Longfellow Boom

Every so often there are loud booms in South Minneapolis close to the river. They seem to happen monthly and usually at night. They’re loud if you’re outside, or your summer windows are open. I’ve heard them for years but have never had a conversation about what causes them with friends, or neighbors since we’ve lived here. It wasn’t until I joined Nextdoor years ago that I read posts about the booms with the same questions posed every time. “Did anybody else hear the boom last night?” “Where do they come from?” “What are they?” Those are followed up with the same answers every time that range from, “it’s probably a sewer gas explosion down by the river,” “maybe a transformer blew,” “the nearby trains,” “fireworks,” or “the military.” Then the thread veers further away into Hilary’s emails, anarchists, crime, or Obama’s citizenship.

City council members, the health department, the police department, ballistics experts, and the FBI, don’t have a clue what causes the booms, at least no one has come forward publicly to confirm anything. Investigative journalists haven’t discovered any answers either, only further speculation. There was even a triangulation project commissioned between the city of Minneapolis and the main airport to discover the location of the booms. Despite the precise monitoring technology that was used, they never found the source.

Occasionally there’s an uplifting post by someone on Nextdoor notifying people that their cat has been found or thanking neighbors for shoveling a path across their front yards, from home to home, through deep snow because it makes it easier for the mail delivery person. Those posts usually devolve into anger, suspicion, and lecturing too. Someone will explain that they don’t shovel a path because of how it might affect their spring lawn and wish other people wouldn’t either because it makes them feel guilty, and targeted, because they choose not to. It’s ‘divisive’ they say.

Then a different person will post a non-sequitur saying that people shouldn’t walk in the alleys. That turns into arguments about race, thieves, car jackers, and how Minneapolis has become unlivable because of the unhoused and stolen lawn ornaments. Turns out the person walking in the alley was a new neighbor most people on the block hadn’t met yet. He was looking for the discarded lumber and shelving he noticed days earlier that someone had set out in the alley. He thought he might be able to use the items since his new house was unfurnished. The misunderstanding was never clarified, and apologies were never posted. Nextdoor has become another venue for the frustrated, bored, retired, and unheard to vent their agendas. It’s like the Lord of the Flies, complete with neighborhood moderators drunk with keyboard power and still, no one knows what causes the booms.

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“A thought often makes us hotter than a fire.” :: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Songs :: If You Want Blood (You’ve Got it) by AC/DC, and Angry by The Rolling Stones

© C. Davidson

Just Keep Going–Just Plow Through It :: [Supplemental]

Digger

Songs :: Someday by Steve Earle, and Don’t Let It Get You Down by Crusaders

© C. Davidson

John and Lill

We lived next door to John and Lill for decades. They lived in their house since the late 1950’s and raised three boys. When we moved next to them, their children had long since left and had families of their own. Lill was born and raised just a few blocks away and never desired to leave the neighborhood. John is originally from Boyceville, Wisconsin and always wanted to move out to the suburbs but they never did. He was a quiet man, but not a shy man. He was always very warm with us and acknowledged all the neighbors who crossed his path. We talked a lot about the things next door neighbors talk about like cutting the grass and if we plan to mulch it, bag it, or let it fly that day, why our lawn mowers are burning more oil, squirrels and the damage they do, illusive hummingbirds, his sore knees, my sore back, the heat, our kids, and the duck his family had as a pet in the nineteen-seventies.

Sometimes John and I had conversations on our shared alley driveway too and by the time we finished, we would have traveled five to ten feet. After many years of this, it finally dawned on me what was happening. He was slowly backing up while we talked, and I was slowly advancing to maintain the same relative distance, not realizing his slow-motion retreat was an intentional, defensive move, because I was loud and invading his personal space. Eventually he would say, “ok, you’re busy and I have to go now,” then turn and disappear inside.

I realized one afternoon while I was in our backyard that John was a smoker. I enjoy the smell of cigarette smoke and did then too as it drifted over the fence, followed by him exiting their garage moments later. I mentioned that I didn’t realize he smoked, and he said, “yeh. Lill is happier when I don’t smoke in the house.” I told him I’d quit a few years earlier, otherwise I would’ve asked to join him. Eventually he did invite me into their garage periodically to talk about a small appliance he was fixing, show me his collection of lawn mowers, or offer me an old tool that he had duplicates of. I usually declined and thanked him for offering, but during his last few years, I always said yes. I finally realized it wasn’t about whether we needed or wanted whatever it was. It was about accepting his gift.

