The Road is a Second Skin
Me, at six months, with my Mom: Somewhere in Colorado
Continuing on from my last post, here is a large part of the source material for the new series of images…
From the time I was a baby, my family and I road tripped across the country. Sometimes it was a quick trip to family in New Mexico or Oklahoma, sometimes a fishing weekend in the California delta, but my dad didn’t need an excuse. He straight up loved to travel and by the time I was twelve, I had set foot in every state in the continental US, five Canadian provinces, and dipped down into Mexico a couple of times (At 13, I added Hawaii, Alaska had to wait until I was 47).
Through all our trips we sang. It kept Dad awake, kept my sisters from freaking out, and probably kept my mom from strangling all of us in our sleep. My dad’s favorite was This Land is Your Land but I think we all took it to heart. This land is your land. No matter how gobsmacked I am by foreign travels, this land is my land.
The West might exemplify that more than any other region. In many ways, gone are the regional food and community cultures, replaced by an endless stream of Taco Bells, Love’s Truck Stops, and Walmarts. In many ways, the internet has scrubbed away what makes Evanston, Wyoming different from El Paso, Texas from Moab, Utah from Mariposa, California from Loveland, Colorado. But when I get off the interstate, it starts to feel like I can touch some of that America again, although, to be honest, even in the 70’s when I was a kid, America was being homogenized, it’s wildness diminished.
As I said in my last post, my reasons were going had become blurry. I had bought a jeep and wanted to get it dirty. I needed to go back to Oklahoma to help my sisters with my mom’s estate, I wanted to photograph and write about America, and I wanted time with my thoughts. And through it all, I sang; very loudly and at great speed. A Jello Biafra of the spirit doesn’t have the same weight as a flesh and blood family, but it will do in a pinch.
Bruneau Dunes, Idaho
You have to imagine…
Imagine the forever stretch of pavement That slices through, bleeds
into the natural world or is that the other way around
here you are the only human, sharing space with coyote with
thunder and thunder of the antelope stampeding before you
showing off perfumed by sage or pinyon pine, magnolia stone orange
and delicate, whipping scenery music tangled in engine
noise the dry smoke of your voice rolling tumbling in the canyon
sand, crept into crevice I need to have crow in my hand, marrow
on my tongue and the deep blue sea
the mountain may insist
and look how the hot
dry night soft
seduces
look look
look
Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah
U-Haul Stranded On the Salt Flats
Dancers on the Salt Flats
Lines form on my face and hands
Lines form from the ups and downs
I’m in the middle without any plans
I’m a boy and I’m a man…
Green River, Wyoming
The only thing she´d need
To carry on
He taught her how to
Past the arms familiar…
Greater Green River International Spaceport (because you have to)
Medicine Bow National Forest, Colorado
Welcome to another world
Look at the water, look at whatever
We broke the last one apart
And put it back together, it didn’t matter
It’s a little biblical
A little bit tragic, it may be fantastic…
Harbison Meadow, Rocky Mountain National Park
Everybody had a hard year
Everybody had a good time
Everybody had a wet dream,
Everybody saw the sunshine
Oh yeah…
Trail Pass Road, 12,183 Feet, Rocky Mountain National Park
When the shadows of this life have gone
I’ll fly away
Like a bird from these prison walls I’ll fly
I’ll fly away…
Rocky Mountain National Park
To take you back to that railroad track
Where you first took flight in the mornin’ light
So take me back to that first romance
Where you made your stand you were hand-in-hand
With the black-eyed angel of the evening star…
Momentarily Lost at Sunrise on the Kansas Colorado Border
My father was a gambler down in Georgia
He wound up on the wrong end of a gun
And I was born in the back seat of a Greyhound bus
Rollin’ down highway forty-one…
Palo Duro Canyon, Texas
Nazi punks
nazi punks
nazi punks, fuck off
nazi punks
nazi punks
nazi punks, fuck off…
Down on the Ground, Palo Duro Canyon, Texas
Well you ask me ’bout the clothes I wear
And you ask me why I grow my hair
And you ask me why I’m in a band
I dig doin’ one night stands
And you want to see me do my thing…
Carlsbad Cavern, New Mexico
Carlsbad Cavern, New Mexico
Thought that I was young
Now I’ve freezing hands and bloodless veins
As numb as I’ve become
I wish I was the moon tonight…
Carlsbad Cavern, New Mexico
Carlsbad Cavern, New Mexico
Nature is a whore
Bruises on the fruit
Tender age in bloom
Who like all our pretty songs
And he likes to sing along
And he likes to shoot his gun
But he don’t know what it means…
Dodging Thunderstorms, Guadalupe Mountains, Texas
Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas
Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas
I’m so glad that my memory’s remote
‘Cos I’m doing just fine hour to hour, note to note
Here it is the revenge to the tune
you’re no good,
You’re no good you’re no good you’re no good
Can’t you tell that it’s well understood
I’m never gonna know you now, but I’m gonna love you anyhow…
Greebo the Jeep, White Sands, New Mexico
Like a goldfish in a bowl
