Summer Etcetera: From Camus to Wallace, Idaho

Hello Folks, 

I've mainly been using this place to read poems into every Sunday that I can. But it seems an update about writing is in order since it has been a hot minute.

My story "All The Queens" will appear in the next issue of Willow Springs. I sent off final edits last month and finally remembered to then move those edits into my larger story collection, of which the story will be a part. "Valentine's Day" was my first publication with Willow Springs several years ago, and I remember reading it aloud at the Montana Book Festival in Missoula pre-Covid. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and I said, Well, then you ought to buy the journal issue it is in because it will be several years before it appears in book form--which was true, having to wait for its companions to be written, surround it, and appear in Unexpected Weather Events, which appeared in the world in October 2023. The year 2023 used to seem so fresh and modern, but here we are three full years later in the fresh and modern 2026.

This summer, I'm reading The First Man by Albert Camus, which he was working on at the time of his death. It's excellent, of course, and as noted by his daughter in the Forward, the writing is less polished (less edited into the writer voice) due to its early draft state and, therefore, sounds more like the father she knew. It's a close, fictional account of his childhood. The writing is rich, thick with the child's world and impressions, and full of anecdotes that I'm pleased to add to my own thoughts. It's the sort of writing that, when compared to the junk writing on the internet (comments, AI, click-bait articles, etc.) shows the vast canyon between quality and mud. For example, consider the depth of reflection and vivid writing in this passage, after the 9-year old Jacques has passed his tests into lycee and will no longer attend school with his cherished schoolmaster: 

'You don't need me anymore,' [the schoolmaster] said, 'you'll have teachers who know more. But you know where I am, come see me if you need me to help you.' He went out and Jacques was left alone, lost among the women; then he dashed to the window and looked out at his teacher who waved at him one last time and who was leaving him alone henceforth, and, instead of the joy of success, a child's immense anguish wrung his heart, as if he knew in advance that this success had just uprooted him from the warm and innocent world of the poor--a world closed in on itself like an island in the society, where poverty took the place of family and community--to be hurtled into a strange world, one no longer his, where he could not believe the teachers were more learned than the one whose heart was all-knowing, and from now on he would have to learn, to understand without help, and become a man without the aid of the one man who had rescued him; would have to grow up and bring himself up alone, and it would be at the highest cost. (Camus 176)

Reader, is that not both beautiful and articulate, and like a meteor in its strength and distance from the sort of writing we have been made accustomed? It's as though we spend our days inside a bad tabloid, our fingertips and lungs so worn with newsprint that we haven't the ability to think or reflect on our own experiences; that's how I feel anyway, after long periods connected to my phone. 

In other news, I injured myself well enough during the World Cup final that it will, no doubt, become a family memory to be brought up at future World Cup finals. There we were, my dear family, gathered in the living room that my partner Heather and I had deeply vaccumed clean of dog fur (no small feat), our bellies full from a lovely party table of veggies, watermelon, cheese, and sesame chips as blue as Argentina's home jerseys. At this point, the game was in overtime, and Spain had scored its first goal. Only minutes, if that, were left, and we were cheering Argentina on, yelling to move faster, to get the ball, to find Messi, for Christ's sake and all the things that you may well have yelled, too. I had moved from my chair to the floor, to eradicate the sunlit glare on the screen and to relay my exuberance with more unbridled gusto. It was then, during one of the near-goal misses, that I rocked backward with the intensity of disappointment and frustration, and slammed the back of my skull into the very hard corner of our coffee table.  

The exact same coffee table in my living room but without all the books that seemingly anchored it to the floor.
Thaks, ikea.

Of course, I knew it was there, but it's on wheels and does not always remain in the same place. Having cleaned the house that full morning before the final, we had relocated the coffee table at least twice, and then again when everyone had arrived.

Of course, I am aware of the danger of coffee-table corners, having watched my niece and nephew toddle through their early years, my mother's hand always fast to cup any corner near their heads for fear of them standing into or falling onto it. 

But, you see, the intensity of my hope--sharpened to a fine point after closely following the World Cup from its beginning to this moment--was no match for whatever impulses safety supplies one's fast-twitch muscles over one's accumulated years.

And so, there I was, cupping the back of my head and yelling both in pain and for Argentina, only to find my hands full of blood. Then my son began to weep because that's what every child must do when he sees a parent in pain and the vulnerability of those who are protectors and, thus, immune to wounding. 

