New Mexico Part 3: Beautifully Broken

This is a view of the Quebradas from a distance.  The Quebradas are just outside of Socorro, NM.  Socorro marks the beginning of the Chihuahuan desert.  You're not so much in a mixed climate anymore. You're in the desert.

The first time I was out to the Quebradas I was kind of down.  I didn't entirely feel like leaving the house, but my hand was forced, and I am glad it was.  This place blows me away. Every.time.

A rough translation of Quebradas is "broken."

Broken is how I came to the desert this time.  I guess broken is how I came to it before too, the first time.
You don't think of the desert as a place to heal.  People don't think of New Mexico as beautiful all the time. You hear desert and you think things like: Punishing, lonely, brown, dead, dangerous. Stifling.

What it really is though? Vast. Surreal. Painted. Wild. A wanderable timeline. The earth twists open and you can see how it formed. You can see where rivers used to run, where water sculpted the sides of mesas and mountains like they were putty instead of an immovable object.

And yes, it is dangerous.  You have to think about your body, and listen to it. To me that's part of it though. I always knew right away when I wasn't drinking enough water. My  head would hurt, lungs would burn or my voice would fade. The sun would suddenly seem more oppressive than it had all day.  The thing is, you have to be aware of the basic functions you normally take for granted. You start to realize just how much your body needs water, and what it's like when you don't have what you need.

Lewis took me to Bursum Springs, an area of the Quebradas I'd never been to.  A spring feeds this small little oasis.  There was a big flat rock shaded by cottonwoods, and the wind is cut by the surrounding ridges. I'd only seen the windswept, sunsoaked side of the Quebradas, so this section took me by surprise.

It'd be really easy to pass it by, too. I'm fairly certain that one of the times I was out here we must have driven past this area, and I didn't even know it was there.  We sat out on the rock, I dipped  my hand in the water and was surprised at how cool it was. We climbed the ridges on the right hand side to see what was over the top of the ridge.  I want to go back and camp out here.

This was our first hike in the Quebradas after lunch, and it was an ambling, slow-paced one.  Plenty of time to hang out and explore, and I was glad for it.

This is honestly an amazingly beautiful place.  The area we were in was called the Jornada Del Muerto. The Journey of Death.  So...yes, untamed and dangerous, but...amazingly beautiful. 

It just seems like every corner we came around was somewhere else to get out and explore, and we were out there for quite a few hours doing just that.

When you really start to explore it, it's not so brown and desolate.  It's severe, and jagged, but the sun fades and breaks and paints things.  The sky is a stunning blue, and the sun touches ridges and seems to set them ablaze, while other things are shrouded in shadows.

Things do grow here. But they earn it. They adapt and hold on to whatever soil they can find, and whatever water.  They're all so unique, surreal even.  As small as the feather dahlia blooms are, the bright purple stands out over quite a distance.

We were there just as things were starting to bloom.  I just don't think people know how alive the desert really is.

I love the way you can see all the exposed layers here, and the way this massive rock just...folded.

Maybe I'll stop talking and let the desert speak.

There's just something about this place that speaks to me. Maybe it's because it took so long for me to find it. Maybe it's because I didn't want to go in the first place, and as soon as I got there I didn't want to leave.  Maybe it's because it's broken, and exposed. Maybe it's that every time you think you've seen it all there's something else.  Because you can walk through time here.  Because white turns into red, yellow, green and purple in the blink of an eye.   Because down a dusty hill there's an oasis.  Because when you climb one ridge you may just find yourself standing in a red sandstone cathedral with the sun framed perfectly in the center, and wonder how you ever found a place like this.  That was a discovery I  made with someone I loved one of the times I was out here.

Because broken calls to broken.

You need to be there to find out just how much you need an oasis, and what it's like to come upon one.

Because sometimes you need to know that even if you ARE broken, there are amazing things inside of you.

Fake Post!

In which I link you to the first Flickr set from NM.
Which has photos I won't post in my trip journals and some I just..haven't posted yet.

So there.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10116736@N07/sets/72157633514036587/

enjoy!

New Mexico Chronicles Part Deux: What You Can Do Before Lunch

Hello again. :) Welcome to more tales of my recent trip to New Mexico, my favorite state, and my adopted home.  

Usually when I get back I'm super eager to share and I get everything together right away.  I kept wondering why I was putting off the trip journalling.  I think maybe it's just that this trip was a healing trip for me, and the whole time I was very selfish about it.  When I type that I want to erase it and make it sound less harsh, but then I remember...it's ok to be selfish sometimes.  This was one of the times I needed to be.  Luckily, there were some amazing people around me who made that possible. 

