prayers

Close

plant near Dufur, OR

plant near Dufur, OR

II am back home in Brooklyn, land of glowing brownstones and a certain Tree that Grows, piecing together in my head the final bits of our trip: the last gasp before real life …my real life which involves, apparently, sitting at a computer for untold hours each day.

But my desk is lovely –I want to tell you about my desk. It’s a large, L-shaped lucite thing, made by a designer couple in Chelsea. They were moving to Chicago to be among the comix people –and who could blame them? I’ve strung holiday rope lights (classy!) underneath the inch-thick lucite causing a surreal little “glow from below”. Like the red candle in a Lutheran church, these lights are always on; they signify the presence of God. You know –”May the Lord bless you and keep you, May he make his face to shine upon you, and give you peace.” Such pretty words. Surely the most practical agnostic can see how pretty. I sit at this desk with my legs bent under me, typing or reading or (most usually) editing photos. Often a whole day will pass before I realise I haven’t eaten or left the house.

Today, there is a cool breeze coming in through the window. Someone nearby is playing a saxophone, and the sound trickles into my ear like so much teasing. I don’t WANT to sit here anymore. I don’t WANT to work on these pictures!

The human body wasn’t designed for a sedentary lifestyle. Save me, oh Lord, from my aubergine Steelcase chair!

{ 0 comments }

Close

It isn't at all like this where I'm from

It isn’t at all like this where I’m from

rhapsody

driving

justneedtogetthisoutofmysystem

animprecision

thinking of Lifshin

cloud22.jpg

oppression

sea of clouds

covenant

{ 1 comment }

Close

Oregon or the Grave!

Oregon or the Grave!

FFeet up, windows down, the sky above us stretched out in blues and pinks –is it possible to see into the future? It seems possible with a sky like that. Due east, Devendra Banhart! Take me there with your trilling voice, my Lord.

The Columbia river starts in British Columbia and rushes southward to the Pacific, delineating Washington from Oregon along the way. For eighty miles between The Dalles and Boardman, OR, it runs along I-84, a smooth stretch of road that rocked me gently to sleep. This interstate is also known as the Old Oregon Trail Highway 6, and on it we moved directly against the flow of history as we headed east. I imagined passing by remnants of The Peoria Party, with their flag proclaiming “Oregon or the Grave!”, followed by weary Elm Grove families in covered wagons. In 1848, someone found gold in California. Hundreds of thousands joined the westward migration, borne along by the mighty Columbia.

In the 1840’s there flourished an energetic certainty that the US was destined –even preordained –to expand across the continent. This concept of “Manifest Destiny” was used to advocate for or justify our acquisition of new territories. In the famous 1872 painting by John Gast, a goddess-like Columbia, representing America, leads settlers westward; she is stringing telegraph wire and carrying school books. A closer look reveals that the bison and Native Americans flee before her seemingly angelic visage.

In today’s world, the idea of a God-granted duty to change or displace other people seems childish; in my world it’s an outright farce. But I do confess an attraction to the idea of Destiny. I suppose this makes me religious in the sense that “destiny” implies a natural order to the universe. So much of our religious feeling, it seems, comes from the dueling emotions of fear (of chaos) and yearning (for order). Old religions always have a method of divination, don’t they, a way for us to peer into the order of things: bones thrown, arrows tossed, tea leaves spread onto a wooden tray. Out of this random chaos comes order, or at least that’s what the numerologist says before taking your money.

I often wonder what my destiny is. Is it a “sealed fate”, or do I get to participate? Is there a cover charge at the door? I don’t want so much, really. To eat just enough, to hear quiet music nearby, to have good friends and see them healthy and loved by others…

{ 0 comments }

Close

Street view at 11 a.m.

Street view at 11 am.

WWallace, Idaho is one of those towns you drive into and behold through your window, thinking, “my but what a pretty town!” It is buffeted on all sides by the Bitterroot mountains and on the north by I-90, a swooping concrete structure overhead that thins to a ribbon in the distance.

We wanted to stay at The Stargazer Motel, with its starburst neon sign and rooms advertised at $34.50. That’s a price you don’t see often in Brooklyn, not even for a decent acai-goji berry-whey protein smoothie. Kate went inside to procure our lodging, but alas! there was no room at the inn for that price. The lady at the front desk snapped at her, “Just you? (sneering)…or you got someone with you?” Well, everyone likes to bemoan the absence of good customer service nowadays. I tell you, go to The Stargazer–for there is the enemy, and she is Mavis.

In 1883 Colonel W.R. Wallace bought 80 acres of swampy land and started the Hecla Mine. By 1885, his wife Lucy had arrived and named the town Wallace. It quickly became known for its rich silver deposits and semi-legal brothels. Today, Wallace remains a productive mining town, but the working girls are gone. Everyone, in fact, is gone. The antique stores, library, gift shops, pizza parlors, and dollar stores are closed. We stayed at the Brooks Hotel, efficiency rooms with their tiny television sets suspended from the ceiling, angled toward the bed like sentinels from the 1950’s. Absent is the thin-wall din from adjacent rooms, absent is any sound of life at all. Whatever happened to Wallace, Idaho?

The internet provides a few clues. Like any single-industry town, Wallace is wholly dependent on its mining. When veins “dry up” and are not replaced by new ones, miners leave town, taking with them the stores, brothels and other services that support them. The story of Wallace has been one of ebb and flow, people either carried along on streams of molten silver, or washed ashore. It is the only town which, in its entirety, is on the National Historic Register. There exists a determined pride, betrayed by signs like “Center of the Universe” on the corner of 6th and Bank Street, which serves to underscore–not offset–the eerie sense of defeat that seems to rise from the streets like steam. I have felt this defeat before, in towns like Gary, Indiana. I have seen a whole town sad before.

The local supermarket’s motto is “We Honestly Care!” and in a tourist pamphlet I picked up in the hotel we are exhorted to stay for lunch, because Wallace is “Better than Expected!” It made us laugh, but we wondered: What did people expect? More sleuthing online yielded the following nugget:

When the final occupants of the Oasis Rooms left in January 1988 (the last recorded date in the “hotel” registry), they seemed to have left in a hurry. Clothing, makeup, toiletries, food and personal items were all left behind. An accurate and tastefully-presented twenty-minute tour of the upper rooms explains the mystery of the ladies’ hasty departure and gives a glimpse into the town’s bawdy past with details that range from poignant to hilarious….”

Kate and I did not take the Oasis tour, though we do regret missing out on all the touching hilarity that a hundred years of surviving among miners has contributed, no doubt, to the national lexicon. I thought of all those soot-covered miners, the women in their dresses, the saloon floor stained with sweat and alcohol, and the greedy excitement that like a fever infected everyone. I imagined what it must have been like to live in a place with a male to female ratio of 200:1. Reportedly, in 1975 there were five active brothels on Main Street alone.

As we headed out of town I said a prayer for Wallace, Idaho–for its aging miners and hotel lodgers bleary-eyed in the sun.

But I did not look back.

{ 1 comment }