Idaho
Songs :: Private Idaho by The B-52’s and Feel Alright by Steve Earle
© C. Davidson
Lavender and Lilac
Tuesday 24 November 2020 :: I was working late and listening to Rickie Lee Jones and Shawn Colvin and hoped my wife was having good dreams in Florida. I thought about my daughter in the Powderhorn and hoped she was happy, safe, and that we could spend the holiday together. I thought about our overseas Christmas together a few years ago too, and began to look through my photos from the trip. I was completely absorbed in my screen like I was there, when a floral scent slowly filled my corner of the room, and lingered, then vanished as quickly as it appeared — like maybe it didn’t happen, that maybe I’d imagined it. I got up from my chair and searched around my worktable and eventually wandered through the entire house trying to identify the source. I couldn’t find anything. The smell of lavendar isn’t an everyday scent. Maybe during the summer when I’m on the deck near the potted lavender, but it was late November, the plants were frozen, and I was inside.
Soon after we moved into this house, we noticed a lavender scent would appear and linger for a minute or two and then completely disappear. It happened a hand full of times during our first year. We usually experienced it together and eventually thought the same thing. Someone, or something, was in the room with us. It was random but it felt specific and intentional. Eventually we decided that if it was someone, maybe it was the original owner of our house, the grandmother of the person we bought the house from. Maybe she was checking to investigate who we were, if we were worthy the house she and her husband had built in 1920. When that happens, so obviously out of place and time, yet crisp and real, it means something else is happening. When both of us are experiencing the same thing simultaneously, it’s real.
Eventually it stopped happening. Then this night I thought she might be back, but it smelled more like lilac, not lavender. It was different and made me think about my mom, her favorite color, and the lilac bushes she and my dad had planted between our house and the neighbor’s house. They provided a tall, green fence eight months of the year. When they bloomed their perfume was trapped in that in between space just like that night, where I could just linger in a white and purple cloud.
Songs :: Into Dust by Mazy Star, Send Somebody by Colin Hay, It’s For You by Lyle Mays and Pat Metheny, and Into the Mystic by Van Morrison
© C. Davidson
Laundry Index :: [Supplemental]
I tried to sell these empty laundry soap containers on eBay years ago. No one bought them and eventually my post expired, my account was dormant and then completely disappeared. I’ve often thought that if the two caps that don’t match, had matched, I may have had a bidding war on my hands.
Song :: I Don’t Know by Beastie Boys
© C. Davidson
Bootlegger Trail
View :: Photographer Unknown
Center
It was 8:30 on Friday night and everyone was in a good mood. We chatted for a while outside our cars and confirmed the location of the pending party, including any landmark and nearest mile marker in case someone became separated. After we drove away from the rendezvous point, I began to flip through my friends cassettes looking for something to play and finally landed on the new Boston album. We were on the west edge of town driving towards the Missouri River, past the fairgrounds then left, passing my brother-in-law’s Dads gas station and garage while More Than a Feeling and Peace of Mind played. We continued towards the refinery and turned north on Highway 87 while the sun was setting. We were directly behind Matt and two of his friends in his jet-black Ford truck, with extra chrome. Six or seven vehicles were behind us, from trucks to Volkswagen Beetles.
The third song on that album is Foreplay/Long Time and it was perfect because as soon as we approached the top of the hill and began to exit the highway, the faint transition began. We slowed down to make the gentle turn onto Bootlegger Trail and then the song exploded into the best part. As soon as every car in the convoy centered themselves in the lane, we all accelerated in sync like our cars were linked. We were in my friends red and white four-door sedan, with white leather upholstery, brand new tires, and a state-of-the-art sound system. We couldn’t hear each other speak even if we wanted to and we didn’t really want to, because who talks when this song is blaring. I wasn’t interested in the rest of the album though and I’ve always enjoyed choosing and sequencing music at times like this, so as the song was about to end, I searched for the next tune to keep the momentum going — songs by The Outlaws, Ozark Mountain Daredevils, or Pure Prairie League were typical candidates, but I landed on the Tres Hombres album by ZZ Top. It was surprising because we were both very aware of each other’s music collection and I didn’t know he had that tape. I fast forwarded through the first seven songs to La Grange, to the one I knew best and the one that was perfect for our convoy speeding north.
Eventually Matt signaled his turn onto a seldom used dirt road on the south end of a huge ranch. The people in our convoy would only be a portion that would arrive that night. Since we were the early arrivals, we followed him because he organized the gathering, he owned the tap and was probably the one who purchased the 16-gallon keg. It was late October and cool at night, even with a big fire on the edge of the coulee and a hill on one side that helped break the wind. People periodically retreated to someone’s car to get warm. We were were usually on a classmates family ranch land and our location was secluded with only two-track access. After hours of milling about and catching-up with friends next to the heat of the bonfire, in cars, and under the star filled sky, we said our goodbyes and connected with two friends who’d asked us for a ride home. As we left the orange glow of the party and sparks that streamed into the sky, I flipped though his tapes and landed on the perfect tune. We turned south from the dirt road onto pavement and accelerated. I leaned forward, turned the volume up and settled in to Night Moves towards the light haze of town.
