FREEDOM
 Pan American Highway near Oaxaca © Tony Burton, 1981. |
| The Pan American Highway is a dark asphalt ribbon. |
| To the east and west, low brown hills rise in the distance. |
| To the south, Oaxaca. To the north, Mexico City, many miles away. |
| It’s quiet, deserted, nothing in sight but the jeep heading across open land, |
| dust plumes billowing in its wake. |
| She watches the jeep disappear and feels the silence settle in around her. |
| She’s heading north in her blue flowered skirt, white cotton blouse, brown sandals. |
| Weeks before, in a lakeside village in Guatemala, she was taken to the police station |
| for wearing cut-off jeans and a tank top in public. Now she’s more modest, |
| cautious, respectful, out on the road alone. |
| A wave of panic comes, a sense of disconnection |
| from the usual stream of activity that fills each day. |
| She stepped off the moving sidewalk and it feels a bit queasy. |
| There’s also the momentary fear that no car will come. |
| She’ll be abandoned in the vast silence of the open road. |
| All she can do is wait. |
| Next, a surge of unexpected freedom. She laughs out loud |
| at her good fortune: to stop time and motion, to just be. |
| She’s completely alone on the two-lane highway, |
| hills in the distance, bright sun in a wide sky. |
| There’s nothing else as far as she can see in any direction. |
| It’s an exquisite gift. |
| Despite her unease, there’s also a deep sense of protection and safety, |
| an assurance that rescue will come in its own time. |
| A car heading north will appear over the rise, stop, pick her up. |
| It will take her to the Capital where life’s momentum |
| will sweep her up once again. |
| And this pristine moment of absolute freedom |
| will be left behind on the dusty highway, |
| somewhere in the remote expanse of southern Mexico. |
Published or Updated on: April 7, 2026
