My head is filled with crowds, milling and claustrophobic. Everywhere I look today I see humanity revealed with embarrassing clarity in all its jealousy, wrinkles, and farts. There is dust, color, and danger in the streets of Albuquerque’s downtown. The public transport creaks down the street and the strange beauty of the city presses on my soul.

I come around a corner and emerge in the shadow of a church and look up, up, up. Up to a sky so blue, so translucent, that it has no end and I can suddenly see myself within the Medieval layers of world, air, heaven. I am an ant in the universe. I am one in thousands and, suddenly and breathtakingly, alone.

Albuquerque, NM / afternoon / Immaculate Conception Church