Greetings from Siberia. It’s dark now. And big. This place is so big. As I sit here on the hot, dark sand, I think I’ve figured something out. I know now why this place can’t get me. Why I’m not afraid here anymore. Why the solitude and the night, and the Indifference, can’t take me away; though it’s got me now, and there’s nowhere to run. It’s because I’m connected. Deeply connected. To my wife, and my daughter, and my brother, and my mom. And to the others too. I try hard with my family. And do a pretty good job, I think. Not so much the others. It’s my failing. One of many. These connections though do the trick, I think. They keep me safe here. Prevent my mind from wandering to places from which it might never return.
In 1989 I left my girlfriend–now my wife–behind in a small college town near Oregon while I embarked on a Great Life Adventure. I made it as far as the desert. In fact, not far from where I am now. Just over the Bristol mountains to the north-west, near the shore of Soda Dry Lake. Something happened to me then which caused me to promptly return to Yumiko. I gave up the desert then. I knew I was about to go to far into the wild. Not physically. But that other way. I sensed then–quite rightly–that if I’d continued then I’d never have made it back. I was right. I know that now.
Now I’m back in the desert. Twenty eight years later. The same threat looms here like before. I can sense it. But I’m not afraid. It can’t get me. I’m too strong now. Though my body is weak, my spirit, resolve and hard won maturity are more than a match for The Great Indifference.
Not so in my youth. If I’d stayed then I would surely have been consumed.
softypapa 