The Picturesque as Haunted –
A scene penned, painted, poeticized
The sweet scented air reminds me of the naturally enticing aroma of Nottingham’s Sherwood Forest. The low mist tumbling over the mounds of matted grasses, might well be the stage-curtain’s opening to reveal the stark, historic English moor. The voyeur even might expect momentarily, to watch either Robin Hood and his Merry Men cajoling by Major Oak (the tree they could hide inside), or see Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, seeking out clues about the Hound of the Baskervilles down in this bog of ours.
This urban green belt tangle is mysterious as always. Even though I’m close enough to the old homestead to yell to my sons or wife, the enclosure, only steps inside, is as if the traveler was miles beyond the bustle of civilization. It is as much like a child reading a story-book. The adventure in story-land begins in earnest, once the choice of titles is selected from the bookshelf. The moment I make my intention known, to all who care that I shall be walking the great beast, Bosko, over to the Bog, my imaginative process commences to concoct and churn, in sincere hopefulness something unusual will be encountered on this latest foray.
Maybe we will cross in front of a deer or two, a wild turkey, a fox or folly of grey squirrels wrestling noisily in the dead leaves. It takes only a few strides down this beaten path to glorify the unanticipated. As Bosko intently studies every scent and wind-inspired knock or creak, I am at the mercy of an unbridled fascination, where indeed it can be said the writer expects it just as likely as a deer or bear, to cross paths with a specter, troll, gnome, fairy, witch or hobgoblin….take your pick. It’s just the way I view life. Escaping into this storied woods, provides a wonderful hiatus from the electronic world I have been unceremoniously dumped by profession. I’m not at all sure I could even muster the energy to type a full page now on a manual typewriter. I don’t remember even once, feeling I needed to escape the keyboard of the old Smith-Corona. If it did cross my mind that the typewriter had a smothering, confining effect over a day’s work, it was certainly not as much then as now.
The spring rain has generated much activity in our neighborhood, particularly noticeable down in the bog where the brown, dry stands of field grasses are slowly being replaced by vivid green plants at their base. It is hard not to feel that same potential in heart half expecting that old bones will strengthen and ambition flow eternal just standing amidst this inspiring, strong, earthly re-generation. I suppose it would be nice if this strong seasonal force could re-shape humanity, as it is now transforming the winter landscape. It is changing daily as the sunscape through the still bare tree-tops warms away the last ground frost, which the oldtimers here claim was down a fair piece in the aromatic bog muck.
I used to reference David Grayson’s writings frequently, from his book, “Adventures in Contentment.” He writes about his stint in farming, having turned his back on city-life in order to preserve his health. He was tilling the field one day when he happened to look up to witness a most impressive sprawling topography beneath a gentle, universal sky, and it seemed to him momentarily, as a strange, unfamiliar scene; one that he knew had been there before, since creation, but in his days at the farm it had never seemed so important to study. The hillside view of the valley below was as if the world had immediately opened to him. When he looked back at his impressively straight furrows created that day, and then contrasted them with what had been provided naturally, he felt foolish about having ignored the bigger picture of life and times. He had been so concerned about making the furrows straight and appearing expertly contoured to the land that he had ignored all the magnificent world and life forces thriving around him. His preoccupation with the task had blocked out all else, the loss being a deprived existence. This bothered him moreso, because it was nature, this sprawling, inspiring landscape and its unlimited possibility, that brought him to the farm in the first place. It was as much an escape as a quest for salvation from city life.
There are times, even as a longstanding student of “Adventures in Contentment,” I find myself immersed in modern day commerce up to my eyeballs, such that I am just as ignorant and blind to the world around me as Grayson complained. It takes a great resolve to stop and admire the view in the course of modern day commerce….modern day hustle. We risk our health and sanity at this mill wheel because we find it impossible to invoke, impose, command change upon our condition. I have had to stop myself many times this past year, to break from the obsession of business at all cost. With exception of these daily walks over to the bog, and down this peaceful country lane, the computer commerce glowing in my office, beckoning me to invest just a few more hours, has been a powerful force to reckon with, and occasionally forcefully escape. It is a terrible reality, one that should never have happened to someone who claims dutifully to being of “the enlightened.” Yet it has happened to millions of folks who have given up entirely on the possibility there is something more in life other than technology….. and straight, perfectly spaced furrows.
