At seventeen, the sentence of high school in Gridley Calif ended, finely without the additional judgment of a Scholastic Aptitude Test. A guidance counselor at the rural public school never pushed a college route.
Rather, they recommended I follow a nonpublic-type path such as a lookout tower lone park ranger. I agreed with their assessment of my apparent talent of circulating outside of the uniformly-inflamed social circles. It made natural sense to both of us. Plus, I thought forest service getups were kinda cool.
So, there was no thought of specifically higher learning, even after enrolling in so-classified college prep courses during senior year — used by myself moreover as a personal supplement to muss the grave effects of mass education, as I saw it, played out on its affected byproducts who appeared to be sold on acceptance letter antes, awarded, in my internal-outsider estimation, like turnstile wagers of blindly bound undertakings.
Either way, gambling itself can also be considered a profession. Anyone can take a seat at the cosmos. Some, however, just can't deal with it.
The summer after graduation began with a fulfilled aspiration: a job at a record shop. This particular one was wedged in a three-way strip between a Supercuts & a Burger King — a missing link joined to separate from a chain of generic given-choices: a lost mind amidst a feathered bowl cut & a greasy paper crown.
Music — recordings — had always been the pocked complex I truly lived within, whether from radios, tapes or vinyl — some simple stereo setup, alone behind a closed-doored wherever — whichever spot nomads land-in with the speculation that, soon-enough, they'll be pulling up-from again like a fuzzed needle skipping with flighty volition between tracks.
I stuck around Gridley for another year, as if living on probation in an over-familiar halfway home, while I cashiered albums in a nearby town.
The store also rented out the then-new technology craze of videotapes — initially specified by free-will hazard as VHS or BETA.
Thinking myself an instant expert on the forefront of this young industry, I advised my family to invest in a BETAMAX machine, selling them that, word-had-it, it was the preference of Europeans — misconceived by unworldly taters as fancy-class inhabitants of a singular mythical kingdom of insightful progress, especially by those entrenched with an invalid passport of officially imagined history.
Revenge can be sweet in retrospect — even the innocently ill-informed, accidental kind. I assumed my employment as a cashier accredited me a certain applied expertise.
Fly-by-night existence is about as real as any reoccurring reverie:
approaching daybreak riding out the transitioning hours with the springing volume of summer birds' flowing orchestra growing like a coming train of song — a beautiful alarm that daylight will arrive just in time. They are my conductive guardians. They sing away the shadow of night — to part the curtains — to see that another day is smoothly dawning like a party-crasher slipping through a back door, unnoticed as just another unknown-yet-expected guest, going right to the bring-yer-own collective to checkout which half-empties to steal before they silently exit the gathering & withdraw into the privacy of the ongoing — heading home, newly illuminated, to the next refreshing scheme.
Most of my slept dreams are about reclaiming separated belongings & trying to get someplace with them. Neither ever happens.
The moments evaporate in the midst of materializing, usually forgotten by the time I open my eyes. Sometimes I jot them down when they're finished with me.
If I don't write them off, their repossessed stories uncover subterranean rivers roiling over sentimental rocks & defensive sediment. I awaken on the banks & lap at the silt, trying to induce visions that are already there, just rushing back towards what has so-far happened . . .
. . . dreamt beyond the limits . . . unbelievable yet believed . . . misunderstood into personal meaning,
but, still, undecipherable.
When I was a comparatively young woman in my early 30's, I dreamt myself -- or a version of myself -- in late-middle age fishing in wading boots in the middle of a river. She [I?] was sturdy, planted firm in the quickly flowing waters -- with the solid feeling of a Balthus-painted figure. She has stuck with me ever since as some ideal of arrival into one's own life, of a Fisher Queen with her house and life set entirely in order. I often wonder if I will ever succeed in growing into her. .... This is all to say that I loved "reclaiming separated belongings and trying to get somewhere with them." Deep, resonant.
Those HS guidance counselors. 🙄 When I said I wanted to major in photography, mine said he didn’t think there was such a thing. Directly behind him on the wall in his office was a chart of majors different schools offered, and three prominent photography programs were plainly listed. Gotta follow your own road, I guess. Speaking of photography, your images...💥. Really great!