Week 3: “the unique insanity of being here, now”

I came out onto the front porch to write this because I can’t seem to write in air conditioning. What is it? Like the observation the character River makes in an early episode of Firefly, when she sees cows grazing on a field after being flown on a ship through the icy void of space: “They see sky and they remember what they are.” I mill about on a warm, humid hug of a porch and I remember how to want to do this. How to chew things over.

Early this week I walked 3.5 miles to the fountain park through the green roly-poly space (these are technical terms) both ways. For the layperson, this is an unexpected glen of rolling hills you enter when you cross the aggressively-busy traffic at 38th and Cuming (that name, I know — if you’ve been to the Midwest, you might be aware that you can also find gas stations called “Kum & Go,” and I’m wondering now how this complicates the stereotype that Midwesterners are reserved. Like, who are we?).

When you find this space, it’s like stumbling into lawn sprinklers on an August day. The glen spills onto a park carved into a hillside. Whoever created it wanted you to have an experience when you looked at it from a certain perspective: a pretty fountain and steps leading up to a balcony, and they line up beautifully, each one bracketed by the next. There are certain spaces that, when you walk inside them, feel like churches. I haven’t stepped foot in a church for I don’t know how many years, but I remember the expectant hush. These green spaces and parks are like that. You step inside, and the air is cooler. You feel that you could rest.

Along the way, I passed things that made me think of Eugene — a group of socially-distanced picnic-ers with big, joyful dogs. Mostly that, I guess. Marc Maron freaked me the fuck out early on talking about authoritarianism and the slope we’re all sliding down and I stopped noticing much (except the one house where people loved a little ceramic bear statue so much they bought a little, white, wrought-iron chair for him — don’t know why it’s a “him” — to sit on, and his feet-paws didn’t reach the ground, which was quite the delight, really). I thought about how we’ll do this if it really is an end to us. What that’ll be like. How we’ll fall. And also it was the most beautiful day. My friends called me from the top of Spencer Butte, where I used to sit and take the saddest single selfies but also be so proud.

The little details are helpful. I want to leave a note in the mailbox of the house with the red chair stapled to its front (they have BLM signs out front, too) and tell them it reminds me of the weird whimsy of parts of Oregon, the chair just waiting for some winged being or other to need a seat. I would tell them they’re effing gorgeous.

Several times here on walks I’ve looked ahead and thought I was walking up to a vista only to discover…the interstate. But still, I love that sense of expectation you have when you walk towards an edge and have an inkling you’ll see something that reminds you things are bigger. I climbed up towards one in full view of a group of kids playing basketball. I imagine I looked pretty ridiculous, wending my way up to see the tangle of interstates with this hopeful look on my face. I’ll tell you though: the view did kinda knock my socks off, still. What does that say about me? I don’t have specific requirements for beauty, I guess. Really, you should see it. Something about the view just lifts off.

I walked 5.8 miles yesterday over the ridges of Hitchcock Nature Center in Honey Creek, IA. On the way there, I listened to a report on NPR about how (and I paraphrase) Iowa is a coronavirus shitshow with a governor who, rather than enacting a mask mandate and closing bars, has proposed raising the drinking age. The mayor of Des Moines, when asked about this suggestion during an interview, laughed. I did, too. It’s not really funny though, is it?

So I felt more than the usual anxiety taking the trails of the park, though I know, as much as any of us know anything, that I’m less likely to be exposed by a brief brush with someone than I am by the kind of prolonged exposure that I’ve been avoiding like my life depends on it. Which, you know…

I felt angry today, walking past people who weren’t bothering to wear masks as we hiked through a covid hot zone. I felt betrayed by these total strangers. I also utterly fell in love with the couple I saw preparing their masks as they walked up to the trailhead. Before their mouths disappeared, they gave me friendly grins. I want to cook them meals. I want to build a lifelong friendship. I want to make out with them…later.

I climbed up to my first vista vista since moving here three weeks ago. I took the more difficult (and less traveled) Western Ridge trails in the park, and out I popped onto the end of the trail, quite before I was ready. But it’s hard to write about what I saw.

