Since October 8th, 2014 I have had the great good fortune to be a fellow at The Women's International Studies Center in Santa Fe New Mexico, my former home and a most beloved environment. October is such a special time here, when the Aspens are shimmering gold in the moutons and the farmers market smells like roasting chilies, and pumpkins make you happy just by their shapse and colors, stacked everywhere on bales of hay. I cannot believe I have to return to quotidian life in one week. My quotidian life in The Bay Area is not a bad one by any stretch, but this respite has given me that great gift of time and focus. I can honestly say that I have never been so productive with my work as I have at this Fellowship. There is something about an organization believing in you, taking your ideas seriously and showing it by saying: here is a beautiful room in a beautiful little adobe on a beautiful street in a beautiful city, now off you go, WRITE! Not having to be a wage earner or even walk the dogs for four weeks, I have been able to immerse myself in my second book. I wake up at 7:30 each day, wolf down some brekkie, make two tall glasses of Earl Grey tea with honey, carry them into my room, shut the door, after saying good morning to wonderful fellow Fellow from Turkey, Ozlem, across the hall, sit down at my desk, look out the window at "my" dirt road and "my" faded blue truck, (which I have grown extremely attached to,) unplug the WiFi and write until 1:30 or 2. As Hunter S. Thompson once said, Kill the body and the head will die, and here I am also reminded of the classic film Night of the Living Dead in which the opposite order of that line was mentioned. So with that sage advice, I head for the trails every afternoon, breathing in the cedar perfumed air to move the neglected limbs. My suitcase will weigh twice what it did when I left since I seem unable to hike for any amount of time without picking up one or two of the dazzling rocks I find, flashing their mica or quartz in the sunlight. If anyone saw my windowsill, they would guess me to be a geologist.
New Mexico has always spoken to me since I attended three years of summer camp up in the Northern part of the state, in Ute Park at Camp Cimarroncita, where the days were filled with archery, horse riding, songs, pottery, swimming, hiking and jewelry making, (and the nights were filled with huddling around our adored hippie counselor Susan's pilfered copy of Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask.)
Enacting the requisite Mid-Life Shake-Up, I like that term more than crisis, I actually moved to the state after turning fifty, not knowing anyone but my boyfriend and not having a job. It was bold and exhilarating and atypical for practical me, and I have such fond memories of setting up house, exploring the state by doing a different road trip every week: to see the cranes migrate at The Bosque del Apace south of Albuquerque, the hike the white marble canyons of O'Keefe's Ghost Ranch, to talk with farmers and buy chili ristras on the High Road to Taos, to participate in the Day of the Dead cemetery walk in Old Mesilla, to dodge thunder and hail storms in The Galesteo Basin with the dogs, to fall asleep to the sounds of coyotes yipping and howling in Eldorada, to shell the peas I grew (under a screen to protect them from rabbits and ravens) at an old table on the back porch as the sun set over the Sangre de Cristo mountains.
I have always resonated with the desert's singular charms. Its vastness and that undiluted light make some feel an odd mix of too minuscule and overly exposed. But for this writer, it's a gift that puts everything into perspective, and invites exploration, both within, and outside, amongst its challenging, varied, bracing, limitless terrain.