In the years after John passed away, we spent more time visiting with Lill in her living room, or on her deck when she was dosing in the afternoon sun. If one of us was in the yard, sometimes she’d wave us over to talk about her garden and the crimson hollyhocks that were taller than all of us. The last time I sat in the sun with her she asked me to join her inside for a minute. We went through the kitchen, into the living room, and she sat down in her chair and turned on the nightly news. Then she pointed to her collection of small ceramic angels, explained where most of them came from and said she wanted us to have one, so I should choose. Then she turned back to the television, and I spent a minute or two looking for the plainest angel. It was white with silver accents and when I showed it to her and asked if this one was OK to have, she smiled and said, “perfect.”

Songs :: In My Life by Johnny Cash, Fish and Whistle by John Prine, and Transcendental Blues by Steve Earle

© C. Davidson

Invisible Future

Carr Haus Cafe was a campus coffee shop located on the first floor of Carr Haus, a building perched halfway up College Hill on the corner of Benefit Street and Waterman Street in Providence. It’s directly across from the very first First Baptist Church in America from 1775, and adjacent to the school’s nature lab where students spend entire semesters drawing natural history specimens. The second and third floors of the building contained individual painting studios for senior undergraduate students. My wife was in the graphic design program too and she worked at the cafe. We didn’t know each other and had never met while we were in school, but I frequented the coffee shop so it’s very likely we touched hands at some point while exchanging money. The first time we did meet was six years after those inevitable encounters. We ended up in the same city, connected through a mutual friend, and eventually got together at my apartment–studio to look at each other’s work. Then we went to dinner at the Uptown Cafe and talked about our common experiences, like design courses, specific projects, professors, restaurants, and stories about people we both knew.

She said she recognized me from the design department and from Carr Haus specifically. She recalled an interaction about me ordering coffee and after paying for it, walking over to the condiment counter for cream. When I discovered there wasn’t any left in the creamer, I repeatedly flicked the aluminum lid and just stared at her like a blinking penguin. She interpreted my passive aggressive behavior to mean, the creamer is empty, and you need to fill it. I told her that wasn’t me and that I’ve never flicked anyone’s empty creamer and especially the one she was responsible for keeping filled. We disagreed about her memory for years. Sometimes it resurfaced when someone asked us how we met. “So, did you meet in Providence?” “No, we actually met here, but…” After many years, we agreed that she was confusing me with someone else. He was an undergraduate student one year ahead of her and we resembled each other. We both remembered him, and I’m convinced he was the lid flicker because he often blinked like a penguin when I interacted with him too.

Attending this school was one of a few options I had, and when I chose it my undergraduate professor–advisor was not happy. She asked me to stop by her office one Friday afternoon to discuss my decision and told me I might regret it for a variety of reasons, including limiting my career opportunities. She thought one of the other programs was a better choice. I understood her perspective, but I didn’t agree, so I outlined my reasons, like curriculum comparisons and each school’s bigger focus. Mostly though, it just felt unexplainably right because I had an overpowering ‘feeling’ that it was the exact place I needed to be the following fall. It’s tedious to defend a feeling, even scary and embarrassing sometimes, but they’re usually right. Today when I imagine making a different choice more than forty years ago, I almost shiver. How devastating it would have been had I attended a different school. I wouldn’t have met her. I wouldn’t hear her singing and working upstairs. We wouldn’t have a daughter exploring the world. Our families, friends, places, adventures that have changed us, our loyal pets, and this quiet life in our small house on a street near the river and a creek wouldn’t exist. It feels like everything.

Songs :: This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) by Talking Heads, Private Idaho by The B-52’s, Girl from Ohio by The Outlaws, Fast Car by Tracy Chapman, and Steady On by Shawn Colvin

© C. Davidson

Measuring Up :: [Supplemental]

Measuring Up :: Photograph – Size Variable

Songs :: Nervous by Melissa Etheridge, Make Me Wanna Holler by Meshell Ndegeocello, Build Me Up From Bones by Sarah Jarosz, and Me In Honey by R.E.M.

