REBEL WITHOUT A PAUSE

marcel janco

Another cold night and day to freeze a crust on yesterday's snow, the surface melted slightly by the sun, froze overnight. I had to poke holes in it with the walking stick each step and punch holes in it with my shoes. Don't have boots. I wear heavy shoes and heavy socks. Getting a grip with feet in today's condition of the snow was easier than in the fresh snow. The crunchy surface adds traction under the shoes, like tiny bits of gravel. Forecast says Friday the temperature will be above zero. Must go to one hardware store to buy sunflower seeds for the birds and squirrels, and another hardware store for a bag of sweet grain for donkeys. They need the nutrition especially now to warm themselves on the inside through the zero night. Earlier today, I stepped into their den, spreading new hay at the opening so they can stand out of the wind in the morning to graze before I get up. A few days ago I spread old hay on the floor and already they'd wet it down good with piss and continue the mound of donkey biscuits in the middle and against the back wall. I can't help but see it's the way they want it. It has become such a pattern I can see it is conscious, they know what they're doing. It was actually warm in there. Smelled like a donkey toilet, identifying it home for them. It keeps the place warm, makes good insulation to retain their own heat. I feel a little bit better about them tonight and tomorrow night. The forecast for Thursday night, not only below zero, but big wind too. If the donkeys and I are fortunate, the wind will blow above my little valley between ridges. If we're unlucky, the wind will fly out of the east directly into the donkey den. If it comes out of the west, it will blow through my house like it was a screened porch. The wind currents in this small valley go every which way, in circles. One minute it will be coming from one direction, and the next minute from another direction, on and on like that. If I'm really unlucky, one or more of the big white pines near the house could break about half way up the trunk.

marcel janco (find the donkey)

I've learned to trust the elements over years of experience. Like I trust the donkeys not to kick me, I trust weather on the mountain not to damage my interests. I have a relationship of trust with my mountain like I have with the donkeys. I love my mountain and it loves me. My mountain knows I respect it. I am the mountain's keeper in this time of my life. I sometimes suspect the mountain, itself, wanted me here and drew me like a mystical vibration. It was like as soon as I was open to the spirit the mountain began the process of pulling me to it. Whether or not this is the case, it is how I feel the connection with the mountain I have spent my life here learning. I have not done it in several years, but am able to go within and connect with the mountain, have conversation with it, ask it questions and it gives me answers. I asked it once about Tom Pruitt, who was the last of the mountain people on the mountain, asked about the mountain's relationship with Tom. The mountain said there was none, Tom did not respect the life force of the mountain. This is the Tom who, instead of putting a fence around his garden, sat in an upstairs window with a .22 rifle in the gloaming and belly-shot deer that came into his garden, so they'd go off someplace else and die. Tom had little respect for the living. One of the first characteristics I saw in Tom, getting to know him, was the passion he had for killing. It was culture, not just him individually. The mountain told me it appreciated my respect for the living beings of the mountain, the squirrels, the trees, the ferns, the rocks, the ground, the mountain itself. Since the time of our communication, I feel like my mountain is a conscious being. Saying my mountain, I don't mean possession. I mean like my friend. At the same time I feel nurtured by the mountain, energized, my battery charger, I also feel protected by the mountain. I feel like the mountain looks after me. I don't kill anything, rather regard all the beings on the mountain my neighbors. Like trustworthy friends, we've got each other's back.

marcel janco

My vision of the direction USA has been going throughout my lifetime, fascism, is here, now. Any attempt to defeat it, reverse it or change it would be at the peril of becoming a martyr nobody ever heard of. Lillian Hellman's Julia. Can't organize, the FBI infiltrates first sign of organizing, sets everybody up for arrest and all go to prison on "conspiracy" charges, for which there is no legal defense. Demonstrate and cops beat the hell out of me, pepper spray, tear gas, real bullets, arrested if I survive and tormented in jail. Police state is so tight and propaganda so sophisticated, rebellion doesn't work in America. I learned this in the Sixties. I have found in my lifetime the only rebellion that works is non-cooperation, what I call the boycott of one. I don't like that Coca-Cola Corp hired death squads in Columbia to kill union activists and their families. I don't buy Coke products. I dislike everything about Walmart; I don't give them my resources. I don't "buy into it." I don't like paying to the military machine, so I have kept income all the way along in the zone that pays no income tax or very little. People that want to fight the tax system end up in prison. I don't want to go to prison, so I live on the very least possible, inside the poverty zone, and pay no taxes, except sales taxes, which do not go to military domination of the world. Sales taxes are state and local. I'd be happy to pay federal taxes, too, if two-thirds of it did not go to the Death Star. Living frugally is my rebellion. It is the only rebellion I have access to that works. It works for me, and I'm the one it matters to. I think of the people who spend a fortune in legal fees and go to prison over refusal to pay federal taxes, and see them not committed to their belief. It's simple. Just live below the poverty line and you don't pay taxes. One man cannot defeat the Death Star, unless you're in a Hollywood movie. I've often thought, if federal government knew my mind, I'd be locked away in solitary confinement for subversion. Like my daddy told me, "I ought to hit you for what you're thinking." I laughed inside. If he knew what I was thinking, he'd have killed me in a passionate rage and never regretted it, no matter what the consequences.

