Dust On My Boots - Part 10

Bear Bones

by Nazel Pickens

(aka Fuzzy Bearskins)

We are what we are, not what we were or what we want to be.

That is all. That is it. That is everything.

I awoke from a deep slumber with sunshine on my face. I stared at the clear blue sky for a moment before wonderin’ where I was, because I was NOT in my bed. My neck felt a little stiff and my head seemed sorta heavy. I squinted a bit and moved just my eyes around to scan the scene. I seemed to be at the edge of a forest on a hillside. I could smell the dew and some grasses, the dirt, and so much more. The vast aromas rushed right through my nose, by-passing my brain and went throughout my being, but not all muddled or diluted, very clear, almost visual and with a subtle ambient audio-like feel too.

Damn. Did I get convinced to go to another one of Daimyo’s all-night parties in the woods again? They always seemed relatively fun at the beginning, eventually become somewhat boring, then turning to annoyance, and, I usually regretted most of it the next day. I just might be gettin’ a lil’ too old or cynical for all that. Before I could think my next thought, a slight breeze moved across my face in an exceptionally sensual way and my stomach felt enormously empty and rumbled loudly with some thick and heavy bass notes. Oh great, and I musta got hit with some mollie too.

Somethin’ else felt off though, or odd, no, just different. I sat up, but my entire body seemed lumberous and thick. It was then that I looked down at my hands, arms, and then my belly and legs. Oh double damn. They put me in a furry suit too. I was wonderin’ if this was their reaction to one of my perhaps a bit obnoxious all-too-reoccurring rants about the obvious superiority of the authentically self-created vibrations from actually sang and played music over the push-a-button-programmed soundscape at these sort of events. Well, come on. Right? Duh.

Anyway, I stood up with much difficulty and wobbled a bit before tumblin’ back to the ground. I started pulling on the fur in an attempt to find a way out, but the clawed paws made it difficult, and it all seemed really stuck on. I hoped glue or tar weren’t an adhesive part of this prank. I was also starting to get a lil’ hot in here. I looked around to see if any of my friends were still around.

I called out in hopes someone might be nearby, other casualties of last night’s electronic and chemical-fueled “fun”: “rrrroooooooaaaarrr!”

What the hell was that!?!?

That wasn’t my voice.

I called out again: “rrrroooooooaaaarrr!”

Now this was getting uncomfortably strange. I must still be asleep. I must be dreamin’ all of this. Maybe there wasn’t even a party (that I didn’t remember). That must be it, I assured myself. I took some deep breaths and curled up in a ball next to the brush and closed my eyes to move this all along. Just breath Nazel. Breath. Breath. In… and out… in… and out… in… and out… all while trying to clear my mind. In… and out… in… and out… in… and out… and then it all got kinda fuzzy… 

I am not sure if I fell back asleep or not, but the next thing I knew was that I was opening my eyes again and the sun was now beaming down more from on top of me then from the side. I put one hand up in front of my face. Damn. Still a clawed paw. I looked at it more closely. It had blackish and cinnamon fur. It seemed like a bear paw and it looked very authentic. I hoped it wasn’t fresh roadkill. I sat up and scanned around at the terrain. I recognized it. It was just up the road from my cabin. I supposed my friends had dropped me off at the top of my driveway and in my early morning stupor I wandered up here and passed out. I figured the best thing for me to do was get to the comfort and safety of my bed and figure all of this out tomorrow (a strategy with about’a 20-80 success rate for me, but still worth a try).

Standing up seemed too difficult, probably because of my current bearish attire and possibly from any residual foreign substances still running through me, so I walked on all fours down the hill to the road. It was actually pretty damn easy and I developed an almost natural stride to it all fairly quickly. Soon I was even able to move in an impressive and enjoyable gallop-like trot. As I rounded each corner, it all seemed very different than I recalled. It was a lot more open then the dense forest I remembered, which I unconvincingly told myself was due to my skewed hung-over state combined with last night’s widening of my perception. The more I examined the landscape, the more it seemed familiar yet so very altered. There were mostly smaller trees, very young, not many looking much older than six or seven years in age and packed in thick clusters. There were remains of much older trees, but blackened and dead. Lots of grasses and brushy vegetation filled the landscape. It seemed like a fire had come through here maybe a decade ago, but it hadn’t. Had it? I seemed to be having a trans-species Rumpelstiltskin moment.

