It turned out to be a gorgeous October day in Southern Wisconsin. The leaves were in their red-gold Autumn glory, and the mid-afternoon sun exuded that mellow Fall light you just can't get enough of, once you get a taste for it: honey on the sweet-tooth of your mind. The highway was smooth and straight. The farms I passed were neat and trim: rectangular fields and winsome barns. I slipped a CD into the car stereo. Beautiful music poured forth. Where in God's name was I? Heaven?
There is no doubt in my mind that even a generation from now, my experience of that afternoon will seem as far away to most people as the Columbia exhibition of 1893 is to us today: an image out of paradise, a thing to behold in photographs and sigh, a beautiful bygone thrill. But agree with me on that point or not, it's the autobiographical reality I want to reflect on here. Because a week or two after this drive I wrote to a friend about the experience, which apparently was tinged with an disquieting sense of prophecy. I wrote:
I was suddenly overwhelmed with a sort of imposed certainty of blessing. Almost as if it was a doom of mine never to truly suffer. I would, I thought, have bright and well-adjusted children, a life-long love in my wife, a comfortable suburban home, sufficient income....I would be published, win some prizes, and be asked to speak at writers' conventions....Doesn't sound so bad, does it? But so then, why did I never take another drive in the country, ever again?
I can tell you why. The drive and the thoughts that came with it left me feeling empty and disappointed: Is this all there is going to be to my life? Fluent success? Effortless well-being? Trouble-free transference-to-me of suburban plenty? A life more-or-less equal in effort to this car ride--where all I have to do is turn this wheel a few degrees this way or that, and press a little on the gas and this beautiful afternoon is all mine for the taking?
It's a consistent topic of conversation here at Sunnyside, why it is that so many people seem so interested these days in watching films and in reading books that are set in post-apocalyptic futures. And we Sunnysiders have concluded that it comes from the culture being bored, bored sick and silly. We ache for a quest. We want to prove ourselves worthy of something more than the commute and a job in retail or whatever else it is that isn't really working for us in terms of character development and soul. That's all. That's it. And when we don't find those opportunities in what we call real life, we turn to living them vicariously. Thus the post-apocalyptic books and shows.
But there is a better way than b-rate movies and books to become true adventurers and valiant warriors. The quest to do so is outlined here at 9-Volt Nomad. Our dragons are Mindlessness and Consumption. Our steeds are bicycles. Our battlegrounds are vegetable gardens; our weapons, mead-pots and potato ricers. And by the way we like to refer to nine volts here, because we aim to do with a very little bit of energy, what others might think you'd need a whole lot of energy to accomplish (9-volt nomads seek to dry their clothes in the sun for instance, which actually takes no earthly energy at all). Also we call ourselves nomads because we aspire always to be perceptually and imaginatively on the move, even if the place toward which we're journeying is always (paradoxically) exactly where we are. This is to say, our destination is simple satisfaction with the here and now, and on the lowest carbon budget possible.
So, now I'm forty-five years old instead of twenty-five, and here I am, not speaking for fees at any big writers' conventions but writing as best I can for a blog about 1800 square feet called Sunnyside. Though to be honest I doubt I'll ever fully arrive here. That's the adventure, always finding this place! Always aiming to deepen it as a venue of sensual adventure and of intellectual production and of communitarian insight and practical expertise!
I note that since my arrival here at least one (very local) apocalypse has passed harmlessly; it was that prefabricated automotive lifestyle we Sunnysiders have left behind us, and from which we no longer expect to receive satisfaction. I note too that I certainly no longer worry about the good things in life coming too easily (as I did on that afternoon long ago in the car). This is because the quest I am on presents challenges at every turn. Today it's getting the tomato sauce canned and sealed. Tomorrow it's sharpening the hoe. And in the meantime there's the writing to do: another page of the novel to set down, another character to keep stoked with another shovelful of words. Or maybe some preliminary thought to dig like compost into the blog.
I want to say too that for me as an writer, the moral imperative to homestead as well as to write has meant setting aside the ambition to become this or that in anyone's eyes quickly and young, and focusing instead as purely as possible on the real basis for accomplishment in art, which is to say, on the inner vision of the heart as it beholds the spectacle of the world and on articulating that with beauty and passionate attention to the truth, period and regardless. In literature, as well as the practical living day, there is no substitute for the long honest road home.
And I hope that the truth is what I have been writing here.
HB
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