grounds along the crowded coasts. There had been no sign of him, which meant that piece of literal excrement had not only run me off the road earlier, but driven back the other way, past a disabled bike strikingly similar to the one that he had nearly wrecked a few hours before, and just went along with his day. Piece of shit. Piece of fucking shit. Motherfucking useless piece of scrap flesh that was allowed to walk around and act like a real human being. I was - I am mad. At his obliviousness, his carelessness, at my own. At least now I can be angry without putting Blue, myself, the trip in danger. Anger and frustration, I guess, have become privileges I can only afford at camp. I had managed to let go of my anger earlier, when a broken bolt and an encroaching rainstorm forced me to. Stranded on the darkening mesa, the only way forward was to put my full self fully into that rusted, weathered bolt. Of course, all it takes is a near runin with an angry, 500 pound mama bear to firmly reconnect that lofty notion of self with this bag of fat, flesh, and fearfully sparking neurons. This morning, my self had become the full unending expanse of the desert. I had left my body and become one and the same with the sea beyond Taos. The desert had reached through virgin eyes to pull myself from my body. Unsurprisingly, it was far easier when the desert, which of course knows nothing of fear and bolts, did it for me. Now, in the moonless camp, I remember but no longer feel the wordless little epiphany that allowed me to ever so briefly recreate the miracle of my first sighting of the desert. It is not permanent, I did not ‘see the light’ and become a better man. I sensed the truth of my situation just enough to fix it, and though you may think that would’ve endowed me with some inner zen-ness, that I would then ride calmly to camp, sleep with the bears, forgive the offender, find inner harmony, it didn’t. It doesn’t. It never will. It was a break in the storm, a silence between the discordant notes of a rusted trumpet.
And here I am, the end of my day, a camp that’s really more of a sad fence enclosure. They built little sandboxes to pitch your tent in, not that most people need ‘em. They dragged their massive RVs out here, all with ridiculous names like Outback, Marauder, and Frontiersman. The only name that made any sense was a 50-foot black and silver monstrosity called Momentum III. Two of these cravens, retirees I guess, had actually set up a 40-inch TV and were sitting by their fire watching Die Hard. I shit you not - I truly wish I made that up. Here were two people who, in their 70-plus years on Earth, learned to be happier watching Die Hard than a new moon in the pale desert. Too judgmental? I don’t know. I guess I’m acting a bit crazy. But I dealt with some real shit today. It was good, I worked it out, I got through it. I kept my head, for the most part. But it was real. It was good, bad, and boring. Like the desert where I found forests and mountains, it had a chaotic rhythm. Undulating beauty, calm, terror, stress. Dry, hot, humid, frigid, tiring, exhilarating, mundane. Unique, ephemeral, interminable. I listened to a crow, locked eyes with a dog, and yelled at cows on the range. And here are these blithe motherfuckers that just dragged their rolling apartments down here like it’s all that easy. Feeling like they’re outside, but really just parking their fat asses in some other place without leaving the living room behind. They got here without the bears, the storms, the roads. They sealed themselves up inside the Momentum III so they didn’t have to touch all the crazy awesome terrifying natural stuff that makes the desert hard, that makes it the desert. They drove through it, that’s all.
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