This piece written for Morgantown Magazine, a lifestyle publication chronicling the goings-on of our little college town. See more great stuff at their website, Morgantownmag.com.
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This piece written for Samuel Taylor Photography. See more great stuff at his website, www.samueltaylorphoto.com and Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/samueltaylorphoto/
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I learned most of my driving social principles in the bar where my mom worked. I was young, too young for a bar really, 15 16 17. It was a small place you couldn’t get lost in, at least I never did. I drank sodas and soaked in what I saw.
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I hop quickly up the hill, the gravelly base moving around under my feet. It’s 4 a.m. Still dark. I need a sunrise, an impetus, so I am going to the top of the mountain. I find the trail halfway up, it is steep but easier walking. I start to see evidence of teen rebellion strewn in the leaves. Beer cans and cigarette butts. Icy remnants of snow start to appear on the ground as I see the outline of the old fire tower peaking though the bare trees. It is angular and unnatural; the stairs jut back and forth to form a spiral that leads to the top.
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This piece written for a local women’s empowerment group. Lady power y’all!
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I’m 7 years old. My dad is standing behind me. His big arms are wrapped all the way around my tiny body helping me support the weight of the pistol in my hands. I can smell the ivory soap he used in the shower hours earlier. “Ready?” he says to me. I nod my head yes, but I am never ready for the boom. I feel his sturdy finger press mine into the trigger and my small arms do nothing to fight the recoil. “Getting better,” he says, “Just need more practice. Any daughter of mine is gonna know how to protect herself.”
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I’ll make this about my mom too. My dad knew everything was about her, she deserved it. Even his death felt somehow in response to or in spite of hers.
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The women of my childhood and of Appalachia seemed to me to unabashedly handle their shit. They may not have read as many books as you but by God they would pay their bills and go get some beers at the bar and take their kids to the river and be at work bright and early on Monday morning or Saturday night or whatever their start time happened to be at whatever job they happened to have.
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Snow piles up in our yard. The big, wet flakes fall and land silent on the already laid blanket covering the grass. I watch the school closings scroll across the bottom of the TV screen. I wait for Tygarts County. 2-Hour Delay. “Shit,” I say out loud.
“Why?” Book whines.
A snow plow growls by our house as we sluggishly put on our boots and coats. I step off the porch into the 8-inch snow. My boots squish it down. I take big lunging steps through the yard to the freshly plowed stripe in an otherwise unbroken sea of the white stuff. Book follows me, he steps in the deep holes left by my feet.
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This piece written for Bridesmaid's Confession Event Planning Services. See more great stuff and inquire about services at their website, www.bridesmaidsconfession.com and Instagram page, @bridesmaidsconfession
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When I was 13 or 14 or 15, Mom asked me to paint some of their lyrics over an old sign for her, Shine my life like a light was the line, from the song “Let It Be Me.” When I got the sign done, mom put it up on the back deck, she hung it proudly. A small reminder of the important things. A reminder to shine her life and she did. She shined it upon everyone and everything she encountered. That sign hung on her back porch until she died.
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Flat. The great big middle of America is flat. From an airplane window you can see the round irrigation circles arranged neatly in the grid of agriculture. I never thought much of it until I was amongst the flatness. I didn’t think it was anything to see. But standing in it, I can’t deny the feeling of infinite possibility in a place with so much space and so few bounds. Vast fields roll off into the farthest distance, equal parts sunflowers and sky.
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I wake up with my car door hanging wide open. The air is cold against my bare arms. I sit up from the back of my seat and my vision swirls around for a moment. My head throbs as I start to get my bearings. It feels heavy on my shoulders as I lean forward. I look in front of me and there are pretty lamp posts and one of those old street clocks. Behind that is a strange amphitheater and then shimmery water. Ruby McQuain Park. I am down by the Westover Bridge.
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I eat. I EAT. I have steaks and pizza and burgers for weeks. I break up with my boyfriend. I get back with my boyfriend. My boyfriend finds out the truth and we really break up. He thinks we can work it out and I know we can’t. I know I can’t. I am ugly now. It will never be what it was. Whatever it was. It won’t be clean ever again.
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Book walks into the old place just ahead of me. Cigarette smoke fills the room. I grab us sodas and turn to look for Book at a table. I see him, and I see Tuck. Tuck looks at me and smiles the biggest, widest, crookedest smile I’ve ever seen. He has a flannel shirt on, blue jeans, and some work boots; looking way too good in this honkytonk outside city limits. His guitar is in it’s case leaning up against the table.
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I was drug out of the deepest darkness I have ever known by love. I thought I would always feel the sustained intensity of that loss. I thought I would wake every day and feel alone and misplaced without her. I thought I would dedicate every single day of my life to the memory of her. I thought a lot of things that aren’t true. I became callous for a time. I did not feel the pain and experiences of others were worthy. I thought, “How could you complain about that to me? Why does that even upset you?” I traveled a lot. I hustled. I worked and focused and did what needed done.
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This piece written for Bridesmaid's Confession Event Planning Services. See more great stuff and inquire about services at their website, www.bridesmaidsconfession.com and Instagram page, @bridesmaidsconfession
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The people with innovative ideas here are turkey-whispering hunters and guys who drive old Toyota pick-ups and girls who work on their own cars and people who take the education they are given and do the very best they can with it. Whether that is from their great grand-dad or a super cool unicorn of a teacher they had their sophomore year of high school. You better believe some of the very smartest and most worldly people I know are from deep up some hollow. Don’t fuck with me on that.
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The dunes get bigger and bigger the closer I get. Oddly, the smell of gasoline starts to fill the air. Billboards with graphic colors show up beside the road telling me about Polaris and RZR and I start to understand, these dunes are off-road vehicle dunes. Driving into Glamis, dune buggies drive across the road and out into the dunes. They climb over the peaks as far as I can see. Serpentine tracks wind through the sand.
I pull into the gas station parking lot, people look at my sad rental car with disappointment as I walk into the dingy place. A middle-aged blonde woman is working the cash register, she is surrounded by an altar of t-shirts, cigarette cartons, and trucker hats.
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We walk towards the fire. It is quiet. The light flickers through the trees. I see 3 people, their faces glowing orange. I don’t recognize them. They have that worn-down 28-year-old country boy look going on. Leathery skin, tight blue jeans, and hats sticking straight up in the damned air, proud.
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