All is quiet on Independence Day, oddly. In my hammock with a book, leaves scitter across the sports court and could be the dog, but she’s inside. Pre-fall, even now. No need for sunscreen, there’s a thin band of clouds for that. Thousand dollar fines here in the suburbs for fireworks, it keeps them mostly at bay. The other day at the lake with Loren there were like 20 or 30 cops there, all with their vests and ear-attachments, and I think in that moment I turned Republican. I had a word with a few, said thanks: I’m so glad you’re here, this is my lake too. No need for drunks and kids out here. (Loren and I each had a roadie in our traveler mugs, watched our kids in the shallow end of the lake, trying to catch fish.) In Portland, Loren and I probably get confused as gay dads with our beards and kids, our sandals. He said they had a nudist bicycle thing and afterwards the bars allowed nudity for one night, and they were PACKED. And it was strange having to excuse oneself through the crowd, for the rest room. Portland.

I didn’t know the song “Stairway to Heaven” was named after a film of the same name. Loren said it starts with a jet pilot who’s been shot down and he’s radioed back to dispatch, there’s a woman talking to him as he’s going down and it gets flirtatious, she realizes she’s the last person he’ll talk to alive, there’s a weird intimacy to that. And then the rest of the film is him in heaven, but it’s that era of cinema that’s part theater, part film, with grandiose sets and period-acting.

I finished my writing project but felt sick from too much coffee on an empty stomach, from being exposed to a scene from the latest David Lynch project…and with the clouds and no more story to write I fell into a funk, and took down the large Coleman tent I put up for the kids, seemed like the thing to do.

I didn’t have my story outlined so that was an experiment for me in developing a story based on themes vs. plot, and a challenge to finish something. There are 37 ‘chapters’ about 1,500 words each, and I’m going to copy/paste into a Word doc and read on the plane to DC later this week, for work.

Thanks again for your support, “you”: and here are the chapter headings below for posterity’s sake.

Entering Elma
101 to Aberdeen
Day 3 of 40
Up Ulrich’s Couloir
Birth Ritual
The influence of the tides upon the streams
River theme
The Death Card
The lover before your last lover
Last time at Mosquito Creek
I live on the corner of the 99th floor of my block
Dead Souls
The rat torture scene reveal
The jet hold
A new path to the waterfall
Dead Reckoning
The imagined superhero complex
“Hang on to yourself” (the faith, identity theme)
The beauty of the snail
West Cork Roundabout
What became of camp
Suicide in the Alps (father figure theme)
The expansion and compression theme
Too long from the dark, this deep into June
“These are the days now”
Existential work theme
The Cascadian fault
You have to learn the lesson twice
The day I turned purple (ghost theme)
The Tower card, reversed
The ‘kill your idols’ concept
I’d love to turn you on
The black Opal kombi connection
The charm of making
Trying on masks
Over the hills, where the spirits fly
The Chris Cornell rat scene reveal

Categories: Memoir, writing

Tags: field notes from the pacific coast, humor, Led Zeppelin, Portland, postaday, Seattle, Stairway to Heaven, William Pearse writer, writing challenge