What then, you ask? KCFreePress.com

As of Wednesday—when the site launched—I am a contributor for the city’s first web-only “newspaper.” Even if I weren’t a contributor, I would be both proud and excited about the Kansas City Free Press. The editors at KCFP are letting me run with an idea I’ve been toying with for years, in the form of a regular column dealing with the notion of place. When I first started keeping a blog, in 2004, the entries I enjoyed writing the most—and those that my readers also seemed to enjoy—were dealing with my own fleeting involvement with the places I traveled to, near or far.

What’s the KCFreePress? Let the Editor-in-Chief tell you himself.

Since the site launched, people have asked me what it means to write “about place.” Admittedly, I am using a noun, which most people use in passing, to describe something more contemplative. When I refer to the concept of place, I am quietly referring to something I believe: Most places are unique, and different from other places; they are divisible and definable. And even when they are not—especially when they are not—they are interesting. An excerpt from my column’s introduction works to solidify my aims.

This column, entitled “Many Places One”, is as soft as news gets. My hope is that the column is found and welcomed by those who enjoy wondering about the mysteries and charms of the place they call home. These “stories” will be presented in more shades of gray than preferred by those who want only news, “hard” information, or sensational opinion. If it is found unsatisfying, it will be a worthy exercise nonetheless. One of the most interesting elements of any locale is the often surprising way in which inhabitants think of themselves in relation to their home.

At the very least, “Many Places One” will serve my pursuits as an artist with an active studio practice. The work I have been making for the last several years is directly involved with these ideas, and I am interested to see how the content of my work is altered by this formalization of a working habit. For some time my method has been to open myself to experience and imagery by wandering on tire and foot, until enough subjective inferences have been made that I am driven to produce paintings in the studio. I am curious what will happen when I systematically report my findings, between the naturally formed phases.

Anything else? Yeah, just a little.

With this last bit in mind, I will also mention that I am doing what I can to get the Free Press Arts section off the ground. Though there is rarely such thing as “hard news” in the vague and dubious art world, my goal is to be neither a critic nor an automaton reporter, as art requires cogitation. My views on the subject are neither authoritative nor exhaustive, but I can promise that they will be objective and descriptive. My modus operandi, in all things, is to say what I see.

In these short moments, between regular human life and an altogether bizarre affair, my sky-fixed eyes curse the closeness of the neighbors and their fences, their trees, their yards, their sounds. The closeness of all their impeding darkness. Towering without wonder, high above the horizon I desire, that if it could would send pulsing, faint word of all distance and light.

“Artists as trusted mentors are very few. If and when I live near one again, I won’t take it for granted. It’s as important as the weather.”

Me, via Twitter

In my short time on earth, I’ve taken a lot of aimless drives. If any significant amount of time without such a jaunt has passed, I feel all the more aware of the necessity for these escapes the moment I accelerate across the open road. It is in these moments that I recapture a sense of purpose for the day, or the year. I’m able to recollect in a way that renders all the workings of life below water, and the brief time I spend driving away—or around—signifies a quick surging gasp, as I breach for air. For a few minutes, I’m above the surface, I see things for what they are. The barriers and difficulties of my situation are recapitulated, and I’m able to author my thoughts with the perspective of literal distance. I often conclude such drives feeling able to dive back into the narrative and swim, rather than drown.

Sometimes, I don’t have a single distinct thought, and sometimes I speak my thoughts aloud, arriving at conclusions and declarations. In any case, these drives affect my person in a fundamental way. My wife refers to various experiences with a phrase that is apt. Something as brief as my hand sliding across hers, or a bath, or a precise deep-tissue kneading of her back is what she will invariably describe as that which “feels important.” There are things we can do for ourselves, or for others, that keep us from sliding into lost.

In a similar fashion, finding a way to cultivate a relationship with someone I value as a mentor is something that feels important in every instance, be it a beer and nothing more or a rare, momentum-changing conversation.

Like the drives I take, these experiences are rich, reflective, and calming. They’re rich because I’m with someone I admire, they’re reflective because I’m naturally examining myself through a prism formed by the person I wish to emulate, and they’re calming because these relationships and experiences remind me that there is a distinct thing about who I am, and who I’m trying to be. And I ought to pay attention to that.

