Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Thursday, November 19, 2009
wyoming pictures
I recently put up our photos from our Wyoming trip in July this year. Some of my favorites are below. Check out my photostream or the photoset.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
How one day a creek became an ocean
When the sun had hardly broken
and underfoot the dirt was cool,
the tireless echo of water flowing
stole my sleep
(pouring and writhing over travertine,
tearing it apart while building it),
woke me before all
the others. The river brown and thick,
the broken branches gathered in smooth eddies.
At the foaming crest
a barrel cactus and dead prickly pear,
thousands of footprints cast in the sand
next to mine. Centered in the current downstream
a remnant of yesterday's makeshift bridge--
a half-submerged picnic bench, mummified
in cottonwood leaves and stringed with sediment.
A hundred devastating feet of the essence of
the desert, its fury distilled, passionate and
heedless, happy and calm in all its eons of
crafting and molding.
Somewhere a gas stove whispers and lights,
soft voices murmur and bodies stir awake
another day.
--- ---
Watched small, clear Havasu Creek turn into a raging flooded river one day in August last year. I wrote about it while watching Jarom at his tumbling class on March 24th.
See all the Havasupai photos.
before, looking over Havasu Falls from above it
![looking down on havasu falls [i]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tsU3aPlhoXIvKoFHg-qkfjsNfH2jq8W9yz7RIQhZNUC4WZsuKFR2WlTy1aJ-rliLSQ_Qpo8ZzaDA8JgmGp3I3BM6-Yhw0YEWxKdkYhbsapBzUd5nZ_x4wlHgLjzcoAHj9gew=s0-d)
after, the following morning
watching the water run thick
and underfoot the dirt was cool,
the tireless echo of water flowing
stole my sleep
(pouring and writhing over travertine,
tearing it apart while building it),
woke me before all
the others. The river brown and thick,
the broken branches gathered in smooth eddies.
At the foaming crest
a barrel cactus and dead prickly pear,
thousands of footprints cast in the sand
next to mine. Centered in the current downstream
a remnant of yesterday's makeshift bridge--
a half-submerged picnic bench, mummified
in cottonwood leaves and stringed with sediment.
A hundred devastating feet of the essence of
the desert, its fury distilled, passionate and
heedless, happy and calm in all its eons of
crafting and molding.
Somewhere a gas stove whispers and lights,
soft voices murmur and bodies stir awake
another day.
--- ---
Watched small, clear Havasu Creek turn into a raging flooded river one day in August last year. I wrote about it while watching Jarom at his tumbling class on March 24th.
See all the Havasupai photos.
before, looking over Havasu Falls from above it
after, the following morning
watching the water run thick
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Wolf moon
We drifted silently over the hills,
following the dead glare of our headlights.
Sirius and Rigel rotated slowly and swiftly
and the sapphire heavens blazed, lit and soaked
in midnight blue by the full wolf moon.
Sometimes an eastbound car passed us; but no one else
headed west, not in this clear January emptiness,
not through these tired towns and blackened cafes,
abandoned trucks parked on abandoned roads.
Thin layers of icecaked snow coated the distance
over the little summit passes, made it all radiate moonlight
upward, reflective like the quiet rearview mirror.
A long sailing string of light burnt downward, headed west
like us, a fuse firing toward an unknown end.
This common meteor, caused by some unremarkable fragment
of rock, briefly outshined our moon
and illuminated the endless road ahead of us.
--- ---
For Christmas I got a typewriter from Joey and Emily. Joey suggested keeping it in my car so I could be a traveling writer, Jack Kerouac, whenever I wanted to. I took his suggestion. Then on this beautiful January-thaw day I got in my car, rolled the windows down, lugged the old machine like a bulky steel laptop into the front seat with me and began jabbing away at the keys. Just to get anything down, anything at all, because lately I've been less motivated or too busy or whatever and nothing much creative has poured forth from my fingers. So this here's my Wolf moon poem I hammered out, based on our spectacular winter midnight drive across Utah and Idaho and Oregon to Bend for one all-too-brief weekend. The original is cut and pasted in my journal. I retyped it to post here.
following the dead glare of our headlights.
Sirius and Rigel rotated slowly and swiftly
and the sapphire heavens blazed, lit and soaked
in midnight blue by the full wolf moon.
Sometimes an eastbound car passed us; but no one else
headed west, not in this clear January emptiness,
not through these tired towns and blackened cafes,
abandoned trucks parked on abandoned roads.
Thin layers of icecaked snow coated the distance
over the little summit passes, made it all radiate moonlight
upward, reflective like the quiet rearview mirror.
A long sailing string of light burnt downward, headed west
like us, a fuse firing toward an unknown end.
This common meteor, caused by some unremarkable fragment
of rock, briefly outshined our moon
and illuminated the endless road ahead of us.
--- ---
For Christmas I got a typewriter from Joey and Emily. Joey suggested keeping it in my car so I could be a traveling writer, Jack Kerouac, whenever I wanted to. I took his suggestion. Then on this beautiful January-thaw day I got in my car, rolled the windows down, lugged the old machine like a bulky steel laptop into the front seat with me and began jabbing away at the keys. Just to get anything down, anything at all, because lately I've been less motivated or too busy or whatever and nothing much creative has poured forth from my fingers. So this here's my Wolf moon poem I hammered out, based on our spectacular winter midnight drive across Utah and Idaho and Oregon to Bend for one all-too-brief weekend. The original is cut and pasted in my journal. I retyped it to post here.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Passage of a recovering gasoline addict
I remember how I intended never to pay more than
two dollars a gallon,
then it was three,
then four.
Yesterday I drove to a lonely station,
seeking the cheapest purchase--
but it was deserted, forever advertising at $3.09.
Inside, lights from a Pepsi refrigerator still blazed
and half-empty paperboard boxes held
solitary packages of M&Ms and Snickers bars.
Wooden "For Lease" signs propped against the windows outside,
set in the barren auburn dirt above breaking concrete,
and the bloodred roof shingles were covered in dust,
as if a hot desert wind had flown over them for decades.
At home I untangled my bike from next to the washing machine.
I wiped off layers of lint,
inflated the tires, added a small aluminum rack
with bungee cords and carabiners to secure my things.
I rode out into the streets in the early morning,
felt leg muscles crackling and straining
from inexperience.
I felt the sun's subtle heat as it crested mountain peaks
and touched across my cheek and neck,
impelling me to propel myself further forward,
past pavement and exhaust, intersections and blaring horns.
I rode up through the canyon,
heavy dry mouth heaving from canine panting, thirst.
The motorway sounds faded to a dull growl,
a humming roar drifting backward and
behind me with every passing meter.
I stopped near the small park
where ornamental maples overhang the walkway,
riverside ferns grow along their trunks
and a waterfall plunges lazily upstream--
all of it vacant like the gas station. I sat atop a wellworn
picnic bench, its wood still damp with morning dew.
And with the summer sun now sparkling and clear to the east
I turned about to look over
my journey, down into the valley--
to watch gasoline stations withering in the distance,
their monetary marquees like neon flags
or blinking communication towers.
Insectile vehicles crawl on all fours,
desperately attracted to them, starving, needing them;
without them they see no other way, no alternative:
mechanical moths to a bonfire flame.
two dollars a gallon,
then it was three,
then four.
Yesterday I drove to a lonely station,
seeking the cheapest purchase--
but it was deserted, forever advertising at $3.09.
Inside, lights from a Pepsi refrigerator still blazed
and half-empty paperboard boxes held
solitary packages of M&Ms and Snickers bars.
Wooden "For Lease" signs propped against the windows outside,
set in the barren auburn dirt above breaking concrete,
and the bloodred roof shingles were covered in dust,
as if a hot desert wind had flown over them for decades.
At home I untangled my bike from next to the washing machine.
I wiped off layers of lint,
inflated the tires, added a small aluminum rack
with bungee cords and carabiners to secure my things.
I rode out into the streets in the early morning,
felt leg muscles crackling and straining
from inexperience.
I felt the sun's subtle heat as it crested mountain peaks
and touched across my cheek and neck,
impelling me to propel myself further forward,
past pavement and exhaust, intersections and blaring horns.
I rode up through the canyon,
heavy dry mouth heaving from canine panting, thirst.
The motorway sounds faded to a dull growl,
a humming roar drifting backward and
behind me with every passing meter.
I stopped near the small park
where ornamental maples overhang the walkway,
riverside ferns grow along their trunks
and a waterfall plunges lazily upstream--
all of it vacant like the gas station. I sat atop a wellworn
picnic bench, its wood still damp with morning dew.
And with the summer sun now sparkling and clear to the east
I turned about to look over
my journey, down into the valley--
to watch gasoline stations withering in the distance,
their monetary marquees like neon flags
or blinking communication towers.
Insectile vehicles crawl on all fours,
desperately attracted to them, starving, needing them;
without them they see no other way, no alternative:
mechanical moths to a bonfire flame.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Laugh, the devil
The town had been abandoned, for years.
And so I walked its empty streets
and scoured its vacant rooms,
wading through crumbling drywall
and cast-off scrap metal.
If it were Thanksgiving two decades ago,
I would watch at six AM as the cafe awoke
and they wrote the holiday greeting
and turkey specials in chalk calligraphy.
Hotel neon would burst and brighten,
and maids would push restocking carts
through filled parking lots
and streaks of asphalt snow.
But one day they would move the highway.
So doors would latch
and weeds would rise,
windows crack into spiderwebs
and shatter over cinderblock doorstops.
While three miles north
in the shadows made of red canyon handpaint,
earlier villages would be recalled
and the devil would laugh
through blackened hollow eyes,
riding atop his bull.
And so I walked its empty streets
and scoured its vacant rooms,
wading through crumbling drywall
and cast-off scrap metal.
If it were Thanksgiving two decades ago,
I would watch at six AM as the cafe awoke
and they wrote the holiday greeting
and turkey specials in chalk calligraphy.
Hotel neon would burst and brighten,
and maids would push restocking carts
through filled parking lots
and streaks of asphalt snow.
But one day they would move the highway.
So doors would latch
and weeds would rise,
windows crack into spiderwebs
and shatter over cinderblock doorstops.
While three miles north
in the shadows made of red canyon handpaint,
earlier villages would be recalled
and the devil would laugh
through blackened hollow eyes,
riding atop his bull.
Crosses
along the rusted railroad tracks
in the salted sands by the desert shrubs
runs a line of poles
wooden crosses
cradling only the telephone wires
and the ravens
each wishes for something grander
more glorious
than the splintering and drying heat of the sun
the small patch of dirt
the trickling electronic voices
the steel and the jackrabbits
I am one of those crosses.
