The Wisdom of Solitude

Excerpted with permission of HarperSanFrancisco.

Because the basic essentials of living close to nature require so much of my personal involvement, I'm paying more attention to details like water and trash. It's time to empty the chamber pot on the front porch that is full to the brim with the dung of yours truly. During work period I decide to take it down to the outhouse to empty it. It is surprisingly heavy. The deep snow doesn't make for easy walking. Trying not to break through the thin ice crust on the top layer of snow, I make my way to the outhouse, a small distance away. Every couple of steps my boot breaks through, and I sink all the way up to my knees.

Should have worn snowshoes.

I finally get there, huffing and puffing, and put the pot down to rest a minute. This is the only visible waste I have generated in the past few weeks. At home I can fill two trash barrels with tons of junk every week, but out here there's just this small recyclable bucket. I take off the lid and turn the bucket upside down. It's frozen solid as a rock. No problem, I think. I'll just get a big stick and poke it out. I break four hefty sticks on that pile of frozen shit. After 15 minutes of assaulting it with all my might, it occurs to me that an easier way to get it out would be to melt it. I lug it all the way back to the cabin so I can be there in time for cleanup and bows at 9:45.

Between 11:00 and 1:00 there's a sunny spot on the small clearing next to the cabin. For the next few days I bring the pot out during walking mediation, take the lid off, and place it in the center of the only patch of sunshine there is. As the sun moves, I move the pot too, hoping to melt at least the top layer. Even though it melts a little bit while the sun is out, it freezes over again quickly. This is turning into a bona fide dilemma. I don't have any other containers to use.

This little project is actually kind of humorous. Here I am, ostensibly seeking that which is beyond life and death, moving a pot full of my own poop three inches to the right every half and hour so it will melt. To complicate matters, some days there is no sun and it's snowing heavily.

Three days later the sun comes out and it's a warm day. Finally. After lunch I decide to check on the melting project. I open the lid to add a fresh contribution and what do I see? A little gray mouse snuggling up and rolling around in the melted top layer of my shit. His whiskers covered in brown, he is reveling in it. A day at the spa for him. He looks up at me. Our eyes meet for a split second. Then I let out the biggest scream you've ever heard, dropping the lid with a clang on the porch as he runs for his life. My heart is banging like a pile driver, this being the biggest excitement and most eye contact I've ever had with any other being this far on the retreat. I am at least able to empty the top level of the bucket, thanks to the warmer temperatures.

To see another creature nuzzling around in what I would consider the most disgusting place on earth is quite a shock. In this universe, everything is eating something else. One man's ceiling is another man's floor, so to speak. And all of it is going around and around-from me and you to the mouse, to the bug, back into the earth, fertilizing the next fruit or vegetable, back to you and me. Around and around we go.

Pretty good system.

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