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 die,
discover that I had not lived.
Thoreau
Tuesday, July 30 2002
First day in the new digs as a full time resident… still have way too much stuff…
…went down the hill to check the spring…Must…look up plans for a spring house to use as a refrigerator stand-in…better than buying ice every two or three days… this is long term and requires a long term solution…
…a brisk breeze is blowing…the trembling aspens…trick the mind into believing that the breeze is stronger than it actually is…Time to set some priorities…for the upcoming months:
…build a butcher-block countertop, with sink, in the kitchen area…
Screw it, who needs a list? One thing at a time suits me and my new lifestyle just fine…why put myself through all that pain..
Man, I think I’m going to be very happy here!
As I set myself this task, whose purpose is to record my all too brief time in my little cabin in north central Ontario, I’ve been asking myself if I am really prepared to carry it through? One writes so that others may read, which introduces some discomfort on my part. Am I really so vain as to think that others might actually care to read about my experience? I suppose I could write for my son and daughter as a way of providing them with some insight into their father and convince myself that there’s less vanity inherent in such a purpose because I’m ‘doing it for them’. But there’s also a part of me that wants to write for a wider audience on the off chance that I will not only recount an extraordinary, albeit too short, period of my life but be able to pass on that which I learned from the experience – just what that is I’m not sure at this stage, which, perhaps, brings me to the real reason for writing this memoir. By the mere act of writing, I hope to discover what, if anything, I learned. I want to know how it shaped who I am today. And so, there you have it, I am writing for myself. Or as Steinbeck so aptly put it in Travels With Charley “I set this matter down not to instruct others but to inform myself.”