Kundalini and the Art of Being ... pretty good. I’m not really sure what I’m doing out here, but here I
am. Do you still want me to come visit?”
“Of course!” she said. “Actually, this is great timing. I just got an
apartment on the other side of town, and I’m moving into it in a few
days. So you should come after that, maybe in a week, so you don’t
have to stay here at my mom’s. You can stay as long as you want.”
“Great!” I said, feeling a wave of relief and some excitement at
the prospect of finally seeing her again. “I’ll hang out in New Mexico
for a little while longer before coming down. I’m thinking of taking
Greyhound, because the hitchhiking around here has been kind of
lousy...”
We talked for a little while about things in general. It was so won-
derful to hear her voice. And it was reassuring to find that she still
wanted to spend some time with me; although, after saying goodbye
and hanging up, I realized that I couldn’t tell what sort of relationship
she was interested in at this point—if, like myself, she was seeking a
partnership, or if she only wanted to spend some time together as I
was passing through. I figured that the only way to know was to go
to Austin and see what might happen.
The next morning, as I was trying to figure out where to go hang
out for a whole week, I noticed a town on the map that claimed to
have some hot springs. Being a hot springs enthusiast, I decided to
check it out. It was named “Truth or Consequences”—after a game
show during the fifties, which had paid them a large sum of cash to
change it from their previous name of, appropriately, Hot Springs, to
that of the game show—and was located in southern New Mexico.
After my previous experience trying to hitch out of Santa Rosa, I
didn’t feel too comfortable giving it another try, so I decided to go
Greyhound. I hopped on the bus that afternoon, backtracked west to
Albuquerque, then south down to “T or C,” as they called it, arriv-
ing late that night. I got another hotel room, despite my dwindling
finances, not wanting to try and find a safe place to sleep out so late.
The next morning, after taking advantage of my money spent on
the room by sleeping in, I checked out the phone book and discov-