Loren and I stay up late watching old Genesis concert footage on his sofa, angling the laptop so we can both see. He has a retro light projector propped in the corner that spins on a slow orbit and is holiday themed, so it throws red, green and white light in Christmas-like patterns, this one my favorite, twinkly stars. There’s a scratch on the lens that causes an anomaly with the light as it spins, making it look like a random shooting star. You get the feeling the lighting effects are unique, meaning the pattern can’t be replicated. And that backdrop works well with Genesis. Peter Gabriel is just 22 in 1972. He’s let his hair grow out but shaves a patch down the middle like a landing strip. It’s not a good look. He’s painted his forehead white but stops at the eyebrows so the rest of his face is unpainted. Lots of eyeliner. Phil Collins isn’t using eyeliner but has thick pork chops growing on his jaws. The calendar has flipped over to the 1970s but no one knows what that means yet for fashion and they will spend the rest of the decade trying to figure it out.

Loren and I both like an experimental musician out of Glasgow named Richard Youngs. Richard has maybe 100 albums, probably a lot more, but releases some in batches of just 500. His latest is all instrumental but Loren has another one that is a cappella and has the idea we can play both records side by side out of different stereos to see how they sound together. So we do this and then Loren sends Richard an email telling him we’re playing Summer Wanderer against New Emptiness. Some artists would find this offensive but we’re convinced Richard will like the idea, being experimental and not overly precious about things. And because Richard isn’t well known he’s written back the next day from Glasgow, and Loren shows me the response on his phone. And there is the sound of Richard’s voice through his email thanking us and sounding British somehow in his upbeat, slightly distant fashion.

The drive home is typical for this time of year, the route from Portland to Seattle. It is a straight shot up I-5 for three hours without interruption. We don’t get the fall foliage they do in the northeast, it’s more the green, yellow, brown trifecta. Coming through a valley and up a hill the fog is so thick it makes the line on the horizon disappear and creates a distressing effect with the sky feeling so vast and undefined it could swallow you. Dad and I experienced this sensation the first time we drove out west, coming to a vantage where the sky opened so much we imagined we were falling through space. It’s a recurring nightmare I had as a kid, the sense of an overwhelming darkness surrounding me. I could pinpoint myself shrinking in the dark, and the dark took on a palpable quality. It wasn’t just the absence of light but an inky entity with depth and curves swelling, expanding. I realized with horror that the darkness wasn’t outside of me but actually coming from inside. And as a child I would have to grapple with this part of my mind I’d never understand. Was the darkness a danger or some form of release? A means to fly, or sink and drown?

I pondered this driving through the fog, with Richard Youngs. The trees looking as if they’d been dabbed on a canvas with a sponge. The way you can get that muted effect by touching the surface just right. That’s how it all looked from the car. Each time I took this drive it was going back to the times I remembered before, a reprint. They got combined, each former time. Going past the amusement parks where we took the kids, taking the exit for highway 18. Pulling into the driveway, seeing the dog wave her tail in the window.

The fog like that is exhilarating and problematic because it touches some part in me that recognizes the vast emptiness and endlessness are one in the same. The everything and nothing of the world. And we are that too. We are slowly ascending to this summit where anything could happen, we just can’t see what.

Categories: prose, writing

Tags: creative nonfiction, pacific northwest