June 30th dawned with the usual half-asleep shuffle of getting packed up for the day, and we left Logan early for another very long drive, this time to Denver.
I read a lot, and we talked a lot (well, mostly the rest of us listening while Nolan and Adrienne discussed various aspects of art, such as the difference between art and craft, and whether or not art needs an audience), and I watched the scenery a lot. Adrienne read aloud snippets of Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. We passed around bags of trail mix and ate the last of the hummus.
Utah began as marshland with sandhill cranes, then rose up in dramatic shaggy cliffs and spires amid gnarled pines, at last flattening out into open plains, running into the next state. Wyoming was silver gray and wide open, with blue rainclouds that ebbed and flowed. Colorado was rocky and full of bristly pines, with snowy crags glowing in the distant sunbeams.
In fulfillment of my wish, we saw several herds of antelope grazing among the sagebrush, including many pairs of fawns. I'm fascinated by these Ice-Age creatures, which adapted to outrun a prehistoric species of cheetah, and still could if their predators hadn't gone extinct. There is a kind of ancientness to them, a weirdness, a sadness. I never get tired of seeing them.
I was hitting the point in the trip where sleep deprivation was catching up to me; I'm incapable of sleeping in a car, and was running on fewer hours than I was used to. By the time we arrived in Denver, I was ready to find a cozy couch and take a nap.
Unfortunately, we didn't have time for that. I sat in the green room— a small room with leather couches and every square inch of wall plastered with band stickers— and tried to muster some energy.
It was another low turn-out for our show that night, and afterward I curled up on the couch backstage and wished I could go to sleep. We didn't have a place to stay that night, and I knew we'd end up sleeping in the van, but I was exhausted and didn't want to. I considered offering to pay for a hotel room, but immediately realized that it wasn't worth it to me. Or any of us. It'd be super late by the time the show finished, and we had to leave early the next morning anyway. We'd be sleeping in the van tonight for sure. I struggled with myself. I struggled with feeling grumpy and upset.
And then the small voice, unexercised for many years, whispered, "This will be a good story later, if you let it."
After a pause, followed by, "Suck it up, you old grump." And I laughed at myself.
We packed up the van and piled in, cramming ourselves between pillows and dirty laundry and half-empty bags of chips. Tyler drove for an hour and pulled into a truck stop, and the five of us sprawled into yoga-like positions to try to get a couple hours of sleep. No one complained. We were all in this together.
Lying half on top of someone's backpack and half on top of the kick drum, my feet tangled up in the armrest of my chair, I closed my eyes and listened to my bandmates' breathing. Everyone seemed to be asleep. They were all very silent sleepers. I wondered if it was creepy to be lying there in the dark just listening to people breathe while they were asleep. I suppressed the urge to laugh. My grumpiness had turned to giddiness. I pretended I was on a spaceship and everyone was in stasis but me and it was my job to keep everyone alive so we could land on the planet safely.
I tried to meditate. I mentally listed things I was thankful for— nice weather for sleeping in a car (we had the door cracked, and a cool breeze filtered in); good friends; a free ride to St. Louis; that pizza we'd gotten last night; the burritos that Tyler and Adrienne had bought us today; that my cello had stayed in tune at the show tonight; that I'd seen so many antelope. The list of good things grew longer and longer: cuddles with Adrienne when I was tired or just needing a hug; the way Tyler crashed his shoulder into mine whenever we walked by each other; Nolan's jokes that were funny at first and then stopped being funny but then became funny again through sheer repetition; the way Jessie says hello by flashing the sign of the horns at you like he's at a rock concert; that I was getting to spend a week road-tripping through incredible scenery with these beautiful people.
I still basically didn't get sleep that night, but it didn't matter. This was the stuff that travel stories are made of.
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