I was traveling and found myself stuck at a hotel in Cheyenne, now loaded with tales that begin with “a man in a <insert brand> hat in Cheyenne told me . . .” and that’s where my car was taken.

It was captured on video, my Mazda C-X5, ruby red and still glittery. I miss my car. In her honor, a tune:

We’re corking a gorgeous bottle of Louis Jadot. I had this vintage once before, while loving this song and while working on my bachelor’s degree. I was working with Dr. Stein on Hamlet and was overtaken from poverty and fell in love with the revery of life, falling in tow with her lectures that echoed other researchers in the building, who were anti-Martxist, through and through. This bottle seems to have discolored, but it tastes fair. It was a hand-over from a neighbor here who, basically, doesn’t drink and saw no value in the bottle whatsoever. I found a long-stem wine glass and remember the green-turquoise tile of the tiki bar in the backyard of my rental. I was lucky to be there, albeit the house was a tear-down and couldn’t be lived in long. An oak tree was already, knowingly, growing into the pipes, and a massive python found its way into my master bathroom, but I’d somehow found the rental for a mere $950 a month, and for a four-three on the island, it was an outstanding deal. The tiki bar was the best location in the house, and it was covered and large — the house was large. A builder owned it, but it was post-recession and not the time to invest funds into projects. He rented with a liability disclosure. That’s the reverie I’m okay with being lost in rather than focusing on money as the sole intention of my every breath, but I’m in a low moment where this wine came to me for free an wouldn’t have otherwise, so it’s also a moment of grievance.

This was a commonly played song in that space. My son traveled, with his school, to Washington, D.C. from that house, and I worked on the side doing graphic design, after having left the newspaper, where I worked in real estate advertising and sales. We had beach cruisers and rode to the beach, just a mile away, and once made a video of the kids when at Christmas for The Weather Channel because, in Florida, the weather matters more than most things half the year and is a matter of survivial.

When I’d first moved to that island, in 1994, my brother and I played A-ha in the backyard and talked about making a Prirate Radio. Lost now, that station was key in 1990s LA, the motto “turn it up and piss your neighbors off” or something to the effect, lost on me now, but we talked about the lack of radio there, then, and how badly they needed out music from California. It never happened; we were lost in all those storms in a world away from California, during a time pre-Facebook’s vivid connectedness and today’s infrastructure entanglements. So, songs became like storms.

Take Tracy Chapman, for instance. “Fast Car” might mean many things to many people, but to me, in hurricane, it is about the survival of the moment, vastly different than most have ever experienced. How to survive a storm requires also knowing when to sit still. At the time, things were so densely set on the perfect timing. I was married with children then. Now, I’m more like the majority of that same island, whom I did not entirely fit with all those years: matured, single, free to play, free to sit at that bar again with no need for the extra space and power bill.

But, it was on that island, again, where I found myself, months later, after my car was taken.

It has been a very Californication ride. I feel as if I’ve ridden through X-Files, as well. Somehow, my phone was invaded. That’s why I was stuck at a hotel. And then, I met all these men in hats, mostly truckers, but not all. No one harmed me nor invaded my space there, except for stealing my car and my data. Something had happened in my home in Washington state, and I recognized data invasion then, but I can’t quite say what it was. It’s locked in my Google data, however.

From there, I was lost on Spotify in playlists. I remember the name of an agency, Performance somthing, that came up on my phone, but I’m not a performer. My phone, while driving, nearly called the number and may have, I cannot recall exactly, because I was driving. My Google maps drove me to a perfect spot to sleep, not on my GPS request, but somehow there I was at a cul-de-sac that was well-lit but dim enough to sleep, as if somehow my phone had been taken over. It was connected to my taken Mazda.

I went with the music. Into Idaho, suggested was a new Black music podcast. I listened and laughed and thought about race while driving through a place that might have issues today with color and what people look like, but I don’t want to assume. I’m a teacher and was only driving through thinking and listening. Thinking about world and national news, too.

My brother, who used to drive a longhaul truck, told me to stop in Cheyenne. The first hotel actually didn’t invite me in, not that I went in all the way, but there were two men outside from Jamacia, and they told me I couldn’t go there. It was raining, too, and I used a blanket, one that oddly looks like all kinds of meaningful blankets stitched together from Africa, to cover myself as I ran back to my car. They were young, and for some reason, it seemed like there was a bug conference happening in the area. It was the week of the 4th.

I met a man from Cheyenne in a Stanford cap.

I met a man from Cheyenne in a Disney cap.

I had dinner with a man and we talked about land.

I spoke to two men, who looked like Rosencrantz and Gildenstern in modern day clothes of matching plaid business short sleeve shirts, about the missing oil wells on Beach Boulevard in Huntington Beach, where they too are from.

I shared my blanket with a trucker from Brazil who said I could visit anytime.

I met a man in an OP truck, and he was cooking hot dogs in the far-right corner of the parking lot and invited me to have a dog, but I was unsure. We’d spoken the night prior and he told me about how he used to play football but now earned $500k a year to, mostly, watch Netflix. He said he was single and halfheartedly invited me into his room, which I did not take as a pass, but the next day he was arguing with his “girl” in his truck. That was when I noticed that my car was gone.

They caught the footage of the capture. A black tow truck came in with precision and took the vehicle in less than 2 minutes, the manager said. I never saw the video, however.

I mentioned wanting to go to Calle Ocho and Cuba to a man from Cuba who, apparently I said something wrong, proceeded to offer me as much money as I wanted. I laughed, was also confused as to if it was a proposition, and proceeded to leave the hotel as quickly as possible, but my car was gone.

I have two spoons. That’s all I really have left. All that remain. They’re from my parents’ wedding. They’re pewter, of all things, and they have a viking legend story on them.

My mother wore a formal, purple jumpsuit in photos while pregnant with me. She wore baby blue and white when they married, or at least at the reception. They were married in Vegas, but they had a reception with my grandparents, and there are several cute photos showing happiness. A few photos show them at a table, drinking wine near the color of red Kool-aid. And then, there is the purple, satin jumpsuit later.

She wore a similar color on my date of delivery: a maroonish purple. Sever photos show her on a stretcher, relaxed. In one, she’s smoking a cigarette. And then, there are the photos after delivery. I’m quiet and content with my head covered in a cap and I’m in a gown and swaddled in my mother’s arms with my father gleefully looking over me. My mother received flowers.

As an infant, I was unable to hear. My ears were a cause of many problems, and my head, to this day, swells in pain in response to things going wrong, like a panic butting. I was in excruciating pain and had tubes put in, they said. I was, and still am, an extremely sensitive being. I’m also female.

I wasn’t treated like a boy growing up, but my parents raised me to be strong of mind and independent of thought, the two things my father praised, regarded, respected, and craved in my mother. He was so passionate about her, but she could not be tamed. She is a woman, was my father’s thinking. He didn’t say much, but he made his reasoning clear enough for me to comprehend my father’s opinion of women. He was not gender-neutral in his thinking and planning regarding his children and his family.

My father’s way of thought isn’t accepted by all today, and yet, his opinion is entirely what I need and cannot find in the world. I need my doctors to comprehend that I’m not a man. I cannot keep up with men and the requests of doctors who compare me to medical science data built on male studies. I also have brothers who are unable to stay in stride. We’re weak in our capacity to run races, but we think a great deal more than, it seems, is average, and since the brain is a muscle, I’m stunned that nuerology isn’t inclusive to total health. I overwork my brain often, and the brain does act as a muscle and does burn calories and does expend energy. The Thinking Man statue is a pose that shows man in outward form appearing still, like a machine in neutral, yet he is likely to be overly consumed by thought. Would you call the Thinking Man ‘lazy’? Stress burns calories.

