A Left Turn at Albuquerque

Santa Fe, NM to Amarillo, TX

At 7:30AM I wake from a deep, deep sleep to the shrill ring of a dated AT&T phone and jump out of bed. Today I’m intent on making it across New Mexico to Amarillo, TX to drop in on the cool people at The 806 before they close, and I’d like to visit Santa Fe taking the Route 66 Loop. I’ve heard from several folks that the central plaza in downtown Santa Fe is beautiful and gives the curious tourist a taste of the Spanish colonial influence that permeates the southwest. One of the things I’ve noticed about Route 66 is that it’s a patchwork of different segments stitched together over the years; I’ve found ten mile stretches that proclaim things like “Historic Route 66 pre-1937” indicating just how chancy it must have been for those depression-era migrants to work their way across the country. Imagine driving down however you envision Main Street, Anytown USA for about four hundred miles and dusty two lane gravel roads for the other two thousand. Chancy.

Paul the motel owner told me the night before to join everyone for a complimentary continental breakfast so I shower and get my bags put together, pack up Cherry and head to the office expecting some fruit and coffee and cereal. Upon finding an empty lounge with tea and Wonder bread toast and cheerios I brew a cup of Jasmine and hit the road. As I start my drive today I feel surprisingly organic, by which I mean symbiotic with the environment. I’ve gotten comfortable in the car, having developed a sense of her smoothest cruising speed. I’m not ready to coast all the way home yet, not ready to claim she won’t need any more care and attention, but for the time being the maintenance issues are in a lull. Of course maintenance never ends. Edna St. Vincent Millay reminds us, “Life is not one damn thing after another; it's the same damn thing over and over.” I suppose I prefer the idea that I’m not as helpless as to regard life as a series of “damn things” but instead regard them simply as things continually arising and in need of attention, demanding my energy and my awareness but not necessarily out to piss me off. They’re not goddamn Harleys, they’re merely Harleys. Although sometimes I’m convinced Cherry shorts the headlights or snaps the speedometer cable or bellows blue exhaust because she loves the drama and all the attention and she enjoys watching smoke pour out of frustrated ears.

So do I. Tossing various damn things out there to see what happens. I like getting a rise out of people as much as the next guy and more often than I might care to admit I find myself pitching offensive remarks or divisive comments to see who takes sides, who plays along, who cringes at the thought that anyone could actually hold such an outrageous idea in their head. Now, I don’t conduct my life like some Andy Kaufman-esque practical joke where the rest of the universe isn’t let in on the gag. Yet there’s a remarkably freeing insight that was only brought to my attention of after years of struggling to live some kind of “right thinking” life and weed out all the crazy, evil, hateful, wrong thoughts from my mental structure. One insightful teacher/therapist explained to me that we all have crazy, evil, hateful, wrong thoughts that take roost in our heads. The come from everywhere: from movies, our parents, our friends, our dreams, all over. And it comes out in these wickedly inappropriate injections into consciousness. We find ourselves in the middle of church and catching sight of a pretty girl, before we can catch and destroy it we’ve floated the thought, “Boy I’d like to fuck that.” It’s crude and crass and we don’t talk about it ever under any circumstances. Instead we experience it indirectly through the shock and titillation of taboo art and private porn. Indulge but don’t acknowledge. Fight iiiit…c’mon, fight iiiit. But, this person went on to explain, it’s the very design of the mind that surfaces such ideas. We fantasize, we free associate, we think dirty, biological, reproductive thoughts. That helped keep the species going for about a hundred thousand years. Now we can police behavior, we can police speech if we want, but there ain’t no way to assign a traffic cop to inside the head. Thoughts are just out there, kicking around, not doing any real harm until we feel the urge to suppress and repress them (one of Freud’s big insights regardless of his scientism was his recognition that tension between how one imagines the mind to work and how it actually does induces neurotic frustration) or we helplessly act out as a result of these thoughts. It takes a strong sense of self and identity and a little insight into the human condition not to feel threatened at the prospect of some person (or some god) judging an individual to be flawed in light of the bizarre mental imagery we all conjure. Me and you and all of us. Midget amputee farm-animal sodomy—there, now you’re thinking about it too.

The freeway leaving Albuquerque for Santa Fe starts off dull and gray like any other freeway leaving any other town, but as the clouds lift in the late morning air (actually as they settle above the ground) a breathtaking vista of mesa tops gently resting on billowing white cushions emerges, sending a chill down my spine. Once again I’m awestruck by the sheer magnitude of the landscape and the juxtaposition of such picturesque natural splendor with the nondescript asphalt roadway carving its way across the elevation. Traffic is light as I move north and feel I’m making good time, even as I play leapfrog with a little white Ford Focus that insists on passing me only to merge back in front of me and slow back down every three or four miles. I’d kind of like to plow her off the road next time she comes along side me.

That such a crazy, evil, hateful, wrong feeling like that might inhabit a well-adjusted psyche and cause no damage but could be experienced with interest and merely observed seemed bizarre when I first considered it. More than that, it seemed crazy, evil, hateful, and wrong—of course bad thoughts must be bad for you. Then as it sank in it became liberating. I don’t know about you but my Catholic guilt wasn’t something I left at the bar when I celebrated my 21st birthday. The guilt of coveting that guy’s wife and hating those enemies and getting angry at the slightest inconvenience (which when compounded by Catholic guilt made me all the more angry) induced more than my share of existential stress and recurring depression. It didn’t take long to appreciate my teacher’s insight: that’s just how we work. Ideas go into our heads from the environment all around us. They get planted by advertisers and religions and social interaction and television. Much to my initial disappointment they don’t come with a Delete-X on the top right hand side. They sit there and can be accessed or eventually forgotten (if the thought is “where I put my keys,” immediately forgotten) or retrieved, colored with reminiscence, cherished as emotional snapshots. They arise in combination and conjunction without our conscious control. It’s unjustifiably egotistical to believe that my thoughts are something I manipulate and control like the arrangement of books and papers and folders on my desk. I can control my behavior, regulate my attention, notice where my interest turns, but that some thought or feeling or belief planted years ago might bubble into my conscious awareness in an undesirable setting and induce some kind of self-worth conflict is…well, it’s fine if it works for you. It doesn’t work for me.

At first this notion—that ideas flow in and out of awareness, that they might be accepted as they are, and that we cannot control their origins or unwelcome appearance—might seem an excuse to commit crazy, evil, hateful, and wrong acts. "Hey, I can't help myself but to burn this cross on your lawn, I had racism installed when I was but a wee lad!" "Sorry about kicking in your teeth there, but hey, God hates fags and so do I." Upon further reflection it becomes apparent that instead of excusing brutality it does just the opposite—it allows for the recognition that we all have convictions and values, loves and hates, likes and dislikes implanted in us and we don't all go around like Bonnie and Clyde packing heat (unless we're in Texas of course) and shooting at cops. Those of us who do are labeled deviants or criminals and we have enormous, expensive institutions to deal with them. For the rest of us we may not be living in harmony but we manage to keep the overt brutality to a dull roar. I don't need to be a victim, or for that matter a perpetrator, of my own beliefs.