Aren't we all.
in the salted sands by the desert shrubs
runs a line of poles
wooden crosses
cradling only the telephone wires
and the ravens
each wishes for something grander
more glorious
than the splintering and drying heat of the sun
the small patch of dirt
the trickling electronic voices
the steel and the jackrabbits
I am one of those crosses.
Aren't we all.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Here
Here
in the alleyways, the temples, the fire escapes
the newspaper shelters, of mansions, of paradise
Her hand holds her skirt up to a pale thigh
betraying bruises and pockmarks--
so round, like that haggard stare
as desperate as the desert skies
Lain on the business brick another corpse,
embalmed in the sunlight remains--
an old army bag against cocoa skin
casts a shadow of contrast
Gravel boots and stolen steel carts
slalom through nightsticks and sirens
and the pole-supported, transplanted trees--
nurtured growth or a jungle of failure
Bedlam on a Tuesday night
and a family of strangers
between spiral attractions of colored light,
and they gather, magnetic
There
in their hideaways, the train tracks, the stairways
the monument benches, of judgment, of ignorance
Captive while we watch
In their cells they stray
and dissipate
until the appeal disappears
in the alleyways, the temples, the fire escapes
the newspaper shelters, of mansions, of paradise
Her hand holds her skirt up to a pale thigh
betraying bruises and pockmarks--
so round, like that haggard stare
as desperate as the desert skies
Lain on the business brick another corpse,
embalmed in the sunlight remains--
an old army bag against cocoa skin
casts a shadow of contrast
Gravel boots and stolen steel carts
slalom through nightsticks and sirens
and the pole-supported, transplanted trees--
nurtured growth or a jungle of failure
Bedlam on a Tuesday night
and a family of strangers
between spiral attractions of colored light,
and they gather, magnetic
There
in their hideaways, the train tracks, the stairways
the monument benches, of judgment, of ignorance
Captive while we watch
In their cells they stray
and dissipate
until the appeal disappears
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Seven hours
[04.27.06]
I slept on the couch, though hardly at all, and after I left I was able to watch the sunrise as it came from behind the Wasatch—that strange situation where dawn comes but you don't really see it until the tip of the sun finally breaks the crooked surface of the nearest mountain. For the first time I had left for the airport with plenty of time, after straightening the house and showering and saying a temporary goodbye to the lit front porch and the small run-down house I find so endearing. Somewhere around Sandy, Robert Hayden and his 'blueblack cold' came to me and I realized how perfectly he had described 5 AM with that phrase. I swear it, I would stay awake all night, every night, if only I could.
So I decide to park in the extended parking, which I've never done before. I usually park in the covered lots (but end up parking on the roof level anyway because airports are inevitably always full). But in extended parking you save four bucks a day. What a deal. The only problem is you have to either walk a mile or take the shuttle. I opted for the shuttle; I had 50 minutes until my flight left anyway.
My shuttle station was the first stop for the empty bus. I thought that was so great. But I didn't know that the shuttle had 14 more stops, we were only the first. So this shuttle loops around this monstrous lot—as full as the covered lots ever were—and picks up group of people after group of people. After 15 minutes of this nonsense, we start finally making our way back to the actual airport. And there in the middle of the road on our way there, another bus had come to a dead stop.
Its driver radios ours. "Gotta make a stop. Jerry, can you get around me?"
Our driver—now known as Jerry—has a little scraggly white beard and longer hair and droopy eyes. The driver's chair looks like it's boosted as high as it could go to accommodate his height. "No, doesn't look like I can."
He tries anyway. But the bus is just too long, and so we end up stuck at an angle, jutting out into the road at 45-degrees against the other bus.
"I can't make it around you." He sighs and sits contemptuously, not hiding his bitterness and swearing under his breath.
The other driver gets out and we see that he has stopped to help a wheelchaired woman into his bus. I recognize her as someone we had just passed a few minutes ago as she drove a van. Wheelchair-bound? How did she drive that van? Maybe it wasn't her that I saw. But see, now this was nice and all, this other driver picking up this woman who is obviously handicapped, but it started to put a significant damper on my arrival time at the airport. And we were just sitting there.
Another ten minutes pass, and the other bus finally starts driving again. You can tell that all of my bus's passengers are somewhat miffed. The radio crackles. "Sorry Jerry, but there was nothing I could do."
"Like hell there wasn't." Jerry says this to the open air. Another passenger voices his opinion: "Tell that to us!" So now Jerry depresses the button. "Tell that to them," he says.
"Like I said, I had no choice," the radio says again. This whole thing had really cast a cloud over Jerry's morning. I kind of felt bad for the guy. But it was the end of his shift, and he stopped inches from the airport to stop and swap seats with a new driver, who was much more chipper. "Hiya gang," he said when he stepped in and readjusted the seat to about two feet below where Jerry had set it.
He drops us off and I run to check my bags and then start towards the security line. This Hawaiian-looking girl also hurries alongside me. I had twenty minutes.
Now if you can possibly even imagine, the Salt Lake City airport's security checkpoint line was not only long, but it weaved through all the elastic-strung standees and pointed like a pistol through the whole west end of the airport, past baggage claim and the seats and telephones and to who knows where, because I never saw the end of the line. What I did see is the Hawaiian girl getting roped into the near-beginning of the line by her friends who had already been waiting. At this point I was getting desperate. If I waited in that whole line there would be absolutely no way I'd make my flight. So I run back towards the Hawaiian and shout to her (knowing that since she had cut in line, she may not mind if I did the same): "Hey! Can I get in there? I'm going to miss my flight!" She looks around and kind of shakes her head no, but then seems to not care and just says something like 'sure'.
So I cut. So what. I'd rather not miss a flight. And never have yet. But the weird thing is, compared to Sacramento, Reno, Spokane—I have never seen such a long security line. Salt Lake City at 6:45 AM on a Thursday morning! What's the big rush, the big deal? Anyway, I made the flight. This sold-out seatless flight where there was pretty much nowhere to sit. I go all the way to the back, where I see one kind-looking woman sitting in the aisle, with two open seats next to her, the very last row on airplane left. I sit next to her, relieved. I like to sit with a vacancy on my right, a window on my left. Barely made it like usual.
Oh yeah, and then these two huge Hawaiian/Samoan (Fijian I actually found out—well, guessed from the huge "FIJI" written on one of the guys' shirts) come barreling down the aisle, veering directly towards me. The kind woman stands—she must have seen only one of them—to let one sit, but ignorant of their surroundings, they both sit.
Seeing this, the flight attendant in the back by the lavatory remarks, "Sir, you've taken this woman's seat."
"Oh I'm sorry!" The one in the aisle stands and makes as if to take a different, very hard to reach seat, but the kind woman stops him and says, "That's okay," and then takes that seat herself.
So there I was, indescribably crushed next to these two huge men. I couldn't sit straight. That is not an understatement. I was essentially molded into the wall and window. These guys were nice and all, but we just didn't fit there, not together as a group of three. The flight was about an hour, and I was just stuck, pretending to write—nope, to listen to my music—one song, to read the in-flight magazine—boring. The greatest part about all this was that these guys ended up being the friends of my Hawaiian/Fijian girl. It was some weird looped moment of karma or coincidence. I was bound to somehow be tied to this group of islanders.
... ...
There's always turbulence when landing in Vegas. Today's wasn't as severe, but even a stewardess remarked on it, "Guys there's going to be some bad turbulence so I'm going to make a quick run down the aisle to pick up trash if you have any." The only two times that I ever seriously considered the fact that I might die on an airplane were both at the Vegas airport, on arrival. So I was intimidated but rather pleased to see that we touched down nicely.
The great Las Vegas airport: home of oxygen bars and shoe-shining booths and slot machines that have no slot. All of this the second you step off the plane. I had two and a half hours to kill.
"Can I see some ID?" Some ID, not just your ID—some ID. I love how they say that. Thanks for the confidence, little security guard lady. I guess I look young, but please.
"No," I said to her, which was pretty surprising even to me, because I almost always show my ID whenever asked, even if I have no plans to drink or smoke or play the slotless slot machines.
"You can't stand by the machines if I don't see your ID." Those sacred machines.
I just leave; it's not really worth it. Besides I don't have any ones or tickets for those stupid slot machines. Instead I look for something to eat. I find this little Blue Grille burrito place. Redefining airport food is their slogan. We'll see about that. I get a Chorizo breakfast burrito—I wasn't in the mood to try to ask for a vegetarian breakfast burrito without all those things I always have to order without, because I'm so needlessly picky.
"What's chorizo?" I ask.
"Spicy pork sausage." She's been asked this question a million times before.
I get it, and it's six bucks and huge and greasy but doesn't taste too bad. I'm on this food-minimalist kick that won't last another few hours but makes me only eat half of it anyway. Now the nasty part about this is that I wrap the rest of the burrito in its foil wrapper and put it back in the white bag. After arriving at my dad's house later that night to sleep, the entire white bag would be orange with grease. That chorizo grease. The tortilla itself would also be orange. And what's even worse is that I'll be so hungry after unwrapping it I'll end up eating it.
I go get a soda from Subway, a fountain soda. A really bad idea—it's disgusting, tastes like airport water. Do you know what airport water tastes like? Like it's been sitting in a rusted metal tank for too long, and they threw some pennies in for good measure. Maybe some mercury or blood too. And it's ridiculous what they charge for things at the airport. It's at least double. And somehow they can get away with it, like at a movie theatre or an amusement park.
But I tried to trick them by getting the fountain drink—at $2.49 for a small it's cheaper than the $2.79 20-oz. bottled soda. Little did I know that they actually charge for refills! Who charges for refills? Airports apparently. So this thing may have been a little bit cheaper, but I had to taste metal for a couple hours. And I never even got a refill.
... ...
There's something about looking down from an airplane that's fascinating. How do they get everything laid out with such perfect angles? Farmlands, tract housing, shopping centers, recreational areas, factories. Don't they ever make a mistake, go off course just a little bit and end up it not being squared? Sure doesn't look like it. I know I'd never get it right. My squares would be closer to circles, or end up as trapezoids, something like that. And all the overpasses, underpasses, freeway intersections, entrances, exits—how do they do it? It's really quite amazing.
You just get this perspective from the sky. When else can we look down on what we are, what we've created, to see how truly miniscule it all is? Especially in comparison with the mountains—those huge arteries of the earth; you see how they reach a summit criss-crossing the land, and how on either side they sprawl back down in winding descension until becoming flush with the level ground again. But us—we're all untiring hubbub and activity, trucks and buses and people walking back and forth to wherever it is we walk back and forth to. I try to insert myself into the minds of others, just to think for a second what they might be thinking: the truck driver coming up on the stoplight, the old man on the golf course, the car in the fast lane that passes by everyone else. What would they think if all our lives were to come crashing down on top of them, here in this bird with steel wings and turbine feathers?
