A Place, Invested in Memory: A Tale for Halloween. ARCHIVE
(A True Tale, Too.)
This is an edit and extensive rework of a post I shared on my sister’s website, back in late October, 2010. As I have mentioned in this ongoing series, I would handwrite each blog post, photograph it on my trusty pre-smartphone, and send it to her to then transcribe, edit and post.
For those of you who aren’t following my daily Notes from that time, in short, I left behind my life in the city, travelled north, and walked out into the woods. I would stay out there from late summer, through all of autumn, into winter, alone but for the wildlife, slowly becoming a part of a fascinating natural whole. That story is available at the A Fall in Time section of my Substack.
This piece was originally crafted in my second Moleskine notebook, the first thing I scribbled in those pages. I remember writing it during incessant rain, some point after sunset, the wind howling in the trees and whipping the oak branches above back and forth, tearing the occasional twig free, then a crash of a falling branch, all the while raindrops hissing in my fire and spitting, popping and tinkling when they fell on the hot billy can hanging above.
I was using my headtorch to light my writing way and, at one point, had to bat away a giant moth, who kept flying into my face, turning off the light briefly, then feeling considerable guilt when it decided to follow the light of the flames instead.
The next time a moth arrived, I left the light on, gently removing it when it tried to settle on my eyelid, more than once.
This tale—the one you are reading now—took place just after I had moved up to my third camp, but before I had moved into the natural shelter I was building; I was still sleeping in my hammock, below my tarp.