I’ve never hungered for the circle of many. I often find myself wishing one of my good friends could be great, or that I had fewer friends altogether. I’d rather have one of those rare, focused and challenging friendships with a mentor than have several friends that do no such thing. In terms of being an artist, willing critical voices are incredibly important and often hard to find. They are sustenance. But they also need to be trusted, and that’s always going to be a difficult find.

Right now, my two most trusted artist mentors live far away. I recognize now that the time I’ve spent near them is a gift that stays with me in all my inward examinations. The idea of having one permanently near now strikes me as so fantastic that I think it’s a reasonable element of life for any artist making a move to consider. Do I have a mentor there?

On the intermittent day in which I complete a correspondence with a mentor, in which we are updated of one another’s lives, thoughts, fears, and progress in the studio, I feel something that isn’t all that different from the drives I take. I’m able to be in touch with the personification of my goals, and to examine my current state with perspective by filing a report with that person. When I’m without a mentor nearby, and when I’ve failed to keep in touch with those that are further afield, it’s as though I’m without a car to take me out above the surface. I’m then aware that I am missing something important.

And missing something important feels just as important as fulfilling these great needs. You can see how important it is in those that aren’t led by some such thing within or beside them. Though I hate knowing I am missing something (be it the opening credits or a friendship), it’s better than not knowing something is missing.

Invariably, that sense of contentment is wrong, because what I do won’t last forever, and it probably won’t last long. There are paintings I throw away, and beyond that, my work is a conservator’s nightmare. I haven’t sold the vast majority of the paintings I’ve made, therefore they hold little meaning or value to others, and they’ve earned nothing for me outside of the studio. So at this point, I should characterize myself as ambitious to believe that the paintings I make will even outlive me. Moreover, it would be typically romantic (and big-headed) for me to characterize the practice of painting unto itself as pleasurable to me, and therefore meaningful in general. But pleasure in the studio is not a given. Most of the work I do in there—especially the work I should be doing—is not a pleasure. It is perfectly difficult. There are a number of reasons it’s difficult, and together they’re the one reason it would be misleading to call painting a pleasurable act. There is rarely something I’d rather be doing though, and that’s why the qualification isn’t a complaint.

Paint is liquid color, and like anything so sensuous, wet or dry, it will always have a gratifying appeal. I needn’t argue that point. Paint’s place in the past is known and loathed by artists (especially) and non-artists alike. Paint’s place in the present and future has probably been written about elsewhere as part of overwrought theories meant to impress or ravage, but I’m only interested because it’s what I do, and what I plan to do. The relevance of paint (which even on the phrase’s face, is a heady subject) is interesting to me in the way that the future of telephony is a subject of interest to a pension holder at Sprint-Nextel. This may be an obvious observation, but it describes a far less obvious dilineation; for the most part, the people writing (and deciding) about what’s important in art aren’t the artists themselves.

It lasts.

There is a thread of intentionality that runs through everything I do. For me there is a spectrum on which all possible activities available to humans fall. On the one end you have the act which leaves a mark that will last forever, and on the other the utterly meaningless. And there you’ll see, if you’re sharp, that I’ve unfairly shaped the world in my image straightway, equating that which lacks longevity with that which also lacks meaning. It’s a markmaker’s equation; if it doesn’t last, it doesn’t matter. Aside from the obvious matters of personal preference, one could still rightly argue that there are plenty of activities that are temporal in nature and yet meaningful. I wouldn’t even disagree. My statement here is not about the way the world is, but about the way some people are wired, despite the world. The second part of the markmaker’s equation is a curious twist. The most appealing mark to leave behind is one that can be crafted to completion within the lifetime of its maker, in order that the utmost degree of control can be satisfied. Therefore the markmaker has a picky wish: to make something briefly, relative to the time it is meant to last, with a finality that will ensure its longevity. The act that goes on in perpetuity, creative or not, represents the opposite of the markmaker’s desire, as it requires the constant intercession of its participant.

All of us do things we enjoy, and any one of those activities may be something we acknowledge to be meaningless. Maybe we have a penchant for keeping inventory of who we’re following or unfollowing on various social networks, or perhaps we have an inner need to rate each song in our music “library” on a scale of 1 to 5 stars. Luddites love their gardens, which will eventually be sold or dead, if anything at all. But if we’re markmakers, in addition to these activities (and in some cases instead of them), we do something we believe will last. That something can last in physical space, past the point marked ahead of us by our own deaths, or it can be meant to last in minds and memory. The belief that the project we take on instead of our distractions will indeed last is an indication of the value we’ve given to that task. In fact, a great way to define distraction is to ask how long it will keep.

