I am actually submitting this article to be published in a couple literary magazines, let me know what you think of it, and wish me luck!
Near my childhood home in Saint Anthony, Idaho, there is an unremarkable path that we locals affectionately refer to as “the Dirt Road”. There’s nothing special about this old road, no plaque sits at its head declaring its history, it doesn’t connect any two locations, in fact it’s only about two miles long from one end to the other. Nobody knows its origins, it was probably made by Mormon settlers trying to cut through their fields and maintained more out of tradition than any type of formal declaration or law. Some locals use it for exercise, some have even built small homes along its dusty course, but the majority of its length is dedicated to a potato field and an irrigation ditch. Nobody would think anything of this remarkably unremarkable place.
The furthest back I can remember about this place was back before my brain had figured out how to capture memories in a way that’s logical for an older mind to make sense of, but I do recall the sound of the irrigation sprinkler with its rhythmic thumping as it watered the dirt in preparation of the coming harvest. My mother picked some wild raspberries and a couple of farmers drove by in their old beat up trucks, probably giving us the two finger salute from their steering wheels as they passed us by, leaving a dusty trail in their wake. I don’t remember a great deal about the very first time, but this type of place wasn’t about specific memories.
A stone bridge sits in the middle of this stalwart old road, a strong base for the sandy extensions of this officially non-existent highway. There have been endless nights that I spent on that bridge, staring up into the stars that shined all the brighter without the competition of man-made lights around them. The bridge sits over an irrigation ditch as it winds itself around the various patchwork fields that make up the quilted countryside of my childhood. My dad used to take our dogs for walks down to this very bridge and then lure them to the edge before throwing them in. “It’s their bath for the week!” he would say. The dogs would quickly swim to the bank and squirm with joy as they shook the water out of their coats and come pounding back up to the road with their tongues lolling out of their mouths in simple contentment. This point is where the potato field stops and the houses begin. Just beyond the bridge, however, and right before the houses begin, there lies a pasture framed by willow trees that catches an autumn sunset capable of turning any man religious. Even the mosquitoes and flies seem to understand the sacred nature of this place and pay it the reverence due by avoiding it altogether. A couple farmers place a select few horses and cattle in the field, just enough to give it a perfect picturesque setting like something pulled from the dreams of an idealistic painter.
One particular memory of this road was as I walked the down its familiar stretch on my eighteenth birthday, my mind reeling from the news of my mother’s recent diagnosis: Cancer. The hard reality couldn’t find me here as the kindly old trees reached out to me in silent hugs as I walked with my troubles down this old sentinel of a road. I puzzled through the reasons behind why my mom was dying. My young brain pressed to figure out what I had done to deserve this. What my mother had done to deserve this. I felt sick inside. My mother couldn’t die! She was supposed to see me married. Approve my future wife and tell me how wonderful she is. She was supposed to help me with my own kids. She had to rock them to sleep with the lullabies that had carried me off to dreams so often in her arms! I choked on the injustice. The road tried desperately to give me solace, drawing me into its dusty comforts and displaying the brilliant sky before me in an attempt to distract me from my troubles. For a time it worked, and I sat a long time on that bridge fighting my way through understanding and acceptance.
I revisited the road the night of her last conversation with her children. Her pale face seared into my memory, accompanied by a hated cacophony of hissing tubes and staggered breathing. The quiet sobs of my stern-faced brother as he held Mom’s head close to his and cried out “Mama!” in whispered gasps. A steady plunge of the monitor as the doctor calmly declared time of death. These were the memories of that day. The quiet inhabitants of the road’s sandy lengths seemed silent as if in mourning itself. Tired feet fell on treacherous and shifting dirt that had at one time seemed soft and playful, the echoes of my footfalls muted in the sandy foundations. My familiar trees twisted into strange faces that loomed around me with shallow tears in their eyes. Looking around my sanctuary I began to see cracks emerging. The road wept in forlorn silence. The night sky held no wonders for me that evening, the stars glistened mutely in their stationary places in the sky. The betrayal cut all the deeper when I arrived at the blessed pasture and found only darkness there to welcome me. Stillness wrapped around me like water on a drowning victim.
Life continued marching, the passage of years pounded by like the old trucks of the farmers on that tired dusty road. I pushed through my grief with my mother the only way I could think of: dogged determination. That’s the way of us country folk, or at least that’s how I saw it. I didn’t know anything else that I could do, and neither did anyone else for that matter. I found a beautiful young woman and fell in love; such is how the story is supposed to go, right? I thought so. I remember taking her to my sky view pasture that I loved. We sighed contentedly as we watched the dying light slowly diminish in the growing calm of a summer evening. I kissed her there. Not our first, but one of our more important kisses. I showed her the point where my dad would always throw the dogs in the ditch, and where to find the raspberries when they were ripe. I let her use my leather jacket, swelling in pride at my chivalry as she warmed to me on those cool Idaho nights. We would stare out across the potatoes and talk about our future together. She was beautiful.