But planes never crash in the Nevada desert. They only crash into the clouds, creating turbulence so they can rise above the weather where it's calmer and then crash down on landing gear onto asphalt carpets laid out for them like celebrities. We're all headed for our little celebrity carpets. Right now mine is at the Sacramento airport, surrounded by causeways and bridges and green on all sides.
I slept on the couch, though hardly at all, and after I left I was able to watch the sunrise as it came from behind the Wasatch—that strange situation where dawn comes but you don't really see it until the tip of the sun finally breaks the crooked surface of the nearest mountain. For the first time I had left for the airport with plenty of time, after straightening the house and showering and saying a temporary goodbye to the lit front porch and the small run-down house I find so endearing. Somewhere around Sandy, Robert Hayden and his 'blueblack cold' came to me and I realized how perfectly he had described 5 AM with that phrase. I swear it, I would stay awake all night, every night, if only I could.
So I decide to park in the extended parking, which I've never done before. I usually park in the covered lots (but end up parking on the roof level anyway because airports are inevitably always full). But in extended parking you save four bucks a day. What a deal. The only problem is you have to either walk a mile or take the shuttle. I opted for the shuttle; I had 50 minutes until my flight left anyway.
My shuttle station was the first stop for the empty bus. I thought that was so great. But I didn't know that the shuttle had 14 more stops, we were only the first. So this shuttle loops around this monstrous lot—as full as the covered lots ever were—and picks up group of people after group of people. After 15 minutes of this nonsense, we start finally making our way back to the actual airport. And there in the middle of the road on our way there, another bus had come to a dead stop.
Its driver radios ours. "Gotta make a stop. Jerry, can you get around me?"
Our driver—now known as Jerry—has a little scraggly white beard and longer hair and droopy eyes. The driver's chair looks like it's boosted as high as it could go to accommodate his height. "No, doesn't look like I can."
He tries anyway. But the bus is just too long, and so we end up stuck at an angle, jutting out into the road at 45-degrees against the other bus.
"I can't make it around you." He sighs and sits contemptuously, not hiding his bitterness and swearing under his breath.
The other driver gets out and we see that he has stopped to help a wheelchaired woman into his bus. I recognize her as someone we had just passed a few minutes ago as she drove a van. Wheelchair-bound? How did she drive that van? Maybe it wasn't her that I saw. But see, now this was nice and all, this other driver picking up this woman who is obviously handicapped, but it started to put a significant damper on my arrival time at the airport. And we were just sitting there.
Another ten minutes pass, and the other bus finally starts driving again. You can tell that all of my bus's passengers are somewhat miffed. The radio crackles. "Sorry Jerry, but there was nothing I could do."
"Like hell there wasn't." Jerry says this to the open air. Another passenger voices his opinion: "Tell that to us!" So now Jerry depresses the button. "Tell that to them," he says.
"Like I said, I had no choice," the radio says again. This whole thing had really cast a cloud over Jerry's morning. I kind of felt bad for the guy. But it was the end of his shift, and he stopped inches from the airport to stop and swap seats with a new driver, who was much more chipper. "Hiya gang," he said when he stepped in and readjusted the seat to about two feet below where Jerry had set it.
He drops us off and I run to check my bags and then start towards the security line. This Hawaiian-looking girl also hurries alongside me. I had twenty minutes.
Now if you can possibly even imagine, the Salt Lake City airport's security checkpoint line was not only long, but it weaved through all the elastic-strung standees and pointed like a pistol through the whole west end of the airport, past baggage claim and the seats and telephones and to who knows where, because I never saw the end of the line. What I did see is the Hawaiian girl getting roped into the near-beginning of the line by her friends who had already been waiting. At this point I was getting desperate. If I waited in that whole line there would be absolutely no way I'd make my flight. So I run back towards the Hawaiian and shout to her (knowing that since she had cut in line, she may not mind if I did the same): "Hey! Can I get in there? I'm going to miss my flight!" She looks around and kind of shakes her head no, but then seems to not care and just says something like 'sure'.
So I cut. So what. I'd rather not miss a flight. And never have yet. But the weird thing is, compared to Sacramento, Reno, Spokane—I have never seen such a long security line. Salt Lake City at 6:45 AM on a Thursday morning! What's the big rush, the big deal? Anyway, I made the flight. This sold-out seatless flight where there was pretty much nowhere to sit. I go all the way to the back, where I see one kind-looking woman sitting in the aisle, with two open seats next to her, the very last row on airplane left. I sit next to her, relieved. I like to sit with a vacancy on my right, a window on my left. Barely made it like usual.
Oh yeah, and then these two huge Hawaiian/Samoan (Fijian I actually found out—well, guessed from the huge "FIJI" written on one of the guys' shirts) come barreling down the aisle, veering directly towards me. The kind woman stands—she must have seen only one of them—to let one sit, but ignorant of their surroundings, they both sit.
Seeing this, the flight attendant in the back by the lavatory remarks, "Sir, you've taken this woman's seat."
"Oh I'm sorry!" The one in the aisle stands and makes as if to take a different, very hard to reach seat, but the kind woman stops him and says, "That's okay," and then takes that seat herself.
So there I was, indescribably crushed next to these two huge men. I couldn't sit straight. That is not an understatement. I was essentially molded into the wall and window. These guys were nice and all, but we just didn't fit there, not together as a group of three. The flight was about an hour, and I was just stuck, pretending to write—nope, to listen to my music—one song, to read the in-flight magazine—boring. The greatest part about all this was that these guys ended up being the friends of my Hawaiian/Fijian girl. It was some weird looped moment of karma or coincidence. I was bound to somehow be tied to this group of islanders.
... ...
There's always turbulence when landing in Vegas. Today's wasn't as severe, but even a stewardess remarked on it, "Guys there's going to be some bad turbulence so I'm going to make a quick run down the aisle to pick up trash if you have any." The only two times that I ever seriously considered the fact that I might die on an airplane were both at the Vegas airport, on arrival. So I was intimidated but rather pleased to see that we touched down nicely.
The great Las Vegas airport: home of oxygen bars and shoe-shining booths and slot machines that have no slot. All of this the second you step off the plane. I had two and a half hours to kill.
"Can I see some ID?" Some ID, not just your ID—some ID. I love how they say that. Thanks for the confidence, little security guard lady. I guess I look young, but please.
"No," I said to her, which was pretty surprising even to me, because I almost always show my ID whenever asked, even if I have no plans to drink or smoke or play the slotless slot machines.
"You can't stand by the machines if I don't see your ID." Those sacred machines.
I just leave; it's not really worth it. Besides I don't have any ones or tickets for those stupid slot machines. Instead I look for something to eat. I find this little Blue Grille burrito place. Redefining airport food is their slogan. We'll see about that. I get a Chorizo breakfast burrito—I wasn't in the mood to try to ask for a vegetarian breakfast burrito without all those things I always have to order without, because I'm so needlessly picky.
"What's chorizo?" I ask.
"Spicy pork sausage." She's been asked this question a million times before.
I get it, and it's six bucks and huge and greasy but doesn't taste too bad. I'm on this food-minimalist kick that won't last another few hours but makes me only eat half of it anyway. Now the nasty part about this is that I wrap the rest of the burrito in its foil wrapper and put it back in the white bag. After arriving at my dad's house later that night to sleep, the entire white bag would be orange with grease. That chorizo grease. The tortilla itself would also be orange. And what's even worse is that I'll be so hungry after unwrapping it I'll end up eating it.
I go get a soda from Subway, a fountain soda. A really bad idea—it's disgusting, tastes like airport water. Do you know what airport water tastes like? Like it's been sitting in a rusted metal tank for too long, and they threw some pennies in for good measure. Maybe some mercury or blood too. And it's ridiculous what they charge for things at the airport. It's at least double. And somehow they can get away with it, like at a movie theatre or an amusement park.
But I tried to trick them by getting the fountain drink—at $2.49 for a small it's cheaper than the $2.79 20-oz. bottled soda. Little did I know that they actually charge for refills! Who charges for refills? Airports apparently. So this thing may have been a little bit cheaper, but I had to taste metal for a couple hours. And I never even got a refill.
... ...
There's something about looking down from an airplane that's fascinating. How do they get everything laid out with such perfect angles? Farmlands, tract housing, shopping centers, recreational areas, factories. Don't they ever make a mistake, go off course just a little bit and end up it not being squared? Sure doesn't look like it. I know I'd never get it right. My squares would be closer to circles, or end up as trapezoids, something like that. And all the overpasses, underpasses, freeway intersections, entrances, exits—how do they do it? It's really quite amazing.
You just get this perspective from the sky. When else can we look down on what we are, what we've created, to see how truly miniscule it all is? Especially in comparison with the mountains—those huge arteries of the earth; you see how they reach a summit criss-crossing the land, and how on either side they sprawl back down in winding descension until becoming flush with the level ground again. But us—we're all untiring hubbub and activity, trucks and buses and people walking back and forth to wherever it is we walk back and forth to. I try to insert myself into the minds of others, just to think for a second what they might be thinking: the truck driver coming up on the stoplight, the old man on the golf course, the car in the fast lane that passes by everyone else. What would they think if all our lives were to come crashing down on top of them, here in this bird with steel wings and turbine feathers?
But planes never crash in the Nevada desert. They only crash into the clouds, creating turbulence so they can rise above the weather where it's calmer and then crash down on landing gear onto asphalt carpets laid out for them like celebrities. We're all headed for our little celebrity carpets. Right now mine is at the Sacramento airport, surrounded by causeways and bridges and green on all sides.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Commercial sunrise
Spilled from a leaky oil barrel--
a choking black with orange dots of all-night lighting--
the cities lie along the freeway lanes,
a concrete Styx with aluminum ships.
And the trucks shake like small earthquakes,
rumbling in aural competition
with the incessant nighttime trumpeting of the trains
as they cross over each intersection.
Overhead the planes, ever-indefatigable, are thrown
like massive darts at perfect targets,
and everyone's destination
is more important than the rest.
They never seem to empty,
those bottomless underground fuel tanks
at the 24-hour gas stations
(upon which the fervor of the new dawn
relies so unhesitatingly).
Not yet sunrise and already the masses gather,
with automobiles stretching and testing their cylinders,
lined up single-file to start the fleeting journey
that begins another fleeting day.
a choking black with orange dots of all-night lighting--
the cities lie along the freeway lanes,
a concrete Styx with aluminum ships.
And the trucks shake like small earthquakes,
rumbling in aural competition
with the incessant nighttime trumpeting of the trains
as they cross over each intersection.
Overhead the planes, ever-indefatigable, are thrown
like massive darts at perfect targets,
and everyone's destination
is more important than the rest.
