A LITTLE FARTHER OUT OF TOWN

I was beginning to understand. The question was, what was I going to do about it?

All along I thought it was something else, if I had any inkling at all. Here I was in the beginning stages of a serious adventure, staggering around in a paranoid funk: they were all out to get me! This would not do, neither the getting me (if true) nor the fearing of it. I was sure it was sending terrible messages to my body.

The other day, in preparation for a visit from the septic tank guy, I went outside and did some actual physical work, something I haven't done for quite a while. I'd been in a state of extended rebellion against groundskeeping and house-repairing chores for at least a year, and now that I was planning to leave, I was even less inclined to worry about a few rotten windowsills. Out in the country the immediate landscape is always needing a whack, trim, cut, or burn: it never ends! (The multiflora really is out to get you!) My response to all this had evolved to where I no longer made fun of old guys sitting in the shade on homesteads with weedy rings around whatever had been left in the yard last fall. I envied them! But the septic tank was of a different order.

It was even a category unto itself, part of an immutable two-year cycle that required the removal of sod from the immense cast concrete lid. Oh, I suppose they would have done it for me, my friendly septic tank guy and his burly helper with the Harley-Davidson tattoos, done it in a minute and not even minded. You have to be awfully humble and decent to do that kind of work in the first place, and these would be local men who knew all about shovels and -- you know. Knowing this made it the manly thing to do to dig up the lawn, uncover the thing, and make it easier on them, give them a hand. Besides, then the sooner that necessary truck would be gone, and going is what this is all about, anyway.

After I had used a good long-handled shovel to cut and lift away the sod to uncover the lid, I put the shovel back in the garage and walked to the house. As I walked through the back door into the kitchen, I had a singular experience: I felt taller, properly aligned and proportioned! I felt good! There was a bright blue light coursing through my neck, shoulders, and upper arms: my God, my shoulders were high! That's the only way to describe it. I swear I felt like I was seven feet tall and my jeans were loose. I coulda wrestled an elk!! (Instead, all I did was wash my hands -- thoroughly.)

Later that evening I mentioned the episode to my wife. She wasn't at all surprised that doing some actual shoveling had done me some good. And she was glad to confirm my improved posture: "yeah, you've been going around pretty stove-in for about a week." (This is of course why people get married, and you thought it was for the sex, didn't you?)

I can't afford any negative body messages, especially since I've passed the point where everything snaps back automatically into place! So what was doing the stoving? I've always been a sensitive soul and a consummate worry-wart. I can outworry anyone. Maybe that was it.

Sitting here every day spending hours in front of my 8600, I've gotten to know its little noises all too well. I've noticed a tiny oscillating resonance of some sort from time to time, and the fact that the sound changes over the course of a long day. Sometimes after the machine has been on for almost 24 hours it seems to get quieter and even run faster. This probably isn't true, but that's how it feels. It also shows what comes of fixing your point of observation on the same thing for longer than is healthy!

This past winter I became obsessed with the temperature of the air exiting the vents on the side of the case. I started "feeling" the temperature every few minutes with my hand. ("Yow! It really felt hot that time! My God, the fan is dying, or the power supply is about to blow up. My poor baby!") This particular worry was eliminated not by therapy but by the simple expedient of taping the glass tube from an old outdoor thermometer to the side of the case. I left it on for a few hours, then wrapped a tiny piece of white tape just above the "normal" mark. If the red liquid ever pushed up beyond my marker, I would know for sure that the beast was running hot. Well, guess what? There never was a problem! What was happening was that I would occasionally come into the room with cold hands from being outside or whatever, and the exhaust air from the cooling fan would naturally feel much hotter than it was.

