Notes from the Field

Kathryn Spence, Horned Owl

Midnight-

Wake up to lightening and howling winds. Realize tripod, extension cord and camera are all still outside down by studio. Momentary panic, followed by struggle with self about whether or not to get up and run down there and rescue equipment. More lightening, more wind, more interior debate. Get up. Get dressed. Hop on bike. Bike against strong headwinds, holding flashlight, heart beating fast because you've heard what they have to say about lightening on the plains. You've seen the trees, the grass blackened by fire. Wind shakes through trees as if they are screaming, go home, you fool, turn back! Safely arrive at studio. Retrieve camera, tripod and extension cord. Decide to sleep in studio on futon. Find old electric blanket and pillow in closet. Lie down and listen to the wind. Rain finally comes, but it is short burst. Fall asleep.

Morning-

Ride bike back to cabin. Coffee, breakfast and shower. Call UPS about much-needed $8 cable that was supposed to arrive day before. Discover during phone call that package is delayed by late plane. $8 cable due to arrive at end of following day. Despondency followed by arguement with self about own stupidity followed by resolve to make list before any travel abroad. Decide to take the afternoon off by riding bike to nearest town of Clearmont ten miles away in search of hat to purchase.

Noon-ish-

Leave on bike with two cameras in basket, bottle of water and sack lunch. Vow to do whatever the hell feel like. Hit the highway and quickly reach smell of death. Everwhere. Remember staggering amount of deer and sadly come to realize even more staggering amount of dead deer. Roadkill after roadkill. One-speed bike moves slow and ten miles stretches into eternity. Stop at marshy lake to listen to birds. Hear cacophany of cows in background and discover they sound exactly like zoo elephants. Record sounds by lake, but too close to highway to omit trucks pounding by.

Afternoon-

Reach destination: Clearmont population 110. One bar, one post office, one school, one gas station, one historic jail, one quilting shop and no hats to be purchased anywhere. Buy soda and chips and walk around. Saddle sore. Find arch over abandoned cabin made entirely of antlers fastened together. Would like to get closer but afraid of what antler-arch fabricator might do to trespassers. Approach Red Dawg Bar, but intimidating large woman in doorway who does not smile when smiled at, changes mind. Buy envelope at post office for lack of anything better to do. Engage in mindless chatter with friendly clerk who seems eager for company. Wander over to historic jail--located on playground--but can't locate any placard to explain significance.

Before dinner-

Land back at ranch starving. Much-needed $8 cable has arrived! Dinner to be served at 6! Ass completely numb! Before reaching home, sight two red-tailed hawks circling in sky. At studio confirm sighting in Sibley's Book of North American Birds. Tell fellow residents about adventure and hawk sighting. Fellow residents return that missed great cattle stampede. 200 cattle crossing the road and stampeding the fence and air-conditioning units at back of cabins. Destruction and cow pie warnings. Fellow residents continue talking about stampede through dinner and into evening. Vow not to miss next cattle stampede or to make up better story next time.

New

Lindy Smith
Intermediate Wheatgrass, 2004, Wyoming

Lindy made these sunprints during her stay at Ucross.

Yesterday was all tangled knots and frustration as I was inundated with technical problems and my own short-sightedness. Questions like where was that damn cable?, why didn't I bring a hat?, and where is all the red wine I was promised? haunted me throughout the day and then the night. I had expectations that we would drink heavily, stay up late and meet some local cowboys—none of which has happened so far. It seems these artists are really serious, really hard-working, and doing serious art like writing novels or poems about nature or painting in oil. I feel like a clown in comparison, with all my hard drives and devices and plugs (or lack of them, as it turns out).

But then the dusk came and after a day of yelling at the computer, scratching my head and pulling out my hair, I stepped outside. Sure the mosquitos were in full force, and yeah, I suddenly realized I only had about an hour and a half of daylight left, but who would let go of dusk? Why aren't we all setting aside that time of day, every night, to walk outside, whether we are in the city and the gold light is reflecting on the sky scrapers, or in the country where the light casts upon the hills, the trees, the water and the meadow equally and without prejudice? Even if it is just for a minute, just long enough for the sun to dip, the color to shift from lion-yellow to cotton candy-pink, how can we ever forget the sun setting, the first star, and that ghost of a moon? It's enough to change your life, let alone your heart and those bullies of a thought.