— — — — — — —
Community :: A group of living things with something in common like beliefs, customs, or identity. Communities might share a sense of place in a geographic area, or a virtual space.
— — — — — — —
For S. S. :: Rest in peace my friend
Songs :: Foreplay/Long Time by Boston, Green Grass and High Tides by The Outlaws, Sure Feels Good by Elvin Bishop, La Grange by ZZ Top, and Night Moves by Bob Seger
© C. Davidson
Pandemic Distraction – Institute of Nomadic Architecture YouTube Channel :: [Supplemental]
Song :: Heart Sutra Song – Gone Beyond by Laurie Anderson, Tenzin Choegyal & Jesse Paris Smith
C. Davidson
Safeway
Most Friday and Saturday nights during college were predictable. I was either at a friend’s place, my place making stuff, at the art building making something, or an occasional bar like Roses where Kostas and his band often played. One particular night, a friend and I spent the evening at his house on South Fifth. He shared it with a roommate who I rarely saw when I was there. At some point, we spontaneously ate mushrooms and spent the entire evening drawing and listening to albums and the university radio station. The living room was warmly lit by a few incandescent floor lamps and a cluster of burning candles on the coffee table. After an hour or so, everything surrounding us began to bloom.
Eventually we realized our supply of cigarettes was dwindling, so, we discussed the necessary strategy required for us to physically leave our cocoon and interact with the outside world. We pondered it, discussed it, over thought it, and finally gathered ourselves and hopped on our bikes. The store wasn’t far, maybe a half-mile or so, but it was far enough that we felt exposed, while simultaneously relishing the speed and curb jumping. A block away from Safeway, we exited the darkness of the neighborhood and were spit out from Eighth Avenue past the Lewis and Clark Motel and onto West Main Street where the brightness was shocking. There wasn’t much traffic at that hour, even for a Saturday night, so we maintained our speed and crossed the four lanes quickly. We rode through the large parking lot, locked our rear brakes and made large serpentine skids, before dismounting in front of the store where the bike racks were. It was even brighter there, standing in front of a solid wall of glass, and florescent light like an x-ray. We headed for the entrance and the huge glass doors that opened automatically like they sensed we were there. We looked at each other, and I noticed how big his eyes were. Mine must have been too because we exploded in laughter next to the shopping carts.
Eventually we remembered the strategy outlined at the house and quickly realized we needed to separate to be effective. After five minutes or so, which seemed like fifteen, we met back up, each with cigarettes, a beverage and a snack. We made eye contact and without a word, walked towards the front of the store and the only functioning check-out lane. Out of the corner of my eye I was surprised to see someone in an aisle. I didn’t think anyone else was in the store besides the cashier, but a man was standing with his face just inches from a shelf contemplating something. He was motionless and so close that the front brim of his large felt hat must have been touching it. I slowed almost to a stop, focused even harder and realized it was Richard Brautigan. Even though I’d never seen him in person before, I’d seen pictures of him — his lanky frame dressed exactly the same way. He was unmistakable. I nudged my friend to look too and then whispered who it was. We continued walking to the check-out lane, working hard to maintain our composure because the cashier seemed to look straight through us, the lights sizzled, and a celebrity was present. When we finally made it back to our bikes, my friend asked, “do you really think that was Richard Brautigan. Trout Fishing in America Brautigan?” “Yeh, I’m positive.” “Wow!”he said. We got back on our bikes and quickly rode like we were escaping something and disappeared back into the dark streets towards home, while the stars and the breeze streamed straight through us.
— — — — — — —
In addition to the universal acclaim and recognition Richard Brautigan received for his writing, he was mythic in the area. He had a home in Paradise Valley near Livingston, and he frequented Bozeman because he was a writer in residence and taught a class at the University in the spring of 1982. My friend Julie told me that he even had an honorary reserved seat at the Haufbrau, his bar of choice. She said she never saw him there, or knew anyone who’d ever seen him there.
— — — — — — —
“All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds.” Richard Brautigan
— — — — — — —
Songs :: Sugar Mountain by Neil Young, Something You’re Going Through by Graham Parker, Lost In the Supermarket by the Clash, and Have You Seen the Stars Tonite by Jefferson Starship
© C. Davidson
Don't Know–Not Sure :: [Supplemental]
Don’t Know–Not Sure :: Diptych – 20” x 32’ x 2” – Latex on Canvas
Songs :: Too Much by Drake, Into Dust by Mazzy Star and You’re Right (I’m Wrong) by Colvin and Earle
© C. Davidson
Instant Ramen Time Machine
Benefit Street Apartment :: Ramen Photo–Monthira Yodtiwong–iStockphoto
During the last few years of college and especially my final year, I ate a lot of instant ramen. To this day when I smell it, or see the packages stacked on store shelves, I can be transported to either my apartment between the giant hedges on South Black Street, or my late-nineteenth century studio that overlooked Providence. Those two apartments and years of overlapping memories still swirl when I’m in the grocery aisle, like the past, present and future are singular.