marcel janco

Rebellion has been the nature of my life. Rather than fight back at an oppressor looking for any moment's opportunity to pound me into the ground, I learned to let these foster parents take care of my needs until I'm able to make a living on my own after school. By the age of ten, both had become foster parents. The kid had no recourse. I turned within, followed orders and waited for time to pass. In my time I went as far away as land allows, like an arrow shot from a bow, the string pulled all the way back to the tip of the arrow. Released, I was gone, and gone forever. I knew the flight was not from mad, but from a lifetime of anger so intense I'm surprised I couldn't bend spoons by looking at them. After Navy and college, I learned government is not here for me; I'm here for government. It's the same with the economic system. I have to give up me to play the money game. I am more valuable to myself than money. I don't want to be a success in the money world. I want my success to be inside myself. I want my success to be who I am, not what I am. By who I am, I don't mean a nice guy. I mean I can practice my art expression any way I want, independent of the art-market world. Fame and money have no value for me, What I mean by who I am is able to take an interest in what interests me, not toward making money for somebody else. I saw the equation that we choose time or money. Can't have both. I chose time. Recalling a dream from childhood. It was before I was old enough to drive. I was driving a car on a dirt road at night, came to a fork in the road, did not know which one to take to wherever I was going. In the headlights I saw standing in the grass of the Y the roads made, a white owl. It looked at me and flew down the road to the left. I took this to mean it was my road and turned that way. I was reminded of the dream some years later when I read Good Soldier Schweik. At the end, he was walking with a regiment to war in WW1. A fork in the road. The regiment took the road to the right. Schweik saw some flowers up the road to the left and he took the road to the left, called by the flowers, by life. 

marcel janco, himself

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HERE NOW

                                 tectonic plates microcosm



Big bad tsunami in Japan, earthquake, skyscrapers swaying, three tectonic plates with complex interactions that make them unpredictable. It's hard to let my mind imagine what so many people went through along the coast where the tsunami tore up about as much as the earthquake did. I don't get concerned about the dead. They're in the next world. The people remaining in this world to clean up the mess and carry on are the ones I tend to think about. I haven't heard a great deal of it on the news, but got some of it. Heard about a man photographing the tsunami getting swept out to sea.



Out the window I see a lone chickadee at the birdfeeder, pecking in a hurry. No snowbirds around at the moment, giving the chickadee time for all she can eat. Another chickadee flew down and landed beside her. She flew away. The second bird flew away after her. It goes on being cold. This morning the ground was covered with snow crystals the size of salt grains, barely perceptible, like a thin frosting. Heard later that it made the ground white at Laurel Springs, about 20 minutes west of here by road, and it's not a fast road. Different parts of the county have different weather patterns. Here, where my house sits is a low place between two ridges to the north and the south, and two ridges to the east and west. They direct big wind up over where I am, shaking the trees on the tops of the ridges so they sound like an endlessly long train going by.



Down here out of the wind, the windchimes don't even play. The coldest night of the year a wind blows up the road from the west right through the house. It is not a tight house. I don't want a tight house. I like a house that breathes. I've not thought of the way I live being rugged, but when I am around people visiting here from cities, I feel practically feral. People around me tend to only like sunny days tshirt temperature and complain about all other weathers. I love all the weathers, slants of light, fog, mud, snow, rain, sunny, overcast. These mountains are beautiful to my eyes every minute of every day of the year. I don't care if it's raining or snowing. They are good for the ground water, which has become a serious concern in our part of the mountains with all the wells tapping the water into septic tanks. I'm afraid we'll be a desert before American unconsciousness toward the waste of water becomes conscious.



It's daylight, but the shadows are lengthening and the great shadow of the ridge the sun sets behind is crawling slowly across the ground. The snowbirds must have headed for their roosting places. The chickadee is back at the birdfeeder, alone at the trough. Only 3 kinds of birds come to the feeder this winter, the snowbirds and 4, thereabouts, chickadees and maybe 4 titmice. I take it that they're the same ones over and over, when there may be a dozen or more. This birdfeeder is made of wood, probably bought at Walmart before they all became plastic, maybe 20 years old. It's the kind with a pair of glass panels the birdseed fits in between so the amount of seed can is visible. It looks like a simple little Zen temple in the mountains, a shelter and meditation place for monks walking through the mountains. It has some lichen on the roof and the wood is old and gray, a part of the landscape. The lone chickadee will be warm inside through this night considerably below freezing.



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ICY COLD DAY WITH KENYAN COFFEE

apples in tophats



The air has been cold and stayed cold. 13 is what the thermometer says now. It's been so cold for so long I'm used to being cold all the time. Inside, the thermometer says 70 degrees, so why am I wearing two long-sleeved tshirts and an insulated outdoor shirt above the waist, and below the waist 2 pair of sweat pants? Inside sweatpants tucked into white socks in shoes. Instead of keeping feet on the floor, I rest the heel of one foot on the floor and rest the other foot over the ankle above the heel on the floor. Feet are less cold when only the heel is touching the floor. Hands are warm. The air indoors is pleasant, but it has a cold chill inside the 70 degrees. It's the chill I'm dressed for. Without this outer insulated shirt I'd be too cold.



