departure gates

Diner lights through the evening fog, Brattleboro, Vermont

Raven calling in the snow, Reykjavík, Iceland

Desert Center, Ca

Sunset in Cathedral Valley, Capitol Reef, Utah

Raven calling in the snow, Reykjavík, Iceland

Don’t believe OPEN signs. Or fantasies of social mobility.

When winter comes and the boiler breaks, the motel makes good on the old adage that sleep is the best medication. Now time moves slowly, the sheets stay on the bed and nightly transgressions become monthly detentions. Pay the rent or you’re out in the cold. 

Still, there’s a little shelter left to find. Go north, where the season is particularly brutal, and you’ll never fall harder for feeble walls and floorboard heaters. Three minutes of hot water in the shower. Cable is always a bonus when the air is full of snow. 

At most latitudes, you’re better to stay away. The flowerpots fill with cigarettes, office managers cultivate their interrogation skills, and you get turned down without a credit card or a month’s worth of cash. The modern marriage is safer for the death of the four season motel. 

Still that neon flicker, that dubious beacon. After all the affairs, after the mea culpas and the second chances, you always feel safer when escape is three feet from the bed. 

But the road is a little longer. A little lonelier now. 

Then, suddenly, it’s downright terrifying past the last sign.