Insomniac Folklore Tour: Roseburg

July 9th and 10th

We spent these two days with Tyler’s parents, Bob and Laura. From giving us all ample padded floor space in separate rooms, to making us banana pancakes, to hosting a belated wedding reception for Adrienne and Tyler, his parents made us feel welcome and let the aches and pains of the road wash away.

Bob and Laura live more than halfway up a mountain in Roseburg, Oregon, and while we were there, we got in a lot of hiking. We scrambled through dead leaves and pine boughs and loose earth, making us all gasp for breath and feel out of shape. Tyler’s sister, Alicia, took Zach and me on a hike up the mountain and under a barbed-wire fence to some open cattleland on top of the ridge. The ridge allowed a sprawling view of the countryside around. Gnarly oaks and Pacific madrone shaped the edge of the woods and provided shelter for a scattered herd of cows. It looked like the Midwest on a grander scale— awesome!

Another walk on the same day took us deep into the forest. Oregon woods are, to me, intensely unsettling. The trees were watchful, tense, unhappy with our presence. The sunlight, golden in fading day, wandered uneasily through the open spaces between the firs, touching on dust motes and tiny insects that flurried through the air like snow. Dry leaves rustled from the trees, searching for the ground. The forest is much older than what I’m used to, and it is very awake.

Golden light turned gray shadow as the sun set, and the forest grew ominous and breathless— no birds sang, no insects buzzed. I must return to these woods someday, to meet them on their own terms, to try to understand them better.

The days in Roseburg are a blur of learning to juggle, of wading in the Umpqua River, of meeting new people, of dancing the Virginia Reel to our warm-up band at the show, of giving and receiving backrubs, and of getting to know my bandmates in a relaxed environment. After our insane drive to the west, it was a nice break.

~Lisa Shafter

Insomniac Folklore Tour: Happy Birthday

Excerpts from my diary:

 *  *

We spent the day of the 7th in Elko, Nevada, just reveling in the state of not being in a car. Our show that night was in a wine bar, and although not many people showed up, those who did bought a lot of merch.

At midnight, my bandmates wished me a happy 22nd birthday as we munched on foot-longs at a Subway somewhere in Nevada. Then we hit the road again. Tyler was determined to drive as far as he could tonight. 

I fell asleep without stretching, and woke up in screaming pain with a paralyzed neck. In between quiet sobs, I tried to get it in working order. Adrienne leaned back from the front seat and rubbed feeling back into it, and then I spent the next couple hours trying to stay awake so I wouldn’t fall asleep and hurt my neck again. Tyler began weaving down the road, and finally pulled off onto a gravel byway in the middle of nowhere and announced we were all sleeping in the car. Adrienne graciously gave up shotgun for me, and I collapsed into exhausted sleep around 3:30.

At 5:30am on July 8th, Tyler was up and at ‘em again. I woke up and sat up and watched the Oregon desert slip by, rocky and hilly and spotted with sagebrush. Prairie dogs slipped across the road every once in a while, and huge-eared jackrabbits bounded out of our way. We saw a couple antelope, and even a grey wild horse!

At last, we reached the wooded area of Oregon, and Tyler stopped at a waterfall. It reminded me a bit of the Smokies: jubilant white water gushing from the pores of the earth, tangling through mossy roots and galloping over smooth river-stones. Tyler ran around, and I have never seen a man look more at home in any place in my life.

He took us to a second waterfall, almost as big as the one I’d seen at Zion a few months ago, spilling from the lip of a huge cliff, falling in slow motion. Mist dusted the air, and I watched birds and insects swirl by overhead. I laughed in delight, and I wondered if— minus the mosquitos— this is what Eden will be like.

Our last stop before reaching Tyler’s parents was a set of hot springs. After a rocky hike to the far side of a mountain, we reached the milky-watered pools full of naked people, found one unoccupied, and slipped into the water. The sun was hot, but the springs still felt great on my joints. We just hung out for a couple hours, soaking away the pains of the road.

