Wednesday, December 31, 2014

When I Write Blog Posts at Work I can Technically say I got Paid to Write Them

Nana gave me a hug this morning. It was right before I woke up, the last thing that happened before I opened my eyes. I think it might have happened because in the book I'm reading there is a character who is old and small and dying of cancer. Or maybe she just wanted to say hi.

She was wearing a long sundress. I must have pulled that from an old picture or a blurry memory because it doesn't seem to fit her personality as I really remember her. It was a floral-printed sundress that swept her toes, kind of teacherly, more like something my mom would have worn ten years ago--buttons in a line up the front, fluttery sleeves. Also, she was wearing transition lens glasses; for the life of me I can't remember whether she ever actually had those.

She hugged me with her tiny, bony body, and she was warm. I don't, in real life, remember thinking she looked bad, unhealthy. She'd always been petite, wiry. Short, fluffy hair and a very distinct way of speaking. Not like a regional thing, just her own way of pronouncing certain words: Er-eek. My brother's name, Erik: Er-eek.

When I was in third grade, my mom and Nana and Grandpa took my brother and me to Disneyland. We stayed in Coos Bay for a few days before leaving for California. I was, at the time, fully engulfed in the throes of a passionate obsession with Tigger, of Winny the Pooh fame. Tigger was a force, an embarrassingly prominent presence in my life, and he was just on the cusp of age-appropriateness. I had a small, silver Tigger necklace that I would hold in my mouth and chew gently until one evening at the movie theater Tigger's head broke off from his body inside my mouth. I was not crying but I was feeling upset, very I've-lost-something-that-cannot-be-replaced, as my mom asked on the drive home "what did you think was going to happen if you kept biting it like that?"

In Coos Bay, Nana had bought new polyester comforters for me and Erik, for our little twin beds in the basement where we stayed on visits. Mine was blue and featured bouncing, frolicking Tiggers in all their bright orange glory. I saw it and flipped, really had a fit and I demanded how she knew about my mania. "I just knew," she said, smiling. I was utterly dumbstruck, which is so funny to think now, as I'm sure my mom easily mentioned it over the phone to her and so she knew quite clearly who I'd like to see on my blanket. But then at the time I was blown away. My brother's blanket was decorated with the main character from a Bug's Life (an ant whose name escapes me), towards whom he was indifferent.

But I'm feeling fuzzy-brained now, and the more I think, the more I wonder if perhaps the obsession instead came on more immediately prior to our departure for Oregon by way of California. Maybe the blanket and the subsequent trip to the Happiest Place on Earth were, in fact, the beginnings of my passion, something that was just beginning to show itself. And then I still wonder, not sure of anything, really: how did she know? 

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Wagon Wheel

I had wanted to write about the evolution of my feelings on the song Wagon Wheel by the Old Crow Medicine Show:

A. Erin and I live in Eugene, Oregon and we have "invested" our money in a 1996 Mazda Protege. Its glowing green-blue color won us over immediately, and we drove it around the block for an test drive with the emergency brake on. The Protege has a CD player and our friend Mallory has made us a mixed CD featuring the mellow music that is popular in her world (as well as a few mid-nineties throwbacks) and one of the songs, which we play shamelessly on repeat, sometimes on lazy, aimless drives through town or to the coast, is called Wagon Wheel. It is a sexy comfort and calls attention to our misspent youth. We love that song and wail along and feel quite rustic, although we are happy to be in our own vehicle and not hitchhiking like the free spirit in the song. I am pretty sure I have missed out on ever having anything like this singer's life because I have a Gameboy and shop at the Gap, but I can create moments that get me close enough.

B. Without really meaning to, I have stumbled into a lifestyle not entirely dissimilar to the Wagon Wheel singer's. Or at least I have a front-row seat to it. I am working for my dad on his fishing boat and eating slices of warm cheese for lunch and technically living in a "village" and the meaning of "rural" and "community" has coagulated in a pile of discordant political views and alcohol. It is approximately three years since I first heard the Wagon Wheel song and it's hard to even really hear it anymore when I do. It sounds like the noise of an oil painting. So to hear it one night at a  bonfire, coming from humans whose names I know, who are playing guitars, is abrasive and decidedly overwrought. But that's all it takes, and suddenly real people with real dirt on their chins are spilling their beers and stagger-dancing to it. I feel cynicism bubbling under my skin, but I'm just drunk enough to declare I love this song.

C. Wagon Wheel has been covered by a popular country group, and as a result it is popping up in shopping malls and on the radio when my boyfriend's mom has control of the dial. I have so few feelings about it that this new incarnation barely registers, but I still hum along out of some vague sense of duty to the myth of the trail-worn traveler who is just looking to have a good time.

The Landlord

More to come, maybe. Thoughts about these people as I leave them behind forever:

Scott was our landlord. He was the one I met when I showed up for a walk-through of the one-bedroom duplex, and he reminded me of a lot of all the other men I had met who had a goatee and a rotating collection of stained basketball shorts. He noticed the area code of my cell phone and mentioned that he used to live in Alaska, in Eagle River. “But I’ve lived all over,” which also included his favorite, California. His email address included the phrase Blues Bum. He told me he was a good judge of character. 

                But also, Kim was there when we moved in. Not exactly, but she was “around” and so were the puppies, dainty little Yorkie mixes that smelled and looked more like downy, floppy hamsters. Kim adored the puppies as well as the older, far uglier dog that had birthed them. She had a sweet face and a good recipe for coffee cake. She seemed to love Scott and doubt him in equal measure.