At last, the computer is fixed. How many things can happen in nine days?
Lots. Politics still swirl, so much so that it is hardly worth catching up, but snow swirled, too, and it is here that I must start, or at least lead up to, for it all began with a failed snowmobile a year ago in the back and beyond by our gas- only and outhouse-equipped cabin in the UP. It had been February then, too, and the old Polaris had been acting up, but still it had started after much effort, and I could only assume – or hope – that it would start again on the morning we were to leave for civilization that morning. After an hour and a half of pulling the chord, I gave up hope. We were than left to hike the 4.5 miles out, and drag the sled with all out stuff part of that distance until a friendly couple on a two-up – a snowmobile designed to carry two- did us the favor of pulling the sled the rest of the way to the parking lot. It could not have been done otherwise, and we will be forever grateful to that couple.
And to their snowmobile. A two-up, fairly new, electric start, reverse, and a quiet four-stroke engine, it had left a silent but lasting impression on us, and when a dealer called telling us of a good, slightly-used snowmobile with the same qualities, we jumped. The money would be more than we had wanted to spend, but that year before had given us incentive, and by the end of last week, we finally had our new snowmobile and the time to test it out, up north, up in the UP.
When we got there, the snow was coming down, lightly and in blinding bursts, lake-effect snow that would not stop the entire four days there. It was fresh snow, powder on top of a two-foot base, and it was excellent. All was excellent – every trail, every day, and the new snowmobile started every time with a simple push of a button. It was so great that we took to exploring new trails, confident that we would not be stuck in the middle of nowhere waiting in the cold for a lift and an expensive tow, and we were right: everything worked fine, everything went fine, right up until the time I noticed the sign for the Baker Grade and had tapped Vicki’s helmet – she was driving - to take the turn. I had not seen that sign for two years and had thought it was gone, along with the beginning of the Grade, and I was excited. I had skied on it just that morning from the other end and had been passed by ten snowmobiles, so I knew the trail should be marked all the way through. What could go wrong?
Well, there was the wind. It was blustering and blowing the powder into drifts, and the Baker Grade – an old railway spur that had been used for logging in 1900 and was now a back-woods road – went several miles through the open Kingston Plains, an area that for some reason resisted regrowth. I knew that the drifting would partially cover the tracks, but certainly would not totally cover so many. Besides, we had a great almost-new chariot that would pull us through anything. Vicki did my bidding and drove on.
Within a mile we were on the plains, and sure enough, the snowmobile trails could still be discerned - if one could see, that is, through the great waves of airborne powder and the spray of drifts as they lifted over the hood of the snowmobile right into our faces. Vicki dove from one drift to another for a while, leaping from one trail to the next as they appeared and disappeared in the drifts, the former drivers apparently as lost as we were quickly becoming, their trails weaving around in and out between themselves like thick, cold strands of spaghetti. Soon, she gave up and stopped in a drift, her anger at my fatal decision apparent even through her snow-covered visor. Now I would have to drive, and becoming the hero would only mitigate the damage, for just my decision and the current results were enough to cause at least a few hours of post-traumatic friction. Which they would do, but first, I had to become the hero.
The powder was deep, from at least a foot to three feet, and there was a real chance we would be stuck up to our behinds in the whistling plains, but the great new machine seemed to be capable of it, pushing though large drifts like a spoon through whipped cream. Still, the visor remained covered in snow, forcing me to slip it up and take the cold straight in the face. Bracing. Between gusts of snow, I could see the tree line a few miles to what I thought must be north – a quick stop on a knoll to check my compass confirmed this – and all we had to do was make it there, hopefully in some track already laid, and then coast along until we found the well-marked portion of the Grade, which would bring us to the side-trail to the cabin. But the tracks continued like spaghetti, and we dashed from track to track through the drifts, each time getting a little closer to the tree-line before veering off to the west. It seemed we were looking at a mirage that was unattainable because it wasn’t really there. It was not time to panic, and fortunately, I didn’t, because the freezing snow on my face took all the extra effort.
Finally, we reached the trees, and after another tense few hundred yards, the Grade appeared again, stalwart and well-tracked, as if it had been that way throughout and we had just been sloppy - or I alone had made the wrong decision, which I would hear about more than once.
A few days later, we easily and smoothly drove ourselves and the gear-sled out to the parking lot, our terrified dog tucked between us on the two-up, only to find that the car and trailer had been drifted in up to the roofs. The shovel had a long and satisfying work-out, and then we were on our way south, happily listening to the second half of our CD sci-fi saga, a story of war and betrayal and mystery in the future on Mars.
