RURAL: We fear what we do not know (Part Two)

My childhood was unconventional to say the least. I started sharing pieces of my story in a long essay yesterday (see Part One) about growing up on a school bus and moving to rural Eastern Oregon.

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I’ll share my RURAL free write exploration in pieces. This isn’t intended to be a final product by any means, but starting inspiration--a way for me to examine my own standpoint before doing anything else. Thanks for reading! :) @lilyraabe

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RURAL

My Dad has never liked square houses, so when he had to build a house, he built an A-frame, placing it perpendicular to the Store where the old house had been. On 9/11/11 I remember playing in the dugout foundation when my Mom walked out of the bus where we were still living and told me that our country had been attacked.

I don’t think life was ever quite the same after that. I had never considered that our country could be attacked, it hadn’t happened on this scale since Pearl Harbor. Years later when I lived in New York I would sit with a friend on a park bench in Washington Square Park at midnight on 9/11 and feel that same small feeling in the pit of my stomach as we talked about that day.

But back to the beginning. The house we built: There was a loft, which became my room, a downstairs bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living room. There is also a huge back porch where we spend most of our time in the summer. We moved in officially as a family when I was 17, but I lived upstairs in my lair for about 7 months before that, getting a small taste of adolescent independence.

I was homeschooled. My parents lack formal further education. My Mom has two years of community college and my Dad never passed the 8th grade. I personally don’t have a GED or a high school diploma.

My parents are some of the most educated people I know. They read voraciously, and I don’t mean cute novels. In fact, my Dad avoids fiction altogether, preferring to read tomes of history, philosophy, and religion. I grew up being called a sophist for making excuses during arguments, and being read passages of Carl Sagan. My best memory of my Dad is him reading me The Hobbit when I was tiny and instilling a lifelong love of Tolkien and adventure in my young heart.

My Mom is an avid gardener, herbalist, and creative spirit. She knows more things about plants, organics, and making things grow than I could ever hope to. She is more empathic than anyone I’ve ever met. Perhaps my favorite thing about my mother is her passionate belief in community service. Since I was little she has asked me to imagine a world in which everyone did something every week to make the world a better place. I imagine that world would be every bit as wonderful as she predicts.

So there we were, hippies living in a school bus and building a house in rural Eastern Oregon right smack dab in the middle of multigenerational cattle ranches. The land of 10,000 people, a million cows, and 50 churches, nestled between the Elkhorn and Eagle Cap Mountains, which are part of the Blue Mountains running through the Eastern side of the state.

This is a part of the country that votes red, every time. These folks are patriots. They have old-fashioned values that have done them just fine since they arrived on the land over a hundred years earlier as pioneers. Baker was a product of the American frontier and gold rush. Mines speckle our mountains, and artifacts from these periods fill the museum and local attractions. You can take a hike on the Oregon Trail, or ride a historic train through an old mine.

The town of Baker is small, but there is a distinct separation between the “town folk” and the “country folk”. There is no real money in Baker outside of the old, traditional ranches. Folks in town have limited options, and while positive entertainment is scarce, meth is plentiful. There is one local high school, home to about 500 students any given year. This is where I would take classes my 10-12 grade years when I needed advanced math and science electives, then fell in love with theatre. The high school is okay as schools go, but the expectation that students will graduate and leave Baker is low. No one goes Ivy League. The best that is expected to be attained is a state school.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We bought property and built a house. During that time I was growing up. I turned 10, then 16 overnight. I did Brownies, Girl Scouts, and later became an avid 4-H’er. I never quite fit with the group of girls from Keating; I guess they were nervous about me because they didn’t understand why I didn’t go to school with them, why I read Dickens instead of watching Nickelodeon (I wasn’t allowed, not my fault!), and why I listened to Carly Simon not Shania Twain. I was invited to parties and told “I’m only playing with you because my Mom says I have to.”

For some reason, that didn’t bother me as much as it should have. I genuinely liked Dickens, and Carly, and I wasn’t really willing to change my position on those things being awesome. I kept on growing up, and for many reasons, it was magical. Besides my obvious differences from the locals, I thrived in the outdoors and nature where I was free to let loose my imagination. A great deal of my childhood was spent wandering the hills around my house, exploring fields, and slaying dragons in the branches of great willows growing along the creek. (Next up: The High School chapter! haha.)

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Hi friend! I’m almost brand-new here, just over a week! I’ll be using steemit to share thoughts on artistic practice, arts opportunities, equity, my personal projects, and other fun things happening in my world (like hiking!) Don’t forget, this is Part Two in an ongoing series of explorative work. CHECK OUT PART ONE HERE. See you around! -- @lilyraabe