I reread this piece this morning. funny, just as we are different people when we return to a distant past to find a distant place, returning to this piece today I found layers upon layers and connected to phrases that yesterday I missed. it is so good I imagine I will find something new when I return again. and I will be back.
This story brings so many thoughts to mind. My father fished for trout in Utah, but not with flies. Fly fishing is an art form. Dad filled the frig. He also received solace from a nagging wife by treading the edges of streams. When I read "The Big Two-Hearted River" in college, I was taken by Hemingway's detailed description of how Nick set up his camp. This went there, that went here. Just so. Everything in its place, almost with the care of a nesting woman. But he also mentioned a woman in the tale, one that left a stain on Nick's heart. Nick was trying to put his life back in order after they parted. Probably Hemingway was always trying to put his life in order too, that wild, mid-century, war-torn shellshocked life where there was never enough whiskey or women to tamp down the grief. Your camping seemed to be doing the same thing. Returning to the home town is always a disappointment, watching your childhood being erased and buried under someone else's concrete. After a while, there's nothing left to recognize. And you're so changed as well that it's a surprise when someone you used to know well barely remembers who you were. And the "do you remembers" hang on hesitant lips.
I would want to say a great many things about this story, which took me to many places. But, to be short... I was struck by the same revelation, that the town where I grew up does not exist anymore. It's there, I mean, but is no longer that town, by any stretch. But also I am emboldened by the knowledge you have that leaving the woods, after having felt eyes upon you, might have felt cowardly but you know it was the right decision. I too am struck sometimes that some decisions are the right ones but can never explicitly reveal themselves as such -- they are right because something wrong didn't happen, that could have. I like to remind myself that I should take comfort in having done a correct thing even when no one else verifies it for me.
Those were all just personal observations, not what I should be commenting here, which is what an excellent piece this was.
beautiful essay Damon.....I listen to my campfires too.....we would burn the downed limbs of alligator juniper up on the Mogollon Rim in Arizona....the sound and aroma was almost hallucinogenic
I reread this piece this morning. funny, just as we are different people when we return to a distant past to find a distant place, returning to this piece today I found layers upon layers and connected to phrases that yesterday I missed. it is so good I imagine I will find something new when I return again. and I will be back.
This story brings so many thoughts to mind. My father fished for trout in Utah, but not with flies. Fly fishing is an art form. Dad filled the frig. He also received solace from a nagging wife by treading the edges of streams. When I read "The Big Two-Hearted River" in college, I was taken by Hemingway's detailed description of how Nick set up his camp. This went there, that went here. Just so. Everything in its place, almost with the care of a nesting woman. But he also mentioned a woman in the tale, one that left a stain on Nick's heart. Nick was trying to put his life back in order after they parted. Probably Hemingway was always trying to put his life in order too, that wild, mid-century, war-torn shellshocked life where there was never enough whiskey or women to tamp down the grief. Your camping seemed to be doing the same thing. Returning to the home town is always a disappointment, watching your childhood being erased and buried under someone else's concrete. After a while, there's nothing left to recognize. And you're so changed as well that it's a surprise when someone you used to know well barely remembers who you were. And the "do you remembers" hang on hesitant lips.
love the many layers of this. beautiful.
I would want to say a great many things about this story, which took me to many places. But, to be short... I was struck by the same revelation, that the town where I grew up does not exist anymore. It's there, I mean, but is no longer that town, by any stretch. But also I am emboldened by the knowledge you have that leaving the woods, after having felt eyes upon you, might have felt cowardly but you know it was the right decision. I too am struck sometimes that some decisions are the right ones but can never explicitly reveal themselves as such -- they are right because something wrong didn't happen, that could have. I like to remind myself that I should take comfort in having done a correct thing even when no one else verifies it for me.
Those were all just personal observations, not what I should be commenting here, which is what an excellent piece this was.
beautiful essay Damon.....I listen to my campfires too.....we would burn the downed limbs of alligator juniper up on the Mogollon Rim in Arizona....the sound and aroma was almost hallucinogenic
lovin it a ton .. ain’t done with it yet .. saved a lot for later..