A subtle morning breeze wafts delicate seed pods, white and feathery, almost invisible, through the dense Missouri air. His whole life, everything he has done and not done, has brought him here ~ to this moment. He woke up early today, too early, he thought. Heavy with the weight of surrounding darkness, foggy in the shadow of sleepless doubt, he laid awake turning until he raised the courage to lift himself up. But it was a gift: extra hours in a day of far too few. He looked at her, softened, and stepped out of bed, feet firm on the oiled earthen floor. Out through the early quiet, soft purple growing orange, ears to the birds and the silken flutter of tall grass, he drifted to the pond.
Before he steps up to the dock, Cob grabs a handful of soil; it embeds into the cracks of his hands. His fingers clench and release. Damp with the deep, dark tones of ancient life, the earth smells sweet. He walks down the wobbly dock, wood released from some crumbling house. He stands at the edge. He looks out, soars into the prairie enveloping the pond — one big tree stands tall; he circles back inward. There must always be a moment of balance before crossing that edge. The water, the stillness of it, absorbs everything.
For many, the pond is simply a way to cool off in summer’s heat, clean the mud off of a day’s hard work. But for others it is that and more: a re-awakening of the spirit into a hydrating solace; a time to strip off the cloth covering and be left with nothing but the skin and what lies beneath.
Naked, tall, limbs tightly connected, Cob reaches up into the sky and arches his back. He inhales deeply~gratitude~he exhales. He leaps. He is blind in the dark green nothingness, but it is the nothingness that opens into more. His body and the land he was just standing upon is gone; all that came before is gone. He is aware of each sensation: the tickle of cool water; the weightlessness; the slight fear of not being able to breathe; and the hope that life will once again renew itself.
Already dried in the sun on the dock he walks back, skin taut fresh, clothes too dirty; raw. New. His left hand holds his shorts and sandals, his right rides atop the wild grasses. Through the warm wet air and wetter grass his bare skin becomes a permeable layer sharing what it needs to. A few short minutes while walking up the hill, the world winds along the mowed path, and lands him in the ultimate field. A game just ended and the grass, absorbed by itself and the sun falling upon it, lays silent. In the distance a small crowd almost to the woods traverses back to their next community over. The world is tiny, and ancient, and if he ignores everything else, for just a moment, a flawless tract of life can be found. Cob cuts right, just past the field, into a small path through thick trees. Over the wooden bridge he built he crosses the wash. Juvenile apple trees with blackberry bushes wax the way into home. He picks a few berries, glad that he can, and eats them slow enough to forget that he was ever doing anything else. She turns. Juice from the peach drips down the corner of her mouth. She sees him standing there, in the garden, and laughs at his nakedness. His back straightens, lifts his chest, but when she turns away he feels far more exposed and slips on the shorts.
He walks into the gravel road, shades his eyes to see what’s happening in the neighborhood. A few weed their gardens, there is always weeding, and a couple more, further down the road, fasten a gutter. If they don’t catch the water it falls, to the ground, and they have nothing to drink. A while building, it’s just now starting to look like a village, though much more lies in ready. A solid cluster of small houses, each of earthen and reused materials—wood, strawbale, and cob, mostly—rise heavy out of the flat landscape, like large boulders deliberately left by a long gone glacier. With a long breath and a sweep of his glance, Cob’s neighbors are close: probably seven or eight houses within sight, almost within reach, five times that, maybe, in all, each with their own world crafted into the walls. Some doors are rounded to curved hands while others stand straight and proud. Everywhere gardens ground the homes to the food they need. Arguably worthwhile pieces of wood and old tools, random collections of postponed objects, lay strewn in the pockets between. Piled junk obscuring the natural beauty, it, like most things seen everyday, is easily ignored and might actually be invisible. Until it becomes useful, and therefore beautiful. He turns back to the kitchen, relaxation fades: far too much to do.
Backs flat, the ground holds strong. Rigid corners of the mind calm as they lay under a task complete. Hannah is warm next to him; to her and to the air everywhere his breath rises into words: “It’s wonderful isn’t it?”
“The off-kilter roof we just built? Or the endless sky?” she says as she squeezes him a bit tighter: “...I’d say just cuddling on the ground.”
The morning has come and gone with the ebb and flow of water and dirt, leisure and work. The two lie in their future kitchen looking straight up, a round opening of blue sky glistens where the timbers meet in the middle. Mud walls, surrounded by garden and woods, enclose them in a protective habitat; with her he has found home.
“Oh, come on, maybe it’s not perfect. Nothing ever is. Look how those logs rise off the wall, each balancing on the one next to it, beautifully supporting each other...”
