"no place" -- my first blog post in more than a year, drawn from an experience almost exactly four years ago
near Puerto de Ibañeta (Roncesvalles Pass) in the Spanish Pyrenees no place and the road wound slowly and steadily up a grueling grade no variance no up and down just up through curve and straight up and curve again and straight up again and again and again to the high snowbound pass invisible in fog and early December twilight and along the shoulders the snow pushed there by the steel blades of the snow plows were made into mountains and valleys of a smaller landscape of their own until there was no place to step off the cold wet black near-frozen pavement unyielding in its hard brutal asphalt to pounding heavily weighted foot step no place to step off except into deep snow no place to rest the pain in feet and back and joint no place to sit quiet and still in the silence of frozen air no place to take a piss ...