Chapter 51: Last Night, I Dreamt I Went to Iona Again
Iona Island
Stony Point, NY
“ I think we should just go exploring.”
Stev’s text is the bullhorn I need.
A major sigh of relief courses through my body. Stev’s mentioned Iona Island before, jutting out into the Hudson River near Bear Mountain, a former ammunition storage facility for the US Navy from 1899 to 1947, before which it served as an amusement park and resort for wealthy tourists hopping off the West Shore Railroad en route to a weekend of leisure. By 1974, the marshy inlet and partially manmade peninsula had been transformed into a national natural landmark, courtesy of the National Park Service, becoming a bird and wildlife sanctuary, protected and closed off, almost completely, to the public.
Not us, though. As we wait for the freight train to pass our parked car on the western side of the tracks, I stare up at the gatehouse, a lackadaisical barrier that isn’t going to keep even the most scrupulous curiosity seekers out. Just past it, I can make out two of the five remaining buildings on the island, as well as an old bunker, its heels still dug deep into the soil from its days as a protective covering for the US Navy, when over 160 buildings stood on the island. I imagine a crossfade of history that stretches into other dimensions, a fantastical time lapse that bears witness to carousels and arsenals, pony rides and salutes, “Entrance of the Gladiators” and “Taps,” all the way to the present-day bird sanctuary, surrounded on all sides by construction and demolition, the shadows of humans wandering in and around the island the way that Stev and I plan to wander today.
Once the train passes safely, we casually stumble up the semi-steep hill towards the main event, the final accessible abandoned space on the property, a fortress that looks like it was an office building of some sort during its active tenure. I hear Joan Fontaine whisper in my ear:
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me… Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden with supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me.
Of course, this isn’t a massive estate. Unlike Daphne du Maurier’s Manderly, I’m not here to inadvertently get into a boxing match with the ghost of my new husband’s dead (and dastardly) ex-wife. Instead, I’m here merely to exist, to be in community with my comrade, and to explore an empty architectural space that brings my spirit joy. As we approach the foreboding and twisted building, I begin to scan the horizon for any humans, but it’s just Stev, a flatbed with the word “RASCAL” sprawled out (in Comic Sans), the birds, and me (and swarms of invasive lantern flies).
We walk the perimeter of the stately American ruin, noting the active building across the way, occupied by the offices of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission as well as an old firehouse with an AC unit humming in a second floor window and an additional outbuilding further back which looks like an armory. Stev and I circle the main building. I note that the island has become a strange, disorganized storage locker for state park signs guiding drivers to Bear Mountain State Park, piles of nature-resistent garbage cans, and more road signs for parking lots, attractions, and more.
Once we reach the back of the building, which is heavily guarded by at least 20 years of brush and growth on all sides, I begin to feel nervous. The older I grow into this hobby, the more likely “getting caught” anxiety emerges. Though it’s Sunday, and it’s clearly just Stev and I (and again, the birds, and the lantern flies) today, I still have some discomfort at the idea of entering this enshrined U.S. military architectural grave site.
Finally, after completing a full lap of the structure, I watch Stev shimmy a fire escape to check the top floor and ensure it’s void of any lingering vagabonds or spirits. From there, I find a fire hydrant and its steel root pipe, positioned neatly under open window with only a smidge of weeded terrain rooted in front. As I’ve already brushed off a tick, I go for it. Stev boosts me, and we’re in. The space is a skeleton, twisted like a pretzel, forming a U-shape that boasts two lengthy hallways leading to a point of the westernmost side of the structure. What’s left of any human activity is scarce: a fireplace, old electrical panels, broken glass.
I suddenly realize how close to the river the space is. The sounds of speedboats, jet skis, and passenger trains echo faintly along the shoreline every so often. It’s hard to imagine what exactly this place was actually used for although it feels obvious that it’s far less of an ammunition storage facility than it is an admin building with several empty offices, bathrooms, and a kitchen that houses several ovens. (At first, I think that they’re a lineup of steel shoe shine stations.)
The bones of the unwitting palace are surprisingly intact, save a hole in the ceiling here, a crack in the warped floor there. As Stev and I start to execute our harmless invasion, I begin to hope that my good old imagination won’t turn on today, won’t come creeping in, an unusual thought from my tireless expeditions to the empty ruins of America and beyond. Not that I don’t appreciate the salve of any given imagination-centric ghostly experience. That’s why these trips to the past have always served as healing journeys. They afford me some serious grown-up playtime, a moment of pause from the big bad Project 2025 world that we occupy.
