Pioneer Day

Ok, ok, I know it's not technically my birthday for another three hours, but I'm probably not going to have time tomorrow because of all the festivities (and by festivities I mean mountain biking, riding a carousel, and baking The Mother of All Chocolate Cakes). So here's the piece of creative non-fiction I just wrote. It's still in need of revision, but it's not bad. Since many of you are mentioned in this particular story, keep in mind the fickleness of memory, and that this event occurred over 10 years ago, and the "creative" in creative non-fiction. Ahem. Here we go.

I can’t figure out why I keep attempting the futile. Like why I try to grow my hair out even though it A) doesn’t look good on me, B) doesn’t suit my hair type, and C) I’ll chop it off in three months anyway. Or why I wait for ketchup to dry and harden on my plate before rinsing it. Or why I spend $121.67 on a pair of blue Adidas because ‘they’ll make me run faster.’ Or why I cook rice in a small pot when I know it will boil over. I don’t know why I try to grow basil when it will die, like it always does. I’m stuck in this peculiar place between what makes sense and what I do. But it’s hardly unexpected—I’m a child of futility. On July 24^th, 1847, my ragged pioneer ancestors parked their hand-carts on a desert with a briny lake and said, “Let’s grow things.” They surveyed the dusty plain, gagged on the salty lake, and stayed anyway. On July 24^th, 1992, a nurse handed me to my parents while fireworks exploded outside the hospital window. It was Pioneer Day, celebrating 145 years of desert survival. Eventually, my family left the Utah desert for the Idaho one. I spent my growing years on a tundra where farmers grow crops with heroic amounts of faith and movable pipe. Miraculously potatoes sprout amidst sagebrush and tumbleweeds.

***

We shared bunk beds. I slept on top, and my brother Morgan had the bottom. When I dramatically rolled over in my non-effort to fall asleep, the whole contraption rocked and creaked. But how could I sleep? Tomorrow was my birthday, and my cousins would be here after lunch.

The next day, a baby-blue Grand Caravan parked in front of our faded picket fence, and my cousins piled out. Sam, Casey, Whitney, and Daniel (and parents) had come to celebrate. They left the swarms of picnicking/boating/parading Utahns to roast hot dogs and marshmallows at the sand dunes for my birthday. While the parents frantically prepared (Ohmygosh we forgot ice for the cooler somebody grab the sunscreen where did I set the mustard?), my aunt paused. “Samuel, I told you to take your socks off. Please do it now.” Sam looked at his feet. His grey-toed socks bulged past the toes of his Buzz Lightyear sandals.

“But the sand will touch my feet,” he said.

 “Samuel. Take your socks off.”

“But I don’t want to.”

She gave him The Look. “Ok,” Sam said. We sat on the kitchen floor as he ripped open the Velcro straps and pulled off his socks. He stuffed them in his pockets. “I’m going to put them back on later,” he whispered. Children don’t understand futility. We learn futility from grown-ups who tell us what  to do or not to do. Eventually, we believe them and a sharp piece of doubt fractures our belief in possibility. As children we believe that maybe this time our socks will magically stay clean, but our faith is helpless against the torrent of factual reason from our parents’ mouths.

After all the children were dressed and shod, we made it out the door and to the dunes. And promptly got stuck. I pushed my nose against the car window. My baby brother whimpered next to me. I ignored him. I watched my dad shovel sand away from the front tires of our Honda. He shoveled faster and faster, hopelessly racing the sand that instantly filled the shallow indentation. My dad’s grey tee-shirt freckled with rain as he desperately shoveled. We knew it would rain. We checked the weather that day, I know that. What foolish stubbornness made us embark on a leaking vessel? I can’t remember. Maybe I was the one who begged to go despite the rain. I hadn’t learned futility yet.

My dad was born and raised in Idaho, and we Idahoans are stubborn after centuries of willing things to relative success. And so I found myself next to a sputtering campfire: a few old fence posts drenched in lighter fluid. Whipped by the wind and smothered by the rain, it smoked and threatened to go out. Still we hunched over it. Three of us were swathed in a handmade quilt, wet sand sticking to our bottoms, the roasting sticks clutched in our small fingers. Cold rain dripped off my nose and ran down my neck. The wind slap slapped the blanket against my arms and blew sand and smoke in my eyes. My hot dog caught on fire. I ate it anyway. It tasted like lighter fluid.

***

Grown-ups might fracture our beliefs, but they teach us about God too. And He’s the master of futile things. After all, He told people to walk through a sea, not to mention wash seven times in a filthy river, or plant seeds by a briny lake. Maybe our parents hope that after we awaken to their fallibility, we’ll at least have the sense to listen to God.  ‘Cause, you know, He’s got a decent track record for Futile Attempts That Worked Out Alright. So I don’t know, maybe the pioneers got in the habit of doing futile things and passed it on. And now we expect the waves to part and the rice to not boil over and our socks to stay clean.

***

Sam’s feet hung over the car seat, the crust of wet sand flaking off his now-brown socks. The equally-wet-and-sandy picnic blanket spread across our laps. I leaned my forehead against the window, watching rows of potato plants fly by like an optical illusion.  Nature had invited us to leave, politely suggesting and then forcefully insisting. Once we’d surrendered, we’d played the game “See How Fast We Can Shove Everything Into The Trunk.” Miraculously the babies hadn’t been packed in the picnic basket in the chaos. On the way home, I rubbed sand off my bare shins and watched fields of potatoes and sugar beets drown.

We dragged our damp, cold selves inside. It was dark, the babies were howling, and everything—from the parents to the carrot sticks in the cooler—had a liberal caking of wet sand. My dad and uncle started hauling the tangled mass of gear in from the cars; my mom and aunt rinsed sand off the babies’ pacifiers and reinserted them. “Ok, strip to your underwear right here and Don’t Even Think about walking on the carpet” my mom said, balancing my baby brother on her hip. Mini sand dunes formed as we obediently emptied our shoes and pockets in the kitchen. We stood shivering and naked on the cold floor. Morgan’s pudgy legs had dark lines of sand in the creases around his ankles and knees. My aunt wrapped dry towels around the boys and turned up the heater. Casey, Whitney, and I followed my mom to the bathtub. We swished in the warm water and allowed ourselves to be vigorously scrubbed with strawberry shampoo. My mom dumped cup after cup of bathwater over my head, trying to dislodge the stubborn grains of sand on my scalp. I kept my eyes closed and let her try.

Wrapped in my new pink bathrobe, I knelt on the chair. My feet slipped between the slats. It was two full hours past bedtime once all seven children had been bathed and pajama-ed. The parents gave up on putting gear away and decided to feed us cake and stick us in bed. I tucked my wet hair behind my ears and leaned my elbows on the table. My mother carried in the chocolate cake. Seven little flames exploded one at a time as my father lit the candles. Like wagons around a bonfire, we circled our chairs around the tiny flames and sang. My lungs filled and I blew the candles out in one breath.