A Room With a View

This is the view from my motel room in Fremont, Nebraska
That's a soybean field--and there in the distance, the curve of the Earth.

It's flat here and the eye travels easily to the horizon.

I spent the 30 years of my marriage visiting my in-laws here at least once or twice a year. It's surprisingly different from the countryside in Iowa where I grew up. But I've spent most of my life in big cities, so I can see the Nebraska countryside through city-dweller eyes too. It can look mysterious. Even a bit eerie.

It's a great place to contact aliens.
Or imagine animatronic dinosaurs or skeletal insects devouring the earth.

But I didn't come here this trip to write stories. I came to bid final farewell to my ex-mother-in-law. I made a terrible first impression in 1975. Braless and in short-shorts, I was wild girl with even wilder hair cavorting with the son that was meant for the seminary. 

She and I found common ground though and I treasured her. She was one of the most likable people I've ever met. 

Today after her funeral, after witnessing her ashes put into the ground in her husband's grave, I gave myself a tour of her yard. She gardened with both a reverent and a fanciful hand. She loved "garden junk,"especially and I do too, though most of my own treasures now come from the beach. 

 There's a row of towering evergreens that she planted as tiny saplings.

One summer she requested custom stepping stones with the handprints of her grandchildren.

She burned her trash--but only what could not be composted or recycled. 

Her hard work yielded much beauty. And while the yard certainly is not at the pinnacle of its glory years, her hand is still evident. I stood in front of her tool shed for a bit this afternoon, wanting to open it, but I didn't. She put me to work there during my first visit post divorce. I remember the smell of dirt and oil, but I can't remember what it was she had me do, only that I felt safe there in that small dark space that housed the tools she used to create her art.

Mildred was the most fervently religious person I've ever known. I may have been one of the most irreligious people she ever knew. Yet, somehow I believe that she resides now with her God, the angels and the saints. May she rest in peace. 

The Weather Saints

Main Street store: West Point, NE

Going back to the Midwest always evokes a mix of emotions for me. I hate the heat and the humidity, the infernal buzz of biting insects, the endless array of fried foods, and the jello weirdness of salad bars. But C and I drove through postcard prettiness yesterday from Minnesota to Nebraska. Billowing clouds over fields of perfect corn, the silver-green waver of soybeans, the greener-than-green glow of alfalfa. We stopped in a roadside antiques store to browse, and when we got to where we were going, we walked into the little town in search of a dinner. I want a steak in a dark bar or supper club, I told C. She was game. We almost had to settle for the golden arches, but at the far end of Main St., I got my wish.

I don't usually eat meat. I'm a pescatarian--in other words a vegetarian who eats some fish. But I had a steak last night. You gotta eat the good thing that's local, right? And there was no jello at the salad bar. Pea salad, carrot salad, and cole slaw instead. They were all delicious. We returned to our motel without a single mosquito bite and woke this morning to a day of unbelievably pleasant weather. We're here for a wedding, and my ex-mother-in-law has a routine of imploring the appropriate saints for perfect wedding weather. This is her 10th grandchild wedding, and she is currently 10 for 10.

What I see in front of me/What I see behind me

Yesterday, driving west on I-80 through Nebraska, the white lines between lanes were obliterated by the afternoon glare. I used the seam in the pavement to orient me, noticing that when I looked in the rearview mirror, the lines were there behind me, clear and distinct. What I'm heading towards as I travel across country with my just shy of 88-year-old mother is hazy like those lines. Yes, she's coming to live with me in California, but what does life have in store for the two of us? The past is clear-- like those lines in the rear view mirror, through memory has its own way of obscuring things sometimes. The afternoon drive today was a similar mirage. A ghost landscape against a distant sky that sometimes appeared as white as the haze shrouding the mountains and mesas.

We made our target destination for the drive today--Green River, Utah--but we all feel weary tonight as if the hot dust from the landscape has coated our enthusiasm. The desk clerk told us that it's been over 100 for the past 90 days. Tomorrow our goal is Vegas or somewhere near. It will be scorching there, too. The alpine scenery of the Rockies and the Colorado River with its banana-colored kayaks seems like a mirage in this dry place with its closed up storefronts and sandy streets.

