The Glass Carafe

There was still a touch of romance in the way I was living: road trip, farmhouse, coming home. I could end my twenties in more than style. I was making a promise to myself, not with words, but with gestures. I would follow roads and take in scenery and stare out the front window while I tried to understand the whole of my experience.

Pieces of the life I was after were lies. Pieces were honest attempts. Pieces were manufactured for comfort and pieces were avoided at all costs. Some days were Nutella on a cinnamon bagel and some days were plain white toast.

Every day, though, one small measure of a routine was played out. One of us boiled water. While the kettle was on, we might brush out teeth or start working on our hair. The unbleached, brown paper filter was inserted into the top of the small glass carafe and the coffee grounds scooped in with a clean spoon. If we were using the fancy coffee, we dumped it into the filter straight from the shiny package. Then, one of us had to man the pour over. We didn't know to call it pour over. We just poured it over. L's grandmother had been using that very Chemex for over thirty years. The glass carafe was older than either one of us. Like so many things in the house. We lived in a space in which you didn't encounter history. You confronted it.

Or you made your way with it.

Modern appliances wouldn't have felt quite right anyway. No toaster. No coffee pot. We had a fussy microwave. We had two crock pots and a sink full of dishes most of the time.

The Glass Panel

The door we sometimes locked, sometimes didn't lock, had nine 5 x 7 glass panes in it. They were stacked three high and sat three across. The door was painted pale yellow to match the house. It was technically the side door, and the door that faced us when we pulled in to the spaces in which we parked. There weren't designated spaces. There wasn't even gravel. We did park near the garage, but not facing it. We faced the door.

When you walked through the door, you entered the mudroom. To the left was the bathroom and to the right was the door into the kitchen. At one point in time, it had been the back door. But, when they added the indoor bathroom to the house, they connected it with the mudroom. It had probably been the back porch at one point. The ceiling wasn't covered and the floor was simply poured concrete. It's where we started leaving the dogs while we were gone all day. It was supposed to keep them from getting in trouble in the house. No one was going to come home to chewed shoes, books or other personal items if the dogs couldn't get to those items. We shut the door to the kitchen and left the one hundred pound farm dog and the puppy in the mudroom - where the only accessible window was the bottom row of those glass panels.

It started innocently enough. Both dogs just wanted to see who had pulled in. Or at least, that's what I thought. Later, I realized they knew who pulled in. They knew the sound of the cars. When L pulled in, F was at the window. When I pulled, little B stretched himself as long as he could, and peered out the corner panel.

That corner panel didn't stand a chance.

It was late Fall the first time they knocked it out. I came home and there was glass on the floor. I swept it up and hoped that L wouldn't be too upset. She didn't really react at all.

'The dogs knocked out the window," I said.

She lit a cigarette on the stove and nodded.

There was a glass company a block away from the university, just across the street from the floodwall murals. I stopped and picked up a new pane and we slid it into the spot fairly easily, although we didn't know how to secure it.

"Super glue?" I asked.

"Duct tape?" L asked back.

We let it stay in place, but unsecured. It didn't take long before the dogs knocked it out. They liked that particular pane. Once it was gone, they started sticking their heads out the little space. They could see us getting out of our cars. We could see them shake and bark with excitement. It was heartwarming.

But not housewarming.

It started to get cold and the loss of the panel seemed to stand out more. I offered to pick up another one at the glass company, but it seemed futile if we didn't know how to make it stick. Besides, they'd just break it like they did the last two.

L had a bag of old clothes next to the door since I moved in. On a particularly cold late Fall morning, she grabbed a handful and shoved them in the hole.

The dogs couldn't break them. We spent the winter with old clothes shoved in the door. I didn't mind. I didn't really notice. It was one more quirk, one more quick fix that worked. I didn't need things to be perfectly mended, I needed things to be functional. We let the dogs back into the house during the day and dealt with the occasional chewed shoe.

Locked Doors

We were somewhere between Kalispell, Montana and Minot, North Dakota, driving Route 2 across the northern plains on our way to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was pleased to see that Montana kept up its espresso and thrift store habit all through the reservations and towns as small as the one I was from (and as small as the one to which I was moving.) We could stay caffeinated and pick up secondhand souvenirs all the way to North Dakota, where the fun dried up altogether.

But we weren't quite to North Dakota when we started talking about all the things we would need to do that first week once we got to the farmhouse. Once we got home. 

"Buy paint," I said.

"You'll have to scrape those layers of wallpaper off first," L said. 

