Peter Washburn said he'd meet me in Moab if he made it that far. So of all the people I asked to accompany me on this trip, none was able to make it, but a friend of a friend said he might meet me there. I had had a month to get used to this idea, and by the time I left, I was actually looking forward to spending some time alone with myself and my dear one's remains.
I picked some lupines and poppies from our back yard and put them in an envelope and put the envolope inside the box Remy had decorated by hand. Don's ashes were in the box, wrapped in the same nondescript plastic bag they had been delivered in, but that was wrapped in a handkerchief I found among Don's things. This one had a topographic map of the area around Moab printed on it. I figured that was pretty cool and pretty much symbolic of the whole business of getting him where he was going-- he was already there, in a way.
And I picked out two miniature Buddhas from Don's collection of figurines: a small brass seated figure about an inch high, and a carved stone head about three inches high. I figured they would act as guardians on my trip. Maybe they could also be my witnesses in case Peter didn't show up. And I brought along a printout of all the e- mail good wishes I had received when told people about this journey, and the copy of Bicycle magazine that arrived the day after Don died, the one where the featured "Ride of the Month" was a three-day trip around the White Rim Trail. Finally, I packed a box with the 24 copies of The White Crack that Commonweal had ordered. I intended to stop by there first before heading east to a campground somewhere in the Sierras.
When I got to Commonweal, I was surprised by the number of cars parked outside the main building. I had forgotten they were having their 25- year anniversary party. By good timing (or good grace), I happened to bring along the photos Don took of Pacific House many years ago. The pictures showed many of the people who were now at the party. I should say I assume Don took the pictures because they were in the box of photos along with his other photographs and the negatives, and he doesn't show up in most of them though I know he was there. I handed the pictures to Rachel Remen as soon as I saw her in the main building. "Oh, my," she exclaimed, "we were all so young!" She took them with her upstairs.
I saw some other familiar faces there: Virginia Veach; Sara Rhinegold (I remembered Don's report that Rachel didn't consider Sara "Commonweal people"); Mimi Mindle, Waz Thomas, Michael Rafferty. I thanked Michael for starting the White Crack project and hoped he would be pleased with the final result. He didn't say much, which I take it is typical of him.
I saw Micahel Lerner, too. He came up and shook my hand and said hello, and told me I was welcome to help myself to the lunch buffet. Then he immediately excused himself. "I have to talk to some people," he said and moved off to a group sitting on the sofa. My guess was that he was probably networking or fundraising (or both), and that it was something he probably never stopped doing, even at a party.
I went upstairs to the large gallery, where there was a hanging of some rather interesting art. I had been in the building only once before, the day I came to pick Don up after he had taught his yoga class (and just two days before we discovered the tumor). I had never been upstairs. It is a remarkable room. Apparently all the power lines came into this upper room, which contained transformers and other equipment. When they were cleared out, a large, high-ceilinged space was left, perfect for an art gallery. And along both side walls were rows of large round windows filled with thick glass. You might think it was a kind of celestry except it looks so utilitarian. And indeed it was: those "windows" were the enormous glass insulators for the now vanished power lines.
What a wonderful place, I thought. It fairly hummed with magic.
Up here is where Don used to have his office.
I walked around looking at the paintings for a while, then I went downstairs. It was nearly 3:00 PM and I felt I needed to be on my way. I moved over to the buffet and saw Jnani Chapman and Davis Baltz.
Jnani and I chatted briefly. She asked me again if I've had any sense of Don's presence. I mentioned I had little hints and feelings, but had had no real sense of his still being here. Then I told her about the apparition the night he died, after the mortuary service had taken the body away. She was amazed. She said the story gave her goose bumps.
Moments later, after she had walked away, I realized I had once again forgotten to ask if she had had any visits.
Davis said very little to me. He asked if I were going to the White Crack soon.
"Yes," I said, "right after leaving here." I told him driving seemed to be the best way for me to get myself together.
"Is anyone going with you?" he asked.
"No, and it's probably better that way. Someone said he'll probably meet me in Moab, and I'll see if he does. But it's all right if he doesn't."
People seemed to be filing upstairs and Davis asked if I were going up to the art reception. I had already seen the paintings, so I said "No. I'll have something to eat and then be on my way." He nodded and walked off.
