No Visibility May Exist

If you have a story to tell but no one you know was around when it happened, does it still count as a story to tell?

A blurry picture of me in White Sands National Park, New Mexico in 2019 PC (Pre-Covid-19)

(For background, in 2019 I went on one of the most life-changing solo trips of my life: a solo road trip in my late grandpa’s car from Florida to Colorado. The specifics and why’s of the trip will be shared in depth in a later post, but for now, here’s a quick glimpse into a small yet significant moment that happened on that journey.)

One of the more intense events to have happened also involved Santa Fe. The sky was cerulean blue but I had stayed too long at White Sands National Park, New Mexico. The pristine sand beneath my bare feet was soft, the color of light stone, and cool like spring water. Mountains were light blue shadows along the horizon. Park rangers cautioned visitors against hiking because of the heat. At White Sands in the late afternoon, I had to make the four-hour or so drive to Santa Fe and then find last-minute accommodation for the night. I thought it was worth staying the extra hour to meander along the sands—my mid-calf cotton black dress waving in the light breeze. Unfortunately, staying an extra hour meant that I would be sacrificing an hour of daylight. I thought it wasn’t a big deal to spend that hour driving in darkness.

Scorching hot but beautiful. Can you blame me for wanting to stay longer in this oasis?

I turned the air conditioning on to full blast, the cold air a relief to my sun kissed (and hopefully not burnt) skin. As a Doctor Who fan, I left White Sands behind and took the longer route on I-25 to catch the “Truth or Consequences” sign, the focus of a well-known episode featuring the eleventh doctor, played by Matt Smith. Eventually, Albuquerque came and went, and I was in that long stretch of land before reaching Santa Fe.

That’s when the route went dark.

The road inclined upwards, and instead of driving on a flat highway it felt like a runway for launching into the stratosphere. The speed limit for I-25 in Albuquerque was an outrageous 65 mph, and locals with inherent night vision zoomed past me, their turn signals like blinking stars in darkness. Only one other car drove around my speed of ten under the speed limit. Their license plate? Florida. The land of flat roads. I wanted to honk and wave to my compatriot but was too afraid to take my hand off the steering wheel. The highest “mountain” in Florida was a 225-foot hill full of trash which locals affectionately called “Mount Trashmore.”

On the far side of the highway I saw a sunset orange sign briefly illuminated by car lights and high beams: No Visibility May Exist.

The thought of accidentally driving off into the darkness like a shooting star flashed across my mind. Lights from the other cars I used to see the road were rapidly speeding away. After Big Bend, the star party that wasn't, and now this, I’d had it with mountain driving, perilous cliffs, and night driving.

Finally, the highway stabilized and I stopped in a hotel parking lot late at night. After spending more money than I’d anticipated at a canvas tent with no flaps for two weeks and an overpriced hotel in El Paso, I didn’t want to spend a lot on only one night of accommodation. I put the car in park, the engine humming, and waited.

For a sign, I guess.

And then I remembered Santa Fe had a hostel, so after calling and confirming they were open and had rooms available, I booked my way over there. Apparently, it was cash only, but I didn’t have cash. I drove to the closing gas station, withdrew money from the sketchy ATM machine inside, and then paid for my room just as the hostel closed for the night. During this check-in process, I told this woman who worked at the desk why I was traveling in my late grandpa’s car, my experience at White Sands, and my highway drive in the eerie near total darkness. I tried to say “No Visibility May Exist” but couldn’t. My stutter was in full effect, and I was unable to say visibility.

After what felt like light years, I finally fought through my stutter and said visibility.

But at that point any humor in the anecdote had long since passed.

I’m a person who stutters and have been stuttering for as long as I can remember. Stuttering is a speech disorder affecting more than 70 million people around the world. Growing up, I never talked about stuttering; I never wanted to address it. I simply wanted the disfluency to disappear. And in conversations when I stuttered, I wanted to disappear, too. And then I wrote my first public piece about what it feels like to stutter back in 2013 to a resounding reception from the stuttering community; I was swept into the community with open arms like a warm extended family reunion.

Earlier in the road trip when I’d spent a longer-than-anticipated accidental week in New Orleans wandering around the city, going on spooky tours through the French Quarter and going to a vampire speakeasy on a date with a guy actually from Transylvania who did vampire tours, I befriended a group of Brits at my hostel. They said I had an interesting accent. I didn’t really know how to disclose that I was a person who stuttered (or stammered as it’s referenced in the UK).

In the beginning of my stuttering life, I would have never disclosed that part of myself to anyone. I never acknowledged it; I thought the idea was unthinkable.

But now, as I’ve grown to embrace my stutter, there’s an added pressure in certain situations: to disclose or not to disclose? That is the question.

Another question? If you have a story to tell but no one you know was around when it happened (like many stories on solo journeys), does it still count as a story to tell?

I’d say yes. Even though the visibility sign is just a memory, it’s still a signpost in my life. That moment happened; I was there. The woman who kindly checked me in was there.

But who shares the memories after they’ve happened?

That, dear reader, I’m still figuring out.

The hostel in Santa Fe had a cherry tree in the courtyard where I wrote my morning pages. Guests were allowed to pluck cherries from the tree and eat them. I was stunned that 1. such a cherry tree exists and was so massive, and 2. how fresh the cherries tasted.