© C. Davidson

Hot Pots

Galaxies :: Image – NASA-JPL-Caltech

My favorite part of where I grew up was that it was never far to a wild place. Some of those places felt ordinary like where the Missouri River passes through endless, dry prairie with abrupt cut banks and cottonwoods lining its route, or even the steep dramatic river bluffs on the north end of my hometown where the Corps of Discovery had to portage their boats. When I lived in southern Montana it was more dramatic. I was surrounded by mountains only a mile from town and it was a short drive to Gardiner near the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park where the hot pots were located. It only takes seventy-five-minutes to drive there, which can be trimmed if it’s 1:00am and the roads are good. A friend told me that it’s not the same as it was when we went there decades ago. It was natural then because only the locals and nearby locals like us went there. She said now it’s more developed with infrastructure and user-friendly features.

The turn-off from Highway 89 leads to a short, unmarked gravel road which ends at a trailhead parking lot. It’s a small, packed dirt clearing that accommodated ten cars and each spot was designated by an enormous boulder, like curb stops did in town. Whenever I went with friends, we were the only ones parked there and it was the same on that night. We all piled out of the car and put our coats back on because it was the middle of winter. It was snowing gently, we were chatty, happy, and walked single file because the trail was narrow and flanked by head high bushes and dense undergrowth. After a few minutes, we heard rustling up ahead which quickly turned into a loud crashing, and within seconds an enormous bull elk ran across the trail twenty feet in front of us. It was shocking and we were momentarily frozen in place, then began mumbling expletives repeatedly, even some yelling while the elk disappeared into the darkness and the crashing noise faded.

It was a five-minute walk to the hot pots from the car. The closer we got, the louder the river became, which forced us to raise our voices while we stood next to it. It seemed darker there too, with just enough ambient light to see each other, the falling snow, dim river boulders, and hazy streaks of white water. Once we all disrobed and stuffed our clothes and shoes inside our jackets to keep them dry, we walked down the slope and stepped into the steaming pools. There were three of them connected with waist high water and the bottoms covered with small rocks. Each pool had a different temperature that ranged from very warm to hot. Everyone submerged slowly getting used to the heat, and found smooth submerged boulders to sit on. With only our heads showing, we disappeared and reappeared through the thick steam the entire night. After a while someone said, “You know, we’re not just seeing stars, we’re seeing galaxies too.”

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"The night. The stars. The river." Edward Abbey – The Monkey Wrench Gang

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Songs :: Livingston Saturday Night by Jimmy Buffet, Home by Bonnie Raitt, Nightswimming by R.E.M., and Have You Seen the Stars Tonite by Paul Kanter and Jefferson Starship

© C. Davidson

2023 Burn :: [Supplemental]

2023 Burn

Songs :: Looking Too Closely and Sort of Revolution by Fink, Something You’re Going Through by Graham Parker, and Tell Me All the Things You Do by Fleetwood Mac

© C. Davidson

Cedar–Hopkins Loop

Halfway down the alley I knew I should have turned around to put on a light jacket, a heavier pair of tights and thicker gloves. It was forty-five degrees but felt much colder because of the breeze, humidity, and the sun already so low. It snowed two days earlier and had mostly melted, but the ground was still saturated, puddles were everywhere, and snow remained in some of the shady corners. I knew it would feel even colder later in the afternoon, but I was running late to meet up with friends for our ride, so I continued rather than be even later.

I checked my navigation app and saw they’d already left the rendezvous point, and instead of catching up, I discovered I was ahead of them half an hour later because they’d modified their rout. While I waited, I checked their moving dot periodically and took pictures of the art on the underpass walls and surrounding landscape. This place doesn’t feel as magical as it did when I rode through it decades ago and it was an open meadow covered with tall prairie grass. Maybe it will become an interesting place again, but right now it’s a stripped construction zone. My discomfort wasn’t just this place, or being under dressed, but the devastating news fragments I’d read and saw in my feed before I left the house. Riding in the heat and humidity always feels better. It’s more forgiving, my joints are looser, sweating purges stress, and the air feels thick enough for me to disappear into. On cold days, everything is harsh. Everything is brittle.

After a while, I stood over my bike eating a banana and looked through the chain link fence at the flat bed semis loaded with industrial materials, enormous piles of excavated dirt, heavy machinery, cement barriers, concrete foundations with protruding grids of rebar, and disconnected two story concrete walls. The view wasn’t comforting. Then I heard a faint bell and assumed it was one of the nearby workers phones. I heard it again, a little louder the second time and from behind, so I turned and saw my friends riding toward me and Joe was ringing his bell. It always feels surprising when I meet up with people on bikes, even when it’s been planned from the start. It’s like we’re kids on the loose in our neighborhood randomly running in to each other. We discussed our gear and the weather for a few minutes and not long after continuing, the starlings became unusually active, even frenetic. I don’t know if it was the weather, or the light, but it happened repeatedly enough that we talked about it during a brief rest in Hopkins. I added that I have a friend who didn’t like starlings because the resident flock that settled in his huge elm tree burst out every morning as he walked past it to his studio. He was annoyed by them daily. I wasn’t annoyed by the starlings on our ride, and when I entered our alley alone hours later I felt warmer than when I’d left, and more optimistic because of the birds.

