This week’s episodes are guest hosted by Myka Kielbon.

TRANSCRIPT

I’m Myka Kielbon, and this is The Slowdown.

In the seemingly endless spring of 2020, my roommate and I briefly decamped Los Angeles and holed up with her family in Southern Oregon. The town was already quiet during the best of times; that spring, it was even quieter. We plugged away at our desk jobs that we’d taken with us. We knew we were lucky, but still the days felt very long.

At the foot of the bed in the room where I slept was a framed photograph of a dinghy in a body of water. The water was still, and the colors were a bit washed out. It was so serene. And still, it was full of potential. The photograph lacked horizon — there was smooth water all the way to each matted edge. And the dinghy was empty, yet equipped with oars.

We imagined ourselves into that dinghy. It became, to us, a symbol of possibility, of freedom, of peace. When stressed with work, or feeling constricted by the regulations that kept us safe during the pandemic, or when later that year we’d return to LA and be inundated with heat waves and fire season, we would invoke that little rowboat. Think of the dinghy! we would tell each other.

It had been a long time since I thought of our imaginary boat — until I read today’s poem. It is a welcome message to the possibility of simple pleasures, despite whatever pain is held in the past.

Portrait of the Speaker Riding a Greyhound Bus
by Eduardo Martinez-Leyva

After putting away all of the cowboys, you take yourself to the farthest
part of the country: the cold, closed hand of America. You aren’t hopeful
but pray in secret, leaving behind apartments with pets that aren’t yours

but are family. You’ve been alone for so long. Forget
those well-known disasters: the motion sickness, the bill collectors,
those big rigs jackknifed on the road, your preoccupation

with shipwrecks. They were never useful to you. The scent
from your past life, sealed in care packages gifted to you, 
rebuke it. You’ll sleep well. Make sure of it. From your window seat,

the autumn light of this coastal town pours in. Trust it.
Open yourself to those houses shaped like fishhooks,
the secondhand stores whose doors swelled from last night’s rain.

The souvenir shops where men use sharp tools to whittle wood
for keepsakes. The dive bars with leather harnesses hanging 
from awnings, swinging in the wind like pig carcasses hoisted up

to greet you. Perhaps you’ll find yourself stumbling back 
to your room in the early hours, shirt untucked, mind a dizzied mess
of delights. Let it all in. From head to toe and all the way back up again.

Today, you’ll see a sailboat making its way to what seems 
like the earth’s edge. Your eyes will focus on it as if it were 
the most beautiful sentence you’ve ever read. Unedited or revised. 

“Portrait of the Speaker Riding a Greyhound Bus” by Eduardo Martinez-Leyva from COWBOY PARK © 2024 Eduardo Martinez-Leyva. Used by permission of University of Wisconsin Press.