Away Alone

On some level, "solo" traveler is  a misnomer--because wherever I go, I take everybody I know and love with me.  For the first few days of any trip, all it takes is a phrase or a bit of a song to whoosh me back into unfinished conversations back home.

As I shift into Closer-To-Solitary, everyone I brought along is still present, just quieter.

Alone on the road, I notice things differently.  In a desert landscape, with all that space as far as the eye can see, I slowly unbraid myself from the social self I am on home turf.  The calendar with all the Very Important Things that define my days back home--it vanishes.

I love the ways land mounds and folds against the skies in West Texas and New Mexico.  The sunsets can break any heart wide open.  I love parking at a road-side table and watching a whole train, engine to caboose, move slow-motion against the backdrop of rocks and cacti.

I wouldn't choose to live out here in the desert, alone, no way.
But to travel through it in slow-motion refreshes my eyes.
There are--for many miles--no billboards, no signs, no cell phone signals.  Everything as far as the eye can see is ancient.

My list of Very Important Things To Do back home sometimes feel like mental equivalents of billboards: Do This; Buy This: See This. 

What a solitary journey gives me is white space, white as the sands on these improbable dunes in the middle of New Mexico.