I wake at dawn, or just before -
watching the window from my bed as it slowly lightens until the world outside begins to assume discernible shapes....
....and as the shapes emerge, a mellow mountain fog seeps through the trees and quickly engulfs all semblance of landscape.
Some mornings the fog is as delicate pink as angel wings, other mornings it has the amber glow of an autumn memory.
Everything outside is drenched with heavy dampness, which drips from the eaves and porch like taunting imitations of forgotten tears.
The birds are awake with a cacophony of song and random calls of morning greetings that carry sharply through the muddled mists.
As dawn advances, I force myself from the safe and secure confines of my bed and very reluctantly begin to dress - despite enormous aches and maladies and a profound dread of venturing outside.
Before the raw onslaught of day - before the brutal heat and inevitable thunderstorms, I wander out into my vast purgatory of property - stunned by the massive onslaught of high brush and impossible weeds, and perplexed at the daunting impossibility of confronting them.
I'm armed with an ancient pair of nearly-unusable shears and a hacksaw that is heavily coated with half a century of rust.
My mind is numb and giddy with the complete impossibility of the situation - knowing that I'm no longer physically capable of performing such inconceivable tasks, and cursing my fragmented dreams of carefree country living.
Trudging through knee-high wild grass drenched with morning damp and dew, I reluctantly face acres of monstrosities of nature that have grown as tall as myself courtesy of the limitless surplus of rain:
weeds, brush, tangles of bushes armed with razor-sharp thorns, mysterious species of verdure that previously only existed in my science fiction dreams.
I'm standing in the helpless midst of this alien nightmarescape at the brink of dawn - with shears, a hacksaw, and two miserable hours of sleep.
As I begin the merciless task of cutting, clipping, chopping, hacking, sawing, I rudely awaken the anonymous forms of life that reside deep within this thankless tangle of countryside:
wasps, flies, spiders, ticks, chiggers, snakes, mice, relentless gnats and mosquitoes.
Within fifteen unforgivable minutes I'm drenched in dampness and sweat, ripped bloody by thorns, bitten by hoards of insolent insects, with a racing heart, and boots entwined in impulsive grasping vines.
The rising sun is peaking above the forest, causing the fog and mists to retreat.
Amid the constant bird chatter, a nearby mourning dove calls plaintively - like a gentle warning of impending doom.
And I'm suddenly thinking how easy it is to get into impossible situations.......and how difficult it is to get out of them.
I'm entirely alone on the edge of the isolated forest, in the midst of nature's hungry jaws, trying valiantly to conquer the impossible -
and knowing for certain that I will eventually be defeated.
In the presence of morning fog and evening mists, burning sun and chilling moon, tears of rain and mournful winds, restless shadows of drifting clouds and impatient birds in flight - -
I will succumb to the land and finally find the blessed rest that eluded me for so long. The tangled shelter of obstinate vines and wayward brush will assure the sweet secret of my sleep.
No one will know.
I will not be missed.
Jon V.
2020
