Читать книгу Off On Our Own - Ted Carns - Страница 12

“Quite a bit of what really goes on here is unbelievable.”

I don’t deal with money that much. I have the equivalent of a Ph.D. in the art of salvage and most of my construction economy revolves around the huge personal hardware store I’ve collected over the years. I buy a 5-gallon bucket of nuts and bolts at the flea market for 2. I could pick two bolts out of those thousands that you’d go off and pay 5 for in the hardware store.

Most of my inventory of tools and materials was built through flea market purchases for half pennies on the dollar. If my interests can’t evolve around what I have on stock and with what I can do with my own two hands, chances are it’ll never get done or I’m just not interested. What most people would call my “junk” is really my palette.

A lot of people know me as a generous workaholic who constantly barters for things and rebuilds what most people throw away. My big old Oliver 66 row cropper, a tractor I converted to run on wood smoke, was just given to me by some kind friends. (I’ve got a lot to say about wood gasification later on.)

My wife brags that I can fix anything, but in my mind I feel like I can’t fix anything. That keeps me in a perpetual state of feeling intimidated, of struggling that borders on pointless worry, but my brother-in-law says I only work well under pressure. So I constantly feel on the verge of defeat, and that sees to it I almost always win.

Kathy and I have been married now for about 15 years. She has a profession and works nine to five. She does agree that I’d survive without her income, but with it I’m blessed with medical insurance and expansion possibilities that are equally beneficial to the both of us. She also pays for the phone, Internet, car insurance and taxes, but don’t get the impression I’m a “kept” man with a sugar momma and that I sit on my ass all day.

The paycheck from my labor provides electricity, hot and cold running water, a warm, cozy house, a huge self-sufficient garden, an orchard, wine to drink, as much maple syrup as your taste buds can stand and your choice of a relaxing hot tub or a Finnish sauna. It also provides a profound sense of independent security.

I take care of 15 buildings and cut wood for 17 functional fires on the mountain. They don’t all burn at once, thank God. Those 17 fires service the syrup boilers, the distillery, the sauna, the hot tub, the Oliver, two wood-burning cook stoves and the many wood stoves that heat our buildings and guesthouses. I keep and help keep a total of eight big tractors and track machines running and repaired, a couple of trucks, a snowcat and an array of tools including the sawmill and the stone crusher. When I had a collection of 22 chainsaws I suddenly realized I was being eccentric.

Kathy also finances big-ticket items like the Staber washing machine and the propane refrigerator. Occasionally she’ll buy me a nice used toy like an International 500 diesel crawler with a 4-way clam bucket and backhoe attachment. Over the years she bought me a Ford 801 with a front-end loader and a Ford Dexta diesel too. I think it’s true, the only difference between men and boys is the price (and maybe weight) of their toys, but really, those tractors do work for us and they benefit others as well. I get 400 a month rent from an old condemned cottage her brother and I fixed up for her when we first met. With the rent I buy parts and accessories for my toys, some hardware now and then and I still have a little left over to splurge at the flea market.

I’m told The Stone Camp is a special place but it’s hard for me to describe because I’m always here. I evolved right along with it, so it’s my norm. I said to Kathy one day, “There’s 360 degrees in a circle and I can turn around slowly and spot 360 things that need done, repaired or developed.”

People constantly ask me what it’s like to live in such a peaceful, utopian, idealistic, and heavenly setting. I tell them I’m like a man who had a plain black cape tied permanently around his neck in a world with no mirrors. Over the years people would drop by and sew jewels into it. Others would embroider it with beautiful filigree designs and still others would edge it with fancy knot work and macramé. The cape became so known for its beauty that people started to come by just to see it.

At first he loved the praise and enjoyed the admiration, but that got old real quick. After a while you started to see a wince on his face when people said nice things about his cape. He couldn’t see what everybody else was seeing. No matter how quickly he’d turn to see his beautiful cape he could barely get a peek at the corner of it because it flowed around behind him quicker than he could get a look.

Now you might want to jump in your car and rush to see this place, but before you do let me tell you about the opposite end of the scale so as to curb your enthusiasm a bit. Amongst the steady entourage of people who happen by to visit from time to time are many dedicated, seasoned spiritual seekers. I call them “extreme yogis.” Some of them refer to The Stone Camp as “The Fire.” I really don’t know what they’re talking about. I can only repeat what people say and comment on what I observe happens to them here. It may be so bright here that just a slight tremor can send you over the brink into darkness. Kind of like tears turning to laughter.

I do find it odd that there are probably 300-plus images of the Blessed Virgin Mary in this house and most people don’t even see one of them. It’s no doubt because there’s so much other stuff to look at, but 300? A short visit here seems to be cool for most people. Much more than six hours and the place can start to be more like a therapy session than a simple visit. Even the dreams people have here can be intense and meaningful. But when they wake up scared nightmare-shitless they tend to assume the dreams are prophetic. A close friend of ours has spent time with approximately 37 (his count) different spiritual teachers and masters in a number of monasteries and ashrams. He told me there’s no place he’s ever been that’s been harder to endure – but he kept coming back. Dave passed on four months ago in India on the eve of his birthday, the night before he was to fly home and retire here with Kathy and me.

No place I know digs out and unearths internal b.s. more than The Stone Camp. It could be any of several things that cause this phenomenon. Personally, I think it may be Mary’s immaculate presence. She’s an earthquake to bullshit, like a magnifying glass to the things we’d rather not reveal to ourselves. Whatever it is, there have been very few people who have seemed totally immune. I see it in people who come to stay for two weeks and leave in two days. Some come for the whole summer and are gone in a week.

I often think that our human culture is no more than the evolution of sophisticated escape buttons. Any time the real truth starts to surface in our minds any time we’re cornered to reflect on the construct of our self-denial, just push a button: Hop in the car, go shopping, turn on the tube or just grab a bottle, hit the chocolate or roll up a fat one. If I’m right, there’s not only no buttons here, but it’s a mirror wherever you look, in all directions.

I’ve witnessed some profound first impressions of this place and I’ve seen it put a match to many a person’s self-created, New Age enlightenment map. I’ve seen people begin to weep when they walked through the door and they can’t say why. I’ve seen groups of elderly Catholic women seeming to float through the yard proclaiming this to be a reflection of heaven. I heard a Catholic priest say, “Not since Assisi.” A few have been instantly offended by the place. Rarest of all are those who appear to be totally indifferent – maybe three at most but I only remember two. Many have said, “This is the way life was intended to be” . . . “I want your life” . . . “I’ve touched base.”

The outdoor kitchen cupboard which contains all our food processing equipment

South side of the woodshed complex, with library and summer kitchen

West side of the woodshed, with sugar shack at rear left

Lone Cabin Jr, our upper main guest house

I felt a tinge of the same when visiting the remote regions of foreign countries where life appeared full and simple. It was especially powerful in Medjugorje, in the former Yugoslavia – and in the countryside on Mt. Athos, the peninsula jutting out in the North Aegean Sea, where 20 ancient Eastern Orthodox monasteries have been built into the living rock.

I’m not a mystic by nature. I look for the rational explanations for mysteries, miracles and the supernatural. I’m only wide-eyed, wordless and stunned when I’m forced to be. But in my life the search for the rational often proves futile. When I try to find a rational explanation for the experience that people have when they come here I think of Ben Franklin saying, “Any person having witnessed and tasted the life of the savage would not dream of returning to white society.” It was also recorded that certain barricades were constructed not to keep Indians out but to keep whites from running away to join the tribe.