Around 3:00, we were on our way, and by 4, we had reached Tyler’s parents’ house. I had met them at the wedding, so it was good to see them again. Tyler’s sisters, Alicia and Hannah, as well as their babies and toddler, were there. We all just hung out, then ate lasagna that Laura, Tyler’s mom, made. She even baked me a cake for my birthday and had everybody sing! I crashed on the pads laid out on a bedroom floor for Amanda and me, and fell asleep at once.

~Lisa Shafter

Insomniac Folklore Tour: Rock-Star Accommodations

July 6th/7th

What happens when the coordinator of your show in Salt Lake City doesn’t even remember talking to you? A cancelled show, seven disappointed bandmates stranded on the tar-spotted sidewalk, and finally a mad drive toward Nevada in a search for accommodations fitting for a famous rock-star band.

At 11:30 at night, we found the perfect place: a nearly-treeless rest stop in the middle of Utah’s salt flats, surrounded by a vast darkness broken only by a single twinkling light in the distance. The stop had an overhang and some space to lay out, so we grabbed our blankets and sleeping bags and curled up beside or on the picnic tables. Lying on the concrete with only a sleeping bag for padding was not, admittedly, the most comfortable thing in the world, but it wasn’t as bad as I expected. A cool salty breeze, dry and sweet, ruffled my hair, and the nearby highway provided a comfortable white noise. I was asleep within the hour.

When I woke up, the sky was lit with gold and pastel. Now I could see the salt flats: a vast lake of solid white, with a well of glimmering gold to reflect the rising sun. Jagged blue mountains painted the horizon as sunrise clouds roiled overhead. The breeze, scented with an ancient ocean, fluttered across my hair and bare shoulders as I sat up.

After everyone woke up, I walked out onto the flats. Huge salt crystals, patterned alternately like snowflakes and polyester carpet, stretched out before me, white and perfectly flat until they touched the mountains. The salt crunched beneath my shoes, the air quiet around me. The salt was cracked into patterns like dry white earth, the needle-thin riffs filled with bubbly formations. I have never seen a landscape like it.

Waking up to the sunrise, without so much as a tent flap to separate us, was one of the most beautiful moments of my life. I’d trade a night in a soft bed for a sunrise like that any day.

~Lisa Shafter

Insomniac Folklore Tour: Nebraska and Wyoming

July 5th

So far, our first two days of tour have consisted of the same routine: get up early, drive eight or nine hours across wide landscape to the venue, play the show, then crash on the floor of a kind stranger who we just met. I’m glad I came into this tour knowing that “experiencing the places” was not exactly on the list: in two days we’ve gone from Missouri to Wyoming, and my sightseeing consists of looking out the van window as the scenery slips by.

There are some things that don’t change, no matter how I travel, and one of the biggest things is the sensory aspect. Life feels grittier, more intense, both less and more real, when I travel. Chewing whole wheat bread slathered with jelly and trail mix while squinting in a Wyoming sun. Sitting on a concrete floor with my fingers jammed in my ears trying to endure yet one more song with the same punk rhythm. Sweat running down my calves as a flood-scented wind lashes through the windows. Linking sticky arms with my bandmates in a group hug at a gas station in Nebraska. Feeling my violin playing vibrate in my back teeth and my collar bone as I hit the note spot-on. Cuddling up in a sleeping bag with a silky-furred yorkie under my arm. Sitting on shady grass and watching Tyler’s pet turtles chew dandelions. Gazing as the landscape transforms from flooded cornfields to hills of ragged gray rock. All part of the experience. All part of the memories.

~Lisa Shafter

Cornerstone, Part Two

Here’s a revised entry that I wrote in my diary on the morning of July 1st. I’ve shortened it a bit, edited it for clarity, and taken out a considerable amount of shameless gushing about a certain violinist. The events of June 30th were a major reason I loved Cornerstone so much— it’s a night I’ll hold forever in my heart. 