The above picture shows my first night accomodations in New Mexico.  We went to Water Canyon after our pizza dinner with Kija and set up a tent.  At the time I was a bit overtired and thought "soft bed or cold ground? soft bed or cold ground?" but in the end, I'm really glad it was cold ground.  I don't think there's ever a nicer way to wake up then *smelling* the morning, or feeling the sun start to warm the tent and hearing the sounds of night fade into the sounds of daytime.  

Also? I may not be a morning person, but when THIS is what you see when you first wake up, you have to be in a bit of a better mood than you were before.  The other thing that was nice about being here the first night was that this is a VERY familiar place for me. We went camping here with a few different groups of people, and drove up here even more.  It's just a few minutes out from Socorro.  It was nice to get out of the tent, breathe in the piney air, and feel just a little bit of ownership of the place. 

There were groves of freshly budded cottonwoods and we played around inside Water Canyon for a little bit after breakfast. 

One thing I love about travelling with Lewis is that he's an exploring type.  Always willing to check out what's behind that tree or in that culvert.  Always willing to make interesting trilling noises echo through the whole thing.  Makes life more fun.

This was my home. I used to have dreams that perfectly recalled the shapes of all these mountains, and what it looked like in the canyons.  For a long time after I moved back I would dream of driving back into Socorro, and driving out to Magdalena, and camping up in the canyon.  It was really good to have that back, even for a little bit. 

Next on the list of "Old Haunts" was Box Canyon.  I think this one's my favorite to roll around in for a few reasons:  Back when I had a Jeep, we took it offroading out here, as well as Bill's Jeep quite a few times.  It's a long trail, Box Canyon's nice and dramatic, and there's random cows and horses roaming.  There's an old mine to explore, and it's really, really not the suburbs.  Which I think was probably the first thing I loved. Being 40 miles out, no cell phone service. It's scary if you're not smart about it, but it's incredibly freeing too.

We were usually on the trail through, and not up on the sides of the Box, so this was time to get acquainted with the area in a different way. 

Lewis, the fearless tour guide. Being majestic.

This here is a picture of 10 in the morning on a Friday. This is also the moment I felt the rush. I wasn't in a cubicle, I wasn't in IL at all. I forgot about the things that had made me run here, and just thought about here. Endless horizons, crazy blue skies, sun on your shoulder here. Great heights here. 

Lewis and I crawled into some caves on one side of the Box that I'd never been in before. My lungs burned from "first day at altitude" problems, but I didn't care so much. 

In this picture, we use Lewis to show scale.  Hi Lewis, thanks for the point of reference!

*sigh*

Out on that horizon? Well...that's where we were headed next, after lunch.

By the way, be on the lookout, because I'm setting up Flickr sets for these entries from here on out. There's absolutely no way on Earth to fit all the gorgeous into a blog post without writing an epic. :)

Tarantella23 and the Great NM Adventure! Part 1 of...6? Yeah, cuz I can!

Aloha.  Which is not what you say when you go to New Mexico, but I didn't ask you, and you didn't ask me.

Herein lies the chronicles of my recent escape to the desert!  It's just like the Harry Potter series! Feelings! Plants with feelings! Many stories! 6 Parts! Except...maybe...not exactly like it.  Cuz aren't there technically 7 parts to Harry Potter? I lose count.

Anywho. You knew I went, and I have been editing photos and preparing to post, but...being fabulous at getting immediately busy and then catching plane ick a week later than expected.  But here I am.  This was an insanely long intro that says nothing at all. I'm really, really bad at intros.  Hey look a plane!

As bad as the flight home from CO was the last time I flew, I was looking forward to flying again.  No accounting for the weather, y'know?  I left Milwaukee at "Oh-God-Whyyyy"-o-clock.  Which in real time is a 3:30 wake up call, a 4:10 shuttle, and generally hating everything, including ducks (which for the record I do not hate, just happened to have set my phone's alarm for a duck sound. I love ducks. Ducks are nice.)

On the first flight, I was luckily able to sleep.  I had my music on and the only time I woke up aside from towards the end there when I took that picture was when the music stopped.  Right before I got to Albuquerque I got nervous, but mostly just due to hoping the trip went right and having had plane trouble on the way out. The captain cheerfully announced that there was something wrong with the main engine that powers the plane but we'd call maintenance and be off shortly.  It was too early to share his cheerful confidence, especially when main engines were involved.  But hey, I'm here posting right? He was right.

