Advocate Harbour, Nova Scotia, July 27.
For reasons that I suspect are obvious – and which I’ll try to reinforce with some imagery in this post – in my travels I’ve not yet been asked why I live like this: After all, my road-ramble is not a vacation or a hiatus or an ‘assignment’ or a film location shoot; something I will return from. No, there’s no returning from.
Is it necessary to ask Why I live like this?
I realize I’ve said this twice before, hit the road having ‘given up house and home’ blah blah and both times ended up back at Montauk, my tail, if not exactly between my legs, at least not at full wag. Not this time. This is and will be different.
But all this old news; I’ve said it before. Why I repeat myself now, today, is to set up the answer to a different if related question (to Why do you live like this?), one that has been on my mind off and on and which came up yesterday in full conversational bloom. I was gabbing with a fisherman down at the wharf and, his having heard the short version of my current circumstances, he queried ‘Why’d you leave Montauk?’
Same campsite, reverse angle.
As I say, the question has been on my mind, but I was nevertheless brought up short by hearing it voiced. It’s interesting how you can actively mull something – ‘study’ it as the Caribbean phrase goes – analyze it maybe even obsessively, but being pinned down to actually dealing with it, you do a bit of a freeze-up, as if the subject had come from nowhere. There’s a form of rationalization here, I think, a form of denial, of self-deceit. When you deal with something internally there’s no one to shout, Hold on! That’s a bunch of bullshit! Least of all yourself. Self-reflection breaks down.
So when this fisherman, Mike is his name (an interesting fellow, by the way), popped the question, he was, without knowing it, calling me on my own bullshit. My stuttered answer, which was bullshit, I only vaguely recall; it’s not relevant anyway.
Why did I leave Montauk? My home or at least my base of operations for pretty much my whole adult life…
There’s an amusing tale behind this photo, and why it’s out of focus…
I must repeat: Circumstances can and will change, I know, but I cannot picture returning there to live. This utterly clear, conscious knowledge is a new premise, a new guiding principal, in my life. Truly, it’s no small thing; in a way, it changes everything. How this came to be I am the first to admit ignorance of. So, as has often been the case (CYGAWA being the best example), I’m thinking I can maybe properly study the matter through attempting to explain it to you. We’ll see how it goes.
Keep in mind that, again, the subject matter is not why I live like this. The view out my cabin window, for example – I’ll post it here in time-lapse – which is just this side of spectacular, is not a part of the puzzle.
(I made the above image – and I see it as ‘an image,’ something more than a photograph but not in any way ‘a film’ – in the three or so hours it took to write the first draft of this post. All I had to do to see the church and the flats behind it was turn my head.)
‘Montauk, eh?’ Howard wanted to hear about the Montauk Project, and MKULTRA. Mmmm… Different…
Also of no relevance is the fact that during my quarter-mile bike ride through this quaint little seaside town yesterday to gab with Howard, who runs a little mobile burger business (we compared tech notes on propane as a source of road-energy), I believe it was a total of two, maybe three, cars that passed me by, going either way.
Yesterday being a Saturday in the high season for tourism here – Advocate is similar to Montauk in that the economy is based on a fishery (here, mostly lobster) and tourism – I pictured what main-drag Montauk would have looked like at that moment.
I had to wait a couple minutes to get a car in this shot of Main Street, Advocate Harbour, which skirts the beach and waterfront.
Right. Bumper to bumper, with even the thought of a foray west of the dump (sorry, the ‘Recycling Center’) apt to bring on a nosebleed from the image of the vehicular congestion sure to be encountered.
My image is that Advocate is Montauk in the 1950s when I first arrived in my parent’s tow, after a six-hour drive the length of Long Island – before the now-dreaded LIE [Long Island Expressway] was laid; it was five million traffic lights – it seemed – to negotiate every village and town in the 120 mile journey to Land’s End. But I digress…
No, we’re dealing with a different subject here; not what I’m experiencing in my travels but why I left. My mulling will come in several ‘Parts,’ in no particular order regarding subject matter and no timetable of when I’ll post my mulls. I’ll try to sneak up on you.
My goal in my will be to inspire you to see your own life in some sort of greater depth through critical thinking, not just applied to world events or the lies we’re told or How the World Works, but to self-reflection, i.e., the lies we tell ourselves.
I’ll finish off with another ‘image’: Not a photograph but not a film either, and which will reveal a bit more of my living conditions…
(Reason I don’t add a sound track is that I don’t want anyone confusing these images with a Fundy Film, let alone the Fundy Film, which is coming along well… I know: I’m putting pressure on myself!)
Allan
One more thing, and I can’t resist the plug: Below is Gus and me at the Advocate Harbour Post Office, sending out the DVDs ordered over the last couple weeks. Notice the sickly stack (and the one ‘Six Pack Plus,’ which cost me $24 to send to Chuck at Toms River, New Jersey)! Surely there are more of you who would like to own two Water Time; Surf Travel Diary of a MadMan DVDs, duly signed and then sent from Who Knows Where. Click here!
Oh. Almost forgot. Thanks for all the suggestions of a better nickname for the rig – still José for the moment. Virtually all your possibilities had pizzazz, in one way or another. If I do make a change I’m leaning toward Nomad Hatter, for the layers of subtext.
And for me the easiest way (of about 20 alternatives sent in) of adding the accent to José is to just hold down the ‘e’ key when you type it: shoot, Big Al provides all kinds of grammatical do-dads. Try it!
Next post: More of my Tragedyandhope.com interview…