War Dogs, by Greg Bear, had our grizzled warriors facing an alien menace from another star system who had positioned themselves on Mars to fight the so-called “Gurus,” another alien race that had come to Earth some years before. At first, these few-dozen Gurus had brought great technological advances to humankind, which brought great and lasting prosperity to all. Then they had mentioned, well, ahem, we have a large and hostile enemy after us and they have positioned themselves on Mars, and if you know what’s good for you, you’d better do our fighting for us (with our improved technology). Most countries on Earth agreed.
The hostiles, called “Antags” for “antagonists” (the names for both groups could not be pronounced by humans) were a relentless foe, and at last, our heroes had to take refuge in a large underground cavern on Mars that had been created billions of years before by a crashing moon. The moon had brought minerals and water, and these had been used by previous human settlers to make a livable, breathable atmosphere for humans in the vast cavern system. Oddly, much of the cave was covered with a green mildew, and soon they were to find that the mildew brought them into mind-contact with the alien race that had evolved in the cave. The mind-meld brought the humans out and beyond themselves, into a vast realm of intelligence which spanned the eons. There was something hugely important in this, and this is what we, the reader, were being led to – and on to, to the next book in the trilogy.
And this is what brings us to another mind-expansion point: what bridges thought and action, world-view and in-the-world view? For I – for most of us – have had revelations that have brought us to another world, that have expanded our vision of what it is to exist. Yet wind, troubles, cold, hunger, and more and more trouble snaps us back. Always. Is it this then, this tireless affront to our comfort, that is real, or our interpretation of it, which might change greatly from time to time and species to species? Here, like our last heroes in the end of book one, we are left out to dry. What is real? For the heroes in the book, it looked like post-traumatic stress, this uncertainty, but what of us common warriors of life? Do we not wedge ourselves between worlds, never certain? For even when we are certain, when we knock the hard wood of our table at work, we are mocked by dreams, by sudden life and slow death, by the eons of time and the limitlessness of space all around us.
Aliens all, I think, caught in the swirl of distant improbabilities and immediate sensations, caught by a freezing gale of snow while we search the horizon, the tree-line, for the final certainty that brings all the spaghetti trails of our lives and our history together in the safe grove of final Truth that we know is there but must fight to find - or not, for in this life our compass does not always point true north, not if we succumb either to the cold or the panic. But even if we pull it together and raise our visors to see clearly, who, which alien race, which point of the compass will bring us to this most-distant, most-spectral tree-line?
Perhaps – one never knows - our life story is a trilogy, and it will be all known someday, somewhere, out beyond True North, to where we have been pointed – positioned - all along, both in our cold suffering and in our lofty thoughts and prayers, together, always.
Lots. Politics still swirl, so much so that it is hardly worth catching up, but snow swirled, too, and it is here that I must start, or at least lead up to, for it all began with a failed snowmobile a year ago in the back and beyond by our gas- only and outhouse-equipped cabin in the UP. It had been February then, too, and the old Polaris had been acting up, but still it had started after much effort, and I could only assume – or hope – that it would start again on the morning we were to leave for civilization that morning. After an hour and a half of pulling the chord, I gave up hope. We were than left to hike the 4.5 miles out, and drag the sled with all out stuff part of that distance until a friendly couple on a two-up – a snowmobile designed to carry two- did us the favor of pulling the sled the rest of the way to the parking lot. It could not have been done otherwise, and we will be forever grateful to that couple.
And to their snowmobile. A two-up, fairly new, electric start, reverse, and a quiet four-stroke engine, it had left a silent but lasting impression on us, and when a dealer called telling us of a good, slightly-used snowmobile with the same qualities, we jumped. The money would be more than we had wanted to spend, but that year before had given us incentive, and by the end of last week, we finally had our new snowmobile and the time to test it out, up north, up in the UP.
When we got there, the snow was coming down, lightly and in blinding bursts, lake-effect snow that would not stop the entire four days there. It was fresh snow, powder on top of a two-foot base, and it was excellent. All was excellent – every trail, every day, and the new snowmobile started every time with a simple push of a button. It was so great that we took to exploring new trails, confident that we would not be stuck in the middle of nowhere waiting in the cold for a lift and an expensive tow, and we were right: everything worked fine, everything went fine, right up until the time I noticed the sign for the Baker Grade and had tapped Vicki’s helmet – she was driving - to take the turn. I had not seen that sign for two years and had thought it was gone, along with the beginning of the Grade, and I was excited. I had skied on it just that morning from the other end and had been passed by ten snowmobiles, so I knew the trail should be marked all the way through. What could go wrong?
Well, there was the wind. It was blustering and blowing the powder into drifts, and the Baker Grade – an old railway spur that had been used for logging in 1900 and was now a back-woods road – went several miles through the open Kingston Plains, an area that for some reason resisted regrowth. I knew that the drifting would partially cover the tracks, but certainly would not totally cover so many. Besides, we had a great almost-new chariot that would pull us through anything. Vicki did my bidding and drove on.
