Ephemera

The story so far. 

Sometimes I think I didn't pay enough attention to the yew tree at the corner of the house.

That. Just that, really. The yew tree standing in for all the things I should have noticed more, cared for, appreciated in the time I lived in this place. 

The Sopping Tuesday/No Longer, Not Yet/ The Past and Pending

 (With apologies to Edward Gorey...)

It's a dismal anniversary, damp and melancholy, not unlike the day it commemorates. It was the 8th of May, 11 years ago now, when a low rumble of thunder got my attention. The heavy sky outside my window brought on a vague panic; I'd forgotten how dark the hill country could be when it rained. 

I shuddered, a bone-deep sort of spasm. I wanted to wail out loud, because how could I hide from the weather? But there was nothing for it. Instead of wailing, I got in the car and drove to the elementary school where I registered one of my children for classes; the next day at the junior high I would register another. The littlest one, I could still carry on my hip, just barely. I remember pulling into the parking lot and having to sit for a moment to catch my breath, because it had been so long since I'd done anything without my husband that I wondered if I'd forgotten how. I remember seeing the gold-green live oak catkins scattered on the damp asphalt like runes. I was not versed in reading them, but I already knew they said, "you don't want to be here." 

The next day, it was still pouring as I sat at the glassed-in office at the junior high on the hill, filling out paperwork while the pledge of allegiance echoed down the hall. It felt so strange, looking out on the silvery world on the other side of the glass. Vertiginous, like I might fall. Last month, last week, even, we'd been living our old lives somewhere else, and now we were here. 

My black ballet flats were soaked through from the run-off, so after I'd left my teen to his classes, I'd gathered my toddler and gone to Walgreen's for a cheap pair of sandals and a bottle of Excedrin Migraine. I remember our reflections in the doorway glass, the sky behind us, the rainwater rushing down the gutters even as the clouds were beginning to break. I remember how I sought comfort in the drugstore's sameness, how it reminded me of Victoria, soothing my homesickness for moment, even though I knew I was fooling myself. I even remember feeling a little weird about buying the sandals, too, as if by purchasing new shoes, it would mean I was somehow betraying my old self, that it would be the beginning of the end of who I was before I came. But when the sandals were worn out by the end of the summer, I found I hesitated just as much when it came time to throw them away. 

I went to back to Victoria for a visit a couple of months ago. I hadn't been there in a long time. It was equal parts more decrepit and yet also somehow revitalized. My family never had much interest in returning, so it was my friend who drove me south. He wanted to see the place I'd written about, the inspiration for the name at the top of this page. He wanted to know the "infernal geometry of the streets", the unnaturally silent corners, the haunting sense of being in a place that felt like no place much at all.

We sat on a bench downtown and drew sketches in our notebooks and listened to the clicking of the crosswalk lights. We watched the eerie shimmer in the intersection of N. Main and Santa Rosa while the palm fronds rattled in the silence.

We explored the places on the map I'd once made, climbed to the top of an abandoned parking garage where we found mysterious signs and wonders. We rested, hot and tired, as we watched cloud shapes drifting by. 

And all along I had the unnerving sense that I could just go home, as if I'd only gone for a long walk in the sunny afternoon, or just popped out to pick up lunch, like I'd done so often. As if the landscape of my life had not irrevocably changed. As if I could just walk back to the gold house (now painted blue), as if my children would be there, still children, and not nearly all of them grown up now. 

That's when I knew for sure that - in my mind, anyway - I'd never really left. That part of me (my heart, soul, psyche?) had remained there all along. Life on pause, transition incomplete. Those worn-out shoes I didn't want to toss. Unlike the rest of my family, I'd never really made the leap. 

Maybe that was my way of surviving. Perhaps, perhaps. But it's way past time now to collect those parts of myself and go. The life I lived in Victoria and the quasi-suspended-in-transition existence that came after. I'm tired of dismal Tuesdays and dread at the sound of thunder. Finally, at last, I have a new key.

The hex of the past is unwoven. Maybe one day I'll even remember it fondly. For now, though, I must turn my attention to that which is pending, and for the time when not yet is no longer. 

