Voices in the Night (17 page)

For those who prefer a more unusual journey, our age-old swamps and marshes offer a dash of adventure. The depths of our swamps are variable and unpredictable. Although the water is generally shallow,
the rotted-plant swamp-ground beneath the water may yield suddenly to the pressure of a footstep. Depths of twenty feet and more have been measured. Guides are available to point out the most treacherous places.

I want to say something about the gray feeling, not the grand suffering you see in old movies, but the gray feeling, the twilight dimness, always with me, even then. Back in grade school my mother would look at me and say, “What’s wrong, Joey?” and I would not know what to answer. “He’s shy,” people said, but it wasn’t that. In high school I had girlfriends, they liked my sad eyes, but I didn’t care about them enough, not the way they wanted me to. Later I tried vitamin supplements, antidepressants, a change of diet, but none of it cured the grayness. The grayness was quiet, but also not quiet, a sort of restless emptiness. Some women are attracted to the grayness, they think they can make it go away. I married a good woman. We went to Niagara Falls on our honeymoon, and when we came back we made a down payment on a house. My wife would look at me and say, “What’s wrong, Joe?” and I would try to tell her about the gray feeling, but a change would come over her face. It’s not you, I wanted to shout. It’s the gray feeling, nothing matters more than any other thing, something is missing in me, or maybe some extra piece has been added, the gray piece. One day she went away and never came back. I was alone in the empty house. Now I am married to my true wife, I thought, an empty house. One afternoon I passed a yard sale in the neighborhood. Old living room furniture, lamps with trailing cords. I thought, I am that yard sale. I began to see other signs. I was the faded matchbook lying in the roadside grass. I was the shadow of the stop sign stretching out at evening. I wondered whether the grayness was something I carried inside me, like a tumor, or whether it
was something that clung to me, like a burr. One day I came to Arcadia. Here they know the grayness. They have seen it with their own eyes as I have seen it with mine. It is there at the edges of the gorges, it lies in the still centers of the lakes. A peace is flowing toward me. I have only to walk toward it and it will be mine.

Our menu is a mix of healthy traditional favorites, such as our classic free-range roast chicken served with roasted organic potatoes and steamed fresh vegetables, and a wide variety of unique local dishes. Vegetarian meals, including hearty vegetarian dinners that will please the palate of the most stalwart meat-lover, are available upon request. Our produce is grown on local farms and picked fresh each morning, and is supplemented by fragrant herbs from our own garden. An assortment of fine herbal teas, among them elderberry, wild orange blossom, and lemongrass, is available for your taste delight.

Our many miles of scenic woodland trails are carefully marked to prevent our residents from getting lost, but we have also kept in mind the needs of those of you who want nothing better than to leave the familiar paths for other, more adventurous journeys. Such residents are encouraged to make use of the numerous byways that branch from the main trails into the thick depths of the forests, where it is not difficult to lose your way. The bypaths end abruptly, inviting pathless wandering through lush undergrowth among ancient conifers covered in moss. Mushrooms and wild berries grow in profusion and should be eaten with caution. Sometimes a sloping hillside reveals a deep opening overgrown with vegetation. For those who
seek the pleasures and challenges of getting lost, we highly recommend the thickly wooded hills in the northeast section of forest, with their unexplored caves, their rushing streams and roaring waterfalls, their untamed scenes of natural wildness.

Hi there. My name is Robert Darnell and I’m proud to be part of Arcadia’s team of Transition Facilitators. May I speak frankly? You are unhappy. You see no meaning in life. Your son has died, your husband has left you, your wife has run off with your best friend. You’re alone, you’re in pain, you hate yourself, nobody loves you, you’re fat, you’re ugly, you want to die. We understand. It’s our job to understand. We understand exactly who you are and exactly what you need. Here in Arcadia we will show you the way. The way is hard for some and easy for others, but it is the only way and you will know it when you see it. You have always known it. Come to us and we will guide you. The path is familiar. The path lies within you. Arcadia lies within you. You have always lived in Arcadia.

Although we take every precaution to secure the absolute privacy of our residents, an encounter with another resident may sometimes occur. It might take place on one of the public forest trails, on a lake shore, or deep within a cavern. On such occasions, we advise you to nod silently once, avert your eyes, and continue on your way. Your undisturbed thought process is an essential component of your voyage to discovery and should be watched over with care. If any resident should attempt to strike up a conversation, smile politely but
do not answer. Any such violation of the rules should be reported at once to your facilitator. Here at Arcadia, your best interests are our only concern.

I remember the first time. I was drinking a cup of coffee at the breakfast table, not thinking about anything in particular, when the thought came to me: Why? I remember my hand stopping in midair, the coffee cup suspended before me. The question began popping up at odd times during the day. I would step into the morning train, sit down at a window seat, open up my laptop, and suddenly think: Why? Or I’d stand watering the back lawn on a hot summer day, looking forward to the evening barbecue, Sherri-Ann, laughter with friends. Then the thought would come: Why? It was as if a little crack had opened up inside me. A dark wind was blowing through. What was wrong with me? Was I having a nervous breakdown? But I felt fine, except for the little voice that kept whispering: Why? When you hear that voice, you can go on, but nothing is the same. The sunlight striking the side of a house is not the same. The glass in the dish rack is not the same. I felt that something was happening to me but I did not know what it was. In the night the voice kept waking me: Why? You could say that my search for an answer is what led me to Arcadia. Within a few days, I was a new man. Here, everything you do has a purpose. When the Why comes, you have the answer: you are making yourself ready, you are preparing yourself. Out there, day follows day, Sunday Monday Tuesday, all without meaning. The numbers on the calendar change but they are always the same number. Here, a leaf falls and it is like the sound of the last page torn from the last calendar. A cup of coffee blares out like a trumpet. Soon it will be time.