I have several older brothers. four half and two step. Sounds like a dance routine: a four square and a two step. My parents were each married three times. Six marriages and three stepbrothers. I have one little brother. He’s the most unlazy, and yet he’s also the one who probably understands what I’m saying most of all. In contrast, one of my brothers is extremely athletic, and he’s the most outwardly, financially successful. He’s the most likely to ‘fit in’ in picture shows of ‘perfect.’ He also was given a full-ride through college, with paid fraternity dues, and he was the only one given that ride of all five of us. His life is on a routine he’s had for a very long time. He doesn’t shift his lifestyle, stays the ‘straight-and-arrow,’ and invests modestly. But, he’s somewhat lazy in thought and rarely, if ever, leaves his box of conventional safety.

I have never been fortunate enough to have a stable box of convention to hold onto, but when I do find myself within one, I hang on for dear life, nearly ruining the box itself. I thought, as a girl, and because of my father’s way, my lack of strength to be like my brother would be better understood, but it isn’t. My father did not raise his first four children; they were raised on a farm by their mother, a lifestyle I didn’t comprehend until I’d worked with farming families and their children. We’re different only in how we think, as in when and where, not how often. My students understand this, and as I’ve aged, I’ve come to recognize that I’m tending to farms when I work online, much the way a farmer tends. This doesn’t inspire my brother’s opinions toward change; yet, our father was not an athlete.

My mother was discriminated against in public schools. She grew up in Eugene, Oregon and graduated in the mid-60s from high school, and her opinion is very clear: 1. She is a twin, and her twin brother’s records in high school contrast her own vividly. He excelled while she was pushed back and questioned for things like coming up with the correct answers on math assignments without showing her work. She feels she did not have to show her work to obtain the correct answer. Doing the work slowed her down. She still derived the correct answer, with a few dots and marks. This strategy is used on exams such as the LSAT logic portion, but I am not certain her teachers would have known this (Would a math teacher know this factoid today? Is logic a form of math or English? Interesting to note, here, that English is capitalized while math is not). 2. My mother was put into classes ‘for girls,’ and she found it boring. She does not want to cook all day and recognizes cooking as a chore, just like cleaning. She’d rather paint, make art, be a woman in a rather traditional sense, but her education and cultural upbringing told her that, to be a strong and respected woman, she had to put on a voice, dress a certain way, and wear her hair and makeup to outwardly express her equality and separation from men.

My mother outwardly shows that wearing makeup is a waste of time to her. She also shows that fixing her hair shouldn’t be about looking gorgeous but functional. That said, she is expressive in color and wears shades that are regal, shapes that do not draw the eye into flaws but, rather, accentuate a touch. As a senior in Florida, she fits in entirely: capris, top, sandals, short hair, a purse and she’s at Publix picking up her Thanksgiving meal. She fits in, not as an athlete but, as a thinking woman in her senior years. Not uncommon whatsoever.

Had my parents stayed married, those two spoons would have carried their love quite far. My mother never parted with them, nor the matching pewter plate set and the goblets and the carving set. She gave them to me, and I carried all of those pieces with me through hell and high water, literally, but today all that remains are the two spoons.

I’m grateful to have my spoons. They’re salad tongs, it appears, although one was dye punched to make a spork. It’s interesting to note that the spoons have a vivid history that connects to my parents’ ancestry, on both sides, yet the conversation fell out of fashion. My ancestry is complete up to the 15th century, but it dates back to about 5 BCE with the story of these two spoons, yet the conversation ran out of fashion.

My grandparents are gone. My father’s parents both died of cancer, as did my father and his sister. They died within the span of seven years, and my grandfather became ill around the time I turned eighteen and died within a few years. All the stories were lost, all the greater connections to extended family were lost, and when my grandmother died, years later and after my father, she was blind, having breast cancer that spread to her brain, I was so far from home that we were unable to share those stories one last time. Her time with hospice was lonely, and she became argumentative when she lost her sight. Her death was proceed by her daughters, whom was the receiver of the antagonistic moments.

Emotions can make us sick. Today, I’m sick. I’m getting sick, and I can feel it. I have a growth on my rib that could be cancerous or could cause a stroke. It’s been looked at, as best as the x-ray could offer, and I have calcium deposits I watch over, knowing stroke runs in my mother’s family. I know my risks, and I know my shoes. My doctor doesn’t seem to evaluate these nuances of my existence in my medical records but should.

The spoons hold a viking story, showing rank order on one side and the ships on the other with a mark, like a rock, on the base of the backside. My mother’s family are from Amsterdam, England, Spain, and Eastern Europe. They’ve been in the United States, on one side, since arriving on the Santa Maria. The other side arrived from Rotterdam sometime around 1888. Both of her lines moved west to Oregon during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. My grandmother was one of the first teachers, and her teaching contract from 1927 is not too far from societal expectations of teachers today. My grandfather, in some photos, looks just like F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of eleven children on a starved farm, he worked with his hands, building homes in Eugene, on the railroad, and had a legacy of working on his way westward to include working in caves.

How does a viking survive?

His ashtray broke some ten years ago. My mother left the room. She wasn’t angry as much as she was heartbroken. It was large, all glass, and quite heavy. She’d just moved back from Oregon to Florida again. She’d scheduled the move with a private moving company. They spoke Russian. Her items arrived a month late, and the boxes had been riffled through. Nearly all of her collected hierlooms had been stolen. The ashtray was one of the few remaining items. I broke it. It slipped from my hands and onto a terrazo floor.

My mother and I have carried all we are able to all my life. Today, I have only a few things, and it was my family who gave most of my things away, as if they didn’t have value and were an inconvenience. I’m lucky to have the spoons.

My father passed in 1999. A crisis moment in the history of the computer. He hated the computer. He did not think cellphones were a great idea. He had a car phone. He did not invest in AT&T when I proposed he buy stock in 1993, when cellphones were just ready to hit the market. He did not buy stocks. My grandmother did. She handled all of the family investments outside of real estate. She lost money in Enron. This impacted the small inheritance I received, but my loss when they left my life, my father, his parents, and my aunt, was the lost of things to hold. I received my father’s wedding ring from my parents’ marriage: a gold band of chains. Of my grandmother’s belongings, I held onto a black, crotcheted cardigan and a hospital blanket brought in by the hospice staff. She did not crotchet; my mom’s mother did, which was why I chose the sweater. The sweater was stolen by a visiting ‘friend.’ The hospital blanket was taken by someone at some point without my knowning, also. My father’s ring was stolen, also, and also from my home by a ‘friend.’

A chain ring. My brother’s “Chains” also, his stepson. My eldest brother. He and my eldest sister are the same age, and this song reminds me of them. They were not related and were the best of friends when I was young, like my two sibling parents.

Both of my parents raised me in a world short on friends. They did not trust everyone and were not the most outgoing people. They showed me how valuable peace at home is and why. They showed me, through their own conflicts, the lengths they went to to ensure they had safe homes without theft, without hatred, even when happy was missing. We shared private moments, me and my mom and me and my dad. Through me, they stayed together in their conflict. I held onto small things, like a flower from a day at a garden, a four-leaf clover from my grandparents, something a friend gave me. We had moments that brought us to tears with love and gratitude, even in hard times and often in hard times, in a way that showed both of them the capacity to love that they gave to me.