They never seem to empty,
those bottomless underground fuel tanks
at the 24-hour gas stations
(upon which the fervor of the new dawn
relies so unhesitatingly).
Not yet sunrise and already the masses gather,
with automobiles stretching and testing their cylinders,
lined up single-file to start the fleeting journey
that begins another fleeting day.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
The alone equation: [ð + φ = ʅ]
Element One (ð): When you think you are alone, you are not.
My family all seems to love Sutter Creek—why we don't actually live there I'm not really sure. We'd gone there for Easter last year and it wasn't much of a spring afternoon, overcast and gloomy and a little too cold. The river that runs right through the town under that old crumbled-concrete bridge poured with full strength, and for a while Mikie and Jarom and I threw rocks at it and watched them sink abruptly, pulling to the left, ready to wash ashore again on another day, in some other place. Jarom was two and it was his first interactive Easter. Because of that, he was the center of attention.
We captured his egg hunt on video. All that enthusiasm, provenance unfounded, excitement that seemed to transfer among us as we watched. There was something so youthful and carefree and joyous, something we'd all been missing and only realized it then, that there was a fragment void in us all. And witnessing a moment of its actual existence temporarily filled that void and caused in us an emotion unexpected, recalled from childhood, and even spiritual.
So we ate lunch and then trekked out that untraveled road an additional 19 miles or so to Daffodil Hill: a place we knew existed but knew of nothing else. It was enigmatic, in the middle of nowhere, and worth venturing down that windy backroad to discover. But upon arrival we found that Daffodil Hill was closed for the season. A sign stated: Due to rain, hail + snow we regret that we will be closed until next year. It wasn't much anyway, just a small ranch with a few miniature windmills scattered about the grounds, and picnic tables here and there.
And then in an odd moment, a gang of motorcyclists happened through—you know the type: leather jackets, bandanas, graying beards and mustaches, doubled up on each bike with the man in front and the woman clinging bravely to said man's chest, dressed alike in their dual presentations of adult rebellion. Each paused at the stop sign before continuing on to an unknown destination, as they crossed some forgotten highway road in the forgotten forests of some tiny nook in the center of Northern California. Those bikers, bound together somehow in Podunk-town camaraderie—they've found similar people where it seemed unlikely for them to exist at all.
And it just kind of sent me this impression—this feeling—that no matter who or what you think you are, or even where, that you're alone—but not completely or permanently, because there are just too damn many people around for that. It's impossible, really. Somehow we always find those similarities, those comparisons, and it makes us feel valuable and loved and necessary. And somehow even through this we are all still unique and strive to be so; we're captured in our whirlwind thoughts and lives everywhere we go, leaving small traces of ourselves, bits and pieces that contaminate the places we pass through and the people at whom we stare, or talk to, or affect in any number of countless ways.
So those bikers. They just passed on. And we took some pictures of it all and piled back into our three-car caravan to leave behind all that only we could leave behind—because the others, they leave us behind. That's just how it goes.
... ....
As we drove I continued these thoughts, and that's when I fashioned my alone equation. It started with the realization of the first element, how even when it seems you're alone, when you're 20-plus miles into nothing—you really aren't (disregarding the company of family of course). And it seemed so odd to me at the time, so strange that these people actually exist and go on existing, indifferent towards me and mine. They have no reason to care about me, nor I them. I am nothing to them. I do not exist. This is always the case, but even so they are always there—and that is the nature of element ð.
But then I also realized that there's the expected opposite, an exception, that when you feel you are not alone you'll inevitably end up forsaken.
... ...
Element Two (φ): When you think you are not alone, you are.
1998—Heavenly, South Lake Tahoe. We snuck in at the same time the El Dorado High School Snow/Ski Team's bus arrived, passing ourselves off as team members at the counter in order to receive the free daily lift ticket. Times were so innocent then.
It was the second time I had ever been snowboarding. The first time was at Sundance, and to this day I have still never re-experienced that sort of brutal pain, never again come so close to severing my right arm in an unrepeatable contortionist position, or crash-hugged a block of ice-granite to the point of having bruised ribs. I took the equivalent of eight Advils that evening: 1600 milligrams of ibuprofen, a ridiculous amount. So needless to say, I was concerned, but determined regardless.
I really didn't know what I was doing. Couldn't carve on my toe edge, only on my heels, and going slower than the three-year old following his father, I was wary and rightfully suspicious of the snow. My friends Jeff and Ben were there, and my brother Mikie—they seemed like such seasoned veterans and so I told them to go on ahead, that I'd be fine by myself on that massive glacier, I'd just figure things out there on my own and ask for pointers later. The group of them took off at my reassuring words: "I'll be fine."
As soon as they rounded the slight bend and disappeared from my line of vision, disaster struck, oh-so-predictably. Riding on my heels I caught my front toe edge—an amateur!—and my body was thrown high ahead of me in a perfect airbound somersault. I came down hard on my left collarbone, even though I tried to roll out of it.
"Oh no." I do believe I said this audibly. Grumbled it, more likely. Playing with my clavicle bone, I conveniently found I could click the two pieces up and away from each other. Click, click, click. Some pain. Some confusion.
Broken! Broken? My worst nightmares realized! Was this possible? What would I do now? Had anyone seen, could anyone help?
But the mass of humans continued buzzing by on my left; I had nearly fallen down the slope on the right and was now an obstacle, a shapeless form to simply avoid. No one stopped, no one pretended to care. Among all these people, and not a soul to notice me. Facing few choices, I stood up and began an excruciatingly long—45 minutes to approximate—trek back down the mountain.
Look at that buffoon holding his left arm! Why's he going so slow?
I know they were looking at me. I'm sure of it. But had I a choice? I've never been the type to call attention to myself, to signal the red-suited white-cross-outfitted snow patrol and sob "Help me! I strongly believe I've broken something! I need medical attention!" Not me. I took it slowly and surely, more carefully than the time I (successfully) loaded a cookie sheet of Jell-o into the fridge. A cookie sheet, mind you, not a cake pan.
But here's the clincher: not one of my group of friends had stopped. Not a single one of them had waited for me. Friends? Brothers? I think not. They had sauntered casually to the bottom, probably had some lunch and some laughs, gone up another lift or two, never thinking to venture out to find he who was missing. They finally remembered me when I flagged them down outside the lodge, from the snowmobile I was laying in. I had finally given in and notified the snow patrol at the base of my predicament, and was being whisked away to their makeshift hospital.
I did learn something from this. Because since then, have I ever gone on ahead, even when I said I would? No. I wait for whoever-it-is, just around the corner. Of course I do.
... ...
But that experience caused no rift in any friendship. In fact, while I was deep into thought and the car hummed over broken road, I'd come across the memory of the whole ordeal longingly. And it made for such a perfect example of element φ—I was so surrounded by people but was left entirely to myself, even injured.
The image of snow brought about another memory, which became the final puzzle piece in my equation. Not an opposite this time, but a companion, a necessary component, the result of the first two combined. Element ʅ.
... ...
Element Three (ʅ): When you wish to be alone, you will never be.
The snow was the culprit, it dirtied our windows and iced over the atmosphere. Our wipers created small clearings for us to see through the windshield; we were traveling to Park City for the first time. Scaling the plateau, up one level from the valley below. My brother Joey and his friend Martin were in a heater-less car behind us—bundled up but still frozen I'm sure—while Amy and I and the kids had the luxury of warmth pouring at high speeds from our car's vents. The little highway road we traveled was like a lighthouse for the valleys, connecting one to another. It stairstepped up and up until the temperature was actually less noticeable—it just can't get any colder—it chaps your lips and eyelids regardless, and the road signs become completely illegible.
Park City welcomes all the fashionistas, the ones who tout the utmost in class and the outdoors. They smell of liquor and heavy perfume. They preach supposed opportunity and lively demeanor; they care about expense, desirability. The lives of the stars. The upward spiraling of the significant. We didn't fit in and it didn't matter. Our cars were filthy, parked next to grand shiny garaged automobiles. Our clothing was less expensive—unwashed or recycled even—our presence seemed like a mistake, but we didn't mind. We had as much a right there as say, Shia LaBeouf—right over there! In the blue sweatshirt, did you see him? Shaking hands and signing autographs, smiling pleasantly, self-assuredly, ostensibly embarrassed by the recognition.
"I love your work."
"I'm such a fan."
"Job well done. Job well done. Congratulations. Excellence."
But we weren't talking to him—though wouldn't have minded if we were—it was just the miniature swarm.
And the beady little eyes from the streetwalkers were always searching, always calculating. With every horde that passed we were stared down, each one of us—you could literally see the question being internalized: Is that someone I should recognize from television, from the theatres, from People? Some of them would continue on, still glancing backward with curiosities unsatisfied. But we all did this; there was no end in sight. A human zoo or attraction of sorts. We all may be celebrity, or none of us may be. Sight itself was deceiving—beanies, scarves, ludicrously oversized sunglasses, they all hid the most recognizable of facial features. You wouldn't have recognized a celebrity anyway (unless they wore only a blue sweatshirt like Shia). We were one and the same, yet we all walked in awe of each other.
But there was still the cold! The one vestige of reality left in that little town. It seemed to want us dead and torn from our sickly-sweet enjoyments with apathetic smiles or gaping gasps of shock still engraved across our cheeks. But we would understand as it would laugh so smugly, "They never saw it coming. They had no idea!"
... ...
That town up in the barren, snow-covered mountains was a mecca of falsehood. You couldn't be alone if you tried, because everyone there wanted to be just like each other. There was no individuality, it was a collective. I guess that's like many places. Most places. It's even like Placerville, I realized after we returned home.
There are always going to be those others around. I sometimes dream of placing the unplaced footstep, walking where no one yet has ventured, but often discard the thought as illogical and pointless. Everyone's been somewhere. Someone's been everywhere. But still we just lead our hapless little lives in the very repetition of all those who've lived so haplessly before. And yet we cling so unwaveringly to our perceived individuality—we just want to stand out, to persist and leave a legacy.
But teenage angst, begone! I used to feel so insignificant, it killed me. Oh please just reel me in, just make me a part of it all, just find me some recognition! I guess the difference now is that I find that same insignificance common, and the hatred of it petty. It's not unique or worth the hours of self-pity. And I've come to terms with it—that's where the equation fits. Because it doesn't really matter, see. Solitude comes and goes. It's a dear companion, but doesn't ever really mean anything at all, it can't ever and won't ever. Because only in our insignificance can we ever really be noticed or even care to take notice of ourselves. Remember the alone equation, ð + φ = ʅ. We must glory in it and our insignificance. It's all that we have.
