Twenty-five years ago to the day, I sat in the back of a packed van shuttling me and twelve other people from the tiny Albuquerque airport to Santa Fe.
The night was blacker than any night I had ever seen; I could hardly differentiate between the land and sky.
As we descended from the crest of La Bajada, someone pointed to a tiny cluster of lights that spread only an inch's width between my index finger and thumb. "There it is, there's Santa Fe."
I panicked. I looked all around looking for more lights. I searched for a larger city that for me would serve as an anchor to what appeared to be a satellite lost in space.
"THAT is Santa Fe," I asked.
"Yes," said the driver.
His affirmation only confirmed in me the fact that I was officially lost, never to be found again. Never mind that I was to start St. John's College as a Freshman and that someone on campus was awaiting my arrival. I was certain it was all a ruse. I was convinced there was no St. John's College because there was no land for a college to be built upon and that in a few short minutes the road was going to drop out beneath us setting our van to drift among the stars in the sea of blackness.
Needless to say the road did not drop out beneath us. We pulled into a parking lot of a hotel made of fake mud. Within moments, a dusty black London-style taxi arrived. Six Johnny-s bundled into the cab; I sat in the fold-down rumble seat. I knew one other person among us, my boyfriend. The rest certainly looked like the Johnny-s I knew from Annapolis; perhaps I was going to school after all.
*****
Four weeks have passed since I moved from New Mexico: a moment in my life I was certain would never happen, a moment I set into motion exactly nine years ago, a moment that is now a past occurrence, a moment that seems so unbelievable I have to pull over every time I see the hazy ridges of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
From the craggy red rock of the Sangre de Cristos to the velvet canopy of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Red to blue...old blood to new blood...dry blood to fresh blood...mix red and blue, and the passion of purple explodes, pours, erupts like two lovers intertwined, guided by pheromones and instinct....
The soil here sticks to everything: feet, fingers, face and hair. The soil there blows away leaving only traces of itself everywhere.
Here is the flip-side of there; we are one coin...I am far away and yet not away at all. I see and feel exactly how the blue of these ridges flow and form the red of those. There is no us and them though there are those who live comfortable amidst the bristle and brawn of high desert life; I find I enjoy the softness of earth and flora infused with water.
But I am not away; I am not gone from the land of Christ's blood...if anything, I am more deeply in it here in Appalachia. After all, these people are the heart of the bible belt. "Do you have a church?" is synonomous with "How are you today?" I gotta say, I am much more comfortable with "Que Viva?" but hey, it's water that gives life, not words...and so, I'll take this land over that land, but those words over these ....
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ReplyDeleteIn elementary school, I learned that twenty-five years was considered a generation. Crazy to think an entire generation has passed since moving to and moving from New Mexico.
In New Mexico, I dare say a generation is more like 14 years...and, well, here in Appalachia, it just might be the same.
Yesterday, my son made a list of things he missed in New Mexico. His friends were at the top of the list but then came the land:
"I miss the small river that runs through my back yard."
"The arroyo?"
"Yes, the arroyo." Pause. "I miss my garden and the sky, the smell of rain and the ice cream with cookie dough in it."
"The ice cream with? Wait a minute, you mean the ice cream we had last week with Freddy?"
"Yea, that ice cream."
"That isn't from Santa Fe, silly."
"Oh yeah, I forgot. I still miss it."
Time for children is truly a loopty-loop within the minds eye threading in and out of the imagination like a memory of a dream.
So to is my memory of Santa Fe.
In the morning when I first woke in the Land of Enchantment, I tip-toed over bodies in slippery sleeping bags, and stepped outside. The morning light illuminated the silvery green leaves of a Russian Olive tree. The scent filled my lungs impressing upon my memory the permanent signature that only scent can.
The road the house was on was dirt, bumpy read dirt. The pine trees clustered tight around the house. The brilliant blue sky was simply that: brilliant. I exhaled relieved that I was not flung into a vast orbit high above the earth but clearly, I was in terra incongnita. Every cell in my quaker, seafaring ancestral body shivered with uncertainty; I had no idea how to be in a land composed of only one element: dust.
Those first weeks of college I wandered around Camino Cruz Blanca. With camera in hand, I photographed everything I saw: tall stands of wild sunflowers, thick bushes of blooming chamisa, flaming petals of Indian Paintbrush and tiny adobe homes tucked between and no higher than the ancient Pinons.
Each night, Orion's Belt rose above Atalaya. For the first time I saw his full context among the trillions of stars I had never seen before. For the first time I grasped the magnificence of seeing the very same stars the Greek philosophers gazed upon millenia ago.
As the nights grew cooler, the air filled with burning Pinon, cedar and juniper. I wept with richness of the air. I had no idea scent could be so pure in a dry sauna. My heritage was 12 inches above sea level. There at 12 inches above sea level dry saunas were manufactured and for adults who belonged to gyms.
I remember one day in October watching the blue sky turn to blood red with the setting sun I realized New Mexico was a land of simplicity, only four colors made up the entire landscape: blue of the sky, red of the earth, white of the clouds and snow and green of the trees. The simple aesthetic hypnotized me. Thus began my 25 year enchantment. Like Dorothy in the field of poppies, I laid back, laid down, and drifted for an entire generation...or two.
Michelle...Enjoying your blog...You are a good, "poetic-descriptive" writer! Also: when we moved to SC, the question most asked of "polite, but typical very southern strangers" was not "Do you have a church?" but..."What church do you go to?" (Even a furniture store salesman asked us that, within weeks of our move here... before we started to attend the Clemson Unitarian Universalist Fellowship! At that time, 20 years ago, I recall responding, "We don't currently go to a church, but if we did, it would be the Unitarian one." He looked blankly....& was struck silent. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteThat said.....You are so fortunate being in a most beautiful area of our country! Seeing the Blue Ridge Mtns....and the city you are in...."awesomely beautiful!"
ReplyDeleteSeeing life through the eyes of a child is truly transparent. It is amazing that we have known each other from the age of my eldest daughter Lauren. Knowing Wilson, I can see him utter the words that you so eloquently place on paper (or computer screen). You and Wilson will bloom wherever life takes you.
ReplyDeleteAloha,
K
oh thank you Michelle, small tears trickle down as i read your description of the earth in NM and your new home. That connection to place that we both share, you are so brave to open so wide to one and then another. It's important for me to hear that it has taken you nine years to make that transition. I don't know when mine will come, but reading this my body knows it will, it's like i can smell it already, a different smell than the dust and pinion of this place, something more musky wet & rotting trees.
ReplyDeleteLove you dear one ~>