Short Story | Blouse

‘I’d go out to the meadow and look for pottery shards, exposed by the rain’

When I was ten, my family bought 50 acres of land in New Mexico. My parents didn’t have a lot of money, so we’d spend our family vacations camping on this piece of land. We’d drive all the way from Los Angeles, out to the middle of the high plains, far away from everything.

The land was covered with juniper trees and grasses, and included part of a giant plateau. There was a big mountain range in the distance, a tiny Mormon town six miles down a dirt road and the Zuni Indian Reservation another 20 miles away. We had our own fresh-water well and a power line, but that was all. I don’t remember ever using the power – not until years later when my dad and I did a recording session there.

Anyway, we’d all stay in a teepee together, a really fancy one that my parents had ordered from a company called Panther Primitives. It was said to be very authentic. In the summer months, a lightning storm would pass through almost every afternoon, and when the rain would stop, I’d go out to the meadow and look for pottery shards, exposed by the rain. There must have been Indian ruins under that meadow because I’d find so many pieces of ancient-looking pottery. My dad said it wasn’t good to take them home, so I’d collect them for a little while and then put them back. I loved looking for those shards. I used to think it was so magical how the rain washed them off and revealed them like treasures shining in the red mud. They were so beautiful and smooth and curved. I remember picking them up and pressing them with my thumb, examining the painted designs and wishing I could have been the original owner, not some second-rate looter. I always thought that if I looked hard enough, I would find one that wasn’t broken, somewhere buried a little deeper in the ground. I never did.

Blouse perform alongside ERAAS at De Nieuwe Anita, Amsterdam on 29 November. The show is free for Subbacultchaha! members.