Worrying about the septic tank going bad before selling the house was solved by giving the nice man $175 and trying to to answer his questions about computers and trucks. (He needs a new truck, you see. He probably tunes the current one by turning a screw on the carburetor, the lucky bastard. But it's old, really old.) A Volvo dealer in Virginia showed him one recently that sounds like the Starship Enterpise: "Why, it even has a computer in it that warns you before it's about to break down, and it tells you how many miles you can go before she quits on you." ("Life support failure in 45 seconds." . .) He wasn't sure he trusted that and wanted to know what I thought, my being a computer person and all, so I said it sounded like a good deal. You never can be sure about these things, which I added, along with the reassuring comment that he and his partner had job security for life, computers or no, because they can't pump (you know) on the Internet. . . (I know, your next comment is "the hell they can't!" But my audience appreciated the joke.)

After they left I rearranged the chunks of sod and covered the lid, pondering my lot. I could feel the shoulders caving in again. What was I denying or failing to see? I should be happy. The homestead was up for sale, we were going to move to the land of rocks and sagebrush (less yard work), meet new people, and -- ouch! That was it!!

Suddenly it felt like my chest was impaled on a red-hot spear: I was really going to leave the friends I'd known for over twenty years, the people I said I never got to see anyway, the ones who never heard the ends of my stories because their kids were crying or because someone at a party was telling a great joke on the other side of the room, people I loved but was sure I could survive without. My growing-up years as an Air Force brat had been one long succession of good-byes to best friends. I had always been terribly sad to leave the solidarity of the group and proud that I could do so, but over the last twenty years I had been in one place! This was different -- these were people I was totally comfortable with. Their sadness about my leaving was palpable and surprising at first: what was the matter with them? Why weren't they more into vicarious enjoyment of my adventure??

Oh Lord. I hadn't realized. The Air Force brat was long gone, and a grown man with a quarter-century's worth of fabulously rich experiences and deep emotional connections had taken his place. I was one interwoven S.O.B.! The wonder wasn't that I was a wreck, but that I was still alive at all. I loved these people, but I wanted to go play cowboy and nobody else did, dammit, except my brave, adventure-loving sweetie. And I dearly loved the way she looked after a few days in the Southwest, attractively tanned, beaming, full of love for the mountains and wide-open spaces. This was a Good Thing to do, so why did it hurt so much?

Never again will I look down on another pitiable wretch who out of love or stubbornness refuses to stray too far from his home town! It was quite apparent that I'd learned more about such places in the last 24 years than I ever would have imagined. There was only one solution!

First, admit the hurt and take responsibility for it. Then take care of myself and my friends by creating a conceptual framework, a healing metaphor. I would not rip these people out of my life, I would carry them with me! I would say to myself and to them, "I'm not leaving, we're just moving a little farther out of town.*"

Most of them have the means and could be persuaded to take a trip out West once in a while if they had someone to visit. We'd better find a place with room for company, that was a given. If I ever got rich I would pay to bring the others! I can think of several I'd be proud to take on a tour, and another who'd never leave the Shore unless kidnapped. He'd appreciate the irony of my "paying for the sins of my fathers" by feeding quarters to the slots at the local Indian casino. These things obviously needed to be done! Perhaps that was my next mission in life, to establish a base camp in the southern Rockies for ourselves and anyone who wanted to drop in.

Everybody needs a place to go! I'm tired of fighting mildew and multiflora, so we're headin' up and movin' out. If I can just not feel like I'm dropping off the face of the earth, I'll survive. We'll make it to the mountains, and when we get there our friends will have a place to come visit and meet whatever new friends we've found. Why wouldn't they?

We'll only be a little farther out of town. And I'll finally get to finish telling those stories. . .

John H. Farr also edits the Apple Computer News for Applelinks.com and welcomes comments from any and all. His own Web site, the ZOO ZONE, has promised to send several people free T-shirts but lo, has not. If you're one of the lucky ones, this could be your week to celebrate!

The Farr Site Forum STILL has a new URL, and maybe by now we've got it fixed so that new messages show up at the top, not the bottom. :-)

The Farr Site archives are bulging at the seams: 68 so far!

*If you decide to see what Linux is all about, this is what you can say to all your Mac friends!

January 08, 2009