I remember kneeling in that hallowed dirt and holding out my mother’s ring to her, asking her to abandon reason and trust that I could be her companion forever. She smiled in her radiant way and hugged me close, whispering silent “yes”s in my ear. The ring fit perfectly, without having to be re-sized or anything. The trees along the ditch bank creaked in quiet applause. My sanctuary gleamed in wonderful glory, restored from its grief and forlorn abandonment. If this were a fairytale I would stop now: having slain the dragon of grief and found the beautiful princess, I should ride off into the proverbial sunset and live out the rest of my days in relative bliss, right?
She left me. She gave me the ring back and said that I wasn’t the man that she wanted after all. She said in no uncertain terms that she never wanted to see me, talk to me, or have anything to do with me ever again. The woman of my dreams, whom I had pledged myself to, had decided that I wasn’t worthy of her and left me holding a ring and a broken will. I ran to my safe haven.
I staggered down the road, the trees were silent as I passed. No comforting sounds echoed through their branches or rebounded off of the normally talkative irrigation ditch. The dirt yielded to my passing without any salutations. I longed for some respite to the aching of my circumstances. I was given visions of her, instead. I saw the post that I had been resting against when she had leaned close to me and kissed me in the fiery light of a sunset much like the one that mocked me even now in my pain. It felt as though God was mocking me. I thought I could hear his laughter at my pain echo through the stillness of that dark sunset. I felt the piercing gaze on my shoulders and I staggered under the weight. The floodgates opened and my sanctuary washed away in a flood of bitter tears.
That dark night stretched into days, then months, then the better part of a year and still there was no end in sight. Dragons I had long thought slain reared their heads and bore down on me. I felt the passage of time slow to a crawl. The sunlight seemed something forgotten. Sunless days crept over the horizon with their lecherous beams appearing only to break resolve rather than encourage. The broken bulwark of my confidence was open as the wracking contaminant of fear spread through me. And I was sick with it. The infection filled my brain with a fever of silent demons. In the few times I walked the road, the trees pointed their fingers in disgust at me, and the wind shook the leaves in disapproving swishes. The shame of disappointment is a bitter disease. Only someone who has been through a dark night like that can understand how the morning finds its way through, and to those that have yet to experience it, I can only describe it as a subtle thing. For me the turn upwards was so gradual and quiet that I almost didn’t notice it.
It happened one day as I was driving in to work. The quiet solidity of my car mixed with the comforting surroundings and the reassuring feeling of movement and control created an environment that had echoes of my old dirt road. I felt a surge of something I had almost forgotten: excitement. I felt something akin to a marathon runner crossing the finish line. These difficulties that I had faced would not end me. I was not helpless, nor was my failure permanent. There had been reassurances of my revelation before this moment, but that afternoon I actually found the strength to believe them. There would once again be moments of excitement. I found myself thinking back to a conversation I had had with a friend once. She had been suffering with a divorce and the demons of defeat were snapping at her heels. I told her one simple thing: there is always one more good day. We all have those days in our memories when the sun was just the perfect amount of brightness, the food was the tastiest we could remember, and the laughter of friends and family echoed in a picturesque setting that is etched into our minds. Remembering those days is part of the promise that I had told my friend: there is always one more good day to look forward to, and that should give us hope. In the meantime, we just have to keep pushing on. Dogged determination, we country folk really don’t know any other way of doing things. Eventually determination becomes conviction as hopes become experience.
I have since re-visited my old friend the dirt road. While it is a beautiful walk, this place is no longer the home that it was before now. I walked its length, stopping every so often to look for wild raspberries even though I knew they were out of season. The trees and water seemed indifferent to my passing; the stone bridge was silent at my approach, no signs of recognitions shouted out to me from the now inanimate dirt that had once been my friend. I sat awhile on the bridge and stared out across the magical pasture and was overwhelmed by the cool apathy of the surrounding countryside at my return. After a sufficient amount of time had passed I got up and walked back the way I had come. On my way I passed a mother with her child. The toddler was giggling in the curious fashion of infants as he threw rocks into the irrigation ditch and the mother watched over him protectively while trying to hide a smile. I almost laughed at the ironic poetry of the moment.