“When we remove the support beam it’s not gonna hold, fella. But for now,” she says, extending her legs deeper into the softness of the dry-packed dirt, “it’s nice to have the support.”
He knows it’s her softness, the little extra flesh and the lots extra tenderness, that softens the hard edges of the ever roughening world. He senses her lighten into the Earth, glad he has given her something: grounding of a sort.
“Hey. Look,” Hannah says, “there’s a planet out there, or something, shining right at the edge of the circle.”
“Wonderful. Finally we’ll find some answers to this wild
web of —”
“Oh? I thought you had all the answers already?” she says, nuzzling a little closer.
“Hey now, no need for that,” he rolls his shoulder to dislodge a small rock. “Good thing we built this spaceship, eh?”
“It does sort of look like the window in that Star Wars ship.”
Cob laughs, “The Millennium Falcon, you’re right, it does. So, lady, you coming?”
“On this ship made of mud?”
“We’ve got to work with what have here, Hannah. No sense worrying about the aerodynamics either, I’m sure they’re less than stellar.”
“And what happens to being ‘one with the Earth,’ good sir? As I’m always hearing.”
He laughs, he enjoys her digging, mostly: it deepens him. “The Earth is alive within us, always. You know that. Won’t change. And you, good sir? What about ‘one with humanity?’ What will you do without it?”
“What will you do without it? Don’t think I didn’t see you yesterday in the land of make-believe, believing the preschoolers into a ‘Circus of Possibilility’. You’d be ok if you ever remembered how much you need them.”
“Who?”
“Everyone,” she says.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say everyone.”
“I might.”
A cloaked smile slides across his face, barely discernible beneath his soft beard but vivid within crinkled wide eyes, indigo. It wasn’t long ago, before Hannah—well, it’s been some years—but there was a time when he didn’t know how to reach into people: he can’t quite still, but he knows a deeper connection. “Well, there is a reason I fell in love with you, my dear.”
“And we’re gonna leave all these people?” She sits up: sky blue outlines her face as rosy features subdue into lilac shadows.
“To endless possibility!” he says.
“Oh, come on. You’d be lost without all this.”
“We’ve been here long enough. Let’s make a new home. You and me. Let’s make a world that’s ours.”
“This world is ours. We’re making it, with this village, this Eco-village, as we want it to be. Growing with everyone else, human connection — that’s home.”
“What about alien connection?” he says, lifting a sly smile, “I bet you’ve never thought about that before.”
“We are aliens,” she says, not mimicking his expression.
“And diving deeper into the great Mystery of the Universe!? Holy Moses!”
“We dive deeper every day, Cobby. Anyway, we wouldn’t even be able to survive out there.”
“The aliens, they’ll teach us,” he says. “They’ll teach us what to plant, what’s good to build with...”
“Like the Native Americans? Lots of good it did them.”
“That’s that; this is this.” A shadow falls under his brow.
Here, with his heavier turn, she latches on: a lightness, at last, graces her face — a game to play, but not to wear too deep. “There probably isn’t any sand or clay over there, and definitely no straw,” she says.
“But they do have sghelonium robtomium, the strongest and most malleable substance in the Universe.”
“We’ll still have to balance our rods of skelonium ruptomium just so if we want them all to support each other.”
“Why do you worry all the time? It’ll hold.”
“I’m not worried, but it won’t hold. We’ll just have to build it again, for the fourth time.”
“Well, it’s either meant to be or it’s not,” he says, “a reciprocal roof won’t just build itself. And hey, what’s better than being out here in Mother Nature’s sunshine, anyways? Guiding the delicate balance of oak timbers, wonderful! Not that I’m saying it won’t hold, cause it will.”
“We’ll just see about that,” Hannah says as she rolls on top of Cob, crushing him with a loving blanket.
“And what’s better than rolling around in the dirt with Lady Love herself?”
“Well, I’d say,” she pauses to kiss his neck, “that rolling around without the danger of heavy timbers falling on our head would be pretty special.”
“Ah pish posh. Let’s get on with it. Let’s take out the support.” Cob slips out from under her. Once on his feet he grabs her hands; he waits a moment just to be there. Out from her face, wavy dark gold spreads into the dirt, merging her with the Earth. Dry clay sticks to his sweaty back while the air coolly evaporates. He lifts her to join him.
“You do it. I’m standing outside.” She laughs and runs through the one day doorway.
Cob grabs the twelve foot timber, upright in the center, and carefully nudges out the bottom with his foot. All the logs are interlocked and slowly inch down with the support beam. “It’s ok, it’s just settling a bit,” he reassures them both. Cob inches the beam down and the opening in the middle drops a bit more; the timbers resting on each other settle into place. He lowers it further and the timbers keep coming down. A knot of dried mud crumbles off the rim of the wall. He won’t admit defeat: he lowers again.