The recognition that anyone is capable of acting on crazy, evil, hateful, and wrong ideas if they are willing to accept the consequences may scare those people who cling to belief (which was probably installed at some point by their parents or the media or a skirmish with the schoolyard bully) that they can control the behavior others and this control will make their world safe. But bear in mind, like it or not, if I'm willing to pay with my life for a belief that I hold dear, whether it's torturing terrorists or terrorizing tourists or sniping abortionists, then no amount of your should-ing or ought-ing or damning will change my behavior. It’s called “the ultimate price” for a reason—it’s as expensive as it gets. For me to actually kill someone like this, of course, would require an indescribable lack of empathy, and I would more than deserve whatever punishment I receive. But, nothing personal, if I’ve calculated that I’m willing to pay that ultimate price, you ain’t stopping me. You’re just going to have to charge me in full.

So I don’t really know how to block a though, turn it off, or delete it. I do know how to box it, maintaining the distinction between “merely a thought” and my deeper sense of self where appropriate, and I've learned how to replace thoughts I don’t want to have with thoughts I do. Practice, mediation, classical conditioning, lots of different things work. The trick is to accept that thoughts are just thoughts, ideas are just ideas, and we are no more identically equal to our thoughts and our ideas than we are our clothes or our hair color. We have thoughts and ideas, but not in the sense that we possess them nor that they necessarily originate from within us; rather they flow in and out of the mind from and back into the cultural and social milieu. Let’s play a game: consider what it would take to let this idea inhabit your mind. “The extermination of Native Americans would be good for this country.” My first reaction is that this I find this remark repugnant and offensive. My next thought is that I will not use my first reaction to restrict my capacity to merely consider the meaning and examine the thought. How might I even get my head around such an offensive statement?

It’s easy for me to get attached to my own ideas and emotions; to identify with my thoughts and believe I am my feelings. As I’ve claimed before that’s not good or bad, right or wrong; being bound to that attachment is merely limiting, that’s all. Playing this game takes effort. It’s like soccer, the world’s favorite sport. The rules of soccer specify that you don’t intentionally use your hands unless you’re the goalie. Now if you give some kids a soccer ball and let them loose on the field they may start kicking the ball, catching it, and running around with it in their hands. It’s not that they’ve violated the moral foundations of the universe but simply that they aren’t playing soccer by the rules. That’s their prerogative. They can do whatever they want before game time. Now when they decide to take it seriously enough to step on the field and go against another team the rules matter. Catch the ball in your hands and you’ve violated no moral or ethical principles but you’re gonna earn yourself a yellow card. Run around and chuck the ball at the other players’ heads and you’re not playing soccer anymore; that’s a game called dodge ball. Learning the rules and following them takes a little work and a personally relevant objective, like the desire to win a trophy, bond with your teammates, and get a little fresh air.

What if you don’t care about the trophy, don’t like your teammates, and don’t need the exercise? My advice is that you put your attention somewhere other than on soccer. Ever play dodge ball?

Back to the game of considering reprehensible remarks. If the point of the game is not to agree nor disagree, what might the point be? Could be to understand the remark. Again, “The extermination of Native Americans would be good for this country.” I can ask myself: In what way would this be good for the country? Is the speaker disclosing his or her anti-Native American bias? Is this intended to be an ironic remark or a provocative interjection to get a rise from me? Is this a claim that the political extermination of the Native American people underway as we speak? Might this be a way of rallying support for pro-Native American causes? I can ask the speaker such questions aloud. I can observe my own emotional state and ask myself what it is about the remark that offends me: Do I believe that no one should hold racist views ever anywhere anymore? Do I believe that Native Americans are exempt from racism? Does “extermination” connote an insect and stir a sense of dehumanization that I resent? Do I secretly agree with the claim, making me conflicted, shamed, or guilty? Did I once think that myself but choose not to say it? Of course I can call him or her an asshole and walk away. That’s like using my hands and refusing to play by the "understand" rules of soccer. I could take the bait and counter-attack, pick sides, go on the warpath. That’s just like throwing the ball the head and switching from soccer to dodge ball. In other words, I have options. Some options confer upon me the benefit of a deeper and clearer understanding of the remark that offends me at the cost of some time and emotional energy and attention to a person I may find evil (interesting how this remark contaminates the entire hypothetical person, isn’t it). Other options protect me from having to spend any such time or energy on such a person.

I’m not suggesting anyone should or must or will always choose the “soccer” option, only that if you want to play soccer by the rules it helps to know what they are. I spend a lot of my time studying politics, religion, and human sexuality so I encounter plenty of ideas with which I don’t agree. Nor do I necessarily disagree. They are simply thoughts, opinions, feelings, and beliefs and they exist insofar as someone spoke or wrote them. Getting wrapped up in some grand belief system reconciliation agenda and passing my own judgment on each and every idea in the conflicted morass of human thoughts that have made their way into the universe strikes me as an epic waste of my time. In that I’m aware of them they merit my attention; but most don’t merit the additional emotional or intellectual investment of believe or disbelief. I take them for what they are: ideas.

This empathetic game of investigating the interior of another person, particularly a crazy or evil or hateful person, is easier to play wearing a referee’s uniform than it is when donning the colors of the opposing team. Even better to be an indifferent spectator recording the score in the stands for an international newspaper who doesn’t care which side wins—only that the score be accurate to avoid fired. Then it’s easy to respect the action on the field as a game and not a life-or-death contest for ultimate victory. Of course, players can be empathetic toward their opponents; it’s simply not that easy in the heat of battle. “Not that easy” may be an understatement. I’ve have just enough dyed-in-the-wool liberal buddies condemn everyone in every red state as a creationist hillbilly jackhole that I wonder if they’re capable of deep introspection like, “What is it that red state voters value? What do the Republicans offer that attracts our former Kansas base? Can we choose to offer it? How might we expand our platform to appeal to values voters? Are we willing to pay that price to secure those votes? Do we believe we can ‘message’ them into thinking, or really feeling, like we do?” No, that wouldn’t do. I get it. It can be horribly tempting to turn a soccer match into a dodge ball tournament.

