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The high deserts of home
Sep. 28th, 2002 12:49 am[Could I draw, I'd insert an image of a blue monoceros looking over his homelands, from his perch on a mesa's edge. For now, I'll just think it.]
I should be in Vegas. Then again, I should have stayed longer at work today, and that didn't happen either. Life's a tradeoff sometimes. :)
The trip this weekend got cancelled for a number of reasons, the most pressing of which was the urgent need for those little green bills in my wallet to be somewhere else at the time. Darn things have a mind of their own, complete with conflicting schedules. Don't worry, I'm not whining about not having enough of them... it's just that their timing and mine some days don't match up well.
I had two main reasons for going. Primarily I'm trying to fill a need for some nostalgia; an urge that can find some release by travelling through the near-to-Vegas town of Boulder City. The other was to be nearby in support of an online friend during a possibly-difficult event she's enduring. I'm glad to state the latter reason has been nullified by her doing very well; she's been out there since Thursday or so. Now, the excuse for going was to see the Art of the Motorcycle exhibit with a few friends. While that would have been fun and all that... it'd just be a tertiary goal on the objectives list.
. o O o .
The years of 6th through 8th grade were marked by dry desert air and the oddly cosy feel of a government-built town. Boulder City was a huge change for me when my family moved out there. Leaving Missouri as an elementary-school 6th grader and ending up a half-continent away as a Jr. High student (6-8 was JrHi in Nevada) was a scary mid-year transition. I shouldn't have been surprised, though; such mid-stream leaps are kind of a common theme throughout my life. I think part of my over-analytical social nature came from this and similar events. Instead of being part of the group and getting the proper initiation, I was just tossed into the already-moving situation and expected to cope. So far, I always have. I do miss seeing what life's like for those who start truely at the beginning, though.
We'd moved into a nicely generic suburban family home, on a row of streets laid out all too evenly. Built to house the workers that built Hoover Dam, the town had grown to fill the little pocket that sits on a terrace above Lake Mead's south end. The place was a bedroom community for people that worked over the ridge in Henderson or Las Vegas, so it wasn't too surprising they didn't allow gambling or any large businesses or towers. It was the kind of city you came home to relax in, leaving the Vegas bowl and all its air pollution behind.
It was here that I had my best friend of my adolescent life, and my worst schoolyard enemies. I discovered how precious storms were when they only came by once a year. The high desert's intriguing combination of beauty and desperation set a mental tone with me that I still carry, which is reflected in the fictions I write and the characters I play online. I was small, tough, arrogant in that protagonist sort of way, and impossible to stop. I broke bike frames off of 30 foot embankments, swam storm-surges down flooded cement creeks and hiked miles without water up Radar Hill, passing out at the top only to be saved by the cool of night's fall. I managed to survive it all by some miracle of luck and youthful rebound. Detached from both sisters and parents, I feel that particular house was the first time in my life that it was _my time_. In my memories it was like I lived there alone, with only brief and distant visits from my nuclear family. The occasional weekend boat-trip with Dad. The sitting in the car watching the highway roll past as I got taken in to yet another buffet and arcade -- my only views of the casinos.
This was also the first place in my life that I was given the option to not go to church, and subtly let go by my Dad's projected faith to pursue my own path. Sure, I did my own thing on Sundays mostly out of youthful spite and wanting another day to play... but years later I could tell it was my father's way of letting me do my own soul searching instead of having it force-fed to me with Sunday communion. Someday I'll find the proper way thank him for that. I never did go back, by th' by. I'm still searching for what religion means to me. The only part I know so far is that it's within, and a matter best explored through the Self before trying to link up with anything organized. We'll see where this goes.
. o O o .
I've been back there many times since... but I've not done what I need to do. Each time was like tiptoeing past the house of a friend not-long-seen. You want to step in and renew ties... but you fear getting held there when you've got other things that must be done. To that end, I'd stay in Vegas and only barely give a little drive over the hill to the old house. Once with the parents, numerous times with other friends. I don't figure any of them would want to be delayed with me getting all memory-laneish over the place, so I use that as an excuse to just fly through, with the lightest of "Y'know, I used to live there..." comments, not so much as tapping the brakes.
Nowadays I live on two wheels, and most of the entire western half of the nation is my weekend stomping grounds, should I so choose. I've but to hop on the bike and twist the wrist, and I could end up down there once more... skipping Vegas entirely to go get a cheap motel room in the hometown instead. My camera could try to capture what my mind's eye remembers from, what... 20 years ago? Ack. It makes me flinch just typing it.
