Back to the Woods

She learned to drive when she was only eight years old, riding shotgun in the passenger’s seat, her hands on the wheel while her daddy worked the pedals and shifted gears. The pickup smelled of cigarettes and beer, but she loved the bumpy ride in the forest to the old bridge; the sun flickering through the trees, the dust billowing up behind in the summer heat. Those were the times she liked to remember, not the ones when he would come back from working the rigs as explosive as a stick of dynamite, or the times when it was just she and her mother rattling around an empty house.

BACK TO THE WOODS © Suzan Marczek

That pickup was his pride and joy, and when he was home he would spend hours polishing and waxing. “You lather up the wash mitt real good” he would say, “make sure you scrub the whitewalls, like this”, and he would show her how to use wax to bring the chrome to a mirror- like shine. Afterwards, they would ride to town, her dad standing casually beside the gleaming truck smoking a cigarette and yakking to his buddies while she carefully licked around the dome of a strawberry sprinkle cone, trying to make the ice cream, and the moment, last as long as possible.

COLONIZERS © Suzan Marczek

It was only later that she wanted the moments to speed up. While he was away, the truck sat idle in the driveway, and that was her salvation. The house felt too small and reeked of the childhood she had left behind. She could feel her life waiting, and wasting, in the confines of the small town, and only in the truck did she sense the possibility of getting out. Her mother thought she had gone wild, and she had. Juddering along the washboard road deep in the forest, her hair whipping around in the wind, windows open and the radio full volume, she wished for nothing more than escape.

RAINFOREST CATHEDRAL © Suzan Marczek

After all that time, I was surprised when the truck started so easily. It had not been used for many years, and the once shiny chrome was now a dull aluminium hue, the red paint rusted and peeling. I put the package in the passenger’s seat and backed out of the driveway. I didn’t remember the road being so overgrown. It became narrower and brushy the further I drove, retracing the route I had once known so well. When I reached the caved-in pilings where the forestry road had crossed over the river, I could go no further and I parked the pickup. He had been a smoker, and I thought he would appreciate the irony, so I put some of the ashes in the ashtray. The rest I took to the river and sprinkled into the water. I watched as they floated downstream, then got caught by the current and were sucked under. I looked back at the truck. In some ways, that was all I really knew of him. I pulled the keys out of the ignition and tossed them into the river too, then walked back to town.

Image Credits

All Images Are © Suzan Marczek

Susan Marczek Artist Bio

Suzan Marczak is a visual artist, ceramicist and writer living in Vancouver, BC.  Her work looks at the intersection between the natural world, the urban experience, and the human condition.

Websites: SuzanMarczak.com & FirebellyClayworks

Recent Guest Artist Articles:

• Orca in Transit by Trial Island Lighthouse
• "Listen, I Have Something To Tell You"
• All The Art I Will Never Make
• From My Sketchbook
• When Machines Dream