Like many people I’m comfortable enough with my ethical integrity I don’t feel threatened examining the ideas of someone I deeply and fundamentally disagree with. On the contrary, by exposing myself to ideas precisely because I disagree with them I find my own beliefs clarified and more thoroughly examined; I find my own beliefs subject to informed revision and constructively reoriented in the wake of confrontational scrutiny; I find my own interest in, concern for, and love of other people growing. And since I have an idea of how brainwashing works (hint: find someone who identifies very closely with their feelings and ideas and install your message through repetition—they will internalize the outside message and mistake it for “the for really real me inside of me”) I probably won’t fall for it. That said I may change my mind if I’m offered ideas that I can trade up for. As a nerdy art kid I came to firmly and deeply believe that exercise was for stupid jocks; I’ve since traded up for a belief that better suits me. Let me clarify: I didn’t outgrow my naïve disdain for jocks and my parents never forced sports on me. I didn’t meet a thoughtful jock who exemplified the mind/body balance for me. Rather I got into a vigorous debate with a dietician in my twenties about the proven health benefits of regular exercise. My evidence: skinny rock stars smoke a ton and look great and they’re not dropping off from cancer (overdoses and suicide sure, but not cancer). Finding my skinny smoker’s ass not so skinny after struggling to quit smoking I found myself, nearly kicking and screaming, ready to do anything to lose weight—including taking up smoking again. I decided to give jogging a try. It didn’t kill me—in fact I got hooked. I let a new idea inhabit my mind and I acted responsibly on that idea. I traded up my belief. If research shows there’s a pill I can take to feel just as satisfied, stay as fit, remain as healthy and never, ever run again…I’ll trade up once more. But that would have to be one goddamn persuasive little pill.

By the way, a guaranteed goal-scoring overhead kick I learned from a sociology professor goes something like this: when confronted with outlandish, offensive, or unsubstantiated remarks that smell like opinionated social disclosure, respond curiously and non-confrontationally with “What’s your evidence?” If you can do this without taking the argumentative bait you can learn something (probably how unfounded or distorted the other person’s view of reality happens to be) and walk away without emotional damage. Try it sometime.

As my attention turns back to the road the feel of the Loop resonates with me. It’s feels red. The soil is reddened from the abundant clay deposits harvested to fashion the characteristic adobe houses, shops, and gas stations. I think about how environmental cues and design themes mingle to color an area as I recall my initial Blade Runner impression of Japan and I’m reminded of my first trip through the southwest with Mieko. She was sent to Phoenix for two weeks of new hire orientation late one May and I came for the weekend so we could visit Taliesin West together. I had been busy with work so it wasn’t until she picked me up from Sky Harbor Airport that I got to ask her what she thought of Arizona.

“Goddamn hot, goddamn cactus,” she growls.
“What?!?” I ask, a little disappointed because I’d hoped she would take to the area since I prefer desert climes and was thinking about a move. “You don’t like it here?”
She turns to me and looks me square in the eye, declaring with contempt, “Hot. Cactus.”
“It can’t be that hot.” “Oh no? This afternoon it’s going to be a hundred and five. The Starbucks here all mist their outdoor seating so people don’t die. And here’s a cactus, there’s a cactus,” she points out as we drive. “Everywhere a goddamn cactus.”

Taliesin West did not impress her. We did not move to Phoenix.

I stop twice on the way to Santa Fe to get a few pictures of Cherry alongside abandoned motels, an increasingly common sight now that the abandoned structural remnants of Route 66 have come to my attention and taken roost in my mind. “Dilapidated trashed roadside shanties can be absolutely beautiful” is an idea that I’ve started to let inhabit my mind. Elevation increases as I navigate my way along Cerrillos Road through what appears to be the worst road construction project that has ever been undertaken in the history of humankind. One lane posted thirty miles per hour with left-turning retirees congesting traffic for two light alternations. Good thing I don’t have a rush to be somewhere. Or a machine gun to take care of all these old fuckers. What a crazy, evil, hateful, wrong thought I acknowledge to myself as I immediately let it go. {Goal: Go fast enough not get stuck at every light. Relevance: Meh. Agent: Every other driver—old, young, and in between. Outcome: I'm still getting stuck and I'd like to get to the Plaza now. Alternatives: Cool my jets (but if you tell me that you'll get an earful of social disclosure, buster); find another route; honk honk honk.}

The approach to the central Plaza is just twisting enough to leave me disoriented (and uncomfortable since I usually have an uncanny sense of direction). I catch sight of an outdoor restaurant and patio that looks interesting and hoping to find nearby street parking I circle for ten minutes before admitting defeat and parking at the St. Francis Cathedral parking lot. My winding drive planted the seed of what to expect from the Old Town district. The Plaza at the intersection of Old Pecos Trail, the Santa Fe Trail, and the historic El Camino Real (which one could at one time take to Mexico City) serves as the heart of Santa Fe out from which rings of streets lined with shops, restaurants, galleries, and all things the intrepid visitor could think to enjoy. The central square is overflowing with street vendors hawking lovely turquoise and native jewelry for a fraction of the price inside fancier shops…if you’re willing to bargain and accept the gamble of buying “genuine silver” off the street. I follow my first impulse and spend about twenty minutes just hustling at a brisk pace around the twists and curves of the side streets and alleys surrounding the Plaza on the lookout for anything or anyone particularly interesting. I quickly realize that Old Pecos Trail is the pre-1937 alignment of Route 66. Of course here any Mother Road memorabilia would feel out of place and forced, being dominated instead by the creative bustle of the Plaza; instead a few inconspicuous brown city signs indicate the route’s historic past.

Coming upon the Georgia O’Keeffe museum I gain a much stronger sense of the place. I’m familiar enough with modern art and abstract painting to absolutely adore O’Keeffe’s giant vagina-orchid abstracts, and I’m reminded that she was married to Alfred Stieglitz who helped legitimize photography as art (almost a century before myspace delegitimized digital photographs of bikini-clad margarita-soaked trips to Jamaica as art). The entire place has a folk-art sensibility commingled with public sculpture, kinesthetic mobiles, wind dancers, and high gallery art. I can’t tell if this is mean to cater to the tourists or not, but either way its sense of nature and play holds a deep appeal. A sense of experimentation and adventure and acceptance pervades this place; across the street from the beautiful massive angular worshippers in the window of Gaugy’s Awakening Museum a mural of a fork-tongued devil beckoning onlookers into the tattoo parlor it’s sprawled itself across.

A spiritual aesthetic so deeply infuses the public art I would have to be blind and dumb not to notice. Somehow this intersection of a Native American and Hispanic and Old West cultures overlain with Easter and new age awareness has produced something that to my tourist eyes does not look like a melting pot but coherent and integrated bazaar reflecting the history of and the prospects for the town. The spirit here is warm and welcoming. I mean I went up and bothered half a dozen strangers (shopkeepers or street vendors) for directions, pictures, and advice about what to see. Maybe it was the weather, maybe my mood, maybe my nonrandom sample of people accustomed to tourists; regardless, the gregariousness of each person I spoke to was transparent. Even if they’re disposed to handle tourists gently this isn’t Disney—it’s no fantasy wonderland and if it were so much Seven Dwarves fakery you’d sense it. This is something else. I’m told that the natives consider the land here sacred and there are ancient healing sites in the Santa Fe vicinity where ancient people across the southwest used to pilgrimage to be treated and renewed. With that kind of a heritage it’s not hard to see why this place would develop a spiritually conscious ecology. Just as Kingman, AZ grew from an intersection along a government mandated wagon transport service road (later to become Route 66) and built its economy servicing motorists through like so many Route 66 towns, so it’s easy to imagine how Santa Fe’s pagan pueblos were converted to Catholicism (or killed when they revolted), and how the emergence of a spiritual center might coincide with the city’s revitalization in the wake of being chartered as the state capital with New Mexico’s inclusion into the United States. Politics, history, commerce, spiritual life. What a fantastic place for a few visionary artists and cultural creatives to bring their crazy, evil, hateful, and wrong ideas to test whether they might inhabit the minds of the local population and foster the fruition a mecca for social consciousness.

