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"Pilgrimage"

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Shakesthecoffecan:
It was one of those pivortal events in my life. A real before and after. It was as intense as going to the place my sister died. Intense bubble of pounding pressure. The bluest sky. Fall into it. The last thing he saw.

Well here we go: the play can be different characters telling about it from their on pov. Kind of like The Laramie Project.

Lynne:
If anyone can write it, I'm sure you can. I can see how your sister's death would make sense (in that literature way that nothing makes sense).

I'm trying to come up with nonBBM ideas myself because I've been dwelling on it so long.  

Shakesthecoffecan:
It seemed like from the moment the decision was made to go to the site, time began to erect obstacles.

The breakfast, or brunch more precisely, consumed in some short of waffle house that was crowded and understaffed. The debate over one car or two and the traffic. The rest of the trip had been spent out on the prairie and now we were going to have to cross the great city to get there.

I remember looking in the rear view half the time to see if you were still there, counting the cars betwixt us. Hoping you were paying attention and would not miss the exit I hoped to hit the first time.

I remember thinking this place looked just like it could be Lake Wobegone. The houses parting to reveal the fields. But it was that last turn on to that gravel road it started becoming real. What was he doing out here? This was no where, this was turning into a pig path. And then we reached the end of the line. Getting out of the car it seemed like were were in some bubble of high pressure, hemmed in on all sides. My arms and legs felt heavy.

Part of me wanted to question her if she didn't want to see it why had she come this far? Part of me wanted to hold her hand and tell her it would be ok, we could stand on either side of her. But the bigger part understood. That part felt some remorse in having drug her out here, never asking if she would rather wait for us back at the room.

And I remember that barbed wire sticking out of the track, it was on the right. It was shiny from exposure but how it got buried there I could not understand, how it had remained, people till drove farm equipment out here maybe it didn't bother those thick tires. That and the locus. Nasty things.

We had seen the pictures, knew it happened next to the tracks and as we approached it slid into place like a panel of a dream. locked into our reality. Here is where he died, right here in this grass. No matter what version you wanted to believe, this was where it happened, no denying it.

The path continued on passed the tracks, rusted I noticed, intersection of obsolescence. We climbed down the embankment a short distance and I wondered did he climb down here, were these his last steps, did he get carried here and dumped on the ground, was there any trace of him left here, a coin that might have fell from his pocket? Nothing. Time had erased all that, the turning of the earth had sprung up new shoots of grass and obliterated what we had seen in the pictures.

We were both crying. I remember hugging you and your tears wet my shirt. The last bit of energy drained out of me and I sat there, and finally laid down in the grass, and stared up at the bluest sky there had ever been, the color of his eyes, like that was the one relic that had survived here. I took a long strand of that grass with me to carry that scent memory.

You don't ever get over loosing someone to violence. You can have closure and I think our going there that day accomplished it for me. Let me go on to what became the new normal. That fractured self I keep together started wanting to go back to the car while the rest of me had to be convinced. I remember and I don't think I have even recalled it until now that when we started back I made a decision not to look back at all.

Back at the car she felt the need to defend her decision, we weren't disputing it. And it was like the sound of her voice that dragon fly homed in on. Came right up and when I extended my finger there it lit! Winged messanger from the great beyond. Those big eyes looking at me. And from that place of grief I asked "Is it you?'

Lynne:
Truman, that is absolutely wonderful.  I love how we remember some things the same and some differently.  I had mostly forgotten that hectic morning...it seems to me they were all mostly hectic   ;).  You are such an amazing writer.

Who else can we get in on this?  Shall we call it "The Pilgrimage Project" or can you think of a better word?  I like how that seems to make the Matthew Shepard play connection clear.

Roux and Judy for sure, and I remember (I think) Juan, Gail...I will have to dig up some of the pictures to be sure...again things running together.

If it's not too late, maybe we could ask them to write theirs before reading these...

Shakesthecoffecan:
Juan an Roux hung back, and Kirk, Judy and Mouk went with us if I remember right. Gail arrived that evening.

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