Henk and I rattled and clanked into Santa Fe on Thursday evening after chattering and sputtering over the 11,000 ft divide between Silverton and Durango. After all this time on the road and all the turbulent miles behind us, it wouldn’t have surprised me to have lost the drive chain that’s been loosening for weeks just north of the New Mexico border. But Henk is a warrior and I’ve become his fearless freedom fighter. It was almost as though, in the final three or four hours, he was saying to me “Pay attention: I’ll get you where you want to go, but are you absolutely certain you want to go there?”

So I paid attention. And the most unexpected, most wonderful thing happened. For the first time in five years, after pretending to let go, and pretending to let go, and pretending to let go, and believing I actually had…I actually…let go. Somewhere inside “The Land of Enchantment” (although I can’t be sure I was actually inside because there was no sign saying “Welcome to New Mexico, Land of Enchantment”), I let go entirely of the need or the desire to see The Man With Whom I’d Been So Enchanted.

And so I rode into this strange vast ancient desert land, almost a country unto itself, with my open heart, an inevitable amount of body armor, and no expectations.