Around noon my stomach lets out a long and low rumble to remind me I skipped breakfast and it wants to be fed. Realizing that in my scouting excitement I’ve turned around so badly I could never retrace my steps to the outdoor restaurant and patio that caught my interest as I drove in, I notice a hotel patron across the street stroll up to the concierge desk to collect a map on his way inside. I approach the concierge desk with my best “I really do belong here” demeanor and ask if he wouldn’t mind letting me have one of those little maps. I thank him and start for the door, inspecting the map as I do, and turn around mid stride as if I forgot something. My little act makes me feel as if I’ve gotten away with murder getting my hands on a free ad-sponsored hotel tourist map. At the nearest intersection I reorient myself and locate a cool looking place just off the Plaza: The Atomic Grill. I’ve gotta check this out.

The Atomic Grill is a cool eclectic place with a pretty standard menu (which is perfect because I want a salmon omelet since I’m still sore about being deprived of salmon in Flagstaff) and wireless internet. I get online until my order arrives (mostly to make sure I haven’t busted the bank on my debit cards and started racking up fees again) and give the waitress a hard time to keep myself amused. It feels good, quite comfortable to sit still and relax for lunch. The walls go up twenty or so feet leading to cathedral ceilings, and on the wall behind me I notice an unusual collection of black-and-white photorealistic portrait paintings of Jimi Hendrix, Biggie Smalls, and Tupac Shakur. The sign on the beverage refrigerator across from me reads “Employees Only/Please Do Not Help Yourself” in retro neon cursive. Apparently to combat the problem of self service when the wait staff had their backs turned. Studying the walking map I see a few key spots I’d like to visit before I leave: Loretto Chapel, San Miguel Mission, and the capitol building. I know that Amarillo is four or five hours away and I’m determined to make it by 9:00PM so I can shut the place down with Jason and whoever else happens to be around, so I decide it’s best to leave Santa Fe by 4:00PM. Better get cracking.

As I navigate back toward the Plaza I take a few detours and diversions down back alleyways, in and out of covered markets, through a shopping center, and passing through the Plaza once again. It occurs to me that this kind of openness, freedom to explore, unrestricted and ungated access to the central district might have inspired Disney’s theme parks where nooks and crannies offer chance discoveries or secret entrances to unexpected destinations. No strip mall this place, the only things off limits would seem to be back offices and museums with paid admission. Encouraging exploration. How Montessori. Encouraging exploration for a profit. How Disney. I must have Disney on the brain today. Maybe I caught a subliminal glimpse Mickey praying outside St. Francis Cathedral.

The road leading to Loretto Chapel twists past an open air art market sporting all variety of wind decorations, jewelry, pottery, and blankets. The merchandise doesn’t interest me much but the atmosphere is infectious. A nearby bronze art gallery showcases two life size status in flowing garments captured in a wind embrace. They’re beautiful. They remind me of McCoy my artist friend and I wonder how she’s handling her former friends who have taken it upon themselves to morally reprimand her crazy, evil, hateful, wrong behavior (social disclosure, anyone?). She’d love it here I think to myself and make a mental note to ask if she’s ever been. The Chapel itself is hosting a wedding so I’m not able to get inside but instead make myself happy with an outdoor survey, running into a fellow tourist (judging from the camera around her neck) who suggests I check out San Miguel Mission—it’s simply amazing. Instead of waiting out the wedding party I continue down the road to San Miguel and stumble across the oldest house in the U.S. That is the claim at any rate, and it occurs to me that the kids today, they like to make a contest of everything. Loudest band, most idolized American, oldest house. Everything’s a contest with these kids. The oldest house is apparently an inaccurate claim for the adobe pueblo home built in the 1600s on a foundation that probably predates even that by several hundred years. No surprise that the oldest standing house wouldn’t be timber framed. Termites. I’m just curious how they start the clock. I would expect Native American houses made of earth and clay to be standing in the desert and dating back a thousand years or more. Bad intuition maybe, but that’s what I would expect.

Upon entering the chapel I’m immediately overwhelmed by the heavy oak and incense. It’s like somebody bottled Catholicism and spilled it all over the floor. The scent carries me back to the church where I served as altar boy with the format of the chapel immediately familiar: long pews, altar at the front, votive candles along the side wall for dedicating prayers. The historical relics and museum-quality displays are a little unsettling since I’m not sure what the appropriate level of reverence would be. I walk up to the holy water tray and cross myself purely reflexively, looking confused at my own hand having done so, and proceed to photograph the inside of the chapel. It’s elegant and beautiful in its simplicity. The thick oak floors creak as I walk to the front of the chapel and snap photos of the expanse of empty pews. Toward the front an old lady sits, head down and rosary in hand as she mutters something under her breath (she could only be saying Hail Marys) and advances the beads in her hand. I sit down across from the old lady for ten minutes or so, in quiet contemplation and note how a place like this could feel like a return home for a lost soul who has strayed from the flock.

The comfort of the familiar. Predictable sights and smells inducing nostalgic memories installed in a young and developing person. The parish I grew up attending was a medium size Polish church and junior high school in northeast Minneapolis; in the seven or eight years I went to mass regularly I came to believe the marble columns and pipe organ and aging priests had been there for eternity. I figured the priests had been hearing confessions and the nuns cracking knuckles with rulers since, you know, Jesus put them there. The Stations of the Cross that adorn San Miguel’s walls remind me that even in this stark Zen-like space the liturgical season offers its parishioners the annual regularity, consistency, and ceremonial familiarity that so many of us seek from our religious practice. I can’t see spirit but I think I feel something there and if I do some rituals to revere it along with a collection of two hundred of the faithful I must not be all that crazy, evil, hateful, or wrong, right? Same time next year? As a new batch of tourists clatter through the chapel my concentration is broken and I leave feeling contemplatively refreshed but unnerved by the juxtaposition of museum and gift shop over a solemn house of God. Not bothered or offended, just not quite sure what to make of it all. Good for the caretakers of San Miguel to figure out a revenue stream to keep the oldest mission in the area afloat, I finally conclude.

I cross myself out of habit again as I leave and stare at my hand thinking it has a mind of its own. As I step into the noonday sun I habitually cover my eyes expecting the post-mass shock of leaving the enclave to work its back-to-reality magic before I notice that the contrast is slight. It dawns on me that the chapel has high southern windows allowing in daylight unfiltered by ornamental stained glass. Windows set high reduce the need for stained glass to obscure the birds and trees and the world outside the bored soul suffering an extended sermon longs to rejoin. Stained glass glorifies God, sure enough. It also keeps the mind from wandering too far. Across the street and on my way to the capitol building I rediscover the outdoor restaurant and patio I lost in my hurried scouting mission earlier and I’m excited so find it again that I hustle all the way to the front door before I realize I’m not the least bit hungry. I look at the menu just to satisfy my curiosity and realize I kind of sort of wanted to go in because it caught my attention when nothing else was familiar; how it became an exciting place to be I’m not sure. Funny how just a little familiarity is enough to get me all worked up.

