I like to make any fresh start on Monday mornings, and a few weeks later, on a Monday, I decided on a strenuous, long walk, since usually I don't walk after breakfast, but instead return to the room where I sleep or to the room where I take apart objects and place them in different configurations on the floor, burn old notes and useless designs, or study Zulu and read about chairs, or dwell on some event in or theory about American history, which lies in wait of contemporary interest and whose avid pursuit was once mine. Against myself, another freedom, after changing into suitable hiking boots, appropriate jacket, heavier all-cotton pants and sweater, risking disdain by approaching the head cook to request my lunch in advance, a cheese or turkey sandwich on dry whole-wheat bread and an apple, which she reluctantly dispensed, never looking at me, I walked into a woods in which I'd never ventured and followed a trail I'd never taken with a destination I didn't know. Spring was finally coming, the ground and snow melting lazily, the cloudless sky a poignant, pale blue, while the morning sun burnished the ground, so that I had to shield my eyes from the glare of the last snows which cloaked some of the treetops and still lay on the fields and had forced most creatures into their hiding places, though there was the occasional chipmunk to whom I spoke that as usual scurried away. The sun's rays flared and warmed me, spring warmed me, and I hoped to be alert to my surroundings, part of my renewal strategy on this Monday. A medium-size black bird alighted on a branch and two gray ones, mourning doves, I hoped, streaked across the pale sky, Birdman would have easily recognized the birds, and the farther I walked the less I knew where I was because soon the main house wasn't in sight. In the distance, three deer leaped across my path, a family, sudden and surprising, they stood still for a while, but when I began to approach, they fled, their forelegs kicking in the air like merry-go-round horses. I meant to walk swiftly, until my heart pounded, my leg muscles stretched and loosened, and I tired. Aerobic exercise raises endorphin levels, I've occasionally experienced its benefits, while the tall balding man who runs twenty miles a day and sweats profusely experiences it daily, though it doesn't seem to make him sanguine, unless lust or appetite signals optimism, even when his numerous loves disappoint, which he may desire, as it frees and confirms him, so I walked quickly, then slowed down to pay attention to the vegetation and growth, so my desires were split, I couldn't have them simultaneously. I walked on the path, not fully aware of my surroundings, since I was distracted and didn't know how to be what I wasn't. Tree branches and pine cones littered the way, encrusted in some packed-down snow, melting less because the tall trees hid the sun, and sometimes I slid or slipped. Deer might have leaped across the field, or a pair of mourning doves, who mate for life, might have sailed above me, patterns of brown and gray against a pale blue sky, but I was concentrating on the ground under my feet. Then, before me, about twenty feet ahead, I saw a large clearing and the dregs of a campfire, with some fire or red embers, and knew a person or two must be around, so I turned and looked in all directions, and saw no one, but at the campsite, near the fire, I noticed its almost-burnt configuration, resembling the Count's firebuilding method, since four of its ash-white logs were stacked just as he would have done, at least it appeared to me.
The Count hadn't disappeared, he'd fled and found residence in a woodland setting, and, since it was daytime, he would he asleep in a cave or under shrubbery, ferns, and his own blankets or in a sleeping bag. The Count's unexplained departure left unresolved more than is usual, usually almost everything is left unresolved, but thinking the Count was asleep nearby placated and also aroused my imagination, though imagination is hampered by its imaginer's limits. The Count's seizure or paroxysm may have been fantastic, crotchety, a delirium, or poetic inspiration-furor poeticus-and, if so, it might approach genius, according to Kant; however, superstition may be compared, he says, with insanity. Kant's Classification of Mental Disorders was on a library shelf and now lies under my bed, unless the housekeepers have moved it, and I don't subscribe to all his categories, superstition, for one thing, can't be insanity, since too many people are; I won't walk under ladders, open an umbrella indoors, or toss a hat on a bed, all of which I heard about and with no reason adopted for myself, so perhaps this is insane, or maybe "normal" comprises a wider range than he thought, since to him "brooding over a spouse's death is utter madness." My mother has brooded over my father's death for many years, with cessations, but grief thrives in her days and nights, and she is not mad, but lonely without her husband and suffering from brain damage, whose cause is organic and unknown, like most of the workings of the brain, while I also brood over dead friends, and I'm not insane, or, if I am, according to Kant's precepts, it doesn't matter to me.
Across from the near-dead campfire, I sat upon on a large, flat, gray boulder, or natural chair, shaped like an ellipse, at whose center was an indentation appropriate for a human bottom. I gazed into the vast woods, the rotund fir trees, other trees whose branches looked forlorn though some buds and new leaves were evident, while I listened for the woods' sneaky inhabitants, and also looked out for hungry wolves in packs and prowling black bears, since even mountain lions are known in these parts. The brisk wind rustled and shook the trees and solid chunks of old snow fell randomly, black and brown birds shrieked into the sky, then settled elsewhere, chipmunks scampered from one hiding place to another, the forest's floor was alive but ninety-five percent was invisible to me, and soon the fire's embers were dead. It must have been around noon, the sun was directly above, its rays filtered and thwarted by the tall trees, but in my fleece-lined hiking jacket, with its stiff collar that sometimes irritated my skin and my battleship-gray cashmere scarf wrapped about my head and neck, where most warmth leaves the body, I wasn't cold. My thick-soled, ankle-high, waterproof hiking boots, lined with flannel and sheepswool, are functional, occasionally itchy and even too hot, but not on this hike. The Count sleeps all day, so it was senseless to wait for him, and he'd fled to the vast woods, because he didn't want to see people, which I respected, since often I don't want to see people, like at breakfast, so then I lie in bed, though seeing the Count now would be different. I ate the lackluster turkey sandwich and listened to the silence, the wind, the birds whose names I didn't know, and saved the shiny Macoun apple for later.