Rivers crossed today: Kiowa Creek, Clear Creek (twice,) Eagle River (three times--at least,) Colorado River (numerous times,) Plateau Creek.

There was a strand of weird town names in Colorado--Silt, Rifle, Parachute.

Favorite road sign: WE BUY ANTLERS

In Utah on I-70 there was exit after exit that read "No Services." Western Nebraska is big and wide. That wide open countryside and Eastern Colorado seem to be made for grazing. Stretched out herds of cattle and fields of hay bales--some like lego blocks stacked into sturdy piles, some cylindrical, and even a few old-style haystacks like in a Van Gogh painting. The landscape in Colorado changes abruptly. Sage brush and cragginess and then, as if a page in a picture book has been turned to a new chapter, lush evergreens sprout toward the sky. The part of Utah that we drove through today makes Nebraska and Colorado look like the intersection of the Tigris and the Euphrates. It seems full of mystery. If someone exits at one of the "No Services" exits, where do they go?

Good-bye Nebraska/Hello Colorado

This is Nebraska.

This is a coffee break.

This is a rest stop.

This is Colorado.

This is the unexpected beauty you sometimes find while traveling.

Rivers crossed today:
The Platte (at least 5 times), S'Bra Middle Creek, Blue, South Branch of the Crooked Creek, Deer Creek, Beaver Creek (3 times) Spring Creek, South Platte River.

Junk food eaten (by me): Coca-cola, a Snickers protein bar, a Starbucks scone, Planters trail mix.

Report from the Road or A Lot of Water Under the Bridge

When I uttered the words, "three generation road trip" during a conversation at my brother's kitchen table a few days ago, my mom said, "Gee, that makes me feel old!" Tonight at dinner in Omaha after our first day, I explained to my ex-sister-in law and my niece that my mom had already been driven from Maryland to Iowa by her sister, that I had flown to the Twin Cities from California, rented a car, and driven to Iowa, then back to St. Paul where I met my daughter, and the two of us got into her car and drove back to Iowa where we picked up my mom in my hometown and the three of us began the long drive to California. Somewhere in the middle of this conversation, I felt old. Fossil old. Cooling crust of the earth old. Dirt and dinosaur old. All of those miles already and today just the beginning of the 30-hour, three generation road trip?!

Here are the rivers I've crossed since I drove out of the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport:
Minnesota, Straight, Shell Rock, Cedar, Maquoketa, Wapsipinicon, Mississippi, Iowa, Des Moines, Racoon, Middle Racoon, Middle River, East Nishnbotna, West Nishnabotna, Missouri, Little Papillion Creek.

Here we are having an organic lunch on a farm near a little town outside Des Moines. Just as M. and I began to bemoan the narrow prospects of road food, I saw a sign that read, "Organic Farm Restaurant."

It was fabulous. It was started by a doctor--who's now a farmer, I guess.

Now all four of us (that includes my mom's oxygen machine--I call him Mr. O because he rides in the back buckled in like a person) are safely tucked in for the night.

I gave my graduate reading yesterday. I read from the novel that was my master's thesis and it went well.
As is customary, I began by thanking faculty, my mentors, family, and friends, and as I stood at the microphone another line of thanks inserted itself into my thoughts though I didn't speak it aloud. Thank you Mr. Ex for being from Nebraska. Thank you for continuing to deceive me when I chose which MFA program I would attend. Thank you for remaining silent when I stood in the doorway between our dining room and kitchen, looked you in the eye and said that I wanted Nebraska connections in case we ended up retiring there. You have returned to me my earliest metaphors---open fields and soil, the hum of insects in summer, the crunch and squeak of boots on snow in winter, birds that we don't have in California.
Beginning the program while you were in the thick of planning your wedding I thought might kill me, but it didn't. So thank you, Mr. Ex, for leading me here. Thank you.

This morning in one of the last lectures before graduation, this quote from Louise Gluck was presented:
"Personal circumstance may prompt art but the actual making of art is a revenge on circumstance."