wilderness

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Sitting in the sun on the lake, your mind begins to wander. <<timed 7s t8n>> Remember when that professor of interior design wrote you a letter about her elderly and aging clients? <</timed>> <<timed 10s t8n>>In the care facilities where they live, they readily tune out blaring, unattended sitcoms from omnipresent televisions. <</timed>> <<timed 15s t8n>>And yet, when asked, they request a window to open. “Please,” they say, [[”I want to hear the wind.|windows2]]” <</timed>>

“Hey. <<timed 2s t8n>> I was just feeling a little weird watching this nature doc and I was wondering if you could give me a virtual tour of your herb garden.” <</timed>> <<timed 3s t8n>> “Oh! For sure. Let’s go.” <</timed>> <<timed 5s t8n>> <img src = “”> <</timed>> <<timed 10s t8n>> <img src = “”> <</timed>> <<timed 15s t8n>> <img src = “”> <</timed>> The leaves flicker in millions of rich pixels across the screen’s glassy surface. Suspended above them, you see your own reflection. Or is that a ghost of yourself, immersed in that verdant pasture? You begin to doubt that you are still contained within your apartment. [[I’m not. I’m back on the lake. |cell]] [[I’m not. I’m back in the woods. |patch]] [[I’m right here. |windows]]

<audio controls loop controlslist="nodownload" src ="https://static.wixstatic.com/mp3/1621e5_2f61934a3acc43a582549ff4bef240a2.wav">Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio. Here is a <a href="https://soundcloud.com/sugarlift/patch">link to the audio</a> instead.</audio> <<timed 5s t8n>> Nestled in the undergrowth and fallen leaves, you look up to see a cathedral of branches framing the sky. <</timed>><<timed 10s t8n>> Many leaves flicker from lighter to darker shades of themselves, articulating the wind. <</timed>><<timed 15s t8n>> The air's hush dwindles, revealing bird language that shimmers in flecks around your head --<</timed>><<timed 20s t8n>> fragments of phrases you half-remember from the nature documentary. <</timed>><<timed 25s t8n>> This flickering bears little in common with that of the glassy screen in your narrow apartment. <</timed>> <<timed 35s t8n>>Larks and wrens dart from branch to bush. <</timed>><<timed 40s t8n>> Their motion guides your gaze downwards, across surfaces of thickened bark and luscious leaf,<</timed>><<timed 45s t8n>> where you spot [[a cluster of eyes.|patch2]] <</timed>> Audio description: a field recording of an Eastern forest in early morning summer. Bird calls echo off of trees. Swish of wind in leaves.

You pop the black raspberry into your mouth. Your tongue slides over the ripples of its outer membrane. <<timed 5s t8n>> Each round chamber of juice explodes as you clench the fruit between your jaws. <</timed>><<timed 10s t8n>>Sour and sweet, grinding the berry seeds with your molars, you wonder:<</timed>><<timed 15s t8n>> [[Didn’t food used to be easier?|food2]] <</timed>> <<timed 20s t8n>> The berry has a surprising lemon-y aftertaste. Is that possible? [[Are you sure that was really a black raspberry? Or maybe it was nightshade?|intermission]]<</timed>>

Remember driving across the country? <<timed 5s t8n>><audio controls loop controlslist="nodownload" src="https://static.wixstatic.com/mp3/1621e5_81dd2eaeab5947e9ae549f043f3d89f1.wav">Your browser isn't supporting this audio. <a href="https://soundcloud.com/sugarlift/zoom-out">Here's a link to it instead.</a></audio><</timed>> <<timed 20s t8n>> After the eleventh hour of corn and soybeans, you became more and more concerned that food is much too simple. <</timed>><<timed 25s t8n>>Can the soil really sustain this homogeneity?<</timed>><<timed 30s t8n>> Beyond the [[eutrophication|cell]] of lakes and rivers,<</timed>><<timed 35s t8n>> beyond the violence of tilling, beyond <</timed>><<timed 40s t8n>>the exploitation of proprietary seeds -- <</timed>><<timed 45s t8n>>doesn’t the land just get bored? <</timed>> <<timed 55s t8n>>[[You sure do.|zoom out2]] <</timed>> Audio description: Flipping through midwestern radio stations in the car.

