Forever Paisley

I spent the last week and half exploring the West Coast with my family.  Road trips were a large part of my upbringing and like every road trip before, we invaded the scene.  We casted for Coho on the Puget Sound, we sipped on Manhattan’s at local dive bars, we made a few runs on the cribbage board and just when we thought we had enough we continued South on I-5 for our next adventure.  From Seattle to Portland to Petaluma to San Francisco.  It was great to have all four Cherrette’s in one vehicle, celebrating my parents retirement and exploring the world that Angie and I live in.  As you can imagine, there are stories.  Stories documented on my mom’s blog.  Stories I am going to leave to her to tell.  What I want to talk about is the circus.  Ringmasters, bearded ladies, sword swallowers and all.

On the seventh day of our West Coast tour the Cherrette’s arrived in Portland.  At times I would argue that my sister was raised between the pages of a 1990’s fiction novel, so it was inevitable that we would be stopping at the mother ship of all bookstores, Powell’s.  When we stepped foot into the 68,000 square foot literary heaven there was no way to keep the family intact.  My mom headed towards the cafe, Angie and dad stood still, digesting the color coded directory.  As for me, I darted towards the Literature wing in hopes of finding a few classics.  As I made my way through section D, there it was.  Geek Love, a novel by Katherine Dunn.  A novel that threatened my livelihood from 8AM-9AM every Monday, Wednesday and Friday of my freshman year at UofM.  A novel that I spent an entire semester arguing over with my qualified, insightful yet extremely pretentious professor.  The book damn near ruined 6 months of my life, but for some reason it stopped me in my tracks.  I picked it up, flipped through the pages, and remembered the stories of Arty, Elly and Iphy as if it were just yesterday.  The novel, as described by Amazon.com itself:

” A wild, often horrifying, novel about freaks, geeks and other aberrancies of the human condition who travel together (a whole family of them) as a circus. It’s a solipsistic funhouse world that makes ‘normal’ people seem bland and pitiful.”

Pretty much sums it up.  I would recommend this novel to folks with an affinity for cultish manipulation who are tolerant of incestual behavior.  Though the content can be harsh the novel does touch on some interesting subjects.   Disturbing, controversial subjects told through a the trials and triumphs of a family of circus freaks.  As I replayed the novel in my head, there I sat in a book store, in a city that prides itself on being weird.  Portland, OR.  A playground for modern day circus “freaks”.  Suddenly I was enthralled by my surroundings, staring at every individual that passed by, analyzing their interactions and wondering how they came to be.  ActI: The man to the right of me sipping on a warm caffeinated beverage in a compostable cup sporting mustard yellow corduroy pants, a vintage blazer with elbow pads and a David Crosby mustache.  Surely he was a college professor or a local artist who lived the majority of his life in transit.  Act II: The thirty something woman frantically passing through section E with tattoo’s plastered across her skin, wearing bowling shoes atop knee-high socks and a t-shirt that looked like it had been mangled by pit bulls.  She hates her boyfriend for his infidelities and his rock star lifestyle, but can’t imagine life any different.  Act III: The college student posted up near Hemmingway with hair that could block an intersection, talking boisterously on the phone and carrying a messenger bag duck taped with the word “PRUDE”.  She is still figuring herself out, but knows above anything else that she was put on this Earth to make a statement.  I couldn’t help but notice them.  After all, these are people who live to be noticed.  People who voluntarily step into the spotlight.  People who would do anything not to be labeled as a “normal”.  Gasp.

“People are strange”.  I believe that wholeheartedly.  Life is strange, shit gets weird, situations mold us, society irritates us, we have a hard time making sense of it all.  Many accept what’s thrown in front of their face, grow bitter, apathetic, what have you … and they conform (if that is even possible anymore).  They grow up, they go to college, they enroll in a secure, respectable career, they marry their “one true love”, move to the suburbs, hide behind white picket fences and bullshit with their neighbors about the modern features of their American made vehicle.  Then there is the other side of the spectrum.  Those who will do anything in their power to ensure that the “American Dream” doesn’t become their reality.  Those who protest every ideology and that has ever fucked them over, rebel against what others want and expect them to be, those that wreak havoc on social concepts that they don’t agree with.  Regardless of where each one of us land, we are all strange. We all make statements.  We make statements, not by swallowing swords or dancing with fire, but with discrete signals.  The books we read on the bus.  Our visible tattoos or our virgin skin.  The hobbies we pursue.  Our hair, whether it be perfectly styled or our strategically mangled.  The people we surround ourselves by.  All indicators of who we are and how we want to be perceived.  Normal is irrelevant.  It doesn’t exist.  We are all here together, in the circus of life.  One act after another. Step right up…

Now go ahead, let your inner bearded lady shine.  I know I will.

Day 9,470.  Off to practice my fire eating skills.