(Joseph MacRae, July 6, 2022 (earlier version here). Image is of The Merc, from Joseph MacRae.)
I: I Could Write About
I (pronoun): …12th century, a shortening of Old English ic, the first person singular nominative
1. Just About
I could write about living in our tiny rural town, Alsea, Oregon–-just 234 souls. Unincorporated, and like being in the 50’s. There’s John Boy’s Mercantile (the Merc), an old timey general store. History murals fill the outer walls, inside there’s fishing and hunting gear, fresh local meats at the deli. Though remote, we’re on a big cycle route. Sometimes the Merc’s little parking lot near bursts with Harleys, their riders scoring coffee for the road. Or there's Deb’s Cafe (true confession can’t get enough of the biscuits and gravy). There’s a library, out its window can see cows a stone’s throw away–- if you stare they’ll stare back! There’s the Church, school, medical clinic, post office, fire station, grange, organic farm, park, mountains round, birds roaming about--otherwise a whole lot of quiet--and the Alsea river running through it all. And that’s about it. But then, what more do you need?
2. About Face
I could remember too, write about living and working in remote untouched places. Kinfolk who goldmined the outback in our west coastal mountains. One who lived with, learned medicine ways from, the Coeur d'Alenes. I could write about myself working in Alaska, on islands large and small, where the only way in is by boat or small plane. Where wilderness is pristine, God touchable, present in His works.
I have sat on the beach where the indigenous people once had their fish camp, where one can feel the power of the ancestors. I have sat in a small cove on an island near Haida Camp (an old Haida village) and listened to the hum-m-m, the soothing voice, of Earth Mother. The voice coming from her heart.
I could write about a Legend in Stone, seen from my window while on a train skirting Oregon's Columbia Gorge. Last Ice Age, these basalt cliffs met glaciers turned flood, carving as no artist could. "Look", I said to the couple next to me, "those stones are the spirits of the ancestors, waiting for the river to be returned." They smiled.
3. About Time
Storytelling is something seeped into these ol' bones, from branches on the family tree where poetry was crafted, legends spun. I could write about grief for the downplay of storytelling today. Shorter attention spans prefer tweets and screens and "reality" TV. But I could write about the heart of the sacred, waiting in these stories we need to tell. And as the the great philosopher Forest Gump likes to say, that’s about all I have to say about that.
*From Prompt: Create a “Telling Trails” piece (basically to take a letter/a word beginning with that letter/a definition of that word/a picture drawn to/maybe a song drawn to--and write what comes); from Iris Jackson’s Finding Your Storyteller’s Voice with Telling Trails (Pat Conroy Literary Center, Beaufort, SC), June/July 2022.