I’m told Santa Fe has the oldest capitol building of any state with the House of Governors being constructed in the 1600s. I’m more interested in its replacement: the newest capitol building of any state, the current Roundhouse capitol built in 1966. This is my fifth capitol in the past few weeks and I expect the same marble and dome I’ve seen everywhere else but I soon realize this capitol was built in Santa Fe in 1966. When the spirit of the land meets the peyote of the land you don’t get your daddy’s capitol building. It’s in fact a circular three-level four-wing art gallery sporting grade-school art projects, a massive papier mache buffalo bust, contemporary pueblo multi-panel collages, and more religious art than you can imagine. Call it contextual integration of church and state. Being Friday afternoon in the middle of summer I don’t expect the legislature to be in session and take the opportunity to go poking where I have no business—in the house assembly chamber, in the lieutenant governor’s office, and so on. I’m not looking to break any rules; I’m simply fascinated by the degree to which an aesthetic ethic has been infused into this space. The atmosphere is not formal or stodgy, nor particularly casual and irreverent. The sense of ceremony and history is preserved while all these elements of creativity and play are cogently infused. This ain’t your daddy’s seat of government. It’s creative and inviting.

I spend an hour or so exploring the capital building before I retrace Old Santa Fe Trail and come upon an café just beyond the outdoor restaurant and patio. The temperature is comfortably in the 80s so I take a seat outside with a hand-pressed iced Americano and watch the people parade by. Beautiful people, old and young. Fit, tan, attractive. Body consciousness must surely increase in an environment where nine months of the year people parade around half naked, I hypothesize. Soon sweater weather will descend upon Chicago, and while I don’t mind sweater weather I much much much prefer sweaters-coming-off weather. With all the tourists in Santa Fe I’m not surprised to see conspicuous displays of wealth. Designer everything, from Fendi purses to Dolce running shoes to True Religion jeans. I wonder if the organs in the cathedrals of consumption play “My Humps” continually to inspire devotees to contribute to the cause. I find it hard to be truly critical of consumerist behavior because I don’t believe that consumerism is incompatible with deeper and higher values. To reduce someone (even Paris) to a one-dimensional stick figure because they participate in popular culture feels more like a rhetorical ploy than a legitimate recognition of some correlation between possessions and deeper values. Shallowness may be widespread or it may not: it may be that the examples that support the rhetorical claim stand out in our awareness because we’re looking for them and make us smugly confident in the belief, “Oh, that guy’s a fashion whore. He must therefore not be capable of participating in the human experience like I am.” Attention to surface (as fashion, social demeanor, beauty, impression management) and attention to depth (as values, ideals, experiences, emotional constitution) are perfectly compatible—at least I’ve found no evidence that they are not, and I’ve met more than enough multidimensional and complex people to avoid the temptation of denying others the benefit of the doubt.

Hard though it is for me to be truly critical of consumerism, it’s easy for me to be mocking and cynical and sarcastic about it. That comes very easily indeed. It’s fun, it’s like a game. Of dodge ball.

This day, this spot, this weather, this place is perfect right now. This is a beautiful way to while away in leisure this Friday afternoon in peace and stillness. Yet I know if I don’t get on the road soon I won’t make Amarillo and will be disappointed. Do I relax and indulge here, accepting the consequences of inevitable frustration later? Or do I forego this perfect scene to meet my low priority goal of making my way east? I weight the tradeoffs for a minute or so…but not really. It doesn’t bother me either way and I make off to the parking lot.

As Cherry and I cruise Old Santa Fe Trail toward the Loop we pass the capitol and I see a sign that reads “No Parking Bus Loading Only” that looks like a perfect place to get a shot of Cherry in front of the building. In just a few seconds I attract the attention of a security guard who approaches us (to sweep for bombs I figure) and I get ready to plead my case for just one photo.

“Hi, I’m touring the old Route 66 and I just want one picture of the car, is that okay?”
“Oh, no, that’s cool. Is that a ’65?” he asks with the characteristic New Mexican staccato that straddles Native American and Hispanic speech.
“Close, ’66,” I respond and get a few shots in while I’m talking in case he decides to shoo me.
“Yeah, I got a Chevy SS at home that needs a lot of work,” he tells me. I find out name is Bobby.
“Oh, you’re lucky! Has it been here all its life?”
“Yeah, so it’s been out in the sun. The body is in great shape but the hoses, the gaskets, all the rubber is brittle and basically dust,” he notes. “I’d like to get it in shape like yours.”
“As you know, you have good bones to work on. This car is going up north and if I don’t keep it garaged over the winter season it’ll rust out in a heartbeat,” I tell him.
“Yeah, I should get to work on it,” Bobby says wistfully.
“I hope you do. As one car fan to another, that is,” I say as I make my way back to Cherry. “I should probably move her out of the way.”
“Oh, take your time. And have a safe trip.”
“Good luck with your Chevy,” I offer before I pull out.

I don’t know that cars themselves have spirits in some objectively real sense. I do know that some cars bring out the human spirit in some people sometimes and that’s good enough for me.

Route 66 twists and winds away from the Plaza with a leisure and a pace that is much friendlier and more engaging that it was approaching the Plaza, although the road construction and the sights and the traffic are all the same. It’s hard not to carry some of the feeling of the place with me. Heading toward the Route 66 intersection I’m even more acutely attuned to unusual adobe balconies and claustrophobic store fronts and dense Catholic symbolism. Leaving Santa Fe I reflect on the spirit of the market, or more accurately the market for spirit. Having spent just the afternoon and not a year, not a lifetime I’m reluctant to make extensive claims about the place itself; what I noticed was how the area offered up the artistic and communal spirit without forcing it, without preaching it. More self-selected than imposed, as if to say, “This is our history and our heritage. These symbols and structures and places represent a complex and interwoven past. Internalize what you like, ignore as you choose. This place isn’t for everyone. If you show respect the things you don’t care for, you disclose that you’re a mature and understanding visitor. Thanks for that.” The market here is simply the open exchange of traditions, values, and ideas. Most of us know that when something goes on the market, somebody’s going to advertise. Those ads—whether they’re for products or services or self-identities or religious convictions—capture the attention of market participants: shoppers or seekers or students, whoever.

“Disrupt the attention” may be more accurate, not because the messages are resisted but because they are external. The goal of the message is to make its way inside the head, tussle with other ideas that inhabit the mind of the marketplace shopper, and prompt a new belief, behavior, or attitude. “Buy this watch!” “Eat this ice cream!” “Go to church!” “Love your enemy!” Advertisements in the marketplace of ideas.

