Straight No Chaser

I never knew what hit me.
Like a shooting star
You came out of nowhere.

You and me, on the same path,
Traveling in the same direction.

I was always a little ahead of you.

You trailed for a long time,
Until I ran out of gas.

You caught up to me,
We collided

Robbie Kaye

This another installation from the photography/poetry series, Las Cruces.

In “Women Who Run with the Wolves,” Clarissa Pinkola Estes describes descansos.“If you’ve ever traveled in Old Mexico, New Mexico, southern Colorado,

Arizona or parts of the South, you’ve seen little white crosses by the roadway. These are descansos, resting places.”

After that first road trip, I was on a mission to find and photograph these roadside descansos.

Estes writes, “descansos are symbols that mark a death. Right there, right on that spot, someone’s journey in life halted unexpectedly.

There has been a car accident, or someone was walking along the road and died of heat exhaustion, or a fight took place there.

Something happened there that altered that person’s life and the lives of other persons forever.

To make descansos means taking a look at your life and marking where the small deaths, las muertes chicitas, and the big deaths, las muertes grandotas, have taken place.

Descansos takes pity on and gives honor to.”

I like to think the photographs I take, the voices I imagine and write from are an honoring of those no longer living.

Like most people, I’ve lain to rest notions, hopes, dreams and loved ones.

This project is about commemoration. A celebration of life.

The next time you drive by one of these crosses, maybe you’ll wonder about that being who walked on this earth.

The one who had a family, friends and a life that mattered like yours.

Like one of my mentors, Brendon Burchard says, “Live. Love. Matter.”

You definitely matter.

Robbie