I had such mixed feelings. I was glad to see Davis (I always am), but wished there had been more to the interaction (I always do). His turning away to go to the art show seemed cold--like a cut-off--but that would be my typical reading, wouldn't it? I'm always seeing rejection where none is meant. But I would have liked a "God speed" or something like that from him, or an expression of regret that he wasn't able to go despite our having changed the date for him. Perhaps turning away was his expression of regret. Perhaps the emotional charge behind our conversation was too much for him.
I filled up a plate of humus and grilled vegetables and went outside to eat. A middle-aged woman joined me there. We soon established a rapport, built partly around our both having lost husbands to cancer in the past year.
"They do good work here," I told her.
"They do big work here," she said.
She then told me about "contacting" her husband after death. The contacts consisted of a series of ads in The New Yorker for "certified psychics." She got in touch with one and he said her husband approved of the changes she was about to make, including moving to the Bay Area. She then told me she had had a torrid love affair with a man she had hired to do some work for her. "It was a good way to separate my body from my husband's," she said.
I thanked her for sharing with me. "It was good to be part of an ad-hoc widow's club," I said. And it had helped me feel connected to someone in this place which I had always regarded as my biggest rival for Don's love. I wondered if this woman's strangely intimate story was a way for Don to contact me. I, too, had been thinking about how I might separate my body from his, and how that might be part of the ceremony in Utah.
I was about to go when I ran into Waz Thomas. I asked him if he might want to say bood-bye to "V." "He's out in the car," I told him cheerfully.
"I'd love to," he said heartily, and we walked to the van. I showed him the hand-made box in the front seat with the Buddha's head beside it.
"Hey, V," he said. "Have a great trip." He then turned and hugged me and gave me a big kiss. He is a big man, so just about any gesture he makes is large. But this was truly a big kiss. His lips turned outward as our mouths touched and my face felt like it was going to be engulfed. I remembered at once that this was how Don kissed, too, and I wondered if it was something he picked up from Waz or something Waz picked up from him.
We were walking back to the main building when I saw Jnani again. I asked her if she, too, would like to say good-gye to Don. She was eager to, and on the way back to the car I said, "You know, you've asked me twice if I've had any visits from Don, but I keep forgetting to ask if you've had any."
She said no, not really. "You know, it's funny about brain patients," she said. "I've had a large number of GBM massage patients since V died. I think maybe there's some kind of word-of-mouth among the GBMs that's recommending me."
We got to the car and she reached in and touched the box and said, "I love you." Then she turned to me.
"I tell you, I think there's something about brain patients." She had had an experience that had particularly moved her. "He was dying, and we could tell it was close. His wife and his best friend were in the room, but for some reason, he locked eyes with me. We locked eyes, and there was this immense purple wave that blotted out everything but his face. Our eyes were locked the entire time, even though his wife and best friend were right there. He breathed once, then once again, then he stopped breathing. And a brilliant halo formed around his head. Afterwards, the family rushed up to me. 'Thank you, thank you so much,' they said. 'We knew you'd guide him.'"
People need to tell these stories. I had told her mine, and I knew why she had to tell me hers.
I left the smaller of Don's tiny Buddhas on a window sill on the landing between the ground floor and the large, open gallery.
I do believe that intentions shape the soul. It will do my soul no good if my intention is to harm, cause pain, provoke anxiety. Whenever I feel my thoughts running in those angry ruts, I must ask myself, What is your intention? What kind of a soul do you want?
I guess that's a fundamental distance between me and Christianity: they say my soul was already stained with sin when I am born, and by following my nature I am merely damning my soul. No. The stone has been thrown, but with luck and grace, courage and discipline, it will wake up before it hits the pond.
I thought about this as I placed the tiny Buddha among the other figures grouped like a creche on the window sill. I need to think well of these people, despite my jealousy. Let his spirit bless this place he loved so much.
That first day, I made it as far as Grover Hot Springs. Luckily, there was one unclaimed campsite as I rolled into the park just before closing. I curled up in the back on the mattress and fell asleep pretty quickly.
In a dream, a large snake was following a woman who was walking backwards, facing it. Was she luring it? Charming it? Fleeing? Other dreams came full of sexual but incestual and heterosexual imagery. The central actor did not seem to be me. Upon waking, I thought he most resembled Jerry, Don's brother, so beset by disasterous love.
| June 3 |
I awoke to the sound of a running brook. Looking over the rocks
at the back of my camp, I saw a lively stream. Near the bank
was a wild rose bush. There were even some blooms on it.
