The Journey Home - (Chapter 1, part 2)
I awake in my car slightly groggy from a midnight power nap off the side of the interstate.
Starting my day again, just past midnight, with a powerful hankering for truck stop coffee. Growing up into my adult life in the San Francisco Bay Area, I acquired a taste for strong, robust coffee. However, truck stop coffee keeps me true on journeys such as this.
I drive for hours until I have to settle again. A snow-covered windshield hosts my morning view. I've somehow managed to climb to what appears to be a site for a new housing development. I unfold myself from the jeep’s front seat, and the crisp morning air seals my nose shut as I step out onto the snow-covered ledge. As I relieve yesterday's coffee in geometric design I take in the view around me. It’s breathtaking. Rocky Mountains with greenery packed in snow. I could plant myself in a cabin up in this neck of the country and call it a life. Not really sure how I got up here or where here exactly is, for that matter. So, the closest thing resembling a road will have to get me back down this hill.
Making my way into town, I feel alive and free in this moment. The town appears out of nowhere: Telluride, Colorado. Nice. I've always wanted to stop here. I drive by a storefront window just as the cafe sign is flipped to “open” by a dirty blonde barista. Dirty blonde baristas and strong mountain coffee. This day has gotten off to a pretty good start.
My car finds a spot and soon enough I'm sitting at the counter flipping through the local rags. This naturally leads to conversation with the barista. She's dirty blonde in all her packaging. Her weathered manner is attractive in a been-around-long-enough-to-know sort of way. Her body is put together in a way that makes it apparent that she spends a good deal of time engaged in strenuous mountain sports.
In telling her my story of car-seat surfing over the last few days, I realize that I could probably use more than a few hours of sleep. Just as that realization starts to unfold, the mountain-town barista warms my coffee and offers me up an opportunity for a room. It seems her roommate works at a motel down the way that is currently under some repair. My enthusiastic interest leads her to place a call on my behalf, and for a mere twenty-five dollars in cash I'll have a room for the night complete with space heater. Her roommate will even allow me to check in early. This is like Christmas morning to me.
A warm room with a ten a.m. check-in is like a room for two days in my eyes. I thank her for the conversation and the room hookup and ease my way out the door.
The motel is just a few blocks away, and no sooner do I step on the gas than I’m putting the jeep back in park. It's a rustic, faded white two-story motel with a wraparound porch and hardwood floors. It's even more than I would’ve hoped for the price. Needless to say, I check in and sleep like a baby for a solid eight hours. Upon waking, I pull out my guitar, make some coffee in the micro pot located on the bathroom counter of my room, and start my day or night yet again. I pull out my pad and scribble some poetry of my day and try to find the right chords to accompany my musing.
Then after a couple hours of this relaxing morning, I am ready to start my day...at midnight...on a weeknight...in Telluride, Colorado.
Wandering the streets of nowhere, looking for the answers to come to mind. I'm not sure if it all disintegrated around me or if I let it all fall apart. It was a fast slide. Wondering whether I had enough to retire one moment, then in a whirlwind losing my family, my homes, my business, my life and my mind. The pain, the running, the excuse to dive deeper into the patterns, into the addiction, into the darkness. A prostitute. Or a slave to a whore.
Late fall isn't the best time to be sleeping in your car in the mountains. It's this realization that leads me to point the car in the direction of warmer weather. In this case, due south.
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