mber saying something like “Holy shit, I’m sleepy.” It was the soma—a muscle relaxant for my relentless chronic back pain. Before I left I knew I was going to have to arm myself properly for this trip and once you get into a serious drug binge the tendency is to push it as far as you can. I had a bottle of soma, a few dozen skelaxin (a non-drowsy muscle relaxant), a handful of Tylenol 3s, 10 percocets, 5 vicadin, bottles of Tylenol, advil, and aleve, attivan for anxiety infused evenings, fiorcet for pounding headaches, and finally a bottle of ambien, and I knew I would get into that rotten stuff real soon. There is nothing in the world more depraved than a man in the depths of an ambien binge. As the sun began to rise over the cacti
the effect of the soma began to wane. It felt as if with each rising moment the sun were soaking up the intoxicant, evaporating it from my blood stream. I took the necessary pictures, and after much struggle in relocating the road, returned to my vehicle hoping to make it to civilization by nightfall. The South by Southwest music and film festival had already begun, and my longtime friend Dan was awaiting my arrival with a bracelet in hand. I checked the map, and began the drive eastward from Big Bend National Park.Once the terrain morphed from desert to green rolling hills, I determined it would be important for me to take time to relish in the new landscape and reflect on what had transpired thus far before realigning with humanity. I had heard about an enchanted rock two hours from the Austin city limits called “Enchanted Rock”. It was essentially a blown up version of my sparsely haired scalp, a beautiful smooth round surface jetting up from small pockets of short growth. I reached its peak just as the sun was setting. On the summit, silhouetted against the sparkling sunset, I noticed a woman in a deep mediation who had covered herself in a blue shall that looked to my Jewish eye much like a tallit. I mistook her for a member of my tribe of chosen people, which somehow gave me the audacity to interrupt her
meditation and ask her if I could photograph her. Although very caught off guard by the disruption, she agreed. I kept a distance, however, as I reprimanded myself for destroying what appeared to be a moment of deep bliss for her just for the sake of my photo album. In order to alleviate my shame I knew an apology was in order. When she began her descent from the rock I introduced myself and asked, “Do you come here often?”Lame I know, but you have to start somewhere. I apologized to her profusely for my crude interruption. As soon as she opened her mouth I could tell that this was no ordinary woman. She held something unique. There was an aura and energy to her I had never encountered in a person. She said it was quite a drive for her to get here and that she couldn’t come all that often, but today
“I got the message,” She said.
I had to consult myself to understand this comment. ‘She got the message, what message, perhaps she works for the national park or something and just finished her shift? Or maybe she was meeting a friend.’ I responded,
“Oh Someone called you and invited you, so you’re here with someone?
“No. I’m here alone,” she replied.
Given her introverted demeanor I deduced that she was referring to an intuitive message. At first this made me think she lived in the clouds, but understood quickly that anything anyone does should, in a sense, be guided and ultimately determined, by an inner message. This desire I had to get in a van and drive off actually came from an inner message. With only a few words, this woman had already begun to enlighten me. We talked further and I told her that witnessing someone appearing so in touch and blissful, as she was in her meditation, was an important image for my neurotic self. She responded with many guiding words. What stuck out most was her teaching that referenced our meeting saying that everyone vibrates with certain energy and that there is a natural inclination for the universe to bend in order to allow similar complimentary and positive energies to attract each other. At the time I was skeptical of her words, but I have since reflected on what had transpired on this trip. I’ll start at the beginning…
Before I departed for this journey, through dream work and sessions with my psycho-spiritual counselor, I had recently encountered my anima, the female within, the soul of the male according to Carl Jung. This wonderful discovery had given rise to new inner voices, which has lead to quite the inner friction. I was amidst what can only be described as a sort of lesbian stage, very attracted to women and with a general hatred for all that is overwhelmingly
masculine. Upon hearing of this inner feminine, my longtime friend Mikki Pugh, who I visited on my first stop in North Carolina, took it upon herself to make me a mix CD of women’s empowerment songs to aid me in my quest of self-discovery. With the disc in hand, and then in factory installed Honda CD player, I made my voyage west over the foot prints of the likes of Daniel Boone, Kit Carson, and Buffalo Bill. They trav
eled by horse back, hunted ga
me, and fought the Indians and I road by soccer mom van, ate pharmaceuticals, consumed organic crushed peanut butter, and fought inner non-physical demons while being enchanted by my inner intangible woman simultaneously listening to, and belting out lyrics like, “Maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats”, “Better that I break the window, than him or her or me”, and “I’ll bathe you in the crystal light that sleeps between my thighs.”Two days and 1500 miles later I wandered off the highway and found myself in Taos, New Mexico. When riding the interstates and routes the goal of a concrete solid destination that exists on a map, which one can point to, and tell people that one is headed to, will prevent one from an existential crisis or numb one to any significant emotional eruptions. However, once the target location has been acquired and the car is put in park, the state of the mind can deteriorate quite rapidly. This was my first experience in a new city all by my lonesome and I was clueless as to what one does when one is all alone in a little city when it’s about to get dark, it’s cold, there is no money for a room, and no cash budgeted for anything other than gas and food. At that point dark questions begin to emerge such as: What the hell am I doing here? What did I expect a lonely trip like this to amount to? How could I sleep in a van with no heat in a ski town? Why didn’t I think of that? Why didn’t I plan? This whole thing was nothing but a bullshit romantic idea that would amount to nothing but lonely misery, wasn’t it? Then there is the existential crises and the self hatred and then…
‘oh, look there is a cool looking coffee shop.’
