Mark Phillips' Pages: Workbook: 10/7/03: White sand beach beneath an otherworldly canopy of vibrant blue and gold and purple stars.

Jacob Lawrence, "The Life of Harriet Tubman No. 10" (1940) — Jacob Lawrence, The Life of Harriet Tubman No. 10. Harriet Tubman was between twenty and twenty-five years of age at the time of her escape. She was now alone. She turned her face toward the North, and fixing her eyes on the guiding star, she started on her long, lonely journey. (1940)

October 7, 2003:

White sand beach beneath an otherworldly canopy of vibrant blue and gold and purple stars. Palms bent as though bowing, blue water sparkling. Above all else the alien heavens pulsing with life, low and immediate and close enough to touch.

Woman, uniform with insignia. Weeps, from joy and exhaustion, overwhelmed. Man holds her, with patience and great charity, allowing her to cry.

His message is simple. "Small steps, Ellie. Small steps."

Long road trip. In the cassette player: that band she loved so much. With her writing on the label, no less.

What they meant to us then. A way forward from the crash-and-burn dead-end of Punk. And for her, something visceral she maybe only half suspected.

What they've meant to me since. All those associations. Loss, pain, grief.

I could not have played this tape before today. It's just this exact moment I became healed that one little bit.

Small step, more like a microstep. But what a milestone, on my long and lonely road home, to myself.

Boxcars are pulling out of town...
Boxcars are pulling out of town...
Boxcars are pulling out of town...
Boxcars are pulling out of town...