Walking on a beach is not a place you expect to get sideswiped with feeling. If anything, whatever comes up does so gradually. But as I’m picking my way through sand scattered with shells, crab bits, and kelp parts, a piece of driftwood with a story appears beside me.

“Friends of the Moment,” she said as we were wrapping up a twenty minute conversation, “that’s what we are now.”

It's a dual transformation: this valley into a lake, this person into another version of themselves. Neither are permanent but for just a few breaths on this clear, sunny morning I remember they don't have to be.

We crest the hill, or what passes for one is West Texas, and thousands of red lights blink in utter synchrony.