Psychotopography

"On the night of the unearthly wind, for some reason I was compelled to draw a map of the crossroads."

Mapping the chrysalis of dreams.

''Thoughts upon seeing Venus in the 6 AM dark"

Here/now Now/here

Down In The Canyon

A while back, we went for a walk in a nearby canyon. It's a public hiking trail, but it was an uncomfortably eerie experience. We all felt it. Maybe it was being hemmed in by the narrow canyon walls. Maybe it was vibration, echoes, infrasound, or just being in the crevice of this long dead fault. I don't know, but here are some pictures.

Really it's just like a river of rocks, rocks and more rocks, but we kept getting dizzy or feeling a squeezing pressure on our eyes like we were in a fishbowl. Teen son said he felt the place was very negative, even sinister, but again, that could be down to infrasound...

 But I suppose one never knows.

In The Tunnel

 In the dark and murky tunnel, down by the river.

Temenos Tropicalia, Or The Color Of Sacred Space

Last week, my son and I went to lunch at a restaurant with an unusual color scheme. Despite the statues of Buddha and the mandala wall hangings, it had a distinctly Jamaican flair.

It had been my son's idea to eat there, he had been wanting to come for a while.

After we'd ordered and sat down at the table, he told me why.

He said, I don't understand it,  but for some reason this feels so much like home. As if I came from somewhere that looked just like this. But I can't think of where. Just 'home.'

While there were a few places in Victoria that had bright color schemes, they were few and far between. While it's possible this is what he was remembering, what he wouldn't have known (unless he'd read that post linked above) is that I've had dreams of similarly colored places my entire life. And if anything feels like home to me, I suppose that would be it.

It occurs to me that perhaps sacred space doesn't always need to be a space at all. Maybe it only needs to be a color.

Psychogeographic Map, Victoria

Inspired by Uair01's latest post on psychogeographic maps, I decided to make one of my own. Not of the place where I currently live, but the place where I used to live. I haven't been back there in a few years now, so it's made strictly from memory.

Lacking the skill to build a map on my own, I stole one from the internet. Even better, I stole it from the 2003 schedule for the Shiner Comanches sports team, already helpfully marked out with directions to the stadium. Completely meaningless for my purposes here, as I never went to the stadium nor had any feelings about it one way the other. Still, these are the kind of details I find immensely fascinating.

Employing my epic MS paint skills, I denoted each site with a spot of color and a number. There are 20 on this map, and could have been many more, but my eyes could only take so much strain in one night. I decided to stick with the places that have strong, specific memories attached, or have something notably strange about them. Sometimes they are both.

Sites are approximate. More or less.

1. The apartment where my cousin lived, an airy place where her friends blew in and out like the breeze. Years later, after everyone had moved away, we drove past the area where we could see the balcony from the lane. We had the eeriest feeling that we'd turn the corner and see everyone waiting for us as if they had never left.

2. Hall Electric. They sold lamps and fans and things. In the old store, the window display had two lighted fans that looked like pinwheels. Even when the rest of the town was dark and asleep, the pinwheels would spin all night long.

3.The Denny's restaurant where we'd go to study. There was a palm tree near the door where grackles would roost, and a surreal hum from the power lines. This is the place where I met my husband.

4.A traffic light that always took an absurdly long time, even when there were no other cars on the road. This is where I first became aware of the disorienting creepiness that often came upon Victoria at night. As if it became an entirely different place when the sun went down.

5. The Victoria mall. If you park around back, you enter through a dim and echoing hallway. There was a restroom there where the lights would buzz and flicker like something out of a David Lynch film.

6. The former location of the Maranatha used bookstore. We'd raid it every couple of weeks, before it became glutted with romance novels. It had that distinctive smell, like paper and dust. I found my copy of John Keel's Our Haunted Planet there.

7. The place where my husband's ex-wife saw a ghost. Also notable because that bit of road always seemed like an afterthought. It gave me the uncanny feeling that it shouldn't have been there at all.