My family all seems to love Sutter Creek—why we don't actually live there I'm not really sure. We'd gone there for Easter last year and it wasn't much of a spring afternoon, overcast and gloomy and a little too cold. The river that runs right through the town under that old crumbled-concrete bridge poured with full strength, and for a while Mikie and Jarom and I threw rocks at it and watched them sink abruptly, pulling to the left, ready to wash ashore again on another day, in some other place. Jarom was two and it was his first interactive Easter. Because of that, he was the center of attention.
We captured his egg hunt on video. All that enthusiasm, provenance unfounded, excitement that seemed to transfer among us as we watched. There was something so youthful and carefree and joyous, something we'd all been missing and only realized it then, that there was a fragment void in us all. And witnessing a moment of its actual existence temporarily filled that void and caused in us an emotion unexpected, recalled from childhood, and even spiritual.
So we ate lunch and then trekked out that untraveled road an additional 19 miles or so to Daffodil Hill: a place we knew existed but knew of nothing else. It was enigmatic, in the middle of nowhere, and worth venturing down that windy backroad to discover. But upon arrival we found that Daffodil Hill was closed for the season. A sign stated: Due to rain, hail + snow we regret that we will be closed until next year. It wasn't much anyway, just a small ranch with a few miniature windmills scattered about the grounds, and picnic tables here and there.
And then in an odd moment, a gang of motorcyclists happened through—you know the type: leather jackets, bandanas, graying beards and mustaches, doubled up on each bike with the man in front and the woman clinging bravely to said man's chest, dressed alike in their dual presentations of adult rebellion. Each paused at the stop sign before continuing on to an unknown destination, as they crossed some forgotten highway road in the forgotten forests of some tiny nook in the center of Northern California. Those bikers, bound together somehow in Podunk-town camaraderie—they've found similar people where it seemed unlikely for them to exist at all.
And it just kind of sent me this impression—this feeling—that no matter who or what you think you are, or even where, that you're alone—but not completely or permanently, because there are just too damn many people around for that. It's impossible, really. Somehow we always find those similarities, those comparisons, and it makes us feel valuable and loved and necessary. And somehow even through this we are all still unique and strive to be so; we're captured in our whirlwind thoughts and lives everywhere we go, leaving small traces of ourselves, bits and pieces that contaminate the places we pass through and the people at whom we stare, or talk to, or affect in any number of countless ways.
So those bikers. They just passed on. And we took some pictures of it all and piled back into our three-car caravan to leave behind all that only we could leave behind—because the others, they leave us behind. That's just how it goes.
... ....
As we drove I continued these thoughts, and that's when I fashioned my alone equation. It started with the realization of the first element, how even when it seems you're alone, when you're 20-plus miles into nothing—you really aren't (disregarding the company of family of course). And it seemed so odd to me at the time, so strange that these people actually exist and go on existing, indifferent towards me and mine. They have no reason to care about me, nor I them. I am nothing to them. I do not exist. This is always the case, but even so they are always there—and that is the nature of element ð.
But then I also realized that there's the expected opposite, an exception, that when you feel you are not alone you'll inevitably end up forsaken.
... ...
Element Two (φ): When you think you are not alone, you are.
1998—Heavenly, South Lake Tahoe. We snuck in at the same time the El Dorado High School Snow/Ski Team's bus arrived, passing ourselves off as team members at the counter in order to receive the free daily lift ticket. Times were so innocent then.
It was the second time I had ever been snowboarding. The first time was at Sundance, and to this day I have still never re-experienced that sort of brutal pain, never again come so close to severing my right arm in an unrepeatable contortionist position, or crash-hugged a block of ice-granite to the point of having bruised ribs. I took the equivalent of eight Advils that evening: 1600 milligrams of ibuprofen, a ridiculous amount. So needless to say, I was concerned, but determined regardless.
I really didn't know what I was doing. Couldn't carve on my toe edge, only on my heels, and going slower than the three-year old following his father, I was wary and rightfully suspicious of the snow. My friends Jeff and Ben were there, and my brother Mikie—they seemed like such seasoned veterans and so I told them to go on ahead, that I'd be fine by myself on that massive glacier, I'd just figure things out there on my own and ask for pointers later. The group of them took off at my reassuring words: "I'll be fine."
As soon as they rounded the slight bend and disappeared from my line of vision, disaster struck, oh-so-predictably. Riding on my heels I caught my front toe edge—an amateur!—and my body was thrown high ahead of me in a perfect airbound somersault. I came down hard on my left collarbone, even though I tried to roll out of it.
"Oh no." I do believe I said this audibly. Grumbled it, more likely. Playing with my clavicle bone, I conveniently found I could click the two pieces up and away from each other. Click, click, click. Some pain. Some confusion.
Broken! Broken? My worst nightmares realized! Was this possible? What would I do now? Had anyone seen, could anyone help?
But the mass of humans continued buzzing by on my left; I had nearly fallen down the slope on the right and was now an obstacle, a shapeless form to simply avoid. No one stopped, no one pretended to care. Among all these people, and not a soul to notice me. Facing few choices, I stood up and began an excruciatingly long—45 minutes to approximate—trek back down the mountain.
Look at that buffoon holding his left arm! Why's he going so slow?
I know they were looking at me. I'm sure of it. But had I a choice? I've never been the type to call attention to myself, to signal the red-suited white-cross-outfitted snow patrol and sob "Help me! I strongly believe I've broken something! I need medical attention!" Not me. I took it slowly and surely, more carefully than the time I (successfully) loaded a cookie sheet of Jell-o into the fridge. A cookie sheet, mind you, not a cake pan.
But here's the clincher: not one of my group of friends had stopped. Not a single one of them had waited for me. Friends? Brothers? I think not. They had sauntered casually to the bottom, probably had some lunch and some laughs, gone up another lift or two, never thinking to venture out to find he who was missing. They finally remembered me when I flagged them down outside the lodge, from the snowmobile I was laying in. I had finally given in and notified the snow patrol at the base of my predicament, and was being whisked away to their makeshift hospital.
I did learn something from this. Because since then, have I ever gone on ahead, even when I said I would? No. I wait for whoever-it-is, just around the corner. Of course I do.
... ...
But that experience caused no rift in any friendship. In fact, while I was deep into thought and the car hummed over broken road, I'd come across the memory of the whole ordeal longingly. And it made for such a perfect example of element φ—I was so surrounded by people but was left entirely to myself, even injured.
The image of snow brought about another memory, which became the final puzzle piece in my equation. Not an opposite this time, but a companion, a necessary component, the result of the first two combined. Element ʅ.
... ...
Element Three (ʅ): When you wish to be alone, you will never be.
The snow was the culprit, it dirtied our windows and iced over the atmosphere. Our wipers created small clearings for us to see through the windshield; we were traveling to Park City for the first time. Scaling the plateau, up one level from the valley below. My brother Joey and his friend Martin were in a heater-less car behind us—bundled up but still frozen I'm sure—while Amy and I and the kids had the luxury of warmth pouring at high speeds from our car's vents. The little highway road we traveled was like a lighthouse for the valleys, connecting one to another. It stairstepped up and up until the temperature was actually less noticeable—it just can't get any colder—it chaps your lips and eyelids regardless, and the road signs become completely illegible.
Park City welcomes all the fashionistas, the ones who tout the utmost in class and the outdoors. They smell of liquor and heavy perfume. They preach supposed opportunity and lively demeanor; they care about expense, desirability. The lives of the stars. The upward spiraling of the significant. We didn't fit in and it didn't matter. Our cars were filthy, parked next to grand shiny garaged automobiles. Our clothing was less expensive—unwashed or recycled even—our presence seemed like a mistake, but we didn't mind. We had as much a right there as say, Shia LaBeouf—right over there! In the blue sweatshirt, did you see him? Shaking hands and signing autographs, smiling pleasantly, self-assuredly, ostensibly embarrassed by the recognition.
"I love your work."
"I'm such a fan."
"Job well done. Job well done. Congratulations. Excellence."
But we weren't talking to him—though wouldn't have minded if we were—it was just the miniature swarm.
And the beady little eyes from the streetwalkers were always searching, always calculating. With every horde that passed we were stared down, each one of us—you could literally see the question being internalized: Is that someone I should recognize from television, from the theatres, from People? Some of them would continue on, still glancing backward with curiosities unsatisfied. But we all did this; there was no end in sight. A human zoo or attraction of sorts. We all may be celebrity, or none of us may be. Sight itself was deceiving—beanies, scarves, ludicrously oversized sunglasses, they all hid the most recognizable of facial features. You wouldn't have recognized a celebrity anyway (unless they wore only a blue sweatshirt like Shia). We were one and the same, yet we all walked in awe of each other.
But there was still the cold! The one vestige of reality left in that little town. It seemed to want us dead and torn from our sickly-sweet enjoyments with apathetic smiles or gaping gasps of shock still engraved across our cheeks. But we would understand as it would laugh so smugly, "They never saw it coming. They had no idea!"
... ...
That town up in the barren, snow-covered mountains was a mecca of falsehood. You couldn't be alone if you tried, because everyone there wanted to be just like each other. There was no individuality, it was a collective. I guess that's like many places. Most places. It's even like Placerville, I realized after we returned home.
There are always going to be those others around. I sometimes dream of placing the unplaced footstep, walking where no one yet has ventured, but often discard the thought as illogical and pointless. Everyone's been somewhere. Someone's been everywhere. But still we just lead our hapless little lives in the very repetition of all those who've lived so haplessly before. And yet we cling so unwaveringly to our perceived individuality—we just want to stand out, to persist and leave a legacy.
But teenage angst, begone! I used to feel so insignificant, it killed me. Oh please just reel me in, just make me a part of it all, just find me some recognition! I guess the difference now is that I find that same insignificance common, and the hatred of it petty. It's not unique or worth the hours of self-pity. And I've come to terms with it—that's where the equation fits. Because it doesn't really matter, see. Solitude comes and goes. It's a dear companion, but doesn't ever really mean anything at all, it can't ever and won't ever. Because only in our insignificance can we ever really be noticed or even care to take notice of ourselves. Remember the alone equation, ð + φ = ʅ. We must glory in it and our insignificance. It's all that we have.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
In the city of celebrity [v.2]
[This is a poetically-reworked version of a post I made in February regarding our little stint into Park City. See, I wanted to submit some poems to this contest, but all mine were so normal. So I took this one , a journal-y entry thing, and upgraded it into a more poetic form. I also changed the content slightly, and then I called it a poem. Maybe it's not much better. Probably not. But here it is anyoldway.]
Snow is the culprit, dirtier of windows, icer of atmosphere.
Field and clearing surrounds us,
en route to the city in the mountain mist.
Canyon roads lay as fractures spilling across white foreign land,
and these vehicles, these ubiquitous vehicles--
spouting fumes into the freeze--are just insects,
burdensome, mosquitoes in the summer.
