Harp Time Capsule

The low A string on my harp has broken and I need to get a replacement for it. I took the harp to a local musical instrument shop, but they didn't carry any strings and were unable to order any for me. The hunt for strings continues, and I may have to order them on-line instead of patronizing local music stores.

While I was looking inside of the harp, at the underside of the sound board where the strings are knotted in, I discovered a large slip of paper. When I pulled it out, I found the slip was really three cancelled checks from 1989.

The first check was dated May 7, made out to Here Inc. for $275.60. It was the check I wrote for my harp! I'd gone to an international folk dance festival in Minneapolis with some friends. On a long table in a hall outside of the main performance area, there was a collection of various nylon- and metal-strung NeoCeltic harps. I strummed a few, decided that the sustain on the metal-strung harps was cool but too long, and on impulse picked out my harp. 

(Cue Foreigner's "Juke Box Hero": "... he saw stars in his eyes / and the very next day / bought a gut-strung lap harp / from a funky folk store / didn't know how to play it / but he knew for sure / that one lap harp / played on the floor / was a one-way ticket / only one way to go....")

This set the stage for folk music performances; playing ritual music; Renaissance Faire busking; and moonlit desert nights in a white cotton duster, holding up my harp to the winds for an Aeolian concert.  It also set the stage for when Mark met me harping underneath the full moon during a gay men's spiritual gathering.

The second check—written in green ink—was from May 1, made out to Northfield Sports for $211.95 for my black-with-yellow-neon-highlights RollerBlades! 

In no time, I was RollerBlading backwards while juggling three koosh-balls by daylight and donning my big black-and-purple-cloak and glow-sticks and swooping around the Carleton College campus by night. There's nothing like a twilight RollerBlade humming Saint-Saëns' Danse macabre while bats flit overhead; or RollerBlading on a foggy December solstice full moon in a black cloak holding holly and a wooden skull in one's hand (and surprise gifting the holly to a corner store filled with Eugene hippies); or RollerBlading on Halloween wearing homemade cardboard owl wings and a white poet's shirt. And these were the Rollerblades I wore on a Rollerblading date through the parks of Eugene with Mark.

Sadly, the plastic boots fatigued and broke during a Halloween mishap in 2016 involving a lit pumpkin and a pile of leaves piled up against a street curb.

(Cue Foreigner's "Juke Box Hero": "...he saw stars in his eyes / and the very next day / bought some beat-up knock-offs / from a second-hand store / They weren't his old RollerBlades / but he knew for sure / that RollerBlades / laced up real tight / were a one-way ticket / into the pale moonlight....")

The third check, from July 22, written out in pink ink to Jacobson's for $33.87 records the purchase of a red-and-white polyester gingham picnic spread and napkin set, and possibly a picnic basket.

Jacobson's was a general mercantile store that sold household goods, some clothing, and possibly paper products. I'm pretty sure it had a portal to Lake Woebegone in it. This purchase involved 1) a younger, hopelessly romantic (or was that infatuated?), not-yet-out-to-himself version of myself (who wrote a lot of the kind of poetry one would expect from a self-closeted, twenty-something, hopeless romantic); 2) one of the women from Reed College that I had a huge crush on; and, 3) an airport layover where said woman-friend was flying away to start her Peace Corps mission (back when one could haul a picnic basket full of food and utensils right to a departure gate).  

This particular picnic spread and napkin set was sold to me by "Old Man Jacobson" himself, who after learning that I was looking for picnic supplies (and possibly reading the stance of a hopeless romantic heading off to one last Noble Farewell Forever), interrupted my browsing with his boney hand on my boney shoulder and the question, "Is she a classy gal?"

At least three replies—from snarky to star-crossed—flitted through my mind, but I settled on "yes."

"Then this is the package for you!" he said, and presented the red-and-white polyester gingham picnic spread and napkin set from behind his back.

"I'll... take... it," I said, and set the stage for a short picnic on the International Airport Hubert H. Humphrey Terminal concourse. Some stewardesses gave us two thumbs up as they walked past us. My friend flew out of the country, and I returned to Northfield.