I remember the first time I saw my father fall. We were down the hill from our house at the creek where we'd turn sand-filled cups into castles. It was when we were leaving, climbing out of the gully, through the surrounding trees, that my father lost his balance and fell down, rolling into thistles and branches, so that when he gathered himself and stood back up, giant that he was, his forearm was bloody with scratches. Maybe I cried. Maybe I didn't. But I remember the pang in my stomach, that thick feeling of fear and worry mixed with the new awareness of not only my father's vuneralbility, but also my own. In retrospect, of course. At the time, it was just my throat filled-up with the confusion of fear. He said he was fine, but I knew better.

Luckily, the blood from my own head eventually ebbed, my son's father carefully cleaned my fingers from where they'd held the wound, and Heather gently pressed a bag of frozen peas against the back of my head. I spent the rest of the day and evening in my recliner (known by my family as my "immobilizer"), napping on a variety of pillows in the form of frozen vegetables. The fatigue that has followed me into the next day is likely an effect of the mishap, the mishap being likely a concussion. 

In the end, that's my situation, and Argentina never made a goal, which tells you how that sorted itself.

Note that Messi's position here at the end of the match was much like mine,
except for my right hand was on the back of my head.

Other news is that we will be venturing to Yellowstone at the beginning of August, and a few weeks ago, my son, his best friend, and I visited Wallace, Idaho to enjoy the annual music festival. It was our first time at the festival, but Wallace is one of my favorite towns in the Northwest because of its size and how it reminds me of my own hometown of Casey, Illinois. The best parts of the festival included the Air Bnb where we stayed, its balcony overlooking the Wallace Public Pool (established in 1939, the year of my mother's birth), the two friendly cats who invited us to pet them, and the band Snacks at Midnight, which are a Spokane band of 20-somethings who perform covers (from the Pixies to Violent Femmes to Fleetwood Mac) as well as original songs. They are full of vim and vigor, and my son has quickly catapulted himself into their number one fan and, likely, the main listener of their Amazon Music page. The realization at this festival, folks, is one that I didn't see coming, but now that I've had it, seems so obviously something that would happen, that I'm unsure what to do with it.

Here: Where I grew up there is an annual Labor Day festival called the Popcorn Festival. It follows the genre of all small-town festivals: flea market, food booths run by local churches and men's clubs, horseshoe competitions, a carnival no larger than one half of a football field, and nightly entertainment. For several years in a row, a sequined cover band called Sh'boom would climb up the stairs to the bandshell in the park and perform hits from the '50s and '60s while my mother and I, and the rest of the town, watched and sang along from our lawn chairs. These songs were from my mother's era, and many of them I had not heard before--being introduced to them this way rather than in their original forms. Later, when I was a driving teenager, I would tune to the Oldies radio station and sing along to songs similar to Sh'boom's set list. The term "oldies" or "classics" were reserved for all the songs that my parents were familiar with--the ones on their record collection, the ones my dad played via cassette tape in his gray van as he drove the country roads. From Benny Goodman to the Beach Boys to Christmas hits like Eartha Kitt's Santa Baby.

Reader, I have become the target audience of small-town festival bands, and I never saw it coming. There I was, hurrying up the street at the first sounds of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears, looking for recognition in my son's eyes when "Where is my Mind?" came through the guitar's speaker, and jumping on both feet up by the stage to a young man's reprise of "Blister in the Sun."

Reader, those songs are now oldies. 

Reader, my son was just introduced to a setlist of songs via covers.

Reader, I was the middle-aged woman among others like me, in the bright lights of a stage erected in the street of an old mining town, wearing my fanny pack and holding my son's water bottle, but delighted as all get-out to sing along with Stevie Nicks in the form of a beautiful young man with wavy hair and panache. 

There I was singing my songs, which have become the oldies. 

Ha!

It is, evidently, in your 40s that you can finally see the cycles of living that all felt new up to here. It was never a new road we were walking, friends. Every straight line must eventually turn back. Surely, there's something reassuring in that, regardless of the surprise of it.

Here: I remember my mother in an antique mall, and her pointing out objects that were part of her past. Do you want to buy it? I asked about this or that. Why would I? she said. 

I understand now, maybe.

I hope that you are well, reader, despite the smoke, floods, droughts, wars, game losses, falls, heat, and mosquitoes. Maybe next time, I'll include the anecdote of my excellent swim in the Medical Lake Triathlon, followed by the bike portion in which my bike refused to pedal, and the race ended for me on the side of the bike entrance, in the dirt and heat, pounding one rock after another into the chain wheel in order to excise a stuck chain.

Cheers,

Erin 

📖