Certain moments lodge permanently into the waves of memory that persist throughout one’s life, while others dissolve, disperse, and, upon some alchemical spill, resolve in the present to haunt and provide tremors in the senses we come to trust. I can see the “old house” now, a forlorn chinaberry bare, save for a few dried and brittle clumps of yellow pods dangling from its branches. A north wind blows and exposed limestone glows on the surface. Down the stone path toward the ranch’s entrance I recall cattle and sheep, clumps of bluestem and prickly pear as further out the horizon blurred into the twilight. My father built a fire and we sat, eating hotdogs as the darkness spread. The new moon and the old moon moved beyond view as I stretched out my arms to the sky. Milky Way. I wandered through the vastness of Orion, listening to low voices coming through a transistor. But November’s chill drove us inside, and my father put oak logs into the wood stove and lit a match. Linoleum peeled away in the corners and a layer of grey dust settled over the floor. I liked the sulfuric scent of the match, and watched the blackened stick release its last trails of smoke. An ancient bureau’s drawers held pistols and ammunition, decades of oilcloths and tin cans of metal lubricants. Much of what I recall from this period of my life revolves around the deer lease in the country, and my father’s rituals of the hunt. Up by five each morning we’d bundle up in downy vests and flannel, take our guns and go out. I’d follow his steps over the rough limestone paths for miles until, veering off, we found ourselves in denser brush. Nestled deep in the scrub would be a deer blind built of oak limbs that had been shaped and entangled roughly. My father and I would sit in the cold and wait. As dawn approached the life of the countryside began to move. Purple finches fluttered while further out flycatchers dipped toward a distant horizon, a little stretch of it I’d glimpse through the branches of some great oak furzy with mistletoe and ball moss. Squirrels and other rodents made their way throughout the trees while on the ground were insects—dark beetles—close to my boots. My father might nudge me, and looking up, I’d see one, two, perhaps three white tail deer. On this occasion I recall a doe and a younger male. Their black noses sniffed the air cautiously. My father sat motionless and I could hear the breath move through my body as I tried to imitate his stiff repose. He lifted his rifle, sighted the deer, and looked through the scope upon their grey-brown bodies. As the morning moved in that dramatic stillness the sunlight spread through the branches. Slowly, they turned, wandered off, finally going beyond view as the last bough of oak or juniper settled over the space they had occupied only moments prior. I remember asking why he had not taken a deer. They weren’t bucks, nor were they big enough, he said, though I realize now he really only liked being alone in the country. The kill wasn’t his thing. And that was cool with me. So we walked. Spent the day shooting cans. Once a rattler confronted us: my father aimed. Was there an impact? The coiled form slid under the house. Cold, icy wind blew. At dusk we set out again. Certainly these moments inform so much of my body of feeling in ways I can hardly understand. One night, after hunting, and after driving into town for hamburgers, we came back quite late. We stumbled through the dark, taking a leak on white rocks. Inside we found our bunks and spread our sleeping bags. I remember that our heads faced an eastern wall. In that dark room my eyes closed and I began drifting away when my father’s voice broke the silence. I opened my eyes. A faint blue light appeared through the front windows. Slowly it brightened, growing in intensity, until the entire room was suffused in a bright blue. I could see my father bolt upright. I turned back to the windows. What is it, I asked. Don’t know, my father said, eyes wide on his gun. Suddenly the source of the light shifted at once to the north window, and the light remained from that position illuminating the room in a weird twilight of blue and yellow and traces of red. And then it left. I remember how this event for some time lodged into family lore. I could not stop talking about it. What had it been? A U. F. O.? I spoke of this for so long and so often that it is difficult now to imagine how eventually the memory of the lights began to fade, the details trailing off as those animated colors had so suddenly vanished. The lore of this episode has now been so dislodged that, only recently, it took some time to jog my father’s memory of that moment so long ago. I like to imagine it as some kind of visitation, though a visitation of what, I’m still not sure. Perhaps they were car lights, though doubtful for such a remote location. Is it possible that the visible presence of some alien and as yet unnamed aspect of ourselves roams the sky? It perhaps descends at vulnerable moments to awaken our curiosity. Beyond that the mystery of my experience continues to challenge the meaning of such observations. I’ve yet to encounter repeats of such celestial phenomena.