I think most artists, dealers, curators, and critics are aware of the fact that painting isn’t going anywhere soon (despite its recent death), even if they don’t understand why. But my concern is more with those members of society that in one sense are very aware of the trends taking place in our world, at every scale. They are atop the zeitgeist, they are the zeitgeist. They are designers, programmers, web developers, bloggers, authors, tastemakers, niche-stars, celebrity-politicians, activists, start-up CEOs, web-stars, web-groupies, and cool kids. In addition, there are all the people on the other side of the equation that is formed by the relationship these groups share, and if not now, they too will soon be just as aware of the tremendous ways in which our world is shifting. They are editors, publishers of newspapers and books, record label executives, museum directors, movie producers, radio producers, journalists, mainstream pop stars,  mainstream executives, conservative politicians, and old people. Some of these people are painfully unaware of what’s taking place, and some of what’s taking place is because of that unawareness. These are of course broad generalizations; they’re also mostly true.

I’m acquainted with as many of the former as I am the latter, and in particular, with as many savvy web “geeks” as I am plain old-fashioned artists. The geeks are well aware of what’s coming and the artists don’t need to be, because what the geeks don’t know (and the artists don’t need to know) is that eventually, when all these transitions come to pass, aura will still matter. What’s lost on many of the trailblazers is the very definition of aura. For many, it’s so unfamiliar that they used a keyboard shortcut to look up the word before they could even read this sentence. Forget the OED.

Aura is what you would rather have than enhance. It is what you would choose to experience in one place, if seldom, rather than anywhere. It is that thing you can’t leave behind, even if what’s ahead seems “better.” As it has grown more rare, it has earned its own startling figure of speech; an object with aura, quite literally “has a presence” about it, in its “thereness.” It is your wife, rather than an e-mail from your wife. No, not the idea of your wife, but the smell and the surface of her shoulder. It is something that takes up physical space (and time), and is better for having done so. Not the memory, nor the analogy, but the sight and sense of present experience. It is a painting, rather than a painting with a bunch of faves and an open API. That is called a JPEG.

This painting, if you own it, will need to be properly hung on your wall. You may need a crate built for it in the case of travel or storage. You’ll want to consider the lighting. Photographs taken of it—even by professionals—will defy and frustrate what you see. You will call this painting beautiful and lovely and strange. You will stare at it for seconds at a time for years of your life, and eventually it will mean more to you than it ever did to its maker.

Not simply forgotten, but altogether unknown.

The benefits of the next can outweigh the quality of aura, in some cases, so I don’t intend to act as though the qualities of an object can invariably trump the future. Often times a symbiosis can be achieved between the original object and its stand-in that heightens the experience of both. In other instances, the next iteration is a suitable and necessary replacement, whatever traces of aura may be discarded. Newsprint has a charming scent, yes, but most of us are better off with a new kind of news. Likewise, fast and traveling readers are fortunate to no longer need books, but old books, beautiful books are something entirely different, despite their similar name. There is a spectrum, see? 

And never did I stop to think this sort of knowledge was lost on my peers until lately. There is such a hunger for our evolution to move past those scared executive giants that have kept us from moving various media forward, that the judgement in those that are ready to be rid of objects is a bit unwieldy. They are ravenous for that slick utopia in which everything is interoperable. The confidence they share in their ability to think different may have blinded them from the ability to observe life. Rather than offend one of these sorts that I do not know, I’ll pick on a very good friend, who happens to be among the most talented people I know (currently, a revered designer):

“In 100 years, a printed magazine will be the cultural equivalent of an illuminated manuscript.”

Wilson Miner, via Twitter

I haven’t taken the time to read the rules, but I’m certain it’s unfair of me to take a man’s tweet to task in long-form. But in the spirit of the present, it’s also entirely appropriate. Besides, the tweet in question was clearly crafted with thought and judgement, meant to stir the mind. It may have even been the product of some two or three drafts. Anytime someone makes a public prediction for the future, he or she is wise to be careful and thoughtful with his or her words. This tweet has all the markings of just such a process.

Not unlike Wilson, I’m saying a few things about the way I see the distant future shaping up, based upon the present. (If I did my research, I imagine I would find that’s a silly thing to do.) But my greatest interest is in the culture and attitudes of the present. 

Now the swashbuckling.