*  *  *

Last night, after eating s’mores with Josh and Emily [two other good friends at our campsite], I headed over to the Photoside Café show with my friends John, Ryan, and Mrs. Hengst. We arrived at the Chelsea Café tent and looked around for a place to sit. I knew there was a violinist in the band, but I didn’t pay any attention until the sound guy called for a mic check. A tone of pure gold shot through the air, playing the main theme from Pirates of the Caribbean. My head whipped toward the stage as if someone had slapped me, and I saw Photoside’s violinist warming up his instrument. I knew this was going to be a good concert.

I would say there are no words to describe Photoside Café’s live show, but I am a writer so I must try: utterly transcendent. The lead singer/guitarist, happy drummer/pianist, talented bassist and guest guitarist are all excellent, I’m sure. However, I only could hear and see the violinist and his rapturous instrument that he played with the beauty of autumn sent sailing into the air in a heartbreakingly sweet tone. 

I was instantly in love. I wanted to dance among the stars, or run on the ocean waves, or become a leaf in an oak tree lashing in the wind. Every turn, every song, every phrase was a new adventure, a tone or note or sound that spilled deep into my heart and filled it with joy so unspeakable that I could only tremble in my folding chair as tears slipped down my cheeks. 

Photo by Sharon Curry

When the set was drawing to a close, they played so fast and furiously I was afraid the violin would snap in half. They finished in a huge chord, and I leaped to my feet for a standing ovation.

After that, I half-collapsed onto a wooden tent support, gazed up at the stars, and basked in euphoria. Mrs. Hengst and John patiently waited for me to calm my jubilant heart. I realized at that moment, beyond doubt, that I could die right now and feel that I had experienced all the beauty this life has to offer.

At my friends’ urging, I talked to the violinist after the show. I waited my turn, then said, “Hi,” and earnestly gushed for several minutes. We talked about violin, the band, Cornerstone. I didn’t want to keep him long, but on impulse, out of the joy of my heart, I gave him a tight hug. For an instant I held in my arms a young man who God has blessed with the gift of pure Beauty. Then I said goodbye and raced off.

By all the standards of fairness, there should be a limit to how much joy someone is allowed to experience in one day. Reasonably, the night should have ended there and it still would have been an evening to remember forever. But I had committed to see the Flatfoot56 show at the large tent across the grounds, so I wrapped on a back brace, grabbed some earplugs, and scuffed my feet in the dust to the show, feeling that anything would be a comedown after the wonder I had just witnessed. I was wrong.

The huge tent was packed out, but I found a space in the mass of sweaty people, many of them dressed like superheroes, since that was the theme of the show. After a dramatic John-Williams music intro, the band took the stage— wearing masked big-brained batwing-eared supervillain costumes. As the members grabbed guitars, a mandolin, and bagpipes, they announced their plan to take over the world by destroying all the superheroes at once… with music!

For the first two songs, I worked on edging my way closer to the circle pit near the stage (a circle pit occurs when the fans run in a giant ellipse, pushing and shoving and trying not to fall down). Flatfoot is apparently renowned for having friendly circle pits, though I was warned it was not for the faint of heart. I hovered on the edge for a while, watching a couple hundred people mosh-sprint their way around the oval. Then I took a deep breath, put up my fists as if about to punch someone, and dove into the stampede.

Exhilaration! I hurtled forward, slamming my forearms into the people in front of me as people shoved me from behind. Every time we bottlenecked between a support pole and the group near the stage, we became a kicking, wriggling mass of sweaty bodies. I grunted and yelled as I fought through the runners, wild with adrenaline, grinning and whooping as I battled hundreds of other dancing fans.

Once I fell, but seized a guy’s tank top, yanked myself up and kept running. I paused only a couple times. For most of the concert I ran around the pit, nostrils burning with the acrid smell of sweat and the particularly stinky mud that Cornerstone offers, arms throbbing from ramming into people, my skin slick with sweat— both mine and other people’s. A couple kids with mind-control powers kept on reversing the multiple-hundreds-person flow of the pit, which meant that I was hit by a freight train of bodies several times. Between songs, everyone slowed down for a few seconds, heaving breaths, panting for water, almost blacking out in the soggy heat. Then the drums started up again, the exhaustion fell away like shackles, and we were off: athletes in a chaotic flailing race to happiness.