I don’t want to hear you cry
That cinnamon, that’s Hollywood
Come on, come on
No one can see you try…
White Sands, New Mexico
White Sands, New Mexico
If ever you should die I know I’ll shave my head
Its not a morbid thought, I mean it out of love
Come back daddy
Come back to the bitter end
Come back daddy
Houndstooth coats and vitamins…
White Sands, New Mexico
The View From Sky City, Acoma Pueblo
Emma eats bread and butter
Like a queen would have ostrich and cobra wine
We’ll have satanic Christmas Eve
And play piano in the chateau lobby…
Sky City, Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico
Sky City, Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico
Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico
‘Cause what you see you might not get
And we can bet, so don’t you get souped yet
You’re scheming on a thing that’s a mirage
I’m trying to tell you now, it’s sabotage…
Ute Mountain at Sunrise
My First Look at the Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde
There’s the progress we have found (when the rain)
A way to talk around the problem (when the children reign)
Building towered foresight (keep your conscience in the dark)
Isn’t anything at all (melt the statues in the park)
Buy the sky and sell the sky and bleed the sky and tell the sky…
Fire Destruction, Mesa Verde
The Daily Deer Visitation
Breathe, breathe in the air
Don’t be afraid to care
Leave but don’t leave me
Look around, choose your own ground
For long you live and high you fly
And smiles you’ll give and tears you’ll cry
And all your touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be…
Arches National Park
Rock Face, Arches National Park
I’d sit alone and watch your light
My only friend through teenage nights
And everything I had to know
I heard it on my radio…
Arches National Park
Balanced Rock, Arches National Park
I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone…
North Window, Arches National Park
North Window, Arches National Park
Park Avenue, Arches National Park
Two lovers kissing masks a scream of midnight
Two lovers missing the tranquility of solitude
Getting a cab and travelling on buses
Reading the graffiti about slashed-seat affairs…
Arches National Park
Bitter turns to sugar, some call a passive tune
But the day things turn sweet, for me won’t be too soon
The hush before the silence, the winds after the blast…
Canyonlands, Utah
Lay down, Sally, and rest you in my arms
Don’t you think you want someone to talk to?
Lay down, Sally, no need to leave so soon
I’ve been trying all night long just to talk to you…
Bears Ears Region, Utah
Driving Through Zion National Park and Into Nevada
I don’t want to doubt you
Know everything about you
I don’t want to sit across the table from you
Wishing I could run
Zion National Park
Fantastic Breakfast at the Little AleInn: Earthlings Welcome
Top of the hill you see heaven – From the top of the hill you see home,
Now you might feel like a stranger – But know that it won’t be long,
Because there ain’t no reason to hurry – To that other shore,
Because you ain’t gonna get nowhere – Until you know what for…
Taking a Ride on the Extraterrestrial Highway
Get down, get down little Henry Lee
And stay all night with me
You won’t find a girl in this damn world
That will compare with me
And the wind did howl and the wind did blow
La la la la la, la la la la lee
A little bird lit down on Henry Lee…
Coming Up On the Sierra Nevadas, Middle of Nowhere, Nevada
You never give me your money
You only give me your funny paper
And in the middle of negotiations
You break down…
Fragrant Rubber Rabbitbush and Sage, Mono Lake, California
Very superstitious, wash your face and hands
Rid me of the problem, do all that you can
Keep me in a daydream, keep me goin’ strong
You don’t wanna save me, sad is my song…
Tufa Formations, Mono Lake, California
We know Major Tom’s a junkie
Strung out in heaven’s high
Hitting an all-time low
Tufa Formations, Mono Lake, California
When are you gonna come down?
When are you going to land?
I should have stayed on the farm
I should have listened to my old man
Yosemite Valley
Olmstead Point, Yosemite
Well, I keep on thinkin’ ’bout you, sister golden hair surprise
And I just can’t live without you, can’t you see it in my eyes?
I been one poor correspondent, and I been too, too hard to find
But it doesn’t mean you ain’t been on my mind…
Looking Down the Merced River Like Every Other Artist Ever. Still Beautiful.
I started working at a small town church
I thought it would make me a better man
They said the sins I had would fly away
As if the birds were in the palms of my own hands
I want to see how it takes me
I want to see how the powder burns
Don’t want to keep what I can’t have more of
Don’t want to wait and miss my turn…
Merced River, Yosemite National Park
From Yosemite, it was time to go home. After three weeks, I was still unsure what it all meant, why I felt the need to wander in my own wilderness. But as I made my way up I-5, past landmarks of my childhood and the follies of my youth, I began to cry for the past gone by. I had a happy childhood, but there were plenty of dark times, stupidity, and hurts that came later as a teenager and young adult. But I somehow seemed to be untangling myself from my past as I drove. I am not the shy little girl anymore. I am not the rash, sad, and selfish young woman that I was. We are not our past. Time to move on.