Memoirous

Another sign of re-opening: I browsed the stacks at the public library the other day. I felt like such an interloper, surreptitiously sneaking around the “new arrivals.” I couldn’t stop thinking: I shouldn’t be here. Quick! Get some stuff and run! I kept waiting for a guard to lead me out or someone to say my time was up. I’ve been surviving on hold requests doled out to me like a prisoner meal slipped into a slot in the door. The feeling of walking around and browsing was a bit disorienting. It felt like I was driving on forest roads without a map—never quite sure of which fork to take. Meandering. Lost in stacks of books. Even the smell took some time to get used to. I waited for the old familiar to come back— But it didn’t. I was constantly aware, that this is the first time in 14 months since I was in a library. Not just shuffled past a desk or holds section, but left alone to breathe the air and find a home. I’m still getting used to it.

Sign of the Times As things slowly let up from the restrictive Corona virus lockdown, I’m beginning to see signs of life. But before, as I rode my bike to work, going up Willamette, I’d pass the Veteran Memorial Hall with a kind of ironic sign on the side of the building. A sign that reminded me that there was a Before and, hopefully, an After. It read: Live Music Here, Tuesday – Saturday. Obviously, there was no live music right now. It was closed up tight. The grassy lawn a little worse from none-wear. The white structure appeared dingy and sad in the winter and early spring rain, the neglected sign emblematic of the lockdown orders that suddenly stopped life—as we know it. The pause, the interruption—if we’re lucky to have survived. The sign a reminder of all that had happened and would eventually come back again. Even the word “live” had a kind of sardonic resonance, Pointedly pointing to the very act of living. The letters just hung there, waiting—either to be taken down or altere...

 Going down Donald Street I hate the name (obviously), yet this is the street I have to go up and down to get to my daughter’s house. Yesterday I rode down the street for the last time. You see, my daughter and her family is moving. I know, I know—I just got here and got settled. I have and I will do it again. But for now I’m staying a few more months, separated. First, let me tell you about Donald Street. Once I crest 53 rd on my way down from Grace’s house, I gently brake coming to the intersection with Donald, gently because as I approach and see no traffic, I let go. And, from there I can coast all the way down, practically to 33 rd . There is one more up before 45 th but the momentum is still carrying me. As I glide down, down, down, I pull my head between my shoulders like a speed racer and scrunch up into a ball on wheels. I do this in order to increase the aerodynamics. To minimize resistance to gravity. It is like hurtling through space. The wind hits my raw ey...

Middle distance running was practically invented in Eugene.* In the 1970s Steve Prefontaine came out of nowhere to fly with his bushy mustache and stringy blonde hair up and down the hills in Hendricks Park. For heaven’s sake, it is the home of Nike—and world-class runners. . I see runners who look like retired Olympians in their skimpy shorts and race-track sunglasses out on the groomed “Pre” recreation path. So when I go for a jog, it is a shuffling of baby steps. It’s really ugly. What I’m getting at is that I’m nothing special. Certainly back in Chicago I didn’t get a secnd glance on my way down the street to the lakefront running path. In fact, I’m used to being ignored—it’s how I’ve lived my whole life. Cue: Eugene. To be perfectly honest, I get a run in maybe once or twice a week, so random. Yet, every time I go out, and these are different people, never the same ones, I get comments. And, not just a thumbs up, but actual encouraging remarks from strangers. Oh my God, yo...

I was in a pandemic. I was sad. I was all alone. I took off on my bike, to ride half-way across the country. A year ago, I was in Iowa fighting wind, a plague of moths, spokes breaking, a sore butt. I was lost. A lot. Thirsty, dehydrated. Caught in the rain. Climbing in my lowest chain gear. Meeting a Welshman in the middle of nowhere. Trying to figure out where I was—metaphysically, existentially, in a time/space continuum. I was eating breakfast sandwiches from Casey’s, Italian subs from Subway, ravioli from a can. I was looking for food after miles of nothing. I was talking a park manager into letting me camp as Covid had shut down everything. Basically I was living for miles and begging for a place to rest at night.   Fast forward.   I have a grandson, a new address, and 2 published essays from last year’s travels (the latest accept by The Account—stay tuned on when it will be available.)

Everything Sad is Untrue Daniel Nayeri Levine Querido, 2020 In Daniel Nayeri’s Everything Sad is Untrue, winner of the ALA Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults, takes the reader on a wild ride much like the Tornado at the amusement park or like Scheherazade in 1,001 Nights, spinning yarns/memories in order to save his life. This is not just hyperbole. In the face of trauma, he was unloading, taking heavy burdens off his heart and mind. At the same time he was lightening he was enlightening us, the reader, giving us insight into the life of a refugee. A timely story. Doing research for my book Cloud of Witnesses for the character Hassan I read many first-hand accounts of life in Iran pre and post the Revolution. Nayeri describes his family, homes, and life in a beautiful and complex country. We are given a picture of a home full of the sound of birds and the smell of jasmine—and at the same time an open sewage trench and running from the morality...

Nomadland: a book review Jessica Bruder W.W. Norton & Co., 2017 In one of the opening scenes of the film, Nomadland, we are given a close-up of Fern, yet are unable to “read” her face. There is a slew of emotions to sort through. Intensity, concentration, fear—then the camera backs up and we realize—oh, she’s having a pee—backs up further—beside a lonesome highway. She quickly finishes up and pulls up her pants and jumps into her white van. Upon reading the book, we gain a much BROADER understanding of that close up. It is a woman’s face, someone who has worked and suffered sudden unemployment, who is grieving not only the end of her life but the life of her husband=everything she has ever known. Gone. And now, she is starting out, without a house, her stuff in storage, on a journey, a new life, called vanlife. Living in her van The raw emotion that is unreadable is unknowable. Where does she start, where is she going, where will she end up? So many questions. She is terrified. Out...

 As I mentioned in my last post I work at a bike shop. It’s (for now) just me, the owner and a student running things. During Covid people decided they wanted to bike. It is automatically a social distance form of recreation. Gyms closed so folks were looking to exercise. Also for those who had to work but didn’t want to take public transportation (either because of germs or the bus shut down) they got new bikes or had to fix up their old one. Regardless bike shops under the pandemic have been busy. We’re considered essential workers. So to be clear, we have not stopped since I’ve been there. Every day is busy. The demographics, in my limited opinion, seem to skew older. There are many people just now getting into cycling, but the old geezers, like me, have been doing it since the 70s. Or are in their 70s. Either way, when they come into the shop and see me a 62-year-old lady in a shop apron embroidered with a bike on the bib, they feel at ease. Especially the women. We can g...

I don’t mean to stain the name of Nigeria or bring dishonor to princes, or assert that anyone from that country is a bad person. I’m sorry if scammers, cons, phishers, and frauds have ruined it for Nigerian princes, turning them into memes. It’s just that I have no way of knowing if an offer I got this week is for-reals. From: Nora Droste Date: Thu, May 27, 2021 at 1:23 PM Subject: Creative Writing and Poetry Conference – We Need Your Experience! To: Hello: My name is Nora Droste and I work for Smart Asset. We are hiring writers and poets with adequate work-related experience for our conference. The objective is to have you share your experiences as a writer and/or poet with everyone attending the conference including some of our employees and members of the general public by invitation only. This is to encourage people looking to become new writers. We request for you to work 1 hour on any two days between July 10th and July 30th, 2021. This will be between 12 PM and 2 P...