Mulling the distances

I was sitting out in the vanagon the other day, weighing options on a rickety scale of vague memories, emerging plans and well-nurtured dreams. The air was thick with a full=moon humid impending thunderstorm tension-entwined promise of restless thought. I sat trying to gather thoughts envisioning it being a bit like trying to capture wildflowers in the middle of a field within an all-out gale, everything being tossed within a wondrously chaotic dance, the vision of their sway presenting me with a mulled-wine complexity of texture and scent and aroma and sharp bite of spice-ridden sense of the distances I've travelled before and will travel again. Time to make a move. Time to take Elaine up on her invitation to define some core elements of the van's existence. Elaine would drive Duchess out into the desert and set up her space for the night. I've gone to that place where she used to park. I've looked for signs of her presence. I've sat and taken in the peaceful calm of desert monotone nothingness, but so extremely different from emptiness, with millions of hints of everything that was alive around me, wondering what she had been thinking on those nights alone. The cupboards has been filled with spices. She had been a wonderful cook. The cupboards are all empty now expect for some mouse shit. The van is emptiness embodied, like an empty womb, inviting.