"Mona Lisa" Bonus Content

Roadrunners, cocktail lounges, horses. These are a few of my favorite things, and they’re all in last week’s podcast.

The appeal of horses and cocktail lounges is obvious, of course. But what’s not to like about a roadrunner, too? Meep meep. And they get the best of coyotes all the time.

Roadrunners are revered by many in the Southwest, considered a friend. A roadrunner will lead you home if you’re lost—but they’re elusive, leaving an X-shaped footprint that doesn’t indicate the direction they’re traveling. The Hopi and other Native peoples believe the X symbol confuses evil spirits and keeps them safe from harm. Some Native people use roadrunner feathers to adorn cradleboards to give protection to the child. Many consider the roadrunner to be good luck.

I can identify with roadrunners.

I’m a good friend and will help you find your way home if you need me to—but don’t try to follow me because my tracks go both ways. Always have. Serendipity is the path I’ve always taken, and I’m satisfied with where it’s taken me. My husband, Alan, is not a roadrunner. His tracks go in one direction, and that makes us good, if sometimes frustrating, partners. But like the roadrunners Him and Her in my story, Alan and I could kill a rattlesnake together if we needed to, one of us at the tail, the other at the head. More than once we’ve killed a metaphorical rattlesnake. That’s the kind of partnership we have. Roadrunners mate for life. Maybe that’s why I delayed making that commitment for so long—because once I’m in, I’m in like a roadrunner.

One of these days, I’ll discuss the mysterious Jackalope.

Jackalope are native to my home on the Llano Estacado and dear to my heart because, when we first met, I convinced Alan of that “fact.”

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A roadrunner might have warded off the evil that surrounded my character LaDawn in Mona Lisa, might have protected her and led her home. Roadrunner feathers decorating her crib might have saved her. X-shaped footprints might have confused her abuser, led him away from her. If children are brought into the world, they must be protected and nurtured—surrounded by roadrunners to ward off all evil and to show them the way home if they’re ever lost. Children should be schooled in the X tracks to know there isn’t just one way to go in life. Any direction—as long as it’s followed with passion and truth—is the right direction. 

Bye, y’all.  Thank you for supporting Corvairs and Horny Toads.

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