Going to Utah a few years ago taught me the appeal of the open road. We spent 12 days driving across two states, watching rocks change shape and color. I put Gillian Welch on and settled into a peaceful life free of billboards and stop lights.
I am on the road again now, and what I’m learning this time, with five or six weeks spread across seven states, is that things get even more interesting when you just keep going, eyes and mind open. As the landscape changes, so do its people.
The things we’ve seen on this journey are already working their magic, changing who I am and the person I will become. But what I am coming to understand, after crossing Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado, is that what makes the road sing are the stories shared along the way.
Almost a month ago, John, Herbie, and I skipped town and made a beeline to New Orleans, where we hung out in the French Quarter listening to as much jazz as we could. At times I was, inexplicably, the only person dancing in my chair, a role I am happy to play if I must. Jazz has always done something for me; my running joke back when I was an opera singer was that singing jazz had to be better, because smoky bars and cocktails are encouraged.
A few days later, we found tacos and a fancy pool in Austin, where, as you might imagine, it was hot. Next we continued on towards Far West Texas, where we stopped in every small town we could to fill our shoes with dust. Far West Texas, it turns out, is more than just a place. It is—there’s no other way to say this—a way of life. Marfa was our destination, and, notably, the place where fellow travelers started sharing tales from the road.
We could feel it: We were really in the West now. East Coast speed and schedules were firmly in our rear view, and we welcomed that feeling.
One thing about Marfa is that if you’re there, you really mean it. It is, as my hair stylist back home noted, very out of the way. You have to take on the expansive state highways of West Texas to get there, so you aren’t likely to stumble through on your way to somewhere else. Maybe that’s why Marfa was the place where road trippers we met started spinning stories and doling out advice, whether we asked for it or not.
That region’s famous Big Sky might serve as a kind of invitation, or perhaps our not-yet-jaded millennial enthusiasm makes us magnets for anyone hoping to impart some wisdom. Either way, the stories we heard in Marfa stuck. After arriving in Santa Fe we found ourselves actually living by the wisdom we’d earned on the road. Do not skip the spiral staircase, an English teacher in Marfa had begged. When we were in Santa Fe two years ago, we skipped it, but this time, we did not.
If Marfa gave us travelers’ tales, then Santa Fe gave us friends. New friends, left and right. One at the shoe shop, two at the local distillery. One selling blankets and another who happened to know a friend of mine back east. Everywhere we went, stories were shared.
It usually goes like this. Someone offers me a greeting and I respond. They might ask, are you local?, and I say no, we’re driving across the country. They ask where we’re from and where we’re headed, and I offer a little piece of my story, just a sliver. Then they give a bit of theirs in return. This back and forth continues till we find ourselves weaving threads of our lives together to make a full-blown conversation. Connection sparks in reciprocal motion as we share ideas and light up when synergies are revealed. Before I know it, someone has given me new ideas about how to live.
When I told one native Santa Fean how the colors, textures, and geology of Utah led me to quit my job and overhaul my life a few years ago, she threw both arms in the air and cheered loudly, “Thank you, universe! Thank you for converting another person to our cause!”
“Yes, for saving my life,” I nodded.
New Mexicans offer me their stories with generous ears and spirits to match. They hand over contact info and ask me to write—for advice or “just to say hi.” One woman in Santa Fe taught me a song of the land that I can feel in my bones and asked me to carry it on. Another told me anecdotes about the magic of that city in the ‘70s—Georgia O’Keeffe, Joni Mitchell, and Bob Dylan kicking around town.
Everyone in Taos tells me how they ended up in Taos. Many began by setting out on road trips just like mine. I tell them my family is hoping to spend more time out West, and we’re taking our time to figure out where.
“When you are in the right place, you will know,” three different locals have said.
One spontaneous evening out with strangers in Santa Fe, I shared a few hopes and dreams. It was that kind of night. In response one offered, “I think you are meant to do exactly that. I hope you do it soon—if it makes your heart expand.”
That is the point of all this, it seems. The reason to seek out big skies and mystery lights. Small towns and sand dunes. It is the point of tipping our faces up every night, drawing lines from star to star—faraway miracles we can’t even see back home, but some part of us seems to remember from lifetimes before.
The people and places we’re giving our time all offer something in return. There’s a reason I’ve parked myself in the mountains of Taos for a while, and something that keeps me going back to visit a woman selling jewelry at the West Rim Trail.
It’s simple. With every step, with every conversation, my heart expands.
Between you and me—
Greetings from Taos! I hope this finds you happy and well despite the various forms of unrest in the news.
I am back from my annual break with approximately one million fragments of writing scattered across my notebooks and apps. This is how it always goes. My job is is to coax as many of them into something worth reading as I can.
Marfa is only an hour or two from the Mexican border, and while I was there, I read Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera. It was stunning. I passed it to John immediately, and now I’m passing it on to you. Herrera can squeeze entire worlds into one sentence, which creates a brief yet timeless and deeply compelling story of a migrant crossing the Rio Grande. 10/10 would recommend.
Till next week, many blessings, and take care.
WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE is written by Lauren Maxwell. If you enjoy this newsletter, please consider supporting it by becoming a sponsor. You can also click the heart, share online, or forward to a friend. It all helps!