I picked one and put it on top of the carrying box on the seat
beside me. It was still fragrant.
I drove over to the hot springs, rented a towel and some swimming trunks, then slid into the warm waters. There were several other campers there. The springs a filtered and feed into a shallow swimming pool. The view of the Sierras was spectacularly clear and restful. |
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Morning camp at Grover Hot Springs. |
| June 4 | I made it as far as the Nevada-Utah border, but decided on a more southerly route than I had originally planned. Instead of Great Basin National Park, I ended up at the Nevada's Cathedral Gorge State Park. |
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Cathedral Gorge: entrace to Cathedral Cave |
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In the "slot" of Cathedral Cave |
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Looking up from within the cave. |
June 5 Deadhorse Point, looking sourthwest towards the Schafer Grade. photo by Peter Washburn |
Peter and I met up at the Slickrock Cafe as planned.
We ate a leisurely breakfast. I was waiting around
until the 9:00 rendezvous time in case Nancy showed
up, though I since I hadn't heard from her in a month,
I didn't expect her to. When she hadn't by 9:05, we
headed out to the Island in the Sky.
Our first stop was at Deadhorse Point State Park. I wanted Peter to get a good look at the start of our journey so he knew what he was getting into. It's an intimidating panorama, but I now could see from above the road Don and I had driven down just a little more than a year ago. |
We then went on to the Visitor's Center, where I faced my first disappointment. White Camp campground was already reserved, not only for tonight but for the next three nights. The closest camp we could get was Murphy Hogback, eight miles further down the trail.
"I thought you could only reserve a campsite in person," I said to the ranger. I wondered if our waiting at the rendezvous had ruined our chances.
"No," he said, "you can also do it by letter or by telephone. Up to three weeks before the date, that is. After that, you do have to reserve it in person."
I vaguely recollected something like that from the National Park Service web site. But it was too late to do anything about it now: someone else had it booked. If we were going to use it for the ceremony, it would have to be on their terms. I felt angry with myself for letting this happen.
I wanted to get right on the Schafer Grade so we might make it to the White Crack before the people who had reserved it. That might give us some leverage. But Peter wanted to be absolutely sure he had enough gas to make it all the way around the White Rim Trail. The ranger had told us that any "service calls" on the trail charged $150 an hour from the moment the call was received. Peter didn't want to take any chances.
So we drove back down to the main road, got gas and a few snacks, then finally headed for the Schafer Grade and the start of our two-day trip around the Island in the Sky. Small, high clouds were forming in the sky. Though I reassured Peter that I knew we could make it to White Crack by nightfall, I was beginning to be apprehensive.
A desert spire (Washerwoman Arch is behind the foremost tower). |
I had been looking for an image to go with
"Voice of the Desert Father" in Maya,
and thought this would be a good one.
Peter was going much more slowly along the trail than I had a year ago. His caution began to eat at my nerves. |
On the White Rim Trail. photo by Peter Washburn |
Of course, there is a virtue is caution. You wouldn't want to take that right turn too fast or you'd end up about 500 feet below where you'd been just a moment before. |
|
That rise in the background
is as far as Don and I got on our trip last year.
Peter and I stopped here for a bite to eat. I remember
Don saying that White Crack was about an hour from this point,
but Peter was driving much more slowly and cautiously than I
had last year. I was growing anxious that we might not make
it to the campground before moonrise after all.
I was also growing apprehensive about whom we might find already there. Peter kept saying he thought the folks who had reserved the site probably hadn't gotten there yet. It's true we saw only one other party on the trail, and they were already camped out at Airport. But as we turned off the White Rim Trail onto the spur that lead toward the camp, I could see tire tread marks in the sandy ruts. They looked like mountain bikes to me. | |
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On the White Rim Trail, about two hours before getting to
the White Crack. photo by Peter Washburn |
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We could hear them before we could see them. "Are You
Ready for Love?" was being belted out by a female singer from a boombox.
We didn't see the campsite itself
until we rounded the corner of the
spur road, coming around the foot of Junction Butte.
