The Long Road Between Ghosts and Grace

A travel essay, from the roads of New Mexico.

I left Roswell on a quiet desert morning that seemed to crack open like a ripe melon—pinkish light stretching long over the empty parking lots and angular rooftops of motels and UFO-themed gift shops. The air tasted of dust and possibility, of childhood dreams that had been buried under decades of responsible living, steady paychecks, and the comfortabl…