Like the Last Episode of the Sopranos

I don't care what you think, he tells me on the phone yesterday, just tell me what you did.

Okay. Those words, an inaccurate quotation from my brother, who I shall call Donald the Guileless in this blog, jerked me back to the Dashboard of this blog, mostly because he also said that reading the last entry in my blog was like watching the annoying last episode of the Sopranos, and that he felt abandoned.

Well, I wanted to tell him, not much happens up here on Forbidden Plateau, despite the promise of the name.

Of course he knows, Donald the Guileless, that not much happens up here, having once admonished me for living in such an out of the way community. But I think he was frustrated when he said that, having become lost on the one road that leads to where I live.

But in a way he's right. Not that I abandoned anyone who may have been reading this blog, but that I abandoned the trip to Russia, because it is now, I realize, that the comparisons are starting to happen. Now, when I drive into town, or walk down Forbidden Plateau Road, or shop in a grocery store, walk into a museum, look into the water of a river, answer my email -- now, when I do those things, I am thinking of Petersburg, and what things were like in Petersburg.

But oh, I won't tell you what I think, I'll just get on with things. Like my morning walk.

The story goes like this:

I now wake up every morning, my legs shuffling around in the bottom half of the bed, anxious to get themselves pounding on concrete, the way, I think, they pounded on the concrete of Petersburg, to the point that my hips ached. I'm missing that aching feeling, and when I wake up in the morning, the first thing I want to do is get outside and walk on the concrete sidewalks.

I have had to settle for the pavement of Forbidden Plateau Road, spurning the spongey wooded paths of Nymph Falls Park and opting for the harsh density of road. It's like this: when I walk in the woods, I keep imagining, smelling even, the musk of a black bear, or hearing the connivings of a cougar, and now that the pug is too old to come on walks with me, I have no bear or cougar bait, becoming instead the potential main target for any predator. When I walk the paths, I am in a state of constant arousal, the hair on the back of my neck sticks up, and I keep looking behind me, or into the woods, for the bear or the cougar.

The thing is, I've discovered, when I walk on the road, I don't imagine cougars or bears stalking just out of sight and sound. I figure they are deeper in the woods staying away from the roar of motors. Not that there are that many cars on my road -- I counted 1 this morning, and 3 yesterday morning -- but that there is the potential for cars. And, I tell myself, the bears and the cougars know that.

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours trawling for good "walking" music on iTunes. I sat in the Comox Grind, drank coffee, and looked through the iMixes for music that I could listen to while walking up the side of Forbidden Plateau. I found the Nike sports mixes, and scrolled through those, but only found stuff claiming to urge me on to build bigger muscles, including one mix of "college" cheers. Nope. No college cheers for me. And no buff.

Why do I need walking music? Forbidden Plateau, right outside my front door, is more or less flat, and when I turn right at the end of my driveway, it continues flat for a short while, then gradually it begins to climb at a greater and greater incline...but really, it is gradual. There are a couple of places where the incline is even greater, then it flattens out again, then begins to climb again. It's actually ideal for walking, and would be even more ideal with music that has a number of different "paces" in it. So I looked through the iMixes to see if I could find something designed for Forbidden Plateau. I did find something that had a number of tunes by Styx on it, but I think Styx must be one of those bands from the 80s that I never really paid much attention to, being too busy with children and school to pay much attention to rock.

So, no Styx. No downloads.

This morning, though, when I woke up, my legs already walking at the bottom of my bed, also already playing in my head was El Norte, from Gotan (anagram for Tango) Project's album Lunatico. When that finished, I started to "hear" a few other tunes from that album, and then I realized that I had discovered great walking tunes. And that I already had them. I jumped (yes, I mean jumped) out of bed and pulled on the sweaty walking clothes that I had left in a heap on the floor after yesterday's walk. Sneaking past my deaf pug so that he would not awaken and feel bad about being left behind, I left the house plugged into my iPod, and started to walk.

