Film Ritual

In November 2021 we moved from Seattle to Chicago.

I felt so much unease leading up to the move and struggled to make peace with it. I asked a friend for advice and he said that, if it were him, he’d do something ceremonial to help the transition. I liked that idea, so I decided I’d document the trip. Elisabeth and James were flying to Chicago; I would drive the Forester, accompanied by Suki, a few houseplants, and a lot of film.  

In the weeks leading up to our depature, I stocked up. Lots of Portra 400, some Ektar and Ektachrome, and at least one roll of Cinestill 800T. The camera would be my Canon AE-1 Program, as it was my only film camera working reliably at the time (Uncle Dave’s F2 was giving some rather mysterious meterings).

We got a late start out of Seattle that Tuesday night for reasons that deserve their own essay and by the time we hit Snoqualmie Pass, we were in a blizzard. My plan to make Coeur d’Alene that night was scrapped lest we drive the Subaru off the side of a snowy mountain and into the grim abyss of the Cascades. We were lucky, in fact — Suki and the plants and I — to make it to Ellensburg. There, we found room at the inn. I wrapped Suki in swaddling clothes and laid her in a manger. Wait, what? No, we enjoyed a twin bed apiece at a sketchy Best Western, she feasting on some premium kibble and I a Domino’s pizza.

I expected the blizzard to be behind us by morning. Looking out the hotel window at the towering fast food signs of Ellensburg, I saw it was not. As we left that strange little town I started playing Steve Gunn’s “Other You,” not knowing I’d listen to it on a loop for the rest of the trip. I established the Starbucks order I’d repeat numerous times across the country: tall quad flat white and grande nitro. I’d drink the flat white first and then sip on the nitro for the rest of the day.

That storm followed us (or we, it) all the way to Illinois, and the first full day in its grasp was a tense one. There’s a particular exhaustion that comes from driving in snow over mountain passes. Truckers must know it well. Constantly climbing and descending, climbing and descending, the vehicle moving forward, the snow racing horizontal and distended against you, straight into your line of sight, a sort of constant collision that dries out your eyes and grinds down the soft parts of your nerve endings. At times there’d be snow falling on mountain tops to my north and blinding white sun rays breaking through black clouds to the south. It was mayhem. Nothing around me was quantifiable. By the end of the day my senses were violently shaken and unable to settle. We only made it as far as Bozeman.

The next day we awoke in Bozeman to warnings of dangerous winds and temperatures to the east. And ice, entire states covered in it. The next stretch, Bozeman to Mitchell, SD, was marked by the car struggling to stay glued to the road, counter-punching hurricane gusts that met no opposition as they gathered velocity across the massive expanses of Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas. I lost count of overturned semis along I-90 in Wyoming and South Dakota but remember seeing about one per 10 minutes during some stretches. It was hard to sleep in Mitchell; the combined roar of the wind and the trucks going by all night on the interstate shook the windows.

All told, the trip took twice as long as I had planned. And until Friday of last week, all 22 rolls of film sat undeveloped in a plastic bag.

If you’re still reading this (and, let’s face it, you’re not; I see the stats on this blog and literally no one reads it), allow me to get to the point: I finally took the film in to get developed.

A younger, more hopeful me might think that getting those scans would complete the intended healing ritual and bring me some peace. That is to say, yes, this has been a difficult chapter. No sugar coating it. Lots and lots of good, beautiful, amazing things are happening, but it’s been

very very hard

for

many many reasons.

I do look forward to seeing those images though. Suki is no longer with us, and those few tense days were one of our best experiences together. I’d spread out her favorite fleece blanket on the backseat and she’d lie there in her gravity-defying crooked way (iykyk), occasionally lifting her giant silly regal head to eat a few bites of dog food. I liked that she ate without sitting up. I thought that was weirdly classy and almost discreet and it made me smile. I remember taking her out to pee at a gas station in Wyoming where the windchill must have been 50 below zero. I tried to walk her around a bit so we could both stretch our legs but it was just too cold to be out there more than a few minutes, and when we got back in the car the warmth and the familiar smells of dog and coffee were such a relief. I remember petting her vigorously to warm up both of us. It felt good to be warm and safe together in the car, with a full tank of gas and more western landscape in front of us.

I also remember bailing on the Interstate somewhere outside of Bozeman to take some mountain shots in the early morning. I was looking back west, and it was behind me now. I hope those shots, in particular, turn out. It was a beautiful morning. The West looked like a dream, a frozen dream.  

Postscript: Yes, the pictures in the piece are the ones taken on the trip. How did they turn out? I’m still not sure. Underexposed in many cases, and probably a bit muddied from sitting undeveloped for two years. They do not make me feel healed, but some of them are nice to look at.