Motel Nirvana. Melanie McGrath

ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

      YOU CAN BE AN AVATAR RIGHT NOW!

      Later that afternoon Sakina Bluestar, clad in full Lakota Sioux ceremonial outfit, runs a dusting feather along the Barbie and Ken vacation van and tickles the breakfast bar at Pinon Jay Drive. ‘There just isn’t the time to do it all,’ she repeats as she goes. It seems churlish not to offer to help, since I have nothing in particular to do, but Sakina will not countenance it.

      ‘Dear, that’s so sweet,’ she says, ‘but the spirits of my things always kick up a fuss if I don’t attend to them myself,’ smiles affectionately and waves a castigating finger at a Ken who has fallen out of his seat. Sakina has so very many things of a spiritual nature it is hard to imagine quite when she gets the time to attend to all their needs. Over the fake fireplace there hangs a collection of Hopi dream catchers. Crystals sit on every shelf and in every corner. In one alcove is a kachina doll, in another a life-sized statue of Captain James T. Kirk; between the two, sage smudge sticks, mystic texts, relicry, feather headdresses, stylized portraits of Geronimo and other Indian heroes, spirit guide portraits and talismen and spiritual videos and exotic shells containing cosmic messages and every other sort of New Age gizmo. Strangely, though, Sakina is no materialist. She is proud of her collections in the way that children are proud of their gatherings of beach pebbles, not because they have any intrinsic value or are signifiers of intent, but because they are small comfits of personality.

      ‘Are you an extraterrestrial dear?’ she asks, later. A little forward for our first day together, but then this is America.

      ‘I don’t think so.’

      ‘Ah, that’s probably why they won’t talk to you,’ pointing to the silent Barbie population. ‘Never mind. It’s all just chitter chatter really.’

      ‘Are you?’

      ‘Of course. Most people in Sedona are.’

      In Sakina’s kitchen, germinated herbal tea bags (used) hang from an empty bottle of Ivory soap. There is a mystic chopping board which emanates ultra low-frequency signals and protects your carrots and other chopped items from psychic attack. One of the gas rings fires in a semi-circle, the others are dead. In general Sakina recommends enchilada with sour cream and guacamole down at the Copper Kettle on Highway 89A, ‘$3.89, comes with biscuits, you won’t need another thing all day’ but she goes there less and less herself on account of the dwindling of her star guide business.

      ‘We had this perfect house in Cape Cod, overlooking the sea, but Philip went into the spirit world and I got out and moved west, thought I would get to San Diego. Never made it,’ she says of a life long gone. I’m reminded of a fallen sign in the backyard, partially covered by a stone, which reads ‘Philip Comyns, Medical Practitioner,’ followed by a series of letters in peeling gold leaf.