*with apologies to Bruce Springsteen.
I drove to Eagle Mountain yesterday. I’ve been meaning to go back for a long time. I spent an hour there a little over a year ago — for the first time since 2011 — because I wanted to show the love of my life where my marriage fell apart, among other things. She wasn’t impressed with the place. My lady saw cheaply built houses spaced too closely together, and a remoteness that is frustrating until you get used to it, and then it’s kind of nice. And that was pretty much the only time I had been there until yesterday, with a few exceptions. I have a lot of unresolved issues that involve Eagle Mountain, and I went there thinking I might get some closure. I spent nearly six years in that little town, and I still think about my time in Eagle Mountain a lot. Every time I listen to John Mellencamp’s or Bruce Springsteen’s later work, it takes me right back there.
I took my camera with me yesterday because I wondered if I could find any beauty in Eagle Mountain. I don’t know if I did. I spent several hours walking old routes that I took with my faithful pug, Waylon, years ago, while I took a few pictures. I’ll let the readers of this post decide for themselves if I succeeded.
My life wasn’t all bad in Eagle Mountain. I had a good job and worked for a principal whom I liked, which is increasingly rare for me nowadays. My kids attended the same school where I taught, which gave me the opportunity to see them everyday at work. I owned a house there, and my kids lived with me under the same roof, instead of seven hundred miles away as they do now. There are still people in Eagle Mountain who I consider friends. I had a period of stability there (outside of the shittiness of my marriage) that I have only recently regained. I hiked and biked in Eagle Mountain – which I loved because I didn’t have to worry about some idiot running me over, as I do here in the big city — and enjoyed the quiet and small town quality of the place.
However, for me, Eagle Mountain is haunted by memories that still make my heart ache for the loss of living with my kids full time, and haunted by the ghosts of what might have been had I been smart enough to see the trap I was creating for myself with the predominant culture. For the sake of marital and community harmony, I tried living a lie in Eagle Mountain and pretending that I liked it, and it didn’t work. God, I not only tried to be active LDS (although I never did get used to some Eagle Mountain LDS people claiming they lived “a higher law,” which apparently meant disbelieving that evolution was a thing, and that white shirt, tie, and clean shaven were what God required), I also pretended to be a conservative. You can stop laughing now.
As I wrote earlier, my marriage ended there (although it was a long time coming), and the results of what my ex falsely claimed about me caused some sanctimonious school district people in the most Mormon county in the state to decide I was no longer worthy of working in a school district that, in many ways, is an extension of the LDS Church. Basically, they made my life so miserable in the district that I quit.
I wrote years ago that the former HR director of Alpine District thought he was the stake president of human resources, rather than the director, and he treated anyone as persona non grata whom he didn’t feel was living LDS standards. I say that with full confidence of it being true, because every time this person opened his big, fat mouth, the only thing he talked about was his LDS Church calling. He also vigorously pursued people for doing things in their personal lives that in most other school districts would not have been relevant to their employment. Yes, Mr. Spencer was a piece of work, but he was not an anomaly. The whole district reflected LDS Church guidelines in dress and behavior. I say that without bitterness now — although it took me years to get rid of that bitterness.
I didn’t mean for this post to turn into an LDS Church bashing session, but as I write I realize there is no way around it. The LDS Church created the culture in Eagle Mountain that made living there unsustainable as long as I was an active member of the church. The attitude of LDS leaders and the edicts they issued — let’s be honest, the bullshit they spouted and the herd instinct of the members there — made life miserable, and when that bullshit encompasses every aspect of your life, both professionally and personally, it’s a big deal. The LDS Church set the agenda for the area and everyone followed more or less blindly, just because there weren’t any alternatives for a social or spiritual life. As a post Mormon, I can see clearly how abusive and coercive the church is, especially in Eagle Mountain. And as it turned out, when my ex decided she was done with our marriage, she used the church as a cudgel to beat me with.
So yeah, I have some issues with my past in Eagle Mountain. Strangely, after walking around familiar places yesterday, I think I could live there again. I am no longer religious, so I wouldn’t have to deal with the hypocrisy and the sanctimony of the predominant culture. I could ignore it and just ride my bike and go for walks and appreciate the tranquility without worrying about what my bishop thought or what the stake president preached in church last Sunday. Hell, maybe I could even get another dog to follow me.
Honestly, my life is happier now. I have a great girlfriend who loves and cares about me, and provides very little drama in my life. I see my girls, but not nearly as often as I would like. I work for a principal who doesn’t suck. I now drive a vehicle that gets me where I’m going, is paid for, and doesn’t embarrass me. It’s twenty years old, but what the hell, I like it anyway. It’s been a while since that happened, and it’s because of what happened in Eagle Mountain.
Unfortunately, having the most important things in my life — time with my girls, my job, and my house — stolen from me will hurt for a long time. And I’m not sure closure is even possible, because that would require ignoring my feelings about the worst experiences of my life. I do realize I still have to live my life, however. Living in the present is more important than living in the past, no matter how much pain I endured when I lived there. Guess I’ll just have to call it a draw between Eagle Mountain (and all it represents, which is the main thing) and myself.
Anyway, here are the pictures where I tried to make Eagle Mountain look purdy, along with pictures of where I used to live …
From one of my old biking routes.
This is the place … maybe.
It can be pretty, if you look at it just right.
Where I lived.
It looked better when I lived there. It had trees and a fence. Ugh.
My route when I walked to work. There were fewer houses then. I think I actually made this look pretty.
