Bear Trap Canyon Route – 1983 :: Image-Google Earth
Downtown Providence :: Image-Google Earth
Super Target – 2021
Once I crossed the canal fed by Narragansett Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, I sped into the narrow streets of downtown on my black one-speed, with electric blue rims, and pierced the canyons like a blade, just like I did in Bear Trap Canyon with friends eight months earlier. It was usually gray, rainy, or just after dusk when I rode this brief route, the opposite direction from campus and everything connected to it. It was impossible to completely escape though, because there were ghosts everywhere. I brought a few with me from Montana, some were new and mumbled near the window outside my first studio apartment on Congdon Street. Others had been roaming the city for centuries— feeling them when they brushed past me on the high-speed corners, just like the tall, sweet grass did while riding through the Bear Trap flats.
When I finally arrived at Dunkin’ Donuts, I did a serpentine skid to a stop, swung my leg over and locked the bike to the nearest street sign all in one motion. I went inside and waited near the bright display case and scanned the doughnut options. A well-dressed elderly man sat alone at the far side of the u-shaped counter partially blurred by steam from his coffee. He stared straight out to Union Street while three other customers were being helped by an employee speaking softly to them at the end of the counter. Everyone felt like regulars while I was ecstatically anonymous. I purchased four doughnuts and a small cup of coffee, exited, leaned against the glass windows, ate a cake one with chocolate frosting and sprinkles, and finished the hideously weak coffee. I kept the other three doughnuts in the waxy bag and slipped them into my day pack. Those were for the wee hours in the studio and photo lab. Riding solo to this corner, in this part of town, and then meandering slowly back to campus was a huge distraction from the studio chaos I’d left an hour before.
Recently, I found myself at Super Target in Saint Paul looking for the best deals on packaged ground coffee. I’ve noticed the bright colors of the Dunkin’ Donuts bags positioned off to the side for years, pushed out by elegant brands, bigger brands, and local roasters. I assumed that the coffee they sold in these bags would be just as weak and disappointing as it was in downtown Providence decades ago. On this day though, they were placed in the center of the coffee shelves and on sale, two for one, so I reluctantly grabbed two of the darkest grinds they had. I stood there holding the slick bags and flashed on moments from those rides and the significance of everything that was shed and gathered in both canyons almost forty years ago — remembering just how fluid everything still is.
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“Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.” Norman McClean – A River Runs Through It
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Songs :: Burnin’ Streets by Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros, Several Styles of Blonde Girls Dancing by Martha & The Muffins, Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat, Times Like These by Foo Fighters, Take Me To The River by Talking Heads
© C. Davidson