Songs :: The Beginning of Memory by Laurie Anderson, Europe Endless by Kraftwerk, and As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays

© C. Davidson

The Insect Chorus :: [Supplemental Homage]

We spent the New Year in Los Angeles with family and friends years ago. One afternoon we visited LACMA and saw a retrospective exhibition by Charles Burchfield. It was mind blowing.

Image :: The Insect Chorus – From Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield :: 1917 – Opaque and transparent watercolor with ink, graphite, and crayon on off-white paper – 20 × 15 7/8 in. – Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Museum of Art, Utica, New York

Songs :: Sundown by Gordon Lightfoot, Sycamore by John Metcalfe, and Roberta by Les McCann

© C. Davidson

D N E O C I O T N C S U T R R T U S C N T O I C O E N R

Deconstruction

Reconstruction :: Image :: Hi-Line – Highway 2 – from Inside the Orange Bubble Series – Photograph – 2017

I saw a therapist for the first time in my life after I quit smoking tobacco in 1997. Thinking back, I assumed the time between quitting and visiting a therapist wasn’t very long, but after checking my records I discovered it’d been a year. I was surprised it took me so long to seek help considering everything that happened. The need to talk with someone began when my wife, daughter and I were having a quiet dinner. Our daughter was two months old, and it’d been eight months since quitting. At some point during our meal, my vision suddenly narrowed to an angry tunnel. I always thought the idea of ‘tunnel vision’ was just a metaphor. It’s not. It’s a physical thing too. I didn’t understand what was happening but from that moment forward, everything changed.

Fortunately, during her pregnancy, my wife began to read various parenting and women’s health books. One of them was Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom by Christiane Northrup, M.D. Hoping for answers, I read the section on smoking and learned for the first time what it can do to someone emotionally, even spiritually. She wrote that “smoking blocks the heart,” and wasn’t referring to blockage on a physical level. Besides nicotine, she explained that chemicals in cigarette tobacco can replace our own dopamine and serotonin over time, and when our bodies produce less of those, and the chemicals that replaced them are gone too, things can get ugly. They did get ugly and I finally had to admit I needed help.

I explained to my therapist what had been going on. He asked me all the necessary questions to determine where I was on the ‘depression’ spectrum, registered my responses, and told me that in fact I had mild depression. He thought an anti-depressant could be helpful, but since my situation wasn’t dire, he left it up to me. I’d heard about possible side effects and asked him if the drugs would dampen all my emotions and creative energy too. He said, “Yes, it can have that affect. It suppresses everything. That’s it’s job.” I thought about it for a few weeks and decided not to.

Sometime before that first appointment, I had a conversation with a man from Pennsylvania. He’d driven from Pittsburgh to the Pacific Northwest and back alone. Heading west, he found himself on Highway 2 along the Hi-Line in Eastern and Northern Montana. As the day wore on and dusk approached, he said he felt anxious and vulnerable. I added, “Yeh, when driving two-lane highways out there, huge chunks of time can pass without seeing another car, or anyone.” He was too uncomfortable, so he returned to the main interstate and stayed on it for the remainder of his trip. Out there, exposure is more than running out of gas or mechanical problems, it’s being alone.

As an aside, I relayed that story to my therapist and added my theory about tailgaters too. Either they’re having a bad day, terrible at judging relative distance in traffic, or lonely. He listened and nodded. I explained further that when unnecessary tailgating happens on a remote road in Eastern Montana, it’s simply about their fear, and loneliness— being near someone comforts them. After I told him my theory, he politely considered it and responded, “You might have something there. How does it make YOU feel when you’re alone in the middle of nowhere, driving on a desolate highway?” “It’s one of my favorite things.”

