Dreamland

Back to the Land

I just flew back east for a surprise visit to my Mom & Dad. As I pull up in front of the house in my rental car, I notice that the place is a total shambles. Windows broken, the front wall of the gable above the porch is ripped out, and the lawn totally gone to weeds. It looks like a house that's been abandoned for a long time...

I walk up the steps and see that the front door has been ripped off the hinges and is lying on the porch. I walk into the house and call out "Is anyone home?"

My Mom walks out of the living room, surprised, and rushes over to give me a big hug: "It's so good to see you! We weren't expecting you!"

"Good to see you too! I had a little time off, so i thought I'd come back to visit for a few days..."

"You must be hungry, can I get you something? Or something to drink?"

"I stopped and grabbed a burger when I got off the plane. But I'll take a beer if you got one."

My Dad sits up from his place on the couch as I walk over to him. "How you doing, Dad? Feeling OK?"

"Well, I'm kinda tired...that medicine they got me on, you know...."

I'm thinking to myself: Fuckin' cancer! They charge you a fortune for this poison you get to ingest. Maybe it buys you some time, but it makes you feel like shit while you're taking it... It's tough choice to make. I used to think if it ever happened to me, I wouldn't take the chemo, I'd go out gracefully. But that's just idealized self-romantic bullshit. Now I know if it really WAS me with cancer, I'd take whatever poison they offered, trying to prolong my time here. Instinctive struggle for self-preservation? Fear of Death? Maybe, I don't know...

"So Dad, what's with the house?"

"It was your Mother's idea.."

Mom walks into the room, hands me a glass of beer. "Since none of you kids wanted this house, we've decided to let it return to the Earth. We've hired wildscape contractors to return our land and the buildings to a natural state."

"Wildscape contractors? I've never heard of this."

"It's the latest 'Back to the land' movement. Here, let's all take a walk outside," she says.

I help my Dad up from the couch. A bird flies by my head and out a broken window...

I can see that the back yard looks no better than the front. Weeds three feet high, piles of rotting tree stumps and rocks...

"Looks like you really need to cut the lawn," I joke.

"Those are native New England plants. See the milkweed? And goldenrod?" my Mom says.

I start to get into it. I think back on when I was a little kid... Walking through fields of wildflowers beneath the trees... Even though I had hay fever and was allergic to half the plants, I still could appreciate the beauty of nature, even back then...

"But what's with the piles of wood and rocks?" I ask

"They're for the animals," my Dad says "We've got rabbits and bees that live in the woodpiles. And we bought a few rattlesnakes to put in the rock piles. There's coyotes denning in shed now, too..."

I look out back and see that the wildscapers have ripped the doors, windows, and roof off of the old outbuilding; a place me and my buddies used to call "The Shack". Many fond memories of us staying up half the night getting high and discussing "heavy things"... How our generation would put an end to War (this was back in the Vietnam days) and "Change The World". We were gonna stop corporate greed, end pollution, do away with corrupt politicians, and get back to the land, live a natural life...

But I guess it was all just pot-pipe dreams. The fucked up world I'm leaving to my son is no better than the one I inherited. Still the same bullshit wars... corrupt politicians... pollution... greedy corporations...

Get back to the land? I know people who have done it. Friends living up North, in the Redwoods, off the grid. They can make a small difference, I suppose. But the majority still follow the herd. "Make More Money To Buy More Stuff" is the goal, and it continues to take it's toll on the environment...

Maybe what we need is something like what happens in Terry Gilliam's move "Twelve Monkeys" to tip the scale. (Message aside, an excellent movie, if you haven't seen it. Bruce Willis & Brad Pitt both more than earned their take in this flick.)

"So Dad, can I chip a few golf ball out here?" I ask.

"Sure, but don't use my good clubs, take the old ones. Don't want them to get beat up out there. And be careful if you hit any out by the rock piles. Snakes, you know."

"Ok Dad, sure."

I chip some golf balls, but give up pretty soon. Too hard to find them in the tall grass and weeds...

Later on, when I'm getting ready to go up to sleep in my old room, I ask my Dad "What do I do if it rains? There's no wall up there any more, I'll get wet while I'm sleeping!"

"There's a sheet of plastic and some duct tape next to the bed. You can put it up if you need to."

"Isn't the rain gonna ruin this place eventually?" I ask.

"That's the idea," he says. "The wildscapers have it all planned out. They just take out a few windows and walls at a time, they come back twice a year. They say the place won't really crumble into the ground for at least fifteen or twenty years. By then we'll probably both be gone and the coyotes and birds can have it all..."