For their final song, Flatfoot had us all link arms and sway as we sang Amazing Grace together. I pulled out my earplugs and was overcome by the noise— not from onstage, but from the people around me, God’s children, belting out the words with more passion (and volume!) than I have ever heard in my life. The beauty of it all made me weep, and I sang all the louder.

As soon as the first verse hit its final chord, the music went double-time and the linked-arm lines exploded into a multi-tiered circle pit. As I bashed my way through the mass of adrenaline-hyped sweat-soaked bodies, I laughed at the thought of John Newton watching, with a dropped jaw, a couple hundred young people pummeling the crap out of each other in time to the song he wrote over two hundred years ago.

On the encore song, I sprinted with all my energy, threw back my head, and screamed. I screamed louder and longer than I have in years, screamed on this rollercoaster of God’s children, screamed because I’m young, and life at this moment was utterly and unfairly beautiful, and God is the author of Love so deep that I could never comprehend it. That night, God showed me His Joy, in blazing multisensory color.

What an evening.

 *  *

~Lisa Shafter

Cornerstone, Part One

Cornerstone Festival, a Christian camping celebration of music held on an old pig farm in Illinois, was controversial from the moment it began in 1984, so it didn’t surprise me that I heard several conflicting opinions on whether or not it was good. “It’s always sweltering— you can’t think.” “Cornerstone is the highlight of my year.” “There’s nothing there but stupid screamo bands.” “It’s like a modern-day Feast of Tabernacles.” “It doesn’t hold to its ideals.” “There’s good music if you look for it.” “It’s in the middle of a cornfield!”

I was headed to Cornerstone, no matter what, and I was determined to have a good time, no matter what. I packed the lightest clothes I could find, dug out a couple of wide-brimmed hats, made sure I had sunblock, and grabbed a sleeping bag. Then I was off with the Curry family for the almost-four-hour drive to the edge (if not the middle) of nowhere in Illinois.

If nothing else, the Festival requires a specific mindset. Before I came in, I put these expectations in place: 1) It would be extremely hot, sweaty, grimy, and all-around miserable as far as weather was concerned. 2) Everyone would be on short fuses as a result of the weather. 3) It would be loud all the time. 4) Most of the bands wouldn’t be my taste, so I’d only see a few.

After only a couple days, these were revised to: 1) It’s not extremely hot all the time, just most of the time, and the levels of sweat and grime that one can reach at Cornerstone staggers the imagination. 2) My group, at least, kept very civil and friendly because we gave each other a lot of grace and kept things in perspective. 3) It was quiet in the mornings, and at night the noise was nothing louder than a pair of earplugs could fix. 4) Most of the bands still weren’t my taste, but I did get to expand my horizons.

In addition to these revised expectations, I had to adjust to these: 1) It is a music festival, not a hippie festival. Most of the population are punkers, goths, yuppies, hipsters, and youth group kids. 2) Not everyone at the Festival is friendly: you have to reach out to them in order to get a response. 3) The main reason Cornerstone is amazing is not the music or even necessarily the people: it’s the simple fact that there is a huge gathering of Christians in one place. The sense of family— even if it’s the “strangers I’m related to” family— is strong at Cornerstone.

During the six days I attended the Festival, I felt my world open up. I did a photo project which involved asking everyone I saw if I could take their picture. I attended a seminar about the emergent church and how missions tie in with travel. I met everyone from Scottish punker to a PCA pastor from Pennsylvania. I played violin in parades with my friends and onstage for crowded tents of eager listeners. I sold merch in a sauna-like tent striped red and white, and rescued a crawdad in the middle of a night from some teenagers who thought it was a scorpion. Each little event doesn’t sound like much, the cumulative effect kept growing throughout the week. Even when attending a concert of music that was putting me to sleep, I would look around the dozens— sometimes hundreds— of people around me and think, This is my family. It was the same kind of awe I feel when I’m in California or Washington or anywhere new: “I’m [fill in the blank]… with my family!”

