Rogue River Journal

When a friend told me about the book, Rogue River Journal, a winter alone, by John Daniel, without waiting to skim it in a bookstore or checking reviews, I placed an order through Amazon. I knew I would like it

Daniel, an Oregon poet, took advantage of a program allowing writers to live in the southern Oregon wilderness for specified periods of time. His book covers a span of one winter in a small but comfortable cabin on a ridge high above the Rogue River. For four months, he would live, fish, hike, hunt, and write in his journal. He didn't know where his time of solitude would lead him.

Rogue River Journal describes not only what his days were like, but how during this time, he integrated his childhood into his middle age, finding peace with his upbringing as well as his own youthful missteps. His story of his father, the life his parents had led is woven into the experience of solitude.

John Daniel grew up in a time not so different than my own. His writing of the union organizing work his parents did, his father's alcoholism, Daniel's own coming of age during the Vietnam War years were all more engrossing than I expected them to be. I was there for the wilderness experience, and it didn't disappoint.

For his sojourn, he not only wanted to live remote from civilization; but he planned it to not hear another human voice for the entire time. Since the road into the cabin would be blocked by snow and ice, the isolation part was relatively easy to attain. A couple of times, when he was fishing, he did hear people down on the Rogue rafting past, but he avoided them. Most river rafting is done during the warmer months; so generally his companions were wild turkeys, grouse, fish, herons, Canadian geese, the possibility of run-ins with bear or cougar, books he brought along, and his own mind.

He stocked up supplies, had planted a winter garden in advance, had a radio phone that enabled him to call out once a week to let his wife know he was safe. He had arranged the exact time in advance; so she would not answer the phone and his own voice would be on the answering machine. He also arranged to turn that phone on at a certain time each week enabling her to call if she had an emergency. Otherwise, he was dependent on what he had the forethought to bring-- books to inspire him, fishing, hiking, and total solitude.

When I read something like this, I like to mark passages meaningful to me, I looked through those for a few quotes to give others a flavor of his writing and thinking-- so many topics, so many ideas, some humorous, some the kinds of things to encourage the reader to do a little of their own digging-- whether experiencing solitude or not.

"It's entirely plausible, according to two Zen masters, that I'm already enlightened. (I'm just the type who wouldn't know it.) I've decided to try out this theory, to live as though I already know everything I need to know. If it pans out, it's revolutionary. It means there's nothing I have to break through to. I'm already there."

This next one is from Thoreau on the desirability of melancholy. "There is a certain fertile sadness which I would not avoid, but rather earnestly seek. It is positively joyful to me. It saves my life from being trivial. My life flows with a deeper current..."

Daniel took that thought further to a personal observation: "Depression is barren, denying as it does all feelings other than hopelessness. Joy is unitary, a single intense pitch with small modulations, and unsustainable in any case. Melancholy is a mix of feelings, a melange shaded strongly with sadness but containing happiness too, even glints of joy. It accepts and reflects the wholeness of living, even as it laments one's errors and limitations."

If you are a writer, a lover of nature, or someone who has struggled to come to terms with your own heritage, consider checking his book out of a library or buying it as I did. I don't think it will disappoint.