"I did not expect to see a toothbrush sticking out of your mouth." -me
"High speed christmas tree traffic coming off the road." -Cam
I want to write about the trip with Mom and Hud to Oregon. Of course I can just start writing it, set a course via free associations, keep moving through like Grandma moves through the house, picking out things from that other house from 1963. Mom remembering, me thinking along another thread, something more breathy. Something more even and young, less transported back. Here I am on the stiff backed couch watching my mom shake out a sweater. Here Hudson plops down next to me with a huff.
My boots are drying by the fire. Everything in this part of Oregon during fall is wet, the sky has been moist and sending mist down since early morning For about an hour the blue broke through and we walked up to the christmas tree plantation, looking at mushrooms with an amateur eye. Can't eat them because they might be full of poisonous neurotoxins.
Could slow your brain, make it impossible to speak. You'd start salivating and shaking.
Maybe you'd forget who you are.
To really write this trip I'd need to write my grandparent's story, dig it out of myself and out of the stories I've been told. My mom sobbing over dinner, that raking pain that comes from having to choose where to put your love. Grandpa on the old ranch as the old ranch falls away. Covered in his own mess, his jeans held up with suspenders. I imagine the kitchen full of flies. No family visiting there anymore. And the grand pianos sold. And now the Buffalos sold.
In February of this year I visited Grandma in her nursing home and we listened to a CD of her piano performance in her room in the nursing home. I can't take my eyes off her hands.
"High speed christmas tree traffic coming off the road." -Cam
I want to write about the trip with Mom and Hud to Oregon. Of course I can just start writing it, set a course via free associations, keep moving through like Grandma moves through the house, picking out things from that other house from 1963. Mom remembering, me thinking along another thread, something more breathy. Something more even and young, less transported back. Here I am on the stiff backed couch watching my mom shake out a sweater. Here Hudson plops down next to me with a huff.
My boots are drying by the fire. Everything in this part of Oregon during fall is wet, the sky has been moist and sending mist down since early morning For about an hour the blue broke through and we walked up to the christmas tree plantation, looking at mushrooms with an amateur eye. Can't eat them because they might be full of poisonous neurotoxins.
Could slow your brain, make it impossible to speak. You'd start salivating and shaking.
Maybe you'd forget who you are.
To really write this trip I'd need to write my grandparent's story, dig it out of myself and out of the stories I've been told. My mom sobbing over dinner, that raking pain that comes from having to choose where to put your love. Grandpa on the old ranch as the old ranch falls away. Covered in his own mess, his jeans held up with suspenders. I imagine the kitchen full of flies. No family visiting there anymore. And the grand pianos sold. And now the Buffalos sold.
In February of this year I visited Grandma in her nursing home and we listened to a CD of her piano performance in her room in the nursing home. I can't take my eyes off her hands.
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