Editorial 8.8, August 2006, by Deirdre Helfferich Tangle Blues I spent a few days just before the library benefit concert out at a cabin by Tangle Lakes, right near the Tangle Lake Lodge. Me and six other estrogenous types were there with Don Cameron, ostensibly to pick blueberries, but mostly just to get out of town and go somewhere else for a change. The hills along the Denali Highway are bare of trees, mostly. A few stubborn spruce lurk in low spots, but mostly the scenery was of old hilltops, smooth and rolling and covered with dwarf birch, blueberries, even dwarfier willows (two to four leaves total, about two inches high, if that), cranberries, crowberries, bear berries, harebells, lichen (lots of lichen), and moss (even more of that). The vegetation was vaguely green-brown-grey at a distance, with an amazing profusion of bright color when you were nose to the ground (rust orange moss, bright red leaves, yellow and orange and chartreuse lichen, blue and red berries). The weather was gray and blowy and damp (sometimes VERY damp), but not cold. And there were no wasps. Not a one. It was heaven. I spent most of one full day picking berries. I went up and down steep slopes, clinging with my toes and elbows (my hands were busy with buckets and berry-picking), getting my butt and knees wet in the moss, inhaling the occasional gnat. By the end of the day I was SORE. I was sore for three days after we got home. Berry picking is an excellent way to learn one’s own muscle system anatomy. I was soaked by lunch, and had to change clothes when I went back in. Then I went out and got good and soaked again. The third time I went out, GaBriella suggested that I borrow her rubber boots. I was grateful—my remaining pair of socks stayed dry and warm. Don had been at the cabin for about a week before the herd of women descended upon him. Amy and Mercedes got there first, and went out on the lake for a bit. I would have liked to canoe, but those little blue fruit kept reminding me how little time I had to spend with them, so I stayed on shore. Debbie and Sherri and I had arrived shortly after Kate and GaBriella did, the last of the gang. We had a bunch of dogs with us, too: Nook and Abby and Koy and Ester. Fortunately, none of the dogs were good at blueberry picking, and we never saw or smelled a bear. The only real problem was the bugs (the gnats got quite determined after a day). We spent a bit of time playing games like chess and guillotine, writing in the cabin’s logbook, cooking fabulous meals, and entertaining each other with bubbles and stories about the wind blowing the outhouse over or the snowmachine down the hill. I was able to sketch the line of the hills across the lake, borrowing pencils and paper from GaBriella. But for me the most enjoyable part was being outside, slowly bringing the noise level in my head down to a sane level. After a while of berry picking, I cease to notice the chatter in my head. It takes a while, but eventually I stop talking to myself, my must-dos fade, the tunes that have been stuck in my ears settle down and quiet, the ruminations over the most recent news or gossip stutter and stall, and finally, my mind is full of the sound of the breeze on the hills and in the bushes and the whining of the gnats and the plunk the berries make as they fall in the bucket—and not much else. It’s the mental sound of listening fully to one’s surroundings, of really hearing the world as it is. I didn’t manage to achieve it, not quite. I wasn’t out there long enough, for enough days, alone enough. It requires time, time away from the jarring kind of sounds we fill our lives with, from flushing toilets to car engines to radio news hours to the hum of a computer fan. Tangle Lakes has a highway through it, and although cars didn’t drive by that often, they did go by. A helicopter went through on the second day. We listened to music and talked. It was fun, and relaxing. But out on the hills getting wet in the drizzle and spongy moss, with the gnats and mosquitoes buzzing around my nose, the loons on the lake calling, the faint soft sound of the wind in my hair—I finally could begin to hear.
| ||
 | | |
