The Roadrunner story

wherein our protagonist grapples with allowing her cold dead heart to crack open a tiny bit.

When does a story begin? Arguably, the choosing of an arbitrary point in time to launch any narrative inherently ignores so much iceberg under the surface of the sea.  

Because we humans are nothing if not energetically Titanic (clumsily but confidently barreling forward, half asleep and willfully ignorant of stumbling blocks), allow me to randomly start this story on a Sunday morning in Austin Texas, where I’m running down my favorite lesser known Barton Creek Greenbelt trail.

I spend a lot of time on the Greenbelt. I’m fortunate that I can run out my front door and be on the trail in under ten minutes. We bought in Austin in the 90’s- what can I say. I don’t take that stroke of luck-plus-privilege for granted. We’re here in the 04, doing our damndest to keep our neighbors property taxes reasonable by not being able to afford to landscape or repaint. 

During the pandemic, when (for reasons yet to be reckoned with) government officials thought it would be wise to close down access to all outdoor spaces, including the greenbelt- I had a daily practice of sneaking through the barricades and running for hours, seeing no one, channeling my inner Katniss Everdeen and training for the impending collapse. On the greenbelt over the years my running partners have included coyotes, coral snakes, armadillo, rattlers, woodpecker- I’ve run alongside assorted owls, red shouldered hawks, so many cardinals… but until that Sunday I’d never seen a roadrunner.

There’s something about a roadrunner that will stop you in your tracks. They’re big for a bird, and they really do run for quite awhile in lieu of taking flight, which is quirky and entertaining. They appear to have somehow pulled off the delicate balance of brashness and subtlety matched only by true artisans of drag; their neon eyeshadow taunting, while the black and white of the rest of their plumage belies a more serious demeanor. 

So it’s a Sunday in August- in Texas mind you, so although it’s the coolest hour of the morning it’s still probably 82 degrees with 78 percent humidity. Swampy. I have the greenbelt to myself. And I spotted my first greenbelt roadrunner. 

I stopped, watched it for a bit, and carried on. For some reason this all felt quite auspicious and meaningful, as the next day I was to get in my car and drive myself out to Terlingua, a tiny town in far west Texas, for my first artist in residence experience. I was nervous- would they like me? Do I deserve to be there? As my friend Elizabeth said, I very much had night-before-summer-camp energy. 

Things felt wobbly and new. My psyche was alert to wayfinding cairns. 

So I adopted my roadrunner on the greenbelt as a message. From what or whom I’ll refrain from defining, as that’s still a work in progress over here. But the message (from whom or whatever) felt like it was saying “Go! You’re on the right path. Keep going!”

Moving on.

The next day, I drive to Terlingua and establish residency, at least for the 7 days I'd be there.  I moved myself in, arranging my sweet little desert studio. I met my fellow artists-also-in-residence at a lovely welcome dinner provided by our hosts.  Though they seemed to in general not be repulsed by my mere existence, i returned to my room and began my familiar post-socializing angst-spiral, this time tinged with spicy notes of “I am not an artist”, “What am I doing here”, and “Oh man this bed is the most comfortable bed I’ve ever cried myself to sleep in”.  This is normal, yes? Yes. 

(the above photo was snapped mid-residency by fellow artist in residence JP.)

These days I wake myself up in time to spend twenty minutes or so with my morning pages, my daily conversation with the aforementioned undefined entity or energy. I like to sit with my pages, when possible, prior to squeezing in a run before the Texas sun transitions from uncomfortable to existentially dangerous, which happens in Terlingua at around 8am. 

On my first morning in Terlingua, waking before dawn and settling outside with my headlamp, journal, a billion trillion stars and one particularly numinous ocotillo plant, I asked the pages what the F I was doing at a swank artists residency when I didn’t really feel particularly capable, creative or artistic. 

