I remember the landscape of my old homeground by the absence of landmarks. Rolling east on the Appalachian Highway, the absence of green space shook my mental map and memory of the place. There used to be great draughts of space between Eastgate and the wild lands of southeast Ohio. It was the escape into a space that still felt unsettled and a little more free, a little more dangerous. The kind of place a person could test themselves and still breathe clean air and see the stars at night. Before the cellphone towers, before fiber optic tentacles and the empty promise of economic recovery. The only lies were the ones people told themselves, the ones from which great and terrible futures are written.
I go back and watch shows with an obsession. I don’t know why. Lately I’ve been going back and watching Mulder and Scully. Sometimes I miss the skepticism and paranoia of my childhood. An odd turn of nostalgia at that, being a child raised in a world in which the infrastructure was crumbling and being repaired with Hubba Bubba and Brillo Cream caked prayers.
But you miss little things the first time through, watching for the plot. Like Lawn jockeys; just an odd transition shot that had nothing to do with the plot. The lawn jockey was about establishing tone, true; the Caucasian face paint was starting to chip off and was meant to make us think about zombies. But you could argue that it was almost a non-essential shot. A little extra little taste from the director. A little wink and a nod, darkly funny. Lawn jockeys could make any trailer a royal compound, right? Like adding Greek columns to an old row house and turning it into a bed and breakfast.
It reminds me of the first time I drove back by the house I grew up in and saw that the new owner buried wagon wheels at the end of the driveway/ Like they rolled up from after some long journey, wrapped in gingham and a dream, and dug the foundation themselves, when all they did was buy a 40 year old ranch style house and paint over all the memories in western kitsch. The unknowns and barely knowns have been painted over with a new, thick paint of certainty. The color is a colorless gray, and reflects nothing.
Underneath, all the old memories rest on the drywall and frame, preserved like fossils against elements and the passage of time.
[Day book 2026 / Spring 3.21.26
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Poet. Essayist. Fictioner. Steamboat fireman. Bit of a grackle.
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