Still Life :: [Supplemental]

Flat Still Life :: Photograph – Size Variable

Songs :: Almost Everything by The Hold Steady, Transcendental Blues by Steve Earle, and Do for the Others by Stephen Stills

© C. Davidson

Climbing Hills

I’ve been thinking about climbing the locks and dam access road hill near our house again and incorporating it into my bike rides. I rode it a few times decades ago, thinking then that it could become a regular thing. It didn’t. I wasn’t committed, or even that interested, plus it requires hard and uncomfortable effort. It was an attempt over the course of a couple weeks, to burn off anger and sadness, and shift things out of the darkness. It was an emergency stress reliever, and sometimes a punishment on self-loathing days. Then years after that and even now when I climb unexpected hills, I usually embrace them and note my fitness over the course of the riding season— how my knees, thighs, feet, and lungs feel. Regardless of why I’m riding up a hill, it’s always about discomfort and the relief.

The steep access road to the locks and dam feels secluded, especially when it’s in the shade. It’s one of three in the metropolitan area and flanked by an enormous limestone bluff on one side, and the Army Corps of Engineers' building, machinery of the locks themselves, and the Mississippi River which flows south towards the gulf on the other side. There are usually a few people milling about or standing on the observation platform hoping for a loaded barge to pass through. After I couldn’t do any more reps up the hill many years ago, I looked down to the bottom of the hill, relieved it was over and happy that I’d taken some sort of action. I was out of shape, so it crushed me. Once I returned home, put away my bike, and recovered on our deck for awhile, endorphins slowly flooded me for the first time in a long time.

Songs :: Indian Summer by Joe Walsh, Burnin’ Streets by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, and October Road by James Taylor

© C. Davidson

Silver Maple :: [Supplemental]

Songs :: Make Me Wanna Holler by Meshell Ndegeocello, And So It Goes by Billy Joel, Goodbye by Emmylou Harris, and Break My Heart Sweetly by John Moreland

© C. Davidson

Whatever It Is

Someone’s Always Leaving :: Oil and Latex on Canvas – 36” x 48” – 1981 or 1982

I skidded to a serpentine stop at the bike rack between the Arts and Architecture buildings near the elevator and connecting bridge. I always looked forward to riding into the plaza from the east because it was downhill from the center of campus. I was there to set type on the Star-O-Mat and work in the darkroom. Before I did that, I stopped in the painting studio to drop off a gallon of house paint. It was just after the dinner hour and classes were long over, so the studio was empty of students except for a close friend. He was sitting with his back to the door and smoking a cigarette in front of my most recent painting. I’d been working on it into the wee hours the previous night and left it on an easel near the back wall.

“Hey man, what’s going on?” I asked. “Just taking a break from the sculpture studio and having a smoke. Is this finished?” he asked. “I’m not sure. I think it’s close. This is my first time looking at it since 3:00am this morning. Now that I’m standing in front of it, I see a lot of things that bug me. I might paint over part of it. I have a new can of white latex.” “I’ve been sitting here and staring at it for twenty minutes and I can’t see anything I’d change.” “Really?” I said in disbelief because we usually had suggestions for each others work. He snubbed out his cigarette, stood up, smiled, and proposed we meet up later. “Don’t paint over it,” and he shuffled out.

In retrospect, our small community of art and design students and close friends were unusual because things felt so open, safe, and collaborative during those years. At the time I didn’t think anything of it. I assumed this was how it was everywhere. The way it was supposed to be. I took it for granted because years later I realized how rare it was. It doesn’t mean there weren’t struggles, disagreements, or hard days, but that level of creative group energy didn’t happen again like it did at a small state university embedded in a farming and ranching community. I didn’t paint over it and days later when my instructor and I met to look at it and talk about it, he asked me how my love life was.

Songs :: Shelter by Lone Justice, The Leanover by Life Without Buildings, Turn to Me by Lou Reed, Caroline No by The Beach Boys, and Gentle On My Mind by Glen Campbell

© C. Davidson

June Friday :: [Supplemental]

June Friday :: Working Image – June Friday – Simultaneity and Narrative Thesis Remix – 1985 + 2023

Songs :: Let’s Get It On by Marvin Gaye, Birdland by Weather Report, Wild West End by Dire Straits, Matte Kudasi by King Crimson, and Roam by The B-52’s

