Back from the Wild

How would people who see her in Trader Joe’s or at a poetry exchange know that this apparently civilized and rather ordinary woman is a woodland creature in disguise—a wolf or an eagle in human clothing?  A wild thing who prefers to do her own pursuing?  They miss the mythology of pointed ears, pug noses, and hooves of mountain goats.  They see ears to their fond gaze, protruding from each side of her head, and feet in white sandals, ordinary feet.  Perhaps sometimes they realize vaguely that she is different, when, for example, they try to picture her looking interestedly at one of those three-piece bedroom sets in the window of an installment furniture store, and cannot imagine her doing that.  They can’t see her interested in bedroom sets or fancy cars or any of those settled, fixed, everyday things.  She is like a mosquito, they might remark, you never know from one minute to the next where she’s at.

In truth she is more like a bear who one day wandered from her wilderness home into the camp of man, smelled man-food, tasted, and decided to stay.  She licked her fur because, while living in the wild she felt no need for cleanliness, now in this new environment it felt better to be clean.  In time, she felt at ease and reclined on a mattress and slept inside a house, especially during rainstorms.

But after living in comfort for a long time, she felt a pull back to solitary, self-sufficient life in the woods from which she came.

It was in this bear-like mood that I started excitedly up the steep trail from Silver Lake on July 19.  I felt strong and ready as I shouldered my pack after breakfast, full of pleasure in the simple act of breathing out of doors, moving away from civilization and into the backcountry.  I looked down on my civilized car parked where it would stay for over a week, and having on my back food and shelter for six days.  Two opposing thoughts fought within me: I had finally escaped from an oppressive peopled emptiness into a warmth and friendliness; and a pain of leaving a few who care and think this urge of mine a bit foolhardy.

A little unnamed lake

The trail insists on the direction into Yosemite Valley, six days from now; it winds ever up for several hours, traversing the face of the eastern Sierras until it finally ducks into a high valley with so many lakes that only the big ones have names.  This rocky landscape, peopled with the sound of a larger life, opens before me as a new world, as if within greater space every small and usually insignificant creature becomes important.
Finally I come to my planned destination and set up camp at Waugh Lake by mid-afternoon.  Nobody else is here.  The lake is like a private artificial pond for my amusement.  I disturb the equilibrium of nature it seems, come as an outsider not fully part of the culture.  I want this attitude to change, and it may take days before I become the creature who wandered out of the wilderness into the camp of man and is finally returning.

I have come to the wild before, for a week at a time, but that was so long ago that my tuning is off, I don’t harmonize like I did.  I hung my food back then, tried to get it 20’ high, above reach of bears.  Now, we are told to use a heavy plastic container called a bear canister and lay it on the ground a hundred feet from the tent.  So I did this after dinner, a meal of dehydrated enchiladas which was quite good.  I cooked it on a little propane stove which you can see in the picture of me at the top.

I had all the time there was and very little use to make of it.  Evening was gradually advancing and the mountains began throwing their long shadows over the valley.  I came into the tent where I would spend my first senior night in the High Sierra wilderness.  I slithered into the tiny tent with all the grace and dignity of a garbage bag into a can. 

I came by choice to this isolated place to sleep on this hard bed.  I am in some indefinable way, the essence of innocence—not the coy, shy innocence, but the fearless innocence of wild things.  For a long time I lay musing on this scene—this person that all these years have made.  My great design kept me broad awake and watching.  The short summer night seemed as long as the winter darkness, but finally I slept.