I’m not seeing the same way of being in my family any longer. I don’t often find people able to stop and think about the same things as I do. My mother is aging. She is delicate, as am I.

I don’t know that my father would have a great many words to share today, but he would take me on a drive somewhere, he’d take me to lunch and let me talk and talk, he’d listen without judgment, and he’d say something at some point that told me everything he felt but in a small package I could take with me to remember what he said. He was wise that way. Not perfect at all, and often I’d argue his points like my mother. But, he never stopped responding, never stopped believing good would prevail circumstance, never once made me feel as if he didn’t believe in my every fiber of being.

I remember how in love my parents were when they were married. I remember being in so much pain as a small child. I remember my mom’s way with me before I could speak. I remember the ways my parents taught me to express my feelings and emotions and conflicts. Those two spoons tell me a story of something they valued, legacy, that aimed to tie my families together with perminance and prominance; they have names. Looking back, today, it’s clear that the money didn’t matter to them. What mattered is what wasn’t said often enough and is nearly lost now, stored only in some of our memories.

I was made to hold my families together, not part them, but my father’s first family does not feel the same. They feel that they are a separate family. Not having my father there, in their home, while they grew up limited their capacity to comprehend the depth of love in our father, and in my mother. She kept those spoons, never forgetting one moment of time with them. They forgot her a long time ago, their stepmom. Disposed of her.

The same thing happened to my stepmom. She felt disposed of and never contacted anyone again and doesn’t respond if we try. The offense was too great to bear, but it was about money. She had all the things but no money. After my father’s death, she told me her apartment would have been okay for me, just starting out, but it wasn’t okay for her. My father was gone. There wasn’t an insurance policy to make a claim on because the claim was denied. She wasn’t homeless or unloved.

When we spoke, I was living in HUD housing, was twenty-one, and I had two small children. I was attending college under grants and loans. I’d experienced food insecurities, homelessness, and had never done anything to deserve my own life circumstances. My mother was poverty-stricken, and then so was I.

I’m grateful for my two spoons. I’m grateful for my two eyes that see. I’m grateful to not be deceived by money, knowing full-well the total value of my belongings ‘lost.’

Right around 9/11, I was listening to this song on repeat: “Spoon,” by Dave Matthews and Alanis Morrisette. One of the greatest arguments I have with people, personally and professionally, is that Christianity is all over most music, so why label it? I come from a ‘Christian family,’ mostly Catholic. Like Mumford & Sons, there is an old, old guitar solo, like a banjo. It reminds me of Irish music. I’m also Irish, and those Vikings aren’t only a legacy from my mother. Vikings also made their way to Ireland, and my father’s family, the Gallaghers and the Terrys, have a long Irish legacy, including indentured servitude in the United States. My great-grandfather was an Irish, Roman-Catholic priest, somewhere outside of Chicago. That’s where he met my great-grandmother, Dorothy Terry. She was an actress in a vaudeville act, so I’m told but cannot confirm, and they fell in love. He took her to Hollywood, and she succeeded and so did he. They have a treasured love story — or did.

In California, my grandfather and father were both long-boarders as kids living in LA. They both went to Catholic school, and then my father left the church when he divorced his first wife. His wife joined the Presbyterian church. My father and my mother did not attend church.

My mother’s families had a history of oppressed conflict with systems like churches. She and her twin, Rick, went to church as little kids, walking to and fro in a small town where everyone knew them as ‘the twins.’ She remembers going to the Lutheran church when she was four or so, and they’re fond memories, but he parents did not attend.

My grandmother did not want to be a teacher. She grew up on a prominent farm in the midwest, in a legacy family dating back to a ‘George Washington Terell’ with ancestral names that are quite legendry in the United States and Europe, but she was accused of doing something she did not do (or so I was told), and her reputation and her family’s suffered. And then, along came the depression. My great-grandfather was the superintendent of schools. He was tall, very tall, so tall that my great-grandmother had to stand on a stool to help him to put his coat on in the morning. Without the farm, she had to work and was sent out to teach in one-room schoolhouses. She traveled westward with her first husband and told stories, not often, of living in a tent with an alcoholic husband who was not kind. She met my grandfather in Eugene. They were both still married and met while with their spouses, who hit it off first and in front of them, so they decided they’d be better off. I imagine she was quite happy with him.

He died when my mother was only sixteen. The scars of the scarlet letter experience my grandmother experienced were not healed. She never had the lifestyle of the woman she seemed to crave to be. She sat much like my own mother in her feelings of theft. Her capacity was not allowed. Yes, she was another intellectually thinking woman, but . . . .

Family skeletons are stuck in this box of photographs I have. Other than my spoons, I have one train trunk of photos and what looks like some message my Uncle Rick left for us to solve that I cannot figure out alone. My mother will not say.

Today, all I know is that my family is far from me. So, I’ll take a moment in my scratch-space here to send this to my family:

I love my family endlessly. “To thine ownself be true” rings solid when you love yourself within your family members. To see yourself in different settings is only one example of how awesome it is to know and to appreciate and to regard family. Spoons. Mine aren’t silver, but they are not without value.

This one, too. My father and I loved music. “How do they not hear the ‘Christianity’? It’s all over every song, Dad, even if they use another word. It’s the same things. Hymnals. Why does it matter if it’s labeled?” He agreed. So, why isn’t this song playing on Sundays in churches? Copyright issues?

I missed their concert, like most. I rarely attend, but Mumford & Sons had a small concert near me when I moved back west, and I felt a family duty to attend but was unable. “Music is the soundtrack of our lives,” Rick Dees, and we listened religiously to music in the car, driving back and forth along the 405 and the 101 from his house to mine, all the years of my childhood. And, every Saturday, I listened to the sound of the “Top 40” in the background, on the radio, and often danced in the living room, sometimes showing off new moves I’d learned in dance class.

My father owned only one home after my parent’s divorce; her too, and one condo, and my mother has moved innumerable times. My father did not. He was one to steadily build, to stay in one place. He lived in Los Angeles, then the county, and then only ever to Orange County. He never left his square — much like Emmanuel Kant. There is something to be said about predictability in life, but I cannot claim that it makes a better life. My father died at 59.

The house he purchased, however, was his pride and joy. All his love went into his home. First, he had the woodwork specially stained, and he added a bar in the pub and a large entertainment center to the family room. Then, he had all of the woodwork, including the banisters of the staircase, the window with rose etchings, the front doors, and the shelves in the library all stained the same color. It seemed to take forever, and the shade, being so important, is similar to the floor of the Santa Barbara Mission, where my father was a deacon.

He did not have the laundry room cupboards stained. Instead, he and my stepmom decided on murals, one for each of their children, to be painted on the doors. The home is for rent today, and the paintings are still in tact, all these years later. I don’t think I’ve been in that home since I was fourteen, thirty-five years. Mine is a pair of orange, Fiscar scissors hanging on a nail from a lavender, satin ribbon tied in a bow. My stepbrother’s baseball hat is also still there, along with the painting of the bunny rabbit for my stepmom.

