I loaded my car a little after six, just as the sun was coming up. It was cool for August, almost chilly. I was excited about my journey and had started packing a week ago. It was confusing to plan for a month long trip. Obviously, I couldn’t take everything I’d need, so I tried to concentrate on the essentials – iPod, cell phone, laptop, the myriad of chargers for all those, bags of fruit, pita chips, dog leash, Frisbee and water bowl for Dolly, my Border Collie, camera, journal, books of poetry, tape recorder, sunglasses, and on and on. I liked to think of myself as simple and into Buddhism, not attached to things that weren’t spiritual, but when I looked at my heap of gadgets on the bed, I laughed. If I ever did lead such a life, I would be the most connected monk in the monastery.

By Wednesday night, I felt fairly prepared. I was planning on leaving Saturday morning. It arrived quickly and now here I was about to embark on the trip I’d always said I wanted to take but never had. My friends Charlie and Eloise had a huge house in Sedona at the base of Red Rock Canyon. I had never been out West, so when they offered their place while they were going abroad, I jumped at the chance. Instead of flying, I opted for driving so I could explore along the way. I closed the hatch of the Subaru, which was loaded to the max, and went inside to get my coffee and do one final walk through to make sure I’d gotten everything. Dolly was running around excitedly. She knew this wasn’t a typical day. She probably thought we were going to the lake. She loved to swim.

At six thirty, we were on Belle Isle Bridge crossing the James River, heading toward I-40. The river looked dangerously high. We had had a lot of rain lately, but today, it was clear and beautiful. I felt happy. I petted Dolly on the seat.

“Here we go, Sweetheart,” I said as she licked my hand and wagged her tail. “We’ll stop in a little bit and let you have some Frisbee time. What a good girl you are. You’re my Zen girl.”

I reached over and rolled down the window so she could stick her head out. She loved that. The wind flapped her ears back and made her look like a cartoon bunny, not at all the picture of canine elegance I had come to adore.

I found my favorite Stereolab CD on the iPod and their groovy vibe provided the perfect soundtrack as we left the generic world of Richmond behind us. I had never been able to think of Richmond as my home. It was a dull city, the opposite of progressive. It seemed to run on an odd volition of sameness like a track bound locomotive that never stopped or altered its pace. Any attempt to speed it up was viewed as a threat by people who wanted and depended on their self inflicted comfort zones. That meant extremes were out and safety was in – not exactly the ideal environment for an abstract painter like me.

I had moved to Richmond with Emily when Turner Investments transferred her to head up their global trades division. It was a huge promotion for her and they more than doubled her salary. But it meant long hours at the office and frequent trips to Asia. Eventually, our six-year relationship, which wasn’t a perfect match to begin with, slowly and steadily crumbled around us. I left her last year, but because of obligations to art galleries and my adjunct teaching job at the City College, I had to stay in Richmond another year. So I set myself up in a hip little carriage house in the River District and let Emily keep the cookie cutter house in Meadow Ridge and the Volvo and the grill and all the trappings of suburbia that always made me feel suffocated. Even though we were the only lesbian couple on the cul-de-sac, we felt fairly accepted because we were the picture of upper middle class success, or at least she was.

I liked my place. Just being there in my own space freed me up a lot and made me feel at ease about everything. I was incredibly lucky to find it – it was the artiest section of Richmond and I even had a tiny yard with a privacy fence that shielded me somewhat from all the tourists mulling about River Walk. Still though, I was desperately lonely. I realized I had been lonely for a long time, ever since I’d been involved with Emily, and maybe a long time before that. At times I ached for a connection, but I couldn’t manufacture one, so my lovers remained fixed and heroic within my imagination, just waiting to be released by the presence of someone real. I wasn’t entirely shut off to the possibility of a lover, but I would never again settle for someone I didn’t truly and wholeheartedly love. Emily was a strikingly attractive woman in many ways. But she was on a career track with the aim of shattering the glass ceiling and in a way that was the only thing she was committed to. I understood it, but I wouldn’t and couldn’t share her vision. When compared with pursuits like poetry, nature, and a sense of lovingness in the world, a career in finance just didn’t seem that important, six figure income or not.

I hadn’t been with anyone for a long time. No one had attracted me. It seemed like everyone was weighted with issues, piles and layers of fucked up mess. It made discovering someone’s core practically impossible. I wondered if people saw me that way. I didn’t feel necessarily layered; I was just sure of what I didn’t want. But today, I felt a little freer and easier from such concerns – they were never completely devoid from my psyche, but as the sunrise brightened the road ahead, my world felt softer and lighter. Dolly and I had over 2,000 miles to go before we would hit Sedona.

