We just put Heath to bed with a fever of 104.1. He came in this evening from playing outside and said he was cold. Mark wrapped him up in a blanket and he sat on the sofa with Puppy, seeming very puny. He managed to eat a bit, but was only interested in getting into his pajamas and into bed. Not at all like our Heath. Poor little guy. No school tomorrow.
Into the Wild was not quite what I expected. I must've shelved the storyline deep in the recesses of my mush brain, because I assumed it was going to inspire Mark and I to load up the wagon with our children and the bare essentials and head west to live off the land. That didn't happen.
I did, however, remember my a plan that I had in my very early twenties. I was living in an attic on Carn Street at the time. This attic was almost suitable for living. Critters certainly enjoyed it. (On more than one occasion I had chipmunks and raccoons removed from my closet.) I spent a lot of sleepless nights consumed with the worry that I would be awakened by a rabid creature, gnawing my face off.
The people who lived across the street were a local band that went by the name of a not-so-popular, but tasty, candy. They were never there.
A group of Sigma Somethings lived downstairs. They all had chocolate labs named Dakota and Montana. They all drove Nissan Pathfinders. And they all planned to move to Colorado after graduation.
There was a man named Pete that lived in the shed-like building behind the house. It wasn't much bigger than my attic space. He was somewhere between the ages of 35-65. A Gremlin was parked in the back of the house, but he never drove it. Come to think of it, I rarely saw him. But I knew he was back there, because every couple of days a fresh recycling bin would appear in front of his door. Each bin was overflowing with cans of Olympia (It's the Water). He never spoke, but he always had a smile. If anyone ever came to see him, I completely missed the event.
Pete's scaled down existence was intriguing. My existence, as a 22 year old college student, seemed complicated, and futile, and ridiculously aimless. And super sick of people. So I toiled with the idea of dropping out of school and moving to the mountains. By myself. To live off the land. My specific plan was to have a goat farm. I planned to make goat cheese and goat milk, and sell it to local stores. Now, here's what I knew about goats. Nothing. Making cheese and milking animals? Nothing. But this was incidental. My Aunt Edna in Trap Hill was dabbling in chicken farming and had a few goats. I could get goats from her. I don't even know if I had ever been camping more than a day or two at that point. I had no idea how to cook. Cleaning my attic was a terrible bore. But I had this idea that I was going to have fields of vegetables to tend and make my own clothes. By myself.
My Grandpa was born and raised in the NC mountains. His father was a ranger on the Parkway and made $52 a month in 1939. His mother made extra money by making tobacco bags. They had 30 chickens and two cows, and tended to 15 acres of produce. They lived off the land because it was their only choice. His aim was to get out of there and never have to live like that again. So I told him about my goat farming plan. The supportive optimist that he was, he told me, You can do anything you set your mind to, but WHY would want to do work like that when you don't have to? It made no sense to him.
And when I realized how much work it would take, I agreed with him and registered for another semester of classes instead. Most of my plans at that time were, at best, half-baked.
Now I just dream about living somewhere that doesn't require getting in the car so often. And I think I might try to grow some cucumbers, tomatoes, and watermelon this summer. If not, there's always the farmer's market.
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