Night Drive South

Drove south after dark because I'd been sitting still too long. The road from Oaxaca toward Miahuatlán is narrow and winding and I don't recommend it in the dark, which is partly why I did it.

There's something about driving a road you don't know in the dark that requires a different kind of attention. You can't plan ahead. You respond to what the headlights show you — a curve, an animal, a pothole, another vehicle — and then it's gone and there's the next thing. It's the closest driving gets to meditation.

I stopped around 10pm at a small stand that was inexplicably open, run by a woman who sold me a torta and asked no questions. The stand had a single fluorescent tube and a stray dog who was very interested in my sandwich.

The sky out here is not like any sky near a city. I sat on the roof of the truck for a while afterward and tried to find constellations I knew. Found three.