I remember buying a case worth of instant ramen at Star Market in Providence every few weeks. Then I road home, prepared dinner, turned on the radio and slurped my steaming bowl of noodles. Sometimes when it was raining or snowing outside and I looked out my huge windows while eating, it felt a little like that street scene from Blade Runner with Deckard at the noodle bar. After I finished, I was back to nursing my coffee, cigarettes and evaluating whatever was on the drafting table, on the bike to Market House, or a midnight shift painting in the Bank Building. Wherever I was, they weren’t just noodles, they were a lifestyle.
I didn’t eat as much ramen after I moved to Chicago. I don’t really remember what kind of food I made at home when I lived there, but I know I ate out a lot. Once I moved to Minneapolis I cooked for myself most of the time. Years later, after my wife and I were married, ramen found its way back into our rotation because she loves noodles too. Then our daughter was born, and she became a noodle fan as well. We ate a slightly better-quality instant ramen than when I was single, mostly because she pimped it with veges and meat, and a half-hard-boiled egg, so it was transformed into something much better.
A few years ago, though, she suggested we stop eating the packaged version entirely because there were too many additives in the tasty powder. Being averse to most lifestyle changes of any kind, I immediately became concerned and voiced significant resistance to her plan. She listened to me and then gently suggested I be open. So, she began to buy bulk dry noodles and then added everything like she usually did and prepared the broth from scratch. I was spoiled. However, unless she made ramen for us, or we got ramen take-out, I didn’t make it just for myself, because my issue was the same as it was in college. I’m impatient. I want to be eating it in five minutes and I’ll gladly sacrifice the quality to have it that fast. Food impatience might be a part of my ancestry, from when very distant relatives were starving in Scotland, or Germany, and had to eat almost anything they could find to survive that didn’t make them ill — occasional meat, grass, sticks and other unidentifiable stuff that was probably just dirt. That’s what they could find, and they needed to eat it immediately when they found it.
Then last fall, my wife moved to Florida to care for her mother. I held out for as long as I could, but at about the six-week mark, I caved, and went to our favorite Asian supermarket and bought a case of instant ramen for myself and a case for my daughter. At first, I felt disloyal and a little ashamed like I was having a ramen affair, so I kept it to myself. We talk on the phone daily though, sometimes more than once, so what she’s making for their meals on any given day is a frequent topic of conversation and what I’m eating comes up too. Eventually I couldn’t take it any longer and confessed that I was eating outlaw ramen at home again. She laughed. “That’s not all you’re eating though is it?” she asked quietly. “No, but it’s in heavy rotation.” We left it at that. What could she really say or do at that point anyway? There are over fifteen-hundred miles that separate us and I’m already blowing through my second case like an instant ramen time machine.
— — — — — — —
“We’re noodle folk. Broth runs through our veins” :: Mr. Ping, Po’s Father – Kung-Fu Panda
— — — — — — —
Songs :: Doin’ the Things That We Want To by Lou Reed, Catapult by REM, Love and Affection by Joan Armatrading, Without You by The Doobie Brothers, True to Life by Roxy Music, and Early Morning Riser by Pure Prairie League
© C. Davidson
Eye of the Tiger
Fullerton Avenue Beach
One Friday afternoon in 1986, my boss, the owner of the design studio I worked at, came to me around 4:30 and asked if I’d stay late and help him with a project. We needed to design an album cover and generate a final comp for his meeting in our office at 7:00. I agreed. Shortly after 5:00, my co-workers began to filter out for the weekend, and I walked outside with one of them to smoke a cigarette. When I returned my boss said, “Ok, here’s what I’m thinking. I have this unused color print from a photograph we shot for the (Furniture) Corporation brochure. Earlier today I had a variety of transfers made in different colors and sizes and in various typefaces, for the album title, and the bands logotype. I’d like you to do a couple of layout options while I’m getting the final photo print ready. Do whatever you think works best combining the photo and the type, and then let’s meet about 6:00 and make a final decision.” I looked at the transfers and asked, “so the band is Survivor, you mean the Eye of the Tiger band… that’s the client?” “Yeh.” “So, we’re designing an album cover for Survivor?” “Yes.” They were huge at the time, so I got nervous.
I made black and white Xerox copies of everything so I could create rough layouts while preserving the ‘final’ color components. I made two and after I finished, we looked at them, picked one, made some adjustments and then proceeded to create the final comp. We mounted it on black presentation board, looked at it for a minute, and congratulated ourselves because we’d pulled it off with time to spare.
Since there were ten minutes until the meeting, I headed back outside to have another cigarette when the studio door flew open, and Frankie Sullivan and Jim Peterik appeared. They saw my boss and walked past me towards the conference table where he sat. Both wore tight, leather pants, shirts with the top three buttons undone revealing their tan skin and chest hair, and 3/4 black boots like the early Beatles wore. They met and I went out to smoke. When I returned, I cleaned-up the mess we’d made at the opposite end of the studio from where they were meeting.
When the three of them finished they walked over to me, and my boss introduced us. Sullivan and Peterik smiled, thanked me for my help, shook my hand, and they left as suddenly as they’d arrived. My boss was smiling too because they liked the cover. Then we gathered our things and walked out together—him to the nearby parking lot to get his car and disappear into a northern burb and me to the ‘L’ station on Chicago Avenue. Meeting two pop rock stars, walking out into the humid orange dusk and summer heat, with the rumble and squeal of the trains passing overhead was surreal. Everything happened so quickly and then it was over. I found a window seat on the train, settled in, and looked east towards Lake Michigan where I’d probably spend Saturday or Sunday afternoon tanning, swimming, and eating Italian Ice on the beach with thousands of other Chicagoans.