Was the weather miserably hot? Did tempers get short at times, were there boring concerts, did I see hypocrisy and discord? Well, of course. But all in all, that was overwhelmed by the beauty of peanut butter sandwiches at midday with friends, harp music blasting through ten-foot speakers, artistic tattoos on people’s shoulders, and a thousand other details that brought the week to life in vivid detail.

That said, there were a couple highlights for me, aside from the joy of performing onstage for an enthusiastic audience. But that’s an entry for another time.

~Lisa Shafter

Insomniac Folklore Tour: The Beginning

July 4th, 2011

Welcome back to my blog, dear readers. I write this note in the backseat of a white van plastered with bumper stickers, a hand-crocheted flowered headband dangling from the rearview, wind whipping through the open windows since the air conditioning is broken, wide northwestern Missouri landscape sweeping by, and three friends and I quietly enjoying the folk tunes of Illalogical Spoon’s EP.

This is the beginning of a different kind of trip for me: touring with a band. Right now I’m sitting in the van with three friends, and three more new friends are taking a different car. I’ll introduce you to each of them, since you’ll be hearing a lot about them in the next few weeks.

First is Tyler. He’s the band leader, an Oregon guy who never settled down, the brains of the organization, banging out his anthem on a Sharpie-illustrated guitar. He is otherwise known as Reverend Dr. Folklore, and he’s the one who asked me out of the blue at a party if I wanted to play violin in his band. The next thing I knew, I was laying down tracks for the latest album and packing my bags for a month-long tour.

Adrienne is his newlywed wife, and has been my friend for several years now. Slender and always dressed like a gypsy, Adrienne sings back-up vox, throws candy at the audience, blow bubbles, occasionally juggles, and is the personal keeper of Wallace, our singing sheep puppet.

Amanda, Adrienne’s 17-year-old sister, is the sweet-smiling bassist. Even though she’s young, she’s very mature— I think if you average our two ages, that’s about how old she acts.

Ayden is the drummer, a skinny punk-looking kid who is coming with us as far as Oregon with his wife, Kourtney. Their friend Zach is also tagging along, juggling for our shows.

Put us all together, and you have a band, and now I’m on the road to the first venue of our tour, in Omaha. We just spent a week at the Cornerstone Music Festival in Illinois, but that deserves its own set of entries, which I will try to write tomorrow.

Amanda, Tyler, Josh (absent from the tour, sadly), Adrienne, and me in front

I can’t imagine what this kind of travel is going to be like, but I’ll find out soon enough. Stay tuned for updates!

~Lisa Shafter

http://www.insomniacfolklore.com

Epic Trip Out West: Final Budget Stats

Hello from Missouri, my dear blog readers.

The past few days have been a tranquil madhouse of learning to Be Home for the first time in two months. Bits of cactus still working out of my skin— worried conversations with my mom— endless wardrobe choices— lunch dishes— the guts of my backpack spilled across my room— impossibly lush trees and grass— catching up get-togethers with best friends— muggy heat, distant Midwestern sun— all signs that I’m back home, if only for a couple weeks.

In these whirlwind days, I’ve taken the time to sort through my receipts and give you a run-down on my budget for my Epic Trip Out West. If you’ll remember, I had decided not to count the plane tickets to Denver and then Utah in my overall budget, but I’ve added them in just to give a fair account of the entire trip. Also take into consideration that I was given $36 from kind people on my trip, and I spent only about $10 of it. 

As you read these stats, keep in mind what I got to see for free: Zion Canyon, Antelope Island, Temple Square, Flaming Gorge Recreational Area, several concerts and a dance recital, a seminar on suburban gardening, Saguaro National Forest, Grand Canyon, Petrified National Forest, the Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, and the OU History of Science Library. That’s only listing the places and events— it didn’t cost anything to meet the awesome people who shaped my life forever.

So, with that in mind, here are the final stats for my Epic Trip Out West. 