However, today, I’m far too rooted in reality to ignore it, so I’d prefer to stay present than drift into a daydream. My imagination, however, has other plans, and so, we compromise. As Stev and I enter every single sparsely decorated room — each one more of a shell than the last — rather than dwell on my fears of authoritarianism, I decide, instead, to employ my imagination in a different light by posing a simple, typical question:
What must this space have looked like before we came and conquered?
Before I catch Stev in the light of a spider web, I walk into a tiny room that houses a small metal chair, one of the few actual remnants that winks at human occupation. A soldier’s ghost starts to materialize in the chair. He’s on the phone, discussing a shipment of ammunition supplies being delivered to our World War I troops. I quickly close my eyes and beg for my imagination to stay focused.
What was the earth, now covered by this decayed structure, like before this room ever existed?
Like snuffing a candle, I blow out the burning imaginary flame of the specter appearing and open my eyes again.
He’s gone. The sound of the birds in the sanctuary — Swamp Sparrows, Canada Geese, Osprey, Barn and Cliff Swallows — fills my eardrums. I continue down the halls thinking about the reality of America that more and more people are becoming “woke” to. This current moment is not exactly what I pledged my allegiance to as a child, indoctrinated to believe somehow that the United States is the greatest country that ever existed. There were scores of people who tried to warn us for centuries that this moment was where we were always headed. Maybe I could be like one of those birds and fly elsewhere.
Does exercising my First Amendment rights make me a traitor?
I pass into a larger room filled with shelves, floor to ceiling, and I wonder what was stored here. To my horror, old ammo boxes begin to appear, and again, I close my eyes and will the reality of the present to be my guide today, not my imagination. The fact is, I can’t get Gaza and our inordinate supply of weapons to murder thousands of innocent people out of my head. Our fine tax dollars at work. Growing up, my parents talked about the government forcing its hand on what it was doing with my money, and suddenly, I understand what they meant.
Why should my hard-earned dollars to fund anything except public projects, open and free educational spaces and institutions, public schools and libraries, culture and art, museums and theaters and parks that make our stolen country, at the very least, a place where free thinkers and makers can produce work that makes being alive a tad more bearable? Science that keeps the collective safe from pandemics and disease and the nonstop assault on the planet? Why should my money fund the eradication of a culture like Palestine or into shell-shocked judiciary systems that seek to imprison immigrants, strike down my right to get married, or give free reign to billionaires to continue eviscerating our democracy and transform it into a technocratic hellscape step?
I enter one of the largest rooms the building has to offer, adjacent to the old kitchen where the mighty ovens sit quietly. The sound of wind chimes from the active parks building across the way catches me off guard as I marvel at these steel beauties. I’ve been asked a few times lately as to whether or not I’ve got “tools” to say sane as the world I thought I knew burns harder, much harder than my upbringing ever allowed me to see. To tell you the truth, there isn’t enough medication, therapy, exercise, Alcoholics Anonymous, or art-making (the few practices that I have to stay afloat) in the world to make what’s happening at this moment in American history disappear. I wish there were.
We hop back outside and take a long stroll across this beautiful island to the two other remaining structures. I make a promise to myself that I will lean into the grounding mechanisms that keep my head clear enough to show up for my community and be of service in all of the small ways that I can. I don’t feel as though escaping my reality anymore will serve my mission to stop the evisceration of this country as I see it. In fact, I can only focus on what’s true in order to have the flames of my own righteous fight for equality, equity, and justice burning brightly. I’m still showing up for family and friends, for work, for my intrinsic creative nature, and that’s all that I can do.
Right?
As Stev and I enter a hidden bunker filled with graffiti, I’m struck by the words spray painted inside the small room, protected by a humongous steel door built right into the earth:
To exist is to change
To change is to mature
To mature is to go on creating oneself…
I stare at the note for a second, take a breath, and wander back outside into the glorious sun.
The sound of my own lungs, accompanied by the chirps of the birds and the waves of the Hudson, centers me, and I begin to see ghosts. While I don’t deny my imagination the act of doing what it naturally is born to do inside the ruins of America, I realize that, at this moment, these ghosts have become a warning sign, a symbol of where we’re headed and where we have always been headed.
For whatever reason, that seems to make me feel hopeful.
Not sure why.
