February 1

Ruben had told me of some rough cabins in the mountains about a kilometer east of the railroad tracks that we rode next to on Christmas Eve. Ruben struggles with English and I admire his effort. He spent a year in Provo, Utah, in an English course, but he says that Provo has a large Hispanic minority, and he hung out with them in bars and dance halls rather than immersing himself in English. The only time I remember being in Provo was in 1967 when Miko Concha and Joey McHorse and I passed through on our way to San Francisco. Miko and Joey are natives of Taos Pueblo, and the three of us were not well received in Provo. And as long as Hispanics are a minority there they will not be treated well. So Ruben did not learn as much English as he could have.

I went looking for those cabins on my bicycle a few days later, but did not find any roads that looked like they went into the mountains. Then, in further conversation with Ruben, and with Rosie, I learned that I needed to go through the puebla of La Libertad and into a cañon just beyond it. I had thought I had seen a road sign for la Libertad on my first attempt, so a few days ago I tried again. I did not see any such sign, and went much further toward San Luis Potosi than any rational being on a bicycle should. When I next saw Rosie I told her what had happened, and she drew me a map, which did not help much, and told me to ask some one when I got past the railroad tracks.

Rather than ask anyone I took the first paved road to the right on the other side of the tracks. I had been avoiding it because there is a state police installation on it and Ruben had told me to avoid cops. Let me digress a moment. Between Christmas and New Years I rode my bike downtown, and was riding on the wide sidewalk of the Plaza, slowly and carefully, not sure that it was legal, and a cop stopped me. He must have read the terror on my face because the first thing he did was offer me his hand. He was a young man, in his twenties, and very pleasant. He spoke no English, but he let me know that he had seen me with my laptop in the park-divider of Blvd. Velasquez. I tried to tell him that I went there frequently to check my e-mail and that I had ridden here on the bike from Canada. He acted like he understood and shook my hand again before moving on.

That paved road led to La Libertad, which is a small isolated village strung out along the road. Many of the buildings have palm-thatched roofs, and many others have metal roofs that have replaced the thatch. There were small ranchitos, many of them fenced in with vertical sticks tied or wired together, and several households had bright red and yellow flowers blooming on high bushes next to the fences. There were a lot of well-fed lazy dogs who couldn't be bothered to chase me, even though the day was not at all hot. And quite a few women and children but not very many men in the yards and on the road who also took minimal interest in my passage. And there were the required number of tiny stores and cafes. An old woman came out of her house as I was riding by and threw a pan of dishwater to the side of her dooryard. The houses are small and close together; many of them, as are most new houses in Victoria, are built of concrete block. I wondered about their water supply and how they keep from contaminating it, but they evidently have got that figured out, because the people look healthy and content. If I spoke Spanish and had friends there I too could be content to live in La Libertad.

The road continues through the village and suddenly one is in a cañon in the mountains riding beside a crystal clear stream. There is a fragrance that I know from the banks of the Rio Grande near Albuquerque, and I think it comes from a bush but I cannot identify it. Walnut trees as large as ancient cottonwoods grow on the banks of the stream. The Department of Tourism has built a park here, with cabins and picnic sites and playgrounds, all well constructed, and while the place would be more interesting to me if there were no road and no structures, what has been done could have been done worse. The Mountain walls forming the cañon are high and steep, covered with scrub oak. I rode to the end of the pavement, and then five hundred or more meters on a rocky road past mor cabins and picnic sites, until I was stopped where the road fords the river. It is too deep there for my bicycle, But I could see that it continues up the cañon on the other side. The river is shallow and quiet and perfectly clear. There is some litter in it, but not much. I couldn't see any fish.

I will go back before I leave, and take some pictures, and identify the source of that fragrance.

January 1

Had five drinks last night, which is a big drunk these days, and resolved to be indolent today. Didn't keep it. This is the second day free of computer games, one of my least damaging addictions, but still a waste of creative energy. I added another thousand words to Road Tripe, which is the working title of the conversion of this journal into a travelogue. Remember that all memory is creative.

I'm drumming my fingers on the table. Solitude and clean living have their limits. I've been looking at railroad routes (remember, trains are an acceptable use of fossil fuel, except when they introduce new species to habitats that cannot deal with them, like gringos into New Mexico) and there is a train from San Antonio to Deming. That's only fifty miles from Silver City, which is on the edge of the Gila. Silver City is a fairly big town. The Gila might be crowded. I'm going there anyway.

Lots of fireworks last night, all night long, which didn't exactly keep me awake, because I would have had trouble sleeping anyway. I got up at 11:45, intuitively (without my glasses on I never know what time it is in the dark), got dressed and took my tequila bottle out to the street, to see if I could share it with revelers. None were there, and after about fifteen minutes none had come by, so I toasted Erin, my homies, and all that I love, came back to mi habitacion, had another tequila chased by a beer and wrote a little more Road Tripe.

Gil Fronsdal is my guru, but he doesn't know it. He has lectured extensively at the Insight Meditation Center in San Francisco, has been a Buddhist for a long time, and a scholar in the western tradition, and a cook, and a father. Last winter I started listening to some of his lectures that are available on the net. His style reflects his experience. He began by studying comparative religion, became a Zen monk in Japan, then studied and became a practitioner of the Vipassana tradition, that of South East Asia, and now makes his living by lecturing on Buddhism. His style is light, relaxed, humorous and comforting, and the content of his lectures is profound. I can learn a lot from him, and with this time on my hands and a good internet connection, I can learn a little every day.

I do not expect to be transformed into a new person by this practice, nor to experience any kind of epiphany. The goal of Buddhist practice is to let go of the attachments that cause our suffering, and that is a difficult thing to do, and very few, perhaps only the Buddha himself, have been able to fully accomplish it. It has taken me a long time to even accept the legitimacy of such a goal: for all of my life I have worked against the external causes of individual human suffering: oppression and injustice that lead to hunger, for instance, and I have thought that religious attempts to ease such suffering were mere ploys of the ruling class.

To quote Fronsdal on the renunciation of attachments:

Renunciation is often difficult. Grappling with the power of desire,

attachments, and fear may require great personal struggle. But that

struggle yields many benefits. We develop the inner strength to

overcome temptation and compulsion. We don't have to live with the

suffering and contraction that come with clinging. Clinging can be

exhausting; letting go is restful. We may taste the luminous mind of

freedom, which is hidden when clinging is present. And, last but not

least, we are more available to work for the welfare of others.