Final Prep; Packing The Car

Brandon, VT--I'm currently sitting in the upstairs lounge of the Brandon Public Library, staring at my computer, uncertain as to what frequency of connectedness I will have over the next few days.  Brandon's a nice little town, a lot like Lee, MA, with a regionally important road cutting through the middle, and the silence, of what probably used to be a truly quiet town.  Lots of small independent shops: a French-style cafe here, a sandwich shop there.

Been reading George Orwell's Facing Unpleasant Facts.  Orwell's fascination with the details and the tactile experience of life, and the effects of the same on the way we think about living, seem useful for my thinking about this trip.  I'm anticipating constant aches, fatigue, dirty hands, and wet feet; but these sacrifices seem perfectly reasonable in pursuit of knowledge/creativity/the new in the same way that he justifies a soldier's life in defense of socialism/one's country.

Woke at five o'clock this morning to enormous mountain (enormous not in objective fact, but in perception only--their closeness made them so) peeking through clouds.  The dawn was so overcast that the sunrise was imperceptible, the way a frog is said not to feel water heating up (I've heard many times that the frog thing just isn't true--but I like it, and in addition I'm positive it applies to humans, so I usually just treat it as an apt proverb or something).  Finished organizing and deciding what to bring, so we just need to return to the cabin and pack up the car, and then we're off to Rochester!

It feels, at this point, that the mere fact of my going on this journey gives me some sort of license to write whatever I feel like writing--or maybe I just feel that way because I have so much time to think, at least so far.  Maybe being so far away from the world, with just books and one other person, makes it not only easier but practically necessary to have thoughts that are worth expressing.  You can't give yourself over to passivity to books or conversation the way you might to television or, I think, the internet, where in both cases the speed of information overwhelms your ability to cut through with thought.  That's may be utter crap, but I'm doing something Important, so you should feel obligated to read it anyway.

Not sure if I'll have internet tonight (I'm assuming so, but I'll have to wait and see), so in any case either there'll be another post tonight or tomorrow.

-Mac