To New Mexico with Love - Part IV

It is eerie to recall the past with such detail: to know that my imagination has held onto a single moment in time and has fleshed out the details with poetic license is, I don't know, eerie.

It is eerie to know that this Halloween will mark 25 years since that first Halloween-winter in Santa Fe.

Having just moved, I am particularly sensitive to the changing seasons. Seasonal changes have become my barometer of how I get to know a place. Already, the seasons shift. Leaves are falling from the trees: only a few but they are the foreshadow of the Fall to come.

Growing up on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, winters weren't exactly always beautiful. But that winter of 1986, where the first snow fell October 31st and the last on my birthday in May, changed my experience of winter. I fell in love with it.

Fluffy white snow against stellar blue skies, winter was spectacular. People huddled in their homes burning fragrant woods that permeated the air. Breathe in: pinon. Exhale. Breathe in: cedar. Exhale. Breathe in: juniper. Exhale. Breathe in: repeat. Exhale.

Scent-ual.

******

As I try to write, I realize I am tired. I'm ready for winter. I wonder how I will fair an east coast winter. Granted, we are several hours from the coast. Nevertheless, I wonder.

I look out my back door at the wall of trees. My eyes look at the hardwood canopy and wonder how this will look when the leaves are gone: like a crazy line drawing or something. Black twigs and branches, trunks and stumps.

It's been a long haul to get here. I clocked 21,000 miles in three months worth of travel last year. Not much if you are a pilot or someone famous or someone who travels for business. But I'm none of the above. I was/am, however, a mom on a mission to find a good school for my son. I am now officially exhausted.

I am ready to hunker down. I feel like Rabbit in Winnie the Pooh, running around gathering provisions for winter even though it's at least 90 days away. Nevertheless, I feel it coming.

It's been a long time since I've had a winter. There have been few winters like the one I first tasted in 1986. Last winter I was traveling from west coast to east coast searching for that place to call home. And with the drought in New Mexico, well, it just never felt like "winter"...as I defined it...or as it was first defined for me by that first Halloween.

I am looking forward to a good hibernation. I am ready for it. I need it. I want it.

Winter is coming.

Thank God.