I figured we’d stop in Charlottesville for breakfast and have a little picnic at Birchwood Park. There was a secluded area there by a cove where Dolly could swim. With its modish college atmosphere and bustling music scene, I’d often thought how much more I liked Charlottesville than Richmond. I wasn’t in a hurry. This journey was not about getting from point A to point B. Somehow in my mind and in my heart, I knew it was more about getting from point A to point Z, though I had no plans or expectations about how to arrive there

We hit Charlottesville right at eight o’clock. Rush hour here wasn’t busy – certainly, nothing like Richmond. I easily maneuvered through the drive-thru at the Biscuit Barn and got an egg muffin for myself and a steak biscuit for Dolly. I also got a large coffee with cream. Even though I was excited, I was still a tad groggy and we had a lot of ground to cover. At the service window, I handed the young overweight black girl a five-dollar bill. She looked apathetic and sad. I thought how bad it must feel to carry around all that fat, and how hard and tempting it must be for her to work at a place that not only encouraged poor eating habits, but thrived on them. I caught myself before I went too far. That was one of the things Emily hated about me. I was too empathetic, too quick to jump into someone else’s shoes. She found it taxing and intense. I never understood that. To me, it was just living with open eyes. Too many people were unaware of everyone and everything outside themselves. I shook off the memories of Emily and drove off to the park. The chill from early morning was segueing into a sauna like humidity. It was going to be a hot day. I found a shady park near the cove and Dolly bounded from the car. When she got to the edge of the water, she turned around and looked at me. She was too good to be true sometimes.

“Hold on, girl,” I said. “Let me check it out.”

This was our usual pattern, ever since Dolly splashed into Circle Creek a few summers back and less than two feet away, I had seen a huge copperhead cooling itself beneath the water. We’d been lucky that day. I looked around the cove and gave her the go ahead.

“Okay, Dolly. Make like a diver.” She splashed in enthusiastically eyeing a stick floating on the water.

I sat on the picnic table and sipped my coffee, and daydreamed about Sedona. Ellie and Charlie loved it there. I had received a DVD of a movie they had made after they had lived there a few months. It was called Our Journey West. It was mostly them sunning on rocks, fooling around with waitresses, laughing and being dwarfed by the huge cacti that dotted their property. The last section of the movie was called Lorraine in the Rain. It showed Ellie and a tall thin brunette woman slow dancing on a huge flat rock that looked like a stage made out of slate and quartz. Canyon vistas surrounded them. The only sounds were the distant ones of nature and Charlie softly humming As Time Goes By. Lorraine was not a beautiful woman, but she was striking, in that earthy way where the dividing line between sensual and sexual often disappeared. Her face had crevice like wrinkles, but they added to her intrigue as if looking at her face automatically caused one to wonder where she’d been and where she might take you. Droplets of rain were hitting Charlie’s lens giving the dancing women a soft romantic look. Toward the end of the song, Lorraine dipped Ellie and kissed her passionately on the mouth. Then they both broke out in huge smiles. Just before the film stopped, Charlie said – “that was beautiful.”

A few weeks after I watched the movie, Ellie called for a catch-up chat. I was curious about Lorraine and asked about her.

“Been holding out on me, Ell. Been a lesbian all these years and never told me?” I ribbed.

“Oh Fuck, Clarey. She’s so awesome. The most beautiful person I’ve ever met. Charlie feels the same way. She’s become our closest friend here.”

“Are you lovers?” I asked.

“No, not in the physical sense. We kiss and touch. Stuff like that. But it’s on a different plane.”

“What do you mean – different plane?” I said. I was worried my friends had jumped off a red rock cliff into some metaphysical void.

“Okay, I know this is gonna sound weird. But there’s some kind of magic here. You can literally feel it like heat from the rocks behind our house. That’s where Charlie filmed us dancing. It feels like warmth and well being simmering and hovering up from the core of the earth to enter your body.”

Eloise was not a fanciful person, so I let her words just rest in me for a moment. I didn’t want to immediately disregard what she was saying because it sounded unreasonable. She continued.

“We noticed when we first moved here that Charlie’s blood pressure went down. You know he’s always had a terrible problem with that. We checked it every day for a week and each time it was normal. He’s not even taking the Clonodine anymore. Everyday, we’d go for a hike behind our house. Up in the canyon a little, there’s a little pool where we like to swim. You know how I’ve always had bursitis in my wrist. It disappeared. I don’t feel it at all anymore.”

