New photos at the DOME gallery. Don’t know if dome will happen or I’ll just establish a base camp — tent, tarp tool shed, gas grill; and build composting outhouse and brick oven — or dome footing construction will start without those base of operations type things.
As for now, just burning out stumps and planning the footing. And, will likely divert effort to the outhouse and oven.
The goal was to get back to Maine — maybe not die at the border, but close. Just get back. I’ve since told people that I’ve achieved that ultimate goal and I am here to exist, in any manner, and be buried on family property. That held through the winter and some less than gratifying jobs. This weekend has changed that.
I got into the woods and worked for myself; at my own pace. Finally lashing together my homemade rope harness — well researched YouTube ™ videos — and climbing a tree was the literal and figurative high point. Scratching the ground to pour a footing and build a dwelling is going to take time. The lesson of the weekend was to really push on my weak point: follow through.
How many unfinished ideas and projects do we leave in the wake of our lives? The construction site can look like a prepper’s hellscape; with burning stumps and scattered tools.
Sleeping in the tent that night, though, reinforced my hope to stay ambitious and follow through on all my short term plans. It turns out that the “hopes and dreams,” that I dismiss so easily when queried, have bubbled up in my winter slumber and are blooming in spring.
I’ve often wanted to write about the concept of “success” and fully denigrate it as a bullshit construct of the corporate dictatorship, to control everybody. [Same as the invention of religion; but I’ll denigrate that concept another time.]
For the purpose of talking on life after prison let’s kick “success” overboard and talk about being 1) adept at something, and 2) getting a desired result. This generalized use of success defines exactly what is gone, for an inmate remerging with society.
Most transitioning inmates leave the penitentiary with the intention of doing anything to “get back on their feet,” “reintegrate,” “get back what they lost”…whatever. This good intention fades from their grip immediately. Felony convictions are engineered for permanent suffering.
The personal angle is what I am “done” with: relationships, booze…of course those were the easy ones. What about success…ever being adept and achieving results at…well fuck, anything? I’m at the post-prison stage of having to accept that I’m aged out and done with everything.
I’m done! Ok, I typed it in a blog entry and glimpse the dimensions, but the permanent implications haunt me worse than prison. The “everything is an option,” or “I’ll do whatever it takes” optimism that one has upon release (to parole) is a springboard to depression – picture an inverted springboard pounding Daffy Duck into the ground. Hmmm…how to manage that expectation?
→former favorite lyric quote: “Nothing really matters much, it’s doom alone that counts.” B.Dylan, Shelter From the Storm [Blood On the Tracks]
Let’s keep it morose…new favorite: “I spent all my money on a future grave…I’ll cut you in on twenty percent of my future sins.” Temple of the Dog, Wooden Jesus