8. The Cimarron Express, where the cashier was always careful not to give me the ojo. She told me once she sensed I was about to receive an important message, and it turned out to be true. I'd go there for frozen coffees and later, my Sad Cheese Sandwich. One day, I will write about the Sad Cheese Sandwich, but not today, not today

9. A place where we used to live.

10.  One afternoon, while peering out my bedroom window, I was startled to see the silhouettes of Nick and Jeff on top of one of the university buildings. Turns out they'd found a trap door and decided they ought to go through it.

11. The Sonic between Red River and Rio Grande. There were other Sonics in town, of course, but interesting times seemed to revolve around this one. In fact, we'd just come back from there the night of Reynaldo. Which reminds me, I need to write a post about the night of Reynaldo.

12 (a). Base for many of the wanderings chronicled in the early part of this blog. Near the church that doesn't want to be photographed

12 (b). Nearby spot of pink I'd forgotten to number but can't be changing everything now - An intersection bordered by a creepy Victorian mansion, Cap'n Jack's rooming house, the crosswalk light that never gave you enough time to pass, and the Coastal Mart which can be seen coming up on the left at the end of this video:

13. The cash machine that seemed oddly out of place, although it was always there when you needed it. It just had a weird vibe, that cash machine. As if the world had ended and the only things left were you and this ATM.

14. Here the little green dot is having to stand in for several things. One was the basement club where we used to dance. Another is the loft where the band used to play. Something dark in the atmosphere there. Chills right up your spine. Across the street was the murder apartment.* Around the side was the funeral home**. If you were quiet very late at night, there's no telling what you might hear.

This is a wretched photograph of me, but it does give a good view of that corner.

Come to think of it, we took quite a few photos in that spot, and they are all wrong somehow. The landscape looks normal, but the people do not.

15. The very cute but suspiciously cheap house we didn't buy because it was bloody terrifying.

16. The radio station, the first place I came to in Victoria and where I realized I'd come to the place I was meant to be at that time.

17. The shopping center that always felt empty even when it was full. The doves' coos and pigeons' wings made a sound as if the place had been abandoned 30 years.

18.  Resurrection Cemetery (I missed the location by a couple of blocks on this one, sorry.) One evening, I  was waiting at the stoplight when I saw a car full of people unloading flowers at a gravesite. It seemed unusual, seeing a car there so late, but thought perhaps they'd come to pay a last visit after a funeral. Then I turned the corner and in my headlights saw that there was no car, no people...there had not even been any place to park.

19. The original site of Hasting's book and music store. Later, they would build a bigger store across the way, with a coffee shop where we spent many pleasant hours. Still, it's the original location that sticks with me. Perhaps it was because of the high windows in front that let you see miles out into the sky, or the back corner where the off-beat people would gather. I remember standing at the counter there in March, 1996 and having one of those unexpected moments of pure bliss that happen sometimes. If nothing else, that would be worth a marking on the map. The Hasting's franchise went out of business last year, so it's all just memories now.

20. This map is so old, the HEB is still marked in its original spot. The shopping center there had an uncharacteristic good vibe. Everything just felt better in that area. No idea why, but it did. When the store was moved further down the road, the mood became cranky and dour - excellent brick-oven pizza not withstanding. So if we're going to get all New Age-y and ask which place in Victoria was a node of positive energy, I'd point to where HEB is marked on the map. One might say a shopping center is an unlikely shrine, but hey...this is America.

...

One day it would be neat to mark all of the significant sites, then connect the dots to see if they make a shape. Although knowing Victoria, the shape will turn out to be a drunken redneck.

Note - the piece of music in the video is a hidden track at the end of High Roller by The Crystal Method. IMO, If any piece of music captured the feeling of Victoria  - not the people, but the place itself - that would be it. Set it to play in a loop while reading the post and the feeling comes through quite well. It's the kind of thing I can never manage to convey with words.

Update - I also just realized that the corner you can see behind me in the picture above is the site where the townsfolk hid during the great Comanche raid.. Could this have to do with the spooky feeling that pervades that block?

further notes - Once, I dreamed that the secret name of Halletsville, TX was actually "Bohemavaria". This struck me as so appropriate as to be hysterically funny and that's why it's listed at the top of the map.