Scaling the plateau, up one level from below,
against the backdrop of frosted tips and glazed peaks.
Somehow we are led unscathed by the unrelenting winter,
by the beacon of the valleys, the roads that connect one with another,
stairstepping up and up until the temperature's drops are unnoticeable--
the cold imperative--it chaps lips and eyelids,
renders road signs almost completely illegible.
We are welcomed by the fashionistas,
they who tout the utmost in class,
opportunity and demeanor, expense and desirability.
The lives of the stars. The upward spiraling of the significant.
We do not belong, our vehicles glare filthily; it doesn't matter.
Our presence is one of mistake, but we've as much claim here
as say, he: There, in the blue sweatshirt,
shaking hands, signing autographs, smiling self-assuredly,
ostensibly reluctant or embarrassed by recognition.
"I love your work." "I'm such a fan."
"Job well done. Job well done. Congratulations. Excellence."
The forever-eyes search, calculate, with each passing group they stare
into your deepest, densest self. Some continue on, glancing backward,
curiosities unsatisfied, still seeking, searching.
And we all do this; there is no end in sight.
A human zoo or attraction of sorts.
We all may be celebrity, or none of us may be.
But sight deceives, for we are one and the same,
yet we inexplicably walk in awe of one another.
But the cold!, the shameful, conspiring cold!
It would find nothing more joyous
than the sight of thousands of preserved, frozen bodies
lying prostrate in the street gutters,
torn from their sickly-sweet enjoyments
with smiles of indifference or gaping gasps of shock
still engraved across their cheeks.
"They never saw it coming. They had no idea!"
Snow is the culprit, dirtier of windows, icer of atmosphere.
Field and clearing surrounds us,
en route to the city in the mountain mist.
Canyon roads lay as fractures spilling across white foreign land,
and these vehicles, these ubiquitous vehicles--
spouting fumes into the freeze--are just insects,
burdensome, mosquitoes in the summer.
Scaling the plateau, up one level from below,
against the backdrop of frosted tips and glazed peaks.
Somehow we are led unscathed by the unrelenting winter,
by the beacon of the valleys, the roads that connect one with another,
stairstepping up and up until the temperature's drops are unnoticeable--
the cold imperative--it chaps lips and eyelids,
renders road signs almost completely illegible.
We are welcomed by the fashionistas,
they who tout the utmost in class,
opportunity and demeanor, expense and desirability.
The lives of the stars. The upward spiraling of the significant.
We do not belong, our vehicles glare filthily; it doesn't matter.
Our presence is one of mistake, but we've as much claim here
as say, he: There, in the blue sweatshirt,
shaking hands, signing autographs, smiling self-assuredly,
ostensibly reluctant or embarrassed by recognition.
"I love your work." "I'm such a fan."
"Job well done. Job well done. Congratulations. Excellence."
The forever-eyes search, calculate, with each passing group they stare
into your deepest, densest self. Some continue on, glancing backward,
curiosities unsatisfied, still seeking, searching.
And we all do this; there is no end in sight.
A human zoo or attraction of sorts.
We all may be celebrity, or none of us may be.
But sight deceives, for we are one and the same,
yet we inexplicably walk in awe of one another.
But the cold!, the shameful, conspiring cold!
It would find nothing more joyous
than the sight of thousands of preserved, frozen bodies
lying prostrate in the street gutters,
torn from their sickly-sweet enjoyments
with smiles of indifference or gaping gasps of shock
still engraved across their cheeks.
"They never saw it coming. They had no idea!"
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Pine and fir
You know it's getting warmer
when the flies are pasted to the hood of the car,
not dead but alive in a miniature swarm,
as they pick apart whatever there was previously pasted.
Heated air rises around them invisibly,
55 degrees or so, feels like 90.
Passed the ranches lined with pine and fir,
an arboreal gateway into those mountain-farms,
the same way the students now line
the circular concrete arche-structures on campus,
here and there and on every splotch of grass
like they were scooped up by some divine claw
and scattered about to just listen and write and read
in a deaf world that is shut out by more than just myself.
Drove to Will's Pit Stop, and the boy in front of me in line,
with the out-of-state driver's license, purchased some snuff and soda.
I too purchased soda, two bottles, green and stifling:
like two plastic syringes, little twenty-ounce oral injections
to satiate my hourly caffeine addiction.
Closed the car door and kicked the snow black.
Smeared it across the asphalt;
wished it were now summer and those small streaks
would evaporate within mere seconds
of being exposed to the suffocating sunshine.
Walked above the agricultural tennis courts,
peering down on them as miniature fields of turf and clay,
rectangular like farmlands from the sky.
They were below me. Everything rectangular below me.
Saw the breadbox obscuring the skyline,
lit up as best a starry earthbound building could,
trying mightily to overcome the radiance above,
with success in appearance but failure in actuality.
Though I hoped otherwise, hoped to memorize
and remember again that companionship
I now only find in books and occasional glimpses.
It's all I can do to keep walking, to keep not talking.
This world--
it's never without sound.
And it's comforting.
when the flies are pasted to the hood of the car,
not dead but alive in a miniature swarm,
as they pick apart whatever there was previously pasted.
Heated air rises around them invisibly,
55 degrees or so, feels like 90.
Passed the ranches lined with pine and fir,
an arboreal gateway into those mountain-farms,
the same way the students now line
the circular concrete arche-structures on campus,
here and there and on every splotch of grass
like they were scooped up by some divine claw
and scattered about to just listen and write and read
in a deaf world that is shut out by more than just myself.
Drove to Will's Pit Stop, and the boy in front of me in line,
with the out-of-state driver's license, purchased some snuff and soda.
I too purchased soda, two bottles, green and stifling:
like two plastic syringes, little twenty-ounce oral injections
to satiate my hourly caffeine addiction.
Closed the car door and kicked the snow black.
Smeared it across the asphalt;
wished it were now summer and those small streaks
would evaporate within mere seconds
of being exposed to the suffocating sunshine.
Walked above the agricultural tennis courts,
peering down on them as miniature fields of turf and clay,
rectangular like farmlands from the sky.
They were below me. Everything rectangular below me.
Saw the breadbox obscuring the skyline,
lit up as best a starry earthbound building could,
trying mightily to overcome the radiance above,
with success in appearance but failure in actuality.
Though I hoped otherwise, hoped to memorize
and remember again that companionship
I now only find in books and occasional glimpses.
It's all I can do to keep walking, to keep not talking.
This world--
it's never without sound.
And it's comforting.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
From the crossing of the desert in the new year's storm
Rainbow, NV
The marriage of corporation and nature
Stormshine clouds coming
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Easter soon, unlike the last
Middle of February, snowing outside-- And it will be Easter soon, which brings to mind last year's Easter, when we went out for a picnic and other Easter-y activities in Sutter Creek.
This year it will be different. This year there will be solitude, distance, activities in which few of us participate together, at least from my perspective. There will be uncoordinated traditions, new ones springing from the still-beating hearts of the old ones, people will be missed and feelings will bear longing and phone calls will be made, videos made, recordings, journals, words, memories-- It all will find a way to not really happen, but not be missed, and then it won't really fade and will somehow still be experienced together regardless of where we all reside.
So. Last year's. We all seem to love Sutter Creek, why we don't actually live there I'm not really sure. It wasn't much of a spring afternoon--or maybe it was, I guess I don't know what a typical spring afternoon should entail, at least with our family--but it was overcast and gloomy, almost a little too cold, but not quite. The river that runs right through the town underneath that old crumbling concrete bridge poured with full strength, and for a while Mikie and Jarom and I threw rocks at it and watched them sink abruptly, pulling to the left, ready to wash ashore again on some other day, in some other place. A lingering prospector's kind-of-treasure-hunting feeling was in me--that being a silly part of my life at the time--and I still feel it now when I think of last year's Easter, a twang of nostalgia mixed with longing.
We captured Jarom's egg hunt on video--all that enthusiasm, provenance unfounded, excitement that seemed to transfer among us all as we watched, almost tearfully--something so youthful and carefree and joyous, something we'd all been mostly missing and realized it just then, that there's a fragment void in us all, and witnessing a moment of its actual existence temporarily fills that void and causes in us something unexpected and recalled from childhood and even spiritual, magical.
We ate lunch with fervor before trekking out that untraveled road an additional 19 miles or so to Daffodil Hill, a name? a city? a town? A place we knew existed but didn't know of anything else, all except Heather who had been there before. To the rest of us it was enigmatic, and worth venturing down a windy backroad to discover. Upon arrival we found that Daffodil Hill was closed for the season, a sign posted cited this was due to "unprecedented rainfall" and that the flowers were not sightfully in bloom or something along those lines. It was a small ranch, a few miniature windmills scattered about the grounds, picnic tables here and there and other groups of people, emerging from minivans, stumbling upon the same closed farm as we.
In an odd moment, paradoxical for some reason, a gang of motorcyclists happened through--you know the type: leather jackets, bandanas, graying beards and mustaches, doubled up on each bike, man in front, woman clinging bravely to said man's chest and dressed alike in a dual presentation of forthright rebellion and adventure--each stopping at that stop sign before continuing on their bizarre path to an unknown destination as they crossed some forgotten highway road, in the forgotten forests of some tiny nook in the center of Northern California. These roads were built by some, by those with an interest in their being built, and these bikers, bound together in small-town camaraderie somehow--they've found likeminded people where it seems firstminded people, if at all, are unlikely to be found.
And it just kind of sent me this impression--this feeling--that no matter what you think you are, or where, that you're alone but not really, not permanently, because there are just too damn many people around to really be alone. It's impossible. Somehow we'll always find the similarities, the comparisons, and it will make us feel valuable and loved and necessary. And somehow through this we are all still unique, and strive to be so, and are captured in our whirlwind thoughts and lives, somewhere, leaving small traces of ourselves, little bits and pieces that contaminate the places we pass through and the people at whom we stare, or talk to, or affect in any number of countless ways.
So those bikers. They just passed on, and then we took some pictures of it all and piled back into our three-car caravan full of interconnected Placerville-lives, leaving behind everything that only we could leave behind, because others, they leave us behind, in this connect-the-dots matching game of life and experience and influence where no drawing is ever finished and no one ever seems to win.
[Taken from a notebook entry on the day of 19 February 2006]
This year it will be different. This year there will be solitude, distance, activities in which few of us participate together, at least from my perspective. There will be uncoordinated traditions, new ones springing from the still-beating hearts of the old ones, people will be missed and feelings will bear longing and phone calls will be made, videos made, recordings, journals, words, memories-- It all will find a way to not really happen, but not be missed, and then it won't really fade and will somehow still be experienced together regardless of where we all reside.