“That’s amazing. It sounds like you’ve found a fountain of youth.”

“Fucking hell, I know. That’s what we thought too and then we met Lorraine one night at a poetry reading. We felt immediately connected to her. Within days, we were tight as tics, chatting it up like we’d know each other for years.”

“Is she from there?”

“Born and raised. She’s part Apache. She told us the property we built our house on was once a sacred praying ground for her ancestors. That’s why it has the kind of energy that it does. Isn’t that wild – I mean fucking beautiful. I thought Charlie was gonna go nuts. Anyway, Lorraine has sort of acted as our spiritual tour guide – showing us all the best places to soak up this incredible vibe. I can’t wait for you to feel it when you come out.”

I was so submerged in my memories; I didn’t see Dolly run up to me. Her water logged shaking jolted me into the present.

“That’s my girl. Are you ready for your biscuit?”

I felt so happy, stoked by my daydream of the magic of Sedona and sitting in this pretty park with Dolly. A light breezed fanned the heat. We finished our food and hopped back in the car. Dolly seemed to feel the anticipation too. She had discerned that this was not an ordinary trek, but like me she was more excited than nervous.

The next two days were uneventful. They passed in chunks as if they were checkered tiles that moved from daylight to darkness. It wasn’t hard to find hotels that allowed pets and I never had a problem finding a spot to let Dolly run around a play for a while. Our nights were peaceful and each morning we awoke before sunrise well rested and ready to hit the road again. Monday morning at about ten my cell phone rang. It sounded odd and shrill ringing out into the desert air.

“Hello,” I said.

“Are you there?” It was Elle’s animated voice.

“I’m about four hours away. We sort of took our time.”

“Fucking hell. That’s great. We just hung up talking to Lorraine. We told her you’d be coming in today and she’s going to meet you. Make sure everything’s okay. That you don’t need anything.”

I was suddenly nervous.

“She doesn’t have to do that, Ell.”

“Clarey. It’s fine. That water pump is tricky. Besides, she wants to meet you. We showed her your picture and some of your paintings. She liked your work, but when she saw your picture, she really got interested.”

“Ellie, are you trying to set me up?”

“Fuck no. I just know the two of you will like each other.”

“Is she gay?”

“Hmmmm. I don’t know how to answer that,” said Elle. “It’s more like she’s a lover with no distinctions. Whatever the fuck that means. I don’t know, Clarissa. I just had a feeling about it and she’s just a few miles down from our ranch, so I figured what the hell. After your last fiasco with what’s her name – I didn’t think twice about it not being okay.”

“You mean Emily.”

“Whatever. I just know you guys were like paper and scissors.”

“Where are you, Elle?”

“We’re at the salt baths, on the outskirts of Droitwich in England.”

I was dumbfounded.

“And you’re setting me up on a date at your ranch in Sedona.”

“What the fuck?”

I once won a bet with Eloise about the number of times she said fuck in one day and she had to pay me a dollar for each time. It was an easy eighty-six bucks.

“Okay, Doll. Charlie’s waving for me. Have a good time. We love you. We’ll call you a little later in the week.”

“I love you too. Bye.”

I hung up and felt the familiar thud of an ache in the back of my head. Uh Oh, that usually meant the beginnings of a migraine. Well, best not to jump to conclusions. It could simply be a stress headache from all the driving and the glaring sun. We still had at least three hours to go. I found Hissing of Summer Lawns, my favorite Joni Mitchell CD and popped it in. ‘Down in the cellar in the boho zone, I went looking for some sweet inspiration…’ I loved that song. I looked at Dolly. She was resting comfortably with her head half in and half out the window, creating her own refuge from the heat. I relaxed a little and headed toward Winslow. Pretty soon we’d hit Flagstaff and leave the incredibly long ribbon of I-40 for the bumpier but more scenic stretch of 17. I had the strangest sensation that I was riding into a science fiction flick like Close Encounters. To my right I saw a huge rock formation. It looked like a misshaped mountain stripped of trees. The quartz and crystal gems shimmered in the blazing noonday sun. I was sure it was my imagination but I thought for just a second I saw Lorraine’s image in the glare. Maybe I was getting a migraine after all. When I looked up again, I saw nothing but asphalt, a blue cloudless sky and a sign that said Flagstaff was fifty miles away.

End of Part 1