back. My soul infuses with the whole of my body and I can conquer any obstacles that are presented. A little audacity is what keeps me alive through times when even reading is a challenge.

Each breath. Stronger.

Hrafn

http://tylernoyes.wordpress.com/

Meditating in the Attic

The room is quiet,
there is nothing here but
the silence of sacred candlelight,
the drafty air of an old New England
house, and that barely audible sound
in my ears when there is no other.
It is in this moment that
I can hear my beating heart,
feel the pulse of life within
my veins, wonder about all
those who have gone before me,
those who will go after;
within, without, they are all a part of me.
It is in this moment that I am alive.
Worry shimmers away into flames.
There is no need for merciful concern;
only peace is present here because
as I breathe, I nourish my soul,
and that is all that matters.

A writer’s winter

The typewriter sings
in the middle of the woods;
the writer’s gone home.

He’s traveled back from
a sojourn of hiking trails
smoothed soft by snowfalls.

In the autumn he
searched for a little something,
came back with nothing

but rough hands and a
pair of broken boots,
broken ambitions.

The pages of his
novels were sundered by the
wind, cast adrift in

sullen storms, into
the upheaval, soggy, bleached,
unrecognizable;

if all his tales are
just allegories of the
long passed, he would write

them again, on a
typewriter inside a warm
cabin, through the winter.

Meditation on Urgency

Forget for a moment the dissonance between
people and places, ideologies and realities.
You are eighteen years old again and wondering
what it will feel like to be fourty and if your
world will still be around. Those days when
you succumbed to stillness and muttered
angrily afterwards about should-have-dones and
could-have-dones and realized that the only
thing stopping you, was you.

Who will remember, thirty years from now, if
you never grasped the urgency of a fleeting moment,
never said “Hello!” to that one charming woman,
never sat with someone new for the sake of adventure
and a happier day for the both of you, except for
you?

who will know all the growth to be manifested
by the aches of urgency

Who but you will know what went unsaid?

A Meditation on New York City

Imagine New York City

in ten-sixty-six A.D.

There was a forest floor

before the asphalt there –

The loam, the sand, the clay,

the rain drizzling onto pines

and the whispering stories of tribes

now forgotten in the pavement of

crude oil, in the bang and toil of

trash trucks and taxi cabs.