bells

This morning at about 5am I heard bells in the distance. At first a steady stream, and silence. Then they picked up again in staccato bursts, long and short, as if someone were communicating in morse code. It went on for several minutes then stopped. I sunk deeper into my sleeping bag to try to forget about it.

A favorite book of mine ends with a man under an overpass in the final moments of his life. Before taking his last breath he sees three figures far away in a field, in white robes. They appear to be struggling against the wind, trying to make their way toward him. But in reality they are only pieces of fabric clinging to a fence, stuck there permanently to blow around and deteriorate in the elements.

Loneliness is a bitter thing, palpable enough at times that it coats the back of my throat. It creeps up, overwhelms and incapacitates. For me it tends, for whatever reason, to occur in the more tourist-focused towns such as this one, where the soul of a place has been or is in danger of being taken over by commerce. (To illustrate my point I am, at this moment, sitting in a coffee shop where a young man has just started playing a rendition of George Michael's "Careless Whisper" on his clarinet - badly - with pre-recorded, canned background music.)

Somehow, when I'm in small towns, where I'm the only guera, this isn't as much of a problem. My strangeness is so obvious that I'm forced not to take myself so damned seriously. People are easier to reach even though, or in part because no one speaks English... so for me there is nothing to hide behind. I have to come out of myself and kick the shyness in the ass. For sheer survival's sake.

Pulling out of it is not easy. Coffee helps. So does writing. Facebook usually makes it worse. The only thing that cures it is an interruption. An unexpected conversation. A jarring experience that forces the realization that in fact things could be much much worse. Packing up, moving on, thereby inviting in new experiences that help wipe out the soreness. It always comes back though, in time.

So why am I not still in the Mojave Desert, or in New Jersey, or Austin, or any of the other places I've left behind, surrounded by friends? My theory is that the only way to get at the source of such feelings is to confront them. To be as open and honest about them as possible. To acknowledge their presence rather than try to bury them…and in my case, to go looking for answers. I'm well aware that in theory at least, those answers are inside us. But I'm seeking something else outside. A reflection maybe.

It's the conversations that save me.

There have been moments, even while riding, when I've pondered out loud inside my helmet (yes, I talk to myself) what in god's name I think I'm doing. You know…why did I not save the money from that big art sale? Pay off some debt? Put down a payment on a deteriorated shack on a chunk of land in the desert?

Then I meet someone or see something that serves as a reminder. Someone who's interest in me and my project equals my own fascination with them, their country, culture, taste in music, goals, desires, belief systems. I discover the common ground I share with potentially everyone…both despite and because of our different experiences. And the loneliness goes away for a while.