The branches of our venerable trees are sturdy and proud. Many of our lower branches begin not far above the reach of your upstretched hands and thrust out powerfully in every direction, covering the paths and undergrowth with rich shade interwoven with sun. Above the lower branches, row upon row of higher branches form complex patterns of spacing and angulation, often intermingling with the branches of neighboring trees and preventing the observer from seeing branches closer to the top. Among acres of blue spruce and white pine, of Norway spruce and red pine, you will find stands of oak, beech, hickory, mountain ash, alder, and birch. Many of our lower branches are nearly horizontal and invite contemplation. Sit beneath them. Be still. Permit your thoughts to ascend toward those strong, restful places.

Although we have found solitary transition to be the most efficacious strategy for the vast majority of our residents, transition partnering is not unknown. Sometimes it happens: a nod to another resident glimpsed on the grounds of the Estate, a glance exchanged with a resident approaching along a woodland path. A possibility arises, at first only dimly, then more clearly and persistently. All partnering arrangements are enabled by your Transition Facilitator, who may advise for or against such a process. The successful completion of your end goal is contingent upon more than one factor, and we will take into consideration any outcome-based procedure that is likely to eventuate in a satisfactory resolution.

I guess you could call me one of those small-town girls. You know, family picnics down by the river, church on Sunday, cheering the football team, hot summer nights sitting outside the ice cream parlor on Main giggling with friends and flirting with boys. After high school I began waiting tables in the restaurant across from the movie theater. A few of my friends went off to college, it was like they couldn’t wait, most others stayed in town working in the plant and settling down. I was making pretty good money, saving up a little from year to year, going on dates, mostly boys I knew from high school, older now and looking to marry. But I was waiting for Mr. Right. I was renting a room in a house on a quiet street, dinner with Dad and Mom every Wednesday and Sunday, babysitting my twin nieces on the weekends. Time passes slowly in a small town. Mr. Right wasn’t happening and everyone I knew seemed to have kids. I began to hear something in my voice I had never heard before, a kind of forced cheerfulness. Summer nights in a town like mine can be tender and cruel—the sound of a distant train, porch lights glowing, couples laughing under the maples. I had a talk with my minister. He told me to be patient, good things would come to me. I was beginning to feel trapped and I didn’t know what to do. One day I met an older man. He had kind eyes, he wanted to marry me and give me a house with a backyard and a front porch, but just as things seemed to be working out I found out he was wanted by police on two counts of grand larceny. Sometimes I felt I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to scream, I wanted to smash something. I was the waitress with the nice smile, I was the auntie at the riverside picnics, the friendly lady at the church socials. I didn’t know what to do. I was tired all the time, I could see lines forming at the sides of my mouth. I felt I was waiting for something, not just a husband anymore, but something different, something better,
another town, another life. I thought I should go away somewhere, live in a different place, but where could someone like me go. I wondered whether it was possible to spend a whole lifetime in the same town you were born in, waiting for something that doesn’t ever come. I had never taken a vacation. I’d saved up a little nest egg over the years and that is how I came to Arcadia. I can tell you it’s made all the difference. Everybody at the Main Office is as friendly as can be. My facilitator is very kind and understanding and talks openly with me about what I am feeling. He showed me there is no shame in it, in feeling that life has passed you by and there is no way out. You want to scream, you want to run away, but you get up and you go to work and nothing changes. He made me see I was still binding myself to the world by hope, the hope that things would get better somehow, even though I knew they would never get better, and once I was cured of the hope-disease I felt a peace come over me and I knew what I had to do.

Residents are welcome to visit the old Observation Tower, located on the cliffs of the Northwest Gorge. This imposing structure, constructed over one hundred years ago of granite blocks mined from local quarries, rises to a height of 420 feet and contains a winding stone stairway of 659 steps. At the top is an external observation platform with a waist-high iron railing, badly damaged. The ledge beyond the railing extends a further twelve inches. The Tower has not been repaired for many years and should be entered with caution. On a bright day or moonlit night the old observation platform affords spectacular views of the Arcadian countryside in all its rich diversity. From the cliffside corner you can see down into one of our deepest gorges.

Although carefully protected privacy is a key component of our program, your facilitator may recommend attendance at one or more of our semiweekly goal-oriented discussion groups led by a Life Counselor in one of the Discussion Rooms located on the ground floor of the Estate. The purpose of group discussion is to increase motivation and focus by means of shared experience. Sometimes a resident who has spent days or weeks alone exploring the trails, lakes, gorges, caverns, and other features of our retreat will find that the group process can generate valuable insights. It may even lead to a moment of personal self-illumination that will prove to be a productive turning point on your developmental path. Participation in all group activities is voluntary. Refreshments will be served.

In what I suspect is not the middle of life’s journey I came to this bosky dell in search of what shall I say a setting for my soul’s plight, a decor for my desolation, hoping by such sleights to outwit destiny and calm the demons of the night, only to find myself enticed by ah! enchantments less
triste
: the seductive sinuosities of pineconed paths, the caress of caverns, an almost amorous beckoning of tranquil shores. And you, my best beloved, light of my life, lovely traitress and laughing fiend out of hell, who even now bends to whisper sweet somethings in my ear, I bid you a fond farewell, my darling demoness, my heart’s murderess, as I walk out into the Arcadian night that shines forth like a beacon in the blackness of my ravaged hopes.

Sometimes it is best simply to wait. In time it will come to you. Row out into the middle of a silent lake, draw in your oars, and lean back against a cushion. Stand at the edge of a gorge with your hands behind your back and gaze down. Sit beneath the strong branches of a sheltering tree or lie back in your hammock beside the stone well. Pause for a while in the black passage of an underground cavern. Breathe quietly. Listen. The answer is there. It will come to you.