Room In The Inn

Guymon, OK PanHandle

Last night the cold came; the kind of cold that makes you put your sweater on head, and tie your scarf around your chin like your jaw would drop off without it. The cold can of bear spray bites into my side. At fifty dollars a can I can't throw it away. Even with no bears here to spice the post office won't consent to mailing it to base. Wish that I could eat it.
For a few hours I have been sleeping in a field past where the new Walmart is still in the concreate and rebar stage. A lone coyote comes up to my tent crying. I open my flaps to converse it away. It won't go. The slight breeze is enough to take the air from my lungs. My tent is organized, still there is no room for a lonely coyote that shudders in the cold. Are coyotes sometimes ousted from the pack I wonder. I alter my words that are brushing the youngster away into a reserved welcome. I can get closer to the can of bear repellant and a frozen pack frame. The coyote just wants an ear I suspect, a hole to hide in. In a minute it is over by the dry creek bed singing its painful woes to a night that makes all of creation wish they had mastered fire. Trying to reclaim sleep I pull the fleece sweater hard against my head until the acking song mixes in equal measure with the wind moving me to sleep. Even being wild, sometimes we are still just too alone.

Before I pick up more supplies at the p.o. I find a market to fill my cart so full that some of my winter gear has to ride shootgun in the great outdoors. Crow Dog remain at about sixty pounds no matter how much I plan. My last store was in Woodward. Next fill? I buy most things that can take freeze and thaw without flipping my insides once ingested. Base Camp Betty has sent a shared gift from herself and my mother--a digital camera for the book. I send my hard body 35mm north and stare at the fancy little gizmo that will take some serious study. It can sleep next to the pepper spray in my extra hat.
Crow Dog is fat with more clothing, treats, and a bit of fear of the storm that is bringing inches of ice and single digits. This time I hope the coyote comes in and keeps me warm. I'll get pictures...I hope.

It is an odd science watching people strain for kindness as the holidays get closer. Don't misunderstand. I love it. In Mickey D's a few separate men place dollars on my table as I work a hot drink. Outside Dollar General a man that only speaks spanish takes my hand and fills it with warm quarters. He is old and kind, holding my hand in his two. My guts acke to talk to him, to know what puts his hand in mine. All of my prejudice is broken into hay for bedding. His eyes earnestly search for mine and sparkle in a holy shine I have rarely seen. Yes, there is a fresh energy of heart in the air--but the truth is that there is a larger hand that has been filling mine for thousands of miles.
Lights are brighter, my cheeks have a fresh bite, songs about peaceful blessings come over my little radio into the cold vapor of my breath as I wait on sleep or fingers to thaw so that I can continue to write....what has changed in the end is me, because I can only be lifted by so many kind gestures before a yearning is born in me to lift others, to give of my bounty.

I do not know how close I will get to Sante Fe NM by the New Year. Maybe new coyotes will sing with my flute in some canyon with no name. It no longer matters. I am blessed to be walking this America, living this dream, carring all those countless kind faces I have met in my wandering thoughts that take me back to Schyler VA, Jonesborough TN, Lancaster PA, Saint Francisville LA, and a thousand other towns where people promised the'd pray for me, then did. I wake more than a little anxious to meet the strangers that are still before me with voices and a uniqueness I could never know without my path crossing theirs.. Thank you all for opening your lives to me. You are the America a little boy wanted to grow up and find. Happy New Year to you all.