I drove across the desert on highway 5, in the September heat, windows rolled up, air on high. Driving in a quiet car, I was captain of my ship, sailing at 90, watching for the highway patrol. Put my hand on the glass to feel the heat outside, settled back with cruise control, played the soundtrack from "Mi Vida Loca" and watched the fields go by. 4:30, 5:30, Los Angeles 295 miles, Los Angeles 205 miles, Los Angeles 199 miles. Highway 119, next exit, Pumpkin Center Drive. 7:30 p.m, nighttime settled in, the skies faded white, orange, pink, lavender, black and my eyes adjusted to the darkness. The air conditioning felt cold and I turned it off, rolled down the windows. Still there was the heat, now weighed down with pressure and humidity. Turned the air back on.

No more traffic, headlights, cities, just me, the car, the road, the moment for epiphany, but nothing. My mind, not full of on-the-roadian insight was still number crunching. 199 miles, rounded to 180 miles at 90 mph means I’ll be home in two hours, it’s 7:30, so I won’t be home until 9:30, but I can’t drive 90 on the Grapevine, so make that 9:45, and so on.

The sky was black when I sailed past Pumpkin Center Drive, and then it was not. Driving, even with the best of intentions, slowly turns your mind inward, sharpness disappears. But when the big beautiful open sky which your eye can follow for miles to the horizon, suddenly turns from darkness to light, in an awe inspiring flash of lightening, your mind wakes up, and it doesn’t take its own sweet time.

I was awake then and in awe, and even in love I would say, because I think that’s the way nature makes love, it just sweeps you off your feet in what in an other species would be a gaudy display, no subtlety here, no sir. I just drove, and watched the beauty around me. Great flash lightning glowed, faded, glowed again, each time the world appeared for a moment and was gone again. Then one bolt from heaven to earth. I felt a thrill, a fear, I spoke to God and said "Please don’t hurt me, please let the sun come back tomorrow, please let my crops grow, please keep my family safe". And my mind never paused to say "hey, I have no crops, no family, no worries about the sun", I just drove and prayed and felt the primitive mind inside me running wild. I thought of my cats running under the bed and I drove.

All of this took place on the right side of the theater. And then a light drew my attention to the left. Urban girl that I am, I thought of the lights of oil refineries or orange sodium street lights. And then the awe from the lightning seemed less for a moment, replaced by a new awe set in motion by the moon. A great Orange moon, the radio tells me was not actually a harvest moon, but out there in the desert it was the harvest moon, clear and Orange and beautiful. I am sure if Linus had been with me I would have believed for sure that the Great Pumpkin had indeed finally risen above the fields and sailed across the sky for me.

But as soon as my consciousness adjusted to the sight, two jet black lines of thunder clouds cut off the top and bottom of my orange siren, moon goddess. And the circle was turned into a square, and slowly, but as surely as could be, the great shutter of the sky closed until there was only one barely perceptible wisp of orange light, and then nothing.

The word of the night was reverence. And I don’t need to be told twice. I turned off cruise control, turned off the radio, turned off the air conditioner, took my foot off that damned accelerator, rolled down the windows. My heart was filled with the magnitude of the world, a greatness I knew I might only have for an instant, but I wanted to hold on.

I looked out through the windshield at that black road ahead of me, at the night sky, at the flashes of lightning, put my hand out to feel tiny raindrops. I thought about Carlos Castaneda and I almost expected for a moment that some crazy spirit animal, a smiling Coyote, maybe psychedelic pink, with a paisley print, would come loping across the freeway, not even noticing the speed of the car and not even caring that he was flying not walking, and just have a chat with me, maybe tell me a few secrets of the universe. He did whisper then, "go over there, look at that exit "Lost Hills", you could go over there and not come home, what the hell is in Los Angeles that you want so bad". And the tears I was really not interested in having just rolled down my face. And I just kept driving and the lightning moved behind me and then out of sight and Coyote went back to playing tricks with native peoples and I came to the "2 lanes closed ahead" flashing greetings to the Los Angeles, and it was time to come home.

September 7, 1998 

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