This morning I stayed in bed until after 11. Too cold to get up. Finally, I couldn't sleep any more and forced my way up. I was so cold, continuously, I decided to get out of the house and drive to town, have the day's Kenyan coffee at Selma's. Talked with Carole on the phone a bit, felt flat like the surface of a lake with no ripples, didn't talk long. I dressed up for an expedition into the snow, ice and cold. Went out and started the car, scraped ice off front and back windows. Just before the snow I rubbed vinegar on the windows, having heard it keeps ice from freezing onto the glass. That prophecy didn't bear out. The ice took extensive scraping. But the windshield was clean when it thawed from the inside.



Heading out for town, the Catfish drove on the packed snow and ice with no problem. Up on Air Bellows Gap Road, a white pickup passed going the other way. Two guys inside were looking at me with eyes that said, you'll never make it. I knew the drift they were thinking about. Their look told me to be prepared. I figured their truck got through it, so I can too. They left packed tracks in the snow I could ride through. Plus, they shaved it down to the height of the truck's undercarriage. When I saw it, I didn't question making it. It would take my 35 years experience driving this road where this particular spot drifts every drifting snow. I stepped on the gas aiming to plow my way through. About half way into it, guessing it 20 feet from side to side, the front end started sliding, indicating I was losing traction. Didn't dare stop, so I pushed the gas a little bit, caught traction and walked right on through the last third of the stretch. It wasn't a surprise when I came out the other end, but it did feel jubilant. Front wheel drive.



I surmised that would be the last obstacle between home and town. The road down the mountain was snow packed into ice where the tire treads went. Inside the car was warm, what I was really after, driving the car in coat and outfitted for 0 degrees or below, running the heat. Driving over the hill in Whitehead at Elvira Crouse's house, the other side is subject to weather quite different from the Whitehead side of the hill. The road was clear going into the blind curve to the right, but I kept speed down anticipating ice. There it was. Quite a good stretch of ice the sun doesn't touch. A bad place to lose control. Ran through Thompson Flat at a fairly good rate trying to blow the pile of snow off the hood. It made the surface drift onto the windshield where it melted instantly and wipers pushed it aside. A good day to take trash to the dump, figuring nobody would be there. Didn't see anybody.



It felt good in the car where it was uniformly warm. I took yesterday's netflix movie to the big blue box at the post office, dropped off a prescription bottle at Halsey's driveby, parked in front of the courthouse and strolled across hwy 21 to Selma's open sign. Two people were there when I went in, and before very long half a dozen more came in. Very different kinds of people are discovering her coffee. When Selma started getting my coffee going, she suggested I try Hawaiian. In my mind's eye I saw beach, Honolulu condos. Couldn't imagine there was any place left of Hawaii to grow anything; volcanos and condos everywhere.It sounded interesting, but I'd been anticipating Kenyan all morning. If I hadn't been looking forward to the Kenyan, Hawaiian would do. Maybe next time I'll go with trying the Hawaiian in mind. I knew if I drank something besides Kenyan today I would not have been satisfied. Next time or next next time.



Selma said something to me about trying something new, a new experience. It appeals to me to try something new, but this morning I was programmed for Kenyan. Could have had it at home, but needed to get out of the cold house. I believe it's in my horoscope that once I find something I like, I stick with it. The first taste of Kenyan coffee made me a believer. I've not wanted to drink any coffee but Kenyan since. It's not like a set determination, but that I love the flavor more than any other coffee. I told Selma once, it's honey to my palate, and that's as close to what I meant than any other likeness. I don't know coffee parlance, so must be satisfied with saying it simply pleases me like no other. Ethiopian is close, but not It. Kenyan is It. Since I've started drinking Kenyan, I've had coffee at the Circle L and other people's houses, grocery store coffee that comes from South America. I appreciate it as good enough, will do. A taste of Kenyan after a period of drinking South American coffee, I enjoy it all the more. I don't mean to imply the Latin coffees are bad. All the flavors from various parts of the world are good.



Kenyan coffee seems to my palate to have a clarity like no other. The Ethiopian and Indian I've tried are subtle variations on the Kenyan theme, only slightly different. Tasting them helps me appreciate Kenyan all the more. A few weeks ago I ran out of Kenyan and took a third of a bag of 4 o'clock coffee out of the freezer where I'd put it when the Kenyan came into the house. I was curious to see how it would stand up, considering it's been opened quite awhile, plus a period of time in the freezer. It wasn't bad. But it also wasn't It by a mile. The new bag of Kenyan, freshly roasted, told it. Upon first taste I asked myself, Why did you let it run out? At the time, it had to do with money. My morning quota is gone too soon every day. I could drink it all day and into the night every day for the satisfaction in its flavor. There is something about its flavor I find as satisfying as the taste of really good white liquor made from rye.



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