Okay folks I need a little help here. Day three of being out here in this beautiful cabin by this beautiful ice and snow covered river watching the beautiful sunrise on the beautiful mountains. Whole lot of beauty going on here this morning

Yesterday I promised you two confessions: my feminine side and technology in the wilderness. I went down so many rabbit trails, that I forgot to make my technology confession.

Here is the reason I feel compelled to begin with this confession: While I am standing looking out on all this winter beauty with my back to the warm wood stove, I am connected by an 8 foot cord to a speaker set on my head. I am plugged in to my laptop which is sitting on the table next to my breakfast. This way, I can look out the window at all that beauty and feel all that warmth behind me as I dictate. I can also occasionally glance at the screen to see if the sweet lady inside my laptop is keeping up with my rapid-fire early morning meandering.

Fortunately due to my poor hearing and the fact that I have these earphones on over my ears, I cannot hear the generator running behind the cabin. I have a long extension cord running inside the cabin where my iPhone is charging.

Oh come on! Don’t go acting all pure and naïve and shocked. There are many ways of finding solitude and being alone in the wilderness. In fact, I can enjoy my alone time in the wilderness so much more from my cozy cabin, a soft bed, and a chair and table. Oh yes, and a stainless steel sink that doesn’t work that I can clean periodically. Oh yes, also a propane stove. I’m very sorry if in anyway I’ve misled you into thinking I am out here in a tent, or a roughly constructed shelter made out of snow and branches, huddled in my 50° below zero Arctic sleeping bag.

In the summer I have an equally good excuse to the ones I mentioned above. It’s getting out of the hot sun and wind and away from the hordes of mosquitoes, and yes,being in comfort.

Believe me, I’ve done my share of sleeping under a piece of blue tarp next to my horse out in the middle of nowhere. That was then, this is now and a part of getting older, learning to adapt while still enjoying life. If I started down that rabbit trail of aging, we would never get back to the main trail I’m on.

Back to the title and the main trail. Editing. Making everything uniform. Nothing too unacceptable or outrageous. Giving the reader what they have come to expect.

Since I have been making confessions I will confess here that I’ve been having trouble chewing on this whole editing thing and obviously just can’t quite swallow it all yet. So I need your help and your patience in helping me work through this. And while you’re reading this you will of course remember that everything is always part of a bigger picture. My problem with editing is that someone is telling me I am not good enough as I am and they want me to always be the same, consistent, predictable. Basically, I think I hear my father telling me what to do what to say and how to be.

So you can see here my blog reading friend, that I am working through a whole lotta rough country here. Chewing really hard on this tough piece of whale blubber. And just like with whale blubber, it expands in your mouth and gets bigger for a while before you can swallow it. Yet chew I must, and swallow I will, and digestion will surely follow, for I am the son of Yule Kilcher, pioneer, homesteader, adventurer, a man who refused to conform. A good quality at times, but you can’t live your life that way all the time. I hope all of my chewing will bring me to a better place.

I will start by using a simple analogy, how we dress for messy work, how we dress for an average day, and how we dress when we go to the Emmy awards. If you saw me on any one of those three given days, it would be the same me within those clothes, but you would have a different experience. How you view me. What you think of me. How you judge me. You will have certain thoughts and feelings and associations with my choice of dress.

What you think of how I look and how you judge me accordingly, might affect how you feel about me even once you get to know me. But otherwise, I’d be the same person. Oh I might be groaning and swearing while I was doing the hard work and my working clothes, I might be putting on a few airs as I was starting down the red carpet, but still pretty much the same me.

So what’s wrong with cleaning up a little and dressing up a little bit if you’re going to the Emmys It’s the norm, it’s the custom. It’s what people expect. It’s part of the experience, part of expectations.