Number of days on the road: 59

Total money spent on this trip: $841.91

Transportation: $523.50 (mostly Greyhound tickets: I walked where I could and only used the city bus once)

Food and supplies: $315.41 (I had trail mix, energy bars and a whole jar of peanut butter left over, and next trip I shall be sure to avoid the budget-breaking purchase of a book of stamps. Also, much of this is food that I bought Amanda to thank her for carpool in her RV.)

Entertainment: $3 (workshop on healthy cooking. Everything else was free or given to me.)

Lodging: $0

Average per day on transportation: $8.88

Average per day on food and supplies: $5.35

Average per day on lodging and entertainment: 5¢

Final average per day: $14.28

The point? I got to see the great American west on only $15 a day, including every single expense, with a few bucks to spare. I didn’t starve myself, I didn’t sleep in homeless shelters, I didn’t beg for money, and I didn’t put myself in danger. I was smart, sensible, hard-working, and accepting of the incredible gifts given to me on the road (with the intention of paying this generosity forward). I leave it up for you to decide: What could you do with $15 a day?

~Lisa Shafter

Epic Trip Out West, Day Fifty-Eight: There and Back Again

June 2nd and 3rd

“There is a long road yet,” said Gandalf.

“But it is the last road,” said Bilbo.

The final day of my Epic Trip Out West is a blur of color and memory, verdant, gritty, shot through with a headache that split down the roots of my neck into my whole body. A final walk of the OU campus with Aunt Candace amid the humid air: statues cast in bronze, vivacious dancer, giant half-submerged in grass with hands behind his head, Cherokee warrior with serenity written in his hawklike features. Weeping willow strands. Rose garden, vibrant blossoms without any smell. Final goodbyes, hot concrete curb at the gas station, chewing on a banana-bread energy bar. 

Right on time, the Greyhound arrived, with its gray seats and its gray floors and the man with I LOVE JESUS stitched onto his ball cap, who sat next to me. Michael was his name. Michael was a preacher, he said, talking to me through a grizzled white beard that almost glistened against his skin the color of coffee grounds. He was going to write a book and found the title in St. Louis when he was thrown in prison for being a troublemaker. “They took all my clothes and threw me in the cooler,” he said. “And I was curled up, butt-naked, and that’s when it came to me: ‘The Butt-Naked Truth.’ That’s the title of my book. That’ll get folks’ attention.” He gestured with his hands as he spoke, leathered but with a silken quality, etched with thin lines of mocha-colored flesh. We talked from Norman to Oklahoma City, and before we left he clasped my pale hands in his dark ones and prayed that God would grant me a safe journey, guidance in my life, and a young man who would be my husband.

The twelve hours that followed (it was only supposed to be ten) grow even blurrier in my mind, with splashes of vivid memory. Joe, a middle-aged man with a sneering smile and a booming voice, sat at the front of the bus and talked at everyone around him. “I only follow the Bible,” he said. “Not a word added, not a word taken away. I only follow the Bible.” He then went on to misquote and add extravagantly: “God says, ‘David scourged you with whips, I will scourge you with scorpions.’ That’s what he’s doing in Joplin right now. The wrath of God. Scourging us with scorpions, leveling out the field… I don’t take no money. Money is the root of all evil. If you’re taking money for your ministry, then you’re cursing God. You don’t wanna curse God. If anyone insults my God, I defend him. This lady I talked to, she said her God wouldn’t cause the tornadoes and the earthquakes. I said, ‘Well your God might not, but my God does, and who’s gonna stop him?… All religions are right, they’re all good. ‘Every knee will bow…’ When God came into my life, it was a total change, overnight, 360 degrees.” He also mentioned that Jesus was incarnate at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and that the Americas are what God is referring to in the Bible when he mentions “Jacob.”

One of my first sights of Missouri after nearly two months on the road was Joplin, a town ravaged by the recent tornados, the houses splintered to fragments, facing torn off, siding thrown all about: a heap of misery that I had never seen before. Joe got fidgety as we approached his stop, slavering like a dog on a short leash. He was eager to preach his Gospel to the people of the city, to let them know why they should be grateful for everything that they had lost.

