Sometimes things die. Sometimes they become something else. Sometimes, we are in a place where we witness it. Sometimes, we must live through it...
What do we do? Hold on like crazy to the old, or to the thought
of the old, hoping fervently it won’t change? Perhaps… Or clutch on to it in our mind? Tight. Really
tight. Eyes tightly shut, mind tightly closed, refusing to believe that
anything can be different from the idea of what we hold? Of how things are, and
will continue to be? Always…
Or do we wake up and face the reality and take stock of the
change?
Who doesn’t love the metamorphosis of the drab caterpillar,
transforming miraculously into a brilliant, scintillating butterfly? But what
when we must watch the brilliant, scintillating butterfly turn into a drab worm?
Perhaps, that is 2020 for us.
Loss. Yes, the sense of loss has been imminent since the
start of the pandemic. In small ways, in big ways - every person has a different
story. And holding its hand, is grief. From the small, simple everyday things
we take for granted, to all those big, wonderful plans.
But alongside, there has been a slowing down, and a
solidarity, and a simplifying, and a renewed sense of what truly matters, and an
ability to awaken to pleasures in the small joys, the little things, the simple
enjoyments. Yes, 2020 you have been a mixed bag. You have taken away so much,
you have taught us so much.
These thoughts run through my head as we drive through the
“ghost towns” in Eastern Oregon.
Abandoned, derelict, they stand in shambles. But even while
the decrepit walls crumble, they hold inside them stories. A history of an old,
possibly glorious past. A past filled with hope, and possibility, of dreams, of
riches and gold…
Gold was found in Sumpter, Canyon city, Granite, among other
places during the gold rush of the late-1800s, and add to that, the Oregon
trail and pioneers. As a result, several of these towns were booming, but were abandoned,
once their industries were no longer prosperous, or when they failed to be part
of a wider transportation plan.
Images of the wild wild west come to mind, and I imagine
these dusty towns filled with prospectors and pioneers, speculators and
traders, gold-miners and saloon owners…
According to historians, about 256 such towns in Oregon became
ghost towns. And just as they arose from the dust, they were eventually to be left
in the dust…
Once again, I think of change, around us, so constant… Sometimes,
it’s quiet and subtle, sometimes, it laps up up in big waves.
We drive further south into other remote, uninhabited parts
of Oregon, all the way to the Alvord desert, which is now a crumpled and dried,
alkaline river-bed.
I look at the cracked and parched ground of the Alvord
desert. It is hard to believe that this was once a lake, supposedly 100 miles
long and 200 feet deep. What became of it? Of its power and force and form and
energy?
And while my mind tries to recreate images of nature and a
time bygone, I stop myself. I come back to the now and I pause, for I cannot
but help wonder…
This beautiful desert in front of me – is it the butterfly
or is it the caterpillar?
I wrote this before Oregon got engulfed in forest fires and smoke. It didn’t feel right to post this once the fires started and amidst news of burned-down homes. But I did want to share it, for really, the piece is about ghost towns, and perhaps change, and perhaps some of the ghosts we hold inside us… of our past, of that which we can’t let go, even when it’s long gone… and a new reality that is always emerging and standing before us, even when the ghosts lurk in the back…
For that is what recent histories and stories do… they
make us notice things, and feel things… around us and sometimes, in a short instance,
ever so fleetingly, inside us…
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