The Good Old Days
"I am the luckiest son of a bitch in the world, I thought, contentedly staring out at all that silence and stillness, feeling, for the first time in a while, able to relax, to draw a breath unencumbered by scheming and calculating and worrying." - Anthony Bourdain
I know just how Tony feels. The last time I felt that way was about 8 years ago, in the middle of the desert in Utah, camped out in the center of nowhere. Late, late, later still at night, after the fire had burned down to embers and I had wrapped my sleeping bag around me to ward off the night air, it was still too bright to sleep. I stretched out under a canopy of stars I had studied in school, and glimpsed through the urban sky, but had never witnessed in the complete darkness that comes when the nearest electric light is a hundred miles away. I began to get sentimental, to grow nostalgic for the purity of the pre-industrial era. How wonderful it would be to live in harmony with nature, to take from the land what you need and restore what you can - to practice good stewardship over the natural world.
I expanded on this point to my camping buddy, who thoughtfully passed me a frosty beverage from the plastic cooler. "Nature," I said, warming to my subject, "what we need is..." I looked around. The cooler full of ice kept the beer and groceries cold. The wicking material of my shirt had kept me cool in the 100 degree heat of the day, and provided warmth in the 45 degree night. I was bundled in fifty years worth of research and development in the form of the sleeping bag. All of this so I could spout about nature. In the morning, we would pack our things and drive off, to acquire more ice in the desert.
I know just how Tony feels. The last time I felt that way was about 8 years ago, in the middle of the desert in Utah, camped out in the center of nowhere. Late, late, later still at night, after the fire had burned down to embers and I had wrapped my sleeping bag around me to ward off the night air, it was still too bright to sleep. I stretched out under a canopy of stars I had studied in school, and glimpsed through the urban sky, but had never witnessed in the complete darkness that comes when the nearest electric light is a hundred miles away. I began to get sentimental, to grow nostalgic for the purity of the pre-industrial era. How wonderful it would be to live in harmony with nature, to take from the land what you need and restore what you can - to practice good stewardship over the natural world.
I expanded on this point to my camping buddy, who thoughtfully passed me a frosty beverage from the plastic cooler. "Nature," I said, warming to my subject, "what we need is..." I looked around. The cooler full of ice kept the beer and groceries cold. The wicking material of my shirt had kept me cool in the 100 degree heat of the day, and provided warmth in the 45 degree night. I was bundled in fifty years worth of research and development in the form of the sleeping bag. All of this so I could spout about nature. In the morning, we would pack our things and drive off, to acquire more ice in the desert.
posted by Maureen at
12:51 PM
1 Comments:
Yeah, the magic of Walden came to a screeching halt for me, even as a dopey 13 year old, when I saw the itemization of expenses old HDT kept, and they included things like laundry service. Today he'd probably be writing Walden, and taking breaks to text Emerson on his Blackberry.
By
Maureen, at 5:22 PM
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