When I used to look up from my typewriter keyboard, I might have been privileged to see the lilacs blossoming in the front yard, and the storm clouds blackening along the horizon. I might have looked out in time to see a hummingbird at the feeder, or a squirrel sitting up on the fence post having an afternoon respite. When I look up now I see this wavering white on grey screen, and beyond that is a dark opening of cabinet with an askew wall of books behind. Where the window should be in a visionary’s office! To look out the window at the world around me, I must get up and strain my neck to sneak a little peak out at the front yard, and the bog across the lane. And the humming. My old typewriter made a lot of sounds but all acceptable in the pursuit of story-line. This infernal racket of buzz and internal function, makes me crazy after only a few minutes. I can feel the radiation penetrating my soul. At the old Smith-Corona, the worse symptom was a stiff neck and some ribbon ink on my fingertips from undoing a key jam.
I have to be particularly disciplined at this computer terminal, to step away every half hour or so just to connect with what is real and breathing in this environment around me. Even if I was to stop right now, in the middle of this sentence, and head out the front door and down into the bog, it would take about fifteen minutes to adjust to the new normal. Adjust to the fact there is no sustained humming and neatly boxed, tailored viewpoint ahead. I resisted a computer for many years and only agreed to purchase one as a facilitator of more efficient office operation. It is true that work in both writing and antique professions has become easier in many ways because of computer technology; yet with improvement and efficiency has come isolation and numbness of spirituality. I have been known to sit at this fool contraption for upwards of four hours. When I proof-read what has been composed, it’s quite usual for the work to be flat, sloppily written, and rather lifeless even when read aloud. I put more work into corrections and re-structuring columns and editorials than was ever necessary from the greasy rollers of a manual typewriter.
Even though I have the advice of David Grayson imprinted on my soul, because it is truly what I believe important in life, I fall victim regularly to the modern trappings of the so-called “better-easier-most efficient way” of living and making money. The only salvation is having the determination to pull up from this post, this whiter than white monitor screen (despite enough furrows to make up a day’s work), and wander off into the woods for a brief sojourn from the world as it has been manufactured. I never leave this sanctuary without feeling restored and invigorated. If there is any misery at all in my life, it is the reality of this unhealthy, uninspiring attachment to the modernists’ convention and new century accepted practice of blatant disregard….for anything that doesn’t smack of new technology..
I need these sojourns, as Grayson needed his vista of heaven on earth. I want to kick this habit one day soon, and spend more time haunting these woods, than hovering over a space-age keyboard in half-spirit dreaming of a better way!
A scene penned, painted, poeticized
The sweet scented air reminds me of the naturally enticing aroma of Nottingham’s Sherwood Forest. The low mist tumbling over the mounds of matted grasses, might well be the stage-curtain’s opening to reveal the stark, historic English moor. The voyeur even might expect momentarily, to watch either Robin Hood and his Merry Men cajoling by Major Oak (the tree they could hide inside), or see Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, seeking out clues about the Hound of the Baskervilles down in this bog of ours.
This urban green belt tangle is mysterious as always. Even though I’m close enough to the old homestead to yell to my sons or wife, the enclosure, only steps inside, is as if the traveler was miles beyond the bustle of civilization. It is as much like a child reading a story-book. The adventure in story-land begins in earnest, once the choice of titles is selected from the bookshelf. The moment I make my intention known, to all who care that I shall be walking the great beast, Bosko, over to the Bog, my imaginative process commences to concoct and churn, in sincere hopefulness something unusual will be encountered on this latest foray.
Maybe we will cross in front of a deer or two, a wild turkey, a fox or folly of grey squirrels wrestling noisily in the dead leaves. It takes only a few strides down this beaten path to glorify the unanticipated. As Bosko intently studies every scent and wind-inspired knock or creak, I am at the mercy of an unbridled fascination, where indeed it can be said the writer expects it just as likely as a deer or bear, to cross paths with a specter, troll, gnome, fairy, witch or hobgoblin….take your pick. It’s just the way I view life. Escaping into this storied woods, provides a wonderful hiatus from the electronic world I have been unceremoniously dumped by profession. I’m not at all sure I could even muster the energy to type a full page now on a manual typewriter. I don’t remember even once, feeling I needed to escape the keyboard of the old Smith-Corona. If it did cross my mind that the typewriter had a smothering, confining effect over a day’s work, it was certainly not as much then as now.
The spring rain has generated much activity in our neighborhood, particularly noticeable down in the bog where the brown, dry stands of field grasses are slowly being replaced by vivid green plants at their base. It is hard not to feel that same potential in heart half expecting that old bones will strengthen and ambition flow eternal just standing amidst this inspiring, strong, earthly re-generation. I suppose it would be nice if this strong seasonal force could re-shape humanity, as it is now transforming the winter landscape. It is changing daily as the sunscape through the still bare tree-tops warms away the last ground frost, which the oldtimers here claim was down a fair piece in the aromatic bog muck.