I could never carry those cupboards, and I can’t afford to purchase the home nor rent it today, but it’s there. While I’m lost on the things I used to have to hold, paint holds the memories stable still. I only just found this when the house went on the market recently, for the first time that I’ve ever been aware of. Furnished too, and for $7500/mo. Slightly puzzling. The bar is gone. Some things are changed, not much. It’s significant to know that we still are marked on those cupboards. It matters, but I am probably the only person in my family to know this tidbit. My family is not here today.

This song came out and was part of my regular life just a few years after leacing that home. My father lost everything in a business contract. He said, “because of a clause in a contract. Do you believe that?” And, he never was able to ressurect his business thereafter.

Our life changed entirely. He had had wealth all of my life, and when he did not, he turned to my grandparents. It was not a luxury, however. I think my father would have been able to relate to this song in feeling, sometimes feeling like he had to give up his personal freedoms to continue his business, sometimes feeling the way people under a bridge felt, caring for those people within the framework of his own business in eminent domain consulting. He’d been in a contract to build a new stadium, but the other party backed out of the deal within a clause. Few things remained.

His car was gone. It was the only one he’d ever chosen himself. Prior, he’d had business cars. I remember him saying he was going into the family business after he and my mom divorced or sometime around then. I was four or so? An Oldsmobile was appropriate. It was that or a Cadillac. He always had an Oldsmobile, and his last car was also one. His one car was a BMW 8 series, royal red.

Red is my mother’s favorite color. She has the story of the cherry pie incident, but my father’s favorite candy, sometimes, was a Christopher’s Big Cherry. My mother usually chose a Peppermint Patty, so he often ate peppermint chip ice cream for the rest of his life. She was sixteen, married her high school sweetheart, and was in San Diego as a new naval wife. She made a cherry pie for her husband, but she was so nervous that the pie was rock hard. Too much tapioca, she says: “She’s my cherry pie . . .” and “Solid, solid as a rock” always echo to me when this story erodes itself. My mother also had a garnet, raw, found in a coal mine, she said, by my grandfather. It was larger than a golf ball and black on the outside but eminated a sparkle of red. We used to dream of how to cut the stone into jewelry; it’s both of our birthstones. The stone is lost now. ‘Lost.’ I stupidly gave it to a friend years ago and told him to “Prove it” when he said he’d be able to do more with what I had than I was doing. It was all we actually had.

I was an idealistic teenager, and often I’m still too optimistic. This song makes sense to me, knowing I have a snaggletooth of a ‘broken smile’ and love has come to me like this voice. I’ve been serenaded to, I’ve had men love me, I’ve met men’s insecurities, and I also hear my father’s sensitivity in this song too, like that of any father watching over his child or a man watching over the woman he loves. This song came after my father’s passing but has held me steady. They say the “secret” is to believe and that, if you believe, eventually your belief will manifest. That’s also ‘abracadabra.’

I love the rain. I was born in a maroon shade. My first car was maroon. I’m one of my father’s five children. Funny how we connect with music, like it’s made for us individually.

But, when I hear that song or anything else regarding rain, I also, always feel the burn of this song, as well.

My mother’s hometown, Eugene, is nearly synonymous to the term ‘rain.’ It rains constantly at times. Hearing this song, as a child, my mom would utter on and on about how much it rains in Oregon, how she wanted to go home, how the mountains were better there. I loved the smell of the rain on concrete, pavement, grass. I also loved the smell of gasoline, smells like the taste of silver polish. I’ve now lived in Eugene, throughout Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, but also I’ve lived in Florida. I lived there for two decades, far, far away from my father’s family, in a place inaccessible then like now, sadly not unfamiliar, like there has always been a hidden family feud happening in the shadows.

This song, too, echoes a time in my life when I better understood the aura that stills around me now.

“Hold your head up . . .” “Chin UP. Put your chin up. You’re slouching.” That started upon my parents’ divorce. I never lifted my chin the same. Someone called me a snob once. My chin up sticks my nose in the air; my mother’s too. Look like a snob or have a double-chin? Which nets more friendships? What would Dale Carnegie say? What he doesn’t mention is that ‘misery loves company,’ like this hymnal.

With my father, if this song came on the radio and we were slowly coasting down PCH listening to KOST 103.5, we would talk about how people felt about this song. We all want to send out an SOS sometimes. How do we do that? Are there people on the street or in the nearby cars sending out an SOS? Sometimes we prayed, but it wasn’t a formality so much as a moment to be very deliberate with words and intentions. “God’s always listening.”

Just like this song, and I wonder, now, if it’s because of how the bible is simply that connected to western culture or if it’s simply the way music sounds. I can’t speak for non-English speakers, but isn’t that the essence of being an authentic and true person? Belief in a higher power or not, our actions are not ever fully hidden nor unknown. And now, everything can be recorded, if someone is that interested. Like god.

Growing up, I took it for granted that other kids were raised the same way. I can’t find a reason to lie. Politeness? I would fail in a course on lying. So, I’m Christian in the sense that my father raised me to hold that ethos dear to my soul, but I don’t always label my foundation. Others seem to need the label. I don’t always. I cannot say what is the right nor wrong word for total divinity. The best I know is numinocity. There is always something numinous beyond human capacity. My father and I never shared this word, but he would have loved it.

He never sang in the car. He did not attend church often, not throughout the greater part of his adulthood. He was no longer in the Catholic church when I was born, and although he visited and I could feel his desire to be there, I never saw anything reflecting Catholicism in our home. Instead, we visited some churches, different ones, and we spoke in the car. We didn’t always agree. Often we did not; often I’d approach him with conflicts my mother presented. But, late in his life, he did return to church, yet to a Presbyterian one. He enjoyed it, but I was no longer around to see his change. He became a deacon again and traveled to Israel. He left a scholarship for others to follow in his footsteps. He sang, softly, in church. He did, however, dance with me. Sometimes; only in public settings. Father and daughter moments for others to catch sight of, outside of our home. At home, he was often alone in the house, quiet and pensive, often pretending to trim the hedges maintained by a gardener. Smoking cigarettes outside.

My mother smoked inside our home until she quit smoking just before Hurricane Charley. She smoked and drank wine in her same spot every night, and to this day she still sits in her spot on the couch. Not as often drinking wine and never smoking, she hold her life stable by watching the same shows on repeat. Dowton Abbey is her favorite. It’s her reprieve.

I hated that they smoked when I was growing up, but now I smoke. It’s a remembrance to them, to what was lost in my family, it’s consecration of ashes never handled properly. My father’s ashes were buried, which was not his dying wish, but I did not forget. They’re buried in a yard near my grandparents, however. All three of them died of cancer: skin to lung; lung; and breast and lung to brain, and my aunt died of cancer, as well. Was it the smoking or the aesbestos in the homes they remodeled and resold? Was it the construction sites? Was it the family business? Was it the chemicals that used to be in cigarettes and filters? Their deaths all occurred within seven years, like the seven year drought in Southern California when I was growing up.

I’m in the desert today, and the idea of the desert always reminds me of Jesus, and other protagonists, walk through the desert. It’s not a great story; it’s a warning. All of the imagery growing up of lucid mirages in heatwaves, the near-death experiences, in comedy and drama, are too similar to struggling people walking down streets everyday for me not to feel fear in this setting. As beautiful as it is, it’s terrifying place to be impoverished.

Imagine God singing this song while watching a woman he loves dying in the desert alone. Imagine. Why not?

