I am cautious- there are already holes in the pages. The folded maps seem as delicate as butterfly wings. The sound of a tear is painful and I wince. I have unearthed boxes of maps and journals like it's an archaeological site. The contents hold time and memory in safe-keeping and I'm surely invading it like a surgeon would a wound. But it's necessary.
Today, I'm reviving the blog. It's my way of keeping a deal with myself. It's my way of keeping a deal with something bigger, something essential. Is it like confession? Perhaps.
As I bore through travel writings from years past I will assemble drafts here and eventually, I'll have what I need to stitch together a story worth telling. For it is one thing to live in the story and quite another to tell it. And of course, it's all together a different beast to remember it. With all it's perplexity, it is precious and dangerous like peeking in to a velvet box which holds an heirloom diamond necklace you are not permitted to touch with your clay hands.
Inch by inch, I trace the maps and with my journal writings I'm beginning to remember. Maps torn from gazateer's and topographic quadrangles are literally like puzzle pieces. The United States Forest Service Map of the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests was the first map I used along my route. Brown water stains now spread across the green checkerboard squares of latitude and longitude lines but I remember in the beginning, this map was like a holy book to me. As I review the first few days of travel along the map's grid there are certain coordinates where I start to weep.
At Wild Pony Way in Livermore Colorado, (day 2), I wrote in my journal:"I sleep in a village of horses and stars and Ponderosa, clutching a map close to my heart. I pray and I pray that I will choose the best route."
There was no sense in trying to fool the skies; they were well aware of my fears.
re-viv-ere
In the dictionary app on my Iphone, I found 9 definitions for the word revival. Numbers 3 and 5 seemed quite fitting for this post.
No.3 states- a new production of an old play.
It seems that will be just what I'll have to do- reproduce a dog and pony show that happened once upon a time. The three years between May 2010 and September 2012, I'll admit are blurry lines of memory. What is memory and can I trust the one I have? Is it as Virgina Woolf suggests? "A seamstress, and a capricious one at that? Memory runs her needle in and out, up and down, hither and thither."
No.5 states- an awakening, in a church or a community, in and care for matters relating to personal religion. And a personal religion it has seemed to me; all I can do is stand still, wrap my toes around the mealy soil underfoot, try and keep both eyes open to the blur and brightness, hold my skin close with all the whooshing of blood and breath, and wait.
Meanwhile..., the Texas farm is resting. The cows have been fenced out and the horses have gone to Idaho (with me) so now it's wild turkey land! We hope the native grasses exercise a little tenacity and take hold. The clearing of Mesquite trees continues on. The brush piles built from their butchered limbs are sure to make some snakes happy.
Up in the "Wydaho"mountains, the mustangs and I sleep along Fox Creek and share a view of the Tetons, pointing out from the folds of Darby Canyon. Cary has been able to come and go as his schedule allows but not enough in my opinion. {Suppose then, it's a good time to dig into a writing project.} There's been some talk about a long ride through the Red Desert this fall but a lot more research needs to be done before it's official. I sleep like a queen in the nose of my horse trailer. And finally, I have only one guilty admission- I do not miss Texas.
Love, R
