Have you ever had that moment of extreme gratefulness for being completely alone? Within a small quiet space where you can turn off your cell phone, turn off your brain and just be alone. You would think constantly traveling through the middle of nowhere that it would be easier come by, but not these days. I’ve been in the desert mountains and yet the harder I look for that hidden spots the more people I find. It would seem seem quiet solitude has been discovered and erased.
It’s not that I dislike humanity, but for me to refill my cup I need to be completely alone. So you can imagine my state of panic that no matter where I go I cannot escape. A few days ago, I knew I had to find solitude. I did my research, I asked around, and had settled on theoretically the perfect place.
This place after research seemed so perfect I even drove 3 1/2 hours the wrong way just to get to it. After the last 40 minutes of off-road through tight sandy turns, I had arrived. And what I had arrived to was nothing like I had expected. The apparent full cell phone coverage was nowhere to be found, and instead campsites overflowing with toilet paper, empty beers, and lots of other fun human trash items. As I settled in I was happy to have found what I thought was a perfect place of solitude among garbage, that was until people started showing up. They came across the river on rafts. They walked down from the Thruway that was apparently right on the other side; they just kept appearing. I started to get the sense of the location, very small town, full of hillbillies that had no regard for nature or travelers. I grew uneasy as I noticed locals traveling down take a note of me and returning to wherever they came from. Doesn’t help that ever since I had picked up a broken branch from the forest floor of the Sequoia National Forest, I have been hitting a slew of bad luck. I’m not overly foo-foo as some might say, but I do have a strong belief that every living thing has energy, and I began to get the sense that the energy from this piece of wood was bad news. The very next morning which was day one of my restful solitude retreat started with more people showing up, And my therapist telling me that we could no longer have sessions, and good luck with the rest of your life. That certainly did not help. I spent the day in a deep depression staring at the water, only taking breaks to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes, and drink the one alcoholic beverage some friends had given me in Arizona. After while I decided to increase my karma by picking up the garbage that surrounded me. I managed to fill one bag entirely within an hour, and then back to cigarettes, wondering what the fuck am I supposed to do now.
This might get a little weird for some people, but it’s my life, and my story, so either continue reading or you can go right ahead and click away from this. Sometimes when you’re out here trying to make it alone, weird ideas become normal.
Basically I decided to have a heart to heart with that piece of wood. It told me how selfish I was and basically a terrible human being for taking it from it’s magical home. I tried to reason with it, and told it that I was very sorry, I was commemorating a beautiful day, saw this beautiful piece of magic I wanted to take with me on my journeys, and possibly create other magical crafty things from. The energy I got back was that it wanted nothing to do with that and would rather be put back where I got it, or burned. I thought about that for a bit, I didn’t do anything right away. The one good thing that came from that day of nicotine, sunbathing, and sadness, was I wrote a beautiful piece about what I was experiencing (a.k.a. I wrote a little blurb about my feels and I was quite happy with it – sad girl – pretty places) later in the day when I went back to read it it was gone. No joke, I typed it all out on my phone, saved it, and it was gone. That broke me. I could not deal anymore and the wood had to go, so I burned it right then and there. I had a feeling its effects will continue to linger, and certainly they did.
The next day I decided to leave this lovely place of non-solitude heading to town to get gas and some sustenance, as I have started to become more skeletal in my appearance. The local diner right in town was oppressive at best. Weathered faces stared me down as I housed my saltier-than-shit Eggs Benedict. I minded my own business, and was happy to have service to look at my path for the day. I had noticed a lot of trucks parked around my truck, common for any parking area, and by the time I had paid they were all gone. One local gave me a wave as I was getting into my truck, which I thought was odd considering they’re less than friendly behavior previously. I continued on my way for about an hour until I reached a rest stop in the middle of the desert. Upon opening the truck bed to remove the garbage I had picked up from the campsite, I heard a weird noise. I have a sink faucet I installed to help make retrieving water easier, and to my dismay it was turned on, so basically had emptied my entire water supply.
I’ve been over a lot of rough roads, and I get that sometimes my brain gets pretty scattered and I do it’s some stupid shit, (example, I can’t find Indy’s leash to save my life right now which drives me crazy) BUT never have I ever left the water running, it’s a tough switch to leave on. I got a sinking feeling in my stomach considering I didn’t lock the truck when I went to the diner. Maybe the locals decided to have some fun, maybe the curse of the piece of wood remains, who knows, but I was suddenly and unexpectedly out of water.
And then, as if to mimic the plagues, there were frogs.
I found not one, but three frogs had somehow gotten into the truck bed. One jumped out in the desert, amiss my attempts to chase it and save it from its doomed desert fate (the patrons of the rest stop must have enjoyed watching me chase a frog around a dumpster – smh).
The second frog I found on the floor when I got to camp, almost cooked to death from being in the 95 degree truck bed all day. I put him in a bowl of water, and walked close to a lake. Then, I found the third one in my food storage. That guy looked petrified, and jumped out of the truck so fast, I only hope he finds his other displaced friend.
All I could think about was if these occurrences were the lingering effects from the cursed piece of wood.
So if you find something in the woods that speaks to you, leave it the fuck alone because you might have to endure the crazy wrath of nature’s energy.