things I thought about as the tow truck pulled our totaled car away forever this past week:
I thought about just how much life that car had seen
how it had carried us down so many favorite portland and atlanta streets, repeatedly, relentlessly
and back and forth to our beloved oregon coast, our manzanita, our shorty's, and then up and down stretches of the 101 too many times to count
and down I-5 to friends in san francisco and unexpected adventures in northern california along the way
and then how many times we packed it with pillows and blankets and popcorn and candy and took the kids the to the drive-in, both the newberg 99w in oregon and the old starlight here in atlanta
I thought about the last day we drove it in portland, drove it down 64th avenue, the street where we lived, one last time, and along the sacramento ridge past the view of mt. hood one last time, and down sandy boulevard across the burnside bridge, past the old portland sign downtown one last time, to powells books one last time, and the photobooth at the ace one last time, and then across all the bridges we loved-- the broadway, the fremont, the st. johns, the hawthorne, one last time before we finally pulled out of the city and I watched portland grow smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror
I thought about how it carried us all the way across the country, through nine different states, from portland, oregon back home to atlanta, georgia
how we drove it to the the top of snowy crater lake that june of 2014, and through the winding roads of the redwood forest, down the miraculous avenue of the giants and slowly through every drive-through tree we could find
and how we drove it across the golden gate bridge one last time, and down 24th and valencia streets in the mission and the narrow streets of chinatown
and then through palm springs, out to the edge of town where we parked it between the windmills and the train tracks and went treasure hunting
and then past the salton sea to salvation mountain, where the dashboard temps read 120, where it was so hot we could only stand to be outside the car for five minutes at a time
and then to the grand canyon at magic hour, and through the legendary monument valley and the four corners, and down a street in holbrook, arizona actually named bucket of blood, and all along historic route 66, where we stopped a kajillion times to take pictures of old motels
I thought about how we built a tower of coolers and books between the kids on the trip so they wouldn't fight
I thought about how we pulled the car over the minute we finally crossed the georgia state line and took photographs of the kids jumping up and down in front of the state sign
I thought about how this car carried ward and I down to new orleans to celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary and then, miraculously, back down again to celebrate or twenty-fifth
and how we drove it down to savannah, georgia so many times, how it felt to be back beneath old that hanging spanish moss, and out to tybee island, where ward and I took our very first road trip back in 1990
and down to florida five summers in a row, over the long bridge to sanibel island, where we often pulled over to watch fiery skies fade to pink
and to the north georgia mountains to see the leaves change, to see the falls, to bring home pumpkins to carve
I thought about how we have filled it and stuffed it with suitcases and pool floats backpacks and art supplies and my very favorite beach blanket and camping chairs and picnic baskets and thrift hauls and furniture salvaged from the side of the road and buckets of fresh-picked strawberries and blackberries and baskets of peaches and how many christmas trees we've lovingly selected and then crossed our fingers and strapped to the top of it
I thought about how many times we've hauled the kids back and forth to school in it, how many conversations we've had about classes and too much homework and good teachers and bad teachers and good test grades and bad test grades and shenanigans and projects and friends and enemies and bad days and good days
I thought about the time I picked ava up from prom, how she had such a horrible time she burst into tears the minute she opened the car door, how my heart broke while she cried all the way home and told me about it between sobs
I thought about the time I took her to the emergency room at 5:30 in the morning, how I gripped the steering wheel and prayed so hard for everything to be okay
I thought about how it was the very first car ava learned to drive, and how ezra will learn in a completely different, yet unknown, family car
I thought about how it held remnants of spilled ice cream cones and spilled coffee and cookie crumbs and collected rocks and bits and pieces of other things and loose change and candy wrappers and forgotten seashells and ketchup packets and bobby pins and travel games and old receipts and broken umbrellas and flashlights that still need batteries and at least a dozen stickers from trips to the high museum of art and sand, no matter how many times we cleaned it out, sand
and I thought about how many arguments it has seen, how many times I've cried in it and laughed in it and sang really loud in it and softly to myself in it, and fell asleep on the way home in it and read books in it and got lost, got stuck in traffic in it, and how many times I've crammed my feet up on its dash and how many times I told ward he was driving too fast or that he took the wrong way and how many times we kissed in it, pulled over for a mcdonalds coke in it or for shakes and tater tots from sonic or how many times we pulled over for something that looked interesting, or how many times I made ward pull over so I could cut some flowers growing alongside the highway, how many times I took photographs of the sunset in my rearview mirror, or myself in the rearview mirror, how many times we rolled the windows down to let our hands ride the wind while we drove to wherever it was we were going
things about the week:
we totaled our car
and I had coffee (and lunch and dinner) with my dad
and I photographed a beautiful old farmhouse built in 1870
(eventful, yes)
dream jobs, part two:
professional road trip planner
professional documentarian of the little things
official photographer of fleamarkets everywhere, all over the world
dream jobs, part one:
professional lamp whisperer
professional cross country train rider
official photographer of hanging laundry, everywhere, all over the world
some things seen at howard finster's paradise garden:
a tortoise shell
a prosthetic leg
bits of twists and twirls of ancient foil