Later that summer, my boss told me that the album cover design had been approved by the record company and there weren’t any revisions. Then months later in November, I walked into my neighborhood record store on Belmont Avenue under the tracks for my weekly visit and saw the album sitting on the ‘new releases’ shelf. I’d spent hundreds of hours, hundreds of thousands of seconds in record stores in my life and felt a lot of things, but I never felt that.
Songs :: Is This Love by Survivor, Run Through the Jungle by Creedence Clearwater Revival, She Caught the Katy by The Blues Brothers, Sunshine In Chicago by Sun Kil Moon, Someday, Someway by Marshall Crenshaw, and I Feel Alright by Steve Earle
© C. Davidson
Hi-Line Flashback [Supplemental]
Near Kremlin, Montana – Highway 2 :: 11 September 2017
Song :: In the Country by Mission Mountain Wood Band
© C. Davidson
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
Dreams of St. Ignatius :: [Supplemental]
Mission Mountains :: Martina Nolte – Photographer :: Creative Commons CC-by-sa-3.0de
Songs :: In The Country by Mission Mountain Wood Band
© C. Davidson
I Still Remember
Hollyhocks :: Photographer Unknown
We used to have some elderly neighbors that lived three houses south of us on the same side of the street — Susie and Lavi. They were a little shy, mostly kept to themselves but were always very warm whenever we interacted. They’d lived in their house for many years before we moved onto the block and for many years after. Their house was a modest single story one-bedroom home painted mint green with white trim and a detached two car garage that was slightly bigger than their house. Their backyard was filled with a large, luscious vegetable garden, a lot of flowers and an elevated deck attached to the rear of their house where you’d often see them sitting, sunning and sipping refreshments.
After two years of waving to each other and exchanging pleasantries, one early fall day they invited me to stop by their house. “We want to show you something.” Later that afternoon I knocked on their front door and both of them greeted me. I stepped in and after we had a brief conversation, I slowly scanned their living room in awe. It looked like a combination of a folk-art museum and a children’s playhouse. There was a shelf about six feet off the floor on three sides of the room filled with beautiful cookie jars and other colorful collectibles, and on the floor lining the same three walls, were large wooden doll houses — each was unique and about the same size. There were at least ten or twelve of them visible. Each one had two to three floors, with highly detailed exterior treatments, like multi pane windows, shutters, window boxes with flowers, hand cut cedar roof shingles and detailed paint jobs. The interiors were completely furnished with things like lamps, chairs, tables, magazine racks complete with miniature magazines, throw rugs, bathroom fixtures, including small toothbrushes and even a mounted roll of toilet tissue, and kitchen fixtures like countertop appliances, cups, plates, silverware, tablecloths, and house plants throughout. Everything was hand crafted in exquisite detail. The front panel of each house was removable so you could view and interact with the entire interior. They explained that they had crafted the houses from scratch over decades and had hand painted almost all of the cookie jars and other collectibles. Lavi and Susie had a secret. They were under the radar artists and artisans, and they were making magical things.
I commented on how amazing everything was and asked them a bunch of questions including why they wanted to show me all of this. Before answering Susie made me promise that I wouldn’t tell anybody what I saw besides my wife. I told her I wouldn’t. They worried about people knowing what they had in their house. Then she told me that they wanted our daughter to have one of the houses if that was OK — that she should come by with us and pick one out sometime soon. Eventually we did go to their house together and she did choose one.
Early the following spring, I saw Lavi walking from his house to his garage. I wasn’t able to get his attention that day and hadn’t seen either of them outside much which was unusual. After a couple of months, I mentioned to my wife that I hadn’t seen Susie or Lavi working in their garden. Eventually I asked our next-door neighbor about them and she said that sometime over the winter Susie was admitted to a memory care facility. Apparently, she’d been struggling and was beginning to put both of them at some risk. Lavi couldn’t manage anymore and he needed help.
Eventually Lavi and I did connect. We saw each other outside and he waved me over one cool afternoon. He told me that Susie wasn’t living with him anymore. “She’s losing her memory. She’s in a facility and it’s my fault,” he said. He got emotional and I wasn’t quite sure what to do, so I reluctantly reached out and gripped his shoulder. I didn’t know if that was going to be OK. He’s a stoic Norwegian Minnesotan and sometimes his generation of men pull back and retreat during moments like this, but he didn’t, so I just kept my hand there. Susie was the love of his life and he couldn’t take care of her anymore. They each had to give-up huge parts of themselves forever. I know what grief feels like, but I don’t know what that feels like and I don’t think emotional survival is guaranteed when that kind of loss happens. Lavi lived alone in their house for only a year, or so, after Susie left. He eventually sold it and moved into a small apartment for senior residents close to where we live. Occasionally we visited him while he lived there. When he saw our daughter and one of her friends, his eyes lit up. Sometimes when the girls were occupied with whatever activity or treats Lavi provided them, he would talk about Susie and his visits with her, and how she was growing more distant every day.
