Adirondreaming

Well, I'm home, still with this illness hanging on. All three of us were home sick yesterday, staring at each other, breathing out of our mouths. I should have taken a picture because it is rare that I looked this bad. I've been sicker, but I don't think I've ever looked sicker. I've got pink eye in both eyes, my hair is in that awkward too-long-to-be-a-pixie-too-short-to-be-a-bob stage, my nose is dripping and raw, and my skin was deathly green. I found an old bottle of cough medicine with codeine under the bathrom sink, and took a small swig of this golden elixir of god before bed. Instant sore throat relief! I started singing a song,'Codeine, I bet you think this song is about you! Codeine, I bet you think this song is about you, don't you? don't you?' Bob joined in with,"Codeine, codeine, codeine, codeeeeeeine, please don't take my man because you can!" and he didn't even have any.

I've gotten it into my head to move to the Adirondacks. Bob says it may possibly be because it is February and it is time to go crazy. God, he is absolutely so good at destroying my dreams. I've already found him a job and us a house. He will work for the highway department in my daydream, and we will rent to own until we sell our house here. Well, I google searched it. I asked Sequoia what she thought, and she said it wouldn't be too bad. I'm just talking shit, though, because it is February, and it is time to go crazy. That fucker Bob is right.

The cost of housing is very high. Although it is full of vacation homes, the actual working people don't make much up there. But YOU ONLY NEED ONE JOB! And there is telecommuting. And we are charming and adorable, obviously.  I mean, shit, who would want to live in a place like this?



You know what's concerning, though? Even in all of my leaping-without-looking thoughts, there is NO hospital there. NO hospital. If you are almost dead, you better just hurry up and die or get ready for a one hour drive.  There is one medical clinic type place, where they stitched my Dad's hand when he cut it cleaning fish.

But if you are living a happy, healthy, outdoor lifestyle, you don't NEED a doctor, do you?! If you get eaten by a bear, just be grateful and die without making a big deal about it.

Also concerning is Bob's parents. I would feel very bad to take their only son far away. No one in their family has ever moved away in three generations. They don't care if a truck hits me, but they would miss Bob. They are healthy and strong now, but in ten years that might be different.

I may feel different once spring hits here.

This is probably the house we would get...



Love and Light,
Your Friend,
Hil

Show And Tell: Axton Landing at Raquette Lake

Hello, my sensational Thrillerati!





Did you know that my mother is a painter? Above, I have posted one of her works that hangs in our home, and receives so many compliments! On the back, she wrote... "Axton Landing on the Raquette River, August 1998, Benna June." Axton Landing is located in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State, a popular place for canoeing in the wilderness. Axton was once "Axe Town", where many lumberjacks worked, felling trees and floating them down the river to be milled. It always makes me chuckle when people presume that all of New York State is New York City. The Adirondack Mountain region is cold, wild, and isolated, even so much so as to be compared to life in Alaska. My parents loved to hike, camp and canoe when they were younger. They were so athletic, climbing many of  The High Peaks, the tallest mountains in New York, and paddling many of the canoe trails. In 1978, my sister was 8, my brother was 5, and I was not yet born. Do you ever imagine what your parents were like before you were born? In 1983, instead of replacing their car, my parents bought a cabin in the Adirondacks. It cost about the same as a car at the time. I spent half of my weekends at this cabin, when I was growing up, living without central heat or running water, while the rest of the time I was a typical, consumerist 1980s suburbanite, in hightops and a scrunchie.

This painting reflects the wilderness of the area, but it also reflects my mother. The wilderness in northern New York is very harsh, trees jut up aggressively into the landscape, but my mother likes order and symmetry, and brings balance to her work.


I found this photo attached to an article that said " Paddling Axton Landing to Stony Creek Ponds", after an quick google search. Look! There is the same reflection, and the same white tree branches reaching for the sky as in my mother's painting.

And, something else...
a link to traditional nordic "kulning", a way to call your cows in when one is very isolated. The recording is LOUD, but I find this to just GRAB my soul. I don't really know anything about my own heritage, only that I am western European, and we have been in America a long time. Still, this makes me feel something. I saw one comment that said something along the lines of,"Imagine you were a Roman Soldier, and you heard that echoing through the forest. Wouldn't you drop your weapons and run straight back to the Mediterranean?"

I wish I could learn to properly "kuln". Maybe some day.

Love and light,
Your friend,
Hil