CONFESSION

meret oppenheim

I sit here gaping at the white page on the monitor, no words, nothing to go by for the next sentence, red-faced with shame, held in stasis by a major embarrassment, standing on the edge of the high-diving board, relaxing my nerves to step into the flow of the dive, like a singer stepping into the song when the band has set the rhythm in motion, praying it's not a belly-flop. I found the geode. Walking to the mailbox yesterday, I detoured to the place the geode went missing, continuing the search, despite believing it was gone. Before going out the door, I spoke to the geode in my mind and asked it to reveal itself to me if it's still here, if not, please find a way home if you're able. Walked over to the rock it stood on, looked at the ground, thinking, What are you looking here for? You've looked at this exact spot at least fifty times. I saw it. Daffodil leaves had fallen over, as they do this time of year, making a little cave the right size for the geode to roll into. I saw a potion of it like the crown of a baby's head about to be born, after sifting through the immediate area multiple times, lifting up daffodil leaves to see if the geode might have rolled into one of the little toad caves they make. Not there. I apologize to the white teenage boys of America for my presumption.  

meret oppenheim

How did I miss this particular cluster? The most obvious place, the very spot I imagined it might have hit the ground, going by where I most often find it. Birds kick it taking off after standing on it, kick it in the way their feet automatically fold behind when they lift off. I've thought about a touch of glue, but glue does not feel right. Why would it be that seven times seven times looking closely at the exact spot, I'd see it the fiftieth? Approximation, not an exact count. I've no choice but to believe it was there the whole time, that I saw it without seeing it. I had been there on hands and knees searching, and found it from standing up, from just a glance. Can't help but see it a measure of my unconsciousness. One of them palm-to-forehead moments. I dare not ever laugh at somebody else's unconsciousness again. I've been aware of my ability, to the point of it being a talent, to look directly at something and not see it. I don't understand it, but it happens from time to time. Recalling a time looking for car keys I'd set on the desk. Searched all over the desk, even places I knew it could not be, on the floor, in the drawers. Found them in plain sight beside the laptop where I'd set them, where they'd been throughout the search. Before concluding the geode was gone, I reminded self of this propensity to overlook something I'm looking for. I reminded self until I'd become convinced there was not a pixel of ground left unsearched. I did not want to believe it was gone, even after concluding it. It didn't seem right, it didn't feel right for the geode to be gone. It's not that I think I'm psychic. It was simply unwillingness to accept the geode had been usurped surreptitiously, something like willing the dead to return.

meret oppenheim

The decision to set boundaries about allowing my home to be used for a State Park parking lot continues. If it were the only way into the falls, I'd consider further. There are many. The falls are not on my land. It's time for the one whose property they're on, who owns them, to deal with it. They're more his people than mine. I've done my part. The missing geode was a catalyst that kicked off a decision I'd intended for some years. It's already a welcome relief from concern about leaving the house on weekends, or any day. In the time I had three kittens to raise, I trained them to stay away from humans they didn't know. Could not stand the thought of a nine year old saying, "Mommy, look at the pretty kitty, she's so friendly. Nobody lives in that old house. Can I have her, Mommy? I'll take good care of her. See, she's purring, she likes me." I've only once come home to somebody parked in my parking space. Left a note under the wiper blade, not a parking lot. No need to get mad, just somebody else thinking nobody lives in that old house where ever-thing's growed up, weeds is ever-place, no mowed lawn.

meret oppenheim

People have been ripping boards from the side of the barn I've been preserving, one of the last barns in the county. To bring it back to life, I store donkey hay there. It is covered in beautiful old oak boards weathered by direct sunlight over eighty years. One of my friends, Tom Pruitt, cut the timber and built the barn. He took the tree trunks by wagon to John Richardson's sawmill at the foot of the mountain in Whitehead, operated at the time by my friend Jr Maxwell in his late teens, who sawed the logs into boards that Tom then carried back up the mountain in a wagon drawn by two big horses, stacked them to let them dry before construction. I could put a want-ad in the Charlotte paper and sell it to a buyer and seller of old wood, who would come here, dismantle it, take the wood and pay a good price. But it is the barn I want, not the money. The barn has heart meaning for me. I appreciate its beauty to the point of preserving it. I'm tired of boards being ripped from the sides by waterfall hikers. After the no-hunting sign was taken from the woodshed, I was thinking the Coca-cola sign would be next, or would already be gone were it not nailed so securely to the wood. Eula Houser at the Kennedy Store in Stratford gave it to me thirty-eight years ago in good faith that I was not going to sell it. Every return from a trip to town I see it and thank Eula. 

 

meret oppenheim herself

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MY FRIEND ROSS

maxwell equipment, whitehead

I stopped in at Maxwell Equipment in Whitehead to see Ross and the others working there. Ross was the only one in. He was going through some boxes he kept odd parts in, used pipes of various sizes, parts he kept for unknown possible needs. I didn't want to interrupt his focus. I waited and fell into looking at a photograph of Jr Maxwell on the wall under the clock. The photograph was taken by Ross's dad, Dean, who went on a couple years ago. I think Dean was eight years younger than Jr. He told me when he was a kid at Whitehead school, Jr was one of the older kids. He didn't know him well, but looked up to him, because Jr, of the older kids, never picked on him and took up for him. Dean and Jr were never close friends, as Jr was older and they lived in different worlds. Though toward the end, Dean proved himself to be Jr's true friend. Jr worked a sawmill in his teens for Dean's dad, who was a sawmiller as well as farmer. Dean went on to college and worked as a ranger on the Parkway, got his kicks chasing bootleggers using the Parkway for late night runs with absence of other cars at night and no stop signs from Front Royal, Virginia, to Asheville, NC. Dean loved to drive fast. Chasing liquor runners was his thrill. He never worried about getting tickets for driving fast off the Parkway; he knew all the highway patrolmen. His wife, Betty, was terrified of his driving. She rode in the back seat, which she made into a lounge area with pillows, magazines, books and snacks. She distracted herself from paying attention to how fast the car was going. Dean's driving was what we call a "white-knuckle flight." 