This market works on many levels. I came looking for a little Route 66 diversion and stimulus for social commentary, which I found. Some come to spend the week soothing and relaxing and revitalizing and there are plenty of spas and hotels for that. Some come to appreciate the history and legacy of the area and it affords them that, too. Some make it a pilgrimage to experience the spirit of the location and attend every mass in every church in the Plaza. Some come to drop a few grand at the southwest Rodeo Drive equivalent. Some come to make or buy idiosyncratic regional art. Some come for a combination of any or all of these reasons and for reasons that will never occur to me. The market works on these different parallel levels. These levels aren’t obligated to interact but they can; they don’t need to be in conflict, but a shopper can place them in artificial conflict and disparage how the solemn quality of the place is ruined by its continued social existence. Depending on my taste, “I can’t believe they’d cheapen the rich religious history with a gift shop and outdoor bazaar at St. Francis Cathedral!” or “I can’t believe this place was once a Mexican Catholic enclave and yet they haven’t torn down all these religious artifacts! Whatever happened to separation of church and state?!?”

Social disclosure. I do it all the time—tell people how my experience of the world has failed coincide with my expectations of it. I suspect we all do to some degree. Recognition is no refutation. The insight that the world doesn’t feel obligated to obey my expectations hit me quite clearly on one visit to Japan where I persuaded Mieko to visit Nara Park with me. Nara was the capital of Japan in the 700s and features the Todai-Ji, temple that survives from that era and is generally considered the world's largest wooden building (everything's a contest with the kids today). The temple would regularly burn or collapse in an earthquake every few years and the dutiful people of Nara would keep putting it back together, bigger than before. Then they figured out the pattern and rebuilt it smaller and earthquake-resistant. Having studied Japanese history and Buddhism in college I formed an impression of the transmission tradition that had become mythic at Nara: first, I expected the temple to be distant and remote; second, I expected it to be deserted. Like Machu Picchu or some Indiana Jones excavation. These expectations were probably justified five or six hundred years ago, but it comes as no surprised to the more seasoned traveler that the park, the center of social life in a city of maybe a quarter million residents that thrives on historical tourism, would be located three blocks from the downtown rail station and crowded as all Samsara.

I’m not quite sure what I was hoping to find in Nara, but at the time I was struggling to extinguish my ego through fits of forceful contemplation and hostile resistance to all thoughts (thoughts which were crazy, evil, hateful, and wrong because I couldn’t consistently control their arisal through meditation). I’m sure I hoped that my radiant presence would part the skies and attract the attention of the head monk who would immediately accept me as his pupil and with one clever verse shock me into enlightenment—or recognize my existing enlightened state and immediately confer upon me his robe and bowl. Instead I moved through the crowd inconspicuously since Nara hosts plenty of international tourists, unlike Mieko’s neighborhood in Osaka where tall white barbarians stand out in a sea of short Asian persons like…well, like tall white barbarians. Blending in allowed me to observe people around me and remark on their behavior in hushed English. I kept commenting at how crass and mundane everyone was, that these people did not seem to appreciate the full weight and import of the very ground on which they stood but that as an aspiring enlightened being, having read about Nara in books, I indeed did. How could they run and shout and take pictures of the Golden Buddha instead of falling into contemplative meditation? How could they fail to revere this hallowed ground and instead feed crackers to wild deer? How could they not appreciate it like I appreciate it? As I went on lambasting the crowd Mieko looked at me and said quite indifferently, “They’re just tourists like us. What were you expecting?” God bless her careful choice of words, because it was as if she meant to say (with a suitably condescending Yiddish inflection), “You were expecting what, maybe that the universe was all interested in your little existential crisis? So you should all the sudden be the center of attention, is that it? Oy! Get over yourself.” Far more profound than any head monk’s koan might have been.

Back on the freeway I take in the fantastic open sky and cotton-puff clouds. Traffic is light and the landscape is grassy and mountainous with red clay surfacing far less than it did on the way from Albuquerque. Interstate 25 on the Loop back to Interstate 40 features straight stretches of roadway cresting over mountaintops and descending into high valleys that allow me to see five or six miles ahead with perfect clarity. I’ve traveled almost three thousand miles yet I don’t have an immediate sense of just how far that really is. Here the road seems to stretch forever as it vanishes on the horizon and into mountain passes. I’ve been impressed by the scale of the countryside many times but here something new emerges. On my way up a long and shallow grade I notice what appear to be coal-black peaks and initially code them as volcanic formations or barren summits. Gradually they shift and move, and as I make it over the peak to look down and across the mountains I realize the black patches are evergreen covered mountains hidden in shadows cast by the dense clouds above. The boundary of these shadows are so crisp I can see them riding the wind. One sneaks from my right and I’m enveloped in an inky darkness that passes across the roadway and yields once more to the afternoon sun. This dance of midday glare draped by darkness continues through the afternoon. The effect is striking when projected onto such a grand canvas as this.

Along the way to Tucumcari I encounter an intersection directing me to a two-lane alignment of the original route and on a whim decide to take it. Cherry has been running warm but in normal range and I topped off her coolant before I left the Santa Fe parking lot so I’m not worried about roadside emergencies, and at this point in the day I feel a little solitude and mind wandering is in order. We ease off the freeway and onto the historic trail to find sagebrush and grassland as far as I can see. The reddened mesas are only distant outlines now. We go almost an hour without another car, passing dude ranches and abandoned shanties. Civilization has picked up and moved on. Across from a defunct gas station stands what appears to be a convenience store. Getting close I can make out the faded hand painted letters disclosing the ICE COLD BEER and DELICIOUS SNACKS I can find inside. Enticing. I decide to pass.

Just before dusk I take the earliest Tucumcari exit to catch as much of the route as possible, half in search of a place to eat. I’m not hungry but it feels like dinner time. Tucumcari is load with desolate and abandoned roadside attractions, motels, gas stations, and restaurants that have been bypassed by the interstate. I stop half a dozen times to get some fantastic sunset shots and find exactly the place that I’m looking for: Kix on 66 (get it?), promoting itself as “America’s Mainstreet Coffee Shop and Eatery.” Hours of operation: 6AM to 3PM. Oh well, at least I can park Cherry in front and prove I was here. The sundrenched sky is redder and more exquisite than it has a right to be but finding nothing in Tucumcari to hold my interest and keep me from reaching Amarillo so I continue onto the night interstate.