So. Last year's. We all seem to love Sutter Creek, why we don't actually live there I'm not really sure. It wasn't much of a spring afternoon--or maybe it was, I guess I don't know what a typical spring afternoon should entail, at least with our family--but it was overcast and gloomy, almost a little too cold, but not quite. The river that runs right through the town underneath that old crumbling concrete bridge poured with full strength, and for a while Mikie and Jarom and I threw rocks at it and watched them sink abruptly, pulling to the left, ready to wash ashore again on some other day, in some other place. A lingering prospector's kind-of-treasure-hunting feeling was in me--that being a silly part of my life at the time--and I still feel it now when I think of last year's Easter, a twang of nostalgia mixed with longing.
We captured Jarom's egg hunt on video--all that enthusiasm, provenance unfounded, excitement that seemed to transfer among us all as we watched, almost tearfully--something so youthful and carefree and joyous, something we'd all been mostly missing and realized it just then, that there's a fragment void in us all, and witnessing a moment of its actual existence temporarily fills that void and causes in us something unexpected and recalled from childhood and even spiritual, magical.
We ate lunch with fervor before trekking out that untraveled road an additional 19 miles or so to Daffodil Hill, a name? a city? a town? A place we knew existed but didn't know of anything else, all except Heather who had been there before. To the rest of us it was enigmatic, and worth venturing down a windy backroad to discover. Upon arrival we found that Daffodil Hill was closed for the season, a sign posted cited this was due to "unprecedented rainfall" and that the flowers were not sightfully in bloom or something along those lines. It was a small ranch, a few miniature windmills scattered about the grounds, picnic tables here and there and other groups of people, emerging from minivans, stumbling upon the same closed farm as we.
In an odd moment, paradoxical for some reason, a gang of motorcyclists happened through--you know the type: leather jackets, bandanas, graying beards and mustaches, doubled up on each bike, man in front, woman clinging bravely to said man's chest and dressed alike in a dual presentation of forthright rebellion and adventure--each stopping at that stop sign before continuing on their bizarre path to an unknown destination as they crossed some forgotten highway road, in the forgotten forests of some tiny nook in the center of Northern California. These roads were built by some, by those with an interest in their being built, and these bikers, bound together in small-town camaraderie somehow--they've found likeminded people where it seems firstminded people, if at all, are unlikely to be found.
And it just kind of sent me this impression--this feeling--that no matter what you think you are, or where, that you're alone but not really, not permanently, because there are just too damn many people around to really be alone. It's impossible. Somehow we'll always find the similarities, the comparisons, and it will make us feel valuable and loved and necessary. And somehow through this we are all still unique, and strive to be so, and are captured in our whirlwind thoughts and lives, somewhere, leaving small traces of ourselves, little bits and pieces that contaminate the places we pass through and the people at whom we stare, or talk to, or affect in any number of countless ways.
So those bikers. They just passed on, and then we took some pictures of it all and piled back into our three-car caravan full of interconnected Placerville-lives, leaving behind everything that only we could leave behind, because others, they leave us behind, in this connect-the-dots matching game of life and experience and influence where no drawing is ever finished and no one ever seems to win.
[Taken from a notebook entry on the day of 19 February 2006]
Monday, February 06, 2006
In the city of celebrity
Snow is the culprit, dirtier of windows, icer of atmosphere. Those spots and the clearings caused by the wipers surround us; we're traveling to Park City for the first time. Canyon roads are just fractures spilling across the white landscape, and these vehicles, these ubiquitous vehicles - spouting fumes into the freeze - are just insects, mosquitoes in the summer, annoyances, burdens. We're scaling the plateau, up one level from the valley below, until Heber appears against the backdrop of the frosted tips and glazed peaks. Somehow these roads lead us, unscathed by the relentless schizophrenia that winter provides in all its fickleness. They are the beacons of the valleys, connecting one to another, stairstepping up and up until the temperature's drops are less noticeable - because it just can't get any colder - it already chaps your lips and eyelids regardless, and the road signs are almost completely illegible.
Park City welcomes all those fashionistas, touting the utmost in class, and outdoor experience!, of opportunity and demeanor, culture, expense, and desirability. The lives of the stars. The upward spiraling of the significant. We don't fit in, but it doesn't matter. Our cars are filthy, our clothing less expensive - unwashed or recycled even - our presence is one of mistake, but we don't mind. We've as much a right here as, say, Shia LaBeouf - right over there! In the blue sweatshirt, did you see him? Shaking hands, signing autographs, smiling pleasantly, self-assuredly, ostensibly reluctant or embarrassed by the recognition. "I love your work." "I'm such a fan." "Job well done. Job well done. Congratulations. Excellence."
These forever-eyes are searching, calculating. With each passing group you are stared down, into your deepest, densest self - is that someone to recognize, from television, the theatres, People? Some continue on, glancing backward, their curiosities unsatisfied, still seeking, searching. We all do this; there's no end in sight. A human zoo or attraction of sorts. We all may be celebrity, and none of us may be. Sight is deceiving - beanies, scarves, ludicrously oversized sunglasses, all hide the most blatant of facial features. We are one and the same, yet we all walk in awe of each other.
But the cold!, the shameful, conspiring cold! It'd find nothing more joyous than thousands of preserved, frozen bodies lying prostrate in the street gutters, torn from their sickly-sweet enjoyments with smiles of indifference or gaping gasps of shock still engraved across their cheeks. "They never saw it coming. They had no idea!"
[From the day of 22 January 2006]
Park City welcomes all those fashionistas, touting the utmost in class, and outdoor experience!, of opportunity and demeanor, culture, expense, and desirability. The lives of the stars. The upward spiraling of the significant. We don't fit in, but it doesn't matter. Our cars are filthy, our clothing less expensive - unwashed or recycled even - our presence is one of mistake, but we don't mind. We've as much a right here as, say, Shia LaBeouf - right over there! In the blue sweatshirt, did you see him? Shaking hands, signing autographs, smiling pleasantly, self-assuredly, ostensibly reluctant or embarrassed by the recognition. "I love your work." "I'm such a fan." "Job well done. Job well done. Congratulations. Excellence."
These forever-eyes are searching, calculating. With each passing group you are stared down, into your deepest, densest self - is that someone to recognize, from television, the theatres, People? Some continue on, glancing backward, their curiosities unsatisfied, still seeking, searching. We all do this; there's no end in sight. A human zoo or attraction of sorts. We all may be celebrity, and none of us may be. Sight is deceiving - beanies, scarves, ludicrously oversized sunglasses, all hide the most blatant of facial features. We are one and the same, yet we all walk in awe of each other.
But the cold!, the shameful, conspiring cold! It'd find nothing more joyous than thousands of preserved, frozen bodies lying prostrate in the street gutters, torn from their sickly-sweet enjoyments with smiles of indifference or gaping gasps of shock still engraved across their cheeks. "They never saw it coming. They had no idea!"
[From the day of 22 January 2006]
Friday, September 02, 2005
Fleeting moments stolen from Puerto Vallarta
And so my chin rested in that spot where the oily heads of hundreds of travelers and locals had rested before me, lying back and letting the sun bathe their limbs. Streetwashers routinely splashed small cups of water across the sidewalks, over and over and over, each cup cleaning a new patch of the weathered concrete. I fell into chants of "no gracias" and "nada" as the merchants approached, wheeling and dealing their services and silver. And the sun beat down. The crumbling blocks on the walkways and the yellowed stairs told the tales of generations. But I am just a foreigner, a visitor with visions of endless undiscovered beaches, shoreline-nestled fishing towns, chimney smoke and sizzling fire pits. Photographs capture just a piece, and the rest of the hustling, bustling world lives on.
The blue and white fabric of my rented sun chair left patchwork markings across my skin. I sat up and studied the bluest of the blues, where skyline married ocean in a crash of tide and foam, white as ivory. I longed to wear the same earthen clothing I saw covering their sun-kissed flesh, light and loose, beautiful and apparently freshly weaved from the finest of the cotton harvest or the most tender wool taken from the happiest, fattest sheep. Some life carried on here that defied all that I had previously imagined - a fine little island, accessible only by ship.
A young boy approached me, selling chicle. He was shirtless and as brown as deep cocoa, but his shy smile gave him away. We bartered like civilizations of old, pesos for gum, and he turned and scurried away, clutching the tray of precious goods that hung around his neck by an old leather band. Not so much existed between us, no true barrier of alienation. I saw this boy reflected in me, his childhood flowed as a tributary next to my own as the great stream of life rushed and coursed like the blood in my veins. There was no need for words, my language was his, and his smile was mine. I stretched and turned onto my stomach, wishing to remain in that scorching sunlight as long as it took, until my skin darkened to the color of chocolate.
'We've only been here a fleeting moment, but I've taken that moment and run. And it is mine now; I will not set it free.'
The blue and white fabric of my rented sun chair left patchwork markings across my skin. I sat up and studied the bluest of the blues, where skyline married ocean in a crash of tide and foam, white as ivory. I longed to wear the same earthen clothing I saw covering their sun-kissed flesh, light and loose, beautiful and apparently freshly weaved from the finest of the cotton harvest or the most tender wool taken from the happiest, fattest sheep. Some life carried on here that defied all that I had previously imagined - a fine little island, accessible only by ship.
A young boy approached me, selling chicle. He was shirtless and as brown as deep cocoa, but his shy smile gave him away. We bartered like civilizations of old, pesos for gum, and he turned and scurried away, clutching the tray of precious goods that hung around his neck by an old leather band. Not so much existed between us, no true barrier of alienation. I saw this boy reflected in me, his childhood flowed as a tributary next to my own as the great stream of life rushed and coursed like the blood in my veins. There was no need for words, my language was his, and his smile was mine. I stretched and turned onto my stomach, wishing to remain in that scorching sunlight as long as it took, until my skin darkened to the color of chocolate.
'We've only been here a fleeting moment, but I've taken that moment and run. And it is mine now; I will not set it free.'
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
My sunless lamentation
'That silly star stalks quietly just overhead, racing to the flat end of our round world. It lingers tirelessly, effortlessly, then as it nears its destination, hurries downward in a burst of fury - a stone dropped into an empty well. So much as one stray glance or the blink of an unexpecting eye and the show is over, stamped out of sight and mind until the next clockwork morning. So is the day and so is the night. Begun with a beginning, ended with an ending. It's a heavenly constant, a routine that torments and domesticates the upward minds of thinking and not-so-thinking men. Of which I am one.'
