Mikes Writing

Sunday scenes

I had my way with the frontmatter of the blogpost so while it really is Saturday night, I pretty much know this will see the tender mercies of GitHub and netlify on Sunday.

For whatever reason lately I've thought about some old papers and photos in California. When I left about 10 years ago I left a small Rubbermaid container with papers and maybe an iPad and photos. Real photos. Photos of things I have been thinking of. Then outside the container are some boxes of stuff that belonged to my mom. Some old photos of my ex wife and I on trips and some others of RWR and us on archeological surveys and excavations out in various places in the Mojave Desert. Part of me believes they are still there. Another part thinks that since they only have value to me that destroying them would mean nothing. Except to me.

I think sometimes there they still sit. These little bridges of a life and a time where I would have a laugh and likely a cry. My mom is long gone. There is a single photo of her and my dad. I remember it clearly. I wish now I would have digitized that photo. These things are this before life. This time in some long ago machine where we went and did. Or when RWR would call me and ask if I wanted to go out and play on a weekend. Play was archeology then. Four wheel drive trucks and his jeep packed with necessities and like minded people. And we would go.

Some of this is in photo albums and others are in old 35mm slides and old poems and memories from so many lives ago.

So I wondered with all that has happened are the things still there. Does it even matter? My wife here thinks it does. She has told me I should go back. Ask. Take the things. Then do what with them. Some of the things were falling apart 20 years ago. Like our lives would be only a few years later. Other things might still sit in the Rubbermaid container. A little strong plastic container of things. Things that I don't remember but would want. For some reason this song by Jackson Browne comes to mind. Then I realize those things don't exist any longer. They were me. Us. Things we did. Everyone has moved on but my memories.

I think at some point I will go back. Not to confront or demand. But to see what's left. To take a thing or two that no one else could find value in and then come back. Put them on the Buddhist shrine. Let them have their moment again. Little things that are markers of life then.

Life now has become the thing I want. I have these years of my final acts to revel in. A memory of RWR when he stood on his land cruiser that day. My mom and dad way back when.

Photos tell more than words. They all link together but those sit in a dusty garage. Maybe still there physically. Definitely still there in the busy little mental wikilinks my memories whip up.

And it's gonna be Sunday. I will overthink. Walk. Remember. No decision today. No reason to find that path on a coffee Sunday. I have the things so clearly ingrained. Here and here. Heart and mind.

I'll do some coffee on it. And a memory. I'll stir some synapses and see what comes. Mostly I will just think of what I have now. What was then. And there's this. The one photo I have of RWR and I. So long ago. RIP Roger. I miss you and I feel it's just like yesterday. One with wings.

RWR and I 2012

In this photo, I took my daughter to meet RWR. It had been years then and I felt clumsy and clueless until RWR hugged me and looked long at my daughter. He had never known about her. I still remember him saying then,

I had no idea you even existed

Wonderful! RWR died in his 80s at his home in Quartz Hill California in 2025. He had a wonderful and strange life I think. Maybe anthropology does that to a person and going out and digging in deserts, cooking homemade chili over a campfire, drinking warm Budweisers. All conspired to a life fuller and more open. I will forever miss him. The photo albums are just a part of the texture of things. Memories fill up the years.

Thanks for reading. Perhaps this was cathartic. What better use for my blog about my life here than to look at some things that made this happen. Back to now.