Boom! Owww! Shoulder! Fuck that hurts.
A clear circle of sky opens above him.
Hannah muffles a laugh with her hand, “Oh, baby! Are you all right?”
Still standing but in definite pain, “Fucking hell. Ok, you were right. We needed that support.”
“That’s why you love me.”
Jb and Dave appear at the edge of the garden, feet and hands thick with mud. “Are you ok?” Jb asks. “That didn’t sound so good.” His stretched figure slumps shorter as his eyes scan over the debris pile. “And it doesn’t look so good.”
“Well, I’ll tell you, my friend, it sure as hell doesn’t feel so good either.” Cob looks up, “Dave, get off the sweet potato.”
Dave looks down and doesn’t move, obviously unsure where his feet are safe, where food doesn’t grow. Solid and stocky, he stands still. He spies some bare dirt and plots a careful step. He searches Cob for approval, but Cob is caught elsewhere.
Cob quiets his mind and tilts his head back, he strives to regain balance. The immensity of the unbound sky is overpowering, but comforting. The white speck of planet interrupts the flawless blue: planets shouldn’t even be visible during the day.
Jb and Dave return to stomping cob — mud, cold between the toes, mashes with sand and straw into such a basic material; but it’s strong, and malleable, and made from just their feet and the ground beneath. Cob bends over to pick up one of the fallen logs; he clenches his jaw as he stands back up.
“C’mon fella, I thought you said you would like nothing better than to roll these logs in the sweet sunshine?”
“Why won’t it just fucking work?”
“You know, either it’s meant to be or it’s not.” She lays her chin in the crook of his neck, arms around his stomach, “It’s all part of it: learning and growing, baby. Don’t worry, it’ll work. And it’ll be better than it otherwise could have been.” She speaks sometimes seemingly nonchalant, yet she coats her words in a certain calculated tone, like she is trying to form herself into the character she wants to be, which is great, but no matter how right she might be she only succeeds in leaving her words flushed of intended meaning. And leaves Cob feeling slightly more alone.
“Well, if we don’t finish it today, we’ll miss our chance to have all the visitors help us carry the dirt up. And then who knows if we’ll be done before the storms come.”
“We’ll get it done, Cob. The sun still has a distance to go.”
Cob exhales deeply and bends down to pick up another timber. When the logs are cleared he sits and takes a sip of water. He needs it. The coolness flows down into his organs, soothes unrealized desire. The water nourishes something deep within him: reviving an idle livelihood, he knows that in a way he is that water. He takes another sip and it somehow feels different. Sitting is good. He breathes in.
He lays back and rests his head on a clump of grass; his arm stretches while fingers flicker within a loose tuft. He lets the sun liven his every cell. He looks at their little hand-built house, light brown and heavy like the earth beneath it. He studies the living roof that nature has made its own: upon it they laid the dirt and planted the strawberries, but in the years since Nature has brought it under Her control—microorganisms and wild grasses—a form of acceptance in a certain way. He turns to the other side of the garden and watches Hannah’s intent concentration as she prepares the roof of the kitchen for another attempt. A muddy shovel leans against the sculpted wall; garlic hangs in braided ropes. It’s been a fight. He’s glad he has chosen this home, created this home, that he was made, again, from this home. Pride wells as an expansive softness. There were some years when he wandered — he searched endlessly for answers only to find that there weren’t any, only more questions. He was happy enough to be home-free, but he was missing something.
Jb and Dave return from their muddy mess and join Cob on the ground: they transform instantly from slouching and dirty to sprawled at ease.
“Cob, you’ve a nice little complex here,” says Dave.
“Thanks, man. We’re proud of it. It’s been quite of a bit of work, though, let me tell ya.”
Dave huffs. “I’m sure. I feel like I’ve spent every last ounce of energy just stomping a few batches of this cob stuff. And I don’t think we’ve even added two feet to that wall.”
“Yeah, it gets easier.” Cob turns his head from home to Dave’s sweaty face: stubble growing below dark curls makes him look worn. “You’re used to sitting in a chair in front of a computer. This ain’t that. Thanks for helping us out, Dave, we really do appreciate it. Not many people want to spend their vacation buried in mud and manual labor.”
“Just happy to be here witnessing the life of Old Wild Yonder Jake.” He laughs. “I mean Jb. And trying to figure what you crazies are all about.”
Cob smiles, “Who’s crazy? You’re crazy.”
“Yeah right. You guys shit in buckets,” Dave says.
“And then we compost it for two years and use it as fertilizer. Well, just not in the garden. Everything you use becomes waste. Talk about crazy.”
