Darkness

I need to hit the road again. Sometimes I wonder why I bought my beautiful little house. I'm a guaranteed stranger wherever I go so I feel at home anywhere as long as I have my mind to hide in. And America is so beautiful. I want to see every square inch of it! Well the West any way. The East is OK. It just doesn't hit me the way the West does, except New York City. I could live there. Some of the time any way.
Tonight I was walking in absolute darkness when a man on a horse came trotting by. He popped out of the dark and back into it with only the faint sound of unshod hoofs on the road. I call this man the Horse Chanter because he trains horses in different gaits by chanting the rhythm to them as he rides. He wasn't chanting tonight.
I love the darkness. I used to have the normal distrust of unlit places until I hung out for a while with people who ride freight trains and wannabees like me. I always wanted to hop a freight but unfortunately no one was stupid enough to agree to take me along and show me the ropes. I wasn't quite brave enough to try it on my own. The neat part was attending hidden camp fires along the tracks where we would meet to talk and sing and eat community stew. I heard some great stories. I nearly learned how to pee standing up. Sometimes it is good not to let the world know you are a woman. I think it takes a lot of muscular control! There are devices that are supposed to help -- but that's no fun, and any way I'm told they really don't work. So walking through the no man's land along the tracks looking for the secret fire gave me a wonderful feeling. I could see the roads and cars and houses where people went about their well lit business while I was quite out of sight. Not really voyeuristic as I had no interest in what I saw. It was just that I could not be seen. Unless the Guys were out with their night vision binocculars. What would they have thought if they'd seen me trotting through the dark with my bottle of Gallo Hearty Burgundy and some baked potatoes? Could they have mistaken them for Something Dangerous?