As our daughter got older and grew out of the doll house, it stayed on our front porch for a while before we passed it along to a young girl on our block who our daughter babysat for. After she grew out of it, they returned it to us, and we passed it on again to some new neighbors and their daughter. I think Lavi and Susie would have been happy knowing that what they created together still has a bright life. The house they lived in has had a couple of owners since they left too — it feels very different now, but if I concentrate, I can still picture them working methodically in their garden, or sunning on their deck, partially obscured by the huge hollyhocks and other large country flowers that gently swayed in the breeze between us.
For Susie and Lavi
Songs :: The Beginning of Memory by Laurie Anderson, It’s for You by Lyle Mays and Pat Metheny and Coral Room by Kate Bush
© C. Davidson
High Windy Places :: [Supplemental]
North to Minnesota – 2019
© C. Davidson
Flying Again
Gore Hill — Great Falls, Montana :: Image–Photographer Unknown
Cottonwood Trees and Pollen Release :: Image–Photographer Unknown
White Cliffs of Dover :: Image– Karen Roe
There was a time in my life that I actually flew, without assistance from anything other than the wind and my gray hoodie, which I’d unzipped, raised over my head and used as a sail. I was hiking with a friend on Gore Hill just below the ridge, through sagebrush and thick prairie grass, some of it bent by the wind and some from its own weight. My hometown is a perpetually windy city — sometimes it’s a breeze, but it’s often a stiff wind. It blows in from the north and west, uninterrupted from Canada and the Rocky Mountain Front. We walked through cut banks and drop offs looking for the perfect ones to leap from. The soil and terrain there was like other parts of the west where you find things, like marine fossils from the great rivers and receding seas, to partially exposed prehistoric skeletons. We identified another perfect take-off. They were usually no more than big enjoyable jumps, but this time the height and distance of my leap, the strong gusty wind racing up the slope along with my small stature all at the same time, carried me weightless and I flew. That feeling was imprinted forever.
Most of the time though, I only dreamed of flying. When I did, the dream was always the same. It began by running as fast as I could from my front yard, across the street, through the narrow side yard between my friend Curt’s house and the Novis family house, into his backyard towards the three Cottonwood trees that defined the back edge of his lawn. Right before I collided with one of them, or had to run between them, I would abruptly get lift and take flight straight up like a jet — brushing the limbs and leaves gently, but enough to release cotton and pollen into the air. After reaching the top of the sixty-foot trees, I slowed down quickly and ended up hovering like Peter Pan and posed like I was in a fight scene from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. After floating there for too short a time, gravity took over and I would drift slowly down while trying hard to stay afloat because I didn’t want it to end.
More than fifty years later, I had another flying dream. I’d been hoping to have one for decades since they’d ended. I even talked about it with my wife periodically, describing and reliving the one from when I was a kid, trying to will it to happen again, or any other type of flying dream, but it never did until a year ago, out of the blue. This time it was completely different, the location was different, I was an adult, the complexity and risk were ramped way up, and there were other people present who appeared to be there waiting for me to fly, expecting me to fly. I don’t remember who all was gathered, but I know my mother and my father were there. That was the first dream of any kind I’d had where they were together again since they’d both passed away. It was also the first dream I can remember that my mom was in sharp focus, rather than a blurry, almost invisible presence. My father had been in a couple of my dreams alone before, one when I even spoke to him, but having both of them present while I was flying five decades later was unexpected.
The location looked a little like the White Cliffs of Dover. It had a similar drop off to the sea. After wandering around briefly, without interacting with anyone, and without any preparation, I ran as fast as I could to the cliffs edge and leaped. I knew it was risky because I hadn’t flown in my dreams since I was a young boy and I didn’t know if I could actually stay airborne, but it worked, and I began to soar out over the ocean, making gentle turns, gaining elevation quickly and whenever I wanted to, and then arcing gently back towards the cliff and accelerating along the edge during each fly bye. I did that a few times before I eventually didn’t turn back and continued along the ridge for a half mile or so, and slowly descended to the shore far below. I found myself alone in the middle of some sort of archeological ruins along with more recent abandoned buildings. They were made from brick, concrete, and fiels stone nestled among prairie grass with cut banks similar to the terrain of Gore Hill. After exploring for a while and wondering why I was in this place, questioning the dreams purpose, it immediately faded, but now I have a new flying dream to hold on to because it feels good to fly, it feels optimistic.