The room I was moving into needed some work. I knew that, and I was ready. My co-workers, upon hearing that I'd be moving 3,000 miles back to the land I told stories about, asked a million questions, including, "Where will you get your remodeling supplies?" When I casually - and without any suspicion that they were up to something - answered, I didn't know I was giving them gift ideas. On my last day, they presented me with a gift card, loaded with a handsome amount of money, to get myself set up in my new room. It was incredibly thoughtful and overwhelmingly generous. I could do a lot with what they gave me.

"Paint the floor," I said. L nodded. 

"Make a place for my chair in the living room," I said. L nodded.

"Get a key made," I said. 

"For what?" L asked.

"For the door," I said. 

"It doesn't lock," L said.

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean, I don't lock it," L said.

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean you won't need a key," L said.

"Why don't you lock the door?" I asked.

"I never have," she said. 

We both grew up in small towns, but I grew up in a house in town, and in a household run by a career firefighter and Marine Corps veteran. Everyone in my family had a healthy distrust of other people, no matter how well we knew them or how close we had to live to them. We locked our doors. It's what we did. We locked them when we were in the house and when we left the house. It was a modicum of control. We said who entered our house, and when.

My friend N's family never locked their doors, but I always thought it was because they lived on a street with other family members and a close relationship with their immediate neighbors. I still didn't understand it, but I at least made up an explanation for it. 

"Well," I said. "How do you know people won't just come right on in?" 

"They don't," L said.

"But, what if they tried?" 

"They haven't."

In my mind, the lock was the signal that you control your home. I couldn't let go of that control. Not yet. I needed that illusion.

"How do you keep someone from just walking in and taking your stuff while you're at work?" I asked.

"If they want in, they'll find a way in. The lock's not going to stop them," she said, and had a point. "Besides," L said, "that's breaking and entering."

"But you can keep them from entering," I said. I said it with conviction because I was convinced. It's what I knew: lock your doors, in your house and your car, while you're there and while you're away. Have a smoke detector on every floor of your house. Keep a blanket and jumper cables in your car at all times. Know where the exits are. Safety. Safety. 

"The door needs a new knob anyway," L said, and we moved onto the next chore for the list. 

We each silently chewed on the conversation for a while, though. Something was revealed in our differing door locks philosophies. It felt fundamental. It seemed important. But so many conversations hold a greater weight when they're had on the road. 

It was just a door. If it's unlocked, it's easier to let people in. And that's where I had trouble. That's where I insisted that my doors stay locked. People had to knock or be given a key. I didn't know another way.

Wolf Stuff 4

We waved at Buzz as we drove away for the evening. We were tired and hungry and wanted to find a restaurant downtown that we could write home about. Or, at the very least, we wanted to find a restaurant that we couldn't find in every other state we were passing through. L was driving, because I couldn't. I was almost putty. I was almost a puddle. All I could do was point and say, "There."

On a side street in downtown Kalispell, we found a little wine bar. We sat at the bar and L ordered an appetizer while I sucked down a glass of red from a local vineyard. I didn't want a buzz. I wanted the knots out of my neck. I tried to sit upright on the bar stool while L went outside to smoke a cigarette.

"What's there to do in this town on a night like tonight?" I asked the bartender.

"Nothing," he said, but not in an unfriendly way. He shrugged and smiled. We talked a little about the wine, then a little about the July weather, and then a little more about winters in Kalispell. "You can always spot an out-of-stater by two things," he said. "Their fancy trucks and their fancy trucks in the ditch when it snows."

Apparently, driving in the snow was something you learned when you were young and all the folks who came from out of state had a hard time adjusting. I thought of Roger. He was a resourceful sort. When one of his horses kicked him in the face, and his jaw was wired shut while it healed, Roger didn't stick to an ice cream and mashed potato diet. He put a Big Mac in a blender and drank it with a straw. That's not the kind of man who comes to Kalispell and blinks at a little snow.

But, as I learned, it wasn't a little snow that the bartender was talking about. I shook my head. I was still in a California state of mind when it came to naughty weather. I frowned when I had to wear a hoodie in the evenings because it gets chilly in the desert. But, many feets of snow? I pursed my lips.

I'd rather drink a Big Mac.

"What are you girls doing in town?" the bartender asked. I was a little self-conscious about my real reason for coming to Kalispell. I didn't want to spill my secret to the bartender.

"Passing through," I said. I explained the drive from California to southern Ohio. I sold it as a simple road trip. All the details could get exhausting for a stranger.

Somehow, in our chit cat, the bartender told me to check out Glacier National Park. I'd barely noticed it on the maps when I was planning the trip. It was north a little ways, and a tiny bit out of the way. I said so.

"Yeah," he said. "But Going to the Sun Road is something you've got to see."

I nodded. I liked to happen upon things when I traveled. I liked to talk to the locals. I wanted to know about the places they thought made their town distinct. I listened to the bartender describe the narrow road through the mountainous park. I kept nodding. It sounded exquisite.