In 100 years, a printed magazine will be far less relevant or meaningful than Wilson surmised. An illuminated manuscript, after all, is an object that was long ago decorated individually by the artist’s hand. Though their aura and meaning are somewhat deadened and lost behind plexiglass that protects them behind furthur stifling museum and university walls, these objects are special. And as much as they may not appeal to our current taste, we easily recognize this upon inspection. The pages of printed magazines from 2009 will never gain this stature. Nostalgia may imbue them with some fleeting value as this generation and the next long for a previous time, but as individual objects, they’ll be throw-aways. They’ll find them in banker’s boxes and old dry closets. The cultural equivalent of arrowheads along a trail, charming for a instant, but just another thing to keep in a drawer. Like most things of course, magazines do tell their quality along a spectrum. I’m fond of the weights and surfaces of magazines such as Blind Spot and Danske, and can imagine that no matter the year, they’d command the attention of someone’s hands for a second or two longer than the frail junk that is Newsweek, Us Weekly, Wired, and Time. In the broad sense, each one will own a fragment of aura that even in the aggregate will mean very little. Magazines will not join Illuminated manuscripts behind the plexi. They will fall behind shelves. As objects (their content aside), they will be the gum beneath a desk, stirring the imagination of a peering child.

Wilson’s remark, in attitude, seems intended as a comment on a larger trend—the decentralization of objects. The big move. From vinyl music, spined books, and paper papers to their space-absent stand-ins. From objects to no thing. And more important to me than the exact place in history that illuminated manuscripts and printed magazines will hold is the nature of the attitude I detect behind that bold vision for what’s next. In short, by comparing printed magazines to illuminated manuscripts, Wilson has compared something without aura to something he knows about precisely for the aura it retains. What is unclear is whether or not he (and those that seem to share his dispassionate take on replaceable objects) believes magazines will have aura, or whether he has left aura out of the picture. In terms of the group-think at large, the latter is clearly taking place.

“Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be…The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.”

 Walter Benjamin,  The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Walter Benjamin’s thoughts on the notion of the original and authenticity are universally known, and still relevant. Yet today the relevance of that essay is charged with the impending quality of what can only be described (dramatic as it may sound) as a new age, beyond the pale of mere reproduction. The invisible price tag that is attached to every extant object reads simply “Do I need to exist?” And as noted, there is an entire tribe of people more interested in forcing the answer to be “No,” rather than simply considering the question.

Of late, there has been a mainstream-level interest in this thing called the Cloud, in which increasingly, all of our data is elsewhere, stored safely, ready to be accessed not by a singular object, but by any object equipped with our identity. This emboldens the opinions of those who fail to understand aura, as they recognize their once-coveted computer as instantly replaceable. All that is needed to begin anew with email, documents, even an individual’s painfully particular “settings” and “preferences”—an entire digital life—is a password. More and more, this seems to encourage a sort of disregard for the object (in this case a computer), as a rugged supply to be expended and replenished, which it is.

In the case of the computer, a manufactured thing for which there may be scarcity for some models, but never one-of-a-kind, one is right to devalue it as personal data becomes ubiquitous. However in the meantime, there seems to be a growing belief that no object matters, beneath the surface of our ever-more seamless digital interactions. Records, books, computers, handshakes, hugs. These are all old-fashioned. The stand-in is being mistaken for progress. But it won’t be forever. We have bodies in a physical world, and so long as that is the case, our interactions in that world will render the most meaning. There is only one self, and I would argue that said self, despite the ease of an online go-between, can only be authentic in person. Great attention is being paid to the websites and services that deliver their product with authenticity, by using the language of conversation as part of their brand, but this strategy shouldn’t be confused for the real thing. It only refers to the authentic moments that can exist between two living people, in the same way that the photographic refers to reality.

It’s a matter of singularity. As the objects in our life that aren’t necessary disappear, the objects that remain—useful or not—will be those that cannot be replaced or disposed of. I imagine that over time our culture will also “regress,” in a sense, as we begin to realize there are certain experiences and interactions that must be had in the flesh. People will arrive at versions of their selves that are less obsessed by their possessions than previous generations, yet those increasingly few possessions will represent a culture that is unknowingly defined by a profound appreciation for aura. People won’t necessarily know why they choose to keep certain objects, or to know certain friends, treasured friends, on their patio rather than Facebook. Just a slightly uncanny feeling, “I couldn’t get rid of this.”

What then?