Arriving in Albuquerque was nice for tons of reasons, but one thing that strikes me every time I'm there is that as airports go, it's the most chill one I've been to.  Nothing's a big hassle, there's actually some interesting museum-like display cases with turquoise and pottery and stuff, and it's pretty quick to get through security and get your luggage and stuff. But mostly, I saw the Sandias break through the clouds, and I knew soon I'd be on the ground back where I wanted to be. That feeling...it gave sleepy me watery eyes. You know, cuz dust.

Kija picked me up from the airport, and she had already (because she's smart, this is our place, and because of the awesome quotient) planned on a stop here.  This place...is a gem. A hidden gem.  Very hidden, very overlooked. It's this tiny, TINY hole-in-the-wall place in a strip mall in Albuquerque.  One lady (yes, the Burrito Lady) and possibly one other person are all that work there at one time.  There's 3 tables and barely room for the third.  It's in between a pet store with tacky metal lizards on the roof and a Circle K. It's the best ever. Her chile will melt your face. And for like, 3 bucks.  She remembers her regulars- even the expats like me.  And she can cook like nobody's business. You have to wait for a while, but it is WORTH the wait. As Alton Brown always says...your patience will be rewarded. 

Here's what I'm telling you. Find her.  "If you like it hot" is her tagline...and she doesn't pull punches.  Which is awesome, because there were no punches I wanted pulled. I wanted to dive back into the deliciousness that is green chile.  Especially green chile breakfast burritos. *sigh* If home could have a taste...and I guess it can...this would be that.

Kija and I had agreed to do a day of shopping together.  See, the wonderful thing about Kija and I is we can be girls. It's no fault of anyone else, but I had far more male friends than female friends when I lived in New Mexico, so she was always the one to go do things like paint nails and shop and talk about boys with. Pillow fights, blah blah blah. Whatever "being a girl" means that day. This day it meant looking around in Nob Hill at quirky stores, like the one that sells this box set, jewelry stores, and expensive home decor stores.

Oh yes. And we may have been nearby to a Breaking Bad filming location in Albuquerque, and I may or may not have fangirled out and taken some pictures of it.  Because man! It's THE CAR WASH.  THE car wash. That one.  And I love love love that show.

Please pay no attention to my actual toes.  This is to show you the pretty sandals I bought while out with Kija, not to show you that I clearly hadn't painted my toenails in forever.  I can justify this purchase because 1)pretty 2) my ballet flats had split in half at security in Milwaukee. Insole was now sometimes outsole. 3) I'm on vacation, duh.

This is Bella. :)  She's the new girl.  By virtue of having been born not that long ago.  I hereby issue this apology to Bella.  Sorry kiddo, that I used you as an excuse to go sit on a couch.  See...around the time I found those sandals, the wakeup call had started to take its toll.  I asked Kija, Bella's mommy, if she was tired and had to go down for a nap. Y'know, cuz....babies.  But Bella is a super laid back child and was strolling along just fine, and probably could have for a few hours more. Luckily, she let me use her as an excuse and we were off to Kija's.

This is Kija's.  Lovely place way out in Albuquerque. :)  We got the tour and I gotta say, Kija, you've got a great place. With quite the backyard view. 

It was hazy so it's kinda hard to tell, but let me tell you, my dear friends...it was pretty excellent. The Sandias are right.there, and you can look over the roofs of all the houses and watch whole neighborhoods. 

I do things fairly backwards, but there's a reason.  This is Kija. And Bella, of course!  I'm really glad I got to see Kija again on this trip.  It's always good to have a gal pal, no matter how many good guy friends you have...it's just not the same without a girlfriend to talk to, laugh with, cry with...eat green chile with.  Kija, you are a wonderful lady with a lovely daughter.  I'm really grateful you're my friend. It's awesome to meet up after at least a whole year and feel like nothing's changed at all.  I wish we lived closer, and you really *really* gotta come out to Chicago!!

We had a nice pepperoni and green chile pizza dinner with Kija, Bella, David, and the ever illustrious Lewis, who had arrived from San Marcial to pick me up and take me on what would be a great many days of excellent adventures.  It was great just talking and catching up.  We left shortly after dinner to make the trip down to Socorro.  I was mostly incoherent at this point, so I don't think there's really any pictures or stories. I remember we got gas in Los Lunas and it felt like we'd be on the road for a really, really long time. :)

Still, it was nice. I got some one on one time with a great friend all that day, and Lewis was the same much.  We decided we'd camp that night in Water Canyon, something that's familiar and fun to me, and we stopped off at Smith's to get some breakfast supplies.  We put up the tent, (and I assisted, because tadaaa! Even when half dead! Though I dunno how *much* I assisted) and had a nice conversation before I fell dead, dead asleep.