I haven’t been writing this week. To note gratitudes and joys is to touch the face of what’s happening right now. I’m scared of what’s happening right now, just as I’m also able, at times, to see the joy or just plain old silly doofiness of certain details:

• I learned that apparently there is a dumpster company in Omaha called “Shirk.” I don’t know why exactly, but this delights me. Like maybe the name was selected as a commentary on how the placing (or tossing) of an item in a dumpster is an act of neglect. Maybe it’s a way of saying, in a bright white logo on an (I have to admit) attractive green background, “You assholes.” Whatever it means, unless it’s just some guy’s name, I’m delighted by it. (It’s probably some guy’s name. Sigh.)
• As I climbed a difficult section of trail yesterday, I noticed a mesh strung across the steep hill, presumably to keep the integrity of the trail, or maybe to help hikers with the climb. The mesh spread across the trail in a series of linked diamond shapes. It looked like I was climbing the back of a mighty, dusty dragon. I started to wish for that, in my fiery, irritated mood. That perhaps together, this dragon and I could do some burninating. I mean, really. Raise the drinking age?!
• About forty minutes into my hike, I fell in a ways behind a lone hiker and his dog. We walked together-but-apart for a while. I don’t think he knew I was there because he stopped in the middle of the trail. His dog benignly faced off with me as I approached, which was sort of sweet. I’ve always admired loyalty. The man made eye contact. I raised my hand in a tired, cautious wave. I wanted him to keep going so I didn’t have to edge past. He seemed to understand and took off. Texting, apparently, could wait. I never had to stop for him again. I could just see him a ways in the distance, periodically. His dog was having the best time. At a certain point, he took the path back to the lodge and I went west onto the ridges. I wanted to be able to say goodbye, and I missed him after he went.
• The vista. That slice of Iowa and Nebraska, the river of I-29 flowing through it — it seemed spliced right out of Peter Jackson’s version of The Shire. Rippling hills crowned with a green carpet of treetops, crops of gold and green and mauve in alternating shapes spread underneath the sun. This is a place you’d want to live and visit. A place you’d want to protect. It made me wish we could all see each other from that perspective.

My therapist told me he’s worked with a few right-wing folks in his time. He said they were, to a person, very angry. He then paused and told me they all, to a person, had also been badly abused as children (he was careful to tell me he didn’t want to over-generalize, and I don’t want to either — this was just his experience). He told me that when he first met them, he found it hard to be with them. He said that once he heard their stories, it was different. It’s not that they never said angering things. It’s just that he could see the landscape that produced what was said. It’s just that he could see them.

I don’t know what to do with that exactly. I found the view moving, yes, but then, I still flipped off the couple who decided to take up the whole trail as they walked with no masks, talking with no thought as to my experience. I mean, I didn’t do it to their faces. But I did it. I don’t know what to do with the anger and fear I feel when I’m near my fellow humans. I don’t know what to do with the shame I feel when I realize this is the first time in my life I’ve felt this way, when members of my community and the generations before them have lived that reality for centuries. I wonder, as I work with students, as I continue to settle into this home on this street in this life, what am I not seeing? What could I see better? What stories could I seek out? How could I listen better?

I’ve been watching The Good Place (finally, some might say — I’m always a bit late to the party). I adore this show. I love the hope it offers for how we can learn to be better for ourselves and each other. In one recent episode (vague spoilers), a character has to confront losing something that’s vital to her. She can’t ignore or shrug off the impact or the grief, though her previous selves would have. She sits with a friend, trying to think it through, and she makes a decision about how to move forward: “I guess all I can do is embrace the pandemonium, find happiness in the unique insanity of being here, now.”

That resonated with me. I don’t know how to do it, and my impulse has often been to cocoon away from the chaos inside my relative privilege. But really, we’re all exposed now whether we admit it or not, and it’s about time. The stakes have never been higher. What does it mean to touch that “unique insanity”? What could we see? What could we all be moved to embrace and protect?