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July 26, 2004
The Wilderness of No Return
Oh, I should be in bed by now, fast asleep, snoozing in my own bed one last time before we leave for vacation.
Tomorrow kicks off 12 days out west. In the morning we'll board a plane and fly to California to see Tom's grandfather in his nursing home in a tiny town out in the desert.
After two days in California, we'll head to Salt Lake City for a couple of days, where I will secretly cross my fingers and search the horizon in hope of a Dooce sighting.
In Utah, we'll rendezvous with the rest of Tom's family (including Kathy!), and drift north into Idaho. We'll be close to Twin Falls, Idaho, which has to be one of the prettiest names for a city, ever. We'll stop by Tom's father's family farm, right along the Oregon border, and go fly fishing in the Salmon River. (We have two pairs of waders packed, and a net, and a sharp filet knife in a wooden sheath, because we will clean and eat that fish we just caught in the Salmon River.)
And maybe we'll even take a trip into the lush unknown of The Frank Church River Wilderness of No Return, which has to be one of the most badass names for a wilderness, ever.
I mean, if you are going into the wilderness, it might as well be a Wilderness of No Return.
I think I'm becoming best friends with my digital camera. At lunch I step out of the office and down to the street and go for a walk. I never really know what I'm going to see when I walk out on the street. I just want to pay attention. I just want to see.
Kids playing in the fountains at Centennial Olympic Park, last Friday..
There is always something to see. The question, perhaps, is whether I am willing to see it.
Last week I went out at lunch. I swung by the post office to pick up a hold-mail request slip, and as I walked out of the post office my eye was caught by a dark-haired man walking past. He was carrying a paperback and a cigarette, looking right at me. He looked a bit dangerous.
I was seized with a thought: I am going to follow this person. (Thinking suddenly about Atlas Shrugged, and Dagny Taggart stalking through the underground tunnels: "You will follow me...")
I trailed along behind him, lingering in the vague wake of his cigarette. This went on for a few blocks. We turned east on Marietta Street and then he ducked into a corner deli. That was not at all John Galt-like of him! What Would Dagny Do when her subject stopped for ham & cheese sandwich? I just kept walking.
I though that perhaps it would be nice to know what book the dark-haired man was planning to read. I walked for several blocks, shooting photos here and there, wondering what to do. Then slowly I made my way back toward the corner where I had left him. There he was, sitting alone in the window of the deli with ham & cheese on rye, reading his paperback.
I walked up to the window where he sat and waited for him to up. He finally looked up, startled, and I gestured toward his book. He revealed the cover: Don Delillo's White Noise. I smiled and walked away.
A flake of spraypainted rust on an abandoned boxcar off Glenwood Avenue.
I am a bit of a mess lately.
I am starting to get used to crying in restaurants. It seems to happen a lot these days. Tonight I went with my brother to The Heaping Bowl. The table next to us was filled with rowdy strangers slamming beers. I just sat at our table crying.
Crying in public is a skill. A delicate balance, you know, keeping up a reasonable semblance of the game face. I've thought about it might be funny at some point to use the tears to joke with our waitress: You call this vinaigrette!...
I think I do okay at not making a scene. Tonight Tim was beautifully unaffected by it all, his wonderful face lit by the warm lamp on our table. I felt nothing but love from him. And of course that kind of made me want to cry more.
I am a bit of a mess lately, but I don't really mind.
Detail from the antique children's book that Erica's mother gave her at the baby shower on Sunday.
These tears, they aren't such a bad thing. I consider them welcome guests. I have held them back for so long that finally yielding is a relief. I just have to pick the right kind of restaurant for these conversations, which always end up being important ones. Dim light and paper napkins seem to work best.
Beth and the summer rolls.
Beth and I went out for pho and summer rolls at Viet Chateau on Friday night. Even though Beth is preparing to sell her house and get married and make lots of other enormous changes in her life, she asked me, "How can I be a better friend to you?" This is the type of thing that makes me start to cry.
And I have been going to the contradance a lot lately. I find myself being drawn more and more to the strange sanctuary created there. It is a place where my heart and body and brain are all working in concert. Being there feels very alive. The moments when I feel most free and most myself are when I'm dancing.
Well, dancing and taking pictures. Those things are really helping a lot.
When I walk outside think again and again about Annie Dillard, one of my favorite authors, whose words stir me and call me to look deeper, always deeper:
I walk out; I see something, some event that would otherwise have been utterly missed and lost; or something sees me, some enormous power brushes me with its clean wing, and I resound like a beaten bell.
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