I am simultaneously reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau and binge watching Mad Men on Netflix. Yikes! It is pretty jolting to switch from one to the other, but kind of fun at the same time. I seem to be crazy that way. I'm either knee deep into a book about Julia Child or Coco Chanel, or waist deep in a trout stream as the sun sets trying to cast one more time in hopes of an encounter with a brookie. There seems to be no middle ground for my interests. Walden or Mad Men. Who should I blame for that? Probably my mom. Or maybe it was the 60's that shaped me. Maybe that whole decade is to blame for the way I turned out.
I am fascinated by that period of time - the culture, the politics, the clothes, the....well, let's face it, everything about the 60's. First of all, I love the style. My mom, as well as many American women, modeled her own style after Jackie Kennedy. I developed a love for pencil skirts, white pearl necklaces, high heel pumps and black, patent-leather clasp-closing pocket books from watching mom get dressed for church or an evening out.
Also fascinating in a trainwreck-sort-of-way about the 60's was watching those around me go through major changes as the decade progressed. 1969 especially. I remember it well. I was 10 years old, and it seemed that was the year my world changed forever. One of the good memories from that year was of a hot Louisiana summer day. It was July 20th. I was sitting cross-legged on the living room floor in front of our black and white television, transfixed by the images on the screen, as a man wearing a bubble on his head walked on the moon. One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. It was thrilling to imagine what it was like to step onto another world.
And then there was my world. Tumultuous and fragile. 1969 seemed to be a turning point, and not for the better. It was the year of Hurricane Camille. I remember standing barefoot on the lawn, watching as my brothers washed out garbage cans and filled them with water, then later that day sitting solemnly at the kitchen table, while my mom nervously filled the hurricane lanterns and trimmed the wicks. Soon after, hurricane Camille roared through Louisiana, cutting a destructive swath through the state. We'd worried that if Camille came too close to our little town of Milton, the Vermillion River just across the street from our house could easily swell and flood its banks, sending tidal waves of muddy water, gators and snakes into our yard and house. That was also the same year that my dad hurled our entire Thanksgiving dinner, one plate at a time, against the kitchen walls. It was then that the reality of how broken our family life really was finally dawned in my 10 year-old heart.
And then there was my world. Tumultuous and fragile. 1969 seemed to be a turning point, and not for the better. It was the year of Hurricane Camille. I remember standing barefoot on the lawn, watching as my brothers washed out garbage cans and filled them with water, then later that day sitting solemnly at the kitchen table, while my mom nervously filled the hurricane lanterns and trimmed the wicks. Soon after, hurricane Camille roared through Louisiana, cutting a destructive swath through the state. We'd worried that if Camille came too close to our little town of Milton, the Vermillion River just across the street from our house could easily swell and flood its banks, sending tidal waves of muddy water, gators and snakes into our yard and house. That was also the same year that my dad hurled our entire Thanksgiving dinner, one plate at a time, against the kitchen walls. It was then that the reality of how broken our family life really was finally dawned in my 10 year-old heart.
1969. I have to remind myself of the good times. In spite of all the craziness, there are a few good memories. Not only did I get my love of all things Jackie from my mom, but she also passed on to me her love of the outdoors. She had grown up a tomboy in a large family of working class Cajuns, running around barefoot most of the time, gigging frogs for bait to catch catfish in the canal, stepping over sleeping water moccasins curled up in the baking hot sun on the levee to get to her cousins' house - in a word, fearless. That year mom must have thought I was old enough to go tromping through the woods with my two older brothers. It became a normal thing for me to tag along with them as they wielded machetes and fired off BB guns. Our adventures in those tangled woods of Tarzan vines, poison ivy, and who knows what else, were not as genteel naturalists, but bold hunters - lopping off the heads of any snakes that dared slither in front of us, and shooting the big banana spiders lurking in the webs spun high above our heads between the trees. Later in life, I grew out of the adolescent need my brothers instilled in me to kill things that moved, and became enamored with observing and appreciating nature instead.
Now, in my 50's, after a decidedly tumultuous life of my own, I have come to the point in my life that a cabin in the woods (near a river) sounds like a great idea, (at least for a week or two at a time anyway), far from the madding crowds, where I could emulate some of my heroes.
Robert Traver is one of them.
“I fish because I love to. Because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, and hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly. Because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties, and assorted social posturing I thus escape. Because in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing what they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion. Because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed, or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude and humility, and endless patience. Because I suspect that men are going this way for the last time and I for one don't want to waste the trip. Because mercifully there are no telephones on trout waters. Because in the woods I can find solitude without loneliness. ... And finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important, but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant and not nearly so much fun.”
Henry David Thoreau, another of my heroes, said the following:
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
So, I confess. As a fashion-loving, fly-fishing, bird-watching, what-plant-is-that-and-what-is-it-useful-for kinda girl, I divide my time between passions that have no common ground: Walden purity and Mad Men schemes, Chanel wishes and Robert Traver dreams. Like I said, I'm crazy that way.