So when our reality show cast was invited to the Emmys we were told it would be a tuxedo affair or black coat and tie I can’t remember for sure. But I do remember reacting right away and calling my daughter Jewel. I needed her advice. I started off by reminding her of a time I came to see her at her first Grammy nomination in New York. It was a strictly black suit and tie tuxedo event. I had to arrive in New York at day early just so that I could find a place that could make me look like a proper penguin. But I was not happy. I was going to look just like everybody else. I would not stand out. I would not be special.

So as I am standing in the long line I happen to turn around and look at the man behind me. Let me tell you he stood out! He was tall and wearing a beautiful black cowboy hat. A very attractive old-style Western suit coat was open wide showing the old school white shirt he was wearing. Displayed on his broad chest was the most exquisite silver and turquoise necklace I have ever seen. I was furious! That should have been me! That could have been me! I had a turquoise and bone and horse tooth necklace that I made myself. I was furious.

So laying here on this imaginary therapist couch, I hear my wise therapist, who happens to be a wise old cowboy wearing a duster and old beat up cowboy hat, say softly to me,” so tell me partner, why do you reckon that gets you so riled?” A very good question indeed.

Well that was almost 25 years ago now. Jewel says, “Dad it’s a dress-up party go just dress up and have fun!”  So I did. I wore big furry knee-high coyote mukluks which made me look like Bigfoot. I wore a white shirt and black vest. I wore my low crowned frontiersman hat that my furrier friend made a hat band for that was alternating brown and white fur triangles. This same pattern around the top of my my mukluks and yes, around my neck I proudly wore my handmade horse hoof and horse tooth adorned with silver trimmings necklace.

Let me tell you brothers and sisters of my early-morning meandering congregation, I was the hit of the runway. All the babes were staring at me! All the men who would normally be gazing at the babes were gazing at me! Security guards were gazing at me. I felt special! I felt unique.

Yes I was playing dress up like everybody else, But I believe I was having more fun, I was being more true to my roots. I was making a bold brave artistic statement. I felt free and wild in the same breath that I also felt I was conforming and fitting in. The best of both worlds. Most importantly, true to myself. And in the end that is something we all have to do.

Time for a short rabbit trail therapist interruption from the wise old cowboy, my dear inner therapist, who speaks to me most loudly and clearly right here in the middle of the wilderness. ”Well partner, You said a whole lot right there. I could take some time to validate you, let you know that I know just what you’re saying and just what you’re feeling, And that it all makes sense. But, we’re both getting too old for long winded bullshit. Now rabbit trails are okay if you’re spinning yarns like you love to do, but not when you’re giving your partner, the main man, some good stout answers that he can tie his rope off too. Have you ever looked at the fact that maybe you have a high need for attention. Fitting in with everybody else might be making you afraid you’ll become invisible and get lost. Have you ever thought about the fact that if you truly believed on the inside that you are the most wonderful unique interesting person in the world, it wouldn’t really matter if you look like everybody else. Now you know partner, I’ve never claimed to have the answers, I’ve never told you out-right which trail to take even when you were screaming and crying for an answer. But I have tried to layout all the pros and cons of the many trails before you, tried to let you know what could be lost or gained buy whatever trail you decided to take.”

I was kind of afraid he might say something like that. So what does all of this have to do with editing? Even dressed up, cleaned up, edited, I have to have faith that my writing will be different enough, unique enough to stand out, that people will love reading it and feel they’re getting to know the real me, even though it might be the dressed up version. There’s nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t mean that when they meet me in my work clothes they will be disappointed. It doesn’t mean that when they read my blog that I am writing off the fly, rough, to the point and in the moment, that they will think me illiterate.

I don’t mind people seeing the dressed up me, or reading the dressed up me, as long as it still represents who I am. And who is that? Son of a midnight land. Son of a pioneer homesteader. Son of a creative musical mother. Sometimes happy, sometimes sad. Sometimes lost and sometimes on the trail. Sometimes deep and serious, sometimes silly and funny.

All of that was wrapped up in the necklace, frontiersman hat, and mukluks I wore to the Emmys. I won’t give them up. It’s part of my heritage, part of my personality, my God-given right for attention, feeling unique and special.