I really need to go back there, and see that part of Home again.
I should be in Vegas. Then again, I should have stayed longer at work today, and that didn't happen either. Life's a tradeoff sometimes. :)
The trip this weekend got cancelled for a number of reasons, the most pressing of which was the urgent need for those little green bills in my wallet to be somewhere else at the time. Darn things have a mind of their own, complete with conflicting schedules. Don't worry, I'm not whining about not having enough of them... it's just that their timing and mine some days don't match up well.
I had two main reasons for going. Primarily I'm trying to fill a need for some nostalgia; an urge that can find some release by travelling through the near-to-Vegas town of Boulder City. The other was to be nearby in support of an online friend during a possibly-difficult event she's enduring. I'm glad to state the latter reason has been nullified by her doing very well; she's been out there since Thursday or so. Now, the excuse for going was to see the Art of the Motorcycle exhibit with a few friends. While that would have been fun and all that... it'd just be a tertiary goal on the objectives list.
The years of 6th through 8th grade were marked by dry desert air and the oddly cosy feel of a government-built town. Boulder City was a huge change for me when my family moved out there. Leaving Missouri as an elementary-school 6th grader and ending up a half-continent away as a Jr. High student (6-8 was JrHi in Nevada) was a scary mid-year transition. I shouldn't have been surprised, though; such mid-stream leaps are kind of a common theme throughout my life. I think part of my over-analytical social nature came from this and similar events. Instead of being part of the group and getting the proper initiation, I was just tossed into the already-moving situation and expected to cope. So far, I always have. I do miss seeing what life's like for those who start truely at the beginning, though.
We'd moved into a nicely generic suburban family home, on a row of streets laid out all too evenly. Built to house the workers that built Hoover Dam, the town had grown to fill the little pocket that sits on a terrace above Lake Mead's south end. The place was a bedroom community for people that worked over the ridge in Henderson or Las Vegas, so it wasn't too surprising they didn't allow gambling or any large businesses or towers. It was the kind of city you came home to relax in, leaving the Vegas bowl and all its air pollution behind.
It was here that I had my best friend of my adolescent life, and my worst schoolyard enemies. I discovered how precious storms were when they only came by once a year. The high desert's intriguing combination of beauty and desperation set a mental tone with me that I still carry, which is reflected in the fictions I write and the characters I play online. I was small, tough, arrogant in that protagonist sort of way, and impossible to stop. I broke bike frames off of 30 foot embankments, swam storm-surges down flooded cement creeks and hiked miles without water up Radar Hill, passing out at the top only to be saved by the cool of night's fall. I managed to survive it all by some miracle of luck and youthful rebound. Detached from both sisters and parents, I feel that particular house was the first time in my life that it was _my time_. In my memories it was like I lived there alone, with only brief and distant visits from my nuclear family. The occasional weekend boat-trip with Dad. The sitting in the car watching the highway roll past as I got taken in to yet another buffet and arcade -- my only views of the casinos.
This was also the first place in my life that I was given the option to not go to church, and subtly let go by my Dad's projected faith to pursue my own path. Sure, I did my own thing on Sundays mostly out of youthful spite and wanting another day to play... but years later I could tell it was my father's way of letting me do my own soul searching instead of having it force-fed to me with Sunday communion. Someday I'll find the proper way thank him for that. I never did go back, by th' by. I'm still searching for what religion means to me. The only part I know so far is that it's within, and a matter best explored through the Self before trying to link up with anything organized. We'll see where this goes.
I've been back there many times since... but I've not done what I need to do. Each time was like tiptoeing past the house of a friend not-long-seen. You want to step in and renew ties... but you fear getting held there when you've got other things that must be done. To that end, I'd stay in Vegas and only barely give a little drive over the hill to the old house. Once with the parents, numerous times with other friends. I don't figure any of them would want to be delayed with me getting all memory-laneish over the place, so I use that as an excuse to just fly through, with the lightest of "Y'know, I used to live there..." comments, not so much as tapping the brakes.
Nowadays I live on two wheels, and most of the entire western half of the nation is my weekend stomping grounds, should I so choose. I've but to hop on the bike and twist the wrist, and I could end up down there once more... skipping Vegas entirely to go get a cheap motel room in the hometown instead. My camera could try to capture what my mind's eye remembers from, what... 20 years ago? Ack. It makes me flinch just typing it.
I really need to go back there, and see that part of Home again.