‘So what, you don’t drink coffee. Caffeine for you is on par with snorting lines of uppers, and as such is reserved only for partying.’
Oh shut up, I’m going in.’
I sat at alone at the bar and ordered a decaf and sipped at it.
‘Oh, brilliant solution Nay, what is going to happen here, how will this help?’
I tried unsuccessfully to drown out the internal chatter in a book while the voice was yelling at me to get back in the car and seek warmer pastures in Santa Fe.
‘But what the hell would I do there?’ it then said.
As this relentless blabber continued a woman sat down next to me. Somehow we naturally began to speak and I could sense very quickly that she was a sweet soul who was also on the brink of an internal meltdown. It turns out at the precise moment that I was freaking out in my van, she was panic stricken by the emptiness of her motel room across the street. We both came to this coffee shop at about the same time, sat in about the same spot, because we both were having about the same feelings coursing through our over active minds. I’m not a math guy but I wonder what the odds are on this one. We listened intently to one another’s stories and offered each other a listening ear, and words of encouragement and support. She was a recovering alcoholic and on a solo vacation from her home in Houston for a weekend to try and get over bad break-up. At coffee shop close, we parted. Both of our struggling selves walked in with a similar depleted energy, and through shared experience and communication, exited with a feeling of deep unity and support. It was the perfect goodbye.
Perhaps if these had been the only bizarre coincidences or attractions I could have dismissed the words of Dev, the enlightened woman I had met on the rock. But there were many more. In a bar in Ashville, North Carolina, on the one night that I spent there I happened to sit next to a successful music producer. He lived in an isolated
studio in the mountains of Tennessee and emerged once every two years to civilization for a night or two when he felt his creative juices were depleted. The man had a vastly developed inner female and had years of life experience and growth that he drew upon making him an instant teacher for me. We bought each other rounds a few hours deep into the am’s and before parting remarked on what a blessing it had been that we had encountered one another. The words he needed to unload after a couple years of near isolation were the precise ones that I needed to hear. I met a stage designer in the public baths in Hot Springs (where everyone wears bathing suits) who was a knowledgeable nutritionist that offered me a free consultation for my complaints of back pain and general fatigue and even gave his phone number for a follow up. I was lost and low on fuel in the desolate Gila Mountains, a range with the vastest uninhabited space in the lower 48 states, when I happened u
pon an elk hunter who carried with him a detailed map. Perhaps my favorite occurrence took place when I was starving and alone in the New Mexico desert when a husband and wife drove up and offered me a sandwich. There were many more such occasions that in retrospect, and often at the time of occurrence, were accidents of such extreme chance that it has become difficult to refute them as mere happenstance. Therefore I’m afraid I must get a bit serious for a moment in this final paragraph of trip-summation…My encounter with cancer shattered my faith in myself as a being, body, and persona capable of self-sufficient survival, and in the world at large as one that has any order or meaning at all. The source of this internal message that prompted me to collect clothes, drugs, and food, and start driving can be traced to an inner and outward need that I had to confront and restore this lost faith. The freak incidents, ups, and downs of this trip, as well as the helping words of Dev have brought me to a new awareness. Whether I say I believe in a higher power is unimportant. What matters is only that I recognize that the majority of the forces that make up this world are beyond my control and the only way to be happy (happiness – to let happen) is to possess the courage to surrender to those forces with the faith that while what lurks beyond the corner is unknown, its presence exists to bring us a step closer to meaning and enlightenment, to bring the wisdom of the unconscious, to the conscious. And for all you kids out there – while copious amounts of pharmaceuticals and drugs are pleasant, enjoyable, and make all around fabulous road trip companions, as Dr. Gonzo showed us and I can attest, they will not lead to the American dream. A dream is internal and therefore the pursuit of a dream is first and foremost an inward journey.
