Mud. Mud packs.
Mud pies. Mud slides. Mud seas. A rare
manifestation of Mother Earth to the city dweller, it's a fact of
life to
anyone who lives in the country. Like me. I'd had no idea how much
mud had been
removed from my life by the various forces and agencies of urbanization.
After
I moved to Humboldt and had the experience of one Winter and one
Spring behind
me, I realized why Eskimos needed 22 words to say "snow."
I needed at least
that number to describe the mud I faced daily. But I had only one.
Oh, sure, I
could put a bunch of adjectives in front of it: fuckin', slimy,
foot-sloppin',
slippery, wheel-suckin'...and that's just the kind encountered in
my
"driveway." Notice that I put the word in quotes. Nobody
outside the county
would recognize the gumbo clay, twisted and rutted incline as a
driveway going
in.
At the top of
this drive, which I sometimes could not negotiate, because it was
just too damned gooey for even my 4 by 4, was my parking area. Also
my supply
pile, and my tent with-a-view. I had gone to some effort the first
winter to
make my tent livable. It's good I did, because I'm still in it,
fortune having
eluded me for the moment. I put in a wood floor...that is, I laid
a couple of
pieces of plywood over some long sticks that rested on some more
or less flat
rocks, an arrangement known as a "growers foundation."
I ran a piece of hose
over from the spring to right outside the tent entrance, for running
water any
time I wanted it. I bought a propane lantern and camp stove which
served for
heat and light. Almost. That is, I had almost enough light to read
by, and I
could almost stay warm on chilly nights. It's no mystery why I liked
spending
weekends in town.
But spartan
as my environs were, I was determined to keep them clean. My father
had often said, when launched into a harangue about "welfare
bums", "It costs
nothing to stay clean." This was meant to imply that those
recipients of the
state's largesse squandered their monthly pittance on Chateau Margaux
and
truffles, and were so overwhelmed by ennui that they allowed their
sterling and
Limoges to get filthy. Still, this oftenrepeated refrain had had
its
effects. To live in base squalor put one beyond the pale. Even machismo
was no
excuse.
So I promised
myself to stay clean; maybe not neat, but never grubby. To my
surprise, I found the cost of this vow almost beyond me. First,
there was the
expense of the laundromat every week. I was sort of used to that,
although in
San Diego, if I ran a little short at the end of the month, I could
always pop
over to Mom's and run my pile of dirty clothes through her Whirlpool.
Here, I
discovered that a box of soap cost as much as several beers, and
lasted only a
little longer. Maybe I was using too much soap and not enough beer.
Before that
problem was solved, I tackled the tent...and lost the scrimmage.
Unless I cared
to pave over the approximately two acres that comprised my drive,
my meadow,
and the path to the privy I'd dug in the woods, there was no way
I was going to
keep the mud off the plywood floor. For a while, I tried removing
my boots
every time I went inside, but that often meant standing out in the
rain and
getting the inside of both my loggers and my socks wet, as well
as smearing mud
all over the tent flaps. And Spiro, who had no footgear to remove,
would slip
in ahead of me anyhow, so what was the use.
I finally had
to admit defeat. Although I never told my folks, the high cost of
keeping clean was beyond my psychic budget. I faced up to living
in filth and
squalor and the smell of shit. I would, however, hang onto my self
esteem, at
least until I got rich. I knew if I just got rich I would have no
trouble with
my self esteem...or cleanliness, either.
I revealed all
this to Kiki one night in that tender time after love-making,
when you're apt to say any damn thing up to "let's get married."
She sighed and
agreed that having a Jewish mother is a hang-up for starters. Her
way of
combatting similar programming in her youth had been to refuse to
wash her hair
for an entire year. That had been when she went "Hippy,"
and left school to
hang out in a commune in Arkansas. She had braided her hair into
about 50
braids, occasionally pouring cooking oil over the whole contraption.
But she'd
finally had to give in to conventional morality and hygiene when
the entire
commune contracted simultaneous lice and scabies. After a sweat
bath treatment
failed to eliminate the source of itches, they resorted en masse
to the local
pharmacy and laundromat.
Though she had
lost that particular battle, at least she had never gone so far
as to shave her legs or pits. Her being a natural redhead, I didn't
find this
very bold. She is not like my cousin Ruth, who is so hairy that
for her to
refuse to shave her legs is to open herself to the accusation that
she's
wearing an ape suit. The year she rebelled against her middle-class
background
can accurately be described as "hairy."
I guess all
of us up here in the hills, except for those hardy souls who were
born here, have tales to tell about our attempts to escape the bourgeois
programming our families laid on us. What the hell. They meant well.
In fact,
recently, while dreaming of building a real living structure, with
floors and
plumbing, I've begun to empathize with my forebears, who pulled
and clawed
their way out of the mud of Eastern Europe, only to see their heirs
embrace a
late 20th century version of their own peasant beginnings.
I can almost
see the day when I'll be yelling at visitors to please wipe their
feet and close the door. I can hear myself now: "Whattsa matter?
You born in a
barn?"
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