The Wolf Stuff Jackpot

When I was a little girl, my family and I spent a lot of time with my dad's best friend, Roger, and his family. Roger had a daughter exactly one year older than I was. When I say "exactly," I mean it. Kara and I share a birthday. We were fairly close, or at least we were as close as some cousins are close. More importantly, my dad and Roger were close.

Eventually, though, Roger and Kara's mother divorced and Roger remarried and moved from southern Ohio to Kalispell, Montana. He and his new wife bought a motel and campground. There was talk of possible visits. There was talk of a family trip to Big Sky Country. There was talk of wilderness. There was event talk of domesticated wolf pups. But we didn't go. I was too young to know why. It just seemed to me that, as a family, we weren't supposed to cross the Mississippi River.

As an individual, I crossed it. Several times. Back and forth I went from east to west and west to east. I crossed it with my best hometown friend and I crossed back over it with my brother. I crossed it again by myself, and then headed back east with L, my college friend, the one in the farmhouse. When I was ready to leave California and come back home, she flew out to make the journey with me. And that journey, I insisted, had to include a pilgrimage to Kalispell.

I was going to see that motel. It had taken up a lot of time in my childhood. My imagination exercised regularly to thoughts of Kalispell. Kalispell. I always remembered the name of the town. It seemed so sharp and awkward. Kalispell.

But I wouldn't be seeing Roger. Because part of what my imagination used for fuel was his story. His violent, tragic ending.

I was eleven years old when my father lost his best friend. He got a call from Roger's new wife. One day Roger went out to the shed and shot himself. Suicide. My father raged. He grieved. He speculated all the reasons why his best friend might take his own life. Some evenings, he dared to suggest that maybe Roger didn't. I was privvy to these conversations, even as a young girl. And they made an impression.

My father didn't go for a funeral. Roger was cremated. Montana stayed a distant dream.

Until I left California. I was going to Kalispell. One of us had to get there eventually.

L liked my itinerary, and we were both eager to see what the Big Sky state had to offer. We drove in from Spokane, across the top of Idaho, after making an overnight stop in Cour d'Alene. It was July, and everything was a deep green. We started to notice subtle differences from Washington and Idaho. In Montana, you could always get an espresso. They served espresso at rest stops. Also, they had a lot of junk. We drove through whole towns populated only with thrift and antique and junk stores. I was okay with all of it. I like coffee and gently used things.

At the start of the trip, I knew I needed to pick up souvenirs for the two boys who called me Aunt Mandy. Cam was about the age I was when Roger moved to Montana, and he had a thing for wolves. Somewhere near San Francisco I asked L, "Do you think I'll find wolf stuff in Montana?"

L and I stood outside a giant tourist trading post. I held a bag in each hand, each bag was filled with wolf t-shirts, trinkets, faux scrimshaw pocket knives. At one junk shop, I found a plaster cast of a wolf paw print. L turned to look a me and said, "I think you'll find wolf stuff in Montana."

Montana is full of wolf stuff. Any kind of wolf souvenir you could ever want, you'll find in Montana. I would go so far as to say that Montana is the wolf stuff jackpot.

But finding wolf stuff wasn't my only agenda.

We had to get to Kalispell. To the White Birch Motor Lodge and Campground. When L heard the word "campground," she started collecting gear. We were going to camp. In Montana. She bought at a used tent at the junk store where I found the plaster print. The man who sold us the stuff said, "If you ladies are going to camp, be sure it's not during your lady time. That attracts wolves and bears."

It wasn't lady time for either of us, but the prospect of wolves and bears being attracted to us in any way or for any reason made me nervous. And then he gave us further advice.

"You'll need to get some deet," he said.

I grew up camping with my dad. We sometimes sprayed ourselves with bug spray. We mostly just dealt with stings and bites after the fact. A little calamine lotion went a long way in our household. But in Montana, in July, I learned all about deet and why it was important.

By the time we reached Kalispell, we were beat. We stopped at a thrift store to get a few more things for a camping adventure. And because we were enjoying the number of thrift shopping opportunities. I pulled into the parking lot and suddenly lost all ability to speak. I tried to say I was tired. I opened my mouth and said gibberish. I parked the car, and the gibberish continued until it turned into giggles. I had never been that tired in my life. Or maybe I was nervous, too, that I'd made it to Kalispell. I didn't know what I'd see or learn there. I didn't know if I'd gain insight into Roger's death. I was pretty certain I wouldn't. I didn't have a plan beyond walking around the White Birch property. If anything, I'd close a long case of curiosity only about what the damn place looked like.

And no one cared but me. I wasn't reporting anything back to my dad. I wasn't in contact with Kara. We hadn't seen one another in years.