once
I booked a hotel room with a clawfoot tub the color of eggshells and a window with a fire escape and a view of the streets below because on my fortieth birthday, I needed to feel a little bit like I was l living the life my fourteen year-old self dreamt of.
once
I vowed to seek out slides, to go down as many as possible. I made it official, put it on a list. I told myself there were no good reasons why a grown woman could not/should not enjoy slides. or swings, for that matter. I stand by this belief.
once
I sat on the concrete stoop of a friend's house in north portland. realized I'd seen more rainbows in the one year since we'd moved to the pacific northwest than in all my combined years of living in illinois, ohio and georgia.
once
after we'd spent all our money on admission to the tulip fields (and the gas it took to drive there), I made myself a small bouquet of discarded tulips. which cost nothing, but did not survive the long drive back home.
once
we drove through downtown tucumcari, new mexico with the windows rolled down. slowed to a stop in the middle of an empty street, sat with the quiet and the color for a minute. a truck pulled up behind us then, blasted his horn, yelled something out the window and that was that. spell broken.
once
on the way home from the grocery store, I walked past a yard overrun with dandelions. I was raised to see them as weeds, to yank them from the ground at first sight, so as to prevent total dandelion invasion. we spent hours in the back yard pulling at them, took turns smearing the soft yellow pollen underneath our chins. if we let them go long enough, the heads turned to seed-- white feathery orbs made for wishes, as synonymous with childhood as santa claus. it would be years before I realized we were just blowing seeds all over the yard, ensuring their return.
it would be years before I came around to dandelions, before I learned they were medicinal herbs that magically open to the sun each day before closing up for the night. years before I'd come across a yard overrun with them and no longer see a mess of weeds, but a hundred bright yellow buttons staring back at me instead.
once
I found a vintage dress for ava at the thrift store. bandana print fabric circa 1970-something and clearly hand sewn. the seams were all off, which only charmed me, so I promptly paid the cashier the 79 cents they wanted for it and took it home. hoped she'd love it as much as I did.
she saw that cherry red color, her color, and slipped it right on. looked at me, grinned.
once
I walked the extra blocks down alberta street to see the old building I loved so much. I knew it was just a matter of time before it would disappear.
once
we stopped in chinatown on the way out of san francisco. took one last walk around before ending up at the playground, where we let the kids run willy nilly before the long drive home. in the middle of it all, my brother called and somehow I managed an entire phone conversation about a recent job loss, the current state of the world and the uncertainty of everything while keeping one eye on the kids and the other on a heated game happening just a few feet below. motherhood, in a nutshell.
once
I watched the performance of a tiny dance that took place on a tiny 4x4 wooden stage located at the base of the portland aerial tram. while silver capsules carrying passengers continued to slide up and down thick steel cables, a handful of us watched the limbs of the dancer slice through air.
once
while swimming at the ace hotel in palm springs, I saw a bronzed buttery man in a tiny speedo use his ipad as a tray in which to carry his very large glass of wine. I knew in that moment I would remember nothing else about the day but this.
once
we stopped for bones and I saw him with fresh eyes.
once
I took the train south to california. one ticket, my first time on the coast starlight line. I wobbled through the moving train cars before dark in search of the dining car, stumbled onto the observation car instead. windows curved toward the sky, light like honey. the world outside racing past at a respectable clip. I could live here, I thought. I could make a life for myself right here, a home in this car, right now.
once
I traveled to the oregon coast to spend three days with twelve women, most of whom I did not know, had not met in real life before. I remember flowers in jars and good food on the table, the ocean near midnight and the moon like a silver coin in the sky. the way my clothes smelled like bonfire, sand in all my crevices, the first time I saw a real shooting star. I remember an endless cacophony of conversation and cameras, a wild mix of personalities. the realization that maybe I was not built for this.
a few of these women would eventually show up for me in extraordinary ways. a string of handwritten postcards for two months straight after my mom died. a box of tiny frozen ice cream cones, too. texted poems, endless encouragement. an air mattress and home-cooked food in los angeles, tamales and morning light in oakland, good coffee and a fire escape view in brooklyn. shared epiphanies on subway platforms. a place to stay, always, in california, texas, new york. fellow dreamers, a few listeners, a few kindred spirits. I could not know this at the time, would not have predicted it. these women, this life, the years in between like a sieve.
once
I found myself in front of window full of lightbulbs in portland, oregon and wondered if maybe I'd missed my true life calling.
once
we saw the world famous bushman in action, down at fisherman’s wharf in san francisco. there he was, hiding behind a trash can, shaking his branches at people, making them jump, yell out. I didn’t know he was famous at the time, didn’t know this was actually how he made his living. I just left a little something in the tip jar and marveled at how we all do what we’ve got to do to get by.
once
I stood beneath an explosion of cherry blossom trees at the university of washington. watched my kids climb up into clouds of papery popcorn blooms. in that moment, I wished I could still climb. I wished so hard, wished my own limbs could still loop and hug tree limbs, wished my body could still do all the things it once knew how to do.
once
with our legs still dusty from the road, we pulled into new mexico's tinkertown, bought our tickets and marveled at the walls, which were embedded with over fifty thousand glass bottles. and honestly, felt a twinge of judgment while doing so.
once
we celebrated my birthday at the old oaks park roller rink in portland, oregon. that night, we witnessed a marriage proposal out in the center of the rink, beneath the old wurlitzer organ that hangs from the ceiling like a giant wooden truck. the young man got down on one knee, skates and all, she said yes and rolled right into his arms, skates and all. but this is not the first thing I actually think about when I think about this night.
I think about how they called for all the backwards skaters in the house over the P.A. system, how my nine year-old self jumped right out there and wobbled her way backwards, round and round the glossy golden floors of that old rink, underneath that magic wurlitzer, until it was time to call it a night and go home.
once
I wanted to make a portrait of a woman I saw on the street whose eyebrows were, in a word, complicated. but when I asked for her permission, she said no, so I shot the earrings she was selling instead.