Also, having had another look, I see there's too many dots and a couple of number 16's. That's what I get for working until 4AM. You get the idea, anyway.

*Am shocked to realize I haven't mentioned the murder apartment
**or the funeral home, for that matter. And this blog is called Victoria Phantasmagoria. Sheesh.

Confessions Of A Map Nerd

 I admit it - I'm a map nerd.

But it's not just any old map that strikes my fancy. It's not things like precise mileage that interests me - though I do feel a certain thrill upon learning that the nearest Bath and Body Works is 10.3 miles away (or an even stranger thrill at the odd directions that Google maps gives to get there - why is it necessary to circle the block first?). No, the map has to be special, unique, or peculiar somehow.  

For instance, MUFON's live UFO map is a thing of beauty and perfection. And I'm not even that interested in UFOs. I mean, The Truth Is Out There, and all that, but unless they are buzzing my house or rustling my livestock, it's just not that much of a concern. But (at least here in phantasmagoria-land) that map is glorious.

Or maps that are temporarily, oddly specific, like this one of the downtown area, marked with little ghosts for Halloween festivities. Suddenly, it looks as if that boring old warren of shops is awash in spirits. Very conveniently located ones, too.

 

Especially nice are hand-drawn maps. I always like to receive invitations to out-of-town weddings, despite not enjoying big social occasions very much. It's because they usually include a hand-drawn map to the venue, printed on little cards. When you collect something as random and ephemeral as that, you'd be surprised  at what begins to look like a free gift.

Even better than that is the found hand-drawn map. Usually discovered crumpled on the sides of roads, or in the damp grass on the edge of  a lawn. Like this one:

One wonders how so many come to be lost in such a way. Do they fly out windows as the driver squints at street numbers? Or is the seeker so thrilled at reaching their destination that they joyously fling their map to the wind? There is always a sense of mystery about them. Who drew them? Why and what for? Was the journey dreaded or highly anticipated? Or something more in between? The chances of ever knowing is slim indeed.

The particular map above has a nice synchronicity attached to it. One summer evening, we were walking along while I bemoaned how I wished that fate, the universe or whatever it is out there would send me a guidebook or a map. What direction should I go with my life? Just then, the wind (or the Cosmic Joker)  blew this crumpled bit of paper at my feet. Judging from what's drawn there, I can only surmise the universe was guiding us away from Myron's restaurant. Which is unfortunate, really, since Myron's macaroni and cheese is most excellent.

As far as psychogeography goes, there is pages worth going on in that tiny scrawl. Just take the area marked "underpass". That's really the MKT railroad bridge, which has a nice echo underneath for screaming (no child can resist) and popular for teenage activities ("Do you wanna go throw eggs off the MKT bridge?" said every high school class for the last 90 years). Or that little bit of stream (unmarked, but seems to have a tiny  dot over it) that feels like it should belong in another world. Plus many, many more things that I may or may not write about one day. 

Even Google maps can sometime reveal secrets only dreamt of, quite literally. Off and on, I'd had a dream that there was an extra, hidden street in our neighborhood. It seemed so realistic that it haunted me, but it was  impossible; I knew every nook and cranny of this place. It must have been one of those dreams like finding hidden rooms in your house. Until I looked at the satellite view and saw  - wonder of wonders! - there was a hidden street in the neighborhood.

Maps. Ordinary, utilitarian items containing infinite mystery.

The Fringes

Going through my files tonight, I came across this crude map I'd drawn of  my immediate neighborhood, back in 2008. It was obviously meant to be somewhat humorous, but it was also meant to illustrate a particular problem at the time.

What happened was, I had found a set of knives (marked in red text, above) on the ground outside my bedroom window. This was disturbing, but it was not possible to tell if someone had been lurking outside the window for some nefarious purpose, or if they had been hidden there after a crime, or they had been flung there by someone needing to get rid of them fast (for instance, a parolee who'd just seen a cop).

