Joni Mitchell is in my head this morning.
“Pave paradise, put up a parking lot, ooh, la, la, la, ooh, la, la, la.”
I’m watching the AirBnB or VRBO renter in the cozy little red cabin behind me casually—dreamily—walk out onto the wraparound deck with coffee mug in hand, barefoot, in shorts, lily white legs fully exposed to the rising sun and plop down on the nearest deck chair. I can’t see the entirety of him, but I can tell by the way he crosses his bare legs that he’s content. He’s achieving peak vacation mode. He has broken free of the urban anthill.
My little mountain tourist town is having growing pains despite, or in spite, of the pandemic. Perhaps now that so many techies, or gig workers, or whatever they’re called these days, have discovered they no longer need to commute to a cubicle, or an open space cafeteria of desks, but can work from—literally—anywhere the siren song of the quaint little faux Bavarian village is just too irresistible. They can envision living in a hip community like Leavenworth that is a mere two and a half hours from Seattle which is hardly that much longer of a commute than what they were accustomed to on a daily basis.
Arguments, sometimes civil discussions, rage on the hometown social media page over short term rentals and absentee owners and whether the boom in new construction bodes ill or well. The easiest way for a new land owner to pay for their mortgage is to build two houses—or should I say “alternative dwelling unit”—and rent one of them short term to the hordes of visitors who never stopped coming even during the height of the pandemic. Of course two houses on a plot of land, perhaps with a stunning view of the mountains, is even more valuable and now property values are headed to the moon along with Dogecoin and SpaceX.
I’m getting a regular stream of emails, postcards and texts from land speculators eager to relieve me from the drudgery of being a home owner. Just the other day a text came in that read, “Is this James Moore and are you still the owner of 41 Orion Lane?”
I responded, “Who dis?” (Not really. I wrote “who am I responding to?”)
Text came back all chirpy—”This is Christina and I’m buying property in your area!”
And I wrote back, “I want 1.5 million in cash.”
That was the end of that exchange. But I am not giving up. One of these days one of these fish will take that bait. I don’t know anything about fishing, but after spending eight hours out in the middle of a lake with one of Texas’ best bass fishermen and never getting even a nibble, I know it takes patience.
And a cooler full of Shiner Bock.
I can be patient. I just spent more than a year living inside the same four walls without going crazy. I can be patient. Ask my rescue pup Sally. I was picking ticks off her more than a week after her foray into the tick-infested high desert of north central Oregon. I can be patient. I’ve waited more than 40 years for the Seattle Mariners—supposedly a professional baseball club—to make it to the World Series and I am still waiting.
The rental guest just came back with his second mug of steaming hot coffee. He’s marveling at the quiet—other than the persistent ticking and whirring of multiple sprinklers, the occasional honk from a perturbed Canada goose waddling idly across the lawns in search of whatever it is geese find tasty amongst the wide varieties of grasses, crows cawing from the branches of a fir and the ever present sound of winds in the mouth of the Icicle Canyon. Usually subtle, as if it’s exhalations. Sometimes loud and fierce. The kind of winds that send Sally scampering to the nearest dark space.
As I’ve written before, I feel as if I am on a river trip when I am out on my deck—feeling the warming sun on my lily white legs, listening to the wildlife of the valley going about their day, the murmur of the actual river only a few hundred yards away. I understand the appeal of this place and places like it.
The pandemic was a wake up call. Continues—as I must remind myself—to be a wake up call. Lots of Americans are taking stock of their priorities. Reassessing what’s of value to them. (Of course, millions of other Americans are merely taking stock of their arsenal, ammunition and whether they’ll have the electricity to continue to get their daily inoculation of conspiracy theories from whatever nut they like to follow assuming they and their favorite conspiracy theorist survive the aftermath of whatever catastrophe befalls society.)
I loved my time in the city. But upon revisiting Seattle it is easy to note how the angriness of the times is ‘in your face’. Not too long ago, I was walking to the corner espresso bar early in the morning and witnessed an altercation between a metro bus driver and a passenger. I have no idea what the one-sided shouting match was about but the passenger was unhinged. Yelling. Slinging garbage cans. Stalking angrily about.
I gave him a wide berth but it was a moment where I realized I had absolutely no idea what might happen. No idea if I would get pulled into this undertow of anger.
It is easy to imagine a return to civility in a place like this small mountain town I reside in. It is easy to imagine knocking many numbers off your blood pressure reading. It is easy to arrive here, and let go of there. As if it never existed in the first place.
Maybe the country would be better off if the population was “atomized” across the continent, instead of concentrated in a couple of dozen mega-cities. We know the new economy folks don’t need to be clustered together to perform their daily tasks. We now know dozens of non-essential occupations that can work entirely from home. Every time my brother and I set out across the western landscape on our road trips to Santa Fe or St. George or Bullhead City, we marvel at all of the wide open spaces.
Maybe paving portions of paradise in a checkerboard fashion across the country is the ultimate means to paradise? We’re probably going to find out whether we like it or not.
I have a rudimentary understanding of the conflict in the Middle East and the significance of Jerusalem. Palki Sharma of WIONews does a good job of breaking it down in 9 minutes.
Also, I’m going to recommend a movie from way back—Breaking Away—featuring Daniel Stern and Dennis Quaid. What made me think about it was one of my favorite lines from the movie that popped into my head when I was watching and listening to the Gravitas video explaining the history of the Middle East.
Mike's Brother: How are you fellas doing?
Cyril: Well, we're a little disturbed by the situation in the Middle East, but other than that...
You’ll probably have to watch the movie to appreciate it. Take into account it’s from 1979.
In addition, the words to Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi. Not sure what the asterisks are about.
Big Yellow Taxi
by Joni Mitchell
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel *, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They took all the trees
Put 'em in a tree museum *
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Hey farmer farmer
Put away that DDT * now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot© January 7, 1970; Siquomb Publishing Corp