I picked up the Country Living book and flipped through a thousand pages to the very end: the glossary. Thirty types of vinegar were listed, but I was only interested in one. Apple.
The recipe was the same one I had first seen at a lady’s house in Prineville, Oregon: a large container filled with apple leavings, water, and sugar, left to rest and bubble until, apparently, it became vinegar.
I wish I remembered her name.
If I were any more of a detective, I could search Google Maps for the road that led north out of town, the only one that curved west, back towards those snow-covered mountains. Somewhere along there, not far from the road, it would be.
She was a stranger I’d met at the diner, alongside a Voldemort character who shall not be named.
The eclipse was in town, and people had flocked to Central Oregon like birds migrating south for the winter, except these birds had cars, coolers, lawn chairs, and no concept of traffic.
Earlier, I had parked in the middle of a field, just off a dusty road where the grass grew long and a couple of other out-of-towners had settled in for the same reason. I had my spot. I had my car. I had hours to kill.
But as one hour turned into two, and the eclipse was still hours away from taking the stage, I needed more.
You know the more.
It’s a restless feeling. The one that says: What are you doing with your life? You’re meant for something bigger. Get up. Get going. Do something, or you will spend the rest of your life as a lump-shaped pile of goo.
And so I went.
Why that diner? I can’t remember.
The space between that field and the diner isn’t accessible to me anymore. There’s a missing piece of the map in my memory. And maybe that’s fitting, because the story of the eclipse in Prineville couldn’t—and didn’t—really take off until I told someone I didn’t know that I didn’t know where I was going to watch the eclipse.
I often wonder about the ears listening when I tell people these things.
Did they think I was a poor girl? Probably not. Was I a reminder of their daughter? Maybe. Or did something about me elbow lock and dance in circles with an adventurer in themselves, the one still held captive somewhere inside a life of routines and structure.
Whatever the reason, I accepted an invitation from a woman and her husband, both about twenty years my senior, to spend the eclipse with them. There would be free food at an event at their church, and, even better, a quiet night in their driveway with access to a shower and a bathroom.
Certain details from that night refuse to leave.
Two images stick out most.
Well, three.
The first was her punching the goat.
Not metaphorically.
She punched the goat in the utter hard like Rocky.
The other thing I remember is the oversized, heavy-machinery tire lying on its side, repurposed as a planter and overflowing with strawberry plants. And there she was, punching a goat beside it, as though this were a perfectly ordinary part of maintaining a homestead.
The third was the feeling of discovering that I had somehow stumbled into a world where people knew how to turn apple scraps into something useful.
She made the witchy brew herself and handed her partner a snifter full of the bitter vinegar concoction.
Oh, the twists and turns of this story.
Recently, I was reading reviews of a type of oat chicken feed when a commenter casually mentioned soaking it in ACV—which I had to Google to discover meant apple cider vinegar—and said it helped the feed last longer.
There it was again.
The vinegar.
Leafing through that book back then had felt like gaining access to a book of magic spells. Then discovering the idea of soaking grains felt like a leveling up.
My witchcrafting, spell-creating self achieved the next level.
I remember, too, that every trash can in town and at rest areas was not only full but surrounded by bags of trash piled on top of and around the base.
The eclipse did funny things to people.
Some sat on grassy hillsides. Others parked in places that had never been intended for a car to stop. The whole event felt like what a janitor at the largest heavy-metal concert in the 1980s must have seen after the stadium emptied and the camping grounds cleared.
Chaos.
Humanity magnetized into one place by the promise of something extraordinary.
Me want.
Gridlocked for hours. Unmoving. Waiting.
Into the darkness of night.
As if a switch had been flicked by a master gamer in another plane of existence.
It felt like that. Surreal to be a part of.
To watch her punch the goat.
To wear a Skeletor welding mask to block the sun from rotting my eyes.
To call bullshit on the irreparable eye damage because I’d stared at the sun in quiet rebellion enough times to know that, apparently, my 20/20 vision had survived just fine.
To sit there with a plateful of free church-buffet food and feel the pull of the black circle overhead.
Something about it aligned with the expansiveness of my heart.
I had leveled up my force field. I had powered up. I could feel it.
The thoughts came—not frantic thoughts, not the What are you doing with your life? thoughts, but something different.
A mindset that said I was going to be okay.
Actually, not just okay.
I was going to fucking rock it.
Love, Jaclynn
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