Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 08:11:23 -0500 From: Phanny Subject: [WRITERS] SUB: CONTEST: Beaver Lake (fwd) Beaver Lake Prior to having children I was fiercely independent and relatively unconcerned about what tomorrow might bring. Nearing thirty, I decided I'd had my fill of the deep South so I hitched a U Haul to my silver GM van, and with Princess, an adopted eight week old German Shepherd/Collie, I headed north to Colorado. For a while, all the pieces seemed to fall neatly into place. Right away I secured employment, I fell in and out of love, I quit one job, going to another and yet another, and then, suddenly, I hit an icy patch on the road called Reality. Before I was able to steer in the direction of the skid I'd lost control. My van was repossessed, I had no transportation, and even worse, I had very little money. Reduced to bartering, I found a woman willing to trade her 1972 Pontiac Catalina for my GE microwave oven, straight trade. I continued to wait tables in a really lovely lakeside restaurant as I tried to make ends meet, but bills were more than I could pay and it occurred to me that I had very little to show for the debt I'd incurred. Five days each week I drove to work in my "new" Catalina, I did my job, and two days after the paycheck was cashed the money the gone. Suddenly, it seemed nothing made sense any longer. I made a list-- What I Consider To Be Important: My health. My freedom. My dogs. My cat. Freedom was there on the list but I wasn't free, so I asked myself what it would take to make me feel truly free. When I looked at the walls of the rented mobile it suddenly occurred to me that those walls, designed to protect me, were imprisoning me. Can I live without these walls, and walls like them? I asked myself. When I rummaged through drawers and cabinets, when I ruminated over the titles of the books on the bookshelf, when I studied kitchen utensils I'd purchased but never put to use, my course became clear. In a matter of weeks I was "homeless." The bulk of my possessions were sold in a yard sale to people oblivious of the fact that they were being held prisoner by the deceptively useful paraphernalia of life. Memorabilia and keepsakes difficult to replace were placed in storage. With the proceeds from my yard sale I purchased a four-man tent, or, more appropriately--a one woman, three dog, one cat tent. Princess was still with me, but we'd acquired a small army of companions along the way. As I assembled the tent for the first time, in a roadside campground north of Gunnison, delicate snowflakes dotted the yellow and brown canvas. My hands ached with the cold. Did I make the right decision? I wondered as I pictured the abandoned mobile home, warm and bright. One of my purchases had been a collapsible cot, and my dogs and I slept on the cot in the tent with the who- who-whoooo of an owl for companionship. It's funny, the things one never considers. In Colorado, during the early part of April, shampoo freezes when stored in an automobile trunk overnight. Certain canned goods don't fare well when the mercury drops below thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit. Drinking should be done early in the day because locating an outhouse in the dark with a flashlight as dogs compete for ankle space isn't fun or easy. As I drank the sunshine of each new day, from high hills overlooking seldom-traveled roads or in grassy meadows overrun by wildflowers, those inconveniences seemed minor, well worth the feeling I had of being on top of the world, truly in control of the moment. From Colorado my journey of self-discovery led to Wyoming. In Wyoming I discovered the place my mind returns to. The Shoshone National Forest is south of Lander, Wyoming. A winding two-lane road, Highway 131 rises from Lander Valley to make its way to and through the Shoshone; this road eventually turns east again to intersect with Wyoming State Highway 28. Sinks Canyon State Park is located on Highway 131, just inside the northern boundary of the national forest. I found a lovely little lake to call my own. If this lake had a name I never heard it. I'll call it Beaver Lake. Beaver lake is the place my mind returns to. The Popo Agie River, and the beavers, gave birth to Beaver Lake. Mountain water is icy year round, and this water was no exception. I never hesitated to drink from the river when thirsty, and I often chilled perishables or canned beverages along its' banks, carefully bound in netting, then secured by a large boulder. In the beginning, the dogs seemed to intimidate the beavers of Beaver Lake. I couldn't hope to guess at the actual number of beavers calling the lake home, but they were a busy lot, felling small trees for the sheer pleasure of it, or so it seemed. Princess harbored a particular hatred for those Beaver Lake beavers. She almost always beat the other dogs to the lake, swimming determinedly in pursuit of a cunning creature she'd never catch. After a while the beavers seemed to grow bolder, recklessly slapping those wide flat tails against the surface of the lake whenever the dogs were nearby. This amused me until a ranger suggested I should prevent the dogs from swimming in the lake. That tail-slapping, he explained, was in reality a means of enticing the dogs to deep water. Once in deep water, the dog would be helpless against the beaver's powerful jaws, and a beaver could effortlessly drag a breathless canine beneath the surface of the lake in order to drown it. After thanking the ranger, I discouraged Princess from leaping into Beaver Lake in pursuit of beavers, and the other dogs followed suit. I wasn't rich, and that necessitated finding employment. I drove to Lander and back every Monday through Friday in order to labor at a family run dry cleaning establishment. When I had a few extra dollars I purchased a family size pack of beef ribs, and these I roasted slowly over a spitting campfire as the dogs drooled from a safe distance. When we'd feasted, human and canine and feline, we'd often explore the immediate area. Nearby, we discovered a summer camp nestled amid towering pines and delicate aspens, half a dozen roughhewn buildings vacant ten months each year. College students came and went during the months of June and July, but the camp was always deserted when we went there. I imagined ghosts; feminine giggles, masculine roars, triumphal shouts of glee as male and female alike managed to cross the river, boulder by slick boulder, without tumbling in. Two of these huge boulders converged, white as bone, slick as eggplant, to form a natural shoreline pool and I often found myself there, reading, writing or meditating as I stared at the glassy surface of that clear, clean, sweet, sweet water. One day the dogs and I discovered the carcass of a dead moose. It lay near the camp, a rotting behemoth, a sad, strange thing because it didn't belong there, in the midst of that national forest. Predators and scavengers should have converged on the body, consuming everything edible, but they avoided it due to its proximity to the recently occupied camp. I summoned the dogs; we moved away hastily. I felt as if I'd unwittingly violated sacred ground. Too soon Father Winter held one dampened finger aloft to gauge the direction from whence the wind blew. In so doing, he transformed the face of the forest. I decided to seek shelter in Lander, to return, for a time at least, to the sometimes comforting, sometimes confining reality of walls. Ten years later I'm a single mother. Raising children by myself is often a challenge but I no longer choose to take off with a tent in the trunk when the walls start to close in. My imagination takes off; I find myself transported to Beaver Lake. When I hear the slap of the beaver's tail and the rush of the roaring river I see a young, fearless woman sitting cross-legged on a bone white eggplant- smooth boulder. They're an unusual quintet...that woman, those dogs, that yellow cat...but they seem to be at peace with themselves and with the forest around them. Someday I'll take my sons to Beaver Lake. Which ghosts will they hear?