The cabin

In 1962 Tony Bennett  sang “I left my heart in San Francisco” for the first time.

Today…, if I was able, I would sing that I left a piece of my heart in a small cabin in the mountains of Patagonia.

As most of you know I am somewhat of an anarchist. I believe I have the human right to govern myself, and the system I believe in is nature. I believe we as men have the capability to live in harmony with nature, as with each other, and I find the organization of spirituality (religion) and one’s life (government) morally offensive. This is why I choose to live on a sailboat in-between the borders of various governments. This is where I find my freedom.

My heart, my center, and my element is the sea. It always has been. I visualize saltwater running through my veins to calm myself in meditation, and my sailboat is not only my home but my church, and the ocean, my God. Sailing is not a sport to me, it is a lifestyle, it is freedom, and it is Love. I’m so happy I’ve found a woman, and soon-to-be wife to share this with.

I believe one of the core faults of western philosophy is the belief that one can “own” land. The idea that one (the rich) can purchase a piece of land and deny it to others is inherently wrong to me. I suppose I’m not a very good capitalist.

Yes we are territorial creatures, yes we have the instinctive nature to claim a territory, and yes, the stronger of our species will win the land if they desire. Unfortunately for humans living within the system, the “strong” are the banks & governments. Weak, controlling little-men, pushing paper providing the illusion that if you work your entire life you will own a tiny scrap of land or air in the instance of multi level structures. You’ll also need to work for an eternity as property tax is never ending. This is the core problem with western society today in my very humble opinion. I choose not to play this game or invest my life into it. I live as an indigenous man of the sea, a gypsy drifter, a traveler, a sailor, and totally detached from such control.

Until my trip to Patagonia I believed there was no place on earth where a man could still forge a life of freedom from the land. It was my belief that every acre of the world’s land is carved into boxes and claimed by a government. And for the most part it’s true.

Where is it a man can still be a man, live by his own hands, and forge a life of freedom as nature intended us to?

The sea has always been my answer. The sea is the last, and only frontier where a man can live in peace from the police, adjusters, inspectors, collectors, creditors, regulators, and committees. Well this is not necessarily true, at least not today.

For the first time in my life I’ve felt a small connection to the land. The wild, vast, rugged mountains of Patagonia had a calling to me. It’s hard for me to put into words how much I enjoyed visiting Carla’s sister and family in their little cabin.

I casually asked Carla’s sister if land was expensive where she lived and her answer was something quite beautiful. “I don’t really know, people who want the paper pay for it, and others just build a home, raise a family, and live as we do”.

Argentina has soooo much land that it is still possible to homestead. This is what my new sister and brother in law have done.

They choose to pay a little tax even though there is the possibility that the Indians may try to take the land back, but they found this beautiful piece of land, built a cabin, and are raising their family in it.

Many years ago when I started project bluesphere I vowed to write in a certain way. I promised to write about what I felt as I traveled and not necessarily about what I saw. Too many writers write from a place of ego in order to intensify the reality of their experience. The sea always a little bigger and the wind a little stronger than reality.

For three days in this little cabin I lived by the heat of a wood burning stove. I ate vegetables from the garden, pigs from the pen, beef from the field, berries from the bush, and bread from the oven. The children were born in the washtub without the help of doctors or midwives. The beer was brewed only a few miles away and the cheese was made by the neighbor.

The little boy of the house, not four years old, takes his two year old sister to play in the forest for hours. The little girl is being potty-trained and if she needs to go he brings her to the outhouse for her business and cleans her bottom.

No TV, no video games, just sticks, stones, bush, nature, pets, and love.

I was dreading it but had to use the unheated outhouse one night. I was in a thick wool sweater and my pants pulled as high as possible to protect me from the cold night air. I kept the door open as I needed the light from the brilliant night sky to find the roll of toilet paper hung on the wall by a nail, and the bucket of ash which I needed to cover my waste with so it didn’t smell the following day.

It was here I realized that for the first time I felt whole being on the land. I felt safe which is something I never feel on the land. I was surrounded by nature living in a house built with love and wood from the property. The food I consumed was natural and free of chemicals, hormones, or genetic alteration. I felt this little cabin was living in perfect sync with the nature that surrounded it.

Am I idealizing Patagonia? Probably. Argentina has plenty of its own economic and government problems, as does Patagonia. Carla tells me that sometimes the Indians burn the white man’s home as they don’t believe they have the right to live on their land. Then the white man burns down their homes to reclaim it. But I feel there is still hope here. Perhaps western society will fall or realize that our system needs to exist within the confines of nature and not outside of it. Perhaps western thinking will evolve to something harmonious with nature and not driven by money and control before building inspectors, police, and tax collectors infect this beautiful place?

Also an interesting fact. Tincho and his wife Noe are the couple in the center of the picture. Tincho is a sailing buddy from about a decade ago in Colombia. How strange they live just a few miles away from my new family in Patagonia?

Anyway, at the very least I wanted to introduce you to some of my new family.

Carla and I are back in Buenos Aires after a 20 hour bus ride. We are getting married in about a week, how cool?

Peace, Love, and Patagonia.

– Alex

Published in Alex Dorsey