I made it to this café, to sit in front of this computer
with a beer (although not the most tasty one) after hunting down my son at
Yosemite National Park with the expert assistance of super-sleuth Levinski.
Yes, my only, magical son, who has dreams swirling about him and histories of
grandfathers and mothers who have told me in my own dreams that he will be
special, that he IS special and nothing should surprise me. But it does—and infuriates
me.
I have made the commitment to do this—I have made a crazy
airline reservation and ungodly travel itinerary to fly to Iowa to take a
workshop on writing about Place. It’s funny because Place for me is Many
Places, but not here—not Austin. It is the cold biting wind of the farm in
Dimmitt, or the arroyos and cicada sounds of Palo Duro Canyon—but it is as if
this town is sterile for me, except of course for The Springs.
I remember writing a poem (now long burned in the fire)
about swimming, about life below the surface of the water. That is an
experience almost holy. Which reminds me
of another poem – long ago when Eliza was tiny, about lying beneath the
Cottonwoods at Deep Eddy. The orgasmic Cottonwood. Gasp.
I guess I am wrong then. There is magic here. Here be
dragons, and magic and grottos with random offerings and burning red
dragonflies, and maidenhair fern.
If I were to do this right this would be a weaving, woof and
weave, story and naturalism. The shift in my life, the “natural transition” as
the Black Cohosh bottle calls it, and the loss of self somehow dovetailing into
the life-cycle of the dragonfly, all told in books, not the internet. This will
be my challenge. Or maybe I don’t even
know. I feel the urge to explore, to travel, to question and research and watch
light shifting over a room, to see what is not being seen. I guess then I would like to be the see-er, the one who
wonders what the burning red dragonfly notices about a woman standing by a
grotto before a random collection of offerings at the statue of St. Francis and
why she doesn’t want to move as long as it holds still, apprehending.