“Your house is beautiful, sure, but it’s made of mud and straw! You ever read The Three Little Pigs?”
“It’s permaculture: it’s practical. People have been building like this forever. In England there are cob houses still standing after hundreds of years. Match that with drywall.”
“If they had drywall, I’m sure they would have used it. Don’t be so quick to dismiss the modern world that brought you here, ol’ high and mighty: where would you be without the truck that carried in all your sand?”
“We’d figure something out.”
“Whatever, you couldn’t get me to live in a house made of dirt.”
“‘Different strokes for different folks,’ my friend.”
“Cob,” Jb says to change the subject, “you think you’ll come on this bike trip?”
“Maaaaan, I wish I could,” Cob sits up, “I’d love to. If it was back then, if I wasn’t so tied to everything here. And Hannah would never go. I couldn’t leave her for eight months, or however long.”
Jb exhales long and slow, slouches his back, and looks off towards the rolling plains. Without turning his head or releasing his gaze, “Damn. I kind of thought you’d say that. I guess I can go by myself.”
“We’ve had our days on the road, Jb, nothing’s gonna take that away. We are who we are because of that, period. But things are different now. We’ve come through a lot; we’ve grown. I’m rooted, man. This land and these plants have grown me with them.” Cob rubs his hand over a small patch of weeds and watches each fiber bend, almost to the point of breaking, and then rise.
“It would be nice to be floating again,” Cob continues. “To be back believing life was infinite. But there’s something great about growing a life here. It’s solid. It’s real. You don’t need me, Jb. Hell, you’re probably better off without me slowing you down.” Cob contemplates the far hills Jb has fallen into. He turns his head and looks back to his house, to his garden, and to Hannah building their kitchen. “Whatever you’re looking for out there, I hope you find it.”
Jb maintains his gaze and the thought he was lost in, “Yeah, me too...”
The air wraps a warm silence around them, Cob breathes in and finds something: “Hey, you remember that old Buddhist story, about the ferry going to the other shore?”
“Enlightenment? Sure.”
“And before you get on that ferry, all you can think about is that ferry — who’s on board? How long will it take? All these things. But then you go, and it’s just the ocean. Or the river. Or whatever. And when you get to the other side, wherever you came from hardly even exists. Even the ferry is gone.”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I get it.”
Cob exhales, refocuses on the horizon: wild grasses, mostly green sparkling yellow, flicker hints of vibrant blues and reds; old Oaks and Osage stand tall in small clumps. He lies back down and finds a soft spot for his head. It’s been a wild, transformational few years. When Jb said he wanted to land in Missouri for a while, Cob thought he’d gone mad. But it was that opening that carved a path for more: the slow flow of season’s growth — the leaves fall off the tree, blow in the wind and freeze in the ice, and then, again, are reborn with the sun expanding days.
“There’s more to discover, Cob. I’ve got to find it. I can’t be satisfied not knowing.”
Within his yearning Jb has unintentionally taught Cob about steadiness: through Jb’s eyes Cob has found his own. “You know more than you think you do,” Cob says, “just look a little closer. Maybe, just maybe, it’s not out there: maybe it’s here.” A strand of grass floats above his head, its rhythm drifts as it dances in the air. Occasionally it brushes the side of his face. He reaches up with his hand.
“I feel it pulsing inside me. There’s a huge hole,” says Jb. “It’s hungry. It’s lost and it’s lonely and it needs to know why the fuck.”
Cob looks at his friend and sees anguish in glassed eyes, heartache crumpled into the corners. “I hear you, man. I feel it too. I shouldn’t pretend to have the answers, cause I don’t. But I know I’ve found something in accepting the emptiness. Absorbing it. And just knowing that we’re here, here and nowhere else. You’re always looking off over the next hill, Jb, over there. Maybe if you looked a little closer to home you might find that hole is already filled.”
“Ohhhh I know, I know. Be here now. It’s just hard sometimes, you know.”
Cob slows a moment, a few breaths. Life ain’t easy, but he’s been lucky. “I know,” he says.
Jb pulls out a handful of weeds and rubs the bundle against his arm. He tosses it into the air, fibers scatter. “Dave, let’s go mix that mud.”
“Dang Jake, I was just getting comfortable,” he says, but nevertheless sits up.
With no haste they stand and weave back through the okra plants. Jb stops. He lowers his face to within inches of the edible seed pods. He plucks one and bites it in half. He looks closely at the ring of seeds in the middle. He takes another bite and looks back to the rolling hills in the distance. He casts the remains into the bushes and returns to the muddy tarp.
(That was about a fifth of the full story. To read the rest please download the pdf at left. Thanks.)