Even with the overtiredness...the trip started in a pretty excellent way. And it was only the beginning.

Hold On...

Hold on to what is good, even if it is a handful of earth...

Hold on to life, even when it is easier than letting go...

Some things bear repeating. Like that Navajo poem. :)  

I'm in Milwaukee, Wisconsin tonight.  I need to be getting to sleep soon (very soon!) but I was thinking about this. 

This little glass cube has been sitting on my desk since 2009, any job I've had where a desk was involved. I love it. It's my little...terrarium? My piece of New Mexico that I took home with me.  I dug up some red earth on the road trip we took around the Southwest when my sister graduated from college.  I threw in some souvenir rocks (hence the big hole in the one) and a teeny tiny pine cone I found. It kind of started as a joke.

I think it was before that I used that Navajo poem as the signature in my emails. The other day, anticipating this trip, I thought about it and smiled.  "Hold on to what is good, even if it is a handful of earth..."

And it is good.  And it's...literally, a handful of earth. 

See the thing is, this silly little box of dirt reminds me of my biggest adventure to date. It reminds me of exploring and baking in the sun.  Getting to know somewhere new, and knowing that it was some part of me I hadn't known I was missing. 

It reminds me of the people that I got to know who I can't wait to see again, and of how hard it was sometimes out there, but how every time I stepped out into the canyons or stood on the top of a mountain or mesa...I knew it was right. I felt freer than I had ever felt. 

Tonight, I thought of this again, and I smiled. I know that tomorrow, we'll descend with the Sandias in sight, over miles and miles of wide open spaces where I could run from sunup to sundown and never see another soul.  I know that the sun will sit just over my shoulder and keep me warm.  I know that I can let go of here and the things that hurt my heart and keep me up, even if it's just for a little while.  I know I'm going home. The home that found me.

I can't wait.

Wordgasbord

The picture is as unrelated as the rest of this post may seem in general.  I've got many things swimming around in my head and they're just not all...related.  And probably not all worthy of their own place, so here we are. Prepare for a jumble-up of things.

I think...I might see myself as the goose in this picture.

I just put the last piece of my New Mexico trip together.  This is none too soon as I'll be headed there Wednesday. On Friday night I got in touch with my lovely host who has also volunteered to be the driver for more adventures than I even knew I had coming.  It was awesome, and it made it seem real.  I mean, I knew in my head it was real since the day I bought the tickets, but it was more of a way to cope, as weird as that sounds. It gave me something good to hang on to.  It's the promise of something that's mine, that I love, that...(honk!honk!) isn't gonna hurt me.  Having it to hang on to has helped me have something to do, something to look forward to, and just...something that's  mine. I don't like the "mine mine mine" thing in general, but I think this time, this trip...has to be mine.

Of course, as soon as I put the final pin in it, and booked the last thing I needed to, I immediately went to bed that night anxious.  I thought it was just me, and I found out from at least 2 separate people today that it isn't...but I usually get trip dread.  No matter how much I originally looked forward to something, it'll be a day or two before I'm actually supposed to go and I will suddenly dig my heels in, cross my arms over my chest and go "I.don't.wanna."  It's always real when it's happening- I should know by now that it's just a...knee-jerk phase that will pass, but at the time, my brain thinks it's reality.  I shouldn't go.  I'm not going.  This was a bad idea. I don't want to go.

The trip dread came around fairly early, which I'm going to count as a good thing. Because now that the panic/dread is over I can concentrate on what I need to get done and not worry about it.

I wonder why it is that happens, you know?  I know full well that I'm going on this trip because I *need* this trip.  I know I'm going because I need a place and a space to heal.  Because I need something that's mine. Maybe it's just resistance to change and it's programmed in.  I think it has to be something like that, because as much as my heart is absolutely waiting to breathe in the whole thing, this crazy dread overrode even that.

Which got me thinking...even when change is a good thing. Even when it's temporary...we resist.  When good things come our way, sometimes our impulse is just to shut the door.  Because good things are scary.  Some would say scarier than bad. The heights are only frightening because we know how far they are from the ground, and how much it'd hurt to fall to it.

