TATER

Laying in a nest of lavender scented Ralph Lauren sheets, he thinks about rustling the dog out from between his legs, where she spoons him keeping him warm.  Her little body perfectly nestled in the crotch of his legs, an unspoken testament of her love and devotion, that she has waited for him to rise, even though there is a scent and sizzle of bacon in the air.  He knows he must shake a leg and get going, yet is pinioned to the bed by the force of the sweet dream slowing slipping from his mind, and the morning dreams of being any place else than here.  He longs for the cabin on Taylor Island, and the densely wooded surroundings giving subtle peeks at the stunning Lake Vermilion through slight gaps in the foliage.

He remembers walking miles through the sparsely inhabited Island, feeling like Lewis and Clark.  He would walk silently, carefully choosing his footfalls, in order not to disturb the wildlife surrounding and vastly outnumbering him.  Deer, moose, black bear, mink, martin, bald eagles, foxes, osprey, he had stumbled upon all of these and more in his ramblings. He knew the island better than anyone in his family, and had begun to claim it as his own.  On their property were major outcroppings of rock, and gigantic boulders left there like forgotten marbles from the ice age long past.  His rock was a good twenty feet high, and fifteen wide, covered with a soft carpet of lichen and verdant moss.  He found the secret to scaling this behemoth at the age of ten, thus claiming it his own, a secret place stumbled upon by others on occasion, but never shared.  He had walked around this slab countless times before discovering the holds that would propel him to it’s top, and was the only keeper of that knowledge.

The vista this place afforded him was stolen from some unimaginable time when the earth was undefiled and radiant in her youthful appearance.  The trees had colluded to separate their green curtains and frame the lake and its islands to perfection.  He couldn’t see any signs of human encroachment from here, and the views of the forest floor surrounding him, impressive.  He spent silent hours up there his first day, and came to repeat the  blissful experience as often as possible.  Often he brought a light lunch, notebook, and a novel, wrapped up in a Pendleton blanket, and spent the day enchanted, and alone.  There was amazing entertainment happening all about him, and his secret perch enabled him to see how much business was getting done by the inhabitants below.  He would strip off his clothes and lay naked upon the cool moss staring at the sky through the branches above, trying to become something natural to this place.  He yearned to be this rock, that had enjoyed the peaceful richness of this place for centuries, as he stretched his body out upon it.  He would willingly sacrifice himself on this altar if it meant an eternity of this particular serenity.

He replayed scenes from his past up there.  He conquered and slew  many dragons here, which had always been too overpowering for him in that other life.  The quiet allowed him to answer the outrages with reason, and his imagination to wreak havoc on his persecutors.  He imagined what love might hold in store for him, dreamed of his involvement with Mr. Bond (the original and hottest) leaving him both shaken and stirred.  He dared to imagine that his sexuality would someday be free of oppression, silence, and violence, and that he may make a life with another man, blessed by support and acceptance from the people he knew.  He pondered the existence of God, in the face of so much inhumanity and bloodshed, and started on his path towards zen.  The moments of silencing his own mind, and living fully in the moment, focusing on his own breath and the play of light through the trees.

He recalled early mornings with his brother out on the water, fishing at dawn amidst the rising columns of mist off the shallow waters of Black Bay.  The lapping of water on the boat and birdsongs, the only music.  The stalking of the Great Blue Heron amongst the reeds on the shoreline, mimicking the predators in the boat, but with much more success, as it darted it’s beak down between it’s stilted legs and snapped up fish after fish.  He remembers the peaceful silence being SLAPPED into oblivion with the gunshot of a beaver tail warning  others of our trespass in it’s waters.  Recalls the little red fox that followed them all the way down the shoreline as they fished,  out of sheer curiosity.  How grateful he had felt that day, to be a part of this place outside his norm, to feel included in this vast and wild world, instead of sheltered away in mythic suburbia.  Some how this escape into the world at large triggered a sense of wellness in him he had never experienced before.  Took all the bullshit from his daily life and just shrunk it down to a manageable miniature, something to tuck away in the recesses of his mind instead of overshadowing and nagging him.

He remembers lying in the boat looking up at the northern lights playing and dancing while  he and his brother were anchored in Marbaker Bay after sundown.  Passing each other a joint and audibly oohing and ahhing like the fourth of July, as the intensity of the Van Allen Belt shimmered its magic dust to hungry stoned eyes.  The rocking of the gentle waves creating a womb for their teenage bodies that they were desperate for, cradling them from the craziness they had immersed themselves quite willingly in, back in their other lives.  A respite for them to connect to one another, to talk about higher things, to discover bonds beyond the brotherly, to venture forth into the adult, while being swathed and cradled like infants.

All these things and fleeting images of more just beyond his wakeful grasp.  He wants so badly to be that rock again, to never leave Eden for the everyday world, to be naked and free to dream and lie still, unfettered and whole.  He fights against the notion that “you can’t go home again” while laughing to himself in dog torn,  lavender scented, designer sheets, with the knowledge he must once again leave.