blister

Travelogue #6: Turning 26 in Albuquerque

The orange sunbeam got me right in the eye somewhere around five forty-five. Through the window, orange was over all. Good morning, dust. Good morning, desert.

The observation car was crowded with Mennonites. Bowl cuts and quasi-Germanic chatter. Downstairs in the cafe car, an old man bargained for a free cup of hot water. The slim-waisted Amtrak attendant behind the counter microwaved an egg and cheese bagel for my breakfast. I read Hurricane Season when I could read. We crossed state lines, Arizona to New Mexico.

The prior evening, our train had cruised past two figures by a black pickup truck. The pair were stark against the dry gold summer evening. They had to be young. One of them sat on the flatbed, elbows resting on knees. The other stood on the ground, spine to truck metal, arms crossed in front. Their heads were pointed at each other, at the center of whatever existed between them.

The land was as wide as wingspan, sprawling and heaving. Here and there, signs of life. Roadside taco stand. Junkyard of busted cars. Gem-green golf course. Trailer park. Gargantuan pylons roped one civilization into the next. Nothing wild where the train tracks had been laid.

Albuquerque was hot, as I had been warned. I wore a little dress which rendered the skin outside of it vulnerable. Pema’s friends Mau and Nora reminded me of Pema. Their home was aspirational. They showed me around the sunbaked town and fed me before I was hungry. I liked the art museum best.

We encountered some of Mau and Nora’s friends around town. They were quite nice and seemed like creative types. I was invariably surprised to find everyone in a committed relationship.

On Sunday, my hosts had Father’s Day plans in Santa Fe. I maneuvered my way out of an invitation via the coincidence of my birthday on the first Father’s Day after my father’s passing. It so happened that Nora had lost her dad in early childhood. She showed me the ofrenda she had devoted to him in their kitchen. I didn’t see Nora on Sunday, and I saw Mau only briefly as he passed me a spare key. I set out on my own.

The neighborhood had appeared exclusively flat from the prior day’s passenger seat, but a walking pace unfurled its topography, its texture. The turquoise and the terracotta, the scant, dappled shade. The adobe, knickknacks in dry yards, the bundles of chiles hanging from the rafters. My grandmother had always been drawn to the Southwest. I wondered what she dreamed about to survive another Wisconsin winter.

Upon reaching Nob Hill’s main drag, I nested in a hippie coffee shop to record my annual birthday journal entry: x # of things about myself at x age. I wrote a numbered list, 26 items long. How long I might live, how many more lists I might write, each one extending further down the page. Though the tradition might wither somewhere along the way.

I rebooked my way home, exchanging another overnight train for a flight amid railway delays. I made a Partiful for a last-minute birthday party. I bought a couple crystals and went.

I retrieved my things from Mau and Nora’s earlier than necessary. I left a note on the pillow and dropped the spare key in the mail slot. My sunscreen stained the shoulder strap of my overstuffed tote as I reentered the unrelenting bright. I began ambling along the same route as before, then diverted my way into a miracle park. What manner of water had gone to waste keeping this thing green. I sat at a picnic table and read more of Hurricane Season. In the book, children kept becoming their parents, and everything was sticky like blood from a cut you hope will dry on its own.

I looked up from the book and saw twigs and flowers arranged in a delicate circle on the earth. I understood that this was a fairy circle. I did not cross it, but I crept up to its border. I stood in the shaded place between two surfaced roots of a towering tree, and my ankles felt multiple degrees cooler than the rest of me. I exited the park once it made sense to leave.

Freckles gathered on my shoulders under the honest sun. I caught a glance of my pale skin in a storefront window, unearthly fluorescent. The twisting feeling that I am not, actually, who I understand myself to be.

I ducked into the Two Fools Tavern. A beer (and a beer) and a burger. The beer was $4.50. I mentioned this detail to Noah, who texted me a birthday message from London. Another pub in this series of pubs, another craving for the familiar. Something to placate, to soothe the rash, though I swear the irritation is imaginary. I feel my heel with my fingertips to find a blister.

The sun still high and brasher yet upon stepping outside after midday beer. I stomped my way to the so-called “UFO house” and wasted Polaroids taking lackluster pictures of a sheet-gray, bulbous tower. I trampled ungracefully through somebody’s neighborhood. I got birthday cake-flavored ice cream before the Uber to the airport.

The airport was small, the flight short, and I read more of Hurricane Season while waiting. Gracie picked me up at Burbank not long after the sun had finally retired. We arrived at Walt’s under a navy sky. About an hour later, some other friends joined us. We played pinball, sipped more beer; Keiva gifted me homemade limoncello. I used my final Polaroid to document my friends smiling by the neon bar sign. They wanted me to get in the photo, too, but I preferred taking it.

After the place closed down, my friends sang “happy birthday” to me on the sidewalk while the bouncer went trigger-happy on a bubble gun. There is video evidence of this.

I went to sleep full of orange.