Right now, I feel this way more intensely. I'm more about shut doors than open ones.  And yes, my internet was down for 2 weeks straight and that's really a big player in why I didn't write...but...it's also because I'm afraid of good right now. Afraid to let my heart run wild. Or even take a few steps.

I ran across this today:

"Ships are always safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for."

(Ignore American history for a second, just go with me)

We talked today about speaking up or not speaking up.  Do or do not. To be or not to be. I'm watching so much heartbreak and sadness and still trying to figure out my own.

It's easier to hide. It's easier to stay inside under the blankets and watch tornado shows for 2 weeks straight. (not that I would know...).  It's easier to fall back to bad habits, to get self destructive or reckless, and to stay exactly where you are because even though you're miserable, it's familiar.

It's easier, but it's not what ships are for.

It's not what life is for.
It's not what I want for my life.
It's not what I want for the lives of people I love.
I don't know where you're at, or who's reading this and what you're going through.
But don't let the dread stay too long.  Don't let sad and dark and broken keep you from life.
And don't think I have it figured out. I don't.  I just know I want to figure it out.

The TL:DR is here, folks: (I can't really say it better than the Navajo did way, way before I got here)

Hold on to what is good even if it is a handful of earth. 
Hold on to what you believe even if it is a tree which stands by itself. 
Hold on to what you must do even if it is a long way from here. 
Hold on to life even when it is easier letting go. 
Hold on to my hand even when I have gone away from you. 

Fly Away From Here

These are the Sangre de Cristo mountains as seen from White Rock, NM.  I've got a special relationship with these mountains, and this overlook.  This was where I came the day I moved to New Mexico, when a double rainbow stretched the width of the view.  It's where I used to walk to while I was still adjusting to the altitude.  It's where I biked to at 5 in the morning because I'd been up a straight 36 hours and was freaked out by what I'd just done to myself,  moving cross-country.  It's pretty close to the view I used to see around 6 am when I was finished with the first bake of the bagels at Ruby K's and I had the bread in the mixer.  I'd take my coffee and my cherry turnover and sit on the steps by the Parasol and face the mountains and watch the sunrise.   It's where I'd crawl out on the rocks and think, or draw, or cry, or laugh.  I ended up lying flat on the rock holding on for dear life when I let the storm I'd been watching creep up on me, and I also went here illicitly on my first day home from the hospital when my kidneys freaked out even though I wasn't supposed to go anywhere. 

That sunset became very special to me.  I've got a million pictures of me sitting right here.  I've got pictures from when I spent the better part of 3 hours watching the light change and fade away.  Sometimes I can smell it when I look at this picture- juniper and rock and sagebrush. When it would rain, all I had to do was open the window a little bit and it would perfume the whole house. 

There's something about the way the sun is on your shoulders out there-it antiques the rocks and fades the facades but it's friendly somehow.  The closeness, though sometimes downright hazardous in its intensity, used to make me feel a little more connected somehow, and a little less alone.  The warmth almost seemed protective most of the time.

The color of those sunsets- the shocking blue of the sky and then the purples and oranges and pinks and yellows...I know that they happen everywhere from time to time, but out there it seemed like the daily art show.  Nothing is more breathtaking than a painting on a canvas that stretches out over the mountains for miles in every direction.  Sometimes the display almost made me feel guilty- like little old me shouldn't be able to experience that kind of decadence every day.  

Life's been rough here lately.  I've been sad, and I've been hurt, and I've been frustrated. Some of the pain I've felt and am feeling recently is of an intensity I don't know if I've felt before.  

But the silver lining is, I've done something about it.   Long about New Year's Eve I'd been thinking I needed to get back.  I needed to feel those things again, even just for a visit.  I've never been able to explain why I felt so strongly that I belonged there, but I do, and I feel the pull.  I was driving a friend home in the very early hours of 2013, and my brain exhaled "I need to go home." when I was talking with him about New Mexico.   It took me by surprise. All this time in the suburbs and I guess I wondered if anywhere was home, and if that was anything more than a memory.   But I think your heart knows things before your brain most of the time, at least those sorts of things. 

As of tomorrow, I have a ticket "home"

I can't wait.  I won't be going to White Rock, but I will be back to my red dirt, mountains, juniper, sagebrush and desert skies.  I'll get to see people who changed my life, and go back to places that I could always run to.  I'll get to feel the sun right at my side, and let everything else fall away.  I know it might sound ridiculous to some, but I honestly feel like going home right now will help heal some of these wounds, if even just for a little bit.  

I can't wait.