For reasons that are unclear to me I keep listening to that Brian Eno/David Byrne album, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, inspired by the titular 50's African novel by Amos Tutola (which I haven't read). If you don't know, it's an early example of "sampled" music, or collaged music, before they actually had samplers—and after avant-garde composers like Cage, Reich and Bryars had already done sampled songs. They used found recordings from radio stations across the globe—angry talk show hosts, Arabic singers, empassioned evangelists—and put them to music. From the repetition, stacotto and emotion of these disparate voices, which they literally had to play by tape cassette against the music tracks, they made music. And music in which we as listeners found congruence and meaning both musically and emotionally. The author as curator instead of writer or singer. One thing Eno said that really struck me was that he was interested in making the ordinary interesting and in finding music where music wasn't supposed to have been. It's not a very shocking statement, nor particularly unique coming from an artist, but it pretty much conveys where I am coming from and how I see the world. How I, in fact, struggle to see the world, because it's hard, you know, day in and day out, to make the ordinary interesting. Even to yourself. How do you make the ordinary not just interesting but beautiful and important or if it needs to be ugly and dramatic? How to you imbue it with pride and dignity? How do you escape the monotony of the ordinary, that which we all are? How do you make the ordinary unfamiliar, and in so doing, make ourselves anew?

Day One

So turn me loose, set me free somewhere in the middle of Montana
Gimme all I've got coming to me
and keep your retirement and your, so called, social security
Big City turn me loose and set me free

Iris DeMent, Big City


editor's note: the author has been corrected that the above was not, in fact, written by Iris DeMent—although undoubtedly a memorable cover—but rather, written by the esteemed Merle Haggard

Today I took a tour of my new locale: Ucross, population 25. There is a big red barn, an old train depot, a creek I'm told I can swim in, and acres and acres of land. You can't turn your head without seeing a rabbit. The fields are full of wild turkeys. The amount of deer is staggering. Cottonwoods line the creek, cattails spring up from the marsh and if you turn your face to the sky you can catch some ospreys in flight.

I'm told it could turn to fall the short stay I am here, but for now the sun is bright and bold, the sky, of course, blue, and the meadows quite dry from summer. Besides the lovely studio space, I have a bike, mountains of books every where, a carefully-stocked kitchen, the requisite flashlight, and no way to leave. For the next coupla weeks, I will learn what it is like to be alone. Right now the moon is just a sliver, so I'm going to do what any city gal would. I'ma go look at the stars.

Embark

less bandwidth?

Embark. It sounds so biblical, doesn’t it? Like you are about to board Noah’s ark. Like you are about to go on a journey of indeterminate length. Like you are being told by God to travel in this direction and you’re not allowed to ask any questions why and you can only hope to one day understand its relevance. I guess that’s how I feel today. Like I am about to embark on a venture whose significance I will only know in looking back on my life many years from now. For now, that’s enough carry-on to take with me.

By tonight, you see, I will be in Big Sky country. I will have two weeks to do whatever I like in a remote and dramatic part of the country where I know no one and where I will be pretty much left alone. For two weeks I will be on paid vacation as an artist and I will have to figure out how to act the part. Packing my bags at the last minute, I frantically tried to find the few books I have read about this part of the country: a collection of short stories by Annie Proulx, now made famous by the movie about two cowboys in love, and Michael Dorris’ first novel, A Yellow Raft In Blue Water. I found neither, so I elected to take with me two books—besides the novel I am in the midst of finishing—my tried and true collection of poems by Mary Oliver and a Norton anthology of the Twentieth Century’s best short stories. That outta keep me busy.

