Not From Here
“Packed to the hilt with furniture, old skis, vintage bicycles & Fred’s childhood toboggan, the Chevy lumbered downhill, veering off 107 towards the Ted Green Ford Dealership. I wondered how many years I could haul the same shitty chair around, the one dragged from a curbside pile in 1976. Surely the joints & dowels I continually banged & coaxed back into place, would not survive another move. But the morning was bright, and the ride unencumbered by foul weather, slick roads or ice. Pushing hard on the accelerator to outgun an asshole, or pull over to let him pass. it just wasn’t in the cards. Not that kind of day and so I let out a sigh of relief, driving at my own pace. Leisurely. Taking in the absurd snow pack, marveling at the no-go zones of rugged hills, unfit for foot, snow shoe, or ski. Too deep, too crusty. Impassable. While down here, in the valleys, in the sun, in relative freedom, looking up at mountains, a charge flows down, striking from the heart of no-man’s-land. This is my home, I think. Here, I could never claim to be more than a stone’s throw from utter, unsolvable mystery and inevitable natural disaster. Warmth spreading over me, like a sudden blush, post-flirt. The truck heater blasting, too hot, then too cold, but a luxury none-the-less. I feel so welcome here. Whoever left that trailer to rot, who couldn’t pay the taxes, I see your bones and honor what you aimed at. I dig the art galleries, no one goes to. I’ll never stop wishing I could overcome my shy nature, and barge on in. That I couldn’t buy your stuff, not because I like it, but because you made it here, nags at me. I make stuff too. Not much difference between us, when all is calculated on the karmic abacus. We both loved being inspired, socked in by blizzards, thawed out by spring. Pretty soon these muffled rivers will unleash the power of god. Every year, raging past the deaths and the births and on into the seduction of summer. If anyone can still hear over the rough & tumble melting, the crushing release of everything that couldn’t hold, that had to let go, then we might just reconnoiter and find some truth. On the flip side of the supposed pandemic, when everyone locked themselves in, because someone said so, who really wasn’t from here.”