For the whole journey from Oklahoma City to St. Louis, Heather and her three-year-old son Aaron sat in front of me. Heather was petite, despite the appearance of her baggy Mountain Dew pajama pants, with a t-shirt and blonde-highlighted hair. She was beautiful when she smiled, with catlike eyes and a glow about her face, but she looked worried ninety percent of the time. This was because she was deaf, and had to rely on the people around her to figure out what the bus driver was announcing, and couldn’t tell that her son was making noise and disturbing people unless she was looking right at him (and sometimes not even then). I could only finger-spell, but she gave me a smile of gratitude for the only person in range who could at least speak fragments of her language. Later, she and another mother used their cell phones to show each other typed messages— the best use of texting I’ve ever seen. She could speak her son’s name, with an artificial sound that told me she had been deaf all her life: “eh-Rahn!” she would exclaim when he acted up, rolling her R with impressive dexterity.

For a while, I became happily lost in the scenery that flew by the window, and I was reminded once again that Missouri is truly beautiful. The landscape undulated in subtle hills and bluffs, clothed in trees in a million shades of green, exquisite, thriving from the rainy spring. Limestone cliffs often hugged the highway, Missouri’s grand canyons overshadowing the river of the road. I forgot my headache for a while and I intermittently watched the scenery and read the final chapters of The Hobbit. My eyes stung with tears as I read the ending, even as I approached the ending of my own journey.

My bliss, however, was short-lived. The bus was packed from Joplin to St. Louis, ever taking on more passengers until there was only one seat left, and this was a noisy group. I was hemmed in by children— behind, in front, and two to the side— and the parents all seemed to think that slapping their children was the best way to make them quiet, which was not, as you can imagine, the best idea. A couple rows behind me, an ignorant close-minded conservative and an ignorant close-minded liberal started up a barely-controlled shouting match about homosexuality. My ears buzzed, my head throbbed, but none of the conversations were close enough for me to interject the comments that pounded at my thoughts. I plugged in my earphones, clapped my hands over them, and tried to bury myself in music. Snatches of songs wound through the conversations I still heard through my fingers, from behind and in front.

Some may pray to their mirrors, some may kneel before the sun. Me, I say there’s a mirror in the heart of everyone…

“So if Eve was created from Adam, that means they were related. That means the Bible says incest is okay!”

And on my best behavior, I am really just like him. Look beneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid…

“I’ve always just thought, if the Good Lord wants my husband to beat me, then I have to be okay with that.”

I hope you understand that I, tried to make a move just to stay in the game, I tried to stay awake and remember my name, but everybody’s changing and I don’t feel the same…

“Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. When you read the Bible, it all becomes clear.”

There’s a road, calling you to stray. Step by step, pulling you away. Under moon and star, take the road, no matter how far. The Road goes on…

The last few hours were an agonizing wait marked with flashes of light, low cloud cover, and children screaming as the fight about homosexuality turned to religion in general. For perhaps the first time, I realized why people don’t like riding Greyhound. I just wanted the ride to be over. I wanted to be home.

The last half hour was torture. The landscape was familiar as my own face, and yet we weren’t to the airport stop yet. Finally, finally— we pulled up to a parking lot lit with harsh florescents. Everyone asked if this was the downtown St. Louis stop, and I grabbed my bags and rushed off the bus.

I stood alone under the street lamps, listening to the roar of traffic, the sidewalk painted golden-orange with the buzzing lights. Then I pulled out my cell phone, and dialed home.

My friend Ryan drove to pick me up, along with my sister Mary and my mom. I collapsed into the seat, feeling off-balance, hearing and feeling their greetings through water. I acted like a stoner the rest of the night, as I saw the rest of my family, felt the familiar countertops and tabletops, warmed up some chicken in my favorite iron skillet, smelled the fragrance of home on every chair and nook of the house, and felt the stickiness of the St. Louis air on my skin. I crawled into the bed I had slept on before I left home, and I remembered no more.