Other tools I bring with me: my laptop, a hard drive, two video cameras, a tripod, one digital camera, one Holga, one blow-up doll, a pair of scissors, some Elmer’s glue, a sewing kit, a red shirt, and seven photographs of a teenage boy acting out various teenage fantasies. Alas, I have no scanner so I can’t show you any of those, but I can describe them. The photos I found in a suitcase that was full of my high-school ephemera. And yet, the boy looks completely unfamiliar to me. Did I have a pen pal? Was this someone I dated briefly? A secret admirer? Were they simply some photos I swiped out of someone else’s locker? I never found the note or letters to go with the photos. They are snapshots, taken in one of those 70’s luxury apartments, the kind of apartments with mirrored closets, gold-flecked walls and a kitchen-counter bar.

In photo number one he stands chin-up with a wine glass in his hand, cheering the camera. In number two he is playing guitar, rock-star style. In another he looks suavely and seductively at the camera, a black silk shirt buttoned to the top. Yet another, he is a blurred figure in the midst of a karate kick. In the final shot, taken in profile, he wields a gun, pointing it like a television cop both arms together, legs poised for action. In looking at them, I keep asking myself what was it this boy was trying to convey to me? What impression was he hoping to make? Which version of masculinity appealed to my adolescent self? And beneath it all, who was he really?

Not too long ago, a man told me that I had the kind of face he would never get bored of looking at. Ironically, this was a man I neither fell in love with nor whom fell in love with me. But it is one of those things I carry with me. One of those things I bring out and turn around on the dark and lonely nights. I have never read the play, Long Days Journey Into Night. But it was the play Eugene O-Neill lived his entire life to write. It was the play he wrote after which he made his wife promise not to produce until twenty-five years after his death—and that it never be performed (she waited three). A play he wrote at the end of his career, after already winning Pulitzers and a Nobel Prize and a house on the beach and three wives. It is a play—autobiographical—in the day of a life of a family penned together in the prison of their home. A play in which each character has its own black nightmare of a secret to share. It is a play about who we are and how we are and the terrible and beautiful things we mean to each other.

An excerpt:

I was on The Squarehead, square rigger, bound for Buenos Aires. Full moon in the Trades. The old hooker driving fourteen knots. I lay on the bowsprit, facing astern, the water foaming into spume under me, the masts with every sail white in the moonlight, towering high above me. I became drunk with the beauty and singing rhythm of it, and for a moment I lost myself, actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to life itself! To God, if you want to put it that way. And several other times in my life, when I was swimming far out, or lying alone on a beach, I have had the same experience, became the sun, the hot sand, green seaweed anchored to a rock, swaying in the tide. Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see, and seeing the secret, you are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on towards nowhere for no good reason. It was a great mistake, my being born a man, I would have been much more successful as a sea gull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must always be a little in love with death.

We are all alone and brave and singular and fleeting and liars and dreamers and bitter and breathing. You and I, we are the same. And we are all just waiting for that moment when our airplane leaves the ground.

I have arrived

The new place is small yet sweet. The new town is sleepy and suburban and renegade in its own way. Every morning I get coffee and internet at a little place right in front of my new apartment. And every morning the koffee klutch can be heard debating the merits of an Inconvenient Truth, the lack of night life on the island, or other heady topics such as is grey hair on a woman sexy. This philosophy club, from what I can make out, is composed of the mayor, an elderly gentleman with glasses who smiles often but offers little in the way of discussion and who seems best known for his diplomacy; Jesus—and here I prefer the Spanish pronunciation—who, while looking not unlike a fan at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert, appears to be the cockiest of the bunch and the ringleader, the kid, an under-thirty-year-old black guy who holds forth often in direct opposition to Jesus and complains frequently about the town, the hottie, a, well, hot Latino with a coupla kids who may or may not own the cafe and who smiled at me this morning, and one or two strays either tagging along or inciting the club with some preposterous theory about intelligent design.