at least a hundred drawer pulls
an old wooden basketball goal
two calico cats
a thousand tools
a thousand bottles
rusted chandeliers
a bouquet of cattails
a small bicycle basket
a few broken gumball machines
a large wooden starburst
pickle jars filled with plastic easter eggs
howard's brushes, crusted with paint
a dozen old lamps, hanging from the ceiling
a giant concrete boot
a hand-painted cadillac
a painting of willie nelson
a headless virgin mary
(it's a magical place)
spectacular falls I have taken:
age nine, in an old church choir loft during the christmas program (stepped on the front of my floor-length gingham dress and went down like a sack of potatoes in a sort of 'now you see her, now you don't' moment) (the entire congregation fought laughter and I mean, I get why but I fought real tears and delivered my lines like a true stoic and secretly despised them all for what clearly felt like betrayal)
age seventeen, on stage during a dress rehearsal of anything goes at taft theatre, downtown cincinnati (took the last high kick a smidge too high, swept my own feet out from underneath myself, went airborne for a fraction of a second before landing flat on my back with a sickening thud whilst the high kicking continued all around me) (wanted to die but popped right back up, as if internally operated by some magical animatronic machinery)
age forty-six, on a walkway crowded with tourists along the mississippi river in new orleans (stepped on the outer edge of the walkway, lost my footing while carrying a heavy backpack full of polaroid cameras and film, fought like a mother scratcher to regain balance so as not to damage said cameras which resulted in the lengthiest, most cinematic and dare I say most balletic of tumbles, really and truly, it felt like it was happening in super slow motion, like, I actually had time to think about things while I fell, A LOT of things, like, will I see this on youtube? are all my bones still intact? will I be able to walk away from this? also, why am I still falling? will I ever land? like, ever? or is this my life now?) (when I did finally land, a good fifteen feet from where I began, I prayed the earth might swallow me up but the choir loft spill at age nine had obviously prepared me and I played the whole thing off as if completely incapable of feeling and/or displaying any sort of human pain or emotion)
sounds I love, part one:
the screech of the subway
the zip-whir of the polaroid SX-70
ezra's laugh, like pancake syrup that comes out too fast
things I'm working on, part one:
a gaggle of zine ideas
walking daily as a self-prescribed anti-depressant
painting every mud beige wall in this rental home bright white
a regular street photography practice
a new series
using what I already have
wearing what I already have
sashiko mending another pair of jeans
printing photographs
rebuilding my site
reopening my print shop
reorganizing a hundred million personal photographs
finding hidden treasures in the disaster that is the garage
getting out of my own head
getting out of my own way
pouring light out of myself instead of taking it all in
eight hours of sleep every night, every night
a handwritten version of this list project
reading instead
forgiveness
small pleasures, part thirteen:
exact change
the sunday newspaper
your own bed at the end of a long day
hummingbird sightings
warm cider in sturdy mugs
collected leaves
completed lists
a few favorite adventures:
that time the kids and I traveled for two days through seven different states by train to visit my mom
that time my friends and I waded through cold, clear waters to get to the base of nambe falls in new mexico
that time we were passing through palm springs and decided, on a whim, to drive out to the edge of town and stand between the windmills and passing trains at sunset
things seen on my walk today:
a can of root beer, completely flattened
an empty pack of marlboro lights
leaves the color of amber brown bottles
two skinny faux wood china cabinets left out at the curb, laid flat, face up, as if they were sunbathing
an accidental arrangement of string and leaves and light so lovely I walked around it so as not to disturb it
three things I've given up:
facebook
expectations
super late nights
(and I'm happier for it, I am so much happier)
words I had to look up in the dictionary in october:
agglutination
alimentation
salubrious
euphonic
pellucid
things I want to remember about october:
ezra yelling from the top of the stairs: look at the peach-colored clouds, ma
the leaves that fell all around me while I rocked in the hammock
the discovery of those silvery bits on the back of the wings of that butterfly
a text from ava, seven inches of her hair cut off, her face luminous
the watching of old video footage of a trip to italy with ward in 1999
the watching of old video footage of ezra's very first birthday
the watching of old video footage of halloweens past
the milky white pumpkin with the tall, winding stem that called my name
the way I stood at the top of the falls after the crowd cleared
the way I breathed in that cold air for a few seconds, that sea of burnt yellow
david bowie on the turntable and chocolate chip cookies in the oven on a friday night
windows all the way open and fat stacks of pancakes on a saturday morning
the first real backyard bonfire of the season
the yearly resurrection of mister bones and pumpkins drawn, cut and colored with toddler hands
ava and cara and the impossible gaggle of rainbow balloons they tried to squeeze into the car
ezra's complex, ever-evolving lego handshake
that morning walk with ward in the fog
silent book club in a dark pub on a monday night
the slow, miraculous transformation of the big tree on the corner
the moon from my window, like a silver coin, spied at 3:30 in the morning
the mysterious bronze urn left in a parking space at the church
the morning I stopped and pointed my SX-70 at the kitchen window
the morning I stood beneath the trees in our backyard, the ones just beginning to change
the way the sunlight deepened the reds of those leaves, like a volume dial turned all the way up
a facetime call with a good friend, like a shot in the arm, like a magic serum
the halloween package I put together for ava, with chocolate eyeballs and gummy worms and old halloween photographs
scary movies and air mattresses on living room floors on a saturday night
light pouring in through windows in an old church on a sunday morning
a loaf of pumpkin bread, warm and dense
the glow of two jack-o-lanterns
a handful of hopeful trick-or-treaters on a rainy halloween night
the missing of our beloved halloween queen
a new normal
