1.
We lay
in the hammock, a little shocked to be home.
In the
September sky a lingering blue
of the
coast,
of
small white clouds and screeching sea birds,
the
fizzing waves
of an
ocean that only moments before
–
wasn't it only moments before? –
held us
by the ankles,
let us
lean far out over that crinkling plane
and
away
from
the desert that awaited
our
crossing.
2.
Sebastopol,
hazy vineyards and a brackish smell of the bay, Novato, Vacaville,
ferocious traffic, a death race of freeways, Sacramento, Grass
Valley, wispy foothills before the granite waves of the Sierra
Nevada, then the fast dive to Reno, train trellises linking the
cliffs, Lovelock, broken ridges sliding against a burnt sky,
Winnemucca, a cheap motel room for the night. Then with morning, off
the interstate and north through the sweeping desert, sagebrush and
blond light, the dusty towns of McDermitt, Rome, Jordan Valley on
the long shoulders of the horizon; the lone settler cabin on the
climb over the Owyhee Mountains, the high broken rhyolite spine and
down onto the Snake River Plain, sudden civilization, the river town
of Marsing, apple orchards and withered corn fields, tractors pulling
veils of dust into the sky, mint smell, the sprawl town of Nampa.
When we
get to Boise the skies are milky with smoke from the forest fires in
the region. The green of the valley after an endless desert; the
trees of the North End cozy as a nest against the bare foothills. We
begin unpacking the car while Ada sleeps in the back seat. The house
feels vacant, like a face missing its eyes. I'm so disoriented, so
doubtful, stunned as a bird batted out of the sky midflight, that
after one bag I stand staring out the window at the horizon. I want
to drink a bottle of wine and lay with old friends under the live
oaks by the sea like we were doing another life ago. When Ada awakens
I take her to the hammock and she nestles into my chest. The thought
comes to me, Our souls haven't caught up to us yet. . . but they
will . . . after a little work, they will.
Ada
begins to get restless, to play the “Climb the Prow of the Ship
Game”, shimmying high up onto the point of the hammock before
tumbling back into my arms. Anna calls out the window for us to help
with unpacking. We lay a bit longer, pointing out the wine colors
beginning to show in the trees. “Will it still be automn when we
get home home?” Ada had asked many times on our trip, excited to
see Fall and very concerned the season would come and go before we
got back. She was happy now to see the first colors, the fallen
sycamore leaves and crab apples in the yard, the wilting garden.
“What should we do,” I ask, feeling a bit restless myself, “go
inside, or rake up the yard?”
And she
shouts out her reply.
