Lluvia en la Carretera, Part Two
Rain on the Highway, Part Two
Hello, I hope this letter finds you well. Please consider the following links to help you along with your experience. Lluvia en la Carretera, Part Two is the second half of a two part series. Part one, of which, can be found here. Should you like to listen as you read, the soundtrack for this story may be found here. The choice is yours. Additionally, the audiobook version, made in collaboration with Mickey McLeod, is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. That settled and without further ado,
Disfruta / Enjoy
Daniel Thomas Williams @danielthomaswilliams
In cyclic vibrations over the days to come, I am guided by unweaving threads of a dancer’s dress, from the tip of the point, into the waves, through the sleepy town of La Punta, and back along the quiet streets to my room. All the while brought to more points of disinterest turned iridescent in the afternoon light. The heat of the afternoon envelops me, granting the rare gift of internal silence. The running commentary finally drops out and my mind is engaged in repose.
Steadily, a bleeding heart romance develops with the concealed lessons. Looking through the portals, when I am afforded the luxury, an obscured view teases secrets of the universe, though without a clear reveal. I strain my eyes in an effort to focus through the fog. Taken to water, not yet able to drink.
“Adelante,” it whispers, “el proximo. Te lo prometo.” (The next one. I promise.)
Unconsciously releasing my survival grip on the physical, the possible, I slip into a space between existence. With no one watching, I am neither here nor there, in private conversation with Schroedinger’s cat, not quite fluent but functional. I see the poles, intertwined concepts left meaningless without contrast, no longer opposite but complementary. No possession without loss and likewise the other way around. Feeling weight return to my feet, I find focus on a still set of swings. I decide that, with the right set of eyes, no point is without a view and no view without a point. Perception, I conclude, plays only part of a sum and requires acceptance to equate to a whole.
Under the deep blue light of midnight, I walk the humble strip of La Punta as aimlessly as the street dogs. Slipping into a dream-like state, Espadin lingers smokey in my cheeks, my nose brushed with the aroma of the floral Oaxacan earth. Divided between moods, I pause at an entrance to the vacant beach to look up at the stars. Immediately I am struck by the sight of the full moon and a vision within it. My balance is challenged and swept from me. I am left seated in the sand.
Hovering over the ink black water of the ocean, a smile of inexplicable yet unmistakable recognition, a woman of celestial beauty. Despite my efforts, I am quite unable to determine if she is projected on the moon or is herself the moon. A lucid vision of porcelain and gold, she casts luminous beams that bend off the crashing waves below. The hair on my neck stands on end. My skin becomes the air around it.
Speaking only in Spanish, she casually plays with the hem of her starlight embroidered dress, pulling it back and forth across her thighs. Following the many twists and turns of our delightful exchange, she takes the lead and alludes to her posición in the thought experiments of men.
“Claro yo existo. No necesito los ojos de otros,” she declared with certainty and a wink. (Of course I exist. I do not need the eyes of others.”)
I tell her I understand, within the scope of my experience and empathy, however I do not need to clarify the incomplete truth of such a statement. The more complicated of her various abstractions, unfortunately, lost in translation.
I eventually return home, a magnet in pendulum, awaking the next morning to the scent of stale agave. On my bedside table, I find an ornately carved barro negro jar polished smooth as glass, the name Pandora delicately incorporated into the design.
That afternoon, leaving Punta Cometa and stopping in Mazunte for pan de platano and stovetop espresso, the sky remains fair but suggests the situation is tenuous. Past Puerto Escondido to the north, the ocean breeze climbs the sun baked mountains, the clouds collect above.
Under a thinly veiled sky, at the turnoff to Zipolite, resigned to inherent risk, I roll on the throttle and point the wheel back towards Zicatela. The motor cries out in anticipation. Despite the none too subtle vapor of gasoline, I can taste the air as it breaks down all around me and I am left caught in between. Not yet halfway to the destination, the clouds finally let go and release their troubles upon me. The surrounding sky is split by lightning. The thunder overshadows the howl of the engine only in unpredictable moments of caution. On the motorbike, on the highway, I am with the sky. When the rain pours down, washing away my doubts, I am with the rain.
Taking ineffective refuge beneath the bough of a roadside tree, I can see my options are limited - to hide from or run to the rain. I know it won't stop. I know that neither will I. In the white washed light of the storm, bright though it is, I see her, the woman of the moon. In her eyes I see us together, lying there in the wet grass. My heart breaks living a life only in visions, I mount the moto, I am with the rain.
“Adelante,” I remind myself. “El proximo. Te lo prometo.”
Back in Zicatela on the other side of the storm, with the moto parked in the garage, I pause and allow relief to run its course. In the early hours of tomorrow, I will set out for home through stations and checkpoints, reflections kind and cruel, to an autumn in its infancy. As I sit ruminating in a plastic patio chair, not quite ready to leave nor compelled to stay, I mentally prepare myself for the long road ahead.
A warm breeze carries the scent of roasted corn over coals. The unmistakable invitation of well tended embers seeds itself as association and I peacefully anticipate the nostalgia it will yield. Across the street, an unfinished cinder block home sits quite indifferent to my unwavering gaze. A void, a portal in the bricks peers back at me and I am once more drawn in by a sub-audible rhythm. I see that one does not build a window, only the support around it. One may only leave the space for it to be.
Soundtrack on Spotify. Audiobook on Spotify and Apple Podcasts