Away We Go: Rojo Amarillo

We crest the hill - or what passes for one in West Texas - and two thousand pinpricks of red light blink in utter synchrony.

We are seven hours in on a twelve hour drive and the road has become a thing I see even when my eyes are closed. This apparition is one I don't accept as reality for a full five-count. But my body recognizes it before my brain and my skin prickles. As it often does in the presence of unexpected magic.

It takes an entire turn of my head to see all the lights. I whisper-count the space between blinks; one-two-three, flash, exhale and then color pierces the dusk all at once again. The curtain of red straddles the road only missing a narrow band of black that shows the way through.

This is not a place you'd expect to catch your breath. More like hold it as you pass through. Cows and their leavings outnumber humans and all available fresh molecules of air. It's a town well named because amarillo, yellow, succinctly describes the color of the haze and the tinge of the dirt. It's a place to notice anything taller than a prairie dog. On a clear day the gentle curve of the earth sits on your periphery wherever you're proceeding about your business. 

But as we hurtle towards home this evening, the symphony of windmill lights is quite a surprise. In practical terms they delineate the point below which planes should not descend. They also show just how high we're willing to build something here. The turning blades - each longer than the tractor trailer that lurched past me a minute ago - temporarily darken the red beacon and in doing create a glitter, a sparkle, a secondary flicker.

We occupy a space of primary color here. The red of the lights, the yellow of the town, and the blue of the winter storm doing its best to catch up with us. There's a portentous bite to this wind whirling the thousands of turbines. 

We are pointing home for the first time on six weeks, the longest we've ever been gone. I remember the smell of an unused house after week-long vacations and wonder if it multiplies as time passes or reaches a level of stale stasis. I have been thinking of little else than the future - who we will see, what four walls will be like,  whether we will have appreciably changed. It is only now on this hill that I realize the things I have missed by living ahead. 

This piece of unintentional, windmill-based performance art will stick with me all the way home. It is a reminder to keep looking even when change is right around the corner. Or down the interstate. 

This story based on an experience in Amarillo, Texas.