I'm not sure what's happened to the spread or the basket, but some of the napkins still lurk in a linen drawer in the kitchen.

I played my harp at her wedding (in Oregon) ten years later. 

At the reception, the bride and her mother disappeared for a moment.  While the folks around our table speculated, Mark quipped, "They're having 'The Talk.' You know—'Honey, now that you're married there's something I need to tell you. They'll beg and they'll plead but you have to be firm: you need to keep separate checking accounts.'"

At this point, the bride reappeared, perturbed look on her brow and checkbook in her hand. We dissolved into laughter as she walked by.

Mark and I still keep separate checking accounts.  I'm pretty sure Mark does not keep any of his cancelled checks in any type of musical time capsule.

Dream: City Mashup

Various bits of dream recall:

There was some dream where I was concerned about being cavalier about being naked.  It wasn't that I was worried about being naked in front of various people, it was that I hadn't really cared. 

More clearly.... I was in some sort of steampunk radio play, which I'm sure is a mix up of a Wordo manuscript, Casablanca, and a Victorian murder mystery.

The play ended with the heroine tricking the bad guys into a room, throwing a switch, and locking them in.  The folks producing the play gave the writer an award.  The chair of the production company was kind of goofy, and was making up some sort of goofy award song.  Then everything shut down, and we had to pick our way out of the darkened theatre.  I grabbed my boots or something, and I have a sense that everyone was trying to find various articles in the dark.  (In real life this is very so much like when I turn the lights off at Tsunami Books after a Wordos meeting.)

In another segment, I was  a caretaker at a house.  I was gathering slatted boxes, the kind you keep fruit in, to construct an outside partition or windscreen.  I'd found a whole bunch of them, and I was looking for particular boxes that were old and sun-bleached white.  I wanted to make a long straight partition with two openings  or walking through.   I had a conversation of sorts with an older couple, who might have been the owners.


In the part I remember the best, Mark and I wandered through a small town.  It might have been Northfield, downtown Eugene, or the campus district of Corvallis.

We walked by an old brink church where CC (from UUCE) was presenting.  Surprisingly, MH (from Seattle) had a gay ministry there (he's not a minister in real life), specializing in a gay mens chorus and special burial.   Mark and I commented on the church and kept walking.  

We came to a corner, which in real life reminds me of the five-way intersection of Monroe, Arnold, and 26th street in Corvallis.  The Beanery and Superette there had been remodeled.  The white stucco front was mostly the same, but the new owner, a man, had partitioned off the art curio section with accordioning fabric screens of yellow fabric with a leaf and star pattern running down them.  The store was a pleasant mix of art shop, book store, and cafe, and instantly filled with all ages having discussions.

I think Mark and I bought some food, but we kept touring the small time.  

(I'd woken up some, and the cat was sleeping on my foot.)  I followed Mark around and somehow found myself in an alleyway.  There were some homeless folks there, and a social worker.  The worker said to another woman (who was clinically angry) something about moving her stuff so it wouldn't get rained on, but the homeless woman replied, "Shut up."  There was some more walking, and somehow I wound up back with the homeless.

"Excuse me," said the social worker, "But you'll need to move.  You're blocking the entryway.  This is a shelter and people need to be able to get in and out"  (I had stopped and was trying to eat a take-out meal Mark and I had bought).  The woman was bossy and brusque, but was effectively dealing with the homeless.  I had somehow wandered into a shelter area spanning an alley between buildings.  

The nature of the dream shifted.  I probably was partially awake, because everyone was lying down along the long, narrow edges of the shelter we were in (as if we were in bed) and I was a little stuck under bedrolls (the blankets in real life had gotten bunched up).  'Excuse me," I said to everyone in general and to the angry shut-up-lady specifically, "oh, I need to move my foot." (The cat was using my foot as a pillow).

I got out of the shelter through a square opening in the floor.  It was a kind of styrofoam bridge and cocoon.