Or this one:

Why not? That was the difference between my parents. My father worked to see God in everything, and I did too alongside, while my mom struggles, still, with her spirituality and self-acceptance. My father taught me to love myself not as an arrogance but as an expression of accepting the idea of God’s love being endless. “God made you in his image”; “God made you exactly the way he meant to make you”; “We’re all here for a purpose.”

Part of that understanding, for me, was to see my mom’s plight: What if you’re wrong? “My god understands me,” she retorted too many times. I think my father would’ve sang “Iris” to my mother, had he had the permission.

I saw the Goo Goo Dolls in concert, it Tampa. They sang this song, and I was hidden in the back of the stadium, watching like I was hiding, drinking a soda. It was dramatic, like a music video, and I felt as if he was singing directly to me. I was so taken aback that when Bon Jovi played next, I was ready to leave and laid down on the chairs and tried to fall asleep. Row 7 has its advantages, I suppose, in that there are chairs on the floor.

I always saw the ironic connections between media and my life, in some things. We all do it. Maroon 5 reminds me of my first car and that I’m child #5 from a family that really used to be like The Brady Bunch to me. I love this song, and we have stories of church on Sundays, and we have stories of sleeping in on Sundays, and we have stories unshared because of divorces and conflicts regarding belief. It’s sad.

My dad might not be able to take a roadtrip with me today, but I can leave this piece here to celebrate his life, soundtrack and all, while he and I are still “waiting on the world to change.” When he was a deacon in the Catholic church, he loved to give out Thanksgiving dinners to the homeless. He always looked out of the car window with an aim to understand others. “How do you love everyone with a Christian heart?” In ways, he reminded me of Martin Luther King, Jr., and we have two of those names, too, and my daddy is a junior, and there are more parallels. I’d have sung this song to him anytime, flaunting the social ideals of my generation and how we are changing the world.

I don’t think he’d have understood Linkin Park entirely, but he might have listened. There is cadence. There is heart and soul. Why isn’t Linkin Park heard as ‘Christian’? Why not? Read the lyrics. It could be analyzed using ‘Critical Race Theory,’ and I could argue that using a Christian analysis would be appropriate given the history and prevalence of Western Civilization, but we could also use all kinds of analytical lenses. How about a pixilation analysis, and could I also have a web analysis of the stretch and impact of this song, globally, prior to considering things like censorship?

Here’s another one: Nickleback. Sometimes all of the songs sound like they have the same beat. That means something. Why would they do that and be successful? What’s attractive about the beat of their songs? “This is how you remind me of what I really am” is a great lyric. and the rest of the song is about relating to his experience. Why aren’t people in churches singing these songs and crying for others in prayer? And themselves? “Never made it as a wiseman / couldn’t cut it as a poor man stealing” sounds like lines a priest could utter with significance. What a gorgeous musical that might make one day.

“You never know,” Dr. N, my philosophy professor.

So, about 9/11. What a difficult story to share. I was on Orange Avenue in Sarasota. It was a gorgeous but warm morning, wet air, heavy in humidity. My daughter was in kindergarten down the street. President Bush was at the elementary school just north — errily.

My story is valid as an exemplar, and I’m pale-skinned — DEI? Where?

I’m also a woman: caveat defined. And, no, I do not believe that men and women are ‘equal.’

I am a Native American, to some degree. I could work through my lineage, but it’s not the strongest part of my heritage. That said, my question remains: How many generations of American Soil birth before we are able to choose ‘Native American’? And, if I have a drop defined by a DNA test, does that qualify me for Native American benefits? Yes or no. Thank you, in advance — knowing it’ll likely be answered in 100 more years.

But, I come from an immigrant family who have emigrated all over the place. I’m Russian and German. Is that okay to say? I’m asking because it seems to be a major controversy to some.

When Ben and I arrived in town, we were greeted by a near-miss traffic accident. Our neighbors helped us move, and the truck was nearly hit at an intersection along the rural highway. Uhaul movers moved in our furniture, and when they arrived, I saw a big, green tractor ride northbound up the road, and he looked so familiar but older with silver/white hair. I smiled so big, waved, and laughed.

I’d been there before, many times on weekends to shop and poke around the town. It was also my first impression of eastern Washington. I arrived in 2014 after finishing grad school in Florida. I flew into the airport there and fell in love. The town looks, in spots, like the setting of The Family Stone and also like Eugene, Oregon, where my mother grew up, before the 60s when the Rainbow Family began traveling to town for the Country Fair.

I thought it was great, and I was in love, partially in love with the idea of love to be fair. I fell in love with Walla Walla. I even wrote a poem, lost now, but I submitted it to The Sun Magazine some time ago.

I’m terrified of heights, but we’ve just gotten back from another adventure on Dan’s ATV. I thought we were only going to the store, which is a trip much like you’d expect in Big Bear. It’s pretty calm and nearly like off-roading in a golf cart. He likes to adventure, though, and I’m not that wild and free. He knows the back canyon area on Kern County, where his ‘Danland’ sign resides, but to me, it’s foreign territory. Gorgeous, but unbeknownst to me. This time, I found some cool rocks and dried florals that would make a gorgeous dried flower display, though we didn’t stop. I did find some stones much like arrowheads, and a few others, while he yelled at me and the hills about nothing in particular.

I’ve never been to the desert before, not here. My mom has driven through on the way East, to Kansas and Iowa as a child, through harsh roads in wide, heavy cars, without barriers, and she’s terrified of heights to this day. Her storytelling always reminded me of the movie, The Long, Long Trailer, with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez. The way the tires slide off the road and almost make the trailer fall at times is too much for me. And for her. We’ve had a few moments on the road.

She reminds me of Thelma and Louise mixed with Anywhere But Here. Love both of those movies and their female characters. Iconic classics today. The last time I was in the desert, my mom and I were driving across the country, from Sacramento to Florida, for the first time in our lives, with no idea of where we were going. And, it was not a fun trip.

My brother was leaving Los Angeles. We were living in Sacramento — desert area, really, but not quite as dry as where I am today. We were in Rockland, which was newly being developed and it was 1994 or so. I wasn’t even 18. My uncle was working at Folsom as a guard, after his lifelong career as a CHP officer in LA County. He’s my mom’s twin. He’d bought my mom a car, in Sacramento, but we couldn’t take it with us to Florida, and while this might seem insignificant, the trip to Florida was beyond memorable because it was also terrifying. The desert, or rather Texas, was endless. It was a full 24-hour drive or dry, endless desert crossing Arizona to the South and that stretch of all Texas sounded in advance, and during, like the longest trip ever. California takes just as long to drive through, however, but the change of scenery throughout makes the adventure entirely different. I-10 is an experience. I can’t say I recommend it, but it should be felt. It’s an emotional drive; it doesn’t matter who you are. And do it without being fully connected to the internet while driving — old school. Crossing the desert, to us, was like crossing the Nile in significance to us. Moving to the South? Crossing the desert lands of the United States to go where was my knee-jerk reaction. It wasn’t political; it was survival. To this day, I don’t entirely comprehend the significance. I was young. But, the desert, to this day, carries this aura of . . . bleak.

What is a mirage? Illusion? Heat wave? Lack of water? How much water does a camel drink, how often, and how does it utilize its water? Why do we believe that we need to drink so much water? Why are cacti valued? What is aloe good for? Why is walking through the desert considered to be ‘biblical’? These questions matter to some business people, actually.

Being in the desert is akin, today, of wars in the desert. And in this political climate, it’s still a little scary. I’m in a safe location, but it’s desolate. The desert is always desolate.

