Years ago I heard the advice, "Don't take pictures while on vacation, just focus on the experience." This turned out to be terrible guidance for me. In my late 30s I started taking more pictures. This activity helps to cement memories that would otherwise be lost whether on vacation or just going somewhere on the weekend. In this blog I share the memories and stories inspired by my pictures.
I sat at the bar listening to the tales of the strangers next to me
Large men well past their prime
They shared memories of wrestling in the 80s
Exercising and performing and cocaine
When the blow was gone
They smashed assorted pills in their hotels
With the bottoms of cordless phones
And they snorted the fresh powder
Jittery on black coffee and ayahuasca
I saw my high school
With one stairway
Two flights up
At the landing
There was no hallway
Just a singular boy's bathroom door
Inside and alone
I banged on the metal trash can
Asking Oscar to come out
Before sitting in one of the stalls
Eating my quarter pounder with cheese
It was a restless night's sleep
Every cycle's repetition into REM
Left me debating the same question
Should I use the word
Philistine
or
Plebian
I didn't even have a use case
I don't know whether I was trying
To disparage someone else
Or myself
Unconscious agony over the right word
I woke up wet with sweat
Worried that my words
Are limp, loose and useless
I raced to my car shirtless
Tore out of the driveway
And headed east with the windows down
Oklahoma dust drifted in and clung to my damp skin
Mud drying into a dark brown cake
Which the wind popped off in pieces
Over the next thirty minutes
I drove into the dawn
Staring at light's birth until I went blind
Swerving off the highway
Burrowing my car in the nameless brush
That litters the landscape of Western Oklahoma