Now this no call to action. It is a call to thought, at the most. I have no grave concerns that our future will be an awful place if people don’t start understanding aura, what has it, and what doesn’t. By the very nature of aura, it will preserve the objects that need to be preserved. They’ll be put behind glass, and registrars will document their stillness on a weekly basis.

I’m not concerned about anything, in fact. Rather I just think that people ought to consider what is truly important, truly special, and truly valuable now. The future is up to forces we’re unaware of, but based upon the last several millenia, I have a strong hunch about what is and will continue to be meaningful.

In a world in which objects continue to give way to the ether, replaced by functions, services, and systems that we grow ever more inextricably tied to, our appreciation in the objects that remain will be with those that retain their use, even as objects. Even more (and as always), the greatest value will be assigned to those objects that never had a permanently agreed-upon use in the first place. That is chiefly the realm of art. And by the fact that even art mainstays such as sculptures, prints, photographs, videos, and “concepts” can be reproduced without end, there is perhaps no object on earth, aside from a hand-written letter, the individual human, and the earth itself that possesses the aura of a painting. An image for our image-based, image-obsessed culture, made entirely of individual marks. Each mark calling upon a moment in time. A living document of activity, pretty or not.

How’s that for self-important theatrics?

But that’s not how I mean it. I’m excited, that’s all. It’s such an incredibly interesting situation. And as we grow old, I expect aura to be among the long-term buzzwords of our time. During that time, I’ll be making paintings. I expect others have already made much of the dematerialization of things, and they will continue to. I’m more interested in paintings than the entire conversation. I didn’t choose to be a painter because paintings are what you keep, I’m not that calculative. I’m just supposed to make images, it’s something I need to do. But if I didn’t make images, I still think I would find painting to be the most interesting act in history (the Tweet, a distant second). It’s an incredibly relevant mystery. For many of us, paintings do something other things don’t that force us to revisit them. There is a reason they haunt us.

Today, for the first time in more than a year, I finished a painting. In the last two weeks I’ve been defining my routine in the new studio, and it’s very satisfying to see positive results. I’ve been able to slip in and out for as little as ten minutes at a time, or as much as five hours. But every day, I’m able to spend time. Devoting a room of one’s own to nothing but his daily reveries is one of the most intriguing things a human can do in 2009. Having been without that pleasure for a while, I’m relishing the simplest aspects of it. I actually enjoy the ten-step walk in the yard from the house, and the piqued interest of my wife, as she peeks in. One day, I may wish for something more apart or private or spacious, but right now the mere ability to work every day is enthralling. It’s already certain, my seventh studio is the best one yet.

After all, what goes on in such a place, or what should, does not require that the place be miles from civilization, or sweeping in scale. No, I would posit that it needs only be perfect in the eyes of its maker. A place where things can happen, a box to hide and see from.

The quality of these photo features, however, hasn’t been consistent. Examples of either end of the spectrum are below. The use of audio in the Great Performers feature (a portfolio complied for the Oscar issue of the New York Times Magazine) is seamless and enhancing.

Paolo Pellegrin / Magnum Photos, for The New York Times

But the added slickness to these web portfolios is just that, added. The photos themselves, (judged as portfolios, pieces of a whole) aren’t always great. Sometimes they’re entirely great. In the feature shown above, Paolo Pellegrin spent part of a day following each chosen actor in the setting of their choosing, be it at home or on the move. The results are stunning. Motifs re-appear (the close-up eyes of an actor behind windshield glass, for example), but they aren’t stilted, they’re rich and rewarding.

In the future, I’ll be spending more time writing about the idea that something visual can be “good” or “bad,” and that these terms are actually well-suited to the visual conversation, contrary to educated belief. (I’ve got a lot of pent up thoughts about taste and seeing, subjects I think most people fail to consider properly.) Until then, and for future reference, this is an example of something that is “good.” And I mean that in just the way that it sounds. These are good photos. They are nice. Horse-shit way of talking about art, yes, usually. But not always. “Good” and “nice” have failed to mean something for so long that they’re actually quite meaningful things to say now, in my view, if said with thought.

Nadav Kander / The New York Times

And now the bad. There are plenty of reasons the above feature (on Obama’s People) leaves a funny taste in my mouth (funny bad). For one, It’d be nice if the New York Times weren’t so unabashedly giddy about Obama (so unabashed, in fact, that they put together the feature above, which is sloppy, ill-considered, and ugly), because they put together a solid news site. But I’ll leave the political/newsyness questions for later. Just looking at this feature, the judgement is immediate. Bad.