In comparison to living in a city, the desert might seem to be a reprieve, but for how long? When I moved to Florida, to this small little Gilligan’s island of a ‘paradise,’ a place we could call ‘Cinderella’s Island,’ it took about two weeks, when I was seventeen, to realize I wanted to go home to LA. And then it took me a full seven more years to stop calling Florida “purgatory” because of how difficult life was to begin.

Ironic, today, when hurling is more common, I have to add, because we don’t have the same level of stable infrastructure as we had back then; we’re missing The Paper, not just HBO’s Newsroom. Although, this reel is my absolute favorite, and I show it often to AP English Language and Composition students:

We’re still at this point, President Trump. And, I too don’t know what ‘the fuck you’re talking about’ when you claim the word great. And, that’s the problem with today’s news and media, which are no longer the same thing.

Inferiority complexities.

I do show this in my American classroom — classtoom — or, I did. I don’t teach for you any longer. This is what remains of the “fragments I have shorn against my ruins.” T. S. Eliot is a ‘bisexual theoritcal framework’ for ‘critique’ in English conventions of trade writing. MLA is validated. Oxford comma or no? Let’s eat, Grandma or Let’s eat Grandma? It does matter.

I’m able to hold a discussion using this piece with high school students who are unable to share the same conversation with their parents and colloquial television and algorythmic data. Could someone ask John Green and Poyntner, who were working together on projects like CrashCourse, that i often used in high school classes to bridge gaps other teachers couldn’t cross, and I couldn’t either in texts locatable? I’m sorry to be near begging. We, teachers, can’t do all of your service work. I quit! Three times now. I can’t hold a job because I can’t speak and teach at the same time.

So, I’m in the desert ranting on Medium. Thanks, ‘Merica.

And it isn’t the ‘taxpayers.’ That word does not mean you pay back people who didn’t pay taxes because they opted to pay non-profits and other ‘businesses’ to allude taxes. If ‘Uncle Sam’ can see “US” then “US” can see you, too, ‘big guy.’ How are people going to evade their taxes and also receive a return? No, you can’t possibly fool us down here ‘on the floor.’

Even though I’m a woman, I’m not without logic and do expect reasoning to be described in media instead of journalists using conventional writing frames from the post-modern era. Even modern-era frames are too ellusive and are used allusively to distort frames. The desert wasteland of media has occurred as a result, and magazines are not selling, even though they have great value because they record data and create a stable case for long-term resolutions, like people are working through and digging through today.

Right now, my brother, Dave, is addicted to FOX. Dan, on the other hand, is not. His TV is screaming other themes. Dan’s drinking Coors, and Dave put his down a long time ago, along with his Camels. Dan’s still not a quitter but switched to generics. Neither of these men are enjoying what’s on TV, and you claim it’s the ‘boob tube.’ It’s not quality TV in the ways it could be if we could speak clearer truths. I fully agree with Trumps’ ideologies when it comes to free speech in media, but there is a necessity of regulation because what is on TV mispells what’s literally going on in front of a person today, and we can’t say what’s real any longer. AI in media is scary. Iron curtain. ‘Abaracadabra’ is not funny, Bunny Lounge.

Did you hear that Playboy was out of print for several years? But, did you comprehend the articles and their historical significance? Why aren’t those articles on JStor? I’m not joking, Shakespeare-reference-researchers. Desert. Inculturating more into UP might actually help bridge the gaps we’re facing at the research level. Media matters.

Some media is cataloged in university library systems inaccessible to the public. No Child Left Behind? Excuse yourself again to an AP teacher. Dare you.

The desert. There are people, taxpayers, who live in the desert, who are citizens, who cannot access needed services. What excuse is there if the infrastructure is in place? I call Bullshit. The Department of Human Services isn’t actually caring for people the way needed, but the focus is on immigration, as if people who are citizens aren’t in their shoes. That’s the problem. Could the media help us out down here on the floor of the desert?

Truly. Sort of. It depends.

I lost my sunglasses a few years ago. It was right after the patriot 1/6 event and there was a John with sunglasses who was obviously in media and he was arrested. I never heard what happened to him, but I was in Tampa while he was in Naples, and my brother, who I’d been visiting, threw me a pair of similar glasses, a pair someone left in the car, likely on the way to TPA.

Something has been happening in America since then, and it’s the most interesting media scandal I’ve ever seen. And I saw this as a teacher who’s experiencing teacher burnout and needs a moment. But, I really can never find my sunglasses.

I don’t watch the news, but I recall the exact issue we were having in my small world: I was listening to NPR and other people were watching FOX, and we were all saying the same thing in different tonality. On that note, I diverge for a moment: I’ve chosen to take the sunglasses route, for the sake of on thing: “I wear my sunglasses at night.” When the street glare is too bright, they actually make sense, especially in media. It’s very metropolitan to have sunglasses nearby at night, actually, I believe to be the reasoning.

I don’t watch the news, really. I see the global conflicts though, and I cannot say the actual issues because they are not fully disclosed to us on the television. Some of us have so much escapism going on because we know it’s a lie on the ground but it’s not, just like in other areas of the world. We see images of people who look okay, and we have hope. Intelligence knows the actual conflict, and I’m going to assume that sometimes it’s rather boring. Honestly, and that’s also hopeful.

I think the issue, today, is that we can see one another very vividly, kind of through screens, and we see the solutions, and we all are able to share ideas . . . and they have the solutions already. The conflicts are in infrastructure or something. I don’t think some things matter as much as people play them out to be. The current conflicts, like rubber bullets and condoms via US AID, and toilet paperless covid?

Comedic to some.

I’m not sure what’s happening, but I’m without my digital passkeys. Somehow I lost nearly all of them, and it’s happening to many of us. And then, others are fully connected and, like laser beams, are filming all over the world. Every pixel of space has been recorded, it seems. Amazing.

Does it matter if you’re Republican or Democrat when you manage your household? That’s actually a very good, deep-thinking question.

It’s difficult to function, today, when we have constant civil disobedience in Thoreau’s description as well as the opposite and both are frowned upon. Which is best? Either/or? smh.

I lost my sunglasses is like the 2025 “stapler.” Not to name drop to be rude, but, rather, to make a point here: Autism? In the study of neurology and gifted imaginations, autistic nuances are more likely to be found in an autistic brain than a non-. What’s wrong with being autistic? For one. For two, we live in a world veering toward AI autopilot models for social and governmental solutions; yet, AI is rather “autistic.” Stapler . . . I had a great stapler, no staples, and it was taken without due process. smh. AI cannot compute American idiomatic language. Autopilot? Not fully plausible.

So, here is my name drop example, but I do know other people who fit this ‘label’ better. Elon Musk. He says he has asbergers. He might not. I haven’t actually seen proof, only ‘heard on TV.’ I don’t assume the screen is truth. Regardless, asbergers is denied as having a need for literality. AI is rather literal. AI cannot compute idioms. Elon can. There is a clear difference. He’s a human, not a machine. A machine, the computer systems, cannot fully integrate nuances like seen in languages because they change per person, per setting, per mood, etc.

Some do not like that computer keyboards use English letters; yet, English is said to be the language of business and is in a large portion of the world. That said, revolting from this factoid doesn’t actually help people; it only creates a political battle (now buried, I’d presume to imagine, in foreign datasets of code). Blame English speakers? Why? English speakers are fantastically protecting civil liberties in speech everyday, regardless of the news, simply because the English language allows for endless play on words and sounds and letters and phonemic creation. Obey? We make language by speaking the truth. Speak truth and obey? Obey who? You or me? Can’t be both if obey doesn’t mean to make truthful sounds. Just saying.