Peter brought the car to a halt about twenty yards from what looked like a modern version of a chuck wagon. I counted nine tents, this wagon with an awning jutting out from one side, and another vehicle. A little further off were several mountain bikes. I got out of the car and approached a small group seated on aluminum folding chairs drinking beer. "Do you mind if we share this campground with you tonight?" I asked. There were unpleasant looks. "You have to have a permit to camp here," someone said. "Yes, I know," I said. "Our permit is for Murphy Hogback, but we're tired and we're not sure we can make it there by nightfall. And we'd like to watch the moonrise from here." A guy who looked like he might be the outfitter for the group said, "You can make Murphy Hogback. It's only eight miles. That's about a half an hour from here." I looked away and out over the point. We had come so far just to be in the right place at the right time. "Maybe we can get there after moonrise," I said vaguely and looked back at him The outfitter was shaking his head. "You shouldn't try that last climb in the dark. You'd be better off taking it while there was still daylight." I could tell he wasn't just trying to protect the privacy of his party; he was genuinely concerned for our safety on the trail after dark. "Well, I'll at least take a look," I said and walked away towards the point. Peter was already out of the car, getting his camera ready. I walked out to the point of land that jutted out from the Island in the Sky. I was looking for the place "where God would have his throne if the desert were a kind of heaven without mercy." I carefully avoided the cryptobiotic crust as I stepped from rocky outcropping to outcropping. Nearer the edge, it was all rock. You couldn't hear the cheap rock'n'roll from out here. At first, I found an accessible ledge facing east, but somehow it didn't feel like the place Don described in his poems, so I walked back to the edge of the precipice. Then I saw it. You have to go right to the very tip of the prominence and then look down to see the ledge, about ten feet below. If you climbed down there, you might not get back up, but you'd have one hell of a view of the spires marching off in front of you and spreading to the west and east and southward to the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers. |
The White Crack: Far away from home past the farthest place imaginable is the promontory where God would have His throne if the desert were a kind of heaven without mercy. (from "White Crack") |
At the White Crack. photo by Peter Washburn |
Peter took a shot of me straddling what we took to be the White Crack
itself, then
I walked back to the car and over to the privy. The boombox was now
blaring out "I Want a Real Man." Coming out of the privy, I walked over
to take a closer look at where the bikes were stashed. It was about
twenty feet away, outside the marked boundary of the camping area. I
thought it would be typical of these yahoos to park their bikes on
cryptobiotic crust, completely ignoring park regulations and having no
respect for the fragile life here. I was thinking of reporting
this abuse to the rangers when we got back
to the visitor's center when one of their party came
up to me. I guess he saw me eyeing the bikes.
"See anything interesting?" he asked. His tone was close enough to "What are you looking at?" to be unmistakable, but I chose to ignore that and pretend he was talking about the hike I'd just made out to the point and back. "Yeah," I said, "there's a ledge out there that's just like the throne of God." I went back to the car again and started changing into my wedding outfit. "Why Can't We Be Friends?" shouted the boombox. Peter came back with his camera and opened the driver's side door. The outfitter guy came up to the car. One of the other campers tagged along behind him, looking agitated. Could we move our vehicle so it wouldn't block their view? the outfitter asked. I was almost completely changed into the clothes I wanted to wear for the ceremony. The sun was just fifteen minutes from disappearing over the western horizon, and this close to the equinox, moonrise would be almost simultaneous on the opposite side. I was disgusted with the request, but said nothing. Fifty miles from nowhere and they wanted to see nothing that wasn't theirs. "You really shouldn't try driving up Murphy Hogback in the dark," the outfitter said. "So if you're going to stay, maybe you could move your car." The agitated man was nearly hopping in frustration. "I reserved this campsite three weeks ago for me and my friends," he said. Why can't we be friends? I thought. |
I was torn in two. Peter was right, this was not the right emotional setting for the ceremony. But we wouldn't be able to hear them out on the point. On the other hand, there was so much hostility in the air I doubted I could regain my composure. We'd be rushed, and I was beginning to feel the sacredness seep out of the moment.
I realized this was no place for a ceremony. It was the right place and the right time, but we were the wrong people. There had been hostility and suspicion on both sides from the start. Neither group wanted the other group to be there. This was our sacred space and we weren't going to share it.
Peter closed the driver's side door and turned to me. "Are you okay with this?"
"No," I admitted, "but we can't do it here. We'd better go or we'll miss the moonrise at Murphy Hogback."