Near a Marshy Pond

I wasn’t sure which direction my wife went. We were staying overnight in a state park, in country we’d never been before. She went for a walk with our dog soon after we unloaded our gear, and an hour or so before dusk. We’d been driving the entire afternoon and all of us looked forward to stopping and settling in for the night. While I searched for an outlet and organized my CPAP machine, I looked over at our daughter and it dawned on me that she probably craved time alone too. So, I finished what I was doing, put my shoes back on, kissed the top of her head and encouraged her to call if she needed anything. I identified the most worn trail and headed that way thinking my wife would have done the same. Our cabin wasn’t fancy, or even typical for most state park cabins we’d stayed in before. It had a pair of windows on three sides, a kitchenette, a small bathroom, a concrete floor and cinder block walls and was shaded by a huge grove of Oak trees. It was hot, humid, summer day and we were on our way to Omaha to drop our daughter off where she was meeting up with a bunch of other teenagers and guides from across the country to live and camp in the hills for two weeks.

After walking for fifteen minutes, I found myself ascending a gentle ridge, high above the forest canopy. I noticed a pond in the distance, secluded and mostly in shade, with very little beach. The trees were so close to the water in some places that many had collapsed into it, lying on top of each other and making it feel even more wild. In a small clearing visible through some trees and lit by the sun, I saw a few people standing in front of the pond. I scanned slowly and eventually identified my wife and a minute later noticed our dog splashing in the water nearby. I yelled her name and waved. She turned, looked up towards my voice, and waved back. I didn’t see a clear trail that descended the hill and through the forest towards her, so I continued along the ridge. Eventually it led to a worn rocky overlook with views in all directions. A few other people milled about, or sat on rock ledges, looking, and talking quietly. We’d never been to Nebraska, and it was much different than I imagined. It felt familiar.

After forty-five minutes, I returned to our cabin. My wife was already back with our dog and she and our daughter chatted while assembling dinner. Our daughter was nestled on top of her bag, with one of her books. They’d already laid out all our sleeping bags and pillows on the sleeping platforms, with each of our duffel bags lined-up close by while the last of the sun filtered through the trees. It was cozy and the gentle smells from outside drifted in from the open windows.

Songs :: Never Stop by Jackson Browne, You Got Something by J.J. Cale, Copperline by James Taylor, and Watching the River Run by Loggins and Messina

© C. Davidson

Depth of Field :: [Supplemental]

Depth of Field :: Painting in Background – Minnehaha Study 4 – 20” x 16” – Oil, Latex and Sandstone on Canvas

Songs :: Shatter by Liz Phair, Perfect World by John Mellancamp, The End is Not In Sight by The Amazing Rhythn Aces, and Why Can’t I Touch It by Buzzcocks

© C. Davidson

White Room Whiplash

41st Avenue South

Snow Management

I don’t remember the first time I heard Keith Jarrett, but the first album I bought of his was The Koln Concert. I’d never heard someone play the piano like that. It sounded like he was imagining the music without even touching the keys — like a player piano. Sometimes during college when I worked at home, I turned it up as loud as I could until I thought the neighbors might not appreciate it.

We had a piano in our house while growing up. My mother played it regularly, one of my sisters did, and sometimes my father played a few chords and hummed the bass part of a song as he walked by. So, it was often in the background like a soundtrack, someone learning new choral music, practicing for an approaching piano lesson, for pleasure, or when my mom practiced songs she would sing in church, for someone’s wedding, or funeral, the following day. I took lessons and learned to play when I was in seventh grade and lasted only a year before I quit. I wasn’t patient, disciplined, or interested enough to practice and progress very far and still frustrated that I wasn’t more accomplished. The peak of my ability was during my first and only recital. There were about ten students that played that afternoon. I don’t remember where I was in the line-up, but know I followed a girl who amazed and wowed the audience with her ability. I followed with Echo Canyon Pow Wow which began with a series of chords and proceeded mostly with chord progressions throughout. I misplayed the initial chords three times before my teacher walked up, stood next to me, and calmly settled me down. Once she got me started properly, I raced through the song twice as fast as it was supposed to be played. My performance was a disaster.

Three decades later our daughter played in her first recital. She, my wife, and I were all a little nervous driving there, and proud that she was following through with the recital, something she didn’t want to do. When it was her turn, her piano teacher stood nearby like she did with a few of her youngest students. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was clearly projecting my own unresolved chaos from when I was thirteen in the church sanctuary, hoping it wouldn’t turn out like mine had. It didn’t. She did great and after she finished her piece, the audience clapped and without any self-control I stood up, yelled out, and raised my arm in the air like we were at a soccer game, and she’d just scored a goal. I couldn’t help myself.