Enjoy language or become a number without any legal rights? That’s a good either/or fallacious question to throw around for ‘shits and giggle,’ if you think it’s so damned funny. ‘P

I am really a burned out English teacher venting into outerspace, but I’d publish me. To prove a point (intentional fragment).

_________________________________________________________________

That is called . . . ? An introduction? An epistle? Stream of Consciousness?

What I do is teach English. I’m trying to teach something, but I cannot slow down and explain it all to every audience, so I’m hoping these excepts of ideas find their home. I’m looking for my tribe.

Speaking of which, I recently missed my high school reunion. I was delighted to be invited — having dropped drinking fattening coffee years ago — and approaching fifty and finding some inner solitude. That said, I didn’t graduate from that high school, and then I heard that my high school, the independent school in the background of my ‘hometown’ also reunited. I’m so upset that I missed it, but I couldn’t afford the trip home. Now, I’m here: serendipitously.

I lost my classroom in Covid. We all did, and to global conflict.

What’s interesting about my teaching position, however, is my education in contrast to the ideal attempt at unification via programming such as the Common Core State Standards. Trying to unify people into factory program does not work, and we know this historically in the education sector. We know because that sort of unification dissinigrated education in the 70s and 80s, when English classes, for one, focused on subjective-expirences in writing (or, rather, social justice themes), while other classes were culled to also teach reading — at least in educational theory. These ideas are captured in the Norton on Compositional Theory, which dates and describes English composition education throughout the ages, including dating the doctrine back to the Dark Ages. What’s missing is what is new; however, this is fully covered in works that discuss topics such as Game Theory, Media as Text, Media Literacies, etc. Americans are not meeting CCSS standards. We have widespread illiteracy but in pockets that echo the same water-drilled pockets of land in Florida that are eroding the Glades’ ecosystem.

The interconnection of infrastructure is too difficult to explain in a basic English class; yet, infrastructure is interconnected with and to Linguistics. Plain and simple.

What’s cool, though, is that I grew up in one of the oldest and most craved city planning systems: the O.G. subburbs. You sure you want to live in the ‘Burbs? What do you believe is so ‘Great’ about the ‘Burbs?

I’m not in those subburbs right now, but I’m closeby. I haven’t been back to SoCal in thirty years. I’m three hours away, have dropped my back account down to $0.08. Tip that fansasmic number to a vertical. What do you see as a Lingusitic account? I wrote something there. Am I lucky? $ 000.08.

I graduated early from high school. Two years. I skipped a grade in preschool, at a private school, and was tested for gifted early and in a private setting. I was accepted into the Gate Program, which , to the best of my recollection, entitled me to an IEP for gifted throughout the rest of my schooling, but that’s not what happened. No Child Left Behind?

Let’s pause for a song. (Yes, this is how I taught in your classroom, but I cannot today because of the controvery. But, because we, at least in Theory, have Liberty in the United States of America, I’m free to do so here. We’ll see.)

Listen to the lyrics. If this was my classroom, I’d assign you to write all of the words you think you might be hearing. Here are the ones I hear:

1. America
2. This is not enough, son.
3. I don’t speak my mother tongue.
4. Bass that alludes to Muse phonically and cadance-wise
5. Wonderbra
6. Coca Cola sometimes warm
7. We’re all living in America
8. A huge cheer, like an AWW, but only one parsed soundbite
9. An accent: without looking at the origins of Rammstein, I see ‘Stein’ and hear an accent that seems to transcend from Germanic languages, possibly German, Dutch, Russian, or a mixture. I can’t quite define.

That assignment is to support listening and speaking skills. Students (citizens) need to be able to discuss the languages they’re hearing without judgment, for one. They need the capacity and permission to say things such as, “I can’t quite understand or interpret what you’re communicating” and “What are you intending to express to me?” And, if you my Reader, think this assignment is too antagonistic, you haven’t been in an ‘American’ school.

I really appreciate this song.

“You grew up way to fast, and now there’s nothing left to believe, and we don’t all become our history.”

“And I won’t tell ’em your name.”

“What is in a name / that ink may character / that hath not occurred to me . . .” Sonnet 108

My name is Stacey to people who know me, and to a very few it’s been Spacey and Shorty and sometimes my middle name: Denise. The elongated form of Stacey is Anastasia. And Denise? Well, my mother said it was the name of a character in a book she was reading, but which book she did not say. What I do know is her . . . so with Gemini’s help:

The name Denise is a modern derivation that ultimately traces its meaning and origin back to the Greek god Dionysus through a series of linguistic changes.

The connection is not direct, but follows this logical, step-by-step path:

1. The Greek God: Διoˊnuσoς (Dionysos / Dionysus)

• Dionysus is the Greek god of wine, ritual madness, fertility, and theater.
• The literal meaning of the name is often interpreted as “Son of Zeus” or “God of Nysa” (a mythical mountain).

2. The Ancient Name: Διonuσιoς (Dionysios / Dionysius)

• The name Dionysios (or its Latin version, Dionysius) was a common ancient Greek and Roman name for a person.
• It means “belonging to Dionysus” or “devoted to Dionysus/Bacchus” (Bacchus is the Roman name for the god).

3. The French Masculine Name: Denis

• The name was carried into Europe through figures like Saint Dionysius, a 3rd-century Christian martyr and the patron saint of France.
• In Old French, Dionysius was shortened and simplified to Denis.

4. The French Feminine Name: Denise

• Denise is the feminine form of the French name Denis.

I’m not sure how I feel about my middle name. I’m glad it has more than one spelling though, and all I can say is that my parents knew too much prior to my birth, during the disco era and women’s lib and I don’t quite know what else, but I did have a picture of my mom standing next to a pyramid of naked people in Martinique? I don’t exactly know why anymore. She used to tell me all the tales, when I was little, and then it became dijon mustard and wine, and then when Lunchables were invented, and they had dijon packets and Andes mints, she pretty much left me to my friends and figured, I think, that I’d work these things out myself. I’m nearing fifty. You’d have thought she would’ve told me more, but I don’t know how ‘proud’ she feels.

Names are tricky things. They commemorate. They matter. And, they are not invisible. A name matters. I don’t like to give out my name. Nor my ideas. But, here I am. Not hiding my writing any longer. Just a name.

Have you read, Anthem by Ayn Rand? The philosophy of objectivism and having a number instead of a name.

I’ve been afraid of success my entire life; it’s my biggest fear. It’s easier to fail on purpose than it is to have a broken heart and a failed dream.

Do you know the song, “Three Marlanas” by the Wallflowers? It reminds me of this book of three morality plays called The Mermaids. It includes “Everyman,” and I know a Marlene, her twin, and their mom, and this song reminds me of them. They owned a preschool with an aftercare program I attended when I first moved to Agoura as a little, when I first started public school in third grade. They were like the tone of this song, full of magic for kids that thematically matched the ren faire. It was their family who owned the first little daycare there in Agoura Hills, back when there were commonly signs out on the road that read, FREE EGGS, and horses trotted down the empty roads. They used to call it ‘Unicorn Country,’ or so I heard, but it’s just a name never affixed to a sign.

Do you like Incubus?