The sunset behind me transforms puffy white clouds to inky black blots in my rearview mirror as darkness takes hold of the landscape. The Big Dipper twinkles and winks at me from across my left shoulder giving me that familiar comfort of remote companionship. The road is quiet and traffic very light. For a while I search for a clear radio station before abandoning news commentary for the rumble of the engine. I don’t really care what happened in the past week; I’m more interested in my immediate experiences on this little journey than on hearing reports about the impending collapse of world civilization. These immediate experiences take precedence over suicide bombers right now. Similarly, spending time at The 806 in the company of new strangers tonight is more important to me than any missed bar hopping or television show or live performance, or whatever else might constitute an appropriate use of a Friday night. I confess that cruising an isolated desert highway all by myself is not my idea of party central. But that very idea: Friday night is party night, that idea is quite arbitrary. Unpack this thought: Why does everyone work for the weekend? Obviously to recover from the work week. Those of us who are young and single (or not-so-young and single) tend make an event out of the evening by congregating in the cathedrals of consumption—alcohol consumption, movie consumption, music consumption, food consumption. Serious entertainment to unload serious stress. Those of us who are settled may enjoy a quiet evening in with loved ones. But why Friday and not, say, Tuesday? I mean why is the weekend the end of the week? If there were no weekend it would be hard to keep holy the Sabbath, of course. The world was created in seven days so Yahweh could rest on the last day and He implores the rest of us to do likewise. Not because the Sabbath is privileged per se, the social scientist in me thinks, but because a liturgical structure to the week allows predictability, consistency, repetition. The comfort of the familiar. What if you did your thing on Tuesday and I do mine on Thursday, and we as a larger society don’t establish (however arbitrarily) the broader “weekend” rhythm to commune? A hundred years ago that would have crippled the spiritual and socioeconomic market. How is today’s Friday night party plan anything but a carryover from the imperative to keep holy the Sabbath?

Here’s something that interests me even more since it’s relevant to my current activity: what would it mean to waste a Friday night? What would constitute a waste of an evening? I mean I have a good idea what a fun Friday night is (believe me), and what a busy Friday night is, and what it’s like to work late Friday night on a major project that’s due Monday morning. I used to run a product development team and we would schedule Monday product releases, frequently pulling weekend shifts. I’ve put in my share of 48 hour marathons where I felt it was terribly expensive to spend Friday night on the job working on a project…but not a waste. More of an investment. Because I was trading leisure time for the chance to do more work, and that work genuinely mattered to me. My head and heart were dedicated to the game. I was committed to my product and my project so neglecting friends and family, canceling dinner dates, missing an anniversary or two (retrospectively: yikes!) came with the territory. My commitment might have come from my clear recognition that I was completely indispensible to the company and that they could never replace me. Not until I told them I'd like to do something else and they said, "Okay good luck" and immediately replaced me. With a more qualified development manager, I might add. It's hard to maintain your perspective when you're the center of your own little universe.

No, the sense of waste never comes from having something important squeeze out something else that is important. That’s a choice, a price, a trade off. For me the sense of waste comes from having something unimportant squeeze out something that matters, or having nothing important at all to do. That’s wasteful. That’s awful. That’s the existential abyss. See, the question of what it means to waste an evening or a weekend or a life is tricky because for a lot of people it never comes up. Imagine a teenage parent (or if you were one, recall) staying home all weekend with a sick child. That person’s priorities are dictated to them, it’s not as if they have the luxury of choice. Imagine being a feudal peasant and on Friday night you boil potato stew like every other night and in the morning you tend the fields like every other morning and on Sunday you go to church and then to market like every other Sunday. It would never occur to you to ask, “Hmm, what should I do with myself this Friday night?” The prince may have had the privilege of choosing between a jousting match and a lute serenade but not the pauper. That’s the kind of question that wealth and leisure prompts; it’s an interesting question not to be diminished because it has stems from wealth and leisure but it deserves to be understood in its context.

For a lot of us the question of what we do with ourselves is exogenous. It comes from the people around us, or from work, or from family, or from habit, or from inertia, at any rate some of us rarely look at it as if there ever were alternatives. Not until we’re forced to. I spent all my life in the company of family and friends over the holidays, decorating the Christmas tree each year with a dose of wry cynicism and detest for the commercialization of the season. I could live without this, I would think. Then I spent my first Christmas alone. Immediately after getting divorced I found myself due to circumstances and poor planning stuck in Chicago, and with most of my classmate friends having left for wherever they call home for the holidays I was basically isolated. Now, I don’t mind being alone most of the time since solitude affords me the chance to write and read and work. But that Christmas eve for the first time ever in my life there was no celebration, no frantic cleaning to ready the house for guests, no debating whether to exchange gifts the night before or the next day. No noise, no drama, no activity. Just peace and quiet. Jarring, unsettling, empty peace and quiet.

It wasn’t so much sad or lonely as it was illuminating. All that time I had taken the ritual for granted. We had always just had Christmas. It was just there. I literally had no conception of “not Christmas” having always seen the season as a dutiful commitment to family. Even when Mieko and I spent holidays in Japan we celebrated Christmas in our own little way with her side of the family. But that year was different. First time I saw through the ritual and the formality and the noise and recognized my participation in that ritual as the choice what it was, as a decision, entirely up to me. It was not required and it was not going to magically intrude upon my life. It was entirely up to me how to spend the holidays.

Entirely up to me. What could I do with myself on this Christmas eve? I could mope. I could go out (on Christmas eve virtually everything is closed even in Chicago, so going out mean walking through snow drifts). I could soothe myself with the narcotic of television. I could let the isolation metastasize into depression. I could hit up friends who hadn’t left town. I could get drunk. I could do some work. I could go to some arbitrary south side Baptist church and take in midnight mass. I could write about this mini-insight and work through what was on my mind. In fact, as I started to think about all the things I could do it seemed like the possibilities were endless. Suddenly not being obligated to do something for someone else out of a sense of duty freed me to make the choice for myself. But then, how to decide? How to proceed? What should I do with myself on this Christmas eve? Or from my angst-ridden perspective, how do I avoid wasting the night?

I wrote. And drank. A lot. Irish coffee and vodka never went down so quickly despite my years of practice disposing of both. That’s when the forces of the universe finally conspired to let me know how I fit in, as they’ve done for so many other people so many times throughout existence.

Universe: So, buddy, your life is in your hands. What you do with it is up to you. Okay then, have a good night...
me: Hey, that’s a lot of pressure. What if I fail? What if things don’t go the way I want them to?
Universe: Yeah, about that. Um, you’re gonna fail. And things won’t go the way you want them to.
me: Wait, what? I got big plans and important things to get done!
Universe: Sure you do. Good for you.
me: Hey! My shit matters. My issues count. I’m the center of this universe. I’m destined for great things.
Universe: Yeah, um…yeah. The center of me is, ironically, seven miles northeast of Mecca. Mecca, Indiana that is. Near miss—but let’s keep that on the QT or we'll screw up their whole pilgrimage industry. About that destiny thing. It’s really more like this: if you get off your ass and do something with yourself you just might get a decent reward.
me: But I deserve it all! The cars and the houses and the women...the perfect life.
Universe: Because you think so? Or because you’ve done something to merit them?
me: Grrr…you’re very smart, you know that?
Universe: Yeah, I kind of know everything. Not to brag, it’s just part of the job.
me: Well this is not exactly the kind of news I was hoping to get for Christmas.
Universe: In that case you probably don't want to hear that your all alone in me and you'll never experience love again?
me: What?!?! Oh God I'm gonna be sick.
Universe: No, no! Just kidding, it's okay. There, there. In the grand scheme of me all this will pass. I really better be going.