We drove out of the campsite and back towards the main trail. I was so angry and frustrated I felt I would either cry or scream. Instead, I saw something in the middle of the road. "Stop!" I said, startling Peter.
I got out an examined a small blue flower perfectly situated between the ruts of the road. I had noticed it before in a blue flash as we drove the spur road into White Crack. It had tiny, snapdragon-like blossoms and six-petaled leaves that were held out like tiny hands. It was a miniature lupine, Don's flower, like the ones on Mount Tam. I picked a blossom and added it to the ones I had brought from home, then got back into the car. "Okay," I said, and we drove on.
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We rejoined the main trail and hadn't gone a mile before I
called out again. "Look!" I said, pointing to the abrupt horizon ahead
of us and to the left. Peter stopped the car and looked where I pointed.
He didn't see it at first, perhaps because it was so perfectly
silohetted: two curving horns with the ears centered exactly in the
spirals. It was a bighorn buck, not more than 100 feet away.
"I'll be damned," Peter said and started fishing for his camera. I got mine out as well. All day long, we hadn't seen a living creature larger than a lizard, and here was this notoriously solitary monarch standing on a ledge between us and the end of the world, watching. He moved. To our amazement, he stepped towards us. Peter and I held our breaths. The buck stopped again and regarded us with one eye. Then he broke into a trot and went right past us, barely ten feet away, heading, I thought, towards the White Crack. |
A blessing on our way to Murphy Hogback campsite. |
 Sunset on the White Rim Trail photo by Peter Washburn |
The sun painted the walls of the Island in the Sky with blazing oranges and golds. It was incredibly beautiful. If I just looked out at the scenery, I forgot my disappointment and anger. This was the kind of experience that had drawn Don to this place again and again. He was putting on a show. |
But I knew the moon was rising, too, and I had scripted this ceremony too well in my head to get out of it now. I started chanting:
Om Tryambakam yajaamahe
Sugandhim pushti vardhanam
Urvaarukam iva bandhanat
Mrityor muksheeya maamritat
I repeated the chant 27 times, interrupted now and again by gasps
of astonishment at our surroundings--and occasionally of alarm at
the sheer drop-offs and steep climbs along the way. The outfitter
was right: this was no road to drive in the dark.
We scrambled up the last incline to the top of Murphy Hogback after the sun had set. I could just see the moon beginning to climb up the notch between Island in the Sky and Junction Butte. The clouds that had hovered high in the atmosphere seemed to be thickening, smearing the moon's disk to an oval. I looked around for a suitable altar. At first, I thought a large balanced rock would be good, but there was no way for me to clamber on top of it. Then I went to the edge of the campground and looked down 50 or 80 feet to the sloping rocks below. Here was a little ledge, only a foot or so below the level of the campground, and sticking out into space just like the throne Don described at White Crack. I decided this was the place.
Scattering to the South... photo by Peter Washburn |
I got the box with his ashes, the dessicated branches, the flower
petals from home and
the ones I had just picked at White Crack, and the incense.
Peter set up
his camera and asked if there was anything he could do. I asked him
to bring me one of the bottles of water.
Then I set about my task. I lit the incense, then carefully opened the box. The envolope with the flower petals was on top. I removed it and set it aside. I had wrapped the sack of ashes in a topographic map of Moab printed on a kerchief. I unwrapped it and took a handful of ashes in each hand, gritty and coarse and smelling faintly of salt, and stood up. I spread out my arms, thinking of the two rivers below us, and began speaking. "I'm sorry I couldn't get you to the White Crack," I said, then I let the ashes fall. I took another handful and poured them over the edge of the cliff. Just as Don had predicted, a fair amount of them blew back in my face. I could feel them getting lodged in my hair and beard. "We'll have to leave it to the wind and the rain and the bighorn sheep to get you the rest of the way." |
| I turned to the Western horizon, where there was still a bright glow from the vanished sun. I let go another handful of ashes and felt myself covered again with them from head to foot. | |
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...to the West... photo by Peter Washburn |
| I faced North, my mind a blank. I was letting go of the last of him, but I did not feel it. I watched the wind come up from the canyon below me and pull the ashes from my hand. | |
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...to the North... photo by Peter Washburn |
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I faced the rising moon, which was now almost completely
obscured behind a thickening veil of clouds. There was
now very little of Don left. I turned south again.
