Night Rides

 

Riding home from the studio was always best after 3:00am. A few things determined whether it was a typical ride, a challenging ride, or an exceptional one, including weather, wind, activity in the university district, my mood and hunger level. Sometimes I didn’t feel like riding home, but short of calling a cab, it was the only way back. Summer night rides were the best part of my day. It was often warm and humid at that hour which made it smell like Florida. After shouldering my bike from the second floor to the loading dock outside, I situated my gear and chose music for the ride. I usually selected something upbeat, like Jeff Beck, Tom Scott, or Tom Petty. That night I chose the Nebraska album by Springsteen. I tolerated the first three songs but eventually lost momentum, like my tires were cement. I hit both brakes and skidded to an abrupt stop and chose something else.

Five Rabbits :: The middle third of the route is through the university district, which includes a huge green space with shade trees and a sidewalk that splits it diagonally. I had a lot of negative chatter in my head all day including the ride home — enough negativity that I spoke out loud. “Yeh? Well, if you’re real, prove it, make a rabbit appear.” Poof. A rabbit appeared almost immediately on the grass to my right. I was surprised, but I frequently see rabbits on my rides at night, so I wasn’t impressed. “Show me another.” Poof. Another rabbit appeared ahead to my left. “OK. That’s a coincidence. Show me another.” Poof. Another rabbit appeared. Now I was startled. “This is a coincidence. If you’re really listening, do it again.” I rode a bit further and Poof, Poof, there were two more rabbits sitting next to each other. Five rabbits appeared in that space, on command. I told my wife about my encounter the following day and she didn’t think it was a coincidence.

Ronald McDonald House :: I usually rode past the Ronald McDonald House on campus. There aren’t any signs of activity at that hour, but I’d been fooled many times when riding by because there’s a life-size fiberglass statue of Ronald McDonald sitting on a bench by the front entrance. During the daylight hours you can see its bright colors, but in the dark while its back lit from the lobby windows, it looks like an actual person. The children and young adults who stay there have serious medical situations, so they need to be close to the university hospital for long periods of time and this place allows families to be together. Two nights within the same week, I saw two figures sitting on the bench, not just the statue silhouette. As I rode closer, I saw an older man cradling a young child. I waved to them, and the man waved back. From that night forward I waved every time I rode by even if just the statue was present.

Raccoon :: I entered the Seward neighborhood after crossing the bridge that spans the Mississippi River. Five or six blocks ahead I noticed a dark shape in the middle of the road. It could be anything and it was something to pay attention to as I sped towards it. A block away I figured it was a cat and needed to prepare in case it bolted in front of me at the last minute. I’d seen a lot of cats over the years lying in the middle of the road absorbing the last of the heat. As I got closer, I began to yell out and clap my hands. It finally heard me because it started to shift but didn’t move out of the road. Twenty feet away I realized it was a raccoon and as I got close, it turned, faced me, stood up on its hind legs and swatted at me as I passed.

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“Like a whisper In the dark.” David Byrne

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Songs :: Night Ride Home by Joni Mitchell, Bad by U2, Strangered In The Night by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Pump It Up and Moods For Moderns by Elvis Costello and the Attractions

© C. Davidson

Imagining Marfa

 

Images :: Google Earth

Marfa, Texas :: Image – Google Earth

Dutton, Montana

I’ve never been to Texas. My wife has visited Texas a few times, her parents lived there decades ago, our daughter has a good friend outside Dallas, and I know someone who spends half the year somewhere in the state. I’ve only heard stories about it, or watched movies and television shows based there. I’ve seen a lot of images over the years too, horrifying and soothing. I’ve read articles about Austin, and I used to watch Austin City Limits frequently. When I see pictures of Marfa’s main streets though, it feels like a bunch of small Montana towns I know — Dutton, Havre, and Big Timber — some with a few hundred people, and some with a couple of thousand.

I was listening to a podcast and the show’s celebrity guest mentioned Marfa, Texas. He’d been there recently and spoke about how much it’s changed from when he visited a few decades ago. It’s become a remote outpost for artists and galleries, initiated by Donald Judd in the 1970’s, who moved in and shifted its energy. Even with that kind of contemporary change, I still wonder how anything can be sustained in towns that size. Then I remember that most small towns didn’t begin because of retail opportunities for the residents, or tourists like me, unless they have a Corn Palace, or a giant truck stop near the highway. They exist because it’s a place for the people who live nearby to drop off crops, buy propane, and replenish their water supply — they’re literal weigh stations. If you look to the edges of the towns, there’s usually a cluster of silos, and depending on the size, maybe even a few clusters of silos. Sometimes the smallest towns only include a hardware store, a small tavern, maybe a cafe, and a couple of gas pumps. If it’s larger, there might be a post office, a bank, a courthouse, a Chinese, or Mexican restaurant, with surprisingly great food, and an insurance agent who occupies a vacant storefront one day a week because they travel from town to town.

If a local farmer, or rancher, drives through and decides to see if anybody they know is there, they rarely need to go inside anywhere to check who’s there. They know just by identifying the trucks parked out front. People often work alone when they live in isolated places like this, so conversation is welcome, even craved sometimes. You might see two trucks parked in the middle of main street next to each other, facing opposite directions, without their engines running, while the occupants talk. Conversations that last awhile and typically revolve around the weather, commodity prices, their families, and updates on the repairs each of them has been making to their equipment. It’s hard to keep everything that’s on their minds to themselves. It’s hard for their spouse, or their kids too, to be burdened with the same worries and frustrations day after day, so, they drive through town looking for others to talk with.

So, I can imagine what Marfa might feel like without visiting it. The air might be thicker and smell different than in Dutton. The color of the soil might differ, construction materials and building silhouettes might be different too because it’s Texas, not Montana. Except for all of the painted stars, cement stars attached to exterior walls, and forged steel stars hanging from mobiles around Marfa, I think its heartbeat is just like Dutton’s.

Songs :: Transcendental Blues by Steve Earle, Out of Touch by Hall and Oates, My Hometown by Bruce Springsteen, All My Days by Alexi Murdoch, and On The Nature Of Daylight by Max Richter

© C. Davidson