— — — — — — —
“Roaring dreams take place in a perfectly silent mind.” Jack Kerouac
— — — — — — —
Songs :: 10,000 Miles by Mary Chapin Carpenter, Given to Fly by Pearl Jam, July by Amy Petty, Flying Cowboys by Rickie Lee Jones, Into the Mystic by Van Morrison, and Expecting to Fly by Neil Young
© C. Davidson
Hazy American Gothic
Iowa :: Image – Sanya Vitale
American Gothic – Grant Wood – 1930 :: Image – Chicago Art Institute
Melancholy and Anxiety
I was on a road trip a few years ago that took me west through the entire width of Iowa. I discovered Iowa’s divided into two horizontal stripes in every direction, 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 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, like combines, tractors and chemical sprayers, a huge pile of irrigation equipment that was slowly disappearing into tall prairie grass, and a blacksmith shop. I could hear a sledgehammer banging iron and saw an orange glow with occasional sparks near a prominently placed limp, American flag on a twenty-foot pole. 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, a little like the anxiety I feel when I get lost in a maze and think I’ll never find my way out, or when I can’t locate the car immediately in a multilevel parking ramp because I forgot where I parked it. I imagined Iris Dement singing Our Town, or Leaning on the Everlasting Arm because the melancholy and anxiety were thick. I thought about home and family, but they weren’t anywhere near me, so I abruptly drove away from the discomfort and began thinking about the painting American Gothic.
My knowledge of Grant Wood’s painting American Gothic was 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 probably would’ve looked just like this when he asked them too. 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 sat on the front porch until the two of them 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 did come across this house randomly with a fellow artist and felt moved to draw it. Then later asked his family dentist and his daughter to pose for him. They weren’t even in the same room, they were sketched separately. That’s how he constructed the painting. He wasn't documenting an existing situation. He assembled seperate elements and merged them to shape 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 father’s pitchfork automatically implies poking, or stabbing. It makes me think of ‘children of the corn’ and these two look like they could be involved somehow, controlling them without words, just coded eye movements, sending out the ‘corn’ herds to track down trespassers if they stray into their fields. Someone might have pulled over, gotten out to stretch their legs and entered the rows of corn one hot afternoon during late summer, thinking 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. Then the children would be summoned, they’d congregate quickly and rush from the barn into the fields almost like a single organism, and quickly locate and isolate the intruders without even making their presence known. They’d stop abruptly like roadrunners, quietly encircle their prey, and emerge 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
Tomah(awk)
Tomah Train Station :: Photographer Unknown
Apple Picking :: 1967
When the train approached the station thirty-seven years ago I was excited. I was at most of the stops we made crossing the country because I’d never been to any of those places. We were in Wisconsin and I missed the conductor’s announcement, but I saw the station sign next to the tracks a half mile out and it said Tomah. I thought the sign was wrong even though I only saw it through part of a moving train window. I assumed it was supposed to read Tomahawk, with the ‘awk’ letters missing. My grandmother, Florence Scott, grew up in Tomahawk, Wisconsin, and I wanted it to be Tomahawk. I even started an ink drawing about it the next day titled Tomah while we where in Ohio en route to Rhode Island. Eight years later I drove by the Interstate 94 exit sign to Tomah on my way to Chicago from Minneapolis. I’d been mistaken for years. If laptops, Wi-Fi and Google had existed while I was on the train in 1983, I might have discovered my assumption was wrong, but those things didn’t exist then.
Whenever I imagine her hometown and her childhood with her sisters Georgia and Belle, it’s mostly fiction. I don’t remember most of her history there, but I know what Wisconsin feels like because we live near it and spend time there. I know what a small town with a lake nearby feels like too because I’ve lived in similar towns and watched TV shows like The Walton’s and the opening to the Andy Griffith Show when I was a kid. Maybe she had experiences like that. My parents told me that she was strong, direct, and didn’t suffer fools. I remember her hospitality and grace, like when she made me poached eggs for breakfast, how she managed family during holiday dinners and Easter egg hunts, and when my cousin and I picked apples from her tree on Saturday and were rewarded with root beer floats from A&W. I remember other moments too, but never how my grandmother felt, or how her childhood and teen years shaped her.
She visited me in a dream when I was an adult and long after she died. She wore a distinctive blue and white floral-patterned dress that I remembered from my childhood. When I told my mom about the dream, she remembered that dress too. My grandmother and I were in a small dimly lit room. We looked at each other and after a minute, she walked over and gently touched my arm. I can still feel her hand and and remember how the hazy light warmed and brightened slightly when she told me “everything is going to be alright.”
Songs :: Tell Me All the Things You Do and The Way I Feel by Fleetwood Mac, White Lily by Laurie Anderson and Here by David Byrne
© C. Davidson
Conversion
Twenty-five years after moving in, I’m moving out — in the center of a summer blast furnace, the virus, endless police brutality and lynching’s right before our very eyes in broad daylight. It feels like the right time, a long overdue time. Shedding old things and old stories, trying to pay attention to new things and new stories out of necessity, and out of my own embedded complicity. It’s unsettling and unnerving. It’s shocking.
I’ve been pondering this move for years, but always found reasons not to, like I don’t have the time, or I have too many unfinished projects, or where am I going to find something else this affordable? Sometimes when I postpone taking action and avoid making overdue decisions, they’re made for me, whether I’m ready or not. Change and transitions are always a challenge. I know lots of people who embrace both of those things and flourish — who don’t hesitate to move from one home to another home, or even from one state to another state every few years — significant ‘into the unknown’ moves — and even career changes every couple of years, for years on end. It’s almost unfathomable. My daughter is the opposite of me in this regard too — even though she appreciates the nest, she’s mostly a mover and an adapter, she’s a nomad. I feel like a different species sometimes. In my work, I’m willing to be uncomfortable and in uncharted territory, but with my home, my family and my lifestyle, I’m not as willing. I want a solid anchor to a place and my patterns, like this space has been for decades.