reflection on my car's window

we can fix anything but broken hearts

I was looking at the picture of Jr that caught his character in one snapshot when Ross came back from his search through the parts boxes. We started talking about Jr, what a fun character he was, what a true human being he was, what a complex mind he was, how generous he was, how tight he was, how odd it feels to be saying "was." He lives in my heart and Ross's heart as if he were at home in his house as we spoke. Ross took up with Jr in his childhood. By the time he was fifteen, he was hanging out at Jr's tractor repair shop such that Jr became his surrogate daddy. Ross admitted openly before Dean that Jr, in effect, was his real daddy. Ross's attachment to Jr was that kind of strong, and not in defiance. I saw an obvious past-life association the same as I see with Justin and myself. I'd be visiting Justin's parents and gave more attention to Justin than to them. Justin was a special kid to me. I felt close to Justin and protective when he was little. In his mid-teens when he was able to have his own vehicle, my house was his "calm down place," where he went when the riot at home was too much to bear. We played rock n roll on the sound system and talked. I listened to him all the way along, which, I see now, bonded us when he was a youngun. I'm convinced of a past-life connection with Justin, which I didn't talk about. A couple years ago he told a dream he had of a lifetime as a farmer. The dream covered his whole life from childhood to old age. He said in the childhood of that life he and I were brothers, close brothers. I died in that life young, leaving him devastated, explaining the age difference between us now. I feel a similar past-life connection with Jr, whose name is actually Wiley, Wiley the third. He was one of the first people I met in my new life in the mountains. From first meeting him, I felt like I knew Jr. Our association was always honest and open.

jr by me

Ross and I talked about the snapshot Dean took, how it makes you feel like Jr is there. He said he wanted to go with me to Jr's grave and have a drink with him and pour Jr a drink. I've been doing this every year on the day of the full moon he left the body, the full moon in early November. Ross suggested we go have a drink with Jr Christmas day. We set the schedule in our minds. I told him about the time I told our friend Frank of pouring a drink for Jr on his grave. I thought he'd think it was funny. He said, "Waste of good liquor." Ross said, "That's Frank." He said, "It's probably what Jr's thinking, up there looking down on us thinking: Those dumb shits, wasting good liquor." We had a good round of laughter. Ross said, "It aint about the liquor. I'm doing it for me. It means something to my heart." I laughed and said, "Right. It wasn't like I poured out a whole quart." Ross said, "Right. Pouring out one drink aint gonna hurt a damn thing." He said, "Yeah, let's do that, give ol Jr a good laugh. Shit, I miss the old fucker." I said, "Yeah, I do too. It's not the same world with Jr missing." Ross said, "It sure as hell aint." We fell into talking about other things, like two motorcycles he kept in the shop for a place to keep them. He said the yellow one likes him, but the black and silver one doesn't. He rode it twice and wrecked both times. He rode the yellow one half a dozen times and never wrecked. He has a propensity to run off the side of the road. When you do that, it's over. For an example of the yellow motorcycle liking him, he told of a time he left the road and whoever owned the house kept the grass mowed up to the road and the dirt was the same level as the pavement. He said that one was easy to get out of. 

ross

He explained when you leave the pavement, you don't just get back on, you stay beside the pavement until you find a good place to get back on. In the time Jr was housebound, Ross was out riding, left the road and hit a culvert. It tore the bike up and hospitalized him. His shoulder still has pain from it. He's not been riding since. The thrill went out of it for him. He has reason to live now. An X girlfriend had a child by her divorced husband, who didn't want the kid. She couldn't take care of him and turned the kid over to mama to bring up. Ross felt drawn to the kid as a toddler. He saw the kid was simply lonesome. When he was able to walk, Ross would keep him over the weekend. He's in the second or third grade now, and Ross is his big brother and closest friend, family. Ross's older sister brought her baby boy home to mama to raise on the farm. Ross, John and Milly were big brothers and sister. Ross is raising B, the name Ross calls him, like he helped raise little nephew as brother. Joe grew up into a cool guy who can do anything he wants to do. He raced motorcycles and dirt bikes for several years, as did Ross. The yellow motorcycle in the shop was his racing bike. Ross has recently talked with B about staying away from sports in school and focusing his attention toward learning to make music with the Junior Appalachian Musicians at school; you can play music the rest of your life. When school is over, sports is over, you waste your time learning something you can't use the day after you graduate. And later, he will advise B to stay out of the military. B is a neat kid. He's a kid it's fun to be around, comfortable with adults. When he's with Ross and Ross's family and friends, he's at home, safe and loved, one of the fellers. There, again, I can't help but see a past-life connection Ross intuited in the baby without knowing that's what he saw. Perhaps B is a soul who wanted to be Ross's child and got there the best way he could.

john

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