I used to reference David Grayson’s writings frequently, from his book, “Adventures in Contentment.” He writes about his stint in farming, having turned his back on city-life in order to preserve his health. He was tilling the field one day when he happened to look up to witness a most impressive sprawling topography beneath a gentle, universal sky, and it seemed to him momentarily, as a strange, unfamiliar scene; one that he knew had been there before, since creation, but in his days at the farm it had never seemed so important to study. The hillside view of the valley below was as if the world had immediately opened to him. When he looked back at his impressively straight furrows created that day, and then contrasted them with what had been provided naturally, he felt foolish about having ignored the bigger picture of life and times. He had been so concerned about making the furrows straight and appearing expertly contoured to the land that he had ignored all the magnificent world and life forces thriving around him. His preoccupation with the task had blocked out all else, the loss being a deprived existence. This bothered him moreso, because it was nature, this sprawling, inspiring landscape and its unlimited possibility, that brought him to the farm in the first place. It was as much an escape as a quest for salvation from city life.
There are times, even as a longstanding student of “Adventures in Contentment,” I find myself immersed in modern day commerce up to my eyeballs, such that I am just as ignorant and blind to the world around me as Grayson complained. It takes a great resolve to stop and admire the view in the course of modern day commerce….modern day hustle. We risk our health and sanity at this mill wheel because we find it impossible to invoke, impose, command change upon our condition. I have had to stop myself many times this past year, to break from the obsession of business at all cost. With exception of these daily walks over to the bog, and down this peaceful country lane, the computer commerce glowing in my office, beckoning me to invest just a few more hours, has been a powerful force to reckon with, and occasionally forcefully escape. It is a terrible reality, one that should never have happened to someone who claims dutifully to being of “the enlightened.” Yet it has happened to millions of folks who have given up entirely on the possibility there is something more in life other than technology….. and straight, perfectly spaced furrows.
When I used to look up from my typewriter keyboard, I might have been privileged to see the lilacs blossoming in the front yard, and the storm clouds blackening along the horizon. I might have looked out in time to see a hummingbird at the feeder, or a squirrel sitting up on the fence post having an afternoon respite. When I look up now I see this wavering white on grey screen, and beyond that is a dark opening of cabinet with an askew wall of books behind. Where the window should be in a visionary’s office! To look out the window at the world around me, I must get up and strain my neck to sneak a little peak out at the front yard, and the bog across the lane. And the humming. My old typewriter made a lot of sounds but all acceptable in the pursuit of story-line. This infernal racket of buzz and internal function, makes me crazy after only a few minutes. I can feel the radiation penetrating my soul. At the old Smith-Corona, the worse symptom was a stiff neck and some ribbon ink on my fingertips from undoing a key jam.
I have to be particularly disciplined at this computer terminal, to step away every half hour or so just to connect with what is real and breathing in this environment around me. Even if I was to stop right now, in the middle of this sentence, and head out the front door and down into the bog, it would take about fifteen minutes to adjust to the new normal. Adjust to the fact there is no sustained humming and neatly boxed, tailored viewpoint ahead. I resisted a computer for many years and only agreed to purchase one as a facilitator of more efficient office operation. It is true that work in both writing and antique professions has become easier in many ways because of computer technology; yet with improvement and efficiency has come isolation and numbness of spirituality. I have been known to sit at this fool contraption for upwards of four hours. When I proof-read what has been composed, it’s quite usual for the work to be flat, sloppily written, and rather lifeless even when read aloud. I put more work into corrections and re-structuring columns and editorials than was ever necessary from the greasy rollers of a manual typewriter.
Even though I have the advice of David Grayson imprinted on my soul, because it is truly what I believe important in life, I fall victim regularly to the modern trappings of the so-called “better-easier-most efficient way” of living and making money. The only salvation is having the determination to pull up from this post, this whiter than white monitor screen (despite enough furrows to make up a day’s work), and wander off into the woods for a brief sojourn from the world as it has been manufactured. I never leave this sanctuary without feeling restored and invigorated. If there is any misery at all in my life, it is the reality of this unhealthy, uninspiring attachment to the modernists’ convention and new century accepted practice of blatant disregard….for anything that doesn’t smack of new technology..
I need these sojourns, as Grayson needed his vista of heaven on earth. I want to kick this habit one day soon, and spend more time haunting these woods, than hovering over a space-age keyboard in half-spirit dreaming of a better way!
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