Rachel Van Blankenship

The real Dorothy and Toto

rachvb — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:57:30 +0000

My parents’ house was 8 miles west of the tornado. 8 miles. And in between the super cell and our front door is the nursery where my mom got her oak trees, the sonic where she introduced me to their god-sent onion rings, the grocery store where she complained once (being the recent Californian transplant she was) that the checkers weren’t in any kind of hurry because they were on Okie time.
When I went to surprise her for her 60th birthday, we went to a movie theater to watch “Silver Linings Playbook.” It was the closest, nicest one. The kind where you could get dinner and drinks with waiters and red plush recliners. They just opened a new IMax theater not too long ago. I heard on the news that theater had its roof completely torn off.
Are certain people lucky in situations like this? Does luck have anything to do with it? Our house was unharmed. My parents, thank god, aren’t even in town right now. And everyone they know and love is safe. Yeah, I think that’s lucky.
They’ve seen a few tornados in the 8 years they’ve lived there, but none as large and close as this. They don’t even have a storm shelter, the people who built their house (who could have easily installed one, EASILY) decided not to put one in. And so they have a plan to either hide in a closet in the garage under the stairs or run to the neighbor’s shelter. Usually there’s enough warning. The last time that’s what my mom did, she ran across the yard with some valuables and knocked on their door; my step-dad works with the FAA and luckily has some sort of bomb shelter there.
But this one manifested so quickly. All those children stuck…
My mom keeps talking about the horses. How the tornado hit a farm and 75-100 horses were either killed or had to be put down. She asked if I’d seen the pictures of the ones that survived, shocked and bloodied from flying debris.
I saw a video this morning of an old woman who huddled in her bathroom with her dogs. The warnings said anyone above ground was in imminent danger, everyone needed to be underground to survive. But here she is , a woman who has seen it all, lived through it all and found her dog, too.
It seems so random. It’s heartbreaking to think about parents wandering through the night looking for their children or the kids who went into the basement of that building only to drown. Where else were they supposed to go? We haven’t lived there long, but this place is the closest thing I have to a home now. Our photographs are there, clothes from college, stuffed animals and toys from my childhood are all sitting in my mom’s attic. I told her when she moved from California that home was wherever she was. She’ll come back home to a city that looks like a war zone. But she can come back home. Yeah, I think that’s lucky.

Phoenix

rachvb — Mon, 20 May 2013 20:03:50 +0000

Dear —,
This is my view from the library. The windows protect me like a ribcage, the books my spine. I am the organs inside, but not the heart. My heart has always been a kite floating unprotected from my body. I’m still un-centered. I think the notion of being centered is a cop-out. Like saying everything happens for a reason. I half believe it. I believe “everything happens.”

Planes fly over downtown. From this distance, I could pluck them like errant petals; scatter the people inside like seeds making more people and seeds; playing God long enough to believe in him, then give back the gross responsibility.

Phoenix is not nearly as loud as I thought. When you left, I felt so invincible I would have put an entire pigeon in my mouth knowing full well whatever disease-infested shit it had gotten into – it couldn’t derail me.

There are no trains today. We never took the train, never noticed the people staring like broken watches. Some ride hoping the tracks will restore lost time. I ride for hours, every day. I’m glad you never noticed my hands suspending, slowing.

Yesterday, a woman smiled at me like it was punched into her. And a man covered himself head to toe in armor made of pop-tops. Maybe the craziest people are the only ones brave enough to be heroes? I could use a cold soda.

Thank you for believing in me, even if it was a lie, even if I’m failing. What’s more beautiful than watching someone rise from her own pyrotechnic life? Maybe that’s why so many people live in a city where 100 days out of the year it’s over 100 degrees? Phoenix is burning. I pick a feather from my mouth, stuff it in my pocket.

Us

rachvb — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:56:37 +0000

You may go

rachvb — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:12:04 +0000

“The cage is open: you may go.” – Theodore Roethke

No Rain on Me

rachvb — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:08:00 +0000

Marvin Orellana for The New York Times

A new exhibit at the MoMA in NYC lets you walk through the rain without getting wet. This is something I must do. Magic.

Slack Tide – A Rachel/Claire collaboration

rachvb — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:31:34 +0000

SLACK TIDE | Rachel van Blankenship from Claire Beynon on Vimeo.