I ventured on, feeling more confused with each step I took. I finally rounded the corner where my cabin should have been, and nothing was there. I mean nothing I remembered, no cabin, no shitter, no woodshed, no garden, no truck, no giant trees, not even my decades-long-curated refuse piles. And my family and friends were nowhere around. The strange post-fire scenario continued. I poked around, still walking on all fours, even sniffin’ ‘round with the new snout on my face. It all smelled familiar but both fainter and more intense. I was becoming dizzy from all my dislocated feelings. I went to the place where my cabin had been and the spot where my bed once was, laid down, curled up in a ball and passed out, hoping this would all be back to normal the next time I woke up.

It was not. I opened my eyes to gusts of wind, big dark thick clouds overhead, and the sound of trees cracking in the distance. Physically, the scene had not changed from my pre-pass-out disorientation, but the atmosphere was swiftly accelerating into some kind of cacophony of intensity. It seemed very late in the afternoon, maybe early evening, but hard to tell due to the dense cloud-cover hanging ominously above. I sat up and began to assess my situation. How I got here was getting even fuzzier with each moment. Without much thought, I found cover in the bushes under the one larger tree still remaining here. Seconds later rain began to pour down from the sky in endless sheets of glass. It continued on and on, only briefly stopping for moments throughout the night.

At daybreak, I was still in my bear-suit. Little muddy streams were runnin’ all around me, but I was relatively warm and dry. I unconsciously gave a quick shake, which flew any water still on me away in a mist. I sat up to look around. By now, my stomach was rumblin’. I don’t know what came over me, but I just walked around and something that I once called “smell”, but now beyond any descriptor I had ever imagined it to be, would lead me to all sorts of tasty things. Over the next few risings and settings of the sun, I mostly I ate grasses, leaves, and other plant material. My favorites quickly became wild grape leaves, acorns, black walnuts, and all sorts of roots and mushrooms. When the coldness and snows came, I mostly napped, and my eating waned. As the days got a lil’ warmer, clover, dandelions, wild lettuces, fresh grasses, and all things green and young filled my belly with their bitter sweetnesses and enthusiasm. As it got a lil’ drier, in the sunshine days, food was everywhere. Just steps away at almost anytime were elderberries, huckleberries, mulberries, pokeberries, salmonberries, raspberries, serviceberries, blackberries, wild cherries, persimmons, blueberries, apples, pears, figs, and so much more. And every so often, I would dine on fresh fish, a rodent, grubs and insects, and even the remaining offerings of a young deer (after cougar, vultures, and maggots got their shares). I was never hungry. I was always connected to nourishment and satiation, but with a continual fire in my belly too. I felt more alive then I could ever remember. In fact, I forgot most of what I had done before. I had some vague feelings and situational memories, but not connected to any sort of perceivable meaning or reason or timeline.

I ate and wandered ‘round when I felt like it. I laid ‘round a bunch and I dreamed all the time, day or night, awake or dozin’. In my dreamtime I was always one of multiple forms of myself, usually as a figure in what I began to think of as my Bear clan. Most of the time when I dreamed, especially as time was disappearing, I was in the configuration of what I think now as my Fuzzy self, but other times I am a raccoon, a sloth, a weasel, a porcupine, a panda, or even a seal, a sealion, or a walrus, occasionally a chapped-up leathery biker in the Bay Area of the 1970s, at times a cranky cowboy takes my spirit down a crooked and dusty trail (and often gets into some sorta trouble or another), and other times I have no definitive form and I am a part of some cosmic dust. This is my favorite way to be. Depending on the weather, season, my diet, or who knows what?, members from other clans meet me in dreamtime. Raven, coyote, cougar, salmon, and firefly are regular visitors with different things to tell me or provoke from me. Dreamtime and not-dream time became a Fuzzy situation more and more until the distinction was gone. I simply was. I am. With nothing left to say.

