Michael Kliman

A Winter of Saturdays: Seeking Adirondack Solitude, Discovering an Unused Reality Michael Kliman

Publisher Marketing: Our Adirondack camp is a retreat setting where solitude replaces society. In this place, the mind and spirit are freed from the usual, offering the possibility of experiencing the ordinary in an extraordinary way. The pre-Industrial-Age conditions run contrary to the requirements of our pampered civilized lifestyle, but here they are simple payment for the poetic appreciation of a more essential spiritual boundary. These writings do not represent my work on being a writer, but rather as a searching experiencer. It is my attempt to portray my experience while working to have a finer perception. These vignettes are examples of my more interesting insights, if you will, in the context of my being at camp. There is home life and there is camp life. The difference is what I call camp magic, that inner essential transformation of mind and spirit that brings me to the doorway of the living moment, revealing more of the truth of it. The magic that IS camp life is a very independent entity, not to be contained, controlled or had at will. It is a quality to which I can only aspire. And in this understanding lies the essence of the nature of it, which defines what camp life is: the discovery of an unused reality. Our Adirondack camp is a retreat setting where solitude replaces society. In this place, the mind and spirit are freed from the usual, offering the possibility of experiencing the ordinary in an extraordinary way. The pre-Industrial-Age conditions run contrary to the requirements of our pampered civilized lifestyle, but here they are simple payment for the poetic appreciation of a more essential spiritual boundary. These writings do not represent my work on being a writer, but rather as a searching experiencer. It is my attempt to portray my experience while working to have a finer perception. These vignettes are examples of my more interesting insights, if you will, in the context of my being at camp. There is home life and there is camp life. The difference is what I call camp magic, that inner essential transformation of mind and spirit that brings me to the doorway of the living moment, revealing more of the truth of it. The magic that IS camp life is a very independent entity, not to be contained, controlled or had at will. It is a quality to which I can only aspire. And in this understanding lies the essence of the nature of it, which defines what camp life is: the discovery of an unused reality.