Thursday, September 27, 2012

(Not) Writing from the Road


I had little connection to electronics while on the road – just a quick email check here and there – thus, the break from blogging (I hoped you’d all still be there when I got back). I really wanted it all to just … be … unfold … flow. And it pretty much did. Reaching the last days, I still had a need to get back, driven by different considerations than when I was working (meaning I needed to get back for the Bonnie Raitt concert and some other things).

But the exact when was a little flexible by a couple days - so on my last day I could take a "detour". I left Truth or Consequences (more on that later) and was barreling south down I-25 (not all that scenic at that point, comparably) like I had done a number of times before - with my foot to the pedal to “get home”. Then I saw the cutoff that goes through the Gila National Forest on a very (very) winding road that ends in Silver City (a cool former mining town, turned arty and foody, but not pretentious – one of my favorite second-hand stores is there). And I thought – what am I doing? I could be enjoying this last day rather than looking to the end point (a metaphor for some corny life-lesson?) so I took the turn-off and enjoyed the twists and turns (another metaphor? – geez) and, because I was by myself, I could take them at my preferred speed – which usually makes passengers a little queasy.

Anyway, I enjoyed a little time in Silver (that’s what the locals call it, FYI) and then back on the road that goes down to I-10, which would take me all the way into Tucson. There is a point on that road where you come over a rise and laying below is a vast - vast - landscape of grasslands, yuccas, the Lordsburg playa (an ancient lake bed/large area of sandy soil that fills up with shallow water when it rains and will be a stopover for Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese in the winter) and many mountain ranges all the way into Mexico. That rise, and that view, including the light streaming through massive clouds in a blue, blue sky  (I call it “religious-picture” light)  marks the shift to familiar landscape and  “close to home”. It was beautiful, inspiring and welcoming. I descended into it, turned west on I-10 and rolled my way to my front door. All was well - including me - when I got there.

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