I woke up around 7:00 a.m. I’m tucked away in the forest here. I spent the morning writing, and uploading videos on YouTube. I’m comfortable in the woods. I rode my bike around here and it’s a very quiet town. The one big thing I plan on doing today is going to the church meal at 5:00 p.m. at our Father’s table.
At around 1:00 p.m. I drove my car to a bike shop downtown. It was a nice place and I had the guy fix my tire. The tire on the bike I had bought at Walmart, that exploded, when I was trying to fix it while that cop was shaking me down because I handed a crack addict in Lowell a lighter.
The two guys at the bike shop are really nice. I wondered if they were gay? Perhaps a gay couple even. That was the vibe that I got anyways, mostly from body language and the mustaches that the men had. I began to wonder if this little hideaway town is an LGBTQ enclave. It’s definitely a beautiful place to find peace and tranquility. The town has a university, and perhaps it brings a lot of new age thinking to the town. It only cost me $25 to fix my bike tire. I really love this bike shop, the two workers were really nice to talk to, and they didn’t overcharge me.
I drove over to Walmart and I ordered a steak bomb sub. I sat under a tree and I ate my sub and two of the little Brown Cow yogurts, which are really good. At one point the wind picked up and began to blow my shopping bag away. A woman who was sitting in her car down the hill from where I was sitting began telling me that I should chase that bag around and go pick it up. I don’t like being told what to do, but ultimately she was right and I chased the bag in the wind until I was able to step on it. I was still eating my second yogurt so I just walked with my trash over to the trash barrel in front of the Market Basket.
I hung out in the Market Basket parking lot for a while doing some writing and working on things. I saw the two women who gave out free phones for stand up wireless. I used to see them constantly in Lawrence. The government offers free phone programs for indigent people so they can have smartphones. It’s damn near impossible to survive in our society without a smartphone today. I found it strange that they had traveled all the way out here to Fitchburg to peddle the free phones. It’s kind of clear that Fitchburg is a one horse town with a college and definitely an income problem. I just don’t see a lot of homeless people. I’m wondering how the town manages to keep people from being homeless. One guy who asked me for a dollar outside Market basket told me that there is a Days Inn hotel in Leominster that houses all the homeless people. I definitely would be curious to check that out.
I took my little car and I drove over near our Father’s table, looking for a good place to park where there’s some shade so that I can sit and wait for dinner. It was just about four p.m. so dinner at five was right around the corner. While I was driving I saw a graveyard on the maps. Graveyards are one of my favorite places to hang out and kill time. For all the killing of time that I’ve done it won’t stop time from killing me and the graveyard is where they’ll throw my bones.
At 5:00 p.m. I drove over to my brother’s table where I parked my car on the side of the road. When I walked in the door there was a sweet old lady who greeted me. I then gave my backpack to another younger girl who gave me a ticket so I could collect my backpack after I was done eating. When I walked into The church function room, another woman gave me an option of water, a brisk iced tea, or a juice box. I took the water since it was so hot and I did not want too much sugar in my drink. I was then given an appetizer by another server that was tomatoes sliced with oil, vinegar, some spices, and cheese. After I ate that, a woman asked me if I wanted coffee. I said I did, and she asked me if I wanted French vanilla cream, hazelnut cream, or regular cream. I chose the hazelnut cream and asked for a couple sweeteners if she had them. She brought me my coffee and next came the meal which was mac and cheese, zucchini, corn, and bread and butter. I looked at all the people here and none of them looked seriously drug or alcohol addicted, they did not seem chronically homeless, perhaps they seemed poor but that was all. I would venture to say if any of the people in this room actually did not have a home and lived outside in at tent, they were living pretty good around here. Everybody was well-mannered, considerate, and polite. I really didn’t see much point in asking people questions or trying to get their story. This is just a small well run Massachusetts town.
After I ate I promptly left. I stopped on the way and I picked up a gallon of water at the convenience store. I then drove up the hill to the conservation area where my campsite is. I parked my car down the road a little ways where there is a spot where you can park a car and there are no signs saying you cannot park there. I walked back to my camp and I settled in for the night as torrential downpours accompanied by lightning and thunder rolled through.
I ate a 10 mg melatonin gummy after I got off the phone with my girlfriend around 9:00 p.m. I fell asleep pretty quickly as the rain fell.
I received a phone call from my mother at 12:30 a.m. She told me that The Hamilton Police had come to her house in the middle of the night, they woke her up, Charlie was barking and incessantly, and told her that my car was in Fitchburg and the police were going to tow it. Not only was I pissed that the cops somehow tracked down my mother to tell her about my car. I was pissed that they threatened to tow my car since I definitely was not in violation. There were no signs saying I couldn’t park where I was. I wanted to avoid calling the cops at midnight but I didn’t want my car getting towed. Even if I am right and they have no right to tow it, it would have been a financial burden, and a pain in the ass to fight that battle if they did. I called the police department and I told the officer who knew about the situation with my car, and this officer said that he was going to have the field officer reach out to me. About 5 minutes later a female Fitchburg police officer called my phone. She sounded like a young woman kind of serious, although I did not take this situation seriously. I explained to her that I would be leaving tomorrow and not to tow my car. She asked me if I was in the area if I was hiking. I believe she was trying to get me to admit that I was camping, which I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to do out here. Or perhaps she wanted me to come and get my car because I feared that it was in danger of being towed. I told her I was not in the area and that I would be leaving tomorrow. I told her that there were no signs where I had parked, and she affirmed that the car was nicely off the road. She accepted that I would be taking the car tomorrow, and let me be.
I have to admit, my strange car parked in a quiet town makes for an anomaly. I have to give this young female officer credit, she was able to track me down and find out what my car was doing there. For all she knew it had been abandoned, or perhaps I’d gone out in the woods and died and never came back. It was good investigative work on her part, finding out where my car is registered to and having the cops go to my mother’s house. I don’t particularly agree with the Hamilton Police waking my mother up at midnight to tell them that my car is parked somewhere. Ultimately, I’m just going to leave this one alone.
While I was laying there in the forest after midnight. I realized how quiet and peaceful it was. Where I’d set my camp up, my tent had covered a bulging root nub that protruded from the ground next to the tree my tent was against. I decided to put my hand on that nub. It was right next to my air mattress. When I put my hand on that nub, even though the tarp floor of the tent was between my hand and the wood, I had an amazing experience. When I put my right hand on that nub, like a network of lights, I was able to see in my mind all the connections throughout the forest. I could feel and see the roots running into the ground like lights winding in all directions. I could feel the energy going up the trees into the leaves and spreading out throughout the forest. I took my hand off the nub and then I didn’t see it. Then I put my hand on the nub and I saw it again. It was almost like a psychedelic experience and I was able to realize that everything is connected and everything is intertwining into everything else, even us, we are part of that fabric. This was reassuring and after the earlier rainfall the air was cool and I was calm and it wasn’t long before I was back asleep.