There is much to discover here as there is much to unpack and much to get used to. The only thing that fits into my bedroom is my mattress. I appear to be the only one in the building who does not have a pet of some sort. And I live across from a very active ball park, the kind with the stadium lighting that doesn't seem to turn off until about ten. There is a nearby pub that specializes in Kiwi pies—and I don't mean the kind with fruit—but closes at the questionable (for a local pub) hour of nine.

Did I mention it's an island? Sounds exotic right? Remote? Well, not really. The island is, in fact, man-made, created at the turn of the century by dredging a channel to allow ships to pass and thus creating a port industry where none before existed. Besides boasting the oldest municipal electrical system in operation in California, 10% of its residents report German ancestry, and 10% report Irish. Other uninteresting facts include: a total of 4 fatal motor vehicle accidents between 2001 and 2003, a local gay index of 209 (the national average is 100), and, that at one time, it was known for it's famous—somewhat—Neptune Beach, the Coney Island of the West, whose largest roller coaster was named the Whopie.

little while

Working out the kinks but here is a new side project and a lovely little site.

Gone Daddy Gone

Cindy Sherman's Film Still #48

On the eve of my departure, with a room full of boxes and nothing left but my comforter to be packed, I take a moment and look around me. My time here was marked by my time not here. For the last five months I lived in two places and one could say, for that reason, that neither were my home. As one who has been most comfortable as a consummate nester, this nomadic existence has been both anxiety provoking and, well, simpler. A lot simpler. Once I relinquished my role as a property owner, once I downsized to a room in someone else's house—and a suitcase of clothing at my boyfriend's house—I realized how little I needed. If I could live with my stuff in storage for five months, I could prolly live the rest of my life without it.

In the mean time I have become accustomed to the sound of packing tape being stretched taut across cardboard boxes—in fact I have quite grown to like that sound, the tidy finality of it, it's punctuation marking my progression. One more box packed.

I will truly miss the excellent Thai Town cuisine so cheap and so close to my house. And the Thai Elvis, the Thai cover bands, the Thai karaoke and the soju drinks that come with those meals. I will miss driving home and driving directly towards this city's landmark sign. I will miss the midnight bike rides. I will miss moving away from my neighbor, Johnny Knoxville, whom I saw on at least two occasions. I will miss the sprawling Sunday farmer's market, the perfect place for heirloom tomatoes, sprouted bread, or celebrity sightings. I will miss my close proximity to the most excellently named strip club this side of the Mississippi: Jumbo's Clown Room. I will miss Tommy, the guy who cut my hair short, showed me several cell phone photos of his six Ducati motorcycles and who had the same Halloween birthday as me. I will miss the New Beverly Cinema, possibly the greatest and least expensive place to see double features anywhere (try on Kramer Vs. Kramer and The Squid and The Whale for size.) I will miss the wildly affordable Korean spas, the underutilized subway system, the grand yet crumbling downtown. I will miss the late night excitement of this town, it's sheer exuberance over itself, and every one's blind optimism. And, on a good day, when I am feeling benevolent and merciful, I will miss the film shoots on every corner, the filming permits on every door, and the dreams and aspirations of every struggling actor and actress gallantly posing for head shots on whatever stretch of grass they can find.

And, of course, I will miss you.

current events

The first thing you should know is that I am knee deep in boxes for the third time this year. Coming across my old high school journals, college readers and graduate school papers once again makes it that much easier to let it all go. Among other things, I came across a quote from Anne Sexton I used to have hanging above my desk many years ago.

Jonah made his living
inside the belly.
Mine comes from the exact same place.

Despite the chores of packing and lifting, despite the slight embarrassment of old love letters and over-earnest journal entries, despite the quick nostalgia that comes from sifting through one's life, I was glad for it all because I was given again that quote.

