A Museum of Memory, Part I: The Klamath River
"The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark." - Virginia Woolf
This week I spent evenings in my studio apartment, watching the sun chase the shadows to bed, waiting for a flicker, some disorienting thought, to light up the room again. Passerby’s and happen-chance conversations have gleaned our innocent disjointed attempts to understand one another.
Recently, I’ve stumbled into situations where I’m asked: “Tell me about yourself.” An aversive request, that causes me to drop my person where she stands and attempt to curate a “someone” that might fit the silhouette of how I’d like to be seen. It’s too damning, anything I say crystallizes some “one” that is not “me.” So I struggle and do my best to deflect. Outside of the seven years of interspersed love. I’ve spent the last two years, embracing my solitude with the fervor of a young monk.
What is there to show with a feat such as this? Except my person, proof, that somehow I made it through.
The whole antique and obtuse motto; “take a picture or it didn't happen,” orbits my conscience. It troubles me, because I do not, normally, take part in this communion. I feel it’s my fault that feeds the feeling of fading.
But there are times in my life that I’ve wished to be witnessed. So, here is something, fossilized, a secluded moment. My experience, that I now prop up onto a shelf to display, like a trophy won, purely by participating.
Polishing off this old memory, and putting it up for exhibition is vulnerable (and comical). As I’ve meandered around my own thoughts and feelings, I’ve learned “none of us know” exactly how anything will turn out!
James Baldwin // "No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time."
Our assumptions can kill so much joy in possibilities. So here’s to trying and not knowing what happens next! A personal experiment to test the tensile strength of my bravery.
This is my first attempt to tell this story as the time I was a River Ranger Intern working for the Klamath National Forest, on the truly beloved Klamath River. Here’s an attempt to paint you a picture:
Population: 190.
River: Klamath River, 257-miles long stretching from Oregon to the Pacific Ocean.
Honorable Mentions: Dave ( 70-year old, River Ranger legend, mentor, neighbor and dear friend)
Plot: “Girl takes her broken heart to Northern California and rows it down a river 60 times and 400+ miles (literally).”
City: Happy Camp, CA ** refer to hyperlink above**
Consisting of four businesses, in the ENTIRE, 11-mile long town:
The Corner Store (picture gas station vibes/ make-shift liquor store).
This is where I got my burnt coffee each morning that I’d sip on while waiting in the parking lot for Dave. This is also where Dave and I, would wait out the clock at the end of the day, tired and sunburnt, eating chocolate swirl ice-creams.
The National Forest office: A liminal building from the 70’s lined with wooden panels, carpet, and peppered with the faint smell of cigarettes and pine.
Kingfisher Market: A place to buy expired food for full price and an extra 20% in inflation! Next closest grocery store: 2 hours/104 miles away.
Napa Auto Parts
Starting Somewhere.
…and sometimes beginnings are harsh.
I will relay the following journal entries, with as little gaps as possible. With the addition of “marginalia” found in the *asterisks* — commentary and little notes to tie-up loose ends.
June 18, 2022
On Leaving
A have a duty to myself to go, after all aren’t we all going? …going to bed, going to the store, going to die?
So why would I not go to California, it makes me afraid. Which is synonymous with excitement, synonymous with growth. I think I’m going.
July 11, 2022
(..33 days later)
I’m sitting and waiting. Waiting and sitting. All I want to do is cry because Happy Camp, California, is anything but happy. A decrepit old town. And I’m tired and disappointed. I shouldn’t actually be here. I didn’t want THIS.
I do not know how I’m going to do this for the next four months. I already feel the cloak of loneliness/ aloneness, draped over my shoulders.
I hope to the gods that this new roommate is my age and interesting. dear god! please! give me some sort of saving grace!
** To no avail, (and perfectly so) I lived alone the whole summer. With the exception of my kindly neighbor Dave, two peacocks, a family of deer, and a bear that once broke into my kitchen and stole all my bread and tortillas. It cost me a 4-hour drive to replace the loss of my groceries.
July 12, 2022:
6:45 am I’m sitting at a large wood table in the kitchen writing. Maybe all this time that I’ve avoided my practice of writing, I hadn’t been alone enough. Desperate enough. Being here, I find myself thinking: What would T. do?
He would maybe take walks with his wine, smoke a cigarette, “keep things simple” or “simplify”. So- that is what I aim to do.
Coffee is weak.
H. Hunt is playing on the speaker from my phone… I listen to it to feel kissed and I do.
July 14, 2022:
Reminder: thoughts expire, always bring the journal.
Yesterday, I got my first sunburn of the season. On my eyes.
July 16, 2022:
Dave’s Truck (A white, hoary, GMC truck with the National Forest emblem perched on the side doors.)
A collection of feathers on the dashboard (eagle feathers maybe)
An envelope addressed to “Dave” with a iridescent shamrock sticker
Canister of peanuts (expired but on sale) !
Two muffins
The Center Console
Strung together butterfly pamphlets
Paper towels
20 gatorade bottles transformed to make-shift water bottles filled up from the road-side spring
Gloves and paint brushes
A 8x6 yellow notepad, where he documents every weed and invasive species we remove for stats at the end of the year.
July 17, 2022:
Recent Revelations from a Curbside: “howdy!”
My go to when greeting folk from around here. Ha!
Been saying it enough and it’s a fun merge-word for “how do ya do?”, and that’s nice, it’s Texan. Supposedly, Californians hate Texans, but I guess it doesn’t really matter, “howdy” is bound to spill out either way.
July 20, 2022,
I did it, I made it to Crescent City, California, and it’s all worth it, I’m in my swimsuit, dripping in light.
There is a lit cigarette.
Which I’m now using as incense (American Spirit scented, the baby blue one). The first half has created the pleasant trance, I’m now writing under the influence of — and I’d like to think it’s some sort of “pour one out for the homie” sentimental pendant, if that is the figurative, then I’m smoking one out for T.
The water is cold and clear, green-blue, twinkling from the white sun. I learned from a sweet family, how to embrace a cold dip.
Sun is almost gone. Aunt C. said don’t forget to take pictures of myself and all the places I go, so I will heed advice.
I do not reckon it vain, to remember.
Glowing reflections, for the month of July dimming: be more like Simone.
“Tete-a-Tete, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sarte”, Hazel Rowley
“In her spare time, she went on long walking trips. The exhausting rambles preserved her from ‘boredom, regret and several bouts of depression.”
“ If on your melancholy evening, you’d been made to saw some wood, your sadness would have disappeared in five minutes. Saw Away, Mentally of course. Stand erect. Stop play-acting. Get busy, write!”
I love this so much. You are such a beautiful writer.