“Well, shit,” I said to myself the next afternoon when I read with one squinting eye and a blinding headache the chicken scratch that came out the night before. “If my life is in my own hands I better figure out exactly what I want to do with it, huh?” Easier said than done.

Crossing into Amarillo around 10:00PM I know exactly what I want to do with my life tonight. I want to hang out at The 806, drink a little coffee, have a little snack, review some photos, and chat with some authentic Texans about the great state of Texas. I take the same exit that I took coming west—I can tell from the attention grabbing “Free 72oz Steak!” billboard—and retrace Route 66 as it goes through a number of street names, shifting to and fro before settling on Sixth Street. I feel a little disoriented until I pass familiar landmarks: a tattoo parlor, a used car lot, a late night biker bar. It’s only been a week but it feels like half a lifetime ago as my memory struggles to isolate Amarillo-specific impressions from those of all the other little towns I’ve passed through. What if I can’t find the place? What if I’ve mixed my streets somehow? As tired concern sets in I catch sight of the tacky lanterns adorning the karaoke bar across from The 806 that the owner Jason called my attention to on my last visit and I know I’ve arrived. Relieved, I park Cherry and head inside.

“I hear the kids had a contest and voted this the best place in Amarillo to spend a Friday night,” I jest to Jason as I walk in and see him working the counter.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t trust those kids though. They’re fickle. What’ll it be?” he asks with a grin.
“Coffee, this apple, a little good company. How’s business? You have a band here tonight,” I observe pointing to the main room.
“It's kind of cool, he found us on myspace and called us up,” he says somewhat surprised. “The place he was going to play canceled on him so he came here instead.”
“That’s a lucky break!” I congratulate. “For both of you. It’s just a matter of time before you’re this town’s CBGBs. Let me know when you’re ready to franchise and I’ll put that business degree of mine to use.”
“Franchise…ewww,” he shudders, reminding me of his disdain for the Starbucks and Roasters format. “How about I get this place up and running first, then we can ruin it.”

I take my coffee and mingle with the crowd of not to familiar faces before settling on a spot near the counter where I can observe the action. I ready my camera and review the last few days photos as I snap candid shots of the clientele, the performers, and the students who have decided that spending Friday night here is not to waste the evening. It’s a young crowd, artsy and college age. I overhear a couple of students next to me studying algebra and breaking the ice with some light conversation about religion.

“You have to square this to solve for X. So you’re a Mormon? What church do you go to?” he asks.
“Yeah, my family just moved here so we haven’t picked our parish. I think you take the square root, you don’t square it,” she explains.
“That’s weird. You haven’t been going to church then? Hang on I have a calculator let’s try this,” he says.
After a few minutes I chime in to amuse myself. “You guys are studying algebra. Mind me asking what your majors are?” I ask, resisting the urge to mock a frat boy voice.
“I’m studying English,” she says.
“Engineering,” he follows.
“You’re going to need algebra,” I tell him. “You probably don’t!” I joke to her. “What kind of engineering? Mechanical? Electrical?”
“Don’t know, I just wanna blow shit up!” he asserts, revealing what’s every twenty year old vo-tech student in Texas fantasizes about. When they aren’t fantasizing about banging their study partners, that is.
“Good luck with that,” I chuckle as I let them get back to miscalculating the value of X.

The crowd seems to be into the singer-songwriter crooning country fried folk and I float through the crowd, snapping pictures as inconspicuously as possible (I take long exposure shots without the flash) and step outside to capture the storefront. I’m impressed with the sense of communal space Jason has managed to create. Last time we spoke he had just opened and wasn’t sure if the place would click with the locals. Tonight sweet little backwards-ass Amarillo has twenty or thirty people sharing a Friday night in a buzzing art house lounge, making music and conversation, doing something that matters to them. It may not be everyone’s cup of coffee but for the people who it speaks to, a waste of a Friday night this is certainly not.

Back inside my studious friends have been replaced by a new group of half a dozen college kids arranged on couches and facing a conspicuously drunken interlocutor who seems to be in the midst of disqualifying science as a means of knowledge. This drunken interlocutor is hilarious and animated and cocky in a fun way. I have no idea if he’s riffing for his own amusement or if he’s legitimate. As I return to my seat nearby I eavesdrop on their conversation while holding my tongue.

“…because science says all this shit that goes against the bible. And I believe the word of my Lord! Whooo!” the drunken interlocutor claims.
“You don’t have to believe in science. It probably doesn’t believe in you,” one of the group members quips to snickers and giggles.
“Pro’lly. So what do you guys study anyway?” the drunken interlocutor asks.
“Religious studies,” another group member answers.
“What’s that, like how to get rid of the wrong religions?” the drunken interlocutor baits with a smile on his face.
“No its how religions work. You just study them to understand them better. The point isn’t to believe or not to believe, just to know,” yet another group member explains.
That’s what I’ve been talking about…well, thinking about…all day! I resist saying.
“Why would you do that? Already know there’s one true God what spoke through the infallible word of the bible! Whooo!” the drunken interlocutor presses.
“It helps you understand your own views better,” the first group member explains patiently. “You can see the history of Christianity if you study Judaism, for instance. And you can check out varieties how varieties differ, like between Baptist and Episcopal. Plus there’s no harm in looking at how other people see the world.”
Unless you’re terrified of what you might find. God forbid you consider ideas that might work better for you, I resist saying, with much more effort.
“Sounds like a waste of time to me,” the drunken interlocutor discloses as he swigs his beer, apparently not wasting his own time with this conversation. “At least you don’t buy into all that science bullshit.”
“Well, if you study the bible seriously you can see there isn’t as much conflict between science and the bible as you might expect,” a new member of the group notes.
“World was created in six days and God took a break on the seventh. He created the Sabbath so we could do likewise and glorify Him, so sayeth the Lord!” the drunken interlocutor interjects, clearly playing a Texas variant of dodge ball with his attentive audience.
Or did the Lord sayeth: rest so you can recover from the hangover you earned yourself Friday night, jackass? Bet you’ll have some feelings deep inside about that in the morning, I resist adding, summoning the full force of my own self control. Instead offer up a hearty “And God bless Texas! The Lord saideth something like that” to hooting cheers from drunken interlocutor. As he loses interest I in the religious studies crew I chit chat with them for a while and let the evening wear on.

Before I know it one o’clock arrives and I wish my best to Jason before getting back on the road. “Stop in whenever you’re in town,” he advises and presents me with a full cup to go. “You can count on it. This place feels like a second home,” I note. It didn’t take long for Amarillo to grow on me. And it’s nice to have a resting point, even for a timespace explorer who likes to stay on the move.

Move on I do. I navigate Cherry along Sixth Street into downtown where the bars have closed and the drunks wander like the zombies in search of prey. I catch sight of one of the fifty or so colorful life-sized fiberglass horses that decorate select curbs throughout Amarillo thanks to the American Quarter Horse Association and smile. What a strange little town. I look forward to coming this way again. But right now I’ve got about a hundred miles to go tonight because there’s a treat in store for me on the other side of the panhandle.

Next stop: Is There Anybody In Here?