I wrote about how I’d traveled to Terlingua with a game plan- to design a collection based on mycology and its potential to inform the next phase of the psychic journey of the cowboy- Homework! Prepare a collection for our ten year anniversary show! I was Planning On Being Very Productive. I Had Shit To Do. 

I wrote about how the moment I stepped out of my car, however, I knew the well feeding the creative flow I’d planned to tap was as dry out here as the desert that I was rapidly being metabolized by . There is perhaps no ecosystem less conducive to a mushroom (save the psychedelic kind snuck in surreptitiously) than Terlingua’s. My carefully constructed Week Of Extremely Pragmatic Productivity was out the window, and I was lost for what was to replace it.

Funny thing about morning pages- when you’ve been able to truly quiet the bossy self-editor part that tries to construct Meaningful Well Written Prose by irrigating your stream of consciousness, you genuinely can be quite surprised by what lands on the page. I often use Elizabeth Gilbert’s journaling prompt, “What will you have me know?” and just let it rip. And lo and behold, answers often do manage to show up. I sometimes can’t actually read what they are, because the handwriting of my non-editing part is genuinely horrendous, but I can usually eek out some meaning to the scribble. 

That morning in the dark in the desert I wrote about looking for a cairn- a wayfinding sign. I wrote that I was calling in a specific sign (kind of cocky, when I think back on it). I was calling in a roadrunner. I didn’t know why, precisely, or what it was about the roadrunner I was calling in. But in getting so granular, I was practically begging (insert higher power moniker here) to let me down, so that I could return to a nice, comfortable, nihilistic sense of alienation and purposelessness. So artsy! 

I wrapped up my journal, and went for a pre-dawn run.

Later that morning after the sun beat me back to the relative safety of my covered porch, still sitting in the overwhelm of a week of residency and no clue what to work on- guess who decided to make an appearance about ten feet from where I sat staring into the abyss? And who lingered, near the aforementioned numinous ocotillo, allowing me to snap its portrait only after I'd taken several long slow breaths, trying to integrate this unfamiliar but welcome heart-shattering wonder that had crept into my body. 

Because this story has already gone on far too long for one newsletter, I’ll wrap things up with some brevity to say that: after this moment, I was visited by a roadrunner each of the first five days of my trip. On the fifth day, certain that my roadrunner era had to come to a close soon, and noticing I’d become kind of dependent on these sightings in a more superstitious and less serendipitous kind of way, I decided to do a bit of an internal ceremony where I “released the roadrunner” and stepped into whatever lay on the other side of my daily visitations. 

I hiked up into the Chisos, had a moment with a tarantula who seemed to be trying to grab my attention, sat at the furthest point on the Lost Mine trail overlooking the East Rim and Casa Grande- and said goodbye to my curious roadrunner era. 

What happened next was…. well it was something. 

The moment after I energetically acknowledged that I could abide a day without a sacred visitation, a lone roadrunner perched itself about 20 feet from where I sat, and commenced some sort of dance and call that I don’t claim to know what all it was about, but what I do know is that after about ten minutes of this, him dancing and calling, me staring and weeping a bit, he swooped down into the canyon we were both perched on the rim of. 

Ah what a sweet send off, I thought to myself. Thank you, friend.

And then, hilariously, as if to flip the bird (pun intended) to my stoic send off, not only did my roadrunner friend imminently return, climbing back up the rock I was sitting on being all wistful and serious- but she brought five of her friends along, just to point and laugh. And punctuate the trickster energy being served with relish.

That was, in fact, the last day I saw a roadrunner in Terlingua.

The following day I had two friends in Austin, who had been aware of my west texas avian situation, send me photos of roadrunners they’d spotted in the city. The residency was past the halfway mark, and I realized it was time to begin the glacial process of turning my internal trajectory back towards home. Girding my energetic loins for re-entry, and remembering what I love about this town I’ve grown to call home. 

Keep your eyes peeled for cairns, friends. Or roadrunners!