I kept thinking about Sarah and Samuel. The words “healthy” and “balanced” always came to mind. Sarah had made mistakes, even public ones, and she continued to live, work, thrive, in the same community. I tried to remember all the things she told me, but my shame kept interfering. I had lied to her, accepted her hospitality, and acted like a fool. Even more discouraging was the gentleness with which she let me go. She forgave me.

Someday, I thought, I will have balance. Someday I will have health, and my skin will glow like Sarah’s and my eyes will shine like Samuel’s. Then I will return to Red Creek, New Mexico, and thank her for the profound influence she had on me.

Someday, I thought.

In the meantime, my skin was papery, my hair lifeless, my eyes either heavy-­lidded or half-­vacant. I tried meditating, whenever I stopped working long enough, but there was nothing, nothing.

I must have been insane, I thought, to believe that there was someone who loved me, someone who was committed to me, someone who would take care of me.

I couldn’t believe I had really killed those people. Three people. Three people! Three people and a lamb. And Earl Foster.

I must have been insane.

My nights were filled with bizarre nightmares. I dreamed about those three people in Westwater. I dreamed with sad tenderness about the old man’s retarded daughter; I dreamed about the young boy’s intended fiancée. I dreamed about the punk’s mystified parents. These dreams held over into the day­time, until at times I thought of the dead as characters I would occasionally play. Their memories lived within me and occasionally I answered questions as one or the other of them. I was losing my identity. Isn’t that part of insanity?

For five months after leaving Sarah’s, I worked at odd jobs for cash. I either worked or traveled restless­ly, compulsively, during the day, and then fell into exhausted sleep at night.

And then, late one afternoon in mid-­June, I walked into Seven Slopes, Colorado. I was tired, hungry, dirty, and discouraged. Though my emotions still raged out of control, I knew it was time to release them, stop feeling sorry for myself and do something positive. Settle down.

Settling down, I realized in a flash of wisdom, didn’t have to mean bondage. Again I thought of Sarah, and for the first time I understood that a routine itself could be liberating . . . If I didn’t spend all my time and energy looking for a new place to sleep every night, maybe I could successfully rest, or meditate, or—heaven knows—maybe enjoy some­thing.