Claire created this wonderful video of my reading “Slack Tide”
Go to her blog as well as she writes a beautiful story of how it all came together…
Thank you, Claire.

Walkabout

rachvb — Tue, 07 May 2013 17:20:27 +0000

I might be taking one soon. I’m already distancing myself. Feel alienated from certain parts of the web and searching on others. Forgive me if I’m quiet or don’t comment often. I’m feeling very protective right now.
Be well! Enjoy your springs wherever you are. Pat is turning 30 tomorrow. We met when he was 19. Seems like a lifetime already…

xoxo

Have I been watching too much Fringe?

rachvb — Mon, 06 May 2013 17:35:51 +0000

“Am I in an alternate reality?”
That’s what I thought this morning when I woke up topless to the leaf blower rudely droning outside the window. #1 I was topless. #2 The yard guys usually come on Thursdays when I get to sleep in, but can’t because the leaf blower is rudely droning outside the window. If you’ve seen Fringe at all, you know there is a parallel universe just like our own, but slightly different. The Statue of Liberty is bronze, the Twin Towers are still up, ball point pens are a thing of the past, Tom Cruise is a Television star … and so on. Oh and we all have an alter-identity on the other side. Same DNA, eyes: us, but slightly different. Well, I stayed up until 1 AM last night … er this morning because this entire second season, Olivia has been stuck “on the other side” and she was just about to come home at 12:10 AM and you better fucking believe after agonizing over 8 episodes, worrying about her being stuck over there (and BTW, her alter-identity was on our side stealing her life and her just-confessed-their-love-boyfriend Peter AND trying to destroy our world all at the same time) I was staying up to watch the next god damn episode. Monday, here we go…

Let’s brag about love

rachvb — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 18:28:19 +0000

We’re going to be reminded this weekend that we do in fact live in the desert. Sunday’s forecast is 100 degrees. Ugh. Already? It’s not even May! But I’ll take it if it means I never have to survive an East coast winter again. Last week, a friend said it was still frigid, windy, unbearable. I hold her it was 90 here, sunny, heaven. I’m not keeping many friends back there by bragging, but maybe we aren’t keeping that many friends back there anyway. We’re sort of in a lonely stage – the two of us staring at each other “how was your day?” “Good. How was your day?” sort of thing. I think what I miss most is having people who really know who I am. Who know all the history. It’s like people who hate their therapists, but keep going anyway because the thought of having to explain and relive all your issues again seems exhausting.
We are out of sight and out of mind. At least that’s how it’s felt for a while. Pat and I can both feel the shift – people stop texting, emailing, calling and so we stop texting, emailing, calling because we’d always be the ones initiating communication and trying without getting much back is a pathetic feeling. There are some relationships we thought would be around forever, but then they aren’t and we’re left mourning them like the dead. I had a therapist ask me once why I felt like I needed to fix everything, my relationships. And I answered: who else will? I think I’ve mentioned that here before, but I’m reminded of it now because I’ve always been the one who tries to fix it; distance, conflicts, but maybe it means I’m a clinger? Maybe I need to be better about letting go? So I’m not fighting this one. I’m not trying to fix it and as heartbreaking as it is for me, I’m going to let it go where it goes. We’re all caught up in our own shit, I know that. But take two seconds out of your day and tell someone that you love them. Two days ago, I heard a teenage boy bragging to a girl about his “homie” kicking the shit out of someone so hard that it ripped his ear off. Why do we brag so much about violence? About what we’ve “done” to people to prove we were stronger? I want to live in a world that brags about love instead. I promise, it doesn’t hurt any more than the slices of soul one gets when they repeatedly kick someone on the ground.

—-

On a happier note, Pat and I are going to love the sun this weekend. Poolside with some Mexican beer he recently found at our Mexican grocery store. It’s nothing special, but the beer he drank in Oaxaca when he lived there for a month and Phoenix is the only place he’s found it in the states. And I’m going to celebrate my Designer of the Month award. And I’m going to write. And I’m going to drink his Mexican beer and keep making memories for us.

“When Brave Bird Saved” Short Film

rachvb — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:02:19 +0000

This is one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in a while. We need more of this in the world.