Reflections on Azami's return

To overcome the culture shock of returning to the United States in the heart of all our most insane uber-American cities, Las Vegas, where all vices can be bought for a price, Azami indulges in sustenance.

Having never dated someone this long, nor getting back together after a spell apart, it was interesting to recalibrate my brain to her again.

We had been apart 2 months and 2 days, and my habits were used to being alone again. But Azami was back in my life, so all the habits of "space" -- holding hands; subconscious awareness of her presence when she was near, like a Jedi sensation of her location, or a cerebral GPS; that inevitable joining of consciousness so that I can approximately feel her limbs when we touch even though she's in another body; the disassociation of myself into the unit of "us" (look around the room you're in right now, close your eyes and visualize all the objects in your head and rebuild the room in your imagination, as if they exist in a diorama inside your head. Then imagine that the black exterior of your skull is actually your skull and all the objects therein are apart of you - as constructs of your mind - then open your eyes and resume that feeling with the actual, tangible objects in the room - they are apart of your mental comprehension and cerebral being although they exist independent of your flesh) wherein I sense us as a unit together and not so much me as me and her as another person -- came back like habit.

They had to be readjusted to the intellectual understanding that she had been gone and I had to instantly relearn them all. It lead to me acting the same as I had the day she left, but feeling extremely awkward the entire time as my brain tried to figure out what was happening.

In any case, I explained to her that I was feeling awkward because all of me was readjusting. She took it in stride.

We headed over Hoover Dam and back to Mikel Weisser's Peace Park in So-Hi, Arizona, just north of Kingman. He had offered us the place rather than drive back to Sedona for another four hours. We got into his place at around 5 a.m. and crashed out.

I had never been to Mikel's before, so it was cool to see all that I had heard about. Mikel and his wife were at a teachers' union meeting in Phoenix, so they gave us a run of the place.

Just as we were leaving -- like getting in the car and opening the gate leaving -- Mikel's 16-year-old daughter came out to say hello. I shot this picture of the Mikel's peace stones right after. The big coffee mug used to adorn Java Love Cafe in Sedona, but Gianni Cardinelli gave it to Mikel at the party marking Gianni's sale to a new owner. Now it has a new, peaceful home in So-Hi.

We woke around 11 a.m. and made the drive back to Sedona, where all was right with the world.

Azami has been back for two weeks, 21 hours. It's as if she never left.