(Get this: Amor Porteno, the first song on the album, is perfect for starting up the walk. A relatively slow pace, it is not so intrusive that you feel you have to slow down to stick with it. And because the words are in Spanish (no giving it the good old college try, here), if you don't know Spanish, you can imagine anything you want. After a few warmup minutes of Amor Porteno, you get Notas, perfect for walking to. Diferente moves it up another notch, but don't be deceived by the awkward beginning 30 seconds or so. When she starts singing, you are with her and walking, and when the bandoneon starts to play, you'll be swinging your arms and singing along, in Spanish.)

I'm walking along and then the left side of my headset begins to cut out, and I immediately fly into a "fuckin' technology" rage that is way out of proportion to the problem -- compared to the results of no hot water or only dirty hot water or only dirty cold water pouring out of the shower head in Petersburg, a broken stereo channel would appear to be minor, and I started to feel abashed about my simmering anger at Apple, at the makers of my headphones, and then found it curious how I could be so accepting (if also somewhat annoyed) of not having clean hot water, but apoplectic at not being able to hear Gotan Project in stereo. (Is this too close to being a thought?)

I had to fiddle with the plug and learned that if I don't plug the headset all the way into my iPod, the stereo miraculously works again, but then I have to hold the headset and iPod in a certain way at a certain angle...ha! What problems, I think, but immediately STOP thinking, since I am supposed not to be thinking, because if I think too much, I will have nothing to write about. Look, I tell myself. Look at what's happening around you on Forbidden Plateau Road, and writer about that.

Criminal is playing on my iPod by this time, which I am holding in front of me the way that an orthodox priest holds a holy book out in front of him as he comes into the main part of the cathedral from behind the iconostasis. I am a holy woman, blessing the world with my iPod, and nothing is happening out there. Nothing. There is a slight breeze. The clouds are moving in and soon the sun will be covered. Yesterday two deer walked out of the woods in front of me and with their almond shaped deer eyes watched me walk closer until I had penetrated their comfort zone, and they moved off silently. No deer today, and I walked up to the new subdivision, Views of Forbidden Plateau, to the pace of tango, and stopped.

No thinking, I think, remembering Donald the Guileless' instruction. No thinking. I turn around and head back down the hill. The bandoneon is frantic with the notes of La Viguela, a drama not matched by the environment around me.

As I approach a curve in the road, a dog appears from the other direction. He is black and grey, walks with purpose, his head, which is framed by a black mane, is looking down, so he doesn't see me. He looks, I don't know, military, in a black and grey sort of way. A few seconds later, two more dogs appear, twins, short haired, butterscotch, long tailed dogs with square noses. The three dogs are playing some sort of game; they've done this before, I can tell, by the way the three of them stop and stand still when they notice me coming. The three of them stop so still and stand and watch me coming towards them, and the black one moves off to the left, off the road, to stand on some grass. He looks suspicious of me. And while he doesn't look threatening, he does look as if he wants to question me about me presence here on his road. Domingo starts to play on my iPod, giving me confidence, and I quicken my pace and walk towards the dogs. Who will move?

The black and grey military dog continues to move up and around to my left, and as I pass him he will be able to close in behind me, and it occurs to me that it would be ironic if I were to be mauled to death by three dogs. So much for my love of dogs, I think, and just as I'm picturing what people would think if they found me mauled to death by dogs, and what would happen to the dogs who would be accused of such an atrocity, the two butterscotch dogs start wagging their ridiculous tails and grinning. They are happy to see me: a break in their usual people-free routine, I'm thinking, and they are anticipating a cookie, or a pat on the head, and their bodies start to be wagged by their tails and their rib cages look like rubber as joy infuses every ounce of their dog-being-ness and all thoughts of having my tibula dragged off into the woods disappear and I turn to the military dog, who is still eyeing my suspiciously, from behind me, now, and apologize to him for distracting his two goofy friends, who probably are the main reason he has any fun at all, and I keep walking, now to the gentle piano of Paris, Texas -- and the two goofy dogs disappear up a driveway before I get to them and I walk the rest of the way home, getting to my own driveway just before Alice Blue Gown starts to play and my left headphone starts to crackle.

And that's what happened on Forbidden Plateau today. Nothing. As I write this El Norte is playing. It seems a good concluding statement as the bandoneon whips around, playing with the driving bass.