"AMERICAN LANGUAGE," PART 4:
OBLIVIOTOPIA
© Alan Reade, 1999 and 2020
View the Show Notes
The Tunnel
So I'm in a tunnel of some sort,really dark.
And I have the sensation
that I'm floating through it.
And I see a light at the end of the tunnel,
and I think,
Okay...
this is it....
I'm born!
Or at least that's the fantasy.
Actually, I was a C-section. So I never saw a tunnel.
The wall was peeled back for me and I was lifted out.
And I've been moving ever since.
I was adopted. Taken on the freeway away from the city
to my new home in the suburbs.
Where the cars go.
Oblivion? Utopia?
Take your pick.
I've lived in both places,
at the same time--
Most of us do.
With garages.
And freeways.
And neon signs.
I was practically born in a car.
That's why I like to keep
moving.
Moving
Onramp
I grew up next to a freeway. Past my backyard, just beyond the extended field that my parents called the south-forty, was U.S. 101, a main vein between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Not only that, but I lived near two offramps, one for southbound traffic and one for northbound traffic. When I was very young, I would watch the cars and trucks as they would pull into the exit lane across the highway and disappear from view. I didn't yet understand the concept of things going out of my line of vision, so I didn't see cars descending to an underpass. I saw cars sinking into the pavement, as if sinking in a river. So, I suppose that is where I first started seeing roads as being magical--capable of transporting me where I wanted to go, but also able to swallow me whole.The freeway flowed past us in differing currents, both day and night, a two-way river of mechanical parts. It gave background to our garden parties and games and yardwork, and even added accompaniment to our holidays: Our rec room, where we ate for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, faced the traffic. So, travel, or at least the idea of it, was always a part of my life.
I used to watch the cars go by and think up stories about where they were going, about how far away they would travel. San Francisco? Vancouver, B.C.? England? (Well, geography was never my strong suit....)
Also, my family had a travel trailer from as far back as I could remember. The idea behind that was that we could just hitch it up and go, whenever we wanted. And I didn't always appreciate it then, but we were constantly taking off on camping trips in all corners of California. We would pack the trailer with food and supplies, then all load into the car and head for the freeway onramp.
And it was more in getting there than in reaching our final destinations that I think I saw the real California.
California
Everyone in Iowa thinks of surfboards,Surfboards and Pamela Anderson Lee and lots of
Tanning oil.
No one in Nebraska knows
The tangle of hills and forests and two-lane highways
That rush by rickety wooden mailboxes
In gentle rain;
The signs, advertising crafts that have been
Knit or nailed together by smiling hill people--
The people hidden in luxury or poverty
Behind the cypress and oak.
It was a cloudy midday.
"Sara" by Fleetwood Mac played on the FM radio
In my father's pickup truck with the camper shell
As we navigated the curving four-lane stretch of highway
Made wider for passing slow vehicles.
We were a family of four then, made for the road.
The harmonies seemed to emanate
From trees in those foothills,
Somewhere between Twain Harte and Oakdale.
This magical California,
The one between our trailer adventures
And the place where we parked and lived
Is the limbo no tourist can know:
The paradise of white-line highways
Through the heart of an inland county,
Separated from coastal reality
By a vast, dry valley
And an FM radio.
Camping Trip
Anyway, on these camping trips, my family and I used to just sit around the fire, happy to have our eyes filled with ash instead of the usual industrial pollutants. And we'd look up at the stars--God, the sky seemed white with so many stars, this far off the Interstate! Who knew that the neon lights of suburbia disguised the heavens themselves? Sitting around, listening to the crickets and the sounds of other animals, sometimes I'd begin to make up my own songs....
Getting Lost
The wind was getting lost that night;The moon was fading fast--
The flickering of stars told me
That love would never last.
But you know,
That's how the wind's gonna blow.
And all along the windowpanes,
An icy wind plays,
Gathering together
The sums of our days;
And you know,
That's how the wind's gonna blow.
It shakes the dust off
The epitaphs;
It opens the album
Of photographs;
And you know,
That's how the wind's gonna blow.
Awooh-ah!
Awooh-ah!
Churchgoer, atheist,
Hooker, and priest;
Tenant and landlord,
Human and beast;
Oh, you know,
That's how the wind's gonna blow.
Maybe the wind is just the truth
Knocking things off the shelf;
And maybe I've never loved anyone
Except myself;
But you know,
That's how the wind's gonna blow.
You know,
That's how the wind's gonna
blow.
Travel Trance
Okay, so maybe my parents' version of "roughing it" was a KOA campground five miles away from suburban tract homes. But it felt like camping out to me! Even if we did have running water, public bathrooms, an Olympic-size swimming pool, and a convenience store on the corner--all within about 50 feet of our trailer.The effect was uncanny. Years later, when I would commute to the suburbs to go to work, I felt as though I were going camping. It all seemed so familiar. As soon as I got to those outskirts of town, my urge to pitch a tent would almost overwhelm me. The vibrations of the bus lulling me into a sense of adventure. I'd have to snap myself out of my "bus trance," just to get myself in a working mood. But meanwhile, I appreciated my surroundings.
Bus Through Suburbia
There was something about that mountain--White, so unmoving; hills fell
Behind, green all rolling; billboards got
Smaller the cows they were grazing. I looked out a
Field a baby was floating.
Something about this sky--the city far
Behind; white on blue, I forget
My mind.
Red cars buzzing--all bees,
No gridlocking, some people off the bus--too slowly!
(Some yelling) neon signs waved by the fields they
Were standing. The mountain so high--granite
Cloud never moving.
Dogma die
My roving eye; I give
This up, hemoglobe
Sky.
A blue pickup truck she
Flipped us the birdie; people less urban: more
Rednecks not flirty. The city long-
Gone--I could feel it escaping. The mountain
A cloud, was an eye never moving.
Something about this sky--
Painting us into night.
Boundless blue light
On the hillsides.
Revelation Radio
"Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened."Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done.
"Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire."
—Revelation 20:11-15
-
Uh...uh...uh...unngggh!
Oh...father...I'm coming! I'm coming!
Ah...ah...ahh...ahhhhhh!!!
Oh, father...you're the best! (*giggle*)
