I once chose to go on the road for a month. I chose to exile myself for a chance to reconnect with an indiscernible thing I felt I had lost. I starved myself of the chance to create lasting friendships. I had momentary connections and the happiness that comes with knowledge of self-limited time. Everyone I’d meet would return to their own travels, to their own life. I felt impermanence and the effects of choosing to deprive myself of opportunity.
I got away from the friction of cities and let myself become a part of quiet beauty, still life, though I did not deserve that. I encroached on the mountain lion’s home, the meadows of the cattle, and the streams through which wild horses passed. I involved myself in their lives, walking paths they’d set for me with their tracks. I’d wait and listen for them, listen for the yell of the burro, for the javelinas that never came.
I ate little and began to feel my ribs rub against the rocks when I lay down to sleep. I drank the water of the earth, scooped it up into my hands, and sank myself into the wet sands of the Pacific coast and the Rio Grande and Colorado rivers and lakes of the American West. I felt rain droplets pelt my shoulders and face as I stood in monsoon storms and afternoon showers, replenishing the lands of bone-dry saguaros. I washed anew with 50¢ showers in the desert and lonely spring water faucets in the canyons.
I felt the wind. I let it blow through my hair at 80 mph and tangle my stringy red locks. I let it twist into dreads that I’d struggle to brush through hours later. Crimson strands covered my eyes, blocked my sight. I let the sun pour over it, bleach it to blonde and gold and pale coppers. I’d let myself laze in the sunshine, felt the rays that kissed more freckles upon my skin. A few times, I let it burn me. Burn me so badly I felt heat radiate from my skin as I had chills.