The 40 days 40 nights thing was my nod to Moses, Jesus, the flood, and all of the other religious references that equate the number 40 with a type of cleansing or awakening. Personally, I hadn’t given it any significance other than it feels like a long time to be out on the road.
But day 40 turned out to pretty special – almost magical.
I began my day with some pastries and coffee at a local shop in Santa Fe. There wasn’t anything particularly special about that – in fact, it was a little awkward as the manager berated the two other employees for not listening or following instructions.
After breakfast, I mapped out my drive and hit the road towards Sedona. I decided I’d stop at a Starbucks about half way (I had gift cards), refuel, and then make an impromptu visit to the Petrified Forest National Park.
As I got on my way, I decided to listen to a podcast – I hadn’t listened for over 40 days. One of the ones I usually listen to “Insights at the Edge” had recently conducted an interview with the poet Andrea Gibson. As luck would have it, I bought Gibson’s latest book the day before at the bookstore in Santa Fe. There, the cashier (a local poet whose book I had purchased earlier in the week) gushed about Gibson’s book. The interview was fantastic and reaffirmed a lot of what I’ve been trying to learn and practice in terms of giving up control, finding joy, and loving everything. The interview closed with Gibson reading one of the poems I had just finished reading the night before “Acceptance Speech After Setting the World Record in Goosebumps.” The poem is about recognizing joy and awe and wonder… and it was a perfect fit for my travels across the New Mexico landscape. I felt inspired by the whole thing and tried to dictate into my notes app my own poem about the things that excite and wow me, the things that give me tears of joy and goosebumps – which, I’m finding, is an increasing number of things.
When the podcast ended, I listened to music, and everything seemed to fit. The scenery felt choreographed and my eyes were wide the entire way. I was making progress. I had crossed the continental divide. I was suddenly aware that I was one state away from California. I saw trains longer than I had ever seen before… and the colors were stunning. At times, I felt like a child. This was some of the magic I had been looking for.
What I thought would be a quick drive through the national park turned into a multi-hour event. I stopped at almost every sight. Colorful rock formations, the petrified trees, the petroglyphs from ancient civilizations, the grooves, the curves, the bands of reds and ocher and sandy white and basalt black.
At one of the stops, I started down a hill on a short hike. As I was about to turn a corner, I recognized an old high school friend coming up the hill turning the same corner. We recognized each other with a sort of “holy shit” astonishment and laughed and hugged. She happens to be road-tripping around the country and, like me, decided to detour to the same national park.
We ended up visiting a few more sights in the park. She and her guy friend are traveling in a camper van. They gave me the tour and we had a beer together in the parking lot.
After the park, I began the drive west and south towards Sedona. On highway 40 I caught an amazing sunset over the desert.
By the time I saw the sunset, I was convinced that I couldn’t have had a better 40th day on the road. The chance encounter felt like a stars aligning type of moment. But all of that was the smiling and cheerful retrospective part of it. The truth is, day 40 felt special in a transformative way. Listening to Gibson share their perspective, while also reflecting on the growth I’ve felt over the past few years, and cruising across the desert… it felt like something switched inside or had been released. I thought about all of the stupid shit that has gotten in the way of joy or fulfillment or otherwise good relationships – and the stupid stuff shrank as my heart and soul felt full. So few things seemed to matter much. It was a truly “in the moment” experience.
When I wrote that other 40 days post, I was sort of joking about finding a spiritual awakening. I was poking fun at the notion and significance of 40 days…. And then I had a day like today.