One Way to Bring Them Back

Panasonic VR Goggles :: Original Photo-Panasonic

I have a lot of questions I wish I’d asked my folks. Sometimes I don’t remember the answers to the ones I did ask, so I’d like to revisit those, followed-up with a barrage of spin-off questions. There isn’t a comprehensive list, but there’s a growing list and as I get older, it gets longer. How did each of them cope with catastrophes, like when siblings died, and how did each family find their way through it? How did my mom manage the hardships of wheat farming in Central Montana? Did she and her siblings explore the nearby Highwood Mountains often? What were the group critiques like when my dad was in architecture school? Were there design themes that stood out? When did they both discover their passion for the arts? What courses did my mom enjoy in music school at the universities? What songs did she sing at her final recital and how many? How did they manage the lean times while parenting five kids? What time of year was it when they first met? What was the weather like? What time of day was it? Was it love at first site, or did it take time? Did they take hikes in the Bridgers? Have they reconnected with siblings on the other side — their mothers and fathers? Is there another side? Have you visited my dreams and sometimes while I’m awake? Were you there while I painted during that pre-dawn morning? It felt like you were in the room because I walked towards my computer and saw a picture of you appear as part of my screen saver loop. Were you with me while I drove east through North Dakota during a nighttime blizzard?

So, even though they’ve both passed, all of their ‘known’ history, their data, including passions, accomplishments, disappointments, and desires, can be loaded into a virtual reality program where sophisticated algorithms will process, anticipate, estimate, and fill in any data gaps, then generate an interface that will put the three of us in a space together. Something like the holodeck on Star Trek: The Next Generation. I imagine sitting with them somewhere familiar, like on their deck under the giant willow tree, the cabin porch at Seeley Lake, or the lodge in the White Mountains.

Because if their data, my data and our shared data is merged, our conversation might feel real, it might be like they’d returned. I’d be waiting with my VR Goggles on, a recorder and a legal pad for taking notes. In addition to answering my long list of questions, they could tell me how they’re doing and what it’s like where they are. Maybe then I’d never concern myself with what happens after death, because they would know, and they would tell me If it’s a space filled with light, something infinite and nest like at the same time, or confirmation that his outstretched arms actually did have hands made of roses. After our long conversation, maybe even hours, and before they left, my mom and I could hug and laugh and I could look into her eyes for as long as I wanted. I might feel my dad’s hand rest on the back of my neck, like when he felt close, or proud, or wanted to help mend a disagreement between us. I think it would feel like nothing had been lost.

Songs :: Mercy Street by Peter Gabriel, We Watch the Stars (Berlin Sessions) by Fink, Dear Mama by 2Pac, You’re Missing by Bruce Springsteen, and Wynter’s Promise by Kirk Franklin

© C. Davidson

Hazy American Gothic

I was on a road trip a few years ago that took me west through the entire state of Iowa where I discovered the state is divided into two horizontal stripes. The bottom half is green, and the top half is blue, with occasional dark shapes and textures interrupting the horizon like cattle, trees, and farm building silhouettes. Two-track dirt roads intersected with the narrow county highway that passed through the small town I was in. It included a two-pump gas station, one unleaded, one diesel, a small general store where I bought a green and yellow t-shirt that said ‘kiss a corn grower today’, a garage structure servicing large trucks and farm machinery, a huge pile of irrigation equipment that was disappearing into tall grass, and a blacksmith shop. I could hear a sledgehammer banging iron and saw an orange glow with occasional sparks flying out of the door. Much of the ground surrounding these places was packed dirt, stained with oil, gasoline, and other industrial fluids.

After refueling, I took one of the two-track roads out into a field with all my windows open. I stopped, got out and was surrounded by late summer corn way over my head. It was unsettling, like when I get lost in a maze and think I’ll never find my way out, or when I can’t immediately locate the car in a multilevel parking ramp because I forgot where I parked. I imagined Iris Dement singing Our Town, or Leaning on the Everlasting Arm because the melancholy was thick. I thought about home and my family, but they weren’t anywhere near me, so I got back in the car and tried to drive away from the discomfort, but couldn’t because then I thought about the painting American Gothic.

My knowledge of Grant Wood’s painting American Gothic has been incorrect from the start. I never bothered to learn the full story behind the painting. My American Art history professor must have spoken about it, but I don’t remember what he said, and I’ve made huge assumptions about what I thought the painting depicted. I assumed Wood somehow discovered this married couple on their farm one day while out exploring and asked them if he could sketch them. They agreed to pose for him, but he’d have to come back later. So, he showed up to sketch them at the specified time but had to wait. He probably sat on their front porch until they were finished with their afternoon bible study at the kitchen table. It was hot, humid, and quiet except for the cicadas and the mumbling he could hear through the screen door.

None of that happened though. It isn’t a portrait of a husband and wife at all, it depicts a father and daughter. Wood came across this house randomly with a fellow artist and felt moved to draw it. Then later asked his family dentist and his sister to pose for him. They weren’t even in the same room. They were sketched separately. That’s how he constructed his painting. He wasn't documenting an existing situation. He assembled separate elements and combined them to form this open-ended story about fictional people in Iowa.

Regardless of Grant Woods intent, or my assumptions, the painting makes me uncomfortable. Maybe it’s because the pitchfork automatically implies poking, or stabbing. It also makes me think of ‘children of the corn’ and these two look like they could be involved somehow, controlling the children without words, just coded eye movements—sending out the ‘corn’ herds to track down trespassers that stray into their fields. Someone might have pulled over, gotten out to stretch their legs and entered the rows of corn to find shade one hot summer afternoon. They thought they were far enough away from the farmhouse that they wouldn’t be noticed, but they miscalculated how easy it is to see movement in the distance on most Iowa farms. The children were summoned and they congregated quickly and rushed from the barn into the fields almost like a single organism. Locating the unaware intruders without even making their presence known, they stopped abruptly like a roadrunner. They quietly encircled their prey and emerged from the corn in slow motion, blinking simultaneously and silent.

Songs :: Our Town and Leaning on the Everlasting Arm by Iris DeMent, and Revelator by Gillian Welch

© C. Davidson