I’d like to let Brandon take the wheel. We were in math class together. 6th grade Algebra in Calabasas. Does it matter? I don’t even know if he remembers my name today, but he wrote all over the back of my yearbook. It’s lost now. Last time I saw him, we were at Malibu Beach, and he was boogie boarding and I was sitting there, alone, and we waved. He’s had a life I’ve seen a touch of from afar, and I don’t throw his name around. It matters. Instead, I tell my kids his music makes me think of home. It does.

I’m the baby of the family, and the family business died with my father. In name, I see it out there — . Those of us who remain have connections that amount to Facebook and Ancestry now. Now, we’re a ‘basic’ ‘nuclear’ ‘family’: spread out across the country, lacking Hallmark cards and pool parties that the 80s and 90s lore of dismantling marriage brought about, post Vietnam. My family’s legacies are blurry at best, known but unknown, fragments, shards, and remains.

I’ve never been to Santa Anita but know the old LA stories of jockeys, racetracks, cocktail hour, ‘the club,’ Hollywood, and SoCal development. I do appreciate urban design. The streets of LA are a museum.

So, coming into town, I stopped several nights and one was over by Los Alamitos Racetrack. I’d never been, and what a time to arrive, just after the recent LA Riots. I was in Oregon when they occurred, but the traffic coming down seemed to draw me to downtown. I did not go. My shifting GPS led me, instead, to the track and a nearby motel on the cheap: Don’s Turf.

It was only one window for service, open so people are able to watch food being made and served. Tino served me; he’s an aging Italian man, and he held my wrists and I held his in thanks. I was emotive, and somehow, within the space of a few lines, we were held there together and I wished he’d been serving spaghetti.

I don’t know many Italians from LA outside of old stories, and I write that knowing my uncle is Italian, but I don’t know that side of his family. I know many in Florida, or did. Living there, in Venice, the smell of Mama’s when you walk in, the sound of Italian voices was missing, and I am still struck by the contrast. LA is proclaimed to be so international, but it isn’t quite as vivid today, honestly, had some shadows when I was young. I wish Los Alamitos served Mama’s sauce that day, but it was meatloaf and shell macaroni and cheese, possibly even Velveta.

I took my food to the bar, ordered a coke, and asked permission to eat there while poking through free magazines that greet visitors when they arrive. Having worked in magazine sales and management, I’m always casually interested to see who advertises in local fare, especially when we’re in a paperless paradox. I wondered if I’d been there before because it felt familiar.

I didn’t catch onto how to bet or anything but did hold the race schedule. There was a jolly man next to me who looked to have been betting, and his schedule was rolled slightly. The bar staff was changing shifts and in discussion and one woman had the most beautiful European accent. She said something while gently drying her fingertips. It made me think about immigrants but also, Liberty, and I wondered if they knew that there are actually two libery bells and one is at Knott’s. I wondered how they felt about ‘liberty’ today.

After eating, I left a five to say thank you for the space, and I gave myself a tour. The building smells slightly of mold and is mostly made of concrete. The old horse stalls downstairs were empty, and walking down the flights of stairs seemed to radiate with memory and pain. Marks in the concrete floors speak of horses and blacksmithing. Some intentional marks. The track means a great deal to some.

It looked like there was a separate banquet room below the enterance, and I wondered where it went to or if it was the direct entrance to the bar. Above the bar is the track, and the stairs took me to the box seat where the box manager greeted me, said he was happy to see me again, which puzzled me but I went with his words, and he led me into the box. I took the moment to enjoy the space, albeit alone which hurt. I had a cigarette, marking my territory intentionally or not, and enjoyed the space and nostalgia. That’s when I noticed the only live race were the two green tractors slowly pacing the track. It felt like old Los Angeles is crying for yesteryears, and I thought simutltaneously about CMT and country invading the area and also about my great-grandfather’s farm on La Cienega. A hop farm. Imagine.

As I was walking back to my car, I noticed the feathers of a bird and immediately thought about the last time I’d seen such a display, and about my Indian heritage and that of the city and the horses and so I raced the wind to pick up fifteen feathers, not caring about possible diseases but more of the sky watching me cherish the life fallen at my feet, like that of a fallen angel. I put the feathers and a few rocks in the back door of my car and drove back to the motel.

Pulling in the place didn’t look like much, but with the slider open, I was able to peacefully sit on the cool pavement with nothing to do but watch the sun set. The space reminded me of a photograp I’d recently been puzzled over of my mom, and just to my north was a space that looked like the photo but she had to have been in Oregon at the time. It was in the 60s, and she was, I think, at a mother’s home, where she went while pregnant with my brother, Darren. She wasn’t allowed to keep him.

I sat, now in my own horrific moment of motherhood, while my mother is too elderly to care for me and I too broken to care for her. I stared at that spot, knowing her story, knowing I’d found Darren for her, knowing how long life is, and then I wondered if, maybe, she was actually here, at this hotel. It could’ve been anything then. Maybe she’d been on a trip. At one point, she’d been living in Santa Barbara, and she briefly told me about driving wildly in a MG, while working at ‘Ma Be;;,’ before her pregnancy to her back home.

She met my father years later, back again, and the’d settled in Southern California, where my father always lived, as the son of Irish and German Catholic immigrant families from early LA. I come from a ‘white,’ “BeachBoy” family, and we’re broke now, it seems, all the clover grass is lost. I found some in eastern Washington, actually knowing it’s ‘illegal’ now — and for no particular reason because there are new chemicals to maintain the turf and weren’t then, but why would we need grass that doesn’t need to be mown?

Thoughts like tese consumed me as I watched the sunset alone, and quietly turned on Spotify, hoping to feel connected to something. Don’t Terf Motel was excellent to stay in and to not be hassled. I wish I’d stayed longer and that I’d had a reason to, but my visit was brief. I did, however, stop next door for breakfast at Potholders, which I thought was fantastically named.

I took the room key and returned it a week later and noticed they were hiring a housekeeper and asked about the position, considering it would allow me to extend my stay, but the counterperson was quite upset about the key. I apologized to him. He looked to be about twenty-five and wore a hoodie with the name Shelton on it, although I don’t know that it was his name or the singer, and his hood was on, and he wore a particularly dramatic expression of depression.

Do you know what a Dionysian festival is? It’s a sex fest, actually, but it’s really ancient and worth looking into in ancient texts as to why they’re a common need in civic situations. Catharsis.

That is what the Summer of Love was, in 1969, or so it echoes in history books with much allure. Today, we’re in a similar crisis. Youth aren’t able to liftoff, and neither are many of their parents, caught in a spiderweb called the internet — “. . . and beyond.”

And, there are innermerable social solutions via non-profits who don’t have the advertising and connections to find all of the people they could help to lift their work. Something is off-center.

I, honestly, know that a massive concert series is needed to draw together poverty-stricken people, lacking a way to emote and have an outlet, who could use a family concert, and a night out as an adult, connected throughout the country, that also serves to bring together social service organizations for things like homelessness, crisis support, DHS and police connections. . . . I won’t expand much here, but I’m dropping a seed of chance and have the wherewithall to coordinate and promote.

We need a “Come Together, Right Now . . . “ to simply let people be saved by the public sector who also know how to have a beer on a Sunday and are great neighbors.

Just saying.

Hey, could you ask the American Red Cross to put on a concert with Goodwill Industries? Let me know when I’m needed. “Ready to work” is someone’s slogan (Give credit where credit is due and all).