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Transcribed from September 2,
2005
Here in this damp place of dark fears. Oh, heavens. I don't know
myself at all.
It's humid. My shirt's
wet from hiking for so long to find this place of rest. Rest my
ass! This is about battling fear after irrational fear. I'm a woman
alone in the woods. Far from people. Or am I? And am I right that
few women I know have ever done this or would ever do this? Am
I brave? Because I feel scared. This is considered dangerous. Just
google "woman alone camping woods," and
you'll see page after page of dire predictions about women alone
in the woods. In the dark. Naked. All bad ideas, according to Google.
I drink when I'm afraid. Sharp. Biting stabs of fear. So much anger.
And wonder. In yes, myself and also wonder in the beauty around me.
The dark forest. I love that phrase. My heart is beating fast. Earlier,
I felt lightheaded. Woman alone in the woods.
I'm here because I couldn't understand how Bill could pass on a
chance to see me and go alone into the woods instead. He described
his overnights in the woods as restorative, contemplative and healing,
but I just felt hurt and un-understanding. I tried to tell him wanting
to be alone was nerdy, but I knew that wasn't true. It's cool. I
just didn't like being rejected in favor of solitude. So I decided
to try and understand him, and to do that, I'd need to try going
into the woods alone. So that's why I'm here. Well, that and the
realization of how many fears I have, and how many of my decisions
not to act were based entirely on fear. Since then I've been trying
to face my fears.
Whenever we went to
Bob and Tina's house, I'd worry about all of us going into the
hot tub. Bill, Bob and Tina are still gigantic hippies, and I think
naked fraternizing was more popular when they were young. I'm four
years younger, and by the time I was fucking and doing drugs and
getting naked with other people, affairs like that were more private.
Or maybe it was geography. Baltimore, where I grew up, versus their
culture in northern PA. Anyway, the last time I was at Bob and
Tina's, I realized I'd dodged my very last hot tub bullet. I was
in the bathroom, preparing to sit naked in front of strangers,
and I was really freaking out. But then I thought, "Alex,
for Christ's sake it's time to face your fears." I got naked,
slid into the hot tub with the rest of them and hid my boobs underneath
the bubbles. But when the water got hot, I was more relaxed, so I
hoisted my boobs back out from under the water. I was feeling decidedly
more bold. Next we started going from the hot water of the tub to
the cold water of the pool. Hot water - cold water - hot water -
cold. The first time, I went across the lawn with a towel, but later
everyone gave me shit for running around the lawn without wearing
any clothes.
One fear down. 10,000 more to go.
I'm missing what's around me, because I'm so into my interior. This
experience is blowing my mind! I looked up and saw my pants hanging
from the tree, and once again, I started at the sight. Out of the
corner of my eye, they look just like a man, standing in front of
me.
Things I fear tonight are bears eating my food, and someone seeing
my smoke and coming to find me and rape me. I'm only 40 yards from
the State Forest line, but I can't tell if I'm on the right side
or the wrong. I'm afraid of having someone see me naked in the woods
alone. The reason I'm naked is because when I filled my backpack,
I jettisoned my extra clothes to lighten the load, but after hiking
for hours in damp wood, I was soaking wet to my skin.
Wait, I'm also afraid of the authorities. I should have READ THE
RULES! I don't even KNOW if I'm breaking any laws!
Here's what I'm thinking about:
bears...
rape...
bears...
rape...
bears...
rape...
I was wet and hot, so I
traded my boots for sandals, but I was still uncomfortable, so I
took off my shirt and washed my upper body in the creek. But that
made my bra wet, so I took it off, and then the rest of my clothes,
while weighing the wisdom, propriety and danger, not just of being
a woman alone in the woods, but of being a naked woman alone in the
woods. Right now my pants, my shirt and my underwear are all hanging
in front of the fire. And would I not be in some way culpable if
flannel-clad hunters saw me dabbing my naked breasts? And what about
the private plane that keeps circling? Can they see me? I must remember
to purge my outdoorsy wardrobe of brighter colors. My jaunty red
polarfleece and carrot yellow shirt make me stick out like a fucking
Target.
Outdoorsy wardrobe indeed! I spend all my time huddled in front
of the computer. Huddled!!!! No fear, no adrenaline, no energy, no
excitement, except the intellectual kind. But this kind of excitement
is palpable! There goes that plane again. Circling, circling.
The fire rocks, by the way!! While I was building it, I kept trying
to convince myself that I didn't NEED it. Didn't CARE if I had a
fire on a beautiful day in September. Well, I've sat around a lot
of fires in a lot of woods. But they were always fires set by men.
I never built my own fire, but then I did it, dammit!
By the way, I'm NOT Eva Gabor in Green Acres! Frankie always said
I was, but that's bullshit. I do have a love/hate relationship with
nature, but I'm incredibly scared/comfortable right now, on a fuzzy
blanket in front of the fire. A fire I made. And yes, my ass kind
of hurts from carrying the backpack for all those hours, but I really
do feel good.
This experience has been about listening to what I need from moment
to moment, because I don't do that often enough. I gave myself a
cooler, cleaner body and a soft blanket by the fire, and now I have
to worry about my food. I brought cheese and two peaches, but I need
to get rid of it to protect myself from bears. I don't know if there
are bears here, but it's remote and mountainous, and it's where I'd
be if I were a bear. I forgot the damn rope to hoist it into the
trees, so I decided to eat the food, because it seemed like the safest
place to put it. I wasn't hungry, but reducing my anxiety became
more important than reducing my intake, and anyway, I burned more
calories today than I have in ages.
The flooding in New
Orleans has me very upset. I feel like I did when the towers fell,
but this time I'm fucking furious with Bush. On 9-11, I handed
my fears and politics over to him, in the idiotic hope that someone
knew something in Washington. Dumb, I know. Trust me, I'm a liberal
again. But this is than 9-11, because this is gross ineptitude,
and Bush is pointing fingers at the cronies he appointed. I'm incredibly
angry, about the flooding, which even I knew was inevitable if
the levee broke. And what do I know about New Orleans, except what
I saw one night on Nova? But it's just so horribly tragic, and
I'm so horribly angry. I'm also furious that because I'm a woman,
Google says I'm not safe in the woods. Try Googling, "man alone
camping woods," and you won't read about the danger. I've never
been a feminist or a particularly angry person, but this just makes
me livid.
I'm scared and I'm alive and I'm seriously pissed off.
The fire is amazing. It's getting dark. When I first got the fire
started, I was ecstatic, and then I looked around and realized it
was only like, 2 in the afternoon, but the woods was dark. I think
it's always dark here. So it seemed later, until after the fire was
roaring, and I looked at where the sun sat in the sky, and I realized
I'd created a blazing beacon, saying, COME HERE AND RAPE ME.
Maybe I'll go to bed early, but the tent seems a claustrophobic
compared to all this forest. And what about the earplugs? Do I wear
them while I sleep? I might sleep better, but what sounds will I
miss? But I hate the idea of lying awake all night. My biggest fears
are being raped and being attacked by bears. But I'm way off the
path, and really deep in the woods. What are my chances of meeting
a rapist (or a bear) here compared to my chances of meeting a rapist
(or a bear) at Walmart? And if someone does come to attack me, do
I want to hear their approach, or have a few more seconds of sleep?
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