You're on your way. <<timed 2s t8n>>But why would it matter what state you're in? How would you even know without a map?<</timed>><<timed 7s t8n>> You consider state line delineations as artifacts inherited through violent colonial processes.<</timed>><<timed 12s t8n>> How did we find our way before we had borders? <</timed>> <<timed 17s t8n>>You look at your hands. <</timed>><<timed 20s t8n>>The steering wheel has transformed into two thin copper rods, both bent at 90 degree angles. <</timed>><<timed 25s t8n>>You remember this tool from your childhood. <</timed>> <<timed 30s t8n>>Dowsing rods are a pre-modern technology for locating a spring. <</timed>><<timed 35s t8n>>They were banned by Martin Luther in 1518 as a practice of Occultism, but people still use them to decide where to drill into the ground to build a well pump for drinking water.<</timed>> <<timed 42s t8n>>You remember your father holding the rods loosely in his hands, walking around a grassy Appalachian field for hours in the sun. <</timed>><<timed 47s t8n>>The rods reminded you of very large tent stakes — two 90 degree angles of copper that you sort of just dangle out in front of you while you walk around,<</timed>><<timed 50s t8n>> calling through the ground to the water.<</timed>><<timed 55s t8n>> If the water is there, [[the rods will cross.|water2]]<</timed>>

<audio controls loop controlslist="nodownload" src="https://static.wixstatic.com/mp3/1621e5_f12c7bcc842d4cffab28956ab4811b68.wav">Your browser isn't supporting this audio. <a href="https://soundcloud.com/sugarlift/haul">Here's a link to it instead.</a></audio> <<timed 5s t8n>> You remember a different mode of locating water.<</timed>> <<timed 10s t8n>> <img width=100% height =100% src ='https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1621e5_0314be1146a94341a2f8023b5aaaf3cb~mv2.png' alt="one of those wheelie things that folks use to haul heavy things by foot in a city, like groceries, laundry or a lot of water."><</timed>>[[💧|haul2]] Audio description: the sound of wheels on pavement in a city.

<audio controls controlslist="nodownload" src="https://static.wixstatic.com/mp3/1621e5_5e2bbe854b9d48eebdbde6c486ce7d35.wav">Your browser isn't supporting this audio. It's basically just the sound of a radio playing in a car, keys clattering as the ignition stops, getting out of the car and there being a lot of insects in a field in the Midwest. A few cars pass are there are some click-clanks of metal on metal.</audio> <<timed 3s t8n>><img width = 100% height = 100% alt="A photograph shows a corn field about 6 feet away from the photograph. A yellow sign in the center clearly reads 'Warning: Petroleum Pipeline.' The smaller text on the sign is illegible. In the background are three evenly spaced windmills for wind power. The sky is clear." src="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1621e5_3f9e2c3a322f4c30a92061e5a434e9bc~mv2.jpg"> You roll to a stop in your vehicle and put it in park. <</timed>><<timed 6s t8n>>Switching the key to the off position, you remove it from the ignition, unbuckle your seatbelt, open the car door and step out in the Midwestern summer. <</timed>><<timed 10s t8n>> Cicadas and crickets scream their screams. Corn is all around. <</timed>><<timed 15s t8n>>The heat reminds you of the old [[haul]], the tarmac, the endlessness.<</timed>><<timed 20s t8n>> That was years ago now, and your community has expanded in the way that all groups shapeshift over time.<</timed>><<timed 25s t8n>> Your goal has remained the same: to bring your people [[water|tamper2]]. <</timed>> Audio description: the sound of a radio playing in a car, keys clattering as the ignition stops, getting out of the car and there being a lot of insects in a field in the Midwest. A few cars pass are there are some click-clanks of metal on metal.