We took the knives to the police station, and while the cops seemed unimpressed, it was still worrying. I drew this map illustrating how all three scenarios had potential, and posted it to an internet forum so my online friends could give it a look. (For the record, most people thought scenario 3  - someone  running from the Forlorn Intersection had flung them there - was the correct one and since nothing ever came of it, I assume they were right.)

Looking back on it now, though, what I see is a psychogeographical map of a fringe area. Fringe areas are of particular interest to me, being transitional places where one thing becomes another. Fringe areas are often overlooked, even though they are around us all the time. Entrance ways and exits, alleys, the outskirts of towns. Fringe areas are also frequently places where crime is more likely to occur - though I hasten to add, my family never personally experienced any crime there.

There were a few transitions occurring in the scope of this map. First (and most noticeable in person) was the petering out of the gentrified neighborhood of restored houses into unrestored houses and then, across the tracks (off the map) into dusty slums. There was an overlapping of social backgrounds and economic status. Then there is the blending of traditionally racially identified areas. Many different types of people came together in this street.

Studying the map (and also from memory) the true fringe area must have been the Forlorn Intersection. I knew quite a few very nice people who lived on the other side, but that intersection - just a drab little road, really - was always the place where things went down.

It's interesting to note that right on the edge stood the convent house - A Poor Clare monastery, to be exact. Quiet, peaceful, shining like a beacon on prayer nights. No one ever, ever messed with the Poor Clares. Regardless of status, they were there for everyone.

All these years later, it occurs to me that there should be many more things marked on the map. Like the house with stained-glass windows, or the silent hedges. I feel lucky that some of these things are captured in the early part of this blog (which was kind of the point, really). But there are other things that aren't so easy to capture. Dust and silt. Humming streetlights.The church carillon that rang every day at 8, 12 and 5. These are little things that make up the secret nature of a place.

One white hot summer day, my friend Arturo was riding past on his bicycle and we stopped to talk. He waved a copy of the local newspaper. "Did you hear? About the creature?" he asked, pointing at the front page picture of the Cuero chupacabra. We both thought it was fascinating, but agreed that sometimes things were better if we never learned the whole truth.

If I could, I would put that on the map, too.

(apologies - I ended up posting this yesterday before it was finished. (long story))

The Anatomy Of Remembered Spaces

 

 A friend rang the other morning. He said, I'm calling from inside your old apartment. They are about to tear the building down.

And just like that, the place we used to live moves from tangible to intangible. It exists solely in memory now

Live long enough, and it's bound to happen. We don't only lose people, but we lose places, too. It's been happening at a steady clip as long as I can remember. It's progress, and commerce, urban development and all those other things. The grocery store of our daily errands is now a call center, the club where we used to dance becomes a gym.

 If  we believe in an afterlife, we can imagine that our lost loved ones are with us in spirit. Aside from the occasional time slip and trans-dimensional gas station, though, the existence of remembered spaces is far more nebulous than even a ghost. Unless, perhaps, the shades of long-ago shoppers still patrol the rows of telephonists, reaching for loaves of bread circa 1996.

 

The house of memory is a peculiar place; everything  lives on top of each other. The boundaries of such a house are permeable and strange. The empty room is never really empty. Minus space time and plus soul time, as Nabakov once said.

You wouldn't know it but there is someone hiding in that picture above. Of course you wouldn't, because he has concealed himself behind the bench. You could raise a legitimate point and say it doesn't matter, since until now, only he knew it and I knew it. If either of us forgets, is the meaning of the photo lost? If a 10 year-old boy hides behind a bench, sometime in the summer of 2001, and no one remembers, does he disappear forever?

For all practical purposes one could say yes, but as long as there are tales of long-dead monks roaming ruined churchyards and Roman soldiers marching along no longer existent roads, then I am not so sure.

 

The place had stood for 30 years, housing any number of college students, young marrieds, the elderly and refugees alike. Hardly any time at all in the great scheme of things, but more than enough time for the drama of human life to play out.  I would be delighted to learn, in 50 years time, of reports of disembodied laughter  and running footsteps at twilight, or the sound of splashing from a nonexistent pool. I can even imagine the astonished murmurs as a mirage of the lighted corner store sign (now also gone) appears in the night sky. 

