March or April 1992

My vastness of nothing

I am 21, it is March or April 1992 and I have taken a greyhound bus from Key West, Florida to Sante Fe, New Mexico.

I have vague recall of the journey there, with memory of the oil fields of Texas and being stunned at the size of them, seeming as if small cities lit up in the night.

Rigs dotting the landscape as if a herd of metal beasts of burden.

Coming upon the vast expanse of Albuquerque in the evening.

A city in a sparkling bowl.

Arriving to the hostel in Sante Fe and getting a private room.

I had not had complete privacy since the start of November, which is when I embarked out of my home town legal to drink and looking to escape a New England winter for the first time in my life

The hostel in Sante Fe was adobe style and civilized and much nicer than other places I had been staying in the past five months.

I was exhausted upon arrival.

I slept straight through for perhaps two days.

Not even waking to eat, or smoke.

I woke perhaps the second day and the quiet of the room and the stark whiteness of the walls, it took me a few minutes to realize where I was, who I was.

I felt lost and launched and lonely.

I have felt this way most all of my life: lost, launched, lonely.