Being awake and out on the street at seven-thirty in the morning is rare for me, especially while engaged in some sort of physical activity. Sometimes during winter though, when we’ve gotten heavy snow overnight, and maybe even for days in a row, I’ll wake-up early and head to the garage to get the snow blower ready. They say this past winter was one of the top five snowiest and coldest on record in Minnesota. I haven’t Googled it, or checked the Farmer’s Almanac, but I find it hard to believe. It felt exceptionally long, but recently winters have all felt long, with the same amount of snow, and below zero days. I remembered conversations I’d had years ago with my neighbors Charlie and John about how hard past winters had been. They along with their spouses, Lill and Patti, raised their families on our block since the 1960’s, and they all grew up in Minnesota too. I can’t imagine this past winter was any worse than what they experienced out in open country.

Except for the snow falling for days and feeling worn down by managing it, the morning felt good even though it was really early. It was peaceful, and no one else was visible which is my usual preference. I knew I was right where I was supposed to be, and happy, which is sometimes hard to accept. I ran both sides of the length of our block three or four times and then our place before I’d finished hours later. If I thought hard enough, I could almost picture my friends Charlie and John waving at me from their front porch, offering assistance. I refused, but later in the day Lill, or Patti, would send over something warm for us, like cookies, or banana bread. The four of them aren’t here anymore and haven’t been for many years. Instead, I was alone and content in a swirling white room.

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"Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood" — Andy Goldsworthy

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Songs :: The Koln Concert (especially Part One at 7:16) and Changeless albums by Keith Jarrett, Section V by Steve Reich, and Blue Mind by Alexi Murdoch

© C. Davidson

Florence Flashback :: [Supplemental]

My Wife and Type :: Duomo Museum – Florence

Songs :: Beautiful Day by U2, A Sky Full of Stars by Coldplay, and She Drives Me Crazy by Fine Young Cannibals

© C. Davidson

With You

Me Monitoring the Firewood at Fourth of July in the Little Belts – 1960’s

Your View in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala – 27 April 2016

Hill off Highway 89 – Montana :: Image – Into the Little Belts

I didn’t get to experience and feel most of the places you lived in for months or weeks at a time, or just passed through, during your gap year and during college traveling the world over five years — like the deep orange-red soil of the Moroccan deserts and nearby Atlas Mountains, the complicated narratives in the Sistine Chapel floating overhead, volatile volcanoes near the western highland city of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, spring break in China, Sarajevo, or the Sarajevo Roses.

Even if I visit those places, I won’t feel what you felt, or see it the way you did, and that saddens me because even with the engaging way you tell your stories, it’s part of you I’ll never know. I understand that having the same experience is impossible and that we all experience everything independently and differently, but I still wish that every so often I could see those places and people through your eyes, like in some of those scenes from the movie Being John Malkovich. Then I would feel even closer as you grow out further into the world. I wish there were places from my past I could show you too, and talk about how they influenced everything, why they still feel magic and how they unknowingly prepared me to be your dad.

Some of those places I didn’t interact with directly, but only imagined what it would be like and how they would feel. Places adjacent to Highway 89 that weaves up to and through the Little Belt Mountains in Central Montana. The drive from Great Falls transitions from prairie and wheat fields to bluffs, canyons, and valleys before climbing higher into the mountains. When descending the dramatic backside of the pass south of the ski hill, it enters the Smith River Valley and passes through White Sulphur Springs. If you continue even further south, you’ll enter the Shields Valley nestled between the Bridger Range and Crazy Mountains passing small towns like Ringling and Wilsall.

This land is one of my favorite places. The Little Belts were my first mountain experience as a very young boy during family gatherings on the Fourth of July. Later, during my teen years while driving to the ski hill or hiking with friends in Dinosaur Valley and Hughesville, I passed one of my favorite hills. It was covered with short grass prairie, a couple of visible coulees, and hay fields at its base. Most of the winter, it was covered with snow except for occasional patchy windswept areas. The coulees collected deep snow and created enormous drifts. There was always enough so that I could have easily skied from the top all day, over and over with only the grass poking through to change the sound my skis would make. That hill and the longing to ski it always filled me up. I never imagined being with anybody else. I was always alone, even when I had dreams about it. Now I feel different. After hiking up and eating our lunch, I can imagine skiing it with you.

Songs :: In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel, Here by David Byrne, Goin’ Back by the Byrds, Children by David Darling, and Once In a Lifetime by Talking Heads

© C. Davidson