This week brought illness and funerals; 2008's first air thick with loss & so many plans unmade. Bound tight with regret I leave West Texas through high painted deserts, days straight, lanes wide. The way the land empties you.
Alpine, El Paso, Tuscon I sleep by the roadside, half-wild in unbreaking darkness. We're making good time, I think and then remember I'm in no hurry to get back to what's gone. I'll take pictures of burnt out motels, I'll call in sick to work, no: I'll rush out of habit & I'll arrive home and I will wish for 200 more miles to go.
An iPod full and charged on this trip may as well just have John Darnielle on it, I begin at the beginning (scratchy cassettes and tracks of town names) and play songs in order, all the way to the new one, out next month. Less like music than hostage negotiation, this library played full - left on for whole states, he can get you off the ledge by sitting there beside you.
Chasing rain I hit San Bernadino near noon, looping this song, thankful for the new record. Ready to try.
My Trusted MOGs
A DeLillonian episode on the road back home or perhaps to a place called Zabrinski Point? - As always, you write swiftly like a song cross-firing in the midst of your hostage negotiation.
Thanks for illuminating with your words and The Mountain Goats.
My Trusted MOGs
if only i could render any of my scenes a la delillo! i saw only a touch of death valley this year; four states, 24 hours and still it feels like most of the trip's spent getting from dallas to the texas border.
thanks for always stopping by to read the ramblings, i appreciate it every time.
My Trusted MOGs
beautiful post. I can not say I have ever enjoyed driving in tx. it may be a bit more interesting then north dakota though. keep on trying, you will make it.