I just read my entry in an old chapbook ("Driftwood") published by Asha Anderson. It was entitled, I believe, "No Title" which, in the literary world, is considered one entire notch above being in the "not pictured" list in your high school yearbook and then your name being wrong. Another blogger, affectionately known around the blogosphere as "Wiggy" had challenged me to write a story involving red shoes and peanut brittle. (Relax. I'm not going to paste it in here.) Of course seven or eight ideas immediately sprung to mind. (Not.) What I wrote was a little semi-autobiographical tale of an 18 year old boy leaving Palo Alto for points east in his '57 Chevy, including a sort of perversion of the theme of The Gifts of the Magii. You may call that unforgivable, but, remember, it had to be about red shoes and peanut brittle. Bottom line, the story vaguely referred to my leaving California to move to Missouri.
I made the implied promise of a full circle, or something like it, so the point is my partner and I are now contemplating a move to California. For her, it is yet another move, but for me it is something like returning home--even though I readily admit that 1960s California does not exist anymore and you can't ever go home because that would entail stepping foot in the same river twice, etc. etc. etc. That would be the Platte River, by the way. I'm not saying it's a twisty river, but as you drive through Nebraska, you cross it something like 27 or 28 times. So, I'm just saying, "twice" is an understatement.
By now, you're thinking, wow, he must be desperate to post a blog entry; he's really stretching here.
That's true. Anyway, I'm excited to at least be thinking of the Big Move, plus we're driving out there, after a brief stop in Jackson, Wyoming, this fall. Making this all easier to think about, and providing ample justification, is the particularly crappy summer we are having here in Missouri this year--it's not the heat, it's the "dew point." Plus the smoke from the current Canadian wildfire that is just thick enough to obscure the horizon.
OK. Enough of that.
Peanut brittle does not exist in Norway. Which a shame because that is good stuff! And has nothing to do with shoes, but that's where creative writing comes in.
ReplyDelete(Now you're thnking, wow, she must be desperate to leave a comment. Well, yeah. I want you to know I read your blog.)
Anyway, good luck with the Big Move.
Thank you. For the good luck wish as well as for reading the blog. I'm sorry peanut brittle does not exist in Norway. I'm assuming red shoes are pretty universal, though. RIght?
DeleteShoes are indeed universal and I have even owned red ones!
DeleteI am glad you’re coming home!
ReplyDeleteThanks. I have to maintain a certain perspective, actually, and think of this as forward movement to a new place--aside from the weather, I'm sure it's all different, but we've gone to some lengths to figure out if we'd be better off in the long run. I don't care for a lot of things in Missouri (like the weather) and Bay Area "wins" the pro-con list. Also, it does sort of feel like going home . . . sort of.
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