Sometimes you miss a place as you’re there, and you’ve never been there before. Or Santa Fe, as my mother might say, slayed me. It isn’t hard to say why. 1) on my way to AWP, the literary conference this year in San Antonio, Texas, I stopped to see dear friends, who used to live next door and now live in paradise. From my window up on a mountain, Santa Fe lay sprawled like a flat lizard illuminated with lights. 2) The colors, oh that ochre earth, ground down from volcanoes. By some unseen hand, it seems to have made the entire town. 3) Night is perfumed by a cool air and hot scent, smoldering sage and pinion 4) Art. Native art museums, galleries, Georgia O’Keefe and if that isn’t enough, 5) Skiing at dizzy altitudes, in glades, that somehow feels mellow. Another country heard from.
Yes! I have family there, and visit frequently. The smell of the burning pinion wood! The smoky colors everywhere! You are so right.