Big Bend

I think I can recount this past week seeing as I'm now well cleaned, well rested, and well adjusted. Life in the desert...is a good thing. Not that we can say much as a pack full of gringos decked out in our Whole Earth gear and a sack full of tuna, but we were rougher than most city girls and boys are during spring break. Unless you call passing out on the beach in South Padre roughing it.

Am I a city boy though? No, though the low clearance Japanese sports car may prove otherwise. My dad has done his best to instill small town/country upbringing into me and I have to say it’s a part of me. I can ride a horse and shoot a gun. I feel just as much at home in a dirty meat market as a glitzy restaurant. Growing up in the suburbs though tends to cancel out both sides. That’s the point, it’s a comfort from the extremes.



My point is that comfort is misleading. Get your diploma, find your job, and voila: the Friday special at Applebee’s. Just follow the pattern and everything will be ok. As much as my family has blessed me with traveling and higher education, they ultimately want me to move back home and share childcare responsibilities. Be careful, they say. And then there’s Terlingua.

Terlingua, TX is a little smudge of a town right outside of Big Bend that’s managed to stay a few light years behind. And probably on purpose too, seeing as the majority of its inhabitants and wait staff look worldly. They’ve just decided to take there knowledge and possessions to a smudge town and pass the time on a big porch, playing Freebird of course.

Maybe that’s all crap and the hunter gatherer wanderer movement died out for a reason. I got tired of eating tuna and I don’t think I’d like to eat tuna again for a while. But I would like to keep stepping back from it all.

The best thing about the trip was the silence and the complete unnecessity to fill it up with noise. Let the mind do the wandering and there’s no need to even leave the front door. Share the silence with someone and talking seems like busy work. Forget the past and worry about the future when it comes, because the present can be a gift. What a smart girl.