I met a man in his early forties the other night at a midnight bike ride. I'd never gone before and there were hundreds of people—stopping traffic, pissing drivers off and hooting and hollering. I guess the man sensed I was new to this, gathered that I was riding alone and befriended me before the group took off. We rode together the entire night telling each other the kind of secrets only strangers can tell one another. Riding through the empty streets of this city's downtown, through the still malodorous meat packing district, and the city's famous cemented river, we ruminated on our lives, on the lives of others we knew our age, and the faded glamour of this town I am soon to be leaving. We talked about our married friends, about whether or not, given today's political climate, it was a smart idea to even have kids, and how it's incredibly hard to get people out of the house to do anything any more. I commented that I supposed we could hang out with a bunch of twenty-year olds and he replied calmly, look around. That's exactly what we're doing. You and I, statistically speaking, are an aberration. I am still wrapping my head around his comment. An aberration. I have always been proud to live my life differently than the rest, to have chosen the road less traveled as Frost would have it, but every now and again it just strikes me like a sharp slap in the face. It is lonely. It is unknown. It is not the path I always want to be on. But that road, that road, it belongs to me.

the saddest song in the universe

Thank you for your concern. The letters of encouragement re: the breakup and the countless offers to take me out for the time of my life have buoyed my spirits. Where would I be without you? Drowning my sorrows with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a liter of Coke, no doubt. Now I have the benefit of doing so to the constant chatter of your IMing, emoticons and all. You are the best and I stand by that!

The idea to cut off of all my hair was a brilliant one. Not only do I feel like Sinead O'Conner sans the combat boots and pope vendetta, but I have the extra added bonus of making sure no man on the face of the planet would ever confuse me with an eligible straight single woman. How liberating!

And breaking up with him two weeks before my 400 mile move back to his home town! What counter-intuitive strategy! I'm so glad I listened to you. The non-refundable one-way airplane ticket purchased in his name will surely come in handy for the airlines who will, no doubt, lower their prices that much more the next time I need to purchase one. Finding someone to drive the Uhaul and move all my crap has been no easy task, but surely that's just part of the geniusness of this plan. I have faith it will all be revealed to me in time and I will look back with great satisfaction on the sly maneuverings of what now appears to be the biggest mistake of my life.

Sigh. Because really. I love being single. I love dating in my 30's. I love the challenge of that biological ticking clock. Men reaching 40 and beyond, that have been bachelors their entire lives, are exactly the kind of men I want to date. And there are so many more I have yet to meet! Such fun awaits. You were right. As usual. I can't wait to listen to whatever advice you have to give when the next time comes around.

Yours truly,
Casey—moving back to Mudville soon

Farewell, My Lovely

Today I read an article in Time. It doesn't happen often, the exception being when I am at the doctor's office or, as I was at the time, running in place at the gym. It was one of two magazines available that day on the rack—the other one being Yoga Today—and I was drawn to the cover, which promised to explain to me—and other Americans too busy for in-depth analysis—the struggle in the Middle East. In bite-sized nuggets I read about the crisis, I read the sidebar definitions about the differing warring factions, I perused the cleverly highlighted maps indicating bombings and borders, I turned the page. And then I read something else entirely. Something hopeful, like the kind of fluff piece you would expect after reading a disparaging story like the never-ending conflict in the Middle East in the kind of magazine like Time.

Does it make me look shallow to admit that this story moved me more than the previous one of major global significance? That on this particular day it resonated on a more personal level, that it spoke to me of promises yet to come, that it perhaps was the exact thing I needed to hear on a morning after waking up to the alarm, an alarm with a pre-recorded voice that happened to be the voice of my now ex-love, owner of the red shirt and keeper of my heart?

Not particularly well-written and ending before it ever seemed to develop, the article was about a marriage. A marriage between two young people with Down syndrome. A marriage cleverly orchestrated by two loving families. A marriage unexpected and innocent but no less impassioned than a Shakespeare play.

The couple, after meeting at a Valentine's Day party, began speaking daily by phone. Their parents explained that they could talk about things—like what they plan to eat for lunch that day—that they'd get bored with. Normally when disabled adults marry they loose a lot of their benefits. Add to that the general societal fear that they could reproduce and you can see why marriage in such situations is so rare.

But love is out there. And it's for anyone. Everyone. And that was what—in the parking lot of my local YMCA, keys in the ignition, perspiration evaporating—for one shining moment, took my breadth away.