I think it takes courage on the part of a photographer, or his or her editor, to realize that though the originating concept may have been intriguing, the proper results never came. That would of course mean spending money, and time, and capital (these are important people being photographed after all), and still choosing to discard the project once its flaws were apparent. Not only is the clinical white-background sterilization of subject over-done, it’s done better elsewhere (Errol Morris). The fact that something has “been done” is too often referred to as a reason not to do it (not true, as everything has been done). But when something has consistently “been done” better, and recently, it seems a poor choice to try.

Someone should have noticed immediately that these photos weren’t telling or compelling portraits. The technique is so unconsidered (the given explanation for the photographer’s method sounds like a studentish afterthought) that the figures appear to be Photoshopped on a white background, with a bland drop-shadow to boot. By that fact they seem cheap, quick, and silly. When left with those words as the summation of my experience, I return to the feeling I mentioned toward the beginning…that perhaps the project was just that. Cheap, quick, silly. Not simply in technical terms, but also in the political sense. A big, fast, bold orgasm of mania for the newly elected. A spasm of Bad.

With that in mind, I’m still working on a few things. Most of it, in fact, is not quite ready for prime time. I’m still remembering (and learning) how to do this, which is true of most things I do. Last time around, I had a world class designer help me code it all into being. This time it’s just me behind the curtain.

Despite all this sheepishness, I can offer a few facts and promises. I wanted a central “place” to show off what it is I do, when I do it. A long time ago, I enjoyed writing very much. At the time I believed I was good at it, and so I was willing to publish what I wrote online. It has been so long that I must reassess these feelings. However my goal is to stick to what I’m good at, and to get even better. Last time around that meant writing things down and making pictures. I doubt I’ll stray much from that design this time. We’ll see.

On Saturday my boss and I drove across the river to the sad sad state of Illinois. We met an artist, did this and that, and had a few beers. Driving through steel towns so sleepy ugly flat it’d take a Wichitan to see something special, my east-coast boss looked at me and said “it sure is something to see.” I agreed in a fashion that surprised him, in way he might’ve expected. “Yeah I love it out here, I reserve Illinois for drives that are quiet, or sad.” He nodded his head and curled a half grin. “You a, you’re sort of a voluntary loner huh?” Sure, I thought, if that’s what it’s called.

In the summer of 1992, my family in full took to the Black Hills of South Dakota, where fool’s gold still sells hot and Hollidomes keep each other company. Past all that, in the deeper hills, far from Rushmore, there runs a river with trout through evergreens and quiet places. In celebration of Lucille’s willingness to somehow, some way, stay by my dad’s dad’s side for fifty years, on the arid ranch no less, we picnicked and scampered by that cold clear river.

Though moments and memories from that reunion blink and run, I can remember one hour with crystal vision. From one moment to the next, our picnic turned from a sun-streamed firmament to cold darting sprinkles that promise a hard summer rain fast coming. The subfamilies were scattered, and the countless giggling testaments to an old couple’s abiding and fertile love dashed and jumped inside an assortment of mini-vans. We threw ourselves inside and rolled the old sliding door shut.

Quiet and obedient kid that I was, I found myself in the back of my parents’ van. Sitting ahead were two of my sisters, my older cousin Peter, my dad and my aunt Bettie Lou. Peter had dark brown skin and was both older and taller than all the other children. I didn’t understand this, but I didn’t ask. In my entire life, I never saw him much. My young memory of him is that he was both agreeable and happily kind.

The vanity plates on either side of our American outfit called our ride the Bingvan, and painfully, so did we. As the Bingvan gathered speed, and we dove into the curving black ribbon through the steep forest hills, the rain came hard and speaking, like something from the bible or my dreams. One of my sisters petitioned my father for the playing of a tape, and in seconds all six of us were listening without complaint to a dubbed tape with the word Enya on it twice. Twelve eyes fixed on the mighty outdoors rushing.

My custom then, as an eternally willing passenger, was to lean my forehead out to the window’s surface and let my big skull rattle. That way I could see the passing wonder without any vision or thought of the vessel that took me on. I could act as though I was wind or a presence I can’t name. It was, and always has been an imagination fed by eyes open, not closed. I hope by seeing. I draw by watching. I pray by looking.

