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From a February A Word A Day Email
Mar. 2nd, 2006 01:46 pmI'm posting this here, so it won't get lost, because I found the story below, very moving. I hope my friends do as well.
Subject: Breaking the Silence
Many years ago while participating in an Outward Bound program, I spent three days on a "solo" in the Wyoming desert. Besides not having food or even a sleeping bag, there was no one to talk to except myself. We were given three matches and allowed to take our journal and a pen. The first night I accidentally dropped my pen into my fire.
One dawn I awoke to a tremendous rumbling sound and lifted my head off the dirt in time to see a couple of deer running close by. Another day I was disturbed by what sounded like the approach of a helicopter. It turned out to be a dragon fly buzzing overhead. Unlike your reentry after nine days of silence, when my patrol reassembled we all spoke in whispers--it seemed only natural. But of course we were still in the wilderness. Out twenty-six days without a base camp, without electricity or running water, with only one change of clothes, with all our food and possessions on our back did much to conform us to nature and not vice-versa.
By that I mean that before my solo, I assumed I would domesticate my site. When actually confronted with the lone lodgepole pine that served as my "shelter", I experienced a profound sense of the tree's preeminence. I stood in awe of it and felt the need to ask permission to remove its dead, lower branches--to clear a place for rest and shade for myself and fuel for my fire.
Enough words spent.
- Debby
- Reference: AWADmail Issue 196 (February 12, 2006)
A Compendium of Feedback on the Words in A.Word.A.Day
and Other Interesting Tidbits about Words and Languages
Subject: Breaking the Silence
Many years ago while participating in an Outward Bound program, I spent three days on a "solo" in the Wyoming desert. Besides not having food or even a sleeping bag, there was no one to talk to except myself. We were given three matches and allowed to take our journal and a pen. The first night I accidentally dropped my pen into my fire.
One dawn I awoke to a tremendous rumbling sound and lifted my head off the dirt in time to see a couple of deer running close by. Another day I was disturbed by what sounded like the approach of a helicopter. It turned out to be a dragon fly buzzing overhead. Unlike your reentry after nine days of silence, when my patrol reassembled we all spoke in whispers--it seemed only natural. But of course we were still in the wilderness. Out twenty-six days without a base camp, without electricity or running water, with only one change of clothes, with all our food and possessions on our back did much to conform us to nature and not vice-versa.
By that I mean that before my solo, I assumed I would domesticate my site. When actually confronted with the lone lodgepole pine that served as my "shelter", I experienced a profound sense of the tree's preeminence. I stood in awe of it and felt the need to ask permission to remove its dead, lower branches--to clear a place for rest and shade for myself and fuel for my fire.
Enough words spent.
- Debby