Then, one night as the evenings began to get a lil’ colder again, I curled up in my most recent den under a rock outcropping near a bend in the creek. A strong but playful wind was howlin’ through the canyon as endless stars filled the sky. I fell asleep with Nazel singing one last song as his high and lonesome creakin’ and crackin’ voice intwined with the dancing air of eternity:

 Well, I’ll be comin’ back around

Maybe to your town

I don’t know when

But I’ll see you then

I’ll be comin’ back around

Both feet on the ground

I’ll be comin’ back around

Baby, up or down

I’ll be comin’ back around

Well, you once told me

There’s so much to see

And even more

If ya walk out that door

But ya break down and cry

When I say goodbye

I’ll be comin’ back around

Baby, up or down

I’ll be comin’ back around

This ol’ world does turn

And cities will burn

I travel alone

Ain’t got no home

I don’t give a dang

I’m a boomerang

I’ll be comin’ back around

Baby, up or down

I’ll be comin’ back around

Might be next Spring

Ain’t no big thing

Or in the Fall

I’ll see you all

Get one thing straight

I aim to hesitate

I’ll be comin’ back around

Baby, up or down

I’ll be comin’ back around

Well, its all OK

Try’n keep me away

Pitchforks and fire

Couldn’t make me retire

Like the sun and moon

And summer in June

I’ll be comin’ back around

Baby, up or down

I’ll be comin’ back around

Ride on the wind

‘Round ev’ry bend

Smoke in my mouth

I migrate south

I’m a man of lil’ means

Like a can of beans

I’ll be comin’ back around

Baby, up or down

I’ll be comin’ back around

May have to meet

Dark end of the street

Or maybe it’ll be

Over the sea

In the stars tonight

I’m a satellite

I’ll be comin’ back around

Baby, up or down

I’ll be comin’ back around

Well, we all start small

Then we get kinda tall

Then back to the ground

Bones can be found

Life’s one big loop

Take a look at your poop

I’ll be comin’ back around

Baby, up or down

I’ll be comin’ back around

They say yer soul never dies

Cat’s got nine lives

Or ya go to the sky

But I know They lie

I ain’t got a clue

My heart’s with you

I’ll be comin’ back around

Baby, up or down

I’ll be comin’ back around

I’ll be comin’ back around

Maybe to your town

I don’t know when

I’ll see you then

I’ll be comin’ back around

Both feet on the ground

I’ll be comin’ back around

Baby, up or down

I’ll be comin’ back around

I’ll be comin’ back around

Baby, up or down

I’ll be comin’ back around

I’ll be comin’ back around

Baby, up or down

But, I’ll be comin’

back

a

round

—————

Nazel Pickens, a cosmic-anarchist-cowboy with backwoods, home-spun, divergent, deviant, rebellious, sorrowful, cynical, silly, and celestial commentary on the world at large and his forever cluttered and dusty lil' place in it. Ol’ Nazel doesn’t have a cellphone (they’re gonna pry his rotary landline outta his cold dead hand) or internet connection, but he sure does have opinions about this psychotically alienated technophilic postmodern mess of a world and of his perpetual pursuit of authentic anarchic freedom, and loves to pound them out on his typewriter, some of which is available as the somewhat regularly reoccurring column “Dust On My Boots” from The Rogue Writers Guild’s online magazine (www.roguewritersguild.com). From essays to poems to rants to short stories to songs, Mr. Pickens emotes with words in the dust, and lets the wind take it all away. He sometimes joins forces with another voice in his head, Invecchiare Selvatico, who writes from a more sophisticated, sometimes more analytical, voice. They teamed up to put out a book, Black Blossoms At The End Of The World, available from underworldamusements.com.

Messages to be passed on to Nazel (and requests for a free catalog of his own distro) can be sent to PO BOX 316 Williams, OR 97544 or nazelpickens@gmail.com. Nazel also puts out music with his (now defunct, but hopefully someday reconstituted and resurrected) cosmic-outlaw-country band, which can be heard at: distilledspiritrebellion.bandcamp.com