Within a mile we were on the plains, and sure enough, the snowmobile trails could still be discerned - if one could see, that is, through the great waves of airborne powder and the spray of drifts as they lifted over the hood of the snowmobile right into our faces. Vicki dove from one drift to another for a while, leaping from one trail to the next as they appeared and disappeared in the drifts, the former drivers apparently as lost as we were quickly becoming, their trails weaving around in and out between themselves like thick, cold strands of spaghetti. Soon, she gave up and stopped in a drift, her anger at my fatal decision apparent even through her snow-covered visor. Now I would have to drive, and becoming the hero would only mitigate the damage, for just my decision and the current results were enough to cause at least a few hours of post-traumatic friction. Which they would do, but first, I had to become the hero.
The powder was deep, from at least a foot to three feet, and there was a real chance we would be stuck up to our behinds in the whistling plains, but the great new machine seemed to be capable of it, pushing though large drifts like a spoon through whipped cream. Still, the visor remained covered in snow, forcing me to slip it up and take the cold straight in the face. Bracing. Between gusts of snow, I could see the tree line a few miles to what I thought must be north – a quick stop on a knoll to check my compass confirmed this – and all we had to do was make it there, hopefully in some track already laid, and then coast along until we found the well-marked portion of the Grade, which would bring us to the side-trail to the cabin. But the tracks continued like spaghetti, and we dashed from track to track through the drifts, each time getting a little closer to the tree-line before veering off to the west. It seemed we were looking at a mirage that was unattainable because it wasn’t really there. It was not time to panic, and fortunately, I didn’t, because the freezing snow on my face took all the extra effort.
Finally, we reached the trees, and after another tense few hundred yards, the Grade appeared again, stalwart and well-tracked, as if it had been that way throughout and we had just been sloppy - or I alone had made the wrong decision, which I would hear about more than once.
A few days later, we easily and smoothly drove ourselves and the gear-sled out to the parking lot, our terrified dog tucked between us on the two-up, only to find that the car and trailer had been drifted in up to the roofs. The shovel had a long and satisfying work-out, and then we were on our way south, happily listening to the second half of our CD sci-fi saga, a story of war and betrayal and mystery in the future on Mars.
War Dogs, by Greg Bear, had our grizzled warriors facing an alien menace from another star system who had positioned themselves on Mars to fight the so-called “Gurus,” another alien race that had come to Earth some years before. At first, these few-dozen Gurus had brought great technological advances to humankind, which brought great and lasting prosperity to all. Then they had mentioned, well, ahem, we have a large and hostile enemy after us and they have positioned themselves on Mars, and if you know what’s good for you, you’d better do our fighting for us (with our improved technology). Most countries on Earth agreed.
The hostiles, called “Antags” for “antagonists” (the names for both groups could not be pronounced by humans) were a relentless foe, and at last, our heroes had to take refuge in a large underground cavern on Mars that had been created billions of years before by a crashing moon. The moon had brought minerals and water, and these had been used by previous human settlers to make a livable, breathable atmosphere for humans in the vast cavern system. Oddly, much of the cave was covered with a green mildew, and soon they were to find that the mildew brought them into mind-contact with the alien race that had evolved in the cave. The mind-meld brought the humans out and beyond themselves, into a vast realm of intelligence which spanned the eons. There was something hugely important in this, and this is what we, the reader, were being led to – and on to, to the next book in the trilogy.
And this is what brings us to another mind-expansion point: what bridges thought and action, world-view and in-the-world view? For I – for most of us – have had revelations that have brought us to another world, that have expanded our vision of what it is to exist. Yet wind, troubles, cold, hunger, and more and more trouble snaps us back. Always. Is it this then, this tireless affront to our comfort, that is real, or our interpretation of it, which might change greatly from time to time and species to species? Here, like our last heroes in the end of book one, we are left out to dry. What is real? For the heroes in the book, it looked like post-traumatic stress, this uncertainty, but what of us common warriors of life? Do we not wedge ourselves between worlds, never certain? For even when we are certain, when we knock the hard wood of our table at work, we are mocked by dreams, by sudden life and slow death, by the eons of time and the limitlessness of space all around us.
Aliens all, I think, caught in the swirl of distant improbabilities and immediate sensations, caught by a freezing gale of snow while we search the horizon, the tree-line, for the final certainty that brings all the spaghetti trails of our lives and our history together in the safe grove of final Truth that we know is there but must fight to find - or not, for in this life our compass does not always point true north, not if we succumb either to the cold or the panic. But even if we pull it together and raise our visors to see clearly, who, which alien race, which point of the compass will bring us to this most-distant, most-spectral tree-line?
Perhaps – one never knows - our life story is a trilogy, and it will be all known someday, somewhere, out beyond True North, to where we have been pointed – positioned - all along, both in our cold suffering and in our lofty thoughts and prayers, together, always.
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