Unfortunately, my crap is an avalanche — mountains of paper, job files, specs, paper, estimates, correspondence, typical design debris, drawers full of press sheets from 1995 through last year, paper samples two decades old, cables and hard drives, art supplies like paint, brushes, and fluids, raw canvas, paper, stretchers, computers, scanners, books, paper, project samples, office supplies, postcards I never sent, memos I never sent, copies of letters I wish I hadn’t sent, old resentments triggered by long lost meeting notes from deranged editors, copies of first emails that turned into lifelong friendships, paper, an old bag of holiday nuts, mops, cleaning supplies, in-process paintings and drawings, book research, bundles of wheat, hardware, software, manuals, tools, paper, furniture and dust. I’ve rented this space longer than I lived in my parents’ home growing-up — longer than my daughter is old. It holds lots of good memories, hard memories, some dark hazy years, and tenuous transitions — sifting through physical and emotional debris to determine what’s saved, what’s shredded, what’s recycled, and what I want to cradle in my hands again like some timeless relic and then reminisce about it quietly and endlessly in the weeks and months ahead — like a collection of handmade cards and affirming notes my wife made for me. Sometimes I find another drawing by my daughter or an illustrated letter from when she was four years old, asking me to come home so we can be together as a family, including our cat, as soon as possible. Sometimes I couldn’t come home because of a challenging deadline, and sometimes I didn’t because I was lost and grieving, and didn’t want her to feel the full force of it.
Almost everything needs to be touched and reviewed. Occasionally I can grab an entire box of old, client book manuscripts from decades ago, or ancient financial records and toss them without review, but that’s the exception. If shoveling it all out was an option, or setting it all on fire without thinking was possible, I’d have done it years ago. If I go that route though, I’ll miss all of the sweet nuggets that make it rewarding, that provide inspiration and hope like a treasure hunt. So I wade through it for weeks and when I eventually look-up from what I’m sorting through in my lap like I have blinders on, through my scowl and see what’s left, I want to give-up and call building management and tell them I need another month, I’ll pay, but tell the new tenant I just can’t finish on time. Then call our family doctor for a psychotherapist referral, someone who can provide a deal on a bundle of appointments because I have a lot to unpack. Those things won’t make any of it go away though, so I forged ahead. There’s no shortcut.
“The best way out is always through.” Robert Frost
“If you get rid of the demons and the other disturbing things, if you get rid of them, then the angels fly off too.” Joni Mitchell
© C. Davidson
Songs :: The Perfect Boy by The Cure, Side Tracked by Dave Mason, and Proudest Monkey by Dave Matthews Band
Four Owls
Image :: Photographer Unknown
Highland Cemetery :: Great Falls, Montana
Bethany Lutheran Church :: Dutton, Montana
Near Our Home – Minneapolis
A couple of months ago, my wife heard an owl while she was walking our dog near the Mississippi River. When she got home, she was really excited and planned to return soon hoping she might even get to see it. More recently, we walked the dog together and ended up in the same area. Just as I was telling her that it would have been my mother’s birthday, she gently touched my shoulder, and suddenly an owl burst out of the trees from the river bluffs, with a crow and a peregrine falcon dive bombing it. The three of them flew and wrestled mid-flight directly overhead, and then landed forty feet up a pine tree very close to where we were standing. After ten minutes of hassling the owl, the crow and the peregrine falcon gave up, flew out of the tree, picked on each other briefly and disappeared to the north. The owl remained silent until my wife started to hoot. It responded to her a couple of times. They were talking to each other and it felt otherworldly.
Highland Cemetery – Great Falls
During the Fall of 2017, I ended up in my hometown for a couple of days. The evening before I returned to Minnesota, I drove to Highland Cemetery on the edge of town to hang out at the family plot, talk to my folks in case they could hear me, and wandered around a little. It’s a beautiful area with a great view to the south towards the Little Belt Mountains. Whenever I visit the cemetery, I always pay my respects to Charlie Russell’s grave too, which is very close to where my parents are buried.
As I walked back to the plot, I heard a noise in the distance which got slowly closer and louder and ended high up in an enormous pine tree not far from where I was standing. I assumed it was a bird, but it was oddly loud — like it wasn’t just flying, but also struggling somehow, like it was crashing through something. The noise was alarming — any noise in a cemetery, as slight as it may be, is unsettling. It’s a cemetery, and if I hear a strange sound, I imagine that something might be rising from the dead by clawing its way out and then levitate towards me in a standing position at high speed, like in a vampire movie and then I’ll have a heart attack.
I looked high into the trees, where the sound ended, and I assumed had landed. If I hadn’t heard it coming and scanned for the sound of the noise, I never would have seen it. It was hard to tell what kind of bird it was at first because its’ body blended in with the dark trees. I grabbed my phone and zoomed in on it with the camera. It was still murky and hard to distinguish, but once I saw its’ head move in that distinct way, I knew it was an owl. I stared at it for ten minutes or so and then it flew south and disappeared into the prairie towards the mountains.