I took the remaining ashes and threw them in a wide arc over the cliff. There was ash and bits of bone all around me now. I took out the petals and dropped them over the edge. I picked up the dried branches Don had collected over the years and brought back to put on his altars. "I'm returning these to their home," I said and flung them out into space. A moment later, I heard them clatter on the rocks below. They sounded like bones. His bones, I thought, his bones, coming home. | |
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...and to the East. photo by Peter Washburn |
Taking off the wedding clothes photo by Peter Washburn |
I turned my back on the canyon and slowly started taking
off my wedding clothes. I wondered briefly how this might
look to Peter, how it might look like someone getting
ready to commit suicide. I wondered if perhaps I would
commit suicide, jump off the cliff, join Don's bones among
the "hard and sharp things" on the rocks below.
But it wasn't in the script.
I was now completely naked. "Maybe I shouldn't shoot this part," Peter called from his camera. "It doesn't matter," I said. I turned back to the canyon. I was sorry again for not getting to do this at the White Crack. "But I got this far," I told him. "You'll have to do the rest." Then I picked up the bottle of water, opened it, and emptied it over my head. The water was shockingly cold. The dry wind coming up from the canyon dried it almost immediately. It didn't wash away all the ash, but enough of it for me to dress again in my regular clothes. It was now too dark for Peter to take pictures (the ones he took look bright because of the slow shutter speed), so he came up and held a flashlight for me while I read aloud from all the e-mail letters I'd gotten from people wishing me well on this trip and wishing Don well on his. We went to bed shortly after that. We didn't pitch a tent, but lay out under the stars. We were both exhausted. Late that night, I got up to urinate. Coming back to my sleeping bag, I noticed the full moon riding high and clear of the clouds, and bright Mars sailing along beside him. "There you are," I said, "and there I am, too." |
| June 6 |
Peter woke me just at sunrise. "Lou,
you've got to see this!" he said. I turned over sleepily.
He was pointing to the moon hovering just above the
butte on the other side of the Green River while the
face of the butte itself was bathed in the rising sun.
"It's beautiful," I mumbled and rolled over and went back to sleep. |
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The setting moon in the rising sun. photo by Peter Washburn |
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I woke again about an hour later and took pictures of
the site of last night's ceremony. There was much more
ash around the place than I remember seeing last night.
I got one of the bottles of water from the car and started
washing down the stones. I felt I should leave the place
more or less as I had found it. Then, when I was done,
I pointed the squeeze bottle over the edge and, making a
quick sweep of my arm, sprayed a stream of water over the
ledge.
I expected a continuous stream, but instead an arc of beads, perfectly spherical, seemed to fly out from me in slow motion, poised for a moment in the air as if perfectly capturing themselves and the scene in their reflections, then disappeared into the canyon. I stood astonished. It was exactly the scene Don had described in "Sometimes a Certain Mood," the very vision of eternity he had tried so often to capture in "Where Does It All End?" Peter came up to me while I was still standing there, dumbfounded. He looked over the edge. "You probably wouldn't be killed by a fall like that," he said looking down at the rocks and gravel below. "Oh, I think you could be, if you tried," I said. "But it would hurt like hell." |
Don's Throne at Murphy Hogback, looking southeast towards the White Crack and The Needles |
 Don's Throne, looking southwest towards the Green River |
 Looking South photo by Peter Washburn |
Candlestick Tower |
We packed up our stuff and Peter went back to look at
the steep grade he'd climbed last night. I was only then
aware of how terrified he'd been, scrambling up Murphy
Hogback. It was also then that I learned he car had only
two-wheel drive. "Now I know why they say this trail is
recommended only for four-wheel drives," he said. I agreed.
In fact, I was a bit put out. We could have rented a
four-wheel drive back in Moab. No wonder he'd been taking
the road so cautiously yesterday.