And by then, only the old folks will remember why.

Random Strangeness Strikes In The Housewares Deparment

In keeping with the previous post, Thanksgiving week brought a moment of  unexpected department store oddness.

We were at a Target store in Houston, hunting for cans of Sterno. Everything was as you'd expect - one Target store being much like another Target store. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, I was struck by a weird feeling, a sort of dizziness and many-layered deja vu. I said aloud, "jeez, that's weird" and the spouse said "yeah, I feel dizzy." We agreed there was something weird about just this one little spot, but could come to no conclusion about what it was.

While we were waiting for a worker (lovely man, very helpful) to find the Sterno, I snapped a photo of the deja vu inducing area, because, erm, that's what I do. Just in case there might be some clue there that would only be evident with study. As you can see, it's a photo of....coat hooks.

Nothing much exciting going on there. No obvious cause of odd sensations striking us in the housewares department. Maybe the stark black and white color scheme had something to do with it, or perhaps all the little holes in the pegboard caused some sort of visual overload.Who can tell? It was just one of those brief down-the-rabbit-hole moment that crop up seemingly just to keep you on your toes.

We paid for our cans of Sterno and left, and nothing else strange happened at all. Well, except the person in the next stall in the restroom unexpectedly shouted "whoo-hooo!" but probably that was nothing supernatural. ;)

The Arcana Of Shopping Centers

It's one of those things that most people don't notice, or if they do, they don't mention it. Assuming, of course, that it exists, which some would say it doesn't.

Walking down the big shopping center on the edge of town, I told my companion to stop.
"Do you feel that?" I asked, hopefully.
He looked around, considering.
"yes" he said.
"well, what does it feel like?"
"like something important happened here."

There was nothing special about the place where we were standing. It was a nondescript spot toward the far end, somewhere between Petsmart and Ross dress-for-less. The shop-space nearest us was empty, and being that this was a fairly new shopping center, may never have been occupied at all. It was an unlikely place for happenings of importance, past or present.

I've long been fascinated by shopping centers, and it's nothing to do with shopping. There is something about them that haunts me. Maybe it's all the sharp edges and corridors and odd empty corners. One feels (well, I feel) some immeasurably distant past is there. Some sort of lost hope, maybe. An eternal lonely longing that settles in the eaves, regardless of all the people milling about below.

 

Perhaps it's the geometry of the place that evokes this feeling. Architecture that suggests hidden needs that might be fulfilled. There is a reason that psychologists are used to help design shopping malls. It's all meant to direct and disorient, whatever will lead the customers to buying and spending more. Personally, though, I've had my doubts about this being the reason for my own reaction, as these mysterious feelings never lead me to think about shopping. They only make me question the nature of reality instead. 

I know from working at one of the big retail centers that they are prime places for unusual happenings. We'd get vertigo walking down the hallways or get lost coming back from lunch. There would be portentous conversations with complete strangers, flickering lights, ghosts in the storerooms. Mannequins would stare at us blankly. Outside, on those slow, hot days when the only sound was the echo of pigeons' wings, one of the payphones might ring as you walked by. If you answered, god only knew what you might hear; someone singing, or a staticky robot voice reeling off numbers.

One evening not long ago, I stopped to peer though a moon-shaped structure, not too far from where we'd had the conversation at the beginning of this post. There was a small breeze blowing dust and leaves around the sidewalk. I looked down and noticed half a dozen small leaf-devils whirling at the base of the wall - the angle must have been just right for it. I remembered that dust devils and whirlwinds create their own electrical and magnetic fields, and I wondered how many other odd little winds were bouncing around all these spaces, invisible to the eye, but affecting our minds and bodies in unexpected ways.

Then again, I also remembered the old tales that whirlwinds are wandering spirits, passing through on their travels.

Either way,  all I know for sure is that the world (and the occasional shopping center) can be mysterious and infinitely strange.