<audio controls loop controlslist = "nodownload" src="https://static.wixstatic.com/mp3/1621e5_09a82c5a41854bdda640a6ca8cd33292.mp3">Your browser is not supporting this audio. It is an expanded tune that I wrote about turning into a prairie. It's a lot of field recording of a prairie including bird and insect sounds, and some synthesis and slow drum beats.</audio><<timed 3s t8n>> You have made it this far. Finally, it is time to rest.<</timed>> <<timed 5s t8n>> Sit down.<</timed>> <<timed 10s t8n>> Finally, your knees bend beneath you. Finally, your back reaches the earth. Gravity pulls you firmly toward the earth's center. You let it. Exhaling, you notice the skin on your arms connecting with dead grass and soil. Inhaling, you open your eyes to thistle and sage that are now towering over you. Blinking, you continue to rest and also extend. The fragile boundary separating you from the intelligence of the soil begins to degrade. You reach out into the difference between you and the earth, grabbing hold of it with what had been fingers -- they are hairier now, paler. As you reach in you are also plummeted upward. Your trajectories flutter in whimsical exteriors: purple petals and sepia sepals that nod on slender stalks, pulled around by breezes. <</timed>> <<timed 70s t8n>> It takes a long time for your skull to smile. When it does, it cracks and releases a hiss of gasses. You inhale your own exhales now as your body disperses. Bits of you are rolled into balls by the dung beetle, who burrows into you. Parts of you feed rabbit families who hide within you. You slither across your own surfaces, bellyfirst. You flit about. You take many many years to emerge from your own depths. <</timed>> <<timed 105s t8n>> You are invaded. You burn. You cower. You explode spiralically.<</timed>> <<timed 130s t8n>> Being a prairie suits you, and you show off a little in fragments of color and cascading evening songs. <</timed>> <<timed 145s t8n>> Sometimes, when you are sleeping in winter's snow blanket, you remember floating. You taste the memory of buoyancy like dew on sedges in morning. How the water supported you from underneath. Now it rests on your surface, you support it. <</timed>> <<timed 165s t8n>> Sometimes you remember being in the woods, the flavor of the black raspberry and its impossibly lemon-y aftertaste. Sometimes you remember a flickering blue light that meant something, like a picture of how your body feels now. Like a window. <</timed>> <<timed 190s t8n>> You forget maps and car radios and documentaries and microscopes. You forget the heat of asphalt. You forget hands and legs. Viewed from below, nothing is funnier than human tools. Watching them plotting your surface with dowsing rods and tripods makes you giggle, and when you do, the sound is a cicada. Audio description: It is an expanded tune that I wrote about turning into a prairie. It's a lot of field recording of a prairie including bird and insect sounds, and some synthesis and slow drum beats. <script> var video = document.getElementById("myVideo"); var btn = document.getElementById("myBtn"); function myFunction() { if (video.paused) { video.play(); btn.innerHTML = "Pause"; } else { video.pause(); btn.innerHTML = "Play"; } } </script> <video autoplay loop muted id="myVideo"> <source src="https://video.wixstatic.com/video/1621e5_7169f30c574448bc8de1bbc9e563772c/1080p/mp4/file.mp4"></video><div class="content"><button id="myBtn" onclick="myFunction()">play/pause</button><</timed>></div> video description: a close up of wandering through very tall prairie grasses, at eye-level with the grasses. t h e e n d adrianwoodstudio.com</div>

<audio controls controlslist="nodownload" loop src="https://static.wixstatic.com/mp3/1621e5_5c990c8074884a2fb1e32904d0dd8d9c.wav">Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio. Here is a <a href="https://soundcloud.com/sugarlift/windows">link to the audio</a> instead. </audio> You read the professor's note on your phone while half-watching a nature documentary flicker on the television screen in your cramped studio apartment. <<timed 5s t8n>> The documentary felt protective. The content flowed into your consciousness that longed for soothing. You could hear what you needed to hear: nature is O K, some places are untouched, divinity and wilderness have survived. After everything, we are still guiltless in our ecology. <</timed>> <<timed 15s t8n>> Watching the documentary, you were aware of the surface of the screen on which the images of green spaces flicker. You were aware of the speakers that transmit the sounds of insects and birds. You were aware of the identity of the narrator. You were aware of the walls surrounding you, and how they protected you. <</timed>> <<timed 35s t8n>> The leaves flickered in millions of rich pixels across the screen’s glassy surface. You could see your reflection on the screen. Or was that a ghost of yourself? Haunting that verdant pixel pasture? You began to doubt being contained within your [[apartment walls.|windows3]]<</timed>> Audio description: the muffled sound of a nature documentary being screened indoors.

