Lessons from Lonerock

Thoughts on memory, time, and how moments meld toward one-another born through a trip out to Davenport, WA to change my tires back in November.

I heard about Lonerock, Oregon while in Davenport, Washington. Two small spaces. Davenport dying, Lonerock dead. Towns that seemingly fulfilled their purpose at some other time. This time not their time. What might time still have for them?

I sat in the Les Schwab Tire Center lobby, trying to determine how to kill the time. Davenport’s location had the only available appointment in Eastern Washington for over a month, so I had made the trek from Spokane. Having about an hour to wait and desiring some sort of thing to think about — something to spark some sort of creativity — I got up and walked out the door in pursuit of oddity. The popcorn and outdated sitcoms of tire store lobbies have their own meandering way and flow toward revelation, but I wasn’t feeling particularly poetic.

First stop was the Davenport museum. Old tractor out front. Closed. 

Next door was the library, tiny and sticky door. Perfect. Walk in and what do you see? Hot water kettles and teas and mother and daughter and a Saturday unfolding as any other Saturday for the two of them. They are setting up for story time at 11am. I make myself seen, an odd bearded man with backpack and beanie not wanting to stoke concern,

“Waiting for my tires to be switched, figured I’d stop in!”

“Well hello! Would you like me to start some hot water for tea?”

I decline and we both go back to our roles and days and will never see each other again. But I do continue to hear them. The eight year old griping to her mom that her friend, “only ever wants to listen to Skillet, not Christmas music.” Her mom, sympathizing with this friend, “well, they are a good band.” It is 2022. Almost 2023. Skillet is making waves in small town America.

Regional section. Books on Oregon, Washington. The Northwest. The treasures of the region, the ghost towns. Old books marveling at lore of even older times beyond them. 

Reaching back, back, back. I am a child again. I am curious. 

I reach for the book on Oregon coast treasures and I close my eyes and I’m above Devils Cauldron, just north of Manzanita. I feel the wind and the grey looms large and I’m searching for what was left here. But I am here, too. And, in a way, left here as well. 

Where will the ones I leave search for me when my time to search beyond arrives?

Ghost Towns of the American Northwest. I flip randomly and open. Page 29. Greeted by an image of a boulder and a church. 

“The lone rock is larger than Lonerock Methodist Church.” 

Boulder in the foreground and church in back, the caption on the photo indicates what the photo shows. 

A church smaller than a rock? A rock bigger than a church? Facts not all that interesting had the two not been planted so close to one another. 

Like earlier to the coast, I allow myself to be transported here. I am in front of the church. I am on top of the rock. I am in the church, I am at the rocks base; grazing my hand along its edge. 

Forward now, to the future. I am at the church and it is deteriorating. 

Further. The church is gone and the rock is there. 

Rocks are sentient, if you ask the right person, the right being. The only reason we can’t make out their musings is because we can’t sit long enough to hear. Which, in a way, explains the church. Explains why it was put there and why it will go away and, all the while, will never actually learn anything from the rock but will try and impart its own ideological tenants onto it. 

Build your house on a rock. Eventually the house leaves. The rock? Not so quick. 

Rock gets the final laugh. Rock will be there when the ideology isn’t any longer.

Standing in the library. Did the person who built the library know their final nail, if hammer was swung however many years later, would be entering empty space? Imagine with me structure now faded to memory. Did the founders of Davenport ever think that their great pursuit of civilizing the landscape would one day fall away and all that would be left would be all that had been there to begin?

I am occupying liminality. 

You can turn around 4 times and be right where you were. Each life is a beginning and also an end and there is always something being said. 

Does the rock listen? Or am I speaking too fast? Maybe the way you speak to a rock is to listen to an ant? Maybe the way an ant speaks to an electron is to move its unceasing legs?

A friend tells me her mom used to work at a library in a rural Washington town. No more than a trailer seated next to a grain elevator. She shows me on Google Maps. When she was little, eight or so, she would set up story time with her mom there. 

She is in her 30’s now. Does she still exist there? Is her friend a fan of Skillet? 

Layered memory all happening at once. 

The lone rock still sits. People give the church a new coat of paint. How many more years do we want to do this?

The church is being built. “You know what they say about building your house on the rock!” 

The rock isn’t moving. A bird lands on it and watches. 

The church is rubble, dust.

Our structures are reaching, trying to access something larger than themselves. Our churches, our books, our libraries, our clocks. You can spin around 4 times and still be where you were when you started.

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Meandering along the Australian Outback, an ant climbs up one of the many rocks scattered amidst the landscape. Its antennas move up, down, left, right. It pauses for only a moment, and then keeps moving. 

When, when, when.

Meandering along the Australian outback, an ant climbs up one of the many rocks scattered amidst the landscape. Its antennas move up, down, left, right. It pauses for only a moment, and then keeps moving.