Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 4 Comments

Road Trip December 2011

“Guns Next Exit”
says the roadside sign
Highway 99
we’re driving north
through San Joaquin Valley
radio scan
gifts Fleetwood Mac
twice
“All I want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth”
and the
Beastie Boys
I turn them up loud
“No Sleep Til Brooklyn”
Jeb: “Mom, you’re acting too much like a boy”

semis
mini vans
and red sports cars
travel the straightaway
the smell of cow poop
from adjacent farm land
gets in the car
even with all the windows up

At Denny’s
our server Brenda
keeps bringing free hot chocolate refills
whipped cream included
Jeb: “She is sooo nice!”

We click along
continue on
as hawks watch from telephone lines
Jeb naps
and I’m with Pimsleur
learning to say
I don’t speak Czech very well
“Nemluvím česky moc dobře”

We idle through
Los Banos
pass Starbucks
I never knew this town
had a Henry Miller Plaza

the Bohemian calls to tell me
he’s in my house
stealing popcorn
climbing ladders
and fixing my smoke detector
he’s planted radicchio in
“your garden”
I say
“our garden”
Ok
he slept one night in my bed
he laughs and says
“my bed”
tells me
the garlic shoots
are eight inches long
and
“you’ll be home in 11 days”
he knows the number
that I hadn’t counted yet

This morning on the hardwood floor
of my sister’s Santa Cruz house
I sit by the wood stove at 4:45am
these California posts to the Archives
are scattered and unfocused
I’m in new houses
with different mugs and power outlets

I lean on the words of John Lennon
and hope these snapshots
however grammatically incorrect
or loosely wandered
are slightly redeemed
with a hint of something real
self-evident
I’m displaced and curious
just reporting details

“Rock and roll was real, everything else was unreal. And the thing about rock and roll, good rock and roll, whatever good means, is that it’s real, and realism gets through to you despite yourself. You recognize something in it which is true, like all true art. Whatever art is, readers, ok? If it’s real, it’s simple usually, and if it’s simple, it’s true, something like that. Rock and roll got through to you, finally.”
~ John Lennon,  Lennon Remembers

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 1 Comment

Best Laid Plans…

contingency |kənˈtinjənsē|
noun ( pl. -cies)
a future event or circumstance that is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty
• a provision for such an events or circumstance : a contingency reserve.
• the absence of certainty in events
• Philosophy the absence of necessity; the fact of being so without having to be so.
ORIGIN mid 16th cent. (in the philosophical sense): from late Latin contingentia (in its medieval Latin sense ‘circumstance’ ), from contingere ‘befall’ (see contingent ).

5:45am and I’m driving in the dark to Foodland on a vinegar mission.  Jeb’s magic potions have tapped our house’s supply and the representative at Sears says I need to dump vinegar in my malfunctioning washing machine.

I get on a plane tonight and my planning list did not include this troubleshooting on the agenda.  Friends laugh at me for packing two weeks early but I’ve got this penchant towards contingencies.  I expect the unexpected.  This washer on the fritz – case in point.

There have been other flare ups not penciled into my itinerary.  Didn’t expect Jeb to have two bodily injuries in one week, which factored in a last-minute doctor’s appointment.  I also didn’t expect my cell phone’s voicemail to lock me out the day before departure.

But if it’s all about the journey, then I try to do some sight-seeing along the detours.  Jeb got his first chiropractic adjustment, faced some fears and left the office walking a little taller.  I met Joey, the Apple tech support rep who was having a slow night and welcomed the chance to get me back into my voicemail, wishing me a good trip.

You gotta trust a change of plans.  For instance, yesterday I learned the rocket scientist would not be present at my coastal feel-good place.  Our roads are so forked we’re not even on the same continent.  My retreat takes on new elbow room.

Driving back from Foodland with my quart of vinegar by my side, the sky is just beginning to light in purple mauves and greys.  Venus sidles up to the sliver of the waning moon, hanging low above the island highway.  This moment is precious.  One I would not have had if my washer was in perfect working order.

So I’ll splash some vinegar around inside the Kenmore.  Reference my to do lists and keep crossing off the tasks accomplished.  I’ve got a semblance of a plan in mind.  It makes it smoother.  But most certainly those things you just can’t imagine – the twists in the plot, the unexpected guests – they bring the magic (even in their disrepair) if we take the time to let them shape our path.

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
John Lennon (Beautiful Boy)