That's what I wrote as the turbine engines churned and the clouds' horizon swallowed the sun whole. I was watching with strained eyes, never blinking, as the fiery ball diminished and drowned slowly in the atmosphere. It left remnants of its light scattered about the sky. I slumped back in my seat. The double-paned window I'd been looking out was streaked by the hundreds of faceless travelers that had pressed against it. Outside and below me, the airplane's wing shook unsteadily - but thousands of miles of relentless flight had brought assurance in this rickety contraption. There were no birds accompanying us; we were alone in the heavens.
My thoughts were interrupted. "Something to drink?"
"Yes. Tomato juice - with pepper," I replied with eyes still at that window. It needed to be cleaned. I paused for a moment before looking up at her.
She nodded absently with the faux-smile of a flight attendant, then jotted down my request and moved on to the passengers further behind me. I'd had enough of peanuts and crackers and formalities. I was ready to just sit and shut my eyes, not to sleep but to think. I closed my notebook and filed it in the backpack beneath my seat. The chair recline button was stuck, so I put up the armrest and stretched out across my seat and the open one next to me.
...
"Sir?" Startled by her voice, I jumped slightly but noticeably, and sat up in my chair.
"Tomato juice with pepper." She still didn't look right at me. Couldn't she make eye contact with anyone?
"Thanks." I sort of mumbled it. I guess I had drifted off. Not my intention.
That's what I wrote as the turbine engines churned and the clouds' horizon swallowed the sun whole. I was watching with strained eyes, never blinking, as the fiery ball diminished and drowned slowly in the atmosphere. It left remnants of its light scattered about the sky. I slumped back in my seat. The double-paned window I'd been looking out was streaked by the hundreds of faceless travelers that had pressed against it. Outside and below me, the airplane's wing shook unsteadily - but thousands of miles of relentless flight had brought assurance in this rickety contraption. There were no birds accompanying us; we were alone in the heavens.
My thoughts were interrupted. "Something to drink?"
"Yes. Tomato juice - with pepper," I replied with eyes still at that window. It needed to be cleaned. I paused for a moment before looking up at her.
She nodded absently with the faux-smile of a flight attendant, then jotted down my request and moved on to the passengers further behind me. I'd had enough of peanuts and crackers and formalities. I was ready to just sit and shut my eyes, not to sleep but to think. I closed my notebook and filed it in the backpack beneath my seat. The chair recline button was stuck, so I put up the armrest and stretched out across my seat and the open one next to me.
...
"Sir?" Startled by her voice, I jumped slightly but noticeably, and sat up in my chair.
"Tomato juice with pepper." She still didn't look right at me. Couldn't she make eye contact with anyone?
"Thanks." I sort of mumbled it. I guess I had drifted off. Not my intention.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Via the 80
I saw the farmlands and the city married in the valley.
I saw the manmade monsters taxi down their runways for an impending takeoff.
I saw the puffed messes of water vapor hanging suspended just over the horizon.
I saw the skirt of the Wasatch, ruffled as far as vision can stretch.
I saw the abandoned tracks and cars of railways long past their prime.
I saw the salt flats, that great sea of brine, become a desert around me.
I saw the studious truckers, patiently fanning the fire of American economy.
I saw the miles of aging telephone poles and their parallel wires.
I saw the highway soak up oily drips from indifferent vehicles.
I saw the setting sun bleed orange through the haze over the mountaintops.
I saw the lonesome Nevada highway towns of Battle Mountain, Lovelock and Carlin.
I saw the purposeful factories in the distance as they mysteriously smoked and churned.
I saw the fields of green shrubs contrasting the white sand from which they sprouted.
I saw the dark silhouettes of the hills past Pumpernickel Valley.
I saw the single-file milemarkers glint green in my passing headlights.
I saw the miles count backwards toward zero.
I saw the midnight lights of gas station sanctuaries beckoning to traveling shadows.
I saw the steeped canyon walls rise up on either side of me.
I saw the wise and wayward eyes of Reno as he greeted his numerous foreign visitors.
I saw the pregnant belly of the gibbous moon watching over us in her ocean of black.
I saw the sweet city of South Lake Tahoe, welcoming me as an old friend.
I saw the familiar highways merge into street signs and stoplights.
I saw the warm nocturnal lighting of an empty carport.
I saw the steps leading to an unlit porch.
I saw the lights dim in time for my eyes to see no more.
And I saw home.
[West Point, UT to Cameron Park, CA 08/14/05-08/15/05]
I saw the manmade monsters taxi down their runways for an impending takeoff.
I saw the puffed messes of water vapor hanging suspended just over the horizon.
I saw the skirt of the Wasatch, ruffled as far as vision can stretch.
I saw the abandoned tracks and cars of railways long past their prime.
I saw the salt flats, that great sea of brine, become a desert around me.
I saw the studious truckers, patiently fanning the fire of American economy.
I saw the miles of aging telephone poles and their parallel wires.
I saw the highway soak up oily drips from indifferent vehicles.
I saw the setting sun bleed orange through the haze over the mountaintops.
I saw the lonesome Nevada highway towns of Battle Mountain, Lovelock and Carlin.
I saw the purposeful factories in the distance as they mysteriously smoked and churned.
I saw the fields of green shrubs contrasting the white sand from which they sprouted.
I saw the dark silhouettes of the hills past Pumpernickel Valley.
I saw the single-file milemarkers glint green in my passing headlights.
I saw the miles count backwards toward zero.
I saw the midnight lights of gas station sanctuaries beckoning to traveling shadows.
I saw the steeped canyon walls rise up on either side of me.
I saw the wise and wayward eyes of Reno as he greeted his numerous foreign visitors.
I saw the pregnant belly of the gibbous moon watching over us in her ocean of black.
I saw the sweet city of South Lake Tahoe, welcoming me as an old friend.
I saw the familiar highways merge into street signs and stoplights.
I saw the warm nocturnal lighting of an empty carport.
I saw the steps leading to an unlit porch.
I saw the lights dim in time for my eyes to see no more.
And I saw home.
[West Point, UT to Cameron Park, CA 08/14/05-08/15/05]
Monday, August 08, 2005
On/off/on
I awoke with a stop. Or a start. I'm not sure which it was, but I do know that it was abrupt. Some startling sound had ripped me from a dream. I had been a miner in the caves of New Mexico, endlessly returning to a fabled gold mine day after day, only to become old and decrepit and worn, made destitute by the riches-hungry fever that had stolen the years. I understand the message, of course, that lusting after wealth will only leave you dissatisfied and empty, searching for more.
But that sound - it was a blinking, aching, maddeningly repetitive alarm. That cursed clock is always rounding me up from my restful wanderlust. The cattle to the corral! This morning was not unlike the others, and I went through my morning ritual with a complete lack of sincerity. The AM stupor lingered on through the same highway traversal, the lack of beauty in the streetside scenery, and my engine's strained speed-limit performance. Drive 20 miles. Turn south. First left past the white rock. Circular driveway. Right there in the middle.
But that sound - it was a blinking, aching, maddeningly repetitive alarm. That cursed clock is always rounding me up from my restful wanderlust. The cattle to the corral! This morning was not unlike the others, and I went through my morning ritual with a complete lack of sincerity. The AM stupor lingered on through the same highway traversal, the lack of beauty in the streetside scenery, and my engine's strained speed-limit performance. Drive 20 miles. Turn south. First left past the white rock. Circular driveway. Right there in the middle.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Running with the herd
The pavement has lapped up the heat of the summer,
to gum up my tires and tear at the rubber
in an attempt to slow me down.
But I'm already beyond the boundaries of the town.
I can't seem to breathe as the breezes swim past.
In this ocean of wind I'm a sunk pirate chest
where the ship has rotted away,
and my handles and lid are fraught with decay.
But still life rushes on in its pain and delight.
I watch, insincere with routine oversight.
And my world is still worth the return -
in this fracas and fray I've got much overturned.
I pay at the pumps and steep myself in debt,
run on the back roads and sit on the front steps.
And I wander by rest stops and roads.
Each sleep-deprived moment satisfies some new goal.
If I pick up the pieces and keep the floors swept,
I'll amount to something with promises kept
to blend with the flock and the flow
of each aging face - someplace special to go.
Well that sky has reached noon and it's my turn to try
to stop sleeping so late with my dreams in the sky
and start running pace with the herd.
I may go unspoken, but I've listened and heard
as the desert swallows hillside and each grid bares its teeth.
Land becomes blank like wool cut from a sheep.
And the drums from the march echo still
past the farm in the suburbs, the monument mill.
I'll stand strong in the current and anchor my feet.
Stoic, resilient, I will admit defeat.
"Sun, burn my back and my bones!
And take what you need back to old Davey Jones!"
But my courage is curt where my heart has no bounds.
So I'll take what I get and fancy what I've found,
which is simple, and nothing but love -
the best form of therapy, a miracle drug.
Take that small bit of stardust and spread it about.
It's all that we get - and not so hard without.
Our troubles are what we have earned,
where the strength comes in seeing what we can endure.
So with the mountains our walls and the forest our floor,
pack up your things and join me out the door.
Huddle up round the campfire flames
and we'll burn all the worries we so tactfully and handsomely crafted for our shame.
to gum up my tires and tear at the rubber
in an attempt to slow me down.
But I'm already beyond the boundaries of the town.
I can't seem to breathe as the breezes swim past.
In this ocean of wind I'm a sunk pirate chest
where the ship has rotted away,
and my handles and lid are fraught with decay.
But still life rushes on in its pain and delight.
I watch, insincere with routine oversight.
And my world is still worth the return -
in this fracas and fray I've got much overturned.
I pay at the pumps and steep myself in debt,
run on the back roads and sit on the front steps.
And I wander by rest stops and roads.
Each sleep-deprived moment satisfies some new goal.
If I pick up the pieces and keep the floors swept,
I'll amount to something with promises kept
to blend with the flock and the flow
of each aging face - someplace special to go.
Well that sky has reached noon and it's my turn to try
to stop sleeping so late with my dreams in the sky
and start running pace with the herd.
I may go unspoken, but I've listened and heard
as the desert swallows hillside and each grid bares its teeth.
Land becomes blank like wool cut from a sheep.
And the drums from the march echo still
past the farm in the suburbs, the monument mill.
I'll stand strong in the current and anchor my feet.
Stoic, resilient, I will admit defeat.
"Sun, burn my back and my bones!
And take what you need back to old Davey Jones!"
But my courage is curt where my heart has no bounds.
So I'll take what I get and fancy what I've found,
which is simple, and nothing but love -
the best form of therapy, a miracle drug.
Take that small bit of stardust and spread it about.
It's all that we get - and not so hard without.
Our troubles are what we have earned,
where the strength comes in seeing what we can endure.
So with the mountains our walls and the forest our floor,
pack up your things and join me out the door.
Huddle up round the campfire flames
and we'll burn all the worries we so tactfully and handsomely crafted for our shame.
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