Teaching Thomas

Reflections on New Mexico

I spent this Christmas visiting my friend and schoolmate Emily and her girlfriend and daughter at their house in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  It was a long drive there – just over six hours – but it was exactly that kind of drive I needed.  The past month has seen me really ramping up in terms of stress and anxiety that all stemmed from work.  Retail, as much as I’m skilled in that industry, can be very soul-sucking, especially around the holidays.  I had become rigid, unfeeling, and quite steely in the eyes of everyone I interacted with at work, which turned into an edginess outside of work.  Anxiety, lack of sleep, and not being able to shut off my head were really taking a toll on me.

What I realized, as Emily sent me the invite to her house, was how much I missed being on the open road, putting miles underneath me.  As the weather has turned cold, and the roads are covered in snow, I’m not able to get out and run as much as I want to.  Driving my car, as un-environmental as it is, is a mental replacement for that.  Miles and miles of highway before me, and with each wheel rotation, I was leaving the stress and pressures of my day-to-day life behind me.  The road trip there was just what I needed.

I started off around eight in the morning the day before Christmas, and took I-25 the entire way there.  There were detours and other ways there, but the highway seemed the fastest and most direct route to my destination.  I simply wanted to get there.  Along the way, as the cities of the Front Range slipped behind me (Denver, Castle Rock, Colorado Springs, Pueblo), I felt like I was falling off the map again.  It was the similar feeling I had when driving through Nebraska.  My phone had limited service, so I wasn’t able to really text or stay connected.  I had my music, and as I looked around me, there was simply nothing but sky, white ground, and mountains that ran along to the right of me.  It felt like I was traveling down the spine of North America, moving from someplace around the lungs, where air and breathing are central, to a space further south, like to the gut, the stomach, the place where instinct and internal energy comes from.  Coming down out of the Raton Pass, I found myself on an open plain, still very high up in elevation, but looking more like something out of Planet of the Apes, or a lunar surface.  Distance was distorted, but it was clear that it would take me all day to simply walk across the vastness and reach something of elevation.  Solitary trees dotted the fields, and at times, the white ground blended perfectly with the milky white sky, to the point where all I could really see was the black ribbon of highway that stretched out before me, leading me to a distant point of disappearance on the horizon.

It took my breath away, which is exactly what I wanted.

Winding my way across northern New Mexico, the land eventually lost the blinding whiteness of snow and revealed to me the colors that New Mexico is known for.  The bluffs and buttes that the highway snaked around showed striations of red and black and gold.  Scrub grass was a light sage green, and the few piñon trees added depth and dimension to what I was seeing.  When I got out of my car in Santa Fe, my nose was filled with the most intoxicating and lovely smell of the piñon.  This aromatic tree literally perfumed all the air around me.  I immediately smiled and felt the tension of driving melting out of my body.

Emily and her partner, along with Emily’s daughter, and their friends, truly made Christmas Eve amazing.  Wine was poured, games were played with the daughter as she was visibly anxious for the arrival of Santa Claus.  Being four years old, the magic of the holiday still was alive in her eyes.  We also lit Hanukkah candles, as Emily is Jewish, and celebrated a lovely rendition of the prayer song that is sung with every candle lighting.  After, I lit a small fire in the kiva, which gave such a lovely warmth and smell to the entire house (especially after we figured out the flue was shut and ended up smoking the house out for a bit!).  Still, after the air cleared, the evening settled, and I knew that I was right where I needed to be for this holiday.

The morning after, I was awakened by a four-year old girl who’s eyes were in utter amazement about the booty Santa had left her under the tree.  The first thing she checked was the cookie she had left on the plate, and to her amazement, most of it was eaten.  It was such utter joy to see her in absolute shock and awe that Santa had really come.  I enhanced this as much as I could by telling her, though I slept on the couch, next to the fire and the tree, that I had no idea he came, and that I never heard him.  I played it up as best as I could, and I think she was thoroughly pleased.  After the presents were opened, and breakfast was served, Emily seemed pleased that I had helped bring a little more magic to her daughter’s holiday.  I thought it was the least I could do, especially since she and her family had given me the best Christmas present ever: space to relax and unwind and let go of my worries.

I left their house around two in the afternoon, and decided to come home a different way that would lead me between two ranges of mountains and along a plateau into southern Colorado.  This would add an hour to my journey, but I was told it would be more scenic.  It certainly was that!

At one point, at the Taos Plateau, I stopped the car, pulled over, and shut off the engine.  I got out, and stood as the icy wind buffeted at my back.  It was a stunning silence.  Miles and miles and miles of snow, sage grass, and the distant run of mountains to my east, with a large hill behind me took my breath away again.  It was seventeen degrees out, and I still had many miles left to travel, but that moment, those few minutes of just being the only human for what felt like a hundred miles around me, was exactly what I needed.  It reminded me of standing next to the sea back in Maine, feeling small, insignificant, and that my personal issues, whatever they are, are not as big or as important as my mind would let me believe.  Those mountains, that plateau, gave me the perspective I was craving.  It was a giant reset button being pressed.

You can view the photos from my trip over at Flickr, or if you follow me on Facebook, you’ve seen them there too.

I will return to New Mexico.  It is a land of magic, and as the motto says, Enchantment.  I loved it there.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 26th, 2011 at 1:14 pm. It is filed under Blog, Personal, Writing and tagged with holidays, movement, thoughts, travel, writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.