In that magic wet moment, doused in white rain and an early-nineties Enya drumtrack, I am certain that for once each person around me knew the glory I was always looking for. We were each quiet, even Rachelle, even Bettie Lou. When a loud and twitching thunderclap begged us to speak Peter opened his mouth first, slow and with belief.

“It’s so great.”

For the first time, I turned my head inward to see him and the others. It is for that moment alone that I appreciate the stranger that is my adopted cousin Peter. It is for that moment alone, that I remember him. Each of the others, even the old folks up front had smiles and slow nods with nothing to add. We were just kids, and we knew it. But for that long moment we were old souls, young and smiling. I wanted to laugh and cry at once, to make music with my chest.

Tonight, for the second night in a row, I drove to Illinois to watch the sky turn from pink to midnight. Through towns called Bellevue and Waterloo, where the trees tower above the empty spaces, black and abundant. I used to listen to music, to massage my head toward the road. But now I’ve taken to the noise of nothing but the small incessant rattles of an aging car just going. To let the ride be the quietest event it can be, while still racing through darkened fields. It is no silence, but it must be like the flapping solitude a high bird finds flying.

Tonight I leaned the side of my head toward the window in an aching search for that Black Hills moment. Each time I crawl inside something that moves I am searching for that moment. In my sleep I want the feeling. In these words I want it channeled. My heart breaks each day for that cheesy gorgeous moment I can only find in pieces. Among other things, I told it again, slow like the first time. Maybe even slower. It’s just so great.

On my way to the desert, I stopped for a day to surprise my mother on Mother’s Day. This worked out well for me because she bought me tuna and new shoes. On a drive across town, on our way to the tuna and shoes, she turned toward me with a serious, confessional eye.

“Bubby, I need your help. Every time my phone rings it does that song that’s all like dit ditta dit dim bum dit beep – hell-o-moto and it just embarrasses me to death. All of my friends look at me and think I’m just a crazy nincompoop.”

“Really Mother? I’ve always sort of liked the hell-o-moto song. It has a real I’m ok with Japan kind of vibe you know?

“No, I do not like it. Please change my ring tone.”

“OK, let’s change your ring tone.”

From there I went through the list of tones available on her phone. By this time we were each sitting in the parking lot of Sam’s, doors each open, listening intently to ring tones. They each sounded like some variation of smooth lounge jazz played with a miniature kazoo. She rejected each one, with the esteemed taste she has become known for.

“You’re going to have to buy one online Mother. We have to go hi-fi.”

“Are they worth it? How expensive.”

“About three dollars. Yes they are worth it, today’s phones have the capability of playing the finest music recorded. Their speakers are opera-house quality. There are so many great ditties available online that the real question is why, and how, would you not have a hi-fi ring tone. If you want your friends to take you seriously, it’s a must.”

I began browsing through the music I thought she might like. I was scrolling through the Christian Rock section of her phone’s online browser when she said “Alright then, get me something cool.” So I stopped scrolling through the Christian Rock section. “Just pick something that makes you think of me, I trust you.”

So I did. I searched the entire time we were at Sam’s and for several hours afterward. In fact, it took me most of the time I was home to find the perfect hi-fi ring tone. As I left for the desert, I was noticeably drowsy because I had been up half the night finding that tone. But the search, the long journey, the inestimable wait is worth it. As my mother can attest.

A few days ago, I called my mother. Because I love her of course and because I needed some things. And right when she answered she said, with abrupt surprise and suspicion, “Hey, what did you put on my phone. Every time my phone rings my son-in-law just turns bright red and laughs.” This news was troubling. Had I picked the wrong song? Had I gone through all that trouble for an errant fate? Had I spent those three dollars on a song she didn’t want to hear? No. I held firm, I made the right decision. She would love it eventually. Someday, she would see.

“That song happens to be AC/DC’s finest cut, Mother. My brother-in-law only chuckles because your surprising aura and clear knowledge of 80’s rock leaves him nervous and giddy.”

“Thanks a lot bub. I knew you’d do this. You must think you’re pretty funny.”

There was a long, apologetic pause in which I smiled like a devil and tried my best to sound as if I genuinely thought she’d like it. I do think it’s right for her. My mom’s got attitude folks, and style. She walks into a room and if some serious metal riff isn’t playing through your head you’re probably looking at the wrong woman. After a moment or two, I asked her if she planned to keep it. “Well yeah, I’ve got a sense of humor.” My mother, she’s alright. I love her for simple reasons.