Por Carretera

Knowing more doesn’t necessarily equate to feeling more control, more groundedness in that knowledge. Knowing more can be quite unnerving – you are more aware of the myriad ways things can go wrong so quickly and in awe at the small needle hole that has to exist for things to go right. The question for me is always how do you stay optimistic, maintain a beginner’s mind in the face of that knowledge of the inevitable entropy of all things?

At the Nogales border it’s every runaway thought for itself, stories spun from news stories about the rising drug-related violence in Mexico, the mass graves, the bus raids, the extortions and kidnappings, the passing through a narco-war torn country. At the Aduana I pray to the Virgin de Guadelupe to keep us safe and show us the right path.

Out there is only the expanse of the desert, all brush and the heavy curtain of heat and blue sky. Everything opens into it, movement slows, things wither, toughen, create another skin – the Palo Verde blooms yellow flowers, the cacti stand eternal, and everything braces for high noon. We race across the uneven two-land road headed south to Hermosillo, the capital of the State of Sonora, our gateway into the rest of Mexico.

Discovery: El Claro, Los Chinos, El Oasis. My nerves relax into the landscape, evaporate like water from the land. Out here it’s a balance between movement and rest, openness and closure, destination and seeking.

The jagged desert rocks are painted with names “Chito y Juana” billboards for past and current loves, until the sun’s fading.

Our truck feels like a canon and our bodies the canon balls bring hurled through this terrain. Today we put our feet in the door, tomorrow we enter completely, a drive of 12 hours and the next day ten more. It doesn’t get any easier from here. We just find peace with one passing kilometer after the other.