Today, I woke up at 6:00am to get ready for a friend’s wedding. I walked to my dresser and opened up a drawer. I stared at the dozens upon dozens of clothes combinations I could try, all with clean clothes, and the possibilities dazzled me. I grabbed a pair of torn jeans decorated with phrases in several languages, written in Sharpie by my sister three months ago. I pulled on a purple shirt that didn’t have holes in it, that hadn’t lived through a Greyhound ride, that didn’t smell like stale socks. For a moment, I just stood— in my room, in my house, in my state, in my Midwest— and felt my clothes on my body. Clean. The feeling of home. The feeling of a weary traveller come to rest at last.

~Lisa Shafter

(Final stats on the trip’s budget coming soon.)

Song quotes, in order of appearance:

A Mirror in the Heart by Duncan Sheik

John Wayne Gacey, Jr. by Sufjan Stevens

Everybody’s Changing by Keane

The Road Goes On from Lord of the Rings: The Musical

Epic Trip Out West, Day Fifty-Seven: Books

June 1st

Uncle Kerry turned the key in the lock, and we stepped into an arid refrigerated room, a sudden change from the muggy heat that permeated the rest of the building. I hugged my bare arms and breathed deeply, taking in the fragrance of thousands upon thousands of sheets of vellum and parchment. This was the vault, the holy of holies of the Oklahoma University History of Science Library collection. And, since my uncle is the curator, I received the honor of being Visiting Scholar for the day.

He pulled out a book bound in handsome leather, dating from 1600s Germany, and flipped it open. “This is the original cover,” he said, pointing to a sheet of vellum that surrounded the pages, marked in neat handwriting with the words and rhythm values of a Gregorian chant for Easter. He let me touch the brushed vellum next to the carefully marked notes, which had a milky smooth texture. The book itself was from the 1400s, he said, “but the cover paper dates back to the 900s.” I had just touched a piece of music over a thousand years old. As you can imagine, the chills I felt at that moment had little to do with the air conditioning.

That was only the beginning. He showed me book after book, bound in leather or vellum, pages feeling as fragile as butterfly wings in my fingers, words printed in dark type, accented with aesthetically-pleasing strokes of red: herbals, animal guides, astronomy histories. I read the entry on Astronomy in the first edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. I paged through a tome published in the 1500s by Nicolaus Copernicus. Uncle Kerry showed me a first edition of The Starry Messenger, the book that made Gallileo famous overnight— and when he flipped open the front leaf and showed me Gallileo’s original signature written in brown ink, I cried.

On this trip I’ve touched trees as old as the dinosaur, hiked among rocks older than the human race, and viewed landscapes that told of history from millions ago. Although those were remarkable experiences, the moment of true time-travel in my journey was touching the books from hundreds of years ago, and seeing the handwritten notes scrawled in the margins (including little hands pointing to important passages, sometimes with a bit of robe sleeve drawn in), and realizing that four hundred years ago, a person just like myself was reading this book. For all the wonders of the natural world, there is nothing more beautiful than a human connection.

I also got a chance to visit the Bible collection at the University: I touched a Bible written in shorthand, clustered in three volumes each the size of a miniature souvenir deck of cards. I was introduced to four-corner painting when Uncle Kerry pulled out a Bible with gilded pages and curled the paper under his fingers to reveal a landscape drawn on the  edges of the pages. When he curled the pages the other way, they formed a new scene.   I held and read a Geneva Bible, precursor to the King James version, the Bible that Shakespeare quoted, the Bible of the common man, printed in small type that was a wonder of engineering.

At last, I celebrated the year of the King James Bible’s 400th anniversary, seeing two first additions of the altar-sized books, one uncorrected and one proofed. I read the words aloud, sometimes stumbling over the archaic S’s that look like F’s, and the reversal of the V and U characters. I read Psalm 23, just as I had memorized it as a kid, from a Bible that was 400 years old. To touch history like that, to realize that the Bible hasn’t changed, even in all that time, brought tears to my eyes once again.

Today I was given an incredible gift, a window into the past, and a memory that I’ll hold with me forever.

~Lisa Shafter

Money spent today: $0

Deficit: $123.31