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Certain moments lodge permanently into the waves of memory that persist throughout one’s life, while others dissolve, disperse, and, upon some alchemical spill, resolve in the present to haunt and provide tremors in the senses we come to trust. I can see the “old house” now, a forlorn chinaberry bare, save for a few dried and brittle clumps of yellow pods dangling from its branches. A north wind blows and exposed limestone glows on the surface. Down the stone path toward the ranch’s entrance I recall cattle and sheep, clumps of bluestem and prickly pear as further out the horizon blurred into the twilight. My father built a fire and we sat, eating hotdogs as the darkness spread. The new moon and the old moon moved beyond view as I stretched out my arms to the sky. Milky Way. I wandered through the vastness of Orion, listening to low voices coming through a transistor. But November’s chill drove us inside, and my father put oak logs into the wood stove and lit a match. Linoleum peeled away in the corners and a layer of grey dust settled over the floor. I liked the sulfuric scent of the match, and watched the blackened stick release its last trails of smoke. An ancient bureau’s drawers held pistols and ammunition, decades of oilcloths and tin cans of metal lubricants. Much of what I recall from this period of my life revolves around the deer lease in the country, and my father’s rituals of the hunt. Up by five each morning we’d bundle up in downy vests and flannel, take our guns and go out. I’d follow his steps over the rough limestone paths for miles until, veering off, we found ourselves in denser brush. Nestled deep in the scrub would be a deer blind built of oak limbs that had been shaped and entangled roughly. My father and I would sit in the cold and wait. As dawn approached the life of the countryside began to move. Purple finches fluttered while further out flycatchers dipped toward a distant horizon, a little stretch of it I’d glimpse through the branches of some great oak furzy with mistletoe and ball moss. Squirrels and other rodents made their way throughout the trees while on the ground were insects—dark beetles—close to my boots. My father might nudge me, and looking up, I’d see one, two, perhaps three white tail deer. On this occasion I recall a doe and a younger male. Their black noses sniffed the air cautiously. My father sat motionless and I could hear the breath move through my body as I tried to imitate his stiff repose. He lifted his rifle, sighted the deer, and looked through the scope upon their grey-brown bodies. As the morning moved in that dramatic stillness the sunlight spread through the branches. Slowly, they turned, wandered off, finally going beyond view as the last bough of oak or juniper settled over the space they had occupied only moments prior. I remember asking why he had not taken a deer. They weren’t bucks, nor were they big enough, he said, though I realize now he really only liked being alone in the country. The kill wasn’t his thing. And that was cool with me. So we walked. Spent the day shooting cans. Once a rattler confronted us: my father aimed. Was there an impact? The coiled form slid under the house. Cold, icy wind blew. At dusk we set out again. Certainly these moments inform so much of my body of feeling in ways I can hardly understand. One night, after hunting, and after driving into town for hamburgers, we came back quite late. We stumbled through the dark, taking a leak on white rocks. Inside we found our bunks and spread our sleeping bags. I remember that our heads faced an eastern wall. In that dark room my eyes closed and I began drifting away when my father’s voice broke the silence. I opened my eyes. A faint blue light appeared through the front windows. Slowly it brightened, growing in intensity, until the entire room was suffused in a bright blue. I could see my father bolt upright. I turned back to the windows. What is it, I asked. Don’t know, my father said, eyes wide on his gun. Suddenly the source of the light shifted at once to the north window, and the light remained from that position illuminating the room in a weird twilight of blue and yellow and traces of red. And then it left. I remember how this event for some time lodged into family lore. I could not stop talking about it. What had it been? A U. F. O.? I spoke of this for so long and so often that it is difficult now to imagine how eventually the memory of the lights began to fade, the details trailing off as those animated colors had so suddenly vanished. The lore of this episode has now been so dislodged that, only recently, it took some time to jog my father’s memory of that moment so long ago. I like to imagine it as some kind of visitation, though a visitation of what, I’m still not sure. Perhaps they were car lights, though doubtful for such a remote location. Is it possible that the visible presence of some alien and as yet unnamed aspect of ourselves roams the sky? It perhaps descends at vulnerable moments to awaken our curiosity. Beyond that the mystery of my experience continues to challenge the meaning of such observations. I’ve yet to encounter repeats of such celestial phenomena.
