September 28

I was sitting in my underwear when Sue came by today. She had her dog and her father along with her. I had a bowl of cereal in my lap and was watching the morning news when I looked out the window and saw her. Sue was the instructor of the WFR class I completed a couple days ago – I had been the “valedictorian” of our class of sixteen. Maybe that’s what earned me the visit.

Anyway, I was glad to see her. If Sue were twenty years younger and unmarried I would ask her for a date, although I probably wouldn’t get it with no pants and milk dribbling down my chin. Sue worked as a geologist for many years before retiring to teach WFR classes and join the search and rescue team. Now she teaches and rescues with her black lab, Tasha. Tasha, at ten years old, is a professional search dog. When I finished giving the tour of my family’s condo, I ran up two flights of stairs and hid in a bathroom. At Sue’s instruction, Tasha found me without trouble. Tasha attended every WFR class we held. She lay on the floor and absorbed the attentions of her obsequious admirers. I sang “Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine” to Tasha more than once. Sue looked on skeptically but I have a feeling she sings to dogs, too.

I clothed and shaved myself, then walked with Sue, dog, and dad up to the clinic where Sue works during ski season setting bones and giving IVs. I told her I was surprised I hadn’t found my way into the clinic before, given my crash-prone past. “You never know; you might come in next season,” she said. I told her I thought my reckless days were mostly gone. Sue didn’t comment. We walked around the clinic and she showed me the X-ray machine, the X-ray developing station and the door through which injured skiers entered the clinic. On the wall by the door hung photos of people skiing off ramps, playing soccer, climbing cliffs. Sue told me those were former patients. I said that was encouraging.

“Let me know if you want to work in the clinic next season,” Sue told me. I smiled. I hope she meant it, because there’s a damn good chance I’ll do just that.

For now, though, I find myself in northern Colorado, a few miles from the Wyoming border. Tomorrow, fortified with the geological knowledge gleaned from John McPhee’s Rising from the Plains and the introduction to Roadside Geology of Wyoming, I’ll venture into Wyoming to look at rocks. But tonight I’ve an experiment to perform. On the way up here I collected several samples of what I believe to be coal, the result of sandstone thrust faults sealing off Mesozoic (dinosaur-age) swamps that subsequently got dunked into the mantle, heated and put under great pressure – at least according to my theory. Now I’m going to shove my samples next to the burner of my propane stove, turn on the heat and see if my rocks ignite.

* * *

They didn’t burn. I could get the edges to turn bright orange, like the coals of a campfire, but the rocks I’d collected wouldn’t burn on their own. They did smell strongly of tar when I put them in the propane flames, however, forcing me to open the door and windows to ventilate. Then it got cold, and I decided to switch from geology.

Carl Jung’s descriptions of the psyche kick ass, even when you don’t agree with them. Jung writes that the conscious self – called the “ego,” not unlike in Freudian thought – relates to external reality through the “persona,” a creation of the individual designed to serve some purpose. For instance, the persona of a gangster in Compton might eschew any fear, because such a persona would prevent other gangsters from hassling him. The ego relates to upwellings of subconscious feeling through the “anima,” a kind of internal attitude. Those who view their dreams as premonitions, for instance, have an anima that lends much credence to the stirrings of the subconscious.

In the male, writes Jung (writing in the first half of the twentieth century), the persona is often masculinized in order to meet social expectations. The male persona may be rational, unemotional, unyielding. If this is the case, the anima will express the other half of what it means to be human – when he relates to his dreams and his inarticulate fears, the male may be a pushover, prey to the whims of his subconscious. Whereas the persona is logical, the anima will be sentimental. This is why, according to Jung, men are more likely to abandon hope altogether and commit suicide than females – their animae can more easily be swept away. In females, the persona may emphasize feeling over thought, in keeping with cultural norms, but the internal attitude – in females, called “animus” – will be just the opposite. The female will often recognize her internal whims for what they are and deal with them summarily, though she may be less inclined to speak out in the classroom because her persona is more subdued. Whereas the female persona may be soft and sentimental, her animus is calculating and crafty.

Then Jung’s theories get even cooler. When a person is unaware of the “multitudes” within (as Walt Whitman called them), the ego may identify wholly with the persona. Then the ego has no conscious relation to the anima/animus, since it does not acknowledge its existence. The person becomes RULED by the anima it will not acknowledge (literary example: Woodrow Call; Lonesome Dove). What then? Then the person “projects” the anima onto something or someone external, meaning that the individual perceives some other thing or person as displaying the traits of the anima he refuses to acknowledge.

Pretty interesting stuff. On Friday night I watched “Steel Magnolias” with my mother. Not too manly. What does that say about me? Maybe I have an anima of iron. And maybe I shouldn’t be a Compton gangsta.