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<img width = 50% height = 100% src = 'https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1621e5_8cb98f57ef6448e8a7f29ceb6ac6fbcd~mv2.jpeg' alt=" a cluster of berries in the center of a photograph. Some of the berries are light reddish and one in the middle is dark blue-black. They are surround by serrated-edge green leaves. "> What are they? <<timed 10s t8n>> Dark heart and blood-red halo? Must be a [[brambleberry.|food]] Triplets of jagged leaves that smell like freshwater? Must be a [[black raspberry.|food]] Clusters of succulent pearls, gleaming like insect eyes? Must be a [[mulberry.|food]]<</timed>>

<audio controls controlslist="nodownload" loop src='https://static.wixstatic.com/mp3/1621e5_356082c0dd0945b6855690df54530843.wav'>Your browser isn't allowing this audio to load. <a href="https://soundcloud.com/sugarlift/food">Here's a link to the same audio hosted differently.</audio> <<timed 5s t8n>> <img width = 100% height = 100% src='https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1621e5_01feb2707fe145b1bd563612e42e6b2d~mv2.png'> Image description: A closeup of a field of corn. <</timed>> <<timed 10s t8n>>Or perhaps we have made food much too easy for much too long? <</timed>><<timed 15s t8n>> [[Food definitely used to be easier.|zoom out]] [[Food is much too simple.|zoom out]]<</timed>> Audio description: A field recording of a Midwestern field. Lots of buzzing insects and wind.

To defend yourself from road-weariness, you’ve been playing a game called: what state am I in? <<timed 5s t8n>> Want to take a guess?<</timed>> <<timed 10s t8n>> [[Um, Nebraska?|water]] [[Iowa?|water]] [[South Dakota?|water]] [[Corn?|water]] [[northwest territories|water]] [[decolonize this place|water]] <</timed>>

The new zoning laws don’t allow you to tap the fire hydrant like you used to, so now you have to bring water to the garden.<<timed 5s t8n>>Watching the peppers, tomatoes, zucchini and herbs grow is reward for the sacrifice of the haul.<</timed>><<timed 10s t8n>> You try to keep this in mind as your slippery palms rattle the handle of the wheelie you borrowed from your grandmother.<</timed>><<timed 15s t8n>> It’s hot in your neighborhood today, the heat that feels like walking out of the front door and into someone’s mouth. <</timed>> <<timed 20s t8n>> Keep walking. <</timed>> <<timed 30s t8n>> Sweat droplet running down your spine. <</timed>> <<timed 40s t8n>> You are water, you bring water, you need water. <</timed>> <<timed 45s t8n>> You need water. <</timed>> <<timed 47s t8n>> Crossing the street… only 3 blocks to go. <</timed>> <<timed 50s t8n>> How did your ancestors access water? <</timed>> <<timed 55s t8n>> Do they walk with you now? <</timed>> <<timed 60s t8n>>[[They needed this water.|tamper]] <</timed>> <<timed 65s t8n>>[[You need water.|tamper]] <</timed>> <<timed 70s t8n>>[[We all need water.|tamper]] <</timed>>

<<timed 30s t8n>>Scouting would have drawn too much attention to the site, so this is your first time here.<</timed>><<timed 35s t8n>>The corn is limitless in all directions, save one: below. <</timed>><<timed 40s t8n>>A 4-foot-diameter steel tube is buried underground.<</timed>><<timed 45s t8n>> The tube stretches invisibly north and south, running alongside the highway for a few dozen feet.<</timed>> <<timed 50s t8n>>You check your pockets and take a deep breath.<</timed>><<timed 55s t8n>> You’ve practiced the motions many times in your garage, with friends and experts, and then alone.<</timed>><<timed 60s t8n>>You consider your position, your identity, briefly. There's no time for philosophy; this is a time to act. <</timed>><<timed 65s t8n>> This action had been debated about and finally consented to in the weeks prior. Now sand is dripping down the hourglass.<</timed>><<timed 70s t8n>> The black snake is about to gorge itself on the [[blood of the land.|water3]] <</timed>>

You walk towards the pipeline, slightly dizzy with the ease of your task. There are no fences, no cameras.<<timed 5s t8n>> You repeat the traditional names of the land, the names of the groups who belong here, who were here before and who will return here. The names are grounding to you. You ask gently for gifts of strength and speed. <</timed>> <<timed 15s t8n>> Everyone needs water. Water is life.<</timed>> [[dig. dig. dig.|end]]