But not much the rest of the day really taxed the car. Peter was as alert as ever, but the road on this side of the Island seemed flatter and broader. The only tough part was the climb up from the Green River. We stopped partway up for our lunch break there, overlooking Horsethief Canyon and the big loop around Fort Ruin. We both agreed that it would have been hell on a third person, bouncing around in the back seat. We split up when we got back to Moab. Peter wanted to get at least as far as Green River by tonight. I went back to my room and hit the shower and then went to bed. I was still all twisted in self-anger and something else I couldn't name. I had so wanted this to be a perfect, poetic ending. I had tried so many times to do it right and felt so often I had done it wrong: sending the pictures to the wrong address in October, not being able to do the ceremony in Hawaii, and now this. I had made such a big thing about this being the one place where Don had requested his ashed be scattered, and about me being the one person who would commit to doing it, and I had fucked up. The only good-bye that had felt right was the one with David Grimes on the slopes of Mount Tam. Why do I try so hard? Whom am I trying to please? And why do I peg my efforts so often on an incomplete preparation? I could have reserved the campground by mail months ago. Why had I forgotten to do that? I now remembered reading the application process and thinking, Oh, it shouldn't be that difficult. I should be able to do this over the Internet. But since I wasn't, why didn't I just write the letter? Why was I waiting for the universe (or at least the National Park Service) to come around to my idea of how things should be--why was I waiting for a change to happen instead of changing my expectations and working with what is? It seemed like I was deliberately creating failure for myself. What good does that pain do? Whom am I asking to accept me as I am despite my failures? Whom do I please so much by failing that I create that pain just to win his approval? I fell asleep thinking like that. |
"What's wrong?" I asked.
The one who looked like she was in charge said, "We don't know. It's like the man who kissed his wife and then threw away the dirty laundry."
I didn't understand any of this. What she said made no sense. I was growing concerned for Don, who continued to sit motionless in the chair. He blinked once. "What's happened?" I asked the one in charge.
She shook her head. "Shall we do an autopsy?" she asked.
"What? No! He can't be dead yet." I looked at his face for some sign of life. "There! I just saw his eyes move. He can't be dead yet. He can't be!"
She looked at me sympathetically.
And I knew. He was dead. More dead than he had ever been in any of my dreams before. As much as he had been alive for a single breath in my Thanksgiving dream, he was now so very dead in this one.
I woke and I cried and I said over and over, "He can't be dead yet. He can't be dead yet."
| June 7 | |
The Lazy Lizard Hostel, Moab, UT, the setting for "Concentration" in Hard Bitz. |
I woke up this morning feeling desperate to get home. I had had
one moment of pure happiness, though, the night before. I walked
over to the Grand County library just a few blocks off Moab's main
drag and gave them two copies of The White Crack. They
were delighted to receive them, especially since the first ten
poems were set right there in and around Moab. I had also given a
copy to the rangers at the Island in the Sky Visitor's Center.
While in the library, I came across some local magazines with articles about Moab. They turned out to be just the thing I needed as background for the short story I had started writing in my head the last time Don and I were out this way. By the time I left the library, I was light-hearted and filled with ideas about the future. I was rather amazed at myself that I could have been beating myself up so badly just this afternoon and feel so happy this evening. I could have turned that into a meditation on the brevity of human happiness and the fickleness of human sorrow, but the mood did not feel shallow or fleeting. So I took it as a sign that my happiness is still a strong and living thing, waiting for my return. But now I wanted to get back home. After brunch at the same diner where Don and I had eaten our last day in Moab, I headed south out of town, stopping by the Lazy Lizard Hostel to snap a few shots. |
Don had mentioned the Goosenecks of the San Luis as quite a sight to behold. I'd chosen this route partly to go past them, and when the turn-off came, it was just about time to have lunch. I ate at the overlook, gazing at the entrenched meanders with a heavy feeling of purpose. You can make a landscape into anything you imagine and it is still just a landscape, following its own laws of gravity and erosion. But it was hard not to look at those thousand-foot deep trenches separated by walls in some places no wider across than a couple of hundred feet and not see the obvious. My patterns were as entrenched as these and my meanderings as pointless. The view is probably best from above, I thought. When you're right down in them, it's impossible to see around the next bend.
I drove like I was being pushed from behind. I drove almost all night, sleeping on the pad in back at some truck stop outside of Barstow. I arrived home a little after 1:00 PM, relieved, apologetic, and spent. Some small part of me had been saying, "Maybe I can go back and do it right" almost from the moment we had left White Crack campground. But now I was home, I didn't care if I never saw the place again. I was bitter and angry and tired. I tried to keep what Don had said in mind:
Go inside now, while there's still
an element of choice involved,
and make it beautiful there,
just as beautiful as
the most beautiful place
in the world;
seek the solace you require there.
That way, you'll never lose it.
And you'll never be shut out from it.