Valhalla

"Walhalla's pinned to the edge of South Carolina."
-Vic Chesnutt

These are images of Iowa. Iowa is hurt pretty bad by the floodwaters right now. Poor Iowa. They say it’ll take at least 2 to 3 years for things to return to normal...We drove through Burlington last week, to get here. Burlington is now underwater as well. Nobody can get anywhere.

As I type this, Eleanor is asleep in her marsupial get-up, which allows her father & mother to perambulate, move, groove, occupate & travel while the nipper rides shotgun. It’s called an “Ergo,” and it’s one of many totally useful, yuppy-hippie products available for consumption by today’s modern parent. For a hefty fee, of course. But whatever. I’ll pay that fee if it’s gonna help make Adventures In Modern Parenting a real, live event instead of science fiction or escapist fantasy.

When I was a kid, some of my best friends were into sci-fi and fantasy stories. They’d collect the paperback novels about errant knights and dragons and bottomless pits. Not me, though. (I preferred reading and re-reading the New Book of Knowledge encyclopedia set that my father bought back in ’71.) It was the images from those stories that always captivated me the most. Not just the ones pictured on the cover of the D&D books, but most especially the ones in my own mind. I didn’t like reading about elves and beggar thieves, but I loved dreaming up my own and imagining that they actually populated my Pac-Man, Reagonomics 1980’s childhood.

Sometimes I think that if Valhalla really exists, maybe it’s comprised of your earth-soul’s most pungent, friendly fantasies. The kind that overwhelmed your five senses and gave you new life when everything else was in question, like a stolen apple that tastes like Salvation and Mercy and Ecstasy all at once. If that’s the case, my Valhalla will definitely have some bottomless pits and crazed minotaurs in it. And perhaps a Cyclops will stand guard over the Iowa prairies, which light up with fireflies at dusk.