Craving Boredom

I must be the only person on earth who craves boredom. By boredom I mean nothing going on, no where to go, nothing to do, no entertainment, no distractions. I mean Mayberry. I mean rural after supper checkers on the porch, if I can get up the necessary gumption to play checkers. If I can't get up the gumption, I mean sitting on the porch swing creating my own breeze by flexing and unflexing my ankle against the floorboards. Concentrating on that, and that alone.

I would like to get good and bored.

Maybe I need to check myself into a monastery somewhere and live like a monk.With the right haircut and cassock, no one would have to know my gender, which is irrelevant anyway for a monk, I would think. I could harvest honey from beehives in the morning then appear in the rectory midafternoon to sing Gregorian chants before retiring with the sun. A nun's life, by contrast, would probably be too exciting for what I am after. Monk or nun? A ridiculous question, since I am not Catholic.

But I want stillness, periods of solitude.

My fantasies about being a hermit go back to junior high, when I was sent to the school library while my class went over a test I had not taken. I pulled a book off the shelf written by a woman who had passed some time living alone in some northern place that was frozen a large part of the year. Her story was illustrated with photographs of wood piles, a rough-hewn lean to, and a small vegetable garden. Perhaps because of what I was going through at that time (the dissolution of my family), her lifestyle appealed to me. She faced danger, yes, but no conflict and no emotion outside of herself. I wish I could remember the name of the book or its author.

In high school, I romanticized Henry David Thoreau, whose life on Walden Pond sounded ideal to me. In an effort to get the attention of my father, I wrote to him that I was contemplating running away to Canada with my married high school English teacher to live "the Walden experience." No response from Dad, but it was a fun fantasy.

By the time I took American Literature in college, my thoughts on Thoreau had changed. After learning that he had only lived on Walden Pond for two years, and that he walked into Concord almost daily for social interaction, I opined aloud in a class discussion that Thoreau might be considered a charleton, a fraud. My professor quickly condemned that suggestion. I now understand that, like me, Thoreau enjoyed civilization and human interaction while carving out a life of natural simplicity as an individual. I guess that's what I am trying to do also, 150 years later, in suburban 2015 America.

Later as a mom, while visiting my convalescing father in Arizona, I bought a book called "Woodswoman" by Anne Labastille. It's her memoir about living in a cabin she built on a lake in the Adirondack wilderness. For me, it's fascinating reading. I can't explain why, since I have never seriously considered living a wilderness lifestyle myself and I'm not overjoyed about camping, preferring nice hotels. It isn't the reality of this hermit lifestyle I admire -- it's the idea of it -- the utter rejection of civilization, the utter strength and fearlesslness of the individual, the triumph of fitting back into nature and thriving there.

Just yesterday, prompted by a post on Facebook, I reread the story of the North Pond Hermit, a man who lived alone for 27 years in some Maine woods, venturing out on moonless nights to break into uninhabited cabins in search of food, clothes, propane, batteries and books -- the essentials of living. For almost three decades locals had swapped stories that most people did not quite believe. Many thought the thief was a figment of their collective imagination, like the Yetti or Sasquatch, but he was finally caught, and he was apologetic, saying that he had only taken what he needed, but that he knew it was wrong. In 27 years he had not spoken a word to anyone except to say "Hi" to a hiker he encountered once in the woods. When captured, he said he had almost forgotten his own name, because his name had been irrelevant in the woods. (Pictured: his camp)

That story linked to another story of an entire family of hermits in Siberia who were discovered by geologists four decades after fleeing religious persecution as an "Old Believer" Russian orthodox family.Two of the four children had never seen a human being outside of their immediate family; the older two did not remember seeing any other human beings. The clothes and provisions they had taken with them into the wilderness had long since given out. Starvation eventually claimed the mother, who had fed her children before herself. One year they were almost out of useful seeds to plant a garden, but they were able to get one rye seed to sprout, which they quickly fenced, checking on it many times per day until it grew, giving them 36 seeds for the next growing season. A boy in the family hunted barefoot in the winter chasing game until they were worn out, then carrying them home for supper.

Russian television made three documentaries about this family, and by the time they were done, all of them were dead except one daughter, who chose to remain in their cabin in Siberia and live out the rest of her life.

Years ago I realized that I love wild animals -- I am absolutely fascinated by them. I guess I am fascinated by wild people, too, and maybe the part of my spirit that may be wild, too, in the purest, truest sense of the word.



Story about the North Pond Hermit:
http://www.gq.com/story/the-last-true-hermit

Story about the Russian Orthodox family:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/history/for-40-years-this-russian-family-was-cut-off-from-all-human-contact-unaware-of-world-war-ii-7354256/