The Hill

I witnessed a sight in Vegas, years ago maybe.  I don’t exactly remember the time or exact place.  It actually might have been Tahoe; but I remember stopping for a moment after seeing it.  It’s funny: you can go days or weeks and not remember anything particularly remarkable happening, but you remember the moment that stopped you:
It was a bride and her dashing groom, running hand in hand to the entrance of a luxury hotel.  He carried her and her flowing train of dreams through the door.  It was a fun sight to watch – two people in love, clad in canvas-white clothes, ready to paint their future together.

I forget what I was doing at the time, but it was something slow, like watching the fountain in front of the hotel spray chlorinated water out of a horses mouth, simply enjoying the movement of the water create fluid dramas above me.  I figure watching fountains is akin to watching the ocean move, waiting for something magical to rise up and take hold of your heart and lead you to a hidden kingdom you weren’t aware of.  A land only poets could describe.

When suddenly, the same blissful couple who moments ago had disappeared behind the glass which reflected crystal clear skies, came storming out of the bullet-proof, brass lined glass doors.  The bride was walking herself to the parking lot at a brisk pace, with her groom trailing her slowly and with his hands crushed inside his rented pockets.  I can only imagine their first night in hotel paradise was thwarted by cancelled, or never made, arrangements.

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There was a small town I was passing through last summer.  The paint on the wooden slats on houses was faded from a thousand summers of sitting on their concrete slabs.  It felt like walking into an old picture that had been hand painted by a nostalgic photographer, trying to capture the moment he witnessed a thousand years ago.  It was a quiet place with only a few birds hiding in black walnut trees which were scattered around town.  They seemed to keep the local gossip running in a continuous feed, nearly putting the Baptist church’s coffeemonger to shame on sunny days.

That was a summer of long roads.  Each road took me farther and farther away from the modern house I stopped renting a month earlier.  After looking at where I was in life, how much money I had available in savings and with whom I wasn’t, my heart was moved to move me into boxes and move the boxes into a storage closet while I tented my way through nights and travelled through the days.  My hope was that the wind would dry my face instead of my sleeves.  It was such a freeing feeling to start my silver truck and make it past the stop sign in front of my house.  I felt like Arthur discovering England’s countryside before the woman in the waters introduced him to his fate.

I stayed in my little blue and brown tent for five days in that town.  The entire place had such a slow shuffle through life, I slept through the first two days entirely.  The breeze was as gentle as the afternoon sunbeams which cast walnut shadows across my feeble abode, and seemed to bring in an equal number of hovering flies as it brought in migrating moths.  The dirt in the campground held a few rocks I had to move, before I discovered them under my back; but it was so soft, I enjoyed walking barefoot and feeling the warm dust travel with me throughout the day.

A festival happened on the fourth day in the local high school football field, which I visited quietly (though with cleaned feet by then).  The younger women (or older girls?) seemed to notice only the hairstyles and clothing worn by each other, but their older parents seemed friendly and relaxed.  I made myself comfortable with a bottle of cheap beer and stood near a table laced with local tupperware casserole dishes.  I had no idea what to say, or where to begin, so I simply engaged my ears into the talk around me.

Apparently, there is trouble for a couple families to make rent, but it has been going on so long it is more character muckraking than a financial crisis.  The local elementary school is having some problems with PTA involvement, as the parents are either working in the steel factory during the meetings or too tired to squeeze into their children’s primary colored desks for an hour listening to the status reports of another manager.

I wandered away after I had finished the first green bottle of beer, and brought another with me down some rabbit trail leading through dried wildflower stems and towards some small hills.  The chatter of the party was drown out by the clicks of mystery bugs hiding in the grass.  I never saw one, but it was clear they outnumbered me  500 to 1.

When you reach the hill, where do you go?

I turned around and sat on a hard mound of dirt and overlooked the small town.  Dusk was already covering the previously blue sky, and all that was left of the sunset was a dull pink that was slowly disappearing in the gray clouds by the horizon.  All that was left of any significance was a little, tiny milk white moon.

My eyes captured the moon in a most unromantic way.  I watched it hang in the ugly sky all alone, convincing itself that its beauty will overtake the gloom below.  Maybe if it sailed high enough, bright enough, for long enough…it would carry verses in poetry through the ages.  But she was still quite solitary in the darkening sky, providing company for the few of us who also sat alone in strange rural towns.

I looked around the hill, watching small creatures start their evening routines.  The sense of foreboding choice was as heavy as the rock beneath me.  I took a few meaningful breaths of summer air.  My fate was not with evening creatures on a remote, dry hill, I decided.  I stood up and shook my legs to get the blood flowing.

When I reached the hill, I could go around it; but I will only find another hill waiting for me.  It was time to use my legs to get me back to my burdened car, and drive.  Drive away from the hills, and back to the ocean where I belong.