I woke again at precisely ten-fifteen in the morning, although it was a different time zone, a better-time zone.

The true considerations I’d slept there for never came, in part because this was a trip more rushed than it should have been, and partly because I stayed at a cheap place, instead of a conducive place.

Other kinds of places. The first I went to was a brand new one, a promising organic grocery. But I parked outside and didn’t go in. I don’t know why. I didn’t want to.

Then the ATM. Then the first best coffee place, old Cactus, except that it was full of stupid old men with no masks and no idea what this social distancing thing was about. Anyway, the coffee was Sumatran and up to the usual standard. I hung there a while, still finishing off the mass downloading that the motel wireless over two nights wasn’t up to.

Across the street is the co-op. It turned out my membership was two weeks expired, so I paid it, and loaded up on water. On their notice board, someone was advertising studio space, even for writers specifically. Two hundred forty per month. Would that not be the sweetest? Even if I am headed back to being 4.5 hours away from that heaven, again.

Back up the hill and to the place of luscious egg, potato, and green chile burritos. Two of them come to nine-fifty, and the rest of a ten goes in the tip jar. Exquisite.

I didn’t want to leave yet.

Since I was out of coffee already, I went to the new coffee place. The mature woman at the counter brewed me a fresh pot, which took a while. So I asked her to tell me about the Church of the Southwest Desert, to whom the business license for the new coffee place was made out. Swedenborgians, as it turns out, with the coffee roasted by apparently genuine monks.

I will go back there some time, I think, I hope.

One last slow drive through town, and out the back way. At the very boundary edge of heaven, I saw a place for sale. It meets all the many requirements I have, and it was priced at exactly 150K.

It would … save me two-hundred forty a month, right?

It’s an old dream and a very good one.