Bethany Lutheran Church – Dutton
The next day, I ate lunch with my sister, said goodbye, and left to begin the drive home. I’d been looking forward to this leg of the trip because I planned to take Interstate 15 North to the town of Dutton and then east along the hi-line. I hadn’t driven this route in decades. I’d been looking forward to stopping in Dutton for as long as I can remember because my Dad designed a church there in the 1960’s. Up until then, I’d only seen professional photos of it and read some articles about it. It had won numerous AIA awards and I’d admired it since I was in grade school. The building was a bit radical for this small farm community — located in the middle of the wheat capital of Montana, with a population of just a few hundred people. While the design was contemporary and forward looking, it blended in naturally with the vernacular of the agricultural buildings.
I stood in front of the church, with the car doors and rear hatch wide open while eating a snack. After a while I noticed a dark shape underneath the shaded eave high up on the eastern wall — the building and the chapel interior are almost three stories high. It looked like a bird was sitting on the gutter downspout. I walked closer to the side of the church, looked up and saw its head rotate towards me and realized it was an owl. It was big. I scanned the wall further and then noticed a second owl on the other gutter downspout. I couldn’t believe I was seeing two more owls in less than twenty-four hours, for a total of three.
All of these sightings felt really specific, timely and personal, like visitors from the other side during challenging times — messengers breaking through and keeping watch. When I googled owl symbolism, the information went a little dark. Most of the cultural references focused on death, but I read further and it explained that death means a lot of things besides ‘the end’, it also means transition and change — from one thing to another thing, maybe even from one time and space to another time and space. Seeing an owl is always a big deal. Usually they just silently appear, or maybe they’ve been perched there forever, motionless, rarely blinking, and then it dawned on me that all of them probably saw me before I was even born.
For Jeenee and my Mom and Dad
© C. Davidson
Escape Hatch
Minnehaha Creek Drainage and the Mississippi River Gorge
Minnehaha Creek
Who knew that in March 2020, I’d have a self-refreshing browser window open and docked twenty-four hours a day, with seven online store tabs all spring loaded with alerts, dings, prompts and hand signals telling me that either our top three favorite brands of toilet paper, disinfectant wipes, disinfectant cleaners, hand sanitizer and rubbing alcohol might be available for order and delivery. There have never been any dings, or hand signals. Everything I looked for online is out of stock and its whereabouts is unknown. No one’s even sure if these products are made anymore. I’m not completely certain what day it is.
We usually make a once a week journey, maybe twice, to a grocery store, a big-box store, a hardware store, or a farmer’s market, to get the things we need to keep things going; milk, eggs, rice, flour, meat, vegetables, ginger ale, mouse traps, and cleaning products when they’re available. My goal is to get what I need and escape as stealthily as possible to avoid any potential stampeding, or trampling. No matter where and what we’re shopping for, we always check the paper products aisle, the cleaners and personal care aisles to make absolutely sure that the shelves are still empty, like during the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse.
A few Saturday’s ago, my morning started out just fine and by early afternoon I’d morphed into a tightly wound stressed ball of stress; worn down by virus concerns, the never-ending, dangerous, orange clown stick show, more horrific police brutality and white-supremacy crimes, and a simmering fear about our daughter who’s sheltered with six college roommates in Brooklyn — the center of the biggest pandemic crisis in the country. It was scaring me and it came out sideways. I wasn’t doing fine. I was melting down and I started to project all my melting anger and uncertainty on to my wife.
So, I took our dog for a long walk into the Minnehaha Creek gorge located below Minnehaha Falls not far from our house. It’s heavily wooded, has dense ground cover in some areas, meandering trails and a park service road on one side. I mistakenly walked the service road for too long and was shocked at the amount of people I encountered, without masks. I understood that it was a beautiful day and we’d all been sheltering for over two weeks, but I was spoiled. My wife and I had continued to recreate a few times a week since the whole thing began, and it had been mostly empty in the parks, but not that Saturday. So, I crossed the creek on one of the beautiful WPA built stone bridges, and onto a closed trail that hugged the steep bluffs on the opposite side. It was closed because there was significant winter erosion and parts of the trail had slid into the creek — even on that trail there were people — even with filtered green light, a deep blue sky and the soothing sound of the creek rapids, I wasn’t calmed. I still felt vulnerable, claustrophobic and annoyed.
After fifteen minutes, I sat down on a tree stump and considered the options. We could turn around and quickly leave the way we came in, back through people and go somewhere less busy; pull up my mask and continue, through even more people, to the river; or find a different way out, with no people. Our dog was fine, but I had to escape. I looked up and scanned the bluffs for a simple route. Eventually, I found a path I thought would work and we started to climb. I kept him on a short lead just in case something happened, if something slid and gave way. We did kick some rocks and debris loose and I noticed that there were downed trees shifting in the soft ground around us. We climbed quickly like we were being chased and exited out of the top of the gorge and into a different part of the park, into the light, without people.
— — — — — — —
“Any more of this and the hull will start to buckle!” :: Starbuck – Battle Star Galactica
— — — — — — —
Song :: Another Day in America by Laurie Anderson
© C. Davidson